Chris Locke warns us first:
Longtime readers know how hard I work to be dispassionate, fair and objective. However, I am sitting here tonight listening to the preposterous bilge coming out of the Republican National Convention and if I have to listen to one more of these self-satisfied true-believer low-down lying motherfuckers, I am going to vomit. Given that Sarah Palin is up next, I better get the bucket out.
And then Chris Locke informs us:
…how Cindy Hensley McCain’s daddy got [his] start in business…
Jim Hensley and his brother Eugene went to work after World War II for Kemper Marley, a wealthy wholesale liquor distributor. Marley, in fact, had once been a bookie, getting his start working for the Transamerica Wire Service, a betting service established by mafiosi [sic] Gus Greenbaum (who was murdered with his wife when their throats were slashed in bed in 1958). Until 1947, liquor was rationed by the government. Apparently Marley did quite well in spite of the restrictions, and in 1948 the reason why became clear. Eugene and Jim Hensley were convicted of falsifying records on behalf of Marley’s distributorship, United Liquor (along with fifty other Marley employees) to conceal the illegal distribution of hundreds of cases of liquor. Jim Hensley got a six month suspended sentence.
In 1953, Jim Hensley, then the General Manager for United Liquor, was once more charged for doing the same thing again. Marley paid for top notch legal representation though (future Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist.) Hensley still went to prison, but took the fall when the rest of the company was cleared. According to an article in American Mafia.com, Marley rewarded Hensley for his loyalty to the organization:
When Hensley strolled out of the joint, Marley bought his silence with a lucrative Phoenix-based Budweiser beer distributorship.