THE MANY FACES OF MASS CORRUPTION

Here in the “Cradle of Liberty” we’ve been condemned to what I term “Mass Corruption”. It’s the staphylococcus necrosis of corruption making the old Tammany Hall (also a Democratic contrivance) look like a Boy Scout meeting.

Within the last year we’ve had:

1. State Senator Dianne Wilkerson caught on tape stuffing money into her bar after taking a bribe from an undercover Fed.

2. Boston City Councilor (Chuck “Truth to Power” Turner) caught taking bribes on tape and then crying racism.

3. Another State Senator (James Marzilli) arrested for 5 counts of sexual assault (including asking a 60 year old woman at a bus stop “Do you have a landing strip or an afro?”) but receiving full pay and benefits while ignoring his official duties only to resign after the first of the year adding thousands to his state pension. Eight months later this scumbag hasn’t even come to trial yet!

4. The resignation of the Speaker of the House (Sal DiMasi) after numerous allegations of graft and influence pedaling.

The resignation of Sal DiMasi is particularly interesting. The prior two Speakers were removed from office after Federal convictions for tax evasion (see earlier Geitner column) and illegal gerrymandering of federal districts. Let us not forget that the President of the Senate is only one person removed from Billy Bulger. Bulger’s brother Whitey remains the FBI’s #2 Most Wanted, just behind Bin Laden. Mr. DiMasi, re-elected to the speakership by 135 of 160 possible votes only three weeks ago, in under investigation for using his influence in getting the state to pay $13 million for a bogus software package from a large corporate contributor. There’s also the matter of a THIRD mortgage on his condo given to him by his accountant who also happened to be an unregistered lobbyist for a ticket agency wanting to influence legislation. Besides defending small time mob figures early in his career, DiMasi’s biggest contributions to the Commonwealth were his autocratic strangling of one of Governor Patrick’s few good ideas, casinos in Massachusetts. Think that legalized gambling minght have hurt the business of of few of his old clients in Boston's North end? DiMasi was elected by fewer than 9000 voters in his district yet wielded near dictatorial powers across the entire state. He used his heavy handed tactics to squash a popular ballot initiative to amend the state constitution so as to preclude gay marriage ”rights” invented by the real legislature in Massachusetts, the judiciary. Initially he refused to even permit the legislature to vote on the petition. Only after the petitioners threatened to bring disbarment proceeding against to horde of lawyers which clutter the body of the House (breaching their oaths to uphold the Constitution which required that a vote be taken) was a sham vote conducted which scuttled the process. The rationale was that it would muddy the political waters in a Federal election year. Of course, that totally justified torpedoing any effort at democracy. Not that that’s unusual here in the People’s Republic. Why it was less than a decade ago hat the citizens of Massachusetts voted themselves a repeal of a Dukakis era “temporary” increase in the income tax only to be told by the legislature that it would not be implemented anyway. (This was the work of the prior Speaker, Tom Finneran. Now disbarred as a cionvicted felon, Finneran hosts a crappy radio talk show on WRKO.) Add this tidbit to DiMasi’s indictment; just in case Question # 2 (repeal of the Mass Income Tax) had passed last November, DiMasi made it known to one and all that he would see to it that the repeal would not be enforced or that the tax would be reinstituted the next day. Gee just like his crooked predecessors did with the seat-belt law repeal, TWICE!

Gee, do you think if we got a petition together to amend he Constitution so as to make President of the State Senate and Speaker of the House, staewide elective offices, the solons would let us do it? Term limits? Nevermind. They're too busy figuring out whether they want to raise the gas tax 100%, the sales tax by 2%, or BOTH. Where's Guy Fawkes when we need him!