Free Republic

Barack Obama for Re-Election The economy is slowly recovering from the 2008 meltdown, and the country could suffer another recession if the wrong policies take hold. The United States is embroiled in unstable regions that could easily explode into full-blown disaster. An ideological assault from the right has started to undermine the vital health reform law passed in 2010. Those forces are eroding women’s access to health care, and their right to control their lives. Nearly 50 years after passage of the Civil Rights Act, all Americans’ rights are cheapened by the right wing’s determination to deny marriage benefits to...

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...

People in Massachusetts are understandably frustrated. Next week's special election comes in the midst of a too-long Senate debate on health care, showcasing much of what is offensive about the rules of the Senate. The fact that a final bill hasn't even emerged has left many people ready to toss away the whole thing. Stir in the anxiety that comes with a still-faltering economy, and voters are angry. Both major-party candidates for Senate reflect something of that mood. Democratic Attorney General Martha Coakley, after more than two decades in law enforcement, is no pie-in-the-sky dreamer. Thoughtful and empirical, she views...

Boston Globe staffers' letter to Arthur Sulzberger Jr.; send on June 9 Dear Mr. Sulzberger, We have long admired your commitment to producing the world’s best journalism. We know, as a former reporter, that you appreciate the work we do and how we have continued to publish hard-hitting, thoughtful papers throughout these hard times. Despite all the rhetoric of the last few weeks, we believe you want to do the right thing – that, at bottom, you’re a mensch. We’re all too aware of the awful economic climate and the precipitous challenges to the newspaper industry. Most of us went...

With The New York Times Co. threatening to close The Boston Globe if the Globe's unions don't accept $20 million in concessions, the fate of the paper has become a conversation starter - and stopper - among those near the nexus of power and money in this town. Who, the question goes, might be lining up to buy the newspaper and possibly stave off a shutdown? "A lot of people ask me whether I'm going to figure out a way to buy it," said Ben Taylor, former publisher of the Globe. But Taylor, like others thought to be considering the...

There’s a mutinous mood on Morrissey Boulevard, as Boston Globe staffers lash out over a stunning ultimatum from parent company The New York Times [NYT] Co. “They’re nickel-and-diming people,” said a Globe union official who spoke on condition of anonymity, adding that top executives at The New York Times Co., which owns the Globe, “have ruined” the sagging broadsheet. On Thursday, Times executives told representatives from the Boston paper’s 13 unions that they must trim $20 million from their budgets by May 30 or the Times would shut the paper down. The move came days after the Globe reduced its...