Kevin Kuros, candidate for Eighth Worcester district State Representative, is blasting incumbent Representative Paul Kujawski, after it was revealed in his campaign finance reports that Kujawski improperly used campaign funds, and accepted illegal contributions from registered lobbyists.

  “Our legislator is living a life of luxury off of contributions by lobbyists and Beacon Hill insiders. It is time for a change,” Kuros said. “This explains why Paul Kujawski does exactly what the Speaker tells him to do.”

Kujawski’s campaign finance report reveals he has leased a Ford vehicle at a cost of nearly $400 per month, and spent over $4,000 on gasoline from his campaign account. Based on average gas prices and miles per gallon, he is claiming to have driven over 34,000 miles… in 8 months. He also has over $2,200 in payments to Arbella insurance, presumably for insurance on the “campaign vehicle.” On a similar note, he has spent nearly $1,500 at a florist over the past 8 months, and last year spent over $700 on newspaper subscriptions.

In addition, Kujawski accepted contributions from at least 10 lobbyists. $400 was donated by lobbyist Roger D. Donahue, despite the $200 per person contribution limit for registered lobbyists. Kujawski has previously been cited several times by the MA Office of Campaign & Political Finance for campaign finance violations.

“The bottom line is: Rep. Kujawski has grown out of touch with the people of this district,” Kuros concluded. “It’s similar to the Cadillac that Governor Patrick leased on our dime. It shows a disregard for the campaign finance laws, and more notably, it shows a disregard for people trying to make ends meet. It has to stop.”

Howie Carr, in his fantastically unique way, excoriates the media attacks on Sarah Palin:

It’s become a regular “60 Minutes”/Texas Air National Guard feeding frenzy of bogus reporting out there. The whoppers about Palin are piled up so high in the moribund mainstream media that the wrinkly newsreaders have taken to blaming their most scurrilous, sexist screw-ups on those nefarious unnamed left-wing “bloggers” - you know, like Brian Williams.

Why do the pampered poodles of the elite media loathe Sarah so much? Let’s go down the list.

She’s only 44 years old. She’s just not seasoned enough - and if you don’t believe me, just ask Gloria Steinem, age 74, or Barbara Walters, age 78, or Sally Quinn, age 67, or Eleanor Clift, age 68, or Andrea Mitchell, age 61, or Gail Collins, age 62.

Why, up on the stage, it has been noted that you can distinguish Sarah’s ankles from her calves. She’s never had a Botox injection. The hags of the Hamptons speak as one on this issue. Snow White Palin must be stopped. Anybody got a poisoned apple?

How can she be qualified when she doesn’t have a single $1.2-million-a-year lobbyist in her family? How can she relate to “lunch-bucket” Americans the way lunch-bucket blowhard Joe Biden can?

She admits smoking pot as a teenager, which sets a terrible example for the youth of America, unlike Barack Obama, who admits smoking pot as a teenager, and whose “refreshing candor” is a breath of fresh air after eight years of Cheney-Bush.

She went to multiple colleges as an undergraduate, which shows how flighty and immature she is, unlike Barack Obama, who went to multiple colleges as an undergraduate, which shows the inquisitive nature of his intelligence, which has been such an inspiration, at least to everyone who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

Howie then goes on to list various lies about Sarah Palin that have been reported as facts by the mainstream, and really nailed the situation perfectly.

You must understand printing lies about Republican candidates is OK. It’s called “vetting.” Printing the truth about liberals - that’s called “swift-boating.” From career MSNBC jock sniffer Keith Olbermann to Barney Frank’s favorite publisher Jann Wenner, the verdict on Palin is unanimous.

Read the whole thing.

Senator John Kerry finally faced some Democratic opposition for his senate seat in his debate with Ed O’Reilly, and it seems like O’Reilly gave him a run for his money.

US Senator John F. Kerry never seemed very eager for this debate, and from the opening moments it was clear why. Edward O’Reilly, an unpolished Gloucester lawyer who is Kerry’s only Democratic challenger in 24 years, came out swinging, throwing jabs about the senator’s six-year-old Iraq war vote and questioning his commitment to serve out another full term in the Senate.

“Will John Kerry give a commitment to stay the six years if he’s elected?” O’Reilly said in the first - and probably only - debate before the state’s Democratic primary on Sept. 16. “And, if he won’t give that commitment . . . will he put up the millions of dollars it will cost the taxpayers of Massachusetts for a special election?”

Kerry, who four years ago was at the political pinnacle as he debated with a sitting president on the international stage, appeared miffed at the question. He told moderator Jon Keller that he thought the debate format forbade the candidates from posing questions.

“I didn’t know we were asking each other questions,” Kerry said. “So, if we can break the rules, that’s one thing, but -”

“He didn’t break the rules,” Keller said. “Go ahead.”

“I’m happy to answer it,” Kerry said. “I’ve said consistently I am only running for one job. I’m not asking for any other job. I’m not looking for any other job. I intend to serve my term. If I’m elected, that’s what I’m doing.”

O’Reilly hammered Kerry on his 2002 vote to authorize the war in Iraq, his lack of influence in the senate, and his lack of financial support for other Democratic candidates. Kerry only denied the charges, and said “I’m proud of the job that I’ve done.”

O’Reilly did fumble the football a bit…

O’Reilly’s lack of experience showed when he stumbled over a question about how he would protect a federal line item for technology funding. He said he would consult with the New England Council on Biotech Industries, an organization that doesn’t exist.

Whoops.

But back the Kerry’s vote to authorize force in Iraq… that was the subject of almost half the debate.

O’Reilly criticized Kerry for not reading the National Intelligence Estimate, a classified compendium of intelligence reports, before voting - an allegation Kerry said after the debate was “just silliness.”

“I did something better than read it - and it really shows Ed’s lack of understanding of what due diligence is in Washington,” Kerry said. “I actually met with the CIA teams. I actually went to the Pentagon and sat down with the secretary of defense.”

It was all Colin Powell’s fault, wasn’t it? What’s worse: voting to authorize the use of force without due diligence; or doing your diligence before voting and then changing your mind years later?

The winner of the September 16th primary faces Republican Jeff Beatty in the general election.

Click on to see the speech as prepared by Governor Mitt Romney.

For decades, the Washington sun has been rising in the east — Washington has been looking to the eastern elites, to the editorial pages of the Times and the Post, and to the broadcasters from the coast.

If America really wants change, it’s time to look for the sun in the west, cause it’s about to rise and shine from Arizona and Alaska!

Last week, the Democrats talked about change. But let me ask you — what do you think Washington is right now, liberal or conservative? Is a Supreme Court liberal or conservative that awards Guantanamo terrorists with constitution rights? It’s liberal! Is a government liberal or conservative that puts the interests of the teachers union ahead of the needs of our children? It’s liberal!

Is a Congress liberal or conservative that stops nuclear power plants and offshore drilling, making us more and more dependent on Middle East tyrants? It’s liberal!

Is government spending — excluding inflation — liberal or conservative if it doubles since 1980? It’s liberal!

We need change all right — change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington — throw out the big government liberals and elect John McCain!

It’s the same prescription for a stronger economy. I spent 25 years in the private sector. I’ve done business in many foreign countries. I know why jobs come and why they go away. And I know that liberals don’t have a clue.

They think we have the biggest and strongest economy in the world because of our government. They’re wrong. America is strong because of the ingenuity and entrepreneurship and hard work of the American people.

The American people have always been the source of our nation’s strength and they always will be!

We strengthen our people and our economy when we preserve and promote opportunity. Opportunity is what lets hope become reality.

Opportunity expands when there is excellence and choice in education, when taxes are lowered, when every citizen has affordable, portable health insurance, and when constitutional freedoms are preserved.

Opportunity rises when children are raised in homes and schools that are free from pornography, promiscuity and drugs; in homes that are blessed with family values and the presence of a father and a mother.

America cannot long lead the family of nations if we fail the family here at home!

Liberals would replace opportunity with dependency on government largesse. They grow government and raise taxes to put more people on Medicaid, to take work requirements out of welfare, and to grow the ranks of those who pay no taxes at all. Dependency is death to initiative, risk-taking and opportunity.

It is time to stop the spread of government dependency to fight it like the poison it is!

It’s time for the party of big ideas, not the party of Big Brother!

Our economy is under attack. China is acting like Adam Smith on steroids, buying oil from the world’s worst, and selling nuclear technology. Russia and the oil states are siphoning more than 500 billion dollars a year from us in what could become the greatest transfer of economic wealth in history. This is no time for timid, liberal empty gestures.

Our economy has slowed down this year and a lot of people are hurting. What happened? Mortgage money was handed out like candy, speculators bought homes for free — when this mortgage mania finally broke, it slammed the economy. And stratospheric gas prices made things even worse.

Democrats want to use the slowdown as an excuse to do what their special interests are always begging for: higher taxes, bigger government and less trade with other nations.

It’s the same path Europe took a few decades ago. It leads to moribund growth and double-digit unemployment.

The right course is the one championed by Ronald Reagan 30 years ago, and by John McCain today. It is to rein in government spending and to lower taxes, for taking a weed whacker to excessive regulation and mandates, for putting a stop to tort windfalls, and to stand up to the tyrannosaurus appetite of government unions!

It is to pursue every source of energy security, from new efficiencies to renewables, from clean coal to non-CO2 producing nuclear, and the immediate drilling for more oil off of our shores! And I have one more recommendation for energy conservation — let’s keep Al Gore’s private jet on the ground!

Did you hear any Democrats talk last week about the threat from radical, violent Jihad? Republicans believe that there is good and evil in the world. Ronald Reagan called-out the Evil Empire. George Bush labeled the terror-sponsor states the Axis of Evil.

And at Saddleback, after Barack Obama dodged and ducked every direct question, John McCain hit the nail on the head: radical violent Islam is evil, and he will defeat it!

Republicans prefer straight talk to politically correct talk!

Republicans, led by John McCain and Sarah Palin, will fight to preserve the values that have preserved the nation. We will strengthen our economy and keep us from being held hostage by Putin, Chavez and Ahmadinejad.

And we will never allow America to retreat in the face of evil extremism!

Just like you, there has never been a day when I was not proud to be an American. We inherited the greatest nation in the history of the earth.

It is our burden and privilege to preserve it, to renew its spirit so that its noble past is prologue to its glorious future.

To this we are all dedicated and I firmly believe, by the providence of the Almighty, that we will succeed.

President McCain and Vice President Palin will keep America as it has always been — the hope of the world.

Rep. Barney Frank says Sarah Palin’s family is “fair game.” He is among the first to make this suggestion, and is breaking ranks with the de facto party leader and Democratic nominee for president Barack Obama.

“They’re the ones that made an issue of her family,” Frank, D-Mass., said Tuesday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

Republicans stressed Palin’s conservative family values in announcing her selection as John McCain’s running mate on Friday. Frank says the recent disclosure about her daughter blunts conservative claims that liberalism harms family life.

“Apparently she’s a great favorite with the conservative social movement,” Frank said. “They have said that it’s liberalism and liberals who have undermined families — same-sex marriage has been a problem, they don’t want gay people to adopt … This helps undercut those arguments.”

Not so, Congressman. Growing up with conservative values in the home does not 100% shield you from liberalism, and vice versa. You can’t walk down the street, go on the internet, or turn on the television to see how liberalism has undermined family values. Parents can only do so much to impart their values on to their children. Let’s face it, it is impossible for parents to safeguard children from values that do not align with their own, short of keeping them locked up in a dungeon somewhere with no outside contact.

Revelations about Palin’s 17-year-old daughter’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy and other family troubles reflect the stresses and strains of modern everyday life more than anything else, said Frank.

“Well, hers is a family in great turmoil,” added Frank. “She fired the state police commissioner because he wouldn’t fire her sister’s ex-husband. She has a daughter who became pregnant. That’s not her fault.”

I don’t understand why her family is “in great turmoil” for simply having to deal with the stresses and strains of modern everyday life. Many families deal with these issues, and some many times worse.  But you are correct, Congressman. It’s not her fault. You can fairly go after the actions of Sarah Palin, but when it comes to her children, or any politicians children, listen to your messiah, “children are especially off limits.” Let’s keep it that way, for the children of a politicians regardless of what party they are. If Palin’s children are fair game, then all politicians’ children are fair game, and I don’t think we want to go down that road, Congressman.

(Will Congressman Frank say that Senator Biden’s son and brother are also fair game?)

Governor Mitt Romney did not get to be McCain’s running mate, and he’s not interested in a cabinet position.

Mitt Romney followed his father’s footsteps when he became a governor and ran for president. But he said he has no interest in following his father’s path into a Cabinet post.

Speaking to the Massachusetts Republican delegation Tuesday in Bloomington, Minn., Romney said he learned a lot from watching his father, George Romney, try to move a “big bureaucracy” as President Nixon’s secretary of Housing.

Romney said he has “no interest in a cabinet position whatsoever.” Instead, he said he is working to get the McCain-Palin ticket elected, then would try to help them — from a vantage point outside the administration.

Our junior senator John Kerry was on ABC and had some words to say about Senator John McCain’s runningmate and her experience, or rather, in his opinion, the lack thereof.

You know, we’ve been warning against the third term of George Bush. With the choice of Governor Palin it is now the third term of Bush-Cheney. Because what he’s done is chosen somebody who actually doesn’t believe that climate change is man-made. He’s chosen somebody who has zero, zero experience in foreign policy. The first threshold test of a president, of a nominee, in choosing a vice-president is to prove to the American people that the person that you’ve chosen can fill in tomorrow. That they come with the requisite experience to lead the nation in foreign policy and in national security. You know, she may be, I mean I’m sure she’s a terrific person. I’m not attacking her. I think John McCain’s judgment is once again put at issue because he’s chosen somebody who clearly does not meet the national security threshold, who is not ready to be president tomorrow.

This is particularly funny coming from John Kerry, who picked John Edwards as his running mate. Besides having been elected to the Senate, and believing in man-made global warming, what other credentials did he have?

When it was suggested that Governor Sarah Palin has more experience than Senator Obama, Kerry got defensive.

That’s just ridiculous on its face. Barack Obama has been in the United States Senate. He has not been absent more than he’s been there. She’s been a governor for what, two years now. Barack Obama in four years.

So four years in the senate makes you qualified? Casting a few votes and showing up to work is all it takes?

But moreover, Barack Obama has traveled abroad. Look at the trip Barack Obama took. I mean its remarkable to me that the Republicans would try to denigrate a trip that a candidate for president takes where he attracts more attention, more support if you will, than a sitting president of the United States of America. That’s what you need in leadership for a president. You need somebody who can go to Europe and say to them, “We need more help in Afghanistan.” He actually called the Europeans to account on their need to be frankly more front and center in the effort to deal with Afghanistan than President Bush has. I think that’s leadership and I think the United States of America is well-served if we have a president who is able to do that.

Traveling abroad; another pre-requisite. Listen up all you college students studying overseas–you too are also qualified to be president under Kerry’s logic. (I suppose Kerry met the foreign policy requirement to be president after making one trip to Paris in 1971.)

Barack Obama has been recorded as being present during senate roll call a hundred times or so in 4 years, and traveled abroad–this, according to John Kerry, makes him qualified to be president. How many Americans out there show up to work (a thousand times, give or take, over 4 years) and have traveled abroad? I’ve been overseas, and I show up to to work, so I must be qualified to run for president according to John Kerry. Kerry says Obama also attracts more attention (and support) than a sitting president, and that makes him qualified for president. Heck, so does Paris Hilton, or even Michael Phelps (who just got back from China…), should they run for president?

Kerry is clearly trying to argue that a first term governor, particularly one having only served two years, is not qualified for vice president. Oddly enough, there have been a few governors once considered by Obama for his running mate, some also still in the midst of their first terms. Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia, who started his first term in January 2006; Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, who is a few years into her second term; Governor Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a first term governor; and Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who originally was vying for the nomination. Sarah Palin has been governor of Alaska for two years; what executive decisions has Barack Obama made besides picking Joe Biden as his running mate? That answer is none. What has he done in the Senate? According to govtrack.us, Obama has “sponsored 136 bills since Jan 4, 2005, of which 122 haven’t made it out of committee and 2 were successfully enacted.” He has missed 23% of the votes since his term started.

Historically, there are six examples of one term governors who went on to serve as vice president: Thomas Jefferson, Martin Van Buren, Thomas Hendricks, Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Marshall, and Spiro Agnew. Half of them went on to be president. How about this for a history lesson: former two-term Massachusetts governor Calvin Coolidge, elected to the corner office in both 1918 and 1919, was elected vice president in 1920; succeeded President Warren Harding after his death in 1923; and was elected to his own term as president in the 1924 election. Palin is not alone.

If you objectively consider Barack Obama’s credentials for president and Sarah Palin’s credentials for vice president, there is no comparison. Palin is much more fit to be vice president than Obama is to president.

Sorry Senator, but your argument for why Obama is more qualified for president than Palin is for vice president is much like your own bid for the presidency: failed.

State Senator Scott Brown, who represents the Norfolk, Bristol, and Middlesex Districts, has launched a new campaign website.

Check it out at www.scottbrown4senate.com.

In response to the big news, MassGOP Chairman Peter Torkildsen said, “Sarah Palin is a terrific pick for John McCain and the entire country. Sarah Palin took on the old-boy network in Alaska and won. To change Washington, it’s going to take a team of Mavericks who have a record of accomplishment in shaking up the status quo. Sarah Palin is a tough executive who has demonstrated that she is ready to be president. She brought Republicans and Democrats together and delivered results. While the Obama-Biden ticket is big on talk, the McCain-Palin ticket is big on results. She alone has far more executive experience than Barack Obama and the McCain-Palin ticket will be a ticket to victory in November.”

The pick certain gained the praise of many, and blindsided the Obama campaign, which was actively preparing for McCain to pick Mitt Romney:

Ms. Palin came as a surprise not only to many Republicans and journalists, but also to the Obama team. The campaign has been busily preparing TV commercials to run against Mitt Romney — with aides gleefully watching hours of footage of Romney-McCain exchanges from the primary — but far little opposition research had been prepared about the Alaska governor. And aides said no commercials were ready to be immediately released, which the McCain campaign did when Mr. Biden was chosen.

D’oh.

In response to Barack Obama’s speech, MassGOP Chairman Peter Torkildsen said,

The Democrats offer nothing more than the same high-tax, big-government solutions that have failed in the past. For all Senator Obama’s talk of “change,” it clear that the only “change” Americans will see is the kind that will disappear from their wallets. Barack Obama is not ready to lead and not ready to govern. John McCain is the clear choice for Massachusetts families, and will win in November.

The speech reminded me of the kind of fluffed up rhetoric of Deval Patrick gave the voters of Massachusetts.. and look how bad that turned out.