Obama endorses six candidates in MA

By CommonWealth Staff 0 Comments Oct 2, 2018

Former president Barack Obama waded into political races across the country on Monday, endorsing 260 Democratic candidates in 29 states, including six in Massachusetts. Obama made a series of endorsements in August, but none of those was in Massachusetts. This time he backed Jay Gonzalez and Quentin Palfrey for governor and lieutenant governor, Ayanna Pressley(...)

The Download/ Marijuana

The Codcast: The women of pot

By CommonWealth Staff 0 Comments Oct 1, 2018

The “bro” culture of pot is a dominant image of marijuana. Cheech and Chong are the dudes who most represent the “stoner” generation while the legal industry is increasingly seeing corporations and investors dominated by men. The reality is a little more diverse, though, and Massachusetts is aiming to hold the door open for previously(...)

The Download/ Education

New Bedford’s charter school battle

By CommonWealth Staff Charter schools, New Bedford 0 Comments Sep 28, 2018

Nearly two years ago, voters weighed in on a contentious ballot question over charter school expansion in the state. But the battle over the independently run, but publicly funded, schools hardly ended there. Ground zero for the latest showdown: New Bedford, where the K-8 Alma del Mar Charter School is hoping to expand by adding(...)

The Download/ Housing

Boston housing officials shoot the messengers

By CommonWealth Staff 0 Comments Sep 27, 2018

There is plenty to crow about in praising the good things about Boston. If you leave aside its insane housing costs, it’s one of the country’s most livable big cities. Crime rates are lower than in many other big cities, and the city’s public schools outperform many other large urban districts. But to suggest that(...)

The Download/ Transportation

MBTA: “May Be Trains Arrive”

By CommonWealth Staff MBTA 0 Comments Sep 26, 2018

Perhaps it’s delay fatigue (as opposed to delayed fatigue), but the operators of the MBTA’s commuter rail had an awful, bad, terrible evening commute Tuesday in the warm drizzle of an early fall day that barely registered a blip on the news radar. The Download, as regular readers know, has a lead item that wraps(...)

The Download/ Health Care

Health Policy Commission to assess ballot question

By CommonWealth Staff 0 Comments Sep 25, 2018

A state agency is preparing to play the role of fact checker in a bitter, high-stakes campaign over a ballot question that would mandate nurse-patient staffing ratios in hospitals across the state. The Health Policy Commission, after weeks of hedging when asked whether it would analyze the impact of Question 1, revealed that it had(...)

The Download/ Politics

The Codcast: The ‘Harvard tax’ plus transgender rights on the ballot

By CommonWealth Staff 0 Comments Sep 24, 2018

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jay Gonzalez filled in one big missing piece of his campaign platform last week, a plan for how to pay for the new investments in transportation and education he has vowed to pursue if elected. His proposal to levy a 1.6 percent annual tax on the holdings of Massachusetts colleges and universities(...)

The Download/ Transportation

Another clue on declining T ridership

By CommonWealth Staff 0 Comments Sep 21, 2018

New Census data offer another clue about why transit ridership is falling all across the country, including at the MBTA. The data indicate 8 million workers nationally are now doing their jobs primarily from home, according to a report in Governing. For the first time, telecommuting narrowly edged out public transportation when respondents were asked(...)

The Download/ Politics

For tax plan, Gonzalez’s gives it the college try

By CommonWealth Staff 0 Comments Sep 20, 2018

The Massachusetts Republican Party has hammered Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jay Gonzalez for not releasing details of how he would pay for an ambitious agenda that calls for new spending on education and transportation. Gonzalez has answered that with a plan — but he’s now getting hammered over the details of it. Gonzalez is proposing a(...)

The Download/ Politics

The politics of disasters

By CommonWealth Staff 0 Comments Sep 19, 2018

Disasters have a way of defining politics and elections. Many believe Hurricane Sandy, and then-Gov. Chris Christie’s embrace of President Barack Obama, helped push the president over the top for reelection because of his administration’s response. Likewise, many pundits thought President George W. Bush’s flyover and ham-handed handling of the relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina(...)


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