Sandra warned me against writing this blog. She said it’s all just surmise and suspicion. But I don’t think I will be saying anything that a lot of people don’t already suspect.
It’s the connection I see between organized crime and US politics.
There was the CIA alliance with the Mafia during World War II, for example. And a plot to assassinate Castro after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Those stories are well documented. You can look them up.
Recently I read that the Mafia is now offering to help the government fight ISIS.
From time to time, I come across a reference to a politician with relatives who are or were involved in some way with the underworld. Chris Christie is one. Rudy Giuliani is another.
Also, the fall of one-time New York state attorney Eliot Spitzer was supposedly a byproduct of rivalry between Mafia factions.
Yesterday I read an article about Marco Rubio’s brother-in-law, Orlando Cicilia, being arrested and sentenced for cocaine dealing. Rubio was only 16 years old at the time and was never implicated but – according to his own account – he had a close personal relationship with his brother-in-law.
It may or may not be relevant, but I find it interesting that a potential Rubio sponsor is Sheldon Adelson, who runs gambling operations in Nevada and Macau. Top aides in the Macau venture have been in trouble with Chinese and American authorities.
Rubio, who has been ardently courting Adelson, is backing legislation the billionaire wants that would block an expansion of online gambling (which would, of course, threaten his casinos).
Don’t you wonder about politicians who have ties to gambling?
Donald Trump owned a casino, for example. What ordinary American businessman owns a casino?
I know, I have to be careful about guilt by association. But I think it says something about the political culture when so many politicians are associated, however innocently, with underworld characters.
Click for Adelson and tonight’s debate.
