Whose more tone deaf?

I am starting to wonder who is more politically tone deaf - our governor or the legislature. The House of Representatives announced today that their staff will take 5 unpaid furloughs...but the members will not.

Less you forget, this is the same legislature who accepted a 5.5% pay raise in January.

As Howie Carr says, don't let this impact your faith in the Great and General Court.

Fools.

Quick one

Have to teach in a second but wanted to post Howie Carr's column from today. Good stuff on the joke who is our governor.

Do-nothing Legislature

While Gov. Deval Patrick is indeed a screw-up and a horrible governor, the state Legislature is at times no better. This year's formal session ended yesterday with some major bills ignored. To be fair, they did pass pension, transportation, and ethics overhauls, but they also re-elected the now indicted Sal DiMasi, they increased the sales tax, they refused to cut out hack holidays, they continue to hire hacks while the governor is cutting front line people like social workers, etc.

Now, with a chance at securing millions of dollars in education money from the national government, the House refused this week to vote on a major education because of turf wars between Speaker of the House Bob DeLeo and Patrick (and, I am sure, because of intense pressure from the teacher's unions).

Massachusetts Liberal has some great thoughts:

After returning from summer break, the House and Senate spun their wheels during the fall. Sure they passed about 60 laws and counting since Sept. 1, but they were the mostly of the sick leave bank, land-taking and bridge-naming variety.

And when it came to the crucial issues at hand -- a reeling economy -- the silence was deafening.

I take that back -- lawmakers have once again risen to the defense of the Quinn Bill and hack holidays as off limits in the budget-cutting process.

As for the one significant reform piece of legislation -- on that carries the potential of increased federal funding -- well, sorry Deval. The Senate was just too preoccupied to take it up until the last week of the session and the House didn't want to rush it through.

Besides, there's plenty of time in January before the federal funding deadline looms. And that way Patrick will have no choice but to swallow what lawmakers put before him or face the prospect of being blamed for the loss of federal dollars.

By many accounts, Patrick is a less than skilled executive, one who doesn't push hard for his objectives. It is his weakest selling point to an electorate looking for a leader next year and a theme that has been and will continually be hammered upon by his gubernatorial rivals.

But count me as one of those who think it is the performance of the Great and General Court that can and should be the focus of attention. The legislative foot dragging while the commonwealth is reeling from the recession is appalling.

Throw that into the context of DiMasi, former Sens. Dianne Wilkerson and James Marzilli and current poster child Anthony Galluccio and you have the image of an out-of-control band off politicians who equate taking away Evacuation Day with taking away Christmas.

Thousands are out of work and here's a chamber that works part-time, protects its perks (and its own) while everything around it crumbles.

Or that's how Patrick's campaign commercials will say it.

Sadly, there's no real solution in sight. The Republican Party's continued slide into irrelevancy makes it unlikely the local branch will be able to field a credible slate of candidates to challenge incumbents and change the nature of the branches. Maybe they are working hard behind the scenes, but I doubt it.

A new governor? If you really belief a new man or woman will change the dynamic that has existed on Beacon Hill for the last 20 years, you are eagerly awaiting the rival of the jolly fat man in the red suit next month.

There are myriad problems facing the Commonwealth and few solutions. The ones that exist are not easy. But in the face of this reality, members of the Great and General Court will no doubt be proudest of this headline as reflective of their "accomplishments" in 2009.

Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln

So at midnight U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd will become the longest serving member of Congress in American history- almost 57 years. Politico has a fawning article on Byrd today which begins with laudatory quotes from colleagues. But, it's not until page two that the article mentions two tiny little facts - that Byrd led a 14 hour filibuster against the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and he used to be member of the KKK (he was the Exalted Cyclops) . The article mentions his KKK past as if its mentioning his membership in the Elks.

In 1944, the esteemed senator from West Virginia said:

I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side... Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.

If Byrd were a Republican would we see the same type of coverage? You know the answer to that.

Doesn't get it

So once again, tone deaf Gov. Deval Patrick is thinking about making another bonehead move - now he wants to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants and allow them to attend state colleges at the in-state tutition rate.

These are 2 of 131 recommendations a board made to Patrick about reforming immigration laws in the state. Good luck getting the Legislature to vote on these initiatives in an election year, governor. They've already made horrible votes on tax increases, re-electing Sal DiMasi as speaker, retaining hack holidays, weak pension reforms, etc, etc, etc. They are loath to make another unpopular vote, especially since you're as popular as a skunk at a party.

I've said it a million times - if you vote for Patrick in 2010 you are the biggest sucker.

Fishy

So we always knew that President Obama's team was playing fast with the stimulus numbers but this is a little fishy.

The official White House website on the stimulus package says that 2,873 jobs were created in the 00 NH Congressional District, 3.2 jobs in the 6th District, and 2 in the 27th district.

Last I checked New Hampshire had two congressional districts.

h/t to NRO Corner

UPDATE: Looks like a widespread problem. See here.

Later, senator

In the fine tradition of State Sens. James Marzilli and Diane Wilkerson (not to mention countless others), State Sen. Anthony Galluccio is finding himself in more hot water. Last month he was involved in a hit and run (he was the hitter) in which he hurt a 13 year old boy and now it has been revealed that Cambridge Police had to give him a ride home the same day...at 4:39am...because he was too drunk.

Looks like another fine senatorial career is coming to an abrupt end.

Blow ins

Looks like some New York City restaurant wants to open a location on the Boston Common. Its name? The Shake Shack.

Um, folks, this is Boston, it is frappe. Also, why make the Common a commercial place?

The Hub Blog has a great post on this:

Not to sound too provincial, but do we really want a N.Y. chain-wannabe on Boston Common? I tilt toward Jeff Miller’s plan, if only because it at least strives for a local flavor. But you just know the same types who think “SoWa” is such a cool name will go with the “beloved” Shake Shack – and then they’ll lecture us about having an inferiority complex while they’re off aping everything Manhattan. They’ll never understand that it’s not about New York – or Kansas City. It’s about losing a little local character every time they plunk an out-of-state chain or name on an historic area.

If anyone ever says SoWa in my presence, they will regret it!!

Me and the boy

It was an all Flaherty Male weekend as Lynn was gone all weekend. After I did a stint on the radio yesterday morning, Lynn headed down to Middleboro for a scrapbooking event. From what I gather, it was just a big old scrapbooking party at a VFW type place. Lynn's sister lives in Middleboro so she joined her for the day. I was happy to hear that - they never get to see each other since we literally live on opposite ends of the state!

So, since it was pouring out Kevin and I decided to head to a local Catholic school's Christmas Fair. There wasn't much that interested us really - lots of crafts and stuff. Kevin was more interested in the dancing Santa Claus. We each did enjoy a donut and I bought some apple cinnamon bread and we then took a ride to the library. We didn't do a whole lot there, it was mostly me chasing after Kevin and asking him to be quiet! It was then nap time and that evening we did the grocery shopping.

Today Lynn met up with some old college friends down on the Cape. She was going to bring Kevin but I knew she wouldn't be able to have a good time with him running around so I told her to leave him. So, Kevin and I went to the 11:30am mass at our Church and then to my school's championship football game (which we won!). Kevin was uncharacteristically good at mass as I had him pretty occupied the whole time with a coloring book and pretzels.

Now he's eating some leftover pasta and then it's off for a bath (he got into mud today at the game). It was fun to spend time with him, good old fashioned daddy/son time! But, hopefully it's an early bed time as I have a lot of work to do tonight. Lynn will be home late as she had to go to mass at 5pm and then had a meeting afterwards.

Running mates?

I missed this on Friday: Howie Carr weighed in on Republican Charlie Baker reportedly asking Independent Tim Cahill to be his running mate in next year's governor's race. Baker has a right to be worried - Cahill could take away a ton of votes from Baker and throw the election to Gov. Deval Patrick (which almost happened two weeks ago in New Jersey).

See the column here but a taste below:

It’s time to flip a coin. I’m serious. Heads or tails. The winner runs for governor, and the loser gets to be the other guy’s running-mate on the Republican ticket. If both of you get together right now, you can begin planning the transition in January 2011.

Not even ACORN will be able to pull it out for Deval. Or even the Globe - assuming there still is a Globe next November, that is, after all the layoffs next January.

No way Deval Patrick can be reelected in 2010. Let me rephrase that - no way he can get over 50 percent of the vote. But if two candidates are on the ballot against him, then he only needs 34 percent of the vote. Sadly, despite his disastrous term, he could still conceivably get 33 percent-plus-one. There are that many moonbats infesting this benighted Commonwealth, that overly medicated, guilt-ridden, non-working trust-fund crowd living off the monthly check from either their parents or their uncle (Sam, that is).