Randy ‘Duke’ Cunningham might need a new moniker.
Perhaps, Randy ‘Big Pussy‘ Cunningham, or Duke ‘Bonpensiero’.
Cunningham pleaded guilty Nov. 28 to taking $2.4 million in bribes — including a yacht, a Rolls Royce and a 19th Century Louis-Philippe commode — from a defense contractor,
wore a wire at some point during the short interval between the moment he began cooperating with the feds and the announcement of his guilty plea on Nov. 28.
The identity of those with whom the San Diego congressman met while wearing the wire remains unclear, and is the source of furious — and nervous — speculation by congressional Republicans.
The DeLay-Abramoff Congress doesn’t just operate like the mafia, they actually use their catering services and associate with wise guy assassins. So, they are understandably furious with Cunningham’s violation of the rules of Omertà.
Cunningham went against his own, much as Sal “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero betrayed his Boss, Tony Soprano.
Caught smuggling heroin, the FBI offered him a choice: become a confidential informant or spend the rest of his life in a federal penitentiary. To say it was an agonizing decision is a supreme understatement. If Pussy helped the feds get Tony, he was betraying a man he loved, a guy who would catch a bullet for a friend. If Pussy didn’t cooperate, he’d be in prison – isolated from his children and with no way to pay for the college education that would keep them from ending up like their father. Pussy agreed to wear a wire.
And Pussy lived to regret it:
One morning, Tony, Silvio and Paulie [Walnuts] took Pussy for a boat ride and, when they were far enough from shore, confronted him. To his credit, Pussy didn’t live up to his name in his final moments. He made an attempt to talk his way out of it – it’s expected in these situations. But when at last guns were drawn, Pussy asked only for a seat and that they aim away from his face. Afterward, Tony, Paulie and Silvio wrapped Pussy’s body in chains, pushed it overboard and headed back to shore.
If I were Randy ‘Duke’ Cunningham, I’d keep an eye out for any of Abramoff or DeLay’s associates. Any bets the Duke will explain himself the same way another rat (Sammy ‘the Bull’ Gravano) did?
“All [DeLay] had to do was come to me once during that eleven months we were together and say, ‘[Dukie], I’m sorry. My big fucking mouth got you indicted, number one. Number two, let’s try to get a severance for you, so you could fight your case. Fuck the public. Let’s try to fight this so that one of us, all of us, a couple of us, get out of this fucking mess.’
“If he done that, I would have never cooperated with the government, not in a million years would I have cooperated.”
Riiiight. I love this shit.
Let the whole bunch of them turn on each other. They are no better than gangsters, and they act no better than gangsters.
Let’s here it for Republican pussies! 🙂
I don’t know about anyone else here on Booman but seeing the continued vulvication of the opposition party is one of my personal wet dreams.
Of course, I mean that in the ‘wimping out’ sense. I could live without assassinations.. I’m not that much of a liberal.. and if that happened, who knows when they’ll start turning on people … not there own?
So, Booman, can we call dickie boy and georgie boy the godfathers of all godfathers now? As I see it the politicians learned straight from the big boys club..the cheneys and the bushes….
Before y’all get carried away with your Eastern Seaboard dreams, it is most likely he was wearing the wire against the San Diego Defense contractors Brent Wilkes and Mitchell Wade who paid him off. Of course, they seem to have paid off all the usual Delay network suspects too.
yes, that is possible.
but what about this from Time:
Possible. Then too, it is Time Magazine after all. Of course the Repubs are furiously checking to see where Duke was and with who during that brief period.
Wearing the wire makes more sense as part of the related bundle of cases to do with Duke’s indictment and pulling together the evidentiary case against Duke himself, and that directed against Wade and Wilkes.
except that it seems the reporter a Congressional reporter and picked up on a panic in Congress.
In any case, I had fun comparing him to Big Pussy.
I am aware of the Ian Fleming part of your nature. I would be delighted to have my expectations exceeded and Congressional targets be involved.
In one sense anyway; if the Republicans in Congress think Duke is going to sing like Maria Carey at 78 RPM, they’re going to be looking over their shoulders. And anything that takes their minds off of screwing the average American is a Good Thing™.
I’m all for a little covert ops of that type. Sun Tzu would approve, I’m sure.
in all the lefty blogs, and dude, your title alone gives you the hands-down win. Good content, too. Though I envision the Dukester explaining himself more like Fredo did to Michael (“I had seniority over you, Tommy, but you treated me like a chump!”).
Probably many more puckered sphincters over whether [Mr. Abramhof, who, it now appears, has been cooperating w/ the investigation for over 18 months, has ever worn a wire…
<elevator>DING! Going Down!
Peace
When I saw Casino Jack on the news in that poorly fitting topcoat, the first thing I thought was that flak jacket won’t stop a sniper. It’d be a shame to see that fine hat ruined.
Am I a bad person seeing that I get so much pleasure seeing these assholes going down one by one?
Then there’s the actual mob-related angle to this story:
By CURT ANDERSON
Associated Press
Posted September 27 2005, 5:38 PM EDT
FORT LAUDERDALE — Perhaps solving one of South Florida’s most notorious crimes, police arrested three men Tuesday in the 2001 ambush slaying of Konstaninos “Gus” Boulis — a murder that happened a few months after Boulis sold a fleet of casino boats to prominent Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff and a partner.
Police would not comment on whether they got any big breaks from Abramoff or his former partner, Adam Kidan, both of whom were indicted Aug. 11 on federal fraud charges in connection with their September 2000 purchase of SunCruz Casinos for $145.7 million from Boulis.
Who needs The Sopranos when you have the real thing?
yeah, i linked to a WP version of that story.
I checked out the Wikipedia definition of omertà you’ve linked to, and thought a little more info on the word could offer some insight, regardless of its present meaning in English.
The Mafia is basically a secret society that goes back centuries. Like all secret societies it has a series of rituals based on blood. A person who is initiated as a mafioso enters the Honoured Society as a clean slate, a tabula rasa. From then on the adept lives by the norms and the language of the Mafia and everything outside of the Mafia exists only in function of the Mafia. If another entity, group or person meets the Mafia’s ends, the Mafia will collaborate. If not, it’s ignored. If it can be exploited, it will be, through persuasion and persistence. If it’s against the Mafia’s interests, it will be eliminated.
Beyond its aristocratic self-image based on violence and blood, the Mafia is obsessed by internal rules and regulations. This obsessive attention to its own inner universe is reminiscent of the Masonic concept of umanità (humanity) which was transformed by the Neapolitan camorra in the 18th century into the term umiltà (humility). Humility is the attitude an adept must have towards the Honoured Society. Humility implies that nothing exists outside of the Honoured Society. Through the conversion of the “l” into “r”, typical of the Sicilian “dialect,” the word umiltà became omertà.
Strictly speaking, omertà cannot be applied to a person who is not a mafioso. If someone outside Cosa Nostra starts talking, he’s simply a fink, a rat, part of that vast and colourful vocabulary that Sicilians use to define members of our species (uomini, mezzi uomini, ominicchi, ruffiani, quaquaraquà, minchioni). If a mafioso violates his blood oath, he’s defined as an infame (infamous- one who has lost the right to speak).
The Mafia is as subtle and astute as it can be brutal. If a fink’s testimony can damage the Mafia’s interests, the fink can be persuaded to not go too far- just enough to satisfy the other judiciary entity (the State.) But if the fink is too weak and unreliable, he, or those dear to him, will be eliminated.
This whole Abramoff thing in the nexus where all the strands of BushCo come together.
Spooks, Israelis, al Qaeda, the Mob, Big Brother (v.New Money), Soldiers of Fortune …the works. (Soldiers of Fortune. Sometimes called buttonmen. Often contemporarily referred to as…wink wink, nudge nudge…”contractors”. As in “I want to put out a contract on…” Fill in the blanks here. A President, a Senator, a bagman, a country, a culture, a city…fill in the blanks. This is ONE crossword puzzle that works up, down and sideways Plus back and forth as well.)
All using the same cutout routine to protect the capos.
Plausible deniablility and a long line of patsies. Right to the top.
The buck stops ANYWHERE but here.
All vulnerable to one wired rat.
And they are ALL rats, when push comes to shove.
All of them.
No honor among thieves.
Bet on it.
Gotta love the spectacle.
Enjoy.
let the eat cake?
Well…
Now…
Let them eat each OTHER.
AG
I don’t think I’ve told you before how much I enjoy your comments. They’re like music, of course. Sometimes I read them out-loud so I can get the rhythm just right and feel the irregular beat.
“Oop bop shebam, klugle mop.”
(Dizzy Gillespie, About 1945.)
Thank you.
I studied with the masters.
The original rappers.
The FIRST Poets.
Diz, Pops, Celia Cruz and the rest…the last living aura/oral tradition in America.
I am telling you…sit at a bar with someone like Frank Wess or James Moody or Mike Longo or Joe Wilder or Eddie Palmieri and your language will be magnetized the same way as will your playing if you have the honor to play in the same band with them.
Plus…they didn’t/don’t brook no bullshit, either.
AG