UTUSN
UTUSN's JournalGHOULiani & SHITLER have mobster compromat on each other & hate each other but can't cut ties
Ever since SHITLER decided to inflict himself on us, it has been inexplicable that he has cozied up to the Russians at every turn, down to a few days ago when he’s sending ventilators to Russia. I’ve been calling him a cartel mobster for a couple of years just based on his behaviors – the LOYALTY thing, the demands for total authority.
So there have been bits here or there about Russians laundering money via condos in his properties, high prices and empty buildings. The mysteries have nagged – the attacks on MUELLER and COMEY, the weird alliances (GUILIANI).
So this lays it out: Not PUTIN, but a Russian mobster/banker, Semion Mogilevich. And GUILIANI + TRUMP is that they have the worst dirt on each other and hate each other but can’t throw each other under the bus. And SHITLER trashes the FBI guys because they know him as an FBI “Confidential Informant” (CI) and can’t expose him, hence why MUELLER hinted at everything but left it all hanging. And why SHITLER took a free hand at smearing MUELLER as "corrupt", because he knew, on the contrary, that MUELLER knew his CI status and could NOT expose SHITLER.
**********QUOTE********
.... But the “modern-day Eliot Ness,” as he was called, hid a deep family secret that a Giuliani confidant says goes a long way to explain why his self-worth has wavered throughout his life. Rudy’s father, Harold, was a neighborhood tough who did time in New York’s Sing Sing prison for armed robbery. This underworld background, revealed in muckraking journalist Wayne Barrett’s biography Rudy!, might help explain the chip Giuliani has carried on his shoulder throughout his career.
... Giuliani joined 10,000 off-duty police officers in a protest that boiled over with bursts of racism aimed at the city’s first black mayor. But harnessing outer-borough anger at Manhattan liberals was a key to victory that, in retrospect, was an ominous preview of the resentments that Trump would later stoke on a national scale. ....
https://gregolear.substack.com/p/bloody-mob-sht-an-interview-with
Bloody Mob Sh*t: An Interview with Lincoln's Bible
We talk Trump, Mogilevich, Epstein, Giuliani, Fred Trump, Roy Cohn, and more.
(by) Greg Olear
.... LB (Lincoln's Bible) : ... Fred (Trump), ... all (his construction projects) were done with known mafia partners, in Genovese-controlled territory, and eventually with a fully Genovese-owned construction company (HRH Construction). ....
... Remember donald’s quote, “Even my father, he said, you don’t want to go to Manhattan. That’s not our territory?” That’s because Manhattan, for construction, was Gambino territory. They controlled the concrete and unions. And Fred was a very loyal, shrewd front for the Genovese. To get his idiot, greedy kid into Manhattan, Fred and Roy Cohn had to get those two mob bosses to agree on a joint venture. ....
GO (Greg OLEAR) : Rudy Giuliani, whose father was a lesser mobster, built his reputation prosecuting Italian mobsters. In the process, he made it easier for the Russians to move in. ... ....
LB: Here’s the thing…and it’s NYC mob gossip, but I trust the source. Rudy and donald hate each other. Capital “H” hate. They both have dirt on one another. And, for both, it’s as bad as it gets. Cocaine, corruption, and bloody mob shit. So they’re stuck together. Don’t look for one to turn on the other. Unless drugs/alcohol/dementia takes over, and they burn each other down as they internally crumble. ....
GO: ... We know he (Jeffrey EPSTEIN) was associated with the Russian mafiya, through his relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell, whose father, Robert, was business partners with Semion Mogilevich, head of the Vor. ...
LB: Epstein laundered money for global arms dealers. ... ....
*****************
http://www.citjourno.org/mission
Citizen Journalists Consortium
POKE THE BEAR
(by) Lincoln's Bible
.... ... There is a man who controls our President. And his name is not Vladimir Putin. ....
... the most brilliant, dangerous, powerful, criminal mastermind the world has ever seen. This is not hyperbole. This is SEMION MOGILEVICH. ....
... Mogilevich, the "Boss of Bosses," is also known in Russia and to international intelligence agencies as Don Semyon, “The Brainy Don.” ....
... The Soviet Union collapsed. In the vacuum of leadership – of policy – of governmental order, a few hungry souls made a mad grab for state resources. They were the original seven oligarchs, called “The Magnificient Seven.” And they were all bankers. One of these first seven bankers, Mikhail Fridman – the founder of ALFABANK, is Semion Mogilevich’s partner. ... ....
... Putin was used to help execute Semion’s strategy for turning Russia into a Mafiya State. ... ....
... SEMION TRADES IN NUCLEAR MATERIAL AND ARMS WITH IRAN ... ....
... This aspect of Semion’s criminal enterprise is one thing (of many) the Iran Deal sought to eliminate. ... ....
... the Russian Mafiya’s infiltration of America. ... the Russian take-over of America’s mafia crime families, the “Five Families,” ... ....
... the mobster Vyacheslov Ivankov set him off on Semion’s trail. Ivankov was Semion’s lieutenant, sent to America to set up operations. If you recognize his name, it’s because Ivankov is the mobster who landed in a condo in Trump Tower, hid out regularly at Trump Taj Mahal, and was eventually caught by the FBI’s organized crime unit. ... ....
... Mogilevich’s crime syndicate is also THE case that puts the history of Donald Trump’s business “partnerships” into context. It explains why the #TrumpRussia investigation ... shifted from counter-intelligence to CRIMINAL. ...
It also answers what lurks beneath Trump’s flailing tweets, firing of Comey, and strategic undermining of the integrity of our independent press. ... ....
... The equation for finding the perfect mark is simple: 1) identify a businessman who has what you need – like a vehicle to wash your blood money, + 2) find their weak spot, and + 3) squeeze. ....
In the United States, there was one businessman at the top of Don Semyon’s list. One who was the easiest mark and could reap the greatest return. One who was sheltering Mogilevich's Men. One who was already in business with the American mafia, when "the" RUSSIAN MOB rolled over them all. ....
And thanks to Fred Trump, Roy Cohn, and the “Five Families” of American mafia, the United States already had a perfect front for Mogilevich to take. A man – a brand, that could wash the devil’s blood money clean. ....
... Semion Mogilevich took over American mafia’s territory, he took Donald Trump with it. ....
... Semion Mogilevich took over his second brand: TRUMP ENTERPRISES. ....
*************
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1150239448649866&id=100009914652603
(by) Greg OLEAR Facebook page
.... A confidential informant, or “CI,” is a mole run by law enforcement within a criminal enterprise. Not a “rat,” whose treachery is well known to his comrades, but a craftier, more duplicitous breed of rodent. Crimes committed by the CI are overlooked, or allowed to continue unabated, in exchange for good intelligence—“treasure,” as Control calls it in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. ....
The only way to know for sure if Donald John Trump is a Confidential Informant is if he admits it himself (unlikely), or if law enforcement comes forward (illegal). But the circumstantial evidence is compelling. The pattern is: 1) Trump deals with mobsters as usual; 2) Law enforcement begins investigating Trump; 3) Mobsters suddenly get busted, while 4) investigation into Trump is scuttled. This happened three times that we know about. I’m not counting the first known instance of Trump providing information to prosecutors, concerning Cody and concrete, in the late 70s: ... ....
... (Trump in) 1995? Failing tremendously. That was the year when he declared a loss of an unfathomable $916 million on his tax returns. It was also at this time that Trump Tower became a sort of Moscow on Fifth Avenue, with any number of Russian mobsters scooping up apartments—an arrangement that began in 1984, when the Russian mobster David Bogatin purchased five condos for $6 million. Trump Tower was one of just two buildings in all of New York City that allowed units to be purchased by shell companies. Why did Trump, virtually alone among New Yorkers, allow these fishy deals?
As the indefatigable Craig Unger writes in the Washington Post, the shady Bogatin deal began a 35-year relationship between Trump and Russian organized crime. Mind you, this was a period during which the disintegration of the Soviet Union had opened a fire-hose-like torrent of hundreds of billions of dollars in flight capital from oligarchs, wealthy apparatchiks and mobsters in Russia and its satellites. And who better to launder so much money for the Russians than Trump — selling them multimillion-dollar condos at top dollar, with little or no apparent scrutiny of who was buying them. ....
... what made Trump’s attacks on Mueller so ironic. He impugned the former FBI director as corrupt, while depending on his incorruptibility to not reveal his (alleged) CI status. ....
Notes
This piece was written under the expert guidance of Lincoln’s Bible. If you don’t already do so, please follow her on Twitter, and check out her own mafiya reporting at Citjourno.
I encourage everyone to read the State of New Jersey Department of Gaming Enforcement investigation report on the allegations against Donald John Trump in the Wayne Barrett book Trump: The Deals and the Downfall.
The late Bob Levinson was the FBI’s best Russian mob fighter. His Ivankov testimony is also essential reading.
— Greg Olear, Substack
********UNQUOTE*******
My latest letter to the editor got into the paper:
Donald Trump wants to be called a “wartime president,” entirely appropriately since he has been waging war against this country from Day One. He’s always picking marketing bits from history, as whispered to him by his flunkies, that succeeded in glorifying genuinely great people — slogans like “America first” or honorifics like “Great Emancipator.”
His war has run the gamut from the personal to the national: Degrading the level of discourse into the gutter, denigrating anybody of accomplishments and integrity, and elevating amorality. And nationally, having no concept of acting for the public good, only for what he thinks is good for him, trying to literally demolish the principles and structure of this country’s democracy, transforming government into his own mob cartel.
In a recent poll, 55% of those polled were negative about the response to COVID-19, but blamed “the federal government” for the trouble. Somebody asked why Trump is not named instead, and the answer was, “Because his supporters think the government is their enemy and that he is fighting it for them.”
It would be laughable, if not so dangerous, that he really believes he is “great” and that anything he says and does can have no relation to truth or value and will never be questioned.
Here's from a DUer's post a few weeks ago; mentions UNGER
Ever since SHITLER decided to inflict himself on us, it has been inexplicable that he has cozied up to the Russians at every turn, down to a few days ago when he’s sending ventilators to Russia. I’ve been calling him a cartel mobster for a couple of years just based on his behaviors – the LOYALTY thing, the demands for total authority.
So there have been bits here or there about Russians laundering money via condos in his properties, high prices and empty buildings. The mysteries have nagged – the attacks on MUELLER and COMEY, the weird alliances (GUILIANI).
So this lays it out: Not PUTIN, but a Russian mobster/banker/SEMION MOGILEVICH. And GUILIANI + TRUMP is that they have the worst dirt on each other and hate each other but can’t throw each other under the bus. And SHITLER trashes the FBI guys because they know him as an FBI “Confidential Informant” (CI) and can’t expose him, hence why MUELLER hinted at everything but left it all hanging. I did the long reading of the links to outline it easy for you.
**********QUOTE********
https://gregolear.substack.com/p/bloody-mob-sht-an-interview-with
We talk Trump, Mogilevich, Epstein, Giuliani, Fred Trump, Roy Cohn, and more.
Greg Olear
.... LB (Lincoln's Bible) : ... Fred (Trump), ... all (his construction projects) were done with known mafia partners, in Genovese-controlled territory, and eventually with a fully Genovese-owned construction company (HRH Construction). ....
... Remember donald’s quote, “Even my father, he said, you don’t want to go to Manhattan. That’s not our territory?” That’s because Manhattan, for construction, was Gambino territory. They controlled the concrete and unions. And Fred was a very loyal, shrewd front for the Genovese. To get his idiot, greedy kid into Manhattan, Fred and Roy Cohn had to get those two mob bosses to agree on a joint venture. ....
GO (Greg OLEAR) : Rudy Giuliani, whose father was a lesser mobster, built his reputation prosecuting Italian mobsters. In the process, he made it easier for the Russians to move in. ... ....
LB: Here’s the thing…and it’s NYC mob gossip, but I trust the source. Rudy and donald hate each other. Capital “H” hate. They both have dirt on one another. And, for both, it’s as bad as it gets. Cocaine, corruption, and bloody mob shit. So they’re stuck together. Don’t look for one to turn on the other. Unless drugs/alcohol/dementia takes over, and they burn each other down as they internally crumble. ....
GO: ... We know he (Jeffrey EPSTEIN) was associated with the Russian mafiya, through his relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell, whose father, Robert, was business partners with Semion Mogilevich, head of the Vor. ...
LB: Epstein laundered money for global arms dealers. ... ....
*****************
http://www.citjourno.org/mission
POKE THE BEAR
.... ... There is a man who controls our President. And his name is not Vladimir Putin. ....
... the most brilliant, dangerous, powerful, criminal mastermind the world has ever seen. This is not hyperbole. This is SEMION MOGILEVICH. ....
... Mogilevich, the "Boss of Bosses," is also known in Russia and to international intelligence agencies as Don Semyon, “The Brainy Don.” ....
... The Soviet Union collapsed. In the vacuum of leadership – of policy – of governmental order, a few hungry souls made a mad grab for state resources. They were the original seven oligarchs, called “The Magnificient Seven.” And they were all bankers. One of these first seven bankers, Mikhail Fridman – the founder of ALFABANK, is Semion Mogilevich’s partner. ... ....
... Putin was used to help execute Semion’s strategy for turning Russia into a Mafiya State. ... ....
... SEMION TRADES IN NUCLEAR MATERIAL AND ARMS WITH IRAN ... ....
... This aspect of Semion’s criminal enterprise is one thing (of many) the Iran Deal sought to eliminate. ... ....
... the Russian Mafiya’s infiltration of America. ... the Russian take-over of America’s mafia crime families, the “Five Families,” ... ....
... the mobster Vyacheslov Ivankov set him off on Semion’s trail. Ivankov was Semion’s lieutenant, sent to America to set up operations. If you recognize his name, it’s because Ivankov is the mobster who landed in a condo in Trump Tower, hid out regularly at Trump Taj Mahal, and was eventually caught by the FBI’s organized crime unit. ... ....
... Mogilevich’s crime syndicate is also THE case that puts the history of Donald Trump’s business “partnerships” into context. It explains why the #TrumpRussia investigation ... shifted from counter-intelligence to CRIMINAL. ...
It also answers what lurks beneath Trump’s flailing tweets, firing of Comey, and strategic undermining of the integrity of our independent press. ... ....
... The equation for finding the perfect mark is simple: 1) identify a businessman who has what you need – like a vehicle to wash your blood money, + 2) find their weak spot, and + 3) squeeze. ....
In the United States, there was one businessman at the top of Don Semyon’s list. One who was the easiest mark and could reap the greatest return. One who was sheltering Mogilevich's Men. One who was already in business with the American mafia, when "the" RUSSIAN MOB rolled over them all. ....
And thanks to Fred Trump, Roy Cohn, and the “Five Families” of American mafia, the United States already had a perfect front for Mogilevich to take. A man – a brand, that could wash the devil’s blood money clean. ....
... Semion Mogilevich took over American mafia’s territory, he took Donald Trump with it. ....
... Semion Mogilevich took over his second brand: TRUMP ENTERPRISES. ....
*************
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1150239448649866&id=100009914652603
.... A confidential informant, or “CI,” is a mole run by law enforcement within a criminal enterprise. Not a “rat,” whose treachery is well known to his comrades, but a craftier, more duplicitous breed of rodent. Crimes committed by the CI are overlooked, or allowed to continue unabated, in exchange for good intelligence—“treasure,” as Control calls it in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. ....
The only way to know for sure if Donald John Trump is a Confidential Informant is if he admits it himself (unlikely), or if law enforcement comes forward (illegal). But the circumstantial evidence is compelling. The pattern is: 1) Trump deals with mobsters as usual; 2) Law enforcement begins investigating Trump; 3) Mobsters suddenly get busted, while 4) investigation into Trump is scuttled. This happened three times that we know about. I’m not counting the first known instance of Trump providing information to prosecutors, concerning Cody and concrete, in the late 70s: ... ....
... (Trump in) 1995? Failing tremendously. That was the year when he declared a loss of an unfathomable $916 million on his tax returns. It was also at this time that Trump Tower became a sort of Moscow on Fifth Avenue, with any number of Russian mobsters scooping up apartments—an arrangement that began in 1984, when the Russian mobster David Bogatin purchased five condos for $6 million. Trump Tower was one of just two buildings in all of New York City that allowed units to be purchased by shell companies. Why did Trump, virtually alone among New Yorkers, allow these fishy deals?
As the indefatigable Craig Unger writes in the Washington Post, the shady Bogatin deal began a 35-year relationship between Trump and Russian organized crime. Mind you, this was a period during which the disintegration of the Soviet Union had opened a fire-hose-like torrent of hundreds of billions of dollars in flight capital from oligarchs, wealthy apparatchiks and mobsters in Russia and its satellites. And who better to launder so much money for the Russians than Trump — selling them multimillion-dollar condos at top dollar, with little or no apparent scrutiny of who was buying them. ....
... what made Trump’s attacks on Mueller so ironic. He impugned the former FBI director as corrupt, while depending on his incorruptibility to not reveal his (alleged) CI status. ....
Notes
This piece was written under the expert guidance of Lincoln’s Bible. If you don’t already do so, please follow her on Twitter, and check out her own mafiya reporting at Citjourno.
I encourage everyone to read the State of New Jersey Department of Gaming Enforcement investigation report on the allegations against Donald John Trump in the Wayne Barrett book Trump: The Deals and the Downfall.
The late Bob Levinson was the FBI’s best Russian mob fighter. His Ivankov testimony is also essential reading.
— Greg Olear, Substack
********UNQUOTE*******
To all the bogeymen I've known before
When I was young, Tricky Dick was the biggest bogeyman I knew of. Not a HITLER or a STALEEN, just dirty and embarrassing, and I didn’t imagine there could be worse. But then came Ronnie and Nancy who had a different edge on them, greedy and cruel. Somehow Poppy BUSH with his goofiness was almost convincing that he was out of the loop, while now we know he was just as dirty and cruel. And then came Shrub W., who just made us eat shit and laughed in our faces. And yet all of these a-holes had a shred of restraint and limits, like a fear of going too far that could pass for respect. And that shred made me believe there couldn’t be somebody worse. And now we have The Great Fluke, this SHITLER thing who is *so* bad that he makes me nostalgic for some of those others. Tricky Dick had a sense of history and fear of what History would say about him, pride the way he would march-in-step when Hail to the Chief played and not burning the tapes for History's sake. RAYGUN knew he was No-FDR, just a trained actor. Poppy had the secret handshakes of the real power brokers to keep him. Shrub just needed to claim his birthright from Poppy and JEB. But SHITLER respects nothing. LBJ and Tricky Dick could take a hint and a clue and leave the building.
Actually, I *do* have a partly analogous story, re: the brute force response of some top brass.
Analogous, yes: Because at bottom, the military has a follow-orders, authoritarian, my-way-or-the-highway orientation. Plus a culture of the chain of command lubricated by ass-kissing.
Analogous, perhaps or maybe not: Because this captain appears to be a whistleblower about his brass not protecting the crew, while the fellow in my story has no known motivation and some observable behavior that was inexplicable, while the way he was dealt with was similarly brutal.
So my ship in Vietnam was one in a group of seven, each with its Captain (actually, a Lieutenant for this small ship). Over the group was a "Commodore," a rank revived from the Civil War.
So the junior officer was in the entry level of Navy officers, Ensign. Each officer headed up a Department of his own - Engineering, Deck, Supply, etc. Of course there is a semi-Feudal class system, with the Captain as the king, the officers as nobility, and all us Enlisted as peons. It all can't function if there is no humanity in it, some kind of human kinship crossing the social barriers, camaraderie between the officer and his work force.
Yet as classes, the officers and Enlisted are always aware of the distinction between them. So while almost all of the officers had some degree of friendly relations with their Enlisteds, this junior officer, let's call him "JO" or Ensign JO, was the *ONLY* one who would OCCASIONALLY drop by the living quarters of us Enlisteds after evening chow, where we did our "living" - writing letters home, playing cards, somebody playing a guitar, etc. He would sit on a laundry bag and just talk a bit, mostly listen, find out who we were, etc. This was not some kind of unseemly fraternization, just that he was a nice guy.
So fairly late in my year's tour, we had one of those tizzies where the Word from the top is that something Big is decreed to happen and we are all thrown into doing stuff to Make It Happen. Some arbitrary, whimsical Word or something real, who knows. So this time the thing was that the COMMODORE was going to pay us a royal visit and we all had to drop our routine tasks and make the ship as spic and span as the rust bucket could be made to appear: "Paint this WHITE!1 Polish that brass thing!1" So that happened.
The royal visit happened while we were anchored in the River (in the Mekong Delta) at the Army base (Can Tho) where we were unloading our cargo - bulldozers, gigantic bags of cement, whatever it was that time (pallets of Coca Cola). Before somebody questions a ship being in a river: My ship was an LST (Landing Ship Tank) with a flat bottom for handling SHALLOW water as well as deep deep ocean, like what was used at D-Day; and these rivers in Vietnam were BIG AND WIDE. Still are. And my LST was built in 1945 maybe for D-Day but too late, and we were using it thirty years later, leaking at the rusty seams and all. Talk about putting crew at risk.
So perhaps it was to show off for the Commodore, whom I never saw, by the way, but the Orders for the Enlisteds on that night's Watch were that there was intel that Charlie might be sending Swimmers to outfit the ship with mines under the water line. So with typical military OVER?-compensation ('cause nobody wants to be blamed later for *UNDER* compensating if something goes horribly wrong), the Order was for each Watch to shoot off his (M16?) all night long at anything that moved - leaves floating by, anything - because it might be a "Swimmer in the Water". Or perhaps it was all intended to be a fireworks show for the Commodore. Fine.
But before night, every time we were at our destination of the Army base for the 3 or 4 days there, we were allowed to go to the Enlisted Men's Club ("bar" ), meaning, go get drunk and be back by 7 P.M. Since we were anchored out, we rode a Liberty Boat (Lifeboat repurposed for its current mission) to get there and back. So that would happen and everybody was always back on board as scheduled. We climbed up the Jacob's Ladder, and at the top as we stepped onto the deck, we had to salute towards the back (fantail) where the flag was (out of sight), and then salute the Officer of the Deck and say, "Request permission to come onboard, Sir!" And the OOD would say, "Permission granted," and we would proceed to our quarters, at times like Liberty in whatever stumbling condition we were in.
So the final Run by the Liberty Boat was done and everybody was accounted for - except for one, guess who, Ensign JO. Now to recap, this fellow had an image of being IMPECCABLE in his observable behavior, uniform, everything, with the added little icing of being a good human being. Of course, we Enlisteds knew nothing beyond external appearances, what personal dynamics, if any, went on, being the hidden lives of our overlords. About him, there had never been a whisper of any flaw. Officers go on Liberty, too, AND do things like get drunk or even perhaps visit sex workers - DO they, don't they?!
So the Liberty Boat made another Run or two or three to find him and finally, success. So I was the Messenger assigned to the OOD, standing behind and to the side of the OOD, seeing everybody as they climbed up from the Jacob's Ladder, first the head, then the arms pulling the body up, the salutes, and the stumblings off.
So there had been a tizzy about Ensign JO being missing, and finally here he was. He came up the Ladder (rope, by the way), no Cover (hatless), disheveled, khaki uniform askew. DRUNK or something AS A SKUNK, in that happy kind of drunk mood, where everything is FUN. And he stood himself up at Attention, and did a BIG salute, exaggeratedly so as for a theatrical stage, to his peer Officer (the sun had set so there was no flag to salute), as he said with booming emphasis, "REQUEST PERMISSION TO COME ON BOARD, *SIR*!1" The OOD gave him the most disgusted, infuriated, deadly look and snarled at him, "GET in there!1" So Ensign JO stumbled his way down the deck in the direction of Officers' Quarters.
The people on Watch had already been posted for the night, one each at the Bow (front), Fantail (back), and Starboard (right) and Port (left) sides, and the orders for the night were to "make noise," fire off the pieces sporadically and randomly. But suddenly, running up the deck towards the OOD area, came Ensign JO clad only in his skivvies, running past all, up the deck to the Bow, yelling, "SWIMMER IN THE WATER!1 SWIMMER IN THE WATER!1 DON'T SHOOT, DON'T SHOOT!1" And when he got to the Bow, he *JUMPED* off, making a really big splash, later in more ways than just the literal.
This LST was the length of a football field, a ship on the smaller side of things, with a crew of 250, not like the aircraft carrier in the news that has a crew of five thousand. So then, Sir Ensign JO *swam* from the Bow back to the Jacob's Ladder and made his second boarding of the night, dripping wet, barefoot, and with a couple of our toughest sailors as an honor escort. Somehow there has to be a kind of grudging, astounded admiration, at the minimum for the physical prowess involved - drunk, in the dark, among who knows what live critters or inanimate hazards, perhaps having fought off a Swimmer in the Water or two, if so, probably scaring the bejeezus out of the alleged Swimmers in the Water. Actually, when you think about it, he was the only crew who possibly engaged in hand to hand combat. I mean, our ship was hit by rockets on three separate days during my year, and we crew of course fired our big cannon and smaller 30? 40? caliber type of Gatling Gun things, but it was at a far distance to the treeline at the horizon, where the puffs of smoke from the rocket launchers were. So Ensign JO faced something close up.
So the scuttlebutt the next day was that, whatever happened in Officers' Quarters the night before, the next morning the Commodore had the four Enlisteds who had been on duty hauled up to stand at Attention in a row in front of Him, and after recapping the events of Ensign JO's episode, screamed at them: "You had ORDERS to shoot anything that moved in the water!1 --- YOU. SHOULD. HAVE. *SHOT* THAT MAN!1"
That part I didn't witness. But, the soon to be formerly-Ensign, JO was confined to Officers' Quarters for his last couple of days on board, only allowed to cross the passageway between his tiny 2-Officer stateroom and the Ship's Office located in the officers' area. And I had a proto-Forrest GUMP moment, since at that time my day job was to deliver the mail to different areas and the office was one of them. Normally, the four Enlisteds who worked there were there, but this day when I opened the door, there was only one person there: JO. His back was turned to the door. And there was an Akai reel tape recorder playing some instrumental Blues. Really blue Blues. Wailing, heart breaking Blues. In the hot, steamy air. (Can it be any more Blues here?) And his shoulders were hunched and he didn't turn to see. And I just looked briefly for a fossilized moment and left the mail on the desk and closed the door quietly. A mere Enlisted me could never have been so presumptuous as to address a human word to an officer.
**********So, within a day or two ex-Ensign JO was disappeared off the ship, never to be seen or heard from again. Yes, the career was over. Nobody could say a negative word about him before, and NO word was said about him after. What little I knew of him, he was a good man. Or was he? Did he seek out Enlisteds because he had problems among his peers? Why did he specifically pick the hyper-dramatic scenario of the Commodore's visit for this? Was he just on booze or were there drugs? I don't know.
As for how this relates to the Captain in the news: Things in play are the same. Whoever made the decision had some asskissing to do, also had to put the military retribution where the military MOUTH goes. And often, military judgment is brutally authoritarian and over-reaching. And military cogs all up and down the line are individuals, some willing to have one of their own shot.
Who knew?!1 (I just learned.) "Trumpets" (actually: Bugles) are a rank/symbol for firefighters
There was a pop-up advert for law enforcement badges and it was a charming thing of what I thought were "trumpets" (think: angels' long horns). I looked at the website and there were badges with different numbers of "trumpets" on them labelled for firefighters, called the company to ask why "trumpets" were associated with firefighters. The dude just said they are "Ranks" for firefighters. Once the speakerphone's garbled "Ranks" got clarified, I said fine but why TRUMPETS with firefighters. He said that all he knew was the ranks part, not the WHY.
So, of course, that's what the internet and The Google are for, so it turns out these are *BUGLES* (not trumpets), specifically "speaker bugles" like megaphones that in the olden days were used for yelling orders and directions in the chaos of the fire scene. Like how a ship's bell used to be for ringing the time. And that now, replica brass bugles are presented at retirement ceremonies and such. I'm sure there are firefighters or family amongst us here who knew that. Wow. A beautiful brass item of this can be ordered - I'm thinking, I'm *THINKING*!1
**********QUOTE*******
http://www.fireserviceinfo.com/ranks.html
In the early days, of North American fire departments, orders were given to the troops, by officers, through the use of a large brass device that resembles a megaphone. These were very ornate brass horns. They were commonly called “bugles” or speaking trumpets.
The person with the bugle hanging from his neck or shoulder was easily identified as the person in charge. Officers became identified with these objects so a small pin in the shape of a bugle became a type of rank insignia for officers. The more “bugles on his collar” the higher the rank. An expression still used today.
Note: It is probably OK that we traditionally refer to fire department rank insignia as a bugle, even though they are not really musical instruments. Some people object to the term "bugle" because it is not a brass musical instrument, and never was. Let's face it, this is the way people name things. We latch onto something the item resembles or was derived from historically. This best example might be the fire "plug". It is not a plug. It is a hydrant. What many fire departments call a PTO has long been replaced by a transfer case. A fire engine and its crew is traditionally a "company" not a unit! Jackrabbits are not rabbits at all, they are hares. The Belgian Hare, a popular pet, is a rabbit. (Who stores gloves in a "glove compartment"?) There are hundreds (perhaps thousands) of other examples of common inaccurate names being derived from historical, fictional or erroneous perceptions. Yet we don't seem to worry about them. It is the nature of a living language. (BTW, "Bugles" are also a tasty corn chip and a glass bead sewn into clothing.)
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My profile of Tweety is about 15-20 years old, see paragraph 2 His Misogyny (updated for WARREN)
Etymology of "Tweety". During Campaign 2000 the media noise machine was swooning over the nicknames Shrub was giving some of them. Media Whores Online ran a contest to nickname Chris MATTHEWS. In the first three or so weeks, there was no clear, catchy front runner, with "The Screamer" sort of leading. Then one of MATTHEWS's own Hardball staff leaked to MWO that they themselves called him "Tweety" because of the Clairol shade of hair coloring he favored. This was immediately declared the winner. But in some quarters, it wasn't entirely satisfactory. For one thing, by the time the name was declared, the shade had changed to platinum, leading to a suggestion he be called "Carole LOMBARD".
Plus, "Tweety" sounded too affectionate.
His Misogyny. Then M-TV held its 20th or 25th or whatever anniversary, and all the cable echo chambers were doing segments of Britney shedding her duds down to almost nothing. Not to be left behind, Tweety followed suit, with a guest "culture" commentator from Time Mag, the young humor columnist, Joel STEIN. The staff kept re-running the Britney clip, and Tweety was clearly DROOLING disgustingly. STEIN said, "You're beginning to creep me out." Tweety responded, "Yeah, well, wait till YOU're 50." This led to the suggestion that "Tweety" be modified to "Tweezer" to retain the hair reference while canceling out the affection factor and also adding the (dirty old) "geezer" angle.
Back when, misogyny was a wink-wink/smirk-smirk thing among the old style flunkies like him, there were many examples of his, with HRC being his prime target for years until she was becoming a real contender, when he yearned to host her, but the bridges had been burned.
But here's a vignette from back in the day, regarding his wife Kathleen. He deigned to host her or let her co-host a segment or so, this time with him and another recycled miscreant Mike BARNICLE. She was standing like at the front of a class and they two were sitting like the smirking, spit-balling, Catholic schoolboy-jerks that they really are. She trudged through her presentation, taking her subject seriously while the two of them smirked, giggled, and mocked all the way. But regarding Kathleen, he exemplifies one signature characteristic of misogynists: Despite the obviously hostile behaviors, they claim to adore, honor, put-on-a-pedestal women. And Tweety frequently does that over-compensating, protests-too-much thing by referring to her as, "MY QUEEN."
*************So flash forward decades to the TWITLER atrocious era, specifically calling Senator WARREN “Pocahontas.” Tweety hosted her soon after a TWITLER episode of it, besides a manic outburst of his sputtering interrupting, almost giggling every time he said that name, catching himself each time then protesting that it was a horrible thing, like Beavis/Butthead giggling at a dirty word. So WARREN kept to the high road and that TWITLER was not going to silence her. So then he struck, like when he lashed out at DONAHUE. He was in bursting giggle mode and said, "So, for you 'Pocahontas' will be like a clarion call for you to come charging out!1" and he busted his gut. WARREN looked sucker punched.
Darrell HAMMOND "Doing" Tweety on SNL. Tweety's ego was massively stroked after the debut of HAMMOND's impersonation of him, either in 2001 or 2002. He said, "I am now an ICON: I have been 'done' on Saturday Night Live'." The funniest line in the debut was HAMMOND as Tweety, cracking himself up with, "For the ... FIFTY ... people who watch this show...” (Hardball, not SNL). In the first few times HAMMOND featured him, the target was Tweety himself -- manically interrupting, spitting, and drooling. However, the characterization evolved, not true to the original, where Tweety became the "rational" character surrounded by oddball, extremist "guests", with HAMMOND-Tweety shaking his head in disbelief at their partisan spin.
"Turning" from Being a Democrat. He (like G.E.RUSSERT and Pat CADDELL) still trades on having been a Democrat in the CARTER/O'NEILL era. In the hothouse of big time political flunkydom, STATUS and POWER come from the SUCCESS of your boss. RAYGUN kicked Tweety's bosses' rears, and Tweety gravitated to admiring that "success". When he started up his media career he was mentored by G.E. RUSSERT, who had himself already started "turning" by "reaching out" to LIMBOsevic and expending his formerly-Lib-bleeding-heart on those poor wingnuts who had been maligned and marginalized by the Liberal Elite, lo those many years. Tweety started doing video valentines to RAYGUN, promenading arm in arm with Nancy. He might have tapped into the frenzy of the FAKE impeachment, but "hatred of the CLINTONs" isn't what made him turn. The last time he was identifiably a Democrat was sometime around 1988 when Hardball (the book) was published. Throughout the year of Campaign 2000 he savaged the Dem candidate daily and went on to years of bromance over Shrub, renouncing any Democratic heritage. He said his parents were “cloth coat" (Rethugs), and that basically what first drew him to the Dem side was Irish-Catholic pride over JFK. Not ideology, not idealism. He said the reason he joined the Peace Corps was specifically to avoid going to Vietnam.
How Tweety "Executed" DONAHUE on MSNBC. Tweety was on his book tour for another one of his "books" (large type, wide spaces between lines, blank half-pages). It was in the jingoistic hysteria in the run-up to the illegal Iraq attack. The book was about supposed "Americanism" -- an American Civ 101 ripoff about books and movies and cultural stuff that are essentially American (think, "The Great Gatsby" ). So Phil welcomed him as a colleague and peer on Phil's MSNBC show for the full hour to plug the book. From the moment he appeared, there was a strange, deadly snake look in Tweety's snake eyes. Phil was walking around the audience, apparently not sensing anything, while Tweety was motionless, following him only with his eyes. Phil brought up something or other questioning blind, kneejerk jingoism, and Tweety STRUCK! He started out with venom dripping, "You see, THIS is EXACTLY what's wrong with YOU Liberals: You are NEGATIVE about this country, you find NOTHING good about it," and on and on. It took awhile before Phil figured out what was happening. Later, Phil, devastated and spent, was sitting at the table with Tweety and, weaker and weaker, did some of his trademark shoulder shrugging and arm waving. Tweety delivered the coup de grace, "What's THIS (mimicking the movements)??!! What's with the --APE-- movements???!" Days or a week or two later, Phil's cancellation was announced and took effect.
How Tweety "Triggered" a Gun Incident (re: Kathleen WILLEY). At the height of the FAKE impeachment, Ms WILLEY claimed that a mystery jogger had threatened her or her cat or somebody, with the insinuation that there was a CLINTON connection. Several months later, there was gossip that the jogger had been identified. Tweety hosted her and it appeared they had discussed the identity off camera. He tried mightily to get her to say the name on the air, which she wouldn't do. Finally, he himself blurted it out, "Was it (Name/Surname)?" She wouldn’t confirm it. Within days there was a bizarre incident, with the mentally disabled brother of Pat and Bay BUCHANAN going with a gun to the house of the supposed jogger named by Tweety, where there were only some foreign exchange students present. Later it was determined that the person Tweety named on the air had NOTHING to do with the supposed jogger incident.
"Heroes" Tweety and Tom DeLAY. In the aftermath of the 07-24-98 shooting of two Capitol police officers when the slain officers were duly eulogized and called heroes, Tweety latched on to this, the way we have seen him attempt to glorify himself in other instances: Like saying he was assigned to Africa in the Peace Corps and "WALKED THE SAME GROUND" THAT CHURCHILL had passed through. Or when he said, "I am an ICON! I have been 'done' by SNL!". So now that the Capitol policemen were being called heroes, Tweety came forward to say that HE had been a Capitol policemen, TOO, JUST LIKE THEM, when he was starting out. It turns out that he had worked a (temporary?) job for three months as that. In all the years before the officers were shot and eulogized, he probably NEVER referred to that job, most likely thinking of it as a rent-a-cop turn, until he could see in retrospect the glory that he had been DESTINED to from the beginning. But he is not the only glory hog. When that incident was happening, the news of the moment reported that Tom DELAY had hopped a plane out of town and immediately turned around in Houston when the incident was over. This show of courage is why he has been dubbed, "Tom-DePLANE!-DePLANE!-DELAY". But searches of countless news reports of that time show no mention of the hopping-the-plane. Only this is left: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm /... "...House members, many rushing out of town, did not have to remain behind. DeLay slipped out the main door of the Capitol less than 15 minutes after the shooting. He looked stricken. Asked if he'd seen anything, he said, "Did I ever. I don't want to talk about it." Aides rushed him into his waiting car. ...."
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Excellent topic & my experience is unfortunately vast. Over 50 years
Despite my being a Dem political junkie with 2 generations of it, the closest acquaintances have almost all been apolitical, perhaps because I draw them from non-political functions (school, military, work) rather than political rallies.
They are all from the most discriminated-against groups - ethnic minorities, Gays, subsistence Labor, women - AND they don't vote, don't do the news, yet somehow wingnut talking points have filtered down to them. It's the voting-against-own-interest syndrome, or rather NOT voting.
Mostly it's about: Living day to day.
The Romans knew: Leave the State matters to the Big Boys/players, don't worry your pretty little heads about things that are above you, just eat your bread and bet on the Super Bowl.
Blast from the past: KERIK's slightly less criminal exploits, featuring Judith REGAN
(Am searching the archives for my own post. ON EDIT: O.K., found it, May 29, 2013: https://upload.democraticunderground.com/10022916431 )
Where to start -- well, gotta be with the latest thing, the last bit from Cindy ADAMS's social note (below), to the effect that Bernie taught a LIFE CLASS while in prison and he'll be happy if his wisdom helps keep ONE dude from returning to prison. Did he give himself extra credit for auditing himself so that HE! won't be one of the returnees?!
But for youngsters, a Brief History: Bernie was Rudy GHOULIANI's police comish on THE 9-11, and shot to supposed "leadership" and Security fame in that VOID of same when pResident Shrub was lost for three days, and when Shrub-CHEENEE had to create SOMEthing to appear responsive, besides Color Codes, they needed a Security tsar, and GHOULIANI sponsored this Bernie dude, who then had to be withdrawn because he was on the road to PRISON!
Nay, but the most fruitful chapter involved one Judith REGAN, who was a protégé herself, her mentor somebody bigger than GHOULIANI, Rupert MURDOCH of NewsCorp/Faux Propaganda Network, who gave her her own publishing imprint, "REGAN Books" that was responsible for LIMBOsevic's first book and a slew of other wingnut crap. She was known for devil-wears-prada horrifics of temperament, one time challenging her staff to be creative by screaming at them, "Why do women like Bill CLINTON?! Because they WANT TO FUCK HIM, THAT'S why!" Finally, she crashed and burned around the time of a title, "If I Did It" ascribed to O.J. SIMPSON.
But while she was in full blossom with MURDOCH, she even scored a half hour interview show on Faux on Saturday nights, where she would interview other wingnuts and excoriate Dems/Libs. Scathingly. But one of her authors was this selfsame Bernie, who had (supposedly, since you never know who writes O'LOOFAH's books either) penned his biography. The hook was that this totally macho man, TOUGH, the most testosterone filled life form EVER! told in this book the SENSITIVE, heart wrenching story of having been abandoned by his disturbed mother, who puzzled the boy by not showing up to claim him at a hearing, and he found out years later she had been confined or something .
Fine. But the really "good t.v." was what, to an insightful eye like that of moi, was going on in this interview. Well, it was hard to see the screen sometimes, due to there being some kind of steam or film clouding up the camera lens. La Judy and Bernardo had an eyelock, more hers than his, that was more secure than GHOULIANI's office. As she teetered in her chair, body all taut and rigid, her eyes pierced him, wingnut heart breaking over his sad sad story. But then they shifted, inevitably, to 9-11, and she asked him, intensely, "Where were you when you first heard?!" As lawyers say, never ask a question you don't already know the answer to. So he shyly let his head duck down a bit then looked up at her with puppy dog eyes and said gruffly, toughly, but sensitively, "Stepping out of the shower. (Pause, pause.) After working out."
Whoa! the smoke alarms went off louder than the Emergency Broadcast System! Like Frida KAHLO's self-portrait with Diego RIVERA's face imprinted on her forehead, Bernie's presumably nekkid image was just PALPABLE on Judy Judy Judy's area where Frida had her unibrow.
At that time, none of us knew anything beyond the public information about these people, but I SENSED something was UP with these two. Much later, sure enough, it appears that the publisher-author relationship had another depth and plumb to it, yes, HOT WINGNUT SEX, because why should workplace sex be for Bill and not bipartisan?! But not only that, their love nest for their Hot Wingnut Sex sessions was no place other than an NYC apartment paid for by the City as a rest-up place for First Responders or clean up crews of the WTC site. That's all right, those people were probably too busy to need a rest-up apartment anyway, and no sense letting things go to waste.
Meanwhile, in all these years since 9-11, GHOULIANI has been collecting filthy lucre all over the globe, Mexico City anywhere, for giving whatever his expertise is on Security against terrorism, along the lines of how to walk down the street with dust and powder on you and then how to insert and enunciate "nine eleven" into any conceivable topic with inconceivable frequency.
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By CINDY ADAMS
Yesterday 9 a.m., after three years and change in jail, Bernie Kerik, NYC’s former police commish, USA’s former Homeland Security Chief nominee, Cumberland, Md.’s now ex-inmate No. 84888-054, was driven home-sweet-home. 9:15 he phoned me from his friend’s car. He’d eaten nothing. “Not even stopping for coffee,” he told me. “I’m not wasting one minute. I can’t wait to get back and hold my kids. ....
Not remanded to a halfway house, he’ll wear an ankle bracelet until his official October release time. Social occasions like dinner in Manhattan — no. Kerik is confined locally to family duties. Fetch his kids at school, attend church, work-related activities. He’ll check in steadily with a New Jersey penal authority who must be told what, where, when and who. ....
Slimmed down measurements required new clothes sent for his release. Size 33 jeans, undershirt, T-shirt, pullover sweater, socks, belt, shoes.
As he told me: “I’m already planning my next book and have been writing, longhand, daily. Some inner thoughts were occasionally sent home and retyped on the outside . . . years when I missed my daughters birthdays and our November wedding anniversary killed me. Being away from the family was like ripping my heart out of my chest.
“It’s strange. I’ve been in gun battles, war, threatened by Cali cartel, lived through 9/11 devastation, but nothing as emotionally upsetting as living separated from them.
“In prison, I’ve taught a class on life’s lessons — self-esteem, raising kids, skills, bullies, peer pressure, rejection, dealing with adversities. If it just helps one of these men not return to prison, I’ll be happy.”
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This is one of DUer underpants: ) *************QUOTE***********
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/058421.php
Then there's Bernie Kerik. I had a kind of trip down memory lane last night reading over my posts on the K-man from December 2004 -- one of a few events in the late winter of 2004 that helps salve the pain of the election result. Anyway, one thing I realized or rather remembered was that there were so many scandals, hijinks and misdeeds Kerik had in his closet that peoples' minds quickly reached a saturation point. There was just too much to remember. For instance, you know of course that Kerik took the apartment donated by a wealthy real estate developer as a place for 9/11 relief workers to rest and used it as his own personal love shack to boff celeb book editor Judith Regan. That of course was before the other city employee he was doing there left a love note that Regan found. But did you know that after Regan bailed on him she had to get protection because Kerik was apparently stalking her and her kids? Great guy.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0314-12.htm
The News reported that Kerik used a secret apartment overlooking Ground Zero to carry on extramarital affairs with Regan and a female correction officer in the weeks after the terrorist attacks.
http://www.dailysentinel.com/hp/content/shared-gen/ap/N...
But the nomination was confronted with news reports about stock-option windfalls, his connections with people suspected of doing business with the mob and overlapping extramarital affairs with two women: Judith Regan, the publisher of his memoir, and a city correction officer. The liaisons reportedly occurred in an apartment near ground zero that had been set aside for rescue workers.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/11/12/2007-11-12_r...
Yesterday, beneath the place at the jail where Kerik's name used to go, the correction officer said, "Where you going next, that love nest down there at Ground Zero where used to shack up with Judith Regan?"
She was talking about one of the apartments for emergency workers where Kerik used to go with Regan, his publisher at HarperCollins, for somewhat more than work on punctuation and grammar. All the while Giuliani was treating Kerik like some fellow legend of the city.
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