Rep. Mike Connolly’s blog offers a critical look behind the curtain of Mass politics The Massachusetts State House is not a bastion of democracy. I think a growing number of people in the Commonwealth are pretty clear on that fact. Dominated for decades by a series of imperial House speakers, and to a […]
EDITORIAL: SAVE COMMUNITY MEDIA
Tell the FCC That You Support Your Local Cable Access Station by Dec 14 At DigBoston, my colleagues and I put a lot of effort into working with local community media stations around Greater Boston. Because they are the heart and soul of grassroots democratic public broadcasting in the United States. And because […]
PIZZA BARONS LAY OFF 1,100: PAPA GINO’S & D’ANGELO WORKERS NEED TO ORGANIZE FOR JUSTICE
Mainstream press coverage of mass layoffs like Sunday’s shutdown of almost 100 Papa Gino’s and D’Angelo fast food restaurants generally looks upon such tragic events through a glass, darkly. Because journalism in the service of the rich and powerful is a poor reflection of reality when it comes to all things labor. Which is […]
POPULAR NOT POPULIST: GOV BAKER CONTINUES TO POLL WELL WITH PEOPLE HE’S SCREWING
There is no area of Massachusetts politics where it is more baffling to contemplate Gov. Charlie Baker’s ongoing popularity in the polls than the annual state budget debate. One can only draw two conclusions from such musing: either people don’t get the budget information they need from Bay State press, or a majority of […]
‘DON’T MOURN, ORGANIZE!’
Why Janus might actually be good for the American labor movement The Supreme Court issued a decision last week that will have profound consequences for American working people. In Janus v. AFSCME, the court overturned a 1977 decision, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, that allowed public sector unions—like the National Education […]
GRAND SCHEME
Mass legislature helps, harms workers in “deal” with labor and business lobbies No sooner did the Supreme Judicial Court shoot down the “millionaires’ tax” referendum question last week than the Mass legislature rammed a so-called grand bargain bill (H 4640) through both chambers. A move aimed at shoring up tax revenue threatened by […]
CAPITALIST VETO
Popular “millionaires’ tax” referendum question blocked by a pro-business SJC The Fair Share Amendment—better known as the “millionaires’ tax”—that would have gone before voters this November as a statewide referendum question was shot down this week by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC). So the effort to increase taxes on people making $1 […]
EDITORIAL: MEDIUM WELL
Democracy requires public control of social media giants In this edition of DigBoston, our Editor-in-Chief Chris Faraone has already written at some length about how Medium—which is essentially a glorified blog farm with a puzzlingly opaque social media component—screwed our nonprofit, the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism (BINJ), a few days back by […]
TOWNIE: AIRLINES SUING, UMASS SCREWING
Corporate attack on workers rights and a corporate-style attack on UMB by UMA If there’s one thing I think people should do every day, it’s read the business press. Because that’s where you see how the world runs. A world that naturally includes Massachusetts. Airlines sue Mass over sick time law Case […]
EVERSOURCE SCREWS MASS CONSUMERS
With a little help from its friends, the “regulators” at the Department of Public Utilities It is perhaps understandable that one of the most important Massachusetts news stories of the year was buried in the avalanche of reports coming out of Washington last week. But Eversource Energy, a large investor-owned utility serving much […]
