Free Republic

Leave it to a Red Sox scribe to rain on Mariano Rivera’s historic quest. Bill Ballou, of the Worcester, Mass., Telegram, spent about 1,500 words Saturday arguing that the Yankees legend shouldn’t receive a bid into the Hall. We checked the calendar. April Fools’ is months away. “...The Save — the baseball kind — is the lowest-hanging fruit on the game’s statistical tree,” Ballou writes. “Closers are its naked emperors.” Ballou continuously bashes the role of the closer, and even brings up Craig Kimbrel for sake of argument.

SALT LAKE CITY -- Congressman Jason Chaffetz said he is withdrawing his support for Donald Trump Friday after a video surfaced showing the Republican candidate for president making vulgar remarks in 2005 about touching and kissing women without their consent. Chaffetz, a Republican representing Utah's Third Congressional District, appeared on Fox 13 News at Nine Friday, saying: "I'm out. I can no longer in good conscience endorse this person for president. It is some of the most abhorrent and offensive comments that you can possibly imagine." Rep. Chaffetz said he and his wife have a 15-year-old daughter, and he said...

How does $8-a-gallon gas sound? Few Americans would want to see that happen. Unfortunately, President-elect Barack Obama’s choices for the government’s two highest energy posts have expressed a surprising level of comfort with sky-high gas prices. As if that weren’t bad enough, the incoming Obama administration and new Congress have suggested that they might reverse the pro-domestic oil drilling measures enacted since last summer. It is starting to look as though the change coming to Washington will bring bad news at the pump in the years ahead. As gas prices topped $4 a gallon last July, President George W. Bush...

Today, May 26, 2005, the American public and people all over the world witnessed a spectacle on the floor of the US Senate. A US Senator from Ohio, Senator Voinovich, broke down on the floor of the Senate and cried as he expressed his opposition to President Bush's nomination for UN Ambassador, John Bolton. In his impassioned and (apparently) sincere plea, he cried and told America and the world how he was unwilling to "risk" our representation at the UN to Mr. Bolton, and how he, Senator Voinovich feared for his children and grandchildren. Apparently in considering Mr. Bolton, Senator...

Former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik conducted two extramarital affairs simultaneously, using a secret Battery Park City apartment for the passionate liaisons, the Daily News has learned. The first relationship, spanning nearly a decade, was with city Correction Officer Jeanette Pinero; the second, and more startling, was with famed publishing titan Judith Regan. His affair with Regan, the stunningly attractive head of her own book publishing company, lasted for almost a year. Dramatically, each woman learned of the existence of the other after Pinero discovered a love note left by Regan in the apartment. The revelations about Kerik's private life come...

June 17, 2004 -- JOINING the ranks of Bush-bashing books is one from a most unlikely source. The Thomas Dunne imprint of St. Martin's Press has agreed to pay around $500,000 to Pat Buchanan for an anti-Dubya book to be called "Where the Right Went Wrong." The proto-conservative will blast the Bush Administration for behaviors both domestic and foreign. He is particularly scornful of the U.S. foreign policy that has "ignited a war of civilizations" with the Islamic world. Publishing insiders say Buchanan's thoughts on the 43rd president are surprisingly out of character. "They could put Michael Moore on the...