Free Republic

By one recent count, there have been 23 TV ads aired during the current U.S. Senate campaign, with maybe half that could be classified as negative. Given the closeness of the race and the way things are going, here are scripts of political commercials that may be coming soon to a television screen near you: Bob Corker appears with his mom, sitting in a porch swing, as she smiles and says, "Son, you know I'm so proud of our family." "Me, too, Mom," Corker replies. "You know, I've wondered why my liberal Washington insider opponent never talks about his family....

MEMPHIS, Tenn. In their first debate tonight, Bob Corker went after Harold Ford Junior's family while Ford accused Corker of flip-flopping on abortion. Republican Corker said his Democratic opponent for the U-S Senate was from a family engaged in--quote--"machine-type politics." Ford, a Memphis congressman, said he loved his family and asked Corker not to bring them into the debate. Corker, a former Chattanooga mayor, had not brought up the Ford family so far in the campaign. Ford's uncle is a former state legislator awaiting trial in a federal bribery case. Corker also criticized Ford's votes against a ban on late...

NASHVILLE — Another poll shows a tight U.S. Senate race between Democrat Harold Ford Jr. and Republican Bob Corker among likely voters in Tennessee but gives Ford a 10-point lead among all registered voters. Fifty percent of 598 likely voters said they would vote for Ford and 45 percent said they support Corker, according to a USA Today/Gallup poll reported Friday by The Tennessean. The 5-point difference is within the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 5 points, making the race a statistical dead heat. Among registered voters, Ford leads Corker 46 percent to 36 percent. The sampling...

The negative ads are coming fast and furious in the U.S. Senate race between U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr. and former Chattanooga Mayor Bob Corker. The two campaigns are running new ads on an almost daily basis - all of them attacking each other. The latest ad is by Democrat Ford, which supposedly shows Republican Corker walking out of the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the oil and gas lobby. The announcer says millionaire Corker was leaving a fund-raiser where the lobby helped raise $70,000 for his campaign. "Bob Corker. He's looking out for them. Not us," the ad states. It...

Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Harold Ford Jr. attacked his opponent's ties to the oil industry at a Thursday morning press conference in West Knoxville. From a sidewalk in front of a Pilot Oil station on North Cedar Bluff Road, Ford also challenged Republican candidate Bob Corker to produce his full tax returns and show a willingness to take part in public debates. "I'll meet him wherever he wants, any time he wants," Ford said, even if that means the debate would take place at "that beautiful mansion of his." Ford also alleged that Corker, a multimillionaire businessman and former Chattanooga...

Ford Jr. (Mr. Slick) was jeered, while Dr. Frist was cheered in Nashville.

In the first of a series, John A. (Junior) Gotti gives his first ever in-depth interview to Daily News staff writer Thomas Zambito He has tried to renounce the life, walk away from the Gotti legacy of greed, intimidation and murder. Yet even as John A. (Junior) Gotti says these things, he still cannot separate his newfound perspective on the Mafia from his love and respect for his father. "To this day, my father is a god to me," he said. Gotti has kept his relationship with the press to a few stray quotes and the occasional news story. But...

NEW YORK -- Prosecutors are accusing John "Junior" Gotti and his family of living lavishly on Long Island with a swimming pool, a horse barn and a staff of gardeners, drivers and housekeepers, while Gotti claims he is going broke. Prosecutors wrote in a letter to U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin that the lifestyle is especially surprising since Gotti has been in jail or on home detention for the last eight years and his wife does not appear to have a full-time job outside the home.

Thugs chanting "John Gotti rules" have leveled death threats at Curtis Sliwa and his young son, the radio host says, prompting him to beg help from his mob scion enemy to stop the goons, the Daily News has learned. The worst incident occurred Sunday when a gang of young men approached the Guardian Angels founder on Third Ave. while he was playing with his only child, 2-1/2-year-old Anthony Chester, Sliwa said. "They said that both my son and I deserved to have bullets put into our heads and they walked on," Sliwa wrote in a letter to Gotti obtained by...

WASHINGTON - The three major Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate differ on which of them is the best qualified, but they share the contention that Democrat Harold Ford Jr. is too liberal to represent Tennessee. All four hope to succeed retiring Sen. Bill Frist, a Republican. The Aug. 3 primary will choose Ford's opponent. Former Republican U.S. Rep. Van Hilleary made a commercial that alleges the National Journal, a nonpartisan publication that analyzes congressional votes, rated U.S. Rep. Ford "more liberal" than any other Tennessee member of Congress. The publication at different times has given Ford a higher liberal...

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP LEJEUNE, N. C. (May 24th, 2006) -- Junior Marines with Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command, Special Operations Support Group held a picnic for their unit May 24th that left some of the troops with more food on their faces than in their stomach. As part of an effort to help raise funds for the Marine Corps Birthday Ball, some of ‘The Few and The Proud’ sacrificed the latter and took one for the team during a pie-in-the face auction. “This picnic was all about building camaraderie and showing thanks to all the Marines and Sailors...

Senate hopeful says his style of politics is about progress, responsibility - Democrat U.S. Senate hopeful Harold Ford Jr. was in Knoxville Saturday night to energize the party faithful - and to urge all voters to consider what he calls a new approach to politics. That approach, he said in an interview before delivering the keynote address at the annual Truman Day Dinner, is to move the country forward while leaving behind old political labels of "left" and "right." "There is no Republican or Democratic way to pay $2.90 for a gallon of gasoline, or to turn on the news...

Curtis Sliwa watched the man he claims ordered a hit on him walk away from court for the second time yesterday - and said it hurt more than the ambush that almost killed him. "I would say this has been even more painful than being shot with three hollow point bullets," he told the Daily News. "It's like taking yet another slug. "I feel I have been robbed. It's like John [Junior] Gotti has been exonerated for all his sins, all his vicious crimes, simply because he announced his retirement. "I see him pictured in the Daily News, in church...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Gambino crime family scion John A. "Junior" Gotti dodged a legal bullet for the second time in eight months Friday when a federal jury deadlocked on racketeering charges against him, leading to a mistrial. U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin excused the jury after they said they were at an impasse despite less than two full days of deliberations. Prosecutors quickly said they intended to try Gotti, 42, for a third time.

A juror in John A. (Junior) Gotti's federal conspiracy trial bailed out just as deliberations began yesterday, after telling fellow jurors she feared for her safety, the Daily News has learned. Judge Shira Scheindlin granted the woman's request to be excused, which came moments after a jury foreman was picked and the panel was about to begin deliberations. "There's a verdict, Charlie," Gotti joked to attorney Charles Carnesi, when the foreman sent a second note.

A former bartender at John A. Gotti's social club testified yesterday that the club had hot-pink walls and an elaborate buzzer system and that a crucial prosecution witness — a turncoat mobster who claims that he made plans in the club to carry out a kidnapping Mr. Gotti had ordered — was never there. The bartender, George DiBello, suggested that the witness, Joseph D'Angelo, would surely have noticed the unusual décor of Our Friends Social Club, in Ozone Park, Queens, if he had been there, as he claimed in his testimony. Was there anything unusual about the décor of the...

Family Fights To Take Toddler Home Chris Frank Life Or Death Battle Feb. 28-A life or death decision could be hanging in the balance for a child. Little Brett Shively Junior was rushed to the hospital after a terrible accident where he nearly drowned in a bathtub. Now his family is fighting to bring the little boy home. A hearing is scheduled Wednesday in District Court to decide whether or not a Wichita hospital can remove the ventilator keeping the two year old boy alive. Brett's family says, "We just believe that we're the best people to decide his care."...

John "Junior" Gotti, who insists he quit the mob family run by his late father, the "Dapper Don," watched jury selection start yesterday at his racketeering retrial in Manhattan. One prospective juror was quickly disqualified: a former supervisor of the FBI's organized crime squad. The most serious charge facing Gotti is the 1992 kidnapping of radio host Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels crime-fighting group, who allegedly was targeted by "Junior" Gotti because of his on-air rants against the late John Gotti.

I just received a saddening telephone call from my best friend Rick. For those that remember a month or two ago, I posted a prayer request for Rick's brother-in-law Junior. With the help of his friends and family, and with prayers from people around the globe, Junior had been fighting the good fight against cancer and later on against leukemia as well. He was hospitalized on Thursday, and the family was called in, and earlier this morning, around 2:00 AM, December 3, 2005, Junior was called home to be with Christ. Rick called me just a few minutes ago to...

The jailed son of late mob boss John Gotti neared freedom on Monday after a judge agreed to release him on $7 million bond, less than a week after declaring a mistrial on the bulk of his racketeering case. Under bail conditions approved by U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin, John A. ``Junior'' Gotti would be released from a federal lockup in lower Manhattan, but remain under house arrest in his home on Long Island until a possible retrial early next year. Gotti, 41, was still in custody Monday as paperwork was finalized. His lawyers said he could be home with...