Recently the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance’s non-profit lawyer the Koch-funded ($1 million per year) New Civil Liberties Alliance announced it would appeal a Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision against MassFiscal’s allies. The decision upheld Governor Baker’s emergency public health powers during the Covid pandemic. NCLA not only lost the case 6-0 but got laughed out of court (I’m serious. Read the decision. The justices’ cackling jumps off the pages). News of the appeal to the Supreme Court was covered by some Boston media, even some serious ones, though NCLA’s legal counsel admitted it would most likely be tossed out for mootness. But it isn’t the media’s job to assess Mass Fiscal’s credibility so . . .
No wait! It actually is the media’s job. They just aren’t high on doing it. Matt Stout and the Globe do a good job but others really, really don’t like to probe who is funding MassFiscal or who the group actually represents. Some could not give a Flying Flamingo (you still there, Boston Herald?). Apparently it would be impolite to ask MassFiscal spokesperson Paul Craney any questions. But if you can’t tell readers and listeners who MassFiscal works for, then why use them in stories at all?
I don’t have all the answers either but I do have Your Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance Reader!
How Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance and Paul Craney Screwed Ryan Fattman. “Non-partisan” MFA and Craney have been corkscrewing to help Ryan Fattman with his campaign finance problems but the blame belongs with them. It’s The MassFiscal Precedent (see below) that’s screwing Fattman.
Mass Fiscal’s Fraudulent Voter Fraud Forum. If it could get any political headway in Massachusetts, MFA would dearly love to advance Georgia-style voter suppression. Here it brought in fraudulent voter fraud expert Hans von Spakovsky of Heritage Action, the dark money front that helps write disenfranchisement bills for Republican legislatures.
MassFiscal Goes RINO Hunting for Charlie Baker. From holding Mass GOP meetings in the parking lot of Mass Fiscal’s founder Rick Green’s business to the same business helping challenger Geoff Diehl keep food on the table, MassFiscal is plotting to primary Charlie Baker.
Desrosiers v. The Governor: Supreme Judicial Court Body Slams Charles Koch. This was really a case about conflicting ideologies. On one side is the view that government should be empowered to help people to do needed things the people cannot do for themselves (the view of Abraham Lincoln) versus Koch’s ideology, which is that government should do nothing except to protect private property. MFA was Koch’s straw in this one.
Proposing a New Pollster for Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance: Me! MassFiscal releases polls with pre-determined results based on biased questions. I can do that and I work cheap.
Globe Mention’s MassFiscal’s Hidden Money. But Why Talk to Them at All? Matt Stout is the only Massachusetts journalist that consistently informs readers about Mass Fiscal’s secretive financial status. Neither the Globe nor I nor anyone outside MassFiscal’s secret lair knows who MFA actually represents. And by represent, I mean those hidden donors.
MassFiscal Makes the Boston Globe’s Hypocrites Hall of Fame. The Globe editorial board took notice when Stout wrote about a new layer of dark money that is fueling MassFiscal. MFA is only good at one thing, hiding its donors, but it is very good at that.
A Must Read Piece on MassFiscal from Andy Metzger at Commonwealth Magazine. I miss Andy Metzger. In this piece he took apart one of Mass Fiscal’s biased polls (lots of media actually cover this detritus uncritically because well, it’s a poll!). Mr. Metzger even wrote that MFA “keeps its financing sources secret.” My heart skipped a beat. That should be in absolutely every story about MassFiscal and its sister organization Fiscal Alliance Foundation.
MassFiscal Injects Voter Suppression into the Race for GOP Chair. Target rich environment.
Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance Gets into the Voter Suppression Business. In 2018 MassFiscal cooked up a blatant voter suppression scheme aimed at disenfranchising Blacks and Latinos to bolster the congressional candidacy of MFA’s founder, Rick Green. The study MassFiscal sent over to the Secretary of State appeared to have been designed by a middle schooler with advanced racial bias.
Why Rick Green is not Like the Buddha; and Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance’s Allies. MFA founder Rick Green stumbled around his 2018 congressional campaign as MFA’s ties to groups backed by the Kochs and Mercer families were exposed.
The MassFiscal Precedent! Office of Campaign and Political Finance ruled that MassFiscal had to disclose one of its dark money donors. What’s a generally lawless and contemptuous dark money front to do? Just ignore the order. That’s the MassFiscal Precedent! Read this one along with Day 827. Office of Campaign and Political Finance Held Hostage by Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance.
Mass Fiscal, There You Go Again! Never let it be said I don’t recognize improvement over time. The first poll MFA released in 2015 was such total garbage that it won the coveted Award for Fraud in Massachusetts Politics. But this 2017 poll was only overwhelmingly garbage. MFA was on the upswing!
The First Annual Award for Fraud in Massachusetts Politics. This was given out for a truly fraudulent poll MFA passed off. MFA represents everything wrong with American politics – the casual use of false and misleading arguments, voter suppression, greed, dark money. It was a worthy recipient. Note: I regret not having time to continue the award annually. Families for Excellent Schools would have swept in 2016, Democrats for Education Reform Massachusetts, Massachusetts Parents United. So many worthy contestants. Though MFA would have gotten a Lifetime Achievement in Fraud Award by now.
In the darkness of secrecy, sinister interest and evil in every shape, have full swing. . . . Publicity is the very soul of justice.”—Jeremy Bentham
[Full disclosure: as an educator in the UMass system, I am a union member. I write about dark money, democracy, and oligarchy.]