Left Ahead

The Boston Globe has [assed my chokepoint, at $14.34 a week in its recent delivery price. Ihave subscribed since 1979 and flipping the bird is a bigger deal fol me than them.  I shall move to the still exorbitant $3.99 online sub, but [probaly will drop it all.  I'll likely to go to a full-time NYT sub instead of just Sunday or maybe revert to the smart-guy Financial Times.

Let's talk about paywalls and paper v. internet-only.

The high drama and low comedy of Boston politics surely plays out most publicly with its mayors. Yet since 1909, much of the real action and strongest personalities have been in the City Council. That's when Boston revised from a board of aldermen and common council. They are the legislative body, who go far beyond their main duty of voting up or down the annual city budget.

With no staggered terms, the 9 district councilors and 4 at-large ones run every two years. In theory, citizens could throw the bums out two years. 

In my decades here,  I have seen, heard and dealt with various iterations of the Council. I have met and even confronted some real lulus and loons. Those alter kakers are gone and in recent years egos have been in check and responsibility much higher.

We've recently lost some of the most active, smartest and overall best councilors. Some stepped down to run for mayor. Some burned out. At least one left for more money.

In this election year, I'll set up future shows with incumbents and the few challengers. I'll talk about the shifts and possibilities.

Baltimore is burning but my mind is more with the Supremes in DC. I've but a lot of emotion and thought into marriage equality over the past 11 years. Now here we are two months away from a likely quasi-resolution. 

I do expect a Loving v. Virginia-style decision in June. It's likely 5-4 ir 6-3 in favor of same-sex marriage, replete with long-fingered majority and dissenting CYA decisions.

I'll kick around the fallout, particularly how the plug nasties who want to harm, hinder and hurt homosexuals will take it. As we still see in the 42 years since women's right to choose was allegedly settled with Roe v. Wade, some will not accept changes or that their emotions are in the minority. Yes, yes, they are likely to keep it so long as they breath.

The listing and the shuffling of Presidential candidates are great theater. We all figured Republicans to dance and change stage positions. Far more fascinating has been the quick and deep Elizabeth Warren-ization of Democrat hers-to-lose nominee Hillary Clinton.

Pardon the parochialism, but Sen. Warren is hot stuff...and he's ours in Massachusetts. Well, my favorite ex-hick became a Harvard Law professor (likewise her non-hick husband) and wealthy. Yet, she emerged as a major voice for the new populism. She's even more outspoken than Sen. Bernie Sanders.(I-VT).

Having had to tell supporters, worshipers and the media that she definitely won't run for POTUS, Warren is still in the raxe — as the touchstone for liberals, progressives, and well, sensible folk. 

I'll hit on how Hillary as cannibalized Warren's policy, to good effect. After all, it's her one chance to sway lefties and indies who have been indifferent at best to her candidacy.. Meanwhile, poor Republicans run hither and yon putting o the varioua costumes of different troupes of right-wingers.

Say guilty 30 times for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bomber. Next up...execution or life in a federal pen.

And for something completely different, MA Gov. Charlie Baker's Special Panel in Review of the MBTA (Metropolitan Boston Transportation Authority) issued its how-to-fix-the-T report. Next up...Baker to say, "Fund your own damn fixes and for God's sake, don't blame me for my Big Dig financing scheme!"

I chatter about both these. 

So far, I"m surprised at the bombing convict response by teh locals.

With same-sex marriage battle lost — waiting only for the SCOTUS cymbal clap in June, wingers are pig piling on a new ploy. In numerous states, legislatures are pretending to protect religious freedom from the inevitable and fearful persecution from dem damn gays.

I'll kick around Indiana's worst-in-class blunders in trying this ruse. 

POTUS hopeful, Gov. Mike Pence (R, of course) signed a bill into law that pretty much lets anyone for any reason discriminate against LGBT potential customers. Poorly disguised as protecting citizen's First Amendment rights to exercise religion, it instead is an atavistic license to ignore statutes, case law and morality. 

Pence seemed to figure the Hoosier lawmakers were being oh, so clever in patterning the bill after the 1993 federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Wrong there. The RFRA was yet another cowardly and ill-considered Pres. Bill Clinton effort to appease wingers.Yet Indiana's version is worse, even legislatively malignant.

I'll get into the concepts of balancing exercise of religion with both commerce and respect as required by federal law. We can be very sure Pence and his minions are having similar discussions following the nationwide blowback to Indiana's overreach. 

 

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Why oh why do so many Americans fear big ideas? Seems like we'd rather have a President who is a stereotypical accountant than a bold-stroke leader.

I wasn't even going to get into the HIllary Clinton v. Elizabeth Warren game, much less the conga line of GOP clods. Yet the murmurs in media and, of course, online commenters has gotten sad and a bit toxic. The current foolish instant cliché about Warren is 1) she is too inexperienced to be Prez and 2) just look at what happened with this current inexperienced guy named Obama.

For Warren, let us recall that the same donkeys brayed that she was two one-dimensional and too inexperienced to be Senator. Instead, she strode into office with her tiny, slender body and quiet voice as a real warrior. She put the lie to accepted truth of the limits of new Senators being impotent. She has set the standard for what a legislator should accomplish. 

She did it with bold, well-formulated ideas — big ideas. 

I don't want her to leave the Senate for a run for the top office. Yet in her spot, she already is a template for what we should expect from politicians. We don't need another incrementalist. We don't need another political coward in the White House.

I guess this falls in the rant class, but in a largely pleasant way this time. I was struck most recently by two phenomena centered in my state. Both show the inexplicable tenacity of anti-gay types, even in an allegedly liberal fort.

There is the MA governor having the audacity to promote marriage equality. Then there are the sumbling, lurching advances related to Northeast St. Paddy's Day parades.

Our governor is a Republican, albeit the MA flavor, fiscally conservative and socially liberal (but not too liberal and not in the progressive way...so there). Well then, in the past few days, Charlie Baker became the only Republican governor to sign the amicus brief presented to the SCOTUS by some in his party, favoring same-sex marriage. It is personal as well as political and moral for him. His gay brother married a man and Charlie is in the gay's-OK camp.

Thing is, this state GOP platform and the party's machers are notoriously anti-gay. I discuss whether he's likely to face more than scowls as a result.

Then to parades. It seems all of Ireland and most US cities are perfectly fine with homosexual groups marching in St. Patrick's parades, even where there is a separate Pride parade later in the year, as there is in both Boston and New York City. This year Boston's long-time anti-gay parade organizers voted to let two gay groups, one OUTVETS, as it sounds, march. New York, generally a decade or more ahead of Boston is struggling. A parade sponsor, NBC, wangled an exemption for its gay-employees' group. NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio called that for the tokenism it is and wouldn't march.

I talk about who did and didn't march in Boston and New York and what that may mean.

Honestly, these anti-gay types seem so silly.

This week's guest is Boston City Councilor Steve Murphy. He earned stripes on top of stripes, as long-time financial guru of the body along with a couple of terms as its President. While a quiet type, he has always been one of the highest vote-getters among the at-large councilors. 

Since he termed-ut of the presidency, he seems to have been more active proposing legislation. For example, he has driven a change to update our antiquated liquor licensing structure with BYOB ability for the many restaurants which don't have a coveted beer/wine license.

We'll likely have a rambling discussion, including of course how he compares and contrasts previous Mayor Tom Menino and current Marty Walsh. Also, this is an election year for Council, so we'll hit on his platform.

What's said and unsaid is rarely as pointed as when money is involved. Add a heavy dose of politics and poof! you have budget proposals.

MA's newish Gov. Charlie Baker made his first and it was pretty good theater. I hit the highlights and some of the things unsaid. 

On the face of it, this is level funded. It does grow by 3% to $38 billion, but most parts of government will get effective slashes with no inflation or room to hire. Schools through UMASS level, local aid (state revenue sharing), and the MBTA (our subway, commuter rail, bus and such) get a boost. Numerous small sensible programs like Down syndrome pilot and prostate disease research are gone. 

Baker doesn't go for anything hard here. Most notably, he does not attack the terrible underfunding and debt assigned to the MBTA. That's not surprise as he was a key player in a previous Republican administration that structured all that. Instead, he fashions and repeatedly presents himself as a turn-around manager, a fixer.

I describe where he expects revenues to come from while he keeps his no-new-or-raised-taxes pledge. Some are questionable sources. 

This proposal goes to the legislature for each house to reject, refine or reform before the real negotiations head to a July 1 balanced-budget deadline. I see it as a savvy PR and political program by Baker. He repeated told his press conference announcing the budget he inherited a big deficit. He clearly paints himself as a savior and fixer...sounds like someone setting up to run for VP or even Prez in 2020 or 2024.