Business As Usual...

Yeah, it's an old story (covered by Weerd on Wednesday!), but it bears repeating:

Mass.-based Raytheon reports postelection layoffs

Massachusetts-based U.S. defense contractor Raytheon is laying off employees just days after Gov. Deval (deh-VAL') Patrick denied asking it to delay terminations until after state elections.

Raytheon's announcement Tuesday follows more than 1,000 layoffs made by other Massachusetts employers since the Democratic governor's Nov. 2 re-election.

Nothing to see here, folks. That was a pigeon. Move along. There's certainly no story that - prior to the election - "Cadillac" Patrick was touring MA telling everyone how great things were and how the MA economy was on the rebound; and barely a week after the election one of the largest MA employers lays people off. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

I love this part:

A Raytheon spokesman denies Patrick asked the company to delay any layoffs.

Um, DUH!!! Deval Patrick didn't fall off a turnip truck. If there were any way he could be linked to the decision to hold off on the layoffs for political gain, he'd be finished even in MA. The Governor of the state, in the middle of a pitched re-election battle, stepping in to ask a private business to delay a significant job reduction, would be too tempting of a story for even our biased media to skip. Something to think about, though - if Patrick honestly didn't know that these big layoffs were coming (other companies laid off employees post-election as well), how well does he know the state of the MA economy? Not bloody well I'd say...

MA: You're more likely to get away with election theft here.

That is all.