Know your BFEE: MAFIA helped Ronald Reagan move into White House

[Octafish]

EXCLUSIVE: Revealed, how the MAFIA helped Ronald Reagan get to the White House. Shocking documentary reveals Mob connections that catapulted him to the presidency - and how a probe was thwarted at 'the highest levels'

President Reagan owed his acting and political career to Hollywood mogul Lew Wasserman, chief of entertainment behemoth MCA, who was in bed with the Mob

An investigation into the relationship between MCA and the Mafia was halted and Federal prosecutors believe it was one of the 'political favors' that can be traced back to Reagan's White House

'Ronald Reagan is a complete slave of MCA who would do their bidding on anything,' one secret Justice Department document revealed

According to the producer of the documentary, Wages of Spin II: Bring Down The Wall, one MCA executive had ties to Mob boss John Gotti

'Reagan's whole career in politics was subsidized by MCA,' he asserts, and helped him financially because for a long time he was living above his means

The Mob was probably working Nancy Reagan too, according to the producer. 'She was a driving force behind Reagan'

By JERRY OPPENHEIMER
Daily Mail, PUBLISHED: 13:22 EST, 21 May 2014 | UPDATED: 03:42 EST, 22 May 2014

A shocking new documentary screened exclusively by MailOnline exposes the chilling conncections between the Mafia, one of Hollywood's most powerful entertainment companies and its head honcho Lew Wasserman and President Ronald Reagan and his Justice Department.

SNIP...

But there was a dark side to Wasserman - and to Reagan - all of which is revealed in a shocking new documentary, Wages of Spin II: Bring Down The Wall, that, according to the film's producer and those interviewed, links both of them in darkly shadowed ways to the Mafia, and the killing of a U.S. Department of Justice organized crime Strike Force investigation into Mob influence and infiltration at the highest levels of MCA.

SNIP...

Richard Stavin, a former veteran federal prosecutor who was assigned to the Justice Department's Organized Crime Strike Force in Los Angeles and was an integral member of the MCA-Mafia probe team, declared in the film for the first time:

'It's my belief that MCA and its' involvement with Mafia individuals, Mafia-dominated companies and our inability to pursue those was not happenstance. I believe it was an organized, orchestrated effort on the part of certain individuals within Washington, D.C. to keep a hands-off policy towards MCA.

'At the time, Ronald Reagan was the President of the United States and Edwin Meese was the Attorney General of the United States (Stavin's ultimate boss). A little known fact was MCA and Lew Wasserman supported Ronald Reagan when he wanted to become president of the Screen Actors Guild, which was the launch of Mr. Reagan's political career.

'I would like to think that the people in the highest levels of this government were not protective of MCA...But I'm not so sure about that.'

SNIP...

SAG's bylaws had always banned talent agencies like MCA from producing any form of entertainment, such as TV programs and movies. But during Reagan's fifth year as the guild's president a secret blanket waiver was negotiated with SAG, and it gave MCA and Wasserman the platinum opportunity to not only market talent as agents but also to move into TV and film making.

CONTINUED...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2635094/EXCLUSIVE-Revealed-MAFIA-helped-Ronald-Reagan-White-House-Shocking-documentary-reveals-Mob-connections-catapulted-presidency-probe-thwarted-highest-levels.html

Well. That's a "wow" as they used to say in Hollywood.



One very important name that was left out: Dan Moldea, an investigative reporter who actually uncovered and documented the story in the early 1980s and wrote about it in "Dark Victory: Reagan, MCA and the Mob."

That's the reality of it.

[AceAcme]

1. Republicons really Bonzoifed Americans with this phony

[Octafish]

5. Red Ink Ronnie was as phony as a three dollar bill.

Ronald Reagan (1911-2004): an obituary

By David North
9 June 2004

EXCERPT...

One is compelled to admit that there is nothing quite so awesome to behold as the total mobilization of the American media. Since the announcement of Reagan’s death on Saturday, the massive weight of this propaganda machine has been set into motion in what amounts to a vast exercise in historical falsification. The modern media version of the air brush is being applied to the years of the Reagan administration. The social misery in the United States caused by Reagan’s policies; the tens of thousands of lives lost in Central America at the hands of fascist death squads funded illegally by his government; the rampant criminality in an administration that was the most corrupt in twentieth century America—all this and other similarly smelly details are being more or less ignored. One reads nothing of his defense of apartheid in South Africa, his funding of countless right-wing dictatorships, or even of his tribute to SS soldiers buried in a cemetery in Bitburg, Germany. The media strives not only to suppress any objective appraisal of Reagan’s life and political career, but even to censor reference to the more unsavory elements of his administration’s policies.

The aim of this unrelenting propaganda is not only to mislead and confuse, but also to intimidate public opinion, that is, to foster a sense of political and social isolation among countless Americans who despised Reagan and everything he represented, to create in their minds, if not doubt about their own judgment, then at least a sense of futility about the prospects for dissenting views in the United States.

But the entire affair—the five days of official mourning, the endless media coverage, the spectacle of a state funeral—leaves the country cold. On Monday morning, in the schools, in offices and factories, there was little indication that the citizenry felt that they had witnessed the passing of a great and significant man, that they, as individuals and as a people, had suffered a genuine loss. For those old enough to remember the death of Roosevelt, let alone that of Kennedy, the contrast could not have been starker. Yes, those men, too, were bourgeois politicians and defenders of the existing social order. But Roosevelt and Kennedy had with genuine eloquence given voice, at different stages of their political careers, to the democratic aspirations of the working class and other oppressed strata of American society; and won for themselves an affection that was deeply felt. Real tears were shed when those men died.

But for the great mass of ordinary working people, the death of Ronald Reagan is a non-event. It makes no claim whatever upon their emotions. This is not only because Reagan had been out of the public eye for a decade, since the announcement that he was suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease. Too many working people still remember the impact of “Reaganomics” on their lives, which was entirely for the worse. Indeed, among broad sections of the working class he was the most hated president since Herbert Hoover. Even taking into account the support for Reaganism among significant sections of the middle class and more affluent layers of workers, the overwhelming popularity attributed to Reagan was largely of a synthetic character, a myth concocted by the media to endow the policies of his administration with an aura of public approval that they lacked in reality.

CONTINUED...

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2004/06/reag-j09.html

Hypocrisy reached new heights with the guy: A member of the Screen Actors Guild, he crushed the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization.

PS: A hearty welcome to DU, AceAcme!

[certainot]

30. reagans biggest crime against democracy and america was killing of the fairness doctrine

deifying reagan, excusing his crimes and those of his accomplices and managers, and rewriting history was largely enabled by the fact that reagan killed the fairness doctrine in 87 and they created a monopoly for a massive propaganda op that's still working well now.

he turned the party of lincoln into the party of limbaugh

while the left likes to blame the propaganda machine on clinton and the telecommunications act later the right was already using rw radio successfully to vastly improve their political power and get things like media consolidation and deregulation from the dems. it is the unchallenged blatant lying and repetition of it that the fairness doctrine would have inhibited that made the difference.

considering time lost on global warming, the biggest mistake in political history belongs to the 'left', who's organizations and the dem party continue to ignore rw radio.

[Enthusiast]

31. All true. But the media hammered Carter unmercifully. The media manufactured public opinion.

If anything it was worse than today.

One would have thought Carter left Lebanon after a terrorist strike killed hundreds of US Marines.

If Carter had done what Reagan did the press would have literally crucified him.

[leftyohiolib]

2. well looky there it's george h.w. a$$hole

[Octafish]

8. The guy certainly knows an opportunity when he sees one.

At an event during the Republican National Convention in Detroit, 1980...



Bush Crime Family S.O.P. — Use a Patsy

[leftyohiolib]

9. raygun was dumb enough to be one -

[Zen Democrat]

11. I remember when Barbara Bush was interviewed on inauguration day 1989.

She said that after her husband's election she was given a tour of the residential floors of the White House. Asked if they didn't have private dinners with the Reagans, she replied that they were never invited.

I believe that after the assassination attempt by Hinckley, whose family was close to George Bush, that Nancy put a wall between those two families.

[Enthusiast]

32. He looks so smug after getting away with Iran-Contra, an operation he probably designed.

Poppa is in full control of the nation at this point.

[LongTomH]

74. I love that pic......just for Raygun's expression!

Someone piss in your cocktail, Ronnie?

[Octafish]

81. One DUer posted, way back when I first saw it, that he looks like he's already got Alzheimer's.

If memory serves, that shot was taken at a convention-related even in Detroit, summer of 1980. If Pruneface already is feeling the effects of dementia, Poppy looks like the first to know. Going by how he always seems to escape the Department of Justice, from Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963 to the S&L fiasco to Iran-Contra, to lying America into the first war with Iraq, George HW Bush used his golden opportunity to run the show from the minute after the swearing in thing.

George Bush Takes Charge: The Uses of "Counter-Terrorism"

By Christopher Simpson
Covert Action Quarterly 58

A paper trail of declassified documents from the Reagan‑Bush era yields valuable information on how counter‑terrorism provided a powerful mechanism for solidifying Bush's power base and launching a broad range of national security initiatives.

During the Reagan years, George Bush used "crisis management" and "counter‑terrorism" as vehicles for running key parts of the clandestine side of the US government.

Bush proved especially adept at plausible denial. Some measure of his skill in avoiding responsibility can be taken from the fact that even after the Iran‑Contra affair blew the Reagan administration apart, Bush went on to become the "foreign policy president," while CIA Director William Casey, by then conveniently dead, took most of the blame for a number of covert foreign policy debacles that Bush had set in motion.

The trail of National Security Decision Directives (NSDDS) left by the Reagan administration begins to tell the story. True, much remains classified, and still more was never committed to paper in the first place. Even so, the main picture is clear: As vice president, George Bush was at the center of secret wars, political murders, and America's convoluted oil politics in the Middle East.

SNIP...

Reagan and the NSC also used NSDDs to settle conflicts among security agencies over bureaucratic turf and lines of command. It is through that prism that we see the first glimmers of Vice President Bush's role in clandestine operations during the 1980s.

CONTINUED... Anyone interested, PM me for the article. I'll send after tomorrow when I get back to Puter 1. I no longer can find an online version to link to.

Add the idiot son and 24 of the last 38 years have been a BFEE production. Toss in Nixon and Ford and Vietnam and who knows what all, and it's a pattern even a repuglian can see. For those interested in proof, look around. It shows. Rich get richer. Wars for profit without end. Justice for those who can afford it. Democracy? Pay.

[jwirr]

3. The Mafia was under a lot of pressure as organized crime. So what did they do? sometime in the 70s

I remember that they were going underground - that is, they were moving their money into the legitimate economy. They were making it look like they were just another business.

Often when I read now about the crimes by banksters and corporations I wonder how much of that is organized crime acting in a "legitimate" way. I never read John Kerry's book about the new enemies but I think that had something to do with international organized crime. Need to get that book and read it now.

[Octafish]

14. Absolutely. A Huffington Post expert agrees and explains...

10 Legitimate Business Tips From An Ex-Mafia Man

Louis Ferrante
Former Mafia Associate
Posted: 06/01/11 03:32 PM ET

The Mafia is the longest running corporation in history. It thrives along with other organizations during prosperous times and flourishes even more in periods of economic decline. Bear or bull makes no difference to the Mafia.

For all the well-deserved criticisms of the Mob's violence, its most successful members have always been remarkably astute businessmen -- they have applied their street smarts to legal enterprises and earned millions doing so. In fact, the Mafia is just like any other major organization in America, raking in billions a year in profit. But few people realize that every large crime family is comprised of many individual Mafia crews that are run just like small businesses.

My new book, Mob Rules: What the Mafia Can Teach the Legitimate Businessman, brings together all of the Mob's accrued wisdom and shrewd business practices so that small business owners everywhere can learn a thing or two from their counterparts in the underworld.

Here are 10 lessons small business owners can take from the Mafia:

Don't Shoot a Rising Star: Neutralize Potential Opponents

If a Mob boss thinks an employee has the talent and skills to go out on his own and pose a threat, he may neutralize him by offering him a larger share of the take. Chicago Mafia boss Johnny Torrio recognized the intelligence and ambition of a chubby young man named Al Capone (pictured above). Instead of having Capone whacked, Torrio made him an offer he couldn't refuse: a partnership. The two had many profitable years together before Torrio retired and left the Windy City to Capone. Today, the partnership Torrio struck with Capone is known as profit sharing. It's worth considering if you think a star employee might otherwise end up becoming your stiffest competition.

CONTINUED...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/louis-ferrante/10-small-business-tips-fr_b_869823.html#s285803title=Dont_Shoot_a

The ones who know best are the big money boys on the world's Wall Streets:

The Ultimate Cold Call



Then-head NYSE Richard Grasso hugs now-dead FARC rebel leader Raul Reyes in Columbia, ca. 1999.

"One of the things that is interesting about reading conspiracy theory is that much of what folks think is conspiracy is really many people acting in concert to make or protect their money." - Catherine Austin Fitts

A big shot in Poppy's crew, Fitts got fed up with the corruption at the highest levels of government, business and finance. She's doing all she can to document corruption on Wall Street and Washington and helping those who give a damn do something about it. Her Narcodollars for Beginners deserves a Pulitzer.

Integrity is an alien concept to the plutonomy. Same for the police state.

[jwirr]

20. Thank you.

[adirondacker]

56. You post some of the most interesting reads Octafish. Thanks! nt

[valerief]

28. That's what happened to Vegas. Back when it was for adults, it was clearly mob-controlled.

Now, it's Disneyfied but still mob-controlled. The mob is now much of our Congress.

[Enthusiast]

33. If you wonder why our government is unresponsive to us there is your answer right there.

+1!

[randys1]

4. As he was before W, Raygun caused more harm to this country than all others combined

[Octafish]

23. Reagan helped create the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden.

From Think Progress:

Reagan fought a proxy war with the Soviet Union by training, arming, equipping, and funding Islamist mujahidin fighters in Afghanistan. Reagan funneled billions of dollars, along with top-secret intelligence and sophisticated weaponry to these fighters through the Pakistani intelligence service. The Talbian and Osama Bin Laden — a prominent mujahidin commander — emerged from these mujahidin groups Reagan helped create, and U.S. policy towards Pakistan remains strained because of the intelligence services’ close relations to these fighters. In fact, Reagan’s decision to continue the proxy war after the Soviets were willing to retreat played a direct role in Bin Laden’s ascendancy.

SOURCE w/links: http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/02/05/142288/reagan-centennial/

Agree, 100-percent, randys1. Pruneface was the worst ever, until his successor, and then that guy's kid.

[packman]

62. I keep this in my permanent files

for any occasion that arises when a conservative praises the Raygun


[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]

[RobertEarl]

6. You ever get the idea that the public thinks...

.... at least our crooks are honest crooks?

The raygun administration holds the world's record for indicted and convicted officials. And yet, raygun is admired by so many.

I swear, we have the stupidest edumacted bunch of authoritarian ignoramuses the world has ever seen. And that's me being nice and sweet when talking about my fellow Americans.

"Money trumps peace"..."Nukes are safe"... "We are watching you very closely so that we can protect you."

All believed by more than half our fellow Americans. Do we have a bad TV infection, or what?

[Octafish]

26. Professional Strength Propaganda

The Lewis Powell Memo - Corporate Blueprint to Dominate Democracy

Greenpeace has the full text of the Lewis Powell Memo available for review, as well as analyses of how Lewis Powell's suggestions have impacted the realms of politics, judicial law, communications and education.

Blogpost by Charlie Cray - August 23, 2011 at 11:20
Greenpeace.org

Forty years ago today, on August 23, 1971, Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr., an attorney from Richmond, Virginia, drafted a confidential memorandum for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that describes a strategy for the corporate takeover of the dominant public institutions of American society.

Powell and his friend Eugene Sydnor, then-chairman of the Chamber’s education committee, believed the Chamber had to transform itself from a passive business group into a powerful political force capable of taking on what Powell described as a major ongoing “attack on the American free enterprise system.”

An astute observer of the business community and broader social trends, Powell was a former president of the American Bar Association and a board member of tobacco giant Philip Morris and other companies. In his memo, he detailed a series of possible “avenues of action” that the Chamber and the broader business community should take in response to fierce criticism in the media, campus-based protests, and new consumer and environmental laws.

SNIP...

The overall tone of Powell’s memo reflected a widespread sense of crisis among elites in the business and political communities. “No thoughtful person can question that the American economic system is under broad attack,” he suggested, adding that the attacks were not coming just from a few “extremists of the left,” but also – and most alarmingly -- from “perfectly respectable elements of society,” including leading intellectuals, the media, and politicians.

[font color="purple"]To meet the challenge, business leaders would have to first recognize the severity of the crisis, and begin marshalling their resources to influence prominent institutions of public opinion and political power -- especially the universities, the media and the courts.[/font color]The memo emphasized the importance of education, values, and movement-building. Corporations had to reshape the political debate, organize speakers’ bureaus and keep television programs under “constant surveillance.” Most importantly, business needed to recognize that political power must be “assiduously cultivated; and that when necessary, it must be used aggressively and with determination – without embarrassment and without the reluctance which has been so characteristic of American business.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/campaign-blog/the-lewis-powell-memo-corporate-blueprint-to-/blog/36466/

Thank you, RobertEarl, for the kind reminder. They spare no expense, as they pass it on to the consumer.

[RobertEarl]

29. I will blame the hippies for raygun

If the hippies had just STFU and moved to Canada instead of telling the Truth, the American dreamers may not have reacted so badly and not gone running to papa rayguns TV set selling of sugary sweet 'Morning in America' criminal syndicate.

I gave up on America then, and came back when bush set fire to the country and was encouraged by Obama's rhetoric, but now am slipping back to saying FIA.

But fellas like you come along and I think: Maybe there is a chance? Damn you Octafish. <grin>

[NBachers]

7. Some days, the realization would dawn upon me anew: "My god, Ronald Reagan is president!"

Followed by a feeling of incredulousness that Americans could be so deceived.

[Octafish]

36. The Gippet and the Incredible Hoax of Voodoo Economics

As in: "Win one for the Gippet," which Pruneface misread from the Teleprompter at Lord Poppy's nominating hatecon.

The Incredible Hoax of Reaganomics

David Stockman 1/3

By NomadicPolitics
Tuesday, October 2, 2012

For some time now, every GOP candidate wants to find some way, any way, to make a linkage to Ronald Reagan. It goes way beyond an illegitimate comparison into the offensive and idiotic. During the campaign in an interview with CNN, for example, Newt Gingrich had audacity to say,

"I think a big mistake on my part was to try to bring in conventional consultants. Because I am much like Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, I'm such an unconventional political figure that you really need to design a unique campaign that fits the way I operate and what I'm trying to do."

As if by invoking the name of the 40th president- like some enchanted spell- it will bring them political magic or a cloak of invisibility to hide their shameful ideological nakedness.

Trickle-Down is Reaganomics

Many have objected to Obama’s call for a fair tax system, in which the super wealthy will pay their rightful share. Taxing the “job creators” is, they bewail, out of the question. Where on earth do you expect jobs to come from if you punish success? they moan. Of course, anybody familiar with history will recognize that line of thinking as the trickle-down theory, which was a key feature of Reagan’s economic plan.

So much has been written on both sides about the supposed successes and supposed failures of Reagan’s economic policies. These policies go by many names, supply-side economics and the trickle-down theory and even as George Bush, Sr. once called them “voodoo economics.” Usually the opinions on his domestic programs fall along partisan lines.

When one adds the limitless esoteric terms of economists and career politicians, all hope of learning the truth about Reaganomics becomes pretty much a lost cause. Statistics and graphs appear like flowers from a magician's sleeve but to no avail because as all of us have seen, that kind of evidence can be made to prove just about any claim.

Some experts have made the claim that our present economic woes are a direct result of the reliance on the same policy, particularly tax cuts for the rich, deregulation and the free market philosophy. In order to give both sides a fair hearing, I thought I would investigate the background of Reaganomics.

CONTINUED with Voodo Economic Links...

http://nomadicpolitics.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-incredible-hoax-of-reaganomics.html

I couldn't believe it, either, NBachers. The actor who almost destroyed California rose to become the amiable dunce who almost destroyed America.

[NBachers]

43. I lived in Berklely when James Rector was killed, and Alan Blanchard's eyes were shot out

I was at the other end of Telegraph Avenue, getting shot at by police shotguns.

That evening, Governor Reagan was on the news, assuring us that the gunfire had come from the hands of the protestors, not the police. He was so earnest and indignant in his delivery; assuring California that the lawless demonstrators were to blame.

Next item in the news was three doctors holding the double-ought buckshot they'd removed from James Rector's heart. They were visibly shaken and angry. They knew it was the cops.

I saw the cops do it; I saw Reagan lie. I knew than what he was all about.

[Octafish]

49. Thank you, NBachers.

Your story is seldom heard and never discussed in the mass media. It should be.

Those who wonder how the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave descended into the place where "Money trumps peace" and "Liberty and Justice for the Wealthy" need to know: You and your colleagues stood up against fascism. You are Patriots.

It is my hope to continue shining light on these traitors who've lied America into war, concentrated wealth and power into the hands of the few, and allowed war profiteers and narcotrafficking gangsters to run free are recognized for what they are: Traitors.

[Zen Democrat]

10. I have a hardbound copy of "Dark Victory: Ronald Reagan, MCA, and the Mob"

It was published in 1986 by Viking, and written by Dan Moldea. I'm dusting it off for another read.

[Octafish]

50. I long ago lent my copy to a friend who read it and lent it to somebody else -- a favor on my dime.

I saw reference to the new film and I thought of Mr. Moldea's work documenting how Reagan played a central role in getting MCA the exemption that made it a player in both representing talent and producing programming at the dawn of the television age. As an old reporter, it bothers me that Mr. Moldea did not get credit in the new article from the Daily Mail. I hope Mr. Moldea appears in the film as a main source for putting the story together.

What really stood out for me at the time, thanks to researching this thread I now remember, is how Reagan played the role of the corrupt union head stooge needed by the big money boys to get the talent in line for proper fleecing. More importantly, Reagan helping Tinseltown and the glamorous congressional investigators to go after the communist menace diverted attention from the Mob's influence in Hollywood.

And to think some people believe television is harmless.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

12. I'm no fan of Ronald Reagan but seriously

the Daily Mail?

[Octafish]

15. Dan Moldea wrote about it in 1986.

I linked to his book in the OP.

Seriously? Defending Ronald Reagan on DU?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

17. I'm defending Reagan?

I'm questioning linking to a story in a tabloid. How you jump to the other conclusion is quite a feat of mental gymnastics.

[Octafish]

18. Sorry if I reacted in a less than kind manner.

What's wrong with what the tabloid printed?

[classof56]

13. K&R for Truth

Oh, and I feel sick...

[Octafish]

52. It's like dragging our consciousness through a sewer.

Yet, if we don't, we are ruled by our inferiors, as Plato observed, and we live in the world which we see all around today: Wars for profit without end. Welfare for the Wealthy. Justice for "Just Us."

Apart from a few administrations in the United States, it's been the way of the world since Machiavelli was buttering up the Prince: "Money to get the power, power to keep the money."



Baron de Rothschild and Prescott Bush, sharing a moment and a bit o' information in this small world.

Rothschild and Freshfields founders’ had links to slavery, papers reveal

By Carola Hoyos
Financial Times

Two of the biggest names in the City of London had previously undisclosed links to slavery in the British colonies, documents seen by the Financial Times have revealed.

Nathan Mayer Rothschild, the banking family’s 19th-century patriarch, and James William Freshfield, founder of Freshfields, the top City law firm, benefited financially from slavery, records from the National Archives show, even though both have often been portrayed as opponents of slavery.

Far from being a matter of distant history, slavery remains a highly contentious issue in the US, where Rothschild and Freshfields are both active.

Companies alleged to have links to past slave injustices have come under pressure to make restitution.

JPMorgan, the investment bank, set up a $5m scholarship fund for black students studying in Louisiana after apologising in 2005 for the company’s historic links to slavery.

CONTINUED (with registration, etc) ...

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7c0f5014-628c-11de-b1c9-00144feabdc0.html

Know your BFEE: Spawn of Wall Street and the Third Reich

Why would they feel that way? The Privilege of Birthright, of course:

Know your BFEE: Eugenics and the NAZIs - The California Connection

[Demeter]

16. But Has the Mob Been Thrown Out of the Corridors of Power?

And if so, by whom?

I see no evidence of it. The banksters were not given their nickname as a token of affection. The Mob has moved into "legitimate" finance, bringing their loan-sharking, Ponzi building, blackmailng ways with them.

And we owe it all to Reagan.

[Octafish]

66. Exactly, Demeter. No one has thrown them out...

...since OSS/CIA invited them in. Their connections have enabled the big wigs to go unpunished, their well-tailored cut-outs to rise to positions of power and influence from Washington to Wall Street.

Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles, in 1960 "serving" under President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his very active VP Richard Nixon, wanted Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro dead. Being a true gentleman who never gets his own hands dirty, Dulles ordered his, er, the agency to bring in outside help for the job. So, through their middleman, Howard Hughes employee Robert Maheu, CIA approached "Uncle Johnny," "Mr. Gold" and "Joe."

How the CIA Enlisted the Chicago Mob to Put a Hit on Castro

Ever wonder about the sanity of America's leaders? Take a close look at perhaps the most bizarre plot in U.S. intelligence history

By Bryan Smith
Chicago Magazine
November 2007
(page 4 of 6)

EXCERPT...

By September 1960, the project was proceeding apace. Roselli would report directly to Maheu. The first step was a meeting in New York. There, at the Plaza Hotel, Maheu introduced Roselli to O'Connell. The agent wanted to cover up the participation of the CIA, so he pretended to be a man named Jim Olds who represented a group of wealthy industrialists eager to get rid of Castro so they could get back in business.

"We may know some people," Roselli said. Several weeks later, they all met at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami. For years, the luxurious facility had served as the unofficial headquarters for Mafioso leaders seeking a base close to their gambling interests in Cuba. Now, it would be the staging area for the assassination plots.

At a meeting in one of the suites, Roselli introduced Maheu to two men: Sam Gold and a man Roselli referred to as Joe, who could serve as a courier to Cuba. By this time, Roselli was on to O'Connell. "I'm not kidding," Roselli told the agent one day. "I know who you work for. But I'm not going to ask you to confirm it."

Roselli may have figured out that he was dealing with the CIA, but neither Maheu nor O'Connell realized the rank of mobsters with whom they were dealing. That changed when Maheu picked up a copy of the Sunday newspaper supplement Parade, which carried an article laying out the FBI's ten most wanted criminals. Leading the list was Sam Giancana, a.k.a. "Mooney," a.k.a. "Momo," a.k.a. "Sam the Cigar," a Chicago godfather who was one of the most feared dons in the country—and the man who called himself Sam Gold. "Joe" was also on the list. His real name, however, was Santos Trafficante—the outfit's Florida and Cuba chieftain.

Maheu alerted O'Connell. "My God, look what we're involved with," Maheu said. O'Connell told his superiors. Questioned later before the 1975 U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (later nicknamed the Church Committee after its chairman, Frank Church, the Democratic senator from Idaho), O'Connell was asked whether there had ever been any discussion about asking two men on the FBI's most wanted list to carry out a hit on a foreign leader.

"Not with me there wasn't," O'Connell answered.

"And obviously no one said stop—and you went ahead."

"Yes."

"Did it bother you at all?"

"No," O'Connell answered, "it didn't."

CONTINUED...

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/November-2007/How-the-CIA-Enlisted-the-Chicago-Mob-to-Put-a-Hit-on-Castro/index.php?cparticle=4&siarticle=3

Odd how Corporate McPravda never mention this history. Yet, it's important to know who at CIA hired the Mafia to kill Castro: Allen Dulles.

Interesting that he happened to be the same guy who enabled the "former" NAZIs to escape justice and enter the United States after World War II.

He also just happened to be the lawyer helping Brown Brothers Harriman make a killing off war, the surrender and in rearming Germany after World War I.

What a coincidence.

[Demeter]

67. And what about JFK? Was it a twofer? Or a welshed deal?

[Octafish]

68. Two-Fer MIC Op. Get the president out of the way of their wars...

...and go for broke by nuking the Soviets, once and for all.

The assassination was not just because of frustrated Vietnam dominoes or warmongering; nor just civil rights, justice and equality, and democracy; nor just to stop a foreign policy unlike that described by Smedley Butler; it also was to be a call to arms: "America! Look! The commies just killed your president! We gotta turn Havana into a glowing mess NOW! And we don't stop there...Real men go to Moscow!"

James Galbraith documented how Allen Welsh Dulles and the JCS Boss Gen. Lyman Lemnitzer formally approached JFK at a National Security Council meeting in July 1961 and submitted a plan for launching an all-out sneak attack on the USSR when the USA would enjoy maximum strategic superiority in fall 1963.

The Burris Memorandum

The first paragraph introduces General Hickey and his group, the Net Evaluation Subcommittee. Although the subcommittee report is described as "annual," this would be the first one given to President Kennedy and his advisors, and it is not clear whether President Eisenhower received such reports in person. General Lyman Lemnitzer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, stepped in to explain the "assumption" of the 1961 report: "a surprise attack in late 1963, preceded by a period of heightened tensions." The question arises: A surprise attack by whom on whom?

link:http://prospect.org/article/did-us-military-plan-nuclear-first-strike-1963

Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and the nuclear war code books were taken out of Air Force One. At least that's what the people on Air Force One on Nov. 22, 1963 reported.

[LongTomH]

76. This was one of the themes in James Douglas' book......

........JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters

[pintobean]

19. Two Goodfellas And A Truck. /nt

[Octafish]

37. Looks like they're at a strip mine.

Maybe that's why Poppy, while "serving" as vice president and president, really was a supporter of the extraction industries. For example, look at what he did Barrick Gold: Bush treated it like a favorite charity. Which is odd, considering how they later wouldn't be very nice to The Guardian and Greg Palast for pointing it out.



Their crime? Telling the truth.

Poppy Strikes Gold

Sunday, April 27, 2008
Originally Posted July 9, 2003
By Greg Palast

EXCERPT...

And while the Bush family steadfastly believes that ex-felons should not have the right to vote for president, they have no objection to ex-cons putting presidents on their payroll. In 1996, despite pleas by U.S. church leaders, Poppy Bush gave several speeches (he charges $100,000 per talk) sponsored by organizations run by Rev. Sun Myung Moon, cult leader, tax cheat—and formerly the guest of the U.S. federal prison system. Some of the loot for the Republican effort in the 1997–2000 election cycles came from an outfit called Barrick Corporation.

The sum, while over $100,000, is comparatively small change for the GOP, yet it seemed quite a gesture for a corporation based in Canada. Technically, the funds came from those associated with the Canadian's U.S. unit, Barrick Gold Strike.

They could well afford it. [font color="green"]In the final days of the Bush (Senior) administration, the Interior Department made an extraordinary but little noticed change in procedures under the 1872 Mining Law, the gold rush–era act that permitted those whiskered small-time prospectors with their tin pans and mules to stake claims on their tiny plots. The department initiated an expedited procedure for mining companies that allowed Barrick to swiftly lay claim to the largest gold find in America. In the terminology of the law, Barrick could "perfect its patent" on the estimated $10 billion in ore—for which Barrick paid the U.S. Treasury a little under $10,000. Eureka![/font color]

Barrick, of course, had to put up cash for the initial property rights and the cost of digging out the booty (and the cost of donations, in smaller amounts, to support Nevada's Democratic senator, Harry Reid). Still, the shift in rules paid off big time: According to experts at the Mineral Policy Center of Washington, DC, Barrick saved—and the U.S. taxpayer lost—a cool billion or so. Upon taking office, Bill Clinton's new interior secretary, Bruce Babbitt, called Barrick's claim the "biggest gold heist since the days of Butch Cassidy." Nevertheless, because the company followed the fast-track process laid out for them under Bush, this corporate Goldfinger had Babbitt by the legal nuggets. Clinton had no choice but to give them the gold mine while the public got the shaft.

Barrick says it had no contact whatsoever with the president at the time of the rules change.(1) There was always a place in Barrick's heart for the older Bush—and a place on its payroll. In 1995, Barrick hired the former president as Honorary Senior Advisor to the Toronto company's International Advisory Board. Bush joined at the suggestion of former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney, who, like Bush, had been ignominiously booted from office. I was a bit surprised that the president had signed on. When Bush was voted out of the White House, he vowed never to lobby or join a corporate board. The chairman of Barrick openly boasts that granting the title "Senior Advisor" was a sly maneuver to help Bush tiptoe around this promise.

CONTINUED...

http://www.gregpalast.com/poppy-strikes-gold/

The story continues, in which Mr. Palast details how said gold mining company employed fascist tactics to take over the mine, part of which involved bulldozing the miners homes and mines, some with the miners still inside. Let that, uh, sink in. For his trouble in reporting the story, Barrick threatened to sue.

The Truth Buried Alive

—By Greg Palast, From The Best Democracy Money Can Buy (Penguin/Plume, 2003)

Source: UTNE Reader
April 2003 Issue

EXCERPT...

Bad news. In July 2001, in the middle of trying to get out the word of the theft of the election in Florida, [font color="red"]I was about to become the guinea pig, the test case, for an attempt by a multinational corporation to suppress free speech in the USA using British libel law. I have a U.S.-based Web site for Americans who can’t otherwise read my columns or view my BBC television reports. The gold-mining company held my English newspaper liable for aggravated damages for my publishing the story in the USA. If I did not pull the Bush-Barrick story off my U.S. Web site, my paper would face a ruinously costly fight.(1)[/font color]

Panicked, the Guardian legal department begged me to delete not just the English versions of the story but also my Spanish translation, printed in Bolivia. (Caramba!)

The Goldfingers didn’t stop there. [font color="green"]Barrick’s lawyers told our papers that I personally would be sued in the United Kingdom over Web publications of my story in America, because the Web could be accessed in Britain. The success of this legal strategy would effectively annul the U.S. Bill of Rights.[/font color] Speak freely in the USA, but if your words are carried on a U.S. Web site, you may be sued in Britain. The Declaration of Independence would be null and void, at least for libel law. Suddenly, instead of the Internet becoming a means of spreading press freedom, the means to break through censorship, it would become the electronic highway for delivering repression.

And repression was winning. InterPress Services (IPS) of Washington, DC, sent a reporter to Tanzania with Lissu. They received a note from Barrick that said if the wire service ran a story that repeated the allegations, the company would sue. IPS did not run the story.

I was worried about Lissu. On July 19, 2001, a group of Tanzanian police interest lawyers wrote the nation’s president asking for an investigation–instead, Lissu’s law partner in Dar es Salaam was arrested. The police were hunting for Lissu. They broke into his home and office and turned them upside down looking for the names of Lissu’s sources, his whereabouts and the evidence he gathered on the mine site clearance. This was more than a legal skirmish. Over the next months, demonstrations by vicims’ families were broken up by police thugs. A member of Parliament joining protesters was beaten and hospitalized. I had to raise cash quick to get Lissu out, and with him, his copies of police files with more evidence of the killings. I called Maude Barlow, the “Ralph Nader of Canada”, head of the Council of Canadians. Without hesitation, she teamed up with Friends of the Earth in Holland, raised funds and prepared a press conference–and in August tipped the story to the Globe & Mail, Canada’s national paper.

CONTINUED...

http://www.mapcruzin.com/palast-2.htm

So. Greg Palast did something very bad from crony capitalists' perspective: He told the truth, including the bits about the buried alive gold miners, as it happens. So, the Big Corporation sued and sued and sued. With their deep pockets, they can buy justice, judges, prime ministers, presidents and whoever and whatever else they need to turn a buck or overturn a democracy.

[grasswire]

21. My friend Dan Moldea is an American hero of journalism.

It was Moldea who stopped the coup attempt against Bill Clinton.

[grasswire]

22. although looking back on that episode now...

....it might have been better for the earth if Clinton had been forced out and Gore was president for a time.

[ballyhoo]

24. Absolutely!

[Octafish]

39. Dan E. Moldea says...

In the late 1940s, Hollywood shifted its attention away from the Mafia's infiltration of the film industry to its infiltration by communists. Ronald Reagan, a young actor who was represented by Wasserman and MCA, was a star player during the investigation and hearings by the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), serving as both an informant for the FBI and a friendly witness for the committee.

After his performance in the war against communism--which included support for IATSE, the union formerly controlled by Bioff that was still run by his same executive board--Reagan was rewarded by being elected as president of the Screen Actors Guild, serving for five consecutive one-year terms.

In 1952, during his fifth term, Reagan engineered a "blanket waiver," exempting MCA from SAG rules prohibiting a talent agency from also engaging in film production. Reagan's second wife, actress Nancy Davis, was also a member of the SAG board of directors at the time the MCA-SAG deal was made. MCA was the only such firm to have been granted such a favored status, giving it the ground floor in television production. It placed the company in a position where it could offer jobs to the actors it represented. Other talent agencies complained that this situation gave MCA an unfair advantage.

Soon after Reagan's tenure as SAG president ended, he found himself in serious financial trouble. With his film career on the skids, Reagan was saved by MCA with jobs in Las Vegas and on television. According to Justice Department documents, several government sources believed that the preferential treatment Reagan received from MCA was a payoff for services rendered while Reagan was the president of SAG.

In 1959, the SAG membership reelected Reagan as president of SAG for a sixth term to lead an impending strike against the studios--despite the fact that Reagan had been producing episodes for MCA/Revue's General Electric Theater. According to SAG's by-laws, producers, even if they were primarily actors, are disqualified from serving on the SAG executive board. Previous board members faced with similar situations had resigned; Reagan refused to do so.

Although MCA and a handful of smaller studios made an early, separate peace with SAG and continued production, the major motion picture companies held out, causing the strike to last six weeks. In the end, according to the president of IATSE, Reagan's final settlement with the big studios came with the help of Sidney Korshak--with whom Reagan had allegedly been associated. The 1960 contract was so unsatisfactory to the SAG membership it has since been called "The Great Giveaway." Reagan resigned in midterm soon after the strike.

After several abortive attempts to investigate MCA for antitrust violations, the federal government--upon the election of John Kennedy as president and the appointment of Robert Kennedy as attorney general--began a concentrated probe into MCA's business affairs. The government had evidence that MCA had engaged in numerous civil and criminal violations of law and empaneled a federal grand jury to hear the specifics of its charges, which included restraint of trade, conspiracy with SAG to monopolize talent and film program productions, extortion, discrimination, blacklisting, and the use of predatory business practices.

SOURCE: http://purplepinupguru.blogspot.com/2005/04/reagans-darker-side-reagans-mob.html

------------------------------------------------------ -

The above link is the source for the excerpt. Moldea documented the story. I was very surprised to see that the article on the documentary, "Wages of Spin," was not on DU. After GOOGLING it, the film's only mentioned in a few places online. For some reason, mention of the film and the Reagan-Mafia ties didn't make it into the New York Times or on the tee vee.

Thank you for reminding me about your pal, grasswire. I remember mentioning Mr. Moldea on DU long ago and someone posted that he was a friend.



I shoulda known.

[certainot]

25. meese is still a top guy at the heritage foundation and where the GOP is a

criminal enterprise that depends on disinformed constituencies to enable their accomplices, rw radio is their best weapon

[asjr]

34. The Heritage Foundation is the place where most

of the out-of-office fools end up.

[Octafish]

54. ''No one reads anymore.'' -- Allen Dulles, on the Warren Report

Which is why radio and tee vee are so popular with War Inc. for keeping the People entertained. Vey much appreciate newspaper readers.



Heritage employs the odious.

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4162358

[certainot]

55. thanks. and imagine that - he's still going!

only the

[no_hypocrisy]

27. Then why did the Reagan Administration let Rudolph Giuliani go after The Mob

when he was Federal Prosecutor during that time period?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/10/us/politics/10prosecutor.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Was Giuliani going rogue or with the blessing of the Justice Department?

[Octafish]

35. The same reason Giuliani was friends with Homelandreichsmarschall-designee Bernie Kerik?

Know your BFEE: Homeland Czar & Petro-Turd Bernie Kerik

Business.

Thanks for the kind reminder.

[former9thward]

42. You did not answer the question.

Just deflected because it does not fit your CT.

[Octafish]

46. What "Conspiracy Theory" would that be?

Where Giuliani failed to protect the Mafia? I didn't bring that up. What do you think?

[former9thward]

48. The poster asked you if the Mafia put in Reagan then why did he allow Giuliani to go after them.

Giuliani certainly did go after them.

[Octafish]

51. Great. Ask the poster who posited that, then.

When asked my thoughts on why Giuliani went after the Mob if he was in the employ of crooks in the Reagan justice department, I raised the point that Giuliani is no choir boy. In fact, the guy became buddy-buddy with Bernie Kerik, his corrupt police commissioner who Bush II would tap to head Homeland Security.

Now, Bernie's an ex-con. And while Bush and his corrupt toadies run free, they should be in the federal penitentiary. At least, that's what I believe. Don't you?

So why state I'm advancing a Conspiracy Theory? Those are the facts.

[no_hypocrisy]

44. Still, it reminds me of Joe Kennedy using The Mob to get Jack elected.

And in return, Jack appoints his brother, Bobby, to be AG and he goes after The Mob.

[Octafish]

47. Kennedy Justice went after the Mafia.

Before and since, not so much. Wouldn't know it, going from what National Geographic cough Rupert Murdoch says.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/killing-kennedy/articles/jfks-secret-mafia-history/

[Brother Buzz]

38. The Mafia helped, but the cronies at the Bohemian Grove brokered the deal

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[Octafish]

40. Glad you mentioned that.

One nice day in 1967...



Bohemian Grove has changed a lot since those days. Now they admit non-whites as guests, not just as servants.

[Brother Buzz]

41. Don't kid yourself. The 'camps' with the genuine power haven't changed

The pecking order at the 'encampment' remains intact, just as the men behind the curtain intended.

[RoccoR5955]

45. The more truth that comes out about these bass turds

the better.

I hope that if there is a hell, the dead ones are rotting in it, and the rest follow suit.
They deserve no less!

[Octafish]

65. Like cockroaches scattering when the kitchen light turns on...So, where's the Press?

The only U.S. source with the story (via the GOOGLE a minute ago) is the rightwing Town Hall. It seems more of an innoculation type posting, than a Drudge alarm bell thing:

New Documentary Claims Reagan Had Ties to the Mob

Cortney O'Brien
Town Hall | May 22, 2014

Did you know President Reagan was involved in a scandal that "dwarfed Watergate?" This, according to a participant in the documentary, Wages of Spin II: Bring Down The Wall, produced by Philadelphia filmmaker Shawn Swords. The film is full of startling revelations about Ronald and Nancy's supposed ties to the mafia. The Daily Mail was given exclusive screening to the "chilling" documentary, which revolves around Lew Wasserman, the former head of the Music Corporation of America:

But there was a dark side to Wasserman - and to Reagan - all of which is revealed in a shocking new documentary, Wages of Spin II: Bring Down The Wall, that, according to the film's producer and those interviewed, links both of them in darkly shadowed ways to the Mafia, and the killing of a U.S. Department of Justice organized crime Strike Force investigation into Mob influence and infiltration at the highest levels of MCA.

Many remember that, before moving into the Oval Office, Reagan hosted the General Electric Theater on CBS, an American anthology series that aired every Sunday evening. But, Wages of Spin insists there was a scandal brewing behind the camera:

What viewers didn't know was that Reagan was given this new opportunity of visibility and stardom in a highly lucrative and rare deal. Along with a big paycheck, he was made part-owner of the popular program that he hosted for eight years, making him extremely wealthy.

SNIP...

A few questions for Mr. Swords and anyone else involved in this documentary: Why is this "breaking news" story just coming out now? To taint the image of one of America's most beloved presidents?

I for one refuse to believe that all of President Reagan's accomplishments were only made possible because of some connection to the mob. He earned his way to Hollywood after first paying his way through college and taking humble jobs at local radio stations. He believed in the dignity of hard work and it's just hard to imagine he would rely on the mafia to get ahead.

I'm not sure if this documentary has a feasible plot, but it certainly has an agenda.

SOURCE: http://townhall.com/tipsheet/cortneyobrien/2014/05/22/new-documentary-claims-reagan-had-ties-to-the-mob-n1841843

They are grotesque, cockroaches.

[navarth]

53. kick, and thanks for another great thread from Octafish.

[Octafish]

69. Chronicle of a Mean Mogul: Lew Wasserman, Deal-Maker

When Hollywood Had a King: The Reign of Lew Wasserman, Who Leveraged Talent Into Power and Influence, by Connie Bruck . Random House, 528 pages, $29.95.

By Alexandra Jacobs
New York Observer | 06/16/03 12:00am

EXCERPT...

Not that she comes bleating dish. “He was very old-fashioned, the straightest person in the world,” Ms. Sherwood, one of hundreds of interviewees, declared to super-scrupulous author Connie Bruck. “The last one to have an affair!” Married from age 23 till death to the spirited Edie Beckerman-who may have taken a few extramarital spins herself (who could blame her?)-Wasserman “avoided leisure (vacations, cultural pastimes, recreation) like a scourge,” and was a workaholic long before the term became fashionable. The couple’s only daughter, Lynne, doesn’t even merit a mention in the copious index. “I was unfortunate not to have a son …. ” quoth her father, as late as 1978. Brrrr.

After Lew’s new assistant settled into her job (the intense stress of which sent one of her predecessors home with a migraine every day), she tried to lighten the mood on the 15th floor of the black-glass-windowed MCA tower: She complimented her pallid, beanpole boss on his tie, for example (“Don’t get personal,” he barked in response); or she joked limply with executives in the anteroom. “Someone would be waiting to see him,” she said, “and his screams would be coming out of the office”-the reader will have grasped by now that these were not screams of laughter-”and I’d say, maybe you don’t want to ask for that raise today.” Sweet Melody.

SNIP...

“Can’t you just, y’know, skim it?” someone suggested when I described my mounting despair circa page 64, at which point the book’s primary subject had still not been introduced, and I was futilely trying to sketch out one of those little family-tree charts that precede epic dynastic novels. I have always loathed the term “skim” when applied to reading, as if it were some mode you could switch into where you just skate lightly over the surface of the book like a June bug. (As opposed to really reading, when you absorb the fat of a book.) At any rate, When Hollywood Had a King ruthlessly defies skimming. It’s big, all right, but more muscle than paunch, with scores of players, major and minor-and practically all men, of course-strutting forth over the decades, then crumpling one by one before Wasserman’s inscrutable sinew. It’s not about movies; that’s merely “product.” It’s only fleetingly about Hollywood, the actual geographic location (no one cares about that except guidebook editors and City Council members). We are dealing here with “Hollywood,” the portable, airless ecosystem of power that travels to Chicago, Park Avenue, Japan, D.C., encompassing decades, cultural shifts, Presidents (Wasserman represented Ronald Reagan early in their respective careers, skirted with being appointed to Lyndon Johnson’s cabinet and said, of Bill Clinton, “I am crazy about him.”) Blink and you’ll miss the glamorous stuff, the stardust sprinkled onto all the number-mongering (Lew was nuts about numbers, we’re repeatedly told): Bette Davis, materializing in “magnificent white lingerie” before the eyes of MCA founder Jules Stein; Jimmy Stewart’s bachelor party at Chasen’s, for which Wasserman hired a pair of midgets; mob affiliate Sidney Korshak procuring hotel suites for Warren Beatty at the 1968 Democratic National Convention-these are rare, precious moments.

Wasserman got his start in publicity at $60 per week when MCA was merely an agency. He went on to bring down the studio system practically single-handedly; to embrace this strange, newfangled thing called TV while most of Tinseltown cowered; to engineer the first summer blockbuster ( Jaws ); to inspire scores of acolytes with his leadership style; and then to watch as one of them, mean Mike Ovitz, sold the empire-first to Matsushita (“the dumb thing I did,” Wasserman admitted to Ms. Bruck) and again, later, to the goofy Edgar Bronfman Jr. But anyone expecting a character study will be disappointed; this is an analysis of the hidden architecture of wheeling and dealing, right down to the girders.

With a little patience, however, the determinedly superficial can extract a kind of “Seven Habits of Highly Effective Moguls” from this blameless encyclopedic work. Readers will learn that Wasserman woke up at 5 a.m., and generally ate tuna or fruit salad for lunch at his company commissary, crisp and well-groomed in his uniform of dark suit and white shirt, with a handkerchief in the breast pocket (though he was never seen perspiring). He considered his time too important to waste on niceties like “hello” or “goodbye.” Though he never seems to have complimented employees while they were actually in his employ, he valued loyalty at insanely Godfather -esque levels (I’ll leave it to Ms. Bruck to explain the relationship between MCA/Universal and the Mafia, which is as murky to me as Cleveland, Lew’s birthplace). He made a point of never taking notes, and he always was ready to walk away from a deal. And, of course, he was a master of the tirade. “It was like an out-of-body experience,” said corporate lawyer Mel Ziontz, one of these tantrums’ many witnesses. “He would be merciless, threatening, nasty -though not in a vulgar way,” testified former NBC prez Don Durgin; he added that doing business with Wasserman was like “little boys in kindergarten dealing with Darth Vader.” ( Star Wars was one of the few deals that Wasserman botched.) Another lawyer, John Baity, remembered (who could forget?) the studio chief banging a long, stiletto-like letter opener on the desk as he spoke to his visitor. Another, a tax attorney, popped 10 Maalox every time the big guy called. Makes Anna Wintour look like a pussycat.

CONTINUED...

http://observer.com/2003/06/chronicle-of-a-mean-mogul-lew-wasserman-dealmaker/

The fact the nation's news media covers this up should give even the most skeptical a clue as to how the same media always find a reason to go to war, forgive the banksters, allow a stolen election...

Most importantly: Thank you, navarth! You are most welcome!

[tomp]

57. the mafia has always been involved in politics.

this should surprise no one.

Thanks again, octafish, for all your good work.

[Octafish]

70. Sidney Korshak: The Man Who Kept The Secrets

One of the great hidden figures of 20th-century organized crime, attorney Sidney Korshak was thought by many to be the most powerful man in Hollywood for the last half-century. Until his death last year, he remained an impeccably dressed enigma whose power reached deep into the lives of Jimmy Hoffa, Frank Sinatra, Lew Wasserman, and Ronald Reagan

By Nick Tosches
Vanity Fair, April 1997

EXCERPT...

Enigma. The Englishing of a Latin rendering of a Greek word, ultimately from ainos, Ionic and poetical, for “fable.”

So where does the fable of Sidney Korshak end? Where does the truth begin? Where—between the “little baby” who “always tried to help people” and the man who was “the most important contact that the Mob had to legitimate business, labor, Hollywood, and Las Vegas”—does the real Sidney Korshak lurk? Or are they one and the same, a Janus of good and evil?

During our mutual musing one evening, Joe Kraus of the Chicago Jewish Historical Society wondered aloud if the mystery could ever be solved.

“One thing you can be sure of,” I said, “is that he was brilliant. He was invaluable.” All his life, I said, all around him, they went down in their own blood. Gioe was murdered by his own in 1954. Bioff was blown up in 1955. Alex Greenberg was hit in 1956. Gus Greenbaum, the manager of the Riviera, was murdered in his bed, his throat cut from ear to ear, in 1958. Giancana in June of 1975, Hoffa in July. Even Rosselli, what was left of him, his legs and torso sawed apart, found in an oil drum floating in Dumbfoundling Bay in the summer of ’76. Ray Ryan, blown to hell in 1977. Dorfman, slain in 1983.

Sidney Korshak, who moved among these men, who knew the secrets that they knew—not only the secrets of the forbidden anatomies of Vegas and Hollywood, of politics and the Mob, but also the vaster secrets, of the fates of the Kennedys and such, that Giancana knew and Hoffa knew and Rosselli knew—and more, the secrets of the fates of those men themselves. Sidney Korshak, who lived unseen in the unseen heart of the beast, and who at the same time “entertained beautifully in Bel Air.” Sidney Korshak escaped—no, prevailed, prospered, in blessed fortune—without so much as a scratch.

The relative anonymity and subdued respectability that Korshak had cultivated since 1950 was jeopardized in the summer of 1976 when a four-part front-page series by Seymour Hersh and Jeff Gerth appeared in The New York Times. Though, like the forces of the government for so many years, the series could not conclusively indict him on anything, it did have its effect. Korshak, escaping the glare, entered Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, where he remained for the duration of the series, “suffering,” it was reported, “from diverticulitis”—in this case, a linguistically interesting ailment, it and “diversion” sharing the same root.

Nat Hentoff, writing in The Village Voice, came to the defense of Korshak, “a citizen whom the government has not been able to nail and so now is delighted to try in the press. Sy Hersh is protected by the First Amendment. Even a Sidney Korshak should be protected by some of the others.”

Jeff Gerth told me that, in the researching of the story, there appeared to be a leak from the accounting department of the Times back to Chicago, where his movements seemed to be closely monitored through the paper trail of his expense reports. And perhaps it is no more than mere coincidence, but all the documentation gathered by Hersh and Gerth was subsequently lost during a transfer from one Times office to another.

In a 1978 report, California state attorney general Evelle Younger included Korshak in a well-publicized list of organized-crime figures with ties to California. In the spring of 1979, during a statewide racetrack strike, Korshak was asked to step down as a labor negotiator, “only because of the press of his other business.” That summer, the Justice Department began an investigation of the Riviera, reportedly focusing on Korshak.

CONTINUED...

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/features/1997/04/The-Man-Who-Kept-The-Secrets

PS: Thank you for the kind words, tomp. The only reason worth bringing up this history is to break the stranglehold secret government -- including that of its handy hit men friends in organized crime -- have on democracy. Otherwise, it's just too much, even for Hollywood to believe.

[truebluegreen]

58. Excellent post, thank you.

OT but do you know the origin/circumstances of the bottom pic in your post? I've seen it many times before but have never known what bit of malfeasance inspired the hilarity. thx

[Octafish]

71. I believe it's early in the madministration, as that may be James Brady in the background...

Sorry to report, I can't find the original -- or an official -- White House photo with the caption identifying those in the image. My best guess:

In front, doubled over in laughter, is Bill Casey, Wall Street insider, campaign manager, and CIA Director. Then, left to right, there's Ronald Reagan; I believe it's Don Regan (misidentified on another website as Walter Cronkite); Ed Meese, looking down; George H. W. Bush; and James Baker III. Behind them, partially hidden, I believe is Press Secretary James Brady and White House Communications guy David Gergen.

What they find so funny, is anyone's guess. The way they screwed over America, no one should be laughing.

[truebluegreen]

73. I think you are spot-on w/the identifications

but I too wonder just what was so hilarious...

Thanks.

[wildbilln864]

59. octafish you rock!

[Octafish]

72. From the late Steve Kangas -- THE REAGAN YEARS: A Statistical Overview of the 1980s

The following statistics offer a quick but comprehensive overview of all the major trends of the Reagan-Bush era. They include tax cuts, income inequality, corporate lobbying, deficits, debts, economic growth, poverty, welfare, and a comparison of the U.S. to other rich nations.

This whirlwind tour should take about as long as it takes to read a newspaper. It is the compilation of statistics that I wish I had found when I was researching the 80s. Understanding them is crucial because today's Congress is pursuing all the same policies: cutting taxes on the rich, slashing welfare for the poor, and spending more money than it takes in. No voter is informed without knowing the statistical results of these policies.

This website is designed to be read in two ways. The first way -- reading it straight through -- gives a bird's-eye view of the 80s. The second way is to select the links entitled "More," which gives detailed comments on each point and hopefully answers questions and counter-arguments raised by the overview. I highly recommend reading the overview first, since the comments can get somewhat lengthy and digressive. A plain-English summary follows at the end for the statistically impaired.

Sections:

Events leading to the 80s:
The Rise of the Corporate Special Interest System
The Economic Slowdown of the 70s
The Rise of Supply-Side Economics

Statistics of the 80s:
Wealth and Income Inequality
Taxes
Budgets and Deficits
Economic Performance
Poverty and Welfare
Comparison of U.S. to Other Rich Nations
Summary

CONTINUED w links: http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/1THE_REAGAN_YEARs.htm

PS: Thanks, wildbilln864! Feel the same about You! We stand on the shoulders of giants, like Steve Kangas. If we didn't give a damn about this damned stuff, the truth would go unmentioned and soon forgotten, making crooks' getaway -- in life and in history -- all that much easier.

[grasswire]

77. and Richard Mellon Scaife wonders why we "dislike" him.. nt

[BlancheSplanchnik]

60. Wow! well, there's some news

That won't "grow legs".

After the initial surprise, I am not surprised.

[Octafish]

64. Bummed me up, too, BlancheSplanchnik.

If the nation's news media lived up to its Constitutional responsibilities, this story would be broadcast all over and in print on Page 1. The fact it is not -- neither in 1986 when Dan Moldea's book "Dark Victory: Reagan, MCA and the Mob" came out nor when the new documentary movie, "Wages of Spin II: Bring Down This Wall."

Old news for you, true news for America: Why the media aren't liberal.

[MinM]

61. Back to the Bay of Pigs ..

The CIA had pretty thoroughly co-opted the "Mafia" .. Which also fits with this report since the CIA were desperate to roll back the reforms Jimmy Carter and Stansfield Turner had enacted in wake of the Church Committee.

Not to mention that the CIA and the Mafia for that matter are inclined to side with Republicans.

[Octafish]

63. Which is the crux of the biscuit.

When organized crime, big money, and secret government intertwine, the nation has a problem most citizens don't even know about, let alone know how to tackle.

Robert Hunziker estimates 400,000 people have Top Secret clearance. While most are, no doubt honorable, how many follow the precept "go along to get along"?

[Initech]

75. George Carlin was right - it's a big club and we're not in it.

[Octafish]

78. Not Just the Psychotic Corporation, Government Acts Like Organized Crime.

If you're near Vancouver tonight...

http://news.ubc.ca/2014/05/25/the-corporation-10-years-later/

[LongTomH]

79. My late grandmother understood this, along with most of the elders in my family who remembered......

.....the 'Great' Depression and Hoover. Grandma understood that Reagan was the sleazeball who began taxing Social Security.

Sadly, most of my 'contemporaries' in the family have taken great draughts of the Kool-aid. I've written before about my wingnut cousin - who keeps a copy of Glenn Beckerhead's paranoid Agenda 21 on a reading stand like a devotional. She actually scares me sometimes.

[Lee-Lee]

80. That picture makes me shudder nt