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.
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.
Why anyone would pay the slightest bit of attention to pill-pushing has-been Scott Brown is a mystery to the hardreading staff.
Why any newspaper would put him on its front page is an even bigger one.
But then, we’re talking about the Boston Herald here.
The flirty local tabloid has long carried a torch for the Accidental Senator, and today’s piece just fans the flame.
Brown: Patrick ‘a joke’ as VP candidate
Former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown mocked the idea of a Deval Patrick veep run on a Joe Biden presidential ticket as a “joke” yesterday, but was quick to add he’d love to see the Democrats go with it.
“Patrick is a joke, please,” Brown told the Herald yesterday after hosting a meet-and-greet for GOP contender Carly Fiorina at his home in Rye, N.H. “I hope that he runs, that way it will be a definite loss.”
The offhanded dismissal drew rebukes from Granite State and Bay State Democrats, who insisted the two-term Massachusetts governor would bolster their party’s slate.
Or charge $7500 a day for running.
The only thing more ridiculous than the Herald’s news judgment is Carly Fiorina’s political judgment, which just produced this knee-slapper on the Herald website.
Fiorina would consider Charlie Baker, Scott Brown for posts
Both Gov. Charlie Baker and former Sen. Scott Brown could have positions within Republican presidential contender Carly Fiorina’s White House administration, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO told Boston Herald Radio this morning.
“Certainly Charlie Baker is someone that should be considered,” Fiorina said on “Boston Herald Drive” this morning. “I am looking for people who are not afraid to go in and actually challenge the status quo.”
Fiorina added that Brown would also be on her “long list” of potential hires. Brown and his wife, Gail Huff, hosted an event for Fiorina yesterday at his home in Rye, N.H.
Her “long list,” eh?
Hey, Scott ‘n’ Gail: That’s Carly’s bread-and-butter letter for your hospitality. Which is to say, just a formality. Don’t get too excited.
Back story, via the Boston Globe‘s Stephanie Ebbert.
Salesman Brown pursues a weight-loss constituency
It was not the sight of their former senator bare-chested that shocked Scott Brown’s Facebook followers.
They were used to that.
It was the sales pitch accompanying the before-and-after photos of his physique, crediting his recent, dramatic weight loss to a commercial nutrition and fitness plan.
Brown’s testament to the merits of AdvoCare’s “24-day challenge” was met with so many guffaws that within two hours, he posted another note, saying he is not a paid spokesman for the supplement company.
What he didn’t explain is that he’s a salesman.
Except he’s not, according to Brown’s wife Gail Huff.
The wife of former Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Scott Brown leaped to his defense yesterday, saying her husband was never a salesman for a controversial diet program, never intended to sell it and was only listed as a distributor of AdvoCare in order to get a 20 percent discount.
“He was never a salesman, he never made a penny from it,” Gail Huff told the Track. “At no point did he ever suggest anyone ever purchase it. He is not selling diet pills.”
That’s actually correct. Scott Brown is not selling diet pills – he’s selling diet pill distributorships.
At least according to The Daily Beast’s Olivia Nuzzi, who got this response when she asked Brown for an interview about AdvoCare.
“Olivia … Thanks for emailing me about your interest in Advocare . . . I am here to help you get started. As you can see from my story and pictures, these products from Advocare really do work.”
Further, Nuzzi wrote:
Brown is offering me the following: “20-40% off products” if I become an AdvoCare distributor; “Nutrition and Fitness guidance to maximize your results”; and “product regimens to help you reach your goals.”
Not to get technical about it, but Nuzzi’s only goal was to expose Scott Brown as a cheap grifter. Which he sorta seems to be.
Exhibit Umpteen:
I asked Brown if he had ever experienced any side effects while taking the product, and he responded, “Not at all I’ve been taking the products with Advocare for 10 years and they have treated me great. Thanks.”
10 years? On Facebook and in his email advertisement, Brown said he had been introduced to the products recently and they are what caused his weight loss.
“Keith has been taking them for 10 years through his baseball career,” Brown said when I told him his response didn’t match the rest of his story. “He turned them on to me a few months ago. Thanks.”
In its perpetual effort to play to the cheap seats, the Boston Herald has been on the current immigration rumpus like Brown on Williamson. Start with Sunday’s Page One:
That day’s tally: One news report, two local columns, one national column.
Yesterday, it was one news report, one local column, one national column, one editorial cartoon.
Today it’s full-tilt boogie: Two news reports (one of them dragging the Massachusetts gubernatorial candidates into the mix), two local columns, one national column, one editorial. (You can get the overall flavor of the Herald’s coverage here.)
As a special bonus, the frisky local tabloid posted this piece on its website earlier today:
Scott Brown slams secret immigrant flights
U.S. Senate candidate Scott Brown called the ongoing immigration crisis at the southern border “a disaster” during an interview today on Boston Herald Radio and blasted federal officials for not coming clean about secret flights of illegals landing in the Bay State.
“The fact that this is being done without people’s knowledge, it’s kind of behind the scenes, is really not appropriate. It needs to be above board, everyone needs to know what’s going on and where we’re going with this whole disaster,” he said. “It is affecting our national security, it is affecting our economic security and to think that we don’t have a secure border and we’re providing these incentives for people to come here illegally is just wrong.”
A number of people feel the same way about letting Brown cross the Massachusetts border.
Crosstown at the Boston Globe, the immigration coverage has been more, well, low-key.
(Not to get technical about it, but the Pope piece seems to be web-only.)
Well, for starters, give them an exclusive on his daughter’s big day – and dress. In return, Scott Brown (R-Elsewhere) got this:
And this:
Not only is it a touching story (“The first time Huff saw her daughter in her wedding dress, she wept, she said.”), it’s also exclusive to the flouncy local tabloid. The Boston Globe got bubkes, as a search of the stately local broadsheet indicates.
As you can see, the Globe hasn’t been on Arianna Patrol since that July 10 piece headlined “Kelly Ayotte to officiate at wedding of Scott Brown’s daughter.”
And so she did. You just wouldn’t know it from the Globe.
The Boston Globe’s Brown-beating of Downturn Scotty proceeded apace in yesterday’s edition, Page One.
Speeches paying off for Brown
In shift, he releases records; got $126k for Fox News job
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Former Massachusetts senator Scott Brown has earned hundreds of thousands of dollars since leaving office by collecting speech fees, a six-figure paycheck from Fox News, and a variety of other income, according to documents made public Friday.
Brown, who lost his 2012 bid for reelection and is now seeking a US Senate seat in New Hampshire, made 20 paid speeches for $186,000 between January 2013 and May 2014. They included a London address to the Royal Bank of Scotland for $20,000 last year, a $900 speech at the Billerica Community Alliance in October, and a $20,000 paycheck for speaking at a hedge fund conference in Las Vegas last month.
Billerica Community Alliance? $900? Seriously?
Kick-in-the-nuts graf:
As he did in Massachusetts, Brown has sought to present an image of himself as a regular guy with a pickup truck for his New Hampshire Senate bid. New Hampshire’s median household income, among the nation’s highest, is about $65,000.
The local dailies’ coverage of Saturday’s Democratic Party hoedown made it clear that gubernatorial hopeful Mirtha Coakley will be forever haunted by her 2010 U.S. Senate loss to Scott Brown (R-Elsewhere).
Poor Steve Grossman. The treasurer wins the Democratic convention in Worcester, and the people who pay attention to these things will be talking about only Attorney General Martha Coakley, who has been killing him in the polls.
Poor Coakley, too. Her camp did a good job of lowering expectations for Saturday’s party confab, but then struggled to meet even those, with Coakley barely squeaking by former Obama administration official Don Berwick to take second place. Oof.
And so she’ll continue to be dogged by the ghosts of 2010, when she lost a special US Senate election to an empty barn jacket. Those four-year-old echoes can be pretty persistent.
Then again, so can Mirtha. Our prediction: Brown won’t mean a thing here come November.
The Boston Herald has slowly evolved into a cross between The Onion and one big selfie.
Exhibit Umpteen: The feisty local tabloid’s hyperventilating coverage today of . . . itself! Specifically the gubernatorial debate the the Herald will stream on its website tomorrow.
. . . to Hillary “Cassandra” Chabot’s dire warning to Martha Coakley . . .
. . . to John “Cassandra” Nucci’s dire warning to everyone else . . .
Wow. So, presumably, there will be a tremendous web audience tomorrow morning, extensive media coverage of the debate, and serious repercussions for the candidates.
As the hardreading staff noted earlier, the Boston Herald is working overtime to ignore anything negative about its policrush Scott Brown (R-Elsewhere), while the Boston Globe front-pages once again Brown’s questionable involvement with the shady Florida outfit, Global Digital Solutions.
Brown’s solution to his Globe-al problem? Dump the scamsters. Todd Wallack and Noah Bierman continue to report.
Brown cuts ties to Fla. company
Gives up stock, says his role had become campaign distraction
Republican Scott Brown abruptly resigned Wednesday from an obscure Florida company and gave up stock initially valued at $1.3 million after facing a barrage of questions about his role as a “senior adviser,” a controversy that had dogged his US Senate campaign in New Hampshire.
Brown’s resignation from the advisory board of Global Digital Solutions Inc. was announced about two hours after a news media event in the state’s capital designed to highlight his official entry into the race. He was repeatedly challenged by reporters in Concord seeking answers about what he had done to earn the stock grant, and whether he had scrutinized the company before lending it his name.
“I’ve already answered it for two days,” Brown said, defending his role at the company. “We put out a statement.” The questions continued, and Brown said, “I am not really sure what else to say,” as cameras recorded him getting into his green GMC truck. Democrats promptly posted video of the uncomfortable exchange.
Said video:
And it’s not just the Democrats who are on Brown’s case – other news organizations are hounding him too, as a quick search of the Googletron reveals.
Notably absent from the list? That’s right – the Herald. Far be it from the flirty local tabloid to criticize its pinup boy, eh?
The Boston Herald has long been the house organ for former Sen. Scott Brown (R-Elsewhere), routinely boosting the peripatetic pol through what it does – and does not – cover.
Exhibit Umpteen of the latter comes today, as the flirty local tabloid completely ignores the biggest story about Brown right now – his questionable involvement with a shady Florida outfit called Global Digital Solutions.
Crosstown at the Boston Globe, the Brownanigans have been front-page news – twice.
For advisory role, an award with initial worth of $1.3m
An obscure company in West Palm Beach that markets itself as a firearms manufacturer made a splashy announcement last summer: It was appointing Scott Brown, the former Massachusetts senator, to its advisory board.
Not revealed at the time was what Brown received in exchange for lending his name to the venture. But a report the company made to the Securities and Exchange Commission last month, which has not been previously made public, shows that Brown received stock that was worth $1.3 million at the time. Its value has declined considerably since then, as the stock price has fallen by half.
Sort of like Brown’s own stock, eh? According to the piece by Todd Wallack and Noah Bierman, Global Digital Solutions started out as a beauty supply company and “does not yet sell or make guns. It has no revenue, no patents, no trademarks, no manufacturing facilities, and no experience developing weapons, according to its most recent corporate filings.”
Says he advises startup; rivals call for disclosure
WINDHAM, N.H. — Scott Brown, former senator of Massachusetts, on Monday defended his decision to accept 1.5 million shares of stock from an obscure Florida company, saying he offers guidance and serves as a sounding board in exchange for his large stake in the firm.
“It’s a startup company that I’ve been on the board for, what seven, eight months, offering any type of advice when asked,” Brown said in a brief interview after a campaign event at a local gas station highlighting his energy plans.
Brown defended the legitimacy of the company, Global Digital Solutions Inc., dismissing concerns that it has announced a series of acquisitions that have not been completed. Among them was an announcement in March that it intended to buy Remington Arms Co. LLC, one of the world’s largest gun manufacturers, for more than $1 billion. That was greeted with derision by Remington and others in the industry.
Derision! That’s what Brown has in common with Global Digital Solutions. It all makes sense now.
Posted by Campaign Outsider 
It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town 