TEA PARTY WILL TURN LOCAL GOVERNMENT UPSIDE DOWN
BY DAN VALENTI
PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY
(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY FEB. 5, 2024) — So who’s interested in pushing back at the Swindlers and Dwindlers running this city? Who wants to make them sweat? Who wants to take a stand?
Don’t just answer knee-jerk style. Think seriously about it.
If enough of you decide you want to do this, then listen up. There may be a political action committee of interest.
THE PLANET speaks of the Taxpayers’ Equity Alliance (TEA), a watchdog group that will form, organize, and become a Player in Bitchfield Affairs. Speaking in the broadest terms, the TEA Party will primarily focus on exerting greater citizen control over city government. It will be as disruptive as it need be and as cooperative as the Corruptors warrant by their cooperation.
If they don’t cooperate, the will be given offers they can’t refuse, but enough said on those plans, which are quite specific. We’ve seen them. All of it is legal, brilliantly conceived, and and will prove deadly to certain politicos who think they are untouchable.
Thinking outside the box? This plan is being thought of outside the solar system. They won’t know what hit ’em.
Its leaders tell THE PLANET they will strike at “a time and place of their own choosing.” Sound familiar?
More specifically, the TEA Party will:
- Ride herd and overhaul School Department policies and spending.
- Pressure dramatic override of city finances, budget, and capital spending in favor of the Kapanskis.
- Put up and fund for local office suitable candidates friendly to taxpayers.
- Expose corruption, which is inversely proportionate to its visibility.
- Name names and dole out consequences.
Of course, as it develops, efforts will expand into other areas of municipality. Presently fearful and cowed city workers in every department — good, solid, reliable, and honest now prevented from speaking up because of intimidation and threats of retaliation — will have an avenue on which will ride this Golden Knight of Accountability.
———- ooo ———-
Bitchfield, if it is to have any chance at all, needs the TEA Party. Its citizens have lost control of their government, leading to the inevitability of corruption. This debasement has overt costs measured in $$$ (stolen funds, theft of materials and services, goldbricking) and even greater underlying costs measured by taxpayers’ alienation, apathy, resentment, and cynicism.
All that will change.
On that last note, cue The Suits and Special Interests to command their toadies to blame THE PLANET for the “negativity.” Actually, we are the area’s most strident optimist. We believe a resurrection from the dead is possible. We possess a blueprint. We also know it has no chance of happening with the present crew of lapdogs in sacred office — primarily mayor’s office, city council, finance department (city and school), and school committee — operating as they are doing now, with Z-E-R-O accountability.
Bitchfield’s main obstacle to accountability is secrecy. This new form of citizen action will hold government’s feet to the fire, if necessary, inflicting pain to cauterize the infected wounds. If needed, the PAC’s efforts will help with indictments and convictions to those officials who do not, have not, and will not adhere to their sacred oaths. At minimum, corruption can be seen in the city’s rising taxes, drunken spending, declining services, rotting infrastructure, and planning that brings stupidity to previously unseen zeniths.
The work is going on as you read. We can say no more, and we won’t provide a timetable.
Will this really happen? In Bitchfield?
Or is it just a dream conjured in and from the nocturnals of Dr. Sleep?
You’d be shocked to know.
————————————————————-
“Power corrupts. Absolute power transports you to Bitchfield” — Sir Donald Turpentine, Knight of the Bath.
“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILIE.”
LOVE TO ALL.
Copyright (c) 2023 By Dan Valenti, PLANET VALENTI and EUROPOLIS MANAGEMENT. All rights reserved. The views and opinions expressed in the comment section or in the text other than those of PLANET VALENTI are not necessarily endorsed by the operators of this website. PLANET VALENTI assumes no responsibility for such views and opinions, and it reserves the right to remove or edit any comment, including but not limited to those that violate the website’s Rules of Conduct and its editorial policies. Those who leave comments own all the responsibilities that are or can be attached to those comments, be they rhetorical, semantic, or legal. Such commentators remain solely responsible for what they post and shall be and remain solely accountable for their words. PLANET VALENTI shall not be held responsible for the consequences that may result from any posted comment or outside opinion or commentary as provided in, but not limited to, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and this website’s terms of service. We serve as a marketplace of ideas, without prejudice and available to all. All users of this site — including readers, commentators, contributors, or anyone else — hereby agree to these conditions by virtue of this notice and their use of/participation in this site. When PLANET VALENTI ends with the words “The Usual Disclaimer,” that phrase shall be understood to refer to the full text of this disclaimer.
Wow, Pittsfield could really use an organized group of taxpayers to speak out and get involved.
True that! If you look only at the concept that this city, and this mayor, and this city council, knowing full well that most of the taxpayers are begging for relief, still want to go full bore on a new/refurbished “baseball” park that will cost upwards of 30 million dollars. (don’t buy into the bullshit that they are trimming the cost) No reliable study of whether the taxpayers care or want such an albatross added to the already giant debt load they are forced to pay. Committee chair Earl Persip III says, ” I heard people want the park done.” WTF…that is about the extent of the study and reasoning for spending all this taxpayer money???? This guy is not going to speak for the taxpayers any more than White, Marchetti or the rest of the special interest representatives.
The fact that the percentage of tax increase goes higher every year tells you the budget is being totally mismanaged. The fact that our “leaders” never seem to be able to find any real areas to trim the budget borders on malfeasance, mismanagement or something worse. They sure have no trouble spending. The fact that they panic when the words “forensic audit” are mentioned sends up huge red flags.
Get out if you can because these people want every dime you or your kids will ever earn. If there was no more spending starting now it would still take two generations to pay off Pittsfield current debt. But obviously they have no intention of even slowing down buying new and expensive toys that will benefit only a few people.
No more referendums to gather public opinion like most other cities and towns. No serious audits to provide real oversight of reckless, careless and wasteful spending practices. Ask yourself why this may be the case. Ask why no media except for the Planet, seems to want to get a hold of this runaway Rhino that is Pittsfield’s budget? Marchetti wants 90 days. Is that 90 days to lock in his ball park and other contracts? He is the same person that was your council president and we all know how that went. By pushing for the ballpark he is admitting that he is the same guy and in doing so, is sowing the continuing seeds of despair so many citizens feel.
I’m going to email Dan and tell him to include me in this group. I hope others will as well. The time is right for citizens of Pittsfield to make noise.
Smitty retiring…. Must be eligible for 80%
I hope that the good people who are working to reform the government will be successful in Pittsfield politics and beyond. Please look at what is happening in Lee (Mass.) with Rep. Smitty Pignatelli supporting GE’s planned capped leaky landfill that the local people oppose. Please look at what is happening in Boston with Rep. Smitty Pignatelli long supporting the top-down secrecy on Beacon Hill, while Erin Leahy at Act on Mass is promoting her organization’s Sunlight Agenda in the corrupt and unproductive state government. Look at what is happening in the Swamp with the do-nothing U.S. Congress that hasn’t even passed a federal budget, while PAC Man Richie Neal is only representing K Street Corporate Lobbyist Firms that have nothing to do with Western Massachusetts.
While “The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions”, the career politicians are already pseudo-governing in Hell. It won’t matter if reformers who want a real government ends up failing because it couldn’t get any worse than it is now.
Jon Melle
Given PCB are denser than water, they can be expected to sink into the water table. Water tables can extend dozens of miles. I’m surprised all the well fed owners in Stockbridge aren’t leading the charge.
As luck would have it, Pittsfield also uses good intentions to repair potholes!
Is your wrath of distaste towards Smitty Pignatelli mostly based on his refusal to sign your nomination papers for senator way back in the early 2000’s?
Now Dan what were you drinking this weekend??? Every voting citizen in the Pitts knows that to get change you have to keep voting in the same people or party(Democrats)!! Isn’t that what Eddie Munster said he heard Einstein say in one of his speeches or was he just humming and aying? It seems to be what happens here, the same thing over and over again much like Bill Murray’s groundhog day. Seems the Scohol system in teh city has taught the children well!
Sounds great. I especially love the holding the schools accountable part and candidates friendly to taxpayers. This group will face fierce opposition especially from the school department so I hope they are ready for every effort being made to stop them in their tracks.
Expect city halls pocket media to rise up against such push back immediately. They always try to stamp out oversight in its infancy. which is why we get the city councilors we do. And mayors. And finance folk.
Pittsfield has raised taxes on homeowners near 9% from 2016 on.Marchetti needs to cut 1% from our budget.All projects should go on hold.High school needs its 1st 5 year consolidation plan.The catholic church consolidated for heaven sakes.We must get rid of school choice.Building a new baseball stadium on the wetlands of Wahconah Street is just plain stupid.
We need school choice. School choice takes away the dictator attitude of public schools which is why the school unions and school leaders don’t like it. School choice is a great thing.
You may want to review my comment yesterday.
Even if it does not apply to them, it serves you well to assume it does.
https://planetvalenti.com/2024/02/under-the-new-administration-things-getting-worse-at-a-record-pace/#comment-285622
School choice had one goal and that was to destroy urban democratic school by pulling money from the budgets to support suburban schools.At some point you would turn urban schools over to private corporations for profit….Republicans are afraid of education and unions
Let’s hope this tea party doesn’t ruin the good relations between Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier and Jonathan Melle. Jonathan apologized to TFB for addressing a married woman as “the lovely” and when she rejected him he body shamed her by calling her “trippy” implying she’s to obese to walk down a hill without tripping over herself. Jonathan you better reach out to TFB and let her know you’re not a tea party member or you’ll get blocked again.
Eric SwanSIN the SINNER:
Tricia Farley Bouvier has been a Pittsfield State Representative in Boston for over one dozen years now. In all of that time, she has done little to NOTHING (but DISSERVICES). In early-2017, she – along with Smitty Pignatelli and Paul Mark – voted for her own 40 percent state legislative pay raise that cost taxpayers millions of dollars. In 2018, she sided with The Berkshire Museum’s selling two Norman Rockwell paintings and other historic paintings for tens of millions of dollars. She sponsored state legislation that gives illegal immigrants state driver’s licences. She is sponsoring state legislation to decriminalize sex workers in Massachusetts. She wrote op-eds from Pittsfield to Boston newspapers arguing for state tax increases, while she is a Rubber Stamp vote for the top-down State House leadership that gives away billions of dollars per fiscal year in state tax breaks to Boston area big businesses that do not exist in Western Massachusetts.
Although, I giver her credit because she is NOT as bad as the over 21 year career politician in Boston named Lenox State Representative Smitty Pignatelli, who is one of the worst state lawmakers in the over 400 year history of Massachusetts. In closing, I ask: Has the over 33 combined years of Tricia and Smitty in Boston made us better off than we would have been without them earning 6-figure public pay plus perks in state government?
Jon Melle
JM: Don’t respond to him.
Great idea
Hunter Biden turned 54 this past Sunday.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4447752-biden-celebrates-son-hunters-birthday-at-swanky-la-restaurant/
中共爱你亨特,生日快乐,我们给你发了一张好钱卡
糟糕! 生日蛋糕!
Did Joe, er “The Big Guy”, get him a hooker and a chunk of crack to celebrate with?
Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that the U.S. Government is on an unsustainable fiscal path because the size of the U.S. national debt will be greater than the U.S. economy in the future. Thank you, Mr. Powell, for telling us this. Also, the Sun rises in the east and sets in the west. When it rains, it gets wet outside. When it snows, it is cold outside. People do not live forever. The Fourth of July is in the Summer. Everyone enjoys money, sex, peace of mind, and being happy and healthy. Weddings are happy events, while Funerals are sad events. Career politicians are corrupt. There is no Peace in the Middle East. The Sun is hot. Pluto is cold. The Swamp is full of HOT AIR….
Free stuff is expensive.
Problem is too much SPENDING, to many special programs, too much wealth redistribution.If you want to see what the Biden immigration plan is about, offer an amendment that would deny voter registration to anyone remaining illegally or receiving amnesty. Democrats that you voted for caused a majority of the state were in. Keep voting for them.
Water is wet
Hopefully this new TEA Party formation will cause a change in behavior of these politicians and other special interests who are and have been running things for far to long. They’re ‘all in’ on doing ANYTHING it takes to maintain power, and only care about that and a free paycheck from the taxpayers. I also Blame the most gullible, apathetic unintelligent, brainwashed electorate for keeping them in power for so long.
It will put the eye of Big Brother on THEM for a change, not on the Kapanskis.
OP: Don’t blame. That’s the past. Fight for tomorrow.
RINOs will dress up as TEA party members, then if elected, will stab the people that voted for them in the back.
Just like those in the US senate that voted for the Leftist/Liberal “Open Border is Good!” bill they are pushing. ONLY 5000 new criminals per day. And give the 9 Million new ones (that they know of) since Jan 21/2021, AMNESTY and US taxpayer funded benefits!!!
GOP is not to be trusted. In this state they stole Ron Paul’s delegates and gave them to RINO-Romney. How did Twit do?
TEA Party members will be carefully vetted to prevent this. As they used to say, “Vee haff our vays.”
The rino’s are just like the pharmaceutical companies who tell us daily how great their products are for all the ailments that people are experiencing.They make the claim’s in loud fancy ways and then the SOB’s always minimize what the side effects are in the fastest and quietest manner possible.
A Pittsfield drug investigator making 307,000 a year oh dear god no wonder the streets look like mars and the schools are failing. More city waste! they love the drug investigations they go on and on and on more $$ forget about the violent crime that takes to much effort. So much backscratching and atta boy handshakes in this city. Sickening!
Honestly, could drug overdoses and deaths in Pittsfield get any higher if there was no drug task force at all? Serious question.
While the DARE program was a valiant effort the fact is that the drug problem in Pittsfield and all of America is 1000 times worse than when it was first implemented. It is like trying to damn up a raging river during monsoon season.
Biden/Mayorkus open border for: any and all drugs, terrorists, human smugglers, Mexican Cartels, any and all Unvetted CRIMINAL ALIENS.
What could go wrong?
Expensive gatekeeper
Who think Trump will leave office in 2028…
Me am think that
Why the non-sequitor post by that guy?
https://planetvalenti.com/2024/02/under-the-new-administration-things-getting-worse-at-a-record-pace/#comment-285622
Satire, considering TSC’s murder of grammar?
Agent.
Every email you receive you should first rule out it’s a virus – right? So, I don’t think it’s satire. That’s not playing it safe. I have no idea who TSC is, where he lives, and why he writes. He doesn’t seem too upset about anything; not the ballpark – just repeating some mantra, not taxes – just droning broadly “the poor! the elderly,” not even any palpable emotion with Trump for all the apparent thundering. Contrast with Merry Bright – she’s really angered by what was done to her road and really angered by what she heard last meeting. That’s real
The question is how to maintain a blog, discussing political issues, and account for knowing you are seen by malevolent foreign militaries. Dan speaks of ‘robots,’ a joke perhaps, but certain robots (Google’s, theirs…) have trodden here. If you take a conservative approach and assume you are infiltrated, how do you maintain the integrity of the site?
Not really news, but with the invasion, Chinese military aged men making a large percentage of the horde, we cannot dispute that we are in a state of war. There is no such thing as hot or cold war; war is always HOT. Destroying a generation here at home with drugs, false education, and mental confusion and isolation is as aggressive as bombing our soldiers in a camp in Jordan. The objective of war is to defeat your enemy and to win at low cost. The degree of suffering for the enemy is not defining.
The term, ‘Cold War’ is deceptive and was designed by us to nurture stability as our government formed useless strategies to combat our committed foe, the KGB which largely ran the USSR. During the first Cold War, we lost to drugs. Lost! The enemy won, suffering little at that, as we are saturated. Walk through town and you see the casualties and the enemy’s propaganda advertising drug services with a friendly face – mocking us. No more ‘this is your brain on drugs.” It’s now, “Don’t drive buzzed.” “Going to a party? Bring Narcan!” “Going to a party – stay sober and save a friend”
In capitulation, we legalized pot with the lie that doing so will make us rich. We redefined participating in the trade from criminal to mental disorder (as though fixing that fixes the crime). We changed our policy from fight – abstinance underscored with the threat of legal jeopardy -to tolerance and acceptance. Impact on labor and suicide is seen everywhere.
Today’s situation began years ago during the 1950’s. The USSR mobilized Warsaw Pact nations and Latin America to saturate the USA with hard drugs. This war continues today, and there are new weapons. The Chinese are known to be active in saturating information spaces to destroy cohesion and foster insecurity.
There’s nothing outrageous or explosive in what I write – you know this. It doesn’t matter if TSC and his numerous iterations here and elsewhere are not agents, it serves your interest to assume he is.
Sounds like you are assuming he will be in office 2028 in order for him to leave in 2028. Good assumption!
That would be Jan 2029, after serving as POTUS 8 years.
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426 police calls in January. More than 14 a day for “openly gay” Bitchfield.
I’m in Miami Dan. Good luck with your tea ,see you in the spring.
Yet another accident west center area.
People should stop driving there. It sounds like the Bermuda Triangle.
February 6th, 2024
Good riddance, Smitty Pignatelli. You are one of the worst career politicians in Massachusetts history.
You support GE’s plan to put a capped leaky landfill in Lee (Mass.) over the strong objections of the town’s residents who will be impacted by GE’s industrial chemicals called PCBs.
You always voted against Sunshine rules and laws reform measures that would have brought transparency to Beacon Hill’s secretive operations. You even publicly stated that you support closed door governance because you said it is efficient and gets things done.
You are a Rubber Stamp vote in favor of the top-down State House leadership. Beacon Hill lawmakers and the inequitable governor’s office gives away billions of dollars per fiscal year in state tax breaks to Boston area big businesses that do not exist in Western Massachusetts – the worst of both worlds for your constituents.
You voted for two House Speakers – Finneran (your very first vote in Boston) and DiMasi – who later became Convicted Felons as a result of their illegal actions in their leadership positions.
You voted for your own 40-percent state legislative pay raise bill that cost state taxpayers millions of dollars. You happily accepted countless state legislative public pay raises plus perks for over 21 years now. You will file for a 6-figure state public pension plus perks one year from now.
You wrote op-eds decrying Berkshire County’s past 50 years of losses in population and living wage jobs – a shrinking tax base – while state and local taxes increased – a distressed economy in Western Massachusetts. You never once looked at yourself in the proverbial mirror of self-reflection as a career politician who is part of the problem.
You proposed legislation to give youths criminal records if they possess a small amount of marijuana near a youth center instead of helping them succeed in their young lives; (the real alleged criminals are the corrupt career politicians, registered lobbyists and marijuana dispensary owners with political connections at the Boston State House)
In early-2004, you – along with now greedy lobbyists Dan Bosley and Peter Larkin – refused to sign my nomination papers for Berkshire-based State Senator because you chose loyalty to then Pittsfield State Senator Andrea Francesco Nuciforo Junior, who two years later had to step down from his elected position due to Nuciforo allegedly illegally double-dipping as the Chair of the State Senate Finance Committee while at the same time serving as legal counsel for Boston’s big banks and insurance companies in Boston’s Financial District where Nuciforo still has a law office in 2024.
You block all of my political emails to you because your ego is bigger than the size of the Moon. Moreover, you blame Governor Maura Healey’s one year in her current elected office for the problems that you have failed to solve in over 21 years in Boston.
You have two faces. One was sweet for the rich and powerful. The other was sour for the rest of us. Instead of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, it is Smitty & Shitty.
You represent everything that is wrong with state and local politics.
Jon Melle
—–
“State Rep. William ‘Smitty’ Pignatelli will not run for another term. Friends, Colleagees and Constituents say he’ll be hard to replace”
By Greg Sukiennik, The Berkshire Eagle, February 6, 2024
Lenox – State Rep. Smitty Pignatelli will not run for another two-year term representing the 3rd Berkshire District in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, the longtime Democratic lawmaker told The Berkshire Eagle on Monday….
John, there are only 24 Republicans in the MA. House of Representatives .The Democrats can do anything they want, and they do. Smittys votes don’t mean shit. Should cut the House in half and save some money. Instead of votes going 136 to 24, they would be 68 to 12, same results, tax and spend.
To all the Republicans who are leaving our borders wide open and won’t secure America from drugs,rapist snd murderers ,your rapist leader was just told by the appeals court that he has no immunity from prosecution. It was a unanimous 7 to 0 judgment.
TSC
You’re serious? “The Republicans who are leaving our borders wide open??” You may believe that fiction and cling to it as truth, but this has jumped the banks under Dementia Joe, who just a couple days ago said he “recently” talked to France’s Mitterand, a head of state who’s been dead for 30 years.
Think about my post yesterday. He peddles incoherence. Obsessive beyond any norm therefore following a template. It’s conventional mishmashed catcalls that are intended to isolate the reader and demoralize.
What would you propose, then. If you were THE PLANET, would you ban? What about free speech?
Free speech is the right to petition your government personally. We are both old enough to know that otherwise, there are no good ideas when implemented as solutions.
Accountability.
Precisely.
Anonymity with otherwise perfectly innocuous posting is also a red flag.
MItterand been dead only 20 years, so he gets a gracey period pass.
He dade 28 years. We round up in Biden’s case.
I’m getting old then. Ohhh well….
Biden has been brain dead his entire time in politics:(
Dan, from thh testimony of Mr. Beauchamp-Mustafaga 2.1.24, he states “…the PLA [People’s Liberation Army, China] was researching how to reinforce “information cocoons,” or echo chambers, to deliberately polarize and divide American society to detract from “mainstream [Western] values” and isolate individuals psychologically.”
We have been talking some time now about the war on Western values and social isolation as separate challenges. According to the man cited, they are bound together as the objective of the PLA. The only way I see to combat it is to either censor trolls or demand accountability for content.
Didn’t Hilary have a seance when she was First Lady? She was trying to contact Eleanor Roosevelt. Maybe she could help dementia Joe out?
Thank god for free speech. Best way to know who the fools are.
TSC’s free speech is worth every penny
Except in reality you do not have Free Speech.
“The committees obtained documents indicating that MCC codes were used to query transactions like: “3484: Small Arms,” “5091: Sporting and Recreational Goods and Supplies” and the keywords “Cabela’s,” “Dick’s Sporting Goods” and “Bass Pro Shops,” among others.
The House Judiciary Committee also obtained documents revealing that FinCEN warned financial institutions that an “extremism indicator” could be “the purchase of books (including religious texts),” like the Bible, and subscriptions to certain media “containing extremist views.””
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/yellen-dodges-whether-treasury-department-moved-surveil-americans-legal-purchases
Trump is asking you to help with his next trial.The last trial cost you 50 million to lose 88 million….Ouch…Fatboy Trump in a suit will be fine.Also his CFO is suspected of lying on the previous trial of fraud.Trump is one busy pied piper of crime.You could not pick a better guy to follow to the promise land
Now your boy Joe Bumbles, is talking to dead people. Can’t make this shit up. Empty suit, full diaper!
I’m giving Kufflinks 3 years. Same process. By that time Kenny’s brain will have been exploded.
I’m giving all of my hooking income and sending it all to Donald.
Councilor white told a wheel chaired elderly Black woman who could hear well to go to the back of the room to get some hearing help? What the hell is he talking about,Help Her Pete,she’s in a goddamn wheel chair.
We need a National Health System because this system is a completely failed.Republicans are ruining America ,but they might save Putin
Please,,keep posting TSC. Your proving my point.,The gift that keeps on giving.
Dan, this is a crock of shit. It will never happen.
Sounds like HL is whistling past the graveyard. Looks like this post has him r-rrattled! We suggest he keep repeating to himself with the covers pulled over his head: “It will never happen. It will never happen. It will never happen.”
And this is Mr. Rabbit feet too.
This is like O.J. Simpson saying he’s out looking for the real killers.