September 16, 2019
Last month Kenneth Brissette and Timothy Sullivan – former aides to Boston Mayor Marty Walsh – were convicted in federal court on charges of extortion and conspiracy to commit extortion (both for Brissette, the latter for Sullivan) for their 2014 arm-twisting of the Boston Calling music festival to hire union workers.
Those verdicts led to a flurry of hand-wringing, as a quick search of the Googletron reveals.
Now comes this two-page ad that a gaggle of advocacy groups ranging from the A. Philip Randolph Institute to the Worcester Interfaith Coalition ran in yesterday’s Boston Globe.
(The same spread ran in yesterday’s Boston Herald just harder to read.)
Anyway, here’s the nut graf.
The hardreading staff is the first to admit that our legal knowledge comes entirely from the Jerry Orbach School of Law, but aren’t gender, race, and religion sort of protected classes in Massachusetts? And aren’t unions, well, not?
Regardless, back to that Google search above. Look closely and you’ll see one dissenting voice among the pearl-clutchers: Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi, who filed this piece in the wake of the Boston Calling verdicts.
Democracy chilled by campaign against Boston Calling verdict
You know what has a chilling effect on democracy?
Telling concert organizers if they don’t hire union workers they don’t need or want, the City of Boston won’t give them a permit for their event.
That’s what a federal jury found Kenneth Brissette and Timothy Sullivan, two city hall officials, guilty of doing. But in a bizarre twist of logic, some 70 nonprofit organizations, representing environmental, LGBTQ, housing, senior, education, and civil rights advocates, are calling out the verdict as a democracy slayer. Ten Boston city councilors also signed a statement, decrying the case as a “grievous misuse of limited prosecutorial resources in service of a misguided political agenda” and “a terrible precedent.”
Really?
Read the whole piece. It’s an effective chaser to the shot taken in yesterday’s double-trucks.
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Uncategorized | Tagged: A. Philip Randolph Institute, Boston Calling, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Boston NAACP, Cindy Luppi, Clean Water Action, Jerry Orbach School of Law, Joan Vennochi, Kenneth Brissette, Tanisha M. Sullivan, Timothy Sullivan, Worcester Interfaith Coalition | 
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Posted by Campaign Outsider
July 8, 2016
A smashmouth piece in the Huffington Post this week about U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz and her pattern of political prosecutions has drawn attention in both local dailies, but, as usual, from different angles.
Yesterday’s Boston Globe featured a Joan Vennochi column with this lede:
POLITICAL CORRUPTION cases generate big headlines — and big push back.
Just ask US Attorney Carmen Ortiz. She made a big splash when she indicted two aides to Boston Mayor Marty Walsh on charges they forced organizers of a music festival to hire union workers. But now, with Walsh presumed to be her ultimate prize, a posse of critics is throwing cold water on the prosecution.
Vennochi proceeded to cite criticism of Ortiz by former AG Martha Coakley, attorney Harvey Silverglate, and retired federal judge Nancy Gertner – all of whom were quoted in the HuffPost takedown.
Crosstown at the Boston Herald, though, the focus was more on the question of Marty Walsh’s possible involvement in the Ortiz hit, given that she has already indicted two Walsh administration officials on charges of extortion.
Yesterday’s front page (Inexplicable Little Green Number sold separately):
The story inside has Walsh denying he’s “waging a PR counteroffensive” against Ortiz, but points out that “Walsh’s chief of staff, Daniel A. Koh, formerly served as chief of staff to Huffington Post Editor Arianna Huffington and as general manager of Huffington Post Live before joining the mayor’s inner circle.”
Today there’s no follow-up in the Globe, but the Herald has this piece by Dan Atkinson.
Call for answers on Huffington Post piece
PAC wants ‘public scrutiny’ re Walsh role
A national conservative group wants to see any communications between City Hall and the authors of a Huffington Post piece blasting U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz, saying that if Mayor Martin J. Walsh or his staff engaged in a political hit job, they should be “held up to public scrutiny.”
A Herald front-page story yesterday quoted Walsh saying he and his aides had no involvement in the article, titled “This Federal Prosecutor Is Building A Career Indicting The Good Guys.” But the mayor admitted that he and his chief of staff, Daniel A. Koh — who used to work at The Huffington Post — knew the piece was in the works.
“Both the timeline and the mayor’s answer raised red flags for us,” said Amelia Chasse, a spokeswoman for America Rising PAC, which filed a public records request with the city for any emails and texts between the Walsh administration and The Huffington Post.
Just what Walsh needs right now, eh? One more group emauling him.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Amelia Chase, America Rising PAC, Arianna Huffington, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Carmen Ortiz, Dan Atkinson, Daniel A. Koh, Daniel Marans, Harvey Silverglate, Huffington Post, HuffPost, Joan Vennochi, Ken Brissette, Martha Coakley, Marty Walsh, Nancy Gertner, Ryan Grim, Timothy Sullivan, U.s. Attorney | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
December 29, 2015
From our One Towne, Two Different Worlds desk
Presidential frontrunner Donald Trump (R-Donald Trump) gets the coveted Boston Herald Pooh-Pooh Platter (pat. pending) today, with the target being Bill Clinton.
Page One:
Inside spread (with bonanza of Inexplicable Little Green Numbers):
We’ll leave you to read the cartoon columnists for yourself (here and here). But we do want to point out this quote in the news report from Lori Davis, a member of the “Women for Trump” Coalition in New Hampshire.
“Hillary has some issues with how Mr. Trump views women. She claims Mr. Trump is sexist,” Davis said. “Meanwhile, her husband can’t seem to stay monogamous — not to mention even discreet. Perhaps she might want to rethink things before she starts tackling Mr. Trump. She should clean up her own house.”
That’ll be an interesting leitmotif to follow as the Big Dog hits the campaign trail.
Rounding out the frothy local tabloid’s Trumpa Stumpa coverage, columnist Kimberly Atkins proposes in her usual levelheaded way that maybe Bill could help Hill. There’s a special place reserved in heaven for anyone who can maintain a measured voice at the Herald, and Atkins seems a mortal lock for first-ballot entry.
Crosstown at the Boston Globe, the GOP’s Hair Apparent gets the usual treatment in a balanced trail report from Jim O’Sullivan (representative sample: “[Trump] assured New Hampshire residents that their first-in-the-nation primary would be secure if he were elected, even though the chief executive has no direct authority over party primary calendars.”). And columnist Joan Vennochi weighed in with some observations about Hillary’s Bill problem.
In other words, everyone ran true to form today on the local dailies front.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Donald Trump, frothy local tabloid, GOP Hair Apparent, Joan Vennochi, Kimberly Atkins, Lori Davis, One Town Two Different Worlds, pooh-pooh platter, Trumpa Stumpa, Women for Trump | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
November 15, 2014
It’s Day Five of the Jonathan Gruber rumpus and the Boston Herald is still on it like Brown on Williamson.
Today’s front page of the frenzy local tabloid:
Inside, the dustup gets the high-priced spread:
The derail Obamacare piece is especially noteworthy, since it is – as the great Raymond Chandler would say – thinner than the gold on a week-end wedding ring.
MIT professor’s gaffes could derail Obamacare
Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber — the MIT brainiac caught on video admitting the law’s “lack of transparency” was meant to dupe a gullible American public — could end up becoming Obamacare’s demolition man, with congressional Republicans threatening to hold hearings and experts saying his bombshell comments could impact the Supreme Court case challenging the Affordable Care Act.
Those “experts” turn out to be one guy from a conservative think tank.
“Justices and their clerks read the news like everybody else does,” said Joshua Archambault, a health care expert at the Pioneer Institute. “I think it will be in the back of their minds.”
Then again, maybe not, since the subterfuge was meant to keep Obamacare’s penalties from looking like a tax, while the Supremes have already declared it is a tax.
Whatever.
Crosstown, the Boston Globe has studiously avoided GruberGaffe, with only one report so far, buried in yesterday’s A section. But tomorrow we get this Joan Vennochi column.
‘Stupidity’ comments create new problems for ACA
GIVEN THE ongoing frenzy over photos of Kim Kardashian’s rear end, it’s easy to understand why some people might underestimate the intelligence of the American public.
Yet Jonathan Gruber did more than underestimate it. The MIT economist and architect of the Affordable 
Care Act trashed his fellow citizens, by attributing the ability of Democrats to pass the law to deliberate duping, aided by the “stupidity of the American voter.”
Those videotaped comments, distributed via social media, created a new problem for an administration dealing with plenty of old ones. Thanks to Gruber, the anti-Obamacare gang suddenly has fresh fodder. As a result, the GOP’s campaign against the health care law “gained new momentum,” reported the Washington Post, and Gruber may be called to testify about remarks he retroactively explained as “off the cuff.”
And now Gruber’s getting cuffed – by Vennochi, by the Herald, by the GOP, probably by Pope Francis in the next few days.
Who’s stupid now, eh?
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Affordable Care Act, GruberGaffe, Joan Vennochi, Jonathan Gruber, Joshua Archambault, lack of transparency, MIT, Obamacare, Pioneer Institute, Pope Francis, stupidity of voters | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
November 7, 2014
From our Late to the Party Pooper desk
Is it just us, or did the Boston Globe bend over backwards yesterday to sponsor the Martha Coakley Victory in Defeat Tour?
For your Page One consideration:
Then, Yvonne Abraham’s Metro column:
Redemption, even in loss
Martha Coakley did not lose the election on Tuesday. Charlie Baker won it.
Both candidates — haunted by four-year-old criticisms of their failed bids for US senator and governor, respectively — put the ghosts of 2010 to rest for good this week.
In fact, they’d left them behind months ago, but some critics hadn’t noticed. Tuesday showed them. There was undeniable redemption in Baker’s victory, and, however painful it had to be, in Coakley’s narrow defeat.
Cut to Joan Vennoch’si op-ed:
Martha Coakley gets political redemption
THIS TIME, no one could say Martha Coakley gave up the fight.
In fact, she didn’t formally concede the governor’s race to Republican Charlie Baker until Wednesday morning.
Forgive her if she hung on a little too long.
Sorry, Joan – Boston Herald editorial page editor Rachelle Cohen doesn’t forgive her.
Coakley takes cowardly way out
Fails to bow off political stage gracefully to Baker
In politics as in life there are right ways and wrong ways to do things. How unfortunate that Martha Coakley had to end her political career on such a sour note — choosing the wrong way.
With hundreds of her supporters still in the Fairmont Copley Plaza ballroom as election eve turned into morning, Coakley slipped out and headed home. The job of telling the crowd to go home fell to her running mate, Steve Kerrigan, who told supporters, “It’s going to be a long night or rather a long morning” and urged folks to head on out.
Cohen’s conclusion: “It was simply wrong [for Coakley] to skulk away without a word — even if that word fell short of a concession speech.”
Hmmm. You tell us.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Charlie Baker, Joan Vennochi, Martha Coakley, Rachelle Cohen, Steve Kerrigan, Yvonne Abraham | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
August 28, 2014
Today’s local dailies have very different takes on the political rumpus du jour: Attorney General hopeful Warren Tolman (D-Teamsters AFL-CIO) calling AG hopeful Maura Healey (D-Hoopsters Teamsters) “unbecoming” for hectoring him about his lobbying work. [Apologies for the mixup.]
The Boston Globe is on the story like Brown on Williamson, starting Page One Metro.
Tolman’s moonwalking, of course, accomplished nothing with the umbrage-industrial complex, exemplified by this response:
Barbara Lee, of the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, which is dedicated to getting more women involved in politics, tweeted: “Code for close race = #unbecoming #unladylike #cold #bossy. Men always try to knock women off pedestal[s] like this in #mapoli and beyond.”
#Seriously? #Whatpedestal?
On the op-ed page of the stately local broadsheet (yikes! can we still use that term?), columnist Joan Vennochi tried to inject some reality into the conversation.
Unbecoming issue in the AG race
ATTORNEY GENERAL candidate Maura Healey was ruthlessly pushing Democratic rival Warren Tolman to explain what she describes as his record as a lobbyist, when Tolman, who contends he never lobbied anyone, replied: “Maura, it’s just unbecoming. I’m surprised you continue to push these issues rather than talk about the issues people care about.”
Tolman said he’s sorry now. But before he apologized, the word “unbecoming” triggered an urgent fundraising letter from Marty Walz, a Healey backer and president of the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts. “It means unattractive, indecorous. It’s not a word you hear men on Beacon Hill use about each other,” wrote Walz.
True enough. And, with Tolman in the lead in a tight, increasingly nasty race, it’s no surprise the Healey campaign would jump on her opponent’s use of it. After all, the word “unbecoming” holds a special place in Massachusetts politics. But overplaying it is a mistake. It didn’t help the last female candidate who tried.
Crosstown at the Boston Herald, an editorial entirely underplayed it.
Time to get real
How did it come to this? How did two really smart contenders for attorney general, two people who have already served the public and seem committed to the notion of public service, get caught up in a meaningless war of words?
Warren Tolman, a former state senator (and a sometime writer for these pages), took issue in a Tuesday debate with his Democratic primary opponent Maura Healey, a former assistant attorney general, when she criticized his work as a lobbyist.
“You go down this path, Maura, it’s just unbecoming,” he said.
Well, you would have thought from the reaction of the sisterhood that the man had just suggested she tie on an apron and return to the kitchen.
Right. Better both candidates should get back to business.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: AG race, Akilah Johnson, Barbara Lee, Barbara Lee Family Foundation, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Joan Vennochi, Marty Walz, Maura Healey, Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts, unbecoming, Warren Tolman | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
August 10, 2014
Last week, as you splendid readers might – or, more likely, might not – recall, the hardreading staff noted the yin and yang of State House renovation coverage in the local dailies. Today comes the latest installment in the form of this piece by Boston Herald political scribe Matt Stout.
Treat the Press
Renovation
costs for Globe
at State House near $30G
New six-figure “blast” windows, $120,000 in floor repairs, $26,000 to move wall sockets because of “revised furniture layouts” — the extra $2.3 million spent to repair the State House’s gubernatorial suite ran the gamut of changes.
Count The Boston Globe among those added costs.
Work connected to the broadsheet’s fourth-floor State House office is sprinkled throughout the project’s so-called change orders, thanks in part to its place in the building’s cozy southwest corner.
Mee-ow. The final tally? “All told, the state credited $29,550 in unforeseen work in connection with the paper’s digs.”
Funny, but that fact went unmentioned in both Akilah Johnson’s report last week (which was entirely uncritical) and Joan Vennochi’s follow-up column the next day (which was reasonably critical of the “museum quality” makeover).
Big deal, you say? Thirty grand is lunch money compared to the total $11.3 million tab? Just sour grapes on the part of the Herald?
Roll your own.
Last graf of Stout’s piece:
The Herald’s fifth-floor office was unaffected by the monthslong construction. (Though, if anyone over there is reading, our A/C has been making weird noises.)
Buck up, Matt – summer’s almost gone.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Akilah Johnson, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Deval Patrick, Joan Vennochi, Matt Stout, State House renovations | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
October 24, 2013
Two of the best columnists in town – the Globe’s Joan Vennochi and the Herald’s Margery Eagan (yeah yeah, she’s technically not an op-ed columnist but couldn’t resist the headline) – land on the same square today in their coverage of the Boston mayoral race: The “phony class war” as Vennochi puts it, or the “‘washerwoman’ fixation” as Eagan has it.
From the former:
BOSTON DOESN’T need a phony class war, fueled by labor supporters of mayoral candidate Martin J. Walsh — not when it faces the prospect of a real one.
Forget about new Boston versus old Boston. The real issue is rich Boston versus poor Boston and whether the next mayor cares enough to do something about it.
From the latter:
This “washerwoman” fixation is about politicians battling over who’s had a tougher life. That’s supposed to determine which candidate would make the better mayor, senator or governor — though I’ve yet to see any proof.
Both pieces are worth reading. Vennochi’s conclusion:
Where the next mayor came from matters less than where he wants the city to go — and how many Bostonians get there with him.
Eagan:
[Y]ou can’t fight class warfare if you’re both smart, powerful men in the same class. Vote Connolly or vote Walsh. But prince vs. pauper this race is not.
They’re both right.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Boston mayoral race, Joan Vennochi, John Connolly, Margery Eagan, Marty Walsh, phony class war, washerwoman fixation | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
October 11, 2013
As the hardreading staff has previously noted, the Boston Herald is on the WGBH/David Koch rumpus like Brown on Williamson.
Today’s installment:
Protesters say fight not over as WGBH brass stand by David Koch
Environmental activists say they have not yet begun to fight against WGBH, after the public TV station’s brass yesterday said they “appreciated” the protesters’ concerns about trustee David Koch, but they have no intention of booting the conservative lightning rod 
billionaire donor.
“Just as our viewers and listeners reflect a full spectrum of political and cultural views, so do our board members,” WGBH spokesman Michael Raia said in a statement yesterday to the Herald.
“While the Board appreciated hearing the perspective of those who attended the meeting, they plan to make no changes.”
The protestors – all 50 of them – say they “plan to lobby the board’s 31 other trustees individually and ‘get them on the record on how they feel.'”
And some protestors will withhold donations to WGBH. Brad Johnson of Forecast the Facts, “the group that helped gather 119,000 signatures calling for Koch’s ouster, citing his stance on global warming,” said the protestors “don’t want to be in a position where they’re supporting David Koch, and lending their legitimacy to his work.”
Meanwhile, the Boston Globe still isn’t covering the protest. Ditto for WGBH News.
Long live the feisty local tabloid!
2 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: Amos Hostetter, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Brad Johnson, climate change, David Koch, Elmo, Forecast the Facts, Howie Carr, Joan Vennochi, Koch Industries, Michael Raia, MIT child-care center, NOVA, Obamacare, PBS, WGBH | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
October 10, 2013
The Boston Herald has been on the WGBH/David Koch rumpus like Brown on Williamson, but today they’ve really outdone themselves.
Start with Page One.
The inside story (print headline):
Tough climate as WGBH faces protest over board member over conservative David Koch
WGBH board bigwigs were squirming yesterday as David Koch, one of the station’s biggest benefactors, was ripped by environmental activists — including one dressed as 
Elmo — who decried the conservative billionaire as a “climate
denier” and demanded his resignation from the panel.
“This board would not tolerate a Ku Klux Klansman,” the Rev. Fred Small, a WGBH member and
senior minister at First Parish Cambridge, told the trustees of the PBS flagship station. “It would not toler-
ate a notorious racist or
anti-Semite. Yet you tolerate a man who has spent millions subverting democracy and disseminating lies about climate change in order to protect the profits from his own polluting industries.”
According to the Herald, WGBH board chairman “Amos Hostetter defended Koch, telling the protesters there’s no ‘political litmus test’ for board members. ” But, at least today, there is a Howie Carr test:
HOLY WAR FOR P.C. CRUSADERS
First of all, let’s call this WGBH-David Koch brouhaha what it really is.
It’s not a political fight, it’s a religious war.
Koch has blasphemed the Church of Climate Change, formerly known as the Church of Global Warming, except the P.C. shamans had to change the name
because they couldn’t “hide the decline” in worldwide temperatures, to use a
famous phrase from one of their prophets.
To those moonbats who were out on Guest Street yesterday — including the one dressed in an Elmo costume — David Koch is not a political foe, he’s an apostate, a heretic.
So they have declared a fatwah against him.
It gets more, well, inflammatory from there.
Crosstown the Boston Globe had no news coverage of the protest, but columnist Joan Vennochi did weigh in on The two David Kochs.
THIS IS a tale of two Kochs — the one who weeps for lab researchers in need of day care, but not for Americans in need of health care.
David Koch, the philanthropist, was so moved by the pleas of MIT lab workers who said they needed day care that he ponied up $20 million for a child-care center at MIT.
Then, there is also the David Koch who, with brother Charles, helped to bankroll what President Obama described as a “cynical ad campaign” to discourage Americans from signing up for Obamacare. “These are billionaires several times over” said Obama, in what was reported to be a presidential reference to the politically active, conservative siblings and their effort to derail the Affordable Care Act.
He is also “the current target of environmental activists, who want WGBH to kick him off its board because of his climate change views,” Vennochi writes. “Koch helps fund Nova, the acclaimed PBS science show — but, according to the activists, has also worked to defund PBS.”
Sounds like double trouble to us.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Amos Hostetter, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, climate change, David Koch, Elmo, Howie Carr, Joan Vennochi, Koch Industries, MIT child-care center, NOVA, Obamacare, PBS, WGBH | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town 