Sunday Globe Special: Building a Wall

They promised you:

Catholic bishops promised reform in sex-abuse scandal

Then they did the usual and covered it up.

Of course, it has only lately come awry.

Maybe they should be licensed like any other profession.

Either that or let the women run it.

"Democrats look to rebuild Blue Wall in the midterms" by Annie Linskey Globe Staff  November 03, 2018

WATERFORD, Mich. — Democrats woke up in November 2016 to the cold reality that the Blue Wall of reliable votes in upper Midwestern states that they counted on for years had crumbled, clearing a path for Donald Trump to take the White House.

It's called taking people for granted, and it's also the essence of identity politics. 

Without that, Democrats are nothing.

Two years later, the party is aiming in Tuesday’s midterm elections to patch up that barrier, and Democrats appear on track to make gains in House and governor races in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, three once-blue states that Hillary Clinton lost, but there’s an open question hanging over the vote: Is this a temporary trend, fueled by reaction to Trump? Or are Democrats refashioning a coalition that will hold?

Not much is riding on the answer — except maybe everything.

These Rust Belt states have been trending Republican for years, party strategists on both sides say, as working-class voters have felt abandoned by a Democratic Party they felt didn’t do enough to help them in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

“The Blue Wall was not very high,” acknowledged Stan Greenberg, a Democratic pollster.

Or, as Larry Jacobs, a University of Minnesota political scientist, put it: “The idea of it being a Blue Wall was something invented in the Brooklyn campaign headquarters,” referring to Clinton’s campaign office. “It wasn’t rooted in reality,” but these states barely supported Trump in the last election, and they have growing suburban areas where many voters, particularly women, have been turned off by Trump’s rhetoric. That has this battleground area tilting Democratic.

Greenberg said this is due to Trump’s governing more like a plutocrat and less like the populist he promised. “People aren’t fools,” Greenberg said.

Apparently, they are.

This is what both sides are seeing: Democratic senators up for reelection in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin all appear poised to win; the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Wolf, is rated as likely to win by handicappers; and Democrat Gretchen Whitmer is favored to win an open gubernatorial seat in Michigan.

What is most significant from a symbolic perspective: Democrats have a 50-50 shot at unseating Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, long a poster child for the Tea Party wing of the GOP. In a sign of the shifting times, Walker recently embraced an initiative at the heart of the Affordable Care Act that would ensure that people with pre-existing health conditions have access to affordable insurance.

“The Republicans won in 2016 by piercing the Blue Wall in those three states. Now they can’t even find a brick,” said Jesse Ferguson, a strategist who was deputy executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the 2014 midterms.

These three states could also deliver Democrats the wins they need to retake the House of Representatives. Democrats need a net gain of 23 seats to secure a majority in the lower chamber.

Still, fair warning: Polls and prognosticators have been wrong before about this area of the country. “It remains to be seen how much progress they have made by turning the tables,” said David Kochel, an Iowa-based Republican strategist. “I don’t think they’ve rebuilt any kind of blue wall.”

He argued that Democrats are bound to recover some ground this year due to the historical trend that the party that controls the White House tends to lose seats in midterm elections.

“We’ve got those headwinds,” Kochel said.

And Trump does not have plans for campaign rallies in Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Wisconsin in the final days of the midterms, a nod to the reality that the president’s time is better spent in areas where the GOP is more likely to make gains. Moreover, the House seats up for grabs in those upper Midwest states have a hefty suburban component.

That is why he was in Texas where Democrats are coming out from the shadows.

Kochel said local Republicans are “probably thinking, ‘We don’t want the president to come in with the rally message that won’t help us with that constituency.’ ”

Eager Democrats point to Michigan’s Eighth Congressional District, long a GOP seat in the Detroit suburbs. Trump won this area by 7 percentage points in 2016.

So, solid Trump territory?

Not really. First-time candidate Elissa Slotkin is giving Republican Mike Bishop the race of his life in a contest that combines a host of trends favorable to Democrats. The Cook Political Report rates it a “toss up,” and outside groups on both sides are spending heavily there.

Slotkin is focusing on health care. She decided to run after seeing her mother, who had cancer early in her life, struggle to afford health insurance. Cancer ended up killing Slotkin’s mother, who let her insurance lapse and then had a late-stage diagnosis.

Slotkin vividly recalls watching Bishop in a Rose Garden ceremony in 2017 after the House voted to repeal Obamacare.

“He was smiling and beaming,” Slotkin recalled in an interview. “Something broke for me. And I turned to my husband and said, ‘No, you don’t get to do that, you don’t get to vote against your constituents.’ ”

Anecdotally, she appears to be making inroads with older Republican women who are dismayed by what they see as Trump’s divisiveness and are looking for alternatives. Slotkin said the fastest-growing group of volunteers for her campaign is Republican women over 50 who live in a conservative corner of the district.

“Some of these women started off by saying, ‘I don’t want to tell anyone what I’m doing,’ ” Slotkin said, but that’s changed, and Slotkin campaign workers report seeing homes with lawn signs for both candidates, with the wife supporting Slotkin and the husband backing Bishop.

And she doesn’t want to hear it.

The incumbent is pitching himself as a longtime Michigander, focusing more on his local ties to the district than his support of Donald Trump. At a rally last week Bishop said: “They’ve got billionaires from California, from New York City. These elitists who want to come in here and buy up this district. They are so angry that they lost in 2016 and they will do anything they can to buy this district back.”

More on them below.

Bishop has been outraised by a jaw-dropping two-to-one, raising about $3 million to Slotkin’s $6 million.

Vice President Mike Pence has been to Michigan twice and Donald Trump Jr. held a rally for Bishop. At a rally Monday, Pence took care to condemn the slaughter of 11 Jews at a Pittsburgh synagogue two days before, but then, moments later, Pence launched into a riff about the migrant caravan in Central America, claiming it was organized by left-wing groups. That led audience members to yell: “Soros!” — a reference to George Soros, the Jewish billionaire whom right-wing conspiracy theorists have accused of organizing the caravan.

Pence did nothing to silence the cries, which some Jewish leaders have called anti-Semitic.

Yeah, tragedies are supposed to unite us.

Keeping Trump out of the conversation is a wise strategy for both sides: Door knocking by canvassers among undecided voters in nearby Macomb County revealed that these late-deciders are focused on hyper-local issues and don’t necessarily connect their votes in the midterms to the president.

Michigan’s Macomb County is where Greenberg, the Democratic pollster, conducted his groundbreaking 1985 study on “Reagan Democrats.” Former president Barack Obama won here in 2008 and 2012. Then Trump prevailed in 2016.

In interviews with residents of this working-class neighborhood, every one mentioned the poor condition of local roads as a top issue in the midterms. No one mentioned Trump unprompted. No one mentioned the Russia investigation. Or impeachment.

The dichotomy was best encapsulated by Nazirul Haque, a 63-year-old who works in the service industry. At his front door on a bright but frigid afternoon, Haque said he was leaning toward supporting the Democratic ticket because he thinks that Democrats will fix the roads, but as for Trump, he’s a fan.

“Right now I think he’s doing well,” Haque said. “He’s straightforward.”

Not an intentional liar, so to speak.

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Related:

Here’s your ultimate cheat sheet of House and Senate races to watch on election night

I'm sure there will be some funny business with the fraud and voting machines.

Here is a closer look:


"Survey of battleground House districts shows Democrats with narrow edge" by Scott Clement and Dan Balz Washington Post  October 08, 2018

Likely voters who live in 69 battleground House districts across the country narrowly prefer Democratic candidates, according to a new Washington Post-Schar School survey, a potentially worrying sign for Republicans given that the overwhelming percentage of these districts are currently in GOP hands.

With just a month to the midterm elections and with early voting set to begin in many states, the new poll highlights the challenge for Republicans as they seek to maintain their House majority at a time when President Trump’s approval rating remains below 50 percent despite sustained economic growth, low unemployment, and a rising stock market.

The survey of 2,672 likely voters by the Post and the Schar School at George Mason University shows that likely voters in these districts favor Democrats by a slight margin: 50 percent prefer the Democratic nominee, and 46 percent prefer the Republican. By way of comparison, in 2016 these same districts favored Republican candidates over Democratic ones by 15 percentage points, 56 percent to 41 percent.

Women are driving Democratic support in the battleground districts, favoring the party’s candidates by 54 percent to 40 percent. Men in these districts favor Republicans by 51 percent to 46 percent. That gender difference continues a pattern that has been seen throughout the year in other polls and in special elections.

I guess that would be the Kavanaugh effect.

Of the 69 districts included in the survey, 63 are held by Republicans and just six are held by Democrats. Trump carried 48 of these districts and Hillary Clinton won the other 21. In the districts won by Trump, likely voters are split 48 percent for the Democratic candidate and 47 percent for the Republican. In the districts won by Clinton, Democrats enjoy a clear advantage, 53 percent to 43 percent.

Democrats need to pick up a net of 23 seats to gain control of the House in November, which means they must win fewer than half of the battleground districts included in the new survey. The fact that, overall, voters in these districts are relatively evenly divided in territory that has been favorable for Republican House candidates in the past underscores why many GOP strategists are pessimistic about their prospects for holding the House.

I guess they know what they are talking about.

With its focus on competitive districts, the new poll differs from many other surveys that ask what is known as a generic House vote question. In those polls, no names of candidates are included. Respondents are simply asked whether they prefer the Democrat or the Republican in their congressional district. Those surveys also are generally made up of a sample taken from the entire nation rather than the minority of the total population living in competitive districts.

The Post-Schar School survey used the names of the two major party candidates in each of the 69 districts. The districts included were those that as of Aug. 24 were rated as either toss-ups or leaning toward one party or the other by the independent Cook Political Report or identified by the Post’s political team as competitive. The Cook list is dynamic, given regular updates based on fresh analysis of the districts, which means the number of competitive districts can change from week to week.

The survey also used a different sampling and interviewing approach to accurately identify voters in specific districts. Mailed invitations were sent to registered voters who were randomly selected in each district from state voter registration lists. Respondents had the option of completing the self-administered survey by computer, mobile device, tablet, or phone. The margin of sampling error among likely voters is plus or minus 2 percentage points.

The president’s job approval rating among likely voters in these battleground districts stands at 43 percent, somewhat higher than a national rating of 38 percent among registered voters in a Post-ABC News poll taken at the end of August. In those battleground House districts that he carried, Trump’s approval is 46 percent; in the Clinton-won districts, it is 38 percent. Overall, 47 percent of voters in all of the competitive districts strongly disapprove of the way he is handling his job.

A recent analysis by Public Opinion Strategies, a Republican polling firm, concluded that Republicans would need a national Trump approval rating of at least 45 percent to have a chance to maintain control of the House. In battleground districts, that number would need to be a bit higher.

That is where the print version stopped tabulating.

That suggests the current 43 percent approval in battleground districts is another sign of potential trouble for the GOP.

Trump’s approval rating remains a strong predictor of how people are likely to vote. In the survey, 91 percent of those who approve of the president’s performance also are supporting the GOP candidate in their district. Meanwhile, 88 percent of those who disapprove of Trump’s performance are backing the Democratic candidate.

The survey also highlights the growing split between white voters with college educations and those without a college degree -- something that is especially acute among women. This educational divide has been growing since Trump was elected.

White voters overall, regardless of educational achievement, are divided almost evenly in the battleground districts, with 49 percent saying they support the Republican and 47 percent saying they favor the Democrat. Among nonwhites, Democrats hold a big advantage, 64 percent to 29 percent. In these battleground districts, nonwhites make up a smaller portion of the population than they do nationally.

So the Democrats kind of need the division to keep that block on their side, huh?

Looked at on the basis of educational achievement, 55 percent of white college graduates say they favor the Democratic candidate in their district, compared with 42 percent who say they back the GOP nominee. Among whites without college degrees, the numbers are almost the opposite, with 53 percent backing the Republican candidate and 42 percent supporting the Democrat.

The educational differences are most noticeable among women. White women with college degrees back the Democratic candidate in their districts by 62 percent to 35 percent. White women without college degrees tilt toward the Republicans running in their districts by 49 percent to 45 percent.

On another front, the new survey finds considerable optimism about the economy, with 77 percent giving the economy positive marks -- 27 percent rating it ‘‘excellent’’ and 50 percent saying it is ‘‘good,’’ but when asked about the direction of the country apart from the economy, 36 percent say the country is going in the right direction and 57 percent say things are headed in the wrong direction.

More than one-third of likely voters say their families are getting ahead financially and Republican candidates receive 74 percent support from this group, but nearly half of voters say they have ‘‘just enough to maintain their standard of living,’’ and Democrats garner a 61 percent majority of their support. Democrats fare even better among the 15 percent of voters who say they are falling behind financially.

Voters rated eight issues from ‘‘extremely important’’ to ‘‘very important’’ to ‘‘somewhat important’’ to ‘‘not so important.’’ The issue that drew the most ‘‘extremely important’’ rating, at 64 percent, was the Supreme Court and judicial nominations, the issue that dominated the news during the time the survey was conducted. Second in the ‘‘extremely important’’ ranking was Trump, at 60 percent.

Now it is the "caravan."

(I suppose it is something of a traveling road show)

A 57 percent majority rated health care as extremely important, with 55 percent rating the economy as extremely important and 52 percent saying the same for immigration. Issues that ranked lowest were special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, as well as gun violence and international trade.

That was before Pittsburgh.

When pushed as to the single-most important issue influencing their vote, a different order of significance emerged. In that case, Trump led the list, with 26 percent saying he was the most important of all the issues or factors, followed by the economy at 19 percent and the Supreme Court and other judicial nominations at 16 percent.

At this point, Trump appears to be more of a motivating factor in the voting decisions of Democrats than Republicans in these battleground districts. Among self-identified Democrats and independents who lean to the Democrats, 40 percent say Trump is the single most important issue in their vote this fall, followed by health care at 20 percent. Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, however, 29 percent say the economy tops their list, with 24 percent naming judicial nominations, 17 percent saying immigration, and 15 percent citing Trump.

Among those who cite judicial nominations as extremely important, 50 percent are backing the Democrat in their district and 47 percent are backing the Republican. That finding is certain to be closely watched in the wake of the fight over Brett M. Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination, as a measure of energy and intensity ahead of the midterms.

Who is he again?

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Related:

"President Trump said Congress will vote on a new tax cut for middle-class Americans after the midterm elections, even though Republican lawmakers say they have no such legislation in the works. “We’re giving a middle-income tax reduction of about 10 percent,” Trump said Monday as he departed the White House for a campaign rally in Houston. “We’ll do the vote after the election.” Party leaders were caught off-guard over the weekend after Trump said at a Saturday campaign rally in Nevada that “we’re looking at a major tax cut for middle-income people.” He said House Speaker Paul Ryan and other House Republicans were developing a plan that would be unveiled shortly before the midterms. The announcement was tacit recognition that the tax cut Trump and Republicans passed into law last year isn’t proving as popular as they had hoped. Many election forecasts predict that Democrats are likely to win control of the House of Representatives, but congressional offices could not confirm that any new tax legislation was in the works. Later on Monday, a White House spokeswoman clarified that Trump wants the tax cut included in a second round of legislation the House passed in September."

Democrats are questioning the timing of the policy flurry so close to the elections, but I'm sure he didn't intentionally lie like other people.

Here are the other issues:

"Democrats fail to overturn Trump administration rule on ‘junk’ insurance plans" by John Wagner Washington Post  October 10, 2018

Senate Democrats fell one vote short Wednesday in a bid to overturn the Trump administration’s expansion of short-term health insurance plans that do not have to cover preexisting conditions and certain kinds of health care that the Affordable Care Act requires.

Trump said that's a lie.

By forcing a vote on what they term ‘‘junk’’ plans, however, Democrats managed to put a spotlight on a key issue they argue will cut their way in next month’s midterm elections, where control of both the House and the Senate is in play.

Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, joined with Democrats in supporting the resolution, which was opposed by the chamber’s other 50 Republicans.

Trying to make up for Kavanaugh.

To succeed, Democrats needed to lure the votes of at least two Republican senators in a chamber where the GOP has a 51-to-49 majority.

The resolution — spearheaded by Senator Tammy Baldwin, Democrat of Wisconsin — was brought to the floor after obtaining far more than the 30 signatures required to bypass the committee process and force a full Senate vote.

On Tuesday night, President Trump issued the first veto threat of his tenure, making clear he would veto the Democratic measure if it reached his desk.

--more--"

It's supposed to be Democrat issue, but......

"Premiums for popular ACA health insurance dip for the first time" by Amy Goldstein Washington Post  October 12, 2018

The average price tag for the most popular level of insurance sold in the Affordable Care Act’s federal marketplaces is dropping slightly, the first time the rates have stopped going up since the health plans were created a half-dozen years ago.

OMG! 

Trump and the Republicans are doing a better job of running Obamacare than he did!

The figures also show that, after several years of defections, some insurers are returning to sell ACA health plans, and fewer consumers around the country will have only one insurance company in their marketplace.

In issuing this new portrait of the marketplaces on the cusp of the Nov. 1 yearly sign-up period, administration officials did an about-face from President Trump’s declarations since his campaign that the ACA was ‘‘dead’’ and its insurance exchanges were collapsing — a refrain popular among Republicans.

Seema Verma, administrator of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, credited the administration for improving the affordability and supply of ACA coverage. She said the Trump administration’s recent policies have stabilized the marketplaces, and she focused on a rule change to make it easier to rely on short-term health plans with relatively low prices that lack popular consumer protections.

‘‘While some have publicly been accusing us of sabotage, we have been doing everything we can to mitigate the damage caused by Obamacare,’’ Verma said in a conference call with journalists.

Outside health policy analysts, however, challenged the administration’s reasoning, saying that the rates for ACA health plans were driven up last year in an overreaction to the administration’s maneuvers and that prices would have been even lower for 2019 if Trump and his health care aides had not been altering the law.

In particular, policy analysts cited the president’s decision a year ago to abolish a type of subsidy that the 2010 law gave insurers to buffer the expense of providing discounts to lower-income customers for their out-of-pocket costs, such as deductibles. In response, insurers jacked up rates, but the loss of the so-called cost-sharing reduction subsidies led to larger premium subsidies for most consumers — and unexpected profits for some insurers.

Yeah, you wanna keep them healthy.

‘‘The overwhelming reason average benchmark premiums are coming down in 2019 is because premiums went up by so much in 2018,’’ said Larry Levitt, senior vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health-policy organization, and while Verma said that more insurance choices are holding down ACA rates, Levitt noted that the longer-lasting skimpy health plans she talked up are only now becoming available.....

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What do you mean they denied your claims?

Related: Trump says he’s taking action to lower drug costs

Not only that, Social Security check are growing.

Also see:

"Tania Boghossian, 53, a Belmont woman, was ordered held without bail Wednesday after she allegedly tried to kill an elderly dementia patient she knew while he was receiving treatment at a Cambridge hospital, officials said....."

I suppose health care and gun control kind of go hand-in-hand, huh?

Victim identified in Friday morning slaying in Boston

Was one of five homicides in city in three days that used laser sightings to kill. "

Two held without bail in separate slayings in Dorchester, Mattapan

"At the scene of Friday night’s fatality, Police Commissioner William G. Gross said there were “too many guns on the streets,” and again appealed to the community to work with police to bring the killers to justice: “People are committed to working together to end this senseless violence. So again we ask for your help. As citizens of this community, when we stand together in solidarity, then we send a clear-cut message that these crimes won’t be tolerated. But we need everyone pulling together so we can convict these folks who are committing these types of acts. Everybody needs to pull together: the community, law enforcement, judicial system, everybody. Because this should not be tolerated,” but a manager at Upham’s House restaurant on Columbia Road said some residents don’t report crime. “Residents … see things that are clearly illegal, but no one calls the police,” said Nick, who grew up in the area and asked to be identified by his first name. “It’s just been the same story for 30 years,” he said. Monalisa Smith, the president of Mothers for Justice and Equality, said despite the recent shooting deaths, community groups and anti-violence advocates have made progress [and] it’s understandable for people to feel discouraged in the wake of surges of violence. “We’ve come a long way, but we have a ways to go,” Smith said. “If we stay focused on working as a collective and not get distracted, we will keep seeing results.”

The mayor said they ‘clearly have to step up our efforts,’ and an arrest soon followed.

"3 face charges in alleged Canton home invasion" by Jerome Campbell Globe Staff  October 09, 2018

Three men allegedly wielded a semiautomatic rifle when they invaded an apartment Monday in Canton and tried to break into a safe, law enforcement officials said.

Deijon Holmes, 18, Josiah Fleming, 18, and Timothy Fleming, 19, were all arraigned on home invasion and other charges Tuesday in Stoughton District Court. They were ordered held without bail pending dangerousness hearings. Josiah and Timothy Fleming are brothers.

The men wore white hooded jumpsuits that hid their faces as Norfolk County prosecutors recounted how they were arrested.

Canton police said in a report that Holmes was carrying an AR-15 rifle inside the apartment on Neponset Street and fled through a nearby wooded area before being arrested. The Fleming brothers were also seen sprinting from the scene and were caught, police said.

“It appeared that they were trying to rob the resident of that apartment for the contents of that safe. It is unclear what that safe has,” Assistant District Attorney John Looney said.

Around 1:30 p.m. Monday, officers responded to the scene after neighbors called about a masked man, later identified as Holmes, walking around with “a machine gun,” police said in the report. Witnesses told officers several men had arrived in a small gray car, parked on the street, and then entered a unit on the second floor, police added. The witnesses also said they saw a woman jump out of a window when the men arrived.

As police approached the unit, they saw the front door was ajar and Holmes inside wearing black clothing and blue medical gloves while carrying the rifle, which had a scope mounted on it, officials said.

“Seeing the weapon, officers retreated off the staircase and saw Mr. Holmes jump out a rear window and proceed to run through a backyard wooded area,” Looney said. Police chased him and subdued him as he was running toward the gray car.

Meanwhile, additional officers saw the Fleming brothers fleeing the scene in opposite directions on Neponset Street and arrested them, police said.

They were wearing black clothing and blue medical gloves, police added.

In a subsequent search of the apartment, officers found the rifle and an unopened silver-colored safe with a keypad entry.

An attorney representing one of the Fleming brothers argued that the police report did not provide any evidence to connect the two men to the crime.

“There is one report and the only thing in that report is him being observed running through the woods and how he was eventually detained,” said Jill Tessier, Timothy Fleming’s attorney. “There is absolutely nothing in any of these reports as to the specific fact of the alleged home invasion or the alleged armed robbery that occurred.”

Denis Bergin, Holmes’s attorney, added that his client did not pose a threat to the community and “it was a case of wrong place, wrong time.”

The three men are scheduled to return to court Oct. 17 for the dangerousness hearing.

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"Maryland man with underground bunker of guns and child porn sentenced to 16 years" Washington Post  July 27, 2018

GREENBELT, Md.— A Maryland man who had an underground bunker full of machine guns, explosives, and child pornography has been sentenced to more than 16 years in federal prison.

The sentencing Wednesday for Caleb Andrew Bailey, 31, of Waldorf, came more than two years after he was first arrested in a case that originally began as an investigation into a suspicious package he sent through the mail.

Another psyop, I mean, Sayoc!

‘‘I screwed up beyond words and I will never forgive myself,’’ said Bailey, who ran as a delegate for Donald Trump before the Republican National Convention and ran for a seat in Maryland’s Fifth Congressional District. ‘‘The damage I’ve done haunts me.’’

COME ON!

Bailey had attempted to ship hundreds of rounds of ammunition without a permit to a store in Wisconsin in February 2016, but the box broke open at a US postal facility, according to court filings. Bailey called to ask about the undelivered package, leading the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to Bailey’s home.

While executing a search warrant, investigators uncovered a cache of machine guns, unregistered short-barreled rifles, and a number of explosive devices.

Authorities also found recording equipment and electronic devices containing more than 2,000 files depicting child pornography.

You begin to wonder if it was all planted.

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Related:

2 killed in Amazon warehouse collapse

Must be why they are favoring Northern Virginia  for their new headquarters.

"St. Mary’s Center in Dorchester just received its biggest donation ever, from one of the world’s biggest companies. Amazon said Monday that it will give the family homeless shelter and social service center $1 million....."

Just a small $lice of the pie.

"A Baltimore man who spent almost three years in prison for child abuse that caused the death of his infant son is now charged with killing his girlfriend’s son as well. Baltimore police announced the first-degree murder charge Monday against 35-year-old Francois Browne in the death of 18-month-old Zaray Gray....."

Who remembers Freddie Gray, huh?

More filth:

"Lawsuit says Kansas man convicted after mother rejected ‘dirty cop’" Associated Press  October 12, 2018

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Kansas man who spent 23 years in prison for a double murder he didn’t commit was targeted because his mother rebuffed a homicide detective’s sexual advances and was convicted after a bogus police investigation, according to a lawsuit.

Lamonte McIntyre, 42, and his 64-year-old mother Rose Lee McIntyre filed the lawsuit Thursday in federal court.

McIntyre was 17 in 1994 when he was arrested in Kansas City in the deaths of 21-year-old Doniel Quinn and 34-year-old Donald Ewing. They [two men who] were shot in broad daylight in a drug-infested neighborhood. McIntyre was sentenced to two life sentences in their deaths, but he was freed last year after the district attorney found he had been subject to a ‘‘manifest injustice’’ in the case.

No physical evidence linked McIntyre to the crime and he didn’t know the victims. The suit blames his arrest on a ‘‘dirty cop” identified as Roger Golubski, who ‘‘used the power of his badge to exploit vulnerable black women.’’

Golubski, who rose through the ranks to detective and captain before retiring, coerced Rose Lee McIntyre into oral sex in a police station after a traffic stop in the late 1980s and harassed her so much when she rebuffed additional advances that she moved and changed her phone number.

The double homicide investigation quickly focused on her son, even though he was taller and had shorter hair than the initial witness descriptions. The suit said the investigation involved ‘‘no bona fide police work.’’ Golubski helped one witness find a new apartment in exchange for falsely identifying the teen and threatened to have her children taken away if she didn’t testify, the suit says.

The lawsuit says the real killer was a drug enforcer known as ‘‘Monster,’’ who is currently serving a 33-year sentence for murder and drug offenses. The suit said Golubski also worked closely with drug kingpins to protect their interests in exchange for money or drugs, which he would use to buy sex.

Why did Whitey Bulger just cross my mind?

A police spokesman said the department is reviewing the lawsuit. Golubski’s attorney, Paul Morrison, did not respond to a phone message seeking comment.

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Related:

"What was supposed to be a routine Friday night ritual of socializing, dining, and exercising in an upscale shopping center a few miles from Florida’s Capitol turned into a chaotic scene after a gunman shot two women to death and wounded five other people at a yoga studio before killing himself. Tallahassee police said 40-year-old Scott Paul Beierle shot six people and pistol-whipped another after walking into the studio on the second floor of the small shopping plaza. Witnesses told police that Beierle posed as a customer to gain entrance to the studio, then started shooting without warning. Tallahassee Police Chief Michael DeLeo said some in the studio showed courage and tried to stop him. Police responded within a few minutes, but by then Beirele had fatally shot himself, leaving police to search for a motive (AP)."

Florida, huh?

"A Friday night shooting near Dartmouth College that left a teen hospitalized forced students to shelter in place and shook the quiet of this rural New Hampshire town. Hanover police Chief Charlie Dennis called the shooting an isolated event....."

It was outside a Christian Science Reading Room.

Police bullet killed market employee during LA gunbattle

A not so isolated event, I'm sorry to say.

"Republicans rushing to save House seats from onslaught of Democratic money" by Jonathan Martin New York Times  October 27, 2018

CINCINNATI — As the 2018 midterm campaign enters its final full week, House Republicans are rushing to fortify their defenses in conservative-leaning districts they thought were secure, pouring millions of dollars into a last-minute bid to build a new firewall against Democrats.

Spun that right around, didn't they?

Republicans, in defending a 23-seat majority, are likely to lose a handful of open or Democratic-tilting seats as well as another dozen suburban districts that Hillary Clinton carried in 2016, according to political strategists in both parties, but now Republican officials are increasingly concerned about Democratic incursions in some of the remaining 30 competitive districts on the House map where the Republican candidates thought they had an edge.

Democratic super PACs and other outside groups are poised to outspend their Republican counterparts by a wide margin, erasing an advantage Republicans planned on having.

Much of the Democrats’ unanticipated firepower comes from one source: Michael Bloomberg, the liberal former New York City mayor who may run for president, plans to spend about $20 million on House advertising through his super PAC, Independence USA, in the final week of the campaign, a Bloomberg adviser said.

With Democratic challengers out-raising their opponents in more than 100 districts last quarter and President Trump energizing the left as well as his own base, well-financed House Republican groups are scrambling to put down emerging threats in states such as Florida and Washington while augmenting existing spending in Kansas, Virginia, and Minnesota.

The midterm campaign has returned to the sort of bipolar dynamic that defined it at the start of the year. Senate Republicans are confident once again in retaining their one-seat majority in that chamber thanks to a favorable map of races, but Democrats are poised to pick up an array of governorships in major states and could dislodge Republicans’ eight-year hold on the House.

Republicans hope they can keep the House if they sweep the closest races, a tall order given the Democratic enthusiasm in many districts, but much of the Republican spending is aimed less at securing a majority than at limiting the breadth of a Democratic takeover as the field of competition grows well beyond 40 seats.

Many Democrats remain deeply scarred by Trump’s victory, memories that have been unnervingly revived by the recent spike in conservative enthusiasm, but unlike at this moment in the presidential election, when Clinton sought to harden her party’s putative blue wall, it is Republicans who are on the defensive in the battle for the House.

The biggest danger for Republicans in House races remains in the moderate suburbs of blue states such as New York, New Jersey and California, where they could lose up to a dozen seats — half their margin of control. Then there are a handful of other affluent districts just outside other cities where voters have recoiled from Trump’s divisive style of politics.

“I think we’ll have a suburban wave,” said Liesl Hickey, a former executive director of the National Republican Congressional Committee. “A lot of the districts that we are most likely to lose are Democratic-leaning; they’re just going to what their modern DNA is,” but what poses so much peril for Republicans is that a surge of donations to all manner of Democratic candidates has allowed them to go on offense in districts that had received far less attention and money.

Trump’s standing in these districts is not as dismal as it is in those races Republicans are likely to lose, but two years after he carried the districts, his conduct in office has pushed his disapproval ratings to about the same level of his approval ratings, and with Democrats enjoying an advantage on intensity and money, and Republicans in many of these races unprepared for the scale of both, Republicans are vulnerable. 

Whatever.

In a particularly frustrating development for Republican leaders, they are racing to protect two House seats they had already spent tens of millions of dollars defending in special elections: one anchored in suburban Atlanta’s Cobb County and the other in central Ohio. In the Georgia seat, Republicans say a combination of robust Democratic turnout — propelled by Stacey Abrams’ campaign for governor — and a heavy financial investment by Bloomberg has put them unexpectedly on defense.

Tilting the political map further, Bloomberg’s group is also financing ads in two other conservative-leaning suburban districts long viewed as relatively safe by Republicans: one held by Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington, the other a seat in the suburbs of Jacksonville, Fla., that Ron DeSantis vacated to run for governor.

Republicans are straining to keep up. Just in the last few days, Republican committees have spent millions on Beutler and Mast of Florida — both of whom hold center-right, outer-suburban districts — as well as for a couple of conservative open seats in Virginia and Florida.

“We’re now seeing opportunities that we didn’t think would be there,” said Representative Ruben Gallego, Democrat of Arizona, adding: “I do feel confident that we’re going to get the majority and then some.”

The difference between a narrowly held Democratic House, or even one with the barest of Republican majorities, will most likely turn on about 20 districts that Trump won comfortably but not overwhelmingly and that contain a mix of new developments as well as smaller, older communities. Many of these seats were gerrymandered by Republican state legislators to protect incumbents, but that was in the pre-Trump era, when Republicans could more reliably count on the votes of moderate women.

Republicans in some once-safe districts expressed confidence they would hang on. In the Cincinnati area, Representative Steve Chabot is counting on the addition of a heavily Republican exurban county that was added to his district to ward off a well-funded challenge from Aftab Pureval, the 36-year-old Hamilton County clerk who raised more than twice what Chabot did in the last quarter.

“One of the things he has been successful at is raising a boatload of money,” Chabot acknowledged. He lost his seat once before when Barack Obama was at the top of the 2008 ticket and had to win it back two years later, but he said he felt assured of his success this time. Chabot said that his race was “not really” competitive and that he might win by more than 6 points.

On his way to pick up a few dozen Xavier University students to caravan with them to an early voting site, Pureval said that he had his “eyes wide open” about the difficulty of the district and that he was counting on a wave of energy to overcome the Republican gerrymander.

A Swalwell shall lead them.

--more--"

So who are the other donors besides Bloomberg?

"Eleven donors plowed $1 billion into super PACs since 2010" by Michelle Ye Hee Lee Washington Post  October 26, 2018

Eleven donors plowed $1 billion since 2010 into super PACs, the big-money entities that have given wealthy contributors a powerful way to influence elections.

The list of donors — a bipartisan collection of hedge fund billionaires, entrepreneurs, media magnates, and a casino mogul — together contributed more than one-fifth of the $4.5 billion collected by super PACs since their inception in 2010, according to a Washington Post analysis of data from the Federal Election Commission and the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

The 11 biggest super PAC donors include five Republicans, five Democrats, and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who previously had declared himself a political independent and this month registered as a Democrat.

The intense concentration of money shows how a tiny group of super-rich individuals has embraced these political groups, which have emerged as indispensable allies of candidates and political parties since the landmark Citizens United Supreme Court decision in 2010. That ruling helped give rise to super PACs, which are allowed to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money on political activity.

The massive sums coming from just a handful of donors illustrate how candidates and parties are now dependent on billionaires to support their efforts — and demonstrate the successful circumvention of efforts to curtail big money in politics that followed the Watergate and 1996 DNC fund-raising scandals.

‘‘The big donor is not just a donor who gives to politicians and parties. The big donor has become a political actor in his own right,’’ said Robert E. Mutch, a campaign finance historian.

Indeed, many of the top 11 super PAC givers since 2010 are now well-known protagonists in US politics. Billionaire hedge fund founder George Soros (No. 10) was among a dozen critics of President Trump targeted with explosive devices this week. And Bloomberg (No. 3) and Democratic hedge fund founder Tom Steyer (No. 2) are viewed as positioning themselves for possible presidential runs.

Big money has continued to balloon in this year’s midterms, even amid a surge of small-dollar donations. In some races, huge super PAC contributions are bolstering candidates who are touting their grass-roots support.

The largest super PAC contributors to date are casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his physician wife, Miriam, who have given $287 million to conservative super PACs, records show.

In second place behind the Adelsons is Steyer, who gave $213.8 million.

He is followed by Bloomberg ($120.7 million), Democratic media executive Fred Eychaner ($74.1 million), Democratic hedge fund executive Donald Sussman ($62.9 million), GOP shipping supplies magnate Richard Uihlein ($61.3 million), Democratic hedge fund founder James Simons and his wife, Marilyn ($57.9 million), Republican hedge fund executive Paul Singer ($42.5 million), GOP hedge fund executive Robert Mercer ($41.2 million), Soros ($39.4 million), and Republican backer and TD Ameritrade founder J. Joe Ricketts ($38.4 million).

So WHICH OLIGARCH do YOU LIKE?

--more--"

If only corporations could vote like people.

"In rural America, polluted water too dangerous to drink" by Jack Healy New York Times   November 03, 2018

ARMENIA, Wis. — The groundwater that once ran cool and clean from taps in this Midwestern farming town is now laced with contaminants and fear. People refuse to drink it. They won’t brush their teeth with it. They dread taking showers.

Looks like bad chemistry, and the water doesn't catch fire, does it?

Rural communities call it their own, private Flint — a diffuse, creeping water crisis tied to industrial farms and slack regulations that for years has tainted thousands of residential wells across the Midwest and beyond.

Now, fears and frustration over water quality and contamination have become a potent election-year issue, burbling up in races from the fissured bedrock here in Wisconsin to chemical-tainted wells in New Hampshire to dwindling water reserves in Arizona.

In Wisconsin and other Midwestern states where Republicans run the government, environmental groups say that politicians have cut budgets for environmental enforcement and inspections and weakened pollution rules. In Iowa, for example, the Republican-led Legislature dismissed a package of bills that would have blocked any new large-scale hog operations until the state cleaned up its nitrogen-laden rivers and streams.

“The regulations favor agriculture,” said Gordon Gottbeheut, 77, whose nitrate-contaminated well near Armenia sits next to a field that is injected with manure. “When they keep cutting enforcement and people, there’s nobody to keep track of what’s happening.”

There are no precise water-quality surveys of the galaxy of private wells that serve 43 million people in the United States, but sampling by the US Geological Survey has found contamination in about 1 of every 5 wells.

Related: 

"Conference attendance by federal employees has been under scrutiny since 2012, when it was revealed that the General Services Administration spent $823,000 on a Las Vegas conference that featured a mind reader and a $31,208 reception....."

Ah, the party years under Obama. Don't you mi$$ 'em? 

Trump cracking down on all that. 

That's why Zinke is in trouble.

Few water-quality rules regulate those wells, meaning there is no water company to call, no backup system to turn to and often no simple way to cure the contamination. In Flint, lead-tainted water prompted a public health emergency that led to a criminal investigation.

Homeowners say they are forced to choose between installing expensive filtration systems, spending thousands to dig deeper wells, ignoring the problem, or moving.

Wisconsin’s water wars have raged with particular ferocity. Conservation groups say Governor Scott Walker’s administration has diluted environmental oversight to drive a pro-business agenda. A 2016 legislative report found that the state agency responsible for big livestock operations issued violations in only 6 percent of the cases in which its own pollution rules had been broken, but now, as Walker runs for a third term, his Democratic challenger, Tony Evers, has turned polluted wetlands and unsafe water into campaign slogans. In Lodi, north of the state capital, Ann Groves Lloyd is campaigning for the State Assembly with a tongue-in-cheek ad in which she tries to water her cows with plastic bottles and irrigate her fields with a water cooler strapped to a tractor.

Some voters who say they cannot drink from the taps or water their livestock without worrying about nitrates or E. coli bacteria say the state’s deregulatory spree has gone too far.

“I blame the government,” Jose Rangel said as he sat in the living room of his trailer home, reviewing a letter confirming that his 27-foot-deep well had tested at double the federal safety limits for nitrates. “We can’t do nothing about it. I’ll vote. I want clean water.”

The Walker administration has defended its environmental record, pointing to new restrictions on manure spreading in eastern Wisconsin, where contaminants can seep through the thin soil and into the cracked bedrock that supplies people’s water, but water utilities that serve poor, rural areas fall far short of federal standards for drinking water, compared with urban water systems.

“If it’s your own private well, it’s your own private problem,” said Maureen Muldoon, a groundwater researcher and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

That is when the printed well ran dry.

Agriculture and dairy groups say farmers drink the same water and also want it to be clean and are trying to live up to state and federal environmental rules at a moment when low crop prices and Trump’s trade policies have rattled farmers across the country. In corners of Wisconsin, for example, farmers have set up state-supported nonprofits focused on improving water, air and soil health.

Kriss Marion, an organic farmer campaigning for state Senate through southern Wisconsin, said the state’s wetlands, streams, and groundwater were being stripped of protections as industrial farms were allowed to grow larger and larger. She said staff levels at the Department of Natural Resources had been “gutted” under Walker.

“That’s why I am running,” she said. “This is the fight of the decade.”

The Republican incumbent in her district, Howard Marklein, supported a $3 billion incentive package championed by Walker to draw a huge new electronics factory to Wisconsin that also allowed the factory to bypass environmental and water rules. He has been endorsed by trade groups representing dairy, pork, cattle, potato and corn farmers.....

--more--"

Looks like “our water is screwed,” and it is now everyone’s problem. 

If only we had a ‘pied piper’ who could fix the problem.

Months after California wildfire, pets and owners reunited

Not in North Carolina.

"Despite Trump’s bluster, US aid flows to Central America" by Edward Wong New York Times   November 03, 2018

WASHINGTON — The lack of action calls into question whether President Trump actually intends to punish the three countries — Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador — for failing to stop the migrants, or whether his remarks are just political grandstanding. With Republican control of the House in peril in the midterm elections Tuesday, the president has escalated his anti-immigrant messaging to appeal to voters. 

I think it serves both sides; that's why it is all over the ma$$ media wherever you turn.

Mark Green, administrator of the US Agency for International Development, pointed to a separate refugee movement, in Venezuela, as a crisis of historic proportions that his agency was trying to help address.

The whole world knows AID = CIA, and now they conversation suddenly turns to Venezuela?

As the economy in Venezuela has collapsed and inflation has risen sharply under President Nicolás Maduro, 2 million to 3 million people have fled the country in recent years.

I'm not saying the socialists don't bear some blame, but it's hard to get a decent left-wing variation off the ground when the CIA is constantly interfering in your country.

Related: Victor Marchetti, 88, disillusioned CIA officer who challenged secrecy rules

Only problem is, “if he had it to do all over again, he’d have kept his mouth shut and played the game’’ -- which means he probably still was in the form of a limited hangout (another anonymous backing up official rubbish). 

The United States has announced several times this year that it will give tens of millions of dollars in aid to Venezuela’s neighbors — notably Colombia — to help the refugees. In total, more than $96 million, intended mainly for food and health aid, has been dedicated to the effort.

Forget all the problems here, and never mind it is the U.S. policies that drive the stuff.

Trump has made Venezuela a campaign topic, falsely claiming that Democrats want to carry out socialist policies such as those that have wrecked the Venezuelan economy, but in recent weeks, he has made a much bigger issue of the Central American migrants and refugees, describing a slowly approaching caravan as an “invasion of our country.”

It's a milquetoast kind of $ociali$m, one still in thrall to the bank$ters.

At campaign rallies and on Twitter, the president has consistently demonized the group. The caravan, swelling to 7,000 at one point, has dwindled in size as it travels north. Only a small number are expected to reach the US-Mexico border, but Trump has threatened to send up to 15,000 military troops there.....

Yeah, you need to keep the caravan in context as well as Trump's turnabouts.

--more--"

The latest effort to get in involves some sort of Trojan horse.

Related:

"An Allston man was held without bail Tuesday for allegedly abducting, strangling, and attempting to rape a woman during a pre-dawn attack over the weekend in Brookline, according to authorities and court records. Mainor E. Suazo-Martinez, 20, a native of Honduras, was arraigned in Brookline District Court on charges of assault to rape, kidnapping, larceny from a person, and strangulation or suffocation, records show. He was ordered held pending a dangerousness hearing slated for Wednesday, according to Norfolk District Attorney Michael W. Morrissey’s office. A lawyer for Suazo-Martinez couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. The weekend case was not Suazo-Martinez’s first brush with the law. Brookline police discovered that he also had a warrant out of Brighton District Court for aggravated statutory rape of a child, the filing said. William Keefe, a lawyer for Suazo-Martinez, said by phone that his client denies the charges in both cases, adding that he would have more to say during Wednesday’s hearing in Brookline.

Okay, that's where the print ended and I guess the Globe only hinted at the possible illegality of the perpetrator. 

The web version added more:

According to a police report in the Brookline case, the alleged attack occurred a little before 2:30 a.m. Saturday, and the victim provided a harrowing account to investigators. The woman told police she was walking home from a friend’s apartment when an unknown man, later identified as Suazo-Martinez, approached her and tried to start a conversation. She rebuffed his advances, the report said, but he snatched her phone and keys, which made her “startled and scared.” She followed Suazo-Martinez in an effort to get her property back, and he allegedly dragged her into an alley and began forcibly kissing and groping her, officials said. He also allegedly grabbed her by the throat, records show, and the victim told police she couldn’t breathe for about 10 seconds. During the encounter, Suazo-Martinez repeatedly told the woman, “This is gonna happen right now,” but in a frantic effort to buy time, she convinced him to walk to her apartment, telling him she lived close by, the report said. Suazo-Martinez agreed, but he kept up a campaign of intimidation during the short walk to the woman’s apartment, warning her that “you better not be taking me to the wrong place” and “this better be your apartment.” Once they arrived at the residence, the woman ran past Suazo-Martinez into her apartment, and her three roommates quickly confronted him, the report said. Suazo-Martinez handed over the woman’s phone and keys and fled, but not before someone took a photo of him, the filing said. The photo was shared with patrol units, and an officer stopped Suazo-Martinez at Brighton and Harvard avenues, the report said. The woman and her roommates were driven to the intersection and identified Suazo-Martinez as the assailant, according to court records."

"Alfredo Rosa, a 27-year-old man of Avon, was arrested Sunday morning after allegedly robbing a gas station at gunpoint, trying to steal a car while brandishing a knife, and leading officers on a search through the woods in Foxborough, officials said....."

 Of, not from.

Comes with being a sanctuary state, I guess.

Also see:

Troop deployment creates tense atmosphere on US border

Well, it should.

Migrants’ hopes of buses to Mexico’s capital dashed

It is time to be moving on, yeah.

{@@##$$%%^^&&}

Globe Magazine: Losing Laura

Blame the nurses.

At Harvard, the legacy of longtime admissions dean on trial

When the Kavanaugh confirmation was over the Globe immediately turned the conversation back to race.

Not all schools follow Harvard’s lead on race-conscious admissions

I'm told technology can cure the problem, but's based on the exams, and I would read the fine print if I were you, because Kavanaugh would seem to have a case of discrimination. That's why his rulings indicate that we still need affirmative action.

What is that smell coming from over there, anyway?

It's a mix of paint and new car.

Bedbugs found in courthouse again

They have no answers for you.

{@@##$$%%^^&&}

An operation in Niger went fatally awry

Better get to the airport as quick as you can.

US soldier killed in insider attack in Afghanistan

Trump should have followed his instincts and gotten the hell out of there.

Related:

NATO soldier killed as concern rises over Afghan insider attacks 

I'm told "social media conspiracy theories reaching the Afghan foot soldiers have raised considerable concern among officials here, prompting the government’s chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah, to criticize them. The rapid-fire spread of rumors has been problematic for the US-led mission in the past, particularly at times when insider attacks were high, and the spread of social media has only worsened the problem."

You know, it used to be blame the women in the burqas for all your troubles but now it is the very of surveillance, 'er, social media they have foisted upon us all.

Speaking of those kind of women:

UN agency urges open access for aid to Yemen

Only briefly!

Ancient statues, graves uncovered

This is junk news!

Divers report more jet wreckage

It's regarding the recent plane crash in Indonesia, and how ironic that it is a bottom brief!

You can devour this below the fold offering if you like:

Man-eating tiger is shot dead in India

Turns out there are a lot of tigers on the prowl in India:

"In India, female journalists lead an outpouring of fresh #MeToo allegations" Washington Post  October 08, 2018

NEW DELHI — Allegations of sexual assault and misconduct involving prominent Indian men flooded social media over the weekend, spurring resignations, the closing of a movie production company, and public apologies.

More than a year after allegations of rape and sexual assault against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein shook the world, female journalists and writers in India are naming and shaming entertainers, newspaper editors, and authors on social media. Some say India’s #MeToo moment is here — at last.

Related: Manhattan DA’s Office

‘‘We’ve faced violence, including verbal violence, all our lives,’’ said Rituparna Chatterjee, a journalist who is documenting and compiling accusations against prominent men. ‘‘Somewhere, I think, we’ve snapped.’’

The latest allegations began to appear last week, then turned into a torrent. They began after a former actress, Tanushree Dutta, retold the story of how on a movie set a decade ago, her costar Nana Patekar — a prolific, award-winning actor — had tried to change a dance sequence at the last minute so he could touch her inappropriately. A handful of Bollywood stars spoke out in support of Dutta, triggering a huge backlash on social media, with many challenging and trivializing her account.

Dutta’s allegations coincided with Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing in Washington and the testimony against him by California professor Christine Blasey Ford. ‘‘Of course, everyone was discussing that,’’ Chatterjee said. ‘‘The thing in my mind was, I know this guy. I’ve met this guy. I’ve met this guy over and over again.’’

To Chatterjee, Ford and Dutta have become symbols of the way women’s stories are stifled or ignored. ‘‘You can have the evidence,’’ she said. ‘‘But she’ll never have the power to counter the hate that men have for women who speak up and threaten the status quo,’’ and then, Chatterjee said, ‘‘the floodgates opened.’’ 

Except there wasn't any actual evidence other than testimony.

A number of Indian women started naming and shaming well-known men. Among the first accused was a comedian, Utsav Chakraborty, who allegedly sent lewd messages to women and asked a 17-year-old girl for nude photographs. The accusation, made on Twitter on Thursday, prompted a flurry of denials from the comedian, followed by an apology Friday:

‘‘It’s a little too late now but I am sorry. I really am. The past 24 hours were a crucible,’’ Chakraborty tweeted. ‘‘I faced a very scary personal truth. I can’t think of myself as a victim anymore. Please tell me what to do now. How to make things right? I don’t want anyone to be hurt anymore.’’

A comedy group that Chakraborty worked with, All India Bakchod, issued a statement severing its ties with him. On Monday, the group said two other comedians embroiled in #MeToo allegations would also be out ‘‘until further notice.’’

No longer funny, huh?

On Twitter, the accusations snowballed. HuffPost revealed that a famous movie director, Vikas Bahl, had been accused of masturbating on a woman without her consent after pretending to pass out on her bed. Bahl’s partners issued a statement saying they had previously been made aware of the allegations against him and were ‘‘ill-advised’’ by lawyers to continue working with him. Their production company was closed.

Allegations poured out to female journalists in private messages and via online groups — many women were still too afraid to speak up. ‘‘What you’re seeing online is only a third of what’s happening in the groups and DMs,’’ said Chatterjee, referring to Twitter’s ‘‘direct messages’’ feature in which people can talk privately.

Authors Chetan Bhagat and Kiran Nagarkar were accused of misconduct. Bhagat issued an apology on his Facebook page to the woman who accused him, saying he had ‘‘felt a strong connection’’ at the time. Nagarkar did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The political editor of the Hindustan Times, Prashant Jha, was accused of aggressively pursuing a co-worker who had turned down his advances. On Monday, Jha resigned. He did not respond to requests for comment. Gautam Adhikari, a former newspaper editor, was accused of forcefully kissing women without their consent. He too, did not reply immediately to a request for comment.

‘‘There was a sense of unfinished business,’’ said Sandhya Menon, a journalist and author who accused Adhikari and others. ‘‘We were primed for a leap.’’

India has been hyper-aware of rape and sexual abuse since a student was gang-raped and murdered in New Delhi in 2012. That triggered nationwide protests and calls to make the country safer for women.

I know I have posts regarding it, but I have neither the time nor energy to find them. Sorry.

What they are telling you is nothing has really changed in more than 6 years, despite all the pre$$.

The Weinstein allegations led to a trickle of allegations from India. In 2017, a student, Raya Sarkar, compiled and circulated a list of South Asian-origin academics working in universities around the world who had been accused of misconduct by women.

Sarkar’s list caused an uproar and divided feminist groups in India. Some argued that because the allegations were anonymous and unverifiable, they jeopardized the #MeToo movement because they could not be scrutinized.

Over the past weekend, a new list of more than 70 powerful men accused of misconduct was making the rounds on social media.

Menon referred to a string of highly publicized cases of rape and sexual assault that have dragged on in India’s courts, pointing out how difficult it is for women here to get justice through the courts, despite the existence of fast-track courts for sexual violence.

‘‘Due process is completely broken,’’ she said.

--more--"

"Police arrest prominent editor in southern India" Associated Press  October 09, 2018

SRINAGAR, India — Police in southern India on Tuesday arrested the chief editor of a prominent investigative magazine on charges of publishing defamatory content against a top state official.

RR Gopal was arrested at the airport in Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu state, as he was about to board a flight to a neighboring state, said a police official at the station where Gopal was detained.

Gopal was arrested after his influential Tamil-language magazine, ‘‘Nakkeeran,’’ published reports linking the state’s governor to a recent university sex scandal, said the police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with department policy.

There were no further details available.

Dozens of journalists and politicians protested the arrest, calling it an assault on freedom of expression. They gathered outside the police station where Gopal was being held and demanded his immediate release while shouting slogans against the government’s action.

The Chennai Press Club issued a statement condemning the arrest, calling it a misuse of authority and law.

In July, the global watchdog Reporters Without Borders expressed serious concern at ‘‘an alarming deterioration in the working environment of journalists in India’’ and demanded that the government ensure the safety of journalists who feel threatened.

India’s press freedom ranking dropped by two points this year, ranking the country 138th, according to the watchdog.

On July 3, the general secretary of Reporters Without Borders, Christophe Deloire, wrote to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi telling him that an incident report had been issued in relation to press freedom in the country, and asking him to take urgent action. An incident report is issued when events are observed that could affect a country’s ranking based on one or more of the indicators that are used in the evaluation for the World Press Freedom Index.

--more--"

I suppose he is lucky to be alive.

"Indian government minister steps down as country’s #MeToo movement gains traction" Washington Post  October 17, 2018

NEW DELHI — A minister in the Indian government resigned after more than a dozen women accused him of sexual harassment, in the first major repercussion of the country’s nascent #MeToo movement.

Mobashar Jawed Akbar, minister of state for external affairs, faced allegations of harassment and assault from female journalists who had worked for him in his previous career as a newspaper editor.

Akbar’s resignation is the most high-profile departure since a delayed #MeToo movement took off in India on social media earlier this month.

I guess there is good social media and bad social media.

The resignation came two days after Akbar said that he would pursue a criminal defamation case against journalist Priya Ramani, who had publicly named him as a sexual harasser on Twitter.

‘‘Since I have decided to seek justice in a court of law in my personal capacity, I deem it appropriate to step down from office and challenge false accusations levied against me, also in a personal capacity,’’ Akbar said in a statement released Wednesday.

After Ramani first spoke out against Akbar, more than a dozen women came forward with stories of sexual harassment and assault.

This week 20 female journalists who had worked in Akbar’s newsrooms signed a statement in support of Ramani’s account.

--more--"

Not to change the subject, but that's the thing about Kavanaugh. No other accusers have stepped forward, and wouldn't we have known about them by now?

That reminds me:

[TOTAL WINE FULL PAGE AD A3]

Maybe there should be some sort of buffer zone around those ads:

"Boston should consider banning marijuana and liquor stores from opening near addiction treatment centers, City Councilor Lydia Edwards said, prompting objections from industry groups that believe such “buffer zones” could be illegal. Edwards has called for a hearing on whether the city should impose buffer zones around treatment centers that would prevent new alcohol and marijuana stores from opening nearby. A proposal to open a pot shop in East Boston on the same block as a health care facility where patients wait outside to receive treatment for drug and alcohol dependence prompted Edwards to raise the issue. “They’re going to be waiting in front of, and right next to, a recreational marijuana facility,” Edwards said at a council meeting last week, adding that she faulted the pot company for not reaching out to the treatment center sooner. “There seemed to be a lack of due diligence and a lack of understanding.” People trying to recover from addiction deserve protection from the temptations of marijuana and alcohol, Edwards said, adding that she supported the legalization of marijuana and that Boston residents voted strongly in favor of the 2016 ballot initiative creating a commercial cannabis market. “I would equally be concerned if a bar was opening up next to a substance abuse treatment [center], or if a liquor store was,” Edwards insisted. “I’m not trying to put in red tape or further convolute the access to this burgeoning industry, but the fights are happening, the tears are flowing, and people are tense about this. I think it’s a citywide conversation we need to have.”

Look, I know you have a problem but you gotta a least try to have a little bit of willpower! 

This constant political coddling isn't helping anyone. Buck up!

And close the bars:

"Methuen police are looking for suspects in connection to a violent bar brawl that broke out at the Brick House Tavern + Tap over the weekend. The fight broke out around 12:45 a.m. Sunday at the bar on Pleasant Valley Street, shortly after the UFC 229 fight between Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov, Methuen police Captain Jim Jajuga Jr. said. Police do not know whether the bar fight was related to the result of the UFC fight, which also ended in a brawl, but they do know that there were more patrons at the bar during the UFC fight than is normal, Jajuga said. The brawl began with some arguing among several of the bar patrons and quickly escalated to include more than a dozen people, Jajuga said. A video of the brawl shows multiple men involved in a fight, including one throwing a chair at another man and another throwing a drinking glass, which hit another man in the face. The man who threw the glass is the “one individual in particular that we’re looking to identify and charge,” Jajuga said. The man who was hit in the face by the glass was knocked down, and he suffered several lacerations to his face and had several teeth knocked out. Those were the only reported injuries, Jajuga said. By the time police arrived, the combatants had dispersed, and the man who had been hit by the glass was being treated. He was taken to Holy Family Hospital and was later released, Jajuga said. Methuen detectives are using the video of the brawl in their investigation, and they ask that anyone with additional photos or images of the brawl contact police, Jajuga said."

Kavanaugh only through ice.

You might want to rethink those daily glasses of alcohol.

You might need a drink for this next item:

North Korea threatens to restart nuclear program unless US lifts sanctions

Defense lawyer in Pakistan blasphemy case flees country

It's where the issue of religion intersects with politics and protest.

"Christians in Egypt bury their dead after attack" by Samy Magdy and Hamza Hendawi Associated Press  November 03, 2018

MINYA, Egypt — The attack cast a shadow on one of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi’s showpieces — the World Youth Forum — which opens Saturday in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. The forum is drawing thousands of local and foreign youth to discuss a wide range of topics, with Egypt’s 63-year-old leader taking center stage.

Cui bono?

In an apparent effort to keep the attack from overshadowing the start of the three-day conference, two state-owned newspapers ran front-page banner headlines about the forum. Akhbar al-Youm ran a large photo of el-Sissi cycling in Sharm el-Sheikh. Its reference to the attack lower down in the page made no mention of casualties.

The Islamic State has repeatedly targeted Egypt’s Christians as punishment for their support of el-Sissi, who led the military’s 2013 ouster of an elected but divisive Islamist president.

That would be Morsi, and his crime was to throw open the gates to Gaza.

El-Sissi, who has made security among his top priorities since taking office in 2014, wrote on his Twitter account that Friday’s attack was designed to harm the ‘‘nation’s solid fabric’’ and pledged to continue fighting terrorism. He later offered his condolences when he spoke by telephone with Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt’s Orthodox Christians and a close ally of the president.

Begemy Nassem Nasr, the priest of the church of St. Mary in the central Egyptian city of Minya, near where the attack took place, suggested it was meant to embarrass el-Sissi as he hosted the youth forum.

So what has Sissi done wrong? 

Is it mediating an attempt at a ceasefire and easing of the siege in Gaza?

Friday’s attack was the second to target pilgrims heading to the St. Samuel the Confessor monastery in as many years, indicating that security measures put in place since then are inadequate. The attacks led to tighter security around Christian places of worship and Church-linked facilities, where metal detectors and armed police are routinely deployed. They have also underlined the vulnerability of minority Christians in the conservative, Muslim-majority country.

And jwho benefits when Christians and muslims are at each other's throats for no reason? 

The Lavon Affair and bombing of the King David Hotel ring a bell?

Some Christians in Minya said police negligence was partly to blame for the latest attack, saying they stopped providing armed escorts for pilgrims’ buses.

Oh, no! 

Now it is looking like a government-run false flag to allow a further crackdown on civil society.

Good thing Sissi is our thug.

‘‘They should have escorted them. They know it is dangerous to leave them alone on that road,’’ said Youssef Attya, a 38-year-old health worker from Minya.

You remove the protection and, you know.

The Interior Ministry said police were pursuing the attackers, who fled the scene.

Egypt’s Christians, who account for some 10 percent of the country’s 100 million people, have long complained of discrimination. Christian activists say the church’s alliance with el-Sissi has offered the ancient community a measure of protection, but sectarian violence still flares from time to time, especially in poorer and more rural areas.

Kind of like Iraq during the Saddam Hussein regime.

Christians make up some 35 percent of the population in Minya, more than in any other governorate. The area has also seen the most acts of violence against Christians in recent years.

Christians there accuse the local police of going easy on Muslim assailants, saying authorities prefer to resolve disputes through reconciliation rather than arresting and prosecuting those who commit crimes.....

Why clog the courts?

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{@@##$$%%^^&&}

Meanwhile, closer to home:

"5 competitive races to watch in New England for the midterms" by James Pindell Globe Staff  October 13, 2018

As the 2018 midterm elections come to a close, most eyes are on US House and Senate races in places like California, North Dakota, and Texas, where the balance of power in Washington could be decided, but here in New England, the action on the ballot is mostly in governor’s races — all six states have the office up — and, amazingly, Republicans have a chance to run the table in an area where Hillary Clinton won 32 of 33 votes in the Electoral College.

In fact, the Republican incumbents are the favorites in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont, according to national political tipsheets like the Cook Political Report, which also put Maine and Connecticut in the “tossup” category.

The only state in New England that is trending for Democrats is Rhode Island, where Governor Gina Raimondo is battling a 3-way contest for reelection, but even that race is complicated, and the Democratic incumbent’s favorability numbers have been among the worst in the nation.

It gets less exciting further down the ballot. There are no competitive US Senate races in the region’s six states, polling suggests. Only one of area’s 21 congressional districts is being targeted by national groups, with one more race for US House worth watching.

Here is a breakdown of what election observers will be watching in the area:

Maine governor

Maine is a state that appears to be undergoing a seismic political transition with each passing election. Once the land of moderation and bipartisanship, the state has become increasingly polarized. No place is that more apparent than the Blaine House, where Governor Paul LePage has been for the last 8 years.

LePage has said he was Trump before there was Trump and has captured headlines for controversial statements. Just this year, LePage partially shut down the government and has been sued for not implementing a voter-approved Medicaid expansion and refusing to release public financing for elections as legally required.

So, what comes next? Republican Shawn Moody, an auto body shop owner, has LePage’s consultant and the governor’s daughter working on the campaign. His Democratic opponent is Attorney General Janet Mills, who would be the state’s first female governor if elected on Nov. 6.

While there are issue differences, the race in television ads and on the debate stage seems to be centering on who is, well, nicer. The Bangor Daily News recently noted that “likability takes center stage in the race.”

That’s why an explosive story from The New York Times showing that Moody settled a sex discrimination case at his business might be a big deal: it undercuts Moody’s message.

There is one other complicating factor: there are two independent candidates running. While neither are expected to receive double-digit support, even that much could make a huge difference in a race that has been shown to be statistically tied.

The Globe says Janet Mills for governor.

Maine’s Second District

Maine has two congressional districts. Democrats have held the one in the southern part of the state 28 out of the last 30 years. The one in the north, however, is more complicated. It is the only congressional race in New England that has drawn the attention of super PACs and the national parties.

Maine’s Second District is the largest congressional district this side of the Mississippi River, and it includes Lewiston, Bangor, and all of the state’s border with Canada. It had been represented by a conservative Democrat for decades until 2014, when Republican Bruce Poliquin won the seat. In 2016 he won reelection and Trump also won the district.

This time around, Poliquin is facing Jared Golden, a Marine who served both in Afghanistan and Iraq before becoming a state Representative. Golden is among the veterans running for Congress that US Representative Seth Moulton of Massachusetts has endorsed.

What little polling exists shows the race is tight.

The Globe says it is time for a change in Maine, and they don't mean Collins.

Connecticut governor

This contest may come down to which person voters dislike more: President Trump or outgoing Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy.

A Quinnipiac University poll found Trump had a 39 percent approval rating in the state, while Malloy had only a 23 percent job approval rating. For the past two years, Malloy has been ranked either as the least popular governor in the nation or among the least popular, but the Quinnipiac poll also showed voters thought being affiliated with Trump was a bigger problem for candidates actually on the ballot.

Baker of Massachusetts is the most popular.

“In deciding which candidate to support, President Donald Trump is a more important factor for voters than Gov. Dannel Malloy, although both men appear to be doing damage to their own parties,” said Quinnipiac University Poll Director Douglas Schwartz.

That said, Democratic nominee Ned Lamont, a cable executive, has tried to distance himself from Malloy since day one of his campaign, noting that he ran against Malloy in 2010 and has disagreed with his leadership.

Wow, that is a name from the past. 

Good luck, Ned!

The Republican nominee Bob Stefanowski, a businessman, has noted several times he was a registered Democrat in the 2016 election and says he didn’t vote for Trump or Hillary Clinton for president.

Yet right after the Stefanowski won the Republican primary, Trump sent out a tweet endorsing him. Malloy highlighted the tweet with the words “Bob Trumpanowski.” Stefanowski responded: “Ned Malloy”

New Hampshire’s First District

For more than a decade, this district — which includes Manchester, the Seacoast, and the Lakes Region — has had the distinction of being the swingiest of swing seats in the US House. Indeed, the same two candidates ran against each other four times as they ponged back and forth in and out of office. This time neither are running, and it means that history will be made no matter who wins.

If Republican Eddie Edwards wins, he will be the first African-American elected to major office in state history. If Democrat Chris Pappas wins, he will be the first openly gay person to be elected to major office in state history.

Polls show Pappas has the name recognition as an executive councilor and has raised much more money to run a lot more campaign ads. And, if the district still swings with the political winds, the winds of 2018 appear to be at the back of Democrats.

The Globe says Chris Pappas for New Hampshire’s First District, and here is your field guide for New Hampshire:



Seems like stereotyping people is funny now.

Rhode Island governor

In a three-way race in 2014, Raimondo became governor by winning less than 41 percent of the vote. In the four years since, her approval rating hasn’t been much better than that — making her consistently one of the least popular governors in the country.

What is it with Democrat governors?

When Cranston Mayor Allan Fung, a Republican, decided he wanted a rematch, it looked to be a problem for Raimondo. Fung fashioned himself as a moderate, and early polls showed the race as tied, but two things have helped Raimondo recently. First, she has significantly outraised Fung. Second, Fung has spent more of his time lately fighting with independent Joe Trillo, the former state chairman for Trump, who is eating into Fung’s base.

Still, this race is mostly about Raimondo, and job approval rating that has been pretty bad. Those on the left see her as too much of a corporate Democrat given her business background and still haven’t forgiven her for cutting pensions for retired state employees when she was treasurer. Those on the right see her as, well, a Democrat.

The Globe says reelect Raimondo.

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The Globe says my excuses for not voting are lame, so.....

Danger posed by anti-Semitism ‘is real and tangible,’ Warren tells Newton congregation

They then went out for pizza!

Just off the road, Warren returns to Mass. for final campaign swing in race with Diehl

I'm still undecided.

Baker, Gonzalez diverge on visions for health care

I'm neutral.

Polito, Palfrey criticize Walsh hire in lieutenant governor debate

They mean this guy:

"Mayor Walsh hires convicted former state representative as special assistant" by Andrea Estes and Meghan Irons Globe Staff  October 26, 2018

When state representative Carlos Henriquez was convicted in 2014 of punching a woman who refused to have sex with him, Mayor Martin J. Walsh of Boston immediately called on the Dorchester Democrat to resign.

“Violence against women is an epidemic and is totally and universally unacceptable,” Walsh said, but time, if not Henriquez’s six-month jail stint and expulsion from the State House, seems to have softened Walsh’s feelings.

The Boston mayor recently hired Henriquez as his $89,000-a-year special assistant for community engagement, working on antiviolence issues, among other things.

(Blog editor shakes his head a the tone-deafness)

Walsh spokeswoman Samantha Ormsby said Friday the mayor “firmly believes in second chances.”

“Carlos Henriquez served his time and, after spending his career supporting youth, helping reduce violence, assisting those in recovery, and providing trauma supports for families in need, he is eager to continue this work,” Ormsby said.

Unless you turn down his proposition.

Henriquez, 41, did not return e-mails seeking comment. He has been working as a consultant for the city for several months.

His conviction and jail sentence rattled Beacon Hill and polarized the minority community, including many who felt he was treated unfairly.

I'm sorry, I believe the woman!

When the House of Representatives voted to strip Henriquez of his seat in February 2014, it was the first time a member of the Legislature had been expelled in nearly 100 years, but Friday, some community leaders questioned why Walsh would hire Henriquez, especially to work on violence-prevention issues.

“There are multiple other people who could have been hired for that position,” said Monica Cannon, an antiviolence activist and unsuccessful candidate for state representative in 2016.

“Meanwhile, I’ve been waiting 108 days to have a conversation with the mayor around violence prevention while people are being murdered in the city. It’s been silence from him.”

It's all who you know!

City Councilor Lydia Edwards of East Boston was unaware that Henriquez had been hired.

“I’m speechless,” Edwards said, “and that doesn’t happen often.” She declined further comment.

Have a drink (or smoke).

Other community leaders praised Walsh for giving Henriquez a second chance.

State Representative Russell Holmes of Mattapan, one of five lawmakers who voted to censure Henriquez rather than strip him of his seat, said Henriquez has shown “quite a bit of remorse” for his crime and wants “to move forward with his life.”

“He brings an enormous amount of talent to this conversation and the city. Obviously the mayor must feel similar to the way I feel; that’s why he brought him in,” Holmes said.

Darnell Williams, a civil rights activist who heads of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, said he was surprised to learn of the hiring.

“The mayor has made a bold appointment with a person who has some challenges,’’ Williams said. “However, I believe everyone deserves a second chance.”

Joyce Linehan, the mayor’s policy chief, said she was “very active” in the city’s effort to hire Henriquez.

“He paid a price for that [incident] and I feel like it’s time for him to be able to move on and make a living,’’ Linehan said.

Has the victim been allowed to move on, or is she too traumatized?

In sentencing Henriquez on two misdemeanor counts of assault and battery, Cambridge District Court Judge Michele Hogan said she was sending him to jail in part because of the serious nature of the crime and because of his refusal to accept responsibility for his actions.

“When a woman tells you she doesn’t want to have sex, that means she does not want to have sex,” Hogan said. “You don’t hit her. You don’t punch her . . . I’m very concerned that you’re not remorseful.”

The woman Henriquez was convicted of assaulting, Katherine Gonzalves, declined to discuss the case or his new job, according to her lawyer Richard Brody.

In his new job, Henriquez will receive a 50 percent salary increase over the $60,000 a year he made as a state representative.....

Try to think of it as a reward.

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"Two MIT grads are goading Bob DeLeo with ballot measures in his district" by Joshua Miller Globe Staff  October 26, 2018

WINTHROP — Robert A. DeLeo may be Mr. Speaker on Beacon Hill, but here in this pretty seaside town, he’s just “Bobby,” the affable, cigar-chomping state representative since 1991.

He doesn’t have an opponent this year — he rarely does — and yet the powerful leader could face an embarrassing rebuke on Nov. 6.

Two recent MIT graduates who have never lived in the district but are concerned about what they see as DeLeo’s thwarting of major climate change legislation, gathered signatures from hundreds of his constituents to put some pointed nonbinding measures before residents of Winthrop and the part of Revere he represents.....

One is Max Dunitz, a 27-year-old studying at a graduate program in France, and the other coauthor said he collected signatures for 40 hours in the hot summer sun on Winthrop Beach and in front of the Winthrop Marketplace “because climate change is an emergency that we must respond to.”

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As for the referendums:

You know where I stand on Question 1.

The Globe says vote yes on Question 2, which means that will be a NO.

Then there os Question 3:

"The sides are dueling over the Nov. 6 ballot question that asks voters whether they want to keep or repeal the state law that bars transgender discrimination in places of public accommodations like stores and restaurants. The vote is the first statewide referendum on transgender rights in the country and is being closely watched as a bellwether of popular sentiment during the Trump era. Repeal of the law in progressive Massachusetts, the first state to legalize gay marriage, would be viewed as a major setback for LGBTQ people. Meanwhile, the campaign to protect transgender rights, called Freedom for All Massachusetts, has attracted national support from business and advocacy groups. Contributions over the past two weeks include $150,000 from the American Civil Liberties Union, $125,000 from the Massachusetts Teachers Association, and $40,000 from SEIU Local 509. The campaign got its largest contribution yet, from Jan and Rick Cohen, the executive chairman of C&S Wholesale Grocers Inc., the largest wholesale grocery supply company in the United States. Each spouse and the company contributed a collective $250,000. “Transgender people are our neighbors, co-workers, friends, and fellow residents, who want to work hard and take care of their families without fearing for their safety,” said Rick Cohen, who is also CEO of Symbotic LLC, a Wilmington developer of autonomous mobile robots. “If voters fail to ensure a victory for Yes on 3, it sends a message that not everyone is welcome or safe in Massachusetts.” Other notable donations included $5,000 from Julie Goodridge, one of the plaintiffs in the case that led to gay marriage being legalized in Massachusetts, and $10,000 from Andrew Pang, a fund-raising consultant. "

The law should be cancelled, and here are three reasons to vote No on Question 3. 

"Employees at the University of Massachusetts Amherst made more than $17,000 in improper purchases — including items such as gift cards, memberships, gasoline, and furniture — using university credit cards, according to an audit released Monday by state auditor Suzanne Bump’s office....."

Too late. 

The Globe endorsed Fishman the Libertarian.

They also endorsed Galvin for secretary of state.

"Michael Maloney, an independent candidate for Suffolk district attorney, was accused by his former wife of pushing her, throwing objects at her, and threatening to harm her and kill her father, according to court records. The documents detail three alleged outbursts between July 2013 and Nov. 1, 2014, when Maloney returned to the couple’s Easton home drunk and “started spiraling into a rage,” according to a restraining order filed against him on Nov. 10, 2014. “The rage became worse and worse as he threatened to cut my father’s throat multiple times,” Johnna Powell, Maloney’s wife at the time, wrote in a three-page affidavit filed in Bristol Probate Court in support of a restraining order. Maloney smashed the top of their oven, cutting his hand and splattering blood on the walls and kitchen floor, according to the affidavit. Powell said she was so scared that she called her in-laws and spent the night at their home....."

I'm told there were “several more incidents,” and he has since apologized.

They also claimed he's a racist, for what it's worth.

Thank you for lending me your ear and letting me get inside your head on the eve of Election 2018.