Maura Healey, we love you, but you’re bringing us down & freaking us out.
Dear Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey,
The Fore River Basin residents want to know why you’re staying on the sidelines while we almost literally burn?
Our Fore River Delegation reps and senators have been forced to write you a letter asking you to do your job. Read the Sept 22nd letter to Healey here, as well as the letter to EEA Secretary Theoharides sent the same day.
We know you are “stuck” defending the state/MassDEP against us because Gov Baker felt it a good idea to permit this death machine.
But the actions called for in the Sept 22nd letter have zero to do with you representing the state against us in court and have everything to do with Environmental Justice. Does EJ matter to you, or nah?
For these reasons [above, in the letter], we respectfully request that you intervene on any or all of these issues pertaining to due notice and threats posed to EJ communities that abut the Weymouth compressor station. We sincerely appreciate your time and consideration of this request.
Why has there been no response from your office almost one month since this letter was sent? Residents have become used to being ignored by your office, but now you have ignored 8 elected officials (most in your own party). WHY?
#mapoli ⁉️ DAY 27 ⁉️When will you respond to this Sept 22 letter @MassAGO? Worried citizens represented by @PatrickMOConnor @SenJohnFKeenan @JoanMeschino @MurphyRep @WalterFTimilty @repmarkcusack @RonMariano @BruceJAyers deserve to hear from you #NotYourSacrificeZone https://t.co/pZkPRiMiYg
— peter delano (@PeterDelano4) October 19, 2020
I know us making noise about how you and your office have done NOTHING to fight for citizens or the environment before and after the state permits were issued makes you uncomfortable.
We say “too bad” because there were SO MANY opportunities to take some chunks out of this compressor the past six years, and you passed on every single opportunity. Why?
In their otherwise excellent recent compressor explainer, WBUR (sadly) carried your water for you, publishing:
Attorney General Maura Healey also opposes the project but has a more complicated relationship to it. During the siting phase of the project, Healey raised concerns about public health and safety to federal regulators, and she asked the state’s Department of Public Utilities to reconsider whether Massachusetts ratepayers* should pay for construction. (my *)
But her job as AG also requires her to defend state agencies in litigation, including some ongoing lawsuits related to the compressor. So despite repeated calls from anti-compressor activists to take a more prominent role in the fight to shut down the facility, her primary responsibility is to work with other state agencies to make sure all public health and environmental regulations are followed and enforced.
Huh. As we watch AG Healey spring to the defense of many incredibly worthy and time-sensitive environmental cases against fossil fuel companies in other states, we in the Fore River sit here with one of the worst-sited, most dangerous gas compressors in the country almost blowing us up twice in one month. I ask again: WHY?
“Activists” need Healey to take a more prominent role, and why not? There are still many areas in which she can help that don’t include defending DEP. See the letter linked above.
The last sentence in this copy/paste statement is the most laughable of all:
her primary responsibility is to work with other state agencies to make sure all public health and environmental regulations are followed and enforced.
I’m laid speechless by this this one. If the above has happened in the past 6 years, has happened in the past year, or is happening now WE HAVE NOT SEEN IT.
AG Healey, you cannot style yourself a climate champion while you’ve stood by and let Weymouth and the Fore River Basin take the dire consequences of this gas compressor. WHY have you not stepped up?
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*Gas ratepayers, hello! You will now pay more on your gas bill because AG Healey gave up on fighting DPU on behalf of the consumer. We call it the Compressor Tax for short. Because AG Healey gave up, gas ratepayers are paying for a compressor does not benefit MA in any way.
For all of you who complained about the font sizes (which I made smaller despite my irritation), you are something else. “I might like your point better if it was in a less bold font”…. do you hear yourselves? No one who’s had to face the reality that Weymouth and the Fore River Basin is facing right now (or in the past 6 years) would speak one word about font sizes. GTFO.
The bold text was a turnoff for me.
Sorry you’re not really into more ADA compliant text representation on the web.
Yeah, right. I support you and you’re turning me off.
In the primordial mists of the dawn of the computer age, when the very first Macs let regular users compose documents with as many fonts, emphases, and sizes as they wanted, there was a brief flood of documents like this. My colleagues and I in the industry called them “ransom notes”.
It’s not that hard to say what you want to say in an ADA-compliant way without ending up with a ransom note.
Please get somebody who knows their way around these tools to help out if it isn’t your own cup of tea.
I thought there was a way to accommodate that on the reader’s end. Most on-screen text is in the size that it usually is here. What you did comes across as shouting.
I think you’ll find that holding the “ctrl” key while rolling the scroll-wheel up will enlarge the contents. Rolling the scroll-wheel the other way will make them smaller. If you prefer to avoid the mouse, then use CTRL-“+” (CTRL + PLUS) to enlarge the text and CTRL-“-” (CTRL + MINUS) to shrink it.
The web is chock-full of sites that provide guidance for achieving ADA compliance (cf https://www.circlesstudio.com/blog/best-practices-to-ensure-your-website-is-ada-compliant/). None of them say anything about emphasis, caps, bolding, or any of that stuff.
There is NO relationship between the mish-mash of typography in the thread-starter and the ADA.
Do you all really prefer to talk about font size in this context?
Actually, yes. I tend to discount pieces like this for the same reason that I ignore tabloids whose front-page is filled with 48-point bold face cap headlines about alien abductions or “PICK-A-NAME’S SECRET SCANDAL”.
I genuinely can’t tell what the thread starter is objecting to and what, if any, call to action the thread-starter suggests.
I, like (I suspect) most of us here at BMG, oppose the Weymouth project. I’ve also met with Ms. Healey several times and hold her in high regard. If the goal of this thread-starter is to persuade me to challenge Ms. Healey’s handling of this issue, then it failed to meet that goal.
And yes, appearance and typography DOES matter.
For all of you who complained about the font sizes (which I made smaller despite my irritation), you are something else. “I might like your point better if it was in a less bold font”…. do you hear yourselves? No one who’s had to face the reality that Weymouth and the Fore River Basin is facing right now (or in the past 6 years) would speak one word about font sizes. GTFO.
Shouting at us, telling us to “GTFO”, and similar antics do not increase your effectiveness. The web is chock-full of passionate advocates for myriad of issues. A reliable rule of thumb is that the louder they shout, the less credibility they have.
Some of my other, more notable antics you might approve of: https://sitwithandrea.wordpress.com/
and GTFO.
I have to agree. While I did think Maura used to walk on water, her reluctance to take on public corruption (the state police being most notable) has been a real disappointment. Seems like she’s learned the lesson of Scott Harshbarger, who was the last AG to be aggressive on public corruption and paid for it when the Democratic establishment abandoned him in the 1998 Gubernatorial race. Now, Maura is just a big disappointment.
What specific actions do you think Ms. Healey should take in regards to the Weymouth Compressor situation? Other than not jumping high enough to satisfy GrumpyGrumpyHonore, what should Ms. Healey have done or now be doing?
As AG she certainly has jurisdiction over environmental oversight and, like the Baker and Trump administration she seems to be more concerned about “the big picture” ie, natural gas interests.
Ok, let’s stipulate that she has jurisdiction (I don’t know).
I’d like to know what actions would make you happy. What would you have her do that she isn’t know doing?
LOL, seems these are questions you should address to GrumpyGrumpy, as they authored the original post about this subject. I merely expressed sympathy to his belief about Healy’s lack of in action on the environmental front, with my observation that she seems to have ignored obvious public corruption cases like the State Police.
So despite your objections to his bold SHOUTS, you’ll have to ask Grumpy those questions.
I didn’t realize that GrumpyGrumby forced your fingers to the keyboard to type your expression of “big disappointment” — I made the perhaps rash assumption that the “big disappointment” you expressed was your own.
Is it really asking too much to expect you to have some notion what a public figure should do in order to avoid your “big disappointment”?
Literally the last person in the world to be setting standards for when other people can comment.
Yet another directly personal attack from a leading contender for BMG troll of the year.
Thanks for the nomination, but Troll of the Year sounds like too much work. I’m not up to the task of posing as an expert 30 or 40 times a day, every day–on every topic, right down to proper font sizes.
No work at all, in fact. You just keep doing what you already do so well.
You seem to be trying to deflect away the issues at hand, and setting you’re on standards about what I should comment on. So I’ll do it again. Yes, I have found AG Healy–who I was a big fan of–as being a big disappointment. And I cited my reason why–her reluctance for taking politically tough cases head on, like the State Police. Therefore I expressed sympathy for Grumpy’s views regarding his feelings about her environmental record.
Then you try to muck up the waters…asking me what Healy should have done better regarding the Weymouth Compressor. I said, “beats me” ask Grumpy, instead of complaining about their fonts and tone.
Then you twist my words and say, “Is it really asking too much to expect you to have some notion what a public figure should do in order to avoid your “big disappointment”?”
Either you’re being dishonest or you have a reading comprehension problem. I clearly said why Healy has been a disappointment with me and it has nothing to do with the Weymouth Compressor issue.
Again, if you really wanted to have a discussion about the compressor issue, you’re login to have to engage with Grumpy, not me. Yet you seem just plan stubborn to ask them, because you don’t like the fonts…
This exchange is happening on a thread about the Weymouth compressor. I make the perhaps rash assumption that your disappointment with Maura Healey has something to do with the issue of the thread.
“Fonts and tone” communicate an attitude — an attitude towards the topic and towards the reader. You’ve written diaries here and so have I — the appearance of the thread-starter did not happen by accident.
You seem to be demanding that we ignore the intentional expression of the author. Why should any of us do that? When I’m engaged in a real-life face-to-face dialog with someone who is shouting at me, I most often say in as calm a voice as I can muster “I’m not interested in a shouting match with you, let’s talk again when you’ve calmed down” and then walk away. When my departure is accompanied by louder shouts and insults, I walk away a bit faster.
I already know that you’re disappointed in Ms. Healey. I already know that you want her to “take politically tough cases head on”.
I don’t know what that MEANS. I’m not trying to bash you, I’m truly asking you what you’d like to see her do! I put my question in the context of the Weymouth Compressor because that’s what this thread is about.
If your disappointment in Ms. Healey has nothing to do with the Weymouth Compressor, then why are you adding your comments to this already ridiculous thread? Wouldn’t it be easier to start a thread about Ms. Healey and the State Police?
FWIW, I tend to agree with you about that issue. I find her reluctance to pursue the State Police scandal consistent with her earlier reluctance to do ANYTHING about the conspicuously corrupt state labs.
This exchange is happening on a thread about the Weymouth Compressor, which needlessly jacks up peoples heating bills and endangers the health of some communities.
Therefore it is critical for bored or grumpy people to change the subject to only thing that really matters.
Typography.
Think of the serifs! What would Bringhurst do?
Anyway, mission accomplished! Because who wants to talk about this now?
@trickleup: I’ve been asking about substance.
Me, for one.
This thread is actually about Maura Healey, in fact. Are you as unhappy with pogo’s attempt to pivot to the state police as my objection to being yelled at?
I’ll ask you the same question that neither pogo nor bob-gardner seem willing to engage:
What would you have Ms. Healey do differently?
I would want Maura Healey to use the resources of her office to oppose the compressor.
And I would expect her to use the proper font for all her briefs.
William Barr is showing his eagerness to use the resources of his office to oppose the election of Joe Biden.
Are you willing to accept that the resources of an office must be applied only within the jurisdiction of said office?
The reason I ask for specifics is that we’ve seen national Democrats posturing about Trumpism for four years now, with approximately zero effect.
Ms. Healey has said that her office has very limited jurisdiction over the Weymouth Compressor issue. It seems to me that effective criticism of her position starts with an enumeration of areas where she DOES have jurisdiction and where she has chosen not to act.
Nobody on this thread has made even a token effort to offer such an enumeration.
I AM SO SORRY FOR EXPRESSING SYMPATHY FOR GRUMPY’S DISAPPOINTMENT REGARDING AG HEALY, BECAUSE I SHARE THAT DISAPPOINTMENT REGARDING ANOTHER ISSUE (WHICH YOU APPARENTLY SHARE…BUT I DIGRESS).
ON REFLECTION, I REALIZE YOU ARE RIGHT AND I’VE BEEN IN THE WRONG.
Another constructive contribution to the dialog about this important issue.
Comments like this this certainly help rebuild the community that BMG once was.
I did offer a constructive contribution in my original comment. But from the start you dismissed it…hardly constructive of you. Your nitpicking about what YOU feel is acceptable or unacceptable comments is just tiresome and has resulted in the NEED to “rebuild the community that BMG once was.”
There is a difference between dismissing and asking for elaboration.
I wrote:
followed by:
Neither of those is “dismissing”.
Funny how the participants complaining the loudest about “fonts” and “typography” are the most adamant at refusing to say what they want Ms. Healey to actually DO.
I’m pretty sure that if you or anyone else had any specifics to offer you would have done. so. It appears to me that you’d rather attack me than admit that Ms. Healey has probably done all her office is allowed to do regarding the Weymouth issue.
My question remains unanswered.
I invite you, in the most gracious terms possible, to offer even one or two specifics of what you think Ms. Healey should do that she hasn’t already done.
Your question was answered. You just didn’t find the answer a acceptable to your “standards”. I remind you, I said I don’t have an opinion on the weymouth Compressor, I ws simply offering my disappointment about Healy on another matter…to support the overall thrust of the prices that Healy has been a disappointment in different areas.
But again, that was not an acceptable answer and you drag us through all this rhetorical nonsense.
I can’t help but notice when I come here and see an endless exchange between two or three people digressing into nonsense like this exchange has gone…and inevitably your one of those continuing the pain of silliness.
Post away, I’ll give you the final word…hopefully that will make it stop.
Feel free to write a post on whatever you like.
I invite you to offer a quote of anywhere in this entire exchange where anybody describes an action that the AG can take in regard to the Weymouth Compressor.
The gubernatorial ambitions of Tom Reilly were destroyed by his refusal to find any grounds to pursue legal action against the crimes of Bernard Law in consciously covering up clergy sex scandal. Many would argue that Martha Coakley — Maura Healey’s predecessor and mentor — lost both her elections in part because the voters felt that she overreached the limits of her office regarding the Fells Acre case.
It seems to me that when we demand that an AG take a stronger stand about either the Weymouth Compressor or the State Police, then it merits at least talking about what that actually means.
I didn’t like Martha Coakley. I didn’t like Tom Reilly. I’m reluctant to push Maura Healey, who I do like, into a direction that makes the current Massachusetts Democratic Party even less effective than it already is.
It sounds as though you’re ready to throw Ms. Healey under the bus. I’d like to see us talk at least a little bit about what we think she or her successor could do better.