Happening Today
OneCape Summit, Lowell legislative debates, Gonzalez-Massie debate
— Gov. Charlie Baker speaks at the OneCape Summit, hosted by the Cape Cod Commission, with Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, Sen. Julian Cyr, Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Matthew Beaton among those also expected to attend, Wequassett Resort and Golf Club, 2173 MA-28, Harwich, 12:45 p.m.
— Supreme Judicial Court Justice Kimberly Budd addresses Judicial Youth Corps students at a graduation ceremony for 36 high school students from Boston, Worcester, and Springfield, John Adams Courthouse – 2nd floor conference suite, Pemberton Square, Boston, 2 p.m.
— University of Massachusetts Lowell and the Lowell Sun host a debate between the five Democrats — John Drinkwater, Rodney Elliott, Edward Kennedy, William Martin and Terry Ryan — running for the 1st Middlesex District Senate seat last held by Eileen Donoghue, University Crossing, 220 Pawtucket St., Lowell, 6 p.m.
— Democrat candidates for governor Bob Massie and Jay Gonzalez debate on ‘Greater Boston,’ WGBH-TV Ch. 2, 7 p.m.
— University of Massachusetts Lowell and the Lowell Sun also host a debate between the four Democrats — Rady Mom, James Leary, Sam Meas and Rithy Uong — running for the 18th Middlesex House seat that represents parts of the city of Lowell, University Crossing, 220 Pawtucket St., Lowell, 7:15 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
Pressley goes on the attack – finally
Previous one-on-one encounters between Michael Capuano and Ayanna Pressley, both vying for the Democratic nomination in the Seventh Congressional District, were mostly tame snoozers, with the two candidates agreeing on most issues. But that wasn’t the case last night, as Pressley came out swinging during a televised debate on WGBH’s ‘Greater Boston.’ WGBH’s Antonio Caban and the Globe’s Michael Levenson have the details. Caban’s piece is accompanied by a video of the full debate.
For Pressley to win: ‘It’s going to have to take extraordinary turnout’
Before last night’s debate, Simón Rios at WBUR had a good overview piece on the Capuano-Pressley primary battle. We found this quote from Stonehill College political scientist Peter Ubertaccio interesting, regarding what it will take for Pressley to win next month: “It’s going to have to take extraordinary turnout. … Now, some of his supporters will gravitate toward Pressley, and that’s to be expected. But in order for her numbers to match his, and to overcome, she’s going to have to turn out a lot of new voters.”
He’s not ruling out Pressley getting that big turnout, though it will be tough.
In the First District, Neal agrees to debate Amatul-Wadud
They’ve held numerous forums and debates in the Third and Seventh Congressional primary races. But it’s a big deal out west that U.S. Rep. Richard Neal and Tahirah Amatul-Wadud will finally face off in their first (and perhaps only) debate in the First Congressional District primary contest. Shira Schoenberg at MassLive has the details.
On second thought: Zakim reverses courses, challenges Galvin to ‘progressive pledge’
After rejecting Secretary of State Bill Galvin’s proposal to ban outside campaign spending, Democratic primary rival Josh Zakim has accepted those terms – but with a condition that the two debate three more times. Milton Valencia at the Globe and Katie Lannan at State House News Service (pay wall) have more.
Breathalyzer results could be dismissed in 35,000 cases under new agreement
From Jonathan Cain and Lisa Creamer at WBUR: “In a proposed agreement with defense attorneys over the reliability of state breathalyzer equipment, district attorneys in Massachusetts say they will not present evidence from breath tests in what attorneys estimate is more than 35,000 drunk-driving cases. With the exception of cases involving death or serious injury, prosecutors will exclude breath test evidence in outstanding cases from 2011 to 2017, according to a joint stipulation filed in court by defense attorneys and the district attorneys.”
Patrick Johnson at MassLive has more.
Massport sweepstakes: Who will get the coveted CEO nod?
Bruce Mohl at CommonWealth magazine goes over the list of potential candidates for the soon-to-be-open chief executive post at Massport, after current CEO Tom Glynn steps down in November. And, yes, Stephanie Pollack, the secretary of transportation, and Jay Ash, the secretary of housing and economic development, are on the speculative list.
What the media has been waiting for all these years: Shark attacks man just off the shore in Truro
The media is going crazy over this one. The Herald has splashed its shark-attack story across the front page with the headline ‘BITTEN!’ But we’ll go with NECN’s report this morning, though it too is hyping this story to the extreme: “The victim was bitten near Long Nook Beach in Truro, according to police. The Truro harbormaster said the victim, a 61-year-old man, suffered puncture wounds to his torso and leg. He was transported to Wellfleet and then taken by medical helicopter to Tufts Medical Center in Boston.”
Let’s face it: All the media coverage, over all the years, the dangers, the primal fears, the fins and seal blood in the water, the breaches, has always come down to this Jaws-like media moment — an actual shark attack on a human. Not rendering judgment. Just pointing out the obvious.
‘Journalists are not the enemy’
Speaking of the media, it was hard to miss in the Globe’s online and print editions: The paper’s front-and-center editorial declaring the importance of a free press in the anti-media Trump era. It was part of the Globe’s nationwide campaign to get newspapers to run editorials today defending the press. Among the hundreds of papers taking part: The NYT (‘A Free Press Needs You’), which also has a sampling of other editorials from around the country.
Noticeably absent from the participants: The Washington Post (unless we missed something) and the Boston Herald. Political columnist Peter Lucas is dumping all over the Globe-organized editorials project, calling it a ‘whining campaign’ and resurrecting a very, very old Herald grudge against the Globe dating back to the 1960s.
Here’s our contribution to the Globe’s rally-around-the-press campaign
It’s not an editorial. It’s an op-ed by Patti Davis, daughter of the late President Ronald Reagan: “I’ve tried to imagine what my father would have done if people attending a political speech of his had turned to the press and raised their middle fingers, hurled obscenities or physically menaced the reporters who were there doing their jobs. I found it difficult to conjure the image, and then I realized why. It simply wouldn’t have happened. The person on the podium, the person everyone has gathered to see, sets the tone.”
For what it’s worth: Herald endorses Massie (and Baker, of course)
It didn’t participate in the Globe’s rally-around-the-press campaign. But the Herald, in an editorial, does effusively praise and endorse Republican Gov. Charlie Baker (while not acknowledging the existence of Scott Lively, Baker’s GOP rival). The Republican-leaning paper does get around to the Democratic primary race: “On the Democratic side, though there is little in his ideology that we are in agreement with, his relentless, lifelong, passionate pursuit of causes he believes in makes Bob Massie the optimal choice as the Democratic nominee for governor of Massachusetts.”
So can we assume the Herald believes Massie would be the optimal weaker candidate against Baker?
Kingston visits southern border – which just happens to be near his Four Seasons resort time-share villa
Picture the Globe’s Matt Stout pulling out the driver, casually walking up to the tee, lining up the shot, then swinging away: ”With just weeks before the US Senate primary, John Kingston spent Wednesday in San Diego — the ‘front lines of our border,’ he said — to speak directly with border patrol agents there. His selection of the sun-splashed southern California setting was also a convenient one: The Republican owns a piece of a Spanish Colonial-style villa at the local Four Seasons resort — just a few dozen miles from those same front lines.”
Fyi: The Herald’s Joe Battenfeld reports Kingston is hoping the border trip and a $2 million TV ad blitz can revive his campaign.
So what’s up with Boston and NYC’s mayors? The Charles and Hudson rivers aren’t good enough for them?
Some strain of Potomac Fever has apparently hit Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. The Herald’s Joe Battenfeld is convinced Walsh, campaigning for Dems in Iowa this week, has something up his sleeve: “More likely, the Boston mayor is building up his national profile, hoping it will make him vice presidential material. Or land him a Cabinet post in the next Democratic White House.”
Meanwhile, de Blasio, the Cambridge transplant to NYC, yesterday held a hush-hush meeting in the Big Apple with U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, considered a potential 2020 presidential candidate, on the same day de Blasio made his first donation to his new federal PAC, the NY Daily News reports. The thinking is that de Blasio is trying to burnish the image as a national progressive kingmaker, or queenmaker, in Warren’s case.
Evidence of an emerging ‘old girl network’ on Beacon Hill?
The Lowell Sun, in an editorial, is backing up political columnist Peter Lucas’s recent assertion that there’s an emerging “old girl network” forming at the State House, based on the recent funding antics of Sen. Barbara L’Italien, Harriette Chandler and Karen Spilka, and don’t forget former Sen. Eileen Donoghue. To which the Lowell Sun adds the recent $35,000 that Chandler nabbed when she stepped down as Senate president in favor of Spilka and was named “Senate President emerita.” The Sun: “When you throw in L’Italien’s largesse, it’s easy to realize that the ‘old girl network’ — even if only emerging — is up to the same timeless tricks of the good ol’ boys.”
Warren’s ‘Accountable Capitalism Act’ would let big firms’ workers elect 40 percent of board members
If it’s good enough for Germany, it’s good enough for America, and so that’s what U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is proposing as part of her ‘Accountable Capitalism Act,’ as outlined the other day in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece and reported on yesterday by Benjamin Swasey at WBUR: A “co-determination” law that would let workers at companies with $1 billion in revenue or more elect at least 40 percent of a company’s board of directors. She’d also slap restrictions on executives selling their share options.
Product branding in the age of Trump …
The Globe’s Andy Rosen has a piece on how tricky it is for corporate leaders – like, oh, Jim Koch at Boston Beer, maker of Sam Adams beer – to have anything to do with politics these days – and with President Trump in particular. The Herald’s Jordan Graham reports Boston Beer’s share prices are down since talk of a Sam Adams boycott surfaced earlier this week, in reaction to Koch’s recent meeting with President Trump.
Gonzalez: ‘I will fire Keolis’
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jay Gonzalez talked to Morning Edition’s Bob Oakes at WBUR, not surprisingly bashing Republican Charlie Baker as a “governor who is literally dragging Massachusetts backwards” and reiterating his desire for a more progressive tax system. Among the first things he’d do as governor to fix the MBTA: “I will fire Keolis, the private operator of the commuter rail system. It is a wrong approach to privatize a core public service like that that people depend on.”
Where part of your premium dollars go: Ever higher pay for hospital executives
Would you like a 150 percent pay increase? How about settling for an 80 percent pay hike? Those are some of the compensation bumps area hospital chiefs are getting these days, oftentimes on top of already rich seven-figure salaries. The BBJ’s Jessica Bartlett and the Globe’s Priyanka Dayal McCluskey have the details.
Got no raw milk: Baker rejects non-pasteurized milk proposal
Some believe drinking raw, non-pasteurized milk is actually good for you. Gov. Charlie Baker disagrees, rejecting a proposal that would have allowed more raw milk sales at farm stands around the state, reports Christian Wade at the Gloucester Times. We’ll go with the Centers for Disease Control on this one.
Count ‘em: Bay State’s 473 bridges that are in ‘poor’ condition
After the recent bridge-collapse tragedy in Italy, the Globe’s Matt Rocheleau takes a look at how bridges in Massachusetts are faring, based on national standards, and finds 473 of them to be rated in “poor” condition. The piece is accompanied by a handy interactive map of bridges.
Where middle-class residents can no longer afford homes …
Unfortunately, the Greater Boston area ranks high on the list of U.S. where the middle class can no longer afford a home, thanks to rising housing prices, reports USA Today, based on a 24/7 Wall Street survey. But the schadenfreude good news is that it’s even worse in nine other metro markets. USA Today has the details.
… But there’s always self-storage units if you can’t afford apartments
Speaking of our expensive housing market, this is pretty incredible. The Herald’s Sean Philip Cotter and Jordan Frias report that the city has shut down a Mass. Ave. self-storage facility where people were actually living. We’re talking curtains, coolers, food and electric cords inside self-storage units, leased out for a couple hundred bucks a month.
From flowers to petri dishes, massive South End parcel poised for re-development
The Globe’s Tim Logan reports that a proposal to transform the onetime Boston Flower Exchange site in Boston’s South End into a massive technology and life sciences hub is poised for approval tonight by the Boston Planning & Development Agency.
Separation of church and state apparently applies to solar panel installations too
The Bedford Historic District Commission had problems with roof solar panels possibly harming the historic integrity of the 200-year-old church. The folks at the First Parish Church said fighting climate change is more important and doing good is part of the principles of their faith. A Massachusetts Superior Court judge has sided with the church and ordered the commission to let it install the panels. A report at Wicked Local has the details.
Gee, thanks: Bird Rides removes its scooters as a ‘show of good faith’
California-based Bird Rides Inc. has removed its scooters in Cambridge and apparently in Somerville as a ‘show of good faith’ in its showdown with municipal officials over permits. They’re not being as magnanimous as they appear. They were under the legal gun to do so. Kelly O’Brien at the BBJ has the details.
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
Brew at the Zoo at Franklin Park Zoo
Don’t miss the ninth annual Brew at the Zoo! Brew at the Zoo is a beer-tasting event that offers guests the opportunity to walk on the wild side as they sample offerings from local breweries and restaurants.
Examination of Laboratory, Medical and Device issues including Performance, Risk and Validation following Regulatory and ICH Statistical Guidelines
Strategies for Improving Effectiveness and Efficiency of your Quality Management System
Parks for All: How City Parks Address Inequity
The Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center invites a panel of experts to address the question of how cities can achieve equitable access to open spaces.
Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library
Former Governor Michael Dukakis kicks off Canvass for Katie McBrine for State Senate
Join Michael and Kitty Dukakis for coffee and breakfast pastries before heading out to canvass for Dr. Katie McBrine. Please arrive by 11AM to hear the Duke introduce Katie. Canvassing will begin about 12PM. Bring the kids!
Committee to Elect Katie McBrine
International Conference on Planetary Science and Particle Physics (CSE)
Conference Series LLC Ltd cordially invite all the participants from all over the world to share their latest research in the field of Planetary Science and Particle Physics at International conference on Planetary Science and Particle Physics which is going to be held on August 27-28, 2018 at Boston, USA.
21st International Conference on Past and Present Research Systems on Green Chemistry
Conference Series is glad to announce 21st International Conference on Past and Present Research Systems on Green Chemistry, August 27-28, 2018 at Boston, USA. Green Chemistry 2018 will be organized around the theme “Encouraging World Towards Pure Techniques”.
International Conference on Clinical Pediatrics and Medicine (CSE) A
ConferenceSeries LLC Ltd is privileged to announce its “International Conference on Pediatric Hospital Medicine” with the innovative theme “Dynamic and Collegial approach of Pediatric Hospitalists” which will be held during August 29-30, 2018 inBoston, USA.
4th Annual Congress on Infectious Diseases (CSE) A
Conference Series LLC LTD Conferences invites all the participants from all over the world to attend “4th Annual Congress on Infectious Diseases” during August 29-30, 2018 Boston, USA which includes prompt keynote presentations, special sessions, workshops, symposiums, oral talks, poster presentations and exhibitions.
John Angus & Harvard RTC hosting: Meet & Greet for Candidate Rick Green
John Angus and the Harvard Republican Town Committee invite you to Meet Congressional Candidate Rick Green at the Hildreth House (15 Elm Street Harvard, MA) from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM on Wednesday, August 29th. This is your opportunity to speak with Rick about any issues or concerns you might have about Massachusetts’ 3rd Congressional district. We hope to see you there!
Today’s Headlines
Metro
In a heated debate, Pressley launches an offensive against Capuano – Boston Globe
Officials: People living illegally in rented storage units – Boston Herald
Massachusetts
Breathalyzer Results Could Be Thrown Out In More Than 35,000 Mass. Cases – WBUR
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker signs bill to improve Alzheimer’s care – MassLive
Man Bitten by Shark Off Cape Cod – NECN
Nation
Trump Revokes Ex-C.I.A. Director John Brennan’s Security Clearance – NYT
Evidence Against Manafort Is ‘Overwhelming,’ Prosecutors Say – NYT
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