Piggy pols feeding at the trough

They’re not sending us their best.

Consider some of the local hack politicians arrested lately on corruption charges in Massachusetts. See if you can detect a pattern:

• State Rep. Francisco Paulino of Lawrence, indicted this week by the feds on charges of stealing $700,000 in COVID welfare funds. Born in Dominican Republic.
• Lawrence Mayor Brian DePena, indicted two weeks ago by the feds on charges of stealing $1.5 million in COVID welfare funds. Also born in the DR.
• Ex-state Sen. Dean Tran, jailbird convicted of both COVID welfare fraud and income tax evasion. Born in Vietnam.
• Ex-Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson, jailbird convicted of public corruption. Born in Africa.

These foreign freeloaders are only here to steal the public funds that American politicians can no longer be bothered purloining.

Gov. Maura Healey simply adores these Third World grifters. She calls them her “residents” and thinks it’s beastly that the feds would even dream of halting their endless crime sprees and throwing them off welfare.

Not every politician arrested by the feds here hails from the Third World – there’s also Rep. Christopher “Flimflam” Flanagan, D-Dennis.

And then there’s the High Sheriff of Suffolk County, Steve Tompkins. He’s on trial right now in Boston on extortion charges. He’s an American, not from Massachusetts, of course, but then few Democrat politicians here are natives anymore.

At least Tompkins was born in the USA.

The current crew of sticky-fingered pols are not all Democrats either. It just seems that way. But ex-Sen. Dean Tran of Ho Chi Minh City is, or was, a Republican. His Bureau of Prisons number is 87455-510.

He’s another exception, in that he was also convicted of state crimes (stealing firearms). The GOP solon didn’t get the standard politician’s pass from very ethical Atty. Gen. Andrea Campbell. Maybe it’s only Democrat pol she adamantly refuses to indict.

Sometimes people in trouble with the law lose their appetites. That doesn’t appear to be a problem with any of these reprobates.

According to Paulino’s indictment, the Dominican Democrat was using some of his fraudulently-obtained COVID welfare funds to bankroll a doughnut shop – Heav’nly Doughnuts.

Check out Paulino’s photos outside the courthouse – he had to be one of his own doughnut shop’s best customers. Given the false statements he was allegedly making about the receipts, Heav’nly’s slogan could have been:

“Doughnuts so good it’s criminal!”

Another Democrat defendant not missing any meals is Tompkins. He was indicted more than a year ago, and immediately went on “medical leave,” continuing to collect his $191,000-a-year paycheck. He’s down to $58,740 so far in 2026, according to the state comptroller, so perhaps he’s finally exhausted his “medical leave.”

No such problems for Rep. Flimflam Flanagan. That dodgy Democrat was indicted by the feds in April 2025, vanished from the State House, and hasn’t missed a single paycheck since his disappearance.

Flanagan pocketed $111,650 last year and another $76,738 this year. At least he’s not running for reelection.

But the hacks never lose their paychecks anymore, no matter how atrocious their crimes.

Maybe some Democrat will claim they’re “disappointed” in the arrest. But nobody ever seriously demands that any of them raise their snout from the trough by resigning in disgrace.

Is it asking too much, though, that these Dominican desperadoes at least learn to speak passable English? During his perp walk earlier this month, Depena’s Peruvian-born lawyer admitted to reporters, “He doesn’t speak English.”

Now, in the indictment of Rep. Paulino, the feds inform us that he speaks “fluent” English.

Here’s an example of the statesman’s fluent English, in an email to the Small Business Administration (SBA) begging them for more handouts:

“I had helped some of my client to get theirs application completed days after my was submitted and they had been funded already… I am desperate. As a accounting office we serve the community of Lawrence one the poorest city in the country.”

In Lawrence, I guess that passes for fluent English.

Maybe they wouldn’t be so poor if any of them bothered to learn to speak English. That way, maybe some of them could actually get off welfare and get jobs… oh, never mind.

Meanwhile, the mayor who doesn’t speak English but was allegedly able to steal $1.5 million in welfare has a new lawyer. His name is Neil Faigel. He’s the mouthpiece who last year represented a corrupt ex-Methuen city councilor (an American) who pretended to be a cop for four years and his only “punishment” was probation and no jail time.

The judge who broomed that case was Thomas Drechsler, former law partner of convicted felon House Speaker Thomas Finneran. Now retired with a $111,490-a-year pension, Drechsler just conducted the “investigation” that whitewashed the involvement of corrupt Middlesex DA Marian Ryan in her office’s 2-plus-year cover-up of a MV homicide involving one of her personal state police detectives.

According to reports, DA Ryan’s trooper, now indicted, had a .114 BAC level when he killed the Special Olympian in a disabled van.

Ryan says she knew nothing. For more than two years.

Massachusetts is a great state to live in – if you’re a criminal. It’s an even better state to live in if you’re a foreign criminal.

Boy, does this Commonwealth need an enema. Not to mention, about 500,000 deportations.