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Public D
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Limbaugh and TwoTap can have the NY Times. Trends are trends. Open for business is open for business:
http://www.houstonpress.com/2000-03-02/news/this-bud-s-for-john/
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2002/2932mccain.html
http://www.amconmag.com/2008/2008_02_11/cover.html
And the most concise:
http://www.americanmafia.com/Feature_Articles_219.html
Barry Goldwater: Friends In Low Places
By John William Tuohy
Just when you think they're out, they pull themselves back in again.
The mob has come close to setting up camp in the Oval Office more then once, through Truman, Kennedy and Nixon, but their ultimate dream never actually comes to fruition, for one reason or another.
But, I almost admire their tenacity. And I stress the word almost.
Take the recent example of Senator John McCann, Presidential candidate and Senator from Arizona.
Very few people outside the world of organized crime realize that the father of the Senator's second wife is James W. Hensley.
And who was James W. Hensley, you ask.
He was an Arizona businessman who fell in with the wrong crowd a while back, and ended up taking the rap for a wheeler-dealer named Kemper Marley, Sr. over a liquor violation case back in 1948.
Although Hensley was represented by the best defense Arizona cash could buy, the services of future Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Justice William Rehnquist, he got slammed away for a whole year.
But it all worked out. When Hensley strolled out of the joint, Marley bought his silence with a lucrative Phoenix-based Budweiser beer distributorship.
So, who is this Kemper Marley Sr?
To answer that you have to go back to a sweltering summer day in 1976 when Don Bolles, a reporter for the Arizona Republican Newspaper, stepped into his Datsun, put his foot on the peddle and was blown to bits. Parts of the reporter's body were found ten feet from the burning car.
Bolles had been poking into Arizona's local and state governments and discovered a land fraud ring, influence peddling, and shady deals that appeared to lead to the very top of Arizona's power structure and to Senator Barry Goldwater's doorstep.
If the purpose of murdering Bolles was to cover a series of crimes, it was a big mistake. An enraged news media descended on Arizona, determined to uncover the facts behind the Bolles killing.
The investigation led to a Phoenix liquor magnate and one time Bookie named Kemper Marley Sr., who had ties to Arizona's resident Mafia Prince, Peter Licavoli.
Marley was a major financial and political power in the state and wanted to take back his seat on the Arizona Racing Commission. He had already been appointed to the post in 1976 by the Governor, only to resign several days later when his ties to organized crime surfaced.
The reporter who made the connections between the mob and Marley was Don Bolles.
Although never charged with the murder, most reporters on the scene believed that Kemper Marley ordered Bolles' murder. Their suspicions were confirmed when John Adamson, an alleged burglar and arsonist, confessed to blowing up Bolles.
During the trial, a witness named Howard Woodall testified that Adamson told him Bolles was killed because he'd uncovered evidence of a loan swindle involving Marley, Barry and Robert Goldwater and Harry Rosenzweig.
The Bolles-Marley connection to the Goldwater brothers was only one of the many associations made over the years between the Senator and the underworld.
Robert Goldwater, the Senator's brother, was a longtime friend of Moe Dalitz, the man who truly built Las Vegas.
Dalitz was present at the Atlantic City crime conference in 1929, and at the all important 1943 power summit at the Waldorf Astoria.
Dalitz was an early investor in Arizona real estate, with some of his first deals going back to 1933.
In 1943, it was Dalitz who introduced mob underboss Peter Licavoli, Sr. to the state.
Licavoli loved the place and purchased a massive Tucson ranch and he and Bobby Goldwater eventually went into the restaurant business, with Licavoli putting up the financing.
Another pal with a questionable background who was close to the Goldwater camp, was Willie Bioff, labor extortionist, paid goon, pimp and government informant.
In 1943, Bioff testified against the top leadership of the Chicago mob about their role in a massive Hollywood extortion scandal. That testimony resulted in convictions for mob boss Paul Ricca, Johnny Roselli and others.
In exchange for selling out his partners, Bioff walked away from prosecution a free man and got to keep the millions he had stolen as well.
Willie moved to Arizona, where he lived under the name Willie Nelson, Nelson being his wife's maiden name.
Contrary to what's usually written, Willie Bioff wasn't hiding out in Arizona. In fact, he worked at the Riviera Casino in Vegas as the entertainment director for Gus Greenbaum, Chicago's man in Nevada.
Outgoing, likable and very rich, Willie was a natural for politics, and was soon popular within the golden elite of Phoenix society, which is how he met Barry Goldwater, in November of 1952.
The two men became fast friends.
Goldwater, a brigadier general in the Air Force Reserve, flew Bioff and his wife all over the state to attend various parties, and Willie landed a steady flow of cash into Goldwater's political campaign chest.
Willie even loaned Bobby Goldwater $10,000 for a farming investment in Southern California.
They were close.
A month before the Mafia killed him, Willie Bioff and his wife, Barry Goldwater and his family, vacationed together in Las Vegas.
In 1955, Peter Licavoli, Moe Dalitz's old pal, and Paul Ricca, boss of the Chicago mob, started to shake Bioff down for cash.
Willie paid off for a while, but then he started making noise about going to the feds through his new pal, Barry Goldwater.
The next morning, Bioff stepped into his Ford pick up, stepped on the gas, and was blown to kingdom come.
Barry Goldwater showed up for the funeral and denied, with a straight face, knowing who Willie Bioff really was.
Later, when the pressure continued, the Senator justified his relationship with the onetime pimp by saying it was an attempt "to gather information about labor racketeering for a government study."
Yeah, Okay.
After that, came the Newman scandal.
Mike Newman, was a childhood friend of the Goldwaters and operated a huge gambling racket, completely unhindered by the law, in Phoenix.
Police suspected that Newman's money man was Gus Greenbaum, but the connection was never made.
The building he operated out of was owned by Harry Rosenzweig, who was a close friend of both Gus Greenbaum and Willie Bioff. Rosenzweig was also the state Republican chairman, Phoenix Man of the Year, and Barry Goldwater's financial and political mentor.
When Newman's gambling operation was eventually closed down and charges were brought against him, Barry Goldwater used his considerable political power to get Newman a lenient sentence and outstanding prison conditions.
Goldwater's troublesome brother, Bobby, was said to be Newman's best customer.
Another friend of Barry's was Gus Greenbaum, an old time Chicago hood who ran the Flamingo for the outfit.
Greenbaum hosted the Goldwaters at the Flamingo and Riviera casinos on a regular basis, and when Greenbaum and his wife were murdered, Harry Rosenzweig became the unpaid appraiser of Greenbaum's estate which was being held in trust by the Valley National Bank where Bobby Goldwater was a director.
That would have been all right, but Greenbaum was a hood who went back to the old Capone mob. The Chicago outfit had sent Greenbaum to Arizona in 1928 to manage the Southwest division of its wire service, Trans-American.
In the early forties, he was moved to Vegas where he took over the Flamingo after the Bugsy Siegel murder, and put the place in the black within the first six months of his management.
By 1950, Greenbaum was widely recognized as the driving force behind the success of the $50 million Tropicana, as well as being known and respected in the underworld as a reliable source of information on Las Vegas real estate.
Like Willie Bioff, Greenbaum lived in Arizona, part time, and was close to Barry Goldwater, then a Phoenix Arizona Councilman. In fact, Goldwater's family operated a branch of Goldwater's Department store inside the Desert Inn, which was the excuse Goldwater used for visiting Vegas so often.
After his phenomenal success at the Flamingo and the Tropicana, Greenbaum was called in to put the Riviera Casino in the black after the place lost five million dollars for its original investors.
Greenbaum didn't want the job, but, Tony Accardo and Jake Guzak, the Chicago mobs money manager, and technically, Greenbaum's boss, personally flew out to Phoenix to try to persuade him to take the position at the Riviera.
Greenbaum heard them out, but turned the job down, because, he told them, the strain of correcting the outfit's stupid mistakes was starting to take its effects on him. After seven years on the hot seat, he had enough. He was tired, he was rich and he wanted to retire away from Vegas to Phoenix.
Accardo and Guzak said they understood and returned to Chicago.
One week later, Greenbaum's sister-in-law was found murdered in her bedroom, her throat split. The message was received. Greenbaum moved back to Vegas to run the Riviera for a 27% interest in the place.
This time he lasted only three years.
In 1958, Johnny Roselli, who was close to Greenbaum, and knew Barry Goldwater as well, was told by Accardo to order Greenbaum to step down. He was addicted to heroin, drunk when he wasn't high, running around with women half his age who stole from him, and was deeply in debt from gambling at the tables, losing up to $20,000 a week. Worst of all, he was skimming from the joint "Beyond," said Roselli, "what the guys back in Chicago considered reasonable."
Roselli went out to Vegas and gave Greenbaum the order, he was to sell his share in the Riviera to one of the outfit's front men and leave town. Do that, he could live. All past sins forgiven.
But Greenbaum refused. "This town is in my blood, Johnny," he told Roselli, and went right back to stealing from the skim.
On December 3, 1958, the police found Greenbaum, dead, in bed, his throat was cut so completely that his head was almost falling off.
Down the hall, Greenbaum's wife's throat was cut as well. She had been knocked out with a heavy bottle which caved in the right side of her eye. Newspapers were piled around her to keep the blood from staining the carpet.
The Chicago outfit, which, by mob standards anyway, normally showed a loyalty to those who served it, would have let Greenbaum's sins go. After all, he had made them a fortune, but Meyer Lansky had a piece of the Riviera and pushed for Greenbaum's demise.
Or at least that's the official mob explanation for Greenbaum's murder.
The true story, is that when Paul Ricca found out that Greenbaum was stealing from the skim, a skim split between Chicago and the five New York Families, he sent word down to Greenbaum, that he expected a cut.
Like Willie Bioff, Greenbaum paid Ricca, about $300,000 in 1957, alone. Then he got stupid and stopped sending in his payment. That's when Marshal Caifano, Chicago's enforcer in Vegas, showed up.
Once again, Senator Barry Goldwater showed up for the funeral.
Special thanks to investigative writer Dan Moldea for his help in preparation of this story. |
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Fri Feb 22, 2008 8:59 pm |
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twotap
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Hey dont pick on poor twotap im all for a Hildabeast or Obamagazim presidency. If were gonna have a liberal screw things up I damn sure want it to be a democrat. 
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McCain turns tables on Times
By: Jonathan Martin and Mike Allen
Feb 21, 2008 11:57 PM EST
Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign claimed vindication Thursday night after a sophisticated 24-hour counterattack turned a potentially lethal story in The New York Times into a conservative call to arms.
The piece about McCain’s friendly relations with a telecommunications lobbyist — long-discussed in political circles and planned for weeks by McCain operatives — was the first test of his ability to confront a public-relations crisis since becoming the GOP’s presumptive nominee.
But the reaction may have said as much about the mindset of the conservative movement on the brink of the general election as it did about McCain and his team.
“Even if they want to quibble within our own tribe, they’ll circle the wagons when we’re attacked by the Times,” said McCain campaign senior adviser Charlie Black.
Few commentators on the right — including some who regularly denounce ethical lapses or weaknesses of the flesh among Democrats — paused to assess seriously whether the Times’ suggestions of conflict of interest were well-founded.
Instead, many swallowed past misgivings about McCain to rally to his defense, on the apparent theory that anyone under assault by the most powerful institution in the mainstream media could not be all bad.
“For conservatives, The New York Times is shorthand for everything they distrust,” said John Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College and former Republican operative.
It was a vivid illustration of the power of the longstanding anti-media grievance among conservatives. In the past, McCain’s cozy relationships with establishment journalists (“My base,” as he sometimes jokes) has been a major reason the Arizona senator is viewed with such jaundiced eyes by many on the right. McCain was able to leverage these feelings to turn a potentially devastating story into something that arguably lifts his political standing.
“We feel that the story has been met with widespread condemnation,” said Jill Hazelbaker, the campaign communications director. “We faced our first crisis of the general election, we handled it and we’ll try to move past it tomorrow.”
McCain campaign officials began their daylong effort by working furiously behind the scenes to reassure donors and to coordinate an anti-Times message with Republican supporters and conservative commentators.
Since November, McCain’s campaign had feared the story and its impact. But the delay also allowed McCain’s backers to plot exactly how they would respond.
An hour after the Times posted the story at about 7:45 p.m., Hazelbaker issued a scathing response labeling it “a hit-and-run smear campaign.” Soon after, the campaign sent reporters the extensive response prepared for the Times back in December. After that, the press received excerpts from the appearance of Robert Bennett, the Washington lawyer hired by McCain to try to deal with the newspaper on the story, on Fox’s “Hannity & Colmes.”
At the same time, McCain backers were gathering up favorable reaction and analysis on the cable networks and forwarding it to conservative media voices and other opinion makers on the right.
“We wanted to be fast, forward-leaning and as open and transparent as possible,” said a McCain aide involved in the effort.
Craig Shirley, a public relations consultant working for McCain, called conservative media critic Brent Bozell — a McCain skeptic. Bozell, who heads the media watchdog group Media Research Center, then issued a statement ripping the Times while defending McCain. Shirley’s firm sent that criticism, along with comments from Pat Buchanan, out to all conservative contacts, ranging from radio hosts to producers to bloggers. As one of the first conservative leaders to come to McCain's defense, Bozell provided ideological cover to others, including morning talk show host Joe Scarborough — another McCain skeptic — to support McCain and go after the Times.
In late-night e-mails to reporters and early-morning appearances on television, McCain’s mouthpieces took the ferocious and unrelenting approach of a political campaign.
Before breakfast, Patrick Hynes, a blogger on contract with McCain, pieced together the reaction of outraged bloggers on the right and blasted an e-mail titled “What Some Folks Are Saying About Times Hit Job.”
Bennett said on NBC’s “Today” show that the article was “a nonstory” and “a hatchet job.” On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” he called it “a real smear.”
Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager, went on CBS’s “The Early Show” and called it “the worst kind of tabloid journalism” and a “fabrication.”
A few hours later, Davis blasted a fundraising e-mail with the subject line "Here We Go," urging followers to "help to counteract the liberal establishment and fight back against The New York Times by making an immediate contribution today."
Not long after the network and cable morning news shows led with the story, top McCain supporters appeared on the same programs to chastise the Times and denigrate the story. Conservative publications including The American Spectator and Human Events weighed in to defend McCain. By late morning, Shirley’s firm had lined up a half-dozen conservative leaders to attack the Times and had booked guests on dozens of radio and cable television shows. In addition, Black, Bennett and Davis all made the rounds.
Also on in the morning and for the rest of the day was Todd Harris, a top aide in Fred Thompson’s campaign who had previously worked for McCain in 2000.
The Times did not immediately defend itself, letting the story speak for itself until Executive Editor Bill Keller issued a statement Thursday morning saying the account was “nailed down to our satisfaction.”
With silence from the paper, the McCain campaign was free to frame the debate.
While top surrogates lit into the paper, McCain himself and his wife, Cindy, appeared before reporters at 9 a.m. in Toledo, Ohio. Like the surrogates, the McCains sought to lessen the focus on the underlying charges and spotlight the decision of the paper to publish.
But instead of lashing out at the “largest liberal newspaper in America,” as Black had on CNN earlier in the morning, the McCains calmly and repeatedly expressed “disappointment” in the Times. As he does at most all of his press conferences, McCain answered every question, and aides made no attempt to intervene.
While this was going on, Black, Davis, Hazelbaker and other McCain aides were telephoning members of Congress, top donors and other GOP opinion-makers to ensure that they were well-armed with the response message.
“Facts on NYT story” was the subject line of a 9:43 a.m. e-mail from Hazelbaker to McCain backers.
Later in the morning, two top aides from McCain’s 2000 campaign, press aides Dan Schnur and Howard Opinsky, contacted Politico without prompting to say they weren’t the sources for the Times story and to cast doubt on the piece.
At noon, the McCain campaign got perhaps its most important break. Rush Limbaugh, who has been the senator’s worst tormentor since he effectively seized the GOP nomination, came on the air and immediately denounced the Times.
Limbaugh warned McCain, who has close relations with the press, that such a story was typical of what he calls the “drive-by media.” But he mostly shredded the paper and the story, calling it “Page Six-type gossip.”
When the network evening news broadcasts came on, all three of the pieces brimmed with McCain’s messages — and two of them carried clips of Limbaugh hammering The New York Times.
"Tactically, the McCain campaign executed flawlessly and quickly to put this story back in the box,” said GOP strategist Phil Musser, a former executive director of the Republican Governors Association. “They reshaped the coverage from dawn to dusk, avoided any big name conservative defections and were actually monetizing the event online at the Gray Lady's expense.”
“Ironically,” said Musser, who supported Mitt Romney’s presidential bid, “the larger impact of the whole story may well be to further galvanize McCain's leadership position, especially if it goes away quickly.” |
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Sat Feb 23, 2008 8:49 am |
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twotap
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And of course heres one on squeeky clean Baracko.
After Near Total Silence, ABC Finally Investigates Obama Land Deal
By Scott Whitlock | January 10, 2008 - 12:37 ET
After completely ignoring the story, ABC investigative correspondent Brian Ross finally featured a segment on a questionable real estate deal by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. On Thursday's "Good Morning America," the reporter looked at the Illinois senator's relationship with Tony Rezko, a political operator who raised cash for candidates. Rezko, who will go on trial in February for charges related to bribes and extortion, played a role in a house purchase by Obama.
Although local Illinois media outlets, such as the Chicago Sun Times, have been covering the story for much of 2006 and 2007, a Nexis search finds only one mention on ABC, prior to the Ross report on Thursday. (On May 13, 2007, "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos briefly quizzed Obama on the subject.) Ross's investigations of Republicans often include a sneering, sarcastic tone that was lacking in his segment on Obama. In October of '07, he claimed that after listening to 1973 Watergate tapes of '08 Republican candidate Fred Thompson, a "much different, less valiant picture of Thompson emerges."
In December of 2007, while filing a report on GOP contender Mike Huckabee and the his record on crime, Ross leveled charges of hypocrisy. (For a recap of these charges, see my December 5, 2007 NewsBusters posting.)
The ABC reporter introduced his investigation of the Illinois senator this way: "Senator Obama says no lobbyist would be permitted to work in his White House...All of which makes his relationship with an accused Illinois political fixer and influence peddler all the more unusual." But his report lacked the usual snarky tone. The case relates to the role that Rezko role played in helping Obama secure the purchase of a new home in Chicago. Ross explained the details this way:
BRIAN ROSS: ...It emerged that Rezko had quietly played a role in Obama's purchase of a new home. Obama bought the house on Chicago's south side in June, 2005, after he had been elected to the U.S. Senate. According to Obama, the owner wanted to sell the house together with a next door vacant lot which Obama apparently did not want. Instead, Rezko's wife bought the empty lot for full price. 625,000. And according to Obama, he bought the house paying $1.65 million, for $300,000 under the asking price, all on the same day. Obama says the price was dropped because the house had been on the market for some time.
In contrast, during another piece on Thompson, Ross looked into the criminal past of an advisor to the Republican candidate. He complained that "Thompson has been traveling in style." These types of verbal swipes were noticeably missing from the discussion of Obama and Rezko.
A transcript of the segment, which aired at 7:13am on January 10, follows:
DIANE SAWYER: And we're going to turn now to a question facing Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama this morning. The Illinois senator has said that he regards it as one of his mistakes that he had a relationship on the purchase of his home with a political operative who is facing multiple counts of wire and mail fraud, among other charges. Well, this week, a judge vaulted the name of that operative into the news and ABC's chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross decided to look into it. Brian?
ABC GRAPHIC: Investigating Senator Obama: What's His Relationship With Indicted Man?
BRIAN ROSS: Good morning, Diane. Senator Obama says no lobbyist would be permitted to work in his White House. And as a state senator in Illinois, and now in Washington, he has pushed new ethics reforms laws. All of which makes his relationship with an accused Illinois political fixer and influence peddler all the more unusual. His name is Tony Rezko, known in Illinois politics as a back-room operator who did favors and raised campaign money for politicians and benefited in return. Rezko will go on trial next month to face charges growing out of a three-year long undercover FBI investigation involving bribes, kickbacks and extortion.
PATRICK FITZGERALD (U.S. Attorney): Today, we unsealed two indictments against Anton Tony Rezko, both involves efforts to illegally obtain millions of dollars.
ROSS: There was no mention of Senator Obama in Rezko's indictment. But as he sought to post bail, it emerged that Rezko had quietly played a role in Obama's purchase of a new home. Obama bought the house on Chicago's south side in June, 2005, after he had been elected to the U.S. Senate. According to Obama, the owner wanted to sell the house together with a next door vacant lot which Obama apparently did not want. Instead, Rezko's wife bought the empty lot for full price. 625,000. And according to Obama, he bought the house paying $1.65 million, for $300,000 under the asking price, all on the same day. Obama says the price was dropped because the house had been on the market for some time. But even civics groups that praise Obama's record on ethics were troubled by his involvement with a man of Rezko's reputation.
CYNTHIA CANARY (Illinois Campaign for Political Reform): Our only concern has been the timing and our wish that the senator had been a little bit more sensitive to the emerging dark cloud over Mr. Rezko's head.
ROSS: For his part, Obama has given a series of various explanations about the deal. First, he told the Chicago Tribune that he didn't recall what his conversations were with Rezko. Four days later, he told the Chicago Sun Times that he did recall telling Rezko about the property. Last May, as a candidate for president, Obama acknowledged to George Stephanopoulos that Rezko could become an issue, even though everything had been above board and legal.
SENATOR BARACK OBAMA: But, it raised the possibility that here was somebody who is a friend of mine who is doing me a favor. And I said, it was a bone-headed mistake.
ROSS: Senator Obama told one paper that he knew Rezko was under investigation at the time. But the Washington Post says Obama told them he had no idea of Rezko's brewing trouble. The first answer was more accurate. We found more than a hundred stories in the Illinois papers in the preceding five months, detailing allegations that Rezko was a corrupting influence in Illinois politics, including a Sunday editorial in the Chicago Tribune, ten days before the house purchase, focusing on Rezko and his behind the scenes connection to the Illinois governor. By our count, Rezko and people in his circle have given Obama more than $120,000 for his U.S. and state senate campaigns. A spokesman for Obama says the Senator has donated the 44,000 of that to charity since the indictments in Chicago. And the senator insists no favors were asked of him by Rezko and none was granted.
—Scott Whitlock is a news analyst for the Media Research Center. |
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Sat Feb 23, 2008 9:57 am |
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Demeralda
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| if the author, in the opening sentence, mixes up the words "then" and "than", obviously not a very credible source. |
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Mon Feb 25, 2008 11:50 am |
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