More Ben LaGuer bombshells?

In her column in today’s Telegram and Gazette, Dianne Williamson suggests that not only does Ben LaGuer have more letters from Deval Patrick, he claims that someone tried to pay him to release them:

[Kerry Healey] was helped in her endeavor by supportive letters written by Mr. Patrick to Mr. LaGuer and to the Massachusetts Parole Board in the late 1990s. The letters to the Parole Board sought freedom for Mr. LaGuer; the letters to Mr. LaGuer were warm and addressed “Dear Ben.” Two of the letters were made public by The Boston Globe after the newspaper obtained them from an archive at Northeastern University.

Last week, however, Mr. LaGuer said he was approached by an intermediary at the prison Oct. 18 and handed a telephone number jotted down on a piece of paper. If he called that number and read all the letters he’s received from Mr. Patrick, he would be paid $50,000 to $60,000, Mr. LaGuer said he was told.

He said that offer was upped to $100,000 shortly after. The telephone number Mr. LaGuer said he received is the number for an attorney at [a Boston law firm]…..

Steve Kenneway, president of the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union, said the grievance was filed after Mr. LaGuer complained to an officer that he was “visited by people he didn’t know and was offered money for documents.” According to Mr. Kenneway, the two male visitors were initially denied entrance but then escorted by management to a private area typically reserved for legal visits. The sergeant on duty wasn’t allowed to be present for the visit, Mr. Kenneway said.

“There definitely is something strange about this whole scenario,” Mr. Kenneway said. “There is absolutely something that went wrong with this visit. There was definitely a breach of protocol, and I can’t get a straight answer from anybody.”

A spokeswoman for the law firm said the charges were “‘absolutely untrue’”, and a spokesperson for the Department of Corrections said they believe LaGuer made the story up.

Mr. LaGuer, who has steadfastly maintained his innocence, said he rejected the offer to sell Mr. Patrick’s letters. “If I did that, I would have no honor,” Mr. LaGuer said. “The idea that I would take $60,000 to betray a friendship seems pretty outrageous. I have to live with myself here.”

Mr. LaGuer claimed that he has more letters from Mr. Patrick than were obtained by The Boston Globe, although he indicated that they’re not in his possession at the prison, partly because inmates aren’t allowed to keep valuables in their cell.

I’m not sure I believe anything LaGuer says. I think he’s a self-serving huckster who will do anything to keep his name in the papers. But suspending my own disbelief for a moment, if these allegations are true, there are two bombshells here:

1. There are more “Dear Ben” letters from Deval Patrick to LaGuer.
2. Someone (the article implies that it was the Republicans) wants to get this info so badly they were willing to pay LaGuer for it.

Can you imagine how devastating it could have been to Patrick’s campaign if voice recordings of LaGuer reading the letters he allegedly received from Patrick were broadcast on your TV, radio, and on robo-calls? $100,000 would be chump change for that material. (I suppose you could also argue that the opposite is true: it would be worth that kind of money to “silence” LaGuer. Although if his story is true, getting the letters read out loud over the phone wouldn’t suppress anything.)

In any event, I wonder if the first act of a Patrick administration will be to take phone privileges away from LaGuer. He’s probably had enough of LaGuer referring to their “friendship.” Honestly, does the guy have his own secretary too? Can any inmate take calls from reporters seemingly every day? Something tells me that Patrick’s people don’t think LaGuer is helping.

Tags: Massachusetts Election 2006 Ben LaGuer Deval Patrick Kerry Healey

Stunner: Worcester T&G endorses Patrick

I have to say I wasn’t expecting this. The Telegram and Gazette editorial board is pretty conservative; they don’t make a habit of endorsing Democrats (They endorsed Weld, Weld, Cellucci, and Romney in the last four elections). While I realize that the chances were higher this year because of Tim Murray’s presence on the ticket, the endorsement doesn’t spend a ton of time on Murray’s contribution. I think it speaks both to the breadth of Deval Patrick’s support and the failure of Kerry Healey to resonate among those voters responsible for the Weld-Cellucci-Romney run.

A couple of excerpts:

In debates, political ads and on the campaign trail, Deval L. Patrick has laid out a broad and appealing vision for moving the state forward. He also has demonstrated a refreshing inclination toward consensus rather than confrontation, along with leadership and communication skills that are indispensable to effective governance.

We believe Deval L. Patrick and Worcester Mayor Timothy P. Murray, his highly capable running mate, would be a potent force for a positive change in the governor’s office and in Massachusetts.

Mr. Patrick has tended to speak largely in general terms about how he would accomplish his goals. Yet over the course of the campaign he has provided a number of clear indications of the direction his administration would take.

Our recommendation of the Patrick-Murray team has been influenced in no small measure by the off-putting campaign of his Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Kerry M. Healey.

While some voters may conclude that Mr. Patrick’s entanglement in the legal maneuverings of a convicted rapist was ill-conceived, the cynical campaign of fear Ms. Healey wove around the episode was a far graver lapse of judgment on her part. The ploy has backfired, deservedly, not only failing to attract the voters she and her handlers thought it might win over, but also driving away supporters whose sense of fair play has been deeply offended by the campaign.

While Gov. Mitt Romney and Ms. Healey have made some notable accomplishments, the confrontational relationship with the overwhelmingly Democratic Legislature has severely limited their effectiveness.

We find credible Mr. Patrick’s determination to build a relationship based on collaboration and mutual respect and believe that the Patrick-Murray team would be a change in the right direction.

Tags: Massachusetts Election 2006 Kerry Healey Deval Patrick

Fitchburg named one of the “worst cities in America”

I might place Leominster’s ugly step-sister on the list of the worst cities in Massachusetts, but I seen enough of America that I wouldn’t put it on a list of the worst places in the country. But author Dave Gilmartin has:

Garden State progeny Dave Gilmartin’s book “The Absolutely Worst Places To Live in America” (Thomas Dunne Books, $11.95) serves up serious contempt for two Bay State communities, Allston and Fitchburg.

“It’s very hard to respond to the nonsense that is in the book because it is so mean-spirited,” said Dan H. Mylott, mayor and life-long resident of Fitchburg….

His complaints about Fitchburg include “illegal drag racing, theft, hanging out at payphones, drugs and mispronunciation.”

“My reaction is, if Fitchburg is so bad, then why do we have so many people moving here from Boston? All this from a guy from New Jersey?” said David McKeehan, president of the North Central Massachusetts Chamber of Commerce.

Because they’re all moving to Leominster.

Tags: Massachusetts Leominster Fitchburg

NFL Picks, Week 8

For entertainment purposes only. Picks are against the spread, straight up winners are in bold.

Tennessee (-3) over Houston (W, 28-22)
Philadelphia (-7) over Jacksonville (L, 6-13)
Cincinnati (-3.5) over Atlanta (L, 27-29)
Tampa Bay (+9) over N.Y. Giants (L, 3-17)
Chicago (-16) over San Francisco (W, 41-10)
Green Bay (-4) over Arizona (W, 31-14)
Seattle (+6) over Kansas City (L, 28-35)
New Orleans (-2) over Baltimore (L, 22-35)
San Diego (-10) over St. Louis (W, 38-24)
Pittsburgh (-9) over Oakland (L, 13-20)
N.Y. Jets (+2) over Cleveland (L, 13-20)
Denver (-3) over Indianapolis (L, 31-34)
Carolina (-5.5) over Dallas (L, 14-35)
New England (-2) over Minnesota

Against the Spread

LAST WEEK   4- 8- 1  .346
TO DATE    48-45- 7  .515
THIS WEEK   4- 9- 0  .308
SEASON     52-54- 7  .491

Straight Up

LAST WEEK   5- 8  .384
TO DATE    64-36  .640
THIS WEEK   6- 7  .462
SEASON     70-43  .619

Tags: Football NFL Picks odds

Grand Theft Auto: AUC

Among the controversial aspects of the Grand Theft Auto series of video games are challenges where the main character is charged with starting gang wars between various ethnic gangs in the city. Looks like certain students at Atlantic Union College have recently decided to take it on themselves to act out the game in real life:

Atlantic Union College took on the look of a crime scene Oct. 16, when police from Lancaster, Clinton, Bolton and Sterling responded to a brawl that court documents describe as “out of control.”

“Students were throwing anything they could get their hands on and people were getting hurt by flying projectiles,” the report, filed by officer Everett Moody of the Lancaster Police Department, read.

According to police, the altercation began in the college’s gymnasium in what some say was an ongoing dispute between a group of Bermudian and Haitian students.

Those tensions came to a head during the game, Moody’s report stated.

Fleurette Montes, a sophomore at the college was in the gym when the verbal argument started.
“I was in the stands at the gym and this Bermudian boy came and threatened me that ‘if I mess with the Bermudians I will get hurt,’” Montes said. “Then chaos happened.”

According to police, the verbal altercation moved outside and at some point resulted in Reid stabbing fellow student Reggie Lowe in the leg. Lowe was transported to the hospital, received six stitches and was released. Student Clay Smith was also treated for minor injuries.

But according to Gibson Bartelus, a junior and a resident assistant in the men’s dormitory, he was escorting Reid back to Student Services following the argument in the gym when he said he noticed three other students pursuing them. Bartelus said one of the students picked up and was wielding a “keep off the grass” sign and that Reid was defending himself when the stabbing occurred.

I’m saddened that this sort of thing is happening at my alma mater. Although, to be honest, the vision of students chasing each other around the campus mall with a “Keep off the Grass” sign is kind of funny.

Thankfully, the administration is focused on what’s really important here:

“We did a shakedown of the men’s residence hall and we did find a couple of knives but we found no guns and such,” [Vice President of Student Services Dean] Mentges said. “And we didn’t find any alcohol. There were officers there watching and we went through quite succinctly. It took a couple of hours.”

I’m not sure having the officers go through “succintly” would be qualified as a “shakedown,” but whatever works. And I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear that they didn’t find any alcohol. Sure, we found a few weapons here and there, but thank God we didn’t find any booze. Now that would really be a problem.

Tags: Massachusetts South Lancaster Atlantic Union College AUC crime

5,000 strong

No Drumlins welcomed it’s 5,000th visitor today. Since adding StatCounter to the site on January 26, here are other milestones:

500th visitor — May 23
1,000th visitor — June 30
2,000th visitor — August 15
3,000th visitor — September 8
4,000th visitor — September 28
5,000th visitor — October 27

The case against Claire Freda for state rep.

Since April, I’ve been expecting the race for State Rep between incumbent Jen Flanagan (Democrat) and City Councilor Claire Freda (Claire Freda) to heat up, but it has been unnervingly quiet. Until this week. Apparently Freda has been saving up her ammunition for the final two weeks: out of the blue, the campaign has exploded in a full-on assault of nastiness.

Last night, the Sentinel and Enterprise hosted a debate at city hall and it was ugly. I watched the last two-thirds of it on local access TV and let me tell you, I had to shield my five-month old son from the contempt coming off the screen and out of the speakers. The thing should have been rated TV-14 (hate).

One thing that was clear is that Claire Freda thinks that she deserves to be state rep, that she should have won the Dem primary in 2004, and that young pretty Jen Flanagan has no business holding the seat she’s been wanting for years. So Freda made two tactical decisions: she would leave the Democratic party (despite having been a member of the State Democratic Committee), and she would run on a platform of opposing anything and everything Flanagan has done over the last two years, regardless of value.

As such, Freda’s campaign has been an entirely negative one. She has yet to provide a rationale for why she should be elected. As far back as April, Freda questioned Flanagan’s priorities in passing legislation to provide for more school nurses across the state. Never mind that it takes a good legislator to pass a bill when it has no obvious constituency in the state house. In Freda’s narrow world, a legislator’s only responsibility is to the 43,000 residents of our city, the children of Massachusetts be damned.

Freda’s contempt for the representative and the school nurse measure is so strong, that she suggested last week that Flanagan pushed the bill because she is beholden to others:

“Who told her school nursing was a priority? Her mother who is a nurse? Mary Jane (Simmons, former state representative who Flanagan was an aide for), who used to be a nurse, and all the Mass. Nurses Association that have been pushing her for a couple years,” Freda said.

Suggesting that a former state representative who died in office while proudly representing this city is a special interest no different from a union group is unbelievably crass and shameful.

She followed that up with a smear mailing suggesting that Flanagan advocates letting level 3 sex offenders attend state colleges. In response to Flanagan’s claim that banning sex offenders from attending college when they return from jail would be unlawful, Freda said “hiding behind the Constitution on that isn’t appropriate.”

Hiding behind the Constitution? Last I knew, state reps were supposed to uphold and defend the Constitution, not take stands on issues for political gain. But Freda believes that Flanagan would have been better off to demagogue the issue instead of defending the constitution.

In the debate last night, Freda criticized Flanagan for working on issues facing the Wallace Civic Center in Fitchburg, the state prison in Gardner, the Worcester County House of Corrections, and other projects in surrounding towns. She even criticized her for hiring an aide who lived in Winchendon (the horror!). It is clear that Freda believes that a representative’s only concern is inside the borders of the town she lives in.

I’m worried that Freda would have a hard time representing us in Boston. It seems like she’d go absolutely crazy having to travel through Lancaster, Harvard, Littleton, Acton, Concord, Lincoln, Arlington, Cambridge, and Boston to get to the state house. I can’t imagine what that commute would be like after a few years of Freda representation; it sounds like in her world, the roads, bridges, and services in each of those cities and towns would completely crumble because all of the money was funneled to Leominster. I’ve got an idea. Let’s move the State House to Leominster too!

Oh, and let’s not forget the tired, old, “the Democratic party isn’t the same party I grew up in” tripe. She’s trotted that out a couple of times as well. She thinks the party is too liberal, that it doesn’t represent the same values it did when she was growing up. that it doesn’t speak to the issues of working families, and so on and so on. Let’s be honest about this: She doesn’t think gays should marry, women should have the power to choose, or minorities have the same opportunities for work that the rest of us have.

Claire Freda is a Mitt Romney Republican, and she should admit it.

She’s also solely negative. If Jen Flanagan had said at the debate last night that the sky was blue, Freda would have responded that:

• Flanagan was obviously an out-of-touch liberal because she believes the sky is a color represented in the rainbow flag of the gay and lesbian movement, and that traditional Democrats like herself are alienated by the idea of the gay blue sky;
• Flanagan’s mother and the late former rep Mary Jane Simmons were both nurses who wore blue scrubs, so Flanagan is obviously beholden to the special interests of moms and dead reps;
• Freda has noticed the sky in Fitchburg is blue when she has peered over the border, so Flanagan obviously cares more about the sky in the surrounding towns than the sky in Leominster. LEOMINSTER FIRST!

For Flanagan’s part, based on the debate last night it doesn’t appear that she was expecting the campaign to turn this nasty. She seems incredulous that the items she is most proud of have been attacked for being out of touch. Because she was not ready for this sort of nastiness, she seemed a little defensive during the debate last night. She had a little bit of that sneer and swagger that combined with her youthful looks and Leominster accent made her come across as a petulant teenager arguing with her mother over curfew.

In her closing statement, Flanagan outlined all of the things she has done for the city in her two years and made a good case for why she should be reelected. She would have been better served to hammer those points for the entire hour, rather than try to parry the criticisms of her issues. Jennifer Flanagan has been a credible legislator and will represent Leominster proudly for the next two years if we are smart enough to send her back to Boston.

Since Claire Freda is concerned only with Leominster, we would do well to leave her on the city council where she belongs.

Tags: Massachusetts Leominster Election 2006 Legislature Jennifer Flanagan Claire Freda

My favorite political ad of the season

The best I’ve seen so far:

Tags: Democrat Election 2006 George Bush Iraq Stay the Course

“Here we go, Boston, Here we go!”

Friday, Kevin Paul Dupont snuck a line into the last paragraph of his Bruins column that touched a nerve with me. He wrote:

Late in the third period, the sellout crowd chanted “Let’s Go, Bruins,” and to hear that again on Causeway was to hear an echo from a long-forgotten past.

I appreciate the point he was trying to make, but “Let’s Go, Bruins” is not “an echo from a long-forgotten past.” It’s an abomination.

“Here we go Bruins, Here we go! (clap clap)” Now that’s an echo from the past. “Let’s go, Bruins” is just another obscene New York-ism (like Macy’s and the New York Times) that has taken over what used to be a Boston tradition.

When I was growing up, if you turned on the radio and caught a Bruins-Rangers or Red Sox-Yankees game, you could tell who the home team was just by the chant of the fans. The New York fans sang “Let’s Go, Rangers (clap, clap, clap clap clap)” while fans in Boston cheered “Here we go Bruins, Here we go! (clap clap).” Whether it was the Bruins or the Celtics, the Garden would absolutely sing. If there was a trademark Boston cheer, that was it.

But sometime over the last 15 years, Boston lost it’s cheer.

I’m guessing it has to do with the success of the New York teams in the mid-to-late 90s. My generation grew up with the Celtics championships and year after year of Bruins playoff teams. Every big game I saw on TV while I was growing up was from the Garden. Every night, you’d hear the crowd roar “Hear we go, Bruins/Celtics, Here we go!” while John Kiley played along.

But the generations that came of age since the Bruins and Celtics fell off the map grew up with great New York teams and learned how to be “fans” watching them. It’s not that they grew up fans of the New York teams, but when they see the Rangers, Devils, and Yankees in the Stanley Cup or World Series year after year, and they heard “Let’s go Rangers/Devils/Yankees!” over and over and over again night after night, they just assumed that’s the way it’s done.

It’s not. And it’s cringe-inducing. No respectable Red Sox fan should ever cheer “Let’s Go Red Sox (clap, clap, clap clap clap).” Yet it’s all you ever hear. For God’s sake, that’s the same cheer Yanks fans use to call out their lineup before every game (“Der-ek Je-ter” clap, clap, clap clap clap “John-ny Dam-on” clap, clap, clap clap clap)!

30 years ago that cheer would have got you beaten in Fenway Park. Had you run a “Lets Go, Bruins” in the Boston Garden in the 70s, Mike Milbury would have come into the stands and beaten you with your shoe.

So please, in the name of Bunker Hill, the Boston Pops, Brigham’s Ice Cream, Dunkin Donuts and all that is holy, let out a good “Here we go Bruins, Here we go!” next time you’re at the Garden. Leave the baby New York stuff to Philadelphia (I hear there is a lot–a lot– of culture there).

Tags: Boston Bruins Red Sox Celtics New York Yankees Rangers Devils

Merry Christmas, Yankee fans!

Someone in MLB marketing will probably get fired for this:

October 24, 2006 — Talk about bad timing.

A new Yankee Christmas ornament sanctioned by Major League Baseball and bearing the team’s official logo features a beaming Santa waving – as he pilots a plane.

“My reaction at first was, ‘I don’t believe it,’ ” said Midtown lawyer Denis Guerin, who yesterday received glossy literature touting the “Yankees Victory Plane” – “a limited-edition annual holiday treasure” – in the mail….

According to the advertisement, “The 2006 Annual Yankees Ornament makes the ideal gift for every New York fan on your Christmas list.”

“Your team spirit will soar” with the plane on your tree, it says.

Tags: Major League Baseball New York Yankees Cory Lidle Christmas