Blue Mass Group

There’s lots of debate on Beacon Hill about the EBT card cash benefit – I think there are valid concerns about using money for non-necessities, but I’m not sure if all recipients deserve to be punished for it. In reading an article from the Sentinel and Enterprise last night, something caught my eye:

Rep. Richard Bastien, R-Gardner, said he would like EBT card users to have some access tocash in case of emergencies, but said he had personally seen examples of benefits being used on luxury items.

“When I worked in retail management, I had people use their EBT cards for payment on flat-screen TVs,” he said. “When they’re being used on purchases like that, we need to put some parameters in place to prevent that from happening.”

What Rep. Bastien failed to mention is where he was working in retail management. According to his Facebook page he worked in retail management at  McDonald’s, Auto Zone, Advance Auto Parts and Rent-a-Center.

Looking at that list I’m guessing he was selling flat-screen TVs at Rent-a-Center. Sen. Chuck Schumer made a big stink about Rent-a-Center’s business practices a few years back and used a 37 inch flat screen TV as an example:

Schumer’s staff found a 37-inch television offered at Rent-A-Center for 104 weekly rental payments of $31.99 each – a total of $3,326.96. The same model could be purchased outright at Best Buy for $850.

So Rich Bastien was processing $31.99 payments for televisions on EBT cards at Rent-a-Center. Rent-a-Center preys on the poor by offering too-good-to-be-true deals on a variety of big ticket items. The EBT recipients that Bastien sold the TV to likely ended up in a worse financial position after paying $3,000+ for an $850 TV. Rent-a-Center depends on the poor to survive.

Check out this ad from Black Friday 2011:

That’s a $350 computer for $1299.48 or a $949 TV for $2,598.96!

Rent-a-Center has a spotty legal history based on this 2009 report:

Across the river in New Jersey, a class-action lawsuit charging the company with usury resulted in Rent-A-Center paying $109 million into a restitution fund in 2007. In 2006, California’s attorney general sued Rent-a-Center for ripping off consumers, and won $7 million in restitution plus a $750,000 punitive fine. In 2002, the company agreed to pay $8.4 million to settle allegations it cheated Wisconsin customers.

So yes, Rep. Bastien – there is a huge issue with the Rent-a-Center EBT transaction you used as an example… I’m just not so sure it’s the EBT part.

On April 3, 2006 the Massachusetts House of Representatives passed “An Act Providing Access to Affordable, Quality Accountable Healthcare” by a 155-2 vote. The two State Representatives who voted against this legislation will no doubt go down in history as the two biggest hypocrites in the history of the Massachusetts GOP Caucus, and it’s not because they continued to take advantage of a generous taxpayer-funded health care plan after voting against affordable healthcare for their constituents.

The first hypocrite is Jeff Perry of Sandwich. Rep. Perry spent his career decrying government waste. He even took the time in his farewell speech in 2011 to take a jab at public employees. Perry went on to take a $110,000/year job as Barnstable County Special Sheriff, a position that had been vacant for two years. But you knew that.

The second hypocrite you might not know – meet Rep. Daniel K. Webster. Much like Perry, Webster is a far-right wing Republican who aligns with Brian Camenker on social issues. He currently represents Duxbury, Halifax, Hanson, and Pembroke in the House of Representatives. I’d mention which town he resides in, but he moves around so much that I’m not exactly sure.

Like many members of the Mass GOP, Rep. Webster has spent his career campaigning on fiscal responsibility. He wants the Commonwealth to live within its means the way his constituents do. Unfortunately, instead of working to model the Commonwealth’s finances after that of his constituents, Dan Webster has been working to model his own finances after the Commonwealth’s. He’s done quite a good job at it, too.

Howie Carr’s column today, titled “Kennedys’ profit near $1m at nonprofit”, goes after Joe Kennedy Jr.’s salary from non-profit Citizen’s Energy Corp. The thing is, Kennedy made the vast majority of his money from for-profit affiliated organizations. Howie even acknowledges this in his column.

Now, much of that Kennedy swag came from Citizens Energy’s profit-making arms, but still, it does have to file as a nonprofit.

This comment demonstrates one thing: complete intellectual dishonesty. Carr acknowledges that most of the money came from a for-profit yet spends the entire column going after Kennedy and his wife for taking money from a non-profit. It’s just not true – they’re not hauling in a million bucks from the non-profit. Carr knows this and should never have given his column a headline implying that.

Joe Kennedy’s compensation breakdown per 2010 Form PC – Click to enlarge

The 2010 Form PC - available at the Attorney General’s website and excerpted above – shows the breakdown of Kennedy’s compensation. He makes $74,930 in salary and $8,265 in benefits at the non-profit Citizens Energy Corp. Why didn’t Howie report that? Because it’s not juicy enough. He had to report the whole number – including the $250,209 salary, $350,000 bonus, and $24,794 in benefits that Kennedy makes at a FOR-PROFIT affiliated company called Citizens Enterprises Corp.

So Howie Carr should fix his article to reflect the truth and Sean Bielat should probably stop retweeting that Kennedy is “a disgrace”… Especially given that Bielat paid himself out of campaign funds and Carr would be making the same amount as Kennedy this year under his failed contract with WTKK. Like Kennedy, Carr would also be making his money from a FOR PROFIT corporation.

To sum it up Carr is loose with the truth and Bielat is banking on running against the name Kennedy, not the man. No surprises here.

I believed in Bill Keating in 2010, and I believe in Bill Keating today. While redistricting has removed my home in Scituate from his district, I still wholeheartedly believe that we need Bill Keating in Congress.

After the primary in 2010, Keating and O’Leary supporters came together in a united front to defeat Jeff Perry and send Bill Keating to Congress. We knocked doors every weekend and made phone calls every night. Like so many others across the state, we showed up in force on Election Day and really got the vote out.  We even had one of the highest voter contact rates in the country during that final GOTV weekend.

As 2011 rolled on, so did Bill Keating. He was behind the first amendment of the session to end subsidies for Big Oil companies. He’s introduced legislation to help fishermen by redirecting the fines they pay to a fund that improves fishery management.  He worked to repeal the 1099 rule that would have been extremely onerous for small business owners. (Working for a Certified Public Accountant, I can say with certainty that the repeal of the 1099 legislation has saved our clients hundreds of dollars in fees this year.)  He even worked on a bipartisan jobs bill that allows businesses to write off major purchases, established a tax credit for manufacturers, and gives a huge incentive to hire our veterans. Having reviewed his accomplishments as a state legislator, I knew he was going to do great things in Congress. With all of these accomplishments in his first year, I knew that I had made the right decision in supporting Bill Keating. When word came out that he had expedited the transfer of the former Weymouth Air Base from the Pentagon to private developers bringing 10,000 jobs to the district, I was really sure I had made the right decision.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I have volunteered a few times for Bill Keating since the election, including most recently at a few caucuses where I was far from impressed by Bristol County D.A. Sam Sutter and his staff.)

Scott Brown launched his revamped website today. It’s very well done as you’d expect for a candidate with millions in the bank.

I found something to be very interesting – the Scott Brown Timeline featured on the homepage.It contains events referred to as “the highlights of Scott’s life and career.”

It has the following events with a blurb about each:

• 1959: Scott Brown Born
• 1977: Graduates High School
• 1979: Joins Mass Army National Guard
• 1981: Graduates Tufts
• 1982: Wins centerfold contest
• 1986: Marries Gail Huff
• 1988: Ayla Brown born
• 1990: Arianna Brown born
• 1995: Scott takes up duathlons and triathlons
• 2004: Elected to state senate
• 2010: Elected to US Senate
• 2010: Sworn in to US Senate
• 2010 – Present: US Senator

Since this is a list of life and career accomplishments I think it’s safe to say that Scott Brown is now and plans to continue being a “career politician”… No accomplishments to highlight from his time in private practice? Only a centerfold and a few elections?

Is it just me or does it seem strange that Brown’s campaign is highlighting his winning of a centerfold contest as a highlight of his life? They even took the time to post the letter Brown received from Cosmo notifying him of his win and clarify that his sister entered the pictures into the contest. Based on the question about Scott Brown’s centerfold asked by the GOP plant at the UMass Lowell Debate I guess it’s clear that Brown’s team sees a benefit from keeping the centerfold on the minds of voters.

Remember Tom Weaver and Ralph Zazula? Tom lost a primary for Congress and joined up with Ralph to start “Show ID to Vote” which is focused on demanding IDs at the polls – regardless of whether or not its the law. Rachel Maddow picked up the BMG post on it and ran a story a few months ago. Secretary of the Commonwealth Bill Galvin found the sign to be illegal and the Department of Justice was contacted.

To quickly summarize, Weaver and Zazula set up the sign above inside a New Bedford polling location with big letters saying “SHOW ID TO VOTE”… But it’s not the law. Show ID to Vote is a voter suppression group, pure and simple.

Well, here they are again:

Image adapted from MassLive.com. Click Here for original.

If you haven’t heard, Barney Frank’s 2010 Republican Challenger Sean Bielat is back from Pennsylvania to run for Congress. The 2010 race got tense at points and Bielat and Frank didn’t seem to care for each other too much. You probably remember Congressman Frank’s victory speech after winning by 11%. Maybe you remember that Bielat never conceded to Frank.

Bielat was able to raise money and be a credible, competitive candidate for one reason: He was running against Barney Frank. He raised money by making  the stupid videos and convincing the right wing media/blogosphere that he could win. The race got a lot of attention and a lot of money and, just as spectators not caught up with Bielat Fever expected, he lost big.

I love my membership in the Plymouth Rock / Cape Cod & the Islands Tea Party group on Facebook. Where else would I get my information about the UN taking over Carver?

Recently a nice little message appeared in my inbox. It was from Ralph Zazula, half of the crack team at Show ID to Vote, the voter intimidation group based in Massachusetts. You might remember their stunt in New Bedford when they set up shop inside the polls with a big “Show ID to Vote” sign. We covered it on BMG and then Maddow picked it up.

A few months ago the effort to get a question on the ballot that would force voters to show identification at the polls hit a roadblock when Attorney General Martha Coakley blocked the ballot question based on a lack of provisions for voters who cannot afford an ID. AG Coakley found this to be a poll tax.

Oliver Kozlowski, a Mansfield Selectman, was behind the ballot question. He began a court challenge to the AG’s decision and instructed his supporters to continue collecting signatures. That didn’t go so well. Seems that the lack of support for voter disenfranchisement was a hurdle that couldn’t be overcome.

Here’s Ralph Zazula’s post from Facebook:

Thanks for the SUCCESSFUL Voter MA ID campaign. We may not have gathered enough signatures to take the Initiative Petition to the next step, but we did engage thousands of voters across the state about the issues of vote integrity! We are welcoming many hundreds of new activists to the political scene. Many who have never been involved before. We created fear in the heart of the political elites. These are real accomplishments!

We are not done! New marching orders to continue the fight are coming up! Start contacting state legislators about the need to improve the election day process and get ready to support an organized effort to do so in January. We have just begun to fight!

Show I Deserve to Vote! It is more than just a picture.

So the new “marching orders” seem to indicate they will be pushing our legislators to pass legislation requiring voter identification… So give your Representatives and Senators a call and let them know how you feel about “Show ID to Vote”!

Republican State Senator Bob Hedlund hosts a weekly radio show on WATD in Marshfield called “Monday Night Talk” – it’s an mish mash of self-promotion, entertainment, subtle attacks against the Senate President , more self-promotion, and a weekly dose of hate speech.

Yes, hate speech. Not coming from Senator Hedlund, but from one of his weekly callers, a gentleman who refers to himself as “Scott from Cape Cod”.  “Scott” calls in on a regular basis, and Bob Hedlund seems to enjoy having him on to the point that a clip of one of Scott’s phone calls is featured in Hedlund’s intro.

Scott from Cape Cod, as Bob Hedlund plainly explained on his show this last night, feels that all of the nation’s ills are caused by Jewish bankers. That’s part of it –based on past calls Scott seems to blame all Jews and “homosexual marriage” for the “disintegration” of America. Hedlund is pretty clear that he doesn’t agree with everything that “Scott” says, and I give him credit for that. What I’m confused about is why Hedlund seems to think it’s okay to have this guy on the air week after week spewing his hate speech.

Rachel Maddow’s “Maddow Blog” is reporting that they’ve spoken to Secretary of the Commonwealth Bill Galvin’s office about the “Show ID to Vote” official looking signs. They also gave BMG (and me) a shoutout. Here’s what they said:

Producer Mike Yarvitz just got off the phone with the Massachusetts Secretary of State’s office. They say they’ll be taking steps to keep this from happening again at municipal elections next month. Those steps include reminding the local elections commission about statutes that prohibit electioneering at the polls, specifically by election observers. Mike asked whether they’d refer what they described as an “illegal” act for possible prosecution, the office had no comment.

This is great – I’m glad “Show ID to Vote” and their shenanigans are being noticed. I’m even happier that the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office is taking additional steps to prevent similar illegal signs from showing up at the polls in municipal elections next month.

This is important, because “Show ID to Vote” is planning on being a part of those municipal elections. They had the following to say about the Lawrence municipal elections:

“Show ID to Vote will setup video recording and capture the activity on November 7th at all Lawrence Massachusetts polling locations. Efforts are being made to co-operate with all campaigns. Citizen observer volunteers are needed to operate the video and camera observation locations. Please send an email to info@ShowIDtoVote.com to volunteer or for additional information.” from Show ID to Vote Website

So “Show ID to Vote” will be setup at every polling location in Lawrence with video cameras. The Department of Justice found that videotaping polling serves no purpose other than voter intimidation. A recent recall campaign in Lawrence against Mayor Lantigua hit a stumbling block when the Mayor started a “Don’t sign anything” campaign… People were refusing to sign anything to the point that candidates for office were having trouble collecting signatures.

I wonder – would voters in a city who refuse to sign anything because the Mayor said so also turn around when they see a video camera watching them vote? I’d say the same about the “Show ID to Vote” signs,  but hopefully Tom Weaver and Ralph Zazula of “Show ID to Vote” have been paying enough attention to realize they broke the law… Then again, they are devoting a lot of time to calling Ms. Rachel Maddow “Mr. Maddow”…

Remember, folks: Show ID to Vote is not an anti-voter fraud group, they’re a voter suppression group.