Mass. Lawyers Weekly, November 26, 2014 To the editor: Any sentient being in the legal or court communities has known about the influence of political patronage in judicial hiring not for decades, but for generations. U.S. District Court Judge William G. Young’s comments on the subject at the sentencing of former Probation Department Commissioner John…
Category: Politics
If you want to be Governor, don’t run for AG
Mass. Lawyers Weekly, November 14, 2014 Attorney General-elect Maura Healey does not seem to have much chance of becoming governor of Massachusetts. No one should be surprised that Attorney General Martha Coakley was defeated in her recent campaign for governor. In all of Massachusetts political history, no sitting elected attorney general has ever been elected…
Throw money at obesity
Boston Globe letter, September 21, 2015 THE HEADLINE of Joanna Weiss’s Sept. 11 opinion column — “Politicians are needed to help end the obesity crisis” — highlights its essential flaw. So, what’s the solution she wants to see? New taxes? New subsidies? More politicians, guided by their contributors and lobbyists, picking economic winners and losers?…
Trump & Silber – No Comparison
Boston Globe letter, August 27, 2015 JOHN SILBER certainly had a memorably acerbic and ear-catching style of expression, but Scot Lehigh is wrong to equate him to Donald Trump (“Donald Trump is John Silber Redux,” Opinion, Aug. 26). Silber’s often colorful comments were grounded in a well thought out philosophy. Trump is a bombastic blowhard…
B&Bs vs. Rentals; Let’s Reverse Question
Cape Cod Times letter, April 15, 2015 Noting that the hotel room occupancy tax has been extended to bed-and-breakfasts and arguing that it should be extended to summer home rentals (“Falmouth seeks expansion of hotel room taxes,” April 10), Falmouth Selectman Sam Patterson says, “It seems to me to be an unfair situation that needs…
Political Leanings Should Not Dictate Business Licenses
Cape Cod Times Letter, September 29, 2015 Stonehill Professor Peter Ubertaccio’s letter (“Davis’ actions singular in contempt for the law,” Letters, Sept. 25) perceptively notes the impropriety of the Kentucky clerk’s denial of a marriage license to a gay couple because of her own personal religious preferences. That thoughtful letter is a useful juxtaposition to…
Criminalizing Politics
by Brian R. Merrick Cape Cod Times column, May 16, 2015 The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court recently heard oral arguments in a case arising out of Barnstable County that may have a major impact on the future of political speech in Massachusetts. Even casual readers of the Cape Cod Times will be aware that during…
Robert H. Quinn; An Appreciation
Cape Cod Times column, January 17, 2014 By Brian R. Merrick Robert H. Quinn died Sunday here on the Cape at his summer home in Falmouth at age 85. Obituaries in the Cape Cod Times and other newspapers in the commonwealth general led with his sponsorship of the eponymous Quinn Bill. That signal legislation provided…
Yale’s Little Robespierres
WSJ Letters, November 16, 2015 “Yale’s Little Robespierres” (Review & Outlook, Nov. 10) makes the Yale of William F. Buckley’s “God and Man at Yale” seem an academic paradise. Buckley bemoaned the academic freedom he saw undermining Yale’s traditional religious values. True academic freedom, like Western liberal democracy, in its tolerance of values inimical to…
Ted Cruz’s Not-So Flat Tax Plan
WSJ Letters, November 4, 2015 Ted Cruz’s tax plan is anything but flat. The deduction for charitable giving is a loophole the wealthy can and do drive a truck through. If they are truly generous, let the wealthy donate their own money, not mine, to their choice of charity. If this is truly to be…
The Clinton Plan to Distort Market Signals
WSJ Letters, August 30, 2015 The result of increasing taxes on investments held for a short period of time will not be to encourage wise, long-term decision-making by investors and managers. Rather, complicating record keeping and increasing taxes will, at the margin, keep investors out of the market. Brian R. Merrick West Barnstable, Mass.
Hard Bargaining Wins Negotiations
WSJ, Letters, July 13, 2013 Craig J. Richardson’s “An Econ Lesson in a Shanghai Market” (op-ed, July 7) is especially timely coming amid stories about high-stakes negotiations around Greek debt and the Iranian nuclear program. The upper hand in the negotiations should go to “the one who is most able to walk away from the…
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