It would be fair to say the organizers of the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade in South Boston made a Wacko decision. As in the late John “Wacko” Hurley, the longtime organizer of the event who won a Supreme Court ruling in 1995 upholding the right of the Allied War Veterans Council of South Boston to bar […]
Civil and Constitutional Rights
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Four takes on the human condition
Today’s Boston Globe includes several random articles that illuminate some of the ways we interact — or fail to interact — with each other in these troubled times. Story No. 1 — Columnist Kevin Cullen reports how people on social media attacked Tricia Vinchesi, the town administrator in Scituate, for taking a day off to […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Politics, The Download
Hodgson’s off the wall idea
For the most part, Massachusetts is bereft of the cast of local Trump acolytes who have risen up elsewhere to pronounce the incoming president a leader of enormous vision and deeply-considered ideas. And then there is Tom Hodgson. The longtime Republican Bristol County sheriff has long been something of an outlier in the Bay State […]
Posted inState House News Service, Uncategorized
SJC upholds parent rights of same-sex partner
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE THE PARENTING RIGHTS of a mother in a same-sex relationship extend even when the couple is unmarried and the mother has no biological connection to the children, the state’s highest court ruled Tuesday. In a decision written by Justice Barbara Lenk, the Supreme Judicial Court overturned a Middlesex County family court’s […]
Posted inThe Back Story
‘Encampment’ moved off Boston Common
THE BOSTON POLICE DEPARTMENT last week evicted from the Boston Common a fairly large group of people who had been sleeping and hanging out for many weeks on the grass near the T’s Park Street Station, an area many consider the front door of the city. Police and city officials were reluctant to talk about […]
Posted inGun ownership, Guns, Opinion, Politics
56 lawmakers to Healey: Back down
What follows is a letter 56 House and Senate lawmakers sent to Attorney General Maura Healey on Saturday and released to the press on Sunday. The lead signers were the Republican leaders from the House and Senate. We are writing to express our strong concerns about your decision to issue an Enforcement Notice relative to the […]
Posted inGun ownership, Guns
Mass. chiefs approve most gun permits
ONLY A TINY fraction of Massachusetts residents who apply for firearms licenses or identification cards are turned down, suggesting the state’s reputation for restricting gun use may be overstated. Just 1.8 percent of those who applied for Firearms Identification Cards (FID) and licenses to carry concealed weapons between 2010 and 2015 were rejected, according to […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Politics
Gateway Cities preoccupied with panhandling
IN NEW BEDFORD, the City Council considered requiring panhandlers to get licenses to ask for money in the city. Manchester, New Hampshire, banned the exchange of items of value between motorists and pedestrians. And Worcester and Lowell enacted ordinances aimed at cracking down on “aggressive panhandling,” which, among other things, banned soliciting in close proximity […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service
House backs transgender bill
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE IN A MAJOR VICTORY for equal rights activists, legislation aimed at preventing discrimination against transgender individuals in all public places, including bathrooms, passed the House on Wednesday, clearing one of the last remaining hurdles for the decade-old policy proposal. The House voted 116-36 in favor of the bill (H 4343) that […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Politics
Gants calls off DeLeo leak inquiry
AFTER FEDERAL AND STATE law enforcement officials said they didn’t do it, the Supreme Judicial Court is calling off its inquiry into who leaked to the press the confidential transcript of a deposition of House Speaker Robert DeLeo. In a May 31 letter to DeLeo, Chief Justice Ralph Gants said he had asked the US […]