COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Wednesday, October 05, 2011

The Good Old Days. All in the Philly Mob Family




The Philadelphia/Atlantic City Mob

- The Late Angelo "The Docile Don" Bruno


- Nicodemus "Nicky" Scarfo, Boss


- Philip Leonetti, Underboss

Nicodemus "Nicky" Scarfo was Philip Leonetti's uncle. Leonetti testified against several mafia families as an FBI informant.

Leonetti confessed to the murdered of 10 people.

Philadelphia had one representative on the five-member Commission of La Cosa Nostra in New York, along with Chicago.

Scarfo is a violent killer who orchestrated dozens of brutal killings.

Leonetti's mother is Scarfo's sister. Leonetti's father abandoned him at a young age and his uncle, "Nicky" helped raise the boy in the neighborhoods of Philadelphia.

Scarfo was exiled to Atlantic City when he became involved in a barroom brawl in the early 70s.

Angelo Bruno was the boss of the Philadelphia family, known for his efforts to reconcile differences rather than using violence. He was also a powerful friend of Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union leader Ed Hanley.



The Indoctrination:

Leonetti was inducted as a "made" member of the Philadelphia/Atlantic City mob in a ceremony that resembled other La Cosa Nostra members. His finger was pricked by the local boss, in this case Scarfo, who then dripped the blood on a piece of tissue paper.

The tissue paper was placed in Leonetti's hands and was set on fire. Scarfo asked Leonetti to envision the tissue paper as an image of a Catholic Church Saint. He was told to repeat, "May I burn like this Saint if I betray my friends," over and over again until the tissue had completely burned into ashes. He was told that if he were to violate his membership in La Cosa Nostra, he would burn like the Saint in his hands. When the tissue was burned completely, Scarfo rubbed his hands together rubbing the charred remains against his skin.

Leonetti kissed Scarfo on both cheeks, and then both cheeks of each of the witnesses. Leonetti said that the men joined in a circle with one spot open, and after Scarfo said a few words in Italian, Leonetti was then invited into the circle to complete the circle by joining his hands with the others.



Scarfo's Rise to Power:

Philadelphia Mob Boss Angelo Bruno was murdered in the summer of 1980. Bruno Underboss Philip Testa and Consiglieri Anthony Campanegra split after Bruno's murder, until Campanegra was subsequently killed one month later. Testa named Peter Cassella as his underboss. (Testa's son is Salvi Testa.)

Testa named Scarfo as Consiglieri to the new Bruno family.

Chickee Narducci, a captain in the Bruno family. Testa charged Narducci was robbing the family in the he numbers business, Narducci had asked Testa for a $50,000 loan, even though he had millions in cash, and that Testa had borrowed $50,000 from another family member. Testa believed Narducci was planning to murder him, too. That same week, Narducci had Testa murdered.

The New York Commission fingered Narducci as the killer, believing that Narducci had committed an unauthorized murder of a family boss, Testa. The New York bosses selected Scarfo to murder Narducci. He was found in a pool of blood in the back of his Cadillac. Another Narducci conspirator was also murdered, a homemade bomb was taped in his mouth when it exploded.

Scarfo was named the new head of the Bruno Family and given a seat on the commission in 1981, and became an ally of the powerful Genovese Family.



Leonetti was named Underboss to Scarfo.

Bruno was described as a racketeer. Scarfo was described as a gangster, a common analogy used in many mafia families to describe predecessors. (A similar comparison was made between New York's Paul Castellano and his killer, underboss and successor John Gotti.)

Scarfo had been exiled to Atlantic City years before casino gambling arrived, and had established strong connections there. When casinos were approved on Nov. 2, 1976 by the New Jersey legislature, Scarfo and the Philadelphia Bruno family used those ties to create the steel and concrete companies that were later hired to lay the foundations for the new casinos along the Atlantic City beachfront.

This allowed them to sidestep the controls that New Jersey had set up. They controlled the concrete and steelwokers unions, threatening job strikes against uncooperative casino developers. They worked on the Showboat, Bally's Caesers, the Golden Nugget and the Taj Mahal.

A 30 day delay in the opening of one of the new casinos would have cost the developers as much as $15 to $20 million, making cooperation with the unions a must for developers. The mob controlled unions and contractors guaranteed there would be no delays on their "sanctioned" projects.

The President of the Local 54 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union in Atlantic City was Frank Gerace, a close associate of the Scarfo/Bruno family. The head of the National union was Ed Hanley. Gerace arranged the contracts and the behind-the-scenes deals.



Between 1977 and 1978, 35 casino projects were announced.

But controlling the unions wasn't enough. They also decided to target local politics. To guarantee that their hidden construction interest were not discovered, the Philadelphia/Atlantic City mob used their money and power to push for the election of Mike Mathews as mayor of Atlantic City. Mathews won his election with the solid backing of the Atlantic City unions and the Bruno and Scarfo family in Philadelphia and Atlantic City, under threat of death if he refused to cooperate.

Under Scarfo, Philadelphia's rising mob family took lessons from Chicago and new York families, muscling loan sharks, and providing protection. They demanded a piece of every independent business operation in their areas under threat of murder.

At one point, Scarfo targeted the Riccobene faction of the former Bruno family which was under Scarfo's control. More than 24 members of the Riccobene family were targeted. The war went on for months. Two Attempts to murder Harry "The Hunchback" Riccobene failed.

Scarfo drove a white Rolls Royce and took the entire Bruno family to Florida on vacations. The name of the yacht, frequently photographed by the Feds, the boat was named "Casablanca" and "Usual Suspects," a line from the movie. The Federal Government used the photographs of the gatherings to prove that the individual criminals were working as one family.

Vincent Falcone, was a partner with Scarfo in his construction company. Scarfo believed that Falcone was ripping him off, but his only real crime was to criticize Scarfo's quality of workmanship in the construction business. Scarfo and Leonetti invited Falcone to a hideaway where they had dinner. After the ate and drank, Leonetti shot Falcone in the back of the head. Scarfo celebrated by drinking more, putting his hand on Falcone's still body to feel for his heart beat, ordering his nephew, Leonetti to shoot him one more time in the heart. With them at the time was another Bruno family member, Joe Salerno, who feared he, too, would be killed.

Scarfo and Leonetti were arrested and charged in the Falcone murder in 1983. Salerno became the star witness for the FBI under the witness protection program. Salerno testified against Scarfo and Leonetti.

A local cop who was on the Bruno family payroll testified that Scarfo's car was not at the property where the murder was committed, contradicting Salerno, who testified Scarfo had parked his black Cadillac outside in front of the home. The cop was thrown off the police force as a result of his testimony.

Scarfo, Leonetti and a third defendant were all found not guilty. Scarfo declared after the trial, "Thank God for the American Jury system. And an honest jury."

Scarfo eventually also ordered the murder in September of 1984 of Salvi Testa, who was Leonetti's boyhood friend. That murder angered Leonetti who had just been approved to be the underboss to his uncle Scarfo by the Genovese family. Leonetti could not warn his friend, who he hung around with everyday. Although Testa suspected he was going to be murdered, he believed that Leonetti would have warned him. He did not.

During Scarfo's reign, more than 28 people were murdered. Half were members of his own family.

Using that, the FBI infiltrated the Scarfo family and waited for the right moment. Leonetti was arrested in 1988 on charges of murdering his friend, Salvi Testa. Before he was sentenced in the summer of 1989, Leonetti reached out to the FBI and offered to plead guilty.

Leonetti called the FBI days prior to his sentencing, but the FBI told him they would have to inform the judge and his defense attorney if that kind of contact were made. The FBI suggested that they wait until after he was sentenced to make the content. Leonetti was sentenced to 45 years for the murder. One week later, that contact was made. Leonetti agreed to testify and in exchange, the FBI agreed to go to the judge and explain his cooperation to assist in reducing his sentence, offering him protection while in prison. He went into protective custody with his wife, his son and his daughter.

Leonetti was released after serving only five years.

His testimony beginning resulted in the convictions of dozens of high ranking members of the Philadelphia/Atlantic City mafia families. His testimony was also used in the John Gotti trial.

Scarfo was convicted in 1988 on extortion and murder, serving a 69 year prison sentence. Leonetti's testimony helped confirm that verdict and opened the door to the convictions of other Scarfo associates.

From the Past:

Maxie "Booboo" Hoff: a Prohibition era bootlegger. He had a shared interest in local boxers and was a part of the sporting world in Philadelphia.

He exploited Prohibition and re-distilled the alcohol for resale, resulting in large numbers of deaths because of alcohol poisoning.

He ran the Turf Club and several other clubs, where he supplied illegal booze. These "Speakeasys" became very popular during the Prohibition Era. Many of America's most famous musicians performed at these Speakeasys.

It was a Maxie Hoff thug who pressured Duke Ellington to perform at the Cotton Club in New York, which was owned by an early New York Prohibition Ear mobster named Madden. IPSN

66 comments:

  1. Sounds like the management style of Roman emperors, like Caligula & Nero.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dat Obama jobs package sleeps wid da fishes.

    Da boss wanted to get Solyndra out of da papers, see? So he sent his goons to Wall Street to send a message: "Dat's a nice stock exchange you got dere, be a shame if something bad happened to it."

    So I got some advice for yuz: Never go to Italy to learn Italian. Never go to Aruba for Spring Break. Never go hiking on the Iranian border.

    ReplyDelete
  3. From the very LAST post on the previous thread...

    desert rat said...
    Those Saudi, whining like Mr Assad, about "foreign influences".

    Abracadabra makes those noises, too.

    As does Bibi.

    Goes with the neighborhood, it seems.




    It seems that the Rat cannot control himself...

    Nothing new about that....

    ReplyDelete
  4. In response to rat's negative comments about Israel (again) I shall post a positive comment...

    Israeli scientist Schechtman wins Nobel Prize in Chemistry
    By JPOST.COM STAFF
    10/05/2011 12:44

    Technion scientist to receive $1.46 million prize for discovery of non-repeating patterns in quasicrystals; Schechtman is third Israeli to win Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

    The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2011 to Israeli scientist Daniel Shechtman of the Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. Shechtman is the tenth Israeli or Israeli-born scientist to win a Nobel Prize, and the third to win for chemistry.

    ReplyDelete
  5. WiO,

    Yesterday it was reported that the oldest known "factory" was found in a cave in Israel. It appears that early H. sapiens there produced countless flint and stone tools.

    In other news...
    September layoffs biggest over 2 years

    “On the hiring front, employers announced plans to add 76,551 workers in September, down from 123,076 a year ago…”

    ReplyDelete
  6. List of Nobel Prizes awarded to Arab persons in the Sciences.

    Chemistry

    1999 - Ahmed Zewail

    Physics

    Abdus Salam

    List of Jewish Nobel prize winners in the sciences

    Chemistry

    1905 - Adolph Von Baeyer

    1906 - Henri Moissan

    1910 - Otto Wallach

    1915 - Richard Willstaetter

    1918 - Fritz Haber

    1943 - George Charles de Hevesy

    1961 - Melvin Calvin

    1962 - Max Ferdinand Perutz

    1972 - William Howard Stein

    1972 - C.B. Anfinsen

    1977 - Ilya Prigogine

    1979 - Herbert Charles Brown

    1980 - Paul Berg

    1980 - Walter Gilbert

    1981 - Ronald Hoffmann

    1982 - Aaron Klug

    1985 - Herbert A. Hauptman

    1985 - Jerome Karle

    1986 - Dudley R. Herschbach

    1988 - Robert Huber

    1989 - Sidney Altman

    1992 - Rudolph Marcus

    1998 - Walter Kohn

    2000 - Alan J. Heeger

    2004 - Irwin Rose

    2004 - Avram Hershko

    2004 - Aaron Ciechanover

    Economics

    1970 - Paul Anthony Samuelson

    1971 - Simon Kuznets

    1972 - Kenneth Joseph Arrow

    1973 - Wassily Leontief

    1975 - Leonid Kantorovich

    1976 - Milton Friedman

    1978 - Herbert A. Simon

    1980 - Lawrence Robert Klein

    1985 - Franco Modigliani

    1987 - Robert M. Solow

    1990 - Harry Markowitz

    1990 - Merton Miller

    1992 - Gary Becker

    1993 - Rober Fogel

    1994 - John Harsanyi

    1994 - Reinhard Selten

    1997 - Robert Merton

    1997 - Myron Scholes

    2001 - George Akerlof

    2001 - Joseph Stiglitz

    2002 - Daniel Kahneman

    2005 - Robert (Israel) Aumann

    Medicine

    1908 - Elie Metchnikoff

    1908 - Paul Erlich

    1914 - Robert Barany

    1922 - Otto Meyerhof

    1930 - Karl Landsteiner

    1931 - Otto Warburg

    1936 - Otto Loewi

    1944 - Joseph Erlanger

    1944 - Herbert Spencer Gasser

    1945 - Ernst Boris Chain

    1946 - Hermann Joseph Muller

    1950 - Tadeus Reichstein

    1952 - Selman Abraham Waksman

    1953 - Hans Krebs

    1953 - Fritz Albert Lipmann

    1958 - Joshua Lederberg

    1959 - Arthur Kornberg

    1964 - Konrad Bloch

    1965 - Francois Jacob

    1965 - Andre Lwoff

    1967 - George Wald

    1968 - Marshall W. Nirenberg

    1969 - Salvador Luria

    1970 - Julius Axelrod

    1970 - Sir Bernard Katz

    1972 - Gerald Maurice Edelman

    1975 - David Baltimore

    1975 - Howard Martin Temin

    1976 - Baruch S. Blumberg

    1977 - Rosalyn Sussman Yalow

    1977 - Andrew V. Schally

    1978 - Daniel Nathans

    1980 - Baruj Benacerraf

    1984 - Cesar Milstein

    1985 - Michael Stuart Brown

    1985 - Joseph L. Goldstein

    1986 - Stanley Cohen [& Rita Levi-Montalcini]

    1988 - Gertrude Elion

    1989 - Harold Varmus

    1991 - Erwin Neher

    1991 - Bert Sakmann

    1993 - Richard J. Roberts

    1993 - Phillip Sharp

    1994 - Alfred Gilman

    1994 - Martin Rodbell

    1995 - Edward B. Lewis

    1997 - Stanley B. Prusiner

    1998 - Robert F. Furchgott

    2000 - Eric R. Kandel

    2002 - Sydney Brenner

    2002 - Robert H. Horvitz

    Physics

    1907 - Albert Abraham Michelson

    1908 - Gabriel Lippmann

    1921 - Albert Einstein

    1922 - Niels Bohr

    1925 - James Franck

    1925 - Gustav Hertz

    1943 - Gustav Stern

    1944 - Isidor Issac Rabi

    1945 - Wolfgang Pauli

    1952 - Felix Bloch

    1954 - Max Born

    1958 - Igor Tamm

    1958 - Il'ja Mikhailovich

    1958 - Igor Yevgenyevich

    1959 - Emilio Segre

    1960 - Donald A. Glaser

    1961 - Robert Hofstadter

    1962 - Lev Davidovich Landau

    1963 - Eugene P. Wigner

    1965 - Richard Phillips Feynman

    1965 - Julian Schwinger

    1967 - Hans Albrecht Bethe

    1969 - Murray Gell-Mann

    1971 - Dennis Gabor

    1972 - Leon N. Cooper

    1973 - Brian David Josephson

    1975 - Benjamin Mottleson

    1976 - Burton Richter

    1978 - Arno Allan Penzias

    1978 - Peter L Kapitza

    1979 - Stephen Weinberg

    1979 - Sheldon Glashow

    1988 - Leon Lederman

    1988 - Melvin Schwartz

    1988 - Jack Steinberger

    1990 - Jerome Friedman

    1992 - Georges Charpak

    1995 - Martin Perl

    1995 - Frederick Reines

    1996 - David M. Lee

    1996 - Douglas D. Osheroff

    1997 - Claude Cohen-Tannoudji

    2000 - Zhores I. Alferov

    2003 - Vitaly Ginsburg

    2003 - Alexei Abrikosov

    ReplyDelete
  7. It's Official...

    America in "talks" with Islamic Nazi Party..

    Makes you proud to be an American?


    American officials have met with members of Egypt's long-banned Muslim Brotherhood, an unnamed senior U.S. diplomat told Reuters.

    The official did not specify when the meetings took place, but noted that there has been no formal distinction between members of the Brotherhood or its affiliated political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), whose formation was first announced in February.

    "We have had direct contacts with senior officials of the Freedom and Justice party," the American diplomat said, adding that the administration does not "have a policy that makes a distinction [between the Brotherhood and the FJP], that one or the other is off limits."

    The latest talks involved "high-level" party members, the official said, in contrast to earlier contacts, which were mostly with Brotherhood-affiliated parliamentarians running as "independents."


    This will bite us in the ass....

    ReplyDelete
  8. America gives 2.5 billion a year to Egypt, Egypt's military hunta has a working arrangement with the Moslem Brotherhood.

    America, the beautiful, the land that I love, is funding the Islamic Nazi Party.

    America gave Hamas via UNRWA almost 1 billion last year to rebuild the Gaza Strip, Hamas is a terrorist group, connected directly to the moslem brotherhood, is also a Islamic Nazi offshoot...

    America, the shining city on the hill...

    America still funds the PA, even after they tore up the USA sponsored Oslo agreement and went around the best efforts of the Quartet and the USA, America gives over 800 million a year to the PA, the PA is directly responsible for hundreds of murders of Israelis and several dozen Americans in the last 0 years...

    America, home of the brave and funder of Islamic nazis?

    Oh that's right our CURRENT President is FRIENDS with both the New Black Panther Party and Hamas....

    Time to set America BACK on a proper course...

    ReplyDelete
  9. To all those that have a stick up their asses on the way i type, please notice I capped all of the A's of America.

    After all to some presentation is more important than content

    ReplyDelete
  10. WiO: List of Jewish Nobel prize winners in the sciences...

    Jewish Mother Haiku:

    Is one Nobel Prize
    So much to ask from a child
    After all I've done?

    ReplyDelete
  11. Allen: Yesterday it was reported that the oldest known "factory" was found in a cave in Israel. It appears that early H. sapiens there produced countless flint and stone tools.

    Thus proving that the Semitic word Hebrew really means what it means: Immigrant.

    ReplyDelete
  12. He·brew (hbr)
    n.
    1. A member or descendant of a Semitic people claiming descent from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; an Israelite; a Jew.
    2.
    a. The Semitic language of the ancient Hebrews.
    b. Any of the various later forms of this language, especially the language of the Israelis.

    ReplyDelete
  13. "Hebrew" is derived from "Eber,"
    which means "from the other side."

    The River Jordan is the Levantine Rio Grande. The Hebrews, then, are essentially wetbacks.

    Three thousand years from now, the Chinese Empire will be annoyed by the Mexicans and Texans blowing each other up because they both claim the Holy City of El Paso was given to them by some bearded guy who walks on clouds with sandals without falling through.

    ReplyDelete
  14. But, heh, that's okay, What is "Occupation", if you didn't know the etymology of the name of your own people. We can't all be Nobel Prize material.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Semitic:

    Of or relating to the Semites or their languages, constituting a subgroup of the Afro-Asiatic language group that includes Arabic, Hebrew, Amharic, and Aramaic.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Aramaic:

    ... as an Imperial Language

    Aramaic was used by the conquering Assyrians as a language of administration communication, and following them by the Babylonian and Persian empires, which ruled from India to Ethiopia, and employed Aramaic as the official language. For this period, then (about 700–320 B.C.E.), Aramaic held a position similar to that occupied by English today. The most important documents of this period are numerous papyri from Egypt and Palestine.

    Biblical Aramaic

    Aramaic displaced Hebrew for many purposes among the Jews, a fact reflected in the Bible, where portions of Ezra and Daniel are in Aramaic. Some of the best known stories in biblical literature, including that of Belshazzar’s feast with the famous "handwriting on the wall" are in Aramaic.

    ReplyDelete
  17. So, the language of much of the Bible, the Dead Sea scrolls, is Aramaic, not Hebrew.

    From Babylon, in modern Persia, not Israel.

    Semites, all.

    As you say, Story, no ethnic difference, twin sons of different mothers.

    Equivalent.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Teresita said...
    But, heh, that's okay, What is "Occupation", if you didn't know the etymology of the name of your own people. We can't all be Nobel Prize material.


    I know a lot of things...

    I know that you are in fact an Israel hating troll.

    Your hundreds of posts have proved that.

    I know much more than I will ever show you.

    I know that real knowledge is sometimes not shared with enemies.

    And you are an enemy of the Jewish people.

    Hope your fake illness is being cured by all those "zionist" entity" innovations...

    Happy puking...

    ReplyDelete
  19. The Story draws strength from the idea that the folks that gave Mr Obama a "Peace Prize", well, that those folk have demonstrable credibility at choosing the "Best and Brightest".

    A Prize developed by the primary agent of the industrialization of death.

    As a propaganda effort, to improve his Dr Noble's image, pre-mortem.

    Great character witnesses, Story's called, not.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Ms T:
    Three thousand years from now, the Chinese Empire will be annoyed by the Mexicans and Texans blowing each other up because they both claim the Holy City of El Paso was given to them by some bearded guy who walks on clouds with sandals without falling through.


    3,000 years from now?

    The G-d of Israel will still be G-d.

    Jews will still be here and "El Paso"?

    Who would ever give a shit?

    ReplyDelete
  21. The self confessed murderer of civilians in Central American states:



    desert rat said...
    The Story draws strength from the idea that the folks that gave Mr Obama a "Peace Prize", well, that those folk have demonstrable credibility at choosing the "Best and Brightest".





    I did not mention any "peace prizes" on purpose.

    After all I am sure the Mr Nobel would shit his pants at Obama and Arafat getting "peace prizes"...

    As for the ability for the nobel judges to give awards in the sciences?

    Far better a judge than you, Mr Rat.

    Let's face facts, they only thing you are known at the bar for is being the Cliff Claven...

    An opinion on everything and knowledge as deep as a cut and paste google search...

    Go back to your horse fucking you pervert...

    and before you respond how vulgar I am, you are the asshole that calls me "story of O" a porn movie that you are obsessed with.. (the sick disgusting man? that you are)

    So Rat, another day, another great victory for Israel and all you can do is tie up a horse for your own sick demented fun.

    I hope the horse kicks you in the skull you sick motherfucker....

    ReplyDelete
  22. That WOULD be entertainment, your funeral do to a kick in the head by your love interest, Fred the horse.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Dear Rat, please leave your personal information with the Blog owner so at your funeral we can send congratulations to your family.....

    It will be a fine day for AZ to remove someone like you from their welfare roles.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Umless he can make the case that Mr Obama was deserving of the Prize.

    As deserving as any of those he listed.

    Paul R. Ehrlich, he was wrong.
    The Population Bomb, an Alinsky style propaganda effort.
    Based upon misinformation and fear.

    Worthy of a "Prize", they say, aye.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Dear Rat,

    When stealing other's research it would be nice to give them credit...

    http://cal.huc.edu/aramaic_language.html

    You are a troll...

    ReplyDelete
  26. And Rat is a "bartender" at the BLOG...

    Now that is ENTERTAINMENT

    ReplyDelete
  27. You commence arguments that you lose, then become petulant.

    Story, you are a wonder.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Nothin' is stolen, Story, just used, in the public domain.

    Not hard to find the source, if one is interested.

    The owners of the blog, at Google, make it easy. The reader can use the tools, provided by the land lord.

    ReplyDelete




  29. Jewish Aramaic Literature

    Aramaic remained a dominant language for Jewish worship, scholarship, and everyday life for centuries in both the land of Israel and in the diaspora, especially in Babylon.

    Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, the remains of the library of a Jewish sect from around the turn of the Era, are many compositions in Aramaic. These new texts also provide the best evidence for Palestinian Aramaic of the sort used by Jesus and his disciples.

    Since the Jews spoke Aramaic, and knowledge of Hebrew was no longer widespread, the practice arose in the synagogue of providing the reading of the sacred Hebrew scriptures with an Aramaic translation or paraphrase, a "Targum" In the course of time a whole array of targums for the Law and other parts of the Bible were composed. More than translations, they incorporated much of traditional Jewish scriptural interpretation.

    In their academies the rabbis and their disciples transmitted, commented, and debated Jewish law; the records of their deliberations constitute the two talmuds:

    that of the land of Israel and the much larger Babylonian Talmud. Although the talmuds contain much material in Hebrew, the basic language of these vast compilations is Aramaic (in Western and Eastern dialects).

    ReplyDelete
  30. That Hebrew, like Latin became a dead language, outside the churches and temples, an interesting aside.

    Didn't know that, previously.

    ReplyDelete
  31. A question more pertinent to the topic of the thread:

    Are the mobsters of Philly "Christians"?

    They certainly do utilize Catholic symbolism in their rituals.

    I am sure that they'd self-identify as Christians, God fearing, too.

    ReplyDelete
  32. The Story dislikes that "Foreign Influences" in Israel are "really" comparable to the "Foreign Interests" in Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

    That everyone in that area claims the "other" is fomenting discontent, in their particular Homeland.

    The visible effects, never caused by the conditions controlled, domestically.

    The story stays the same, across the board.

    Story finds this observation to be anti-Israeli. But does not dispute it's validity.

    Instead, he wishes me ill.

    Telling.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Hasidic man: "You ever heard of Masada? For two years, 900 Jews held their own against 15 thousand Roman soldiers. They chose death before enslavement. And the Romans, where are they now?"

    Tony Soprano: "You're looking at them, asshole."

    ReplyDelete
  34. .

    Ash and Quirk:

    …Many more crooks in Government were involved, you can remain in denial if you wish.


    Once again Doug, you muddle off in another direction, failing to stay on point. At least now, after your clarifying posts, I can see the point you were actually trying to make initially.

    However, both Ash and I responded to your initial statement:

    The Banks were bullied into taking risks they would not have taken by the "regulators"

    To clarify, it wasn’t the bank regulators that bullied the banks. It was the various administrations involved that were pushing home ownership. As noted in the video you posted, the big push started with legislation issued back in the 70’s.

    If anything the regulators didn’t do their jobs by not assuring that the banks were making credible loans.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  35. They should have paid their taxes, Ms T.

    The Emperor sanctioned the construction of the Temple, on the Mount. The Aramaic speakers should have acknowledged reality, that the Roman security umbrella spread across the Mediterranean, while allowing them religious freedom.

    The Temple itself exemplifies the religious freedom the Romans permitted the locals.

    ReplyDelete
  36. .

    However, Dougo, let’s address the actual content of the clarifying posts you put up. In many respects what you put up is correct. No one can deny it. Nobody is trying to deny. There were a lot of dicks who brought us to where we were at in 2008.

    Carter, Clinton, Obama, Acorn, Fannie, Freddie, and Sub Prime Loans

    Many more crooks in Government were involved, you can remain in denial if you wish.




    Denial? No one is denying this.

    However, as usual you choose to frame the whole story in political terms and again from just one side of the equation. In addition to the players you have listed, there were many others that brought us to 2008.

    There was Greenspan and his low interest rate policy. There were millions of Americans buying homes they couldn’t afford and others flipping homes to get rich. There were the banks and the mortgage companies getting rich off sub-prime and alt-A loans. The same banks that were bundling the sub-prime loans and selling them to people and institutions around the world as AAA. Hell, Fannie Mae didn’t really get into the sub-prime fiasco in any meaningful way until around 2004-2005, and then only because they were losing market share and profits to the other banks and mortgage companies.

    And as I pointed out, you once again only look at these things from one side of the equation. As rat pointed out, you ignore anything the GOP did. Look at this.

    THE RECKONING:
    White House Philosophy Stoked Mortgage Bonfire


    It was a major clusterfuck and there were a lot of people we can blame including home buyers, the FED, banks and mortgage companies, the GSEs, and the politicos from both sides of the aisle.

    Try getting a little balance in your outlook and maybe we will agree more often.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  37. As long as they paid their "Fair" share.

    Herod had it right, Judaism surely blossomed under his leadership.

    It was he that had that palace, at Masada, built. It was he that built the Temple.

    It was he that acknowledged the political and military power, of Rome.

    It was those that followed that paid for the Coliseum, in Rome

    ReplyDelete



  38. Circles and Cycles
    Scenes that we've all seen before.

    ReplyDelete
  39. It was prophesy, that the Romans would come:

    Aramaic Bible in Plain English (©2010)

    “And they shall destroy you and your children within you and they shall not leave you one stone standing on another, ...


    All because they did not render unto Caesar his due.

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  40. Congressman Issa says that 2,000 weapons were trafficked into Mexico, "Fast & Furious".

    He claims that hundreds have died as a result, in Mexico.

    Holder lied, after people died.

    ReplyDelete
  41. DR: desert rat said...
    It was prophesy, that the Romans would come


    "Then said the Lord of the vineyard, What shall I do? I will send my beloved Son: it may be they will reverence Him when they see Him. But when the husbandmen saw Him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, This is the Heir: come, let us kill Him, that the inheritance may be ours. So they cast Him out of the vineyard, and killed Him. What therefore shall the Lord of the vineyard do unto them? He shall come and destroy these husbandmen, and shall give the vineyard to others." (Yeshua bar Yosef)

    ReplyDelete



  42. “And they shall destroy you and your children within you ... because you did not know the time of your visitation.


    A reference, perhaps to those tens of thousands Jewish souls the Chief Rabbinate of Israel claims are being murdered each year?

    If so, than that was a prophetic curse, with potency.

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  43. The ever famous

    "They"

    The foreign influences?
    Or the Leadership of the Tribe?

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  44. Rat and Ms T really do make me laugh...

    They get to pasting all sorts of "Jewish" or Israel stuff and don't get the basic mistakes they repeat BLINDLY.

    They do this over and over ...
    and it is quite amusing...

    Will I correct them?

    NOT A CHANCE ON YOUR LIFE.

    But for the record, I must confess, watching those two "quote" and offer insight to something they just dont have a clue about is funnier than shit....

    ReplyDelete
  45. Another Tread Hijacked by Rat and Ms T...

    Yep..

    same shit, different day...

    ReplyDelete
  46. "Will I correct them?

    I'm interested in what you'd have to say.

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  47. Doug,

    What Quirk said plus - those unregulated bankster cowboys leveraged the fuck outta everything (like 30 to 1) including all that bad mortgage paper (which they happily created) and then cried the blues when forced to value their paper for what it was worth on the market thus putting them a tad low on required capital.

    It would be nice if life were as simple as you suggest but, alas, it isn't.

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  48. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  49. You broached the subject.

    That the subsequent discourse did not flow your way, predictable.

    Perhaps you've also awakened to the political bent of the Noble's, as a character reference.

    Rather than further endorsing those winning the award, as is evident in your list, and of Mr Obama's Peace Prize.

    Not advocating that the Committee decisions are based upon proven performance, rather than cultural or political popularity.

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  50. While Ms T and I have stayed on the historical perspective, of the Philly mobsters, how they are culturally Romanesque.

    Corrupt politicos and police, tribute payments, fratricidal intrigues and the like.

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  51. WiO doesn't have the chops to "correct" anybody, DR. All he can do is hurl insults.

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  52. The Romans, not that ideological.
    Not religiously exclusive.

    In it for the Power, Glory and Wealth.

    Wanting to "wet their beak" at every opportunity.

    Ruling through a combination of fear and intimidation, with a taste of compromise and accommodation thrown in the mix. If compromise and accommodation were in Rome's "Interest".

    Exemplified by allowing the Carthaginians multiple opportunities for compromise, before finally sowing their land with salt.

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  53. I do know that the visualization of "kissing the ring", in the Mario Puzo's "Godfather", as directed by Francis Ford Coppola, is Romanesque.

    Rome before Catholicism.

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  54. MSNBC reports that thousands of Union workers are massing to march to Wall Street.

    Reporting that protests are now in 50 cities.

    I had asked a few weeks ago ...

    If things were so bad ...
    Where were the protests?

    Now there's an answer to that question.
    Organizing this spontaneous political Occupation.

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  55. Tents are now outside City Hall, in downtown LA, California.

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  56. You've got to love ...
    the spontaneity.


    The Occupation Forces are the Tea Party before it was corrupted.

    That's the MSNBC storyline, today.

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  57. MSNBC tells US that how this Occupation movement started, unimportant.

    Who funded and organized the Canadians, not worth following.

    Lean Forward.


    ;-)

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  58. Mr Obama s "On the Trail" propagating the idea that Mr Cantor and the GOP have taken intransigent positions.

    Prepping the field for him to take unilateral action.
    The Talking Head now saying a large segment, there, want to target the Federal Reserve, specifically.

    Mr Obama, leading US ...
    Home to Jacksonville

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  59. I can envision Mr Obama, in a Rose Garden chat, telling US he has listened to Mr Perry and Dr Paul. That Bernie Sanders and the voice of the people, vocalized in protests across the land have swayed him.

    He has studied the positions of our Founding Fathers, of Jefferson and Hamilton along with the writings of Andrew Jackson and he has been swayed.

    That his Administration supports the legislation that would allow for an audit of the Federal Reserve.

    As part of a "Bigger Package".

    Leaving the Republicans, by default, to defend the bankers.

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  60. Pure Alinsky.

    The idea that the President would not use the power and authority available to him...
    Nonsensical.

    He and his ...
    Setting up the battle field.
    Choosing the ground.

    One year out ...
    Spontaneously.

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  61. To Big to Fail
    is
    To Big to Allow

    Nice sign.

    ReplyDelete
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