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Posts Tagged ‘MAFIA’

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A NEW APPROACH TO GANGBUSTING: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 4, 2013 at 12:01 am

There is a phrase that’s well-known south of the border: “Pan, o palo.“  Or, in English: “Bread or  stick.”

And this, in turn, comes down to: Behave well and you’ll get this nice reward.  Behave badly and you’ll get your head beaten in.

In my last column I discussed the need for brandishing the stick when dealing with powerful street gangs such as the Aryan Brotherhood.

It’s the Brotherhood that’s suspected of being responsible for murdering two Texas prosecutors since February.

In this column I want to discuss creatively using the carrot to at least partially control gang violence.

It’s essential to remember the following:

  • Some 33,000 violent street gangs, motorcycle gangs, and prison gangs with about 1.4 million members are criminally active in the U.S. today.
  • Gangs are responsible for an average of 48 percent of violent crime in most jurisdictions and up to 90%  in several others.
  • Many are sophisticated and well organized; all use violence to control neighborhoods and boost their illegal money-making activities, which include robbery, drug- and gun-trafficking, fraud, extortion, and prostitution rings.

These gangs aren’t going to disappear, no matter how many of their members die or wind up in prison.

For decades, the rhetoric of the Cold War has carried over into the debate over policing.

“Hawks” on the Right have demanded a “hard” approach to law enforcement, emphasizing punishment.  “Doves” on the Left have pursued a “soft” line, stressing social programs and rehabilitation.

But it isn’t enough to be “hard” or “soft” in pursuing the goal of a safe, law-abiding society.  It’s necessary to be “smart” above all.

If you can’t eradicate evil, then you should try to direct at least some of its elements into a safer path.  Thus:

  • Each state should invite its resident gang members to take part in a series of competition for the title of “State Gang Champion.”
  • These would be modeled on competitions now existing within the National Football League–a series of playoffs to determine which two gangs will duke it out in the “Super Rumble.”

vs.

  • These competitions would be completely voluntary, thus eliminating any charges of State coersion.
  • They would be modeled on the country’s current mania for “Ultimate Warrior” contests for kickboxers and bare-kunckled fighters.
  • Contestants–as many as a score or more from at least two opposing gangs–would meet in a football-sized arena.

A modern-day Coliseum

  • No firearms would be allowed.
  • Contestants could otherwise arm themselves with whatever weapons they desired–such as baseball bats, swords, axes, spears or chains.
  • Everyone who agreed to participate would automatically be granted immunity for whatever carnage they inflicted.
  • The object of these contests would be to officially determine which State gang was the “baddest” for the year.
  • Tickets could be purchased by fans looking for an afternoon’s festival of gore.
  • Television networks could–and no doubt would–vie for rights to film the events, just as they now do for “pay-for-view” wrestling or boxing matches.

But would hard-core gangs even consider participating in such a series of contests?

Yes–most gangs would want to do so.  Here’s why:

  1. They would be able to eliminate members of rival gangs without risk of prosecution and imprisonment.
  2. They would be able to gauge–through the heat of combat–the toughness of their own associates.
  3. They would gain at least temporary stardom–just as successful gladiators did under the Roman Empire.
  4. The winning gang would gain official status as “The Baddest” gang in the State.

On the last point: Napoleon Bonaparte created the Order of the Legion of Honor, distributed 15,000 crosses to his soldiers and called his troops the “Grand Army.”  When someone criticized him for giving “toys” to his war-hardened veterans, Napoleon replied: “Men are ruled by toys.”

And for the State there would be gains as well:

  1. These contests would literally eliminate a great many gang members who cannot be removed any other way.
  2. Police and prosecutors could concentrate their limited resources on gangs that refused to participate or were deemed to pose a threat.
  3. Millions of dollars in State revenues would be generated through ticket sales and the buying of pay-per-view rights.

Admittedly, many law-abiding citizens would be repulsed by the carnage that would result from implemting this proposal.   But these are generally the people who disdain boxing or wrestling contests anyway.

But given our increasingly jaded and violence-prone society, most of them would eventually tolerate it as an effective way to simultaneously raise badly-needed tax revenues and reduce the size of criminal gangs.

Republican politicians would find this an especially attractive proposal, since it adheres to the two concepts dear to the hearts of all Right-wingers: Killing people and making money.

In short: With sufficient creativity and ruthlessness, it should be possible to reclaim control of our streets from the evils of gang violence.

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A NEW APPROACH TO GANGBUSTING: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 3, 2013 at 12:00 am

A Federal prosecutor has withdrawn from a large racketeering case involving members of the Aryan Brotherhood, citing “security concerns.”

The Dallas Morning News reported that Houston-based assistant U.S. attorney Jay Hileman announced his withdrawal in an email.

The news comes days after Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, were shot and killed during Easter weekend in their home near Dallas.

Mike McLelland

In February, Mark Hasse, an assistant prosecutor in McLelland’s office, was gunned down in a parking lot about a block from his office at the Kaufman County Courthouse.  Hasse was a veteran prosecutor of organized crime cases.

Although no suspects have been positively identified, state and Federal investigators believe that the Aryan Brotherhood might be responsible for these attacks on prosecutors.

Such attacks–and the withdrawal of a federal prosecutor for fear of becoming a target–are unprecedented.  And clearly law enforcement needs to take a new and creative approach to attacking street gangs.

According to the FBI:

  • Some 33,000 violent street gangs, motorcycle gangs, and prison gangs with about 1.4 million members are criminally active in the U.S. today.
  • Many are sophisticated and well organized; all use violence to control neighborhoods and boost their illegal money-making activities, which include robbery, drug- and gun-trafficking, fraud, extortion, and prostitution rings.
  • The FBI is redoubling its efforts to dismantle gangs through intelligence-driven investigations and new initiatives and partnerships.

Obtaining timely and accurate intelligence about gang activities is, of course, an absolute necessity.  But there are two approaches the FBI and other law enforcement agencies should be applying.

These amount to using both the stick and the carrot.

First, the stick: An all-out declaration of war on any criminal foolhardy enough to directly attack law enforcement authorities.

Consider these past two examples:

In April, 1963, FBI agent John Foley was conducting surveillance at the Brooklyn funeral of Carmine “The Doctor” Lombardozzi, a capo in the Gambino Mafia Family.

Suddenly, four mobsters knocked Foley to the ground, then severely beat and kicked him.

For the FBI, this was unprecedented: It had long been known that organized crime was too smart to attack or kill law enforcement officers–especially Federal ones.  The resulting heat would simply be too great.

The FBI retaliated by launching an all-out war against the Gambinos.  Agents leaned heavily on the cartel’s boss, underboss, counselor and lieutenants.

The Bureau also intensified its use of illegal electronic surveillance against the mobsters.   Even law-abiding relatives of the Gambinos—one of these a nun, the other a priest—found themselves interrogated.

Angelo Bruno, the boss of the Philadelphia crime syndicate, unwittingly informed a hidden microphone on how the FBI brutally drove home the message to “boss of all bosses” Carlo Gambino:

BRUNO: They [the FBI] went to Carlo and named all his capos to him….The FBI asked him: “Did you change the laws in your family, that you could hit FBI men, punch and kick them? 

“Well, this is the test—that if you change the laws, and now you are going to hit FBI men, every time we pick up one of your people we are going to break their heads for them.”  

And, really, they picked up our guy, they almost killed him, the FBI.  They don’t do that, you know.  But they picked up one of his fellows and crippled him. 

They said, “This is an example.  Now, the next time anyone lays a hand on an FBI man, that’s just a warning.  There’s nothing else we have got to tell you.”  And they went away.  

Word traveled quickly through the nationwide organized crime network—and its leaders decreed there should be no further assaults on FBI agents.

Still, some mobsters apparently didn’t get the word.

During the 1960s or early 1970s, FBI agents monitoring a wiretap on a mob family in Youngstown, Ohio, heard something truly disturbing.

Several Mafia members were discussing putting out a contract on a local FBI agent they especially disliked.

“How many hit men do we have?” asked one.

“Three,” said another.

They made arrangements to meet and discuss the matter again the next day.

The FBI agents monitoring the wiretap immediately flashed an urgent warning to the Bureau’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.

No less an authority than J. Edgar Hoover, the legendary director of the FBI since 1924, ordered that a “message’ be sent to the mobsters.

That night, about 20 large, heavily-armed FBI agents barged into the penthouse of the local Mafia boss.  Some agents tipped over vases, others dropped lit matches on the luxurious carpeting, and one of them even urinated in a potted plant.

“You may have three hitmen,” one of them told the mob boss, “but Mr. Hoover has thousands.”

The FBI agent thought to be the target for a rubout was never bothered.

In my next column I will discuss the option of the carrot.

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HELL HATH NO FURY

In Bureaucracy, History, Politics on March 28, 2013 at 12:02 am

Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat enraged.

On March 14, John Morton, the director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), admitted to Congress that, for three weeks in February, his agency had released 2,228 illegal aliens from immigration jails.

Previously, the Obama administration had claimed that only “a few hundred immigrants” had been released.

The alleged reason: Automatic budget cuts required by the Congressionally-imposed sequestration.

“We were trying to live within the budget that Congress had provided us,” Morton told lawmakers. “This was not a White House call. I take full responsibility.”

Morton and other agency officials spoke during a hearing by the House subcommittee on Homeland Security.

ICE officials had previously claimed that illegal aliens were routinely released.  But Rep. John Carter, R-Texas, the subcommittee’s chairman, didn’t buy this.

Carter pressed Morton about the claim.  And Morton admitted that the release of more than 2,000 illegal aliens was not routine.

Carter was rightly angered–more aliens were released in Texas than in any other state.

But, in hindsight, he shouldn’t be surprised.  This is usually how bureaucracies react when forced to carry out decisions they dislike.

Consider two such incidents during the Presidency of John F. Kennedy.

John F. Kennedy

In April, 1962, U.S. Steel raised its prices by $6 a ton, and other American steel companies quickly followed suit.

Convinced that the price-raise would be inflationary, Kennedy demanded that the steel companies rescind it.  When the companies refused, JFK was furious: “My father always told me all businessmen were sonsofbitches, but I never belileved him till now.”

Then he turned to his brother, Robert, then the Attorney General.  And RFK, in turn, turned to J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI.

RFK had run the Justice Department since January, 1961.  Hoover had run the FBI since 1924.

And by now, he and Hoover detested each other.

J. Edgar Hoover and Robert F. Kennedy

Kennedy had been pressing the FBI to greatly expand its efforts against organized crime and violators of civil rights laws.

Hoover had long maintained there was no nationwide Mafia, only a loose assembly of hoodlums whose crimes did not fall under federal jurisdiction.

And Hoover–a staunch segregationist–wanted nothing to do with enforcing civil rights laws.

There were also differences in style between the two men which highlighted their mutual animosity.  RFK was 36 in 1962; Hoover was 67.  RFK was accustomed to showing up for work in his shirt sleeves; Hoover was always attired in a business suit.

RFK didn’t hesitate to pop into offices–including those of FBI agents–and start asking questions about cases he cared about.  Hoover demanded adherence to a rigid chain-of-command, with himself at its top.

RFK bellieved that the steel companies had illegally colluded to fix prices.  He told Hoover he wanted a full field investigation opened immediately into the steel companies.

As RFK put it: We’re going for broke…their expense accounts, where they’ve been a|nd what they’ve been doing…the FBI is to interview them all …we can’t lose this.”

He ordered the collection of evidence–both personal and professional–from the homes and offices of steel executives.

Hoover saw an opportunity to embarrass RFK while supposedly carrying out orders: He ordered FBI agents to visit the homes of steel executives in the middle of the night.  Even reporters covering the crisis got late-night calls from the Bureau.

On April 13, beginning with Inland Steel, all of the steel companies informed the White House of their decision to refrain from price increases.

But the President’s victory soon turned sour. The press assailed the “Gestapo” tactics he had used against the steel companies.  A cartoon that appeared in the New York Herald Tribune summed it up.

In it, Kennedy’s press secretary, Pierre Salinger, tells the President: “Khrushchev said he liked your style in the steel crisis.”  JFK was so outraged that he canceled the White House subscription to the Tribune.

The FBI scored another victory at the Kennedys’ expense through Robert’s pursuit of organized crime.

RFK wanted the FBI to share its vast treasury of intelligence with other Federal law enforcement agencies charged with pursuing the Mob.  But Hoover refused, claiming the FBI’s files were too sensitive to entrust to other agencies.  And he threatened to resign if pushed too far on this.

This deprived Federal organized crime “strike forces” of essential intelligence.

Hoover, desperate to make up for lost time in pursuing organizeed crime investigations, called on the same tactics he had used against the Communist Party.

He ordered his agents to secretly install wiretaps and electronic bugs in mob hangouts across the country.  This allowed the FBI to quickly learn who was who and doing what in the otherwise impenetrable world of the Mafia.

But in 1965, word leaked out that the FBI had bugged numerous casinos in Las Vegas.  The Bureau faced serious embarrassment.

Hoover, the master bureaucrat, blamed RFK.  He claimed that the Attorney General (who had retired from office in 1964 and become the junior Senator from New York) had authorized him to install bugs and wiretaps.

RFK–who was trying to remake himself as a liberal politician–was hugely embarrassed.

The antagonism between Kennedy and Hoover lasted until the day Kennedy died–on June 6, 1968, after being shot while running for President.

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RUNNING THE COUNTRY LIKE A BUSINESS

In Business, Humor, Politics, Social commentary on January 18, 2013 at 12:08 am

Republicans–and right-wingers generally–love to say that the United States Government should be run like a business.

But what does that really mean?

If we ran the United States like a business,” Johnny Carson once joked, “we’d burn down the country and collect the insurance.”

And of course the joke got a lot of laughs.

Yes, it’s true: A lot of Americans just don’t trust businessmen–especially Big Businessmen.

And especially Big Businessmen who’ve made their fortunes the old-fashioned way–by raiding and despoiling other companies.

But consider this for a moment:

When was the last time we had a President who could honestly say, like Mitt Romney–

“I understand, for instance, how to read a balance sheet”?

And that’s a truly valuable qualification for public office.

Mitt Romney doesn’t get weepy over people and their messy, sob-sister problems.  Consider:

ROMNEY:  Corporations are people, my friend.

ROMNEY:  I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.

ROMNEY:  I’m not concerned about the very poor.

ROMNEY:  Don’t try and stop the foreclosure process.  Let it run its course and hit the bottom.

You have to be cold-bloodedly unemotional if you want to win the game.

Like Meyer Lansky–”The Mob’s Accountant.”   He understood that perfectly.

And he knew how to read a balance sheet.

It was Lansky who famously said of the Mafia: “We’re bigger than U.S. Steel.”

And think of all the money this made for his business partners–like Charles “Lucky” Luciano and Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel.

Or take stockbroker Bernard Madoff.

Think of where his clients would now be if he hadn’t been able to read a balance sheet.

And you can be sure that Ivan Boesky knew how to read a balance sheet.

As a successful stock trader, he became the inspiration for an entire generation of corporate CEOs: “I think greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself.”

It was Boesky who inspired the producers of the 1987 movie, “Wall Street,” to create a fictional character based on him: Gordon Gecko, played by Michael Douglas.

So imagine what a successful corporate businessman–like Mitt Romney–could have done as President.

Or, better still, let veteran political analyst Chris Matthews imagine it for you, as he did on May 24, 2012:

Mitt Romney has one pitch, and since it’s his only one, he makes it again and again, is that he is a man of business, someone who spent his life in business, doing it, thinking about it, experiencing it. 

And this is why he, Mitt Romney, is a better man than the president to direct the business of the country.

But the question, and an important one, is whether Romney would take his business training and use it for the country or take the office of the presidency and use it to help his fellow business people. 

  • Will he serve the people or the CEOs? 
  • The 99 percent or the 1 percent? 

It’s a basic, useful question to ask.

  • What if he plays the business game in ways that favors the wealthy like himself? 
  • What if he cuts taxes for the wealthy? 
  • What if he eliminates environmental and safety regulations? 
  • What if he pulls down the financial regulations put in places the crash of ’08 and `09? 
  • And what if he sides with the wheeler-dealers and opens the door for the hell to break loose like it did under Bush?
  • And what if he can’t see what was done wrong before, but wants instead to do it all over again? 

This is the danger.

We elect presidents to look out for the people. 

Business, especially the people like Mitt Romney, already have a voice in our national government.  They’re called lobbyists. 

They push for lower taxes for the rich, lower taxes on corporations.  They work with friends in Congress, to pull back on regulation, to make live easier for them, to make more money.

  • …Would we like someone who thinks only about the interest of big business, doing away taxes, we pay–deciding what taxes we pay, what working conditions we have to endure, what protections we get for food safety, airline safety, the safety of our investments from Wall Street sharpies? 
  • Is that what we want looking for us–the people whose primary concern is the bottom line of those Mitt Romney calls “the successful”?
  • Government of, by and for the economic elite–is that what we want? 

Because if you listen, you can hear that this is precisely what the man from Bain is now out there selling.

* * * * *

So go ahead: Imagine what a Mitt Romney Presidency would have been like.

And then be grateful that you don’t have to live out that reality.

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OH, CRAP(O)!

In Law, Politics, Social commentary on December 31, 2012 at 3:08 pm

At the end of the 1987 movie, “The Untouchables,” a reporter accosts Elliot Ness (Kevin Costner): “Mr. Ness, they’re saying that Congress will repeal Prohibition.  If that happens, what will you do?”

And Ness–who has just spent the entire movie trying to put arch-bootlegger Al Capone out of business–replies: “I think I’ll have a drink.”

“The Untouchables” (1987)

In 1920, America went “dry”–officially.

The reason: Congressional passage of the Volstead Act–named after Andrew Volstead, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee who managed the legislation.

For Americans generally, the law had a shorter name: Prohibition.

For 12 years–from 1920 to 1932–the United States Treasury Department declared war on the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages throughout the country.

It was a losing war.  Untold numbers of local police officers gladly turned a blind eye–for a price–to the bootleggers operating in their midst.  So did legions of agents of the Treasury Department’s Prohibition Bureau.

And police weren’t the only ones willing to ignore the law.  So were politicians at all levels.  At the highest level: Warren G. Harding, 29th President of the United States.

Warren G. Harding

Harding allowed bootleg whiskey to be served to his guests during after-dinner parties.  Some oof this alcohol had been confiscated from the Prohibition department.  His wife, Florence, known as “The Duchess,” mixed drinks for the visitors.

There was definitely a “do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do” morality at work during the 12 years that Prohibition was the law of the land.

Many of those public officials (and private citizens) who regularly indulged felt the law was needed to enforce “morality” onto others–especially the poor and immirgants.

Prohibition ended in 1932–to the sorrow of two major organizations.  The first was anti-alcohol groups such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.  The second was the Mafia–which had raised millions of dollars via the sale of forbidden spirits.

Today Americans (except those living in officially ”dry” states like Florida, Georgia and Alabama) can easily and legally obtain all the booze they can afford to buy.

But even in “wet” states, it’s illegal to drink and drive–as third-term United States Senator Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) recently found out.

Mike Crapo

On December 23, Crapo was arrested in Alexandria, Virginia, for driving under the influence.

Crapo was pulled over after an officer saw him run a red light.

According to CBS News, Crapo failed several field sobriety tests and was taken into custody without incident.  He was later released on an unsecured $1,000 bond.

He must appear in court on January 4th.

At a time when America stands poised to go over “the fiscal cliff” courtesy of Republican extortion demands, it’s hardly reassuring hat Crapo is slated to take the top GOP spot on the Senate Banking Committee.

But there’s more to this tale than mere political embarrassment.  There’s also a story of religious hypocrisy to be told.

Crapo is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints–the Mormons.  He graduated from the church’s Brigham Young University in 1973  with a B.A. in political science.

Among those acts that Mormons are forbidden to engare in is the drinking of alcohol.  It’s part of the “Word of Wisdom” embraced by staunch church members: A ban on any use of alcohol, tobacco, coffee and tea.

Indulging in any of these won’t get you excommunicated (as will, say, adultery or murder, which the church puts on the same level of evil).  But it can get you banned from entering a Mormon temple, reserved for only the most devout members.

It is in their temples that Mormons perform such rituals as wedding ceremonies and proxy “baptisms for the dead.”

This must inevitably come as a huge embarrassment for a man who represents Idaho, a state:

  • Where government maintains a monopoly over sales of beverages with greater than 16% ABV;
  • Where beer can be sold in grocery stores but not wine;
  • Where the sale of distilled spirits is allowed only in certified Liquor Dispensary stores;
  • Where  311,425  Mormons comprise the largest single religious group–at 23% of the population.

Thus, no one should be surprised that Crapo quickly released the following statement:

“I am deeply sorry for the actions that resulted in this circumstance.  I made a mistake for which I apologize to my family, my Idaho constituents and any others who have put their trust in me.

“I accept total responsibility and will deal with whatever penalty comes my way in this matter.  I will also undertake measures to ensure that this circumstance is never repeated.”

If Crapo becomes the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, a major target for him will be the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which Republicans believe is too powerful and needs to be weakened.

Democrats believe the Bureau is a major achievement of the Dodd-Frank financial law–passed by Congress to prevent a repeat of the 2008 Wall Street “meltdown” caused by the unchecked greed of speculators.

So if Crapo’s status is undermined by his recent bout with DUI, American consumers may well be the beneficiaries.

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HOW WE REACHED THE “FISCAL CLIFF”: PART THREE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, History, Politics on December 7, 2012 at 12:13 am

With the United States teetering on the brink of national bankruptcy, President Obama faced three choices:

  1. Counter Republican extortion attempts via RICO–the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act.
  2. Make a “Cuban Missile Crisis”-style address to the American people, seeking to rally them against a criminal threat to the financial security of the Nation.
  3. Cave in to Republican demands.

Unfortunately for Obama and the Nation, he chose Number Three.

Here is how he could have applied the other two options.

Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act

In 1970, Congress passed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1961-1968.

Congress’ goal was to eliminate the ill-affects of organized crime on the nation’s economy. To put it bluntly, RICO was intended to destroy the Mafia.

In the 1980s, however, civil lawyers noticed section 1964(c) of the RICO Act. This allows civil claims to be brought by anyone injured in their business or property by reason of a RICO violation.

RICO has been applied to not only the Mafia but to individuals, businesses, political protest groups, and terrorist organizations.  In short, a RICO claim can arise in almost any context.

Such as the one President Barack Obama faced last summer when Republicans threatened to destroy the credit rating of the United States unless their budgetary demands were met.

RICO opens with a series of definitions of “racketeering activity” which can be prosecuted by Justice Department attorneys.  Among those crimes: Extortion.

Extortion is defined as “a criminal offense which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person(s), entity, or institution, through coercion.”

The RICO Act defines “a pattern of racketeering activity” as “at least two acts of racketeering activity, one of which occurred after the effective date of this chapter and the last of which occurred within ten years…after the commission of a prior act of racketeering activity.”

And if President Obama had believed that RICO was not sufficient to deal with extortionate behavior, he could have relied on the USA Patriot Act of 2001, passed in the wake of 9/11.

In Section 802, the Act defines domestic terrorism.  Among the behavior that is defined as criminal:

“Activities that…appear to be intended…to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion [and]…occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.”

The remedies for punishing such criminal behavior are now legally in place.  President Obama need only direct the Justice Department to apply them.

  • President Obama could have directed Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate whether actions by Republican Congressman—and their Tea Party cohorts—broke Federal anti-racketeering and/or anti-terrorism laws.
  • Holder, in turn, could have ordered the FBI to conduct that investigation.
  • If the FBI found sufficient evidence that these laws had been violated, Holder could have empaneled criminal grand juries to indict those violators.

The fact that members of Congress would be criminally investigated and possibly indicted would not violate the separation-of-powers principle.  Congressmen have in the past been investigated, indicted and convicted for various criminal offenses.

Such indictments and prosecutions–and especially convictions–would serve notice on current and future members of Congress that the lives and fortunes of American citizens may not be held hostage as part of a negotiated settlement.

On August 1, Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s “Hardball,”  wrapped up his program with a search for “options” to avoid another round of Republican extortion tactics.

“I want to know what steps the president ‘could’ have taken to avoid this hostage-taking.

“…Is there another way than either buckling to the Republicans or letting the government and the country crash?

“How does he use the power of the presidency, the logic, emotion and basic patriotism of the people to thwart those willing to threaten, disrupt, even possibly destroy to get their way?”

The answer to his questions–then and now–is: Replace the law of fear with the rule of law.

But there was another way Obama could have stood up to Republican extortionists: By urging his fellow Americans to rally to him in a moment of supreme national danger.

President John F. Kennedy did just that–successfully–during the most dangerous crisis of his administration.

Addressing the Nation on October 22, 1962, Kennedy shocked his fellow citizens by revealing that the Soviet Union had installed offensive nuclear missiles in Cuba.

After outlining a series of steps he had taken to end the crisis, Kennedy sought to reassure and inspire his audience. His words are worth remembering today:

“The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are, but it is the one most consistent with our character and courage as a nation and our commitments around the world.

“The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission.”

President Obama could have sent that same message to the extortionists of the Republican Party.

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THE MOST DANGEROUS MOMENT: PART TWO (END)

In History, Politics, Social commentary on November 7, 2012 at 12:04 pm

Oligarchy: a government in which a small group exercises control, especially for corrupt and selfish purposes.

The returns are in.

And Barack Obama has been re-elected to another four years as President of the United States.

For his supporters, it is a time to celebrate.

For his enemies–and that is exactly how they consider themselves–in the Republican party, it is a time to mourn.  And to re-group to take vengeance in the coming months and years.

For the United States Secret Service, it should be a time for the most heightened security.

Make no mistake: Republicans were counting on Mitt Romney to return their party to the heights of absolute power:

  • Commanding the White House and the House of Representatives, they would have dictated American foreign and domestic policy for at least the next four years–and more likely, the next eight.
  • And even though Democrats were expected to retain control of the Senate, there would have been enough Republicans in it to thwart any legislative efforts proposed by Democrats.
  • Romney would have been able to appoint Justices to the Supreme Court–which, by itself, would have influenced American legal and social life for up to 30 years.

And Republicans were counting on more than simply access to unlimited money to defeat Obama.  A major part of their electoral strategy called for suppressing the rights of minorities to vote.

Mike Turzai, Majority Leader of Pennsylvania’s state House of Representatives, admitted this when he outlined a list of accomplishments made by the GOP-run legislature: “Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.”

So there will definitely be recriminations.

Many–perhaps most–Republicans will blame Romney for not having been “severely conservative” enough.

They’ll demand that their next Presidential nominee be even more right-wing in his stands on issues.

How right-wing?  Right-wing enough to win the endorsement of classic Fascist leaders like Benito Mussolini and Francisco Franco.

A minority will argue–probably in vain–that the party must reach out to youth, blacks, moderate women and–most especially–Latinos.

They will warn: “The days of depending on a whites-only electorate have passed.  And if we don’t own up to this, we, as a party, will also become history.”

For the moment, however, the smart money will be on those hard-core Rightists who control the levers of power within the party.

They will bitterly resist making such “radical” changes.  Partly because they are driven by fascistic ideology.  And partly because they know the activist base of the party is equally driven by the same ideology.

So, for the foreseeable future, they will aim the majority of their anger and disappointment at President Obama.  And so will their “billionaire boys club” financial backers.

Thus, the second threat facing President Obama could be an attempted assassination.

Think of it:

  • Right-wing billionaires were thrilled with the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, which ended limits on campaign donations.
  • During the primary season, at least 32 billionaires lavished a minimum of $52 million to Restore Our Future, a super PAC supporting Mitt Romney.
  • To those losses must now be added the huge returns they expected to make on their investment–in tax breaks for their corporations and tax cuts for themselves.
  • Coal and oil companies were salivating over the coming dismantling of the Environmental Protection Agency.  Federally protected areas–such as the Arctic Wildlife Refuge in Alaska–would become prime drilling spots.
  • To greed-obsessed Rightists, the words of Niccolo Machiavelli apply with a vengeance: “Men forget more easily the death of their father than the loss of their inheritance.”
  • A number of wealthy right-wingers head private military companies employing former members of such elite military units as Navy SEALS and Army Green Berets.  Many of these companies received millions of dollars in government contracts to supply “hired guns” in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
  • Such CEOs command both the financial and personnel resources to carry out a Presidential assassination
  • “Money buys power,” warns Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist.  “And the increasing wealth of a tiny minority has effectively bought the allegiance of one of our two major political parties.”
  • Access to such unlimited money–and the ideological conviction that they are doing God’s work–might convince some of these oligarchs that they could mount a Presidential assassination–and then buy the legal and/or political protection necessary to get away with it.

Organized crime expert G. Robert Blakey–the former Justice Department official who created the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act–believes that just this happened almost 50 years ago.

President John F. Kennedy had given his brother, Robert, full power as Attorney General to destroy the Mafia.

But the Mafia, Blakey believes, used its own access to unlimited money and assassins to destroy the President.  And then the mobsters used that same unlimited money to buy legal and political influence to escape prosecution.

Such an outrage must not be allowed to happen now.

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THE MOST DANGEROUS MOMENT: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In History, Politics, Social commentary on November 6, 2012 at 2:38 pm

If Barack Obama is re-elected President on November 6, the result will be “civil war” within the Republican Party.

That is the prediction of POLITICO and a number of other politics-following pundits, such as Chris Matthews of MSNBC’s “Hardball.”

But if he wins another four years in office, the President could face unprecedented threats to his authority–and safety.

Among the results of this Republican ”civil war” predicted by POLITICO: A clash between

  • moderates and right-wingers
  • those who are concerned about fiscal issues and those concerned about social issues
  • anti-establishment Tea Party members and establishment-order Republicans
  • those favoring amnesty for illegal aliens to expand the party base and those demanding wholesale deportation of such aliens.

If Romney fails to win the White House, there will definitely be many Republicans who call for “death to moderates and moderation.”

Or, as another failed Republican Presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater, put it in 1964: “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”

But the unleashed passions of a Romney defeat could result in more than a Republican implosion.  They could also release the most dangerous types of explosion–aimed at President Obama.

The first of these threats could be an attempted impeachment. 

While this may sound beyond the realm of possibility, some Republicans have openly salivated over the prospect of railroading the President out of office.

On August 16, 2011, Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain said that impeaching Obama “would be a great thing to do.”

Asked on a conference call with bloggers why Republicans couldn’t just impeach Obama, Cain responded:

“That’s a great question and it is a great–it would be a great thing to do, but because the Senate is controlled by Democrats we would never be able to get the Senate first to take up that action, because they simply don’t care what the American public thinks.

“So the main stumbling block in terms of getting him impeached on a whole list of things such as trying to pass a health care mandate which is unconstitutional, ordering the Department of Justice to not enforce the Defense of Marriage Act–that’s an impeachable offense right there.

“There are a number of things where a case could be made in order to impeach him, but because Republicans do not control the United States Senate, they would never allow it to get off the ground.”

Not being able to impeach Obama, Republicans have settled for everything else short of that.

During the 2012 Presidential race, Republicans have accused Obama of a lack of “bipartisanship.”  Romney has repeatedly promised to “work across the aisle” with Democrats if elected.

Yet it was a high-ranking Republican who gave away the game.

In an interview with National Journal magazine published October 23, 2010, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

Republicans have worked tirelessly to defeat Obama’s efforts to provide universal healthcare for those who can’t afford expensive medical insurance.

They spread the false report that the new healthcare law would come with “death panels” to direct Americans to euthanasia centers.

They also directed their followers to disrupt town hall meetings of Democratic Congressmen and Senators where the proposed law would be discussed.  Several such meetings had to be canceled due to verbal or even physical outbursts aimed at those presiding.

A number of Democratic Senators and Congressmen received violent threats and/or their offices or campaign headquarters were  vandalized.

President Obama himself came in for smears of the most scurrilous sort.  According to Republicans and their right-wing allies:

  • Obama was born in Kenya–despite a Hawaiian birth certificate proving his American citizenship.
  • He was a Nazi, and thus often depicted in posters wearing a Hitler mustache.
  • He was a Muslim–despite his having been a member of the United Church of Christ for 20 years.
  • He was collaborating with America’s Muslim enemies in Al Qaeda–despite his ordering the killing of Osama bin Laden and killing far more Al Qaeda leaders with pilotless drones than George W. Bush had.

Republicans refused to give Obama credit for anything.

  • When he ordered the successful Navy SEALS raid on bin Laden, rightists claimed: “The SEALS took out bin Laden, not Obama.”  True–except that the SEALS wouldn’t have made the raid had Obama not ordered it.
  • When the Bureau of Labor Statistics said that unemployment was high, Republicans blamed Obama’s “anti-business” policies.
  • When, later, many businesses started hiring, Republicans claimed this proved the free enterprise system could overcome any difficulties.
  • Republicans didn’t object to George W. Bush’s lying the United States into a needless war with Iraq by claiming that Saddam Hussein had been a party to 9/11–and was building a nuclear bomb.
  • When Obama began withdrawing troops from Iraq, Republicans attacked him for “losing Iraq,” as though that country was ours to lose.

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NEAR-ARMAGEDDON: 50 YEARS AGO – PART FIVE (END)

In History, Politics, Social commentary on October 12, 2012 at 12:00 am

“John and Robert Kennedy knew what they were doing.  They waged a vicious war against Fidel Castro–a war someone had to lose.”

And the loser turned out to be John F. Kennedy.

So writes investigative reporter Gus Russo in Live By the Sword: The Secret War Against Castro and the Death of JFK, published in 1998.

In what is almost certainly the definitive account of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Russo reaches some startling–but highly documented–conclusions:

  • Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated Kennedy.
  • He did it alone.
  • Oswald, a former Marine, was a committed Marxist–whose hero was Castro.
  • The CIA’s ongoing campaign to overthrow and/or assassinate Castro was an open secret throughout the Gulf.
  • Oswald visited New Orleans in the spring of 1963.
  • There he learned that Castro was in the crosshairs of the CIA.
  • Oswald told his Russian-born wife, Marina: “Fidel Castro needs defenders. I’m going to join his army of volunteers.”
  • Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner, murdered Oswald because he was distraught over Kennedy’s death.
  • Ruby was not part of a Mafia conspiracy to silence Oswald.
  • Skeptics of the Warren Commission–which concluded that Oswald had acted alone–asked the wrong question: “Who killed Kennedy?”
  • They should have asked: “Why was he killed?”
  • The answer–according to Russo: “The Kennedys’ relentless pursuit of Castro and Cuba backfired in tragedy on that terrible day in November, 1963.”

Another book well worth reading about America’s Cuban obsession during the early 1960s is American Tabloid, by James Ellroy.

Although a novel, it vividly captures the atmosphere of intrigue, danger and sleaziness that permeated that era in a way that dry, historical documents never can.

“The 50′s are finished,” reads its paperback dust jacket. “Zealous young lawyer Robert Kennedy has a red-hot jones to nail Jimmy Hoffa. JFK has his eyes on the Oval Office.

“J. Edgar Hoover is swooping down on the Red Menace. Howard Hughes is dodging subpoenas and digging up Kennedy dirt. And Castro is mopping up the bloody aftermath of his new Communist nation….

“Mob bosses, politicos, snitches, psychos, fall guys and femmes fatale. They’re mixing up a Molotov cocktail guaranteed to end the country’s innocence with a bang.”

Among the legacies of America’s twisted romance with anti-Castro Cubans:

  • Following the JFK assassination, there was a coverup.
  • Its purposes: To protect the reputation of the United States government–and that of its newly-martyred President.
  • Thus, the CIA and FBI concealed the CIA-Mafia assassination plots from the Warren Commission assigned to investigate Kennedy’s murder.
  • Other government officials participating in the coverup included Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and President Lyndon B. Johnson.
  • Ironically, this secrecy ignited the widespread–and false–belief that the President had died at the hands of a government conspiracy.
  • Robert Kennedy feared that his relentless pursuit of Castro might have led Castro to “take out” JFK first.
  • Fearing his own assassination if he continued Kennedy’s efforts to murder Castro, President Johnson ordered the CIA to halt its campaign to overthrow and/or assassinate the Cuban leader.
  • The huge Cuban community throughout Florida–and especially Miami–continues to exert a blackmailing influence on American politics.
  • Right-wing politicians from Richard Nixon to Newt Gingrich have reaped electoral rewards by catering to the demands of this hate-obsessed voting block.
  • As a result, the United States still refuses to open diplomatic relations with Cuba–even though it has done so with such former enemies as the Soviet Union, China and Vietnam.
  • These Cuban ex-patriots hope that the United States will launch a full-scale military invasion of the island to remove Castro.
  • Having grown rich and soft in the United States, they fear to risk their own lives by returning to Cuba to loverthrow Castro–as he did against Fulgencio Batista.

The United States is fast approaching the 50th anniversay of the most dangerous moment of the Cold War: The Cuban Missile Crisis, when the world stood only minutes away from nuclear Armageddon.

That crisis stemmed from our twisted obsession with Cuba, an obsession that continues today.

So what are the lessons to be learned from that obsession?

  • It is long past time to demand major changes in our foreign policy toward Cuba.
  • It’s time to end the half-century contamination of American politics by those Cubans who live only for their hatred of Castro–and those political candidates who live to exploit it. 
  • (For example: Marco Rubio got elected U.S. Senator from Florida in 2010 by claiming that his parents had been forced to leave Cuba in 1959, after Fidel Castro took power. In fact, they had left Cuba in 1956–during the Batista dictatorship.)
  • It’s time to end this wag-the-dog relationship.  A population of about 1,700,000 Cubans should not be allowed to shape the domestic and foreign policy of a nation of 300 million.
  • Those who continue to hate–or love–Castro should be left to their own private feud.  But that is a feud they should settle on their own island, and not from the shores of the United States.

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NEAR-ARMAGEDDON: 50 YEARS AGO – PART FOUR (OF FIVE)

In History, Politics, Social commentary on October 11, 2012 at 12:30 am

On October 22, 1962, President John F. Kennedy went on nationwide TV to announce the discovery of the missiles and his blockade of Cuba.

He warned that any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation would be regarded as an attack on the United States by the Soviet Union–and would trigger “a full retaliatory response” upon the U.S.S.R.

And he demanded that the Soviets remove all of their offensive weapons from Cuba:

“The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are, but it is the one most consistent with our character and courage as a nation and our commitments around the world.

“The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission.”

On October 26,  the United States raised the readiness level of SAC forces to DEFCON 2–the step just short of war.  For the only  time in U.S. history, B-52 bombers were dispersed to various locations and made ready to take off, fully equipped, on 15 minutes’ notice.

Other measures taken included:

  • One-eighth of America’s 1,436 bombers were on airborne alert.
  • About 145 intercontinental ballistic missiles stood on ready alert.
  • Air Defense Command redeployed 161 nuclear-armed interceptors to 16 dispersal fields within nine hours with one-third maintaining 15-minute alert status.
  • Twenty-three nuclear-armed B-52 were sent to orbit points within striking distance of the Soviet Union.

An invasion date was set for October 29.  But the Kennedy Administration–and the American military–didn’t know that the Russian soldiers guarding the missiles had been armed with tactical nuclear weapons.

Had the Marines gone in, those mini-nukes would have been used.  And a fullscale nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union would have almost certainly followed.

At the height of the crisis, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy offered a solution.

Khrushchev had sent two teletypes to Kennedy.  The first had agreed to remove the missiles, but the second had demanded that the United States remove its own missiles from Turkey, which bordered the Soviet Union.

Robert Kennedy’s solution: The administration should ignore the second message–and announce that it had accepted Khrushchev’s offer to remove the missiles.

After this announcement was made, President Kennedy said to his advisors: “It can go either way now.”

John F. Kennedy

The crisis ended on October 28.  Under enormous pressure, Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles from Cuba.

Behind his decision lay a secret promise by the Kennedy administration to remove its obsolete nuclear missiles from Turkey.  And a public pledge to not invade Cuba.

On the night the crisis ended, there occurred a prophetic exchange between the two Kennedy brothers.

JFK:  “Maybe this is the night I should go to the theater”–a reference to Abraham Lincon’s fatal attendance of Ford’s Theater at the end of the Civil War.

RFK:  “If you go, I want to go with you.”

John F. and Robert F. Kennedy

But President Kennedy was not finished with Castro.  While continuing the campaign of sabotage throughout Cuba, the Kennedys were preparing something far bigger: A fullscale American invasion of the island.

On October 4, 1963, the Joint Chiefs of Staff submitted its latest version of the invasion plan, known as OPLAN 380-63.  Its timetable went:

  • January, 1964:  Infiltration into Cuba by Cuban exiles.
  • July 15, 1964:  U.S. conventional forces join the fray.
  • August 3, 1964:  All-out U.S. air strikes on Cuba.
  • October 1, 1964:  Full-scale invasion to install “a government friendly to the U.S.”

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Robert Kennedy–referring to the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor–had resisted demands for a “sneak attack” on Cuba by saying: “I don’t want my brother to be the Tojo of the 1960s.”

Now the Kennedys planned such an attack on Cuba just one month before the November, 1964 Presidential election.

Then fate–in the unlikely figure of Lee Harvey Oswald–intervened.

On November 22, 1963, while the President rode through Dallas in an open-air automobile, a rifle-wielding assassin opened fire.  He scored two hits on Kennedy–in the back of the neck and head.  The second wound proved instantly fatal.

The nation and the world were shocked–and plunged into deep mourning.

But for some of those who had waged a secret, lethal war against Fidel Castro for the previous two years, Kennedy’s death–at least in retrospect–didn’t come as a surprise.

Robert Kennedy, in particular, spent the remaining years of his life agonizing over the possibility that his highly personal war against Castro had backfired.

That Castro, fed up with the CIA’s assassination plots against him, had retaliated with one of his own.

Robert Kennedy’s fears and guilt were compounded by the fact that, while waging war on Castro, he had waged an equally ruthless crusade against organized crime.

And some of the mobsters he had done his best to put into prison had played a major role in the CIA’s efforts to “hit” Castro.  Had the Mafia–believing itself the victim of a double-cross–put out a “contract” on JFK instead?

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