Happening Today
MassDevelopment, Cannabis Control Commission, and more
— The American Gaming Association will host a ‘Get to Know Responsible Gaming’ panel, featuring, among others, Gaming Commission chairman Stephen Crosby, Harvard Faculty Club, 20 Quincy Street, Cambridge, 9:30 a.m.
— Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Jay Ash attends a meeting of the board of directors of MassDevelopment, 99 High Street, 11th floor, Boston, 10 a.m.
— Rep. Mike Connolly and Environment Massachusetts hold a waterway cleanup and press conference on their summer campaign for a statewide ban on polystyrene foam cups and containers, Public boat ramp, Mystic Wellington Yacht Club, Medford, 10:30 a.m.
— MassDOT Office of Outdoor Advertising holds its monthly public hearing about off-premise billboards, signs and other advertising devices.,’ 10 Park Plaza – conference rooms 5 and 6, Boston, 11 a.m.
— Travis McCready, president and CEO of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, and Pat Larkin, director of the Innovation Institute at MassTech, will attend a press conference related to the Lever Challenges, Greylock WORKS, 508 State Road, North Adams, 12:30 p.m.
— Massachusetts Water Resources Commission hears a presentation at its monthly meeting about natural hazards, climate change, and the Department of Conservation and Recreation, 100 Cambridge St. – conference room 2B, Boston, 1 p.m.
— The Cannabis Control Commission is expected to review seven applications for new marijuana licenses and discuss feedback on its ‘host community agreement guidance’ proposal, 101 Federal St., 12th floor, Boston, 1 p.m.
— Lawrence Lessig of the Equal Citizens group has spearheaded a campaign to take the electoral college to the Supreme Court, and attorneys David Boies and Jason Harrow, who serves as Lessig’s chief counsel, will argue the case in federal district court, Courtroom 19, One Courthouse Way, Boston, 2 p.m.
— The team from the National WWII Museum, which restored PT-305 in New Orleans, receives this year’s Don Turner Award at the USS Constitution Museum’s Salute to Maritime Heritage, USS Constitution Museum, Charlestown Navy Yard, 5:30 p.m.
For more calendar listings, check out State House News Service’s Daily Advances (pay wall – free trial subscriptions available) and MassterList’s Beacon Hill Town Square below.
Today’s Stories
Can Patrick outflank Warren and other progressives in 2020?
The Globe’s Joan Vennochi, seeing Bernie Sanders (Politico) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (CNN) take it on the progressive chin in Tuesday’s elections across the country, wonders if former Gov. Deval Patrick might be in a good position if he runs for president in 2020.
She makes good points. Patrick is progressive on most issues, but he’s not hyper-progressive like U.S. Sen. U.S. Elizabeth Warren. He’d be crazy to try to out-progressive progressives. He’d probably do fine emphasizing both his centrist and progressive credentials while turning on the “charm and positive message,” similar to what another guy did in 2008, as Vennochi notes.
Analyze this: Trump’s ‘5 for 5’ boast
Speaking of Tuesday’s elections, President Trump was getting ahead of himself yesterday by claiming he went “5 for 5” in races earlier this week, for the contests in Ohio and Kansas were still too close to call as of earlier this morning. But the president does have a point about Democrats coming up short in special elections this year in general – and you know he hit a media nerve when both the New York Times and the Washington Post run analysis pieces to rebut the president’s claims. And they do rebut his claims, in the sense that recent elections have shown huge GOP weaknesses heading into the mid-term elections.
Still, as reluctant as one might be to acknowledge the president could be right about anything in this world, wins are wins, and losses are losses, and you have to wonder if he may once again surprise a lot of pundits, pollsters and pols this fall, as he did in 2016. Just thinking aloud.
Boosting Baker: RGA funnels millions toward TV spots for governor
From the Globe’s Matt Stout: “In what may just be the first of many substantial investments, the Republican Governors Association poured $2.8 million into a super PAC before it began running a new television spot touting Governor Charlie Baker’s re-election campaign, new records show. The national organization made its contribution to the Commonwealth Future Independent Expenditure PAC in multiple installments, the last of which landed on July 20 — the same day the PAC made its $2.4 million ad buy.”
Can auditor candidate do well enough in defeat to get libertarians on the 2020 ballot?
Massachusetts Libertarians are hoping auditor candidate Dan Fishman can help solidify and even expand the party’s base as it tries to capitalize on voter frustration with the two-party system, Christian Wade reports at the Salem News. The Libertarian Party brass seem resolved to Fishman losing to state Auditor Suzanne Bump, but they hope to clear the 3 percent of the vote hurdle that will ensure that Libertarian candidates can appear on the presidential ballot in 2020 in Massachusetts.
Candidate hopes a perky jingle can overcome the write-in blues
It works for banks and car donation companies, so why not politics? Jo Comerford, the former MoveOn.org operative who is waging a write-in campaign to secure the Democratic nomination to succeed former Senate President Stan Rosenberg, has commissioned a local folk group to record a jingle she hopes will help raise awareness of her campaign and instruct voters on how to vote for someone not on the ballot, Bera Dunau reports at the Daily Hampshire Gazette.
Btw: It just occurred to us: ‘I Like Ike.’ There you go. A variation of that should do the trick.
‘Impaired is impaired is impaired’
As retail pot shops prepare to open in Massachusetts, the state is launching a new ‘don’t drive stoned’ ad campaign to warn motorists that, yes, it’s illegal to drive while high on drugs, just as it’s illegal to drive while drunk on booze, reports Gintautas Dumcius at MassLive. “I just want everyone to recognize that impaired is impaired is impaired, okay?” Jennifer Queally, undersecretary for law enforcement, said at a press briefing yesterday.
Meanwhile, State Police are testing out a new pot breathalyzer – or actually a swabalyzer
Speaking of impaired drug-driving, from the Herald’s Mary Markos and Joe Dwinell: “State police — expecting a surge in drugged driving now that pot is legal, and looking for a way to prove a driver is high — are finalizing a test of swabs they administered on about 170 people at roadside sobriety checks and a drug treatment center. … The cotton swab samples are analyzed to detect the presence of marijuana, methamphetamine and heroin in a driver’s saliva, but that doesn’t tell police how much is in a suspect’s system.”
‘Time to raise the bar for ballot questions’
In an editorial, the BBJ reviews the tangled ballot-questions mess that led to the ‘grand bargain’ bill, which itself is now facing a possible ballot-question threat, and concludes that maybe it’s time to curtail all the ballot-question gamesmanship via a constitutional amendment.
Candidates are writing checks, as well as asking for checks, in Third District race
Third Congressional District candidates are shaking the piggy banks. From the Globe’s Matt Stout: “Six of the 11 candidates have poured a combined $800,000 of their own cash into their campaigns, tapping personal savings, lines of credit, and, in one case, a previously undisclosed bank account to supplement their fund-raising.” At the top of the self-funding list is Abhijit “Beej” Daj. Meanwhile, in the Democratic primary race for governor, candidate Robert Massie has repaid himself $20,000 for a self-loan to his campaign, after his campaign received an infusion of public financing in mid-July, reports SHNS’s Matt Murphy (pay wall).
Bill would restrict the making of guns with 3D printers
From SHNS’s Katie Lannan at Wicked Local: “Anyone who is not a federally licensed firearm manufacturer would be prohibited from making a gun with a 3D printer, under a bill filed Tuesday by a Natick Democrat. Rep. David Linksy’s bill would also require that any legally made 3D-printed guns officially receive a serial number, and that anyone who possesses a 3D-printed gun be subject to the same licensing requirements in place for traditionally manufactured firearms.”
Media critic Dan Kennedy at WGBH doesn’t address Linky’s bill. But he does address the recent controversy over the online posting of 3D gun-making instructions, saying concerns over the postings are overblown.
DraftKings gets a break on Beacon Hill
It’s not a big tax break. But it’s still a tax break, albeit a likely temporary one. The Globe’s Andy Rosen takes a look at how Beacon Hill lawmakers, while approving permanently making sports-fantasy operations legal in Massachusetts, failed to reach an agreement on how to tax them. The result: A loss of an estimated $2 million in tax revenue this coming year.
Koch praises ‘kick-their-ass’ tax cuts at dinner with Trump
After saying he wasn’t exactly sure why he was invited to a dinner with President Trump and other business leaders, Boston Beer founder Jim Koch extolled the virtues of the recent tax cuts approved by the Republican Congress and Trump, saying they’ll make his firm more competitive against foreign brewers. “We’re going to kick their ass,” he told the president and others. The BBJ’s Jessica Bartlett has the story, transcript and video of Koch’s brief dinner remarks.
Now this message, brought to you by Elizabeth Banks and State Street Global Advisors …
Speaking of Sam Adams beer, MassterList and the Herald’s The Track seem to have caught this at the same time, i.e. the unveiling of the new ‘Crazy Enough to Work’ ad campaign, featuring online films and podcasts narrated by Pittsfield-raised star Elizabeth Banks, for Boston’s State Street Global Advisors. The online clips uncover the “bold moves mid-cap companies make to thrive and survive” — and among the firms that will be featured in the campaign, according to Business Insider, are Boston Beer and Dunkin’ Donuts, of course.
From convicts to cops: Suffolk DA candidates face-off before police officers
As Maria Cramer at the Globe reports, candidates for Suffolk County district attorney have appeared at forums hosted by civil rights organizations, lawyers and even inmates. But yesterday it was the turn of law-enforcement officials to ask the questions. Cramer has the forum details.
Construction workers and fishermen have highest opioid OD death rates in state
As WBUR’s Martha Bebinger notes, the path from injury to medication to addiction may well explain why those working in the construction and fishing industries, considered among the most dangerous and injury-prone professions in the nation, have the highest rate of fatal opioid overdoes in the state, based on a new Department of Public Health report. She has the grim statistical details.
Are Beacon Hill lawmakers a little bashful about sex?
This post is rated PG-13. From Mike Deehan at WGBH: “Does Beacon Hill have an aversion to sex? … Bills that would have made a specific crime out of ‘revenge porn,’ created an ‘X’ gender designation on state ID cards, banned gay conversion therapy and updated the state’s sexual education guidelines all collapsed at the last minute when Democrats pushed their legislative session to the breaking point last week.”
Actually, some of the issues involved are a little more complicated than mere adult-sleepover matters, but there is a general pattern here.
MBTA union suit alleges state payroll system is riddled with errors and missed payments
From Bruce Mohl at CommonWealth magazine: “The Boston Carmen’s Union is suing the MBTA, alleging that its payroll system is so poorly managed and so prone to errors that many employees have given up trying to recover money they are owed because there is no reasonable prospect that the errors will be corrected.’ In a class action lawsuit filed in Suffolk Superior Court, the Carmen’s Union (Local 589) claimed that pay stub errors have skyrocketed since the T abandoned its own payroll system in July 2017 and joined the state’s system.”
Yarmouth to Vineyard Wind: Show us (more of) the money
File under: ‘Classic Massachusetts.’ Yarmouth selectmen are sending the Vineyard Wind offshore wind project back to the drawing board—and the bank—after firm officials offered the town $10,000 to help defray costs associated a transmission line tied to the project. Kristen Young of the Cape Cod Times reports one board member called the offer “a joke” — and that the town has estimated it will spend at least $75,000 to draft a host community agreement.
Worcester denies records request on police misconduct
Responding to a public records request from the Telegram, the city of Worcester says it won’t turn over details of internal affairs investigations into police officers who have publicly been accused of misconduct. Brad Petrishen reports police brass say the records are exempt from public view because they relate to cases currently in litigation.
Zakim and Galvin are sparring again over election security
Josh Zakim, who’s trying to unseat Secretary of State Bill Galvin in the Democratic primary election next month, yesterday came out swinging in Round 2 of their battle over whether the state’s election system is safe from hackers. Zakim says it isn’t. Galvin says it is. The Globe’s Milton Valencia and the Herald’s Brian Dowling have the details.
Sharon native assumes command of aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford
Finally, congratulations to Captain John J. Cummings, 51, born and raised in Sharon, on assuming command of the Navy’s’ newest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford. In fact, Katie Camero at the Globe reports that Cummings will replace Captain Richard C. McCormack, 52, a native of Winchester, as commander of the carrier.
National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) Public Meeting (In Person Meeting Option)
This registration is for the in-person meeting only. If you would like to attend by teleconference please register here – https://nejac-public-teleconference-option-august-2018.eventbrite.com
Sheriff Cocchi’s Annual Summer Cookout
At the Springfield Elks: 11 a.m. – Hot dogs, hamburgers, clam chowder, grinders with sausage, peppers, and onions 5 p.m. – Beef kabobs & chicken dinner, baked potato, corn on the cob Live music! Games! Raffles and more!
The Committee to Elect Nick Cocchi
Digital Summit Boston 2018: Digital Marketing Conference
AMAZING CONTENT. BRILLIANT SPEAKERS. PRODUCTIVE NETWORKING. FUN WITH FRIENDS. BE THE HERO OF THE OFFICE. NICE EXTRAS.
VOTER SUPPRESSION IN THE 21ST CENTURY: Richard Cohen, President, Southern Poverty Law Center
We Are America the Beautiful is pleased to host Richard Cohen, President of Southern Poverty Law Center to discuss: Voter suppression trends; Issues with voter ID, early voting, purges of voter rolls and restrictions in registration processes; Court rulings
Today’s Headlines
Metro
Paul Reville: Resegregated Schools Are A Reflection Of A Divided City – WGBH
Massachusetts
Group that aids homeless lost its supplies in Webster tornado – Telegram & Gazette
Homeless residents on Greenfield Common ordered off by Aug. 20 – Greenfield Recorder
Greater Worcester scores below average in population, business growth – Worcester Business Journal
Nation
Trump-Mueller negotiations threaten to hang over midterms – CNN
New York hits Uber with cap, leading crackdown – New York Times
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