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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMust read- PAUL RYAN KEEPS IT ALL IN THE FAMILY
The old-school Mafiosi are fading into the past, pale imitations of their pharaonic forefathers. As the late Murray Kempton, the greatest of all New York columnists, once wrote, Where are the scungilli of yesteryear? In the late nineties, federal agents insinuated an informer into the ranks of the DeCavalcante crime family, of New Jersey, and the resulting wiretaps and transcriptions revealed a dying language of secrecy, petty schemes, and blood oaths gone wrong. Sad old veterans of the Punic Wars of Essex County talked about selling old comic books and Viagra to make money, and yet they knew that they were losing touch with the new world.
They make money with the computer, a gangster named Joseph (Tin Ear) Sclafani said incredulously about the young. To which another associate replied, These [expletive] kidstwenty-five, twenty-six years oldwill teach you things you could not ever believe.
You know, Im computer-phobia, a DeCavalcante soldier named Lenny replies.
Thats the whole thing, another says. In this [expletive] life that we live, every day if you aint like a chameleon, if you cant change, youre finished.
I thought of this exquisite sampling of the DeCavalcante tapes after reading the riveting serio-comic report in the Washington Post by Adam Entous describing a meeting in June, 2016, on Capitol Hill, at which Republican Party leaders, including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, gathered to talk business. Lets not be unfair, much less libelous. Its not that the members of Congress present were involved in crimes or illegal activity of any kind; no, its that they seem so craven, cynical, and, ultimately small-time. They have sunk so low that they are willing to get behind a candidate for whom they clearly have no regard. Because, well, thats this [expletive] life that we live.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/paul-ryan-keeps-it-family-kevin-mccarthy-russia-trump
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Must read- PAUL RYAN KEEPS IT ALL IN THE FAMILY (Original Post)
DemocratSinceBirth
May 2017
OP
cilla4progress
(24,733 posts)1. Bookmarking!
Hopefully this will be their ruination!
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,710 posts)2. It keeps coming back to gangster references with this group.
cilla4progress
(24,733 posts)3. I see it more as a
Cult. But perhaps they have much in common.