BSO: Stan Kills It

Much was made in the media about how the rejection of the so-called Millionaire's Tax by the state Supreme Court last week was a stinging rebuke to the legal judgement of Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, whom the court ruled had wrongfully approved the question for the ballot.

Less noticed however, was how the court, in citing evidence to back their rejection, quoted in the very decision itself none other than disgraced Amherst/Hamp Senator Stanley Rosenberg. The justices cited the former Senator's remarks as proof positive that the ballot question was just a cheap ploy to try to trick the voters into supporting something they have already rejected at the polls five times - a graduated income tax.

Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe had the only media mention I saw demonstrating how crucial Rosenberg's remarks were in providing the evidence the justices needed to kill the ballot question. Alas, once again Valley residents must turn to Boston media to find out what's happening in our own backyard:

“We are not entirely unaware of the possibility” that the amendment was purposely drafted “to ‘sweeten the pot’ for voters,” the majority remarked dryly. Knowing that every previous attempt to permit graduated tax rates had failed, activists this time around hoped to tempt voters with the prospect of more money for favored causes — and with a dash of eat-the-rich class envy thrown in for good measure. The SJC doesn’t actually say that, of course. Instead it quotes someone who did: former Senate President Stanley Rosenberg.

“In the past, constitutional amendments have been very differently constructed,” Rosenberg explained when he endorsed the initiative. “This one, because it is focused specifically on money for education and transportation, will stand a better chance of being approved. And also because it is very clear that it [affects] people who make more than $1 million.”

Thank you, Mr. Rosenberg, for making it so much easier to derail that ballot boondoggle because of your uncharacteristically honest admission of your planned deception. Meanwhile, Senator Stan's name has finally been stripped from the entrance to where his office was once located, as evidenced by these before/after photos by Dann Vazquez.

In the next stage of the Rosenberg drama, he is being sued by one of the alleged victims of his husband. Rosenberg has already lost his job and his reputation, now the courts are going to wipe him out financially.

Here are some objects on my desk. The first is a fish trophy Jay Libardi and I won at Yolly Nahorniak's fish derby, year unknown but sometime in the 80's, a cup from my relatives in Texas, a Coke bottle from the 1970's and a Springfield 300th birthday souvenir from 1936 I use as a pen jar.