About ten days ago, as the crow flies

Rep. Charlie Murphy (D-Burlington) had this to say about the mounting corruption scandals at the Probation Department:


“Is there any evidence to suggest that jobs are for sale?’’

To which Humble Elias rhetorically responded (after much ranting and raving):

"Mark my words the Feds will get in on this thing sooner or later and that will not end well for anyone."

And now today, this is the headline in the Boston Globe....I guess Rep Murphy got the answer to his question.

Sometimes my powers of divination appall even me.

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Nevertheless, there is still time to turn scandal into success, what is needed is a strong commitment to judicial reform, one that increases transparency, removes the prospect of corrupt temptations, keeps the boodlers out and makes the probation process efficient and effective.

Any takers out there?

Anyone prepared to make the counter argument on this basis??

People who have no expectation of ever holding power,

the sort of people who are happy to eschew all responsibility with a gust of derisive snarkage, inevitably write books like this.
Tedious, repetitive, sarcastic...I can't image how author David W. Hedrick missed out on the GOP nomination for congress in Washington State's Third District....Did he admit to cannibalism or Keynesian backsliding or something?
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MIddlesex County Sheriff

Jim DiPaola apparently committed suicide up in Maine...At the time he was facing various allegations, but of course there are worse ones that are eminently survivable.
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Peace to his ashes, comfort and succor to his loved ones.

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Politics is a rough rough game my friends, and sometimes it drives people right off the edge, notable examples being Former Secretary of Defense James Forrestal and the Senator from Wyoming, Lester Hunt both of whom took their own lives in due course.
Frankly given the gruesome and brutal play of the game it is a wonder more elected officials don't take their own lives.
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Well what of it, his family must be devastated, my heart goes out to them.

"These knuckleheads know We Have The Bomb...."

Right?

Like lots of bombs...More bombs than money at this point quite frankly.

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Geez does this thing in Korea mean that Barack Obama is Harry S. Truman after all?

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Well what of it?
 I suspect that Komrade Kim is trying to teach the otherwise anonymous mook he claims is his Son and Heir that some judicious military mayhem always keeps the crackers at a wary distance.
Still I have to laugh, the last remaining cover-to-cover Stalinist State in the Whole World is reduced to the medieval notion of primogeniture to recruit sucessors to the Office of Supreme Swank.
That and the perfect uselessness of the P.R.C. in a crisis, they seem to have less chain to yank in Pyongyang than we do.
An inauspicious omen for a supposed Superpower on the Make.

I did not...

Vote for Obama in 2008 because I thought he could single handedly immanentize the eschaton. I voted for him in order to prevent the Republic from going up in flaming chunks at the hands of a bunch of dangerously delusional utopian fanatics.
Now today that same bunch of fanatics have gotten control of the US House and have all sworn to destroy completely what they cannot govern absolutely.
And so the whole mishaugas plays itself out again, same script a few new actors.
Happy Thanksgiving...if you can keep it.

Ghod help us but...

this has been a soft cushy recession for the super rich.
And thanks to the recent election of a vast horde of witchburners and book worshippers to the US House, it is likely gonna become an even easier recession.
Unfortunately, the incoming congress has a believe in the universal efficacy of huge tax cuts on the rich that is only rivaled by their belief in the sovereign power of moonlit stump water to cure warts.
When it comes to public finance we can look forward to a lot of grotesque magical thinking for at least the next two years.
These are politicians who think that the government ought to fear "the people" as long as they retain their first amendment rights. Of course the ranks of the super-rich laugh at the armed and debt ridden lower classes for as long as their ire is aimed at the NEA and Barack Obama they can look forward to sunny skies now and forever.
It would do us all some good if the overclass went to bed just a bit worried...but trust me, with this congress that ain't gonn happen.

With all due respect...

But is Charlie Murphy Out of his God Damned Mind???

The whole front page of the Globe is given over to perfectly actionable stories of corruption and malfeasance at the Probation Department and all Rep Murphy can say is:
“Is there any evidence to suggest that jobs are for sale?’’
Hey Charlie is yer not sure then  Tommy freakin' Petrolati can allegedly show you the cancelled checks and who they came from and where they worked as well!
What kills me is that Murphy has the gall to say (on the record) “We’re not going to make rash judgments.’’
You've had better than six full months to form all sorts of judgments, rash, measured and ridiculous and the whole of the state legislature has done absolutely nothing.
Quite frankly right now, some rashness would be a welcome thing!
Mark my words the Feds will get in on this thing sooner or later and that will not end well for anyone.