Covemastah
Hoopah drives the boat Chief !!
Thanks Baba !! Long time no see...Hope all is well with yah!!!
Massachusetts vote for Scott Brown . Save our Health care
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Babagounj
Strength through joy
no matter who wins this election the damage to the dems control has already happened.
This Senate seat was Coakley's to lose. Meaning everyone thought it was her already. No one was prepared to invest much cash to promote it. Basically the local dem party had promised her that this would be her reward for being a "good solider ".
Now reality has set in and now people are scared.
Please notice that all the anti-Brown ads are just that; things put together quickly to increase the most shock value.
The dem machine is now required to spend money that they never intended to, and that really hurts them, spending funds on their own "safe" senate seat.
This translate that no seats can now be considered secure and everyone of them will require a fight. This will spread their resources { $$ and personal } to the breaking point.
This Senate seat was Coakley's to lose. Meaning everyone thought it was her already. No one was prepared to invest much cash to promote it. Basically the local dem party had promised her that this would be her reward for being a "good solider ".
Now reality has set in and now people are scared.
Please notice that all the anti-Brown ads are just that; things put together quickly to increase the most shock value.
The dem machine is now required to spend money that they never intended to, and that really hurts them, spending funds on their own "safe" senate seat.
This translate that no seats can now be considered secure and everyone of them will require a fight. This will spread their resources { $$ and personal } to the breaking point.
Danny,
Really? Guilt? Me? LOL. Absolutely not. I just don't understand a country that has a $14 trillion a year economy, spends like a drunken crack-head on wars, corporate welfare, propping up ruthless dictators, and yet cries about a trillion dollars over 10 years. And all these welfare cheats you know already have government paid for health care. This discussion isn't even about them. I'd be all for nationalized health care if I thought it stood a chance. And right about now people are coming up with all the problems in other countries with that system. Yeah, well this is the United States and if we wanted to do it, we'd simply do it better. We are that good.
But really, the fact (that liberals cheer and conservatives loathe) is that in time that will happen anyway.
Really? Guilt? Me? LOL. Absolutely not. I just don't understand a country that has a $14 trillion a year economy, spends like a drunken crack-head on wars, corporate welfare, propping up ruthless dictators, and yet cries about a trillion dollars over 10 years. And all these welfare cheats you know already have government paid for health care. This discussion isn't even about them. I'd be all for nationalized health care if I thought it stood a chance. And right about now people are coming up with all the problems in other countries with that system. Yeah, well this is the United States and if we wanted to do it, we'd simply do it better. We are that good.
But really, the fact (that liberals cheer and conservatives loathe) is that in time that will happen anyway.
brett636
Well-Known Member
"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." -Karl Marx
Wow, the text in bold above and the quote from the father of communism sure does have some scary similarities. I guess your a closet Marxist after all.
UnconTROLLed
perfection
Yeah, jumped the border something like 20 miles to Bedford. Not really a problem, rather a solution.
The only thing that scares me is the way the dems have been bombarding the city offices up here. Crooked.
dannyboy
From the promised LAND
bsam
you and i are in total agreement.
the problem is, you see the gooberment coming up with the answers, i see the people coming up with them.
there is not one damn thing good about this country that has had its roots in the federal government. not one. all might have been good ideas when enacted, but all have been prostituted and mandated, and come with 2000 layers of government to support.
the american people are against what is called health reform, the way the gooberment wants it. what the american people really want is true reform, truth in what a doctors visit actually would cost, should i want to pay cash, not the smoke and mirrors that is over inflated pricing so we can charge insurance companies a lot, giving them the ability to claim that their massive buying power is getting them huge discounts, when it fact they are paying the true costs of health care, plus the cost of insurance.
health care ought to be like using credit cards for gas. it costs more, so if you do use it, you pay for it.
only in medical care is there true price fixing done by the insurance companies and the government. let the market find its own price. you would be shocked to see what a market based health care system would bring in changes. and tort reform as well.
those are real health care reform issues, not the gooberment take over that has been proposed.
d
Babagounj
Strength through joy
Martha Coakley background...............http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704281204575003341640657862.html
Martha Coakley's Convictions
The role played by the U.S. Senate candidate in a notorious sex case raises questions about her judgment.
By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ
The story of the Amiraults of Massachusetts, and of the prosecution that had turned the lives of this thriving American family to dust, was well known to the world by the year 2001. It was well known, especially, to District Attorney Martha Coakley, who had by then arrived to take a final, conspicuous, role in a case so notorious as to assure that the Amiraults' name would be known around the globe.
The Amiraults were a busy, confident trio, grateful in the way of people who have found success after a life of hardship. Violet had reared her son Gerald and daughter Cheryl with help from welfare, and then set out to educate herself. The result was the triumph of her life—the Fells Acres school—whose every detail Violet scrutinized relentlessly. Not for nothing was the pre-school deemed by far the best in the area, with a long waiting list for admission.
All of it would end in 1984, with accusations of sexual assault and an ever-growing list of parents signing their children on to the case. Newspaper and television reports blared a sensational story about a female school principal, in her 60s, who had daily terrorized and sexually assaulted the pupils in her care, using sharp objects as her weapon. So too had Violet's daughter Cheryl, a 28-year old teacher at the school.
But from the beginning, prosecutors cast Gerald as chief predator—his gender qualifying him, in their view, as the best choice for the role. It was that role, the man in the family, that would determine his sentence, his treatment, and, to the end, his prosecution-inspired image as a pervert too dangerous to go free.
The accusations against the Amiraults might well rank as the most astounding ever to be credited in an American courtroom, but for the fact that roughly the same charges were brought by eager prosecutors chasing a similar headline—making cases all across the country in the 1980s. Those which the Amiraults' prosecutors brought had nevertheless, unforgettable features: so much testimony, so madly preposterous, and so solemnly put forth by the state. The testimony had been extracted from children, cajoled and led by tireless interrogators.
Gerald was sent to prison for 30 to 40 years, his mother and sister sentenced to eight to 20 years. The prosecutors celebrated what they called, at the time "a model, multidisciplinary prosecution." Gerald's wife, Patricia, and their three children—the family unfailingly devoted to him—went on with their lives. They spoke to him nightly and cherished such hope as they could find, that he would be restored to them.
Hope arrived in 1995, when Judge Robert Barton ordered a new trial for the women. Violet, now 72, and Cheryl had been imprisoned eight years. This toughest of judges, appalled as he came to know the facts of the case, ordered the women released at once. Judge Barton—known as Black Bart for the long sentences he gave criminals—did not thereafter trouble to conceal his contempt for the prosecutors. They would, he warned, do all in their power to hold on to Gerald, a prediction to prove altogether accurate.
No less outraged, Superior Court Judge Isaac Borenstein presided over a widely publicized hearings into the case resulting in findings that all the children's testimony was tainted. He said that "Every trick in the book had been used to get the children to say what the investigators wanted." The Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly—which had never in its 27 year history taken an editorial position on a case—published a scathing one directed at the prosecutors "who seemed unwilling to admit they might have sent innocent people to jail for crimes that had never occurred."
It was clear, when Martha Coakley took over as the new Middlesex County district attorney in 1999, that public opinion was running sharply against the prosecutors in the case. Violet Amirault was now gone. Ill and penniless after her release, she had been hounded to the end by prosecutors who succeeded in getting the Supreme Judicial Court to void the women's reversals of conviction. She lay waiting all the last days of her life, suitcase packed, for the expected court order to send her back to prison. Violet would die of cancer before any order came in September 1997.
That left Cheryl alone, facing rearrest. In the face of the increasing furor surrounding the case, Ms. Coakley agreed to revise and revoke her sentence to time served—but certain things had to be clear, she told the press. Cheryl's case, and that of Gerald, she explained, had nothing to do with one another—a startling proposition given the horrific abuse charges, identical in nature, of which all three of the Amiraults had been convicted.
No matter: When women were involved in such cases, the district attorney explained, it was usually because of the presence of "a primary male offender." According to Ms. Coakley's scenario, it was Gerald who had dragged his mother and sister along. Every statement she made now about Gerald reflected the same view, and the determination that he never go free. No one better exemplified the mindset and will of the prosecutors who originally had brought this case.
No matter: When women were involved in such cases, the district attorney explained, it was usually because of the presence of "a primary male offender." According to Ms. Coakley's scenario, it was Gerald who had dragged his mother and sister along. Every statement she made now about Gerald reflected the same view, and the determination that he never go free. No one better exemplified the mindset and will of the prosecutors who originally had brought this case.
Before agreeing to revise Cheryl's sentence to time served, Ms. Coakley asked the Amiraults' attorney, James Sultan, to pledge—in exchange—that he would stop representing Gerald and undertake no further legal action on his behalf. She had evidently concluded that with Sultan gone—Sultan, whose mastery of the case was complete—any further effort by Gerald to win freedom would be doomed. Mr. Sultan, of course, refused.
In 2000, the Massachusetts Governor's Board of Pardons and Paroles met to consider a commutation of Gerald's sentence. After nine months of investigation, the board, reputed to be the toughest in the country, voted 5-0, with one abstention, to commute his sentence. Still more newsworthy was an added statement, signed by a majority of the board, which pointed to the lack of evidence against the Amiraults, and the "extraordinary if not bizarre allegations" on which they had been convicted.
In 2000, the Massachusetts Governor's Board of Pardons and Paroles met to consider a commutation of Gerald's sentence. After nine months of investigation, the board, reputed to be the toughest in the country, voted 5-0, with one abstention, to commute his sentence. Still more newsworthy was an added statement, signed by a majority of the board, which pointed to the lack of evidence against the Amiraults, and the "extraordinary if not bizarre allegations" on which they had been convicted.
Editorials in every major and minor paper in the state applauded the Board's findings. District Attorney Coakley was not idle either, and quickly set about organizing the parents and children in the case, bringing them to meetings with Acting Gov. Jane Swift, to persuade her to reject the board's ruling. Ms. Coakley also worked the press, setting up a special interview so that the now adult accusers could tell reporters, once more, of the tortures they had suffered at the hands of the Amiraults, and of their panic at the prospect of Gerald going free.
On Feb. 20, 2002, six months after the Board of Pardons issued its findings, the governor denied Gerald's commutation.
Gerald Amirault spent nearly two years more in prison before being granted parole in 2004. He would be released, with conditions not quite approximating that of a free man. He was declared a level three sex offender—among the consequences of his refusal, like that of his mother and sister, to "take responsibility" by confessing his crimes. He is required to wear, at all times, an electronic tracking device; to report, in a notebook, each time he leaves the house and returns; to obey a curfew confining him to his home between 11:30 p.m. and 6 a.m. He may not travel at all through certain areas (presumably those where his alleged victims live). He can, under these circumstances, find no regular employment.
The Amirault family is nonetheless grateful that they are together again.
Attorney General Martha Coakley—who had proven so dedicated a representative of the system that had brought the Amirault family to ruin, and who had fought so relentlessly to preserve their case—has recently expressed her view of this episode. Questioned about the Amiraults in the course of her current race for the U.S. Senate, she told reporters of her firm belief that the evidence against the Amiraults was "formidable" and that she was entirely convinced "those children were abused at day care center by the three defendants
Martha Coakley's Convictions
The role played by the U.S. Senate candidate in a notorious sex case raises questions about her judgment.
By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ
The story of the Amiraults of Massachusetts, and of the prosecution that had turned the lives of this thriving American family to dust, was well known to the world by the year 2001. It was well known, especially, to District Attorney Martha Coakley, who had by then arrived to take a final, conspicuous, role in a case so notorious as to assure that the Amiraults' name would be known around the globe.
The Amiraults were a busy, confident trio, grateful in the way of people who have found success after a life of hardship. Violet had reared her son Gerald and daughter Cheryl with help from welfare, and then set out to educate herself. The result was the triumph of her life—the Fells Acres school—whose every detail Violet scrutinized relentlessly. Not for nothing was the pre-school deemed by far the best in the area, with a long waiting list for admission.
All of it would end in 1984, with accusations of sexual assault and an ever-growing list of parents signing their children on to the case. Newspaper and television reports blared a sensational story about a female school principal, in her 60s, who had daily terrorized and sexually assaulted the pupils in her care, using sharp objects as her weapon. So too had Violet's daughter Cheryl, a 28-year old teacher at the school.
But from the beginning, prosecutors cast Gerald as chief predator—his gender qualifying him, in their view, as the best choice for the role. It was that role, the man in the family, that would determine his sentence, his treatment, and, to the end, his prosecution-inspired image as a pervert too dangerous to go free.
The accusations against the Amiraults might well rank as the most astounding ever to be credited in an American courtroom, but for the fact that roughly the same charges were brought by eager prosecutors chasing a similar headline—making cases all across the country in the 1980s. Those which the Amiraults' prosecutors brought had nevertheless, unforgettable features: so much testimony, so madly preposterous, and so solemnly put forth by the state. The testimony had been extracted from children, cajoled and led by tireless interrogators.
Gerald was sent to prison for 30 to 40 years, his mother and sister sentenced to eight to 20 years. The prosecutors celebrated what they called, at the time "a model, multidisciplinary prosecution." Gerald's wife, Patricia, and their three children—the family unfailingly devoted to him—went on with their lives. They spoke to him nightly and cherished such hope as they could find, that he would be restored to them.
Hope arrived in 1995, when Judge Robert Barton ordered a new trial for the women. Violet, now 72, and Cheryl had been imprisoned eight years. This toughest of judges, appalled as he came to know the facts of the case, ordered the women released at once. Judge Barton—known as Black Bart for the long sentences he gave criminals—did not thereafter trouble to conceal his contempt for the prosecutors. They would, he warned, do all in their power to hold on to Gerald, a prediction to prove altogether accurate.
No less outraged, Superior Court Judge Isaac Borenstein presided over a widely publicized hearings into the case resulting in findings that all the children's testimony was tainted. He said that "Every trick in the book had been used to get the children to say what the investigators wanted." The Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly—which had never in its 27 year history taken an editorial position on a case—published a scathing one directed at the prosecutors "who seemed unwilling to admit they might have sent innocent people to jail for crimes that had never occurred."
It was clear, when Martha Coakley took over as the new Middlesex County district attorney in 1999, that public opinion was running sharply against the prosecutors in the case. Violet Amirault was now gone. Ill and penniless after her release, she had been hounded to the end by prosecutors who succeeded in getting the Supreme Judicial Court to void the women's reversals of conviction. She lay waiting all the last days of her life, suitcase packed, for the expected court order to send her back to prison. Violet would die of cancer before any order came in September 1997.
That left Cheryl alone, facing rearrest. In the face of the increasing furor surrounding the case, Ms. Coakley agreed to revise and revoke her sentence to time served—but certain things had to be clear, she told the press. Cheryl's case, and that of Gerald, she explained, had nothing to do with one another—a startling proposition given the horrific abuse charges, identical in nature, of which all three of the Amiraults had been convicted.
No matter: When women were involved in such cases, the district attorney explained, it was usually because of the presence of "a primary male offender." According to Ms. Coakley's scenario, it was Gerald who had dragged his mother and sister along. Every statement she made now about Gerald reflected the same view, and the determination that he never go free. No one better exemplified the mindset and will of the prosecutors who originally had brought this case.
No matter: When women were involved in such cases, the district attorney explained, it was usually because of the presence of "a primary male offender." According to Ms. Coakley's scenario, it was Gerald who had dragged his mother and sister along. Every statement she made now about Gerald reflected the same view, and the determination that he never go free. No one better exemplified the mindset and will of the prosecutors who originally had brought this case.
Before agreeing to revise Cheryl's sentence to time served, Ms. Coakley asked the Amiraults' attorney, James Sultan, to pledge—in exchange—that he would stop representing Gerald and undertake no further legal action on his behalf. She had evidently concluded that with Sultan gone—Sultan, whose mastery of the case was complete—any further effort by Gerald to win freedom would be doomed. Mr. Sultan, of course, refused.
In 2000, the Massachusetts Governor's Board of Pardons and Paroles met to consider a commutation of Gerald's sentence. After nine months of investigation, the board, reputed to be the toughest in the country, voted 5-0, with one abstention, to commute his sentence. Still more newsworthy was an added statement, signed by a majority of the board, which pointed to the lack of evidence against the Amiraults, and the "extraordinary if not bizarre allegations" on which they had been convicted.
In 2000, the Massachusetts Governor's Board of Pardons and Paroles met to consider a commutation of Gerald's sentence. After nine months of investigation, the board, reputed to be the toughest in the country, voted 5-0, with one abstention, to commute his sentence. Still more newsworthy was an added statement, signed by a majority of the board, which pointed to the lack of evidence against the Amiraults, and the "extraordinary if not bizarre allegations" on which they had been convicted.
Editorials in every major and minor paper in the state applauded the Board's findings. District Attorney Coakley was not idle either, and quickly set about organizing the parents and children in the case, bringing them to meetings with Acting Gov. Jane Swift, to persuade her to reject the board's ruling. Ms. Coakley also worked the press, setting up a special interview so that the now adult accusers could tell reporters, once more, of the tortures they had suffered at the hands of the Amiraults, and of their panic at the prospect of Gerald going free.
On Feb. 20, 2002, six months after the Board of Pardons issued its findings, the governor denied Gerald's commutation.
Gerald Amirault spent nearly two years more in prison before being granted parole in 2004. He would be released, with conditions not quite approximating that of a free man. He was declared a level three sex offender—among the consequences of his refusal, like that of his mother and sister, to "take responsibility" by confessing his crimes. He is required to wear, at all times, an electronic tracking device; to report, in a notebook, each time he leaves the house and returns; to obey a curfew confining him to his home between 11:30 p.m. and 6 a.m. He may not travel at all through certain areas (presumably those where his alleged victims live). He can, under these circumstances, find no regular employment.
The Amirault family is nonetheless grateful that they are together again.
Attorney General Martha Coakley—who had proven so dedicated a representative of the system that had brought the Amirault family to ruin, and who had fought so relentlessly to preserve their case—has recently expressed her view of this episode. Questioned about the Amiraults in the course of her current race for the U.S. Senate, she told reporters of her firm belief that the evidence against the Amiraults was "formidable" and that she was entirely convinced "those children were abused at day care center by the three defendants
dannyboy
From the promised LAND
i didnt realize that was her
of the many textbooks on child sexual abuse i have, their story appears as a classic case of victim manipulation by over eager politicians interested only in getting a conviction in a high profile case. regardless of the actual guilt of the parties they prosecute.
shame on her. there will come a judgment day, and her punishment will be fitting to her crimes.
d
of the many textbooks on child sexual abuse i have, their story appears as a classic case of victim manipulation by over eager politicians interested only in getting a conviction in a high profile case. regardless of the actual guilt of the parties they prosecute.
shame on her. there will come a judgment day, and her punishment will be fitting to her crimes.
d
island1fox
Well-Known Member
Monster,Did your kids cry when you read them bed time stories. Turn off Glenn Beck and relax a little. Always the gloom and doom.
Sad, when people do not use a little common sense --simple math ---but then again as Jack Nicholson once said, "Some people cannot handle the truth" O/k --Lets see --the entire world is at peace, the earthquake did not happen, unemployment is not at 10%, the debt has not quadrupled in just 10 months,etc etc --Gee it is nice to be in LA-LA LAND
Babagounj
Strength through joy
Poor Massachusetts , we are expecting another snow storm on Sunday along with a visit from bho...hmmm. Question is just which is worst ?
spif91
Well-Known Member
LOL!!!!
Lue C Fur
Evil member
Obama LaLa Land is great...you put on your Obama blinders and everthing comes up roses.
I am me. An opinionated member of the BC. Did I call names? Ozymandias is simply a sarcastic way of saying that all that you think you are and all you think you have acquired is nothing. Other people's obligations? Just another opinion. Just like it seemed to be the opinion of the country that we were obligated to liberate Iraq, now it seems the opinion of the country that health care is a battle worth fighting. Yeah, I made that claim about 100 people. And you are correct about the number who could do it. Maybe 25-35. I'm just disgusted at the characterization of all people on some kind of welfare as being cheats and bums.
OVERBOARD
Don't believe everything you think
I received a robocall call today from the president himself, saying " Hi, this is President Barack Obama. I rarely make these calls and I truly apologize for intruding on your day. But I had to talk to you about the election in Massachusetts on Tuesday because the stakes are so high.
In Washington, I'm fighting to curb the abuses of a health insurance industry that routinely denies care. I'm fighting for financial reforms to stop Wall Street from playing havoc with our economy. I'm fighting to create a new clean energy economy and it's clear now that the outcome of these and other fights will probably rest on one vote in the United States Senate.
We know where Martha Coakley stands. As your attorney general, Martha has taken on Wall Street's schemes, insurance company abuses and big polluters on your behalf. She represents the best progressive values of Massachusetts. She‘ll be your voice and my ally.
But a lot of people don't even realize there is an election on Tuesday to fill the unexpired term of Ted Kennedy. They don't realize why it's so important. So please, come out to vote for Martha Coakley. And make sure everyone you know understands the stakes for their families, Massachusetts and our country"
You know Dems are really concern about the Massachusetts contest when President Obama is making "robocalls," which is not exactly presidential and flying to Boston on Sunday. Btw it really bothers me that the president is campaign for Coakley on the taxpayers dime.
In Washington, I'm fighting to curb the abuses of a health insurance industry that routinely denies care. I'm fighting for financial reforms to stop Wall Street from playing havoc with our economy. I'm fighting to create a new clean energy economy and it's clear now that the outcome of these and other fights will probably rest on one vote in the United States Senate.
We know where Martha Coakley stands. As your attorney general, Martha has taken on Wall Street's schemes, insurance company abuses and big polluters on your behalf. She represents the best progressive values of Massachusetts. She‘ll be your voice and my ally.
But a lot of people don't even realize there is an election on Tuesday to fill the unexpired term of Ted Kennedy. They don't realize why it's so important. So please, come out to vote for Martha Coakley. And make sure everyone you know understands the stakes for their families, Massachusetts and our country"
You know Dems are really concern about the Massachusetts contest when President Obama is making "robocalls," which is not exactly presidential and flying to Boston on Sunday. Btw it really bothers me that the president is campaign for Coakley on the taxpayers dime.
Kraetos
Preload, Loader
Mass. is definately a hardcore democratic state outnumbering republicans 3 to 1. The fact that brown has come this far just shows how hard the country is rejecting liberalism and progressive ideology on a large scale, as we saw in virginia and new jersey. Now hopefully we will see the same outcome in Massachusetts.
Yes! Yes! Let's all be more compassionate and pay more taxes so that the illegals and welfare cheats can get more healthcare. We'll just take it from medicare and the middle class or just print up more money. Obama says they'll just tax the drug manufacturers, banks and big businesses more. Then they will just raise prices on everything. Don't worry about the trickle down effect, just move closer to Socialism. Instead of handouts, why don't they try creating more jobs.
OVERBOARD
Don't believe everything you think
Yes, In the past I work for the FBI, transcribing Mob telephone conversation, now I'm in the witness protection program as a UPS driver. No I'm not that good, Google Obama robocall, copy & paste.
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