Essaibi George Plays the Hub Card in Her Herald Ad

October 23, 2021

Annissa Essaibi George is apparently undaunted by the flak she took a few weeks ago (see Boston Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham for the receipts) after painting her mayoral opponent Michelle Wu as an outsider not “born and raised” in Boston.

That “native Bostonian” yardstick is not just old – it’s outdated, as Nik DeCosta-Kilpa noted at boston.com.

[T]he contention that growing up in Boston was “relevant” in a city where 57 percent of residents were born outside Massachusetts elicited online criticism from Wu supporters accusing Essaibi George of the type of nativism that was once endemic to Boston’s politics.

Regardless, Essaibi George took to the pages of the Boston Herald today to play the same tune.

Here’s Page One.

 

Here’s page 3.

 

The body copy features endorsements from the Massachusetts Nurses Association, IBEW Local 2222, and Sheet Metal Workers Local 17. Sharp-eyed readers will also note the presence of former Boston Police Commissioner William G. Gross, who is listed as the Chair of Real Progress Boston Independent Expenditure Political Action Committee.

According to the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Financing, the group spent $600,250 supporting Essaibi George from 8/31/21 through 9/20/21; $495,000 of it contributed by New Balance Chairperson Jim Davis, who has also cut a six-figure check for Donald J. Trump.

Other top contributors, according to the ad, are local car magnate Herb Chambers, Boston real estate mogul Oleg Uritsky, and New England general contractor J. Derenzo Co.

Your conclusions go here.


Trump Coat Holder Howie Carr Join$ Mar-a-Lago

February 7, 2017

As the hardreading staff has noted, smaller-all-the-time radio personality Howie Carr has been a dedicated Trumpkin from the very start.

(Exhibit A: Carr’s groveling appearance at the Bochanalia that the autoheirotic Ernie Boch Jr. threw for Trump back in 2015.)

Later, there was this fanboy wet kiss in Carr’s Boston Herald column.

Living large at Mar-a-Lago

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PALM BEACH, Fla. — So here was President-elect Donald Trump, in a tuxedo, talking to 800 or so formally dressed guests in the ballroom at his Mar-a-Lago Club here on New Year’s Eve.

“Again, I want to thank my members,” he said. “I don’t really care too much about their guests because the ones I really care about are the members. I don’t give a (bleep) about their guests. I just love my members.”

 

Of which Howie Carr is now one, according to Politico Playbook.

MORE NEW MAR-A-LAGO MEMBERS: Daniel Bouaziz and Sophia Baratashvili, Howie and Kathy Carr, Gil Cohen and Paul Gervais, Jean Doyen De Montaillou and Michael Kovner, Robert and Susan Falk, Diane Lokey Farb, Carol . . .

 

Two questions:

1) Did Carr get the Coat Holder Discount for the newly calibrated $200,000 Mar-a-Lago membership fee?

2) Which local daily will be the first to pick up on Carr’s quantum leap in social status?

We’re guessing the Herald.

But you never know.


Boston Globe Falls For Trumped Up Aussie Charge

February 3, 2017

From our Just Not the Facts desk

The Morrissey Boulevardiers have nabbed our uncoveted Boo Daily Town award for this item in today’s Capital section.

 

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As numerous fact checkers have pointed out, they’re not “illegal immigrants,” they’re refugees. Here’s Washington Post Fact Checker, Michelle Ye Hee Lee.

Trump is referring to the estimated 1,250 (not “thousands”) refugees and asylum seekers that the United States, under President Barack Obama, agreed to accept from an Australian detention center. Refugees and asylum seekers who arrive illegally by boat in Australia are called “illegal maritime arrivals.” They can apply for two types of temporary visas, and some may qualify to apply for permanent residency.

 

(To be fair graf goes here)

To be fair, Politifact rated Trump’s tweet Half-True. But we sorta expect more than half truths from the Globe, no?


How a Two-Daily Town Works (Tito Jackson Edition)

January 2, 2017

Anatomy of a Local News Cycle

On Thursday, this Meghan E. Irons piece appeared on BostonGlobe.com.

In year-end note, Jackson makes his case to Boston

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City Councilor Tito Jackson, who is considering a run for mayor, has posted a polished, well-laid-out case for himself on social media, articulating his 2016 accomplishments.

The message, complete with glossy pictures of the councilor talking to students, rallying crowds, and holding a bullhorn at City Hall, was not specifically addressed to residents in District 7, which he has represented since 2011. Instead it was directed at the entire city.

“Dear Boston,’’ reads Jackson’s message, which appears on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. “It has been an eventful year for us all.”

 

With possibly an even more eventful one to come, if Jackson takes on Boston mayor Marty Walsh.

Then, as surely as day follows night, here came Friday’s Boston Herald, Page One.

 

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The story inside:

More signs Tito to take on Marty

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Operatives working for City Councilor Tito Jackson have registered the website titojacksonformayor.com and have drafted the campaign manager for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, further proof the Roxbury pol is gearing up to take on Mayor Martin J. Walsh next year.

Jackson also just posted a flashy “Dear Boston” online message to supporters citywide — pushed out on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram — outlining what could be his platform for running for mayor . . .

Jackson, the District 7 councilor, has said he’s considering a challenge to Walsh and has increased his campaign fundraising and spending over the past several months.

 

Great sidebar: Bill Hyers, the aforementioned campaign manager for Bill de Blasio, is a partner at the political consulting firm Hilltop Public Solutions.

But . . .

Hyers is officially “moonlighting” for Jackson, since Hilltop’s New England office is “firmly in Walsh’s camp for the upcoming election,” according to the Herald.

Bring a food taster to their next office party, eh?

(Other Tito takes in Friday’s pushy local tabloid: A sidebar headlined From the ‘Dear Boston’ letter, and Hillary Chabot’s column Trump could give councilor a boost.)

Follow-up on the Tito Watch in Friday’s Globe: Uh . . . no.

So . . .  on to Saturday’s editions.

Once again the Herald was on Tito like Brown on Williamson, devoting all of page 5 to teeing Tito up (Inexplicable Little Green Numbers sold separately).

 

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Crosstown at Saturday’s Globe: Still no.

So . . . on to Sunday’s editions.

The fading local tabloid featured only this 2017 prediction in a column by Boston Herald Radio yakker John Sapochetti.

• Mayor Martin J. Walsh will narrowly win his re-election bid over Tito Jackson.

 

Crosstown at Sunday’s Globe: Even more no.

So . . . today’s editions.

Tito stories in toto: Zero.

See ya next cycle.


Globe Columnist Ignores Herald’s Ayla Brown Scoop

December 26, 2016

TO: Boston Globe columnist Renée Graham

FROM: The hardreading staff

RE: Your Sunday op-ed

First, we hasten to stipulate that we yield to no man in our professional respect for Boston Globe chinstroker Renée Graham.

However . . .

We must needs take issue with her latest piece in the Boston Sunday Globe.

Musicians lead the resistance

Nobody wants to play with Donald Trump.

Or, to be more precise, no one wants to play for Trump. Less than a month before his inauguration, the president-elect and his minions are flapping about trying to convince somebody — anybody — to perform at his various inaugural events. Last week, pop-opera tenor Andrea Bocelli declined Trump’s invitation after some of the singer’s fans threatened to boycott his concerts and albums if he sang a single note at the inauguration.

Bocelli’s refusal joins snubs from Elton John, Garth Brooks, and Celine Dion. So far, no A-list performers are willing to do anything that might suggest support for Trump, especially on a day he likely views more as a coronation than a swearing-in. Mark the moment: This is the first perceptible proof of life for an anti-Trump resistance that has been more bark than bite since Election Day. This is a silent but effective protest from artists usually thrilled to make a joyful noise.

 

Graham adds this: “So far, Trump has booked Jackie Evancho, a 16-year-old former “America’s Got Talent” runner-up, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the latter somehow feeling like yet another swipe at Mitt Romney.”

That’s all well and good.

But what Ms. Graham fails to note is Saturday’s Boston Herald front page.

 

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Ayla, of course, is the daughter of former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown (R-Scott Brown), who is currently jockeying to head the Department of Veterans Affairs.

(We’ll pass over in silence that every other candidate for the post is far more qualified than Brown.)

Regardless, an offer from a 2006 American Idol round-of-16er is something the Trump inauguration team – or Renée Graham – should hardly ignore.

In our humble opinion.


Boston Herald Whiffs on Liz Warren Tiff Riff

December 16, 2016

Let’s start from the start.

On Tuesday, the New York Times ran this Andrew Ross Sorkin piece.

Elizabeth Warren Condemns the Wrong Man

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Senator Elizabeth Warren, furious about President-elect Donald J. Trump’s appointments of finance industry insiders, took to Facebook a little over a week ago to fire off a message to her nearly 2.5 million followers.

She took aim at an individual she described as a “hedge fund billionaire” who is “thrilled by Donald Trump’s economic team of Wall Street insiders.”

The hedge fund manager she condemned was Whitney Tilson, who runs Kase Capital. Ms. Warren — the fiery Massachusetts Democrat who is known for her stern mistrust of Wall Street — called him out by saying, “Tilson knows that, despite all the stunts and rhetoric, Donald Trump isn’t going to change the economic system.” Then she added, “The next four years are going to be a bonanza for the Whitney Tilsons of the world.”

 

Except . . .

Ms. Warren appears to be suffering from the same affliction that Mr. Trump’s critics accuse of him: a knee-jerk, fact-free reaction to something she had read in the news.

In this case, Ms. Warren seems to have come across a Bloomberg News article that includes some quotations from Mr. Tilson. But she didn’t read to the bottom or dismissed it before firing off her zingers.

 

Turns out “Mr. Tilson’s wife, Susan Blackman Tilson, was one of the students in the first Harvard Law School bankruptcy class that Ms. Warren taught, in fall 1992. The student has remained loyal to her professor; Mrs. Tilson wrote in a letter to Ms. Warren last week that she had been ‘cheering from the sidelines as you rose to national attention for your excellent work on behalf of consumers.'”

Oops.

On Wednesday, both Boston dailies picked up on the Times scoop.

Victoria McGrane’s piece in the Boston Globe.

In Warren, some are seeing shades of Trump’s antics

WASHINGTON — A little over a week ago, a powerful politician read something disagreeable in a news article, logged on to social media, wrote a post blasting a private citizen, and sent it to millions of loyal followers.

The politician wasn’t Donald Trump. It was Elizabeth Warren.

And the private citizen, a wealthy hedge fund manager named Whitney Tilson, is going public with his belief that Warren misunderstood the comments he made to a Bloomberg News reporter that prompted the Facebook denunciation from the liberal Massachusetts senator.

 

Wednesday’s Boston Herald had this op-ed from Colin Reed, executive director of America Rising, a Republican communications Super PAC.

Liz losing her grip after Dems’ losses

Foolish Facebook tirade hits at . . . one of own donors

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is coming unglued. Maybe it’s the looming inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump. Or maybe it’s the realization that had she — rather than a 75-year old socialist — challenged Hillary screen-shot-2016-12-16-at-1-45-11-amClinton in the Democratic presidential primary season, her party could have had a different nominee.

Whatever the reason, the post-election weeks have not been kind to the former Harvard professor. Consider the most recent head-scratcher. On Monday night, The New York Times published a lengthy story about the Massachusetts senator taking to Facebook to blast a “hedge fund billionaire” who she accused of being “thrilled by Donald Trump’s economic team of Wall Street insiders.”

As the Times noted, there are several major problems with this attack. First, the target of her ire, Whitney Tilson, is not a billionaire. Second, he was not a Trump supporter. He’s actually a longtime and extremely generous donor to the Democratic National Committee and such candidates as Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and, you guessed it, Elizabeth Warren.

 

Yesterday, however, only the Globe had Warren’s predictable moonwalk, via this Yvonne Abraham front-page piece.

Her post went too far, senator says

Elizabeth Warren is still mad as hell at the Wall Street takeover of the next White House. But she’s also a little mad at herself.

That Facebook excoriation of hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson? She shouldn’t have done it, the senator said in an interview Wednesday afternoon. Afterward, she called Tilson to tell him so.

“I think I took it too far,” Warren said.

 

Yesterday’s Herald, on the other hand, had nothing.

Which brings us to today’s edition of the whiffy local tabloid.

Still nothing.

Then again, the Heraldniks have never been all that good at corrections and clarifications, have they?