Both White House Staff Secretary Rob Porter and speech writer David Sorensen resigned last week, after their ex-wives accused them of domestic violence. Multiple reports indicate that senior aides, including Chief of Staff John Kelly, knew about the accusations against Porter for months and did not act on them, although Kelly says he only recently learned these details. Over the weekend, seemingly in response, President Donald Trump tweeted, “Peoples [sic] lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation.... There is no recovery for someone falsely accused - life and career are gone. Is there no such thing any longer as Due Process?” Jim Braude was joined by former chair of the Massachusetts Republican Party, Jennifer Nassour, and Diane Hessan, the founder and chair of C Space, who has kept tabs on the opinions of Trump and Clinton voters for the past two years, to discuss.
Late last month, a state board recommended current Lawrence school superintendent Jeff Riley as the next education commissioner over two female finalists: Angelica Infante-Green, who currently works at the New York State Education Department and Penny Schwinn, of the Texas Education Agency. Riley, if ratified, would join an already all-male Massachusetts state education department, a point highlighted in a Boston Globe op-ed criticizing the state for its lack of gender and racial diversity. The co-authors of that piece, Vanessa Calderon-Rosado, a former board member of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, now CEO of Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción, and Cathy Minehan, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, now a co-chair of the Boston’s Women’s Workforce Council, joined Jim Braude to discuss.
Jim weighs in on the end of an era – and a common return policy scheme – at L.L. Bean.
