I  wrote yesterday about the freak show that is going on in the Boston federal courthouse. Stevie Flemmi a career criminal and career FBI informant who is the chief freak will testify about seeing Frankie Salemme a career criminal and former Mafia king murder some poor guy who happened to get involved with them.

I was thinking of what questions I would like to ask Stevie when he takes the stand. By the way he is very comfortable there because he knows no matter what he says he will get away with it because of his close relationship with the prosecutor so one has to figure that into his questioning.

I think about this because of all the parts of a trial I found cross-examination most rewarding. I started practice as a criminal defense attorney in the days when you received no discovery. None. You got the indictment and if you were lucky a list of witness names with no indication whether they were government employees or civilians., Perhaps you could get a police report by using some skullduggery (knowing a friendly cop on the inside) but that was it. The only lead time you had after a witness was called was to look at the person’s trousers. If it had a blue stripe down the pants you knew the witness was a Boston cop if it was a case in Suffolk Superior Court.

It’s one of those one-act shows that seems to attract some interest. Probably a better description would be to call it a carnival which is one step down from a circus.  It was at the carnival as a juvenile one would wander around and wonder at the strange doings that seemed to be going on behind the barker who told of great mysteries like the bearded lady or the human owl who was in the tent behind him. Other gory painted pictures aside the barker of promised grotesqueries supposedly ensconced inside which could be viewed for a modest price piqued the puerile imagination.  Crassly some people referred to this type of entertainment as a freak show.

That probably is the best definition of what is going on in the federal courtroom in Boston. The star of the show is Stevie Flemmi. The barker is the federal prosecutor who has entered into an unholy alliance with Stevie, Freddie Wyshak. They travel the circuit putting on their little display.

Marilyn Monroe died on August 5, 1962.  J. Edgar Hoover was born on January 1, 1895. John F. Kennedy died on November 22, 1963.

Marilyn was born on June 1, 1926. She was 36-years-old when she died. J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI director was 67 years old when Marilyn died. He was 68-years-old when JFK died.

On May 8, 1964, Lyndon Johnson, then the president, said of Hoover:  “Edgar Hoover has been my close personal friend for almost 30 years, and he was my close neighbor for 19 years, . .  “ LBJ made those remarks as he announced that he was signing the legislation that gave Hoover an exemption from the federal law which required people to retire at age 70. Hoover would continue to serve as FBI director until 1972.

Hoover was not worried about staying as director when he was 67 or 68 years old. He was immensely popular. Had Kennedy been president at the time when he turned 70 he knew he had the power to be appointed.

For a while now children have been coming to America unaccompanied by a parent. Faced with that about two years ago the Feds started rolling back child protection policies meant for these minors fleeing violence in Central America. Those responsible for protecting our borders had to decide what to do with those children apparently numbering close to 180,000. They opted to give them out to people called adult sponsors. They were  supposed to take care of them until who knows when but certainly long after the cows come home.

The results of this grand scheme has just been learned. Almost 1,500 of those children have gone missing and are unaccounted for. This was discovered after the Feds made follow up visits to see how the kids were getting along. An investigation by AP in 2016 showed: “two dozen unaccompanied children had been sent to homes where they were sexually assaulted, starved or forced to work for little or no pay . . . “

As a former prosecutor for over two decades I had the good fortune of not having to use admitted liars as witnesses. Having watched a federal trial or two it seems to me that the federal prosecutors aren’t that fortunate. They, at least in the cases I have seen, depend for their evidence on people who are admitted liars. But they should try not to assist the liar in his lies.

What brings this to mind is that this week one of the biggest liars ever to take the federal, or any other, witness stand, will testify. That man I often call Benji Ditchman because his life was spent in the equivalent of a benjo ditch. He is Steven Flemmi.

Flemmi is Whitey Bulger’s former partner both of whom were  protected by FBI agent John Connolly because they were his informants. Flemmi admitted he was an informant – Whitey averred he (Whitey) wasn’t – but there is no way Connolly could have obtained the information from Flemmi except through Whitey.  Whitey has been trying to redeem some scintilla of misguided honor from his decrepit life by denying the obvious.

That of course is an imaginary headline because if such a thing happened you would not be reading it for the first time here. Those killed and wounded are not Israelis; they are Palestinians who were gunned down by Israel soldiers. It is met with a big shrug by most Americans. Did anyone in Congress speak out about the slaughter?  Could you imagine such silence were the victims Israelis? What about you? Think it was all right for so many Palestinians to lose their lives?

The first news of the slaughter came out in the morning of yesterday. It was ongoing at the time the great festivities in the American embassy in Palestine. More than 12 hours after the protesting Palestinians had been carted off to hospitals or to be prepare for burial, I wondered how much of the news of the slaughter was being disseminated in the United States.

The Boston Herald at about 9:00 pm (4:00 am in Jerusalem) had no mentioned it. The New York Post, a Rupert Murdoch paper, also made no mention of it. I looked at the New York Daily News which also omitted any mention of it; it was concerned like the Herald with the Supreme Court decision on legalizing betting in the states as well as the death of the woman who played Superman’s Lois Lane.

Two guys in their 80s will vie this week in front of a jury in the federalcourt house in Boston to see which one is the sleaziest.

Both were born in the Thirsty Thirties when after thirteen years the failed experiment of imposing morals through the Constitution by those who poo-pooed the habits of the Irish and German immigrants finally admitted failure. The main result of ther noble efforts was the enriching of the Mafia and setting the  table for the fortune of the father of the 35th president of the United States when the 21st Amendment repealed the Eighteenth. Joe took full advantage of  the new found freedom to legally quench one’s thirst.

In one corner, the one stained badly by the blood of others, is Steve Flemmi. Opposite him in a corner is his life-long buddy Frank Salemme.

The Salemme/Flemmi contest comes at a time the air is filled with rumors that the 22nd Amendment may be the next repealed. These two hoodlums grew up in the Roxbury section of Boston binding in the Fifties over their idea they were tough guys because of their willingness to kill people.

A Trek’s Rest Thought.

There’s an old Sherlock Holmes story about the best way to hide something is in the open.

It’s an open secret that the Russian economy is highly dependent on oil. Under Obama the price of a barrel of oil fell substantiality. When Trump took office it was about $50. The Bank of America is forecasting it will exceed $100 by next year.

That will double Russian oil income. It will double the cost of gasoline. It is one way Trump can thank Putin.