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The headline on the Boston Globe-Democrat’s editorial page, “Wasilla Made Rape Victims Pay,” says it all. All wrong. The Globe-Democrat yesterday asserted as fact that “during her tenure as mayor of Wasilla, the town started charging rape victims or their insurers for rape kits.” But the truth is that there is no record of a rape victim ever being charged for a rape kit by Wasilla; there’s no evidence Mayor Palin knew about the policy or took any action on it either way; and no record of a victim’s insurance company being charged by the town. How does an alleged...

ONE QUESTION that Sarah Palin should answer during tomorrow's debate is why, during her tenure as mayor of Wasilla, the town started charging rape victims or their insurers for hospital emergency-room rape kits and examinations. The policy so outraged the Alaska Legislature that in 2000 it passed unanimously a bill forbidding such fees. But Palin has never explained why, under her leadership, the town stopped picking up the cost of the swabs, specimen containers, and tests. A spokeswoman for Palin wrote to USA Today that Palin "does not believe, nor has she ever believed, that rape victims should have to...

Advertising revenue at the New York Times Co.’s New England Media Group, which is dominated by the Boston Globe, declined by more than 16 percent in August compared to the same month the year before. The Times Co. (NYSE: NYT) said Thursday that its New England Media Group, which includes the Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, saw a 16.4 percent drop in advertising revenue to $22.2 million from $26.5 million. The drop was due to a decreases in national advertising, retail advertising and classified advertising, the company said in a release. Overall advertising revenue for the month of...

Under the title, The Discreet charm of Republican Women, Boston Globe columnist, Alex Beam, breaks with the liberal herd's view of Sarah Palin: "Whoever picked Palin must have been a genius. So she's not exactly sure what the Bush Doctrine is - who cares? The whole point of electing a new president is to get rid of the Bush Doctrine once and for all. Newspaper editorialists who cackle at her creationist leanings might want to look at some poll numbers. God still trumps Darwin, last time I checked. Is there a line connecting Laura Bush to Sarah Palin? I think...

CAN SARAH PALIN pick up where Hillary Clinton left off? Palin wowed delegates with a confident, cutting speech aimed at hockey moms with a chip on their shoulder. She could have been singing along to Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Woman" - "Some people look down on me, but I don't give a rip. I'll stand barefooted in my own front yard with a baby on my hip." It was great theater. But to John McCain, all that really matters is whether his running mate can pick up where Clinton left off and expand the GOP voter base.

CAN SARAH PALIN pick up where Hillary Clinton left off? Palin wowed delegates with a confident, cutting speech aimed at hockey moms with a chip on their shoulder. She could have been singing along to Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Woman" - "Some people look down on me, but I don't give a rip. I'll stand barefooted in my own front yard with a baby on my hip." It was great theater. But to John McCain, all that really matters is whether his running mate can pick up where Clinton left off and expand the GOP voter base.

The candidate endorsed subsidies for private entrepreneurs to build low-income units. But, while he garnered support from developers, many projects in his former district have fallen into disrepair. The squat brick buildings of Grove Parc Plaza, in a dense neighborhood that Barack Obama represented for eight years as a state senator, hold 504 apartments subsidized by the federal government for people who can't afford to live anywhere else. But it's not safe to live here. ... Grove Parc has bvecome a private symbol for some in Chicago of the broader failures of giving public subsidies to private companies to build...

The Boston Globe published a really weird, yet inadvertently hilarious, editorial in which they claim that because Barack Obama broke his promise to accept public financing of his campaign...that means we need even more campaign finance reform in terms of both more money and legislation. I kid you not. First the obligatory knuckle rap on Obama by the Boston Globe for going back on his word: SENATOR Barack Obama has presented himself as the candidate of change, but the change he announced yesterday is a throwback to the no-holds-barred rules of campaign finance that prevailed before Watergate. Obama will be the first...

TO HIGHLIGHT China's repressive policies, protesters are attacking the Olympic torch as it wends its way to Beijing and the summer games. It's embarrassing for the moment, but China knows the real score. In the long run, the drive for human profit always beats the drive for human rights. Massachusetts offers a tiny but telling glimpse into that broad economic reality. On April 1, University of Massachusetts president Jack M. Wilson announced an agreement with Chinese officials to offer government-sanctioned online classes in the communist nation of 1.3 billion. The deal, UMass officials said, could generate up to $5 million...

Hillary Clinton has tried to claim credit for everything politically popular that happened during her husband’s administration, and has even attempted to create a few that never happened at all. Most of these arguments have resulted in repudiation, as when Lord Trimble scornfully dismissed her supposed contribution to the Northern Ireland peace talks as “cheerleading”. Today, the Boston Globe finds more cheerleading than leadership on S-CHIP, which Hillary had claimed as her initiative (via Memeorandum): Hillary Clinton, who has frequently described herself on the campaign trail as playing a pivotal role in forging a children’s health insurance plan, had little...

02/28/2008 01:49 PM To: Everybody by Server cc: Subject: Memo from Steve Ainsley Dear Colleagues: As part of a company-wide effort to achieve greater operational efficiencies, we will be offering voluntary buyouts to employees of The Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. Boston Globe employees will receive offers next week. Telegram & Gazette employees will receive offers the following week. Boston.com and GlobeDirect employees are ineligible for this program. We are expecting a total reduction of 80 positions, with approximately 60 from the Globe and roughly 20 from the T&G. This reduction in staff is a difficult but...

Dream turns nightmare Arrests of immigrants rattle Milford Maria Sacchetti Globe Staff / December 29, 2007 MILFORD - Daniel Tacuri made a name for himself in this town. Daniel Tacuri , 32, was a typical immigrant who found success through hard work, Tacuri's lawyer and family say. ARRESTED more stories like thisWith only a first-grade education, he slipped across the border illegally and eventually started his own roofing business, often hiring immigrants like himself from poor villages in Ecuador. He was raised in a dirt-floor cabin, but in Milford he owned a home worth more than $350,000 off Main Street,...

BOSTON (AP) — The Boston Globe's editorial board has endorsed Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain ahead of the New Hampshire presidential primary and the Iowa caucus, the newspaper reported Saturday. The board noted that Obama fulfills America's need for "a president with an intuitive sense of the wider world," and that McCain "has done more than his share to transcend partisanship and promote an honest discussion of the problems facing the United States," the newspaper reported on its Web site. The endorsements followed in-depth interviews with the presidential contenders. The board says Obama's diverse and international life experience helped...

"Character is destiny." -- Heraclitus, pre-Socratic philosopher What tells you more about what kind of president a candidate would make: a. Her positions on the nursing shortage, Social Security and internet decency; or b. The way she responds under pressure? I'm guessing that, like me, the great majority of people would opt for "b." Ah, but the sensitive souls of the Boston Globe editoral board aren't the great majority of people. Their editorial of this morning, "A debate, not a prize fight," is one long vote for 'a.'

When it comes to global-warming alarmism, it takes a lot to make Al Gore look moderate. Even the IPCC, the UN group that shared the Nobel with him, predicts on average a sea-level rise only 1/12th as high as the 20 feet by 2100 that Gore has forecast. But when it comes to sky-is-burning scaremongering, the former Veep has met his match in the person of Paul Epstein. The scenario he sketches in his "Looking back"column in today's Boston Globe is so wildly alarmist that you could imagine a sci-fi movie Hollywood honcho rejecting it as too implausible. As far...

WASHINGTON -- Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson set low expectations for his first debate as a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. And, in the first minutes of today's Michigan debate, he failed to reach them.

LAWRENCEBURG, Tenn. - "Freddie! Freddie!" came the chant from nearly 3,000 people as towering Fred Thompson entered the final minutes of a pivotal game for his Lawrence County High School basketball team. Grabbing crucial rebounds, Thompson helped win the regional final. It hardly mattered that the team didn't survive the 1959 state tournament. Next year, Freddie would be a full-time star. But there would be no next year. Just as Thompson turned 17, his girlfriend became pregnant, and he married her in a small, quickly arranged ceremony. The high school rules were clear: Married students did not play sports. It...

If you're the Boston Globe, there's no day like 9-11 to suggest negotiating with terrorists. That seems the implication of its editorial of this morning, "Toughness after Sept. 11." The gist is that in response to 9-11, President Bush's "aggressive foreign policy" and his "version of toughness" have had "tragic and unpredictable consequences," including "tens of thousands of civilians dead" in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the trampling of civil liberties at home. So what does the Globe propose as the alternative to toughness? The editorial approvingly notes that "Churchill sought rapprochement with the Soviet Union following Stalin's death in 1953....

And here I thought liberals were the ones who love to glorify those "hard-working average Americans." The mythic salt of the earth who sit around the supper table discussing the need for universal health care, or whatever, before getting up in the morning, grabbing their lunch buckets and heading off to work hard and play by the rules. Isn't it supposed to be those mean-spirited conservatives who denigrate those same folks as irresponsible? And yet . . . Proving that there's no elitism like liberal elitism, the Boston Globe emits an astonishing editorial this morning, analogizing those with less-than-ideal credit...

Spoils 1. a. Goods or property seized from a victim after a conflict, especially after a military victory. b. Incidental benefits reaped by a winner, especially political patronage enjoyed by a successful party or candidate.2. An object of plunder; prey.3. Refuse material removed from an excavation.4. Archaic The act of plundering; spoliation. There's something about the weekend that seems to bring out the socialist in the New York Times. Last Saturday and Sunday I described how the Times and its Beantown subsidiary the Boston Globe published an op-ed and editorial exposing classic liberal-think. The Gray Lady is back at it...

Levies increase despite decline in home values. Residential property taxes rose an average of $161 in cities and towns across the state in the past fiscal year, as home assessments hit historic highs despite declining market values. The average property tax bill for a single-family home hit $3,962, up 4.2 percent from the previous year. Taxes climbed 7 percent or higher in more than 65 communities, according to data from the state Department of Revenue. Since 2000, property taxes have shot up nearly 50 percent, from $2,679, far outpacing gains in wages, which climbed 30 percent statewide over the same...

Dispatch from the Department of Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics, MSM Division . . . Today's New York Times contains an article about sleight of hand. Elsewhere in the paper, the Times engages in some statistical prestidigitation of its own.You're the New York Times and its minor-league subsidiary, the Boston Globe. You obtain government data showing that Americans' incomes have risen every year since 2002. So how do you spin it in your headline? If you're the Times: Average Incomes Fell for Most in 2000-5. The Globe had its own gloomy take: More Americans making ends meet with less money....

I don't know James Carroll, but if I were a friend or family member I might truly be concerned. His Boston Globe column of this morning, American Disconnection, is a disjointed lament about the state of the world and his feeling of disconnectedness, invoking the anomie of his youth. What makes it interesting for present purposes is the way in which Carroll, the prototypical MSM liberal, looks at the world, sees a litany of wrongs, and naturally concludes . . . It's All America's Fault. Carroll seeks to reassure us, and no doubt himself, that "my adult connections are strong,...

A major pro-gun group took aim at award-winning Boston Globe business columnist Steve Bailey yesterday, saying he violated federal law while researching a 2005 anti-gun column and should be fired. The Second Amendment Foundation, which is based in Bellevue, Wash., said it sent a letter to Globe Editor Martin Baron yesterday citing previously undisclosed details about the column, which described a gun purchase. Bailey provided new details of the purchase Tuesday on former House Speaker Tom Finneran’s WRKO AM-680 radio show. Bailey said he gave a New Hampshire man money to buy a gun at a gun show and expensed...

It looks like a ransom note, but it is not being sent by kidnappers. It is being promoted by the Patrick Administration, the Boston Police Department, and the State Police, and delivered to drivers on the Massachusetts Turnpike courtesy of John Rosenthal, a provocative gun control activist from Newton. Article Tools "We have your President and Congress," declares the message in letters that look as if they had been snipped from a newspaper. It is signed simply, NRA, referring to the National Rifle Association, and will be unveiled today on a 252-foot billboard on the Mass. Turnpike near Fenway Park....

Has John McCain acknowledged reality and all but thrown in the towel on his run for the Republican presidential nomination? An editorial in today's Boston Globe might make you think so. In McCain's fighting stance, an ode to McCain's position on immigration, the Globe mentions that "McCain, an Arizona Republican, spoke about the immigration bill's chances in a meeting with Globe editors on Monday." For the record, the Globe editorial predictably praises McCain for his "principled stand" against "an ugly nativist streak in his own party."Let's think about that. Massachusetts is not the site of a significant Republican primary. And...

The Democrats still blink. Debate moderator Wolf Blitzer asked Dennis Kucinich if he would try to knock off Osama bin Laden with a missile even if it would kill some innocent civilians. Kucinich said, "I don't think that a president of the United States who believes in peace and who wants to create peace in the world is going to be using assassination as a tool." The rest of the Democrats crawled into a hole of vacillation.

This is the first step. We can and must complete this legislation sooner rather than later. We all know that this issue can be caught up in extracurricular politics unless we move forward as quickly as possible. -- Sen. John McCain [R-AZ], May 17th. Now is probably the last window for action on comprehensive reform before presidential politics thwart any rational debate. -- Boston Globe editorial, May 19th.That the Boston Globe would want to ram through the amnesty-based immigration bill comes as no surprise. But what does it say about Republican presidential hopeful John McCain that the Globe's entreaty...

The New York Times reports on an encouraging development in Iraq: The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the country's most powerful Shiite parties, announced Saturday that "revolution" would be dropped from its name and that Iran's top cleric would cease to be the party's dominant spiritual leader. [Snip] The New York Times-owned Boston Globe reports from Tehran that the influence of Iraqi Shiites is growing even there: Some Iranians are intrigued by the more freewheeling experiment in Shi'ite empowerment taking place across the border in Iraq, where--Iraq's myriad problems aside--imams can say whatever they want...

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. --The 10 declared Republican candidates for president introduced themselves to the nation last night in their first debate of the 2008 campaign season, displaying sharp differences over social issues, immigration, and the pursuit of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden as they sought to make a strong first impression with voters.Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani struggled to clearly articulate his position on abortion. Arizona Senator John McCain reiterated his support for staying in Iraq but offered sharp criticism of the Bush administration's conduct of the war. And Mitt Romney, in his national coming-out party of sorts,...

ESPN's Chris Berman likes to say "no one circles the wagons like the Buffalo Bills." He might add "or the Boston Globe." Its editorial of today, A telling admission, heaps of paeans of praise on Marilee Jones, who resigned her position as MIT Dean of Admissions after an investigation revealed that she earned none of the academic degrees she had claimed. The Globe quickly gets out of the way its acknowledgement that "no doubt, Marilee Jones did the wrong thing." But you'd hardly know it from the rest of editorial: "I misrepresented my academic degrees when I first applied to...

Whatever happened to the notion of the "favorite son"? You know: the idea that a candidate's home state rallies around him. When it comes to former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the Boston Globe seems to be adopting a mirror-image attitude. Call it the "disfavored son" approach to politics. In perhaps the lamest bit of investigative journalism to stumble down the pike in a long time, months ago, as I noted here, the Globe breathlessly revealed not that Romney had hired illegal immigrants, but that the lawn care company with whom he contracts had done so. Remember to run a...

Boston Globe editor Martin Baron sent the following note to the staff today concerning employee buyouts in the newsroom: To the staff: I’d like to update you on the buyout. We have accepted buyout applications from 24 of our colleagues in the newsroom. A handful of buyout applications were approved over the last several weeks, and some people already have left the Globe. The vast majority are being notified of their acceptance today, and they will leave the newsroom on various dates over the next few months. The dates have been set so that the newsroom has time to adjust...

Darfur today is not Iraq under Saddam. But there are sufficient parallels to render this morning's Boston Globe editorial deeply ironic. While the Globe has condemned the coalition intervention in Iraq, it clamors for aggressive international action in Darfur. Let's have a look at the Globe's Light on the Darfur Darkness and compare and contrast the situation there with pre-war Iraq. Darfur editorial: "The areas in which humanitarian aid workers can operate are shrinking, and aid workers are often targeted by government-backed militias." Saddam's Iraq: Between the embargo and the corruption-riddled oil-for-food program, many spoke of a humanitarian disaster in...

Top New York Times [NYT] Co. executives Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Janet Robinson took in more than $4 million each in compensation packages last year while planning as many as 125 job cuts in Massachusetts. Even as Times Co. shares slid by nearly 8 percent last year, CEO Robinson’s salary rose 11 percent to $1 million. That brings it “more in line” with the salaries of CEOs at similar companies, the Times Co. said in its annual proxy statement released yesterday. Sulzberger, chairman and publisher of the company, received a compensation package valued around $4.3 million and Robinson’s compensation was...

Bill Maher accused Vice-President Cheney of being responsible for people "dying needlessly." In its own way, today's Boston Globe editorial cartoon takes that calumny one step further, suggesting that the vice-president flatly welcomes as many American deaths in Iraq as possible as a sign of national strength. When it comes to portraying the image of the Vice-President, the Dan Wasserman effort is also remarkable for its sheer malice. Mark was in Iraq in November. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net

Borges lifts article from Tacoma News Tribune Cold Hard Football Facts for March 4, 2007 Broadsheet Bully Ron Borges must want to get fired. How else do you explain the incredible similarities between his Sunday “Football Notes” column in the Boston Globe and a story written by Mike Sando and published in the News Tribune of Tacoma on Feb. 25? By Cold, Hard Football Facts publisher Kerry J. Byrne Broadsheet Bully Ron Borges is down for the count. Or at least he will be, once the editors of the Boston Globe get wind of this disaster. Simply note the incredible...

Buying a small popcorn and a soda at a movie theater is becoming a big investment. At the 13-screen theater owned by Regal Entertainment Group in the Fenway, the price of a small popcorn and a small soft drink will set you back $10, the same as an adult ticket. Granted, the small popcorn is 85 ounces, nearly twice as big as the small at other theaters, and a small soft drink is 32 ounces, the equivalent of roughly half of a 2-liter bottle, but it's still a lot to pay for modest fare. Susan McWhinney-Morse of Boston recently went...

Ever heard of the Wise Men of Chelm? They are the well-intentioned but foolish residents of an imaginary Jewish village, and the object of humor that stretches back 500 years. Here's one story. One of the "wise men" is sent to a neighboring village to bring back a horse. On the way home the horse wanders off and is lost. "Schlemiel!" remonstrate the townspeople with him. "Don't you know you have to lead the horse back on a rope?" A week later the same man is sent off to bring back a slab of butter. Learning from his mistake...

Without a hint of balance, Robert Kuttner of the Boston Globe thinks he has it all figured out -- 20 months before the election -- that the GOP candidates cannot win, while the Dems are the right ticket as he tries Taking stock of the 2008 field. Naturally, his is another gusher for Barack Obama. But, he starts his piece in one way or another ripping each and every one of the GOP candidates, or those who would vote for them, before saying how "strong" the Dems field of candidates is. Here are the results of his analyzing of the...

The Democratic nominee is likely to be Barack Obama. I have followed politics far too long to fall in love, but Obama is like nothing we have seen since Bobby Kennedy and maybe since FDR. If you haven't read his first book, "Dreams from My Father," you owe it to yourself. Obama wrote the book when he was 33, having spent nearly three years as an organizer on Chicago's South Side, and then three years at Harvard Law School, where he was elected president of the Law Review. No 33-year-old has the right to such uncommon wisdom and humanity. The...

This is a tale of two editorials. The New York Times this morning applauds a New Jersey court ruling holding public schools liable when they fail to take measures to stop the taunting or bullying of gay students. Coincidentally, a Boston Globe editorial today applauds a Massachusetts court ruling upholding the right of the Lexington school district to expose elementary school students to children's books -- such as 'Who's in a Family?' and 'Molly's Family' -- that feature same-sex parents. This was done pursuant to a state law law that "requires that all public school districts develop curricula advancing...

What better way for the Boston Globe to get into the loving Valentine spirit than by portraying the Vice-President of the United States as a wanton killer? Contact Mark at mark@gunhill.net

MY HUSBAND recently returned from active duty for Operation Iraqi Freedom. He has been puzzled by people who speak out -- to his face, mind you -- against our government's plan to increase troops or increase funding for troops but who, in the same breath, say, "But I support the troops." Recently, he very quietly responded, "Really, that's great. Exactly how do you support the troops?" The person was caught off guard and had no answer. If you want to support our troops, take care of their families. Too often military families' needs are overlooked. If someone you know has...

"Yesterday's fighting at Waterloo was extraordinary, highlighting the daunting challenge faced by the coalition of British and Prussian forces in fighting Napoleon."That's how the Boston Globe might have spun the Battle of Waterloo, judging by the negative gloss the New York Times' Beantown subsidiary managed to put in its article on the major success of Iraqi-US coalition forces at Najaf yesterday. Coalition forces killed an estimated 250 insurgents who were planning to attack Shias, possibly including their supreme religious leader, the Ayatollah Sistani, who had gathered in the city south of Baghdad for a major religious holiday. What made...

The new publisher of The Boston Globe unveiled plans for a major round of job cuts at the broadsheet and its Worcester sister paper yesterday, citing a tough advertising market and circulation weakness. P. Steven Ainsley told staffers in a memo that 125 jobs would be eliminated from the Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, which make up the New York Times [NYT] Co.’s New England Media Group. About 17 jobs will be cut from the 412 in the Globe’s newsroom and two more will be trimmed from the paper’s opinion pages, a memo from Globe Editor Martin Baron...

BOSTON -- The New York Times Co. will cut about 125 positions through buyouts and other steps at The Boston Globe and the Telegram & Gazette of Worcester, and outsourcing some finance and advertising work, a Globe spokesman said Thursday. About 70 of the positions will be eliminated through buyouts that will be offered to employees of the two newspapers starting late this month, Globe spokesman Al Larkin said. The buyouts will be offered to exempt and Newspaper Guild-covered employees with at least 10 years of service. Seventeen positions in the newsroom and two opinion page positions are expected to...

Big cuts are coming to the Boston Globe, according to memos from publisher Steve Ainsley and editor Martin Baron. (See story here.) According to the memo, the New York Times New England Media Group will see a cut of about 125 employees. The New England Media Group includes the Globe and The Worcester Telegram & Gazette. About 19 editorial jobs will be slashed at the Globe. Here are both memos: January 11, 2007 To the staff: As I trust all of you will understand, this is a difficult memo to write. You know as well as anyone that we are...

Last week it was George Clooney, with some timely cheerleading from ABC's Kate Snow, making the case for intervention in Darfur. Today, those bellicose boys of the Boston Globe jump on the Great Liberal War-in-Darfur bandwagon. In its editorial of this morning, the Globe lambastes "the great powers" for failing to take "effective action" to stop the killing and for "refusing to rescue the men, women, and children who are marked for death in the coming year." Why it demands US intervention in this war between rival Muslim factions, but condemns US intervention in a conflict between rival Muslim...

After last Christmas, public radio stations across the country were inundated with complaints from listeners who were shocked to hear Howard Stern interrupt "Morning Edition" or their classical music lineup. The portable satellite radios, iPods, and DVD players that people had received as gifts were playing on FM frequencies that interrupted broadcasts at the left end of the radio dial, in violation of federal regulations. After a year of wrangling among broadcasters, regulators, and device manufacturers, public radio listeners and officials are in a holding pattern, waiting to see whether the problems the new media created for old radio have...