More campaign propaganda.

Robert Z. Nemeth is back with a glowing endorsement of Lew Evangelidis for Worcester County Sheriff.  In a stunning surprise, Lew is a registered Republican, much like Mr. Nemeth's previous glowing endorsements of Karyn Polito and Scott Brown. 

I don't have a problem with Mr. Nemeth's endorsement of Republicans, nor do I have a problem with his constant repetition of Republican talking points.  After all, his weekly article is found on the Opinion page (and I know the difference between an Opinion piece and a news piece.)  I don't like Mr. Nemeth's use of independent as a synonym for Republican.  To my surprise, Mr. Nemeth didn't use the word independent at all in today's article.  I wish the T&G had a counterpoint to Mr. Nemeth, but every year their Sunday Opinion page gets smaller and smaller.

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"He (Mr. Evangelidis) advocated charging inmates fees to defray the cost of their incarceration — a policy he wants to enforce at the county jail."

Mr. Nemeth did miss on this point.  In 2004 the Superior Court of Massachusetts struck down Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson's attempt to charge fees for inmates (details here and a counterpoint here).  Whether or not you agree with the daily fee, sheriffs don't have the ability to levy these fees under state law, so if Mr. Evangelidis becomes sheriff, he'll have to lobby the State Legislature (where he used to serve) to change the law.

Mr. Evangelidis also promises the following:

"Inmates on occasion can earn small amounts of money for labor performed while they are incarcerated.  I will make sure that every penny earned by inmates goes towards paying any monetary responsibilities that are not up to date.  These will include child support payments, restitution payments and legal fees."

It's an admirable goal, but on top of a daily fee plus fees for medical visits, dental visits, and haircuts where will this money come from?  Either inmates will be forced to beg for money from their families, or the fees won't be collected at all and become an added burden when an inmate is released.  (Unless they have a good work release job like Joseph Duggan.)

Petty differences.

Do we really have City Councilors complaining about a raise for Brian Allen?  Didn't they give themselves an 84% pay raise for part time work a few years back when the budget was just as strained?  I also seem to remember City Manager Mike O'Brien handing out pay raises for his top assistants at City Hall during the same belt tightening periods.  Where was the outcry then?  Where were the calls for fiscal prudence?  (Maybe they should have hired Robert Z. Nemeth to write their campaign propaganda.)

I think members of the School Committee need to paint their faces blue and listen to this sound clip.  It seems as if the T&G and the City Council really have an axe to grind with money being spent on the school side of the city ledger.

Rage against the tax machine.

Whether it's a video game, a grieving daughter, or a freshman senator no one had the guts to say what needed to be said.

Joseph Stack was a nutcase.  I suspect if he had a foreign name or dark skin, Robert Nemeth would write a column a month from now about how Obama wasn't protecting us from terrorists.


As the nation's political discourse gets darker, more strident, and more violent, there will be more nutcases like Joseph Stack.  It's not an American future I want to see.

Good Journalism, Part 1.

I've had issues with some Robert Z. Nemeth columns in the past, but today's was an excellent read.  If he continues to channel his inner Albert Southwick, I will be out of a few Sunday afternoon posts!

A perfect cure for an annoying day.

I stumbled across the Muppets Studio Channel on YouTube, and I'd like to dedicate the following video to Robert Z. Nemeth.

Lazy Journalism, Part 4

Robert Nemeth, I've missed you (Part 1, 2, 3).  Apparently Mr. Nemeth just woke up from his nap to comment on the attempted bombing of Flight 253 that occurred 44 days ago.  I'm glad he took the time to think his way through the issue so he could be factually correct.

Mr. Nemeth as we know is an independent (assuming you don't know that Independent = Republican in Nemeth speak.)  Therefore you would expect an independent, well thought out critique of the intelligence agencies that failed to detect a threat to America. 

"Have those entrusted with the security of the homeland heard the alarm this time?"

"He (Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab) allegedly carried the same explosive that shoe-bomber Richard Reid tried to use."

"The roots of the problem go deeper than just procedural glitches and negligence at the gate. They derive from the contrition mentality of the Obama White House based on the notion that the Bush administration had overreacted to Sept. 11 and exaggerated the terrorist threat at the expense of civil liberties."

"The much-maligned Bush administration’s security measures might have displeased the ultraliberal crowd, but they kept America safe."

Those four quotes underline the 'logical' leaps that Mr. Nemeth takes to diagnose the problem.

Muslim bomber 

+ 

soft liberals in love with constitutional rights

= 

AMERICA UNDER ATTACK!!!! 

= 

Go back to Bush Administration policies

If Mr. Nemeth truly is independent, then he would acknowledge that Richard Reid attempted to blow up Flight 63 after the passage of the 'un-emasculated' Patriot Act during the Bush Administration.  His critique of security measures should lay the blame equally on the Obama and Bush Administrations for letting two foreign nationals on planes in foreign countries with explosives.  Perhaps Mr. Nemeth would acknowledge that the creation Homeland Security as an additional layer of bureaucracy hasn't solved the primary failure of the intelligence community.  The FBI, CIA and NSA have the information, and haven't acted upon it in time to prevent attacks (9-11 and Fort Hood) or attempted attacks (Shoe bombers and underwear bombers).

Instead of blaming President Obama, perhaps Mr. Nemeth should read this article, with this quote:

 "Patrick F. Kennedy, an undersecretary for management at the State Department, said Abdulmutallab's visa wasn't taken away because intelligence officials asked his agency not to deny a visa to the suspected terrorist over concerns that a denial would've foiled a larger investigation into al-Qaida threats against the United States.

"Revocation action would've disclosed what they were doing," Kennedy said in testimony before the House Committee on Homeland Security. Allowing Adbulmutallab to keep the visa increased chances federal investigators would be able to get closer to apprehending the terror network he is accused of working with, "rather than simply knocking out one solider in that effort."

 Instead of praising Israel's security sytems, perhaps Mr. Nemeth should be aware of this nugget:

"Reid demonstrated his nerve in July when he flew to Israel and passed El Al's intensive scrutiny, after raising suspicions during security screening."

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In Mr. Nemeth's America, a threat to our safety means we should grant our government almost unlimited powers to monitor our movements, conversations and actions.  Safety can only be achieved if the government knows where everyone is at all times, what they are thinking, and what they are doing (or may do in the future).  If Mr. Nemeth truly believes in such a scenario, I would like to pose the following hypothetical situation. 

Currently the Republican party is the minority and out of power.  

Imagine that a very vocal part of your party advocates violence against the Democratic majority.  

Imagine there is an outbreak of political violence aimed at the Democratic majority.  

Imagine that President Obama reacts just like President Bush, and declares all Republicans possible terrorists and a threat to national security.  

Imagine that Mr. Nemeth gets picked up because he wrote articles in the past that attacked the Obama Administration.  How soon do you think Mr. Nemeth would be screaming for his liberties and railing against the tyranny of the Democratic party? 

I imagine it would be as they dragged him away to a CIA black site.

If we want our government to know of every threat and the location of every possible terrorist, then we will lose whatever liberties granted to us in the Bill of Rights.  That isn't an America I want to live in.

Lazy Journalism, Part 3!

I took two weeks off- one because Jeff beat me to it, and another because "Z" apparently took the week off also.  But now I'm back with my Lazy Journalism series (Part 1, Part 2) on my favorite curmudgeon, Robert Z. Nemeth.

“I’m not beholden to special interests. Because I don’t owe anybody anything, I’m free to tell the truth and fight for what I believe in."  -Scott Brown, as told to Robert Z. Nemeth

Candidates tell the voters and reporters many things, some true, some false, some chock full of BS.  It's the job of responsible voters and reporters to do a little digging and find out if the candidate is telling the truth.  It's especially important for reporters to dig a little harder- after all, their articles are read and trusted by many readers.  When a reporter doesn't dig deeper, they do a disservice to their news organization and their readers. 

If Mr. Nemeth had anything better to do with his time, perhaps he could have turned up these few choice facts about Scott Brown's claim that he isn't beholden to any special interests.

FreedomWorks and Club For Growth have been mobilizing support for Mr. Brown.  (Article on ThinkProgress.org)  FreedomWorks is headed by former House Republican Dick Armey, author of the Contract For America back in 1994.  You can thank Mr. Armey for this summer's disruptive town meetings regarding health reform.  FreedomWorks has been the chief architect of the angry and divisive tone of the town halls.  Instead of a true debate based on facts, we can thank FreedomWorks for displays such as these: (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)  Club For Growth is a Wall Street PAC that lobbies for influence and bailouts from Washington.  Candidate Brown claims he is opposed to future stimulus bills, despite the fact that he accepts money from firms that benefited from the two stimulus bills.

OpenSecrets.org is a great website for tracking candidates and contributions to their campaigns.  Unfortunately, they only have numbers through 12/31/09.  It will be interesting to see the updated numbers for January, when all the attention on Scott Brown materialized.

The Office of Campaign and Political Finance has a partially updated website.  Scott Brown's last update was apparently in 2008???
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My favorite part of Mr. Nemeth's scribblings came in the paragraph regarding the recent failed underwear bomber.

"At a time when homeland safety is endangered due to an ultra-liberal mindset in Washington that at times appears to be more concerned about the rights of terrorists than the safety of Americans, the Senate needs a hard-liner on national security. Even before the Christmas Day attempt by an Islamic jihadist to destroy a Detroit-bound airliner with nearly 300 people aboard, Scott Brown, a lieutenant colonel with close to 30 years of service in the National Guard, expressed concern about flawed security measures and the apparent breakdown of the command structure. He said authorities should have recognized the warning signs before an officer described as a Muslim fanatic murdered 13 military personnel at a Texas Army base in November, just as they should have prevented the “underwear bomber” from boarding an airplane. "

I think the same could be said for the summer of 2001 when the Cheney/Bush Administration along with the CIA, FBI and NSA missed out on the largest terror attack on U.S. soil.  Eight years later we have the Department of Homeland Security, a Cheney/Bush creation that should be the focus of Mr. Nemeth's criticism, not the candidacy of Martha Coakley or the Obama Administration. 

Perhaps Mr. Nemeth believed Rudy Giuliani a few weeks ago when he claimed that "We had no domestic terror attacks under Bush."  (In a stunning coincidence, Rudy "9/11" Giuliani recently campaigned with Scott Brown.  With 'independent' allies like that, can we really trust Mr. Nemeth's candidate to keep us safe?  Did Scott Brown denounce the Cheney/Bush Administration when Richard Reid tried to blow up his shoe on an airliner?
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I'll end with this chestnut tossed in near the end of Mr. Nemeth's column:

"She hardly displayed a profile-in-courage by refusing to debate her opponent one-on-one, insisting on the presence of a nonentity who has no chance of getting elected."

 That nonentity is a candidate who gathered enough signatures as an independent candidate to appear on the ballot for this election.  Having that sort of organization and dedication should guarantee Joe Kennedy's appearance in the debates.  This is a democracy where any citizen can run for office, regardless of party affiliation.  I would think that Mr. Nemeth would encourage candidates like Joe Kennedy- after all, Mr. Nemeth constantly hopes for an 'independent' voice to guide us.  Apparently Mr. Nemeth's has a dictionary where Independent = Republican.

Lazy journalism, part 2!

Apparently I'm going to start a weekly series based on the Sunday column of Robert Z. Nemeth. I hoped Tracy would tackle this article because she is far more knowledgeable about the subject, but no such luck (yet?).

Mr. Nemeth begins his article with the following quote:

"Hard-core opponents of charter schools are licking their chops at the prospect of the state closing two of those schools, one in Springfield and another in Lowell, for alleged testing irregularities, mismanagement or lack of academic progress. They’re using the occasion to discredit all charters in the state. The effort is mean-spirited and misguided."

Apparently Massachusetts Education Commissioner Michael Chester is a 'hard core opponent' despite the fact that he was appointed by Governor Deval Patrick. In related news this week, Governor Patrick called for expansion of charter schools in the state.

Mr. Nemeth then takes exception to Mr. Chester's actions:

"Mr. Chester should be more concerned about the well-being of tens of thousands of children in regular district schools who receive substandard education."

Perhaps Mr. Nemeth should read this article about the new head of the Robert Hughes Charter in Springfield. With all the hoopla over the Donna Byrnes hiring last year, imagine Mr. Nemeth's anti public school vitriol if the School Committee hired a convicted felon to run a public school?

Mr. Nemeth finishes with the jewel:

"However, expansion comes with suffocating restrictions and creates a bureaucratic nightmare. It mandates quotas for low-income, special education, high-risk and limited-English-proficiency students, along with specific strategic plans to recruit and retain students from such categories. No district school is expected to function under such restrictions."

The reason district schools don't have such restrictions is because the entire public school system cannot turn away any students! Our public schools are full of high risk and underachieving students, and charter schools aren't. Comparing results from the two is highly illogical, and only serves Mr. Nemeth's agenda.

I hope next week he decides to leave his argument with Clive McFarlane to the break room at the T&G.

Lazy Journalism

I've never been a big fan of Robert Z. Nemeth. His journalistic style and political philosophy reminds me of Sam the Eagle. His opinion piece in Sunday's T&G was particularly lazy.

I'm fine with his endorsement of Scott Brown. I don't agree, but after all, it's an opinion piece. But I do take issue with his sloppy journalism.

"If Ms. Coakley goes to Washington, she is expected to be in lockstep with Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader. Mr. Brown has been known for his independent voice."

Does Mr. Nemeth really believe that Scott Brown's 'independent' voice won't be in lockstep with the Republican minority in the Senate? If Mr. Nemeth believes that, he obviously didn't do his homework on the candidate. Next time, eliminate the word independent and just come out and say Republican.

Let's run down Mr. Brown's stance on the major issues:

Health Care: "I believe that all Americans deserve health care coverage, but that we shouldn't have to create a new government insurance program to provide it. I support strengthening the existing private market system."

Immigration: "However, we are also a nation of laws and government should not adopt policies that encourage illegal immigration."

Energy: "I oppose a national cap and trade program because of the higher costs that families and businesses would incur."

Abortion: "While this decision should ultimately be made by the woman in consultation with her doctor, I believe we need to reduce the number of abortions in America. I believe government has the responsibility to regulate in this area and I support parental consent and notification requirements and I oppose partial birth abortion. I also believe there are people of good will on both sides of the issue and we ought to work together to support and promote adoption as an alternative to abortion."

Death Penalty: "I believe there are some crimes that are so heinous that they deserve capital punishment. Our Government should have the ability to impose the death penalty in cases where it is justified."

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Apparently 'independent' equals Republican in Mr. Nemeth's dictionary.