Political Happy Hour: June 2, 2017

Here’s your kiwi martini glass of politics, from Joshua Miller of the Boston Globe at the Massachusetts State House.

CHARLIE BAKER’S NEW LABOR SECRETARY IS A LONGTIME BANKER — AND AN ANTI-TRUMP ACTIVIST, from me: “Governor Charlie Baker is appointing a banker and progressive activist as his new labor secretary, he announced Friday. Rosalin Acosta, most recently an executive at Enterprise Bank in Lowell, will take over from Ronald L. Walker II on July 1.

Walker will be the first cabinet member to leave the Republican’s administration. ...

Acosta, a Cuban-born graduate of Wesleyan University, worked at TD Wealth Management from 2009 to 2013, leading ‘seasoned professionals throughout New England ... focusing on wealth services to high net worth individual,’ according to her LinkedIn online résumé. ...

In an interesting twist, Acosta, a registered Democrat, has been active in progressive efforts to resist President Trump’s agenda. ...” http://bit.ly/2rtGgbp

BLESSING THE FISHING FLEET CEREMONY IN GLOUCESTER — A PHOTO FROM THE BOSTON GLOBE ARCHIVES TAKEN ON THIS DAY IN 1948: http://bit.ly/2rtiKuZ

FOR YOUR RADAR, via Politico: “Neil Gorsuch and Stephen Breyer will talk with Jeffrey Rosen tonight at Harvard at an event from the Association of Marshall Scholars. ...” http://politi.co/2rtANBx

BAKER AVOIDS TAKING A HARD STAND ON NEW STATE COALITION ON CLIMATE, via Michael P. Norton of the State House News Service: “Gov. Charlie Baker should enlist Massachusetts in a new coalition of states committed to carbon reduction efforts called for under the Paris agreement, according to a state senator from western Massachusetts.

The governors of California, New York and Washington, all Democrats, launched the coalition Thursday after President Donald Trump said he’s withdrawing the United States from the international accord, saying its terms are not fair and predicting major job losses because of the agreement. ...

Asked on Friday whether Massachusetts would be part of the coalition, Baker was noncommittal but said he is willing to work with other states. ...” Link via Metro.us: http://bit.ly/2rtymik

RANDOM TWITTER WISDOM FROM CHRIS DEMPSEY of No Boston Olympics fame: “To be happier, spend $ on this: (1) experiences, (2) treats, (3) time, (4) delayed gratification, (5) other people. #HBSreunion2017” http://bit.ly/2qPjadb

CHARLIE WHO? DEMOCRATS FOCUS IRE TOWARD TRUMP, via the Globe’s Frank Phillips: “As Massachusetts Democrats converge for their annual convention in Worcester this weekend, party leaders, activists, and operatives face a dispiriting challenge: blocking Governor Charlie Baker’s reelection in 2018.

To eject Baker, the party will have to channel fury from a new wave of party activists, emboldened by their opposition to President Trump, into a campaign to defeat a Republican governor. Baker has distanced himself from the president and a host of his most controversial policies, from climate change and immigration bans to health care and budget cuts.

What’s more, the governor’s consistent record-breaking popularity in opinion polls, unprecedented fund-raising prowess, and effective use of his bully pulpit on Beacon Hill have positioned him as an affable Republican moderate — and created serious political complications for the Democrats, according to Globe interviews with longtime activists, leaders, and party operatives. ...” http://bit.ly/2rtC6At

FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF WE ALL MAKE MISTAKES! Michael Levenson of the Globe has the deets: “The US Supreme Court is the final arbiter of justice when it comes to matters of life and death, civil rights, and presidential elections.

But the high court is acknowledging that it made an embarrassing blunder last month when it informed Christopher P. Sullivan, the incoming president of the Massachusetts Bar Association, that he was suspended from practicing in the court and had 40 days to show why he should not be disbarred.

Apparently, the court said, it meant to discipline another attorney also named Christopher P. Sullivan, the one who is serving a prison sentence in Vermont after killing a 71-year-old woman whom he hit while driving drunk in 2013.

In a formal mea culpa issued Tuesday, the Supreme Court called it a case of ‘mistaken identity.’ ...” http://bit.ly/2qLcwd7

YIKES, via Maria Cramer in today’s Boston Globe: “A high-ranking official in the state’s court system was among nine men swept up in an online prostitution sting Tuesday in Boston.

William Marchant, the chief financial officer of the Massachusetts Trial Court, was arrested Tuesday afternoon in Chinatown, where police said he had agreed to meet a woman he solicited for sex.

The woman turned out to be an undercover detective. Marchant, who is 54 and runs the fiscal affairs department of the Trial Court, was arraigned Wednesday in Boston Municipal Court. He was released on personal recognizance and is due back in court July 7. Marchant has been placed on unpaid administrative leave, a spokeswoman for the Trial Court said Thursday. She declined to comment further. ...

Also arrested Tuesday was Bishop A. Livingston Foxworth, a well-known Dorchester pastor whose Pentecostal church, Grace Church of All Nations, is regularly visited by high-profile politicians and ministers.

When Governor Charlie Baker was sworn into office in the House chamber in January 2015, Foxworth delivered the benediction. ... Baker’s spokeswoman, Lizzy Guyton, said the governor is ‘saddened by this news and is confident the courts will examine the facts and reach an appropriate decision.’ ...” http://bit.ly/2rtdGHd

THAT STORY MADE ME AND MY EDITOR THINK OF THIS TV THEME SONG: https://youtu.be/xz4-aEGvqQM

INTERESTING VENTURE CAPITAL GRAPHIC, via CB Insights and Yahoo! Finance reporter Myles Udland: “Most active VC in every state from 2012-2017. I wonder how many people know more than two of these firms.” http://bit.ly/2rsXkOL

NATIONAL CANNABIS STORY TO WATCH — CALIFORNIA COULD BE A ‘SANCTUARY STATE’ FROM FEDERAL POT LAWS, THANKS TO RAZOR-THIN VOTE, via Patrick McGreevy of the Los Angeles Times, reporting from Sacramento: “California moved a step closer Thursday to becoming a ‘sanctuary state” where local and state police would not assist federal enforcement of marijuana laws.

The state Assembly approved a bill Thursday barring state and local law enforcement officers, absent a court order, from helping federal drug agents in arresting people who are complying with state laws allowing the use and sale of marijuana. ...” http://lat.ms/2rsLHaJ

GOTTA LOVE THOSE GERMAN MAGAZINE ARTISTS — Check out the cover of Der Spiegel: pic.twitter.com/Kc82QCPLyv

YOUR POWERFUL MBTA-DELAY LONG READ, via Paul Solotaroff in the Village Voice in 1990: “Half the world was in mortal terror of him. He had a sixty-inch chest, twenty-three-inch arms, and when the Anadrol and Bolasterone backed up in his bloodstream, his eyes went as red as the laser scope on an Uzi. He threw people through windows, and chased them madly down Hempstead Turnpike when they had the temerity to cut him off. And in the gym he owned in Farmingdale, the notorious Mr. America’s, if he caught you looking at him while he trained, you generally woke up, bleeding, on the pavement outside. Half out of his mind on androgens and horse steroids, he had this idea that being looked at robbed him of energy, energy that he needed to leg-press two thousand pounds. Nonetheless, one day a kid walked up to him between sets and said, ‘I want to be just like you, Steve Michalik. I want to be Mr. America and Mr. Universe.’

‘Yeah?’ said Michalik in thick contempt. ‘How bad do you think you want it?’ ...

‘Meet me down at the beach tomorrow at six A.M. sharp. And if you’re like even half a minute late …’

The kid was there at six A.M. pronto, freezing his ass off in a raggedy hood and sweats. ‘What do we do first?’ he asked.

‘Swim,’ grunted Michalik, dragging him into the ocean. Twenty yards out, Michalik suddenly seized the kid by his scalp and pushed him under a wave. The kid flailed punily, wriggling like a speared eel. A half minute, maybe forty-five seconds, passed before Michalik let the kid up, sobbing out sea water. He gave the kid a breath, then shoved him down again, holding him under this time until the air bubbles stopped, whereupon he dragged him out by the hood and threw him, gasping, on the beach.

‘When you want the title as bad as you wanted that last [expletive] breath,’ sneered Michalik, ‘then and only then can you come talk to me.’

For himself, Michalik only wanted two things anymore. He wanted to walk on stage at the Beacon Theater on November 15, 1986, professional bodybuilding’s Night of Champions, and just turn the joint out with his 260 pounds of ripped, stripped, and shrink-wrapped muscle. And then, God help him, he wanted to die. Right there, in front of everybody, with all the flashbulbs popping, be wanted to drop dead huge and hard at the age of thirty-nine, and leave a spectacular corpse behind.

The pain, you see, had become just unendurable. ...” Quite a story. When you have time this weekend, it’s worth reading in full: http://bit.ly/2rtGGP0

I’ll be back Monday.