I’m obviously not a regular visitor to NECN.com, since I only recently learned NECN.com no longer exists. The web site now directs viewers to NBC Boston. … And the slow phase out of NECN’s identity continues under current ownership. At any given hour of the day, when I click on NECN on cable, I don’t know if I’m going to get NECN, NBC Boston, NBC network, or infomercial programming etc. …

So Herb Chambers is cashing out. He’s not the first local auto mogul to sell off a dealership and he won’t be the last. … The underlying story here is that the car dealership business is changing fast due to a number of factors — the rise of online car buying, the economies of scale that work against family-owned dealerships, succession and tax issues, etc. etc. The result: Rapid dealership consolidation. 

More corporate spinelessness. The BBJ has the details. … At a later date, there’s a good argument to be made about why certain types of DEI programs, as opposed to the ideals of DEI, should be eliminated. But for now I want to stay focused on how so many people and institutions are shamelessly kowtowing to the White House.

Again, notice how they’re no longer citing waste, fraud and DEI etc. when making these chaotic, slash-first-ask-questions-later budget cuts. … Here are the stories on the temporary JFK library closure, the Trump administration’s scramble to rehire fired nuclear safety workers, and the layoffs of desperately needed immigration judges. 

First a proposed candy tax. Now a proposed pharmacy tax, as the Herald reports? … If I didn’t know better, I’d swear Massachusetts lawmakers are deliberately trying to provoke a crazed MAGA-like revolt over the size of government. See post immediately below – and see posts strewn throughout on President Trump’s reckless budget slashing at the federal level.

The Globe’s Matt Stout has an excellent story on the 50 percent growth of the state budget over the past 7 years – and how the heck that happened. … Basically, the state spent most of the new pandemic-era funds and tax revenues that came its way and never looked back. And yet Gov. Healey is asking for yet more revenue, via a new tax on candy and other items. Even a top Beacon Hill Democrat is warning that spending can’t continue at its current pace: “It’s not sustainable growth.”

My gut tells me something is bubbling out there among voters. People are upset with rising costs of everything.  State House Dems better realize this.

From Bloomberg: ‘Former Staffers Say India’s IT Firm Was Gaming the US Visa System.’ … Well, of course they were gaming the H-1B system – and it was often done in cahoots with U.S. firms that wanted to replace their higher-paid IT staffs with lower-paid H-1B tech workers. And that’s happened right here in Massachusetts, folks … Listen, I support the H-1B program in general. But the system has been abused by U.S. firms, many of them non-tech firms, who just want to outsource their IT jobs to foreign consulting companies who employ H-1B workers. It’s a shell game. The system needs reform.

No mention of waste, fraud, DEI etc. They’re just taking a machete to budgets. The NYT has the details. …. The reaction of Congress? Nothing. … More cuts expected at FDA as RFK Jr. takes control at HHS.

I’d love to get a look at Mayor Wu’s internal polling numbers because, as the Herald’s Joe Battenfeld notes, she sure seems nervous about some of the issues Josh Kraft has been raising. …

Update – The Globe’s Beth Teitell tackles the bike-lane controversy. … Fyi: I don’t view bike lanes as an either-or issue, as Beth seems to suggest. The problem is that many of them, though not all of them,  look hideous. Too many signs and arrows and painted pavement lines, etc. Some of them seem deliberately in-your-face, a form of virtue signaling, I guess.

I wonder where the president got the following notion, via the NYT: “Trump Suggests No Laws Are Broken if He’s ‘Saving His Country.’” … Maybe, just maybe, it has something to do with this?