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Taking aim at the seedy side of State House life
Some politicians on Beacon Hill are stubbornly clinging to the perfect scandal silencing machine – the non-disclosure agreement, or NDA.
Enter State Sen. Diana DiZoglio, who is readying a renewed assault on this noxious legal tactic, under which State House staffers who have been the victims of harassment and abuse are pressured into staying silent in exchange for a severance package, courtesy of Massachusetts taxpayers.
The Methuen Democrat and candidate for state auditor plans to attach an amendment to an upcoming state budget proposal that would bar the use of taxpayer-funded NDAs in cases of sexual harassment.
For her part, DiZoglio said she was sexually harassed when working as a young House aide more than a decade ago. When she left her job in 2011, she was forced to sign an NDA in order to get a severance package.
“They are able to use taxpayer dollars to silence victims and cover up misdeeds,” she said.
Still, DiZoglio likely faces an uphill battle. While she convinced the state Senate to ban NDAs a few years ago, the House - which saw 33 of these deals struck during the reign of the previous speaker - for some mysterious reason has repeatedly rejected DiZoglio’s NDA ban.
But if her latest attempt to ban taxpayer-funded NDAs falls short, DiZoglio could get a second shot, come this fall, at putting an end to this shady practice.
DiZoglio, in her campaign for auditor, is vowing a thorough review of the use of NDAs in state government, digging into how many are being issued, how many tax dollars are going to fund them, and for what reason.
And that could turn up some very interesting information, to say the least.
Taunton casino deal: Good for investors, bad for tribe?
Crunching the numbers, it’s hard to see how The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe comes out ahead if it finally succeeds in building a long-planned resort casino in Southeastern Massachusetts.
As we reported here, Genting has been huddling with the tribe since at least September on efforts to revive plans for a $1 billion casino resort.
The Malaysian corporate giant has good reason to want to revive the deal, having been forced to write off $425 million in debt after a 2016 legal challenge by the casino’s would-be Taunton neighbors brought construction to a halt.
For Genting, finally getting the long-planned First Light casino built and open would provide a big financial boost.
But for the Mashpees? Maybe not so much. The tribe would be on the hook for roughly $62 million per year in interest payments alone on the debt, which carries an interest rate of 12 to 18 percent, according to an analyst’s report.
Oh, and by the way, Genting is also guaranteed the contract to manage the casino during its first seven years, in exchange for an additional cut of the profits.
We asked Rev. Richard McGowan, an economist at Boston College and an expert on the gambling industry, whether the tribe would have any money left over after paying Genting.
“A casino in Southeastern Massachusetts will hardly generate the profits needed to even pay the interest on those loans,” McGowan said, noting there are already four casinos in Massachusetts and neighboring Rhode Island. “So where would all of these gamblers come from?”
Good question.
The incredible shrinking Gannett
Gannett Inc., which controls a dozen daily newspapers and a slew of weeklies here in Massachusetts, has reduced its nationwide payroll by 24 percent in the past year alone and by 43 percent since it merged with New Media Company in 2019, as the BBJ’s Don Seiffert reports. No numbers were available on job reductions in Mass.
We can absolutely guarantee this: More job cuts are on the way because Gannett has all but given up on saving most of its newspapers. Oh, it will say it’s still committed to great journalism, etc. etc. But the business model is to squeeze the papers dry until there’s nothing left to squeeze.
Welcome to the Twenty Years War
By Stat Man, aka David Van Voorhis, a high school senior, stats fanatic and news junkie.
That’s how many years some U.S. officials think Russia’s war against Ukraine could last. Although Russia initially made significant gains, ferocious Ukrainian resistance has bogged down its invasion forces in recent days, forcing revisions to estimates that Kyiv would fall in under a week. Many experts now think that Kyiv may be captured in four to six weeks, but a complete resolution to the conflict, regardless of which side prevails, could drag on for years.
Breaking news: Jan. 6 committee claims Trump “engaged in a criminal conspiracy”
No, the House panel investigating the attack on the Capitol isn’t filing charges. It can’t on its own, nor, at this point is the committee referring anything to the U.S. Department of Justice.
But in a proceeding in federal court in California related to its ongoing investigation, the committee made very clear that it has come to some disturbing conclusions about the behavior of Trump and his allies both during and before the assault, the Washington Post reports.
Lawyers for the committee have gone to court to force a conservative lawyer involved in the alleged conspiracy to turn over thousands of emails related to efforts by Trump and his minions to obstruct the counting of electoral votes inside the Capitol that fateful day.
“The Select Committee also has a good-faith basis for concluding that the President and members of his Campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States,” the WP reports, citing the filing.
If the evidence is truly there, can a prosecutor be far behind?
Manchin offers olive branch, maybe even potential deal
Critiques of Biden’s State of the Union speech are a dime a dozen at this point.
But Biden, if nothing else, showed a badly needed feistiness while attempting to push the Dems message back towards the center after the Build Back Never fiasco.
Apparently, Sen. Joe Manchin was listening carefully, for on Wednesday afternoon he floated the possibility of a very scaled back version of the monster, multitrillion-dollar plan Biden unveiled last fall with the support of party progressives.
Manchin told The Hill he would be open to closing corporate tax loopholes and lowering the price of prescription drugs by having the government use its purchasing power to negotiate better deals.
Biden pushed both items during his speech, calling for a 15 percent minimum global corporate rate while blasting the dozens of U.S. corporations that currently pay nothing.
At this point, with disaster for the Dems looming in the midterm elections next fall, a quarter or even an eighth of a loaf would be better than nothing.
The media coverage of Manchin’s peace offering was also interesting. In addition to pieces by the Hill and Politico, The New York Times ran a larger piece looking at Biden’s pivot and efforts to salvage some of his legislative agenda, while also weaving in Manchin’s comments high up in the story.
The Washington Post was notably was AWOL on the story as the paper shifts away from the intensive coverage of politics it was once known for.
What is Contrarian Boston?
I have fielded emails over the past couple weeks asking what Contrarian Boston is about.
Here’s a link to our mission statement – you can find it in the “about” section.
For a more prosaic, nuts-and-bolts description, read on.
An online newsletter, Contrarian Boston publishes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. In Contrarian Boston you’ll find analysis of the day’s news, and original reporting as well.
Our focus is:
· Politics and all levels of governance, good and bad, with an emphasis on state and local, with some national mixed in;
· Economic growth and business, especially real estate, housing and new development projects;
· The media and why it does what it does;
· Education, from school board spats to the doings of multibillion-dollar university endowments;
· And whatever else catches our fancy.