"They Ran Like Rats!"

I don't have the first idea why I was watching C-Span the night of April 1, 1992. My guess is that there was a Bruins game that had just ended and I was flipping around looking for something else on TV. But whatever the reason, I was fortunate enough to witness Congressman Joseph Early's meltdown on the house floor.

Now, C-Span has put over 20 years of their archives on the the web. So, if you missed it the first time or would like to relive the moment again, scroll ahead to the 379 minute mark of the embedded video and enjoy.



If you want to hear Congressman Early's speech in it's entirety, it starts at around 369:10.

Asian Longhorn Beetle Battle

With apologies to the great Dr. Seuss...

If the tweetle beetles battle
While the fuddy duddies huddle,
And the huddle o’er the battle
Is a feeble fuddled muddle.

We call that a

Feebly fuddled huddled fuddy duddy tweetle beetle battle muddle.

Inspiration from today's Telegram headline.

Anti-healthcare mob comes to Worcester

There are a few things that I have absolutely no use for. I can't stand bullies who shout and intimidate instead of carrying on with a discussion. I have no use for people who won't listen to an argument. And I have no use at all for someone who resorts to calling people Nazis.

So you can imagine what I think of this:

WORCESTER — U.S. Reps. James P. McGovern and Richard E. Neal were heckled and booed after trying to rally support today for President Barack Obama's plan for a comprehensive national health insurance program.

The two Worcester-area Democratic lawmakers were shouted down several times by people attending a packed “town hall” meeting at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

UMass officials threatened several times to end the gathering because of the raucous behavior, which occurred despite a heavy police presence.

At one point, Mr. McGovern was likened by an attendee to Josef Mengele, the Nazi officer who performed experiments on concentration camp survivors.

Look, if people want to oppose the bill, go right ahead. Ask tough questions, be skeptical, let people know what you think.

But why yell? Why attempt to intimidate? Why suggest that our congressmen are no different than Nazi criminals? Because the opponents know they cannot win this fight on the merits.

They know that if the question is whether or not all Americans deserve health care, a universal health care system will win.

They know that if the discussion is about banning insurance companies from discriminating against people with preexisting conditions, the health care reformers will win.

They know that once the American people understand that competition from a public plan will force private companies to cut their costs to compete, a public plan will win.

So instead of arguing otherwise, they attempt to intimidate.

Earlier tonight, Rachel Maddow had a report exposing the medical industry lobbyists behind the "hooliganism."

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Tags: Massachusetts Worcester Health Care James McGovern Richard Neal

Wow, it really has been a chilly summer

Yesterday, I looked at Nate Silver's weather challenge where he would bet prominent bloggers that it wasn't really as cold as they thought it was. Essentially he would have paid $25 for every day two or more degrees below average and the opponent would have to pay Nate $25 for every day where it was two or more degrees warmer than normal. I wrote yesterday that I thought his logic was flawed because he was using actual temperature data from one station to and comparing it to daily averages from another, making it look like it was really warmer in the test city (Minneapolis) than it actually was.

Well, I thought I might take a look to see how this would have worked if I were eligible for the bet and I used the closest weather station (ORH in Worcester) as my basis for actuals and averages.

From June 21 through July 18, the high temperature in Worcester has exceeded the average only twice times--once by two degrees, once by one degree. The actual high has equaled the average high just once. On the other 25 days, the high temperature in Worcester has been lower than the average, and only twice has it been within one degree. So if I were able to make the bet (and the offer had come in June), I would be ahead of Nate by a whopping $550.

If I use my criteria of meteorological summer, Nate would have to pay me out another 8 days (13 additional days two or more degrees below average, as opposed to five days two or more degrees above) putting me up by $750.

(It's amazing to think that the high temp here has been below average on 40 of the last 49 days. The temperature did not even reach 80 degrees between May 22 and July 17. The highest temperature recorded in 2009 was on April 28.)

I knew it had been cool, but I didn't realize it had been that cool.

Tags: Climate Change fivethirtyeight Nate Silver Massachusetts Worcester

House Budget part 2: The Governor wins by losing

Second in a series of thoughts on this week’s budget battle.

When the Massachusetts House ignored my advice and passed a sales-tax increase Monday night--bumping the rate from 5% to 6.25%--they did so over Governor Patrick’s threat of a veto. While Governor Patrick lost the vote—-the house approved the proposal by a bare veto-proof margin—-he is likely to have won the public relations battle. In the end, that might be more important than the vote on the tax increase itself.

Despite his threat, the governor is not going to veto this plan. If he were truly committed to vetoing the sales tax hike, he would have waited until after it passed to make that known. The Telegram & Gazette makes that clear:

There were just over 81 votes in support after a caucus Monday morning.

It was only after the governor said he may veto the tax hike if the House failed to adopt numerous controversial reforms that House leaders interrupted their session and spent the next 10 hours converting enough Democrats to line up with the House speaker in a show of strength against the governor’s threat.

When it was clear Mr. DeLeo had more than the 107 votes for the tax hike, House leaders proceeded with the vote. But there were many holdouts. In the end 14 Central Massachusetts House members voted for the sales tax and 11 voted against it. There were just over 81 votes in support after a caucus Monday morning.

The governor had to know that the House was nowhere close to having the votes to override his veto early in the day. Had he kept his mouth shut, he could have vetoed (or issued his threat) after the measure had passed.

He also had to know that he would come out of this fight smelling like a rose. Patrick can claim that he tried to stand up for the people of the Commonwealth in opposing a broad-based tax increase and that the only reason the increase went through was because Legislature dislikes him so personally that it was unwilling to put personal politics aside in an effort to stick it to him.

An example of a rep who may have at least partly changed his vote due to frustration with the governor’s politics is Worcester’s Vincent Pedone, who we have quoted before:

Rep. Vincent A. Pedone, D-Worcester, who along with Rep. John J. Binienda, D-Worcester, panned the sales tax idea last week, came around to join the speaker’s tax hike proposal Monday night. He said the governor’s “surprise letter” on Monday created “a much different dynamic” on the vote….

He said House members also took the governor’s action as a move against them for political gain. He argued the House has acted on four of five reform packages, even though the governor claims they do not go far enough.

“Sending the letter is not leadership,” Mr. Pedone said, also criticizing a video of the governor on his Web page urging supporters to contact legislators and demand more reforms. “It’s pure pandering to the public,” Mr. Pedone said.

So Rep. Pedone and potentially 25 other members changed there vote from no to yes because the governor publicly threatened to ratify their no vote and veto the bill? It appears that some members may be so petty that they would change their vote because a governor they do not like publicly supported their position. That’s just backwards.

(And sending the letter to the members of the legislature—-and the media-—as well as circulating a video message urging citizens to call their reps to lobby for the governor’s position is both leadership and pandering. There are a lot of us who wish the governor had been doing more of this sort of leading...he seems too often to be content to roll out policy ideas and hope that people instinctively embrace them, instead of advocating and campaigning for them.)

Of course, as I said above the sales tax hike will likely become law one way or the other. When the house and senate versions of the bill go to conference, you’re likely to see a final bill that includes the senate’s stronger reform measures merged with the house sales tax plan. And the governor will sit behind the big desk as he signs the measure, and take credit for holding the legislature’s feet to the fire on the issue of reform.

Or the governor may go all the way and strike the sales tax hike from the final bill, fully knowing that his veto will be overridden, and burnishing his improbable reputation as someone who is trying to put the breaks on the Legislature’s taxes.

Next: When vote trading might be a good thing

Tags: Massachusetts Worcester Vincent Pedone State House Budget Deval Patrick

House Budget part 1: Saving you from sugar tax by taxing everything else

First in a series of thoughts on this week’s budget battle in the state house.

Well, the Massachusetts House ignored my advice and passed a sales-tax increase Monday night, bumping the rate from 5% to 6.25%. In my previous post, I suggested the idea that being “afraid that voting for a string of tax changes would look bad on [a reps] record” was “a ridiculous thought if I’ve ever heard one.” Rep. Vincent Pedone of Worcester appears to be one of those members, as evidenced by his comments in the Telegram & Gazette:

Mr. Pedone said he switched [his vote] partly because of the argument that raising one tax was better than the numerous smaller tax hikes the governor has proposed. “It was a realization that we could not get core services delivered to the people of the commonwealth without this tax increase,” Mr. Pedone said….

“I don’t want to tax candy, and alcohol, and soda, and increase tolls, and continue down the line of the ‘taxes du jour’ proposed by the governor,” Mr. Pedone said.

So instead of taxing “candy, and alcohol, and soda,” Mr. Pedone thinks we’re better off by raising the sales tax on everything else. That’s just...wow. I cannot follow that logic at all, unless Pedone does not want to be on the record as “Yea on sin taxes, yea on gas taxes, yea on meals taxes.” Instead he can say “Well, I only voted to raise taxes once.”

It will be interesting to see if this pretzel-twist logic wins the day, or if voters see through it.

Next: The Governor Wins by Losing

Tags: Massachusetts Worcester Vincent Pedone State House Budget

Not enough corruption in Worcester

Apparently the biggest problem facing the city of Worcester is that there isn't nearly enough corruption and crime at the highest levels of government. That's the only explanation I can think of for this letter to the editor in Thursday's edition:

Worcester needs a Buddy Cianci. Worcester needs someone who is in charge, really in charge.

There's nothing that says good government than a man who was once indicted for racketeering, conspiracy, extortion, witness tampering, and mail fraud.

Previous T&G Letters to the Editor:
Best Letter Ever
In God we trust, in e-mails we don't
"suspiciously left-wing"
T&G Readers are off their meds again
"I like Jasmine Guy"
BREAKING: Election fraud in Auburn
"The sting of unboozed Democrats"
"Why is Mitt Romney ashamed of Massachusetts?"
"hot condiments cause them to be...interested in sex"
Disgust with that nasty Francona grows
It's that dirty Francona's fault
T&G reader takes on terrorism
Worcester: the San Diego of the East
Is State Senator Barrios a Bush Crony
Rem-Dawg Debate Rages in Worcester
Jerry Remy has "lost all touch with reality"

Tags: Worcester Buddy Cianci

Worcester, Fitchburg join casino madness

While Governor Patrick continues to deliberate whether or not he will support the building of casinos in Massachusetts, more cities and towns are lining up to bring gambling to their communities. Tuesday brought two more proposals.

Worcester is trying to get into the act, as they bandy about a plan to let the Disabled American Veterans build a casino on city land:

WORCESTER -- The Disabled American Veterans of Massachusetts is asking City Manager Michael V. O'Brien to establish an exploratory committee to look into a proposal that has been broached by the group for a casino on city-owned land off Route 146....

As part of the group's proposal, it has suggested sharing the net profits from the casino with veterans groups, the city and state.

"In the past, we have provided you, the mayor and the city councilors copies of our proposal," Mr. Stack wrote in a letter to the city manager. "On average, the city of Worcester would net $40 million in addition to what would be generated by property taxes..."

Not to be left out, Fitchburg's state rep wants his city to be part of the discussion:

BOSTON -- As the statewide appetite for casinos grows, state Rep. Stephen DiNatale, D-Fitchburg, said he would consider bringing legalized gambling to North Central Massachusetts.

"I'd want to wait and see what (Gov. Deval Patrick) feels about the issue, but if he supports it I think something in the Central Massachusetts area and North Central Worcester County would be great," DiNatale said Monday.

Although he didn't specifically say "Fitchburg," DiNatale isn't pushing a site in Leominster, to be sure.

So that brings the number of cities and towns vying for casinos to at least six. Meanwhile, Governor Patrick is getting himself into his own little executive privilege spat, refusing to release the findings of the study he commissioned:

Two weeks after being briefed on the benefits and pitfalls of casinos in Massachusetts, Governor Deval Patrick and his administration are fighting to keep secret the completed studies that the governor is reviewing.

On July 25, Patrick received a stack of studies on gambling to help him decide whether to support casinos.

But in a sign that Patrick is treating the casino question with political caution, the administration declined Monday to provide copies of the records to the Globe, which filed a formal request for them July 26.

Governor Patrick needs to unveil his position soon, before more and more municipalities stake their claim to the casinos. He should also release the findings of the studies he ordered. This issue is too important to be decided under a cloud of secrecy.

Tags: Massachusetts Worcester Fitchburg Deval Patrick Casino

What kind of Mickey Mouse organization is the CIFL, anyway?

We got a little inkling of the craziness that is the Continental Indoor Football League a month or so ago when the owner of the local entry, the New England Surge, fired the head coach and hired himself.

Well, it looks like the Surge might be one of the best-run teams in the league. Last night they played former division leader Steubenville, and beat them 86-0. Only the team that lined up apparently isn't the same Steubenville team that took the field earlier in the season:

In a telephone interview during last night’s game, CIFL owner and president Jeff Spitaleri said Steubenville played its practice squad players who “haven’t played as much, if at all” because its regulars were injured or had left the team to try out for Arena Football League squads. Spitaleri said he wasn’t aware the Stampede had only 13 players.

According to Spitaleri, the Stampede’s regular quarterback, Ryan Maiuri, separated his shoulder last week and his replacement, Ali Grose, served as player-coach last night.

Asked how playing an entire team of practice squad players reflected on the league’s image, Spitaleri said, “It would have been worse not to play the game.”

This isn't the first time this season a team of replacement players has taken the field in the CIFL. On May 12 a team from Springfield, Mo. refused to travel to Stebenville for their game, so a team of replacements was fielded there:

"[Springfield co-owner] D’Lo [Brown] also needed new players, and we had a list of guys who had either played last year in this league or had been at tryouts for teams in this league,” said Spitaleri. “One of those players has a team’s worth of equipment, so he ended up taking the lead and helping us organize the new team.”

Ali Grose, who played with Marion last year and had been with Steubenville and Summit County this year, stepped up with his own equipment and jerseys....

Whoa! So Steubenville's quarterback, player-coach Ali Grose, was a Springfield Stallion just two weeks ago? What's really odd, is that the CIFL Commissioner stated two weeks ago that Grose and his then-Springfield teammates were permanent members of that team:

“People might call them impostors or replacement players, but that’s not true at all,” said CIFL Commissioner Jim Ballard. “Every one of those guys was listed on the roster and was under contract for the Stallions.”

Brown admits they weren’t the guys you saw last week or the week before, but they are the new Springfield Stallions....

So two weeks ago, Grose was a "new Springfield Stallion" and now he's a new Steubenville Stampeder. He's not the only one. The Telegram reported that Steubenville, which only brought 13 players to Worcester, "dropped to 12 when receiver Alonzo Grose limped off on the game’s third play." According to the May 13 article on the CIFL website, "the Stallions had their high point when Ali Grose connected with Alonzo Grose for a touchdown in the second half" of the Stallions' 66-8 loss at Steubenville.

So are the Groses the CIFL's resident traveling team? Need someone to show up to ensure that the game goes on and the home team gets their gate? Call the Grose family. CIFL founder Spitaleri may think that “It would have been worse not to play the game,” but the fans who shelled out up to $30.50 for a ticket to last night's game or $165 for a season ticket deserved better.

And the sports fans of Worcester who have seen one failed minor league after another deserve better.

Tags: Massachusetts Worcester Surge CIFL Football

Worcester's Football Follies

Following in the storied tradition of the Mass. Marauders (perhaps the only sports team in history to be banned from a league because the owner punched out the league commissioner), Worcester's new indoor football league team is having it's own owner problems. Surge owner Roy Lucas, Jr. has decided to do the Ted Turner thing after just four games, firing the coach and appointing himself successor:

WORCESTER— Disappointed with his team’s 1-3 record, New England Surge owner Roy Lucas Jr. fired coach Rick Buffington yesterday and appointed himself as the replacement.

“We feel very strongly that we should be at the top of our division,” Lucas said.

Worcester’s expansion team in the Continental Indoor Football League is fifth in the six-team Atlantic Division. The Steubenville Stampede leads the division with a 4-0 record.

I'd be disappointed too. You're three games behind a team that plays in a high school gym in Steubenville, Ohio? That would like being three games behind Clinton!

Obviously, a man of Lucas's football pedigree is needed to right the ship:

Lucas, 44, has never been a head football coach before, and his experience as an assistant coach is limited. While attending Bethel College in Minnesota in the 1980s, he was an intern for a year on the football staff at nearby Centennial High School. In 1996, he was strength and conditioning coach at Assumption College, and the following year he coached quarterbacks and running backs at Curry College....

Lucas was an all-purpose back for Burncoat High and a wide receiver for Bethel, a Division 3 school. After a brief free agent tryout with the Dallas Cowboys, Lucas played one season of semipro football in Colorado. Lucas owned his own sports conditioning business in Shrewsbury before founding the Surge.

And what of former coach Buffington?

Buffington said he contacted a lawyer about his firing and would remain in Worcester for a while instead of returning to his home in Somerset. “I’m not leaving here, not until things are taken care of,” Buffington said.

Of course, because it's a three-day coach ride along the post road to Somerset. You're less than an hour and a half away from home, Buff. I can't imagine why you'd want to stay back in Worcester. It's like a baby Steubenville, after all.

Tags: Massachusetts Worcester Surge CIFL Football