Former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld suspended his little noticed campaign for the Republican nomination for president one week ago today.
He had pursued the prize for over year and, at the end, had only one committed delegate to show for all that time and effort.
Donald Trump made it a policy to ignore Weld's candidacy, never bothering even to slur him on Twitter with one of the nasty-but-catchy nicknames he likes to deploy, like "Low Energy Jeb," "Little Marco" and "Sleepy Joe."
The closest Weld, 74, got to eliciting Trump's contumely was to be lumped by the Tweeter-in-Chief together with the other Republican primary challengers, Mark Sanford and Joe Walsh, as "The Three Stooges." Sanford and Walsh both left the race before Weld did.
Weld seemed to be paying Trump back with the same coin of indifference by not mentioning the president by name in his written withdrawal (or suspension) statement. At the outset of the Weld campaign, things were much different. The old Brahmin laced hard into Trump then.
When announcing his candidacy, Weld said Trump "has difficulty conforming his conduct to the requirements of the law. That's a serious matter in the oval office." He added:
"...we have a president whose priorities are skewed toward promotion of himself rather than toward the good of the country. He may have great energy and considerable raw talent, but he does not use them in ways that promote democracy, truth, justice and equal opportunity for all. To compound matters, our president is simply too unstable to carry out the duties of the highest executive office -- which include the specific duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed -- in a competent and professional manner. He is simply in the wrong place."
Weld ran a serious campaign based on the propositions that (a) Trump had flouted the Constitution and undermined the rule of law, (b) the U.S. needed to strengthen relationships with traditional allies, (c) climate change had to be arrested by putting a price on carbon emissions, and (d) federal budget deficits of more than a trillion dollars a year are irresponsible in the extreme and must be stopped.
After no Republicans voted to impeach Trump, and only one Republican (former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney) voted guilty on one article of impeachment during Trump's trial in the Senate, we did not need further proof that Trump has taken over the GOP like Sherman took over Georgia. But that's what we got when Weld had one delegate in hand after 13 months of campaigning.
Bringing down the curtain, Weld said, "Thousands of supporters and donors from across the country joined our cause, working day and night to promote strong, experienced, decent leadership for the United States. They were determined and indefatigable in their efforts to give Americans a better choice in the 2020 presidential election. Leading this movement has been one of the greatest honors of my life, and I will be forever indebted to all who have played a part."
You can laugh at Bill Weld for thinking he could be president.
You can dismiss him as a relic of a far different political era.
You can ignore that he dared to dream greatly of undoing Trumpism.
But how can you not, at least for a moment, stop and admire a person of principle who, with no one truly powerful backing him and with a slim-to-zero chance of victory, undertakes a campaign to wrest the leadership of his ancestral party from a Republican-come-lately incumbent he believes has besmirched it, and brings that campaign, in painful slow motion, ultimately to a condition of nothingness, and yet afterwards declares it "one of the greatest honors" of his long life to have led that effort?
a blog published by Preti Strategies
Code for Hoarding: 'Unprecedented Volume of Customers' KO's Bottle Bill.
Thursday, March 19, 2020
If you've been to a supermarket in the last several days, you know shoppers are hoarding stuff because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Everywhere, it seems, there are empty shelves where the canned goods used to be and empty cases where the frozen vegetables used to be, to name just two categories of suddenly scarce foodstuffs.
This morning at a Stop & Shop, I watched wide-eyed as panicky elders swarmed and overwhelmed two employees trying to move rolls of toilet paper from a pallet to a shelf.
"You can't stop them," one employee cried to the other as a little old man pulled an eight-pack of the precious paper from his hands.
Hoarding has now forced the state to suspend the Bottle Bill -- although that is not the way the Department of Environmental Protection and the Office of the Attorney General phrased it in a joint announcement of the suspension yesterday.
They were much more, how do I say, "delicate."
MassDEP and the AG said they were temporarily suspending enforcement of "the requirements for retailers to accept beverage containers that have a deposit" because "many grocers, supermarkets, and other retail operations have indicated that they are overwhelmed with an unprecedented volume of customers purchasing provisions so they can spend time at home to help in the effort to reduce the spread of COVID-19." They asserted that the suspension "will allow individual retailers to assess their operations and, if necessary and appropriate, shift staffing to enable smoother operations."
This action "will also limit any contamination that potentially could occur from staff handling used beverage containers," they said.
"Consumers are encouraged to hold on to their deposit containers for redemption at a later date," MassDEP and the AG stated, "or to recycle those containers with existing household recycling" -- in other words, to abandon their deposit money to the state.
The suspension took effect immediately, meaning on Wednesday, March 18, and will remain in effect until further notice, or until the current state of emergency is lifted.
The Bottle Bill, or Beverage Container Recovery Law, as it is formally known, was enacted 37 years ago. It requires consumers to pay a five-cent-per-container deposit on most beverages sold here.
To get an idea of the financial impacts of the law, I did an online search, typing in "unclaimed bottle bill deposits in Massachusetts."
One of the first things that popped up was a study from the Container Recycling Institute (CRI), which showed that, in calendar year 2015, more than a billion containers were turned in for recycling in Massachusetts.
That year, Massachusetts consumers collected $62.3 million in container deposit refunds and the state got to keep $43.4 million in unclaimed deposits, the study found.
The CRI study also found that the Bottle Bill generated between $85 million and $151 million in economic activity here and supported more than 2,000 jobs, including at least 1,480 directly related to recycling.
Everywhere, it seems, there are empty shelves where the canned goods used to be and empty cases where the frozen vegetables used to be, to name just two categories of suddenly scarce foodstuffs.
This morning at a Stop & Shop, I watched wide-eyed as panicky elders swarmed and overwhelmed two employees trying to move rolls of toilet paper from a pallet to a shelf.
"You can't stop them," one employee cried to the other as a little old man pulled an eight-pack of the precious paper from his hands.
Hoarding has now forced the state to suspend the Bottle Bill -- although that is not the way the Department of Environmental Protection and the Office of the Attorney General phrased it in a joint announcement of the suspension yesterday.
They were much more, how do I say, "delicate."
MassDEP and the AG said they were temporarily suspending enforcement of "the requirements for retailers to accept beverage containers that have a deposit" because "many grocers, supermarkets, and other retail operations have indicated that they are overwhelmed with an unprecedented volume of customers purchasing provisions so they can spend time at home to help in the effort to reduce the spread of COVID-19." They asserted that the suspension "will allow individual retailers to assess their operations and, if necessary and appropriate, shift staffing to enable smoother operations."
This action "will also limit any contamination that potentially could occur from staff handling used beverage containers," they said.
"Consumers are encouraged to hold on to their deposit containers for redemption at a later date," MassDEP and the AG stated, "or to recycle those containers with existing household recycling" -- in other words, to abandon their deposit money to the state.
The suspension took effect immediately, meaning on Wednesday, March 18, and will remain in effect until further notice, or until the current state of emergency is lifted.
The Bottle Bill, or Beverage Container Recovery Law, as it is formally known, was enacted 37 years ago. It requires consumers to pay a five-cent-per-container deposit on most beverages sold here.
To get an idea of the financial impacts of the law, I did an online search, typing in "unclaimed bottle bill deposits in Massachusetts."
One of the first things that popped up was a study from the Container Recycling Institute (CRI), which showed that, in calendar year 2015, more than a billion containers were turned in for recycling in Massachusetts.
That year, Massachusetts consumers collected $62.3 million in container deposit refunds and the state got to keep $43.4 million in unclaimed deposits, the study found.
The CRI study also found that the Bottle Bill generated between $85 million and $151 million in economic activity here and supported more than 2,000 jobs, including at least 1,480 directly related to recycling.
Always Room for Improvement but 'Blue Economy' Is Anything But Depressed
Friday, March 13, 2020
Second of two parts
Beverly Harbor will be getting a new pier and a new hoist to better serve commercial fishing vessels.
Fairhaven will proceed with the fourth phase of a long-running project to reconstruct a pier that's critical to a booming New Bedford Harbor, where the value of all the fish landed is greater than in any other U.S. port.
Gloucester will update its 2014 Harbor/Designated Port Area Master Plan to strengthen the city's traditional seafood industry, while exploring new opportunities in marine research, marine development and life sciences.
And Dennis will begin a two-stage project to upgrade a municipal marina at Sesuit Harbor, one of the few spots on the north side of Cape Cod accessible to recreational and commercial fleets, no matter the height or depth of the tide.
These were among nine projects funded in the latest round of grants from the state's Seaport Economic Council, totaling just under $3 million, as announced on Feb. 25 by the Baker-Polito administration.
These grants, the administration asserted, will help advance the mission of the Seaport Economic Development Council "to support working waterfronts, local tourism, coastal resilience, maritime innovation, and the Commonwealth's robust Blue Economy."
Robust indeed.
The Massachusetts fishing and seafood industries combined are a big, multi-billion-dollar-a-year deal. When you include such things as shoreside support positions, seafood processors, restaurant workers, shippers and the like, there are about 90,000 jobs in fishing and seafood.
The value of the fish landed in one year in New Bedford tops out at $389 million, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
All the ports of Massachusetts collectively land more fish than any other state except Alaska, which is 73 times larger than Massachusetts.
"Our coastal assets are incredibly important to the state's overall economic health," states Governor Charlie Baker.
As an advocate for Fishing Partnership Support Services, a non-profit striving to improve the health, safety and economic security of commercial fishermen, I pay close attention to this stuff because it helps fishermen and their families, and of course the fishing industry itself, on which the original prosperity of Massachusetts was built.
But the other winning projects in these Seaport Economic Council grant contests sometimes fascinate me equally. Take the grant Salem just got to identify and implement near-term improvements needed to keep the Salem Wharf Deepwater Berth functioning optimally.
This facility was used for years in importing coal to Salem's old, polluting seaside power plant, which was replaced several years ago by a smaller, cleaner plant burning natural gas. The refurbished coal ship wharf now regularly hosts cruise ships, from which visitors debark to enjoy historic Salem's many attractions, such as the Peabody Essex Museum, the Salem Maritime Historic Site, and the House of Seven Gables, not to mention the city's many fine restaurants. Cruise ships for coal ships was a good trade for the Witch City.
There are 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts. Of those municipalities, 78 are located on the coast.
Since 2015, the Seaport Economic Council has made grant investments totaling more than $44 million in 42 of those communities that touch the ocean.
Back in the summer of 2017, I was interviewing Senator Mark Montigny, D-New Bedford, for a video we were doing on the 20th anniversary of Fishing Partnership Support Services, www.fishingpartnership.org
Montigny's a true son of New Bedford, born and brought up there, and an old-fashioned lunchpail Democrat. When he was in high school, he and his friends would often find work as day laborers on the busy docks of New Bedford.
We got to talking about how big commercial fishing still is in his city. "People sometimes tell me we could be another Newport (Rhode Island), with hotels and condos and fancy restaurants and all that, and that that would be great for our economy," Montigny said.
"I always say to them, 'You don't know what you're talking about! We already have a strong economy. And it's a better economy, with better jobs for working people, than what you're dreaming up."
For the sake of our fishermen, of the communities they built hundreds of years ago, and of the unique local cultures and traditions they created, we should all hope that New Bedford does not become another Newport.
Beverly Harbor will be getting a new pier and a new hoist to better serve commercial fishing vessels.
Fairhaven will proceed with the fourth phase of a long-running project to reconstruct a pier that's critical to a booming New Bedford Harbor, where the value of all the fish landed is greater than in any other U.S. port.
Gloucester will update its 2014 Harbor/Designated Port Area Master Plan to strengthen the city's traditional seafood industry, while exploring new opportunities in marine research, marine development and life sciences.
And Dennis will begin a two-stage project to upgrade a municipal marina at Sesuit Harbor, one of the few spots on the north side of Cape Cod accessible to recreational and commercial fleets, no matter the height or depth of the tide.
These were among nine projects funded in the latest round of grants from the state's Seaport Economic Council, totaling just under $3 million, as announced on Feb. 25 by the Baker-Polito administration.
These grants, the administration asserted, will help advance the mission of the Seaport Economic Development Council "to support working waterfronts, local tourism, coastal resilience, maritime innovation, and the Commonwealth's robust Blue Economy."
Robust indeed.
The Massachusetts fishing and seafood industries combined are a big, multi-billion-dollar-a-year deal. When you include such things as shoreside support positions, seafood processors, restaurant workers, shippers and the like, there are about 90,000 jobs in fishing and seafood.
The value of the fish landed in one year in New Bedford tops out at $389 million, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
All the ports of Massachusetts collectively land more fish than any other state except Alaska, which is 73 times larger than Massachusetts.
"Our coastal assets are incredibly important to the state's overall economic health," states Governor Charlie Baker.
As an advocate for Fishing Partnership Support Services, a non-profit striving to improve the health, safety and economic security of commercial fishermen, I pay close attention to this stuff because it helps fishermen and their families, and of course the fishing industry itself, on which the original prosperity of Massachusetts was built.
But the other winning projects in these Seaport Economic Council grant contests sometimes fascinate me equally. Take the grant Salem just got to identify and implement near-term improvements needed to keep the Salem Wharf Deepwater Berth functioning optimally.
This facility was used for years in importing coal to Salem's old, polluting seaside power plant, which was replaced several years ago by a smaller, cleaner plant burning natural gas. The refurbished coal ship wharf now regularly hosts cruise ships, from which visitors debark to enjoy historic Salem's many attractions, such as the Peabody Essex Museum, the Salem Maritime Historic Site, and the House of Seven Gables, not to mention the city's many fine restaurants. Cruise ships for coal ships was a good trade for the Witch City.
There are 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts. Of those municipalities, 78 are located on the coast.
Since 2015, the Seaport Economic Council has made grant investments totaling more than $44 million in 42 of those communities that touch the ocean.
Back in the summer of 2017, I was interviewing Senator Mark Montigny, D-New Bedford, for a video we were doing on the 20th anniversary of Fishing Partnership Support Services, www.fishingpartnership.org
Montigny's a true son of New Bedford, born and brought up there, and an old-fashioned lunchpail Democrat. When he was in high school, he and his friends would often find work as day laborers on the busy docks of New Bedford.
We got to talking about how big commercial fishing still is in his city. "People sometimes tell me we could be another Newport (Rhode Island), with hotels and condos and fancy restaurants and all that, and that that would be great for our economy," Montigny said.
"I always say to them, 'You don't know what you're talking about! We already have a strong economy. And it's a better economy, with better jobs for working people, than what you're dreaming up."
For the sake of our fishermen, of the communities they built hundreds of years ago, and of the unique local cultures and traditions they created, we should all hope that New Bedford does not become another Newport.
On the Need to Keep the 'Sacred Cod' and 'Holy Mackerel' Relevant
Saturday, March 7, 2020
First of two parts
A little over a week ago, the Baker-Polito administration announced the award of $3 million in grants to coastal municipalities to enhance the state's maritime economy.
There were nine grants in all, spread among seven communities: Beverly, Dartmouth, Dennis, Fairhaven, Gloucester, Mattapoisett and Salem. Mattapoisett and Salem each got two.
The largest grant, $1 million, will be used to replace the sheet wall at the Union Wharf in Fairhaven. And the smallest, $64,000, will pay for a study assessing the demand for, and financial feasibility of, a new small-boat marina and dock facility at Dias Landing in Dartmouth.
For a long time, I have proudly lobbied for a non-profit that works to improve the health, safety and economic security of commercial fishermen, Fishing Partnership Support Services, www.fishingpartnership.org
I'm in synch with the thinking behind these grants -- not because they will do anything for FPSS but rather because of what some of these grants may do to preserve working waterfronts and prevent their conversion to luxury housing and other uses preferred by the wealthy: fancy hotels, spas, restaurants, boutiques and the like.
I am not against wealthy people nor am I against their using their money to enjoy life as they see fit. I just don't want them enjoying it in exclusive, monochromatic enclaves that have supplanted outworn, outdated or faded enterprises, which, because of their unique geographic situation, could have evolved industrially, saving and creating solid blue-collar jobs. Build your enclaves elsewhere, I say.
A couple of years ago, I and a few others were in a conversation one morning with a top official in the Baker-Polito administration on the need for incentives to optimize the redevelopment of dilapidated properties in the state's 14 designated port areas. Those incentives, we averred, should favor projects that preserve marine industries or reconfigure them to meet new needs in commercial fishing and seafood processing.
Rightly playing the role of devil's advocate, this official said he heard similar arguments all the time from persons in local government and local chambers of commerce who want the state to offer incentives to developers of projects in depressed downtown business districts.
He asked us, "How are those downtowns any different from fishing ports or fishing communities? If we are going to do something for you, how do we not -- why do we not -- do something for them?"He didn't have to mention that state resources are limited and that somebody has to get aced out.
Now, I'm one of those guys who always knows what to say later...after the crucial moment has passed. In response that day, I said something to the effect of "people will always be selling stuff" in the cities and towns of Massachusetts, but local people "won't always be catching fish in our oceans if we don't have good, local port infrastructures." The conversation then moved on.
It bothered me that I hadn't been persuasive, that I hadn't made the impact I wished for in that moment. So, the next day, I sat down in my office and typed up a personal letter to that official, a man I greatly admire and dare to think I might be able to make an impression upon on a good day. I still have a copy of it in my computer. In part, that letter says:
"Had I perspicacity, I would have said something like this: The coast is finite, while the human appetite for being by the ocean is infinite. But, unlike someone who purchases a condo by the sea, a fisherman must be on the coast. Once our fishing ports are given over entirely to residential, recreational, hospitality and other non-marine industrial uses, local fishermen will not be able to operate there. Local fishermen will have to give up their trade and their time-honored, independent way of life.
"When the groundfish stocks off Massachusetts have fully rebounded, as they will, corporately owned fishing fleets will harvest those fish if our local groundfishermen are no longer around. Corporations will reap the benefits of the enormous sacrifices made by our indigenous blue-collar workforce during the previous four or five decades!
"There will always be the possibility of establishing new enterprises and new, desirable uses in down-turning downtowns that benefit those disadvantaged and left behind by our economy, but there will never be the possibility of re-establishing local, independent, small commercial fishing businesses in our coastal communities once they've been made over with marinas for recreational boaters, yacht clubs, million-dollar estates, condos, apartments and high-rent mixed use developments.
"We have a 'Sacred Cod' and a 'Holy Mackerel' hanging in the chambers of our legislature at the State House, * not a sacred retailer!"
*There are models of these fishes atop the House Chamber (cod) and Senate Chamber (mackerel) -- reminders that fishing was the founding industry and an early generator of fortunes in the Commonwealth.
NEXT: A look at some of the facts and interesting details of latest maritime economy grants.
A little over a week ago, the Baker-Polito administration announced the award of $3 million in grants to coastal municipalities to enhance the state's maritime economy.
There were nine grants in all, spread among seven communities: Beverly, Dartmouth, Dennis, Fairhaven, Gloucester, Mattapoisett and Salem. Mattapoisett and Salem each got two.
The largest grant, $1 million, will be used to replace the sheet wall at the Union Wharf in Fairhaven. And the smallest, $64,000, will pay for a study assessing the demand for, and financial feasibility of, a new small-boat marina and dock facility at Dias Landing in Dartmouth.
For a long time, I have proudly lobbied for a non-profit that works to improve the health, safety and economic security of commercial fishermen, Fishing Partnership Support Services, www.fishingpartnership.org
I'm in synch with the thinking behind these grants -- not because they will do anything for FPSS but rather because of what some of these grants may do to preserve working waterfronts and prevent their conversion to luxury housing and other uses preferred by the wealthy: fancy hotels, spas, restaurants, boutiques and the like.
I am not against wealthy people nor am I against their using their money to enjoy life as they see fit. I just don't want them enjoying it in exclusive, monochromatic enclaves that have supplanted outworn, outdated or faded enterprises, which, because of their unique geographic situation, could have evolved industrially, saving and creating solid blue-collar jobs. Build your enclaves elsewhere, I say.
A couple of years ago, I and a few others were in a conversation one morning with a top official in the Baker-Polito administration on the need for incentives to optimize the redevelopment of dilapidated properties in the state's 14 designated port areas. Those incentives, we averred, should favor projects that preserve marine industries or reconfigure them to meet new needs in commercial fishing and seafood processing.
Rightly playing the role of devil's advocate, this official said he heard similar arguments all the time from persons in local government and local chambers of commerce who want the state to offer incentives to developers of projects in depressed downtown business districts.
He asked us, "How are those downtowns any different from fishing ports or fishing communities? If we are going to do something for you, how do we not -- why do we not -- do something for them?"He didn't have to mention that state resources are limited and that somebody has to get aced out.
Now, I'm one of those guys who always knows what to say later...after the crucial moment has passed. In response that day, I said something to the effect of "people will always be selling stuff" in the cities and towns of Massachusetts, but local people "won't always be catching fish in our oceans if we don't have good, local port infrastructures." The conversation then moved on.
It bothered me that I hadn't been persuasive, that I hadn't made the impact I wished for in that moment. So, the next day, I sat down in my office and typed up a personal letter to that official, a man I greatly admire and dare to think I might be able to make an impression upon on a good day. I still have a copy of it in my computer. In part, that letter says:
"Had I perspicacity, I would have said something like this: The coast is finite, while the human appetite for being by the ocean is infinite. But, unlike someone who purchases a condo by the sea, a fisherman must be on the coast. Once our fishing ports are given over entirely to residential, recreational, hospitality and other non-marine industrial uses, local fishermen will not be able to operate there. Local fishermen will have to give up their trade and their time-honored, independent way of life.
"When the groundfish stocks off Massachusetts have fully rebounded, as they will, corporately owned fishing fleets will harvest those fish if our local groundfishermen are no longer around. Corporations will reap the benefits of the enormous sacrifices made by our indigenous blue-collar workforce during the previous four or five decades!
"There will always be the possibility of establishing new enterprises and new, desirable uses in down-turning downtowns that benefit those disadvantaged and left behind by our economy, but there will never be the possibility of re-establishing local, independent, small commercial fishing businesses in our coastal communities once they've been made over with marinas for recreational boaters, yacht clubs, million-dollar estates, condos, apartments and high-rent mixed use developments.
"We have a 'Sacred Cod' and a 'Holy Mackerel' hanging in the chambers of our legislature at the State House, * not a sacred retailer!"
*There are models of these fishes atop the House Chamber (cod) and Senate Chamber (mackerel) -- reminders that fishing was the founding industry and an early generator of fortunes in the Commonwealth.
NEXT: A look at some of the facts and interesting details of latest maritime economy grants.
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