SOUTHERN DISCOMFORT

The Devil went down to Georgia looking for souls to steal.

We found a little piece of real world pulp and thought we’d share it because it relates to what we wrote last month about Sean’s Penn’s El Chapo interview. A news story yesterday revealed that in the U.S. forty-six current and former officers of the Georgia Department of Corrections were arrested for running a drugs and contraband ring in prisons around the state. Yup, you read that right—forty-six officers. These cops and guards facilitated cocaine and meth deals both inside and outside of prison, and smuggled liquor, tobacco and cell phones inside in exchange for money. Convicts used the phones to commit wire fraud, money laundering, and identify theft. And we should point out that none of this is unique to Georgia. In 2014 a North Carolina convict orchestrated a kidnapping in Atlanta using a contraband cell phone.

In our Sean Penn piece we quoted Roberto Saviano, the internationally respected author and researcher, who has said the illegal drug trade has an influence on the global economy similar to that of oil or gold. That is to say, it’s so lucrative international law is ignored, and people are killed by the thousands to keep the profits rolling in. The main difference is all the millions of dollars have to be cleaned in the legal financial system. But that’s no problem. Several huge banks, including Wachovia and HSBC, have intentionally laundered drug money and gotten away with mere fines. Other huge institutions, such as Bank of America and J.P. Morgan, are known to have been used for money laundering but claim it all somehow happened without their knowledge.

To the FBI’s credit, they’re not treating this as a one-off. Special agent Britt Johnson, who you see above, hinted at wider problems, commenting at a news conference, “It makes a huge challenge for law enforcement. After you chase down, arrest, and prosecute criminals and put them away for life, they continue to direct crime on the streets from their jail cells.”

So what’s the solution? Make the prisons even harsher? Legalize drugs? We have no idea. We’re not suggesting that anyone have sympathy for the guards that got arrested, but you have to admit, when drug profits are so vast they corrupt entire third world political systems and entire first world banking systems, it’s a lot to expect lowly prison guards not to try and join the party.

Georgia, North Carolina, Roberto Saviano, drugs

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

February 16

1937—Carothers Patents Nylon

Wallace H. Carothers, an American chemist, inventor and the leader of organic chemistry at DuPont Corporation, receives a patent for a silk substitute fabric called nylon. Carothers was a depressive who for years carried a cyanide capsule on a watch chain in case he wanted to commit suicide, but his genius helped produce other polymers such as neoprene and polyester. He eventually did take cyanideâ€”not in pill form, but dissolved in lemon juiceâ€”resulting in his death in late 1937.

February 15

1933—Franklin Roosevelt Survives Assassination Attempt

In Miami, Florida, Giuseppe Zangara attempts to shoot President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, but is restrained by a crowd and, in the course of firing five wild shots, hits five people, including Chicago, Illinois Mayor Anton J. Cermak, who dies of his wounds three weeks later. Zangara is quickly tried and sentenced to eighty years in jail for attempted murder, but is later convicted of murder when Cermak dies. Zangara is sentenced to death and executed in Florida’s electric chair.

February 14

1929—Seven Men Shot Dead in Chicago

Seven people, six of them gangster rivals of Al Capone’s South Side gang, are machine gunned to death in Chicago, Illinois, in an event that would become known as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Because two of the shooters were dressed as police officers, it was initially thought that police might have been responsible, but an investigation soon proved the killings were gang related. The slaughter exceeded anything yet seen in the United States at that time.

February 13

1935—Jury Finds Hauptmann Guilty

A jury in Flemington, New Jersey finds Bruno Hauptmann guilty of the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby, the son of Charles Lindbergh. Hauptmann is sentenced to death and executed in 1936. For decades, his widow Anna fights to have his named cleared, claiming that Hauptmann did not commit the crime, and was instead a victim of prosecutorial misconduct, but her claims are ultimately dismissed in 1984 after the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to address the case.