Martha Coakley (2008 file photo)
Various sources today report that Martha Coakley will join the e-cigarette maker Juul this month.
So much for her fight to protect children.
The same piece notes that current Attorney General Maura Healey (who once worked for Ms. Coakley) is investigating whether Juul intentionally marketed its product to minors last year:
Healey launched an investigation into Juul and whether the company intentionally markets to minors last year.
“They’re engaged in an effort to get kids addicted, to get them hooked so they will have customers for the rest of their lives,” Healey told MassLive in July.
I believe that Massachusetts voters were wise to deny Ms. Coakley the various higher offices she sought. This new gig for Ms. Coakley is entirely consistent with her behavior during her entire career in public service. We dodged one bullet in 2010, and another in 2014. Those losses demonstrated the wisdom of Massachusetts voters and had nothing to do with sports knowledge, campaign skills, or sexism. The political process worked in each case.
I hope that Ms. Healey is carefully watching this move. In my view, it speaks volumes about both Juul and Ms. Coakley.
I think it is important to be up front about this. This is probably the #1 health policy issue concerning our teenagers. A a high school teacher I can confirm that around half of my kids (we are talking about a very conservative estimate) are regular JUUL users and quite openly so. I’ve even had to send kids to the principals office for ripping a juul in class right in front of me. So many use the bathrooms for it that they have been tagged ‘juul den’ or ‘juul lounge’ and non-smoking students are actually afraid to go in there to use the bathroom.
Make no mistake, these device makers have intentionally found a regulatory loophole and rammed a dump truck right through it. When Philip Morris is the lead VC, we are not talking about a true San Fran startup. We should be banning all advertising on tv, social media, and the radio like we successfully did with cigarettes over a generation ago. This upcoming generation of young adults may not only be the first to make less than their parents over time, but may also by the first to die younger thanks to the twin threats of smoking increases and obesity. Our least successful statewide Democrat should be joining her protege in pushing for new regulations instead of helping the bad guys push these products on our kids.
Sadly, to many of our elected officials, current and former, It’s all about the Benjamin’s Baby. .
I find this move particularly galling because Ms. Coakley so loudly promoted herself as an advocate for children for so much of her career.
More so than most politicians, the first and foremost concern of Martha Coakley has ALWAYS been Martha Coakley.
Seems like she’s always been an advocate for Ms. Coakley. She’s recently announced her support for Kamala Harris and is raising funds for her campaign for president. One wonders how the Harris campaign will look at this, if at all.
Is this who we are? Is this the Democratic Party? Is this who we have become or is this who we’ve always been? I’m not sure.
Jimmy Carter left office, relied on his pension, and devoted his life to public service. He was mocked for wearing a sweater in the White House as we faced an oil shortage and all Americans were asked to turn their thermostats down.
Then again, the Clintons left the White House as self proclaimed “broke” and are now worth more than a hundred million dollars. The Obama family is cashing in on equally stratospheric amounts with speaking fees and book deals.
Are we “All About the Benjamins Baby”, or are we humble servants of the people?
Will our future Democratic presidents spend their vacations at posh private estates and after leaving office, cash in? I hope not, not at least while so many Americans live paycheck to paycheck, live without proper healthcare, and see job security as something their parents, or maybe their grandparents knew.
I am impressed by the campaign promise of Elizabeth Warren in this regard :, No fundraisers, dinners, receptions or phone calls with wealthy donors. I’m not naive, nor is she, as this promise will hold to the primary and not the general election. We know what we are up against.
But what if we toss Trump out? What then?
How will the public react to a president who spends time at Camp David to save the taxpayer’s money? How would the public react to a president who vacations at a National Park? How about a president who donates time to charity and if a book is written or speech paid for, sends every dime to charity, because the public pension they are receiving is just fine, thanks.
Independents see us as just the other party, just as corrupt, just as filled with “career politicians who want to line their pockets after leaving office”……..and we don’t do much to prove them wrong, do we?
Let’s start now.
I’m not ready to conflate Martha Coakley with Barack Obama.
I think Martha Coakley has always been who she is now.
The Reagan campaign went to extraordinary and illegal lengths to ensure that Jimmy Carter’s efforts to end the Iranian hostage crisis failed. The subsequent arms deals with the Iranians were the quid pro quo demanded by the Iranian government, and the Reagan administration delivered on those promises. George H. Bush, aided by his Attorney General William Barr, used his presidential pardons to ensure that all of that was kept out of the public record.
We Americans have a long history of talking tough about the war crimes and treason of others while very effectively burying our own.
I think Jimmy Carter is an honorable man who was taken down by a ruthless, corrupt, and amoral competitor. Martha Coakley abused her powers as Attorney General to do the same thing to Tim Murray — who would have have been a much stronger candidate.
I have no problem with what Barack Obama has been doing since leaving office. I’m just not going to take the bait regarding the Clintons.
Martha Coakley is Martha Coakley. She epitomizes a certain breed of Massachusetts politician, and I’m glad that her public career is over.
I have a problem with the Obamas and the Clintons. Why do I single them out? Same reason I would single out Walmart and Amazon and McDonalds…they are #1. That comes with the territory.
Obama sends no one to jail, bails out the banks, and leaves office to become a multimillionaire when wages remain stagnant and the Wall Street dudes get their “retention bonuses”…..because calling them “performance bonuses” sounds bad, based on their performance.
Clinton signs NAFTA, deregulates Wall Street, puts MORE regulations on the poor receiving aid, and signs legislation that eliminates the board range of media that is now owed by six corporations….and he and his wife are multimillionaires…cashing in after leaving office.
We scratch our heads and wonder why blue collar voters decide that enough is enough and try Trump? Frankly, I was tempted to vote for Trump myself, and what would I have to lose? My own legislators in my state, controlled by Democrats recently voted to cut wages for people like me by 8% while voting for a raise for themselves…..
It’s time we walked the walk, not just talked the talk.
I don’t want to rehash this, we’ve been over this ground dozens and dozens of times in the past few years.
Your formula for debate appears to be:
1. Convert everything to an argument about the Clintons (or, in this case, Barack Obama)
2. Flame about how much you hate the Clintons.
It doesn’t matter whether or not you voted for Mr. Trump, he is the president now. It seems to me that the list of things you and I have to lose is VERY long and growing by the day.
I really don’t understand why you don’t just admit that you’re a Republican. You’re whining yet again about your alleged 8% pay cut. We beat that dead horse as well. So far as I know, the last time state legislators voted on a pay raise was in early 2017. My rep (Denise Provost) voted against it. Your representative, Jeffroy Roy, voted for it.
This thread is about Martha Coakley.
This thread is not a biography and discussion of Martha Coakley, It is about abuse of power and using political position for personal gain. I oppose such actions for all politicians, including Coakley, Obama, Clinton, and whoever else I see doing it.
And I will (again) not reply to your personal attacks of me and my character. And I will ask you again: Please Stop the Personal Attacks
I am criticizing your commentary. That is very different from a personal attack.
You offered personal information in your comment, and I responded to that information. For example, you wrote “We scratch our heads and wonder why blue collar voters decide that enough is enough and try Trump? Frankly, I was tempted to vote for Trump myself, and what would I have to lose?”
If you can’t handle reasonable responses to your commentary, then perhaps you might rethink your commentary.
This thread is about Martha Coakley’s new gig. I wrote the thread-starter. It most certainly IS a discussion about the biography and history of Ms. Coakley. It has nothing to do with Mr. Obama or Mr. Clinton (that’s your agenda) and has nothing to do with the minimum wage legislation (again, that’s your agenda). It also has nothing to do with personal gain (once more, your agenda).
Ms. Coakley emphasized “fighting for children” for her entire career. She now works for a tobacco company being investigated because of compelling evidence that it intentionally pushes its addictive product to children. The compensation Ms. Coakley receives is not the point — if she got the same money from a book deal, speaking tour, or hedge fund (to follow Mr. Patrick’s example) I would not have written this diary.
If you want to write another diary about ex-presidents making money after they leave office, by all means do so. Similarly, if you want to write another diary about your objections to the minimum wage law (even though we already beat that one into the ground), then by all means do so.
That’s not what THIS thread is about.
Knock it off.
Indeed … knock it off
It’s a fact. It’s not personal. It is not directed at anyone posting on BMG. It is commentary on the state of affairs within the Democratic Party in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
You frankly don’t get to approve or disapprove of what a former elected official does once s/he leaves office assuming it’s legal.
What? Of COURSE we do.
Registering our approval or disapproval is one way we can affect laws that limit the ability of ex-officials to take lucrative lobbying positions. That has the effect of changing what is and is not legal for future officials.
We may have different opinions about the various people we’ve discussed here, but I reject the premise that we should not express our approval or disapproval.
Yeah, I took a bit of a sledgehammer to that one. Sure, it’s a free country and I suppose you CAN have and express an opinion on anything you want. However, it is MY opinion that once somebody leaves and is no longer seeking elective office they should have just as much right as anyone else to seek and attain any legal employment without having to worry about what others think. Martha Coakley is a private citizen now, so our finger-wagging is irrelevant, and her choices in no way should be construed as reflecting on the Democratic Party.
I have no quarrel with Ms. Coakley taking her new gig, even rapists and murderers deserve competent counsel.
In my view, you are too quick to let our party off the hook for nominating her not just once but twice to statewide offices, ignoring and drowning out the voices of those of us who felt that she was unprincipled and amoral.
Ms. Coakley pretended to be a children’s advocate for her entire career. As I recall, that was her explanation for her excesses in handling the Fells Acre case. She is cashing in on that reputation with this gig, in the apparent hope that she will have more credibility defending this predator of young people than the average defense attorney.
I feel as though this move confirms my assessment that she was unfit for any public office. In so doing, I think it most certainly should raise questions about how she was able to become so powerful within our party.
I only defend the party on process since she was not my choice in either case. I assume by twice you are referring to Senate and Governor, since she was also twice nominated to be AG which is of course a statewide office. She won those very contested primaries fair and square.
I’m responding to this:
She worked the party process very effectively. Mr. Murray was her most formidable opponent, and she abused her power as AG to manufacture the scandal that forced his too-early retirement. That was the tip-off about her priorities and values. For too many Democrats, it wasn’t.
When the party’s process results in a failed candidate, then that failure most certainly does reflect on the party. “Process” is not an excuse for a bad outcome.
You’re quite correct, of course, about her two terms as AG.
Murray didn’t even wait until his term was over to cash in, . There was nothing manufactured about his scandal, either.
Hmm. My recollection is that as soon as Mr. Murray withdrew from public life, the rumored indictments (for which Ms. Coakley gave Mr. McLaughlin a plea-bargain) dissolved like so much morning mist.
Or were you thinking of the car crash where his Crown Victoria either (a) performed impossible feats of acceleration or (b) used its drive shaft to measure its speed, resulting in a false reading in excess of 100 MPH?
What scandal are you referring to?
Are you seriously arguing that the $200K annual compensation he gets from the Worcester Chamber of Commerce is cashing in?
Jeesh. No wonder you’re seldom happy with your elected officials.
“Are you seriously arguing that the $200K annual compensation he gets from the Worcester Chamber of Commerce is cashing in?”
I sure am. Murray was hired for his connections and the access he provided.
The scandal I was thinking of was the car accident. Although, when I checked Wikipedia, I did find a reference to his campaign having to pay $80,000 to resolve those charges.
Is that the morning mist you are referring to?
It appears that you only read as far as the Globe reporting for the car crash. If you dig deeper into that, you’ll discover (and even the Globe admitted this in subsequent corrections after the damage was done) that the black box records the driveshaft rotations (emphasis mine):
When plotted on a time-vs-speed scale, so that the acceleration is more obvious, that blackbox data shows the vehicle accelerating from a normal cruising speed to the reported number of 108 MPH — and doing so WELL outside the performance of that vehicle.
What the black box data actually showed was the wheels slipping on black ice, just as Mr. Murray told investigators. The “acceleration” was nothing but a wheel-spin, the same way an old-fashioned speedometer jumps (and the Crown Victoria in question was an old-fashioned car). The vehicle damage was also consistent with a crash at the cruising speed Mr. Murray told investigators.
Any “scandal” about Mr. Murray’s crash was in the incompetence of the media reporting. The truth was much more pedestrian than the scandal so eagerly sought by the media and its cynical audience. Not to mention the close ties between Ms. Coakley’s husband (a retired police superintendent) and the investigators. Funny how the police didn’t have time to re-examine the crash after the black-box data was examined. The hit was already done, and we all know that cops look after their own.
You are referring to the ransom demanded by Ms. Coakley, along with his retirement. Ms. Coakley talked the US Attorney into letting Ms. Coakley do a “plea bargain” with Mr. McLaughlin, strongly implying that indictments would follow from his cooperation. Ms. Coakley’s office even went so far as to leak Mr. Murray’s name to the media.
Once the ransom was paid, no indictments. And of course, Mr. McLaughlin got off far easier than if Ms. Coakley had not intervened. Yup, she’s a real crusader against corruption.
If you think $200K/year is “cashing in”, then you are living in la-la-land. That’s peanuts for pretty much any lawyer who has retired with public service.
Not defending Coakley, but facts are facts. Coakley has been out of office since 2015. Murray was still Lt Governor when he negotiated his deal with the Worcester Chamber of Commerce. They paid Murray $200K, while Coakley is getting . . . . what? I made my usual cursory search and couldn’t find a figure. Maybe you can. But no figure appears in your post, which suggests that the amount of money she is making is not the main issue. If it turns out that she will make what an accomplished attorney is paid, will that make it all right?
Holding Coakley to account is one thing. But if you do that while simultaneously making excuses when your pets exhibit similar behavior, you just encourage more cynicism. We’ve been through this before.
I’ve been as clear as I’m able that my issue is not with the dollar amount of Ms. Coakley’s compensation. I’m quite sure she was making at least $200K in the gig she just left (at Foley Hoag) and she’ll surely get a huge increase from Juul.
I tried to express it this way earlier today:
Let me be more concise: I’m perfectly happy for Ms. Coakley or any other retired public official to collect whatever the market will pay them. I did not and do not object to Deval Patrick’s compensation at Bain Capital (I’m sure that, too, is substantially north of $200K./year).
According to masslive.com, Maura Healey currently gets about $130K/year. I assume that Ms. Coakley got something in that range (perhaps a little more, depending on Ms. Coakley’s salary history). The same site puts the current Lt. Governor at $122K (slightly less).
My complaint about Ms. Coakley’s new gig is that it betrays what had a been a central tenet of her alleged values and priorities — fighting for children. Her new gig would disgust me whether it was for $10M a year or pro-bono.
Sort of like somebody who spent their entire political career talking about “family values” and the “sanctity of marriage” and then took a high-profile position with a porn producer/distributor against charges of sex-trafficking and child pornography in the midst of an active investigation of same in the presence of compelling evidence.