Elections matter, and nowhere has this been clearer than in Wednesday's Supreme Court hearing on abortion. Donald Trump (you remember the erstwhile lothario who was loudly pro-choice when he was openly sleeping around) pledged to name Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision recognizing a woman's fundamental right to control …
Continue reading Supreme Court abortion hearing portends dire future
People are on the move this weekend, eager to celebrate what the pandemic prevented last year. Friends and families gather, grateful that they have survived, much as popular history recounts how the Pilgrims survived their first winter (though that story usually leaves out the decimation of the Native American population.) But we do use the …
Boston's mayors have influenced my life since I was four years old. A May baby, I had missed eligibility for kindergarten by a few days. Early on the first day of school, my mother learned that Mayor Maurice Tobin (1938-1945) had somehow gotten the eligibility date changed to accommodate his young son, with whom I …
For many Massachusetts voters, any race for state auditor (one of just six officials elected statewide) can be a snoozer. But not in 2022. This down-ballot post is fundamentally about making sure that our tax dollars are spent well, that government is serving the public interest. Retiring Auditor Suzanne Bump has been there 11 years. …
Continue reading Chris Dempsey: the Real Deal for State Auditor
Friday’s job numbers and dip in unemployment to 4.6 percent might have made it easier for Democrats running in Tuesday’s elections in Virginia and New Jersey. So, too, might earlier passage of the infrastructure bill and tentative agreement on a framework for the reconciliation package. Even with belated progress, no one should conclude there are …
Continue reading What are the lessons from Tuesday’s results? pt. 2
Getty Images The good news for Democrats is that the mid-term elections are still a year away. More troubling is how they will respond to Tuesday's wake-up call. Early signs are that the moderates and progressives in Congress, organized as circular firing squads shooting inward, are not drawing the same conclusions. Despite suddenly agreeing to …
Continue reading What are the lessons from Tuesday’s results? Part 1
If you’re feeling down, don’t read today’s blog. After 35 years in journalism and still longer as an inveterate news junkie, I can barely read or watch the news these days. I delayed posting, hoping for a shred of something positive to cling to, but, aside from the Boston Red Sox, there is precious little. …
Congressional Democrats appear to be circling the wagons and shooting inward. Their recent behavior is outrageous, worthy only of a schoolyard brawl, the result of which is far less tasty than a well-made legislative sausage. Many newly elected members of Congress coming from gerrymandered safe blue districts have never been in charge and don't understand …
Continue reading Are Democrats the gang that can’t shoot straight?
Remember their daring performances on the bars or balance beam, in the vault or on the floor. All championship accomplishments. But their Olympic gold medal-winning performances are nothing compared to the bravery shown by Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, McKayla Maroney, and Maggie Nichols testifying in graphic detail before the Senate Judiciary Committee about sexual abuse …
Continue reading Olympic gymnasts are gold medalists on and off the floor
In the early morning of September 11, 2001, a small group of lawyers, engineers, contractors, developers, and architects gathered for a communications seminar on crisis management at the Seaport Hotel in downtown Boston. Their objective was to consider how best to react to a simulated collapse of a large building. My husband, a lawyer, was …
Marjorie Arons-Barron 