Free Republic

Terry O’Sullivan, president of the 600,000-plus-member Laborers’ International Union of North America (LiUNA), often referred to as the Laborers’ Union, said that if Obamacare is not fixed, then “it needs to be repealed.” At a convention in Las Vegas of the AFL-CIO, with which the Laborers’ Union is affiliated, O’Sullivan took to the podium to endorse a proposition and then launched into a criticism of Obamacare, how it is hurting union members’ health coverage, and demanded it be fixed, adding that if it is not fixed, labor will make the issue a “big fricking deal.” … He continued, “We can’t...

Bill Clinton's memoir will hit bookstores later this month, but one story you're not likely to read in its pages involves Clinton's friendship with Arthur A. Coia. The debonair former president of the Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA) was one of the Democratic Party's biggest contributors when Clinton was in office. In the first four years of the Clinton administration alone, LIUNA gave $4.8 million to Democrat candidates and the Democratic Party. Although Clinton had contact with Coia no fewer than 120 times, their association is an awkward memory for the former president given the latter's ties to...

The Minnesota Vikings’ final act of sportsmanship in their shock victory over the New Orleans Saints on Sunday cost bettors a lot of money. The Vikings won the NFC Divisional Round game over the Saints on a last-second 61-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Stefon Diggs at US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. When Diggs ran into the end zone, the clock read 0:00, meaning the game was over. But the rules of football stipulate that even if a team scores a touchdown with no time left on the clock, it still needs to kick an extra point. Diggs’ touchdown gave...

Nevada taxpayers shelled out $750 million to build a stadium for the soon-to-be Las Vegas Raiders — and the deal may prevent the state from being able to recoup that money by imposing new taxes on the NFL team. An unusual provision in the Raiders agreement with the state allows the team, currently playing its final seasons in Oakland, to break the lease and look for another home if Nevada attempts to impose new taxes over the next three decades on the team, stadium, fans or players. That includes visiting teams and fans as well. The provision applies to any...

2018 has barely finished dawning, and already, the pharmaceutical industry once more has egg on its face from outrageous price hikes. This time, the culprit is pharmaceutical startup NextSource, which apparently has taken a 40-year-old cancer drug known as lomustine, and ruthlessly hiked its price from $50/pill in 2013, to $768/pill now. In other words, they’ve raised the price of the drug by over 1400% over the past five years. NextSource’s defense for why this has happened has to be read to be believed. CBS News reports that the company’s CEO, Robert DiCrisci, claims that the company set the price based on the...

Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello last month asked federal taxpayers to shell out $94 billion to pay for the territory’s recovery from Hurricane Maria — then turned around and paid out about $100 million in Christmas bonuses to government employees on the island. The governor’s aides say the bonuses were part of a long-standing tradition and were included in the budget approved over the summer. But that budget came well before Hurricanes Irma and Maria slammed into Puerto Rico, leaving much of the territory in ruin and the government begging for federal assistance. The island’s financial oversight board, created by...

Was the Korean Attack a Mistake? Washington fears Kim Jong-Il ordered the attack that has the Koreas on the brink. But North Korea says it was an accident, according to America's unlikeliest diplomat. Is it possible that a self-described “goomba” who owns a northern New Jersey barbeque joint has the answers to the latest crisis with North Korea—a showdown over a sunken South Korean warship that may be the most serious threat to peace since the Korean War? American diplomats and F.B.I. agents acknowledge that Robert “Bobby” Egan, owner of Cubby’s BBQ Restaurant in Hackensack, New Jersey, has managed over...

Jack Ruby made comments on the morning of President John F Kennedy's assassination to an FBI informant that suggested he knew what was about to take place, according to new records released Friday. Ruby, who was eventually charged with killing Lee Harvey Oswald, asked an FBI informant if he would like to 'watch the fireworks' with him as Kennedy's motorcade drove through downtown Dallas just hours before the assassination took place.

President Trump said Saturday morning he will allow the release of the classified files related to former President John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963."Subject to the receipt of further information, I will be allowing, as President, the long blocked and classified JFK FILES to be opened," Trump tweeted. Trump's announcement counters a report that predicted the president was likely going to block the release of some of the documents by the National Archives, which citing pressure from the CIA over possibly harmful national security information being revealed.Still, White House spokesperson Lindsay Walters told Politico Magazine that the Trump administratioin was...

President Trump announced on Twitter that he will allow the release of thousands of classified documents about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy after years of delays. The unexpected move means the trove of never-before-seen documents are set to be released by the National Archives by Oct. 26.

Subject to the receipt of further information, I will be allowing, as President, the long blocked and classified JFK FILES to be opened. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/921716470140325889

The Department of Justice has been investigating DisruptJ20, a "resistance" group that plotted to shut down President Trump's inauguration. The DOJ has demanded the IP addresses of visitors, along with any emails, photos and names it can get. But the pipeline of Dj20 funding goes back to George Soros. And not just Soros. Money from the Global Justice Alliance went to Refuse Fascism, a group founded by members of the Revolutionary Communist Party, which staged violent protests. “Respectable” big money leftist groups like the Hill Snowdon Foundation and Ben and Jerry’s Foundation fund middlemen like the Alliance. And then the...

In a strongly worded address before the United Nations Wednesday, a Vatican spokesman denounced President Trump’s threats against North Korea as “deplorable.” Speaking in New York at the 10th Conference for the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, the Vatican’s Secretary for Relations with States, noted that the rising tensions over North Korea’s growing nuclear program “are of special urgency,” while sharply criticizing President Trump’s handling of the situation. “The international community must respond by seeking to revive negotiations,” Gallagher said. “The threat or use of military force have no place in countering proliferation,...

The notorious mob boss was released five years early from an Arizona prison on September 18, and will remain on federal parole for life, a spokesperson for the Division of Offender Operations, Special Services Unit confirmed to Radar: The 72-year-old was serving a 20-year sentence for buying and selling the drug Ecstasy after a 2002 conviction. In the early 90’s, he was notorious for turning on his mafia family and helping the government bring down his former boss, John Gotti, in exchange for a generous plea deal. As part of the deal, Gravano confessed to murdering a shocking 19 people...

The other day, I was sitting at a picnic with several friends when someone referred to Vladimir Putin’s Russia as a “mafia state.” The other day, I was sitting at a picnic with several friends when someone referred to Vladimir Putin’s Russia as a “mafia state.” Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories FREE SIGN UP A Russian-born woman objected: “That is really offensive. Russia is a country of 140 million people. It is wrong to say they are all mafia.” “I am not referring to the people,” said the first speaker....

A ​no-nonsense ​Manhattan federal court judge blasted an aged wiseguy Thursday before sentencing him to seven years in prison — saying he should have thought beforehand about joining the mob if he didn’t want to die behind bars. “There’s a long history of capos who have died in prison,” Judge Richard Sullivan coldly told 73-year-old Pasquale “Patsy” Parrello before handing down the sentence — which brought audible gasps of disbelief from the packed courtroom. “You must have understood this, you had 88 months to think about it before,” he added.

This week the Vatican launched an international campaign against corruption and organized crime. Well, that’s not quite right. This week the Vatican announced the campaign; it will actually be launched in September. So we don’t know exactly what it will be. If you read the full announcement, released on August 2 by the dicastery for Integral Human Development, you’ll notice that the statement is short on specifics. There will be an “international consultation group,” which will promote education and public awareness of the damage done by corruption. So far, so good. But who will be the members of this group,...

The Italian mafia may have teamed up with the Islamic State to smuggle crude oil from the Middle East into Italy, an ongoing police investigation has suggested, according to The Times who cited a report by La Repubblica. The Italian daily noted that the police had found substantial amounts of Libyan and Syrian crude that were greater than some local refineries’ inventories, with sources connected with the investigation saying that crude, “should not have been there.” Yet the police have no evidence that the oil came from IS, or whether it came from another non-extremist group of traffickers, because the...

Nigerian migrant gangs are collaborating with the Sicilian Mafia in the organisation of prostitution rackets and the heroin trade, according to Italian police sources. An investigative report by The Times reveals that machete-wielding gangsters calling themselves ‘the Vikings’ have now taken the lead in trafficking of around 8,000 prostitutes a year into Palermo, a port city which has become one of the major landing grounds for hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants. The Vikings have displaced a rival organisation called the Black Axe, which The Times described as a Europe-wide operation which uses “voodoo rites” to intimidate African women into...

Artifacts connected to some of the nation's most notorious gangsters are being auctioned this weekend. A handwritten musical composition by Al Capone, a letter written by John Gotti, and jewelry that belonged to Bonnie and Clyde are among the items up for bid Saturday in the "Gangsters, Outlaws and Lawmen" auction in Cambridge, Massachusetts, by Boston-based RR Auction. The musical piece entitled "Humoresque" shows Capone's softer side. Written when Capone was in Alcatraz in the 1930s, it contains the lines: "You thrill and fill this heart of mine, with gladness like a soothing symphony, over the air, you gently float,...