Free Republic

Howie Carr thread for the week starting with his Sunday Bos. Herald column, "Globe biased for Granny, you've been Warren-ed". Howie is off Mon. (Col. Hunt in); death pool (triggered by passing of Gary Carter) Tue. or Wed.

In a new biography, two...Boston Globe reporters write about...Mitt Romney... On their hunt for The Real Romney, Scott Helman and Michael Kranish traced Romney's life... SNIP He...became a leader in the Mormon lay clergy...and eventually became the leader of more than a dozen congregations in eastern Massachusetts. SNIP Peggie HayesHelman: "One of the things the Mormon church does not look kindly upon is single parenthood. There was a woman named Peggie Hayes who had known Romney when she was in his ward. She had come from a family which had had some struggles, had looked to Mormonism to anchor them....

Dude, it's time. No more delays, no more excuses.UNLEASH HUNTSMANIA. Among the candidates, only two stand out as truly presidential, Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman. Both have track records of success, and both, through their policies and demeanors, have shown the breadth of spirit to lead the nation. But while Romney proceeds cautiously, strategically, trying to appease enough constituencies to get himself the nomination, Huntsman has been bold. Rather than merely sketch out policies, he articulates goals and ideals. The priorities he would set for the country, from leading the world in renewable energy to retooling education and immigration policies...

DOWS, Iowa - He has set himself apart from the rest of the Republican field as the candidate who believes the United States should shed its role as the world’s policeman and focus instead on its internal economic problems. Representative Ron Paul of Texas says he would cut a trillion dollars out of the federal budget his first year as president, in part by ending all foreign wars and foreign aid, including to Israel. Many conservatives characterize Paul’s foreign policy stance as extremist, isolationist, and anti-Israel, calling it a weakness that caps his support. Nearly half of those polled by...

(Crain's) — The federal judge overseeing the Tribune Co. bankruptcy case shot down reorganization plans submitted by the Chicago-based media company and a dissident creditor group, threatening to appoint a trustee to oversee the case if they don't resolve it soon. Tribune filed for bankruptcy protection in December 2008 under the weight of $13 billion in debt, a year after the company was taken private in an $8.2-billion leveraged buyout led by real estate mogul Sam Zell, who became its chairman. In a decision that started with the parable of the scorpion that stings the fox carrying him across the...

That would mean that a permit from Utah, a state with notably lax standards for concealed-carry permits, as well as permits from every other gun-toting state, would be valid in Massachusetts. Under the latest version of the bill, people with out-of-state permits would be allowed to carry guns on Massachusetts streets even if state laws would otherwise make it illegal for them even to possess a firearm.

The outing of an Icelandic woman as the snitch who dimed out Southie mobster James “Whitey” Bulger could put her in danger and may have a chilling effect on other witnesses who could think twice before coming forward, former prosecutors warn. The FBI — which vowed confidentiality to the tipster — also could take a hit if it comes out that the agency was involved in the leak, experts say. The FBI did not return calls yesterday. The woman’s identity was made public yesterday in a Boston Globe story on Bulger’s life of the lam. Her background, photo, husbands, career...

The Globe’s new paid Web site will be closely watched by other media outlets as newspapers face the economic squeeze caused by more readers getting their news over the Internet, experts said. “The more experiments like this, the better,” said Dan Gillmor, director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University. “We’re still all wondering what the business models — and that’s models — will be for the future.” The new site will be free until Oct. 1 and $3.99 per week thereafter. Boston.com will remain free, with breaking news, sports and blogs, which Gillmor said...

GETTING BEHIND the wheel after drinking heavily is a dangerously irresponsible act. To do so while in the country illegally shows even worse judgment. Deportation should be the expected result in such a case. ...Obama, who likely arrived here as a Kenyan student in the early 1960s, was the subject of a deportation order in 1992... A national debate is under way regarding the proper role of local law enforcement in relation to illegal immigration. Some local police departments don’t want to jeopardize relationships with urban residents merely to help US Immigration and Customs Enforcement resolve administrative cases. But nearly...

I will find out for myself soon enough. I am not a transgendered person, but I am happily married to one. Her name is Lina and she is a “male-to-female’’ transsexual. She is 47, and I am 53. We met at Logan Airport on Valentine’s Day in 2003, when we both lived in the area (we have since moved to North Carolina for work). I had left The Boston Globe copy desk the year before to be a freelance writer, and I wrote about a crazy ice-skating trip he took in my column for the Globe Travel section, “Where They...

HE DEATH of 30 Americans on a Chinook helicopter Saturday marked the single-deadliest day for this country in its 10-year war in Afghanistan. Among the dead were 22 Navy SEAL commandos, including members of SEAL Team 6, the famous unit that killed Osama bin Laden. That is tragedy enough. But the attack also holds a mirror up to the war itself and exposes the fallacy that we can leave Afghanistan on our own terms. Operationally, Saturday’s events show how little we have progressed in turning Afghanistan over to the Afghans. For a nation whose exit strategy was based on sharing...

New York Times Co. swung to a second-quarter loss on a write-down tied to its news media group, along with the continuing decline of advertising revenue and higher promotion costs related to the launch of digital subscription packages. New York Times, which also owns the Boston Globe, has signaled that its cost-cutting efforts, which have allowed it to remain mostly profitable despite its top-line declines, may be winding down. Most publishers have seen slower advertising-revenue declines, but the newspaper industry continues to battle circulation losses as readers migrate to the Internet. ... Revenue dropped 2.2% to $576.7 million, reflecting a...

In the summer of 1991, James J. "Whitey" Bulger won the Massachusetts lottery. Well, at least he claimed he did. The $14 million winning ticket was actually held by a South Boston man named Michael Linskey, who had purchased it at the Bulger-owned South Boston Liquor Mart. Linskey then told state lottery officials that he'd actually been partners with Bulger and two others and that they were entitled to half of the jackpot. This was all enormously suspicious. It had long been known that Whitey Bulger, whose brother Billy was then the most powerful politician in Massachusetts, lived on the...

COMMENTARY: Boston Globe’s Big Secret Commentary by Brian Wedemeyer Independent Managing Editor (Extracts) I was somewhat hesitant when Heather Smathers, one of our talented staff writers at The Independent, asked me if I was interested in a “big” story. But I listened as she described how she made a Freedom of Information Act request for documents in Barrack Obama Sr.’s immigration file. Regardless if you’re employed with the New York Times or the The Arizona Independent, there is no denying that the content of these documents is newsworthy. But whose job is it to tell this story? It is a...

This was a big catch by Brian Wedemeyer from the Arizona Independent. A Boston Globe reporter hid information on Barack Obama’s father for at least two years as she worked on a novel about the man’s life. I posted the story on our web site and then watched to see what kind of reaction, if any, there would be. A small part of me wondered if The Independent — something we have worked so hard to establish as a credible and reliable community news source — would be written off as a bunch of crackpots. After all, we’re not even...

In what appears to be a shocking journalistic fail, a Boston Globe reporter acquired Barack H. Obama Sr.'s immigration records in 2009 under a FOIA request. (Boston Globe)- The INS documents, released to this reporter through a Freedom Of Information Act request in 2009 in the course of research on a biography of the elder Obama to be released in July, reveal Harvard’s crucial role in the tumultuous course of the president’s father’s life. The documents were made public Wednesday by the weekly newspaper, The Arizona Independent. The records were very uncomplimentary to Obama Sr. He is described as a...

The newly elected members of the 112th Congress are working from a conservative ideological playbook and talking a big game where budget-cutting is concerned. Inevitably they will be tempted by a proverbial piece of low-hanging fruit, the $420 million annual appropriation for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. “This is the most serious threat to federal funding that public broadcasting has ever faced,’’ says Mike Riksen, National Public Radio vice president for policy and representation. Does he expect the CPB budget to be reduced, or eliminated entirely? “A reasonable person would plan for the latter,’’ he said. “That’s what we are...

Sunday's Boston Globe featured the article, "Teens seek schools' aid on sexual safety" on the front page of their Metro section. The article is basically another liberal puff piece promoting Planned-Parenthood style sex ed, trumpeting the kids as modern-day heroines, with the subtle message that anyone who might disagree is would be against "student safety." The article also promotes the upcoming showing of a pro-sex ed video supposedly created by the teenagers, promoting the Planned Parenthood sexual agenda, particularly free condom distribution, as the only alternative to ignorance, disease, and destruction. Of course, there is no opposing view included in...

Call this good news/bad news for Barney Frank in his fight to hold onto his job in Massachusetts’ 4th CD. The Boston Globe reports that Frank has a 13-point lead — but only gets 46% of the vote in a two-way race, 46-33. With a week to go before voting, Frank’s inability to get a majority may reveal a serious problem, and the Globe notes that enthusiasm may be that problem (via Jim Geraghty): US Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Newton, leads his Republican challenger, Sean Bielat, by 13 percentage points among likely voters in the Fourth Congressional District. In...

EVERYONE’S QUICK to blame the alien,’’ said Aeschylus a couple of millennia ago, and you might lose your citizenship rights in Ancient Greece if you called an Athenean official a Scythian. Nativism and xenophobia had their uses in early societies when it was necessary for survival to keep the cohesion of clan, tribe, or city state. The to-be-feared “other’’ lived just over the next hill, and would be tempted to come in the night to plunder and rape unless the group stuck together. But a couple of millennia on, if there is anything to the concept of American exceptionalism, it...

The Boston Globe next year will split its digital news brands into two distinct websites, keeping Boston.com free while establishing a subscription-only pay site, BostonGlobe.com, which will feature all the content produced by the newspaper's journalists, publisher Christopher M. Mayer said today. The change, scheduled to take place during the second half of 2011, is aimed at building an audience of paid subscribers online, a strategy that newspapers across the country increasingly are moving towards. With this approach, the company also aims to maintain high traffic to Boston.com, one of the nation’s largest regional news sites and a site that...

When Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) agreed to attend a fundraising dinner in Washington for the Log Cabin Republicans, many social conservatives were outraged. The group has long urged the GOP to be more accepting of gay rights, and some Republicans worried that the appearance by Cornyn, a party leader in Congress, would further legitimize its views. The senator not only attended the Log Cabin event at the Capitol Hill Club last Wednesday, he also accepted an award from the group, becoming the highest-ranking Republican to do so. After his speech, though, the group's president, R. Clarke Cooper, privately told Cornyn...

Friday September 10, 2010 Schwarzenegger, California AG Can Stay Out of Prop. 8 Fight: State Supreme Court By Peter J. SmithSAN FRANCISCO, September 10, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The California Supreme Court has turned down a request from attorneys to mandate that California’s governor and attorney general represent the state in the federal legal battle over Proposition 8.Late Thursday, the California Supreme Court denied a petition filed by Pacific Justice Institute to require Governor Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown to defend Prop. 8. In August, Chief U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker in San Francisco decided to overturn Proposition...

Not only did Steve Schmidt tell Sam Stein of the Huffington Post that “gay marriage is a conservative cause,” but he went on to up the ante even more. Schmidt, who is famously known as a being a failure for John McCain and being jealous of Sarah Palin’s hair, launched a missile at the Republican Party, declaring that “it’s hip to be queer.” “More and more,” fired Schmidt, I hear conservatives are saying that opposition to gay marriage is good. But that’s a crock of crap! Conservatives need to wake up and smell what they’re shoveling! Metro sexual is a...

Gay marriage is not going away as a highly emotional, contested issue. Proposition 8, the California ballot measure that bans same-sex marriage, has seen to that, as it winds its way through the federal courts. But perhaps the public has reached a turning point. A CNN poll this month found that a narrow majority of Americans supported same-sex marriage--the first poll to find majority support. Other poll results did not go that far, but still, on average, showed that support for gay marriage had risen to 45 percent or more (with the rest either opposed or undecided). That’s a big...

Same-sex marriage is back as a front-burner issue in American politics. First, on August 4, a federal judge in San Francisco held that there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, striking down part of the California Constitution defining marriage as one man and one woman. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has ordered an expedited schedule to consider this case, with arguments to be held in December. Second, former RNC chairman and 2004 Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman came out this week, announcing he’s homosexual, and pushing the Republican Party to support the homosexual-rights agenda. Republicans...

SAN FRANCISCO – The federal judge who overturned California's same-sex marriage ban has more bad news for the measure's sponsors: he not only is unwilling to keep gay couples from marrying beyond next Wednesday, he doubts the ban's backers have the right to challenge his ruling. Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker on Thursday rejected a request to delay his decision striking down Proposition 8 from taking effect until high courts can take up an appeal lodged by its supporters. One of the reasons, the judge said, is he's not sure the proponents have the authority to appeal since...

States across the country are in the midst of debating the idea of changing the definition of marriage as a union between one man and one woman. Five states have legalized the practice through legislative or judicial action, but despite thirty-one attempts, not a single time has a majority of citizens of a state approved such a change. Not that this is an argument for majority rule. It’s not. Every state has a republican form of government and should be governed by the rule of law rather than man. Nonetheless, at some point government is accountable to the people and...

Well, the new York Times has finally done it! They want to register all welfare recipients to vote, and every single reader comment is against their position. Some samples: "Well this is just wonderful Maybe everyone should quit trying to find employment and just go down to the blasted welfare office so government can give you a check to make sure you vote for corrupt and incompetent Democrats "I don't understand why the federal government doesn't just pay welfare recipients for voting. If you vote Democrat, you get a check. If you vote Republican, you get nothing. Why not just...

Last week, when Judge Walker's decision in Perry v. Schwarzenegger came out, I felt a dreadful fear. My fear was not about what gay marriage would do to the institution of traditional marriage. I reckon that marriage is not as fragile as conservatives fear, although one should never underestimate the damage that a liberal wrecking crew can do. Marriage is more than a "cultural construct." To use a liberal argument, the science is in on marriage. It is a profoundly Darwinian, evolutionary adaptation that will long survive the fashionable twists and turns in liberal jurisprudence. No, I fear what this...

(CNSNews.com) - U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker, who ruled last week that a voter-approved amendment to California’s constitution that limited marriage to the union of one man and one woman violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, based that ruling in part on his finding that a child does not need and has no right to a mother. Nor, he found, does a child have a need or a right to a father... To further his case that the well-being of children is no bar to declaring same-sex marriage a right protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, Judge Walker...

The federal judge who overturned California's same-sex marriage ban this week is a Republican who once came under fire for his membership to a powerful all-male club that had only recently allowed blacks to join. But after Chief U.S. Judge Vaughn Walker struck down the voter-approved ban known as Proposition 8, he became something else in the minds of some: a gay activist. Rumors have circulated for months that Walker is gay, fueled by the blogosphere and a San Francisco Chronicle column that stated his sexual orientation was an "open secret" in legal and gay activism circles. Walker himself hasn't...

Let's look at how the gay-marriage thing in California has unfolded so far: The state’s Supreme Court in 2008, on a one-vote margin, decides to redefine marriage to dump one key parameter that had always and everywhere in human history been part of marriage: that it be between complementary sexes, not identical ones. Within months, the voters of the state overrule the court, amending their constitution to say that, no, you can’t redefine basic social institutions against the will of the people. The losers sue the state. And Wednesday, a federal judge – a judge, as in one – overrules...

An openly homosexual federal judge in California ignored a warning from the state's own Supreme Court about the coming chaos of polygamy and incest if same-sex "marriages" are established to enjoin enforcement of the state's constitutional definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman only – and now he is being targeted by an impeachment campaign. Judge Vaughn Walker, who openly has lived a homosexual lifestyle, yesterday issued an order that the state could not enforce its own constitutional requirement that marriage is between members of the opposite sex only. The ruling from Walker said, "race and...

Judge strikes down 'Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California'... JUDGE: Having considered the trial evidence and the arguments of counsel, the court pursuant to FRCP 52(a) finds that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional and that its enforcement must be enjoined.

Court enjoins enforcement of Prop 8... Will be released at 2 pm pt... Judge strikes down 'Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California'..

The federal court in Massachusetts got its history and constitutional law wrong with its ruling that the federal Defense of Marriage Act violates “states’ rights” and federalism in defining marriage. For all federal law, DOMA defines “marriage” as one man and one woman and “spouse” to mean a husband or a wife. The district court struck down this federal definition of marriage in two decisions claiming that it intrudes on state sovereignty to regulate marriage, as well as other constitutional provisions. This extreme decision ignores extensive American history showing federal oversight of the states’ definition of marriage. But a double...

The jury is in. By all accounts MassResistance was right about the new Massachusetts "anti-bullying" law for schools which was passed unanimously by the Legislature in March with great fanfare and self-congratulation -- not to mention cheers from the Boston media. It's completely ineffective.

(Boston Globe reader writes:) I WATCHED the Fourth of July Esplanade program and fireworks on TV. The last part of the program was broadcast across the United States, presumably as an example of what a true American celebration should look like. I searched in vain for more than a few faces in the crowd that weren’t Caucasian, and couldn’t imagine what people of color must have thought to see that huge group of white people. Even the representatives of the armed services and the Boston Pops itself were overwhelmingly white. I’m not sure what the reason is behind this lack...

Massachusetts HB 1400 will be voted on in committee soon, perhaps as early as July 13th. It would establish a presumption of equally shared parenting in case of divorce or separation. If a judge deviated from an equally shared arrangement, he/she would have to write an opinion detailing the reasons for ordering unequal parenting. This article is a pretty balanced view of the subject on the part of a paper that’s on record as opposing the bill (Boston Globe, 7/5/10). Full disclosure: the article quotes Dr. Ned Holstein who is a board member of Fathers & Families as am I....

It is no secret that many of us who reject Obama's neo-communist agenda have turned to the Founding Fathers for guidance; when you think your country's founding principles are under attack, it's natural to re-acquaint yourself with the writings of the extraordinary group of men who wrote our founding documents.   When we examine this genius cluster, George Washington is perhaps the best loved.  Last week Glenn Beck recommended the four-year old, 1208-page tome, George Washington's Sacred Fire, which discusses pop culture fave topics like the religious beliefs of our first President.  The book shot to number one on Amazon's bestseller...

The state’s highest court has ruled Lowell school officials can’t fire a teacher who failed two English fluency tests. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court said a lower court could not overturn an arbitrator’s decision in favor of the teacher, Phanna Kem Robishaw. Robishaw began teaching in the Lowell public schools in 1992 after fleeing the Khmer Rouge regime. She was one of five teachers at her school of Cambodian birth, where nearly half the student population was Cambodian.... ....Robishaw had four state teaching licenses but failed the English tests in part, she said, because she was suffering from post-traumatic stress.

The fact that mainstream media coverage of the Muslim terrorist attacks in Moscow was predictable makes it no less craven. The Wall Street Journal (the hero of the story) ran the story above the fold, with a dramatic photo of a survivor, correctly identifying the bombers as an "Islamic insurgency." The New York Times likewise put the story on the front page. Their headline, however, reads: "Attack Victims Are Mourned as Russia Weighs Its Response." So as not to offend anyone, no mention of the identity of the attackers is made. A second New York Times story addresses the nettlesome...

SCOTT BROWN campaigned for the US Senate as a problem solver who values good ideas more than partisan labels, and he should make good on that vow in the debate over a bill to create jobs. What began as an ambitious package of business tax breaks and other incentives has given way to a timid $15 billion measure that will have only minor effects on unemployment. Brown could end an impasse - and dispel profound mutual distrust between Democrats and Republicans - by signaling a serious commitment to help develop and pass a more ambitious jobs bill.

. . . Delahunt’s people have offered one ridiculous excuse after another for his weeklong silence. The congressman, they have said, is traveling in Israel. He was, but it isn’t as though there are no phones there. He doesn’t remember much, they say. Talk to the Braintree police . . . Look, I’ve known Delahunt for years, and I’m not, at this point, reading too much into his actions. But Bishop’s alleged slayings constitute a huge tragedy, and how they happened is a matter of urgent business. There were not just red flags that she was criminally dangerous; there were...

WASHINGTON, DC, February 17, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington has been forced to give up the foster care program it ran with the aid of public funds, after repeated warnings that there would be no other choice should the D.C. City Council insist that the archdiocese recognize gay "marriage" partners in its employment practices. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that Catholic Charities handed over the foster-care program intact to the National Center for Children and Families on February 1. Catholic Charities, whose foster program included 43 children, 35 families and seven staff, runs more than 20 social...

NEW YORK – The New York Times is looking into the work of one its reporters following accusations that he plagiarized from The Wall Street Journal and other sources. The paper published an editor's note online Sunday and in papers Monday that said reporter Zachery Kouwe "appears to have improperly appropriated wording and passages published by other news organizations." The Times said Journal editors pointed out similarities between a Journal story from Feb. 5 and Times pieces later that day and on Feb. 6. The Times said a search found other similar examples taken from media outlets like Reuters and...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The New York Times is conducting an investigation after a Wall Street and finance reporter was found to have improperly used wording and passages from other news organizations. Zachery Kouwe, who joined the Times in 2008 from the New York Post, "reused language from The Wall Street Journal, Reuters and other sources without attribution or acknowledgement," the Times said in an editors' note. The Times said Kouwe appeared to have "improperly appropriated wording and passages published by other news organizations" in a number of business articles over the past year and in posts on NYTimes.com's DealBook blog....

I have been posting my thoughts in the comments section to articles appearing in the Boston Globe (on Boston.com) for well over a year and had never been ‘disappeared.’ Until now. Here is the evidence of my omission. (See frame 3 (three).) ...

(snip) Slowing down isn't in Air America's plans either. ''In five years we'll be on 600 radio stations," Sinton boasted. ''The brand will be pervasive, and I think it will be a quaint memory when people said, 'Boy, what a stupid idea.' "