"Raytheon, United Technologies agree to blockbuster defense deal" by Larry Edelman and Jon Chesto Globe Staff, June 9, 2019
After charting its own course for nearly a century, Waltham-based Raytheon Co. plans to merge with United Technologies Corp. in a deal that would create the nation’s second-largest aerospace and defense company.
Raytheon and United Technologies, which is based in Farmington, Conn., said Sunday that they agreed to combine in an all-stock transaction, forming a company with about $74 billion in annual revenue, trailing only Boeing in the market for military and aerospace products and services.
If the deal is approved by shareholders and the federal government, the new company would have a stock market value of about $100 billion, almost double Raytheon’s current value, after United Technologies completes its planned spinoffs of its Otis elevator and Carrier building-services divisions.
The new partners billed the deal as a “merger of equals,” with the combined company to carry the blended name Raytheon Technologies Corp, but United Technologies, the larger of the two by revenue and market value, is clearly the more equal.
The Connecticut industrial conglomerate would have eight board seats, and Raytheon would get seven. United Technologies’ shareholders would own 57 percent of the new company, while Raytheon’s investors would control 43 percent. Raytheon shareholders would receive 2.3348 shares in the new company for every share they now own, a ratio that doesn’t provide any premium to its current stock price.
Tax policies in Massachusetts have been more favorable for businesses than in Connecticut, said Mark Gallagher, vice president at the Massachusetts High Technology Council. He noted former General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt cited taxes as a reason he wanted GE to move out of the Nutmeg State, before eventually deciding to relocate the company to Boston.
“Connecticut has made a lot of bad policy decisions in the last 10 to 15 years,” he said. “You’re seeing companies bleed out of that state.” Meanwhile, the Boston area has been a magnet for tech and other companies.
It was just a mistake. Ten years ago they were doing great, and doesn't that just melt your heart?
Defense and aerospace companies have been consolidating for years, and the US industry is now dominated by five players: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and General Dynamics. They have benefited from increased military spending by the United States and other countries and growing commercial aircraft sales.
Related: American Airlines extends Boeing Max cancellations through Sept. 3
Yeah, forget all about the "accidents involving Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines."
The Raytheon-United Technologies deal will need US antitrust approval and a green light from the Pentagon. Since it would still leave the Defense Department with five big suppliers — and there is little overlap between Raytheon’s and United Technologies’ operations — it probably will not attract significant government resistance.
Raytheon, which generated 68 percent of its 2018 revenue from the US government, is seeking to spread risks over a more diversified collection of businesses and customers, reducing its reliance on defense contracts. It makes the Patriot missile defense system, Tomahawk cruise missiles, and a range of radar, laser, and cybersecurity systems. It also provides the electronic-tolling system used on the Massachusetts Turnpike and other roads around the world.
At United Technologies, Gregory Hayes, the chief executive, is drastically remaking the company. Under pressure from investors, he proposed the spinoffs of Otis and Carrier. That leaves the aerospace business, anchored by its Pratt & Whitney jet engines, and other aviation components, including those made by Rockwell Collins, which Hayes bought last year for $23 billion. Raytheon puts Hayes deeper into defense contracting.
While cost-cutting isn’t a primary factor behind the deal, the companies expect significant savings: $1 billion annually by the fourth year after the closing. They also promised to return $18 billion to $20 billion of capital to shareholders in the first 36 months following completion of the merger through dividends and share buybacks.
The companies didn’t mention if layoffs were planned.
Michael T. Zagami, financial secretary for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1505, which represents about 2,200 Raytheon workers in Massachusetts, said he had only learned of the merger on Saturday. “I’m not satisfied at all with what I’m hearing from Raytheon,” Zagami said. “I’ve reached out to them, I haven’t heard back. So I guess it’s not a good start.”
He pointed to the 1997 merger of Raytheon and Hughes Aircraft, saying management had told him then that there would be “no ill effects” on workers but that thousands of jobs were subsequently lost when Raytheon closed sites in Bedford, Lowell, Quincy, and Waltham. Zagami added that he doesn’t know much yet about what to expect from United Technologies. “We’ll just have to be optimistic and hope for the best,” he said.
Well, the labor leader's screamin' when they close the missile plants, and I ain't marching anymore.
Waltham Mayor Jeannette A. McCarthy said no executives from the companies had contacted her and her only concerns are that local workers and the city’s economy won’t be harmed. “As long as they continue to have a [leadership] presence in Waltham and provide Waltham jobs, I don’t really get involved in the internal things of a company,” she said. “Generations of people in Waltham have worked at Raytheon.”
Raytheon didn’t return a phone call seeking comment.
Governor Charlie Baker’s office also did not respond to requests for comment on Sunday.
One of the earliest and most successful MIT technology spinoffs, Raytheon began life as American Appliance Co. in 1922 in Cambridge. Its first product was a device that allowed radios to be plugged into wall outlets. It went on to supply radar components during World War II, accidentally create microwave cooking, and become, since the 1980s, the dominant player in the Massachusetts defense industry.
The company has done its fair share of acquisitions, especially in the 1990s, when it bought E-Systems, Chrysler Technologies, Texas Instruments Defense, and Hughes Aircraft.
While Raytheon’s operations are spread around the country, it spends millions of dollars on purchasing services and components from local companies.
“There’s a whole ecosystem of small defense-tech companies that are suppliers or customers of the Raytheons of the world,” Gallagher said.....
It's called the Military-Industrial Complex, and AmeriKa's economy is based on it more than you know.
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Related: Saudi teenager faces death sentence for acts when he was 10
I'm told the “Saudi regime is advertising its impunity to the world,” but I doubt it will $top the weapons $ales.
Also see: David Ortiz in stable condition after being shot in Dominican Republic
That put the Bruins below the fold:
Now the Bruins can give Boston a third championship this sports season
Encore casino poised to clear final inspection
Yeah, it's all good in Ma$$achu$etts:
"Medical errors prevalent and costly, new survey of Massachusetts residents shows" by Liz Kowalczyk Globe Staff, June 10, 2019
In Massachusetts, a state that prides itself on its top-quality health care, 20 percent of residents have experienced a recent medical error, and most of them said they “still feel abandoned or betrayed by their doctor,’’ a new survey shows.
Researchers also calculated that errors in the state totaled 61,982 in one single year and that it cost $617 million to provide the follow-up care required by those patients as a result of the mistakes — an amount researchers called a conservative estimate, and despite a heralded Massachusetts law that requires health care providers to disclose medical errors that cause significant harm and encourages them to apologize — similar to laws in other states — only 19 percent of residents who reported an error said a caregiver apologized afterward.
The report to be released Monday by the Betsy Lehman Center for Patient Safety, a state agency, is one of the most comprehensive statewide examinations of medical errors.
It includes two components: an analysis of Massachusetts insurance claims in 2013 to estimate the number and cost of errors that year, and a recent survey of 5,000 Massachusetts households asking whether they or a close family member had experienced a medical error in the last five years. Researchers interviewed 253 respondents in-depth to uncover the long-term impact of errors.
The prevalence of medical errors reported by Massachusetts residents closely mirrors that found in national surveys and has not improved a lot over the past 20 years, underlining what medical safety leaders said is a discouraging reality. Doctors, nurses, and other providers across the country have made some progress in discrete areas: fewer patients contract certain infections in hospitals, and bar codes have reduced medication mix-ups, but widespread improvement has been elusive.
Politicians have focused on reining in cost increases and improving access to treatment, and some hospitals and nursing homes have been reluctant to invest financially in reducing errors when results are uncertain and may not help their bottom line.
Pretty much $ays it all about health care in Ma$$achu$etts, doe$n't it?
The survey results are humbling in Massachusetts, which is home to many patient safety leaders and where Betsy Lehman’s death from a medical error in 1994 sparked improvements in hospital care in Boston and nationwide. Lehman died after caregivers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute mistakenly gave the 39-year-old Boston Globe columnist, who was battling breast cancer, a fatal overdose of chemotherapy.....
There is one bright spot in the $elf-centered, $elf-$erving $lop that is $hoveled by the Bo$ton Globe these days.
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Related: New Mass. General gun violence center aims at prevention
The launch event with public officials includes Mayor Walsh and AG Healey.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
I flip open to page A2 and this is the National lead:
Sex abuse crisis the focus as US Catholic bishops convene
Below it is a photo of President Carter teaching Sunday school, while on page A6 I am told Southern Baptists are supposed to talk about sexual abuse, but right now they’re discussing whether one woman can preach.
Just don't do it in Army:
"West Point cadet’s rape conviction is overturned, drawing criticism" by Derrick Bryson Taylor New York Times, June 9, 2019
An Army appeals court overturned a West Point cadet’s rape conviction last week, siding with a defense theory that the victim engaged in a consensual sexual encounter and took steps to avoid being detected by others who were nearby.
The decision drew criticism from advocacy groups. They said the ruling was upsetting in light of the #MeToo movement and highlighted flaws in the military’s justice system at a time when sexual assaults at the three military academies were on the rise.
Maureen Curtis, the vice president of criminal justice programs at Safe Horizon, a victims services agency, said she was disappointed in the ruling. “This is really sad because we’ve come so far with the #MeToo movement and how people were less blaming and more believing of victims of sexual assault and victims of domestic violence,” she said.
Colonel Don Christensen, president of Protect our Defenders, an organization dedicated to ending rape and sexual assault in the military, said military courts need to be revamped and the quality of the judges improved. “Congress needs to quit messing around when it comes to reforming the military justice process,” said Christensen, who is retired from the Air Force. “This is one example of many that they have allowed to go on for too long.”
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Related: Sexual assaults in the military spiked nearly 38 percent last year
What about the kids?
Third child dies after horse-drawn carriage hit in Michigan
The truck’s driver was driving while intoxicated.
What is strange is government is the biggest bully of all!
"A man with a BB gun angry at another man for hitting his partner allegedly set off events that led hundreds of people to flee the Capital Pride Parade in Washington on Saturday, fearing a mass shooter, D.C. police said Sunday. Reports that shots had been fired sent people running through the streets away from downtown’s landmark Dupont Circle shortly after 7 p.m., and witnesses accounts and video spread quickly on social media. Police reported Sunday morning that Aftabjit Singh, 38, of no fixed address, had been arrested on weapons and disorderly conduct charges after witnesses led officers to him near the fountain at the center of a circle. Singh was stopped as he approached a brown paper bag containing a silver-colored imitation pistol, police said. The incident ended the parade, officials said. Videos posted on Twitter showed people trying to leave the circle in a panic. At first they appear to be obstructed by linked metal crowd control barriers, but then they rapidly overrun them. It was not clear if noises caused by the falling metal barriers were mistaken for gunshots. Police said they were trying to learn the source of any noises heard by witnesses, reviewing video and witness reports, but that officers did not report hearing gunshots....."
It's a Pavlovian exercise, and with all due respect, I am tired of the agenda-pushing controlled opposition protests presented by my pre$$, and I am also sick and tired of the endless mind-fu*k regarding the staged and scripted crisis drills and false flag fakes being presented as real.
"With Puerto Rican pride on full display along New York City’s Fifth Avenue, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Sunday he’s returning to the island to help rebuilding efforts after Hurricane Maria. Speaking at the National Puerto Rican Day Parade, Cuomo said he’s also appointing a commission to oversee the construction of a memorial, located in Manhattan’s Battery Park City, to victims of the 2017 storm. Cuomo, a Democrat, said more than 300 students from state-run colleges will travel to Puerto Rico over the summer to help the recovery. Public health experts have estimated that nearly 3,000 people died in 2017 because of the effects of Hurricane Maria. ‘‘In New York, we have not forgotten,’’ Cuomo said. ‘‘We said on day one that we will stand with Puerto Rico every step of the way.’’ Cuomo has already traveled to Puerto Rico five times since Hurricane Maria hit. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio skipped the parade, opting to campaign in Iowa as he seeks the Democratic party’s nomination in the 2020 presidential race."
He's in Iowa, huh?
Remember when he was the new voice of Occupy Wall Street (which, it turns out, was another controlled opposition group begun by Obama so he could attack Romney with it and then forget about it.)?
Btw, how were those meetings with Amazon, Bill?
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
This was my World lead this morning:
A million march in Hong Kong over eroding freedoms
Related:
"Two more major international media companies — the London-based Guardian and The Washington Post — were added to the nation’s Great Firewall, blocked on the Internet to the country’s 1.4 billion citizens as part of a crackdown on dissent by President Xi Jinping. In Washington, meanwhile, President Trump had a message: The Washington Post, CNN, and NBC were, he wrote on Twitter, ‘‘Fake and Corrupt News Media.’’ The New York Times and CNN are ‘‘truly The Enemy of the People!’’ MSNBC, which he called ‘‘the opposition,’’ was broadcasting ‘‘such lies, almost everything they were saying was the opposite of the truth.’’ Trump’s tweetstorm against the press corps over the past three days was nothing new......"
Then why take up space, ink, and print with it?
Of course, you don't see the $elf-centered, $elf-$erving pre$$ take up the causes of bloggers as they are censored out of existence. They don't even bother to mention it, so fu*k them -- and fu*k Trump, too. I'm tired of the con$tant whining and $elf-$erving $hell game surrounding the agenda-pu$hing, mind-manipulating ma$$ media.
Related: Congressman vows to pursue regulation of big tech with open mind
He was on “Fox News Sunday” and says the Internet is broken.
More protests:
"Thousands of protesters denouncing corruption blocked roads and paralyzed much of the Haitian capital Sunday as they demand the removal of President Jovenel Moise. At least one person was reported killed. Demonstrators burned tires and threw stones during the march in Port-au-Prince, where the scent of burning rubber filled the air. Many stores and gas stations were closed and travel between some cities was impeded as protesters blocked roadways with cars, stones, and other large objects. Police erected barricades near the presidential palace and fired tear gas when protesters attempted to breach them. Journalists saw at least one person who had died following the crack of gunfire nearby. He was put on a motorcycle and carried to the Sam Ambulance service, where director general Ralph Senecal said the man was shot in the chest and died by the time he reached the service. It was not immediately clear who fired the shot that killed him. The protesters were demanding further investigation into the fate of funds that resulted from subsidized oil shipments from Venezuela under the Petrocaribe program. A Senate investigation recently determined at least 14 former government officials allegedly misused $3.8 billion under the administration of former president Michel Martelly. Venezuela’s collapsing economy has forced the South American nation to halt or drastically curtail Petrocaribe shipments, leading to problems for power generation. Many Haitians now receive electricity for only a few hours a day. Protesters came from a wide cross section of society, including political parties, religious groups, and community activists."
Looks like another CIA-sponsored coup attempt, the default position for such things that appear in my pre$$.
If not, my pre$$ will drop its coverage.
"Shops were closed and streets were empty across Sudan on Sunday, the first day of a general strike called for by protest leaders demanding the resignation of the ruling military council. The Sudanese Professionals Association had called on people to stay home starting on Sunday, the first day of the work week, in protest at the deadly crackdown last week, when security forces violently dispersed the group’s main sit-in outside the military headquarters in the capital, Khartoum. The protesters say more than 100 people have been killed since the crackdown began last Monday. The protesters hope that by bringing daily life to a halt they can force the military to hand over power to civilians. The military overthrew President Omar al-Bashir in April after four months of mass rallies but has refused demonstrators’ demands for an immediate move to civilian rule. The World Health Organization said Saturday 784 were wounded in Khartoum since Monday. The Internet remains cut off in Khartoum and other types of communications also restricted, with reports of mobile network services heavily disrupted......"
Looks like a Sudanese Spring, doesn't it?
"Police detained hundreds of people in Kazakhstan amid unauthorized protests of a presidential election Sunday that opponents alleged was a fake exercise in democracy......"
I'm told rising opposition sentiment (think color coup) is leaving Kazakhstan at a crossroads, and we have those kinds of exercises every two years.
But why?
"Kazakhstan, despite having a population of only 18 million, is the ninth largest country in the world. It borders Russia to the north and China to the east and has extensive oil reserves that make it strategically and economically important and has maintained a delicate balance between Russia and the West, leading Kazakhstan to join a Russia-dominated economic alliance of ex-Soviet nations, but cultivating close energy ties and other links with the West, and the resignation will set the stage for a potential battle between Russia and the United States for influence over the successor government....."
I rest my case.
Iraq begins examining Yazidi mass graves remains
If you say so. I heard otherwise, and the the story smacks of a mental trigger effort.
Time to look forward:
"Iran gears up for high-stakes diplomacy amid tension with US" by Jon Gambrell Associated Press, June 9, 2019
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — As its nuclear deal with world powers unravels amid heightened tensions with the United States, Iran will see a week of high-stakes diplomacy capped by the first visit of a Japanese prime minister to Tehran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Shinzo Abe will arrive on Wednesday in Iran after earlier meeting with President Trump, whose maximalist approach toward the Islamic Republic has seen America reimpose sanctions once lifted by the 2015 accord and create far-reaching newer ones. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas also will visit Tehran as well this week.
What Abe will be able to accomplish remains unclear, but Abe, whose nation relies heavily on Mideast crude oil to power its economy, already has acknowledged the challenge.
Japan had once purchased Iranian oil, but it has now stopped over American sanctions. However, Mideast oil remains crucial to Japan and recent threats from Iran to close off the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth through which a third of all oil traded by sea passes, has raised concerns.
Meanwhile, Iran on Sunday announced what it described as a new surface-to-air missile battery it called the Khordad 15. The system uses locally made missiles that resemble the HAWK missiles that the United States once sold to the shah and later delivered to the Islamic Republic in the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal.
Yeah, remember that (I guess not)?
The revealing of the missiles comes as the USS Abraham Lincoln, the aircraft carrier ordered to the region, remains in the Arabian Sea. It has yet to transit the Strait of Hormuz to reach the Persian Gulf, likely to both protect a vessel already within range of airstrikes on Iran and not to provoke a response from Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which routinely harasses American naval ships......
I've had enough war propaganda, and beware another Gulf of Tonkin or USS Liberty (or even worse, a mushroom cloud over Chicago).
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Related:
"Global finance leaders meeting in Fukuoka, Japan, over the weekend said they were increasingly worried the US-China trade dispute, which shows no signs of abating, could propel the world economy into crisis. The sense of gloom at the gathering of the Group of 20 major economies came amid increasing evidence that global economic growth is slowing amid President Trump’s renewed trade war with Beijing. In a closing statement, officials at the G-20 warned trade tensions have “intensified” and agreed to address the risks, but the Trump administration gave no sign it was ready to back down. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin continued to blame China for prolonging the fight and insisted it was not hurting the US economy or hampering global growth......"
Yeah, ignore all the layoffs, job cuts, and 50-year low in labor participation, it's China's fault.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Back to the campaign!
"Six months after launching her candidacy amid blundering apologies for her longtime claims of Native American ancestry and nagging questions about whether she could compete on a national stage, Warren is experiencing something unusual in the crowded Democratic field: momentum. It is not showing up in national polls, which have remained largely steady with Warren in the single digits, far behind former Vice President Joe Biden, but energized crowds have been flocking to her events in early voting states. Her nonstop stream of policy positions, which add up to what would be a restructuring of American capitalism, has helped shape the broader debate. Some state-level surveys show Warren near Biden at the top of the field. Biden has the edge in the ‘‘first choice’’ category, with 24 percent, but Warren’s performance on that front — 15 percent described Warren as their first choice, compared with 16 percent for Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and 14 percent for South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg — reflected a stronger position for Warren than she held in previous Iowa polling......"
"In five-minute chunks of speaking time, nearly 20 Democratic presidential candidates got the chance to make their case before hundreds of party leaders at an important testing ground in early-voting Iowa. Absent from Sunday’s event was Joe Biden, who leads in early polling, and that gave the gathering the look of an audition for the former vice president’s would-be top challengers heading into the summer campaign season in the leadoff 2020 caucus state. Expected to take the stage for their strictly-enforced time-limited speeches were 19 of 24 Democrats who have joined the race to unseat President Trump. The high-profile campaign stop event comes in the wake of Biden’s reversal Thursday on a key abortion policy position. Biden now supports federal funding for abortion services after opposing it for decades. That, and other parts of the former Delaware senator’s long record, created an opportunity for many abortion-rights supporters to step up their criticism of Biden to an influential audience."
What a crock of $h!t!
So the machines have already been rigged, huh?
"Democrats upset with the outcome of the 2016 presidential election would be better off focusing on winning back Rust Belt voters who abandoned their party for Trump, rather than writing off these voters and changing the rules of the game......"
"The message from my panel, however, is clear: the “bad character” message is insufficient for a Democratic win in 2020. This is especially important as we look at the president’s approval ratings, which are hovering in the low 40 percent range. If what voters tell me is true, low approval numbers won’t necessarily translate into a vote against Trump in 2020; we can imagine voters who disapprove of the president’s lies, tweets, or his name calling, but who will still cast their vote for him because they have a different definition of character and integrity. (And moreover, of the 500 voters I surveyed, only nine report having read the Mueller report.) Jane Eyre, the heroine of the famous Charlotte Bronte novel, stated, “I am not an angel, and I will not be one ’til I die”, and we cheered as she said it. Trump may be no angel, but in 2020, disapproving Americans just might vote for him anyway....."
"House Democrats have scheduled a series of hearings this coming week on the special counsel’s report as they intensify their focus on the Russia probe and in doing so, they are trying to draw the public’s attention on the allegations that Trump sought to obstruct a federal investigation and they want to highlight his campaign’s contacts with Russia in the 2016 election, and they will lay the groundwork for an appearance from Mueller himself, despite his stated desire to avoid the spotlight. The House Judiciary Committee plans to cover the first topic at a Monday hearing on ‘‘presidential obstruction and other crimes.’’ The House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday intends to review the counterintelligence implications of the Russian meddling. On Tuesday, the House has scheduled a vote to authorize contempt cases against Attorney General William Barr and former White House counsel Donald McGahn for failing to comply with subpoenas from the Democratic-controlled House......"
Isn't John Dean there today?
You guys are trying to throw the election to Trump, aren't you?
"People are trying to figure out William Barr. He’s busy wielding power" by Sharon LaFraniere, Charlie Savage and Katie Benner New York Times, June 9, 2019
WASHINGTON — Not long before Attorney General William Barr released the special counsel’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, he strategized with Senator Lindsey Graham, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, about one of his next moves: investigating the investigators.
Yeah, when is the Times going to start investigating that?
The two discussed their shared suspicions that the officials who initially investigated the Trump campaign’s links to Russia had abused their powers.
They strongly agreed, Graham said, that “maybe one of the most important things we’ll ever do is clean up this mess.”
Then you would be destroying the Clinton-Obama imagery and exposing the politicization and weaponization of law enforcement and the intelligence agencies in what was worse than Watergate. Nixon only used the agencies to try to cover up wrongdoing by a private group of plumbers. Obama used the agencies themselves to infiltrate and spy on the campaign, and based it on a Clinton dirty tricks effort that was then funneled up through the Congre$$ and administration by evil creatures like John Brennan.
Less than two months later, Barr began his cleanup with the most powerful of brooms: a presidential order commanding intelligence agencies to cooperate with his inquiry, and sweeping power to declassify and make public their secrets — even if they objected.
The move illustrates Barr’s swift rise in the pantheon of President Trump’s most prominent and loyal allies — and in the eyes of Trump himself. In a Cabinet stocked with government neophytes and placeholders, the deeply experienced Barr is quickly emerging as the most influential figure in the second half of Trump’s term.
Unless he wins a second one, right?
Or has that die already been cast?
“He is the closest thing we have to Dick Cheney,” said Charles J. Cooper, a former senior Justice Department official, referring to President George W. Bush’s unusually powerful vice president. “He is a strong-willed man with a forceful personality” and “well-formed, deeply studied views,” but his rising power over the intelligence community has been accompanied by swelling disillusionment with Barr among former national security officials and ideological moderates. When he agreed late last year to take the job, many of them had cast him as a Republican straight shooter, steeped in pre-Trump mores, who would restrain an impetuous president.
Barr better be careful, or the Deep State will get him, and look at the New York Times smear him with the Cheney metaphor.
All that stuff is down the memory hole, too, from the father and the son -- war criminals who were never impeached by the Democrats.
Now they see in him someone who has glossed over Trump’s misdeeds, smeared his investigators, and positioned himself to possibly declassify information for political gain — not the Bill Barr they thought they knew.
“It is shocking how much he has echoed the president’s own statements,” said Mary McCord, who led the Justice Department’s national security division at the end of the Obama administration and the start of the Trump era. “I thought he was an institutionalist who would protect the department from political influence, but it seems like everything he has done so far has counseled in the opposite direction.”
So which is the real William Barr?
Is he the upright defender of the presidency who used his discretion to disclose nearly all the 448-page Mueller report, even though it hurt Trump? Or is he a manipulator who has skewed the special counsel’s evidence in Trump’s favor and is now endorsing questionable legal arguments to fend off legitimate congressional inquiry?
An examination of his record, coupled with interviews of more than two dozen associates, suggests elements of both: He is neither as apolitical as his defenders claim, nor as partisan as his detractors fear. Instead, he is a complex figure whom the right cannot count on to be a Trumpland hero and whom the left cannot dismiss as nothing more than a political hack.
I'm tired of this inside baseball bull$hit and the political hit jobs in this false dialectic, and I'm no fan of Barr. He looks like a guy who knows which secrets to keep.
Barr, 69, declined to be interviewed for this article. He brushes aside the debate, seemingly imperturbable. When a Democratic senator, Mazie K. Hirono of Hawaii, accused him at a widely watched congressional hearing of abusing his public office, lying to Congress, and serving as Trump’s toady, he just stared at her impassively.
“If you had an EKG strapped on Bill Barr, the needle would not have moved at all,” said Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University Law School, political independent, and longtime friend.
That's where my printed article flatlined.
“The idea that these attacks are having an impact on Bill Barr?” he said. “These people have no idea who they are dealing with.”
Barr, who once told a high school counselor he wanted to lead the CIA, began as an intern there. He took night classes at George Washington University Law School, figuring he could fall back on law if he got “boxed in counting rivets on Chinese tanks” as an intelligence analyst, he later said. It quickly became his passion.
So HE IS the DEEP STATE!
He clerked for Malcolm R. Wilkey, a noted conservative judge on the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Five years earlier, Wilkey had dissented from the court’s historic opinion ordering President Richard M. Nixon to turn over his secret Watergate tape recordings, arguing that discussions between a president and his advisers are protected by “absolute privilege.”
Like the judge, Barr came to embrace an aggressive view of presidential powers outlined in Article II of the Constitution.
“Bill’s natural default is Article II,” said Turley, a defender of congressional powers defined in Article I. “He views a strong executive as more needed than ever to stabilize the country and the world at large.”
Our war-criminal war-mongers destabilize it, as per the chaos theory of rule.
In between stints at a Washington law firm, Barr worked from 1982 to 1983 at the Reagan White House under C. Boyden Gray, then counsel to Vice President George H.W. Bush. Gray, who shared Barr’s belief that the post-Watergate reforms had unduly eroded the powers of the presidency, became his patron.
When Bush was elected president, Gray helped elevate Barr to head the Justice Department’s powerful Office of Legal Counsel, whose interpretations of the Constitution and law bind the executive branch unless overruled by the attorney general or president.
Over the next four years, as he rose to deputy attorney general, then attorney general, Barr put into practice his expansive view of the executive branch’s authority. He was deeply involved in the administration’s decision to invade Panama and arrest its strongman, Manuel Noriega, a move the United Nations condemned as a violation of international law.
He advised Bush that he did not need lawmakers’ approval to unilaterally attack Iraq in the Persian Gulf War of 1991, although he recommended that Bush seek a resolution of congressional support anyway.
His treatment of independent counsels, a post-Watergate reform, in some ways foreshadowed the division over his handling of the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller. He abhorred the now-defunct independent counsel statute, saying it created “headhunters” who answered to no one.
Nonetheless, just days before the act was to expire, he appointed one to look into charges that administration officials had tampered with passport records of Bush’s opponent in his bid for reelection, Bill Clinton. White House aides were furious, Barr later said, but “I had to do it.”
On the other hand, he strove to put an end to the inquiry of another independent counsel, whom he described as out of control.
Lawrence E. Walsh spent almost seven years investigating how the Reagan administration had secretly sold arms to Iran to win the release of American hostages, then used the profits to secretly arm anti-Communist rebels in Nicaragua despite a law cutting off assistance to them. The obstruction of justice case he mounted against Caspar Weinberger, former president Ronald Reagan’s defense secretary, threatened to reveal that Bush, as vice president, was more implicated in the arms shipments than he had claimed.
In his waning days in office, Bush resolved to pardon Weinberger. “I went over and told the president I thought he should not only pardon Caspar Weinberger, but while he was at it, he should pardon about five others,” Barr later said. Walsh called the pardons “the last card” in the cover-up.
Just as I suspected, and we are getting nowhere here, folks.
Six years later, senior Clinton administration officials were equally critical of independent counsel Ken Starr’s far-flung investigation of Clinton, but in that case, in a letter signed by three other former attorneys general, Barr assailed the officials, not the investigators.
Clinton was the only choice to succeed Bush, and here is why.
Things start to fold together quite well now, and you see why certain people are above the law and why they have "achieved" what they have.
Like I said yesterday, lock 'em all up!
The attacks on Starr “appear to have the improper purpose of influencing and impeding an ongoing criminal investigation and intimidating possible jurors, witnesses and even investigators,” the 1998 letter said. Twenty-one years later, those comments seem strikingly at odds with how Barr described Trump’s efforts to interfere with the Mueller inquiry.
By all accounts, Barr was not eager to join Trump’s team. Although he contributed to Trump’s general election campaign, Jeb Bush was his first choice for the Republican nomination in 2016. He refused to represent Trump as a private criminal lawyer, saying, “I didn’t want to stick my head into that meat grinder,” but Trump’s advisers saw him as the perfect replacement for Attorney General Jeff Sessions when the president forced him out in November: someone with Republican establishment gravitas and distinguished legal pedigree who seemed to share at least some of the president’s views.
He was called into service to protect the secrets, and I predict the investigation of the investigators goes nowhere or picks off only low-hanging, sacrificial lambs.
J. Michael Luttig, a former appeals court judge and longtime friend, said he ultimately decided he was unwilling to sit on the sidelines “at a moment when the country is wrapped around the axle to the point of constitutional and political paralysis.”
He had two goals, which he is now executing, friends said: to serve as a firewall between the White House and the Justice Department, which he reveres, and to keep the crisis unleashed by the investigation of Trump from weakening the presidency. Critics like Paul Rosenzweig, a former prosecutor, said that what he is actually doing is “putting his thumb on the scale” for Trump.
Barr’s decisions after he received the evidence from Mueller’s two-year investigation are likely to long be debated. Both men were on unplowed ground, without obvious historical precedent or definitive Justice Department guidelines. They disagreed on legal issues, what to tell the public and when, and it appears, the gravity of the accusations against Trump.
At a news conference, Mueller stressed that interfering with a criminal investigation “strikes at the core” of the justice system. Barr has suggested that Trump’s relentless attacks on and efforts to fire the special counsel were the understandable reaction of a leader frustrated by an investigation he saw as unjust.
Rod J. Rosenstein, the former deputy attorney general whom Trump excoriated for appointing Mueller, said in an interview that he believes that Barr’s critics have been unfair. He said he agreed with Barr’s conclusion that regardless of whether department policy allows indicting a sitting president, the evidence against Trump was insufficient to warrant criminal prosecution.
“A few years from now, after all of this is resolved, some of Barr’s critics might conclude that his approach was a reasonable way to navigate through a difficult situation,” he said.
And we will have all forgotten about it, like so many things.
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{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Editorial
Housing crisis demands zoning fix
Opinion | Timothy P. Murray
State should merge its policing units
So says a corrupt former pol!
Nothing much changes around here, doe$ it?
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
"VA denies Mass. veteran home loan over his legal marijuana job" by Naomi Martin Globe Staff, June 3, 2019
The couple, crammed in a tiny Revere apartment with two kids and a third on the way, had spent months searching for a house they could afford.
It wasn’t easy in Massachusetts’ pricey market, but the man, a disabled Army veteran, had one advantage: a military benefit, a loan guarantee that would provide a low-rate mortgage with no money down.
Finally, in November, they found a split-level ranch in Dracut they loved; it had a giant living room, a two-car garage, and a nice yard for the kids. The veteran filed his Army paperwork, but in January, as the deal was set to close, he learned that the Veterans Administration had denied his loan application.
The reason? His job: assistant manager of a licensed cannabis store.
“I was actually accomplishing a lifelong goal of mine, and then to have it pulled right out from under you at the 11th hour. . . . I was blown away,” said the veteran, 35, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect his military relationship. “It was very frustrating and demoralizing.”
$o much for your $ervice, $o much for medical and recreational legali$ation, $o much for the federal government relaxing their attitude, and $o much for the VA!
Not only that, he shows you how completely corrupt and utterly irredeemable this lying and looting government has become, and this is nothing new to veterans. The military only cares about you when you are a tool on the battlefield; when it comes time for them to uphold the promise, they renege, and we have a pre$$ that, with all due respect to this article, let's 'em get away with it (War for the Jews, donchaknow?).
The man’s experience highlights one of the many ways that federal cannabis prohibition harms veterans who either consume marijuana or work in the marijuana industry. Veterans who find medical relief from pot say they’ve suffered a loss of benefits — which the VA denies — or have been labeled unemployable. Many more say they’re financially overburdened and medically underserved because the VA doesn’t discuss or cover the drug as it does with every other medicine, including opioids.
$upport the Troops, right?
That means support the U.S. government's war policies while that same government and ma$$ media shoves militari$m down your throats neglects them (and the rest of us mere civilians). They will shell out for illegals, though.
Veterans who work in the marijuana industry face financial consequences. Retired Army Major Tye Reedy, who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, lost his military pension for working as director of operations at Acreage Holdings, one of the nation’s largest cannabis companies, according to a Barron’s report.
“A military officer working in the cannabis industry runs contrary to Army values,” the Army said, according to Barron’s.
What would those be, reversing rape convictions and the like?
I mean, the rank hypocrisy coming out of the War Machine's headquarters is mind-boggling. I guess they do it because they can.
After being rejected for his home loan in January, the Revere veteran called his congresswoman, US Representative Katherine Clark. Clark was outraged.
At least someone is responding to constituents.
When Clark’s office contacted the VA, the VA said it didn’t deem the veteran’s source of income “stable and reliable” enough for a mortgage. The VA also said that if VA employees accepted his income for a loan application, they could be prosecuted for assisting in money laundering because marijuana is federally illegal.
On May 23, Clark sent a letter, signed by 20 lawmakers, to VA Secretary Robert Wilkie, describing the local veteran’s case and asking for clarification within 30 days on the VA’s policies. The letter noted that more than 211,000 people work in the legal cannabis trade nationwide, which generates $11 billion in sales per year.
“A substantial number of veterans earn their livelihoods in this industry, and in coming years, that number is likely to further rise,” the letter said. “The VA must acknowledge this reality and ensure veterans who work in this sector are able to clearly understand and can equitably access the benefits they’ve earned.”
Honestly, asking the lying War Machine to acknowledge reality is laughable!
Asked to comment, a VA spokeswoman said: “VA appreciates the lawmakers’ views and will respond directly.”
Yuh-huh.
Lying must be a prerequisite for working there.
After receiving the written policies, Clark said, she will “coordinate a legislative response to ensure that veterans get their benefits.”
Meanwhile, the veteran in Revere is looking for a house again. His wife has headed back to work. This time, they’ll include her income on the application and go through a more conventional process without the VA home-loan benefit.
He has loved working in the cannabis industry. Having used medical marijuana to free himself from opioids that had been prescribed for chronic pain after both his shoulders were injured during a training exercise, the veteran now finds fulfillment helping customers in his shop.
Don't let that get out, huh?
It'll put a dent into pharmaceutical profits as they peddle their poison.
“I was a shell of myself” on opioids, he said. “Cannabis is a medicine that’s revolutionary, that’s giving people back their quality of life.”
If only the federal government would see it that way, he said. After all, he said, it has no problem collecting his federal taxes from every paycheck.
Of cour$e not.
“If I worked for a startup company, they’d see that as more secure,” he said. “My shop takes in $100,000 a day. What’s more secure backing than that?”
--more--"
Related: Boston celebrates revitalized arts education
Yeah, the art$ are going to save us.
Meanwhile, the medical examiner is MIA:
"After ‘temporary’ performance slip, medical examiner’s office to keep accreditation" by Matt Stout Globe Staff, June 5, 2019
The decision came after NAME officials had warned the state’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Mindy J. Hull, in January that her office would “most likely” be downgraded. The agency had reported that it was unable to complete 90 percent of its autopsy reports within 90 days — a key standard set by NAME — during an annual review late last year.
Hull argued that the performance, which put the office’s turnaround time at 84 percent since it was last reviewed, was due to “unforeseen” personal issues involving two medical examiners and the performance of a part-time contractor.
Are you tired of the lack of accountability and excuses coming from corrupt and incompetent government yet?
I mean, this is LITERALLY a LIFE and DEATH issue here!
Dr. Jonathan Arden, the organization’s president, said that inspectors felt the problems in the Massachusetts office were “relatively speaking, temporary” and that Hull was actively working to address them.
“That’s why they weren’t summarily demoted or had their accreditation removed,” he said of the Massachusetts office, noting that NAME inspectors are allowed discretion when weighing the office’s performance against the association’s standards.
“The accreditation process is meant to be rigorous,” Arden said, “but it’s not meant to be punitive.”
Dr. Barbara C. Wolf, who chairs the NAME committee tasked with reviewing accreditations, said in an e-mail last week that the panel decided the Massachusetts office “should maintain” its fully accredited status.
She did not say when the committee made its decision, nor did she respond to further questions. Arden said he was unsure of the timing of the decision.
A spokesman for Hull’s office declined to comment.
Gaining the accreditation has been a long-time goal of the chief medical examiner’s office, which has long grappled with completing autopsy reports in a timely manner. For example, it completed them within the 90-day window just 58 percent of the time in the two years before Hull took over in October 2017.
Let me put it this way, it ain't Quincy!
Last August, however, it finally earned full accreditation. That review was based, in part, on data detailing the office’s turnaround time over a three-month period between the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018.
The list the office submitted, which the Globe obtained through a public records request, included 787 cases, 94 percent of which the office reported completing within 90 days, but less than half of them were labeled as being an autopsy. Under Hull, the office has regularly forgone autopsies in favor of less-rigorous tests known as external examinations, which generally take one-third the time.
Related:
"After years of trying, and failing, to turn out timely reports explaining how people died, the state’s chief medical examiner’s office had good news to report last month: Dr. Mindy J. Hull said her office is now completing more than 90 percent of its collective autopsy reports and death certificates within 90 days, meeting a long-elusive standard. “That actually hasn’t been that hard,” Hull, tapped to lead the office in October 2017, told a state commission. One difference, she said: She’s “taking a strong management eyeball” to it. Left unsaid, however, was another crucial factor: Under Hull, the office has routinely forgone autopsies in favor of less-rigorous testing to investigate deaths, including some of the hundreds of suspected fatal overdoses across the state. It’s a shift that Hull’s office acknowledges and defends. With fewer autopsies being performed, turnaround times have improved, according to agency data. The Massachusetts office has long been marked by turmoil, from efforts to cut a backlog of years-old paperwork to struggling to hire new pathologists. It began the current fiscal year with 88 employees, and officials said they were in the process of making 12 hires. The office is recruiting to fill seven other spots, said Felix Browne, an agency spokesman....."
Yeah, the reason they look better is because they are doing fewer autopsies.
It's called moving the goalposts, and it brings to mind the old saying "figures lie, and liars figure."
Your government is based on illusion and imagery, people, as the bureaucracies are staffed with political patronage for the purpose of looting taxpayers at the expense of the ruling cla$$. There is no explanation for this level of negligence and incompetence.
The Globe also requested the application — essentially a checklist of standards it must meet — that the medical examiner’s office submitted as part of its initial, successful review, but the agency said it couldn’t produce it. Officials said the application was submitted online, where it’s no longer available since it’s been overwritten in NAME’s database by a subsequent application for renewal in December.
WTF?!!!!
“Therefore, due to the computerized NAME database and online submission process, the OCME is not in possession of the original application,” Eric B. Hogberg, the office’s general counsel, wrote in a letter to the Globe.
It's excuse after excuse after excuse, and they get away with it.
That's your state government, fellow citizen.
The accreditation program is not a requirement for public medical examiner offices. Instead, it’s an endorsement that an office is meeting the “minimum standards for an adequate medicolegal system,” according to the association’s website.
Imagery.
The potential of losing it had rattled the office. Hull became so concerned about the threat to the office’s reputation earlier this year that she actively sought help from officials at NAME when she thought a local TV station would report on the developments, according to e-mails reviewed by the Globe.
So she is more concerned about the image of the office and whether it stays out of the media than she is about the corpses piling up!
GOOD GOD!
At the time, Hull staunchly defended the office, saying it was “in good shape, and cleaning up many old messes.”
“This should be vetted by NAME not the media,” Hull wrote in one e-mail to Arden.
Hull has touted the office’s efforts to bring in more full-time staff to address its rising caseload — moves that she argued earlier last month were the basis for phasing out her predecessor from a part-time contractor’s position.
The agency had promoted two part-time assistant medical examiners to full-time status in February and April, and added a new staff medical examiner in May. Officials have said that two fellows, whose work is currently supervised, will also become full-time employees on July 1.
The office is slated to undergo another annual review from NAME this year.
More wheel-spinning illusion and imagery then.
--more--"
Here are a couple more files for you to look at:
"State medical examiner’s office in danger of losing accreditation, records show" by Matt Stout Globe Staff, March 20, 2019
The state’s chief medical examiner’s office is in danger of losing the accreditation it received just months ago, a potential black eye that its leader — fearful it could be made public — told officials should not be scrutinized by the media.
They never threw the punch!
In late January, the National Association of Medical Examiners told chief medical examiner Dr. Mindy J. Hull that her office will “most likely” lose its fully accredited status after it reported it was unable to complete 90 percent of its autopsy reports within 90 days — a key standard — during an annual review late last year.
Hull argued that the slipping performance, which dropped the office’s turnaround time to 84 percent since it was last reviewed, is largely tied to “unforeseen” personal issues involving two medical examiners and the performance of a part-time worker, according to a letter she sent the association, known as NAME, on Feb. 14. The Globe obtained the letter and other records through a public records request.
In a separate e-mail to the organization’s president, Hull charged that her staff — which then had 19 full- or part-time examiners — would in fact be meeting the 90 percent threshold “if you exclude the 2 problem employees.”
Oh, yeah, who?
Association officials told Hull that they would delay a decision on the office’s status, including whether to downgrade it to a provisional accreditation, so Hull could submit more information.
The NAME committee tasked with reviewing accreditations has yet to discuss the case, according to its chairwoman, Dr. Barbara Wolf. A spokesman for Hull said the office has not received any update on its status and defended its progress.
The medical examiner’s office “has implemented a number of operational and investigative improvements over the last year and remains focused on its mission to deliver timely information to citizens of the Commonwealth,” said Brian Merrick, a spokesman for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
UNREAL!
Did he say that with a straight face?
So if you shovel BS, you can become a spokesman for the state.
The accreditation program is not a requirement for public medical examiner offices; instead, it’s an endorsement that an office is meeting the “minimum standards for an adequate medicolegal system,” according to the association’s website, but last month, Hull became so concerned about the threat to her office’s accreditation and reputation that she actively sought help from officials at the accrediting agency when she thought a local TV station would report on the developments.
Isn't that something only bad guys we must regime change do?
I mean, they Globe and government are constantly complaining about that designated enemies must be hated or attacked.
Dr. Jonathan Arden, the organization’s president, e-mailed Hull on Feb. 6 to tell her that he was doing an on-camera interview with Boston 25 News, the local Fox affiliate, which ran a segment days later about families who have waited months, if not years, for the medical examiner’s office to produce death certificates for their children.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That same morning, Hull sent an e-mail to two NAME officials, seeking help. Arden told the Globe that he notified Hull about the interview as a professional courtesy and that he did not feel pressured by her to keep information from the TV station.
“She wanted to make sure I knew her side of the story,” Arden said. “Dr. Hull is a strong leader and a strong personality. She’s not shy. But at no time did she pressure me or threaten me or try to tell me what I could or couldn’t say.
“I don’t go to the chief medical examiner and say, ‘What do you want me to say?’ ” he said.
They are ALL IN IT TOGETHER, folks, and the Globe is doing nothing but running cover for them with this shell game!
Merrick, the chief medical examiner’s spokesman, did not address questions about Hull’s exchange with Arden but touted efforts to improve the office, including earning full accreditation last year for the first time. The agency is also planning to hire three additional medical examiners by July 1 and elevate a part-time worker to full-time status to help turn cases around more quickly, officials said. The office reported at the end of last year having 10 full-time pathologists and nine pathologists working part time, on contract, or as fellows to perform autopsies.
Promises, promises, and more well-connected family and friends to add to the payroll.
Gaining the accreditation has been a years-long goal of the chief medical examiner’s office, which has historically struggled to complete timely autopsy reports. The office completed them within the 90-day window just 58 percent of the time in the two years before Hull took over.
$ee what I mean?
When the office finally earned “full accreditation through December 16, 2022,” according to a press release, Governor Charlie Baker called it a “milestone.” That review was based, in part, on data detailing its turnaround time over three months at the end of 2017 and the beginning 2018.
“My goal now,” Hull said at the time, “is to showcase the world-class forensic pathology institution that we are.”
The woman is delusional and insane!
The office, however, has helped improve its performance by routinely forgoing autopsies in favor of less-rigorous testing to investigate deaths, including some of the hundreds of suspected fatal overdoses across the state, and when the office came up for an annual review in December, the news was mixed at best.
OMFG!
Dr. Edward Mazuchowski — who sits on NAME’s Inspection and Accreditation committee and, with Wolf, was one of the officials from whom Hull sought help — wrote in a Jan. 21 e-mail to Hull that the office would “most likely” lose its status as a result, though it could be restored once the problems were “rectified.”
The possibility appeared to catch Hull off guard.
“I did not at all realize our full accreditation would be in jeopardy so early in this process, particularly with the remarkable demonstrable process we have made,” Hull said.
In praising Hull for the “hard work” she had done, Mazuchowski said he was fine with delaying any decision and requested additional documents, including the office’s 2017 annual report.
Hull provided it, and in the letter to NAME last month, also asked for another chance.....
--more--"
Also see: Former chief medical examiner being phased out
Related:
"Director in medical examiner’s office appears to have fabricated credentials" by Matt Stout Globe Correspondent, May 30, 2018
A top official at the taxpayer-funded agency responsible for investigating violent and unexplained deaths asserts she has a master's degree from Northeastern University, but the school says it has no record of her earning a graduate degree.
Lisa Riccobene, who's worked in the state's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner since 2005 and was recently chosen to serve as its $112,000-a-year chief of staff, said she earned the degree in psychology, according to information provided by the agency.
The university's Office of the Registrar, however, has no record of that, raising major questions about a key member of the long-embattled agency.
I expect there to be ramifications, like a firing -- for lying, if nothing else.
Neither Dr. Mindy J. Hull, the state's chief medical examiner who promoted Riccobene, nor officials at the Executive Office of Public Safety, who oversee the agency, have answered repeated questions since Friday about Riccobene, how her background was vetted, or whether it has verified that she has the degree.
"Our human resources department is looking into this matter," said Felix Browne, an agency spokesman. "This is a personnel issue, and we will provide an update at the appropriate time."
Looks like a stonewall.
Browne declined to say what Riccobene's current employment status is with the agency.
Hull, tapped last fall as the office's new $375,000-a-year chief, elevated Riccobene as the office's director of administrative services and her chief of staff earlier this year, according to payroll records. In that position, Riccobene directly oversees 17 people and is one of three people who fall directly under Hull in the hierarchy of the 93-person office.
That's a lot of $nowflakes!
Hull's office last week refused a Globe request for Riccobene's resume, but an agency spokesman, via phone, provided her educational credentials, saying she earned an undergraduate degree in criminal justice and a master's in psychology, both from Northeastern.
The school confirmed Riccobene earned the bachelor's degree after graduating in September 1988, but it said it had no records of awarding her a graduate degree, under her current name or a previous married name.
Riccobene has not responded to multiple requests for comment since last week. A woman who answered a personal phone number listed for her Tuesday said she was unavailable.
She asked who is calling, and then said I'm sorry, she's not here right now can I take a message? The Globe then hung up.
Riccobene has helped oversee an office that, amid a rising caseload, is working to regain its national accreditation and has faced criticism over a backlog processing death certificates and autopsy reports.
State Auditor Suzanne Bump released a report in August faulting the office for regularly failing to process toxicology examinations or to complete autopsy reports on time between 2013 and 2016. The delays, she said, could slow court cases and prevent families from receiving insurance proceeds when needed.
When are you going to learn that this government doesn't give a damn about you, dear fellow citizen?
All they care about is in your wallet!
At the time, state officials said the findings didn't address reforms they've since put in place, but the office is still struggling to finish reports on time, according to its most recent annual report released in February.
The National Association of Medical Examiners requires that medical examiners complete autopsy reports within 90 days, but in the nearly two years between October 2015, when the office implemented a new organizational approach, and September 2017, the agency processed just 58 percent of autopsies and 78 percent of death certificates in the 90-day time frame, according to the report.
The agency has attributed the struggles to an ever-increasing caseload, which jumped more than 10 percent between fiscal years 2015 and 2017, to 5,920 cases. The number was on pace to top 6,000 through the first half of this fiscal year.
The office holds a "provisional" accreditation from the association, but it is still working toward full accreditation, according to state officials.
It's also faced heat over its handling of infant deaths. In three cases involving babies in recent years, the office first ruled that their deaths were the result of abusive head trauma, triggering criminal charges. Then, many months later, the medical examiners revised the manner of death to "undetermined" — following the intervention of defense attorneys.....
Can you believe it?
It took defense attorneys to draw attention to the problems!
--more--"
At least she was demoted, right?
"Chief of staff in medical examiner’s office demoted amid questions about degree" by Matt Stout Globe Correspondent, June 1, 2018
A top official in the taxpayer-funded agency responsible for investigating the state’s violent and unexplained deaths will be suspended and have her pay cut after her claim that she had a master’s degree from Northeastern University was disputed by school records.
Lisa Riccobene will be allowed to remain in the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, but she will be demoted from her $112,000-a-year post after state officials confirmed they closed an internal review into her background.
You see the loot they are pulling down, right?
Currently the director of administrative services and the medical examiner’s hand-picked chief of staff, Riccobene will be suspended for two weeks without pay and reassigned as an “office support liaison,” a nonsupervisory role.
She’ll make $90,000 a year in the new position, officials said.
Riccobene’s credentials came into question after the Globe reported this week that she, through information provided by the agency, said she had a master’s degree in psychology from Northeastern, but the university’s Office of the Registrar said it had no record of her earning a graduate degree from the school.
Hull had elevated Riccobene earlier this year to a director’s position, where she oversaw 17 people and was one of three people who fell directly under Hull in the 93-person office.
The revelations about her background come as the office has faced other criticisms over a backlog processing autopsy reports and its handling of infant deaths.....
Yeah, this timely scandal took all the attention away from those!
--more--"
She fell on her sword.
Just waiting for the autopsy now:
"Duties of demoted executive in medical examiner’s office ‘remain largely the same’" by Matt Stout Globe Correspondent, July 8, 2018
When Lisa Riccobene was suspended last month following a probe of her credentials, state officials said that when she did return to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, she would no longer be its chief of staff. Instead, a spokesman said, she would be demoted to a newly created nonsupervisory role, but a day after Riccobene reported to work, Dr. Mindy Hull, Massachusetts’ chief medical examiner, told administrative staffers whom Riccobene had overseen that her duties would “remain largely the same,” according to an e-mail obtained by the Globe, and for now, Hull said, she planned to delegate certain responsibilities to Riccobene, who had been her handpicked chief of staff and administrative services director.
In other words, NOTHING AT ALL HAS CHANGED!
“Please try to field your questions through Lisa,” Hull told staffers.
That's called passing the buck, and I'm surprised when she is “a strong leader, strong personality, and not shy.”
The comments raise further questions both about Riccobene’s role at the long-troubled agency and the fallout from its handling of the episode surrounding her. Riccobene was suspended in early June, following a Globe report that school records disputed her claim she had earned a master’s degree at Northeastern University.
Felix Browne, an agency spokesman, reiterated Thursday that Riccobene was demoted and is no longer directly supervising any staff, including the legal department, which once fell under her purview in her previous $112,000-a-year position.
She is still reporting directly to Hull, however, and as an “office support liaison” — a title that hadn’t existed — she serves as a point of contact for other state agencies and grieving families, responsibilities she had previously held, according to her office. She is approving time sheets of administrative staff and setting schedules and is designated as a nonunion manager. As of Thursday, a new chief of staff had not been hired.
All they did was change her title.
You happy?
At the time of Riccobene’s suspension, Browne said that an employee’s educational credentials are typically verified as part of a background check if they are required for the position. In Riccobene’s case, that was not done, he said.
According to a management questionnaire Riccobene signed in December, a graduate degree was among the “preferred qualifications” for the dual position of chief of staff and director of administrative services.
Once promoted, Riccobene directly managed $1.8 million in public funds and oversaw 17 staffers. She also served as the primary contact for law enforcement for the taxpayer-funded agency, which is responsible for investigating violent and unexplained deaths.
WhereTF is all the money going, and why isn't the work being done?
Browne said many of Riccobene’s current duties are similar to what she did even before she was a chief of staff, and that her designation as manager is to ensure that she is salaried and not part of the union or eligible for overtime pay.
As it has worked to regain its national accreditation, Hull’s office has faced other challenges, including a rising caseload and past criticism over a backlog in processing death certificates and autopsy reports.
In the nearly two years between October 2015, when the office implemented a new organizational approach, and September 2017, the agency processed just 58 percent of autopsies and 78 percent of death certificates within 90 days. The National Association of Medical Examiners requires that medical examiners complete reports within that timeframe.
Hull was tapped to lead the office in October, with a $375,000 salary — a nearly $100,000 increase over what her predecessor made annually.....
Do you think she is worth it?
I gue$$ she is if she can keep that corrupt and incompetent agency out of the public eye, 'eh?
--more--"
So WHO does SHE KNOW?
"Baker defends medical examiner for keeping top aide who ‘misrepresented’ resume" by Matt Stout Globe Correspondent, July 9, 2018
Governor Charlie Baker on Monday said he has “full confidence” in the state’s chief medical examiner and defended her decision to keep her former chief of staff on the payroll despite the fact she misrepresented her resumé to officials.
Despite the reputation and poll numbers, this guy sucks as a governor. He serves the elite, and why wouldn't he? He is one of them!
Baker said he believes Dr. Mindy Hull, selected by his administration to lead the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in October, made the right call in suspending, cutting the pay, and removing Lisa Riccobene from the role of chief of staff, just months after Hull picked her for the position.
State officials later said she would be demoted from her $112,000-a-year position and return under a different title, with a $90,000 salary, but after Riccobene returned from a two-week suspension, Hull told administrative staffers who Riccobene had once overseen that her duties would “remain largely the same” as an office support liaison, a newly created role.
Baker said he thinks Hull handled the situation appropriately.
“First of all, we have full confidence in the chief medical examiner,” Baker told reporters Monday. “We believe she is the right person for the job.”
He also defended Riccobene, saying the medical examiner’s office and the district attorneys to whom she has served as a liaison vouch for her work.
“She’s a valued member of the team,” Baker said.....
So fabricating the resume means nothing.
Yup, some people can lie, lie right to your face, and get away with it.
That is what passes for accountability in Ma$$achu$etts!
--more--"
At least they went back into one case:
"Legal battle over medical examiner’s track record" by Shawn Musgrave Globe Correspondent, July 14, 2018
A man convicted of murder more than 20 years ago is fighting for access to the personnel records of the medical examiner who conducted the autopsy, claiming the examiner was known to be incompetent. Last week, prosecutors took the fight to Massachusetts’ top court.
Emory Snell Jr. was convicted in 1995 of murdering his wife, Elizabeth Lee, in their Marstons Mills home. At trial, Dr. William Zane, who retired in 2015 from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, testified the cause of death was smothering, but Snell, who has lost numerous appeals, has challenged Zane’s credibility, armed with analyses from other pathologists who say they found flaws in the autopsy. Snell has also pointed out that Zane had been restricted from conducting homicide autopsies in the past.
On Tuesday, a Barnstable County judge ordered the Cape and Islands district attorney to hand over Zane’s personnel file for the judge to review for relevant documents, which would be turned over to Snell. Prosecutors immediately filed a motion with the Supreme Judicial Court, seeking to block that order.
“In this case, the defendant is not looking for evidence to support a claim, he is seeking to conduct a fishing expedition and go through a third party’s personnel records in order to manufacture a claim,” wrote Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Sweeney.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner also opposed Snell’s request for the file.
Zane did not return a call to his home.
Snell has long maintained his innocence. In December, he filed his latest motion for a new trial, claiming there were “many scientifically significant errors and omissions” in Zane’s autopsy report. Multiple pathologists agreed, according to statements written on Snell’s behalf.
“Dr. Zane did not perform a good enough evaluation of the body to determine the cause of death,” wrote Dr. Gerald Feigin in a sworn statement submitted with Snell’s motion. Feigin, who has worked as a medical examiner in Massachusetts and New Jersey, reviewed Zane’s autopsy report and testimony, as well as tissue samples.
Another pathologist suggested Zane may have confused samples from Elizabeth Snell’s body with tissue from another person, possibly an infant.....
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Related: Convicted killer fails in bid to see personnel file of pathologist who autopsied his wife
That's Ma$$achu$ets JU$TU$ from the $JC, and I wonder how long it will take them to do an autopsy on this guy:
"Hyannis Fire Captain Tom Kenney, who saved lives and taught others how to do so, too, dies at 65" By Bryan Marquard Globe Staff, June 9, 2019
Of all the frightening places Hyannis Fire Captain Tom Kenney bravely strode into during his storied career as a paramedic and firefighter, nothing compared to the crater at Ground Zero in New York City, where he arrived just hours after the 2001 terrorist attacks.
“They should have told us, ‘Hey, you’re going to the end of the world,’ because that’s what it looked like when we got there, and nobody was prepared for that,” he would say later for a documentary directed by his brother John.
That’s saying something, because to those who knew him, Mr. Kenney seemed prepared for anything. With a paramedic partner, he had once even saved the life of a man whose head was pierced, through and through, by a crowbar in a car accident.
On Wednesday, Mr. Kennedy died in his Hyannis home of pancreatic cancer, less than eight months after reaching the mandatory retirement age of 65 for the community’s Fire Department. He had been diagnosed with the cancer in January.
“My dad, he was the best,” said his daughter Meaghann Kenney. “He was my hero, and then after 9/11, he became everyone else’s hero, too.”
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Well, you can chalk up another death to that toxic dust pile that was demolished on that fateful September morning.
Related: Boston firefighters gather to remember their fallen
Also see:
Cause of Green Line derailment was not mechanical, according to MassDOT
They are scapegoating the trolley’s 62-year-old operator and not the corrupt negligence of the agency.
MBTA bus driver praised for helping lost girl along busy North Shore Road
Another hero.
Here’s how to shed the doldrums of a wet spring
Tewksbury 16-year-old killed in Andover crash
Woman dies in single-vehicle crash on Interstate 495 in Amesbury
Massachusetts Lawmakers Weigh 'Medicare for All' Bill
Let's hope they don't make any errors.
Police end regular patrols at Amherst pot shop for now
"Providence police are searching for a gunman who opened fire in a crowded downtown intersection during PVDFest late Saturday night. Panicked crowds attending the international arts and culture festival scattered as gunfire erupted around 11 p.m. Major David Lapatin said police officers heard the shots and ran toward the scene, but the suspect had fled. Five shell casings were recovered at Washington and Union streets, he said. No one was injured and no detailed description of the gunman was given. The hugely popular four-day festival in downtown Providence features more than 1,500 artists, including musical acts, theater, poetry and dance. Last year, the festival drew about 100,000 visitors. Two years ago, an innocent bystander was left paralyzed after what was believed to be a gang-involved drive-by shooting during PVDFest......"
They didn't get a name?
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Looks like you will have to go it alone from here:
In GE contract talks, job security is apt to be the union’s focus" by Jon Chesto Globe Staff, June 9, 2019
Health care. Wages. Retirement. Sounds like the standard mix of concerns for union negotiations, right?
Well, Jerry Carney has one more to add, and Carney says this one should top the list at General Electric: job security.
Can you blame him? Carney, an IUE-CWA leader, is negotiating a new contract for 6,600-plus US workers of the Boston-based conglomerate, including nearly 1,400 at the jet engine plant in Lynn.
GE, you may have noticed, is in the midst of a rapid retrenchment. Business lines such as lighting and train engines are being divested, and massive job cuts are underway as GE executives try to bring the company’s storied-but-struggling power business back into the black. Wall Street is bracing for a negative cash flow this year.
Companies don’t usually flaunt their money problems, but GE reps started meeting with unions last week in Cincinnati to hash out a new labor agreement, and those financial difficulties might just come in handy at the bargaining table. A four-year national contract expires June 23, and the pressure is on both sides to come up with a new contract before time runs out.
Stock price falling off a cliff? Don’t be ashamed. Instead, put it in the spotlight. GE sure did, on a corporate website established to discuss the contract negotiations. The stock price was $26.57 when the last contract was ratified, in 2015. Now, it’s trading in the $10 range. About $180 billion in market value has evaporated over the past four years.
In other words, these are lean times. (The implication: We all need to share the pain.)
So hire yourself a maid.
In this environment, Carney says job security has to be his number one priority. That means stronger language about the company working with the union first before trying to shut a plant, for example. The best health care and biggest pay hike in the world don’t mean much if your plant closes.
Just take what they offer then!
The IUE-CWA says the situation unfolding in Salem, Va., underscores these concerns. There, GE is ending the manufacturing of turbine controls. Roughly 250 people will lose their jobs next month. A local chapter of the IUE-CWA made a financial case to keep the plant, but it wasn’t good enough for the company. GE, the union says, is sending much of that work to India.
Seems like that all flies in the face of the great Trump economy we have heard ad nauseam.
Meanwhile, Carney says, GE got around its unions by opening a new aviation factory in Alabama last year with nonunion labor and expanding another one in that state this year. They say we’re partners, Carney adds about GE management, but we’re only partners when they want something.
Strong words, but this kind of bluster isn’t unusual at the start of high-stakes contract talks. (A GE spokesman declined to comment on Carney’s union-busting allegations.)
These negotiations do not have a direct connection to the ongoing tumult in Europe that has kept GE in the headlines. GE is making cuts to its power-division there, in large part because of an ill-fated acquisition of Alstom’s energy business in 2015. To win government support in France for that deal, GE promised to add 1,000 jobs. Now, GE is slashing a similar amount.
GE’s retrenchment has shaken morale, and Larry Culp probably realizes he has to keep the troops happy to pull off a revival. Their loyalty could prove more important than ever as Culp tries to steer this battleship toward prolonged profitability......
At least they will know who to blame.
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Related: GE to sell Fort Point HQ, give back $87m to state
They could be turned into labs.
"Microsoft has a request: Please try to hack into Azure more often. The company isn’t encouraging malicious attacks but it wants security researchers to spend more time poking holes in its flagship cloud service, so the company can learn about flaws and fix them. Many so-called white hat hackers do this for the company’s older products like Windows and Office but there aren’t enough working on Azure, Microsoft said. The shift to cloud computing is changing cybersecurity. A big risk is that Microsoft now runs services for customers in its cloud, which means the software giant must protect them. Cloud security requires new tools and techniques but enables companies like Microsoft to track and analyze vast amounts of data to find malicious actors and scan networks of hundreds of thousands of customers so it can see attacks materialize. The hope is that sharing data, tools, and techniques publicly will help everyone better fend off attackers......"
I'm also sick and tired of the false flag hacking attacks carried out by the U.S. government and $oftware firms for the obviou$ rea$ons.
Maybe they can chew on this:
"Genetically engineered salmon is heading to US store shelves, but it won’t be coming from the biggest salmon-farming state in the country. AquaBounty Technologies, of Maynard, has said supermarkets could begin selling the much-debated fish by the end of 2020. Its Atlantic salmon are modified with genes from other fish to grow about twice as fast as conventional salmon. Maine is the biggest US producer of conventional Atlantic salmon, sometimes producing more than 35 million pounds per year. AquaBounty’s salmon is the first genetically modified, or GMO, animal to be approved for human consumption. It has become a touchstone for the international debate about genetic engineering and food....."
Oh, yeah, where, because there isn't one in the Bo$ton Globe.
At least the price of gas dropped.
Remember that vet who didn't get the mortgage because he used pot to kick the opioid addiction?
"The chronic-pain quandary: Amid a reckoning over opioids, a doctor crusades for caution in cutting back" by Andrew Joseph, May 30, 2019
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — About four years ago, Dr. Stefan Kertesz started hearing that patients who had been taking opioid painkillers for years were being taken off their medications. Sometimes it was an aggressive reduction they weren’t on board with, sometimes it was all at once. Clinicians told patients they no longer felt comfortable treating them.
Kertesz, a primary care physician who also specializes in addiction medicine, had not spent his career investigating long-term opioid use or chronic pain, but he grew concerned by the medical community’s efforts to regain control over prescribing patterns after years of lax distribution. Limiting prescriptions for new patients had clear benefits, he thought, but he wondered about the results of reductions among “legacy patients.” Their outcomes weren’t being tracked.
Now, Kertesz is a leading advocate against policies that call for aggressive reductions in long-term opioid prescriptions or have resulted in forced cutbacks. He argues that well-intentioned initiatives to avoid the mistakes of the past have introduced new problems. He’s warned that clinicians’ decisions are destabilizing patients’ lives and leaving them in pain — and in some cases could drive patients to obtain opioids illicitly or even take their lives.
How much are the pharmaceuticals paying him, or is he just pushing it on his own?
Didn't we just go through all this?
“I think I’m particularly provoked by situations where harm is done in the name of helping,” Kertesz said. “What really gets me is when responsible parties say we will protect you, and then they call upon us to harm people.”
It’s a case that Kertesz, 52, has tried to make with nuance and precision, bounded by an emphasis on the history of overprescribing and the benefits of tapering for patients for whom it works, but against a backdrop of tens of thousands of opioid overdose deaths each year and an ongoing reckoning about the roots of the opioid addiction crisis, it’s the dialectical equivalent of pinning the tail on a bucking bronco. Kertesz’s critics have questioned his motives. He’s heard he’s been called “the candyman.”
“I am really worried that people like Stefan Kertesz, who is trying to champion ‘patient-centered care,’ in some ways are feeding into the same misleading messaging rolled out by Purdue [Pharma] and others that not to prescribe opioids is tantamount to torturing patients,” said Dr. Anna Lembke, the medical director of addiction medicine at Stanford.
The debate is playing out as doctors try to move beyond their days of overprescribing while responsibly treating chronic pain. It is also playing out in settings like Kertesz’s office here at a Veterans Affairs clinic, where a patient named Jerry Brown, a 63-year-old former boilermaker and carpenter, recently showed up......
Oh, another vet they hooked up.
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They tell me "opioid prescribing has been declining since 2012, though levels remain higher than they were two decades ago, and, depending on the estimate, anywhere from 8 million to 18 million Americans take opioids for chronic pain."
Cha-Ching!
