Tag: deval patrick

More fallout in Boston from the slow-motion collapse of Big Wind.

Put not your faith in politically-subsidized energy projects:

The [Deval] Patrick [D, MA] administration’s $113 million New Bedford marine terminal, built as a Cape Wind construction staging area, has become a taxpayer-funded boondoggle now that the controversial offshore wind farm project is virtually dead in the water.

The South Coast Marine Commerce Terminal, which is still under construction and sits empty, is also running $10 million over budget and months behind schedule.

Baker administration officials are trying to lease out the terminal, but they now expect to fetch a lower return on the taxpayers’ investment after executives behind Cape Wind pulled out of a two-year deal to rent the 28-acre facility for $4.5 million.

Continue reading More fallout in Boston from the slow-motion collapse of Big Wind.

Deval Patrick will name caretaker to Massachusetts Senate seat ‘if’…

…John Kerry becomes the next Secretary of State. From the Boston Globe:

“I expect to do the same thing I did last time,” [MA Governor Deval] Patrick told reporters. “I’m not ruling out other options. But, as a practical matter, it’s hard for me to imagine how you could serve in the Senate for a four-month period and also run a statewide campaign in a four-month period and do both of them well.”

The Globe goes on to note why the Democrats are in a bit of a mess on this one, and simply can’t appoint somebody for the rest of Kerry’s term; and it’s… largely because of John Kerry, Mitt Romney, & Ted Kennedy.  In 2004, Kerry was running for President, and Romney was the governor of MA at the time.  So, the legislature at the time decided that the governor of MA should NOT be allowed to pick Kerry’s successor, so they changed the law*.  Then, several years later, when it was clear that Ted Kennedy would be dying in office, the legislature changed the law again in order to minimize the caretaker period before a special election could be held**. Continue reading Deval Patrick will name caretaker to Massachusetts Senate seat ‘if’…

#rsrh Say what you like about Scott Brown…

…and goodness knows that your average conservative has quite a bit to say about any Republican who can win a statewide election in Massachusetts.  I’ve done some muttering myself.  But this must have been hysterical to watch:

With fiscal negotiations consuming Washington, Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick opted to use his remarks at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate to scold the “conservative movement, so-called,” for “sapping the optimism out of our country,” positing Kennedy as the quintessential optimist.

That led to Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., taking the stage in an unadvertised appearance, addressing Kennedy’s widow, Vicki, and grinning, “I told you I’d come. Little surprise to everybody, isn’t it?”

Brown, elected to replace Kennedy last year in a historic stunner, said, “Me of all people, I understand the large shoes I have to fill.” He praised Kennedy’s knack for working across the aisle for compromise, then looked at Patrick and addressed him directly: “I have to go and do the people’s business, Governor, as you referenced. There are good people who do want to move things forward, regardless of their political party.”

Now, it’s politics – and 21st Century American politics, at that; so you can’t expect public smackdowns between politicians to involve pistols and canes and knife fights in hotels.  But this is fairly strong stuff, by the standards of these civilized times.  Especially when you consider that Governor Patrick has no intention whatsoever of running against Brown next year; which is a sentiment apparently shared by most of the Massachusetts Democratic party…

Moe Lane

(Via AoSHQ Headlines, and they really need a better way to link to those.)

Gov Deval Patrick (D, MA) just gave the GOP three more House seats.

And I’m blaming the Governor for this one because I find it inconceivable that he would have let his subordinates set policy in such a nakedly partisan fashion without him first signing off on it.  Apparently the Democratic party just doesn’t care how many ‘moderate’ Democrats have to have their careers sacrificed to the leadership’s ambitions.   I don’t know where we’ll use this development – yet – but if you think that we’re not going to use this (win or lose):

The U.S. Senate ultimately will schedule the swearing-in of Kirk’s successor, but not until the state certifies the election.

Today, a spokesman for Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin, who is overseeing the election but did not respond to a call seeking comment, said certification of the Jan. 19 election by the Governor’s Council would take a while.

“Because it’s a federal election,” spokesman Brian McNiff said. “We’d have to wait 10 days for absentee and military ballots to come in.”

Another source told the Herald that Galvin’s office has said the election won’t be certified until Feb. 20 – well after the president’s address.

Since the U.S. Senate doesn’t meet again in formal session until Jan. 20, Bay State voters will have made their decision before a vote on health-care reform could be held. But Kirk and Galvin’s office said today a victorious Brown would be left in limbo.

In contrast, Rep. Niki Tsongas (D-Lowell) was sworn in at the U.S. House of Representatives on Oct. 18, 2007, just two days after winning a special election to replace Martin Meehan. In that case, Tsongas made it to Capitol Hill in time to override a presidential veto of the expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

…to hammer home the point that Democrats Lie, think again.  The ads write themselves, and even should Coakley win the speed with which she’ll be installed will still let us run those ads.  And she would be installed speedily: her party’s leadership doesn’t just lie.  It assumes that the electorate is dumb, too.

It’s not, by the way.

Moe Lane

PS: That SCHIP veto wasn’t actually overturned, by the way.

Crossposted to RedState.