During a recent TV interview I was challenged by the host when I talked about connections between traditional organized crime and the Homeowners Association movement. The host was great and gave me some latitude to explain.
But next month the entire nation should be riveted by the federal racketeering organized crime trial involving Las Vegas Homeowners Associations and the Mafia. Nobody will pay attention, of course, especially the national media. But the FBI has found that there are very interesting connections between a Mexican drug cartel, corrupt government officials in Mexico who are doing money laundering for the American HOA business, and corrupt cops and lawyers in Las Vegas. This is a huge trial, one of the largest the FBI has ever undertaken. And 36 of 41 organized crime suspects have already pleaded guilty.
Mafia? Homeowners Associations? Exaggeration? Not by much.
Just keep in mind the question, “Who is Joseph Angelo Bravo?” What are his connections to the Mexican drug cartels and the Italian Mafia families in Buffalo, New York and why is he so deeply involved in the Homeowners Association movement in Nevada? Why is this convicted cocaine smuggler the airport manager in Baja, California?
It’s a perfectly written script for a Hollywood movie scandal.
But no matter how much you try, YOU WILL NOT get the American networks’ attention. It just not on their radar screens.
I guess that’s why you keep logging in to Neighbors At War.com… to get the real truth.
I don’t have to exaggerate this one since it’s coming out in next month’s federal HOA racketeering trial in Las Vegas. No, there are positive links between money laundering in American Homeowners Associations through Mexican drug cartels. As absolutely incredible and impossible it sounds, everything’s fair game when it makes its way into sworn federal court testimony.
Sound weird? Impossible? Just remember that when crime gets organized, organized crime becomes endemic.
And remember that the national news networks are totally avoiding any in-depth reporting on this story. Shame on the national media.
Whether you agree or disagree with the Wall Street Journal columnist linked below, the term ‘hate speech’ is a constantly sliding scale. And it usually slides in ways that benefit the current political power. The first act of dictators is to ban some kinds of speech. Certainly, some speech is in bad taste but if you allow any ruling power to regulate what can and cannot be said in public, then you’re on a decidedly slippery slope.
On the Neighbors At War blog we frequently take note of certain Homeowners Associations where a battered neighbor who tries to run for the board is banned from speaking out, banned from handing out campaign literature, forbidden from expressing opinions to neighbors. That kind of fascism threatens the very homes and neighborhoods in which we live.
At the same time, censorship of any kind is a double-edged sword. On a website like this, the moderator has the power to permit or to edit out language or thoughts that he deems are simply in bad taste. But this website is not a government institution. It’s a place where we share concerns, thoughts, feelings.
Our Republic is unique in that the very first right granted to Americans was the right to express thoughts without government censorship. Are there limits? Of course. And we granted the Supreme Court the power to analyze certain kinds of speech to see if they constituted an endangerment to others. In some cases (yelling fire, libel, slander) the Court ruled that freedom of speech is not absolute.
Although Wall Street Journalist Bret Stephens is being pilloried for writing this column, in my opinion he should be congratulated for his analysis.
I’ve give anything to be able to personally report on the upcoming federal HOA trial in Las Vegas. The whole nation should be abuzz with this story about racketeering and Homeowners Associations. But few people outside of Nevada have actually heard of it. The networks simply aren’t covering it.
But reporters and columnists for the Las Vegas Review Journal are doing a great job ferreting out the weasles. The column linked below shows some pretty fascinating ties between a well-known mob drug trafficker and the HOA business.
