Now wonder he was so coy about future plans when he left the Senate.
"One of the ironies of the Massachusetts economy is that, despite the state’s liberal reputation and the historic opposition of its elected leaders to increases in overall defense spending, it depends significantly on defense jobs funded by federal taxpayers.... Massachusetts is the fifth-highest recipient of defense contracts, and its six bases are magnets for military-related work."
Please don't let it spoil the image and illusion of Massachusetts as a left-leaning, antiwar state or the $hit-$how fooley of parti$an politics at election time.
"State pushes to keep Mass. military bases open" by Bryan Bender and Michael Kranish | Globe Staff April 27, 2014
First in a series of occasional articles.
It was late February when William “Mo” Cowan returned to the US Senate chamber, using his lifetime privilege as a former member to walk onto the floor. Hugs and handshakes were exchanged by Cowan, who had served six months in 2013, and his former colleagues.
As Cowan enjoyed his special access to the Senate that day, he was arguably more powerful than when he was a member, appointed by Governor Deval Patrick in February 2013 to Senator John F. Kerry’s seat until a special election could be held. Indeed, Cowan, 45, had two new roles, both of which placed him at the nexus of policy and influence, and also of potential conflicts.
Last October, three months after leaving office, Cowan was hired as chief operating officer of a major player among Boston lobbying firms, ML Strategies, whose clients have included some key defense contractors.
That followed Patrick’s appointment of Cowan in July to a little-known panel with the potential to put a major imprint on defense-related business in Massachusetts, including, possibly, the business interests of some ML Strategies clients.
Cowan's conflict-of-intere$ts no problem or concern. It is simply the AmeriKan military machine in action.
The state task force he cochairs is charged with recommending how to spend up to $177 million of state taxpayer money on improvements at the six military bases in Massachusetts.
Why do STATE TAXPAYERS need to pick up the tab for a FEDERAL IMPROVEMENT?
Related:
"The deal buoyed Wall Street investors. Guggenheim Partners, a financial services firm, concluded that as a result overall Pentagon spending will remain relatively the same for the next several years before it begins to grow once again, at about 2.5 percent per year."
Next question, especially in this time of sequestered social service cuts and government-imposed austerity??
Cowan said it was unlikely conflicts would emerge from his roles at the lobbying firm and on the task force, but said he would recuse himself from deliberations if any arise.
“I don’t see the conflict, real or potential,” Cowan said in an interview.
Are you blind, Mo?
The work of the task force, whose members include representatives from state agencies, the military, and the defense industry, is at the center of a new state push to use taxpayer money in an effort to persuade the Pentagon to keep the bases open.
Nothing better to do with $177 million, huh?
You know, maybe if we had poured all that wasted Cold War and Empire loot into sustainable energy we wouldn't need to feed the beast of a war machine now.
I've basically raised the white flag on all this, readers, and recognize that the only solution is $elf-destruction. These guys are not going to stop feeding at the trough, telling lies, and pushing agendas for personal and other profit.
I already commented earlier this morning that the Globe is being written of and for certain intere$ts, and here it is again. If I were them this is the sort of item I would love to read. Being a person of peace opposed to war, I'm not. Not being written for me, you, or anyone else except that exclusive club in Boston and its surroundings.
It is an innovative but unproven strategy that may come to naught — Pentagon officials stressed in interviews that base-closing decisions in this time of shrinking budgets should be made on military grounds, not on local lobbying and spending.
Hey, what's another $177 million wasted, huh?
Btw, I just posted an excerpt showing the Pentagon budget is not shrinking at all. What is with the flat-out lying, huh?
But it may be the state’s best bet, officials say, with the potential benefit of retaining the bases well worth the gamble of state funds.
Nice of them to make that call for you, 'eh, taxpayers? If I were betting other people's money, well, I'd be employed at a large banking firm on State or Wall Street.
“This authorization will send a clear message to the Pentagon that we are serious about promoting and protecting our defense communities and our one-of-a-kind intellectual resources,” Patrick said when he signed the bond bill into law in March. State officials stressed the money would be spent on projects such as energy efficiency that would be beneficial if the property is transferred to local authorities.
New political realities
The new approach underscores the new realities for Massachusetts officials at a time when the state’s political power in Washington continues to diminish. The old lines of power between Capitol Hill and Beacon Hill are widely viewed as frayed. Long gone are the days when the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy or House Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill Jr. could send billions of dollars Boston’s way.
I'm glad we are being nudged away from the trough. I don't want taxpayer money coming here at the expense of my fellow citizens, sorry. This rank and rotten government oozes corruption and gets enough taxes as it is.
That raw political power has been replaced by an improvised power play, one that leans on less experienced legislators, the task force, and a coterie of lobbyists and consultants, all chasing dollars at a time of vast federal budget deficits.
And Cowan is at the middle of it, working as both a lobbying firm executive and gubernatorial appointee. It is a potentially delicate balancing act.
Cowan better be careful because he doesn't see the tightrope.
Some, meanwhile, criticize the whole concept of the task force, concerned that the bond bill expenditures will result in scattershot efforts that will enrich the coffers of defense and construction companies while doing little to ensure that the bases stay open. The final spending decisions will be left to whoever sits in the governor’s chair, with limited oversight from the state Legislature.
Are YOU FLIPPIN' KIDDING?
So the BANKS are also going to BENEFIT through the INTEREST on the BORROWING in the NAME of the TAXPAYERS?
The WAR MACHINE in all its glory, and if I were in the elite of Boston I would love this article. It would interest me very much.
“It is ‘Governor, spend it as you wish,’” said state Senator James B. Eldridge of Acton, one of only two legislators to oppose the bill.
Eldridge has spoken against the plan even though his district includes Fort Devens, which was mostly shuttered in 1996 but still has a training facility that could benefit from the bond bill.
“I have to ask,’’ he said, “why we are spending state money on a national, federal purpose at a time when we have many, many domestic needs?”
Because it is who government $erves now, $orry to $ay. There is no getting around it; it is right in front of you on the front page of the Globe.
It was 2005 when the state last had reason to fear that the federal government would shut down one of its military bases....
A bipartisan panel of state leaders testified against the idea, including then-governor Mitt Romney, a Republican; Kennedy, a long-serving member of the Armed Services Committee; and then-senator Kerry, a senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee.
And the pressure worked for the bases where kept open!
***********
Now, with the Pentagon proposing the creation of a new base-closure commission, officials increasingly worry that Bay State facilities will again be targeted for shutdown.
But this time, if it happens, the state will have to defend its bases from a hugely diminished political base. Kennedy and Kerry served a combined 74 years in the Senate. The state’s two current senators, Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren, have about two years of combined service in the chamber, although Markey did have a long career in the House.
Nothing about it being a broken city then, huh?
To make up for that power shortage, Patrick has developed an aggressive strategy. At its center is the task force cochaired by the governor, Cowan, and US Representative Niki Tsongas, the Lowell Democrat who sits on the House Armed Services Committee.
*************
The 14th-largest state in terms of population, Massachusetts is the fifth-highest recipient of defense contracts, and its six bases are magnets for military-related work, according to the US Census Bureau.
For example, the largest facility, Hanscom Air Force Base in Bedford, accounts for $8.4 billion in annual revenue and more than 18,000 jobs, directly and indirectly. It has attracted high-tech companies and research laboratories, including MIT’s Lincoln Labs and federally funded Mitre Corp.
The other five bases — the Army’s Natick Soldier Systems Center; the Fort Devens training facility; the National Guard facility at Joint Base Cape Cod (formerly known as Otis Air Force Base); Westover Air Force Reserve Base; and Barnes Air National Guard Base — account for another 28,000 jobs.
The state’s politicians typically say they are all for curtailing military spending — but not cuts that deeply affect Massachusetts.
It's called political bullshit and hypocrisy? Can't you smell it?
***************
The task force quickly decided that if it wanted to influence Washington, it needed to come up with a pot of money as a show of the state’s commitment to the military, which led to passage of the $177 million bond bill.
Did it quick and quiet, huh?
***************
Given the state’s declining influence in Washington, even Cowan’s brief Senate service is considered valuable....
Hectic schedule for Cowan
With its sweeping views of Boston Harbor and the city’s financial district, Cowan’s office, on the 41st floor of the 46-story One Financial Center, looks just like what it is, a coveted Boston power perch. The company that hired Cowan, ML Strategies, has long been one of the most important players in Boston and Washington, working at the intersection of politics and business.
Wholly owned by one of the nation’s most influential law firms, Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, the lobbying operation is overseen by company president Stephen P. Tocco, a former executive director of the Massachusetts Port Authority and former state economic affairs secretary. Last year Tocco, at 67, was looking for someone to eventually take his place, and he picked Cowan....
Has something to do with Markey, too?
Cowan, who was a corporate attorney at Mintz Levin before he joined the Patrick administration as legal counsel and chief of staff, now oversees a team of about 30 lobbyists and staff who work out of the ML Strategies office in Boston and its Washington branch on Pennsylvania Avenue, midway between the White House and the Capitol.
His hectic schedule is now a match for the company slogan: “From Beacon Hill to Capitol Hill.” Indeed, his Twitter account puts his location as “somewhere between BOS and DCA,” a reference to his travels to and from Washington’s Reagan National Airport.
What's the global-warming carbon footprint on all that?
The lobbying firm has represented a host of defense, energy, health care, and high-tech companies in Massachusetts and across the country, including the Biotechnology Industry Association, Cablevision, and Dow Corning.
At least we have Democrats to stand up against corporate pow.... never mind.
Cowan was picked for the role in part due to his newfound Washington connections, as well as his work in the governor’s office. Under government ethics guidelines, Cowan is prohibited from lobbying his former colleagues or the Obama administration until the middle of next year.
******************
ML Strategies has a history of representing some of the defense contractors and construction firms that have performed work at Massachusetts military bases in recent years, according to a Globe review of lobbying disclosure reports.
One of its current clients is defense industry giant Lockheed Martin. That company holds a position on the board of directors of the Defense Technology Initiative, a trade association that is an adviser to the task force.
In 2013, ML Strategies was paid at least $80,000 to lobby on behalf of Lockheed Martin in Washington on “domestic acquisition and procurement policy,” according to public records. Lockheed Martin continues to be an ML client, Cowan’s office said.
Lockheed Martin is a significant and growing employer in the Bay State, particularly in an area that task force documents show the state has identified as a major investment area: cyber-security.
Really makes you wonder who i$ behind the hackers.
The company has 250 people at a facility in Marion that specializes in electronic warfare and communications and last month it announced it was acquiring Foxborough-based Industrial Defender, which specializes in protecting the computer systems of electric utilities, chemical plants, and oil and gas facilities.
The recent acquisition will bring to 700 the total number of Lockheed Martin employees from its various divisions now working in Massachusetts, according to Gordon Johndroe, a corporate spokesman. Johndroe said the company would not discuss its relationship with ML Strategies or Cowan, saying such information is of a competitive nature.
Documents obtained through a public records request also show that state agencies have hired an array of other lobbyists and consultants to work with the task force, some of whom also have defense industry interests, as part of its effort to keep the bases open.
The task force works in concert with the state’s quasi-public financing agency, MassDevelopment, which last year paid $200,000 to a lobbying firm, The Roosevelt Group, to try to influence the federal government to keep the bases open.
More taxpayer money wasted.
That firm in turn paid at least $60,000 to ADS Ventures, a lobbying firm run by former US representative Chester Atkins of Massachusetts, to work on the issue. Atkins attended a Feb. 18 meeting of the task force, but state records do not indicate what he contributed to the discussion.
The website for ADS lists a number of defense contractors as clients, including some that sell outerwear and other military gear to the Natick Soldier Systems Center, which is responsible for outfitting troops, according to a review of lobby records and Army contract announcements.
See: Playing Soldier For a Day
*****************
Peace group surprised
The effort to pass the $177 million bond bill began with little notice and seemingly little controversy. The most significant public opposition came from Cole Harrison, executive director of Cambridge-based Massachusetts Peace Action.
Harrison’s group had played a key role in 2012 in passage of a “Budget For All” referendum in 91 Massachusetts cities and towns that called for massive cuts in defense spending and increases in social service. The measure passed overwhelmingly in every jurisdiction where it was on the ballot, but Harrison said he has gotten nowhere trying to get the Legislature to vote on a similar proposal.
They don't listen to us, they li$ten to $omething el$e.
At least the READER KNOWS that the PEOPLE of MASSACHUSETTS do NOT APPROVE of the RAMPANT MILITARISM and WAR-PROFITEERING of the WEALTHY ELITE!
So Harrison said he felt “blindsided” when he learned last year that the same legislators who were ignoring his Budget For All proposal were preparing to vote on the military bond bill. He had heard nothing about it until it was mentioned in passing by a legislator.
“There was little to no publicity and the bill kept moving through the process without us or the public knowing it,” Harrison said.
Related: Massachusetts' Democracy
It's a $ecret!
When he learned that the bill was coming before the House Committee on Bonding, he testified on Sept. 11, 2013, expressing concern that there was no explanation in the measure about how the money would be spent.
Odd timing for the hearing.
“It is not a very accountable or transparent way to spend the money,” he said.
The committee chairman, Representative Antonio F. D. Cabral, said in an interview that he also had concerns about the lack of specifics about how money would be spent. The Patrick administration, according to Cabral, said that “they didn’t want to have their hands tied to a specific amount to a specific facility.”
Cabral came up with a compromise under which the Legislature must receive 30 days’ notice of a proposed expenditure, with the right to block it.
After the measure passed the House by a 150-to-0 vote and moved to the Senate, Patrick, Tsongas, and Cowan waged what amounted to a counteroffensive to Peace Action.
(Blog editor can't describe the detest he has for this state and it's pawn leaders)
In their role as cochairs of the task force, they coauthored an op-ed article that was published in the online edition of the Globe on Jan. 17 under the headline, “Massachusetts is the hub of military innovation.”
Mouthpiece is a well-deserved description of the Globe.
The article included a line that captured the political crosswinds over defense spending: it said that Massachusetts was at the center of both “modernizing our force and reducing military spending.”
Only two senators voted against the measure, and Patrick signed it in March.
A lobbyist works the room
Shortly after the bill became law, a reception was held on Capitol Hill that proved a big draw for those who work the Boston-Washington power axis.
The guests included members of the New England congressional delegation, lobbyists, and business members of the event’s sponsor, the New England Council, which has a defense group that has advised the task force. Then, in walked the man with a sticker on his jacket that said: “Mo Cowan, ML Strategies.”
To outsiders, the affiliation might have seemed innocuous, but in this setting, it was well known that he was a former senator who was now chief operating officer of an influential lobbying company and cochairman of a task force that will recommend how to distribute $177 million. A sizable number of people at the event had, like Cowan, gone through the revolving door of government to lobbying and consulting firms.
Looks like the REVOLVING DOOR IS NOT BROKEN!
Cowan was mobbed at the March 26 event in the Kennedy Caucus Room, named for the late Massachusetts senator, a man legendary for his ability to steer federal dollars to his home state. Cowan returned the enthusiasm, smiling, shaking hands, posing for pictures.
Any selfies?
Most of the guests greeted Cowan by the title he had held for six months: “Senator.”
Cowan, meanwhile, said he has no plans to leave the task force, and sees no need to consider doing so. He said his work is “as a volunteer to help the governor, the administration, to try to do what’s best for the Massachusetts economy.”
Trying to keep the military bases open, he said, “is just a means to the end of continuing to improve the economic standing of the Commonwealth, which is my concern.”
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More balance on Monday:
"New Balance in line for big military boost" Associated Press April 28, 2014
Massachusetts-based New Balance could get a boost worth tens of millions of dollars with a new Pentagon policy providing military recruits with US-made sneakers.
Matt LeBretton, the company’s spokesman, says New Balance is one of the few companies that makes a shoe meeting all federal requirements. The company manufactures shoes in Lawrence, Boston, and Maine.
Acting Deputy Secretary of Defense Christine Fox announced Friday that the Department of Defense will provide military recruits with American-made footwear, rather than giving stipends to buy shoes.
US Representative Niki Tsongas, a Lowell Democrat, has estimated that the military had spent about $180 million on cash allowances for recruits to buy sneakers since 2002.
US shoe makers and lawmakers from Maine, Massachusetts, and Michigan lobbied for the change to preserve some of the country’s few remaining shoe plants.
Kind of late, isn't it, now that so many have moved to Southeast Asia!
Related: New Bedford Nightmare
Even when they are here they are employing foreigners.
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