Free Republic

The son of a legendary mafia capo, a newbie made man and a mobster who did time for an infamous Queens racial attack were among the 13 reputed mobsters busted alongside NBA stars in a sweeping historic gambling bust, according to a new federal indictment. Among the most prominent of the gangsters who were dealt into the high-stakes scams is Angelo Ruggiero Jr, the son of the late Gambino captain Angelo “Quack Quack” Ruggiero Sr. Ruggiero Jr’s father was close friends with notorious Gambino boss John Gotti, who helped plan the murder of Gambino leader Paul Castellano in 1985. When...

The FBI has arrested Chauncey Billups, NBA champion, Hall of Famer, and coach of the Portland Trail Blazers for his association in a rigged poker game operated by some of New York City’s most notorious crime family. “Why would Chauncey do it?” the world of sports is asking. He’s already worth tens of millions of dollars. That’s a question for Billups, his attorneys, his God, and, presumably, Blazers ownership to answer. But as someone who regularly plays a lot of low and micro-stakes poker, I have a pretty good idea. The games I play in are monitored by security cameras,...

I’m sure you’ll understand: I have a little internet (ahem) “housekeeping” I must attend to today. So while I’m busy scrubbing, wiping and cleaning up my inner-tubes, I have a reading assignment for you - Victor Davis Hanson’s latest dissertation: Obama Being Obama. It’s sort of like Being Biden; only funnier. Professor Hanson makes the case that we shouldn’t be upset over the recent Scandalanche® surrounding his presidency, as it was we, not he, who changed the rules. Once Barack Obama was elected to the Illinois legislature, his career as a statesman was mostly an afterthought — either voting “present”...

Rip Van Obama President Obama went into a deep slumber in December. When he woke up this January, he found himself back even in the polls, with neither a press conference nor another overhyped presidential televised address to be heard. Sleep, quiet, and solitude — all that appears wiser than campaigning, visibility, and speaking, both for Obama and Americans. In short, the president has really hit on something: an Obama going into a Rip Van Winkle somnolent state might just mean waking up again as president. If conservatives once alleged that Obama got elected as Being There’s Chauncey Gardiner —...

As I listened to Obama's speech today my mind drifted back to a 1979 movie that I must have seen a half dozen times. I could see in front of me Chauncey Gardener - the main character in the movie "Being There." It wasn't so much what Obama was saying, it was the humor I found in the lack of substance in what he was and has been saying and the media's role in perpetuating a myth. The only difference between Chauncey Gardener and Barack Obama is that Chauncey was a man of simplistic innocence, a passive and simple-minded gardener...

One can only imagine what would happen if any passionate Christians still remaining at Yale demanded a Christ Month, with full staffing and funding from the university? What would the campus look like with crucifixes, crosses, and chalices hanging from trees like the pink and lavender streamers that presently cover the campus each April during the BGLAD Pride Month celebrations? Such an image of Christian images and icons at an Ivy League school founded 300 years ago by a Christian church is unimaginable, isn't it? The answer to that question provides a snapshot of the intellectual and moral deterioration of...