Stimulus by another name

From somewhere on I-95 South.

It's tough to stay in touch while on the road. Latest news comes in dribs and drabs, but congrats to Jennifer Nassour for her election to the chair of the Mass GOP. You have some work to do, and we all wish you the best of success in the effort of jumpstarting the state party.

On the national front, it sounds as though the Republicans have circled the wagons in a stand off on the stimulus package. While the media has gone into terminal hyperbole over the economic woes, we can all agree that we are in a major correction. Now that we are all Keynesian's, the federal government is ready to throw megabucks at the economy to right the ship of state. Thing is, putting money in the Democrats hands is a dangerous exercise. Nancy Pelosi sees a major economic benefit in pouring big bucks into abortion programs, while the new president, reinforcing his goal of re-distributing the (your) wealth, wants to funnel the dough to the poor. Let's just hope that the GOP can keep stem the liberal surge.

Time to fill the tank and get back on the road. More later.

An Unexpected By-line

This may not be the most unlikely thing you will ever see in the View, but it will definitely be a perennial top ten.

A Tip O' The Hat to The Boston Globe for printing our LETTER TO THE EDITOR in today's edition. Perhaps the Op-ed crew feels compelled to present a small measure of balance in its pages and felt our letter was a reasonable objection to the Bush-bashing that has gone hand-in-hand with the new president's inauguration; or perhaps, the letter has been included as an example of a right wing rant. Let's "hope" for the former and commend the Globe for its efforts.

For additional background, see THURSDAY'S POST.

Enough is Enough

We miss Harry and his Squaring the Boston Globe Blog.

Today's issue of the Globe continues its seemingly endless, showcasing of the Obama Inauguration by including an Op-Ed graphic by Ward Sutton which purports to reflect on the departure of former president George W. Bush. Enough is enough! Obama won the election and he now sits in the Oval Office, and yet, the drumbeat of media vilification of George W. Bush continues with open personal attacks on him and his family. Enough is Enough!

The View sent the following letter to the Boston Globe today:

To the Editor of The Boston Globe:

Caught up in the euphoria of Obama's inauguration, it is understandable that your Op-Ed crew may have missed the new president's call for unity, cooperation and mutual respect. The featuring of Ward Sutton's graphic in today's edition spotlights, instead, the base level of ignorance and hatred on display during an otherwise landmark event.

Not for a minute should anyone shrink from disagreeing with our government’s policies, as open debate is a cornerstone of our way of life. But the kind of personal attacks on George W. Bush and his family, as illustrated by Sutton’s piece, marks a new low that not only disrespects Mr. Bush but defiles the Office of President itself. Admittedly, several of the panels were simply examples of vapid grousing by repressed lefties. But, endorsing those in the crowd on the Mall singing “goodbye” is to support ignorance and the denigration of the entire ceremony. And the next time you feature a web address in a cartoon, I suggest that you review it first. Is the type of material featured on FingerSaluteToBush.org, what passes for learned discourse at the Globe?

We have no illusions that this letter will find its way into the Globe, so this may well be the only chance for our readers to see it. We hope that many will agree with its sentiments. Be sure to click on and view the photos at FingerSaluteToBush.org before you make up your mind. The time for Bush bashing is past and the media needs to hear it. Obama won the election. Now its time for him to show us what he's got.

Brian Leahy, R.I.P.

Brian Leahy was my cousin and my friend. And while we may not been the lead players in each others day-to-day lives, I wanted to express my feelings on his recent passing. For a more personal and intimate look at his life, click HERE to read a warm tribute by his daughter Ann.

We were nearly the same age, but Brian was nine months older, and while we were in the same grade, he was always a little taller and thus a pattern was set that would endure for many years. He was my cousin, and we always had that family bond, but as high school seniors, he was a star footballer, heavily recruited by many name colleges before finally accepting a scholarship to Boston College, Meanwhile, recognizing that my meager hockey talents weren't going to take me very far, I scrambled after acceptance letters. And everyone in the CYO seemed to know him, especially the girls. while this sounds like a foundation for jealousy, it never worked out that way. If you knew Brian, envy was impossible. Even then he was warm-hearted and funny and you couldn't help but like him, even after he might have ground you into the grid iron of a Saturday, or treated you to an old-fashioned Dorchester roll-around.

As we grew older, Brian's career followed a path in the public sector, which, every once in a while landed his name in the newspaper. He was well-suited for the rough and tumble of public life and he seemed to thrive in that arena. I always enjoyed seeing his name in print, taking a small measure of vicarious pride in his fame. I opted for a private sector career, which eventually crossed our paths when his pension fund became a client of my firm. While we decided to keep our relationship under our hats, this afforded me an opportunity to hear about him from a professional perspective. Not surprisingly, the reviews were good. Within the tangled world of public pensions, Brian stood out as a man of high integrity, a pleasure to deal with, always full of good humor and regard for others.

As the years went by, we had a chance to recapture a little of the camaraderie we had enjoyed as kids when our two families would combine for holidays and weekend excursions in my father's old Ford. Over the years of running the rat race, I had learned a few things, mostly the hard way, about the true priorities in life, the precious value of family, home roots and the importance of spirituality. As Brian and I began to see more of each other, I realized the old pattern was still in place. He had an unabashed devotion to his wife, Evie, and his family, his Catholic faith and his beloved Dorchester. Once again, he was a step ahead of me.

Last Thursday, we said good bye to Brian at St Ann's Church. His immediate family and close friends grieved openly and understandably, but even those of us more on the fringes of his life, felt the loss of the warmth of his great heart. Godspeed Brian. You were a good man, in the very best sense of the word, and you are leaving a huge void in so many lives. We will all struggle to fill that void with precious memories. R.I.P.

Who's Minding the Store?

News of the "severance package" payable to departing Plymouth Town Manager, Mark Sylvia, comes at a particularly bad time. Cities and towns across the Commonwealth are bracing for deep cuts in the state budget which are expected to produce cuts in state aid to the municipalities. While Town government braces for some serious belt-tightening, Sylvia, who has resigned effective February 10th, is leaving Plymouth to take a six-figure job with the state, will take a payment totalling some $101,000 on the way out the door.

Of the total amount, Sylvia is being paid $49,000 for unused sick time, $20,700 for unused vacation and $31,400 as a severance payment. Payment for accumulated sick time and vacation are common in the public sector, but payments are usually capped well below these amounts. But the payment of the $31,400 in "severance" especially galling.

It appears that all of these payments are all provided for in the contract that he signed with the Selectmen in 2007. In comment to the Old Colony Memorial, Sylvia cites the protection that the severance provision provides in the event that he should be fired. But in this case, he wasn't fired, he is resigning, to take a new job, yet he still gets a severance! This is ludicrous.

In this morning's Boston Globe, Selectman Dicky Quintal, one of the two current Selectmen, who signed Sylvia's contract, claims he "wasn't aware of all the details" and wants to wants to look at the contract before commenting. It seems that he is a little late, perhaps he should have read the contract before he signed it. David Malaguti, the other current Selectman who signed the contract, cites the difficulty of forecasting the economy. Does this mean if we weren't in the abyss of a recession, the severance package would be acceptable?

If this is an example of the Selectmens' executive ability, maybe we really do need a mayor.

The lessons of The Forsaken

This book first came to our attention via a friend's website, Winter Wells. And while it took some time for it to percolate to the top of my reading list, it has proven to be a fascinating look at American-Soviet relations prior to the Cold War. The Forsaken, An American Tragedy in Stalin's Russia, by Tim Tzouliadis, begins by examining the fate of thousands of American Citizens who, during the Great Depression of the 1930's, immigrated to Russia in search of jobs and a better life. While the oppressive effects of the Depression had perhaps heightened the immigrants' susceptibility to Russian propaganda, the generally high level of public ignorance of Russian social conditions helped pave the way for what now seems like the height of folly. Suffice it to say, it didn't end well for most of these Americans who quickly found themselves abandoned by the American Government and adrift in the hellish Stalinist society.

In addition to tracing the fate of these Americans, however, another, more sobering set of facts emerges. First is new look at the monumental loss of human life under Stalin's totalitarianism. The total number of those killed, either by torture and execution, or banishment to the slow painful agony of the Gulag, is estimated to be an astonishing 20 million souls. Moreover the fact that these deaths were, for the most part, meant to terrorize, and thus eliminate, any opposition to the Communist leadership, spread a pall of anxiety and fear over everyday life.

Given this massive scale of inhumanity, it is a wonder that such evil could elude the court of world opinion, or more specifically, American opinion? It appears that the American Government's abandonment of its citizens in Russia, was part of a much broader pattern of appeasement of Stalin. While the obsequious Ambassador Joseph Davies did his best to avoid any antagonism of the Russians, including assisting Americans attempting to return to the U.S., he was clearly acting in full accord with a State Department policy of appeasement. To some extent, this strategy can be linked with Roosevelt's attempts to encourage Russia as an ally against the rising Nazi tide, it still does not fully explain the absence of protest against this barbarianism.

During this time, public opinion was heavily influenced by the fawning press reports such as those issued for years by New York Times reporter Walter Duranty, who lived a lavish lifestyle in Moscow while sending back flowery stories of Soviet life to American Readers. Another factor was the belief held by many Americans in the stated communist goal of creating a workers utopia, while blissfully ignorant of the full-scale terror being used to achieve it in Russia. It was not until faced with the reality of the Cold War that the general population began to realize the true nature of the Soviet system.

To paraphrase George Santayana, we must learn the lessons of history or risk repeating them. Early in the presidential campaign, Barack Obama was called to task by his willingness to meet directly with the leaders of belligerent countries, in spite of their animosity towards the United States. This seemingly innocuous idea, however, implies a policy of appeasement and supplication based upon a belief that these rogue regimes are really folks just like ourselves, open to reason and common sense and ignores the hatred, and perhaps imbalance, in their stated goal of American destruction. Good faith negotiation can only come after our enemies understand our strong commitment to self-defense and all that it implies.

Yesterday, Barack Obama named Leon Panetta, a liberal budget wonk and veteran of the Clinton White House, to be the CIA Director, replacing General Michael Hayden. Maybe Obama thinks that the spies, who are in many respects our first line of defense, will do a better job of protecting America if their expense reports are properly completed. Let's "hope" he's right.

Wither the Mass GOP?

A few days ago, our friend, Iron Mike, sent us a copy of his New Year greetings which included a hard look at the sorry state of the Massachusetts Republican Party. While the national political scene has been hijacked by the mass hysteria of adulation for president elect, we here in the Bay State have the impressive challenge of jump-starting the stalled efforts of the Massachusetts GOP. And while there is certainly some spillover from the national party's tepid performance during the presidential campaign, Mike reminds us of our own shortcomings:

- It began in 2007 with RINO Ogo's failed run for Congress - where he lambasted President Bush and no Republican anywhere in the Commonwealth [other than me] pushed back at him or told him to change his tune. Mass Republicans seemed willing to concede their sitting president was fatally flawed – even as he had the courage to make the surge happen, and bring a measure of victory to a four-dimensional battlefield.
- Then cowering in our caves and dugouts – we ran nobody against GrandMa Tsongas – who can’t tell the map of Afghanistan from the map of Iraq.

- Then our National GOP – and probably our MassGOP – ran RINO Ogo against Kerry. Most of us believe there was a deal struck between the MassGOP and the Democratic Party to offer Ketchup Kerry a weak opponent in exchange for quarterly access to Hillary’s Oval Office. Last January nobody saw The Messiah coming.

- When Ogo floundered [gee, do you suppose Kerry’s office sent “young Republicans” to help Ogo collect signatures?], - nobody got behind Jeff Beatty, at either the state or national level. McCain made only one secret trip to our state, - a secret fund-raiser on Nantucket.

Mike is joined by many others who point out that having tried to water down our conservative principles in attempt at bringing more voters under our "big tent" succeeded only in muddying the GOP's message. As we begin to re-build, the foundation should be a return to a clear statement of our conservative Republican fundamentals.

While the results of the last election were painful, this is not the time to go into hibernation. The new administration in Washington, as well as Democrats on Beacon Hill are about to be swamped by economic realities which will highlight the unsupportable costs of many of the liberal entitlement programs. The GOP has the opportunity to spotlight these failures while we re-tool our message and re-build our two-part form of government. Or as Iron Mike says:

This is not simply a battle about which party controls Congress or the White House, or Beacon Hill. This is really a battle to preserve liberty, individual freedom, free enterprise, and government by the people, - or to just watch our nation quickly slide into a socialist welfare state – without a shot being fired.

Mike thinks the choice is clear: we must fight for what we believe in! The View supports this choice.