Republicans… or the Mafia?

Word today is that Randy “Duke” Cunningham, disgraced Republican congressman from San Diego, actually had a “bribe menu,” where he priced out the cost of purchasing his integrity:

The sentencing memorandum includes the California Republican’s “bribery menu” on one of his congressional note cards, “starkly framed” under the seal of the United States Congress.

The card shows an escalating scale for bribes, starting at $140,000 and a luxury yacht for a $16 million Defense Department contract. Each additional $1 million in contract value required a $50,000 bribe.

The rate dropped to $25,000 per additional million once the contract went above $20 million.

Boo-yah! I love that he even offered volume discounts! Wal-Mart could learn something from this guy.

What Rep. Cunningham understood, of course, was that everything has its price, and all prices are relative to services rendered. For example, when Bonasera comes to see The Godfather at the beginning of the film, he asks that Don Corleone murder the men who tried to rape his daughter:

Bonasera: What do you want of me? Tell me anything, but do what I beg you to do.
Corleone: What is that? (Bonasera whispers his request in the Don’s ear.) That I cannot do.
Bonasera: I will give you anything you ask.
Corleone: We’ve known each other many years, but this is the first time you ever came to me for counsel or for help. I can’t remember the last time that you invited me to your house for a cup of coffee, even though my wife is godmother to your only child. But let’s be frank here. You never wanted my friendship. And uh, you were afraid to be in my debt.
Bonasera: I didn’t want to get into trouble.
Corleone: I understand. You found paradise in America, you had a good trade, you made a good living. The police protected you and there were courts of law. And you didn’t need a friend like me. But uh, now you come to me and you say - ‘Don Corleone, give me justice.’ But you don’t ask with respect. You don’t offer friendship. You don’t even think to call me Godfather. Instead, you come into my house on the day my daughter is to be married, and you, uh, ask me to do murder for money.
Bonasera: I ask you for justice.
Corleone: That is not justice. Your daughter is still alive.
Bonasera: Let them suffer then, as she suffers. How much shall I pay you?

You see, justice is justice. There’s a quid pro quo, as it were. Meanwhile, the slimy bastard that paid the Duke off, copped a plea.

You can’t make this stuff up. From the Hill:

It’s never in a lobbyist’s best interest to feel the least bit alienated from his own party on Capitol Hill or K Street. So when the dust settled after Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) won a come-from-behind victory in a bruising race for majority leader against Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) early this month, the extended K Street families of the two contenders sat down at Charlie Palmer Steak near the Capitol to break bread and mend fences over dinner Feb. 15.

This demands comparison, of course, with the dinner meeting of the heads of the five families in Godfather 1. Just like the GOP leaders and their lobbyist allies needed to come together to mend fences after a bloody leadership battle, the dons had to come together to mend fences after going to the mattresses in the wake of Michael’s assassination of Sollozzo and Capt. McClusky. Corleone demanded the meeting after his eldest son, Santino, was assassinated (related link).

Here’s how one GOP operative described the Boehner-Blunt meeting:

“[Boehner] has made it very clear that everyone needs to bury the hatchet and move on, unified as a team…The work ahead is more important than the campaign.”

Sounds like:

“How did things ever get so far? I don’t know. It was so unfortunate — so unnecessary. Tattaglia lost a son and I lost a son. We’re quits. And if Tattaglia agrees, then I’m willing to let things go on the way they were before.”

Unfortunately, there was no Corleone-like voice of reason in the meeting saying anything like this:

“When — when did I ever refuse an accommodation? All of you know me here. When did I ever refuse except one time? And why? Because I believe this [lobbying] business — is gonna destroy us in the years to come. I mean, it’s not like [gerrymandering] or [regressive taxation]– even women — which is something that most people want nowadays, and is ah forbidden to them by the pezzonovante of the Church. Even the [deep red states] that’ve helped us in the past with [gerrymandering] and other things are gonna refuse to help us when in comes to [lobbying]. And I believed that then and I believe that now.”

Choose your own adventure for the ending. We suggest going with either:

a. “Blunt is a pimp. He never could have outfought Boehner. But it wasn ‘t until this day that I knew it was DeLay all along.”

OR

b. “But I’m a superstitious man and if some unlucky accident should befall him — if he should get indicted on trumped up corruption charges or if he should fall victim to the Rove political machine or if he’s struck by a bolt of lightning, then I’m going to blame some of the people in this room. And that, I do not forgive. But that aside, let me say that I swear — on the souls of my grandchildren — that I will not be the one to break the peace that we have made here today.”

We stumbled across this little gem in the Daily Muck this morning:

“[uberlobbyist of questionable repute] Ed Buckham was a good friend of mine”

Those words spoken by Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA). That inevitably reminded us of the classic gangster introduction: “He’s a friend of ours.”

See, when a gangster introduces two people for the first time and those two people are also gangsters, he’ll say “He’s a friend of ours.” That’s to let everyone know that all three parties are in the mafia. In Goodfellas, Henry Hill puts it a bit differently:

You know, we always called each other good fellas. Like you said to, uh, somebody: You’re gonna like this guy. He’s all right. He’s a good fella. He’s one of us.

But the idea is the same. Here’s the “official” definition from HBO’s Sopranos MobSpeak Dictionary:

A friend of ours: mob shorthand for introducing one made guy to another made guy. “A friend of mine” is just another jamook on the street.

Doolittle may or may not have been suggesting that Buckham was just another jamook.

You may remember that Sal “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero used an end around the system when a made guy caught him in a party supply store with a Federal Agent. Pussy was feeding the agent information about the family, for which Pussy would later be whacked. Anyways, Big Puss introduces the federal agent to this made guy as “a friend of ours” from Delaware in order to avoid raising any suspicions. Ok, so it’s an imperfect system.

That wasn’t all Doolittle said. According to the Muck, he’s got a lot of “friend of ours” connections– and he’s not ashamed of it. Here’s Doolittle sounding his trumpet on lobbying:

Believe it or not, the main thing that motivates it is friendships I think.

It’s relationships. And Jack Abramoff was a very- at the time a very influential lobbyist in town, had a lot of significant clients. And if you had a friend who was a lobbyist like that and he liked you, he was able to procure quite a bit of support for you from the clients he represented. So I was in the fortunate position then of benefiting from his friendship and his willingness to help me.

Of course, Doolittle shilled for all kinds of Abramoff causes. He did favors for the Mississippi Choctaw– big time Abramoff clients– in exchange for largesse and donations. We wish we could’ve been there when Abramoff introduced them: “John, this is the chief of the Choctaw– He’s a friend of ours.” Priceless.

As any rational person would assume, the thuggery, corruption and shadeball tactics of today’s GOP aren’t practiced solely by Republicans– though there is no doubt that Republicans are better at it than anyone since, well… the Corleones.

But Democrats have done plenty of shady stuff, too. The reason they’re not being so shady right now is that they’re out of power. And, to paraphrase British Historian Lord Acton, it’s power that corrupts.

But there are exceptions to every rule. And today, Rep. William Jefferson (D-La), a Democrat, enters the fray of corruption with actions so bold and gangster-esque that we decided it was worth having an ROTM Dems Edition– DOTM!

Paul Kiel explains in today’s Daily Muck at TPMCafe:

Simply put, Jefferson offered to a help a business deal along in exchange for a cut. Pfeffer’s company was doing business in Nigeria; Jefferson’s part of the deal was to help ensure a loan from the Import-Export Bank of the United States and meet with Nigerian officials. In exchange, he wanted 5 to 7 percent of the Nigerian company and a family member on the payroll for about $2,500 to $5,000 a month.

A family member on the payroll? That sounds like what the Soprano family calls a “no show” construction contract. You know, the kind where you get paid even though your guys never even set foot on the job site. If you want to be generous, it might be a “no work” contract in Soprano lingo. That’s where you have to show up, but nobody actually does anything except sit and take in the sun. 

A “no work” construction contract is what inspired Chris Moltisanti to sing a hilarious spoof of Bobby Darin to his crew: “If I were a carpenter… and you were a douchebag”.

Occasionally, fights break out between the gangsters. In the scene below, from ”No Work” (Episode 41, Season 4) Moltisanti is confronting Patsi Parisi for stealing a truckload of tile from this “no work” site. Later, Patsi will use the lead pipe to beat up a construction worker on the site for no reason. ROTM has no reason to suspect these kinds of confrontations took place at Rep. Jefferson’s “no work” sites.

We know what you’re thinking: Tommy “The Hammer” Delay (R-Sing Sing) did the same thing. His wife, Christine, took a $3200/month paycheck from a lobbying company for whom Delay was doing some favors. It’s true. But there are so many other disgraceful shenanigans to call Delay on that he’s got his own category. So let’s let Jefferson have his moment, okay?

For those who haven’t been following this story, a top Bush-Cheney ‘04 fundraiser and prominent Ohio GOP hack has come under scrutiny for his handling of $50 million in state money. The long and short of it is, he invested the taxpayer cash in rare coins and other questionable investments and lost or stole quite a bit of it.

Noe was a ‘pioneer’ in the Bush campaign (along with Jack Abramoff), meaning he raised over $100k for the president’s reelection. He has been charged separately in federal court for illegally raising over $45k of that money.

Noe has finally been indicted in the Ohio scam (what the press is calling ‘Coingate’) and he’s facing up to 175 years in jail. But here’s the kicker:

Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien said Noe faces a mandatory minimum of 10 years behind bars if he is convicted of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, a first-degree felony patterned after the federal racketeering law often used against suspected mobsters.

Yep, RICO– the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act. We’ve pointed out here in the past that another notable Republican, Tommy “The Hammer” DeLay (R-Leavenworth), was charged under RICO, as well as fictional gangster Corrado “Junior” Soprano (Don-North Jersey).

Essentially, it refers to the fact that Noe created a bunch of phony organizations and shell companies and forged documents in an effort to hide the path of all the cash he was stealing. It’s a fancy version of money-laundering. Abramoff did the same thing with the Capital Athletic Foundation et al.

According to http://www.ricoact.com/, “RICO was intended to destroy the Mafia.” But in recent years, RICO has been used more frequently in other areas– “it is applied to individuals, businesses, political protest groups, and terrorist organizations.” Hmmm… Noe would probably prefer we just stick to the Mafia comparisons…

First, we’d like to go on the record as saying we have no reason to believe the veep’s hunting incident this past weekend was anything but an accident. Heck, we hunt from time to time too, and we understand that these things happen.

That said, the fact that the vice president of the United States shot a guy in the face with a 28 gauge shotgun simply cannot go unaddressed on this website for what we hope are obvious reasons.

First we can’t help but be reminded of Sopranos Season 4, episode 37: Pine Barrens. Remember this one? Paulie Walnuts and Christopher take a Russian guy out to the Pine Barrens in south Jersey to whack him and wind up getting lost and spending the night in the woods. In the hilarious pic below, Bobby Baccaliere, in full hunting garb has just found the two of them.

Of course, no one gets shot in the face (though the Russian does get capped in back of the head. And, like Cheney’s target– survives!), but we couldn’t resist getting these pictures of Bobby Bacala and Dick Cheney in hunter’s orange juxtaposed on the site.

But let’s run our usual drill a bit more specifically. Guys who shoot people in the face with shotguns: Republicans… or the Mafia?

Well, the closer analogue may be when Tony Soprano gets rid of Tony Blundetto at the end of Season 5. Here’s how the Sopranos website describes the sequence:

“Tony B. is still at Uncle Pat’s farmhouse, awaiting a message from Tony S. Soon it comes: as he steps onto the porch carrying groceries, Tony S. emerges from around a corner and fires a single twelve-gauge shotgun cartridge into his cousin’s forehead.”

Yeah, that sounds just about right. Now, before the hatemail starts pouring in, remember: we acknowledge that Cheney’s situation was an accident. But other than motive and, maybe, range, these situations are pretty similar, no?

So this is hardcore. Via Carpetbagger, we read a suspicious report from the far-out Insight magazine that Karl Rove is “blacklisting” Republicans on the Judiciary committee, lest they grow a conscience and conclude that the President broke the law by not getting FISA warrants for his domestic spying program.

We’ll let serious blogs deal with the constitutional implications of the President’s actions. Instead we’ll focus on the mafia movie angle!

Again, this one’s fish in a barrel. It’s hard to find a mafia movie where the mobster didn’t intimidate someone into falling in line. So we’ll go with a classic, the granddaddy (God-daddy?) of the genre:

“I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.”

According to this (admittedly specious) source, Rove’s worried that the Judiciary Committee ruling could pave the way for the dreaded impeachment hearings. Unfortunately for Consigliere Rove, the Senators on this particular committee are a prickly bunch. Several of them were serving in D.C. when Rove’s boss, el Presidente was still waking up in his own vomit, and many still be there in three years when he’s back clearing brush in Crawford. So they’re not likely to roll over for the Rove-man. Specter, Hatch, Graham, Grassley: Not exactly Bush sycophants. It’s not like Rove can actually break their kneecaaps… can he?

“The administration… is handing out non-competitive construction contracts to their friends. Hell, we can understand that.”

–Paulie Walnuts, as quoted in The Sopranos, Season 4.

hehe. Thanks Paulie!

Some of the real beltways geeks among us may remember that a few years ago, when the DCCC finally figured out all the shennanigans that Tom Delay was pulling in his home state of Texas, they sued him under the RICO statute.

For those of you who don’t know, RICO is abbreviation for Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act. We know, we know, it just sounds like the name of a gangster, right: Rico. Turns out it actually means something.

Now we’ll grant that the RICO charges didn’t go anywhere against Delay. Indeed, a few Democrats and lots of liberal op-ed pages scolded the DCCC for suing Delay under RICO. But at the end of the day, the DCCC really had the Delay thing figured out. And a lot of the stuff they sued him for under RICO a few years back is the same stuff that’s going to put his associates (and quite possibly DeLay himself) in the slammer before too long. Bob Bauer explains the D triple C’s reasoning:

DCCC had devoted some care to an examination of DeLay’s modus operandi, but much of what it found was easily available through a review of the daily and periodical press. In these press accounts—confirmed by other sources—could be found all the elements of behavior fairly addressed, for want of feasible alternatives, by a racketeering suit. The extortionate behavior of “K Street Project” notoriety, now so furiously condemned in the call for reform; the use of various shells to move money around without disclosure for various political and other purposes; the questionable associates and associations by which Mr. DeLay and his associates effected and directed this scheme.

Right. And that’s still what we’re working on now. And of course, now we’ve got Jack Abramoff talking to the feds and a few more years of muckraking reporters exposing the various and nefarious schemes under our belts. But the essentials are all the same: DeLay and Abramoff et al had this big GOP slush fund that they hid by laundering and hiding money in all these organizations. They used it to pimp themselves out but also to pay for power. Sounds to us like RICO isn’t so out of line.

But we’re not lawyers, so we’re not going to take a firm stance on whether or not RICO was the right way to go after DeLay. More importantly is the fact that, from a Republicans… or the Mafia? perspective, it was definitely the funniest way to go after him. After all, who else gets sued under RICO? Why, gangsters, of course!

Most recently, notable fictional gangster Junior Soprano was sued under the RICO act. The RICO trial hung over his head for quite awhile, forcing Tony to take the reigns as “street boss” of the family. That took some heat off of Junior, though he still got a piece of all the business. Kind of like the arrangement Delay had with Roy Blunt (R-MO) when Delay was indicted last September.

Junior got off the hook in the end. Tony threatened a juror and so they wound up with a hung jury and a mistrial. DeLay should only be so lucky.

In either case, we take our hats off to fellow Italian and mob boss Corrado “Junior” Soprano. In getting sued under RICO, he’s in powerful company. Cento anni salute, Uncle Joon!