This is what a fifty five percent approval rating and millions of dollars

in contributions from bailout-battened Wall Street players gets you, A Junior Senator From Massachusetts who is willing to go to the mat on behalf of chiseling bankers who don't wanna pay for their fare share.
I don't think the Commonwealth knows how to deal with a Junior Senator so blatantly bought and paid for by nefarious Out-Of-State interests, it is, to the say the least a new experience.
Scott's drama queen antics aside, there is a very practical reason for Scott's actions yesterday, the secessionists and the Tea Partei wingnuts may not fatten his campaign accounts in 2012, but Brown can always count on millions in contributions from our unbound financial institutions if he is willing to look out for their interests.
One hand washes the other especially when corporations can make nigh unlimited contributions to their hirelings on Capitol Hill these days.
Sick
Demented
Typical...

Senatorial Bloviation is Dead

It will be "all sound bites and one liners all the time" now that Senator Byrd has been measured for his harp.
Klansman episode and all, I will miss the olde bastard, any man who can drum up two billion large for his home state in two years time has to be some sort of an Earl K. Long class public pork ubermenschen.
And besides, Byrd could talk some shit, he was olde timey in a long winded Sinclair Lewisian fashion, oratorical references to Pep, Punch, Go, Vigor, the Superiority of West Virginia Womanhood, Lyrics to Spring in the Ozarks, State's Rights, The Sublime Joys of the Yankee Dollar Cunningly liberated from the Federal Treasury and the Primacy of the King James Bible, Headstone of the Republic.
Truly the man could talk about it all and for hours at a time in a style that best befit the vanished Leviathans of the US Senate Henry Cabot Lodge Senior, George S. Hoar, Daniel Webster and that Unfailing Cataract of Rhetoric, Robert La Follette.
They say finance reform is doomed without him, but I have my doubts, Healthcare was doomed with Martha Coakley, but somehow it got passed. The Junior Senator from Wall Street Scott Brown can squeak" No No NO!" into CNN's microphones all he wants and it'll never register with a tenth as much power as Robert Byrd praising the merits of fresh beef in the County Orphanage. Somehow it will pass....

"Blah blah blah Fifty Five Percent, Blah Blah Blah"

Former State Senator Scott Brown's approval rating stay solid per the Boston Globe.
I'm sure the very headline stirs most of our local radio talk show tyrants to long forgotten self abuse.
Of course his numbers are good, but then again no one has let shaken on January's election to make the case against him. After all this is the same Scott Brown who just screwed over the unemployed of the Commonwealth and screwed us out of $500 million in Federal Medicaid cash...So I'd say yes a case can be made.
Otherwise I'd say a fifty five percent approval rating will have a sobering effect on most incumbent officeholders who might wanna challenge the Tea Partei Favorite. That might be a good thing, if we are gonna beat Brown in 2012 we are gonna need a new face with a new approach and someone who can self finance to a certain extent would be helpful.
Now on the other hand, it'd be in-teresting to see what kind of numbers Scott was racking up in New Hampshire....just curious thass all. Can't hurt to check...I'd be intensely curious to see how Brown did in a hypothetical polling match up with his proclaimed and current candidate for 2012 Mitt Romney.

Charlie "Ziplips" Baker arrests

his slide in the polls at  bargain basement cost of 2 million USD which bought him enough mudslinging commercials to knock Tim Cahill into single digits.

To think four months ago, Charlie was looking to be sloppy thirds in this race but he climbed onto the airwaves early and in a nasty form (which pretty much the classic Weld-Cellucci-Romney game plan) and got back in the game.

It is worth remembering that Baker's default position is a certain craveness, faced with badgering from his own tea bagger right or even some pointless teasing from a D-List radio talk show ranter, Charlie will flop over on his back and piss himself every time in a compulsive bid to ingratiate.

But it is also been my observation that the most craven and spineless of candidates will usually hire the most ruthless campaign staffers and initiate the most outrageous attack adverts imaginable. Partly it is compensation in the Freudian sense of the term, partly it is because they have some morbid self knowledge of their own cupidity and can see no other way to win.

So all this is merely a word to the wise to the Patrick campaign that they can expect a deluge of attack ads ere' long.

Lets hope they have a counter strategy in place.

"Senator" Scott Brown to Massachusetts...

"Drop Dead!"

Literally, unemployment extensions and 500 million in Medicaid have been tossed out thanks to Scott and his unnatural devotion to Mitch McConnell's interests and political fetishes.
Well what of it?
Scott is a wingnut, 100 editorials by Brian McGrory cosigned by the Archangel Michael wouldn't persuade me otherwise.
Therefore all these petitions and protesters at his offices accomplish just exactly nothing, as a Movement Conservative, Scott takes a visceral delight and telling off hippies and beatniks and community organizers and the poor and infirm too.
I say go back to your precincts and start organizing, get lists together, get crackin' 30,000 of our fellow citizens have been left high and dry by Brown's decision to toady up to the GOP Senate leadership, and 30,000 is a very comfortable statewide margin of victory in any election.
Think about that mah frenz.

McChrystal Outski...

Whatever the hell happened, the right thing happened.
Whether he was "advised" to bring his resignation along or not, the primacy of civilian control of the military has been reaffirmed and respect for the chain of command down to the company level restored.
and if Stanley McChrystal feels himself to be a wronged man then there is millions to be made crying victim and poor mouth on the conservative welfare circuit.
Although, it is very interesting to me that fort he most part the GOP bigfeet in Congress have backed this decision sans demure, hell Joe Lieberman never loses and opportunity to break with the admin and he thinks this was a necessary outcome.
Hum!
In-teresting.

McChrystal should be a man about it and resign

if he hasn't already.
He ran his fat yap off about his Commander in Chief like he was George McClellan or some damn thing and he has to pay the same price.
Otherwise, it validates disrespect for all duly constituted authority from within the ranks of an army at war. McChrystal's barber wouldn't be allowed to mock his Commanding Officer's bald spot to a reporter from "Buzzcut" magazine nor would the General's bookblack be allowed similar liberties with "The Shoeshine Gazette".
The General stepped over the line, a Commander in Chief may put up with this shit from a winning General but from an officer presiding over an unpopular war with indifferent support from the American people, it is an intolerable outburst.
Harry Truman put up with a lot of prima donna behavior from Douglas MacArthur, til Mac's military genius ran dry and he started writing freeperish letters to the Republican Speaker of the US House.
Dunno what is gonna happen here, we will soon know...I merely make my own feelings plain, it is worth noting that George S. Patton that freeper wet dream ran his pie hole in all kinds of hair-raising ways but he never once let slip a derogatory word about FDR.
He knew better than that.
McChrystal if he resigns will do fine, the tea baggers will throw him a nice profitable pity party from sea to shining sea, he will hardly do without lavish rations.

Open Note to Jeff Santos at AM 1510 WWZN

Enough with the whole "How has President Obama Disappointed ME today" meme, it makes for lousy radio in morning drive time.
I'm being systematically driven to the shores of NPR in the morning simply because Barack Obama hasn't managed to ignite the eschaton overnight.
Honestly Jeff, I love the Revolution, I want it to succeed, but puh-leez lighten up and lay off the whiny gloom-n-doom stuff, it is killing yer act dead.

Ziplips Baker is truly the Gift that Keeps on Giving...

Now he is skipping a non-partisan environmental forum in favor of two more fundraising expeditions and a desire to "focus on jobs".
I mean hasn't this mook raised enough money yet?
And believe me, groveling for dollars before the usual GOP jobbers, chowderheads and porch climbers isn't gonna add job one to the roster here in Massachusetts.
But Charlie doesn't get it, the man has tin ear for politics, clearly the Swampscott Board of Selectmen taught him too little in terms of the art of running for high office.
Meanwhile, with Baker and Cahill declining to appear at the forum, you can bet your bottom dollar Governor Patrick will show up with a tin bucket and big-ass spoon and beat on it long and loud for green jobs, green energy, green roads you name it. He will turn that forum into an hour long commercial for his environmental policies and lose no opportunity to hype his commitment to green jobs. Trust Humble Elias, the Governor will be "focusing on jobs" thru out said forum.
Has Charlie Baker made a single notable decision in the last month that hasn't been animated by a craven and inept opportunism? If this keeps up he'll be blubbering for book burnings and uncloseting himself as a Falangist before Labor Day.

If a radio nullity like Dan Rea can

compel Charlie "Ziplips" Baker to come out banging the pots for xenophobic language codes,  then I figure Howie Carr can intimidate the GOP Gubernatorial nominee into becoming an all out fag basher by August.
So far, all Charlie has demonstrated is that faced with a revolt on transgender rights from the state GOP convention he will cave in with enthusiasm, and faced with some sharp elbows from some C-list radio reactionary he'll turn go all Vichy in the blink of an eye.
And to think I thought that Crazy Christy Mihos was gonna provide all the clowning potential this year, so far he is a medicine show witling compared to Charlie Baker whose blubbering attempts to ineptly ingratiate recall the Salad Days of the late Arnold Stang.

The American Sledgehammer of Irony

Tea Partei activists and the remnants of American Movement Conservatism cleave unto the same truism, that a Great Nation Does Not Apologize for ANYTHING It Has Done No Matter How Stupid, Brutal and Unnecessary Said Action May Be.
But use moral suasion (on a Johnsonian scope BTW) to liberate 20 billion USD from British Petroleum, and watch the very Flower of GOP Texas Manhood, Rep. Joe Barton GROVEL before Big Oil and apologize for our government's "shakedown"!!
"Ahhhm sorry suh fuh our guv'mint's shameful bid ta hold yew fi-nancially responsible fer yer own stupid errors -n- malevolence...."
Honest to frickin' ghod, Joe Barton's Vichy Act almost makes me ashamed to be an American...almost. This is nothing less than groveling before one's Owners, BP and it's ilk have been bankrolling vicious bastards like Joe Barton (and New Gingrich and Bob Ney and numberless hog wallowers in corruption) for Decades, of course, Joe Barton needs to truckle and toady, it is his god-damned livelihood at stake here!!!

What is it about the oil industry that attracts

crooks, thieves and liars that would not rise to the standards of Jesse James and his gang of desperadoes?
They lie, cheat, steal, cash in huge tax breaks, overcharge at the pump on the slightest provocation, pollute lavishly on cute rate drilling platforms and bribe public officials (oops I'm the sorry the politically correct term is lobby) at the drop of a hat.
And they've been like this since Woodrow Wilson was Top Swank.
And lets not forget Phat Oil is the primary funder of almost every book worshipping small gummint wingnut cracker demagogue from Sarah Palin down to Rick "Secesh" Perry.
Oh and the Supreme Court, just dyin' with luv for the poor helpless endangered multinational corporations just gave them the right to spend any amount any time anywhere on behalf of whatever screeching witchburner takes their fancy.
Given that, I have no fear that poor BP won't be able to secure it's interests in campaign 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016 etc etc etc.
What brought us to this pretty pass in the Gulf of Mexico?
A misplaced faith in small government by way of a docile and compliant regulatory structure.
A worshipful attitude towards the corrective precision of the "free market" (A helluva "correction is now washing ashore in Louisiana).
These guys need to have a nice heavy regulatory hammer drop on them, they acted in that rampant fashion because they had NO FEAR of the consequences, they need to feel a bit of that now to prevent other spills of a comparable size going forward.



THAT is my proposal, simple and unadorned, put the living fear of God into all of them.

Apropos of nothing...

But Scot Lehigh's column in today's Globe (which is otherwise given over to Charlie Baker's schizoid tendencies), contains the following quote:
"Charlie is the hard-charging policy whiz who was the soul of the Weld administration. That Baker was dubbed the smartest man in state government, and other than Bill Weld himself, he might well have been."
Honestly what IS IT about Bill Frickin' Weld that so beguiles our local columnistas?
The mere mention of his name and they fall over in a blissful stupor vacant smiles on their faces!
So far as I can see Weld was a vain vacuous man given to laughing at his own jokes, cutting terrifying back room deals with Billy Bulger (a man he once promised to run off Beacon Hill) and who mixed hard liquor and budget cuts in equal measure. Bored to tears with the minutia of state government he tried to unseat John Kerry by running as a freeper before resigning as Governor in a bizarre attempt to become Ambassador to Mexico..and the finally irony is, he was undone in that bid by the US Senate's Arch Freeper, Jesse Helms.
In the end, of a desperate need to "revel" undisturbed Weld secured a divorce and good lodgings on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, a brief attempt to run for Governor was fortunately not allowed to interrupt Weld's post gubernatorial repose.
Not much of a record, the budget got balanced but that was off of Dukakis' tax increases the rest of it is easily forgotten. One can make an argument that the Commonwealth's decline commenced under his aegis, picked up steam under Cellucci and Swift and reached it's nadir with the Romney interlude. All of Deval Patrick's efforts to date have done naught except arrest the slide into mediocrity that started in 1990.

Not to Scot Lehigh though, to him, Bill Weld is Nietzsche's overman incarnate. Me,  I just don't get it....

Some poor sap has acquired the rights to

"Atlas Shrugged" and is now in the process of making a movie out of it. A few years ago the puffy likes of Angelina Jolie was attached to the project now its down to a crew that would normally grace a weekend SyFy Channel TV movie.
Well what of it, Ayn Rand's turgid bloated objectivist screed is freakin' unfilmable in extremis, you'd have better luck adapting Das Capital or The Phenomenology of the Spirit as a big budget tentpole movie.
In fact as far as I am concerned, the only reason Atlas Shrugged is a novel is because Ayn Rand didn't have the intellectual wherewithal to produce a comparable work of philosophical distinction. Like all eternal sophomores she made some straw men talk on her behalf on the printed page and rubes came a'runnin.
And based on the link above, they are running still today.

I thought...

Raising the state's sale's tax was supposed to trigger and economic "die off" that would leave the Commonwealth in a "Mad Max" style state of nature while New Hampshire would batten off the "retail refugees" from Massachusetts who'd surge north in search of chewing gum, toner cartridges and generic beer.
(Whew, best, Run On Sentence Everrrrr!)
If that is the case why are all these retailers tearing up the Mass Pike brandishing hard cash and eager to sign leases?
Hmmmm...Can't imagine what sort of explanation the Howee Carr's and Michael Graham's will have for this pernicious phenomenon...
I'm sure it has nothing to do with the soft recession Massachusetts' is having compared with the rest of the country, that we have money and are willing to spend it...Nope and NONE of that has to do with Deval Patrick's wise stewardship of the Commonwealth's economy, nope nothing at all.

Friday HST blogging...

(That is the Late Hunter S. Thompson, not Harry S. Truman although the Former President's own Friday blogging is a'coming to be sure).

Joanie V. asks "Will Limbaugh and Beck be next?"

In the wake of the Helen Thomas Affair down in DC the Globe's resident scold frets that the trend towards firing someone because of their unpopular opinions might get inflicted (gasp!) on wingnut commentators.
In a word HA!!! THAT WILL BE THE DAY!!
If Joanie Vennochi hasn't figured out that conservative wingnut commentators are frickin' bulletproof in this country then she is too dumb to learn, a bag of hammers has a better chance of passing the MCAS than our own Joanie V.
Since Obama has won, Glenn Beck has pretty much come out for freeper revolution guns, flags and all, no one has abrogated his right to flood the airwaves with paranoid and violent delusions.
And Limbaugh, the man is a drug addict the fact that he is NOT busting rocks right now is proof positive that wingnuts are invincible in America.
Honestly, Joanie worries about this shit because deep down in her soul of souls she'd rather go hat in hand to some whip wielding reactionary to get the best deal she can for herself than negotiate in good faith and on terms of equality with a liberal.

Hours and hours of hearings regarding casino gambling yesterday

Before the Massachusetts State Senate...A lot of opinions were heard even if the outcome sadly seems certain.
An yet to date not ten minutes of the State Senate's precious  time has been wasted discussing the corruption scandals over in the Commonwealth's Probation Department.
Suspended Probation Commissioner Jack O'Brien has yet to be hauled before whatever State Senate Committee oversees kickbacks, chiseling and allegations of porch climbing.
And I suspect we will have a long wait til anyone swears O'Brien in before any Committee of the Great-n-General Court. Frankly it seems like the man just knows too much, and besides a good chunk of our State Senators are holed up in their offices dreaming of a revenue deluge all from legalized casino gambling...Hard to bust open revelries like that.
So in that context let me just briefly note that Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz is my new hero, this quote from the above article sez it all for Humble Elias:
Casinos are “a fancy way of putting a tax on the poor,’’ said Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz, a Jamaica Plain Democrat...
And then there is Senator Susan Tucker:
Casinos rely on compulsive gamblers for most of their profits, said Senator Susan C. Tucker, an Andover Democrat and a staunch gambling opponent.
If either of these fine ladies wanna start dreaming of higher office come 2012 or 2014, they will find an interested avid listener in Humble Elias, on the subject of casino gambling they have their heads on very straight.

Tim the Enchanter, soldiers on...

Tim Cahill has had by any account a rough two weeks, he got jacked by the Republican Governor's Association, he has been caught flat out taking contributions from companies doing business with the Treasurer's Office and he has some fingerprints on the scandal in the probation department. Moreover, he has sounded off in tones freeperish about terrorism, the Commonwealth's Health Care Law and illegal immigration, three topics about which Tim Cahill knows just exactly nothing.
And then there is his refusal to discuss in detail the budget cuts he sez we have to make in order to stem the state's recession driven deficit.
An outsider would look at Cahill and dismiss him as a bum and an ineptiod swimming in deep waters, I however still think he still running a better campaign than the GOP's Charlie Baker who seems to have decamped for some mythical long dark Quebec fishing trip of the soul.
Has anyone heard anything sensible out of Charlie in the past six weeks? I mean that he didn't contradict under pressure not twenty four hours later? And what about Richard Tisei, he got stabbed in the back at the GOP's state convention and no one has heard anything from him since. Did they ship him off on a tour of the towns at the bottom of the Swift River Valley or something?
Taken in total, despite a fall to the teens in current polling, Tim still has room to move, Baker on the other hand keeps tripping over fire hydrants, walking into telephone polls and falling down open man holes not to be heard from again for weeks at a time.

It is one thing for the state's GOP to come up with

nine congressional challengers this fall, but that doesn't mean any of them will be able to fundraise, especially outside the state where the big tea party money coagulates.
No...that lot is likely a lot more fixated on getting someone to the right of Roberto Farinacci elected to the US Senate from Alabama...What goes down in the 3rd Congressional District of Massachusetts will be less of a priority.
Just for the record I've heard of exactly none of these characters save "Average Joe Malone" the former State Treasurer a man with more skeletons in his closet than Bela Lugosi.

It is one thing for the state's GOP to come up with

nine congressional challengers this fall, but that doesn't mean any of them will be able to fundraise, especially outside the state where the big tea party money coagulates.
No...that lot is likely a lot more fixated on getting someone to the right of Roberto Farinacci elected to the US Senate from Alabama...What goes down in the 3rd Congressional District of Massachusetts will be less of a priority.
Just for the record I've heard of exactly none of these characters save "Average Joe Malone" the former State Treasurer a man with more skeletons in his closet than Bela Lugosi.

Guy Glodis gets on the State Auditor's ballot

but failed to get the convention endorsement.

Hmmmmm....

Well, lets face it, the state democratic convention is a famously liberal room with a lot of thwarted Hilaryistas out there among the delegates that are still trying to a-venge their loss in Denver back in 2008.

And Suzanne Bump is a woman, with an active pulse and few skeletons in her closet and Guy Glodis is Worcester County's answer to Nelson Muntz after all.

Glodis may yet carry the day in the primary but first he will have to answer for a lot of boorish things he has said and done down thru the years.

And even if he gets the nomination the GOP is fielding yappy Mary Connaughton for the office, she will make a fight of it and on grounds favorable to the GOP as well.

Here is hopin' that Suzanne Bump can start punching above her weight.

The State Senate is currently debating a

bill that would legalize up to three casinos in the Commonwealth.

No word yet when they will get around to discussing some practical reforms over at that den of inequity otherwise known as the Probation Department.
Honestly is there a better precis' of the State Senate's priorities, allegations have been made that offices were all but auctioned off at the Probation Department and everyone sits down looks at their shoes and waits for some report or some other palaver from the AG's office.
But drop a casino gambling bill into the hopper and they squawking & flapping with joy like geese gone mad on crystal meth.
Disgusting.
Oh and check this meme out from the above link:
The industry would be regulated by an agency modeled on Nevada’s system. A gaming commission would set rules for the casinos and decide licensing matters, while a control board, with a dedicated State Police unit, would administer the rules and monitor the industry.
I can just imagine the collection of chowderheads, gombeen men, brothers in law, pension-grubbing dingbats and sundry riffraff that the lege will load onto that notional gambling commission. Dollar Bill Monahan anyone? How about Joe Lawless or Joe O'Brien look at the bang up job he did at the Probation Department!!
My thesis is simple, any state that can't handle probation on the up and up ought to avoid the manifold temptations of casino gambling like the God Damned Plague!

Despite a recession and stagnant incomes all around

Charlie "ziplips" Baker's old outfit, the company he is credited with saving wants an eleven percent increase in premiums this year.
Humble Elias has come to the conclusion that HPHC has internalized nicely Charlie Baker's governance style charge the maximum the market will bear and give out the minimum in return...hey it worked with the Big Dig, why wouldn't it work on the Harvard Pilgrims captives...er...clients?
Now if you don't think that eleven percent here and eleven percent there doesn't add up to much, then Charlie Baker is the Gombeen Man for you.

Despite a recession and stagnant incomes all around

Charlie "ziplips" Baker's old outfit, the company he is credited with saving wants an eleven percent increase in premiums this year.
Humble Elias has come to the conclusion that HPHC has internalized nicely Charlie Baker's governance style charge the maximum the market will bear and give out the minimum in return...hey it worked with the Big Dig, why wouldn't it work on the Harvard Pilgrims captives...er...clients?
Now if you don't think that eleven percent here and eleven percent there doesn't add up to much, then Charlie Baker is the Gombeen Man for you.

What is Tim Cahill's game plan?

Well he just got endorsed by the Boston Police Patrolman's Association so Humble Elias is hazarding a guess that the independent gubernatorial candidate will try and run to the right of Sarah Palin.
The BPPA has a real weakness for the real fondness for the absolute rightiest of wingnuts they endorsed George Wallace, Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr all  in their time. Clearly Tim must be promising them to either annex the Sudetenland or round up the flagmen and imprison them on Castle Island or some damn thing.
Hence Tim's accusation last week that shaking hands with a Muslim constituted "playing politics with terrorism" on the part of Governor Patrick...All part of a larger plan to play it like Achille Starace this fall.
Frankly I can't blame him, Charlie Baker is running like molasses uphill in Wintertime...and boring molasses at that. Patrick's numbers have firmed up a bit the only place where there is fuel a plenty and fresh air to start a fire is on the right.  Thus Tim once a orthodox democrat is reborn as a podium pounding rightical chic demagogue, hardly seems surprising now in retrospect.

Ghod this is a nasty little marital obit...

Al and Tipper Gore are getting separated...

This sentence in particular is snide and gratuitously nasty:
Even after losing the 2000 Presidential election to George W. Bush, the Gores remained active campaigning for various leftist causes and figures, including Obama in 2008.
"Leftist causes and figures including Obama".
That would be then-Senator Obama's 2008 Presidential campaign, "Obama"...lotsa sheer respect for the Office of the President right there folks.
Didn't know "Obama" was a "leftist figure" either, but then again these punditariat douchebags tend to define leftism in a very broad sarcastic fashion, everyone who wants to put up stop signs at intersections is equated with the looters who tortured John Galt.
I feel for the Gores, the usual ass-holes will have tiresome sport on them as we move into the slow news season.