Happening Today
Immigration court hearing, school shootings discussion, Suffolk DA debate
— A court hearing is scheduled in a federal lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Massachusetts in April on behalf of five immigrants and their U.S. citizen spouses, U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, Courtroom 10, 1 Courthouse Way, Boston, 10:30 a.m.
— U.S. Rep. James McGovern is a guest on ‘Radio Boston,’ WBUR-FM 90.9, 3 p.m.
— Gov. Charlie Baker, Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, Education Secretary Jim Peyser, Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders, Public Safety and Security Secretary Daniel Bennett and Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner Jeff Riley hold a roundtable on school shootings and safety, Burlington High School, 123 Cambridge St., Burlington, 3:30 p.m.
— The six candidates for Suffolk County district attorney participate in a Polish Triangle United Civic Association debate, Polish Club – 2nd floor, 82 Boston St., Dorchester, 6:30 p.m.
— U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano talks with Dan Rea on ‘NightSide,’ WBZ NewsRadio 1030, 8 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
Springfield’s Big Day: MGM’s grand opening set for this Friday
In the span of a week, the state’s second and third largest cities, Worcester and Springfield, will have had cause to celebrate major developments that could well transform their respective cities. Worcester’s turn came this past Friday, with the announcement that the Pawtucket Red Sox will indeed be moving to Worcester (see post immediately below). Springfield’s turn comes this Friday, when the nearly $1 billion MGM Springfield casino finally opens its doors. Peter Goonan at MassLive has a preview story, and accompanying photo gallery, on the spanking new MGM Springfield. The Globe’s Mark Arsenault reports on how the new casino “looks like no casino you’ve ever seen, as un-Vegas as Springfield itself.” He has plenty of details on what’s in, and around, MGM Springfield.
Worcester’s Big Day: After welcoming the WooSox, now comes the hard part
As noted, Worcester and Red Sox officials officially announced on Friday that the Pawtucket Red Sox will indeed be moving to Worcester in 2021 – after a new 10,000-seat, $90 million ballpark is built as part of an overall $340 million mixed-used redevelopment project in the city. CommonWealth magazine’s Jack Sullivan and Bruce Mohl have the details. Gintautas Dumcius at MassLive reports how landing the Triple A affiliate of the Red Sox was “always Worcester’s to lose.”
But now comes the hard part. Nick Kotsopoulos at the Telegram reports how the pressure is on the Worcester City Council to “scrutinize what has been negotiated by the city manager to make sure it is in the city’s best interests.” Matt Vautour at MassLive also takes a look at the tough post-announcement realities now facing Worcester. There probably will be more scrutiny, as well, of the state’s plan to chip in $35 million for a project that also includes plans for housing, two hotels, retail and restaurant space, and a parking garage.
Goldberg says Lottery will withstand arrival of casino
Speaking of MGM Springfield, Treasurer Deborah Goldberg says the opening of the state’s first resort-style casino this week is not an imminent threat to the state’s $5 billion cash-cow Lottery. But Brian Dowling and Jordan Graham at the Herald report some experts wonder if the type of clientele that MGM Springfield is expected to attract may indeed hurt Lottery sales.
Former state rep. gets more jail time for lying about $2.5M in safety deposit boxes
Ah, the old forgot-about-the-safety-deposit-boxes trick. Former state representative and Dartmouth selectman John George Jr. has been ordered to spend an additional five months in jail and forfeit another $250,000 to the government after he admitted to lying about $2.5 million he had stuffed into safe deposit boxes. Michael Bonner of the Standard-Times reports that the additional penalties come on top of the 70 months he is already serving and some $1.4 million he already forfeited.
Why, why, why? Why a primary election on the day after Labor Day?
The Globe’s Joshua Miller has a piece on why Secretary of State Bill Galvin decided this year to hold the primary election on the day after Labor Day, normally an end-of-summer hectic time for people, especially for parents getting their kids back to school. It comes down to this: “There’s the official answer and the conspiratorial answer.”
GOP aims to make Warren an issue in midterms, not just 2020
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren may already have a bull’s eye painted on her back thanks to her alleged frontrunner status in the 2020 presidential race. But Melanie Zanona at The Hill reports that attacking Warren will also be part of the Republican Party’s effort to keep control of Congress in this fall’s midterm elections. The GOP plans to tie Dem candidates to high-profile female leaders in both chambers, Warren and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Still, some experts say the strategy has risks for Republicans, who need suburban women in their corner in many key races.
Exhibit No. 3,745 that Elizabeth Warren is running for president
Speaking of Elizabeth Warren, Sean Philip Cotter at the Herald reports that the senior senator’s plan to unveil a new “anti-corruption” initiative at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. this week is just the latest sign she has her eye on a 2020 presidential bid, even as she campaigns for re-election this fall in Massachusetts .
Lawyer for Stormy Daniels tests the political waters in NH
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, watch out: The lawyer representing porn star Stormy Daniels was in New Hampshire over the weekend testing the presidential-election waters, reports CBS Boston. In the understatement of the week, Michael Avenatti told Granite State Dems, as the Globe’s Jeremy Fox reports: “In normal times, I would not be with you today. I would be back in Los Angeles enjoying my good fortune. But these — as all of you know — are anything but normal times.”
For some reason, our mind hippity-hops to H.L. Mencken: “Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.”
Is Baker in for a surprise on Sept. 4?
When you read this broadside at Gov. Charlie Baker in the Boston Broadside (yes, the pun is intended) over the expansion of EBT cards in Massachusetts and when you read Howie Carr’s weekend column in the Herald, you have to start wondering how the Republican governor will fare against Scott Lively in the GOP gubernatorial primary, now just two weeks and one day away. From Howie: “I’m not saying Lively is going to pull off an upset, but my prediction is, he gets a lot more than 28 percent in the Republican primary, no matter how much backtracking backstabbing Charlie does over the next two weeks.”
Fyi: The Boston Broadside, a “non-liberal” publication (i.e. conservative), was founded by Georgetown resident and former selectman Lonnie Brennan, as Wicked Local reported a few years back.
Meanwhile, Baker catching flak for rejecting ‘patent troll’ crackdown
Gov. Charlie Baker’s veto earlier this month of the anti-patent trolling provision within the economic development bill is drawing fire from a number of directions. Last week, Ari Glantz, head of the New England Venture Capital Association, called the veto “very disappointing,” as the BBJ’s Kelly O’Brien reported (pay wall). Now, in a Globe op-ed, Sen. Eric Lesser, Eric Paley, a partner at Founder Collective, and Shirley Paley, general counsel of Catalant Technologies, are blasting the move, saying Baker “caved to mild concerns of big business.”
Candidate abandonment: Dem leaders too busy wooing voters out-of-state to help gubernatorial hopefuls here
Hillary Chabot at the Herald notes that certain Bay State Democrats – Elizabeh Warren, Marty Walsh, Seth Moulton and Joseph Kennedy III – seem to be spending a lot of time drumming up votes out-of-state for others (and potentially for themselves, down the road) as the party’s two nominees for governor, Bob Massie and Jay Gonzalez, fight for name recognition and traction back home. What gives?
Another trooper pleads guilty in State Police OT scandal
Keven Sweeney, 40, of Braintree, on Friday was charged with, and then quickly pleaded guilty to, embezzlement and fraud for submitting time sheets for overtime State Police work he never performed, becoming the second trooper to cop a plea in the ongoing OT investigation at the agency. Universal Hub’s Adam Gaffin has the details.
Hodgson to meet with White House officials to discuss ICE cooperation
He certainly knows how to stay in the news. From WBUR: “Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson is scheduled to meet with senior White House officials Monday to discuss policies on illegal immigration and local cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The event, titled ‘The Salute to the Heroes of ICE and CBP,’ will host Hodgson, as well as a group of about seven sheriffs from across the country.”
Now Pressley supports Sam Adams boycott
City Councilor and Seventh Congressional candidate Ayanna Pressley is siding with Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone – and not her own mayor, Marty Walsh – in support of boycotting Sam Adams beer due to company owner Jim Koch’s meeting the other week with President Trump, reports Tori Bedford at WGBH.
The Third District’s Millionaires Club
From Christian Wade at the Newburyport Daily News: “Running for Congress isn’t a poor man’s game, and the race to represent the Merrimack Valley in Washington has no shortage of millionaires. Five of 11 candidates seeking to replace outgoing Rep. Niki Tsongas, D-Lowell, report assets worth tens of millions of dollars, according to financial disclosures filed recently with the U.S. House of Representatives.”
Sixth Congressional race analysis: ‘Miracles sometimes happen’
In any other year in any other state, a former Green Beret running against a former Marine might make for a decent race. But this is the second year of the hyper-partisan Trump era and this is deep-blue Massachusetts, so the Globe’s Jeff Jacoby knows it will take a mini-miracle for Joe Schneider, a Republican immigrant, businessman and former Green Beret, to knock off Democrat U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, a former Marine, in the November general election. But he writes that Schneider still has a message that may resonate with many voters fed up with politics as usual.
Globe: Firing Keolis isn’t as easy, or desirable, as Gonzalez thinks
In an editorial, the Globe takes exception to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jay Gonzalez’s vow to fire Keolis, the private company running the T’s commuter rail system, and let the T directly operate commuter rail services. The Globe provides a history lesson on how the system was never technically privatized, as Gonzalez suggests, and how the T simply doesn’t have the in-house ability to run the trains. “Dumping the commuter rail system directly into an already overburdened agency risks disruption,” the editorial reads.
Still, the editorial suggests a study of a possible T takeover, if only to dispel the notion that it would be as simple as some think.
Is the MBTA’s budget really balanced? Sort of
Speaking of the T, the BBJ’s Greg Ryan counts all the ways that, technically, the MBTA is right to say it has finally produced a balanced budget. But he also shows why, using a generally accepted private-sector accounting standard, the budget may not even be close to being balanced. He explains.
The crowded Dem race to fill Eileen Donoghue’s Senate seat goes down to the wire
Rick Sobey takes a look at the five Democrats vying for the Senate seat held until earlier this year by Eileen Donoghue, who stepped down to become Lowell’s city manager. As Sobey notes of the potential primary winner on Sept. 4: “Could it be one of the two rival city councilors who voted for Donoghue to be the next city manager — a vote that opened up the 1st Middlesex Senate District?”
Don’t look now, but opposition to hydro power appears to be growing
It’s not quite at the three-examples-make-a-trend point. But CommonWealth magazine has recently run two pieces by environmentalists opposed to the state’s plan to import huge amounts of hydro power from Quebec. Here’s the first one, by Susan Ely, a staff attorney at the Natural Resources Council of Maine, and the second one, by Deb Pasternak, interim chapter director of the Massachusetts Sierra Club. SHNS’s Colin Young (pay wall) had a piece last week on the recent DPU filing by Natural Resources Council of Maine.
Left-wing counterprotesters outnumber right-wing protesters on Boston Common
What a difference a year makes. Last year, a right-wing rally on Boston Common attracted tens of thousands of counterprotesters. This year, the numbers were considerably smaller – and it was considerably more subdued, according to reports at the Herald and WBUR.
‘Today’s least surprising endorsement: Conley backs Henning for DA’
You gotta love Adam Gaffin’s headlines over at Universal Hub, his latest on outgoing Suffolk DA Dan Conley’s endorsement of his assistant DA, Greg Henning, in the Dem primary race for Suffolk County district attorney.
How to react to a homophobic negative restaurant review on Yelp: Kindly invite the guy back
What? No outrage? No angry indignation? Not from Italian immigrant Nino Barbalace, who noticed a negative Yelp review of his Dorchester restaurant from someone complaining about the gay-pride flag hanging outside his eatery. Barbalace’s Facebook response: “All are welcome at Zia Gianna, even this gentleman. We’d love to show him some kindness from the LGBTQ community because love always wins.” Boston 25 News and the Washington Post have the details.
Separately, the woman motorcyclist who was verbally accosted by an angry, racist Dorchester man organized a protest ride of more than 50 motorcyclists through the same neighborhood over the weekend, as the Globe’s J.D. Capelouto reports.
Golfer’s finger bitten off in brawl at Plymouth golf course
Finally, file this one under “serious breach of golf etiquette” and/or “men behaving badly.” A 47-year man has been arrested and charged with biting off another golfer’s finger, right to the knuckle, during an apparent sunset fight on Friday at Southers Marsh Golf Club in Plymouth. Kelli O’Hara at WCVB has the details, including the police dispatch recording. O’Hara adds: “No word if alcohol was involved.”
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
Longtime Suffolk DA Conley backs Henning as his successor – Boston Globe
Massachusetts
Attleboro employees run afoul of state law, councilor runs afoul of mayor – Sun Chronicle
Nation
Could greyhound racing soon be extinct in the U.S.? – Washington Post
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