BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE THE WEEKEND EDITION DEC. 5-7, 2025) — A couple items to share as we head to the weekend.

Embargo This: We’ve seen a lot of things in our writing career, but we’ve never seen a politician hold a press conference then tell (not ask) the media to embargo it … until this week, when Boston mayor Michelle Wu did just that.

A news “embargo” occurs when a source issues information with the understanding that the media will hold off on publishing it until a specified date and time. THE PLANET has dealt with embargoed stories, and they have their place, but an embargoed press conference? We would not have complied. The Boston Herald pushed back. Political columnist Joe Battenfeld hammered Wu for her plan to raise taxes and fattening the city budget “while not targeting any of her woke initiatives.

Wu wants to hike the commercial tax rate at a time when post-COVID commercial property values in Boston are plummeting. That’s the type of thinking that prevails not just in Boston but also in Bitchfield, where Lumpy’s answer to a dead economy is to raise property values artificially, crushing both homeowners and business.

“Raise spending, raise taxes”: That’s nothing less than a cancellation of Prop. 2-1/2 — political cynicism in the extreme.

———- ooo ———-

Vetterans Day?: Have you wondered along with THE PLANET how people like LaMar Cook and Dancin’ Dean Lavante Wiggins get hired by government for six-figure no-show public sector jobs? What kind of background check went into Cook and Wiggins? Or is that not done in cities strapped by DEI, a blatantly racist policy that puts skin color, gender, and sexual orientation ahead of merit.

The Dancing Dean

Cook’s the dude hired by Maura Healey to serve as her liaison to Western Massachusetts. State Police busted him last month after they intercepted 21 kilos of cocaine earmarked for Healey’s office at the State Office Building in Springfield. Cook worked there. Troopers also took from Cook an unregistered gun and ammunition. He’s charged with trafficking blow and unlawful gun possession.

Wiggins was hired by the Pittsfield School Department as dean of students. The feds busted him a year ago along with “Monty” Warren, charging the pair with conspiring to traffic huge quantities of cocaine. Let that sink in. Wiggins, authorities say, operated a large coke distribution business while employed as dean for impressionable high school students. How could that ever happen? As usual, Mayor Lumpy, the idiot who chairs the city council, and the school committee have nothing to say. They’re hoping the truth never emerges.

———- ooo ———-

Gov. Healey and LaMar Cook

From the U.S. Attorney’s Office:

According to the charging documents, Wiggins, the Dean of Students at Pittsfield High School, operated a drug trafficking organization (DTO) that distributed large amounts of cocaine in and around the Pittsfield area. It is alleged that Warren is a trusted member of the DTO who serves as a runner for Wiggins. According to the charging documents, in August 2024, Wiggins expressed concern that he was under investigation and that he would send Warren to complete drug sales and deliver cocaine. It is alleged that one of Wiggins’ customers amassed a debt of more than $34,000 for cocaine that Wiggins provided on credit. It is further alleged that Wiggins and Warren then went about collecting on that debt while continuing to supply large amounts of cocaine to that customer. … Wiggins allegedly directed Warren to distribute cocaine to that customer on four separate occasions between September and December 2024: approximately 91 grams on Sept. 10, 2024; approximately 100 grams on Oct. 14, 2024; 125 grams  on Oct. 31, 2024; and 150 grams on Dec. 10, 2024.

How could Cook and Wiggins have been hired? Who checked?

When the Boston Herald went to court calling for the records related to Cook’s background check, Manza Arthur, supervisor of records for the secretary of state’s office, refused to provide them. Arthur cited state law that exempts personnel and medical records of public employees from disclosure. In this corrupt state, that’s an invitation to plunder the public treasury and ruin what’s left of the public trust. Arthur is the same person that down a request for disclosure of records of those involved in the scandals involving Pittsfield public schools.

By the bye, Manz Arthur, like Wiggins and Cook, is black. She also has the added advantage of being female. Just sayin’.

THE PLANET objects to this exemption for public employees. If Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski have to foot the bill, then they are entitled to see the records.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

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“Government is not a solution to our problem; government IS the problem” — Ronald Reagan.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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