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The saga of Whitey Bulger and friends raises its ugly head with the opening of the movie based on the book Black Mass. As with the time of his trial, authors come out with new books hoping to garner publicity for them; and, surprisingly, the federal authorities come out with a new indictment also seeking…

Catherine Greig was Whitey Bulger’s girlfriend. She went off with him on his flight. There is no allegation that she was involved with any of his murders. There is no allegation that she knew of any of his murders. Even had she heard that he was accused by Weeks or Flemmi of murdering people, there…

The Mafia in Boston was hurt in particular by three men from the federal government between 1960 and 1990. In 1960 the Mafia  was a very powerful group in Boston; by the end of the 1980s it was a group of stumblebums unable to keep out of prison. When the 1960s came we had the…

I consider one of Black Mass’s greatest failures is that it did not address the ramifications of the FBI’ Top Echelon Informant program.  This program established at the highest levels of the FBI and approved by J.Edgar Hoover was in operation in all 56 of the FBI offices throughout the country. It was a secret…

The Boston Globe’s Ben Hur Ty Burr gives us the view from inside the factory:  “It’s a solid if not stellar crime drama, well put together, very well acted, and lacking only a genuine reason to exist. . . .  And “Black Mass” is heavily invested in presenting Whitey as Satan from Southie, a figure…

The way Black Mass is written it seems the authors had an agreement with the FBI to pretend that its Top Echelon Informant program did not operate as it does; or else they were oblivious that what the FBI puts on paper for show is not how the FBI operates. Back in the early 1960s…