I believe an unlikely mix of alleged drug trafficking related politicos and alleged white nationalist related politicos united to elect the infamous “Bloc of Four” in the abysmal voter turnout election of 2005. During their four year term the drug business was good again and white nationalists used Coatesville as an example on white supremacist websites like “Stormfront”. Strong community organization and support from law enforcement, in particular Chester County District Attorney Joseph W. Carroll has begun to turn our community around. The Chester County drug trafficking that I believe centers on Coatesville continues and I believe we still have public officials in place that profit from the drug sales. But the people here are amazing and continue to work against the odds to make Coatesville a good place to live.
Former Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Colonel McKetta writes that Philadelphia District Attorney Arlen Specter had a tough on crime agenda but completely ignored Angelo Bruno's crime family.
Bruno led what was by far the largest criminal organization in the Delaware Valley. He lived just down the street from Specter’s office.
Bruno controlled local government through bribery and extortion and challenged state and federal governments. He controlled local police departments.
Bruno’s crime family primary business was gambling and loansharking. But his organization controlled commerce in food distribution, building construction, trash hauling, nearly every business of significance in south east Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey.
A great deal of wholesale and retail commerce was under Bruno’s control. For instance he controlled every supermarket and nearly every small food market in south east PA and southern NJ.
We ate hamburger meat from diseased cows and nothing but Maggio Ricotta. It was impossible to buy anything but Maggio Ricotta in Bruno’s area. Peter J. Maggio was Bruno’s brother in law.
Richard Legree was Chairman of Chester County Republican Committee Area 14, which included the City of Coatesville. The going price for buying a vote was allegedly Twenty dollars and a ride to the polling place.
Richard is gone now and hopefully most of the vote buying in the local area around Coatesville is also gone.
If you don’t look at the dates in FIVE DOLLARS and a PORK CHOP SANDWICH, Vote buying and the corruption of Democracy by Mary Frances Berry, you might think the book is about elections of the 1920s or 1930s.
“What Creg Malveaux told me about electoral fraud in Louisiana was disturbing. He explained how campaign operatives paid the poor small amounts of money for their votes while making policy contrary to their needs. He talked about family fiefdoms that perpetuated their power illegally. He described how election officials cavalierly accepted payments to let buyers view the ballots to make sure the bought stayed bought. He related how poor voters didn’t mind saying they got paid small amounts of money and treats for their votes, perhaps a pork chop sandwich and a cold drink.”
Democrats pay "Walking around money". Republicans pay the same people more to handout their material.
Here in Coatesville Democratic Candidates have in the past given “walking around money” for people, mostly black people, to hand out Democratic flyers on election day. That’s fine and perfectly legal in Pennsylvania.
The problem is the Republican candidate allegedly goes to the same people handing out the Democratic candidate’s material and says he’ll offer more to hand out his material. So the Democratic candidate who thought she had people on the street on election day, really didn’t.
Black people have many years of promises from Democrats that don’t work out. Even Barack Obama’s promises didn’t work out for black people.
And there's Hillary Clinton:
Hillary Clinton takes money from private prisons
"In another report filed Sunday night, the campaign disclosed that Richard Sullivan of Capitol Counsel—until recently, a Raleigh, N.C.-based federally registered lobbyist for the for-profit prison operator GEO Group—bundled $69,363 in donations for Clinton in the fourth quarter, bringing his total for the year to a whopping $274,891.
That makes Sullivan the second-most prolific lobbyist-bundler for the Clinton campaign, beaten out only by D.C. lobbyist Heather Podesta, who's tallied up $348,581 so far.
Sullivan's firm, Capitol Counsel, has been registered for years to represent GEO Group subsidiary BI Inc.—which focuses on electronic monitoring of inmates. While the firm continues to represent BI, Sullivan no longer intends to do so, according to a disclosure form filed with Congress on Nov. 9."
The figures and the policy rejecting donations from prison lobbyists includes only direct donations to Clinton's campaign, not supportive super PACs or state and federal Democratic committees.
$50 or $100 for standing and handing out stuff is tangible help.
$20 to vote as they are told helps to pay some bills.
The black people working as “double agents” for the Republican candidate were acting against their interests helping him get elected. Why they do it isn't complicated. Democrats make promises but once in office the promises are usually forgotten. Black people might know Republicans are racists but they think their vote won’t change things.
Black churches in the Coatesville area look for candidates at summer cookouts. Some Republican candidates allegedly hand the minister something for their support on election day. The minister and the congregation might know the candidate will vote against black people’s and poor people’s interests but they know from experience the promises of Democrats are empty. And the “help” from Republicans is real and immediate.
Voting for someone who will break their promises is foolish. Voting for someone who pays them to vote is smart. When enough people think like this, it’s easy to ensure a candidates victory in small local elections. In Pennsylvania and most of the U.S. it’s how oppressive and corrupt governments stay in power for decades.
Dr. Berry wrote an important commentary on our “Democracy”:
BY THEY WAY:
I got my copy from the Coatesville Public Library:
Donald Trump dealt with the New York Mafia as a developer.
And he dealt with mob figures in Atlantic City where he had casinos.
I think there are prosecutors that would be on a mission to take down “President Trump”.
New York is the place likely to pursue a criminal investigation that could lead to impeachment and removal from office.
I took me 3 minutes to find something. No cigar, but something:
"Heady days for crime cartels
As his ambitions expanded in the 1970s and 1980s, Trump had to contend with New York’s Cosa Nostra in order to complete his projects. By the 1980s, crime families had a hand in all aspects of the contracting industry, including labor unions, government inspections, building supplies and trash carting.
“Organized crime does not so much attack and subvert legitimate industry as exploit opportunities to work symbiotically with ‘legitimate’ industry so that ‘everybody makes money,’ ” the organized crime task force’s report found. “Organized crime and other labor racketeers have been entrenched in the building trades for decades.”
In New York City, the mafia families ran what authorities called the “concrete club,” a cartel of contractors that rigged bids and squelched competition from outsiders. They controlled the Cement and Concrete Workers union and used members to enforce their rules.
Nearly every major project in Manhattan during that period was built with mob involvement, according to court records and the organized crime task force’s report. That includes Trump Tower, the glittering 58-story skyscraper on Fifth Avenue, which was made of reinforced concrete.
“Using concrete, however, put Donald at the mercy of a legion of concrete racketeers,” the investigative journalist Wayne Barrett wrote in “Trump: The Deals and the Downfall.”
For three years, the project’s fate rested in part with Teamsters Local 282, the members of which delivered the concrete. Leading the union was John Cody, who “was universally acknowledged to be the most significant labor racketeer preying on the construction industry in New York,” according to documents cited by the House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice in 1989. Using his power to disrupt or shut down major projects, Cody extracted millions in “labor peace payoffs” from contractors, the documents said.
“Donald liked to deal with me through Roy Cohn,” Cody said, according to Barrett.
Trump was subpoenaed by federal investigators in 1980 and asked to describe his relationship with Cody, who had allegedly promised to keep the project on track in exchange for an apartment in Trump Tower. Trump “emphatically denied” making such a trade, Barrett wrote.
Cody was later convicted on racketeering and tax-evasion charges.
The mob also played a role in the construction of Trump Plaza, the luxury apartment building on Manhattan’s East Side. The $7.8 million deal for concrete was reserved for S & A Concrete and its owners, court records show. The crime families did not advertise their role in S & A and the other contractors. But it was well known in the industry.
“They had to know about it,” according to Jacobs, the lawyer who served on the organized crime task force. “Everybody knew about it.”
While these building projects were underway in the early 1980s, the FBI and New York authorities carried out an unprecedented investigation of the five New York crime families. Investigators relied on informants, court-authorized wiretaps and eavesdropping gear. Over five years, they gathered hundreds of hours of conversations proving the mob’s reach into the construction industry.
On Feb. 26, 1985, Salerno and 14 others were indicted on an array of criminal activity, including conspiracy, extortion and “infiltration of ostensibly legitimate businesses involved in selling ready-mix concrete in New York City,” the federal indictment said. Among the projects cited was Trump Plaza. Salerno and all but one of the others received terms of 100 years in prison.
Trump also dealt with mob figures in Atlantic City, where he was pressing to go into the casino business, according to court records, gaming commission reports and news accounts. One of these figures, Kenny Shapiro, was a former scrap metal dealer in Philadelphia who became a real estate developer on the Jersey Shore. Shapiro also was an associate of the Scarfo crime organization, serving as a financier of mob activities in South Jersey and Philadelphia, according to a report by New Jersey authorities.
Shapiro worked closely with Daniel Sullivan, a Teamster who also was an FBI informant, documents show. Trump’s brother once described him as a “labor consultant” on Trump projects in New York.
Shapiro and Sullivan leased land to Trump for the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino. They also agreed to help bankroll the campaign of Michael Matthews, a mayoral candidate the mob considered to be friendly to its interests. Matthews was elected, but he later went to prison on extortion charges related to an FBI sting operation and a $10,000 bribe.
After questions surfaced about the mob’s possible involvement in Trump’s proposal, the state gaming commission delayed approval of Trump’s casino license and eventually told him to buy the land outright to avoid trouble. In commission hearings, Trump defended Shapiro and Sullivan, according to “TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald.”
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with these people,” he said. “Most of them have been in Atlantic City for many, many years and I think they are well thought of.”
Records show that Trump was aware of mob involvement in Atlantic City. In confidential conversations with FBI agents who contacted him about his casino deal, Trump said “he had read in the press media and had heard from various acquaintances that Organized Crime elements were known to operate in Atlantic City,” according to a copy of a an FBI memo obtained by the Smoking Gun.
Trump told the FBI that “he wanted to build a casino in Atlantic City but he did not want to tarnish his family name.”
Whenever the subject is Clinton we get a warped picture of how the election is going.
Usually the word Sanders is not seen in articles and TV reports about Clinton. That's mostly because reporters and commentators want to keep their jobs.
The New York Times finally admits that Trump has more support from union members and former union members than Clinton.
The Clintons might have the support of unions. But they don’t have the support of union members. So if it’s Clinton vs. Trump in November don’t expect union members to help Clinton.
“For the Democratic nominee, the labor movement is the most effective tool after the candidate’s own campaign,” said Steve Rosenthal, a former political director of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., the nation’s main union federation. He noted that even in Michigan and Ohio, where union membership is down, labor households still represent nearly a quarter of all voters…
Labor’s task has also been complicated by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, whose passionate attacks on income inequality, wage stagnation and trade deals have won over many union members. Union leaders, on the other hand, lean heavily toward Hillary Clinton, partly because they see her as a safer bet to win in November.
As a result, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. has refrained from endorsing either candidate, although about two dozen national unions, with more than 10 million members, have backed Mrs. Clinton, while just three support Mr. Sanders.
With Mrs. Clinton having a clearer road to the nomination after Super Tuesday, many Democrats are wondering whether unions can rally Sanders supporters to Mrs. Clinton in November. “We’re going to make it crystal clear to union members, whether Democrats, Republicans, independents or first-time voters, that Hillary Clinton should be their choice,” said Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union.
But Larry Cohen, a former president of the Communications Workers of America union and now a senior Sanders adviser, said it might not be so easy.
“Hillary will have an issue about enthusiasm, given what’s turned up in this campaign,” he said, predicting that union members would overwhelmingly back the Democratic nominee. Still, he added: “If Bernie is the candidate, then very few union members will back Trump. If Hillary is the candidate, there’ll be more.”
Some labor leaders say the real danger to Mrs. Clinton, at least among working-class voters, is Mr. Trump.
“Definitely some like Trump,” said Thomas Hanify, president of the Professional Firefighters Union of Indiana. “They like his upbeat message that we’re going to make it good again.”
VICE - Danny Gold, And what we hear from a lot of people is anger.
Eddy Moore, 'Well that's a problem. Washington is not listening. And when I hear a candidate gets up here like Donald Trump.
I'm not a Trump fan. But he touched a nerve on me when he said he's gonna revisit some of these trade agreements and send them back to congress and do away with em. And bring back our middle class jobs. And let our plants come back here and build new plants here.
Yes, I’m listening to him and I’m really, I'm really turned towards him a lot because he understands what’s going on.’ “
Sanders -- who enjoys the most positive favorable rating of any presidential candidate in the field, according to the poll -- tops all three Republicans by wide margins: 57% to 40% against Cruz, 55% to 43% against Trump, and 53% to 45% against Rubio. Sanders fares better than Clinton in each match-up among men, younger voters and independents. MORE AT:
If Clinton and Trump are on the ballot in November, then either a narrow majority steps on the brakes and the country goes to the seasoned Washington professional, or a narrow majority decides it’s now or never and votes to pin its hopes on a charismatic, possibly mad, New York rebel. It may be terrifying. It will certainly be interesting.
Our centuries old political party system is breaking down. We could almost have a European style democracy.
If either Trump or Sanders loses the fight for the nomination, or if both go down to defeat, the question in November will be: Do their supporters fall in line? Do a substantial number stay home? Or will they vote for the opposition?
But what few people speak or write about, at least in the main stream media, is armed insurrection.
Greece has Neo-Nazi Golden Dawn and Communists fighting in the streets. We come close to that now. There are U.S. citizens actively embracing armed insurrection and killing. All of them are right wing extremist insurrectionists. We don't have armed left wing insurrectionists, not yet.
Assault weapons are hard to come by in Greece. And we have this:
The most extreme tea party people are now engaged in gun battles, mostly with police.
Our violent insurrectionist right isn't fascist as in Europe, and now Russia.
It’s a very strange form of anti-government violence. It’s somewhat like an individual warlord citizen insurrectionist right. Using a W. Cleon Skouson anti-government version of the Constitution, lone wolf survivalist insurrectionists that believe the federal government has very limited constitutional power and there is no reason to obey federal law.
The article below suggests that our politics might mimic European politics.
Another extreme failure of the “To big to fail banks.” is most likely coming. The world wide crash that follows could make armed insurrection a normal thing here.
We had armed insurrection in the United States in 1934:
The textile workers strike was a fast moving guerrilla war between working people, factory owners private armies and state militias, police and U.S. Army units across most of the Eastern United States.
A few machine guns were used in that strike. But guns were strictly regulated in the twenty and thirties. Most common autoloading firearms used today would be illegal in most states in 1934.
Modern day firepower, ammunition capacity and numbers of weapons per person in the United States now greatly exceed what was available to the people on all sides in the war on working people of 1934.
U.S. citizens are the most well armed people on earth. If our politics becomes violent as in Greece they will be political firefights with assault rifles.
“The emergence of strong populist insurgencies in both parties has raised the hope that the two constituencies could be joined to create a genuine left-right populist alliance.
There are compelling arguments for and against this proposition. First, the case for a cross-party populist movement.”
Access to Clinton donors creates an enormous amount of power. They can crush a candidate. They can crush a non-profit organization. They can crush a business looking for government support. But that's only if Hillary Clinton becomes president.
Why Black Americans Should NOT Give Hillary Clinton A Pass (James Rucker Interview w/ Cenk Uyghur)
"The cost of being on the wrong side of the Clintons are high. The benefits of being on their side is also very high....
Clintons and these folks don’t forget.. In the donors community, if you undermine a candidate of their choice, it’s a problem for you as an organization. It’s a calculation organizations have to make." - James Rucker
