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Home Front: Politix

Rep. Tierney concedes defeat in Mass. Dem primary to political newcomer

2014-09-10

[FOXNEWS] In a stunning defeat, nine-term incumbent U.S. Rep. John Tierney ...Representative-for-life from Massachusetts, first elected in 1997. His priorities include green energy and more student loans... ...perhaps not quite for life, but long enough to grow old, send his kids to college and collect a pension... on Tuesday lost a bitter Democratic primary contest to political newcomer Seth Moulton in the state's 6th Congressional District. Tierney is the first sitting Massachusetts congressman to lose a primary since 1992, when former U.S. Rep. Marty Meehan beat then-incumbent Chester Atkins in the Democratic primary. Moulton, a former Marine and Iraq war veteran from Salem, will face Republican Richard Tisei in the November election. He credited his win in part on voter frustration with Congress. "It's time for a new approach to end the gridlock in Washington," Moulton told supporters Tuesday night. "It's not enough to blame the Republicans for the lack of progress at a time when our country faces so many challenges. And it's cynical to think we must accept it." Tierney, in a brief concession speech, said he was proud of "an amazing 18 years" in office. "It was always about making sure that people had opportunity, that our children had at least the same opportunity that we had," Tierney said. Moulton ran a well-financed campaign and suggested Tierney had been ineffective in Congress. By mid-August, Moulton had raised $1.6 million compared with the $1.9 million raised by Tierney.

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For moonbats, the end of an era

2010-02-06

Howie Carr To all of you Kennedy groupies out there, go find yourself a grief counselor. Call the Samaritans. As the sign on the Sagamore bridge says, suicide is not the answer. This morning, for the first time since January 1953, there is neither a Kennedy nor a Kennedy-family retainer "representing" Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate. Senator John F. Kerry considers himself a Kennedy-by-marriage -- as I recall his mother was related to Jacqueline Kennedy (nee' Bouvier). The moonbats are really in mourning now. This was worse than finding out yesterday that their Priuses may be ... unsafe at any speed. To all you grief-stricken blow-in drifters on Morrissey Boulevard, go home to New York, mix up a pitcher of brandy Alexanders and put some Judy Garland on the stereo. Do not despair - after all, you still have Barney Frank. Maybe someday you'll have a new generation of Kennedys to cover up for, to point out how they are turning their lives around after (fill in the blank) a cheating scandal, a drug scandal, a rape accusation, a blonde in the pond, an overturned Jeep on Nantucket, an extramarital affair with a polo player, a drug overdose, a waitress sandwich . . . Not only that, but yesterday we learned that the last of them in Congress, Patrick "Patches" Kennedy of Rhode Island could be knocked out of office. A new WPRI-TV poll showed him with low 35 percent approval rating, and 62 percent disapproval. Yesterday was Camelot Emancipation Day. For taxpayers, it was Christmas and the Super Bowl rolled into one. But before we shout "last call" for the final time, let's look back at a few of the family's greatest hits. Marilyn Monroe, Mary Jo Kopechne and the woman with the blue dot. Not bothering to learn the names of any other politicians, from Barack Obama ("Why we ask Osama bin - Obama") to Marty Meehan ("my dear friend Andy Meehan") to Martha "Marsha" Coakley. Patches Kennedy talking about "making mends meet," and "the fundamental process of due process" and his description of how he became what he is today: "I myself have educated myself." Ted Kennedy, explaining in 1991 how he was informed that a rape charge was about to be filed against his nephew: "There's some additional something going on here, vaguely, and it's going to involve some kind of uh, sexual harassment on Willie on that because I was not ever, ever was told the Palm Beach police wanted to speak to me about an alleged incident of Willie Smith raping some girl." "Do you know who I am?" Joe Kennedy setting one of his sons on fire with illegal fireworks. So many disasters, so little time. However will we survive here without them?

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Just say no . . . to Teddy's shenanigans

2009-08-21

By Howie Carr No, no, a thousand times no to this last Kennedy play. Here's what this naked political ploy boils down to: Sen. Ted Kennedy is basically asking the Massachusetts Legislature to repeal a law that he personally pushed through that very same Legislature in 2004. He would gut his own law in order to give a very unpopular governor the right to appoint a rubberstamp who might - might - provide the 60th vote in the Senate to ram through this Obama-care monstrosity that is vehemently opposed by an ever-growing majority of the American people. Democracy in Massachusetts - you can smell it a mile away. And another thing - Ted's plea to overturn his own law was made in a letter dated July 2. But the missive did not arrive at the State House until now, after the ailing senior senator last week was unable to attend the burial of his own sister, and after his publishing company suddenly decided to move up the publication date of his memoirs to Sept. 14. When Teddy was first handed his Senate seat back in 1962, the fix was in. Now, 47 years later, as Teddy goes out, he wants to put the fix back in. And why not - if he gets this final wish, the Kennedys can hand off what they consider their own personal Senate seat to . . . whomever. You want irony? As the Wall Street Journal noted yesterday, if the state's current succession law, which Ted used to support, had been on the books in 1961, he might never have become a senator. He was only 29 in 1961 - too young to serve. When his brother became president and resigned from the Senate that year, the governor had the right to fill the vacancy, which he did, with a placeholder. Ben Smith served until Teddy could legally run in 1962. Now Teddy wants a new Benjamin Smith to serve for five months until the special election. And he asks Gov. Deval Patrick to get "an explicit personal commitment" that this interim senator will not run in the special election. Only they're not making 'em like Ben Smith anymore. Personal commitment? You mean, like Marty Meehan promising to serve only three terms in Congress or Mumbles Menino's vow in 2001 to serve only one more term as mayor?

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MoveOn demonstrates deft touch in fundraising

2006-10-27

Hat tip Orrin Judd. Give us your money or else. That's the threat from MoveOn.org, the crazed ultra-liberal political blog, to U.S. Rep. Marty Meehan. Who's not one of my favorite people. Red on red, yummy ... For a week now, MoveOn.org's political extortionists have mounted an Internet campaign against Meehan because he refuses to accede to their wishes. They want Meehan to open his $4.9 million campaign war chest to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which is trying to win back the House from Republicans. Meehan has resisted, and rightly so. Yeah, he stole it fair and square! But what began as playful politics has escalated into a nasty MoveOn.org shakedown. First, the bloggers sought a $1.2 million contribution from Meehan. They called him "cheap" when he didn't budge. Next, they ratcheted up the pressure, urging Democrats across the nation to e-mail Meehan. On Tuesday, they trotted out a Meehan supporter who has a son serving in the U.S. military in Iraq and fed the father to the press. The Lowell man implied that if Meehan didn't help the Democratic cause, his son might not come home on schedule. Yesterday, MoveOn.org's coordinator Adam Green sent an e-mail to Meehan's Lowell district manager, saying if Meehan forks over $250,000 "there is still time to make this a net positive instead of a net negative for Meehan." "Nice campaign you got here Mr. Meehan, be a shame if something happened to it ..." Just think, like a political Mafia, MoveOn.org is willing to settle its score with Meehan for $250,000. But it's an offer Meehan can -- and should -- refuse. Do 5th District constituents want a congressman in office who kow-tows to irresponsible bully bloggers? What's their next strong-arm campaign -- U.S. citizenship for Guantanamo detainees? I wouldn't put it past them ... The attack on Meehan has exposed MoveOn.org for the cheap-shot blog artists they truly are. Most of what they spew on the Internet isn't even credible. It has to hurt when a liberal newspaper in Massachusetts points that out. In Meehan's case, the facts show he's done his fair share for the DCCC and party candidates. Meehan is a convenient MoveOn.org target because he has amassed the largest campaign war chest in the House and doesn't face a November challenger. Meehan supporters should be outraged by MoveOn.org's heavy-handed tactics. To think that these Beltway fakers, who call themselves Democratic activists, would reach into the pockets of 5th District Democrats by attempting to embarrass a sitting congressman into submission shows just how rotten these political scoundrels have become on the campaign scene. Nah, they're rotten for lots of other reasons.

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Democrats call White House rhetoric on Iraq ‘outrageous’

2006-09-04

Opposition Democrats on Sunday expressed outrage at a campaign by President George W Bush’s administration portraying critics of the Iraq war as defeatists reminiscent of those who tried to appease Nazis before World War II. Bush’s top aides, including Vice President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, delivered strident speeches last week describing the conflict in Iraq as a crucial part of the “war on terror,” invoking World War II and the Cold War. “Can we truly afford to believe somehow, some way, vicious extremists can be appeased?” Rumsfeld asked in his address. Democratic lawmakers said the White House was trying to attack its critics by questioning their patriotism and determination to fight terrorist threats. “I thought his statements were outrageous,” Representative Marty Meehan of Massachusetts told CNN’s “Late Edition”.

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Home Front: Politix

Another Democrat Rewriting History

2006-01-27

WASHINGTON -- The staff of U.S. Rep Marty Meehan wiped out references to his broken term-limits pledge as well as information about his huge campaign war chest in an independent biography of the Lowell Democrat on a Web site that bills itself as the "world's largest encyclopedia," The Sun has learned. The Meehan alterations on Wikipedia.com represent just two of more than 1,000 changes made by congressional staffers at the U.S. House of Representatives in the past six month. Wikipedia is a global reference that relies on its Internet users to add credible information to entries on millions of topics. Matt Vogel, Meehan's chief of staff, said he authorized an intern in July to replace existing Wikipedia content with a staff-written biography of the lawmaker. The change deleted a reference to Meehan's campaign promise to surrender his seat after serving eight years, a pledge Meehan later eschewed. It also deleted a reference to the size of Meehan's campaign account, the largest of any House member at $4.8 million, according to the latest data available from the Federal Election Commission. "Meehan first ran for Congress in 1992 on a platform of reform," the pre-edited entry said. "As part of that platform Meehan made a pledge to not serve more than four terms, a central part of his campaign. This breaking of the pledge has been a controversial issue in the 5th Congressional District of Massachusetts." The new entry reads in part: "Meehan was elected to Congress in 1992 on a plan to eliminate the deficit. His fiscally responsible voting record since then has earned him praise from citizen watchdog groups. He was re-elected by a large margin in 2004." Vogel said, "It makes sense to me the biography we submit would be the biography we write." The change doubled the length of the entry on Meehan, corrected errors and replaced "sloppy" writing, Vogel said. "Let the outside world edit it. It seemed right to start with greater depth than a paragraph with incorrect data from the '80s." Wikipedia's online honor system has made it ripe for abuse by vandals. Recently, a user wrote in a Wikipedia bio that Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor "smells of cow dung." Another wrote that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is "ineffective." These statements were traced to the House Internet-protocol (IP) address. Rest at link.

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The Liberal Assault on Freedom of Speech

2004-02-09

Please follow the link to a very significant speach given by Thomas G. West, a professor of politics at the University of Dallas and a member of the board of directors and a senior fellow of the Claremont Institute. Here are some choice excerpts: "Those who favor campaign finance regulation sometimes claim that their primary concern is with ’corruption and the appearance of corruption’ – that is, what used to be called bribery or the appearance of bribery. But that is not the real agenda of the reformers. There is a good reason why the 2002 Act, like the 1974 law, was voted for by almost every House and Senate Democrat, and opposed by a large majority of Republicans: These laws are primarily about limiting the speech of conservatives." "Some congressmen were willing to be even more open about the fact that the new law would cut down on conservative criticism of candidates. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (Dem.-Ill.) said: ’If my colleagues care about gun control, then campaign finance is their issue so that the NRA does not call the shots.’ Democratic Reps. Marty Meehan (Mass.) and Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), and Democratic Sens. Harry Reid (Nev.) and Dick Durbin (Ill.) also cited the National Rifle Association’s political communications as a problem that the Act would solve. Several liberal Republicans chimed in." I just bet they did. Traitors. "During the Republican Eisenhower years, the FCC paid little attention to broadcasting content, and a number of conservative radio stations emerged. After John Kennedy was elected in 1960, his administration went on the offensive against them. Kennedy’s Assistant Secretary of Commerce, Bill Ruder, later admitted, ’Our massive strategy was to use the Fairness Doctrine to challenge and harass right-wing broadcasters and hope that the challenges would be so costly to them that they would be inhibited and decide it was too expensive to continue.’" "This strategy was highly successful. Hundreds of radio stations cancelled conservative shows that they had been broadcasting. The FCC revoked the license of one radio station, WXUR of Media, Pennsylvania, a tiny conservative Christian broadcaster. When WXUR appealed to the courts, one dissenting judge noted ’that the public has lost access to information and ideas . . . as a result of this doctrinal sledge-hammer [i.e., the Fairness Doctrine].’ The Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal. It saw no free speech violation in the government shutdown of a radio station for broadcasting conservative ideas." Liberalhawk, I’d be more than happy to hear what you think abou this article.

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Meehan catches it for stupid remarks

2001-09-15

U.S. Rep. Martin T. Meehan had police guarding his Lowell office after comments he made critical of President Bush's leadership prompted an angry reaction nationwide. In an interview published in yesterday's Herald, Meehan questioned the White House response to suggestions that Bush stayed away from Washington too long during the terrorist attacks - and publicly doubted that Air Force One was a target of the hijackers. ``I don't buy the notion Air Force One was a target,'' he said. ``That's just PR. That's just spin.'' But yesterday Meehan said, ``The reality is I fully support the president and I have fully supported the administration from the beginning of this crisis.'' The congressman did not dispute the accuracy of the quotes attributed to him in an interview with two Herald reporters, but said they were taken out of context. (by David R. Guarino and Ellen J. Silberman Boston Herald)

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