McCarthy failing anew in bid for speaker, GOP in disarray

S1: Another vote in the House speakership is still up for grabs.

S2: You've got these competing factions within the House of conservative and very conservative. And for the first time , this has broken out in the open warfare between them over the selection of a speaker.

S1: I'm Jayde Hindman. This is KPBS midday edition. Gas bills are more than doubling for some. A look at why that is.

S3: Prices have been going up and they keep going up. So it's pretty unfortunate. Everything is more expensive these days. And , you know , it's not easy to hear that your energy bill is going to be higher.

S1: Snow in the mountains improves drought conditions. And a book about the Navy and Mafia's collaboration during World War Two. That's ahead on Midday Edition. Republicans are still grappling over who will lead their party. The House of Representatives is still without a speaker after voting over two days. Republican Representative Kevin McCarthy still does not have enough to win the position. 20 representatives have voted against him. Today , opponent of the Bakersfield Republican nominated and voted for newly elected Florida Republican Byron Donalds. To help us understand what is going on. We turn to Carl Luna , professor of political science at San Diego Mesa College and director of the Institute for Civil Civic Engagement at the University of San Diego. Carl , welcome.

S2: Thank you for having me.

S1: What's happening in the House.

S2: That the House of Representatives is displaying a level of disorganization you have not seen in any of our lifetimes. It's becoming more like a British parliamentary system than the old fashioned American house where you had the leader of your party. They became the speaker , and you waited till the next election to see if you change that.

S1: Selecting a speaker is typically done before the vote.

S2: Now for the Democrats , everybody in your party votes for them. And if your party's in the majority , they become speaker. Easy peasy , because the parties would vote kind of as blocs. What's happened , particularly in the Republican Party , is you don't have one Republican Party any longer. You've got the far right of the Republican Party , ultra conservatives. About 20 , 30 members of that wing. And then since 2010 , you have the Tea Party movement , which represents now a kind of a majority of the Republican caucus. I think it's like less than 20% of Republicans in the House have been there before 2010. You've got these competing factions within the House of conservative and very conservative. And for the first time , this has broken out in the open warfare between them over the selection of a speaker. Now , remember , Republicans went through before they got McCarthy has to be potentially sacrificed. John Boehner was thrown out by the conservative wing of the caucus. Paul Ryan , speaker of the House , chose not to run again because he knew he wasn't going to survive with the conservatives. And you've never been able to resolve this kind of intraparty warfare in the House side. And now that they've won control of the House , they have to sort it out or they can't govern.

S1:

S2: It's a completely burn down the establishment start over approach. So anybody who's been in leadership is tainted. And he was the majority leader before that. He worked under as the majority leader under previous speakers. So that's the first problem. He's called a rhino because he hasn't been conservative enough because he was looking like he was supporting some compromise with Democrats in previous bills in the past. And there's this interesting , odd kind of new notion that if you ever compromise with the other side , you've betrayed your base when our whole system is supposed to be based on compromise. I heard people excoriating Mitch Mitchell today on the radio for being in Kentucky , talking with President Joe Biden , who helped to get a $2 billion bridge repair job in Kentucky , which is something that Kentucky has wanted for years. Yeah , if the other side's willing to build you a bridge , you're supposed to say thank you and move on.

S1: Yesterday , the representatives voting against McCarthy voted for Ohio Republican Jim Jordan. Today , they are voting for the newly elected Florida Republican Congressman Byron Donalds. There doesn't seem to be a clear alternative to Kevin McCarthy.

S2: Somebody gets put on a committee , they want to be put on , etc. , and then you get this , you round everybody up and they vote for your party. You have McCarthy has given away a ton already to this very small faction within his party to try to get their votes. They're gutting the ethics commission within the House so there won't be a lot of independent oversight. He's looking to make it as few as five members of the House on his party who can trigger a vote of confidence. No confidence in the speaker. That's something you've never seen before. So for a handful of people to bring down the speaker , this is what brought down Liz Truss in England , was the threat of that from her own party. Again , we're becoming more like a parliamentary system than the traditional compromise driven House of Representatives. So and the fact that you're going now that Jim Jordan was one of the the Tea Party leaders that helped to define the party to the right , he's now being outflanked on the right. And when you look at people like Byron Donalds , he has an even I would. He couldn't even identify where all the bathrooms are in the house because he just got there and they're thinking that you're voting to make him leader. That's unprecedented. That's a statement that you don't like anything about what the party's been doing for the last 20 years. Even if it is , it has become much more conservative than it was back in the nineties.

S1: Kevin McCarthy is not stepping aside , so he'll have to negotiate with his opponents , presumably.

S2: Again , they're getting concessions which will allow them to veto a speaker , basically fire a speaker whenever they want. And this is like , you know , going to parliamentary system where you have a really small conservative party or a really small leftist party , that you need to form a governing coalition. And because if you lose their votes , your coalition falls apart , they get disproportionate influence on the agenda. What they're going to want to see on these members is they take a profoundly leading role in what their real goal is for this current Congress , which is to investigate the Biden administration , to get a national platform to show how anti-Democrat they are and then see what that does for their political careers in 2024.

S1:

S2: It makes the party look weaker that way. And then when they take power , eventually at some point , McCarthy's probably going to win this unless some compromise candidate emerges and it won't be Donalds. It could be Jordan if he finally steps up , could be Scalise , the number two member. But when they try to govern , they're going to have a hard time getting things done. We've got an extended budget resolution that takes us into next fall. But what you can look forward to is in the fall of 2023 , a government shutdown , a scorched earth policy regarding budgeting. And if that makes the Republicans look bad in the House , that sets up the Democrats for a better chance to win both the House back and keep the presidency in 2024.

S1:

S2: But then again back then , the government was more of a part time affair and it wasn't as involved in day to day life of Americans. It would be profoundly unusual if this lasted for more than a couple of weeks. So hopefully that they will reach out some deal. But then the problem be trying to govern. But for at least , again , if even five of the members of this coalition continue to say no to McCarthy , he can't win without Democratic support. So they may just see this as keeping themselves on the front page into February. Maybe by Valentine's Day , the party will find a heart and heal itself.

S1:

S2: When people call Kevin McCarthy a rhino Republican in name only. You're so narrowly defining your view of Republicanism that you're breaking up the Republican Party into multiple factions. And the system on the House is not really designed for that. It's designed for whichever party has a majority , take over the chairmanships and then govern , but work on occasion with the minority to get basic things passed again , like funding the government , dealing with disaster relief , military budget , all the things that the Congress has to do. So if they can't get their act together , you're probably looking at not much passing at the national level for until 2024 and for the 20 who are opposing McCarthy , this is great. They believe anything the government does is almost by definition bad. So their job is to stop the government from acting , which is a very different view of the American government than you had back in the Reagan years , the Bush years , the second Bush years. It's not particularly a traditional conservative Republican view where you govern , but you govern in a particular way.

S1:

S2: It's been over 100 years since it happened back in the twenties. You went to a second vote on a speaker. But the last time this happened was post-Civil War America , where Republicans were still shaping up the post-Civil War Party. But again , you could go for a while without the party , without the picking of speaker , because you didn't really notice that the government wasn't acting back then. Now it's front page news and it's going to start to affect markets issues like more money for the Ukraine. The response of the Biden administration to international events could called into question , and it also makes us the world's oldest , really large functioning democracy. Looks like we can't get our act together and that's brand name damaging.

S1:

S2: I'm not exactly sure , to tell you the truth , because this is unexplored and explored territory. I don't see where Kevin McCarthy has a lot more he can offer to the gang of 25 to 15 to 17 to 20 that he needs to get on to his side. Perhaps some committee chairmanships the party might swallow , but then they don't have typically any of this group seniority for a committee chairmanships. He's already said that we're going to be investigating the Biden administration. I think for this group that's voting against McCarthy. It's kind of like the dog that caught the car and then they're not really sure what to do with it. At some point , maybe some of them peel off. At some point , maybe ten or 15 Republicans say , forget this , we have to govern. And they threatened to go for a Hakeem Jeffries and actually support a Democrat as speaker. That would be tremendously unusual. Maybe that could be a leverage to move things along. But when you have ideologues who are really committed to a very narrow version of governing , it's very hard to reason with them or horse trade the way we used to in the past.

S1: I've been speaking with Carl Luna , professor of political science at San Diego Mesa College and director of the Institute for Civil Civic Engagement at the University of San Diego. Carl , thank you.

S2: Thank you much.

S1: The cost of natural gas has skyrocketed and so could your household gas bills. Jenni is warning customers to prepare for higher utility bills. KPBS environment reporter Eric Anderson spoke with Jenny , senior communications manager Helen Gow about how these increases in natural gas will affect customers. Here's their conversation.

S3: The natural gas market has been going up over the past year , and it's gone up even more in the last few weeks. So what that has led to is higher natural gas rates. So as Jenny buys the natural gas in the open market on behalf of our customers and the price that we pay for that natural gas is not marked up is a straight pass through to our customers. So there's basically a hockey stick curve in terms of natural gas prices that's occurred in the last few weeks. So utility bills nationwide are going up because of the condition of the natural gas market.

S4: And they're going up a lot. Right. It's it's very noticeable. Exactly.

S3: Exactly. It is very significant. And that is why we're talking to you. Frankly , we want to make sure our customers are made aware of the trend. We've been trying to alert our customers to this trend since October because we've seen basically prices have been going up and they keep going up. So it's it's pretty unfortunate. Of course , you know , everything is more expensive these days. And , you know , it's not easy to hear that your energy bill is going to be higher.

S4:

S3: So we did a comparison between January one of 2022 and January one of 2023 , and the increase is very significant. So it went from $2.36 per therm , which is the unit for gas to $5.11 per therm. So that's a big , big increase. And , you know , in January people tend to use a lot more natural gas than in the rest of the year because it's colder. And that's true also in the rest of the country. So you're seeing higher demand in general. Supplies are tight. So basic economics , supply and demand.

S4:

S3: And in their report , they indicated that one of the key reasons is because of widespread below normal temperatures across the country. So , you know , when when the when it's cold , naturally people use more natural gas to heat up their home and there's high consumption. And then also there's low storage levels in the Pacific West. And there's also some pipe issues that have led to reduced flow. So all in all , essentially , you're looking at tight supplies and high demand and therefore the market conditions are the way they are.

S4: Now , these commodity prices are in effect just for the month of January. There's a chance they could go down in February and significantly.

S3: Well , so we update on natural gas prices on a monthly basis based on market conditions. But the market has been so volatile , it's been so dynamic , you know , it's not appropriate to speculate what it would be like. So what happens is at the end of this month will publish the natural gas rate for next month. And that's all based on market conditions. It's just been really extraordinary in terms of how high the natural gas market has has gone over the last year. I mean , it's just really high , historically high.

S4: You know , 30% of the San Diego Gas and Electric customer base is already struggling to pay their bills on time. And this seems to be an extra burden for them to carry.

S3: I know that all of our customers are seeing higher bills for other utilities , and we want to make sure that people know that we have a wide range of assistance programs available to them. Debt relief payment plans build discounts. We encourage everybody to visit SDI dot com slash assistance. We're also working with local community based organizations to help enroll customers in assistance programs.

S4: Are there things that customers can. Due in this next month to kind of be the head of this bill.

S3: Yeah , there's some easy things that customers can do. For example , you know , at home I've started washing my clothes with cold water versus hot water. That's one easy way to save on your heating bill. Another easy thing to do would be to weather strip to reduce the the draft in your house. That would also help keep the warmth , the heat inside the house. We have a whole list of tips online and SDG dot com slash my energy and people can check that out.

S4: Is this going to be a this is something very similar happened last year , although not to the degree that it happened this year. Prices spiked in the in January. It started to come down in February and March , etc..

S3: There are so many factors that can influence natural gas prices. And it's not natural gas is a it's traded internationally as a commodity , is traded nationally as a commodity. Any number of things can affect natural gas prices. So it's not something that we can , you know , predict and say , hey , in the next few months your your bills are going to be lower. What we want people to know is , look , the market conditions that we've seen in the last few weeks and over the last year have been very severe. And we want to make sure people are prepared and that they know their bills would be impacted by the natural gas market conditions. It's it's hard. We know that it's really hard to hear that your bill is going to be higher. And we want to make sure that they get help that they need if they're struggling to pay their bills.

S1: That was SDG and EE. Senior communications manager Helen GAO speaking with KPBS , environment reporter Eric Anderson. You're listening to KPBS midday edition. I'm Jade Hindman. With storms flooding parts of California. There is a bit of good news. California's first snow survey for the winter shows the state's snowpack levels are at 174% compared to the historical average. And even more snow is expected to fall over the coming days. Joining me to talk about snow levels and the impact on California's drought is Andrew Schwartz , lead scientist at the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab. Andrew , welcome.

S2: Thank you so much for having me on.

S1: So the 174% of average number , I mean , that's hard to visualize.

S2: And realistically , that means different amounts for different places because that's a statewide average up here at the snow lab or actually a little bit higher than that. We're at 180 , 87% of average. So we have effectively gotten 214 inches so far this season where ordinarily we'd only get about 112. So , you know , we've we've gotten about an extra nine feet of snow , which is absolutely fantastic.

S1: And we hear the term snow pack a lot.

S2: And the reason why it's important is that it kind of acts as another reservoir that sits on top of the mountains. Right. So , you know , we're all familiar with the regular water reservoirs , but this one sits up here throughout the season and traditionally is very useful because it slowly releases water throughout the spring and summer , which keeps our water resources running in those months and kind of eases some of the burden on the reservoirs. So we really like to have snowpack up here for as long as we can and in deep amounts so that we can ensure that we have enough water not just for the ecosystems but also for our own users as humans too.

S1:

S2: Yeah. So one of the issues that we see with the ecosystems up in the Sierra Nevada is that in drought years or in years where we have heat stress , our ecosystems dry out really easily and they they absolutely soak up more water. That then eventually doesn't make it down to our reservoirs. So when we were able to have snowpack around and kind of keep our our ecosystems healthy , that means that any additional water , whether that be from snowmelt or rain , can then run into our reservoirs and we can use. So it kind of boils down to there being two fundamentally different types of drought. One being the ecosystem in the natural system and two being us as humans that need to then use the additional water. So we like to have snowpack because it helps keep the ecosystem happy and then in return enables us to have more water as bigger stream flows and reservoir inflows occur.

S1: And you earlier you said we've got nine extra feet of snow. Can you talk a little bit about how this snowpack compares to recent years and the historical average ? Absolutely.

S2: So this time last year , actually , the snow lab had more snow than we did. But the great thing right now is that we have a lot more snow around the entire state and throughout the western United States. So last year , storms were kind of hyper localized in northern and central California. And this year they've been a lot more spread out , which has resulted realistically in the areas most impacted by drought , having much more snowpack than we have in recent years. This is one of the best years that we've had in a couple decades now. And so it sets us up. As long as this precipitation doesn't cut off for potentially helping us come out of the drought a little bit.

S1: And the director of the California Department of Water Resources said yesterday that these numbers provide an opportunity to really breathe a sigh of relief.

S2: Effectively , you know , it's a it's a big time to celebrate because we do have great numbers. But we all know what happened last year , too. We started out pretty well and then kind of faded off with the driest January through March period. So right now , you know , traditionally it's I've kind of referred to it as needing cautious optimism. Right. We've hit this amazing snowfall and this amazing snowpack early in the season , and we just need to make sure it continues. And fortunately , so far , it's looking like it's going to do that , which means that , yeah , we can breathe a sigh of relief a little bit. And then instead of cautious optimism , maybe we can just be purely optimistic at this point.

S1: And you mentioned the drought. This snow puts us in a good position.

S2: So when we talk about coming out of this drought , we need quite a bit of additional snow and rain. But that doesn't mean that we can't kind of start working our way out of it. Realistically , we'll probably need multiple years of above average conditions in order to come out of it fully. But every little bit that we can kind of claw out of it is going to help us immensely. And as long as we're not going further into drought or just maintaining the status quo , that's absolutely what we want , right ? We want to get back to neutral as fast as we can. And so these big above average years are starting to help us do that , assuming again that we don't go dry later in the season.

S1:

S2: And that puts us actually about a full month to a month and a half ahead of where we would be expected to be. So the precipitation that we've already received would be average for the middle of February , basically. So in order for us to stay ahead , if we just average kind of what we would be looking at overall , then we would need about another 280 inches of snow here at the lab. So that's that's still pretty impressive numbers because February , January , March , those are some of our snowy is not. So realistically , to stay ahead and kind of keep the lead that we've built , we need about another 23 feet of snow. With that being said , you know , even coming in at a little bit , you know , a few feet underneath , that wouldn't hurt either because we'd still be above average. But to keep the lead that we built , yeah , we'd need about 23 to 24 feet of snow.

S1: And again , about a third of California's water supply comes from melting snow.

S2: But , you know , realistically , too , we've gotten plenty of rains and every reservoir around the state just about has really started upping their inflows. And several of them are looking quite good with with numbers way beyond where we expected them to be. So as far as this this extra snowfall , you know , this is all going to go back into bringing our reservoirs where they should be for this time of year and then hopefully maybe even go above that. You know , many of these reservoirs have enough storage of them to not only bring in all this additional moisture , but still have room for flooding in case we do get big storms. And so with this additional snowfall , it's only going to help us out in our reservoirs. And hopefully if we can stay above average , resolve our water restrictions a little bit.

S1: And we've been talking about the snow in California , but our water supplies rely heavily on the Colorado River.

S2: And realistically throughout the Colorado River Basin , a lot of these river catchments are looking up to 150% , some even over 200%. So it looks like in addition to filling our reservoirs here in California , that the snowpack throughout places like Colorado and Utah is really going to help start to pump more water downstream. Now , again , that really means that we need to keep our foot on the gas , so to speak , with the storm tracks and make sure those are still coming through the mountains , because we want those average those numbers to stay above average. But so far in the western U.S. , it looks like the areas that have most needed the water are getting it for right now.

S1: It's all bittersweet , I suppose. Andrew Schwartz is lead scientist at the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab. Andrew , enjoy that snow and thanks so much for joining us.

S2: Thank you. And I definitely will enjoy the snow. You have a good one.

S1: You too. Friday will mark two years since the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. More than 10% of the people charged with crimes in the attack are military veterans. But policymakers are still struggling to address violent extremism among some members of the veteran community. Steve Walsh reports for the American Homefront Project.

S2: In the congressional session that ended in December , the House Committee on Veterans Affairs looked at extremism and white supremacy among veterans. At times , the hearings themselves highlighted how difficult the conversation remains. Some GOP members lashed out at the premise , including Congressman Jim Banks of Indiana. Mr. Chairman , I think this hearing is offensive. And the fact that you're going to save our veterans from becoming political terrorists is offensive to every voter in America. But the number of veterans linked to extremism has been rising , though it's still a tiny percentage of the veteran community. 118 people with military backgrounds face charges related to the January six insurrection. California Democrat Mark Takano was committee chair. It is a small number. We need to be able to raise this issue.

S4: Without being subject to the claim that we're trying to.

S2: Paint all veterans or characterize all veterans as extremists. The committee called on the VA to work more closely with the Department of Defense to curb extremism among veterans. But the colonel concedes that will be a challenge. It's a very delicate place the VA has to be in in.

S4: Terms of their the government , the federal government , if it looks like they're trying to intrude into the realm of.

S2: Veterans groups , that's not going to work. Competing definitions make it more difficult to take action. Max Rager Mon is a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland , is one of the authors of a paper in the November issue of the Journal of Applied Communications Research , which looks at how the military and veterans groups talk about extremism. Not every extremist for the terrorist harboring extremist ideology does not make an individual apparent. We found the White House , Homeland Security and the Department of Defense each have their own definitions of extremism , which are different from the FBI. After the insurrection , Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ordered a stand down among all troops to talk about extremism. It didn't really accomplish any of the goals that it set because they were just defined in very abstract terms. There was really no measure of success. Right. That's also an issue with a lot of government terrorism prevention policies. There are no measures of success. Nick Merak is another one of the paper's authors , Asian-American and gay. He graduated from the Naval Academy in 2007 and says extremism is nothing new in the military. He remembers an incident on one of his first ships.

S5: Someone pulled the knife on me on board.

S2: And they were like.

S5: Sharpening their knife in front of me as if to.

S2: Intimidate me. Marek is now a linguist who studies the language used by the military and veterans community around extremism. Though reports from the Department of Defense say the problem is rare.

S5: I'm not really sure that squares like my experience in the military. And I.

S2: Would argue that perhaps.

S5: Some of these folks that are coming into the military already subscribes to these ideological views. It's not like they come in and like the military fosters this culture.

S2: Some veterans don't fall prey to extremism until after they leave the service. Groups like the Oath Keepers , Proud Boys and the Three Percenters who were involved in the insurrection actively recruit veterans. Advocates say the military could do more to help troops resist those appeals. Akilah Templeton runs Veterans Village of San Diego , which assists veterans experiencing homelessness and problems with substance abuse.

S1: That transition , right ? So coming out of the military and entering back into society , it's really hard. So when a person is unable to , I think , make a smooth transition , they're more susceptible to these.

S2: Types of things. She says vets are pulled into violent extremism for the same reason they've fallen to substance abuse , job loss , family issues , isolation , military trauma combined with a loss of purpose. And Templeton says groups like hers are not really getting guidance from the VA on how to tackle the problem. In San Diego , I'm Steve Walsh.

S1: That story was produced by the American Homefront Project , a public media collaboration that reports on American military life and veterans. Funding comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Bob Woodruff Foundation. You're listening to KPBS Midday edition. I'm Jade Hindman. During the Second World War , virtually all sectors of American society mobilized in one way or another to aid the war effort. A new book from local author Matthew Black , however , details the little known story of Operation Underworld , a partnership between the U.S. Navy and the American mafia. He joins us now with more. Matthew , welcome to Midday Edition.

S5: Hi , thanks for having me.

S1: So first things first. The Navy and the Mafia working together against the backdrop of World War Two.

S5: The book starts , of course , with an incident that happened on the Upper West Side of New York City towards the beginning of the war. So on February 9th , two months since Pearl Harbor , there was a giant ship that was tied up a Pier 88 called the Normandy. And when it was being refitted , a fire started on board. The fire was enormous. Smoke could be seen from everywhere , especially in the high rises of New York City. There had long been suspected that there were spies in New York City and saboteurs on the waterfront. Seeing , you know , in the broad daylight being burned like this , it was just assumed that it was an enemy attack or sabotage. And when the Navy realized that they needed to infiltrate the waterfront in order to prevent something like that from happening again , they realized that they weren't making a lot of headway there because nobody would talk to them. The union workers who worked those docks , the longshoremen , were employed by their union bosses who were deeply rooted in the Mafia , and they were trained to just act deaf and dumb , you know , never to speak to any authority figure about their bosses. And so that's what they did. They they would not help the Navy. And the Navy realized they needed the Mafia's help if they were going to secure the Port of New York.

S1:

S5: I mean , literally nearly an allied ship was going to the bottom of the sea every single day. And the thought was and there were certainly instances of this that the enemy was somehow providing information from the port in New York that was making its way to U-boat captains. So if the U-boat captains knew about ship movements where they might find a ship , you know , coming out of particular ports , at what time , you know , this would be extremely advantageous information so that they could set an ambush for the ship. And so the Navy needed that to stop. And we needed to figure out , you know , how this was coming about. And when you have thousands , tens of thousands of longshoremen on the waterfront , you know , who are loading more supplies. There's just you know , there's a lot of risk and it's very difficult to keep it secure.

S1:

S5: It led to a number of arrests of suspected spies. One of the reasons why we never really heard about it is because the Navy doesn't make arrests. There are intelligence units worked in cooperation with law enforcement , especially the FBI. And , you know , they were the ones who would get credit for any arrests that took place. And there were instances of German saboteurs who who landed on Long Island. The Navy works with the FBI to to nab those guys before they could do anything really terrible , which is a very fascinating incident in and of itself. You know that German troops are actually able to get themselves on shore , United States soil. And then , of course , it evolves into more of taking the fight to the enemy where intelligence action is about obtaining information about targets in Europe.

S1: But you also write that the Italian-American makeup of the mafia and its associates at the time eventually came into play during the invasion of Sicily.

S5: They needed to talk to the boss at the time. And that was Lucky Luciano. If you don't know him , he's basically the man who organized crime in the United States. And so once the Port of New York is kind of buttoned up to a point where it's secure and the allies are looking for their next target , the invasion of Sicily is what comes next. And we're when we decided to attack Sicily , military planners were in a bad position because they didn't have any of their charts , maps or data from the previous war. It had all been destroyed , so they didn't have any advance intelligence on the landing sites. And the only advantage that the United States did have in this regard was the fact that there were more Italians in America than any other country in the world , except , of course , for Italy. So the contacts that had been. Made during Operation Underworld suddenly turned to finding as many Sicilians and Italians as they possibly could and put them in front of the Navy to gather as much intelligence as they can. So much of the advanced intelligence that we had from that invasion , you know , was put together in New York City. Actually , even some of Operation Underworld's finest soldiers were recruited for the invasion , and they were part of the first forces that landed on Galar and located Sicily.

S1: You touched on this , but did authorities turn any sort of a blind eye towards mafia activities during this time ? Definitely.

S5: Is that is the short answer to that. There's an interesting partnership that takes place , you know , between the Navy and the Mafia , of course. But the way it starts is that the Navy contacts the District of District Attorney's office to gain some information about known criminals on the waterfront. And , you know , first of all , could they help ? Second of all , would they be loyal ? You know , how can we do this ? And , you know , the first gangster that really becomes a big help to them is this man named Jose Socks Lanza. Socks is his middle name because he punches people so often. That's how he got it. You know , he was instrumental in helping the Navy , but at the same time , he was under indictment for a scheme that he was involved in and he was facing , you know , 10 to 15 years in prison while he was helping the Navy. And there was no deal for him in that regard. He was he was told he was not going to get any break in his case , you know , for helping out the Navy. So it was on his own , you know , patriotism that he helped out , you know , But at the same time , he was still committing several crimes. And , you know , they were the Navy was definitely turning a blind eye toward. And there's several other examples of that as well.

S1:

S5: The two main characters in the book are Commander Charles Half and in commander of the intelligence unit in the Navy. One of the big fears of working with the Mafia was a that it would , you know , drag the reputation of the Navy , you know , into the mud. But also there hadn't been a lot of collaboration between law enforcement agencies and mafia bosses for anything before. And , you know , there was this unknown quantity that , you know , when you dance with the devil , the devil dances with you. And it appears that happened and may have been caught up in some of the glam and interesting points of , you know , mafia life and perhaps have benefited from that to land himself a position within the government after the war. And then , of course , in Lucky Luciano's case , the other main character in the book. He was in prison at the time. He was a little more savvy and was able to kind of use his help with the United States government to help him get out of jail.

S1:

S5: You know , we're marketing and it is said that never been told before a story. And I think , you know , some history buffs , some some people who are a little more knowledgeable in the subject will say , you know , that they already knew about this story. You know , there have been a couple of books that have come up about it , but it is never it has never been written like this in a narrative nonfiction format and never has so much been revealed about the story. You know , previous writers might have just written a couple of pages about this series of events. These these are expanded into chapters. And so for me , I've , you know , worked very hard to make sure that I'm introducing new information on the story. So even if you have heard of it , I promise you , you don't know all of it until you read this book. Yeah.

S1: Yeah.

S5: You know , the Navy has previously gone through a lot of effort to make sure that this story never came out. There was investigation that occurred after several years after Operation Underworld. And when it was submitted to the Navy , it was it was classified again. So I would think that after this much time that , you know , perhaps the Navy would just see it as a unique point in their history. But certainly previously they have not wanted this story to come out. And there's even something that Admiral Espey wrote to declassify the documents about how enterprising authors would waste no time in exploiting the stories , you know , within the reports. He's talking about me , of course , But I think it's something that everybody should know. It makes for a great story.

S1: It sounds like it definitely gives a new perspective. I've been speaking with Matthew Black , author of Project Underworld How the Mafia and U.S. Government Teamed Up to Win World War Two. Matthew , thanks so much for joining us today.

S5: Certainly , they give so much for having me.

S1: And Matthew Black will be signing copies of his book at an event at the Coronado Public Library on Tuesday. January 10th.