Sad News From New England

Yesterday The Blaze reported that longtime conservative political operative, civics connoisseur, and radio personality Jay Severin has passed away. I first listened to Jay Severin during the 2000 election recount. He was a voice of common sense, logic, and critical thinking during that time. He periodically pushed the limits of talk radio and at various times was taken off the radio for a few days because of risque remarks. However, he was one of the best news analysts around. After leaving New England talk radio, he hosted a show on The Blaze radio network.

The article reports:

Severin became a giant force in political talk in New England before spending years as a host on TheBlaze Radio Network’s national platform.

“Jay was one of the rare talents that could not only see beyond the headline, but had the empathy to understand how it affected the listener,” Glenn Beck told TheBlaze. “He was a good man, and I’m a better one for having known him.”

Tom Shattuck, podcaster and senior editor of the Lowell Sun, paid tribute to Severin after news broke of his death on Thursday, calling him “the Boston talk titan.”

“This was a guy who liked free speech and was not afraid to push the boundaries,” Shattuck said of Severin, adding, “He made a difference…he was powerful, he was loud, he was poetic in the way he spoke, and he’s going to be missed.”

The article concludes:

Michael Graham, a colleague of Severin’s from WTTK-FM, said of the late host, “What’s fascinating to me is the number of people who say, ‘I became a conservative because of Jay Severin'” surrounded by the liberal environment in Boston. He added, “That’s his legacy—his civics lesson on the air, that nobody can take away from him.”

Jay Severin was famous for saying, “Excelsior!” meaning, “higher” or “upward.” From all of us at TheBlaze, Jay: Excelsior.

We have lost a strong voice for conservatism (although I believe Jay was a libertarian).

Not Everyone Cheers When The Playing Field Is Leveled

Michael Graham posted an article in the Boston Herald today about the recent Supreme Court decision on campaign donations.

Michael Graham explains why the decision is important to Massachusetts:

The U.S. Supreme Court’s campaign-finance ruling is the first ray of sunshine to reach the Massachusetts Republican party in a long time.

To understand why, you need to know three simple facts about who pays for campaigns, facts that are almost never reported in the mainstream media:

• Six of the top 10 campaign donors are unions. And their money overwhelmingly goes to Democrats. Incumbent Democrats in particular.

• Sixteen of the top 25 campaign funders are liberal, Democratic organizations like ActBlue ($97 million in campaign cash since 1989), which also give disproportionately to incumbents. Only three of the top 25 are Republican.

• None of them are the Koch Brothers. (They rank 57th.)

If you haven’t figured it out, the purpose of campaign finance restrictions is to protect incumbent politicians. This shouldn’t be a surprise given that these laws were passed by … incumbent politicians.

And in Massachusetts, “incumbent” is a synonym for “Democrat.” (When it comes to federal office-holders here, that is literally true.) So any change that makes life more difficult for incumbents is good news for the local GOP.

Union money has bought and sold elections in Massachusetts and some other states for a very long time. This ruling levels the playing field and lets other people with money play. That is why the Democrat party is making such a big deal about it.

The unintended consequence of this ruling may be that being able to be in public office long enough to go from being broke to multi millionaire may no longer be possible. It may be that being in public office may no longer be a career. Keep in mind that our founding fathers envisioned a government made up of ordinary citizens. Unfortunately we have forgotten that concept and created career politicians.

Not everyone loves it when you level the playing field.

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Political Correctness Gone Amok

Yesterday Michael Graham posted an article on his blog about a planned television series that was cancelled. That’s not all that unusual, but in this case the reason for the cancellation was interesting.

According to the article:

Cyrus McGoldrick — a Muslim activist and former civil   rights manager for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in New York — is lauding the quick death of what was ABC Family’s planned TV pilotAlice in Arabia.”…

“Getting ‪#‎AliceInArabia‬ cancelled was a good move – I’m glad it got done so quickly, too. These skirmishes with Zionist Hollywood should be easy and decisive, and I’m so pleasantly surprised that this was. S/o to ADC, CAIR, and the many individuals who stormed the internet and handled this,” he posted on Facebook.

What is–or rather, was– Alice In Arabia? It was a drama based on the premise of a young woman in America being dragged into fundamentalist Islam culture (it’s actually happened) by Muslim relatives (has happened), in this case by being kidnapped and taken to Saudi Arabia (it’s happened, too) and not being allowed to leave (yep–it really happens).

Muslim activists Rabia Chaudray finds the show outrageous and (of course) racist.  In a screed on Time’s website, he writes:

Not only will “Alice in Arabia” exacerbate the marginalization of Muslim and Arab men, it perfectly reflects Western attitudes towards Muslim women. Hear that sound? It’s millions of Muslim women snorting as Alice attempts to survive “life behind the veil.” The very idea that the veil is something to be survived strips Muslim women of their intellect and agency and makes them the subjects of this practice rather than sentient protagonists of it.

I wonder if the movie “Not Without My Daughter” could be made today. Whether it is allowed to be shown in a television series or not, women are horribly mistreated in Muslim countries. In most Muslim countries they are not allowed to leave their homes unless escorted by a male relative and they are not allowed to drive. If a woman is the victim of rape, she is stoned to death–there is not penalty for the man involved. It is a shame that the American public will not be allowed to see what life for an American woman in a Muslim state is like.

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I’m From The Government…

Michael Graham is a Massachusetts talk show host who writes a blog called “The Natural Truth.” As a resident of Massachusetts, he understands some of the unbelievable things that go on in this state. Today he posted an article entitled, “I’m From The Government And I’m Here To Inspect Your Guns.” No, in Massachusetts that is not a joke .

A Swampscott Massachusetts Board of Selectman member introduced an enforcement discussion Wednesday that he hopes will lead to the safeguarding of guns in town — keeping them out of the hands of children. Keeping guns out of the reach of children is a good idea. However, his methods were unconstitutional. Under the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, gun owners are required to keep their firearms locked away or rendered inoperable. That’s not a bad thing, but the problem is how to enforce the law.

The article states:

If this incredibly bad goose-stepping attack on gun ownership sounds familiar, it should. The state of Washington considered it earlier this year. Then some lawyer read this thing called the Constitution and it went away.

But we’ve never been big on that whole “Bill of Rights” thing here in Kennedy Country. And so the town of Swampscott is going to decide whether or not to send the local cops door-to-door to visit lawful gun owners and, you know, just have a look around.

What could possibly go wrong?

At some point, we need to get back to the U. S. Constitution. We are in danger of losing our most basic rights.

 

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