Call me Eliot Ness

[jmowreader]

In the days of Prohibition, the treasury department's Volstead Act enforcer was a gentleman named Eliot Ness. (The movie The Untouchables was about him--it wasn't accurate, but it was entertaining.)

As we know, Ness wound up throwing Al Capone in jail on tax-evasion charges. He had a rack of Volstead Act charges to throw at him if the tax stuff didn't work (this is one of the things the movie doesn't discuss) but he was found guilty on the tax stuff and sent to prison.

Tax was good enough for Eliot Ness, and sex scandals in the White House are good enough for me: if this will get the Bush Mafia out of the White House and the Republican Party discredited, I'll take it.

[TomClash]

1. The ultimate irony

is that Eliot Ness later became the President of none other than


DIEBOLD

[dryan]

2. Where did you....

read that? The true story is that J. Edgar Hoover was so mad at Ness for all the great PR he received that he was forced out of the government. He kind of languished in 'cop-hell' until WWII when he was put in charge of the Army's program to stamp out prostitution near its bases--I guess that this was a real health and morale problem --after WWII he met the author who wrote the book "The Untouchables". That was one of the few "adult" shows my parents would let me watch when I was a little girl.

[TomClash]

4. In a number of places

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_Ness

http://www.atf.treas.gov/kids/ness.htm

Heimel's book on Eliot Ness also talks about this briefly.

[mattclearing]

3. Huh? n/t

[TomClash]

5. I'm Lying but look here:

http://www.atf.treas.gov/kids/ness.htm

[mattclearing]

6. Funny.

You have to be careful throwing the D word around here. People will freak out.