Sal DiMasi
The Outraged Liberal sums up the latest on the state-funded lawyer for the former state employee.
David Bernstein asks:
Do you think the state house of representatives sits around and brainstorms ways to further lose the public's trust and confidence, or do you think it just comes to them naturally?
The Outraged Liberal reviews the political machinations, cautions Republicans they have little to be proud of, given the record of a generation's worth of GOP governors.
Jay Fitzgerald points to "50-plus years of one-party rule on Beacon Hill" and writes that any Democratic governor who would appoint James Aloisi to any position of authority is complicit.
Dan Dunn, who lives in Arlington, is not at all happy with his state rep, Jay Kaufman, because Kaufman didn't just vote to make Sal DiMasi house speaker, he did so with relish - and then defended him when the Globe first started asking questions about Cognos:
... End of questions about his integrity, Jay? Really? A grand jury still has some questions. So do I. And they're questions about you.
UPDATE: Emerging from federal court just in time for the 5:30 news, DiMasi said everything he has ever done has always been "in the best interests" of his constituents and the Commonwealth. His lawyer, Thomas Kiley, said "citizen legislators" do not earn enough to support a family: "He has earned a living, and for that he is charged today." Kiley then declined to answer questions: "It isn't about the press, it isn't about the voters. We will present our case in the courtroom and (at the end) you all will agree with me, as will the jury ... that Mr. DiMasi has never violated the public trust."
The Globe has the details on the charges against former Speaker Sal DiMasi related to $20 million in contracts with software vendor Cognos (now part of IBM).
Also indicted: DiMasi pal and un-lobbyist Richard Vitale, DiMasi pal and Cognos lobbyist Richard McDonough and Cognos sales agent Joseph Lally.
Read the indictment (PDF file), which says DiMasi received payments of $5,000 a month for his services.
Innocent, etc.
Because our alleged leaders are displaying a notable lack of brains, from Deval Patrick finding a good hack job for Marian Walsh to, well, Marian Walsh accepting a good hack job, as the state sinks deeper into debt, the Outraged Liberal fulminates.
DiMasi talks to the Globe.
Outraged Liberal: In the end, Sal DiMasi is doing the right thing ...
... But he is being less than honest in blaming his downfall on "powerful special interests" in the casino industry. ...
The Outraged Liberal compares the coverage of Sal DiMasi's possible imminent departure and the news that Gov. Patrick is cutting $128 million from local aid - which helps pay for police, firefighters and road repair:
... Welcome to a journalism feeding frenzy -- created by a local press corps that doesn't routinely cover the daily ins and outs of a $26-plus billion industry, prefers gossip and rumor over facts and wouldn't know context if it hit them in the face. ...
He does give props to the Globe for putting the local-aid story on the front page.
The Lowell Sun is reporting. And DiMasi's flack is denying.
The Outraged Liberal rounds up the latest on Sal DiMasi and Richard Vitale (hero to slackers everywhere - his lawyer tried to get his arraignment postponed this week because dude was on vacation).
Jay Fitzgerald has been making the case for what's left of the Massachusetts Republican Party to basically secede and recast itself as the party of fiscal restraint to keep Massachusetts from descending into one-party despotism.
But why wait? We've already got Democrats ripping into Sal DiMasi (over the whole Cognos affair, which the Globe has turned into a daily feature).
Bumpkin draws a picture; any insurgency involving pro-slots Rep. David Flynn is suspect.
Jay Fitzgerald marvels at the slow-motion coup unfolding in the House of Representatives.
The Globe: DiMasi refuses to provide records:
House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi is refusing to comply with a demand for records from the state Ethics Commission in its conflict-of-interest investigation, leading to a secretive legal showdown that has yet to be resolved, according to officials familiar with the matter.
In this post-Wilkerson world in which we live, Mike Ball doesn't get it:
Contemporary with Sen. Dianne Wilkerson's protracted disgrace — and her unwillingness to live in the same world of laws and consequences as most of us — Salvatore F. DiMasi is likely blowing up his on scandal in the making.
The Outraged Liberal wonders if DiMasi really has something to hide in the case involving former DiMasi confidante Richard Vitale and the way Cognos (now part of IBM) got a state software contract:
... The circumstantial evidence surrounding DiMasi, Vitale and the software manufacturer Cognos is not pretty and needs to be properly sorted out. But that can't happen when principals decline to provide the material investigators say they need to do their job. ...
Globe: DiMasi's ally gets scrutiny from AG.
The Outraged Liberal wonders who hates DiMasi enough to leak word of a grand-jury investigation:
... The fact Coakley's office is involved in hardly startling. It doesn't take a fortune teller to know that Vitale, Cognos and the other players in this drama have raised a lot of eyebrows. You don't hire George Regan as a mouthpiece if you are innocent as a newborn babe.
But to drop a dime on the Globe, two weeks before an election, even one in which DiMasi is running unopposed, is a very serious message that someone has the Speaker in his sights. ...
The Globe just keeps digging up more on Sal's pals. Maybe the Globe details explain the Herald story about the continued strife between DiMasi and the other bulls in the herd.
The Outraged Liberal sums up that latest news on Richard Vitale, the strategist lobbyist pal of Sal DiMasi.
Sal DiMasi expresses his outrage at the calumnies of the Republican Party (Wait? We have one? Yes, seems we do) regarding his ethics, or alleged lack thereof, in a letter to fellow House members.
Let's be completely uncynical for a moment and take Sal DiMasi at his word that he never once discussed some bill his pal, who gave him a discounted third mortgage, was hired to push, as the Globe quotes him as saying. In which case, he really needs to tell chum Richard Vitale to shut the frick up - and register as a lobbyist for chrissakes. Also, ever notice how often George Regan is involved in this sort of story?
The Outraged Liberal is getting tired of the disparities in the way the public treats Deval Patrick's alleged foibles (drapes!) with DiMasi's more serious ethical questions:
... DiMasi bumps along from one questionable encounter and deal to another without so much as an eyebrow raised on the public scene.
Part of the difference of course is that Patrick was elected statewide with a promise of changing business as usual. DiMasi represents one district in the North End, runs the Massachusetts House and is business as usual.
And he's been winning -- casinos, corporate tax reporting. You get the picture. ...
Quick! Who is Matt Viser talking about in this story in the Globe today?
They stood several feet away from one another, but their eyes rarely met. They did embrace briefly.
But did they retire somewhere quiet after to talk things over in private?
So instead it devotes front-page space to detail how Deval Patrick isn't a Third-World tyrant bending the state legislature to his will, while failing, as the Outraged Liberal notes, to pick up on the possible ethical questions being raised about Sal DiMasi.
Still, as Dan Kennedy writes:
If you're the governor of Massachusetts, this is not how you want to be featured on the front page of the New York Times. ...
Charley on the MTA notes the Gray Story didn't tell us anything new and got some stuff wrong, but wonders why Patrick is so completely invisible away from the State House (and no, Mr. Governor, DevalPatrick.com doesn't count):
... He doesn't get out to town hall meetings; he doesn't hold events with the general public to take the temperature of the body politic; in other words, he has indeed lost his political touch. ...
Jay Fitzgerald continues to make the case that DiMasi's casino victory was of the Pyrrhic variety.
Meanwhile, over at the local broadsheet, Joan Vennochi proves her mastery of Lexis/Nexis: She devotes an entire column to pasting in examples of politicians caught in lies over the past decade, then concludes with two sentences that set a new bar for stating the obvious - that presidential candidates get in trouble when they get caught lying. O RLY?
Harry at Squaring the Boston Globe also wonders whether Clinton was caught in another lie - by a college student.
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