Elizabeth Warren whipped the Massachusetts political world into a frenzy yesterday with a post on Blue Mass Group. She didn’t announce her candidacy for the US Senate, but her “Coming Home” note came about as close as you can get. It outlined her personal background, her views on the struggling middle class, and her low opinion of Washington politics. “I spent years working against special interests – and have the battle scars to show it – and I have no intention of stopping now,” she says.
Asked directly by one commenter when she will announce her challenge to US Sen. Scott Brown, Warren answered: “I really want to travel through the state and hear more from all kinds of people before I make a decision.”
The Boston Herald reports that Warren will make her formal announcement by Labor Day. The Globe, along with other news outlets, reports that Warren has hired Patrick politicos Doug Rubin and Kyle Sullivan. The National Journal reports she has met with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee officials, and others.
The Warren story could be very appealing. She wants to become a member of the US Senate, the very body that blocked her appointment to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She wants to fight for the middle class. She wants to protect consumers.
Yet her BMG post was also interesting for what was not included. No mention of her job teaching law at Harvard University. No mention that she lives in Cambridge. The Herald also notes fundraising will be crucial for her in mounting a challenge against Brown (who has $10 million in the bank) while fending off a crowded primary field.
The National Journal says some political wiseguys think Brown is vulnerable. The Journal cites polling data from the MassINC Polling Group showing the favorable/unfavorable split for Brown dropped from 57/24 last September to 48/30 in July.
–BRUCE MOHL
BEACON HILL
The Salem News, in an editorial, says the Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission needs an overhaul after its ill-fated orders requiring craft breweries to buy or grow half of their hops locally and awarding five new liquor licenses to Lawrence, a city that doesn’t want them. The Daily News of Newburyport talks to an Amesbury brewer whose start-up plans were thrown for a loop by the ABCC.
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
Boston Mayor Tom Menino will work on his memoir while on vacation in Alaska next week, but he doesn’t plan on publishing anything soon because, in Hizzoner’s words, “I’m like the ‘No-Tell Motel.’”
Lowell begins the process of implementing a new state law that would let the municipality make changes in the city’s health care contract with unions, the Sun reports.
Bridgewater officials have closed the town’s parks and fields and sprayed for mosquitoes and several other area communities are considering similar measures after the state raised the risk of contracting Eastern equine encephalitis from “low” to “moderate.”
The Berkshire Eagle reports fewer candidates are running for Pittsfield offices in this fall’s elections, despite a low number of incumbents on the ballot. The paper’s editorial page warns of the dangers of political apathy.
A Falmouth pastor is claiming a new rule that prevents him from holding services on town beaches is biased, the Cape Cod Times reports.
Foxboro needs a new town hall because its current building is making employees sick, its town manager says.
NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON
Charles Krauthammer says the democratic (small “d”) political process is working as planned and while it may be akin to sausage-making, when all’s said and done, both are pretty darned tasty.
President Barack Obama tries turning up the heat on GOP congressmen.
Meet your fully-formed deficit-reduction super committee.
A Pennsylvania judge who took $1 million in kickbacks in exchange for sending juveniles to detention facilities is sentenced to 28 years in prison.
The US Postal Service is looking to cut 120,000 jobs, amounting to 20 percent of its workforce, and withdraw from federal health and retirement plans, the Washington Post reports.
ELECTION 2012
The Weekly Standard assesses last night’s GOP presidential debate and concludes, as did many others, the winner was Texas Gov. Rick Perry by virtue of not being there. But there may be a new mantra for deriding the health care reform after former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty labeled the new law “ObamaneyCare” because “ObamaCare was patterned after Mitt [Romney]‘s plan in Massachusetts.… That’s why I called it Obamaney care, and I think that’s a fair label.” The Globe spotlights the biting attack lines exchanged by Minnesotans Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann.
Andrew Romano, writing in The Daily Beast, says Texas Gov. Rick Perry is unelectable not because of his religious beliefs or because he sounds like George W. Bush, but because he holds three positions that the American public, Republicans included, could not stomach.
Mitt Romney says “corporations are people,” a line NPR describes as a gift to his political foes. Watch Mitt deal with a heckler in Des Moines on NECN.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
Striking Verizon workers are getting out of hand, says the company, which is seeking a restraining order to rein in picketers’ activities. Globe columnist Larry Harmon says striking workers do themselves no favor with unruly behavior, including vandalism to Verizon property.
What’s in a name? Apparently, self-esteem. Fall River Mayor Will Flanagan is upset that the new biotech park off Route 24 will not have Fall River in its name after the Redevelopment Authority voted to christen it Southcoast Science and Technology Park.
LoJack, the stolen car tracking company, will consolidate its operations, which now run out of three buildings in Westwood and Canton, into one site when it moves its 180 employees into the former Tweeter headquarters in Canton at the end of the year.
Some retailers say they aren’t expecting a bump in revenue from this weekend’s sales tax holiday, the MetroWest Daily News reports. Retailers said that many shoppers are making purchases this weekend that they would have made anyway.
EDUCATION
Andrew Rotherham, in his Time column, reports that pressure for changes at teacher unions is coming from within.
HEALTH CARE
Paul Levy offers some interesting speculation on his Not Running a Hospital blog about what he thinks is the story behind the story of Partners HealthCare Systems acquiring Neighborhood Health Plan.
TRANSPORTATION
WBUR’s Radio Boston interviews Richard Davey, who takes over shortly as the state’s transportation czar. The latest brush fire Davey is fighting: After his agency cracked down on sick time abuses, T employees suddenly discovered the Family Medical Leave Act — or, as it’s reportedly known around the Carmen’s union, the Friday-Monday Leave Act.
Some engineers are skeptical of the official explanation for the sinkhole that has formed under the I-90 tunnel in the Big Dig.
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
A new research report finds North Atlantic right whales feeding in Cape Cod Bay are at the highest risk of being injured by propellers from recreational and commercial boats of any whale population in the world. Via US News & World Report.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
The Globe reports that new court filings show reputed mob boss Mark Rossetti, who was indicted last year, was working as an FBI informant.
UK leaders are looking to Boston for ideas as they contend with the rioting there, the Globe reports.
With the price of gas now shooting toward $5 a gallon, thieves are eschewing electronics and other boating gear and grabbing the gas cans off boats tied up at marinas and in moorings fields, according to several South Shore harbormasters.
A Whitman man was indicted for using his hidden cell phone to secretly record an argument he had with a local police officer over a tinted cover on his license plate.
Peter Gelzinis drops by the trial of former Boston firefighter/bodybuilder Albert Arroyo, and concludes that Arroyo is an even worse witness than he was a firefighter.
A federal grand jury indicts Catherine Greig for harboring and concealing criminal boyfriend Whitey Bulger.
MEDIA
Ken Doctor, writing for the Nieman Journalism Lab, analyzes what another recession might mean for the news business.
The North Adams Transcript announces it will implement a paywall.