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2 weeks ago | 
bostonglobe.com | Carine Hajjar |Joan Vennochi
A somnolent political season in Massachusetts has begun stirring, with signs of a likely challenge to 20-plus-term Washington incumbent Senator Edward Markey by the upstart Representative Jake Auchincloss. I think Markey has served the state well these many years, and only seems to have sharpened his edge in the Senate seat he has held since 2013.
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1 month ago | 
bostonglobe.com | Joan Vennochi |Carine Hajjar
In the hands of a skilled political opponent, the scandal involving two City Hall staffers who were fired in connection with an alleged domestic-assault incident could be a problem for Mayor Michelle Wu. More than a lovers’ quarrel, it raises real questions about workplace culture, and ancillary questions about who is being hired. Segun Idowu, the head of Boston’s Office of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion, was also dragged into the mess.
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1 month ago | 
bostonglobe.com | Rebecca Spiess |Carine Hajjar
Growing up, my family moved a lot, and I switched schools nearly every year. My educational experience ran the gamut, and I attended public and charter schools that swung wildly in their outcomes and expectations. At my public middle school in Arizona, I was taught Intelligent Design, which is a pseudoscientific alternative to evolution more akin to creationism. I was told that humans did not “come from monkeys,” and that to think so was insulting.
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2 months ago | 
bostonglobe.com | Joan Vennochi |Carine Hajjar |Rebecca Spiess
At this moment, yes. There is purpose in that passion. Ocasio-Cortez is showing Democrats of all ages how to fight back from the overwhelming sense of despair that comes with watching Trump blow up government as they knew it. She is empowered by the progressive ideals the left holds dear – and by the hatred she stirs in the right.
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2 months ago | 
bostonglobe.com | Joan Vennochi |Alan Wirzbicki |Carine Hajjar
On Monday, Mike Kennealy, a former adviser to the state’s most recent Republican governor, Charlie Baker, announced his candidacy for governor in the 2026 election. A well-known figure in Republican politics and a favorite of the moderate Baker camp, he faces two stiff challenges: first, winning the Republican primary, where conservative voters tend to dominate, and second, taking on the incumbent Democrat, Governor Maura Healey. Can he do it? Three Globe Opinion writers have thoughts.
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2 months ago | 
bostonglobe.com | Carine Hajjar |James Dao
Governor Gavin Newsom, Democrat of California, surprised many people and outraged some of his most liberal supporters by saying recently that it was “deeply unfair” to allow transgender athletes to compete in women’s youth and college sports. Globe Opinion writer Carine Hajjar here argues that even if Newsom was simply bending to political winds after President Trump’s victory, he is prompting a useful debate for the Democrats.
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2 months ago | 
bostonglobe.com | David Shribman |Joan Vennochi |Carine Hajjar
The British had advance word of George Washington’s famous crossing of the Delaware on Christmas night in 1776. A week later, Washington was handed a map that showed the location of the British positions in Princeton, N.J., before the critical battle there. Union general George McClellan had Confederate general Robert E. Lee’s battle plan, found in a field and wrapped around three cigars, before the pivotal 1862 Battle of Antietam.
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Mar 12, 2025 | 
bostonglobe.com | David Shribman |Carine Hajjar |Joan Vennochi |James Dao
Elon Musk has never been known to play second fiddle. That’s how he ran his companies. And that may be why Vivek Ramaswamy, his original partner in the Department of Government Efficiency, was pushed out before it even got to work. How then could he possibly get along with President Trump? Recent tensions between Musk and several Trump cabinet members — and questions about DOGE’s work from some Republican members of Congress — have fueled more doubts.
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Mar 5, 2025 | 
bostonglobe.com | Carine Hajjar |Joan Vennochi |James Dao
A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Those are the facts. And yet one needs more than facts in a fight with Republicans. Wu is walking into a hearing designed for political theater, not truth-seeking. The GOP-led House Oversight Committee will rely on loaded questions, out-of-context statistics, and scare tactics to sell its dystopian vision of liberal cities in collapse — an attack on Democratic governance as much as immigration itself.
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Feb 26, 2025 | 
bostonglobe.com | Scot Lehigh |Carine Hajjar |Caitlin Shetterly
The recent dust-up between President Trump and Maine Governor Janet Mills has been described as a heated exchange, but it really wasn’t. It was a bullying comment by Trump followed by a laconic, kill-the-contretemps comeback by Mills. It revealed something about both. Trump is a bully — and Mills is neither intimidated nor impressed by browbeaters.
