Free Republic

Mayor Bloomberg waded into the thicket of the attorney general's race today, praising Republican candidate Dan Donovan as somebody who would be "a spectacular attorney general," while back-handedly slapping his Democratic opponent, state Senator Eric Schneiderman. I think [Donovan] would focus on what he needs to do going forward as attorney general, and that is enforce the law, prosecute people when they break the law, and leave being governor to the governor. You always get worried when you have a candidate for attorney general that wants to use that office to enact a social agenda. I don't think that's good....

Modern women balk at any suggestion that men should be able to tell women how to behave. Many believe that a woman should be able to do whatever she likes without worrying “what women are supposed to do.” When feminists talk to men, they pretend to offer the same sort of freedom from social expectations attached to one’s sex. But this talk of freedom is always a lie. This new, “free” model of manhood approved by feminists must, after all, serve the interests of feminism. Many traditionally masculine behaviors and ideas are clearly “off limits.” So, while the new woman...

Polling suggests most Republican candidates for statewide seats will be defeated in November. Two candidates, however, are in prime position to become the first Republicans in over a decade to serve in their respective seats. Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan and Harry Wilson are the GOP nominees for attorney general and comptroller, respectively. Donovan received the GOP nod and avoided a primary when Onondaga County Comptroller Robert Antonacci decided not to challenge Donovan in a primary. Wilson gives the party a great shot at beating, as Republicans would call him, “unelected” Comptroller Tom DiNapoli. Donovan, prior to becoming district...

March 5, 2009 Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/pr_1236280325302.shtm Secretaries Donovan and Napolitano Announce Hurricane Recovery Funding for Louisiana New Orleans – On day one of U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan and U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano’s listening tour throughout New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, the secretaries announced hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to Louisiana to stimulate long-term recovery in the wake of last year’s devastating hurricane season and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. “Today, we turn the page and start a new chapter in the federal partnership...

Will Bill Clinton come with Hillary for Day One of her confirmation hearing? The Senate is wondering. Here are some of the dates for the upcoming Senate confirmation hearings: -- Tuesday, Jan. 13, 10:00 am ET: Education: Arne Duncan (HELP Committee) -- Tuesday, Jan. 13: Energy Secretary: Steven Chu (Energy and Natural Resources Committee) -- Tuesday, Jan. 13, 10 am ET: HUD: Shaun Donovan (Banking Committee) -- Tuesday, Jan. 13, 9:30 am ET: State: Sen. Hillary Clinton (Foreign Relations Committee) -- Wednesday, Jan. 14: Veteran Affairs: Gen. Eric Shinseki (Veterans' Affairs Committee) -- Thursday, Jan. 15: Interior: Sen. Ken Salazar...

Billy Donovan informed the Magic and the University of Florida over the weekend that he had second thoughts about agreeing to be Orlando's head coach, but it's unclear if the NBA team will let him go. Orlando has a signed contract from Donovan and are making a decision as to whether or not to let him out of the five-year, $27.5 million deal that he signed Thursday, multiple sources told ESPN.com Sunday. If the Magic do let Donovan out of the deal, they have to decide whether to enforce a financial penalty. Both sides aren't talking publicly since there are...

WONDERLAND Scooter Libby and Reputation Prosecutions that wreak ruin on a lifetime. The trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is the closest version of a Red Queen trial this country has had in a long time. One says that knowing it might start a stampede from past defendants laying claim to the most upside-down prosecution. Lewis G. Carroll's account of the Knave' s trial before the Red Queen and White Rabbit is famous for the Queen's dictum, "Sentence first, verdict afterward." But read the full transcript of the mock trial and one will see that the real subject is not...

At the time it seemed a daring gamble: the defense rested its case without calling a single witness, relying entirely on cross-examination and closing arguments to make its points. But as it turned out, it was no gamble at all: several jurors had already decided that the prosecution had no case, and once the nine-month trial ended, the rest of the twelve-member panel agreed. Only one vote was needed to acquit all ten defendants of each of the ten charges against them. All that remained after 9 1/2 hours of deliberations was for Jury Forewoman Rosa Milligan to pronounce the...

2006 SIERRA MIST MLS ALL-STAR GAME Toyota Park, Bridgeview, Ill. Saturday, Aug. 5, 2005 (6:30 p.m. ET; Live on ESPN)

Spain will open the games, playing against Saudi Arabia in Kaiserslautern at 9:55 a.m. ET on ESPN and Ukraine will face Tunisia at the same time in Berlin (ESPN2). Ukraine goes into the game against Tunisia knowing that it determines its own destiny. A victory will guarantee passage, but a draw could set up the possibility of another tie-breaking situation on goal difference. Tunisia, meanwhile, which hasn't won a World Cup game since its debut in 1978, has to defeat Ukraine and hope that Saudi Arabia does not defeat Spain by a large margin. France will play against Togo in...

The U.S. national team goes into Thursday's Group E finale against Ghana (9:55 a.m. ET, ESPN) knowing that it must come up with a win to have any chance of moving to the Round of 16. All four teams in Group E, including the USA, still have a chance to advance. The U.S. must beat a tough Ghana side to have any chance of moving to the knockout phase. Should Bruce Arena's team be able to secure three points against the Africans, whom they meet at 9:55 a.m. ET on ESPN, they will need Italy to beat the Czech Republic...

The wait finally comes to an end Monday for 11 of the 15 MLS players at the 2006 World Cup as the U.S. national team opens Group E play against Czech Republic in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. The Los Angeles Galaxy's Landon Donovan will lead the U.S. team into action starting at 11:55 a.m. ET on ESPN2. In other action, Australia meets Japan in Kaiserslautern at 8:55 a.m. (ESPN2) for a Group F match. Italy and Ghana clash in the third match of the day, a Group E affair in Hanover at 2:55 p.m. (ESPN2).

CONWAY — The husband of a Galivants Ferry woman is suing Wal-Mart for $10 million three years after two men abducted her from a store parking lot. Barry Donovan's lawsuit accuses Wal-Mart of negligence and carelessness that resulted in the death of his wife. Alice Donovan was kidnapped Nov. 14, 2002, by two men who had escaped from a Kentucky prison. Federal juries convicted Chadrick Fulks and Branden Basham of murder though her body has never been found. Both men were sentenced to death. Allegations in Barry Donovan's lawsuit include that Wal-Mart failed to adequately monitor and control its premises....

Like the exploits of 21st-century special operators – including U.S. Navy SEALs, Army Delta soldiers, Force Recon Marines, Air Force commandos, and CIA paramilitary operatives – stories of men like Ortiz are rarely gleaned from books, newspapers, and magazines. Their incredibly dangerous work often goes unseen and is thankless.

The final item in the Sept. 30, 1944 "Activity Report of Virginia Hall," American intelligence agent, was No. XV: "Were you decorated in the Field?" "No," she had typed, "nor any reason to be." The answer was typical of her matter-of-fact sense of duty. But William J. Donovan, known to a generation of spies as "Wild Bill," begged to differ. On May 12, 1945, Maj. Gen. Donovan, director of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services, informed President Harry Truman that Hall was, for her extraordinary heroism, to receive the Distinguished Service Cross -- second only to the Medal of Honor....

The U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team will face England for the first time since 1994 in a Memorial Weekend match-up at Chicago’s Soldier Field on May 28 at 2 p.m. CT, in a match being broadcast live on ESPN2. The meeting between the two quarterfinalists at the 2002 FIFA World Cup comes amidst the qualifying schedules for both nations as they aim for a spot in the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany.

Prompted by an international tribunal's decision last year ordering new hearings for 51 Mexicans on death rows in the United States, the State Department said yesterday that the United States had withdrawn from the protocol that gave the tribunal jurisdiction to hear such disputes. The withdrawal followed a Feb. 28 memorandum from President Bush to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales directing state courts to abide by the decision of the tribunal, the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The decision required American courts to grant "review and reconsideration" to claims that the inmates' cases had been hurt by the...

That's it. Any comments out there?

Notwithstanding former President Jimmy Carter's recent statement to the contrary, Undersecretary of State John Bolton's remarks about Cuba's biological weapons capabilities underscore lingering concerns with the rogue island only 90 miles from the United States. Bolton, on May 6, told an audience at the Washington, D.C.-based Heritage Foundation that the U.S. is suspicious about Cuban biomedical laboratories and their ability to transfer biological weapons technology to Iraq, Syria and Libya, all countries that Cuban President Fidel Castro visited last year. Bolton also made remarks, which may be interpreted as a clear signal of hardening State Department policy toward Cuba, faulting...

In the vernacular of espionage, he was a "spook," a World War II shadow soldier whose field of operations knew neither front lines nor rear. Art Jibilian was attending Navy radio operators school in 1943, when he was first approached by a recruiter for the Office of Strategic Services, precursor of the CIA. The man told Jibilian of his likely assignments, "Sometimes we will drop you by parachute. Sometimes you will go by submarine. You will have a 50-50 chance of making it back." "He didn't pull any punches," Jibilian recalls today. "He told me the OSS needed radio operators...