Free Republic

BRUCE MAXWELL JUST WANTS A FRESH START After the former A's catcher became the first and only MLB player to kneel during the anthem, his personal and professional life crumbled. Here's what happened and how he hopes to get back to the big leagues. On a cloudy Sunday afternoon in early February while pitchers and catchers throughout the land report to big league camps, Bruce Maxwell is on a high school baseball field in the spring chill, being shadowed by a spirited schoolboy named James. The afternoon is full of smiles, and it is difficult to tell which of them...

WASHINGTON -- There is a striking resemblance to covering the White House and nourishing an infant. You know the kind of activity parents engage in when they feed the baby by pretending the spoon full of apple sauce is a loaded airplane or helicopter and the mouth is a hanger. This is accompanied by aeronautical noises aimed at diverting the kid's attention from the true objective. This happens in most administrations, but the current one is more adept at it than usual, particularly since the spoon is often empty of any sustenance for a thinning cadre of correspondents hungry for...

Last week's prison deal brought cheers and plaudits from virtually all political corners in California. The Legislature, threatened by a federal court takeover of the state's prison system, averted the crisis -- it is hoped -- by enacting a comprehensive bill to deal with prison overcrowding and other corrections issues. Governor Schwarzenegger hailed the agreement as another example of how California can work in a post-partisan world. But like most political decisions made under duress, there are legitimate questions as to whether the deal reflects good public policy -- or whether it was even legal. To recap; California has a...

WASHINGTON - It was 2004 and Democrats were into their 10th year as the minority party in the House when they proposed a bill of rights to ensure their participation in the democratic process. The GOP ignored them. Now Republicans, newly demoted to the minority, say they are the ones suffering abuse despite repeated Democratic promises that theirs would be a more open, democratic and inclusive rule. "It seems," said Republican leader John Boehner (news, bio, voting record), R-Ohio, "over the last three weeks that the more we reach out and offer our hand of bipartisanship, (the more) it is...

WASHINGTON - A major appearance by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in Buffalo was suddenly closed to the media Monday, a week after the senator lambasted reporters for lacking enough "spine" to stand up to the Bush administration. After a day of conflicting statements, there was no clear answer to the question of who closed the Erie County Democratic Committee's fund-raising event in the Buffalo Convention Center to reporters and photographers. Senior county Democratic officials told The Buffalo News early in the day that Clinton aides had told County Democratic Chairman Leonard R. Lenihan that the senator's people wanted the event...

Giants WIN! Jason Schmidt: complete game shutout.