Latest Articles

Shut up, they explained

January 25, 2012  •  The Boston Globe

FOR SHEER ANTIDEMOCRATIC GALL, it is hard to top the so-called "People's Pledge" signed on Monday by US Senator Scott Brown and Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren. The agreement is designed to keep third-party advertising from playing a role in their closely-watched race for the seat that Brown won in a special election in 2010. Of course there is not the slightest chance the deal will actually keep independent ads off the airwaves or the internet between now and November's election. Yet Brown and Warren claim to be sincere in their determination to keep third parties from trying to influence this year's campaign.

If so, shame on them.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

Tom Menino, cable guy?

January 22, 2012  •  The Boston Globe

CABLE TV SERVICE can be purchased in Boston for as little as 55 cents a day, a burden the city's top politician regards as so unjust that he is demanding the legal power to override it.

Mayor Thomas Menino spends a lot of time seething over cable fees. When Comcast, Boston's largest cable provider, announced last winter that the price of its basic package would rise to $15.80 a month, Menino excoriated the company's "offensive" rate as proof that "something is just plain wrong with the system." In May, he filed an "emergency petition" with the Federal Communications Commission, seeking "immediate" authority to regulate cable rates -- the better to shield subscribers "from Comcast's market power."

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

Burning with despair

January 18, 2012  •  The Boston Globe

NEAR THE KIRTI MONASTERY in a Tibetan area of China's Sichuan province, 21-year-old Lobsang Jamyang publicly set himself on fire last Saturday. It was the fourth time this month that a Tibetan protesting Chinese repression had resorted to self-immolation. When local residents attempted to retrieve his body from the police, Chinese security forces fired into the crowd, reportedly wounding two.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

In New Hampshire, 'acceptable' is pronounced 'winner'

January 11, 2012  •  The Boston Globe

FOR ANYONE gauging the Republican presidential contest, this week's most significant poll results weren't the ones tabulated in New Hampshire last night. They were the ones released by Gallup yesterday morning.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

A 'referendum' on Romney

January 7, 2012  •  The Boston Globe

SALEM, N.H. -- Mitt Romney has been thought for months to have the New Hampshire primary in the bag. But one vote he didn't have locked up until Wednesday was that of Steve Rowe, a Vietnam-era veteran who spent much of the 1970s aboard the USS Saratoga, a US Navy supercarrier. Like a lot of New Hampshire residents, Rowe headed into the final week before the presidential primary still unsure whom to support. It was only the endorsement of another Navy vet -- US Senator John McCain, the GOP's 2008 presidential nominee -- that moved Rowe into the Romney camp.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles