Posts Tagged ‘FBI’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on December 3, 2021 at 12:10 am
Sean Penn is not the first celebrity to “get close to” a gangster.
Singer Frank Sinatra set the standard as far back as the 1940s when he was often seen in the company of notorious Mafiosi such as Charles “Lucky” Luciano and Willie Moretti.
(It was Moretti who is rumored to have freed Sinatra from his financially-limiting contract with bandleader Tommy Dorsey in the early 1940s.
His alleged method of persuasion: Jamming a pistol down Dorsey’s throat and threatening to kill him. Dorsey eventually sold the contract to Sinatra for one dollar.)
But the mobster whom Sinatra was most-often linked with—by gossip and FBI reports—was Sam “Mooney” Giancana.
Giancana started out as a “wheelman” and enforcer for the teenage “42 Gang,” then joined the Chicago mob in the late 1930s. By 1957 he had been appointed its boss.
Sam Giancana
Sinatra often partied with Giancana, both in nightclubs and at his own residence in Palm Springs, California.
In December, 1959, financier Joseph P. Kennedy summoned Sinatra to the family compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. His son, Senator John F. Kennedy, was planning to run for President in 1960. And the elder Kennedy wanted Sinatra’s help.
Sinatra and the Senator were by now well-acquainted. They shared a taste for gossip, nightclubs and beautiful women.
According to Sinatra’s daughter, Tina, the Kennedy patriarch said: “I think that you can help [the campaign] in [the] West Virginia [primary] and Illinois [in the general election] with our friends.
“You understand, Frank, I can’t go. They’re my friends, too, but I can’t approach them. But you can.”
Frank Sinatra
By “our friends,” Kennedy meant the Mafia. Joseph P. Kennedy had done business with the mob as a bootlegger during Prohibition.
Now he wanted the Mafia to pressure local union members into voting for JFK—and making contributions to the Kennedy Presidential campaign.
Sinatra went to his friend, Sam Giancana, and asked for the mob’s support. And Giancana promised to deliver it.
In return, Giancana—and other mobsters—expected to win an ally in the White House. He was later overheard on an FBI wiretap saying he had been promised by Sinatra that “if I even got a traffic ticket, none of those fuckers [the FBI] would know me.”
Since 1959, Giancana and other “Top Hoodlum” mobsters had been under increasingly heavy FBI surveillance. Giancana wanted it stopped.
And Sinatra had assured him that, under a Kennedy Presidency, it would stop.
On Election Night, 1960, John F. Kennedy carried Illinois—and won the White House by a mere 120,000 votes nationwide.
Then, to the horror of the Mafia, JFK installed his brother, Robert Francis Kennedy, as Attorney General. From 1957 to 1959, RFK had pursued gangsters as chief counsel for the Senate Rackets Committee.
Now he declared all-out war on organized crime. Convictions against organized crime figures rose 800% during his four years in office.
Robert F. Kennedy
Sinatra tried to deliver for Giancana. He sent Peter Lawford—his Rat Pack pal and brother-in-law to the President—to talk with Robert Kennedy about laying off on the Mafia don.
Kennedy bluntly told Lawford to mind his own business.
Giancana came under even greater pressure. FBI agents put a 24-hour “lockstep” surveillance on him, following him even into church and restrooms.
“I was on the road with this broad,” Giancana raged to his murderous associate, Johnny Formosa. “There must have been 20 guys [FBI agents]. They were next door, upstairs, downstairs, surrounded all the way around!
“Get in a car, somebody picks you up I lose that tail—boom!—I get picked up someplace else! Four or five cars, back and forth, back and forth.”
In another exchange with Formosa, Giancana’s anger at Sinatra boiled over:
“The last time I talked to [Sinatra] was at the hotel in Florida. And he said, ‘Don’t worry about it. If I can’t talk to the old man [Joseph P. Kennedy] I’m going to talk to the man [President Kennedy].’
“One minute he says he’s talked to Robert, and the next minute he says he hasn’t talked to him. So he never did talk to him.”
Formosa suggested a remedy: “Let’s show ’em. Let’s show those fuckin’ Hollywood fruitcakes that they can’t get away with it as if nothin’s happened.
“Let’s hit Sinatra. Or I could whack out a couple of those other guys, Lawford and that [Dean] Martin. And I could take the nigger [Sammy Davis, Jr.] and put his other eye out.”
Giancana refused to issue the contract. But he seriously considered doing so, as he confessed to a Chicago associate named Tommy DiBella:
“One night I’m fucking Phyllis [McGuire, a member of the famous McGuire sisters trio], playing Sinatra songs in the background, and the whole time I’m thinking to myself, ‘Christ, how can I silence that voice?’
“It’s the most beautiful voice in the world. Frank’s lucky he’s got it. It saved his life.”
Sinatra’s Rat Pack “pally,” Dean Martin, summed it up: “Only Frank could get away with the shit he’s got away with. Only Frank. Anybody else would’ve been dead.”
Sinatra survived the murderous anger of a mob boss. It remains to be seen if Sean Penn can do the same.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on December 2, 2021 at 12:11 am
Actor Sean Penn believes the Mexican Government wants to put him at risk by convincing Joaquin “El Chapo” (“Shorty”) Guzman that Penn played a role—deliberately or negligently—in his capture.
“We know the Mexican government, they clearly were humiliated by the notion that someone found him before they did,” Penn told interviewer Charlie Rose.
“Nobody found him before they did. We are not smarter than the DEA, or Mexican Intelligence. We had a contact upon which we were able to facilitate an invitation.”
By “we” Penn meant himself and Mexican actress Kate del Castillo, who had actually arranged the meeting.
Actress Kate del Castillo
“They wanted to encourage the cartel to put you in their crosshairs?” Rose asked.
“Yes,” Penn answered.
This is entirely possible. Guzman’s escape from a “maximum security” prison in July, 2015, had proved internationally embarrassing for the Mexican Government
Even more embarrassing: He escaped through a mile-long tunnel that literally led to his cell. Almost certainly this happened with the collusion of some prison guards.
Penn—and del Castillo—could face dangers from at least three groups.
Danger #1: El Chapo
Already there is evidence that “El Chapo” regrets having given an interview to Penn and del Castillo in the Mexican jungle on October 2, 2015.
Sean Penn
Published in Rolling Stone on January 9, 2016, the article contained such Guzman boasts as:
“I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anyone else in the world. I have a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats.”
Juan Pablo Badillo, one of Guzman’s attorneys, has since claimed that the article contains falsehoods:
“It’s a lie, absurd speculation from Mr. Penn. Mr. Penn should be called to testify to respond about the stupidities he has said.
“He [Guzman] could not have made these claims. Mr. Guzman is a very serious man, very intelligent.”
This could spell danger for Penn and del Castillo. Guzman is responsible for the deaths of thousands of rivals, journalists and police.
Among the witnesses to the drug cartels’ savagery is Michael Levine, a 25-year veteran of the Drug Enforcement Administration and the author of Deep Cover: Mexican Government Drug Corruption From the Inside.
“Depending on what the cartels and/or the many corrupt Mexican cops and Mexican government officials believe El Chapo divulged during the interview, Penn, and whomever else was present, may be in more physical danger than he could ever imagine,” said Levine.
An anonymous law enforcement official said that not only could Penn be in danger, but so could his entire family.
“It won’t happen now. They [the cartels] wait. Him or people close to him are in danger. They don’t single out the one person. They go for the person’s family.
“He poked his head into a nest of vipers with an amazing global reach. He was a fool. As public as Penn is, he will be a sitting duck.”
Danger #2: Guzman’s Competitors in the Drug Trade
“The problem with dealing with someone like Guzman on this personal basis, where one is perceived as a ‘friend’ or an aide or a business partner of sorts to Chapo, is that you have to be prepared to inherit all his enemies, and there are many,” warned Michael Levine.
“These are some very kill-crazy people. The notoriety gained by killing someone like Penn or even del Castillo will actually turn these bastards on.
“It’s a step into the dark world of the kill crazies. Believe me it is there, and unwittingly these two may have stepped into a world where there is an actual competition to kill them,” said Levine, who has dealt face-to-face with Latin American drug lords.
Danger #3: Wannabe Cartel Members
Countless men—in Mexico and the United States—would love to “do El Chapo a favor” by gunning down Penn and/or del Castillo.
This could happen even if Guzman harbors no ill will toward either. It would be enough for someone to simply believe that he did.
An additional motive: The fame—or infamy—that the assassin of a “big celebrity” like Penn would receive. John Lennon died at the hands of such a fame-obsessed, psychotic gunman.
This means that literally anyone could be a potential assassin—making it that much harder to defend against.
When clients enter the Justice Department’s Witness Security Program, they are quickly asked: “Who do you think poses the biggest threat to you?”
Deputy U.S. marshals, who operate the program, assume that a witness is the best judge of who poses the greatest danger to him.
Witness Security Program protection detail
This works well when a witness is unknown and testifying against someone who is equally unknown to the public.
But when a witness is notorious—such as Sammy “The Bull” Gravano—and the defendant is equally infamous—such as John Gotti—all bets are off.
Of course, Federally-protected witnesses have two advantages going for them that Penn and del Castillo do not:
First, they are protected by the U.S. Marshals Service, which has an excellent track record in protecting its charges; and
Second, they are expected to assume a low profile, which serves as their best protection.
Sean Penn and Kate del Castillo aren’t Federally-protected witnesses. And they’re unlikely to assume a low profile by going into hiding.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on December 1, 2021 at 12:24 am
Actor Sean Penn is used to being a tough guy—onscreen.
In 2006, he played real-life mobster Mickey Cohen (1913 – 1976) in Gangster Squad. And in 2013, he played Willie Stark, a corrupt, Huey Long-type Southern governor in a remake of All the King’s Men.
As Cohen, Penn put out contracts on his enemies and even went mano-o-mano in a long-running (and fictional) fistfight with an LAPD detective.
And as Stark, he clawed his way to power and bullied both his enemies and his supporters.
Perhaps Penn should have paid more attention to the way those movies ended.
Sean Penn
Mickey Cohen goes to prison, where he is brutally waylaid by other inmates.
And Willie Stark, at the height of his power, is shot by a longtime enemy.
Had he thought about it, he might have decided it could be a mistake to meet with Joaquin “El Chapo” (“Shorty”) Guzman, the notorious Mexican drug lord.
On October 2, 2015, Penn met with Guzman in an undisclosed location in the Mexican jungle. He was there to interview him on behalf of Rolling Stone magazine.
Guzman wanted a movie made about him. So he had reached out to Mexican actress Kate del Castillo, asking her to meet with him to discuss such a project. She, in turn, referred him to Penn, whom Guzman said could come along for the meeting.
Penn had his own agenda: To write an article for Rolling Stone whose “purpose [would] contribute to this conversation on the war on drugs.”
Three months later, on January 8, 2016, Mexican Marines and Federal Police launched an early-morning raid on a house in Los Mochis, in northern Sinaloa, where Guzman’s drug cartel operated.
The Marines expected to find Guzman there, and they did—ending his almost six-month flight after escaping from prison in July.
One day after Guzman’s capture, Rolling Stone published Penn’s 10,000-word article.
Penn had not been allowed to bring a tape recorder or even take notes with pen and paper. So he had been forced to memorize as much of Guzman’s tale as he could.
Penn seemed to be enraptured by Guzman:
“There is no doubt this is the real deal. He’s wearing a casual patterned silk shirt, pressed black pants, and he appears remarkably well-groomed and healthy for a man on the run.
“He opens [actress Kate del Castillo’s] [car} door and greets her like a daughter returning from college.
“It seems important to him to express the warm affection in person that, until now, he’d only had occasion to communicate from afar.”
Even so, Penn quoted Guzman as bragging: “I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world. I have a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats.”
Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman
After the interview’s publication, Penn came under fire for having allowed Guzman to approve the article. He claimed that, despite this, Guzman had not asked for any changes.
He also drew sharp criticism for having used his status as a movie star to play the part of a reporter.
But worse was to come.
Shortly after the capture of “El Chapo,” Mexico’s Attorney General Arely Gomez “credited” Penn with having played a vital role in the capture of the drug kingpin.
The meeting between Penn, Castillo and Guzman “was an essential element, because we were following [Guzman’s] lawyer, and the lawyer took us to these people and to this meeting.”
Suddenly, American experts on Mexican organized crime cartels began seeing Sean Penn in a new light—that of a movie star with a big target on his chest and back.
Suppose Guzman began suspecting that Penn had deliberately led Mexican authorities to him? Or that he had done so even accidentally, through negligence in how he had traveled?
“These cartels are very violent, they do not forgive any transgression and they will respond in a most violent manner,” said Mike Vigil, a former chief of international operations with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
“These are people who have dismembered, who have decapitated individuals. So killing Sean Penn and del Castillo means absolutely nothing to them.”
Vigil believed it was careless for the Mexican Government to publicize any ties between the Penn meeting and Guzman’s arrest:
“If Chapo Guzman perceives that they cooperated with authorities in his capture, [the cartel] will go after them.”
He argued that the risk is likely for del Castillo because she was the one in contact with Guzman.
She was the one whom Guzman’s associates supplied with a Blackberry—the phone they believed most secure. And it was her and Guzman’s flirtatious exchanges that led to the meeting in the jungle with Sean Penn.
“Apart from that, [del Castillo] is originally from Mexico, she has all of her family in Mexico. One of the traditional violent methods [the cartels] use is if they can’t get to the target, they’ll go after their family members.
“If I were Kate del Castillo, I would run like the wind.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 22, 2021 at 12:07 am
Fifty-eight years ago this coming November 22, two bullets slammed into the neck and head of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
For most Americans, 1963 was over—and their lives would never be the same.
It has been said that JFK left his country with three great legacies:
- The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty;
- The Apollo moon landing; and
- The Vietnam war.
Of these, the following can be said with certainty:
- The Test Ban Treaty has prevented atmospheric testing—and poisoning—by almost all the world’s nuclear powers.
- After reaching the moon—in 1969—Americans quickly lost interest in space and have today largely abandoned plans for manned exploration. For America, as for JFK, beating the Russians to the moon was the end-goal.
- By the time JFK died, 16,000 Americans were serving in Vietnam, with more than 70 casualties.
- Under Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, 58,000 Americans died in Vietnam; 153,303 were wounded; and billions of dollars were squandered in a hopeless effort to intervene in what was essentially a Vietnamese civil war. From 1965 to 1972, the war angrily divided Americas as had no event since the Civil War.
But there was a fourth legacy—and perhaps the most important of all: The belief that mankind could overcome its greatest challenges through rationality and perseverance.
White House painting of JFK
At American University on June 10, 1963, Kennedy asked his fellow Americans to re-examine the events and attitudes that had led to the Cold War. And he declared that the search for peace was by no means hopeless:
“Our problems are man-made; therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.
“Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable, and we believe they can do it again.”
Today, Democrats and Republicans cannot agree on solutions to even the most vital national problems.
On November 21, 2011, the 12 members of the “Super-Committee” of Congress, tasked with finding $1.2 trillion in cuts in government spending, couldn’t reach agreement.
President Kennedy insisted on being well-informed. He speed-read several newspapers every morning and nourished personal relationships with the press—but not for altruistic reasons. These journalistic contacts gave Kennedy additional sources of information and perspectives on national and international issues.
During the 2012 Presidential campaign, Republican candidates celebrated their ignorance of both.
- Former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain famously said, “We need a leader, not a reader”—thus excusing his ignorance for why President Barack Obama had intervened in Libya.
- Texas Governor Rick Perry (and Secretary of Energy under Donald Trump) didn’t know there are nine judges on the United States Supreme Court: “Well, obviously, I know there are nine Supreme Court judges. I don’t know how eight came out my mouth. But the, uh, the fact is, I can tell you—I don’t have memorized all of those Supreme Court judges. And, uh, ah—-
- “Here’s what I do know. That when I put an individual on the Supreme Court, just like I done in Texas, ah, we got nine Supreme Court justices in Texas, ah, they will be strict constructionists….”
- In short, it’s the media’s fault if your answer reveals your ignorance, stupidity and/or criminality.
- Sarah Palin rewrote history via “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere”: “He warned the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms by ringing those bells and, um, making sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that, uh, we were going to be secure and we were going to be free.”
- In fact, Revere wasn’t warning the British about anything. Instead, he was warning his fellow Americans about an impending British attack—as his celebrated catchphrase “The British are coming!” made clear.
During the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy spoke with aides about a book he had just finished: Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August, about the events leading to World War 1.
He said that the book’s most important revelation was how European leaders had blindly rushed into war, without thought to the possible consequences. Kennedy told his aides he did not intend to make the same mistake—that, having read his history, he was determined to learn from it.
Republicans attacked President Obama for his Harvard education and articulate use of language. Among their taunts: “Hitler also gave good speeches.”
And they resented his having earned most of his income as a writer of two books: Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope. As if being a writer is somehow subversive.
Donald Trump has publicly celebrated ignorance. After winning the Nevada Republican primary in 2016, he declared: “We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.”
Similarly, 58% of Republicans and Right-wingers believe that higher education has a negative effect on the country.
In retrospect, the funeral for President Kennedy marked the death of Americans’ pride in choosing reasoning and educated citizens for their leaders. And in seeking a reasoning and educated future for their children.
When knowledge and literacy are attacked as “highfalutin’” arrogance, and ignorance and incoherence are embraced as sincerity, national decline lies just around the corner.
The Eternal Flame at the grave of President John F. Kennedy
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on November 19, 2021 at 12:12 am
The electoral success of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Red-baiting treason slanders proved too alluring for other Republicans to resist.
Joseph McCarthy
Among those who have greatly profited from hurling similar charges were:
- President Richard Nixon
- His vice president, Spiro Agnew
- Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich
- Former Congressman Dick Armey
- President George W. Bush
- Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin
- Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann
- Rush Limbaugh
- Sean Hannity
- Bill O’Reilly.
During the 1992 Presidential campaign, Republicans tried to paint Bill Clinton as a brainwashed “Manchurian candidate” because he had briefly visited the Soviet Union during his college years.
After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Republicans lost their “soft on Communism” slander-line. So they tried to persuade voters that Democrats were “soft on crime.”
When riots flared in 1992 after the acquittal of LAPD officers who had savagely beaten Rodney King, President George H.W. Bush blamed the carnage on the “Great Society” programs of the 1960s.
George H.W. Bush
After losing the White House to Clinton at the polls in 1992 and 1996, Republicans tried to oust him another way: By impeaching him over a tryst with a penis-loving intern named Monica Lewinsky.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted to impeach, but the effort was defeated in the Democratically-controlled Senate.
The 2008 election of Barack Obama pushed the Republican “treason chorus” to new heights of infamy.
Barack Obama
Almost immediately after Obama took office, he came under attack by an industry of right-wing book authors such as Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.
The following titles vividly reveal the hates, fears and ambitions of their authors—and audience:
- Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama’s Radical Agenda by Sean Hannity
- Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation by Jason Mattera
- How Barack Obama is Bankrupting the U.S. Economy by Stephen Moore
- Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty over Liberalism by Sean Hannity
- The Manchurian President: Barack Obama’s Ties to Communists,Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists by Aaron Klein
- The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency by Ken Blackwell
- Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Croniesby Michelle Malkin
- Why Obama’s Government Takeover of Health Care Will Be a Disaster by David Gratzer
- To Save America: Stopping Obama’s Secular-Socialist Machine by Newt Gingrich
- Obama’s Radical Transformation of America: Year One by Joshua Muravchik
- How the Obama Administration Threatens to Undermine Our Elections by John Fund
- Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policicies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America by Christopher C. Horner
- The Bad Science and Bad Policy of Obama’s Global Warning Agenda by Roy W. Spencer
- America’s March to Socialism: Why We’re One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades by Glenn Beck
- Obama’s Betrayal of Israel by Michael Ledeen
- The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality by Jerome R. Corsi
- The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media’s Favorite Candidate by David Freddoso
- Censorship: The Threat to Silence Talk Radio by Brian Jennings
- The War On Success: How the Obama Agenda Is Shattering the American Dream by Tommy Newberry
- Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them by Steven Milloy
- Liberalism is a Mental Disorder: Savage Solutions by Michael Savage
- Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism by Ann Coulter
- How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter by Ann Coulter
- Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right by Ann Coulter
- If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans by Ann Coulter
- Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America by Ann Coulter
- Catastrophe: How Obama, Congress and the Special Interests Are Transforming…a Slump into a Crash, Freedom Into Socialism and a Disaster into a Catastrophe….And How to Fight Back by Dick Morris
Consider the vocabulary Right-wingers use to describe their political adversaries:
“Liberals,” “radicals, “bankrupting,” “treason,” subversion,” “slander,” “terrorism,” “betrayal,” “catastrophe,” “shattering the American dream,” “leftists,” “Communists,” “government takeover,” “socialism,” “power grab,” “secularism,” “environmentalism.”
And while the Right lusts to constantly compare Democrats and liberals (the two aren’t always the same) to Adolf Hitler, its propaganda campaign draws heavily on the Nazi leader’s own advice.
In Mein Kampf, Hitler laid out his formula for successful propaganda: “All effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials.
“Those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotypical formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward.”
“[The masses] more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.”
Thus, Republicans spent the eight years of Barack Obama’s Presidency repeating the lie that he was born in Kenya—not Hawaii, as the long-form version of his birth certificate attests.
The reason: To “prove” that he was an illegitimate President, and should be removed from office.
To Republicans’ dismay, their slander campaign didn’t prevent Obama from being elected in 2008—and re-elected in 2012.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on November 18, 2021 at 12:23 am
“The Republican Party has weaponized its supporters, made violence a virtue and, with almost every pronouncement for 50 years, given them an enemy politicized, radicalized and indivisible.”
So wrote Rolling Stone writer in a blistering June 19, 2015 editorial. The touchstone was the slaughter of nine black worshipers by a white supremacist at a South Carolina black church.
But the proof of Republican culpability in political violence goes back much further.
Consider:
Gabrille Giffords, 40, is a moderate Democrat who narrowly wins re-election in November, 2010, against a Republican Tea Party candidate.
Her support of President Obama’s health care reform law has made her a target for violent rhetoric–-especially from former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
In March, 2010, Palin releases a map featuring 20 House Democrats that uses cross-hairs images to show their districts. In case her supporters don’t get the message, she later writes on Twitter: “Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!”
Sarah Palin
Shemp Howard, Jr. at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
As the campaign continues, Giffords finds her Tucson office vandalized after the House passes the healthcare overhaul in March.
Giffords senses that she has become a target for removal–in more than political terms. In an interview after the vandalizing of her office, she refers to the animosity against her by conservatives.
She specifically cites Palin’s decision to list her seat as one of the top “targets” in the midterm elections.
“For example, we’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list, but the thing is, that the way that she has it depicted has the cross-hairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they have to realize that there are consequences to that action,” Giffords tells MSNBC.
At one of her rallies, her aides call the police after an attendee drops a gun.
Giffords may have seen the spectre of violence closing in on her. In April, 2010, she supported Rep. Raúl Grijalva after he had to close two offices when he and his staff received threats.
He had called for a boycott of Arizona businesses in opposition to the state’s controversial immigration law.
“I am deeply troubled about reports that Congressman Grijalva and members of his staff have been subjected to death threats,” Giffords said.
“This is not how we, as Americans, express our political differences. Intimidation has no place in our representative democracy. Such acts only make it more difficult for us to resolve our differences.”
But intimidation—-and worse—-does have a place among the tactics used by influential Republicans in the pursuit of absolute power.
Increasingly, Republicans have repeatedly aimed violent—-and violence-arousing—-rhetoric at their Democratic opponents. This is not a case of careless language that is simply misinterpreted, with tragic results.
Republicans like Sarah Palin fully understand the constituency they are trying to reach: Those masses of alienated, uneducated Americans who live only for their guns and hardline religious beliefs—and who can be easily manipulated by perceived threats to either.
If a “nutcases” assaults a Democratic politician and misses, then the Republican establishment claims to be shocked—-shocked!—that such a thing could have happened.
And if the attempt proves successful—as the January 8, 2011 Tucson shootings did—then Republicans weep crocodile tears for public consumption.
The difference is that, in this case, they rejoice in knowing that Democratic ranks have been thinned and their opponents are even more on the defensive, for fear of the same happening to them.
Consider the following:
- Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Tex.) yelled “baby killer” at Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) on the House floor.
- Florida GOP Congressional candidate Allen West, referring to his Democratic opponent, Rep. Ron Klein, told Tea Party activists: You’ve got to make the fellow scared to come out of his house. That’s the only way that you’re going to win. That’s the only way you’re going to get these people’s attention.”
- Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) said Tea Partiers had “every right” to use racist and homophobic slurs against Democrats, justifying it via Democrats’ “totalitarian tactics.”
- Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) said she wanted her constituents “armed and dangerous” against the Obama administration.
- Sarah Palin told her supporters: “Get in their face and argue with them. No matter how tough it gets, never retreat, instead RELOAD!”
- Right-wing pundit Ann Coulter: “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building.”
- Senator Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) “We’re going to keep building the party until we’re hunting Democrats with dogs.”
- Rep. Louisa M. Slauter (D-NY) received a phone message threatening sniper attacks against lawmakers and their families.
Since the end of World War 11, Republicans have regularly hurled the charge of “treason” against anyone who dared to run against them for office or think other than Republican-sponsored thoughts.
Republicans had been locked out of the White House from 1933 to 1952, during the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman.
Determined to regain the Presidency by any means, they found that attacking the integrity of their fellow Americans a highly effective tactic.
During the 1950s, Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy rode a wave of paranoia to national prominence–by attacking the patriotism of anyone who disagreed with him.
The fact that McCarthy never uncovered one actual case of treason was conveniently overlooked during his lifetime.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on November 17, 2021 at 12:06 am
On June 17, 2015, Dylann Roof, a white high school dropout, gunned down three black men and six black women at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
At 21, Roof was unemployed, dividing his time between playing video games and taking drugs.
Dylann Roof
The signs of Roof’s malignant racism were evident long before he turned mass murderer:
- He had posed for a photo sitting on the hood of his parents’ car—whose license plate bore a Confederate flag.
- He had posed for pictures wearing a jacket sporting the white supremacist flags of Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa.
- He told a friend that he hoped “to start a civil war” between the black and white races.
- Roof reportedly told friends and neighbors of his plans to kill people.
- In the midst of his massacre of unarmed worshipers, he told one of his victims: “You’ve raped our women, and you are taking over the country.” Then Roof shot him.
The evidence makes clear that Roof’s slaughter was racially motivated. Yet no 2016 Republican Presidential candidate dared acknowledge it:
- Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida: “I don’t know what was on the mind or the heart of the man who committed these atrocious crimes.”
- Rick Santorum, former United States Senator from Pennsylvania: “You talk about the importance of prayer in this time and we’re now seeing assaults on our religious liberty we’ve never seen before. It’s a time for deeper reflection beyond this horrible situation.”
- Bobby Jindal, former governor of Louisiana: “I don’t think we’ll ever know what was going on in his mind.”
But Rolling Stone magazine writer Jeb Lund left no doubt as to what—and who—was ultimately responsible for this crime: Racism and Republicans.
In a June 19, 2015 editorial—published two days after the massacre—Lund noted: “This [crime] is political because American movement conservatism has already made these kinds of killings political.
“The Republican Party has weaponized its supporters, made violence a virtue and, with almost every pronouncement for 50 years, given them an enemy politicized, racialized and indivisible.
“Movement conservatives have fetishized a tendentious and ahistorical reading of the Second Amendment to the point that the Constitution itself somehow paradoxically ‘legitimizes’ an armed insurrection against the government created by it.
“Those leading said insurrection are swaddled by the blanket exculpation of patriotism. At the same time, they have synonymized the Democratic Party with illegitimacy and abuse of the American order.
“This is no longer an argument about whether one party’s beliefs are beneficial or harmful, but an attitude that labels leftism so antithetical to the American idea that empowering it on any level is an act of usurpation.”
Click here: The Charleston Shooter: Racist, Violent, and Yes – Political | Rolling Stone
On December 15, 2016, Dylann Roof was convicted of 33 Federal hate crime charges. On January 11, 2017, he was sentenced to death. He remains on Death Row to this day.
Yet the leadership of the Republican party whose hate-filled rhetoric inspired Root escaped indictment—and even widespread condemnation.
The evidence that Republicans have weaponized hatred—with deadly results—was on display long before Dylann Roof opened fire on “uppity blacks” praying in their own church.
Consider:
On January 8, 2011, Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head while meeting with constituents outside a grocery store in Tucson, Arizona. After a miraculous recovery, she continues to struggle with language and has lost 50% of her vision in both eyes.
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords
She vowed to return to her former Congressional duties, but was forced to resign for health reasons in 2012.
Giffords was only one victim of a shooting spree that claimed the lives of six people and left 13 others wounded.
Also killed was Arizona’s chief U.S. District judge, John Roll, who had just stopped by to see his friend Giffords after celebrating Mass.
Although the actual shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, was immediately arrested, those who fanned the flames of political violence that consumed 19 people that day have remained unpunished.
Consider the circumstances behind the shootings:
John Roll is Arizona’s chief federal judge. Appointed in 2006, he wins acclaim as a respected jurist and leader who pushes to beef up the court’s strained bench to handle a growing number of border crime-related cases.
In 2009, he becomes a target for threats after allowing a $32 million civil-rights lawsuit by illegal aliens to proceed against a local rancher. The case arouses the fury of local talk radio hosts, who encourage their audiences to threaten Roll’s life.
In one afternoon, Roll logs more than 200 threatening phone calls. Callers threaten the judge and his family. They post personal information about Roll online.
Roll and his wife are placed under fulltime protection by deputy U.S. marshals. Roll finds living under security “unnerving and invasive.”
Authorities identify four men believed responsible for the threats. But Roll declines to press charges on the advice of the Marshals Service.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on November 15, 2021 at 1:15 am
Of the 4,385 air rage incidents reported by September 24, only one person has been criminally charged.
That is Vyvianna Quinonez, who in May punched a flight attendant in the face on a Southwest flight approaching San Diego. At the time of her arrest, she claimed she was acting in self-defense.
The airlines are under Federal jurisdiction—which means legal violations can be prosecuted by the Department of Justice (DOJ). Criminal penalties can run up to 20 years in prison if convicted of interfering with the operations of an aircraft.
As a civil authority, the FAA cannot charge anyone. The agency can fine violators up to $35,000.
Seal of the Justice Department
There are several reasons for this huge increase in air-rage incidents.
First, coach passengers are cramped into tight places with strangers, where they have little control over what’s happening to them. This can lead to nervousness, negative feelings and anger.
Second, the political polarization that marked the Donald Trump administration has taken to the skies with the imposition of mask mandates.
Surgical mask
Robert Bor, a director at the UK-based Centre for Aviation Psychology, says that most air-rage incidents are about masks.
“Most people are pretty neutral on whether they have Coke or Pepsi, but they will have very strong feelings when it comes to issues relating to health, human rights, access to air and so on; it triggers people to behave in slightly more militant ways.”
By June 29, of the 3,100 air-rage incidents thus far reported, 2,350 involved people refusing to comply with the Federal mask mandate.
Airline crew members are frightened by these attacks—and depressed at the lack of punishment for them.
“We tell them [passengers] that it is a Federal offense to not comply with crew member instructions,” said Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants. “Then the plane is met by airline supervisors or airport law enforcement and the passenger gets a slap on the wrist and sent on their way.”
FAA Administrator Steve Dickson has his own complaints: “Every week, we see situations in which law enforcement was asked to meet an aircraft at the gate following an unruly passenger incident. Many of these passengers were interviewed by local police and released without criminal charges of any kind.”
Meanwhile, the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) has had its own serious lapses in judgment.
In March, 2013, TSA Administrator John Pistole unveiled a proposal to allow passengers to bring small knives, baseball bats, golf clubs and other sports equipment onto planes.
He explained that in light of hardened cockpit doors, armed off-duty pilots traveling on planes and other preventive measures, small folding knives could not be used by terrorists to take over a plane.
TSA dropped the proposal in June, thanks to fierce opposition from passengers, Congressional leaders and airline industry officials.
By October, 2021, the TSA had seized nearly 4,500 guns at airport security checkpoints, compared with about 4,400 in all of 2019, before the pandemic caused air travel to plummet in 2020.
About 85% of the weapons caught were loaded. They were found on passengers or in carry-on bags across 248 U.S. airports, largely in Atlanta and Dallas-Fort Worth.
It’s worth remembering that for all the publicity given the TSA’s “Air Marshal” program, it’s been airline passengers—not Federal lawmen—who have repeatedly been the ones to subdue unruly fliers.
Prior to 9/11, commercial airline pilots and passengers were warned: If someone tries to highjack the plane, just stay calm and do what he says.
So many airplanes were directed by highjackers to land in Fidel Castro’s Cuba that these incidents became joke fodder for stand-up comedians.
And, up to 9/11, the advice to cooperate fully with highjackers and land the planes where they wanted worked. No planes and no lives were lost.
But during 9/11, passengers and crew—with one exception—cooperated fully with the highjackers’ demands.
And all of them died horrifically when three of those jetliners were deliberately crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
World Trade Center – September 11, 2001
Only on United Flight 93 did the passengers and crew fight back.
In doing so, they accomplished what soldiers, military pilots, the CIA and the FBI could not: They thwarted the terrorists, sacrificing their own lives and preventing the fourth plane from destroying the White House or the Capitol Building.
Memorial to the passengers and crew of United Flight 93
As a result, passengers are now ordered to act as their own air marshals when danger threatens.
To put an end to these outrages against public safety:
- Violators should be taken into custody solely by the FBI.
- Bail should be denied for all violators.
- Every air-rage case should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
- If this puts a strain on Federal detention centers, the accused should be shipped off to Guantanamo and other holding facilities.
- Flight attendants and passengers should be empowered to use deadly force against anyone who poses a danger to the flight. Anyone found to have legally killed an air-rage perpetrator should be granted immunity from prosecution.
- Anyone found illegally bringing a firearm aboard a flight should be arrested, jailed without bond, and tried under the USA Patriot Act, which counters terrorism. If convicted, s/he should spend at least 10 years in prison.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 12, 2021 at 12:10 am
After Donald Trump won the 2016 election, many people feared he would embark on a radical Right-wing agenda. But others hoped that the Washington bureaucracy would “box him in.”
The same sentiments echoed throughout Germany after Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933.
The 1983 TV mini-series, The Winds of War, offered a dramatic example of how honorable men can be overwhelmed by a ruthless dictator.
Based on the bestselling 1971 historical novel by Herman Wouk, the mini-series factually re-created the major historical events of World War II.
One of those events took place on November 5, 1939.
General Walther von Brauchitsch is summoned to the Chancellery in Berlin to meet with Adolf Hitler. He carries a memorandum signed by all the leaders of the German Wehrmacht asserting that Case Yellow—Hitler’s planned attack against France—is impossible.
Meanwhile, at the German army headquarters at Zossen, in Berlin, the Wehrmacht’s top command wait for word from von Brauchitsch.
ZOSSEN:
Brigadier General Armin von Roon: I must confide in you on a very serious matter. I have been approached by certain army personages of the loftiest rank and prestige with a frightening proposal.
Chief of the General Staff Franz Halder: What did you reply?
Von Roon: That they were talking high treason.
Gunter Meisner as Adolf Hitler in “The Winds of War”
THE WHITE HOUSE:
Fast forward 79 years from Adolf Hitler’s stormy confrontation with Walter von Brauchitsch to September 5, 2018.
On September 5, 2018, The New York Times publishes an anonymous Op-Ed essay by “a senior official in the Trump administration.” This spotlights massive dysfunction within the White House—and put the blame squarely on the President.
Among the revelations:
- “Many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.”
- “We believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic. That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.”
- “On Russia…the president was reluctant to expel so many of Mr. Putin’s spies as punishment for the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain….But his national security team knew better—such actions had to be taken, to hold Moscow accountable.”
- “From the White House to executive branch departments and agencies, senior officials will privately admit their daily disbelief at the commander in chief’s comments and actions. Most are working to insulate their operations from his whims.”
ZOSSEN:
Von Roon: The conspiracy has been going on that long—since Czechoslovakia [1938)?
Halder: If the British had not caved in at Munich [where France and Britain sold out their ally, Czechoslovakia]—perhaps. But they did. And ever then, ever since his big triumph, it has been hopeless. Hopeless.
Von Roon: Empty talk, talk, talk. I am staggered.
Halder: A hundred times I myself could have shot the man. I can still at any time. But what would be the result? Chaos. The people are for him. He has unified the country. We must stick to our posts and save him from making military mistakes.
THE WHITE HOUSE:
On September 11, 2018, legendary investigative reporter Bob Woodward publishes a devastating take on the Trump administration: Fear: Trump in the White House. The text features explosive revelations about the disdain Trump’s staffers have for him:
- Trump was about to sign a letter canceling a free-trade agreement with South Korea. To prevent this, Eric Cohn, his national economic council director, swiped it from Trump’s desk. Trump didn’t notice it missing.
- Secretary of Defense James Mattis said Trump has the understanding of “a fifth or sixth grader.”
- White House Chief of Staff John Kelly called Trump an “idiot” and “unhinged.”
General Walther von Brauchitsch fails to convince Hitler to postpone “Case Yellow”—the invasion of France. Hitler insists that it commence in seven days—on November 12.
And he issues a warning to the entire German General staff: “I will ruthlessly crush everybody up to the rank of a Field Marshal who dares to oppose me. You don’t have to understand. You only have to obey. The German people understand me. I am Germany.”
Due to foul weather, Hitler is forced to postpone the invasion of France until June, 1940. But the German General staff can’t ultimately put off the war that will destroy them—and Germany.
President Donald Trump:
- Fired FBI Director James Comey.
- Attacked the integrity of the American Intelligence community.
- Attacked the free press as “the enemy of the American people.”
- Praised brutal Communist dictators Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un.
- Tried to extort Ukraine into smearing former Vice President Joseph Biden, his 2020 rival for the White House.
- Tried to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential election, which elected Biden.
Like Hitler, he could equally say: I am the destiny of America.
Hitler’s dictatorship ultimately destroyed Germany and reshaped the map of Europe. Trump’s attempted dictatorship almost destroyed democracy in America. History has yet to see if Trump will succeed where Hitler failed.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on October 28, 2021 at 12:10 am
All security systems—including those considered the best—are created by humans. And humans are and will always be imperfect creatures.
So there will inevitably be times when security agents miss the assassin or terrorist intent on mayhem. For example:
- In September, 1975, two women—Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme and Sara Jane Moore—tried to assassinate President Gerald R. Ford on two separate occasions.
- Fromme was tackled by a Secret Service agent. Moore’s aim was deflected by Oliver Sipple, a Marine and Vietnam veteran, thus saving Ford’s life.
Gerald Ford being hustled from danger by Secret Service agents
Until these incidents, the Secret Service profile of a potential assassin didn’t include a woman.
- On March 30, 1981, John W. Hinckley, a psychotic obsessed with actress Jodie Foster, gained access to a line of reporters waiting to throw questions at President Ronald Reagan.
- As Reagan got into his bulletproof Presidential limousine, Hinckley drew a pistol and opened fire. Wounded, Reagan escaped death by inches.
The Reagan Assassination attempt
The Secret Service Service had failed to prevent the attack because no one—until that moment—had attacked a President from the section reserved for reporters.
- On September 11, 2001, Islamic terrorists armed with boxcutters highjacked four American jetliners and turned them into fuel-bombs.
- Two of the airliners struck the North and South towers of the World Trade Center, destroying both structures.
- A third hit the Pentagon.
- The fourth—United Airlines Flight 93—crashed when it was diverted from its intended target (the White House or Congress) by passengers who resolved to fight back.
- Three thousand Americans died that day—in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Until this day of catastrophe, no highjacker had turned a jumbo-jet into a fuel-bomb. Passengers had been advised to cooperate with highjackers, not resist them.
So how will the next 9/11 happen? In all likelihood, like this:
- A terrorist—or, more likely, several terrorists—will sign up for one or more airline “VIP screening” programs.
- They will be completely clean—no arrests, no convictions.
- They may well be respectable citizens in their communities.
- They will probably have amassed enough “frequent flier miles” to ingratiate themselves with the airlines and convince the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) of their integrity.
- Then, one day, they will breeze through their selected airports—
- Without removing their belts and shoes;
- Without undergoing pat-down searches;
- Without being required to remove laptops and other electronic devices from their carry-ons;
- Without exposing their electronic devices to X-ray technology.
- Then they will board planes—either as part of an individual terrorist effort or a coordinated one, a la 9/11.
And then it will be too late.
Memorial to the passengers and crew of United Flight 93
The TSA/airlines’ VIP programs are based on the assumption that someone who has completed a security check in the past need not be re-checked in the future.
This assumption has proven false for American Intelligence agencies such as the FBI and CIA.
- FBI agent Robert Hanssen spied for Soviet and Russian Intelligence services for 22 years (1979-2001). He’s now serving a life sentence in Florence, Colorado.
- CIA agent Aldrich Ames betrayed American secrets—including those Russians who had shared them—to Soviet and Russian espionage agencies from 1985 to 1994. He is likewise serving a life sentence.
Even requiring an agent to undergo repeated security checks is no guarantee of trustworthiness.
When asked about how he repeatedly passed CIA polygraph tests, Ames said: “There’s no special magic. Confidence is what does it. Confidence and a friendly relationship with the examiner. Rapport, where you smile and make him think that you like him.”
Thus, as William Shakespeare warned in Hamlet, “One may smile and smile and be a villain”—or a highjacker.
The TSA introduced its Pre-Check program during the fall of 2011. By March 2, 2020, 10 million travelers had been found worthy of “expedited” status.
In early September, 2013, TSA announced that it would more than double its “expedited screening” program, Pre-Check, from 40 to 100 airports by the end of the year.
Nor is TSA the only organization giving big-spending fliers special treatment at potential risk to their country. For example:
Delta Air Lines offers Sky Priority, described as providing “privileged access through security checkpoints” at select airports.
Another private security program, Clear, collects several pieces of biometric data on well-heeled passengers. Once verified by a kiosk local to the security checkpoint, the passengers are allowed to skirt the security barriers that poor and middle-class folks must pass through.
Priority Access, set up by TSA and the airlines, provides “expedited service” to first-class and business passengers. To qualify, you need only possess certain credit cards—such as the United Mileage Plus Club Card.
Some critics blast this two-tier passenger check-in system as an affront to democratic principles.
“It’s stratifying consumers by class and wealth, because the people who travel a lot usually have higher incomes,” said Ralph Nader, consumer advocate and frequent business traveler.
But there is an even more important reason to immediately disband these programs and require everyone—rich and middle-class alike—to undergo the same level of security screening:
The 3,000 men and women who died horrifically on September 11, 2001, at the hands of airline passengers whom authorities thought could be trusted to board a plane.
Tribute to the vanished World Trade Center
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WHEN SCREEN CRIMINALS MEET REAL ONES: PART THREE (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on December 3, 2021 at 12:10 amSean Penn is not the first celebrity to “get close to” a gangster.
Singer Frank Sinatra set the standard as far back as the 1940s when he was often seen in the company of notorious Mafiosi such as Charles “Lucky” Luciano and Willie Moretti.
(It was Moretti who is rumored to have freed Sinatra from his financially-limiting contract with bandleader Tommy Dorsey in the early 1940s.
His alleged method of persuasion: Jamming a pistol down Dorsey’s throat and threatening to kill him. Dorsey eventually sold the contract to Sinatra for one dollar.)
But the mobster whom Sinatra was most-often linked with—by gossip and FBI reports—was Sam “Mooney” Giancana.
Giancana started out as a “wheelman” and enforcer for the teenage “42 Gang,” then joined the Chicago mob in the late 1930s. By 1957 he had been appointed its boss.
Sam Giancana
Sinatra often partied with Giancana, both in nightclubs and at his own residence in Palm Springs, California.
In December, 1959, financier Joseph P. Kennedy summoned Sinatra to the family compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. His son, Senator John F. Kennedy, was planning to run for President in 1960. And the elder Kennedy wanted Sinatra’s help.
Sinatra and the Senator were by now well-acquainted. They shared a taste for gossip, nightclubs and beautiful women.
According to Sinatra’s daughter, Tina, the Kennedy patriarch said: “I think that you can help [the campaign] in [the] West Virginia [primary] and Illinois [in the general election] with our friends.
“You understand, Frank, I can’t go. They’re my friends, too, but I can’t approach them. But you can.”
Frank Sinatra
By “our friends,” Kennedy meant the Mafia. Joseph P. Kennedy had done business with the mob as a bootlegger during Prohibition.
Now he wanted the Mafia to pressure local union members into voting for JFK—and making contributions to the Kennedy Presidential campaign.
Sinatra went to his friend, Sam Giancana, and asked for the mob’s support. And Giancana promised to deliver it.
In return, Giancana—and other mobsters—expected to win an ally in the White House. He was later overheard on an FBI wiretap saying he had been promised by Sinatra that “if I even got a traffic ticket, none of those fuckers [the FBI] would know me.”
Since 1959, Giancana and other “Top Hoodlum” mobsters had been under increasingly heavy FBI surveillance. Giancana wanted it stopped.
And Sinatra had assured him that, under a Kennedy Presidency, it would stop.
On Election Night, 1960, John F. Kennedy carried Illinois—and won the White House by a mere 120,000 votes nationwide.
Then, to the horror of the Mafia, JFK installed his brother, Robert Francis Kennedy, as Attorney General. From 1957 to 1959, RFK had pursued gangsters as chief counsel for the Senate Rackets Committee.
Now he declared all-out war on organized crime. Convictions against organized crime figures rose 800% during his four years in office.
Robert F. Kennedy
Sinatra tried to deliver for Giancana. He sent Peter Lawford—his Rat Pack pal and brother-in-law to the President—to talk with Robert Kennedy about laying off on the Mafia don.
Kennedy bluntly told Lawford to mind his own business.
Giancana came under even greater pressure. FBI agents put a 24-hour “lockstep” surveillance on him, following him even into church and restrooms.
“I was on the road with this broad,” Giancana raged to his murderous associate, Johnny Formosa. “There must have been 20 guys [FBI agents]. They were next door, upstairs, downstairs, surrounded all the way around!
“Get in a car, somebody picks you up I lose that tail—boom!—I get picked up someplace else! Four or five cars, back and forth, back and forth.”
In another exchange with Formosa, Giancana’s anger at Sinatra boiled over:
“The last time I talked to [Sinatra] was at the hotel in Florida. And he said, ‘Don’t worry about it. If I can’t talk to the old man [Joseph P. Kennedy] I’m going to talk to the man [President Kennedy].’
“One minute he says he’s talked to Robert, and the next minute he says he hasn’t talked to him. So he never did talk to him.”
Formosa suggested a remedy: “Let’s show ’em. Let’s show those fuckin’ Hollywood fruitcakes that they can’t get away with it as if nothin’s happened.
“Let’s hit Sinatra. Or I could whack out a couple of those other guys, Lawford and that [Dean] Martin. And I could take the nigger [Sammy Davis, Jr.] and put his other eye out.”
Giancana refused to issue the contract. But he seriously considered doing so, as he confessed to a Chicago associate named Tommy DiBella:
“One night I’m fucking Phyllis [McGuire, a member of the famous McGuire sisters trio], playing Sinatra songs in the background, and the whole time I’m thinking to myself, ‘Christ, how can I silence that voice?’
“It’s the most beautiful voice in the world. Frank’s lucky he’s got it. It saved his life.”
Sinatra’s Rat Pack “pally,” Dean Martin, summed it up: “Only Frank could get away with the shit he’s got away with. Only Frank. Anybody else would’ve been dead.”
Sinatra survived the murderous anger of a mob boss. It remains to be seen if Sean Penn can do the same.
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