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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Social commentary on February 20, 2026 at 12:16 am
It’s a movie that appeared in 1981—making it, for those born in 2000, an oldie.
And it wasn’t a blockbuster, being yanked out of theaters almost as soon as it arrived.
Yet Prince of the City remains that rarity—a movie about big-city police that:
- Tells a dramatic (and true) story; and
- Offers serious truths about how police and prosecutors really operate.
It’s based on the real-life case of NYPD Detective Robert Leuci (“Danny Ciello” in the film).
Robert Leuci (“Danny Ciello” in “Prince of the City”)
A member of the elite Special Investigating Unit (SIU) Ciello (played by Treat Williams) volunteers to work undercover against rampant corruption among narcotics agents, attorneys and bail bondsmen.
His motive appears simple: To redeem himself and the NYPD from the corruption he sees everywhere: “These people we take from own us.”
His only condition: “I will never betray cops who’ve been my partners.”
And Assistant US Attorney Rick Cappalino assures Ciello: “We’ll never make you do something you can’t live with.”
As the almost three-hour movie unfolds, Ciello finds—to his growing dismay—that there are a great many things he will have to live with.
Treat Williams as “Danny Ciello”
Although he doesn’t have a hand in it, he’s appalled to learn that Gino Moscone, a former buddy, is going to be arrested for taking bribes from drug dealers.
Confronted by a high-ranking agent for the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency, Moscone refuses to “rat out” his buddies. Instead, he puts his service revolver to his head and blows out his brains.
Ciello is devastated, but the investigation—and film—must go on.
Along the way, he’s suspected by a corrupt cop and bail bondsman of being a “rat” and threatened with death.
He’s about to be wasted in a back alley when his cousin—a Mafia member—suddenly intervenes. The Mafioso tells Ciello’s would-be killers: “You’d better be sure he’s a rat, because people like him.”
At which point, the grotesquely fat bail bondsman—who has been demanding Ciello’s execution—pats Danny on the arm and says, “No hard feelings.”
It’s director Sidney Lumet’s way of graphically saying: “Sometimes the bad guys can be good guys—and the good guys can be bad guys.”
Lumet makes it clear that police don’t always operate with the Godlike perfection of cops in TV and films. It’s precisely because his Federal backup agents lost him that Ciello almost became a casualty.
In the end, Ciello becomes a victim of the prosecutorial forces he has unleashed. Although he’s vowed to never testify against his former partners, Ciello finds this is a promise he can’t keep.
Too many of the cops he’s responsible for indicting have implicated him of similar—if not worse—behavior. He’s even suspected of being involved in the theft of 450 pounds of heroin (“the French Connection”) from the police property room.
A sympathetic prosecutor—Mario Vincente in the movie, Rudolph Giuliani in real-life—convinces Ciello that he must finally reveal everything he knows.
Ciello’s had originally claimed to have done “three things” as a corrupt narcotics agent. By the time his true confessions are over, he’s admitted to scores of felonies.
Ciello then tries to convince his longtime SIU partners to do the same. One of them commits suicide. Another tells Ciello to screw himself: “I’m not going to shoot myself and I’m not going to become a rat.”
To his surprise, Ciello finds himself admiring his corrupt former partner for being willing to stand up to the Federal case-agents and prosecutors demanding his head.
The movie ends with a double dose of irony.
First: Armed with Ciello’s confessions, an attorney whom Ciello had successfully testified against appeals his conviction. But the judge rules Ciello’s admitted misdeeds to be “collateral,” apart from the main evidence in the case, and affirms the conviction.
Second: Ciello is himself placed on trial—of a sort. A large group of assistant U.S. attorneys gathers to debate whether their prize “canary” should be indicted. If he is, his confessions will ensure his conviction.
Some prosecutors argue forcefully that Ciello is a corrupt law enforcement officer who has admitted to more than 40 cases of perjury—among other crimes. How can the government use him to convict others and not address the criminality in his own past?
Other prosecutors argue that Ciello voluntarily risked his life—physically and professionally—to expose rampant police corruption. He deserves a better deal than to be cast aside by those who have made so many cases through his testimony.
Eventually, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York makes his decision: “The government declines to prosecute Detective Daniel Ciello.”
It is Lumet’s way of showing that the decision to prosecute is not always an easy or objective one.
The movie ends with Ciello now teaching surveillance classes at the NYPD Academy.
A student asks: “Are you the Detective Ciello?”
“I’m Detective Ciello.”
“I don’t think I have anything to learn from you.” And he walks out.
Is Danny Ciello a hero, a villain, or some combination of the two?
On this ambiguous note that the film ends—an ambiguity that each viewer must resolve for himself.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 13, 2026 at 12:10 am
Lori Tankel had a problem: A lot of angry people thought she was George Zimmerman.
She began getting death threats on her
Unfortunately for Tankel, her number was one digit away from the number Zimmerman used to make his call to police just before he fatally shot Martin.
That phone number had been shown throughout the trial. And, believing the number was Zimmerman’s, someone posted Tankel’s number online.
Just minutes after the verdict, Tankel began getting death threats. “We’re going to kill you. We’re going to get you. Watch your back,” threatened a typical call.
George Zimmerman
Tankel worked as a sales representative for several horse companies. She had grown used to relying on her phone to keep her business going.
But, almost as soon as the Zimmerman verdict came in, “My phone just started to blow up. Phone call after phone call, multiple phone
So she did what any ordinary citizen, faced with multiple death threats, would do: She called the police.
According to her, the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office told her the department itself receives around 400 death threats a minute on social media sites.
In short: Unless you’re wealthy, a politician or—best of all, a cop—don’t expect the police to protect you if your life is threatened.
First, above everyone else, police look out for each other.
Robert Daley bluntly revealed this truth in his 1971 bestseller, Target Blue: An Insider’s View of the N.Y.P.D. A police reporter for the New York Times, he served for one year as a deputy police commissioner.
“A great many solvable crimes in the city were never solved, because not enough men were assigned to the case, or because those assigned were lazy or hardly cared or got sidetracked,” wrote Daley.
“But when a cop got killed, no other cop got sidetracked. Detectives worked on the case night and day….
“In effect, the citizen who murdered his wife’s lover was sought by a team of detectives, two men. But he who killed a cop was sought by 32,000.”
That’s why the Mafia tried to bribe cops, but never killed them.
Second, don’t expect the police to do for you what they’ll do for one another.
In February, 2013, Christopher Dorner declared war on his former fellow officers of the Los Angeles Police Department.
The LAPD assigned security and surveillance details to at least 50 threatened officers and their families. A typical detail consists of two to five or more guards. And those guards must be changed every eight to 12 hours.
Those details stayed in place long after Dorner was killed in a firefight on February 12, 2013.
But if your bullying neighbor threatens to kill you, don’t expect the police to send a guard detail over. They’ll claim: ”We can’t do anything until the guy does something. If he does, give us a call.”
Third, the more status and wealth you command, the more likely the police are to address your complaint or solve your case.
If you’re rich, your complaint will likely get top priority and the best service the agency can provide. In Boston, such cases are known as “Red balls.”
But if you’re poor or even middle-class without high-level political or police connections, you’ll be told: “We just don’t have the resources to protect everybody.”
Fourth, don’t expect your police department to operate with the vigor or efficiency of TV police agencies.
“I want this rock [Hawaii] sealed off,” Steve McGarrett (Jack Lord) routinely ordered when pursuing criminals on “Hawaii Five-O.”
Jack Lord as Steve McGarrett
Real-life police departments, on the other hand:
- Often lack state-of-the-art crime labs to analyze evidence.
- Often lose or accidentally destroy important files.
- Are—like all bureaucracies—staffed by those who are lazy, indifferent or incompetent.
- Are notoriously competitive, generally refusing to share information with other police departments-–thus making it easier for criminals to run amok.
Even when police ”solve” a crime, that simply means making an arrest. After that, there are at least three possible outcomes:
- The District Attorney may decide not to file charges.
- The perpetrator may plead to a lesser offense and serve only a token sentence—or none at all.
- He might be found not guilty by a judge or jury.
Fifth, the result of all this can only be increased disrespect for law enforcement from a deservedly—and increasingly—cynical public.
It is the witnessing of blatant inequities and hypocrisies such as those displayed in the Christopher Dorner case that most damages public support for police at all levels.
When citizens believe police lack the ability—or even the will—to protect them or avenge their victimization, that is a deadly blow to law enforcement.
Police depend on citizens for more than crime tips.
They depend upon them to support hiring more cops and buying state-of-the-art police equipment.
When public support vanishes, so does much of that public funding.
The result can only be a return to the days of the lawless West, where citizens—as individuals or members of vigilante committees—look only to themselves for protection.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 12, 2026 at 12:10 am
Ever heard of “polygraph by copier”?
If you haven’t, here’s how it works:
A detective loads three sheets of paper into a Xerox machine.
“Truth” has been typed onto the first sheet.
“Truth” has been typed onto the second sheet.
“Lie” has been typed onto the third sheet.
Then a criminal suspect is led into the room and told to put his hand against the side of the machine.
“What is your name?” asks the detective.
The suspect gives it.
The detective hits the copy button, and a page comes out: “Truth.”
“Where do you live?” asks the detective.
The suspect gives an address, the detective again hits the copy button, and a second page appears: “Truth.”
Then comes the important question: “Did you kill Big Jim Tate on the evening of….?”
The suspect answers. The detective presses the copy button one last time, and the sheet appears: “Lie.”
“Well, well, well, you lying little bastard,” says the detective.
Convinced that the police have found some mysterious way to peer into the darkest recesses of his criminality, the suspect “gives it up” and makes a full confession.
Yes, contrary to what many believe, police can legally use deceit to obtain a confession.
In 1973, the Supreme Court ruled, in United States v. Russell: “Nor will the mere fact of deceit defeat a prosecution, for there are circumstances when the use of deceit is the only practicable law enforcement technique available.”
In that case, the Court narrowly upheld a conviction for methamphetamine production even though the defendant had argued entrapment.
So what types of interrogative deceit might a police officer use to develop admissible evidence of a suspect’s guilt?
Police interrogation
The general rule is that deception can be used so long as it’s not likely to cause an innocent person to commit a crime or confess to a crime that s/he didn’t commit.
Consider the following examples:
- A detective is interviewing a suspect in a rape case. “Oh, that girl,” he says, thus implying that the victim was a slut and had it coming. The suspect, thinking he’s dealing with a sympathetic listener, starts bragging about his latest conquest—only to learn, too late, that his listener isn’t so simpatico after all.
- “We found your prints on the gun”—or on any number of other surfaces. Actually, there are few good places on a pistol to leave prints. And those that are left can be smeared. The same goes for other surfaces. But if a suspect can be led to believe the cops have his prints, a confession is often forthcoming.
- A police officer is interrogating a suspect in a murder case. “He came at you, didn’t he?” asks the cop. The suspect, who murdered the victim in cold blood, thinks he has an escape route. “Yeah, he came at me”—this confirming that, yes, he did kill the deceased.
- “Your partner just gave you up” is a favorite police strategy when there is more than one suspect involved. If one suspect can be made to “flip”—turn–-against the other, the case is essentially wrapped up.
- Interrogating a bank robbery suspect, a cop might say: “We know you didn’t do the shooting, that you were only the wheelman.” This implies that the penalty for driving the getaway car is far less than that for killing someone during a robbery. In fact, criminal law allows every member of the conspiracy to be charged as a principal.
- “I don’t give a damn what you did,” says the detective. “Just tell me why you did it.” For some suspects, this offers a cathartic release, a chance to justify their guilt.
- The “good cop/bad cop” routine is known to everyone who has ever seen a police drama. Yet it continues to yield results so often it continues to be routinely used. “Look, I believe you,” says the “good” cop, “but my partner’s a real asshole. Just tell me what happened so we can clear this up and you can go.”
- “So,” says the detective, “why do you think the police believe you did it?” “I have no idea,” says the suspect, confident that he isn’t giving up anything that might come back to haunt him. “Well,” says the cop, “I guess you’ll just have to make something up.” Make something up sounds easy, but it’s actually a trap. The suspect may end up giving away details that could incriminate him—or lying so brazenly that his lies can be used against him.
So is there a best way for a suspect to deal with an invitation to waive his Miranda right to remain silent?
Yes, there is. It’s to refuse to say anything and to ask for permission to call a lawyer.
That’s the preferred method for Mafia hitmen—and accused police officers.
Any cop who finds himself under investigation by his department’s Internal Affairs unit automatically shuts up—and calls his lawyer.
Contrary to popular belief, an arrestee is allowed to make more than one phone call in most states.
Any other reason—no matter how well-intentioned—may well result in a lengthy prison sentence.
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In History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 10, 2026 at 12:10 am
With Minnesota under siege by brutal and murderous agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) this is an appropriate time to read John Steinbeck’s 1942 novel, The Moon Is Down.
Written to inspire resistance movements in occupied countries, it has appeared in at least 92 editions across the world.
It tells the story of a Norwegian village occupied by Germans in World War II.
At first the invasion goes swiftly. Wehrmacht Colonel Lanser establishes his headquarters in the house of the democratically-elected Mayor Orden.
Lanser, a veteran of World War I, considers himself a man of civility and law. But in his heart he knows that “there are no peaceful people” when their freedom has been forcibly violated.
After an alderman named Alex Morden is executed for killing a German officer, the townspeople settle into “a slow, silent waiting revenge.”
Between the winter cold and the hostility of the townspeople, the Germans become fearful and disillusioned. One night, a frightened Lieutenant Tonder asks: “Captain, is this place conquered?”
“Of course.”
“Conquered and we’re afraid; conquered and we’re surrounded,” replies Tonder, hysterically. “Flies conquer the flypaper. Flies capture two hundred miles of new flypaper!”
Several nights later, Tonder knocks at the door of Molly Morden. He doesn’t realize that she nurses a deep hatred of Germans for the execution of her husband, Alex. Tonder desperately wants to escape the fury and loneliness of war. Molly agrees to talk with him, but insists that he leave and return another time.
When he returns the next evening, Molly invites him in—and then kills him with a pair of scissors.
John Steinbeck
A British plane flies over the town and drops packages of dynamite, which the townspeople hurriedly collect.
When the Germans learn about the droppings, Colonel Lanser arrests Mayor Orden and Doctor Albert Winter. As the two await their uncertain future, Orden tries to remember the speech Socrates delivered before he was put to death:
“Do you remember in school, in the Apology? Socrates says, ‘Someone will say, ‘And are you not ashamed, Socrates, of a course of life which is likely to bring you to an untimely end?’ To him I may fairly answer, ‘There you are mistaken: a man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether he is doing right or wrong.’”
Colonel Lanser enters the room and warns Orden: “If you don’t urge your people to not use the dynamite, you will be executed.”
And Orden replies: “Nothing can change it. You will be destroyed and driven out. The people don’t like to be conquered, sir, and so they will not be. Free men cannot start a war, but once it is started, they can fight on in defeat.
“Herd men, followers of a leader, cannot do that, and so it is always the herd men who win battles and the free men who win wars. You will find that it is so, sir.”
Explosions begin erupting throughout the town.
As Orden is led outside—to his execution—he tells Winter, quoting Socrates: “’Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius. Will you remember to pay the debt?’”
“The debt shall be paid,” replies Winter—meaning that resistance will continue.
On January 6-7, 2026, President Donald Trump flooded Minneapolis and St. Paul Minnesota with about 2,000 thuggish ICE agents.
During his 2024 campaign for President, Trump had promised—warned—that he would pursue “retribution” against those he believed had wronged him.
One of those was Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who had dared to run against him as Kamala Harris’ vice presidential pick. Making Minnesota an even more attractive target for him was the state’s large Somali population, whom he had publicly labeled “garbage.”
ICE agents
Chad Davis, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
But then the unexpected happened: Minnesota residents began a wholesale resistance to ICE efforts to arrest—and often brutalize—their immigrant friends and neighbors.
Minnesotans used whistles and encrypted chats to follow and document ICE activity. Starting in December, 2025, hundreds of people signed up for ICE observation training at a church in Uptown. Such trainings are now common.
The ICE killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti steeled Minnesotans to turn out in even greater numbers to protest their occupiers. At great personal risk, motorists followed ICE agents’ vehicles and photographed their assaults on illegal aliens—and American citizens.
“In one city—in one city we have this outrage and this powder keg happening,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told Fox News. “And it’s not right. And it doesn’t happen anywhere else.”
Gregory Bovino, commanding “Operation Metro Surge,” noted: “They’ve got some excellent communications.”
In turn, Trump ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to launch criminal investigations into Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. They are accused of impeding federal immigration enforcement through public criticisms of ICE.
Trump-–like Adolf Hitler-–believes that power flows from the top down. He believes that if he “takes out” leaders like Walz and Frey, opposition to his rule will collapse.
He can’t understand—and cope with—a bottom-up movement driven by constituents, who—like the citizens in The Moon Is Down—have emboldened their leaders to stand their ground.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 6, 2026 at 12:58 am
Of all the threats that President Donald Trump poses to American democracy, none may be more deadly than his repeated threats to invoke the Insurrection Act.
This is an 1807 law that empowers the President to deploy the Armed Forces to individual states in specific circumstances, such as the suppression of civil disorder, insurrection, and armed rebellion against the federal government.
What is arousing Trump’s fury is the civil unrest he’s ignited in Minneapolis, Minnesota—especially following the January 7 shooting of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old writer and poet, by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross.
Renee Good
He’s ordered the Justice Department to criminally investigate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for allegedly conspiring to impede federal immigration agents.
Their “crime”: Daring to criticize the aggressive behavior of thousands of ICE and Border Patrol agents deployed in Minnesota.
Walz said in a statement: “Weaponizing the justice system and threatening political opponents is a dangerous, authoritarian tactic. The only person not being investigated for the shooting of Renee Good is the federal agent who shot her.”
“This is an obvious attempt to intimidate me for standing up for Minneapolis, our local law enforcement, and our residents against the chaos and danger this Administration has brought to our streets,” Frey said in a statement to CBS News.
“I will not be intimidated. My focus will remain where it’s always been: keeping our city safe.”
Jacob Frey
Czbik, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Attorney Ty Cobb—who served as a White House lawyer in the first Trump Administration but is now a scathing critic of the president—warns that the tensions in Minneapolis could go from bad to worse if Trump invokes the Insurrection Act.
“During the first Trump administration, there were guardrails back then. There were people who could say ‘no’ to the president. And now, he’s surrounded by sycophants and enablers and people who don’t say no.
“I mean, it’s just stunning the number of people that have signed on for what’s going on in Minnesota and what’s going on in Greenland—you know, things that would have never been tolerated in the first 250 years of our democracy.
Ty Cobb
John Mathew Smith & http://www.celebrity-photos.com from Laurel Maryland, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
“But I do think he wants—desperately wants—to invoke the Insurrection Act….I think martial law is definitely in the cards. And it’s a way that he’ll be able to control the elections.”
* * * * *
Countless historians have tried to answer the question: “Was the rise of Adolf Hitler—and the catastrophe he unleashed—inevitable?”
William L. Shirer, author of the monumental The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, apportioned German guilt as follows:
“The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it. At the crest of their popular strength, in July 1932, the National Socialists had attained but 37 percent of the vote. But the 63 percent of [Germans] who expressed their opposition to Hitler were much too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger which they must have known would overwhelm them unless they united, however temporarily, to stamp it out.”
Competent future historians may reach the same conclusion about American voters in 2024.
- Republicans: Who feared that Trump’s Fascistic supporters would deprive them of political office if they didn’t abase themselves to a lifelong criminal and would-be dictator.
- Republican judges: Who bent and/or broke the law to enable Trump to escape justice.
- Justice Department prosecutors: Whose awe of the Presidency allowed Trump to slander and threaten federal prosecutors and judges.
- Attorney General Merrick Garland: Whose cowardice prevented him from appointing Jack Smith Special Counsel until November 18, 2022—giving Trump time to delay justice and again win the Presidency.
- Democrats: Whose cowardice toward Trump encouraged Republicans to ever more extreme measures.
- Police officers: The International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Fraternal Order of Police issued a joint statement condemning clemency for criminals who assault law enforcement officers—but did not explicitly indict the January 6 actions. The Fraternal Order of Police endorsed Donald Trump in 2024.
- History illiterate voters: Who were eager to scrap alliances—such as NATO—that had checked Soviet aggression since the end of World War II.
- Nihilists: With nothing positive to contribute, their attitude was to destroy American institutions that had created prosperity and security for decades.
- Blacks: Voted for a racist in hopes of a bigger paycheck.
- Muslims: Refused to vote for Kamala Harris because Joe Biden wouldn’t stop Israel’s military campaign to free Hamas-captured hostages.
- Hispanics: Like the Jews in Hitler’s Germany, who couldn’t believe that Trump would carry out his threats to imprison and/or deport them.
- The Biden administration: Which refused to stem the tide of illegal aliens invading America—and thus enraged millions of law-abiding Americans into supporting Trump.
- Toxic masculinity voters: Whose misogynistic attitudes toward women led them to reject a former local and state prosecutor for a 34-times convicted felon.
- American voters: Whose hatred of Hispanic illegal aliens and inflationary grocery prices led them to ignore overwhelming evidence of Trump’s intent to overturn the democratic process and make himself absolute dictator.
In short: Those opposed to Donald Trump’s evil were too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 5, 2026 at 12:10 am
In 2024, nihilism—and its adherents—played a key role in reelecting Donald Trump President of the United States.
During the 2024 Presidential campaign Trump promised to appoint Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., as Secretary of Health and Human Services.
On October 27, 2024, Trump told a rally in Madison Square Garden: “I’m going to let him go wild on health. I’m going to let him go wild on the food. I’m going to let him go wild on the medicines.”
Kennedy, the son of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy, is a self-admitted former 14-year heroin addict, which he has said began at age 15. In a 2012 deposition he claimed that doctors found a dead parasitic worm in his brain, which he believed caused significant memory loss and brain fog around 2010.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Since 2005, Kennedy has peddled vaccine misinformation and public health conspiracy theories. Among these:
- Vaccines cause autism.
- The COVID-19 vaccine—which has saved countless lives—is “the deadliest vaccine ever made.”
- There is no comprehensive system for monitoring vaccine safety.
Since Kennedy took office on February 13, 2025:
- February 14, 2025: Around 1,300 employees of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were laid off by the administration, including all first-year officers of the Epidemic Intelligence Service.
- August: Over 600 CDC employees were laid off. Among programs completely dismantled: Maternal and child health services, oral health, and the Violence Against Children and Youth Surveys.
- By July 7, 2025, 1,281 measles cases had been reported, more than the 1,274 measles cases reported in all of 2019. This was the highest level of cases since the disease had been declared eliminated in 2000.
- Roughly 93% of infections in 2025 and 95% so far in January, 2026, were among unvaccinated people or those with an unknown vaccination status. And this can be directly traced to the influence of anti-vaccine conspiracy-spreaders like Kennedy.
Measles virus
Since becoming President again on January 20, 2025, Donald J. Trump has aggressively committed a series of outrages against his fellow Americans, including:
- Granting clemency to more than 1,500 people convicted of offenses related to the January 6, 2021 United States Capitol attack.
- Signing 26 executive orders reversing climate change initiatives, eliminating DEI programs, changing the federal designation for the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” and initiating a federal hiring freeze.
- Revoking an executive order on Artificial Intelligence safety signed by former President Joseph Biden, to establish safeguards for the rapidly advancing AI technology.
- Firing the inspectors general—who are charged with protecting the government from waste and corruption—from more than a dozen federal agencies.
- Purging about a half-dozen executive assistant directors at the FBI. These were some of the bureau’s top managers overseeing criminal, national security and cyber investigations. Their “crime”: Investigating Trump’s inciting the January 6, 2021 coup attempt and illegally holding highly sensitive national security documents after leaving office.
- Following Trump’s anti-DEI executive order, the Department of Defense deleted content that included the achievements of nonwhites—such as Navajo code talkers, black Tuskegee Airmen, Medal of Honor winners and women veterans.
- Firing the board members at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and appointing himself as chairman—just as Joseph Stalin made himself arbiter of what was permissible for artists in the Soviet Union.
- Ordering the Justice Department to indict his critics such as New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey.
- James had convicted him on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Comey had sought to investigate Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential campaign to ensure Trump’s election.
- Shutting down the Federal Government on October 1, when Democrats refused to agree to his gutting Medicaid, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act (ACA), causing 10-15 million Americans to lose health insurance coverage.
- Among those not getting paid: Air traffic controllers for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Owing to many controllers refusing to work, the FAA reduced air traffic by 10% at many airports.
- Shutting off the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for the poor to pressure Democrats to support his gutting of healthcare programs.
- Flooding the streets of Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Chicago with federalized National Guard troops against state governors’ wishes during immigration crackdowns and civil unrest.
- Flooding Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, with 3,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who are terrorizing (and in one case murdering) both American citizens and illegal aliens.
- Governors have requested the deployment of federal troops—such as in Arkansas in 1957 for school desegregation and in California in 1992 during the Los Angeles riots following the Rodney King verdict. But Trump is the first President to deploy troops against the wishes of states’ governors.
- Pardoning favored political allies and loyalists. Among these: Seventy-seven people associated with the Trump fake electors plot to overturn the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, including Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and former chief of staff Mark Meadows.
- Others included: Former Honduras president Juan Orlando Hernández, sentenced to 45 years’ imprisonment for moving tons of cocaine to the United States.
- Threatening to invade Greenland, a self-governing, autonomous part of the Kingdom of Denmark. The United States has recognized Denmark’s ties to Greenland since 1917 and signed a joint defense agreement in 1951.
- As Denmark is a member of NATO, an attack on Greenland would ignite a war between the United States and its NATO allies.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on February 4, 2026 at 12:10 am
Throughout 2024, Democrats expected to receive support from their traditional allies—such as blacks and Hispanics. But that didn’t happen.
During the eight-year tenure of Barack Obama, America’s first black President, Donald Trump attacked him as a foreign-born citizen who was thus ineligible for that office.
Trump also had a history of supporting—and being supported by—racist white groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.
Nevertheless, blacks deserted Vice President Kamala Harris in droves. About three in 10 back men under age 45 went for Trump, roughly double the share he got in 2020. A clear majority of young black voters described the economy as “not so good” or “poor,” compared with about half of older black voters.
Despite Trump’s demands for “mass deportations,” numerous Hispanics, when interviewed, said they didn’t feel threatened. They felt certain that Trump would deport “only the bad people.”
Young Latinos, particularly young Latino men, were more supportive of Trump than in 2020. Roughly half of young Latino men voted for Harris, compared with about six in 10 who went for Trump.
Majorities of black and Latino voters said the economy was in bad shape. They wanted a bigger paycheck. And they were willing to re-elect a man who despised them in hopes of getting it.
Muslims—especially those living in Dearborn, Michigan—made their own contribution to Trump’s re-election: They played a losing blackmail game with the Biden administration.
On October 7, 2023, under the cover of thousands of rockets fired from Gaza, Hamas terrorists slaughtered an estimated 1,139 men, women and children in Israeli streets, houses, kibbutz communities and at a rave music festival.
About 250 others were kidnapped and taken into Gaza. Israel responded by declaring a state of war—pounding Gaza with bombs, missiles. tanks and soldiers.
Palestinians celebrating the attack on Israel
Terrorism-sympathizing Islamics—especially in Michigan—demanded that the Biden administration stop sending military equipment to Israel—and force Israelis to stop their military campaign to free the hostages. They threatened: “If you don’t do what we want, we won’t vote for Kamala Harris.”
Biden and Harris rejected their demands—and Islamics voted for Trump or didn’t vote at all.
The result: A reelected Trump launched an aggressive campaign to restrict immigration from Islamic nations and deport Islamic immigrants accused of sympathizing with Hamas.
Ignorance of and/or contempt for history played a major role in reelecting Trump.
“Low information voters” is a euphemism for people dangerously ignorant of and/or indifferent to the issues affecting their lives.
After World War II ended in 1945, the United States proved a force for worldwide stability. Its “nuclear umbrella” prevented a Russian takeover of Europe and a Chinese takeover of Asia.
But voters ignored Trump’s “bromance” with Communist dictators Vladimir Putin (Russia), Xi Jinping (China) and Kim Jong-Un (North Korea). They also ignored his proven disdain for the leaders of democratic nations—such as Canada and Great Britain.
A strong isolationist sentiment motivated many of these voters—the belief that the United States didn’t need alliances with other nations, especially European ones. They ignored—or were ignorant of—that the defeat of Nazi Germany had required the unlikely alliance of the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union.
Also ignored—deliberately or through ignorance—the vital role the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) had played since World War II in maintaining peace throughout Europe—and deterring the Soviet Union from aggression.
Many Right-wing voters believe that the United States had been too active in international affairs since the end of World War II and had gotten little or nothing in return.
Nihilists made their own significant contribution to Trump’s return to power.
On August 21, 2025, conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks outlined the fundamental change that had occurred in conservatism since 1983:
“When I was emerging from college, we conservatives thought we were conserving something — a group of cultural, intellectual and political traditions — from the postmodern assault.
“But decades later, with the postmodern takeover fully institutionalized, [Right-wingers] don’t seem to think there’s anything to conserve. They are radical deconstructors….This is a key difference between old-style conservatism and Trumpism.
“But there’s another, even more radical reaction to [liberalism]: nihilism. You start with the premise that progressive ideas are false and then conclude that all ideas are false.
“Faith in God has been on the decline for decades; so has social trust, faith in one another; so has faith in a dependable career path. A recent Gallup poll showed that faith in major American institutions is now near its lowest point in the 46 years Gallup has been measuring these things. But the core of nihilism is even more acidic; it is the loss of faith in the values your culture tells you to believe in.”
Nothing better illustrated this nihilistic streak—and Trump’s willingness to play to it—than his promise, during the 2024 Presidential campaign, that he planned to decimate the American healthcare system: His Secretary of Health and Human Services would be Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 3, 2026 at 1:01 am
Even as an ex-President, Donald Trump continued to benefit from the routine cowardice of the Democratic party.
While Congressional Republicans relentlessly investigated President Joe Biden and his family, Democrats refused to similarly investigate Trump’s family.
Democrats never probed why Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and former White House adviser, received $2 billion from Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The money came to Kushner’s private equity firm after Kushner left the White House in 2021.
Jarred Kushner
Democrats also refused to investigate the Trump administration’s illegally seizing vitally-needed medical supplies in at least seven states during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) did not publicly report the thefts, despite the outlay of millions of dollars of taxpayer money. Nor did the Trump administration explain how it decided which supplies to seize and where to reroute them.
Nor did FEMA inform states if they would receive the materials they ordered and paid for.
COVID-19 virus
Americans willingly ignored Trump’s crimes because they were angry about surging numbers of illegal aliens pouring into the country. But the Biden administration refused—until its closing months—to dramatically address this issue.
A Vox story, dated July 12, 2024, warned: “According to Gallup, 2024 is the first time since 2005 that most of the public have wanted less immigration, and this year marks the largest share of Americans feeling resistant to immigration since 58 percent said so in 2001….”
Six months later, on January 17, 2025, another Vox story offered: “What Democrats must learn from Biden’s disastrous immigration record.”
It opened: “One of the main reasons Vice President Kamala Harris lost the election is the Biden administration’s record on immigration and the border — polls show it ranks up close with inflation among the top issues that drove swing voters to Trump.…”
From 2021 to 2023, the number of illegal aliens skyrocketed. Even blue states and cities complained they were overwhelmed. In December 2023, a record 250,000 illegal aliens tried to cross the border.
Illegal aliens being deported
Then, starting early in 2024, and continuing throughout the year, border arrivals plummeted—by more than 80%.
The reasons:
- The Biden administration got the Mexican government to launch an extensive crackdown on migrants passing through its territory to the United States.
- Biden decreed that new unauthorized migrants would be ineligible for asylum if too many people were coming to the border. Essentially, this meant shutting down the asylum process.
Unfortunately for Harris, the downturn in illegal immigration came too late.
In times of economic uncertainty, hostility rises toward immigrants—especially those who are alien to a host country’s language and culture. This has proven true in Europe as well as the United States.
Americans blamed President Biden for inflationary price increases—especially for groceries such as eggs. And they believed Trump’s lies that he would immediately reverse those price increases.
According to a December 20, 2024 article—“Why are groceries so expensive? What you need to know”—by the Center for Science in the Public Interest:
“Since January 2019, food prices have risen nearly 30 percent in the US, leaving many households struggling to afford groceries.”
Among the issues responsible for this:
- COVID-19: Caused worldwide disruptions in supply chains.
- Transportation costs and fuel prices: Fuel costs are directly tied to how much retailers charge for groceries and other goods.
- Animal diseases, weather events, crop failures: When bird flu (H5N1) first struck the U.S. in 2022, eggs were priced at around $2 per dozen. They peaked at $4.82/dozen in January, 2023, and in December, 2024—following the infection of over 123 million chickens—prices fell to about $4.15/dozen.
- Global conflict: In February, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, which exports wheat, corn and agricultural fertilizer, among other products. Russia has tried to strangle Ukraine’s exports by attacking the nation’s agricultural centers.
No President—including Biden and Trump—can control such events. Unfortunately, every Presidential candidate virtually promises to be Superman. And voters repeatedly fall victim to this absurdity.
Trump benefitted from the Politically Incorrect truth that misogynistic Americans don’t want a woman President.
American voters proved that in 2016 when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ran for President—and lost to Trump in the Electoral College by a count of 227 to 304.
And Hillary had an advantage that Vice President Kamala Harris lacked: Hillary was white.
Kamala Harris
England has elected a female Prime Minister: Margaret Thatcher. And Mexico—notorious for the machismo of its men—has elected a woman President: Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo. But in the United States, electing a woman chief executive is unthinkable to most American men.
Machismo played a major role in Trump’s popularity, especially among Hispanics.
Roughly six in 10 men described Trump as a strong leader, compared with 43% who said that in 2020. About half of Hispanic women said Trump was a strong leader, up from 37%.
This despite Trump’s past derogatory comments about Hispanics (“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best….They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people”).
And despite a sea of “MASS DEPORTATION NOW” signs at the 2024 Republican National Convention
More than any other group, Hispanics would face the full fury of Trump’s campaign to deport at least one million illegal aliens each year.
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on January 21, 2026 at 12:13 am
Threats of violence have become common among Republicans since 2015, when Donald Trump first ran for President.
On March 16, 2016, Trump warned Republicans that if he didn’t win the GOP nomination in July, his supporters would literally riot: “I think you’d have riots. I think you would see problems like you’ve never seen before. I think bad things would happen. I really do. I wouldn’t lead it, but I think bad things would happen.”
Almost five years later, on January 6, 2021, then-President Trump incited a deadly riot against the United States Capitol to stop Congress from certifying the electoral victory of Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
Upon taking office again as President on January 20, 2025, Trump issued a blanket pardon to about 1,500 of his supporters who carried out the attack. This sent a clear message to his future opponents: “I will similarly pardon anyone who assaults you.”
In 2025, a re-elected Trump launched a sweeping deportation effort. Agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] have brutalized migrants and American citizens.
In Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, for example, protesters blow whistles, yell or honk horns. Immigration officers break vehicle windows, use pepper spray on protesters and warn observers not to follow them through public spaces. Immigrants and citizens alike are forcibly pulled from cars, stores or homes and detained for hours, days or longer.
On January 7, 2026, an ICE agent shot 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, a writer and poet, as she legally observed federal agents arresting suspected illegal aliens.
The Third Reich similarly relied on violence—or the threat of it—to preserve its dictatorial control over Germany.
A key representative of that violence was Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich.
A tall, blond-haired former naval officer, Heydrich was both a champion fencer and talented violinist. Heydrich joined the Schutzstaffel, or Protective Squads, better known as the SS, in 1931, and quickly became head of its counterintelligence service.
In 1934, he oversaw the “Night of the Long Knives” purge of Adolf Hitler’s brown-shirted S.A., or Stormtroopers.
Reinhard Heycrich
In September, 1941, Heydrich was appointed “Reich Protector” of Czechoslovakia, which had fallen prey to Germany in 1938 but whose citizens were growing restless under Nazi rule.
Heydrich immediately ordered a purge, executing 92 people within the first three days of his arrival in Prague. By February, 1942, 4,000-5,000 people had been arrested.
In January, 1942, Heydrich convened a meeting of high-ranking political and military leaders in Wannsee, Germany, to streamline “the Final Solution to the Jewish Question.”
An estimated six million Jews were thus slaughtered.
Returning to Prague, Heydrich continued his policy of carrot-and-stick with the Czechs—improving the social security system and requisitioning luxury hotels for middle-class workers, alternating with arrests and executions.
Two British-trained Czech commandos—Jan Kubis and Joseph Gabcik—parachuted into Prague.
On May 27, 1942, they waited at a hairpin turn in the road always taken by Heydrich. When Heydrich’s Mercedes slowed down, Gabcik raised his machinegun—which jammed.
Rising in his seat, Heydrich aimed his revolver at Gabcik—as Kubis lobbed a hand grenade at the car. The explosion drove steel and leather fragments of the car’s upholstery into Heydrich’s diaphragm, spleen and lung.
Scene of Reinhard Heydrich’s assassination
Hitler dispatched doctors from Berlin to save the Reich Protector. But infection set in, and on June 4, Heydrich died at age 38.
The assassination sent shockwaves through the upper echelons of the Third Reich. No one had dared assault—much less assassinate—a high-ranking Nazi official.
Nazis had slaughtered tens of thousands without hesitation. Suddenly they realized that the fury they had aroused could be turned against themselves.
Which brings us to the leaders of America’s own Right-wing.
The names of infamous Nazis were widely known:
- Fuhrer Adolf Hitler
- Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering
- Propaganda Minister Paul Joseph Goebbels
- Deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess
- Propaganda Film Director Leni Riefenstahl
- SS-Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler
- “Hanging Judge” Roland Freisler
- Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop
- SS Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich
Members of the Nazi government
And so are the names of the infamous leaders of the American Right:
- President Donald Trump
- House Majority Leader Mike Johnson
- White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller
- Texas Senator Ted Cruz
- Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas
- Attorney General Pam Bondi
- Secretary of State Marco Rubio
- Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem
- U.S. Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino
The difference between these two infamous groups is this:
In Nazi Germany, ordinary Germans could not learn about the personal lives of their dictators—including their home addresses—and to conspire against them.
In the United States, ordinary citizens have an array of means to do this. They can turn to newspapers, TV and magazines. And if that isn’t enough, “people finder” websites, for a modest price, provide addresses and names of relatives of potential targets.
In Nazi Germany, firearms were tightly controlled.
In the United States, the Right’s National Rifle Association has successfully lobbied to put lethal firepower into the hands of virtually anyone who wants it.
Almost 84 years ago, Reinhard Heydrich believed himself invulnerable from the hatred of the enemies he had made. That arrogance cost him his life.
The day may soon come when America’s own Right-wingers start learning that same lesson.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Social commentary on January 14, 2026 at 12:12 am
I have type 2 diabetes but I manage it well
It’s a little pill with a big story to tell
I take once daily Jardiance at each day’s start
As time went on, it was easy to see
I’m lowering my A1c
Jardiance is really swell
The little pill with a big story to tell.
Millions of Americans have heard this jingle for Jardiance—an anti-diabetes medication—whose ads flooded the airways. And millions of Americans are furious about those ads.
The pharmaceutical industry is flooding the airways with ads for its products—especially on the national news broadcasts at dinnertime.
Jardiance ad
Catch any of the “Big Three” national newscasts—on ABC, CBS and NBC—and you’ll see that the vast majority of their ads are funded by Big Pharma.
The United States and New Zealand are the only two countries that allow pharmaceutical companies to directly advertise prescription drugs to consumers.
In 2022, the pharmaceutical industry spent just under $8.1 billion on ad campaigns, which includes all advertising areas, such as TV, print, social media and streaming channels.
In 2025, pharmaceutical companies spent over $7 billion on TV ads alone.
In 2025, the three most-advertised drugs in the United States were:
Eliquis (for preventing blood clots)
Dupixent (curbs the immune system over-reaction that results in atopic dermatitis)
Ozempic/Wegovy (for managing Type 2 diabetes and promoting weight loss, respectively).
Drug companies view the ads as an increasingly effective way to target viewers—especially older ones—who need more extensive medical care and treatment for potentially life-threatening conditions.
No doubt the companies would love to be able to hand out their medications on street corners—the way pushers of heroin and meth now do. But that would put them directly in the crosshairs of federal and local law enforcement.
So the best these companies can do is try to convince patients to nag their doctors: “Oh, I want that drug.”
Meanwhile, there are widespread concerns that:
- Drugs will be prescribed inappropriately by patients asking for drugs they have seen on TV;
- Patients will ask for or receive expensive brand-name medications, which are often featured in commercials, instead of less expensive generic ones; and
- Patients will show less interest in shedding unhealthy lifestyles and rely simply on drugs.
The last one is especially important, given the cheerful atmosphere of so many of these ads. Take the one for Jardiance, for example.
The clearly obese woman in the ad is shown at her office. She isn’t working—because she’s too busy singing about having a life-threatening disease. Her co-workers are equally joyful as they join her in singing the praises of Jardiance.
It’s easy to imagine a parody of such commercials. If a cure is eventually found for Ebola, a similar ad could be based on Barry Manilow’s classic song, “Only in Chicago”:
I got sick
And I sat on the bed
And puked out my guts.
And oh I swear
I remember how much I bled
And I thought I’d die.
With Ebola I knew I’d lose it all
It was real, it was Death.
This would be followed by a cheery ad for a pill that eliminates the symptoms of this usually fatal disease.
Ebola virus
The Harvard Gazette, in a March 1, 2023 article, warned that most advertised medicines don’t prove much better than other treatment options:
“We’ve all seen the commercials. People relaxed, smiling, and having fun with friends and family despite having a horrible or uncomfortable — or at least chronic — condition. Their new lease on life comes courtesy of a drug. Then the fine print. Roll the list of potential side effects, some of which seem worse than the malady itself.
“So why are the spots so popular with sponsors? Because they’re so effective — at least in terms of sales. In a recent issue of JAMA Network Open, Aaron Kesselheim and colleagues published the results of a study showing that some of the most heavily advertised drugs are largely no better at treating disease than other options.
“Direct-to-consumer advertising is really intended for consumers. As a primary care physician, people certainly come into my office with advertisements that they’ve printed off the internet or that they remember seeing during the football game the previous Sunday and say, ‘What about this drug?’
Even more worrisome: Pharmaceutical companies are a major source of drug information for doctors, often through sales reps, sponsored educational events and promotional materials. This information is widely recognized as biased, leading to increased prescribing of brand-name drugs and potentially affecting clinical decisions.
Says Aaron Kesselheim, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School:
“Studies show that when patients come in and ask their physicians about particular drugs, they’re more likely to get prescriptions for those drugs. Doctors of course also watch TV, but the pharmaceutical industry spends much more money advertising its drugs directly to physicians, through visits to their offices, sponsorship of continuing medical education, support of professional society meetings, consultancies, and the like.
“Actually, the amount of money that pharmaceutical companies spend on advertising to physicians is far higher than the amount spent on direct-to-consumer advertising because physicians are the ones writing the prescriptions.”
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
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TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT COPS AND DRUGS
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Social commentary on February 20, 2026 at 12:16 amIt’s a movie that appeared in 1981—making it, for those born in 2000, an oldie.
And it wasn’t a blockbuster, being yanked out of theaters almost as soon as it arrived.
Yet Prince of the City remains that rarity—a movie about big-city police that:
It’s based on the real-life case of NYPD Detective Robert Leuci (“Danny Ciello” in the film).
Robert Leuci (“Danny Ciello” in “Prince of the City”)
A member of the elite Special Investigating Unit (SIU) Ciello (played by Treat Williams) volunteers to work undercover against rampant corruption among narcotics agents, attorneys and bail bondsmen.
His motive appears simple: To redeem himself and the NYPD from the corruption he sees everywhere: “These people we take from own us.”
His only condition: “I will never betray cops who’ve been my partners.”
And Assistant US Attorney Rick Cappalino assures Ciello: “We’ll never make you do something you can’t live with.”
As the almost three-hour movie unfolds, Ciello finds—to his growing dismay—that there are a great many things he will have to live with.
Treat Williams as “Danny Ciello”
Although he doesn’t have a hand in it, he’s appalled to learn that Gino Moscone, a former buddy, is going to be arrested for taking bribes from drug dealers.
Confronted by a high-ranking agent for the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency, Moscone refuses to “rat out” his buddies. Instead, he puts his service revolver to his head and blows out his brains.
Ciello is devastated, but the investigation—and film—must go on.
Along the way, he’s suspected by a corrupt cop and bail bondsman of being a “rat” and threatened with death.
He’s about to be wasted in a back alley when his cousin—a Mafia member—suddenly intervenes. The Mafioso tells Ciello’s would-be killers: “You’d better be sure he’s a rat, because people like him.”
At which point, the grotesquely fat bail bondsman—who has been demanding Ciello’s execution—pats Danny on the arm and says, “No hard feelings.”
It’s director Sidney Lumet’s way of graphically saying: “Sometimes the bad guys can be good guys—and the good guys can be bad guys.”
Lumet makes it clear that police don’t always operate with the Godlike perfection of cops in TV and films. It’s precisely because his Federal backup agents lost him that Ciello almost became a casualty.
In the end, Ciello becomes a victim of the prosecutorial forces he has unleashed. Although he’s vowed to never testify against his former partners, Ciello finds this is a promise he can’t keep.
Too many of the cops he’s responsible for indicting have implicated him of similar—if not worse—behavior. He’s even suspected of being involved in the theft of 450 pounds of heroin (“the French Connection”) from the police property room.
A sympathetic prosecutor—Mario Vincente in the movie, Rudolph Giuliani in real-life—convinces Ciello that he must finally reveal everything he knows.
Ciello’s had originally claimed to have done “three things” as a corrupt narcotics agent. By the time his true confessions are over, he’s admitted to scores of felonies.
Ciello then tries to convince his longtime SIU partners to do the same. One of them commits suicide. Another tells Ciello to screw himself: “I’m not going to shoot myself and I’m not going to become a rat.”
To his surprise, Ciello finds himself admiring his corrupt former partner for being willing to stand up to the Federal case-agents and prosecutors demanding his head.
The movie ends with a double dose of irony.
First: Armed with Ciello’s confessions, an attorney whom Ciello had successfully testified against appeals his conviction. But the judge rules Ciello’s admitted misdeeds to be “collateral,” apart from the main evidence in the case, and affirms the conviction.
Second: Ciello is himself placed on trial—of a sort. A large group of assistant U.S. attorneys gathers to debate whether their prize “canary” should be indicted. If he is, his confessions will ensure his conviction.
Some prosecutors argue forcefully that Ciello is a corrupt law enforcement officer who has admitted to more than 40 cases of perjury—among other crimes. How can the government use him to convict others and not address the criminality in his own past?
Other prosecutors argue that Ciello voluntarily risked his life—physically and professionally—to expose rampant police corruption. He deserves a better deal than to be cast aside by those who have made so many cases through his testimony.
Eventually, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York makes his decision: “The government declines to prosecute Detective Daniel Ciello.”
It is Lumet’s way of showing that the decision to prosecute is not always an easy or objective one.
The movie ends with Ciello now teaching surveillance classes at the NYPD Academy.
A student asks: “Are you the Detective Ciello?”
“I’m Detective Ciello.”
“I don’t think I have anything to learn from you.” And he walks out.
Is Danny Ciello a hero, a villain, or some combination of the two?
On this ambiguous note that the film ends—an ambiguity that each viewer must resolve for himself.
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