My Fourth of July post set out how the Declaration of Independence was basically a Protestant document written by white men that established our nation. The men who wrote it had no problem talking about God and the calling upon His protection for their planned attempt to break free from the rule of the British king. For most of our history up until over two-thirds of the way through the 20th Century the country continued that tradition.
The recent Supreme Court decision on gay marriage and other recent 5 – 4 decisions which went in a liberal direction show that no longer do white men control the destiny of the country. Off we go into the wide blue yonder when things that have happened for over two hundred years are suddenly changed. We got to where we are today based upon them; what will guide us into the future?
The decisions from the Supreme Judicial Court are coming from a majority of judges who are not white males. Three judges who make up the majority in the 5 – 4 liberal decisions that are now setting the laws for this country are women. This is a sea change in our nation’s history. It never happened before. Yet it seems to have passed with little notice. Whether this will be a good or bad thing remains to be seen but it is a course that will be new to us.
The extirpation of male input into the operation of our nation of necessity will produce profound changes in the way things are done. Vast changes can occur when female judges look back upon laws that they decide were male inspired and which they deem are no longer applicable to the way people think in the present day. As they say when you get on a roller coaster, “fasten your seat belts.”
The senior woman,Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg was born in Brooklyn, New York and attended Harvard Law School; the next woman in line Justice Sonia Sotomayor was born in the Bronx, New York and attended Yale Law School; the most recent woman appointment Justice Elena Kagan was born in New York, New York and attended Harvard Law School. These three women who grew up in New York City and went to either Harvard or Yale are deciding the laws for the rest of us. Just think how narrow is the background of those who are calling the shots.
Justice Scalia in his dissent in the same-sex marriage case pointed this out saying: “The strikingly unrepresentative character of the body voting on today’s social upheaval would be irrelevant if they were functioning as judges, answering the legal question whether the American people had ever ratified a constitutional provision that was understood to proscribe the traditional definition of marriage. But of course the Justices in today’s majority are not voting on that basis; they say they are not. And to allow the policy question of same-sex marriage to be considered and resolved by a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine is to violate a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation: no social transformation without representation.”
To be clear the question wasn’t resolved as Judge Scalia says by “a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative pane of nine” but by the three women from New York City who represented the majority of the five votes that set the law.
Scalia goes on to say: “These Justices [in the majority] know that limiting marriage to one man and one woman is contrary to reason; they know that an institution as old as government itself, and accepted by every nation in history until 15 years ago, cannot possibly be supported by anything other than ignorance or bigotry. And they are willing to say that any citizen who does not agree with that, who adheres to what was, until 15 years ago, the unanimous judgment of all generations and all societies, stands against the Constitution.”
In other words the traditional way of having men decide the laws of this country will no longer applies as long as these three women can get two others to vote with them. What was done in the same-sex marriage case can be done in any case. The will of three judges combining together in the majority of a 5 – 4 decision will decide the future of our nation. We are entering onto new era that may profoundly change the nation we think we know.
Really Rather … As regards Your Freudian ” Slippers” 🙂 your question may well reveal more about you than any answer would reveal about me 🙂 Anyhoo….I had amended matter McClean before Kerry chimed on it; And yes, Kerry, am pleased you saw it as it’s Great. Rather, George V.Higgins was a Boston Classic and serious lettered guy. Saw FOECOYLE on a local bookshelf just about a week ago. Thought of a re-read then. But that book kind of burns into the bone marrow of memory the first time . # GO BOBBY FROM PARRY SOUND, YEAH KID !!!
Rather 🙂
Matt,
Is the answer Bobo or the Chicago tailor shop?
Best,
Rather (Not)
Geo. V. Higgins,… The Friends of Eddie Coyle,… Bob Mitchum,… and Whitey (what the…?)
“Beautiful. Beautiful. Can you imagine being that kid? What is he, about twenty-one? He’s the best hockey player in the world. Christ, number four, Bobby Orr. What a future he’s got.”
The observation is laced with irony, because Eddie Coyle has no future; within an hour he will be dead. But then the novel’s title – The Friends of Eddie Coyle – is also ironic, because as Dennis Lehane points out in his introduction to the new Picador edition commemorating the 40th anniversary of its publication, “Eddie Coyle has no friends. He barely has acquaintances.”
When what Lehane describes as “the game changing crime novel of the last fifty years” was published in 1970, it was lauded by everyone from Norman Mailer to Ross McDonald. New York Times book critic Christopher Lehmann-Haupt compared it to Hemingway’s “The Killers,” while to Elmore Leonard it was, simply, “the best crime novel ever written.”
It was a book devoid of heroes, or even vaguely sympathetic characters, and its strength lay in its unerring rendition of the small-time hoods and petty criminals populating the fringes of Boston’s netherworld – and of the small-time cops and petty prosecutors whose speech patterns and moral codes didn’t seem far removed.
Although it (organized crime) was a milieu that might superficially have appeared alien to the privileged one inhabited by George V. Higgins (who had followed postgraduate studies at Stanford by returning to his alma mater, Boston College, where he got his law degree), it was one he knew well. Until his breakthrough with Eddie he had supported his writing habit by working as an Assistant US Attorney for Massachusetts, specializing in organized crime.
In his capacity with the Justice Department, Higgins was more aware than most of the shockingly cozy New England alliance linking the Boston constabulary, the feds, the city’s bottom-feeding Irish-American criminal gangs (of whom Eddie Coyle represents a subspecies), and, occasionally, the I.R.A, that had devolved into a murderous, self-sustaining culture of violence by the time it began to unravel with its public exposure two decades later.
In fact, when the cast began to descend on Boston in the early 1970s in preparation for the film version of Eddie Coyle, Robert Mitchum, who would play Eddie, cultivated, presumably in the interest of verisimilitude, the friendship of the notorious gangster James (Whitey) Bulger. At the time Bulger’s public image was that of an eccentric but essentially harmless South Boston version of Robin Hood, but Higgins, aware of exactly how ruthlessly dangerous Whitey could be, knew better, and tried to convey his apprehension to the actor.
Mitchum, who had in 1949 served time in a California prison – an experience he likened to “Palm Springs without the riff-raff” — on a marijuana possession charge, reminded Higgins that it was actually Bulger who was imperiling himself, by associating with a known criminal.
JKM-I’m just a cutting’ and a pasting’.
★ HOWIE … bussing Bobo. Bobo and McClean were extremely tight pals however. HOWIE Made EVERY ONE. nervous I think 🙂 .. It was the making a pass at Bobo Petricone’s girl by a McLaughlin brother up @ I think Hampton Beach that resulted. in the severe beating and early a.m. hospital dropoff of said Casanova by Bobo and confederates . It was the sparkoff to the IRISH GANG WAR. Again, RIP Mr.Petricone … Alex Rocco 🙂 … You STONE GANGSTER YOU .
“McClean”……….a Freudian slip. Lol.
@ Rather … Incisive account, Rather incisive!!!
★Bob Mitchum+Winter Hill pic ..
Hit ” Images” when you get there 🙂
Pork chop sideburns and patterned polyestah.
Love it.
Classic!!
“That’s Alex Rocco getting the kiss from Howie Winter — Mitchum’s in front.”
http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2011/06/28/bulger-meeting-whitey
★RIP Bobo Petricone … Really admired that you reinvented yourself as you did so succesfully!!!… Google .. Bob Mitchum + Winter Hill + Friends of Eddy Coyle ( or variations) and you’ll pull down A CLASSIC pic of Buddy McLean bussing a buzzed and happy Bobo … After hours … in the lounge with Bobby Mitchum hangin’ loose wit’ Da’ Boyz’ 🙂
Alexander Federico Petricone (February 29, 1936 – July 18, 2015)
Alex Rocco, the gravelly-voiced actor whose gallery of memorable characters included Moe Greene, the cocky, bespectacled Las Vegas casino owner who made the mistake of talking back to Michael Corleone in “The Godfather,” died Saturday at his home in the Studio City neighborhood of Los Angeles. He was 79. Rocco’s other noteworthy films included “The Friends of Eddie Coyle” (1973), with Robert Mitchum;
Rocco was born as Alexander Federico Petricone in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1936, but raised in nearby Somerville,
Matt
I read your 40 part series on re-evaluating Whitey Bulger and also the 10 part post on the Organized Crime officer that was investigated. After ALL the books I have read and ALL your posts there is one haunting question for me:
What exactly (or as close to) did Whitey Bulger inform on or who? Everyone is saying Whitey Bulger was an informant and was protected by Connolly and Morris and O’Sullivan. Fine. But then on the other hand most people seem to write that he ONLY (emphasis) on ONLY shared stuff Flemmi told him and organized crime gossip. Well if thats true what was the motivation to keep Bulger as an informant.
Has anyone looked at arrest records of bookies/loansharks/drug dealers/arms dealers/bank robbers, ANY criminals DURING the Bulger crime years and linked them to Bulger. Something is not adding up at all. What are the names of the men (and women) that Whitey helped put into jail? What were the big busts by the FBI?
Its a hard pill to swallow that the FBI let Flemmi and Bulger run roughshod for over 25 years just to have a blueprint of 98 Prince Street to plant wiretaps. I can not find any indepth analysis of the information supplied by Bulger and Flemmi. Its a smokescreen, no?
Jerome:
Good work going back over things. I suggest you broaden your understanding of the word “informant.” Here are three names: William E. Lucas, William Baily and Herbert S. Boulin. If you discover who they are and what there relationship was to the federal investigators you will see how difficult it is to
your question. As a further hint, find out who “Little Al” was and what his relationship was to the FBI.
AS to what “most people” say that Whitey provided they are only guessing since they have no way of knowing. When they suggest he shared stuff Flemmi told him they don’t know that; it could that Flemmi told Connolly and Connolly attributed it to Whitey. Also, keep in mind Whitey says he wasn’t an informant. If that is the case then there won’t be the names of people Whitey helped put in prison.
Flemmi was clearly a valuable informant. He gave them the information on Vanessa’s in the Prudential Center that allowed the FBI to put in prison the group of Mafia guys who were taking over after the Angiulos left the scene and was also instrumental in allowing the FBI to tape the Mafia induction ceremony.
Look into the identity of those three men and you will have a better understanding of the matter.
Matt,
You wrote about this almost three years ago.
September 26, 2012
Before Accepting Whitey Bulger Hoover Journeyed From Denial To Understanding To Desperation
Hoover’s first act after the roof fell in on his denial of a Mafia was to institute a Top Hoodlum Program. Each office in the country was supposed to come up with the names of the ten top hoodlums in their jurisdictions. It was an ill-conceived program. Some of the field officers had dozens to pick from, some had only one or two, and others couldn’t figure out how to tell if someone was a Mafia guy or just a member of an Italian social club.
Hoover had dealt with the famous gangsters back in the Thirties on a targeted basis. In and out, get the publicity and get away. He and his men went after “Pretty Boy” Floyd, “Baby Face” Nelson, “Ma” Barker, Alvin “Old Creepy” Karpis and John Dillinger. Hoover referred to the gangster type criminals as “scum,” “rats,” “vermin,” and “vultures.” He believed they might infect his men if they got too close to them so he took a hit and run approach at big names leaving most of the hoodlums to the local cops. But now under pressure Hoover had to push his field offices to start learning more about the LCN.
Judge Wolf in his 661 page treatise said that when Bobby Kennedy arrived at the Justice Department Hoover did not believe there was a national crime syndicate. Wolf indicated that in 1962 Hoover was still being dragged to the altar of recognizing the Mafia’s existence when he stated, “no single individual or collation of racketeers dominates organized crime across the nation.” That quote did not support Judge Wolf’s conclusion. Hoover could very well have meant there were other organized crime groups aside from the Mafia. For by 1962 unlike what Wolf wanted to believe, Hoover had long since come around to accepting the Mafia’s existence and understanding its methods.
The facts on the ground show how well-informed Hoover had become. Chicago had a group of young agents who were bored with doing background checks and arson investigations who jumped at the chance to get involved in the Top Hoodlum program by doing something about it. At the end of July 1959 they had put a bug in a tailor shop which was the headquarters of the Chicago outfit which they would call “Little Al.” For six years this bug taught the FBI more about organized crime than it would learn in all the other bugs it placed in other LCN meeting places throughout the country. Hoover received a daily report of its activities.
All the bugs were put in by doing black bag jobs (illegal breaking-ins) in order to secretly listen to the conversations of the people in the location another act of questionable legality. It is estimated that Hoover had up to a thousand bugs in operation at the same time gathering evidence which was not admissible in court but extremely useful in setting the groundwork for getting admissible evidence.
With these bugs who needed informants? The FBI certainly didn’t. It could keep its hands clean and not associate with any of the people who Hoover disdained. More information on the Mafia came to Hoover in 1963 when Joseph Valachi started to tell his agents the story of life. There was so much information pouring in that Hoover had a solid grasp of the actions of the Mafia. Hoover wrote in September of 1963 that Valachi’s information “corroborated and embellished the facts developed by the FBI as early as 1961 which disclosed the makeup of the gangland hordes.”
That was Hoover’s stock-in-trade ever since he was a young man. If he set his mind to finding something out he persisted until he had the answer. Bobby Kennedy may have thought little about Hoover’s knowledge of organized crime because Hoover might have purposefully deceived him. They weren’t friends and Hoover hung on to his job because he had the pictures. Objective facts show he was deeply knowledgeable about the Mafia by 1963,
William Roemer the famous FBI agent who wrote four books about the FBI’s war against the Mafia was in the forefront of the Chicago bugging operation. He tells how all the information they had been gathering was proving helpful throughout the United States. They knew where every big gangster was going and who he was meeting with.
Like with the Apalachin meeting, again the roof fell in on the FBI. It was on July 11, 1965 a day Roemer called “the fatal day!” He said it “was a heinous slaughter, destroying our coverage of the mob.
Apparently the FBI in DC had placed a bug on Fred Black who was a friend of Bobby Baker who was LBJ’s buddy and bag man. LBJ a man who entered public life poor, spent his whole career there, and emerged with 43 million dollars felt the FBI was getting a little too close to him. As a result that July day LBJ entered an executive order requiring that the FBI stop using all the electronic bugs.
Roemer said the FBI “had three primary avenues of investigation — electronic bugs, informants and physical surveillance. Mr. Hoover did not allow undercover work by his agents due to his belief that u.c. tended to corrupt agents.” After the bugs came out, the FBI was left with no good way to investigate organized crime.
Tomorrow I’ll tell you what the FBI did in this desperate situation.
Regarding Roemer,… Matt said on September 26, 2012…
“Where it gets confusing is in a case like Connolly’s where if you did what he did you’d be where he is; but why is he there when his job was to do what he did. The FBI put him in that position just like it put all the other agents into positions where they were breaking into homes and business offices planting bugs. None of those others were punished – in fact Roemer brags about how he did it – but Connolly was punished.”
I will do research on the 3 names you suggested in your reply. What I am having a very hard time accepting is WHY make Whitey Bulger an informant when he “doesnt” supply much important information. I understand the value of Steve Flemmi in regarrds to infiltrating and breaking up the Mafia in Boston. But in all my readings I dont see the value of having Whitey as an informant at all. Isnt it far more sinister, dark, and troubling IF Connolly and Morris made Whitey an “informant” on the books to COVER the fact he was giving them a boatload of money for tips and protection.
That would be even more bizarre and a bigger betrayal. I thought you may have heard from working in law enforcement rumors as to how so and so got arrested, got jammed up, got murdered by others besides Whitey BASED on information supplied by Whitey to Connolly and Morris.
Another troubling aspect for me after all teh readings is the murders committed by Whitey Bulger. How do we know who he murdered when the only evidence is testimony by Weeks, Flemmi, and Martarano who you have explained are lying and throwing Whitey under the bus to sweeten their deals.
Another aspect is WHY was John Connolly SIGNALED OUT as a FBI agent for his role in relation to Top Echelon Informant program? There have been other criminals (maybe even ones who committed murders) that were informants BUT their FBI handler was not brought up on charges, tried, and convicted or am I wrong?
Why did the FBI make John Connolly A “scapegoat”? Why even have a scapegoat when Top Echelon Program has criminals as informants.
As Broadway Joe riotously remarked… ” I don’t care if the team is ‘ smuggllllllllliiiinnngggg’ … I JUST WANT TO KISS YOU RIGHT NOW !!!!!!!! ” 🙂
The U.S. Supreme Court is ‘ moot’
if taxpayer funded FBI agents have
their way.
Cloak and Gavel: FBI Wiretaps, Bugs, Informers and the Supreme Court
by Alex Charns Alexander Charns
History
Publisher: University of Illinois Press ISBN-10: 0252018710 Type:
How and why the FBI spied on the United States Supreme Court and tried to remake it in J. Edgar Hoover’s image.
“Cloak and Gavel . . . is the product of an eight-year struggle to force the FBI to reveal its Supreme Court snooping.” Wall Street Journal
“The FBI’s scandalous techniques ranged from illegal wiretapping, to disinformation campaigns, to using Justice Abe Fortas as a Bureau informant.” Harvard Law Review
“The result is a bonanza of Supreme Court history, providing depth and perspective to some great cases of our time.” St Louis Post-Dispatch
,
In other news
http://abc7.com/news/fbi-agent-indicted-on-obstruction-of-justice-charges/575139/
NEWS
FBI agent indicted on obstruction of justice charges
Timothy Joel
Thursday, March 26, 2015
A Southern California FBI agent has been indicted on charges of obstruction of justice, witness tampering and making a false statement to a federal officer.
FBI Special Agent Timothy Joel worked out of the Los Angeles FBI Field Office before he was dismissed last year. The indictment relates to Joel’s alleged relationship with a woman who was arrested at the Otay Mesa border in 2007. The woman, a Korean national, was being smuggled into the United States to work as a prostitute. Joel allegedly helped her stay in the U.S. by claiming she was an important witness in a human smuggling investigation.
According to the indictment, Joel provided the woman with regular cash payments from his personal bank account totaling nearly $20,000 and later moved in with her in an apartment in Los Angeles.
MS:
Thanks for the information on the book. I will have to read it. As for Timmy Joel it came down to loving the woman more than the job. Can’t blame him. Love conquers all.
I don’t think the photo accompanying this blog post accurately depicts the young ladies in it, or young women in general in a proper light for illustrating their potential as leaders for tomorrow.
This link might help:
Starship Poseidon STEM Camp Launches Future Scientists
http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=90078
For balance, how about some bike mishap photos of Justice Breyer from 2011 in DC or in Harvard Square in 1993 when he was first under consideration for the Court.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/05/31/justice_breyer_breaks_collarbone_in_bike_accident/
I think this is a situation where somebody needs to do a Justice Breyer and pick themselves up, dust themselves off and start all over again… but more careful next time.
as we say in the male patriachal society
she gotcha matt
in other manly news
http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/19/fight-for-access-pits-fbi-justice-against-federal-watchdogs/
Fight For Access Pits FBI, Justice Against Federal Watchdogs
Kathryn Watson
11:54 PM 07/19/2015
In August, 47 federal watchdogs signed a letter to Congress saying department and agency officials were blocking access to information they needed to do their jobs. Almost a year later, not much has changed.
The Peace Corps inspector general still can’t access data on sexual assaults against Peace Corps members abroad, and officials at the Environmental Protection Agency are claiming attorney-client privilege to block the IG there from records.
Drug Enforcement Administration officials are now cooperating with the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General, but FBI employees still say DOJ’s IG investigators have no legal right to certain records like electronic surveillance and wiretap material.
Adding to the tension, the Department of Justice has asked the U.S. Attorney General’s Office of Legal Counsel whether the FBI or the DOJ IG is right, in a fight pitting FBI and DOJ officials as a whole against DOJ IG investigators.
MS:
Did not see in the Inspector Generals complaint any implication of the FBI although I have no doubt it is the major withholder of information.
Kerry:
Cannot agree with you about the ladies in the photo. For all we know they could be CEOs of some company or up and coming leaders in their communities aside from being Yankee fans. You can’t judge a book by its cover because all Yankee fans are not losers.
I expect women leadership will be the future of the country. If Hillary gets in they’ll be a majority on the Supreme Court. By that time you won’t have to worry about Breyer crashing into cars
Mostly all 5-4, split decisions are what could be classified as “rigged.”
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