Free Republic

Governor Mitt Romney, under pressure to name more women to the bench, yesterday nominated three current or former prosecutors and a top official from the Menino administration in what aides boasted is the largest number of female candidates ever brought forward at once. Kathe M. Tuttman of Andover and Merita A. Hopkins of Boston were nominated as associate justices of the Superior Court; Tracy L. Lyons of Marblehead as associate justice of the Brighton division of the Boston Municipal Court; and Therese M. Wright of West Barnstable as associate justice of the Edgartown District Court. Until yesterday, just 13 of...

Absolute moral authority? "A Missouri mother says she will do “whatever it takes” to stop former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee from becoming president, because he freed the man who went on to rape and murder her daughter, Carol Sue Shields (pictured). “I can’t imagine anybody wanting somebody like that running the country,” Lois Davidson of Adrian, Mo., told the Blotter on ABCNews.com. Wayne Dumond was initially sentenced to life plus 25 years for raping a 17-year-old Arkansas high school cheerleader. In 1999, a parole board voted to free Dumond, after then-Gov. Mike Huckabee announced his desire to see him released."...

A Missouri mother says she will do "whatever it takes" to stop former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee from becoming president, because he freed the man who went on to rape and murder her daughter, Carol Sue Shields (pictured). "I can't imagine anybody wanting somebody like that running the country," Lois Davidson of Adrian, Mo., told the Blotter on ABCNews.com. Wayne Dumond was initially sentenced to life plus 25 years for raping a 17-year-old Arkansas high school cheerleader. In 1999, a parole board voted to free Dumond, after then-Gov. Mike Huckabee announced his desire to see him released.

Editor's note, Sept. 1, 2005: Wayne Dumond, convicted of rape in Arkansas and murder in Missouri, died of apparent natural causes in prison Tuesday. The occasion prompts us to republish Murray Waas' prize-winning article for the Arkansas Times in 2002 about the extraordinary steps Gov. Mike Huckabee took to help win Dumond's freedom. He has since blamed others for Dumond's release to kill again, but his actions over many years demonstrated his support for Dumond and, ultimately, the instrumental role he played in the parole board's decision to free him. Special handling How the Huckabee administration worked to free rapist...

Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis lost his bid for the White House in small part because he stumbled in his response to the Willie Horton saga. Horton was a convicted killer who, out of prison on a weekend pass in 1987, tortured and raped a Maryland woman. Dukakis' failure to exhibit due and swift outrage helped elect the first President Bush. Now former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is in a similar pickle - and anxious to signal that he is no Dukakis. A convicted murderer, set free by a Romney-appointed judge, reportedly confessed to a senseless double murder last week. Romney...

A Romney-appointed judge freed a deranged thug in Massachusetts who went on to murder a young couple in Washington state. It’s a nightmare of a story with shades of Willie Horton. If not for its hard-wired, soft-on-crime DNA, the Left would have a field day with this tragedy. Will Romney’s opponents run with it or stay away lest their own complicity in revolving-door horror stories come back to bite them?

Should I be worried? I just agreed with something Neal Gabler said. On yesterday's Fox News Watch, the liberal media critic opined that the MSM is backing Benazir Bhutto over Pervez Musharraf in the current Pakistan crisis -- and not for the loftiest of motives . . . [Also includes interesting historical footnote on Willie Horton episode.] View video here.

The mainstream media are focusing on former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's increasing popularity among Republican Iowa caucus-goers and his showing this past weekend at the annual Reagan Dinner in Iowa: Three of the top-tier Republican presidential candidates—Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and John McCain—failed to show at the seventh annual Reagan Dinner in Iowa Saturday night, unwisely ceding the floor to the six remaining GOP hopefuls. Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson took advantage of the absences.... Rising in the Iowa polls, Huckabee used his time on the stage to assure the crowd against one of his biggest criticisms by some in...

William S. Lerach, one of the nation's best known and wealthiest plaintiff lawyers, is preparing to plead guilty as early as today to a single criminal conspiracy charge that could send him to prison for up to two years, according to sources familiar with the case. Lerach, 61, resigned from his California law firm last month after intense speculation about his personal exposure in a lengthy federal criminal investigation. At the time, he said he wanted "to focus single-mindedly on putting the matter behind me once and for all." During his heyday, Lerach won settlements worth billions of dollars from...

Swift Boat Veterans: The liberal media and some Democratic politicians sometimes refer sneeringly to “Swiftboating” someone as if it were commonly understood by all that the Swift Boat veterans were lying about John Kerry. As a matter of fact, it was Kerry who told some whoppers about his Vietnam service, who obviously managed that service to build a record he could use in politics, who lied about the activities of his former comrades, and has not, to this date, released his medical records as he has promised to do over and over again. The Swift Boat Veterans performed another honorable...

Michael Dukakis has seen this script before: a Republican administration besieged by scandal and running out the clock on its second term, while wide-eyed Democrats confidently lick their chops, knowing there’s no way in hell voters will reward the G.O.P. with four more years in the White House. It was around this very moment 20 years ago, the summer when Oliver North told Congress he was “authorized to do everything that I did” and Reagan fatigue took hold, that Mr. Dukakis, then the 53-year-old governor of Massachusetts, emerged at the head of a crowded Democratic presidential pack. By the time...

Just in time for the Fourth of July, John Lott, author of the groundbreaking 1998 book "More Guns, Less Crime," has released another amazing book: "Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don't." This book provides studies and analysis proving that your every right-wing instinct is based on sound economic analysis. To wit: * Women shouldn't vote: "What changed ... that explains the growth of government? The answer is women's suffrage." * Fox News Channel isn't conservative: "Even employees of Fox News, which is widely regarded as a conservative channel, donate 81 percent of their contributions to...

Maureen Dowd plays the false indignation card in her pay-per-view column of today, What’s in a Name, Barry?The gist: those mean Republicans are trying to tar the rising star of the Democratic party [legally-mandated descriptor] by making malign associations with his moniker. The GOP's latest mischief - letting people know that the middle name of the junior senator from Illinois is "Hussein." Bunk. Any possible shock value in the Barack Hussein Obama handle has already largely faded. And this being a nation that likes to see itself as open and accepting, I'd say that, should he stay in the race,...

by Mark Finkelstein September 13, 2006 - 10:21 Was Maureen Dowd kidding about having called Tim Russert to ask if VP Cheney washed his hands after his Meet the Press appearance this Sunday? By all indications she was not, making one fear the Times columnist is slipping ever deeper into Dowd Derangement Syndrome. Dowd writes in her pay-to-read column of today, Vice Must Wash Hands Before Returning to Work, "I called Tim Russert to ask if Dick Cheney had washed his hands after their interview on Sunday. Any sort of scrubbing, I wondered? Antiseptic wipe, Purell, quick shower on the...

MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. (AP) - A man who beat his ex-wife to death with an unloaded shotgun during an eight-hour furlough from prison was executed early Wednesday, hours after the governor denied his request for clemency. Alan Matheney, 54, was pronounced dead at 12:27 a.m. EST after receiving a lethal injection at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. Matheney said his attorney would give his final statement. Matheney was sentenced to death in 1990 for murdering 29-year-old Lisa Bianco. Prosecutors said he drove to the South Bend suburb of Mishawaka, broke into Bianco's home, chased her outside and beat...

John Kerry was lieutenant governor of Massachusetts from 1983 to 1985, a fact most Americans--even Kerry supporters--either don't know, or ignore. And with good reason. The obvious, of course, is that Kerry desires not to be associated with his former colleague, then Governor Michael Dukakis, the same Dukakis that unsuccessfully ran against George H. W. Bush for President. John Kerry has many reasons to wholy ignore his record as lieutenant governor, similar to his reasons for avoiding his short stint as a prosecutor from 1976 to 1979. John Kerry may be running from his record, but he can't hide from...

Every campaign has a tipping point or two. In 2000, Bush was cruising until the last-weekend revelaion of a DUI. Democratic strategist Bob Beckel estimated that this cost Bush 1 million votes nationally. If so, certainly one can pro-rate that out to say, in another way, that the last-minute smear cost Bush the states of New Mexico, Wisconsin, and probably Iowa, and turned a safe victory into a squeaker. Until then, however, the focal points of the elections were the three debates, where Bush won two clearly and held his own in the third. Algore looked frantic in one, on...

Every campaign has a tipping point or two. In 2000, Bush was cruising until the last-weekend revelaion of a DUI. Democratic strategist Bob Beckel estimated that this cost Bush 1 million votes nationally. If so, certainly one can pro-rate that out to say, in another way, that the last-minute smear cost Bush the states of New Mexico, Wisconsin, and probably Iowa, and turned a safe victory into a squeaker. Until then, however, the focal points of the elections were the three debates, where Bush won two clearly and held his own in the third. Algore looked frantic in one, on...

Q Do you -- does the President repudiate this 527 ad that calls Kerry a liar on Vietnam? MR. McCLELLAN: The President deplores all the unregulated soft money activity. We have been very clear in stating that, you know, we will not -- and we have not and we will not question Senator Kerry's service in Vietnam. I think that this is another example of the problem with the unregulated soft money activity that is going on. The President thought he put an end -- or the President thought he got rid of this kind of unregulated soft money when...

Defining Kerry downward Posted: March 15, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com Will George W. Bush share the fate of his father and be turned out of office 18 months after having won a military triumph that vaulted him to 90 percent approval? So it seemed during the primaries, as almost a dozen Democratic candidates pummeled Bush daily for having misled the nation on Iraq and presided over the greatest job loss since Hoover. These same two months have been the halcyon days of John F. Kerry. Every Tuesday night, he has appeared before the nation smiling in victory....