Zohran Mamdani has definitely established himself as a political kingmaker in New York, as the NYT reports. But I’ll believe Democratic Socialists are on the verge of taking over the Democratic Party when they start routinely winning elections in non-deep blue states. I don’t see that happening. Still, I get Joe Battenfeld’s point: the far left’s recent successes within the Democratic Party are “mirroring how MAGA has seized control of the Republican Party.” … 

The failure of our two-party system is one of the reasons I support the elimination of party primaries in Massachusetts.  

Re calls to take the compromise rent-control deal before it was too late: On second thought, never mind. … Yes, the state Supreme Judicial Court has struck down the proposed rent-control ballot initiative, the second major referendum proposal rejected by the court in as many weeks. This time it’s not AG Andrea Campbell’s fault per se, though her bumbling office did certify the rent-control measure and she’s now saying she’s “surprised” by the SJC’s ruling, as reported at Boston.com. … Anyway, it appears proponents themselves added a religious exemption to the ballot question’s wording – and that was enough for the high court to nix the initiative on constitutional grounds. Well, good riddance. Rent control is a bad idea, religious exemption or not.

Needless to say, this is a huge win for those in the real estate community who balked at any compromise rent-control deal until after the court had rendered a decision. They stuck to their guns – and won. And needless to say, it’s a huge loss for housing “advocates,” some of whom are now hoping a compromise plan may yet be struck on Beacon Hill, as Banker & Tradesman reports. Forget it. They just lost all their negotiating leverage. There ain’t going to be a compromise deal.

Other passing thoughts — Did rent-control proponents sense this ruling was coming? In retrospect, they seemed awfully eager to strike a compromise deal. … The bigwig developers who negotiated a compromise rent-control agreement don’t look so smart today. Nor for that matter does Hub Blog. But we won’t get into that. … The SJC deserves credit for being consistent with both the tax-cut and rent-control measures: the wording of ballot questions matter. … I guess you can say the business community is now 1-1 when it comes to ballot-question rulings by the high court. …

Update – 6.24.26 – AG Campbell is having it both ways: owning up to the referendum blunders while downplaying them. The Globe, which has temporarily set aside its pat-a-cake coverage of the AG, has the details.

Update II — 6.25.26 –– I missed this one from GBH’s Adam Reilly: “‘We made a mistake’: After court tosses 2 ballot questions, attorney general defends her record.” … And then, of course, she proceeds to downplay the mistake.

Update III — 6.25.26 — From the Globe: “Rent control’s survival on Beacon Hill ‘diminished’ after high court tosses ballot question.” But as Scott Van Voorhis bluntly notes (scroll to Quick Hits at bottom): “Let’s not mince words here: It’s not ‘diminished,’ it’s dead.”

Let Miami have Giannis Antetokounmpo. He isn’t worth what Miami paid, according to the ridiculous terms reported by the Globe. … The Celts made a very solid offer. But now it’s on to Plan B, which in an ideal world would include landing both a new center and new head coach. 

Yet, an HB reader wonders if the Celts’ offer was indeed solid enough, if keeping Hugo Gonzalez was a possible deal killer (scroll down): “Really, worrying about Hugo Gonzalez when you can get Giannis? It’s like worrying about Ryan Gomes when you can get Kevin Garnett!!!  (And I like Hugo, and I liked Ryan).”

Update –– It looks like the Celts refused to trade both Hugo Gonzalez and Baylor Scheierman. From Hardwood Houdini:

Those are two promising youngsters who had very solid seasons for the Celtics, but ironically, they were two of the players that Joe Mazzulla was bizarrely hesitant to trust during the playoffs.

So, Celtics fans have gone from watching in frustration as Mazzulla refused to play Gonzalez and Scheierman, to now watching as Brad Stevens has refused to include them in a trade for the two-time MVP, Giannis Antetokounmpo.

The Celts are not going to reach their full potential with Joe M at the helm. No way.

Update II — 6.24.26 – A very uninspiring draft pick by the Celts. We don’t need another young player who requires a couple of years to develop his potential, as the Herald reports (scroll down to analysts’ less-than-awed views of Cenac.)

Update III — 6.24.26 – From Hardwood Houdini: “It’s a worthy shot on upside at the end of the first round, but make no mistake about it: Cenac is a project. He’s an incredible athlete, but for now, most of his upside is hypothetical.”

So the Goodwin Procter lawyer representing backers of the blockbuster tax-cut referendum says he doesn’t believe Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office was acting in bad faith when it suggested word changes to the proposed ballot question – word changes that turned out to be inaccurate and cited by the SJC when it deep sixed the tax-cut proposal on Thursday. But the fact remains it was the AG’s responsibility, not the backers and their lawyers’ responsibility, to get the ballot wording right – and the AG’s bumbling office screwed up that responsibility, big time.   … Setting aside Howie Carr’s patented vitriol, his summary of the summary controversy is fair enough: “The obvious question is, did AG Campbell make this, uh, mistake, because of a) gross incompetence, b) corruption or c) both.” … Howie votes for both. I vote for incompetence. And that’s being generous.

Update – 6.23.26 – From the Globe’s Joan Vennochi: “The misleading summary ultimately undermined the people’s right to vote on the income tax issue, while feeding conspiracy theories that what happened was not a mistake but an intentional act of sabotage, designed to provide grounds for a legal challenge.”

Some slightly off-the-beaten-path stories you may have missed this past week:

— His wife (or whomever) must be a pretty sophisticated investor to be plunking so much dough on young companies: “Rep. Moulton holds stakes in defense-linked startups overseen by his committee” (WBUR)

— Progressive critics are not sure what they want but they know it doesn’t involve bi-partisan compromise: “Trahan faces pushback over federal AI plan” (Axios)

— It’s not all bad news on the life-sciences front: “Mass. broke two biotech IPO records in a matter of weeks” (MassLive)

— Ideally, they’d eliminate them, not fix them. But this will have to do for now: “Economic development bill would close noncompete ‘loophole’” (BBJ)

— Another fascinating under-the-radar Mass. firm: “Woburn company lands $500M federal contract to build rare-earth facility” (BBJ)

— There’s gotta be a pension play here somewhere: “House lawmakers tuck into budget a $36K raise for longtime Boston politician” (WBUR)

— Newton’s Third Law as applied to politics: “How Harvard radicals inspired the conservative legal movement” (Globe)

— A fascinating racial role reversal is under way within the party: “The Democrats’ ‘Upstairs-Downstairs’ Coalition Is at a Breaking Point” (NYT)

— Unfortunately, Miami may have the inside track if there’s ever a bidding war for him: “Celtics reportedly make trade offer for NBA superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo” (Herald)

— And his little-known piece of fiction was set right here in Boston: “Nathaniel Hawthorne’s American Horror story” (The Atlantic)

— Despite its reported faults, it sounds like a pretty good flick: “Finally, an action movie about Washington’s French and Indian War years” (Atlantic)

 

If you can only read two pieces on the sad death of Eddie Andelman, make them John Powers’ remembrance at the Globe and Dan Kennedy’s long-ago profile of the sports-radio pioneer. … Eddie was indeed amazing. As a friend put it: “Hard to overstate the man’s influence. … He was the Iggy Pop of sports radio. Funny as hell.” … 

My friend and I also reminisced about, among other things, the ticking time bomb schtick Eddie used when a caller went on too long, such as “poor Violet from Malden (Saugus?) who was always getting blown up after praising the Red Sox for ‘all the pleasure they gave us this summer.’”

Update –– 6.17.26 — Add Howie Carr’s column this morning to the list of good Eddie Andelman remembrances.

Re the latest Globe/Suffolk poll showing Gov. Healey with a commanding lead over her GOP opponent despite not having a ‘signature achievement,’ a reader writes in: “The secret of her success: she did not make things worse … and it could be much worse (California, Minnesota, Illinois). It’s Massachusetts and she’s Governor so count down to the Presidential question.”

Actually, I don’t mind if she doesn’t have a signature achievement. Governors are just a ladder step above mayors when it comes to what voters expect from them: competence and fairness. They’re not looking for ‘signature achievements.’ … Read deeper into the Globe story and you’ll find that’s what some voters are thinking. … Btw: Other than his handling of two natural disasters that bookended his time in the Corner Office (the winter of 2015 and Covid), can you name a non-act-of-God-related  signature achievement of Gov. Charlie Baker? 

In an email slugged ‘I no longer hate the Knicks,’ a Hub Blog reader and long-time Celts fan writes in about the new NBA champs:

Maybe it’s reaching a certain stage in life. I still grimace a little every time I hear about the Knicks’ ‘first championship in 53 years’ because the Celtics were by far the best team in 1973 and were only stopped by a serious John Havlicek shoulder injury (suffered while playing the Knicks…) But even that is fading.    

Two words: Jalen Brunson. Just gets it done.

Two more words: The Team. Despite stars and big salaries, they complement each other.

The Celtics did a few things differently from the Knicks in the last part of this season, and infamously during the playoffs last year:

– The Celtics started games well. The Knicks finished games well.

– The Celtics fired at will from long distance. The Knicks mixed up their offense.

– The Celtics forgot about the supporting cast that served them well during the regular season this year. The Knicks used the same people in the same ways throughout the playoffs. When they fell behind early they didn’t overuse the starters to try to stay alive. Back to *The Team* above.

Geez, the Knicks are even rivaling us on the historical front with Ewing, Oakley and Clyde the Glide showing up prominently for games!

I am not going so far as buying a blue-and-orange #11 jersey! But I hope this playoff season is a great motivator for the Celtics – because the Knicks are currently the benchmark, and one that must be respected.

I’ve heard a number of Celts fans expressing similar admiration for the Knicks. I gotta say: I’m among the admirers. I love their style of play.

Sure, the lunkhead parents of the Ipswich boys lacrosse players who were suspended for smoking graduation cigars (see photo above) missed an opportunity to teach their kids some “life lessons” about integrity, as the Globe’s Matt Porter writes. But didn’t adult school authorities also miss an opportunity to teach “life lessons” about making punishments proportionate to alleged crimes/rule breaking? That a puritanical one-strike-and-you’re-out approach to rules isn’t always the fair and smart way to deal with youths? … In the Ipswich case, there’s a difference between teens developing bad lifetime habits by regularly smoking butts and kids smoking one-time celebratory cigars on a beach after high-school graduation. Isn’t the former what the MIAA no-tobacco rule is all about, not the latter? … What puritanical dummies. … 

Btw: You know who comes out of this absurd controversy looking pretty good? The Ipswich lacrosse players who sat out the game in solidarity with their suspended teammates, forcing the team’s playoff forfeiture. They showed adults a late-in-life lesson about standing up to stupid rules and disproportionate punishments. …

Photo above of Ipswich criminals  students via CBS News. It’s kind of a classic coming-of-age photo, isn’t it? …

Update — 6.15.26 –– A reader writes that the IHS controversy is indeed a “reminder of our puritanical roots and how they evolve with the times.”

Update II — 6.17.26 — The WSJ is on the story. I liked this quote from a local lawyer: “Come on, how many times you’ve been pulled over and a cop has said, ‘Ahh, go ahead?’ … There is always discretion, right?” Nope. Not in ‘America’s Best-Preserved Puritan Town.’

Sooner or later the Globe was going to have to focus on Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s political prospects heading into the fall general elections, if only so it could say it covered a non-election election that everyone knows the Dem incumbent will win. But did the Globe really have to run a puff piece on Campbell less than three days after her older brother Alvin was convicted on 21 counts of rape, sexual assault and other charges, in what even the Globe describes as a “harrowing weekslong trial” of a serial rapist posing as a ride-share driver to prey on drunk women? … Not even a passing reference to Alvin’s high-profile legal saga that ended late Thursday afternoon? Nope. … I’m not saying the Globe had to pull a Howie Carr regarding the Alvin-Andrea connection. But couldn’t the Globe at least bury a mention of the trial in today’s piece or perhaps even wait a week or two before running the political-activists-just love-her bonbon?… Gee, it’s almost as if they had the story waiting in the can for just such a moment …

Update – 6.15.26 — The Globe’s Joan Vennochi isn’t pulling punches:

To the delight of activists, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell has sued the federal government more than 50 times since Donald Trump became president in 2025.  

If only she showed similar zeal for standing up to local power brokers. But that would mean taking on fellow Democrats.

And, yes, she mentions Alvin, appropriately toward the bottom.