Posted on 06/23/2011 1:57:44 PM PDT by fight_truth_decay
In the summer of 1991, James J. "Whitey" Bulger won the Massachusetts lottery. Well, at least he claimed he did. The $14 million winning ticket was actually held by a South Boston man named Michael Linskey, who had purchased it at the Bulger-owned South Boston Liquor Mart. Linskey then told state lottery officials that he'd actually been partners with Bulger and two others and that they were entitled to half of the jackpot.
This was all enormously suspicious. It had long been known that Whitey Bulger, whose brother Billy was then the most powerful politician in Massachusetts, lived on the other side of the law, and by '91 it was becoming clear -- and, the closer you looked, glaringly obvious -- that his crimes included racketeering, drug-running and murder. He wasn't just the neighborhood bookie in South Boston. In fact, the only reason he owned the South Boston Liquor Mart was because he'd paid a visit a few years earlier to its previous owner, Stephen "Stippo" Rakes, intimating that Rakes' child might be harmed if he didn't agree to sell the store to Whitey. Similar coercion, just about everyone figured, accounted for Whitey's lottery score.
But not the most influential columnist at the biggest and most influential newspaper in New England. Mike Barnicle took to his Boston Globe column to issue a ringing defense of Whitey -- a man he always called "Jimmy,"
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
Mike Barnicle is an award-winning print and broadcast journalist, as well as a social and political commentator, who is a frequent contributor and occasional guest host on MSNBC's popular "Morning Joe" and "Hardball with Chris Matthews." Barnicle can also been seen regularly on NBC's "Today Show." -MIKE BARNICLE FOR TIME MAGAZINE http://www.mikebarnicle.com/
For personal reasons I have a very low opinion of Barnicle.
He is an arrogant a** !
Barnical used to write those sappy “personal” stories in the Boston Globe about the poor city kids, and how they were being hurt because the government didn’t spend enough money, or something.
Had no idea Barnicle had an organized crime tie-in. But then, he IS a Democrat. No real surprise.
Barnicle with its suggestion of the crustacean that clings tightly to a ship hull, fouling it, sounds like a name that would be made up for a gangster novel. To think this played out in the last decade, much of it under George W. Bush (who didn’t purge the Rat-ridden FBI).
Yeah,this “man of the people” lives in Lincoln and is married to Anne Finucane.
I didn’t know about the crime connection either,but it doesn’t surprise me.
Yes, and he lost his gig because he was exposed about 10 years ago as having made them up.
Yep,time to scrape the “barnicles” off.
I was thrilled when his hypocrisy was uncovered and he had to leave The Boston Globe.
“The widow’s tears fell softly on the oilskin table cloth in her dimly lit kitchen as she told me about her son Jamal.......”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.