He will die in prison. Again, this isn’t even justice. It’s accountability.
Justice would be balancing the scales, and this man caused so much harm that no matter what happens to him it could never make up for it.
Well, he’ll now serve 25-50 years of hard time. He should’ve started serving it 30 years ago. But was protected by SO MANY police and prosecutors.
This is why we fought to elect Larry Krasner in Philly and District Attorney’s like him all across the country, who are willing to see beyond the myth to see the truth of these devils.
For every detective like Nordo who is finally held accountable, there are many others who have gotten away with doing heinous acts like these in places that don't have DAs like Larry.
Can you help us hit our End of Year goal right now so that we can expand our movement even more in 2023 and elect DAs like Larry everywhere who will hold cops accountable?
Not out of the woods yet: Health care groups struggle to solve the workforce shortage
Melissa Ellin
Boston University Statehouse Program
Published Dec. 24, 2022
Health care leaders are trying to find new ways of retaining and recruiting employees across the field as the workforce shortage, which started in 2020, worsens nationwide. There are no clear solutions to the labor shortage, and in Massachusetts, health professionals say it’s going to take more than one.
In state hospitals alone, around 19,000 acute care positions are unfilled and more than 70% of the average hospital dollar is going toward labor costs — “wages, benefits, and purchased services” — according to an October report from the Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association. Travel labor expenses — for out-of-state employees who keep hospitals running — are projected to reach $1 billion, MHA predicts.
The report outlines its own series of potential answers, which includes additional spending and various methods to attract new workers, but solutions will need to extend beyond acute care.
Labor advocates like Marlishia Aho, regional communications manager for 1199SEIU, which represents hundreds of health care employees in the state, said change needs to start with wages.
“It requires all stakeholders to be at the table and again, centering workers' voices in that discussion,” Aho said. “One of the easiest things we can say is talking about paying people more.”
Health care workers might have been labeled as “heroes” during the pandemic, Aho said, but more action is necessary. In particular, she said, low-wage workers — in-home caretakers and others not necessarily in the hospital setting — need to be remembered, because the entire field is being affected, not just doctors and nurses.
“Many have been burned out who have been struggling and are not paid adequately to thrive outside of work, and can go to a less stressful job, like at a Target or somewhere where they can make the same amount of pay, unfortunately,” Aho said.
Health care workers are 'really struggling' financially
For behavioral health, Diane Gould, president and CEO of Advocates, a human and social service nonprofit in Framingham, said employees are “really struggling.”
Workforce salaries need to be “front and center” in the conversation, she said, and reimbursement rates are an important component of pay. Oftentimes, she said potential student loan debt — about $200,000 for the average public medical school student the Association of American Medical Colleges reports — drives health worker hopefuls away from such an important industry.
“The work that our people and our staff do is critically important,” Gould said. “Health care is the backbone of the health and well-being of the commonwealth.”
'You can't conjure a psych nurse'
Sen. Julian Cyr, D-Truro, Senate chair for the Legislature’s Committee on Mental Health, Substance Use and Recovery, said he thinks “funding is essential,” and the state has already made appropriations, but the outcome is yet to be seen.
“It's going to take some time for that to take root,” Cyr said.
Recruitment also takes time, Cyr added, and even in the best-case scenario, training often takes two years.
“You can't conjure a psych nurse,” Cyr said. “So even though we desperately need psychiatric nurses and providers across the spectrum it's not that it can be done swiftly.”
“Even if things get better for the hospitals, if a nursing home can't get enough staff, they can't admit the patient from the hospital,” Hattis said. “It backs up.”
Hattis, a former member of the state’s Health Policy Commission, added that hospitals don’t have enough money to increase wages and other labor costs, so the state has stepped in to provide some funding. Most recently, around $350 million from the economic development bill went toward hospitals, but that only helps for the immediate future.
“The long-term solution is about pipeline issues,” Hattis said, which includes recruiting more labor and providing mobility paths for current workers.
Patricia Noga, vice president of clinical affairs for MHA, said the short-term must include supporting the existing workers.
“You almost need to customize your approach given the needs of the individual worker,” Noga said. “Looking at the other things in their lives that affect their work. I mean can we assist with child care? What about transportation? What about parking? What about financial advice and guidance that they may need?”
Kenneth White, dean of the School of Nursing at MGH Institute of Health Professions, said the pandemic, retirement of the baby boomer generation, and increased patient needs all combined to create the “perfect storm.”
White, also the president of the American Academy of Nursing, said it’s impossible to gauge when the shortage might improve, but “it would be hastened if we had more government policy that would support this issue.”
State considering clinical placements for student nurses
A step in the right direction, he said, is for the Department of Labor to institute a program it’s currently considering that will provide student nurses with the opportunity for more clinical placements, which are essential for learning.
He called this just “a drop in the bucket,” though, and said, as with behavioral health and other areas, the government needs to provide funding, particularly for loan reimbursements.
“I think there’s a lot that can be done on the policy front to expedite these changes,” White said.
MHA’s Chief Communications Officer Sam Melnick said the organization has released a toolkit that includes current case studies in Massachusetts hospitals. The goal, he added, is to provide resources for health leaders as they chart their own path forward.
“Every hospital is doing something innovative right now to address these issues,” Melnick said.
Ultimately, Noga of MHA said, the labor issues are not confined to the pandemic and with so many efforts going into solving the issue, results and result assessment are not going to be immediately apparent.
“We've got to see how a lot of these interventions and innovations shake out over time,” Noga said. “It's almost like you got to kind of wait and see every five years where are we? See where we are and where we’re going to be going next.”
Barbara McQuade, former U.S. attorney, talks with Alex Wagner about the frequency with which Donald Trump associates told January 6 Committee interviewers that they couldn't recall details surrounding the events of January 6, and how Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony about being coached to claim she couldn't remember things makes these other answers suspect.
On Dec. 27, 2020, more than six weeks after losing re-election, an infuriated President Donald Trump telephoned his acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen. Mr. Trump’s former attorney general, Bill Barr, had announced his resignation less than two weeks earlier, after telling the president that the claims of election fraud Mr. Trump had been trumpeting were — as Mr. Barr later bluntly put it in testimony — “bullshit” and publicly affirming that there was no fraud on a scale that would affect the outcome of the election.
With Mr. Rosen’s deputy, Richard Donoghue, also on the line, Mr. Trump launched into the same tired, disproved and discredited allegations he had propagated so often at rallies, during news conferences and on social media. None of it was true, and Mr. Donoghue told him so. According to Mr. Donoghue, Mr. Trump, exasperated that his own handpicked top appointees at the Justice Department would not affirm his baseless allegations, responded: “Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”
It was a remarkable statement, even for a president who had serially abused the powers of his office. Having been told by the very department that had investigated his claims of fraud that they were untrue, Mr. Trump told the acting attorney general and his deputy to lie about it and said he would take it from there.
That Mr. Trump was willing to lie so baldly about a matter at the heart of our democracy — whether the American people can rely on elections to ensure the peaceful transfer of power — now seems self-evident, even unremarkable, when we consider the violent attack on the Capitol he incited days later. But Americans shouldn’t lose sight of how this behavior indicts the former president, and not just the former president but also the Republican members of Congress who he knew would go along with his big lie.
The report released Thursday from the Jan. 6 committee, on which I served, makes abundantly clear that there were multiple lines of effort to overturn the 2020 election. Some involved attempts to pressure state legislatures to declare the loser to be the winner. Others involved a fake electors plot, pressure on the vice president to violate his constitutional duty and efforts to force an elections official to “find” thousands of votes that didn’t exist. It was only when all of these other efforts failed that the president resorted to inciting mob violence to try to stop the transfer of power.
But one line of effort to overturn the election is given scant attention, and that involved the willingness of so many members of Congress to vote to overturn it. Even after Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police put down the insurrection at great cost to themselves, the majority of Republicans in the House picked up right where they left off, still voting to overturn the results in important states.
At one of our Jan. 6 committee hearings, the committee vice chair Liz Cheney, a Republican, called out her colleagues in Congress for their duplicity in the most searing terms: “There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”
With our work on the committee largely concluded, it will now fall to the Justice Department to ensure a form of accountability that Congress is not empowered to provide, and to vindicate the rule of law in a manner beyond our reach: through prosecution. Multiple laws were violated in the course of a broad attempt to overturn the election, and not just by the foot soldiers who broke into the Capitol building that day and brutally assaulted police officers, but also by those who incited them, encouraged them and, when it was all over, gave them aid and comfort. Bringing a former president to justice who even now calls for the “termination” of our Constitution is a perilous endeavor. Not doing so is far more dangerous.
There is a growing disdain for the law and for our country’s institutions, and a frightening acceptance of the use of violence to resolve political disputes. Mr. Trump’s big lie has been one of the most powerful instigators of political violence, since it persuaded millions of people that the election they lost must have been rigged or fraudulent. If people can be convinced of that, what is left but violence to decide who should govern? The attack on the Capitol was an all too foreseeable consequence of Mr. Trump’s relentless effort to alienate the people from their government and from the most important foundation of governance: their right to vote.
Even the Constitution cannot protect us if the people sworn to uphold it do not give meaning to their oath of office, if that oath is not informed by ideas of right and wrong, and if people are unwilling to accept the basic truth of things. None of it will be enough.
But if we allow ourselves to be guided by facts — not factions — and if we choose our representatives based on their allegiance to the law and to the Constitution, then we should have every confidence that our proud legacy of self-government will go on. It is our hope that this report will make a small contribution to that effort. Our country has never before faced the kind of threat we documented. May it never again.
FTX FALLOUT — Assistant House Speaker Katherine Clark isn’t demanding her fellow Democrats return campaign contributions from FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried. In doing so, she’s giving Rep. Jake Auchincloss some cover.
Clark, who will be House Democrats’ No. 2 come January, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that it's "going to be up to individual campaigns" to decide whether to return the money they've taken from the embattled cypto entrepreneur. Bankman-Fried funneled tens of millions of dollars toward the party's candidates this cycle, per OpenSecrets.
That includes Auchincloss, who received the max contribution, $5,800, from Bankman-Fried in March. Auchincloss also received $5,800 from Mark Wetjen, FTX’s U.S. head of policy, and $2,900 from Brett Harrison, the former president of FTX’s U.S. arm, FEC records show.
Auchincloss spokesperson Matt Corridoni declined to say whether the congressman would follow other Democrats in returning or donating Bankman-Fried’s contributions. Auchincloss appears to be the only delegation member who received a direct donation from Bankman-Fried this cycle. A spokesperson for Rep. Jim McGovern, who records show received $2,900 from the FTX leader’s brother, Gabriel Bankman-Fried, didn't respond.
Corridoni also wouldn’t comment on the timing of Bankman-Fried’s donation. FEC filings show the money hit Auchincloss’ account six days before the congressman joined a March letter warning the Securities and Exchange Commission against using its enforcement division to investigate cryptocurrency and blockchain companies. The lawmakers argued such probes might be “at odds” with the Paperwork Reduction Act.
Auchincloss defended the letter in an MSNBC interview last week by saying it didn’t mention FTX.The lawmakers, he said, were “not asking for the SEC to back off” but were asking the “SEC to focus on the whales, not the minnows. FTX is clearly a whale.”
Auchincloss “has been clear from Day One that crypto needs strong and clear laws from Congress,” Corridoni said. He pointed to an October 2021 hearing in which the congressman asked SEC Chair Gary Gensler how lawmakers could help strengthen crypto regulations. And he said Auchincloss supports having Bankman-Fried testify before the House Financial Services Committee he’s vice chair of.
GOOD TUESDAY MORNING, MASSACHUSETTS. MassGOP state committeewoman Amy Carnevale is officially running for party chair.
Carnevale joins Vice Chair Jay Fleitman, operative Christopher Lyon and "All Politics is Local" host Jon Fetherston in the race to potentially replace Jim Lyons, who hasn’t said whether he’s seeking another term.
She made her announcement on Howie Carr’s radio show, a strategic move given the conservative host’s audience and his dour outlook on the party’s current leadership. Carr turned on GOP gubernatorial nominee Geoff Diehl earlier this year and has been increasingly critical of Lyons as Republicans’ electoral losses mount.
TODAY — Gov.-elect Maura Healey and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu follow their first formal post-election meeting with a 1:45 p.m. press conference at City Hall. Wu celebrates Boston Housing Authority building upgrades in South Boston at 3 p.m.Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito highlights improvements to Worcester’s Union Station at 9 a.m., attends an awards celebration at 10 a.m. at Worcester City Hall, presides over a Local Government Advisory Commission meeting at 1 p.m. and celebrates the Community Compact program at 2 p.m. at the State House. Clark and Democrats’ incoming leadership team host a press conference at 2 p.m. at the Capitol.
— “November Tax Collections Outpace Benchmark,”by Colin A. Young, State House News Service (paywall): “Tax collectors at the Department of Revenue raked in $2.382 billion last month, which is less than what was collected during November 2021 but still more than 10 percent more than what the Baker administration had been expecting. November 2022 tax receipts were down $32 million or 1.3 percent compared to November 2021, which DOR attributed to a difference in the timing of collection of a certain tax type this year. DOR had set last month's benchmark at $2.161 billion but exceeded that by $221 million or 10.2 percent.”
FROM THE HUB
— “Advocates ask Boston City Council for help housing migrants,”by Sarah Betancourt, GBH News: “In a video shared with GBH News, a recently arrived migrant rests his head on a small mattress squeezed beneath a plastic kitchen table, just next to a refrigerator. He is paying rent to sleep in a tiny space in someone else’s apartment. It is just one example of the dire circumstances for migrants in Massachusetts, according to nonprofit advocates testifying Monday before the Boston City Council Committee on Civil Rights and Immigrant Advancement. … [Councilor Ruthzee] Louijeune held Monday’s hearing to get testimony from advocates on the ground in the hopes of better allocating city resources while some lawmakers push to dedicate more funds at the state level. Advocates overwhelmingly said migrants’ need is growing, and that more than anything, housing is what’s needed.”
— Related: “Mass. continues work on migrant intake center, has yet to announce opening date,”by Alison Kuznitz, MassLive: “The Bob Eisengrein Community Center, capable of housing about 60 families or up to 125 individuals, will be transformed into temporary shelter space with sleeping cots, pillows, clean linens and towels, the state official told MassLive. There will be portable shower units, space for three daily meals and recreation areas. In a separate dedicated space, the Multi-Agency Resource Center will feature meeting rooms and computers, the official said.”
— “Boston to set up 11 waste water testing sites to increase COVID-19 detection,”by Travis Andersen, Boston Globe: “With COVID-19 levels in waste water rising in the region, officials in Boston have partnered with vendors to set up 11 waste water testing sites across the city, the leader of the Boston Public Health Commission said Monday. … City officials are using $3.9 million in federal funding to pay for the project.”
— “After ‘76 visit, a reversal of public fortune for royals and the city,”by Gintautas Dumcius, Dorchester Reporter: “When William Mountbatten-Windsor, better known as ‘the Prince of Wales,’ stepped into the hallway outside the mayor of Boston’s office last Wednesday, he was greeted by black-and-white pictures of his late grandmother, who made her own visit here nearly 50 years ago. Despite the beaming local officials who joined her then in the pictures that were put up on the walls ahead of his visit, it was a different Boston back in 1976. ‘Royal respite for beleaguered Boston,’ said the July headline in The Phoenix, an alternative weekly. … Forty-six years later, the situation has been reversed: Over the course of three days, Mountbatten-Windsor and his wife Kate Middleton basked in the green light of a Boston on an upswing.”
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PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES
— “'A really great milestone': The first South Coast Rail train rolls into Freetown station,”by Jo C. Goode, Herald News: “Bringing the $158 million South Coast Rail project to the South Coast in Fall River, New Bedford and surrounding communities is not just about transportation, it's also about fairness to the region. Those were some of the sentiments at the ribbon cutting at the new Freetown Commuter Rail Station in Assonet Monday led by Governor Charlie Baker, Lt. Governor Karyn Polito and Secretary of Transportation Jamey Tesler. … The new stations in Fall River, New Bedford and Freetown will be operational this time next year as crews finish the long-awaited South Coast Rail which has been in the works for nearly four decades, but became a reality under the Baker-Polito administration.”
FROM THE DELEGATION
— “Congressman Seth Moulton resumes push for passage of Afghan Adjustment Act,”by Brendan Deady, GBH News: “Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton says that the Biden Administration’s treatment of Afghan refugees could hurt the U.S. military’s ability to form relationships with locals during future and ongoing conflicts. Moulton, who served four combat tours in Iraq, said on Boston Public Radio that the Biden Administration has failed to deliver on its promise that it would assist Afghan nationals who acted as handlers and translators to U.S. servicemembers. … Moulton once again advocated for the passage of the Afghan Adjustment Act. The legislation would make it easier for Afghan nationals who settled in the U.S. following the American military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan to stay in the country.”
— “Biden administration extends immigration protections for Haitians,”by Rafael Bernal, The Hill: “Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Monday extended immigration protections for Haitians in the United States, granting work permits and deferral from deportation to those who were in the country as of Nov. 6. … ‘This decision will save lives and is the type of compassionate response this moment demands,’ tweeted Rep. Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), one of the Democrats leading the push asking for the TPS extension and redesignation.”
PROPAGANDA: A message from NextEra Energy:
IT'S NOT EASY BEING GREEN
— “Court upholds decision to revoke permits for Springfield biomass plant,”by Dharna Noor, Boston Globe: “In a win for environmental justice and public health advocates, the state has delivered a major setback to a bitterly contested proposal to build a wood waste-burning power plant in Springfield. The plant’s developer, Palmer Renewable Energy, had promoted its plan for a $150 million 35-megawatt facility as a climate friendly alternative to fossil fuels. But it received intense opposition from locals and environmental justice advocates who said it would spew soot and toxic pollution that could aggravate health problems in nearby poor communities while also warming the climate.”
— “Healey committed to equitable clean energy transition, Gina McCarthy says,”by Alison Kuznitz, MassLive: “Gina McCarthy, co-chair of [Gov.-elect Maura] Healey’s ‘Climate Readiness, Resiliency and Adaption’ transition policy committee, said the incoming governor wants to develop affordable climate plans that will not leave out or harm marginalized communities. … ‘We have a whole infrastructure of fossil fuels that will need, in some way, to transition out,’ McCarthy said in a virtual Boston Globe event Monday afternoon.”
THE LOCAL ANGLE
— “Report: Mass. business confidence rebounds,”by Christian M. Wade, Eagle-Tribune: “Massachusetts employers are confident about the economic climate despite record high inflation, persistent labor shortages and the passage of a new income tax that could affect thousands of businesses, according to a new report. The latest Business Confidence Index, which is compiled by the pro-business group Associated Industries of Massachusetts, shows overall enthusiasm among employers edged up 7.8 points to 58.7 in November.”
— “Medford teachers vote no confidence in mayor, school committee,”by Grace Zokovitch, Boston Herald: “Following months of unresolved, overdue contract negotiations, Medford teachers gathered outside City Hall Monday afternoon to deliver an overwhelming vote of no confidence in the mayor and school committee. … The negotiations have come close to a resolution, even reaching a tentative agreement that was ultimately voted down by educators.”
JOIN WEDNESDAY FOR A POLITICO DISCUSSION ON THE NEW TRAVEL EXPERIENCE : Americans are now traveling in record numbers — but the travel experience has changed drastically in recent years, not always for the better. What lessons can we learn from the pandemic and different responses around the globe? And in the face of a possible recession, what will help the travel industry remain vibrant and deliver jobs? Join POLITICO onDec. 7 for “The Travel Experience Redefined” to discuss these questions and more. Breakfast and coffee will be provided. REGISTER HERE .
MEANWHILE IN NEW HAMPSHIRE
— THE OTHER LOCAL GOP LEADERSHIP FIGHT: New Hampshire Republican National Committeeman Chris Ager is running for state party chair. Ager, who’s also the Hillsborough County Republicans’ chair, announced his candidacy Monday after Steve Stepanek said last week he wouldn’t seek a third term as party leader. Failed U.S. Senate candidate Don Bolduc is among those running for the vice chair seat being vacated by Pamela Tucker. Leadership elections are set for late January.
— FITN FALLOUT: Granite State Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan skipped last night’s congressional ball at the White House in a show of anger over President Joe Biden’s plan to make South Carolina the first 2024 Democratic presidential primary and have New Hampshire and Nevada follow on a shared date, per Punchbowl News and The Hill .
And top Republicanshave denounced the DNC’s demand that New Hampshire repeal the law requiring its primary to be held at least a week before any others. The DNC is also telling New Hampshire to make early voting easier if it wants to stay in the early state window. The RNC is not changing its 2024 calendar, which maintains New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY — to state Rep. Peter Durant, Tim Biba, Matt Chilliak, Adam Hogue, Ali Schmidt-Fellner and Hanna Switlekowski.
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