001All politics is local, with John Featherston. An in-depth and comprehensive look at Massachusetts political news and current events. Hi, and welcome to another edition of All Politics is Local. I'm John. That's Mike. What's going on, Mr. Adams? I'm still Mike. Still Mike. still glad you're still John. We don't want you to change. Don't ever change, John. What a week in the world of politics, Mr. Adams. It's hard to keep up with. Um you know, I I enjoy it, but I mean, it's like we'll we'll we'll talk about a lot of things today. We'll talk about DOE. We'll talk about the audit. We'll talk about But the one thing you Have you ever had a MassSave audit done on your home? No. Not Well, you mean to save energy? Yeah, to save energy. Uh I might
002have. I had one, and They told me to fix the roof. There's a big hole in it. We blew insulation into the attic, and we changed all of our light bulbs in the house, and the light bulbs were horrible. Yeah, they are. But it's no longer MassSave. It's now MassPay. What Maura Healey has done to your How do you heat your home? Well, we have oil hot water blown through the house. Forced hot water? Yeah, we got like, you know, what do you call them? Radiators down there in the floor? Yeah. Well, I have gas I have gas heat in my house. And my bill last month I my gas usage was $320. Yeah. My delivery charge on that gas was $600. So, I had a $900 gas bill in my house, and it's all
003because of Maura Healey canceled two pipelines. Uh and I think we've got a clip. Uh let's go to that clip now of Ben Simmoneau from uh WCVB asking her about uh what's going on. Commissioners, does your administration bear some responsibility for not acting sooner on these rates? No, I don't believe so. It's not my fault. to do with it. nothing to do with it. It's not my fault. It's somebody else's fault. I mean, enough is enough, Maura. Like, you brag when you're campaigning that you stopped two pipelines to Massachusetts. You have the ability to appoint people to this board, and you still don't think this is any of your fault? Well, plus it seems like she's able to add charges to all kinds of functions in life. Isn't she involved in prescription She wants to
004charge $2 per prescription to help pay for the cost of the migrants uh free health care. Yeah, and these two things are so related how? I mean, why why does that We already have a gigantic budget uh at at addendum from Maura Healey based on additional costs to pay for the last year's migrants, right? I don't understand. Some little old lady needs, you know, life-saving prescriptions, and we're going to charge her $2 per prescription to fund the migrant program. Tell me how that makes sense in anybody's world. Over and above whatever it already costs for health care to add to that for the purpose of that you just described of making sure that the illegal immigrants get what they need. It doesn't make any sense, and it and it's it seems to me like the
005the entire Commonwealth should be up in arms over everything she's doing. I think we have another clip that's not going to make any sense to anybody, but look at the type of individual that Maura Healey appoints to these boards. before I was able to get new windows. Plastic is another really important thing, and I want to quickly make the connection for you. As the fossil fuel companies see the writing on the wall, and demand for fossil fuels is going down and will continue to go down, they are increasing their upstream production of plastic, because plastic is made from fossil fuels. It's really hard, and I believe me, I just bought some cherry tomatoes today, and they came in a plastic container, and I was hungry, and I had a shortage of time, and I did
006it. So, we're not going to be angels, but think about ways that you can reduce plastic in your diet and or in your home purchases, and try try not to do that. Making your home as energy efficient as possible, you know, even if you're just covering up the windows in the wintertime with that that plastic sheeting. I used to do that um before I was able to get new windows. Plastic is another really important thing, and I want to quickly make the connection for you. this lady in charge of anything? How is she in charge of lunch today, much less the energy policy of the Send her out. I need some cherry tomatoes, but no plastic involved. The other thing is, does she realize her glasses frames are plastic? I mean, this is Where's the
007common sense, John? Where is it? You're the governor of Massachusetts. You can choose from a huge pool of over, you know, millions of people, and that's your choice to run your energy program. But it's like all the common sense in the world is gone from you know, I think DOE is great, and I think it it it adds up to a common sense, you know, equation. No question about it. But I see I I pulled this up. Look at this. I pulled this off the internet. I'll hold this up. This is a children's book uh inspired inspired by a real family, it says. It says the children's book is called In My Daddy's Belly. What? And it's the story of a transgender dad giving birth. Okay. Call me ignorant, ignorant. but I was pretty pretty
008much under the impression that the only bellies that you can evolve from would be a a woman's belly, right? That's what I was taught. Am I wrong about this? No, I What, you know? It's a children's book, and they were they were trying to get it banned from the you know, look, you're going to give this to a 6-year-old and say, "Oh, no, you Yeah, daddy can have a What are we doing here? Where's the common sense? It's unbelievable. We want this in our schools. But I I lived for a sh- a short period of time in North Carolina. NASCAR was huge in North Carolina. I remember when I lived in the Carolinas, they wanted to ban all tobacco ads on NASCAR Mhm. because they were destructive to children. But now in 2025, This is
009okay. CAMEL BAD. THIS IS GOOD. THAT'S RIGHT. This is good. Man is a bad, but but this guy, he's having kids. Let's put him on the front page. What has gone wrong in the world? I don't know. And I And if there's ever a book that tells exactly how this happened in My Daddy's Belly, then I'd might read it. But to have a book saying that oh, yeah, it happens, and it doesn't happen. It's co- common sense is a thing, and I That's where I I think that this DOE thing and the the Trump thing and the Republican wave is a common sense wave of of clear thinking. That's all it is, really. It's not It's not hatred for this person or that person or this cause or that cause. It's use your brain to
010have clear thinking, logical uh steps you take toward making things better. What's wrong with that? I find no fault in that. I can I can find no way to criticize something like But may Okay. Everybody is entitled to their beliefs. I think you know that about me. Like, you're entitled to your beliefs, but you're you're also entitled to in this country, which is one of the great things, to make a fool out of yourself. And like, where where is that line between your beliefs and making a fool out of yourself, and then pushing your agenda on kids who don't know how to push back, who don't know how to do critical thinking, cuz this is probably what what what age I I you know, first, second grade. child's book. And so, the only thing you
011don't want to do is mislead the children, you know, who you're responsible for their education and their furtherance of their life in a in a good fashion. You don't want to mislead them and say, "Well, yeah, from an early age, you you men can have kids. Give birth to kids, I should say, cuz you know, obviously Fatherhood. And this this whole thing about instead of calling it someone's mother, calling it an inseminated person. And what is that? Happy inseminated day. Can you Is that what you say to your mother? Yeah. Here's some flowers. A happy inseminated person's day. Here's a cake and a and some flowers for you. It doesn't make any sense at all. What are they trying to do? Disguise the the untruth of what they're trying to get across? It's ridiculous. This
012is another key component, I think, of you know, a lot of people have said to me, "Do you see what Trump's doing? He wants to blow up the Department of Education." I said, "Okay, can he do it today?" Because this is another thing. Trump values education. Don't get me wrong. I mean, you talk you listen to Trump, he values education. He made sure his kids all got great education. He values education. But what this would do is give education back to the states. And if you want this in your schools, then you make that decision. I think 49, maybe 48 other states in the country don't want this in their school. I think you and I live in a state that does want this in their state. Well, yeah, but they can make it a
013local voting issue. Exactly. each school board could could put it up in front of the town council or what have you, get the thing nailed down in their community. But this is outrageous, because everybody knows everybody with a brain knows that men can't give birth. Correct. End of story. By the way, MSNBC did something right. Did several things right this week. Little joy in the world. Joy Reid, and boy, I'll tell you, Megan Kelly and all these people, they went nuts on it. And you know, and Joy Reid had her defenders, too. Uh you know, we're talking about Rachel Rachel loves her. Loves her. But Joy Reid was a hateful person uh and a racist. She has showed her true colors since she's been terminated. That's right. And so, they they did that, and they
014MSNBC and I I think they did it for other reasons than not maybe believing in all the things she says. I think they did it because her ratings went down 28% since Trump got elected, because people are saying, "You know, that's a bunch of BS. I don't want to watch that anymore. You know, it's interesting the tide is turning and it's the little things in life that you can start start to now see that the tide is turning. And you're going to look at me and go, "What's wrong with John?" No. I went to Cumberland Farms on my way here today and I grabbed a cup of coffee. You know what's on the coffee cups at Cumberland Farms now? What? An American flag. Is it? Yes. And it made my day. I'm like, "Will you
015look at that?" this. Will you look at that? It's Cumbie's. It's pro- You can be proud to be an American again. Well, you know what? So, the tide is turning. A little bit and I think, you know, we had the whole the the 2020 and the George Floyd thing and and then end racism in the end zone of the Super Bowl, which they deleted this year and they went with the choose choose love instead of end racism, which is a lot more generic because, you know, you're talking about nobody likes racism. I don't think I even know any real racists, but Joy Reid was one of them. And she just Massachusetts has a congresswoman who is a racist. Oh, Ayanna Pressley, I think hates white people as well, but there's no reason to have any
016racism in any form in any walk of life. It doesn't have to exist. I'm all for end racism, but to put it in the end zone in a professional league that's 57% black players is seems like a waste of time. It's it's feel-good advertising, you know, and it it's totally ineffective. You know who makes me feel good though, John? Who's that? Tom Homan. Oh. This guy is the real deal. He is fearless. He's a a bulldog. He doesn't to quote him, doesn't give a bleep what people think about him and that's the kind of person you need in a job like he's trying to do because you're never going to be popular with the with that job until you get the result that that's desired. I've watched this next clip and I could watch it
017a hundred more times. This is the one of the best clips that we we've we will ever have. Tom Homan. Last night, the police commissioner Boston you said you doubled down on not not helping the law enforcement office advice. I'm coming to Boston. I'm bringing hell with me. I looked at the numbers this morning. I counted I stopped counting at nine. Nine nine child rapists that were in jail in Massachusetts but rather than honoring an ICE detainer, released them back into the street. You're not a police commissioner. Take that badge off your chest. Put it in the desk drawer because you became a politician. You forgot what it's like to be a cop. I wrote a story Thank Thank you, Tom Homan. Couple things. Cuz nobody likes child rapists, period. Tom Homan knows it, but
018it seems like Massachusetts, the people making the rules and enforcing them, they don't they don't realize that. You're sitting next to a guy who knows where 30% of those nine rapists are. I I could take Tom there right now and and that's the scary thing because he's right. They're walking the streets of Massachusetts. That's right. And we've got like I've said it before, if you're a liberal Democrat, you're a conservative Republican, you're a socialist, what Nobody wants a rapist walking the streets. Period. Period. Common sense. Find me the person that wants that and then lock them up, too. I had the opportunity I was on NBC Boston talking about it and I was asked the question, "Well, people are afraid of of Tom Homan's rhetoric." I'm like, "Well, if you're afraid, you probably have an
019ICE ICE detainer on you and only bad people have ICE detainers." Well, that's it. It's like when you're a cop if you say, "Well, I don't like cops. I'm afraid of cops." Well, if you're not doing anything wrong, you shouldn't be afraid of any cop for any reason. And and as I said in this interview, uh one of the greatest things about Boston and Massachusetts, you know, you do have diversity, you have a difference of opinion and everything. But Homan has never once said, "If you've overstayed your visa, he's coming to get you." Maybe eventually that becomes and maybe there should be give you time to get your stuff in order and say, "Hey, listen, I overstayed my visa. What do I need to do to, you know, correct it and stay in this country
020and make a contribution to this country." But if you're a child rapist, you got to go. Yeah. And and who in their right mind would would say that to go against that kind of thinking? Commissioner Is is is basically condoning uh Massachusetts has a lot of unusual politicians. I say unusual cuz I don't agree with any of them largely on any level. But it's just some fresh stuff from Maura Healey. This this is new. Oh, relatively new. Do I need some Pepto-Bismol? This is a text from Maura Healey. I'll quote her. "People want to raise families and grow old in Massachusetts, but high housing costs hold them back. That's why one of my top priorities is building more homes. Last week we awarded $158 million to projects that'll create 1,100 modern affordable units across the
021state." Now, why do they need all those units? Uh because we've got 35,000 migrants brought here to at least. At least. Yes. I was going to say That's just the highest reported. Right. That's just reported, yeah. Right. So, they need housing in Massachusetts because there's there's not already a housing crisis in that the cost of housing in Massachusetts is higher because we have an influx of students every year more so than other states and because we as Massachusetts citizens know this is true, we are free to allow anybody and everybody to come to the state and live here. Now, they of course they go into the cheapest possible housing when they get here. They're homeless when they get here. But what does that do? It bumps up demand up the ladder and so now the
022students are paying two $2,300 for a studio in Boston because they have to. Well, that's a that's a it's a ripple effect going the wrong way. Here's another one from her. This is from February 19th, which was my birthday, by the way. I'm 20 now. Oh, you're just 20. You look good for your age. Maura says, "Transportation doesn't just get people to work. It puts people to work. We've got a plan to fix roads, bridges and public transit and create 140,000 good-paying, family-sustaining jobs." What? The transportation situation and and whoever's in charge of that, I think I know who it is, is ridiculous. Just taking the T alone as a boondoggle and a drain of the taxpayers' funds. The T will never get straightened out as long as the people who are running it now
023continue to run it. Do you agree? It'll give people an ice cream headache when I talk about it. The biggest tsunami coming to Massachusetts, believe it or not, is not the migrant cost of the migrant shelters. Which is huge. to be the unfunded liability of the MBTA in fiscal 26 and fiscal 27. It is so huge that there and there is no plan to fund it. The millionaires' tax has brought in more revenue than anticipated, but most of the millionaires who got you know, stuck with the bill, they're leaving or are already gone. So, that revenue is not going to be sustainable and the MBTA talking about hiring a all these different people. 140,000 people. investments, but we you still got concrete falling on people's heads in the in the T. You still got the
024T catching on fire. The T still doesn't run on time. All of these record investments is like spitting on a fire. And she's bragging about how she Oh, we've made these buses free for some people. Not for some not for all people, for some people because she's buying votes. But when it has been proven in government and even in proven in sales, when you make something free, it has no value. It's not really free, either. It's but it's but it's it's also like if you pay like let's just say you have to pay a dollar to ride the bus. Okay, you pay a dollar. It's still a dollar. You're paying something. You're invested in the program. If you get on a bus and you're in a bad mood I'm just going to rip the seat,
025going to punch a window, I'm going to leave my lunch on there. You don't care because you don't pay anything for it. It has no value. That's right. So, you have no respect for it. no respect for it and it ends up costing three times as much to provide something free. There is nothing more expensive in the world than a free thing. Right. Right. And then people get used to it. It's like it's like uh you know, tax cuts versus taxes. You can't take away a gift that's been given to somebody without them getting angry about it, but you could have prevented giving them that free gift at the cost of the other taxpayers unfairly. I got People say things aren't forever. There are two things that are are forever. Inflation and taxes. Well, you
026know, Will Rogers said, "The difference between death and taxes is that death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets." He was right. Elizabeth Warren's salary, you ready? Mel Gibson, of all people, who who got his ex-Twitter account suspended for whatever. He's politically kind of gone gone in the right I think in the right direction. He mentions Elizabeth Warren's He's an ambassador now, you know that. Yeah, I know. That's Uh Elizabeth Warren's annual salary is $285,000 a year. Her net worth is $80 million. And and Mel Gibson of all people is out there freedom. He's he's out there tweeting about this uh the Democrats latest uh pick though to pick latest plot to pick the pockets of working class Americans as you mentioned is the $2 per per every prescription written in the state. So Mike
027Elizabeth Warren like how has she amassed that wealth? I'm I think she's getting 50 cents or a quarter on every one of Maura Healey's $2 prescription. She's bought and paid for by Big Pharma. Yeah, Pfizer. Uh you know she's rallied against the banks but if you actually do a deep dive on her campaign funds the banks have given her a lot of money as well too. Well she wants control of the of the machine. She the the thing about her is that she is the loudest she's a a wretch when it comes to complaining and kvetching about dough. You know and in the meanwhile that's the one thing people are united on is the cutting of waste and fraud and abuse in the system. And if she's arguing against Elon Musk or in some cases
028RFK you know there's a reason for it. And uh she's in the top three you know when it comes to financial contributions from uh from Big Pharma. So the heck with her. You know people have said to me oh you got you got to feel sorry for her husband. No he he could walk out the door. But I really feel bad for Buddy Buddy the dog. I really do. Jessica Machado had an op-ed where she mentioned I I don't know if this is accurate or not but in she said more than 60% of the voters in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are unenrolled. Now I would have thought if you asked me who how many are Democrats I would have said 70-30 Democrat Republican maybe on a good day. Uh but I think a lot of
029these voters are are just are are unenrolled and they just tend to vote that way for whatever reason. And it's a difficult state for Republicans to win in for that reason alone is that it's a very very liberal blue state and people just tend to ride the tide and go with what they know. But is there any hope if we get 60% unenrolled that that we can flip that switch a little bit and get a two-party system actually up and running in this Commonwealth? You know the fascinating thing is about Massachusetts politics is Massachusetts has no problem re- electing a conservative governor. A more conservative A more conservative governor. Yeah a more conservative. But you look at Bill Weld. Bill Weld was a strong fiscal conservative governor. And his protege Charlie Baker was not as
030strong as but you know a fiscally conservative governor. Mitt Romney I I'm not going to tell you he was a fiscal conservative cuz he brought in fees to Massachusetts. But you know talk about a businessman he was a businessman. So Massachusetts will elect a governor who a fiscally conservative type of governor. But the the common sense and that's because the voters know you have to offset the craziness of tax and spend somehow in Massachusetts. But it's the legislature that will vote against like they did when was it yesterday that when was it when was the vote against the audit? Was when did that take place? Yesterday yesterday. Yeah. So let's talk about it because that 74% of the voters in the last election said yes we support the the legislature being audited. 74%. Just to
031make sure everybody's spending the money properly and doing their job. So that means a majority of Democrats that means a majority of unenrolled and of course you know a majority of Republicans said yes we want that. We want it. But it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. You know why? Well because there's corruption. Because they had the vote and the Massachusetts House of Representatives and they had you know it's a yay or nay situation. You know I don't know why they just say yes or no they make it yay or nay. What are we horses? You push a button. Yay nay would you like some hay? Uh yays nays. So 127 elected officials are defying the will of the voters to say we just want the books to be audited. What are
032they hiding Mike? Exactly the question that pops up automatically next. What are you hiding? And it's a lot. You know I walked through TSA you can go through my bag cuz I got nothing in there. I got nothing to hide. You know you want to check my pants pockets I got nothing to hide. You know I'm kind of bored anyway so let you know just do it. I got nothing to hide. If you got nothing to hide you want to be audited. You want to audit my taxes great. Okay. got nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about. Right. What are these people afraid of? I don't know but your names are all listed on massfiscal.org right here this document which I printed out today showing the 24 yays 127 nays defying as you
033said the will of the people who voted for the audit. So they're basically they're saying screw the you know the the voters and the Massachusetts taxpayers we're going to do what we want because we got something to hide. If you've never gone to massfiscal.org go to massfiscal.org. Find out what's going on. They have a rating system of how they rate your elected officials. They they do check the closest thing you're going to get to an audit in Massachusetts right now is massfiscal.org. Yep. Go find them out. They're a great organization. They do a lot With some truth. They do a lot of good work and they they just put the truth out there. There's really no agenda. It's just like here's the truth. Now speaking of truth though. Yes I I like truth. I I
034have to get to this. Uh on my way to the studio today I was listening to Grace Curley and I heard my friend Steve Robinson come up. From Maine. Steve Steve is the uh editor-in-chief of the Maine Wire and he was going on about what happened in Maine last night. I want to make sure I get this hero of mine on with Maine? Laura Libby is a state rep in Maine who now does not have the ability to vote. Even though she's a state rep or even express her opinion in the chambers of Maine because she believes and I believe her as well that men should not compete in women's sports. So the Maine legislature last night censored her and saying until she apologizes for a post that she put up on social media she
035can no longer vote. Stating her opinion about men men competing in women's sports. As bad as the Massachusetts legislature saying we're not going to respect the will of the voters and say you're not going to audit us. What happened in Maine last night is catastrophic. Because if you don't agree with somebody's opinion okay great you don't want to agree with her. You don't take away their ability to represent people. Right. Vote her out of office if you don't like her. The power of the ballot box is still the most powerful thing in your state. Sure. But Janet Mills going to the White House and picking a fight with Trump over this very same issue. This exact same issue. Did you think that this was going to work out for you? You're on you're in his
036house and you're picking a fight with him and you think you're going to win? She she probably put the jeopardy of education public safety roads all in jeopardy because she's a Exactly. And by the way that right after that incident was all over social media video of her at a drag event dancing on stage dressed as whatever. I I again there's got to be a line where you say okay this isn't probably the right thing to do when I'm the governor of the state. It common sense again John. It always goes back to common sense. But I mean but think think about it. Her peers Laura Libby's peers in Maine Yeah. voted to not give her a voice. Laura is more conservative. So what if conservatives did that to liberals? What would the response then
037be? It would be oh hellfire break out. You know Look how hateful they are. If people want truth they want common sense they want the opportunity to express themselves without being ridiculed and without being driven to the side one way or the other because there are two sides to this. We know this is a split country Democrats Republicans but and if the if the Democrats would just take 20% of the common sense that is in in the most Republicans thought patterns they'd be much better off and much more accepted across the country. Cuz right now we have an an issue and you know what the here's here's where they can get their truth. Right here on All Politics is Local with John Featherson who's sitting right here. This is a guy who pays attention always
038tells the truth and is pure of heart when it comes to his motivations. That's you John. Well that was very nice of you Mike. Well that's it. I need a raise. Follow us on iHeart Radio. Follow us on Spotify Apple Podcast YouTube Rumble uh Just follow us because not when we leave the studio. Uh Mikey Adams 420. Yeah that's right. You can follow me on Twitter or X at local politics is. Anything else Mike? Well not till next week but I'll tell you what there's always something. There's always something to talk about and the input from the viewing public is welcome. He's Mike Adams. I'm John Featherson. We'll talk again real soon. [Music]