See-no-evil Gov. Healey costing taxpayers big

It’s the most perfect no-fingerprints grift ever in Massachusetts political history, at least as Gov. Maura Healey outlines it.

Here’s how she claims it works: There’s this huge pot of billions of dollars of SNAP – food stamp welfare money. And it’s all hers, every last penny of it.

The cash comes from the feds, but the state gets to totally administer the program, or more precisely, not administer it. Maura’s hackerama hands out millions of dollars to every low-life thug and cholo who applies for free stuff, with no strings attached, no oversight whatsoever.

No oversight. Zero. Nothing.

And then, whenever the feds lug one of her “neighbors” who’s robbing the welfare program blind, Maura smirks, throws her hands up and says it’s not her problem.

"And then, whenever the feds lug one of her “neighbors” who’s robbing the welfare program blind, Maura smirks, throws her hands up and says it’s not her problem."

Crime? She’s shocked. Baffled, even.

Here is what she actually said Wednesday at the State House after the G-men lugged the former top cocaine kingpin on her payroll, LaMar Cook, for allegedly stealing $546 a month from the food stamp program.

“This is a federal program,” Healey said with a shrug. “These are federal taxpayer dollars and the only reason he was receiving them is because he was eligible under the federal system.”

How was she to know what LaMar Coke, er Cook, was up to? She was paying him $115,000 a year, having her photo taken with him all over western Mass. He was allegedly shipping multiple kilos of cocaine to her own personal office suite in the state office building on Dwight Street in Springfield.

Until Cook’s arrest last year, Maura claims she knew nothing about the cocaine deliveries to her office, or the scales with white powder on them in her office, or the unregistered firearm in his car, or the fact that he didn’t even have a MA driver’s license.

And now Maura knows nothing about her former aide’s alleged welfare fraud.

Even though LaMar Cook had to apply for the food stamps through Healey’s own Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA).

Wednesday, when I played Maura’s Sgt. Schultz impersonation for Leah Foley, the US attorney in Boston, she seemed angry at the governor’s nonchalant attitude.

After all, it wasn’t the feds who signed off on this well-known thug’s alleged welfare fraud. It was Maura’s own DTA.

“They are the only ones that see the names of the people!” Foley said.

Harry S Truman said the buck stops here. Maura Healey says the buck stops somewhere else.

But now we know why Maura adamantly refuses to turn the names of the SNAP recipients over to the feds. Can you imagine what kind of massive fraud would be uncovered?

In their affidavits before arresting Cook, the feds pointed out how easily Maura’s not-so-crack sleuths could have detected LaMar’s alleged larceny.

Paragraph 30: He claimed under oath to the DTA that he paid $2,000 a month in rent, even though a check of his bank records showed he paid nothing.

He signed a statement saying, “I could go to prison or be required to pay fines if I knowingly give wrong or incomplete information.”

Somehow, though, he didn’t seem worried. He had low friends in high places.

In paragraph 43, he stated he had zero income. LaMar did not mention that both his “fiancée” and his mother “were living with him as part of his household.” They both had jobs with the City of Springfield. His “fiancée” made $83,000 last year.

Nobody at DTA noticed anything.

Paragraph 47 notes that his mom won $1 million earlier this year in the state lottery. The feds “observed over $12,000 in funds that COOK received from his mother.”

Nobody at DTA noticed anything.

Paragraph 53 mentions the $31,483,56 that Cook received as “severance” pay from Maura after he was lugged on the drug charges — $22,374.29 after taxes.

Nobody noticed anything – at least not at DTA, even though his kiss from Maura was first reported in the Herald when the state filed a lawsuit to get the money back – wink wink nudge nudge.

The day he applied for the welfare, April 6, “he had a balance of $8,738.97 in the bank.”

Nobody at DTA noticed anything.

Paragraph 62 notes that on May 5 Cook got an income-tax refund of $2,497.88.

Nobody at DTA noticed anything. The food stamps kept coming as the money rolled into his bank account from multiple sources.

Paragraph 76 notes that on June 22, Cook spent $1,904 on airline tickets to Orlando, where he and his family went on a lavish vacation to Disney World.

Nobody at DTA noticed everything. The Herald ran front-page stories about his taxpayer-funded welfare vacation, and how he was buying groceries down there on his food stamps.

In their affidavit, one of the feds wrote, “I noticed that series of newspaper articles were published.”

But nobody at DTA noticed. They were baffled.

Then LaMar returned to Massachusetts for a court appearance on the drug and firearm charges. Outside the courtroom, he regaled reporters, on camera, about his family’s trip to Florida.

Nobody noticed, at least nobody who works for Maura Healey.

LaMar also told the reporters at the courthouse in Springfield, “I have no income, okay?”

None of the hacks thought to check. They never do. It’s called professional courtesy. You’re taken at your word, at least if you’re a Democrat, a drug dealer or an illegal alien.

There’s a problem, of course, with never checking anything. Not for Maura Healey et al., because they don’t want to check. Again, professional courtesy.

The problem is for the taxpayers, the law-abiding citizens. The people, in other words, that Maura Healey does not represent, never has, and never will.

Sadly for Maura, LaMar and the rest of the comrades, Americans can’t get out of this cesspool quickly enough. America, as John Adams noted so long ago, “was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Maura Healey says, it’s not her problem. She’s not seeking the votes of a moral and religious People. She’s looking for Massachusetts Democrats.

Meanwhile, LaMar Cook was thrown back into jail yesterday out in Springfield. Another racist frame, obviously.

One last question for Gov. Healey:

When does the candlelight vigil begin tonight for LaMar Cook?