Place Your Bets For Massaschusetts Slots Parlor(s) License--Here are the Current Odds To Get a Massachusetts Slot Machine Parlor, Subject to Change.....George Carney of the defunct Raynham-Taunton Dog Track(1-9), Gary Piontkowski of the struggling Planridge Harness Track(10-1), Richard Friedman Cambridge Developer, for Worcester unneeded industrial site(25-1) or unknown player to be Annointed by hiring $$$  lobbyist, political influence, or campaign contributions(45-1 and declining).....Losers Massachusetts Citizens and Taxpayers?

Politically Appointed Massachusetts Casino Commission Ready to Give Away Slot Machine
Parlor(s)  Based on Influence?

Another fleecing in Massachusetts is taking place with the taxpayers and citizens getting little with the rushing train of casinos and slot machine Parlors coming that will not be stopped. Stand back, aside, don't be crushed, and watch the high powered special interests of Casino Billionaire Combines dominating the agenda. The so called destitute race tracks teaming up with the big time operators.

You will witness that is already here one of the most expensive lobbying efforts by profiteers ever to take place in Massachusetts plying their abilities and advocacy dollars of influence to get favorability, access for profits, personal gain and certainly not for the common good.

The lobbyists will profit, along with lawyers, bankers. public relations specialists, developers, landowners, so called non career temporary politically elected and appointed managers of government looking to secure a future or personal gain. They along with media ad sellers, sub contractors, construction companies, and potential service providers will be coming at the out resourced citizens and legislators that will make the Big Dig shoddy construction failure public relations fraud look elementary.

Massachusetts needs a truly independent diverse Casino review process composed only of people who cannot swayed or influence by ideology or personal gain. Will our government officials do it right? So far not good with the Governor Deval Patrick So Called Gaming Commission chaired by a political operative and non merit based appointees and workers? 




 

Mitt Romney, Scott Brown, Eric Fehrnstrom, aftermath also depicts the decline of journalism

Media Guy Eric Fehrnstrom being blamed for President Wantabe Mitt Romney and Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown defeats. A former dynamic Investigative Reporter like Many who Lacked Career Opportunities in the Declining Media Being Forced Into Public Relations

The Boston Herald wrote a recent front page news article about its former reporter turned political guru Eric Fehrnstrom of the Shawmut  Group Consulting Group I took exception to the column and writer that has raised my reflection. This one time promising investigative journalist whose lack of career job opportunities in the declining media apparently forced him to become a public relations spokesperson.

I recall Eric as a new reporter working at the statehouse for the Boston Herald. He was an excellent of being an inquisitive investigative reporter working under fellow reporters Jon Wells, Bob Connolly, and Peter Lucas. Wells and Fehrnstrom as a team worked above and beyond scooping the Globe and plying their trades through hard work.

Eric was always fair and objective as well as helpful. When other reporters would only listen to the establishment elected politicos to always gain stories and access, both Eric and Jon Wells would listen to those of us seeking a reporter to expose improprieties. These two would even report our accurate views even in contradiction to the Herald Editorial Board.

Unfortunately for Eric, the career path in the media was not there and the wage scale quite low. Journalism then lost a bright competent investigative reporter.

Supporting a family, he stunned me when he accepted a job with State Treasurer Joe Malone, later Governor Mitt Romney and Scott Brown.

With Malone, I and others who stood up to the waste, fraud, and abuse in the State Treasurer’s Office found Eric as a hard hitting adversary. We had several confrontations during legislative hearings before the Public Service committee and at times quite caustic.

There were also differences when working later for Mitt Romney and at times in agreement.

I do not agree with Eric on many issues. However, he was always available to have a discussion on issues that I disagreed with him on.

Journalism and the media have changed in the last 20 years and newspapers are becoming relics of the past. The free press that our citizens expect and taken for granted is in rapid decline. I just imagine what Eric Fehrnstrom could have been like so many other potential investigative reporters if newspapers and investigative reporting was not in such decline. There are so little or no job opportunities and stable career path for those in the broadcast or print media that must shun the profession to make a living for themselves and their families. This further is evidenced by the decline in the statehouse press corps and the almost distinct current population which a shell of decades past.

Unfortunately, the Herald did not amplify the decline of career journalists. It is disappointing to observe the carnage of a once great profession.

CHARLES BAKER JR WANTS TO RUN FOR MASSACHUSETTS GOVERNOR Again IN 2014!!!!! VOTERS WILL LOOK AT HIS REAL RECORD AGAIN!!!!

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The Herald recently reported Charles Baker Jr. who left a multi-million dollar job at Harvard Pilgrim to take a massive cut in pay to be governor failed in his,attempt and wants to run again. I welcome his statements on all he has advocated for the insurers not in the interest in those in need of healthcare or businesses attempting to provide affordable health care to their employees.

 We were amazed that Baker was the main speaker in the 2012 election when a candidate for State Represemntive in the Spenser area  and others had him at a campaign event as a keynoter.  That candidate subsequently lost.


Imagine Baker in the race again!!!!! He is the face for ungovernment reforms,no accountability, no oversight inefficiency, waste, and mismanagement in government? Look at his dismantling record in the Human Services Secretariat State Delivery System that lacked care, compassion, concern,and fiscal accountability.


 As State Chief Budget Guru, look at his decision making and enabling the Big Dig to flourish with a lack of accountability and oversight. We need to hear all Baker did not do. SO MANY FAILURES TO GIVE CREDIT TO HIM AND EXPLAIN. The Harvard-Pilgrim almost demise with an insider state Government Bailout, that Baker became the head? Private Sector Worker to Government Manager back to Private sector Company once under his purview. Now he really wants to be Governor after failing in 2010….A man with no compassion, care and concern for the citizens tax dollars.

Once again, the Maasachusetts Republican Party will fail to win the Office of  Governor and give a gift to the Democrats in 2014 with Baker as their candidate.
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MASSACHUSETTS TURNPIKE, TUNNEL, SUBWAY, AND GAS TAX INCREASE PROPOSALS BEING  PROPOSED BY MASSACHUSETTS GOVERNOR DEVAL PATRICK  APPEARS TO BE A COVER UP FOR , WASTE, FRAUD AND ABUSE OF THE BIG DIG AND FAILURE TO FIX THE ROADS AND BRIDGES FROM THE PROMSED PREVIOUS GAS TAX INCREASE?


Former longtime Turnpike Chair Jack Driscoll wanted to pay off original bonds to make the road free. His financial promise was not carried out by his successors and they issued more bonds and unnneeded debt. Former House Chair of Transportation and now lobbyist Steven Karol stated in a debate measure before the House to stop legislation that would have guaranteed oversight of the Big Dig that the turnpike would not pay for the Big Dig!

During the heyday of the BIG DIG Karol and his cochair counterpart in the Massachusetts Senate Robert Havern battled against or did not listen to calls for accountability and oversight of the Big Dig. The plague of the Big Dig scheme was birthed by former Democratic Michael Dukais and his Transportation guru Fred Salvucci. Subsequent Republican Governors Weld, Cellucci, Swift, and Romaney along with their transportation czars Jim Carlin and Jim Kerasiotis elevated the effort to an art form.

This resulted in needed funds to fix unfit roads and bridges coming in from the Federal Government being diverted to the Big Dig. Their tandam efforts saw the Big Dig go from $2.3 Billion to $23+ Billion with almost not accountability and oversight. Massachusetts now has the most expensive unmonitored privitized construction project monument in history built that resulted in waste, fraud, and abuse, and bad construction.

We were promised that the Big Dig would be funded 90% with federal funds and was not. The last gas tax in 1991 was suppose to fix the roads and bridges needing repairs and did not.

 

House Chair SenatorThomas M McGee and Representative William M Straus rneed an education wake up call. First, their Transportation Committee should hire its own non political independent structural and civil engineers and an economist to do its own analysis and determine the real needs and not depend on the special interests to set policy. Also, when will Senator Baddour and Representaive Wagner learn that privatization with no accountability that they have allowed does not work? They have not learned from privatization failures of the Big Dig genius of Bechtel Parson or Modern Continental on Rte. 3.

Massachusetts needs another WARD type commission that came about during the government center scandal to get the real facts, precisely pinpoint blame for current failures to see where the monies went before any subway, toll or gas tax increases. The time is overdue for real accountability and oversight that guarantees no more waste, fraud, and abuse of Federal Highway Monies, Toll and Tunnel Collections, or Gas Taxes.

Newly Politically Appointed Massachusetts State Inspector General Glen Cunha now designated by Governor Deval Patrick  to investigate the State Drug Lab is wrong.

 I firmly disagree with the Massachusetts Office of Inspector General conducting the investigation.

The Inspector General offfice has been disfunctional for several years and needs an independent investigation of its agency for a failed mission.

The tenure of the imediate past Inspector Genera Gregory W.Sullivan and conduct of serious investigations for government waste,fraud, and abuse was liteally non existent.  Just look at the lack of a serious record on the Big Dig or Government Contracting of taxpayer dollars.

Any investigation being conducted by the Inspector General will be suspect at best. He is political appointee by the Governor, Auditor, and Attorney General all who have had responsibility to do oversight, funding, and staffing and have controls in place to prevent the current disaster at the Drug Lab that were not used.

A truly independent review team should be appointed with subpoena  powers and right to prosecute not under control of neither the Governor or Attorney General to report and take action needed to reform the State Drug Lab.

 

Massaschusetts United States Senate Candidate Elizabeth Warren accused of Representing Travelers Insurance Company against asbestos victims by Senator Scott Brown. Boston Globe Columnist Joan Vennochi writes opinion column.

Real Facts and documentation needed for an accurate analysis beyond campaign statements from both sides.

Please note:  I am a former Inspector and Director of Industrial Safety for Massachusetts and not a backer of Scott Brown and yet to decide on Elizabeth Warren.

The lingering news Candidate Warren self proclaimed champion of workers is troubling especially representing an insurance company against asbestos contamination claims brought by workers or their families. Further, statements being made by the labor representive and for profit victims attorney appear to be partisan without full disclosure of their facts, involvement and documentation.

All details of  Elizabeth Warren billing hours, filings, and transcripts involved with this case should immediately be made public for objective analysis.

John Gatti Jr.

By Joan Vennochi-Boston Globe Columnist-September 21, 2012

 
Bottom of Democrat Elizabeth Warren left a big opening when she failed to tell her side of the story of the legal work she did for Travelers Insurance in a case involving asbestos victims. Republican Senator Scott Brown lost no time using that lapse against her. 

At a morning press conference following their first debate, Brown called Warren’s claim that she had actually worked for asbestos victims “outrageous.” Describing the Harvard law professor as a “hired gun”, he said Travelers retained her “to get them off the hook for settlements sought by victims of asbestos poisoning.” Warren, he charged, is trying to mislead voters into thinking of her as an advocate for the little guy, when “there is only one person who has taken the side of big corporations against working families and that’s Elizabeth Warren.”  

But David D. McMorris, an attorney whose law firm represents asbestos victims, including those in the Travelers’ case, said Brown is the candidate who is misleading the public. He called the senator’s attack on Warren “completely dishonest."

 

McMorris and several union representatives, including Francis Boudrow, the business manager of Asbestos Workers Union Local 6, spoke to the media after Brown’s press conference at his South Boston campaign headquarters. They were there to defend Warren and support her argument that she was helping victims, not hurting them, when she represented Travelers.

“He’s distorting her role,” said McMorris, in a telephone call after Brown’s press conference. “Clearly, he’s doing it on purpose. He’s a lawyer...He’s either a very lazy or inept lawyer, or he’s lying.”

But the case is complicated.

As reported earlier by Globe reporter Noah Bierman, Travelers hired Warren to represent the insurance company in its fight to gain permanent immunity from asbestos-related lawsuits; in exchange for that immunity, the insurance company said it would establish a $500 million trust for current and future victims of asbestos poisoning. Warren succeeded in that mission, successfully arguing Travelers case before the U.S. Supreme Court. She was paid $212,000 by Travelers from 2008 to 2010.

However, after she left the case, a separate court ruled that Travelers did not have to pay out the money and it never has. As one judge saw it, Travelers got “something for nothing.”

McMorris argues that Warren was hired “to defend the integrity of the settlement. She won.” What happened afterwards was out of her hands, he said.

 

That may be. But it’s now in the hands of an opponent who is making it clear he will use every weapon available to keep his job.

This OP-ED is from Assembly-member Michael P. Kearns of the 145th District in New York State whose office this site communicates on issues.  The same law proposal is needed in Masschusetts.

The general state of the law leaves one wondering, "Will there always be a battle between secrets and darkness against openness and light?" When the infection of secrecy spreads limiting accountability and transparency, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once famously wrote that, “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” Today the broader community in New York State is in need of a liberal dose of legal disinfectant or sunshine legislation.

Sunshine or disclosure legislation occurred as a response to numerous cases which involved stipulated settlements requiring silence or gag orders as a condition of the agreed upon pay out. Secrecy and gag orders harmfully impacting the broader public has a long history in the private sector, the health care sector, the clergy, college sports and now possibly in the public sector.

The history of secrecy agreements involving significant public harm included: 1) the prescription drugs Zomax and Halcion, the Shiley heart valve, and the Dalkon Shield intrauterine device, all taken off the market as too dangerous, but not until after many years and hundreds of secret settlements; 2) the Bridgestone/Firestone tire defect litigation ultimately resulting in the recall of fourteen million potentially dangerous tires and linked to the deaths of over 250 people in the United States, with scores of cases settled secretly; 3) the number of clergy sexual abuse claims, Catholic Church in Chicago archdiocese, after an investigation by Chicago Lawyer, was discovered to have an estimated 400 lawsuits that the Catholic Church had settled in the previous decade-almost all of them secretly; 4) high dollar Wall Street securities scandals, 5) scandals at special needs health care facilities, where a home administrator sexually abused a Down's Syndrome resident, the case settled and the administrator later admitted to sexually abusing over a dozen others and 6) finally, more recently, while it did not deal with secret settlements, the Joe Paterno, Jerry Sandusky- Penn State child rape and molestation cases, were allowed to flourish in a culture cloaked in secrecy and perhaps conspiracy.

The infection of secrecy and the consequent harm to the public may have spread to the public sector. The legislative or executive branches of government are principally charged with disseminating information for public consumption, formulating major social policy, or protecting public health or safety or property. The recent revelations in the New York State Assembly regarding Assembly-member Vito Lopez's alleged staff member molestations and the subsequent settlements outside the scrutiny of the New York State Assembly, underscore the need for sunshine legislation to prevent the potential for further future abuses and harm to the public in all sectors of society.

The State of New York needs a presumption of openness concerning court documents and settlement agreements, closely following the example set by the state of Texas in passing and signing its law into effect in 1990. New York State needs a law that will directly address and prohibit settlements by public bodies, public agencies and public organizations. I am asking that the People of the State of New York support a bill I am filing next week, which prohibits secret settlements by public bodies with the use of public or private funds, but also creates a presumption of openness which can be overcome after the prongs of a multiple part test are met.

In the play Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare wrote, "Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough, To mask thy monstrous visage? Seek none, conspiracy. Hide it in smiles and affability." While conspiracy has a specific legal meaning, secrecy does not in many instances and far too many have smiled at this problem for far too long with too much harm being visited upon innocent parties. I hope that my colleagues and their constituents agree and support me in an effort to have this bill signed into a law in New York State.

Michael P. Kearns, Assemblyman 145th District