Ralph Amendolaro, a Queens construction worker, is cashing in today with a little help from, of all people, convicted felon Bernie Madoff.

Though not a regular purchaser of lottery tickets, Mr. Amendolaro told the NYDN he purchases tickets when a number catches his eye. After noticing one such number – 054, the last three digits of Madoff’s prison ID – Amendolaro said to himself, “I’m going to be a winner with this guy even though everyone lost money with him.” Adding, “Somebody had to get a little lucky with him.”

A little lucky, indeed. 

After placing a $3 bet once a day for 3 days, Mr. Amendolaro’s “lucky number” came up.  For his petty $9 investment – a far cry from those made by others on Madoff’s investment scheme – Amendolaro will cash in his ticket for $1,500.

No word yet on whether Mr. Amendolaro will pursue similar reparations from Mr. Madoff’s ponzi companion, President Barack Obama. The former swindler, of course, pleaded guilty to securities fraud and robbing American investors to the tune of $65 billion; the latter managed to dupe voters out of $787 billion in one fell swoop.

Cross-posted at Skepticians.com.

Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele should resign from his post immediately, according to the American Family Association’s new online survey.

In light of Steele’s regrettable GQ interview, AFA President Don Wildmon asked members if the beleaguered Republican chief should resign from his post, declaring the former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland believes “abortion is a choice, and homosexuality is not.”

An overwhelming 94% of the more than 74,500 respondents answered Wildmon in the affirmative. 

Likewise making their displeasure known, prominent social conservative luminaries characterized Steele’s mea-culpa as “very troubling.” Ken Blackwell, who formerly endorsed Steele after withdrawing from consideration for chairman on the fifth round of balloting, sternly instructed his former rival to “re-read the Bible, the U.S. Constitution, and the 2008 GOP Platform … or get out of the way.”

Both Chairman Steele and his socially conservative detractors, the number of which are growing by the thousands at AFA’s website, are sorely misinformed: The role of RNC Chairman is not one of a curator of opinion. Steele’s opinions on abortion and gay rights – whenever he settles on one – should have no influence on the implementation of sound strategies in his capacity as chairman.

Speculating perhaps that the “open,” candidate-centered campaign for chairman manufactured Steele’s present predicament by creating the perception that the candidates’ opinions actually mattered, Phil Klein writes, “in the end, it turned the race into more of a personality contest.”

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Forced to address whether gay federal employees and spouses are eligible for, among other things, health insurance coverage, President Obama is now in the unenviable position of navigating a political and social minefield: Balancing his commitment to the LGBT community and progressive liberals with his willingness, and need, to appease the conservative Evangelical community.

As it stands now, health benefits are readily available to spouses of federal employees, though as an official for the Office of Personnel Management explains, “spouses,” as stipulated by the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, are persons “of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.”

In accordance with DOMA’s strict interpretation of spouses, gay federal employees are currently denied the opportunity to extend health care benefits to their partners – even if their states recognize them as legally married. This strict definition, they argue, denies gay men and women equal compensation.

The federally institutionalized ‘discriminatory practice’ of denying health coverage to the committed partners ostensibly violates Obama’s socially liberal sensibilities, but President Obama is first a politician looking to get reelected, and second an ally to the LGBT community. Obama understands when it’s politically advantageous to engage in ethnic-, religious-, social-, and regional-based politics, and, perhaps more importantly, when it’s not. The latter being anytime one is actually governing.

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In what will only serve as additional ammunition for his more socially conservative detractors, RNC chief Michael Steele split with the party faithful and took a decidedly controversial position: That homosexuality was not, in his opinion, a choice.

“I don’t think I’ve ever really subscribed to [the] view [that homosexuality is a choice], that you can turn it on and off like a water tap,” he said in a recent interview with GQ’s Lisa DePaulo. Even going so far as comparing the static nature of sexuality to race, he said, “You just can’t simply say, oh, like, ‘Tomorrow morning I’m gonna’ stop being gay.’ It’s like saying, ‘Tomorrow morning I’m gonna’ stop being black.’”

Steele’s comments, while seemingly refreshing to moderate GOP members, highlight a serious concern among the fledgling chairman’s critics. His proclivity for embarrassing gaffes is forcing the RNC’s skeleton crew to work double-time to salvage what remains of his once sterling reputation as a polished spokesman.

“Lest we forget, communication was supposed to be his strongest suit,” writes an irritated Phil Klein. But why, then, must we be inundated with stories of clearly avoidable mistakes? Klein argues that Steele’s desire to portray a moderate-friendly image at all times, even at the cost of abandoning his own principles, results in the delivery of a “completely muddled message.”

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Katon Dawson, one time contender for the top Republican post, is quietly coordinating a vote of no confidence in newly-elected RNC Chairman Michael Steele after the NY 20 special election on March 31 – “regardless of whether Republicans win the seat or not,” reports Taegan Goddard.

After an extremely divisive race for RNC Chairman, Steele, the former Chairman of GOPAC, bested Dawson on the sixth ballot, and political insiders are quick to note the lingering bad blood between the two rivals.

If Goddard’s sources are correct, Dawson won’t be the only top-ranking party official to voice their concern over Steele’s debut month as Chairman. In a memo circulated last week to national committee members, Dr. Ada Fisher, one of three African American members of the RNC and a former Dawson supporter, called for Steele’s resignation, saying he was “eroding confidence” in the national party apparatus to fundraise and remain competitive in a Republican-hostile climate.

The metrics by which Fisher, and ostensibly Dawson, judge Steele – his proposed ‘hip hop’ makeover, and the public flap with Rush Limbaugh – are embarrassingly shallow, particularly so when used as ammunition to call for a chairman’s resignation. As Politico’s Mike Allen explains, ousting a party chairman is no small order, in fact, the likelihood of other members joining Fisher and now Dawson is exceptionally low.

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Joining a growing choir of conservative luminaries, thought-leaders and activists in criticizing newly-elected RNC Chairman Michael Steele, Samuel “Joe The Plumber” Wurzelbacher leveled some harsh, Johnny-come-lately criticisms earlier this week in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 

At a gathering of 800 conservative activists at Americans for Prosperity’s “Defending the American Dream Summit,” Wurzelbacher warned of the “long road ahead” as Republicans wander the desert for the next four years without leadership, awaiting the 2010 and 2012 elections.

“Unfortunately we have a chairman up there who wants to redefine conservatism; he wants to make it hip hop, put it in a new package and sell it,” Wurzelbacher griped as he referenced a three week old Steele interview with the Washington Post’s Ralph Z. Hallow. After his historic election, the newly-minted Chairman told Hallow he intended to revitalize the Party’s stale image – one all too often associated with aging, technophobic white men – via an unprecedented presence in print, television, radio, and online outlets.

Wurzelbacher’s reductive critique of Chairman Steele’s agenda serves no one’s purpose beyond his own, as he recently hung up the plunger and boots to publish a book. And to boost sales of this not-so-originally titled book, Fighting for the American Dream, it isn’t surprising that Wurzelbacher would resort to drumming up controversy where none exists, or revive a one which has long since faded into the annals of bad talking points.

After a brief run-in with then Senator Barack Obama, Wurzelbacher was catapulted to the national stage by the McCain campaign as a shining example of the quintessential blue collar, small business owner who was threatened by Obama’s tax system. But his lasting influence – the fact we’re now 4 months out from November 4th but still forced to read the cringe-inducing title “Joe the Plumber” – is explained as such: His current media presence is an unfortunate byproduct of the 2008 campaign, a byproduct I regrettably helped create as an agent of that campaign. We unknowingly created a monster, and I suspect he won’t leave town until he’s chased by angry villagers with pitchforks.

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