Rudy Giuliani on The Huffington Post

Giuliani To Fight Crime In Pre-Olympics Rio

2009-12-04T11:32:32Z

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is going to help Rio de Janeiro fight crime before it hosts the 2016 Olympics.

During a visit to a Rio slum on Thursday, Giuliani said his consulting firm will be paid to offer advice on how to improve safety in the crime-plagued city.

Per the AP:

Rio Governor Sergio Cabral says that Giuliani's consulting firm will be contracted to give security advice, though details of the deal were not disclosed.

Though Giuliani is legendary for running New York City while the city experienced a dramatic drop in crime -- which many credit to his tough zero-tolerance stance -- he hasn't been as successful in getting the same results in other cities.

When Giuliani and his consulting firm were hired by Mexico City in 2003 to help the crime-ridden capital improve security, the headlines blared: "Giuliani to the rescue" and he was mobbed and cheered as his motorcade toured one of the city's danger zones.

But two years later, as the New York Sun reported, the cheering stopped:

In January 2005, Mexico City's new police chief, Joel Ortega, told local reporters, "I am no fan of Giuliani." Far from the 67% drop in homicides achieved during Mr. Giuliani's mayoralty in New York, which was touted in a Giuliani Partners press release announcing its Mexico City contract, the homicide rate in Mexico's capital slipped less than 1% in 2004. Kidnappings in which the victim is driven from ATM to ATM to withdraw money are on the rise, with some security firms saying Mexico is now rivaling Colombia as kidnapping capital of the world...

"The Giuliani plan did not have any effect. It was money in the trash, really," said a police officer patrolling the central square here earlier this month, Nicocio Acosto Leon. "Better to buy arms, uniforms, to fix our vehicles because we have to do that ourselves."

Though Giuliani aides defended their work in Mexico City, they ended up being paid less than the $4.3 million price they were due and were not hired for a follow-up project to put their recommendations into place.

David A. Singer: Feld vs. Gillibrand?

2009-11-30T14:15:51Z

Just two weeks ago I wrote that Liz Feld was one of the winners coming out of the Rob Astorino defeat of Andy Spano in Westchester:   But I thought this would lead Feld to a rematch against 25 year incumbent Suzi Oppenheimer. In 2010 there will be no Obama coat-tails - that coupled with the growing abhorrence of the NYS Senate by most New Yorkers, I thought that Feld stood a much better chance of taking down Oppenheimer in 2010 than in 2008. But with her statement that she's considering a run for the US Senate against Kirsten Gillibrand, Feld is apparently feeling her oats -- and perhaps believes that the Astorino win in Westchester can carry her to DC. If Rudy (Hamlet) Giuliani ultimately decides to run for Gillibrand's seat (having opted not to run for Gov), Feld could drop back and mount a re-run against Oppenheimer.

Although Gillibrand's poll numbers are low, no one should ever count her out of anything -- she's smart, savvy and resilient. There's not a huge difference between Feld and Gillibrand ideologically -- and while Republicans are likely to make inroads in House and Senate races in 2010 -- Gillbrand will be tough to beat -- particularly when you paint whatever Republican runs in New York with the broad brush of the national GOP -- which is now being lead by wackos like Palin, Bachmann, Limbaugh, Hannity, and Beck.   As for the rumor that former Tennessee Congressman Harold Ford may mount a primary bid for Gillibrand's seat, I find that absurd. Any primary opposition to Gillibrand will likely come from her left flank, and Ford -- who just barely lost a US Senate race in Tennessee in 2006 -- is more in sync with her than not ideologically (right now Ford heads the centrist Democratic Leadership Council). Obama and Schumer will ensure that Ford doesn't make the run. But I think the speculation about it is not serious anyway.  

There are reports that Bill Thompson may consider a primary challenge to Gillibrand and he may actually pose a more substantial threat to her. Thompson came surprisingly close to defeating Mayor Bloomberg -- but that vote, frankly was less of a vote for Thompson than a vote against Bloomberg's abrogation of term limits. But if Thompson were to challenge Gillibrand in a primary, he'd have strength where Gillibrand is weak -- especially in NYC. Yet Thompson may opt instead to primary Tom DiNapoli for State Comptroller -- and Thompson would likely easily defeat DiNapoli, who was appointed to his job by the State Legislature and has a very weak political base.

Stay tuned.

Originally posted on Scarsdale10583.com.

Len Levitt: An Ugly NYPD-Media Confrontation

2009-11-30T13:12:05Z

With crime at historic lows and the police commissioner enjoying high public approval, one might think the NYPD would extend basic respect to police reporters -- especially one from a newspaper that lauds the department and is loath to criticize it.

Think again.

In an ugly confrontation 10 days ago, a veteran sergeant from the department's office of Public Information cursed and threatened a police reporter from the Daily News who was merely doing his job.

The reporter's offense: trying to learn details about a front-page subway killing -- a stabbing inside a midtown subway car.

O.K., granted there is a natural antagonism between reporters and police officials.

And granted, some reporters can be rude and offensive.

Granted, too, that the Public Information Office, known as DCPI, has many polite and diligent officers who respond to media inquiries in a timely manner.

Still, a police officer, threatening and cursing a civilian inside a police facility is unacceptable behavior.

Equally disturbing is that in this era of low crime, nobody -- other than the ten or so reporters based at Police Plaza - seems to care.

The confrontation, between Sgt. Kevin Hayes and Daily News reporter Wil Cruz, occurred on Nov. 21, just hours after a crazed straphanger fatally knifed a stranger aboard a midtown D train. Someone on the train had pulled the emergency cord, stopping the train between stations, trapping 30 terrified passengers in the car with the killer and his dying victim.

Reporters asked DCPI for details. Had someone on the train called 911? What time did the train get out of the tunnel? How long had passengers been trapped inside the car before the police arrived?

"We didn't understand how the police responded," a Police Plaza-based reporter explained. "We had some explanation from the Transit Authority but we needed the police account."

Hayes, DCPI's supervising sergeant, said he would look into it. Throughout the day, the reporters returned to his office but Hayes provided little information.

With deadlines approaching towards the end of the day, reporters from the Times and Post, returned again, along with Cruz. Again, Hayes told them he would look into it.

Cruz -- a police reporter for six years, who is regarded as persistent yet respectful -- asked Hayes, at his desk at a far corner of the office, if he could reach out to the head of the office, Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne.

"I told you I'll look into it," Hayes answered.

"We might have to reach out to Browne on our own," Cruz said.

Then, according to witnesses, Hayes began shouting at Cruz, "I don't care what you do. Get the f... out. I'll kick your f... ass."

"Excuse me?" said Cruz. "Did you say what I think you said?"

With that Hayes stood up and walked to the swinging doors that separate the police officers from the reporters. He and Cruz went at it nose to nose.

"You better get out," Hayes shouted.

"I'm going to have to tell Commissioner Browne," Cruz answered.

"Give him my regards," shouted Hayes. "You might want to file a CCRB [Civilian Complaint Review Board] complaint. It's not the first time and it won't be the last."

Cruz then turned to Hayes' supervisor, Lieu. Gene Whyte, seated nearby inside a glass-enclosed office. "Are you going to stand for this?" Cruz said.

Whyte, like the two reporters who had accompanied Cruz to DCPI, made no move to intervene.

"You're going to allow him to talk to me like that?" Cruz pressed Whyte.

From inside his office, Whyte answered, "You better get out. You better just leave."

Cruz then telephoned Browne, leaving a message about what had occurred. Browne did not return his call.

News Bureau Chief Rocco Parascandola later complained to Browne, who promised that such outbursts "would not occur again."

So what does it mean? What does it say about the police department and its dealings with the media -- and, by extension, the public -- if an outburst like this can happen?

More importantly, how frequently do incidents like this occur?

In 2005, when the department concluded Your Humble Servant needed an official escort to cover Police Plaza, Browne had enough confidence in Hayes to assign him as this reporter's "minder." He was both polite and restrained. He never raised his voice. His professionalism helped defuse a potentially tense situation.

Times have apparently changed since then at DCPI. A detective who earns $99,000 a year now goes out of his way to insult every reporter he comes in contact with at Police Plaza. A reporter for a small daily in Brooklyn with a largely Jewish readership is stonewalled when he attempts to obtain a press pass. He can't even get an appointment to apply for one.

Such bully-boy tactics have occurred with enough frequency that last spring the bureau chiefs of the city's daily newspapers, the Associated Press and other media outlets complained to Browne.

Yet despite his promise to News Bureau Chief Parascandola that outbursts like Hayes' will not be repeated, no one from the police department has apologized to Cruz. Nor has there been a reprimand of Hayes, at least not publicly.

Hayes declined to comment for this article, referring questions to Browne, who did not respond. Whyte also did not respond.

But no apology and no reprimand means no accountability. Which is how today's police department operates under Kelly and Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Despite Bloomberg's campaign promise in 2001 to make the police department more transparent than under his predecessor Rudy Giuliani, today's NYPD operates more in shadow than in the darkest days of the Giuliani administration.

Earlier this month, the Times quoted the police historian Thomas Reppetto, saying that Kelly was "the greatest commissioner in the department's history." That claim may or may not be true.

What is true is that Bloomberg has provided virtually no civilian oversight of the department. This had made Kelly the most powerful commissioner in its history.

Like Giuliani, Kelly holds reporters in low regard, as instruments to be manipulated. But unlike the former mayor, Kelly is especially conscious of his image and has gone out of his way to establish relationships with prominent newspersons who do not cover the police.

And he has something working for him that Giuliani did not. The city's three daily newspapers -- which have served as watchdogs of police abuses in the past -- are failing.

Earlier this year, Kelly tried to evict them from their longtime offices on the second floor of Police Plaza, where they had been since 1973 when the building opened. He backed down after protests to Bloomberg, who apparently did not want to antagonize the newspapers during an election year. All three dailies subsequently endorsed his re-election bid for a third-term.

With Kelly now at the peak of his power, do reporters at Police Plaza have to worry about being threatened when they ask for information? Do they have to feel under siege when they visit DCPI?

Cruz, meanwhile, seems to be having trouble getting support from his own newspaper.

So far as is known, the News has not protested the incident. Managing editor Stuart Marques, who was apprised of the confrontation, did not return a phone call.

Other newspapers also appear disinterested.

A reporter from a major news outlet said he immediately notified his editor after the Hayes-Cruz confrontation.

And what was the editor's reaction? "He just chuckled."

Michael Foote: Spinning The 9/11 Trials

2009-11-30T10:43:31Z

In the two weeks since Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement regarding civilian trials for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and his four co-conspirators, critics have latched on to some common myths about the utility of civilian courts versus military commissions. Four of those misstatements have not gone away and need to be addressed.

1) Civilian court trials return us to a pre-9/11 mindset. Rudy Giuliani was one of the first to perpetrate this misleading slogan. The problem with this claim is that civilian court trials of terrorists never went away. In fact, they increased dramatically after 9/11. A study from the Center on Law and Security shows 693 defendants with identified terrorist ties were prosecuted in the United States from September 2001 through September 2008. 81 of those defendants were affiliated with al Qaeda. The Bush administration certainly did not advocate a "return to the pre-9/11 mindset" yet it vigorously pursued terrorists around the globe and even brought some of them back to the United States for trial in civilian courts.

2) Civilian trials will create an unacceptable security risk to New York. Former Bush administration official John Bolton continued to give legs to this overstatement in an interview last Friday. He conveniently overlooked the fact that New York City hosted 23 of those 81 al Qaeda defendants prosecuted in the United States since 9/11 and none those cases sparked another terrorist attack. New York City has consistently been the target of terrorist plots since 9/11 regardless of our policies (remember Denver's own Najibullah Zazi). Whether al Qaeda terrorists are tried in New York City has little to do with al Qaeda's desire to attack it again. Courthouse security is always a legitimate concern, but anyone familiar with al Qaeda's tactics knows they are more likely to attack soft civilian targets than a heavily guarded building. Terrorists would gain the same propaganda effect by attacking a shopping mall or nightclub -- and they could just as easily do that during a military commission trial.

3) The government will be forced to turn over classified intelligence during the trials. Some GOP Senators, former Bush administration officials, and 1993 World Trade Center bombing prosecutor Andrew McCarthy expressed this belief almost immediately after Holder's announcement. None of them, however, mentioned the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) and its function in mediating what information gets released. CIPA has been law since 1980 and played a role in numerous civilian national security prosecutions. CIPA allows a judge to conduct a review of classified information outside the presence of the defense after the government raises an objection. The judge may then decide against disclosure or allow redacted disclosure based on a balancing test. Military commission rules call for the same kind of procedure.

4) Civilian trials will be a long, drawn out process. Attorney and 830 KHOW talk show host Craig Silverman expressed that concern on this site about a week ago. On its face his view is valid because criminal cases rarely move quickly. But the critics do not address how military commissions could be any different. KSM's lawyers would work just as hard to slow down a military commission trial and they would have even more material to use. Military commission rules have little precedent and offer judges no guidance on procedure, evidence and substantive law. Indeed, the entire constitutionality of the commissions could take years to adjudicate. If military commissions provide sufficient due process, as their advocates claim, there will be plenty of room for challenges throughout the proceedings.

Some of the criticism of Holder's decision comes from individuals who would only support detaining terrorists indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay. For the rest, eliminating the lazy catchphrases and examining the facts should make the debate more fruitful. Civilian trials are one weapon among many we can use against terrorists. Their potential effectiveness should not be a victim of ideological spin.

Lincoln Mitchell: The KSM Trial And Republican Attacks

2009-11-25T09:12:09Z

The recent attacks on the decision by President Obama and Attorney General Holder to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM), one of the masterminds of the September 11th terrorist attacks, constitute one of those political moments where partisan sniping dominates everything else. For many Americans where KSM is tried is something of a non-issue a technicality that has little bearing on their lives, so long as justice is served. However, for many Republicans, none more so than former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani it is an opportunity to get some media attention and take a cheap shot at the president.

Giuliani has gotten more publicity in the last six weeks or so than he has since his ill-fated presidential campaign collapsed more than a year and a half ago. Most of that publicity was not due to his doing but to those of Giuliani's New York Yankees as they won their 27th World Championship. The former mayor was present at almost every home game sitting in seats in the new Yankee Stadium that most Yankee fans would love to have, even if it meant spending nine innings with America's erstwhile mayor. By vociferously attacking the Obama administration, Giuliani briefly made himself relevant again, albeit in a transparently silly and partisan way, accusing Holder and Obama of not taking the threat of terrorism seriously because they want to try KSM in a civilian court.

If it had been a Republican president who had called for KSM to be tried in New York, Giuliani almost certainly would have applauded the decision as giving New Yorkers a chance to host the trial of the man who sought to destroy their city. Moreover, if Obama had moved the trial out of New York on the grounds that a New York trial would give KSM a platform for his anti-American rhetoric, Giuliani and other Republicans would, not without reason, be lining up to accuse that president of cowardice and of lacking faith in America.

Other Republicans, most notably John Ashcroft, have suggested that trying KSM in New York is a security threat and that New Yorkers will fear another attack if KSM is tried in their city. This assertion is even more transparently a case of partisan sniping than Giuliani's comments. Imagine if a former Democratic Attorney General suggested that the trial should be moved because otherwise New Yorkers would fear another terrorist attack. Giuliani would almost certainly be the first, and loudest, to yell that New Yorkers are afraid of nobody and demand the opportunity to sentence KSM in New York. Comments like those of Giuliani and Ashcroft amount to little more than partisan bickering, but the more serious attacks on Holder's decision have been based on his choice of locale for the trial, but for his decision to try KSM in a civilian court.

The president's critics argue that if the War on Terrorism is truly a war, than people like KSM who are captured overseas should be tried in military tribunals rather than civilian courts. This argument is not altogether unreasonable, as a strong case can be made that people like KSM are enemy soldiers and should be tried as such. It is, however, worth remembering that the debate about the status of captured terrorist suspects did not begin with Obama. It was the Bush administration, specifically former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who insisted that people like KSM were, in Rumsfeld's words, "(N)ot PoWs. They will not be determined to be PoWs." This decision was made so that the U.S. would not have to apply the rules laid out in the Geneva Conventions about the treatment of POWs to these terrorist suspects. Rumsfeld, and the Bush administration, settled on the awkward and legally ambiguous term "unlawful combatants" to describe the status of these people.

The Bush administration did not set a very good or clear precedent regarding treatment of captured terrorists like KSM; and the Obama administration has certainly not yet come up with a comprehensive solution to this dilemma. Holder's decision may be the best that can be done at this time, or it may be a mistake and a bad precedent. It is not, however, as Holder's critics suggest, a politically motivated move by the Attorney General or the administration. On the contrary, Holder has boxed himself into a no win situation here. If, for some reason, KSM is acquitted, many Americans will feel that justice was not served at that our government let a dangerous, and murderous, terrorist go free. If Holder, as is likely, gets a conviction and KSM receives either the death penalty or a very long prison sentence, the world will not, as some in the administration have suggested, look admiringly at the U.S. criminal justice system, but will assume that the fix was in before the trial even started.

Len Levitt: Hamlet On The Hudson

2009-11-23T10:52:25Z

So Rudy Giuliani is apparently not running for governor and is dithering about whether to try for the Senate.

We've lived through this melodrama before.

A decade ago, after months of indecision following his battle with prostate cancer and his split from wife Donna Hanover, he backed out of a Senate race against Hillary Clinton.

His excuse then was that he was a man of deeds more than words and that his heart belonged to New York City, and not the U.S. Senate. Translation: As mayor, he loved giving orders.

Does that mean he's not going to run this time against Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand? Even with a reported 15 point lead in the polls? Well, just remember his 2007 presidential flame-out after he began as the Republican front-runner.

As a candidate now, Giuliani's problems go beyond appointing a crook as the 40th police commissioner of New York City. More importantly, in Your Humble Servant's opinion, are his children, who refused to campaign for him in the past.

Is daughter Caroline, whose graduation from Harvard Rudy reportedly boycotted, still not speaking to him? And God knows what's up with Andrew, who when last heard from was suing Duke University for tossing him off its golf team.

Giuliani may indeed be a disaster as a father and a husband but this doesn't mean he wouldn't make an excellent Senator, or governor for that matter.

Forget the nonsense from his chum, former Staten Island Congressman and borough president Guy Molinari, that Giuliani declined to run because he feared he wouldn't be effective in Albany. What he really feared was running against Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic attorney general who is killing Giuliani in the polls.

Indeed, if anyone in New York State can solve the problems of dysfunctional Albany, it is Rudy Giuliani. Put another way, if Giuliani can't, no one can.

Rather, Giuliani's problem as a politician is that while he can solve monumental problems like governing New York City, he creates equally monumental problems because of his personality and character.

For examples, turn to his two terms as mayor, including his six-years as de facto NYPD commissioner.

With Bill Bratton as police commissioner from 1994-96, Giuliani did nothing less than revolutionize the culture of the NYPD. He and Bratton stopped a lot of blood-letting in the streets and shook up a once-proud department whose overwhelmed leadership had literally given up on taming crime. Bratton spawned new systems and new leaders, beginning 15 years of dramatic, then steady, crime declines under the city's three successive police commissioners.

After the 9/11 attacks, Giuliani inspired the city. Picture Michael Bloomberg in that role and you'll see why Giuliani will long be remembered when Bloomberg is long forgotten.

What has damaged Giuliani are his own demons. He fired Bratton after only two years with no credible explanation, citing trips Bratton had taken on private jets paid for by wealthy Wall Street friends. This reporter, who followed each twist of their tortured relationship, concluded that Rudy fired Bratton solely because Bratton was receiving too much publicity -- at Rudy's expense.

Those same demons reappeared in 2001 at the end of his second term. Then, he sought to amend the city charter, to extend his term for three months. He told voters -- and maybe even believed it -- that New York could not survive 9/11 without him.

To his credit, he backed down when mayoral opponent Fernando Ferrer called him on it. Former mayor Ed Koch put it best: If Rudy cared so much about the city, he should remain for three months -- under the new mayor. [Too bad Koch didn't make the same offer to Bloomberg eight years later when to gain a third term he subverted democracy by buying off the City Council a la Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.]

Then after firing Bratton, what did Giuliani do? He appointed crony Howard Safir. Crime continued to fall but the pressure to keep it down led to one of most outrageous acts in department history: the 41-shot barrage of police bullets that killed an unarmed African immigrant, Amadou Diallo.

To avoid testifying on the shooting before the City Council, Safir pleaded a "scheduling conflict." Turns out, that was his secret trip to Hollywood.

The night before the council hearing, he was spotted on national television at the Oscars, standing next to actress Helen Hunt.

Even worse, he had allowed the Revlon corporation to fly him out to the coast on its private jet and pay for his stay at a four-star Beverly Hills hotel.

Rudy never criticized Safir for the freebee trip as he had Bratton.

But because this column, which then appeared in Newsday, carried updates on the Conflict of Interest Board's four-corner stall in investigating Safir, he was forced to reimburse Revlon $7,100 for his Oscar excursion.

Then there's Bernie Kerik, Giuliani's former bodyguard and driver, who is headed for the slammer. Giuliani appointed him police commissioner despite the warnings of his staff and signals from the Department of Investigation of troubles in Kerik's past.

Meanwhile on the home front, Giuliani was cheating on Donna, who believed he was having an affair with his press secretary, Cristyne Lategano. [She denied it, saying that had she been a man, all the time she spent with Giuliani would not have caught anyone's attention.]

Rudy then jilted her, divorced Donna and took up with a new girlfriend, Judy Nathan, now his wife.

Sources say she is urging him not to run because during his presidential bid, the media beat her up pretty badly.

But when Giuliani makes decisions, listens to only one person, often to his own detriment -- himself.

MOVING ON. Time's up in Miami for John Timoney, who's completed seven years as police chief, the longest run in that city's modern history.

With a change in the administration there, what's next for New York City's former First Deputy Police Commissioner, whom Esquire magazine described in 2000 as "America's Best Cop"?

"I stumble from day to day and good things happen," said Timoney, who said he was on the job until January 15th.

He's friends with Vice President Joe Biden, whom Timoney met when he headed the police department in Philadelphia, so is there a future in Washington?

Could he begin a career in academia? His memoir, Beat Cop to Top Cop, is due out next April from University of Pennsylvania Press.

Asked if he might return to New York, a la his former boss, Bill Bratton, Timoney, who, like Bratton, might be interested in heading the NYPD, said, "As what?"

THE GREATEST [CON'T]. The police department's unofficial official historian Tom Reppetto has called Ray Kelly the greatest police commissioner in New York City history. Rudy Giuliani bestowed that honor on Howard Safir while lawyer and agent Ed Hayes maintained that mantle befitted his client Bill Bratton.

Now comes a fan of Tom Constantine, former head of the New York State Police.

"At various times over the years I've met a number of the nation's prima donna cops, including Kelly, Bratton and Safir," writes Terry O'Neill, Director of the Constantine Institute in Albany.

"I have my own candidate for America's greatest cop. I had the opportunity to tell the Trustees of the State University of New York about him this week. I first met Tom Constantine in December 1986 just after Mario Cuomo nominated him to head the New York State Police. We were at a meeting where everyone was lined up to congratulate him. He looked up at the ceiling and said: 'I can't believe this happened to a kid from Buffalo.' Tom's most endearing quality is that he is a very humble man."

OLD HABITS DIE HARD. After almost 20 years as Queens District Attorney, Richard Brown, a young 77, is still, God bless him, racing down from Connecticut to hold curb-side, weekend press conferences as he did last weekend when a Corona man killed his wife and teen-aged son. Brown is especially nimble if bored at home, or, if, as also occurred last weekend, Police Commissioner Kelly was not present to muzzle him.

Michael Winship: New York's Tough Enough for Terrorist Trials

2009-11-20T15:29:39Z

If you want to royally tick off New Yorkers, try telling us what to do.

That's probably why the police stopped trying to enforce the jaywalking laws here years ago (as opposed to Washington, DC, where I once got one too many tickets and was sent to pedestrian school).

And that's why in the weeks after 9/11, my favorite sign was the one that appeared in the windows of Italian-American neighborhoods near where I live downtown. In bright red, white and blue, it read: "One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. You got a problem with that?"

So imagine how pleased many of us were when told by conservatives -- most of them from out-of-town -- that we should be very afraid that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and some of his Al Qaeda henchmen will be put on trial here in New York City, just blocks from the scene of their horrific crime, the World Trade Center.

My own unscientific survey indicates that most of us who live not far from Ground Zero and who were here on 9/11 see it as an appropriate and just venue and aren't afraid that the trial will result in terrorist retribution. And if for some reason it should, we will stand up in righteous, rational indignation, the way we New Yorkers do on an almost daily basis, whether the source of vexation is slight or extreme.

I immediately thought of the moment in Casablanca, when the supercilious Nazi, Major Strasser, asks Humphrey Bogart if he's one of those who can't imagine Germans occupying New York. Bogart replies, "There are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn't advise you to try to invade."

The response of Arizona Republican Congressman John Shadegg was especially offensive. After noting that Mayor Mike Bloomberg had said that New Yorkers are tough and could handle the trial and its attendant commotion, Rep. Shadegg declared on the floor of the House, "Well, Mayor, how are you going to feel when it's your daughter that's kidnapped at school by a terrorist? How are you going to feel when it's some clerk -- some innocent clerk of the court -- whose daughter or son is kidnapped? Or the judge's wife? Or the jailer's little brother or little sister?"

Rep. Shadegg wound up apologizing, although he insisted the point survived his insensitivity -- "I think it is important to note that this decision involves potential risk to innocent people," he said. But even Rupert Murdoch's right wing New York Post took offense, describing Shadegg's remarks as "the outrageously shameless use of Bloomberg's children as debating points."

Two local politicians who should know better did speak out in opposition to a federal trial here in Manhattan, but to a large degree their motives can be perceived as mercenary. Both men are or may be running for statewide office, and polling outside the city indicates that when it comes to a civilian trial, a sizable majority has bought into the fearmongering.

Former Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who became such a hero in New York as he walked the rubble-strewn streets on 9/11, and who has been bandied about the media as a potential candidate for governor or the US Senate, fell into conservative lockstep and told CBS News, "There is no reason to try them in a civilian court. Others are going to be tried in the military tribunal. And the reality is we've never done this before. And this is something that was pushed very, very hard by the left wing for President Obama to do."

Which is odd, because back in 2006, when a civilian jury sentenced 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui to life without parole, Giuliani told Chris Matthews on MSNBC's Hardball that while he would have preferred the death penalty, the verdict "does show that we have a legal system, that we follow it, that we respect it. And it is exactly what is missing in the parts of the world or a lot of the parts of the world that are breeding terrorism... it does say something pretty remarkable about us, doesn't it?"

What's more, when blind sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahmanm, the architect of the first Trade Center bombing in 1993, was convicted in New York federal court, Giuliani said, "It does demonstrate that we can give people a fair trial, that we are exactly what we say we are. We are a nation of law... I think he's going to be a symbol of American justice."

More baffling was New York's Democratic Governor David Paterson, who told The New York Times, "This is not a decision I would have made... We still have been unable to rebuild that site, and having those terrorists tried so close to the attack is going to be an encumbrance on all New Yorkers." But the governor's popularity is so low and election chances next year so slim he is desperate for the slightest grit of traction. A Siena College poll this week had 69% saying they would vote for someone else. At this point, he probably would allow himself to be pulled between two farm tractors if he thought it might help him carry upstate.

Paterson's position also seemed to puzzle US Attorney General Eric Holder -- a New Yorker, by the way -- who last week announced the decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his fellow conspirator here in the city. When told of Paterson's comments, he said to the New York Daily News, "It's a little inconsistent with what he told me last week."

Attorney General Holder, in this instance at least, has been the consistent one, unwavering over the rightness of his decision while admitting that it was a "tough call, and reasonable people can disagree with my conclusion."

On Wednesday he handled four hours of often harshly critical questioning from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and then met with families of 9/11 victims. He countered the opposition's main objections. "We know that we can prosecute terrorists in our federal courts safely and securely because we have been doing it for years," Holder said, and the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) "establishes strict rules for the use of classified information at trial."

As for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- often identified simply as KSM -- and his track record of rabid histrionics, Holder said that the terrorist "will have no more of a platform to spew his hateful ideology in federal court than he would have in military commissions...

"Judges in federal court have firm control over the conduct of defendants and other participants in their courtrooms, and when the 9/11 conspirators are brought to trial, I have every confidence that the presiding judge will ensure appropriate decorum. And if KSM makes the same statements he made in his military commission proceedings, I have every confidence the nation and the world will see him for the coward he is. I'm not scared of what KSM will have to say at trial -- and no one else needs to be either."

Which seems right to me and my friends who stood on our neighborhood streets and watched those towers burn and fall. You got a problem with that?

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Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers.

Dan Collins: Giuliani Slips Another Notch

2009-11-20T09:23:20Z

The Rudy Giuliani brand has deteriorated so much that it's hard to imagine an elective office for which he might be suited.

But the image of Rudy running for governor did have its fascination. For all his self-promotion as an expert on leadership, his real talent is for bare-knuckles, no-holds-barred, I-am-righteous-and-the-other-side-is-evil-incarnated combat. Giuliani would probably not have been good at running the state, but if there was ever a group that deserved being stuck with him, it's the New York state legislature.

Now, published reports say he's given up the idea.

Does he think Albany is too tough for him? It is, of course. New York's state government is such a mess it would be too tough for Vlad the Impaler. But it's another sign of Giuliani's dwindling political presence that he might admit it, even to himself.

If this is the finale of Giuliani's political life, fine. Good-bye, Rudy. See you on Fox. Good luck with your consulting gig. People must be standing in line to have the guy who thought Bernie Kerik would be a good bet to run the Department of Homeland Security tell them how to manage their businesses.

However, there's still that Senate seat.

No sooner had Giuliani been reported out of the governor's contest than the Daily News announced he was eyeing a race against Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.

True, Gillibrand would be a softer target than Andrew Cuomo. Giuliani v. Cuomo would be prosecutor against prosecutor -- one on a career trajectory and the other old, not-really-that-great news.

The only problem with the switch from the voters' point of view is that instead of running for a job to which he would bring a lot of minuses and a couple of pluses, he's apparently now eyeing one for which he is totally, completely unsuited.

There are very few people who've played politics on the national level with a worse reputation for working well with others.

When it comes to national policy, he's swung with the wind. In his mayoral era he was liberal on social issues, conservative on fiscal ones unless they involved the federal government sending more money the city's way, and Bloombergian in his willingness to hang out with helpful Democrats from Washington.

Now, he's a knee-jerk Republican, so in tune with the party line that he even blasted the Obama administration for bringing the trial of the architects of 9/11 to New York. If we had a right to expect consistency from him on anything, it's the attack on the World Trade Center. But there he was on Fox, completely backtracking on his earlier views about standing up to the terrorists.

Senator Gillibrand is far from the world's strongest candidate. She's been constantly criticized for having taken one set of positions on issues like guns and immigration when she was a member of Congress from a conservative upstate district, and switching gears when she was elevated to Hillary Clinton's old seat.

But she looks like a paragon of consistency compared to Rudy.

Giuliani flirted with a Senate run once before, in 2000, and he was a terrible candidate. He was even worse than he was at running for president in 2008.

He withdrew from the Senate race citing the discovery of prostate cancer.,There was also the problem of his spectacularly collapsing marriage. Nevertheless, everyone who watched his brief, miserable campaign saw a man who actually had no earthly interest in being part of a body of 100 equal legislators.

If Rudy had decided to run for governor, it would have been a signal that he was at least willing to try to re-establish his credentials as an executive, as a leader. Of course he would have had to do it in Albany, which is nobody's idea of Camelot.

But wouldn't you have liked to see Giuliani, at his craziest, doing battle with the State Senate?

It turns out he doesn't have the stomach.

Giuliani Interested In Running For Senate: GOP Advisors

2009-11-19T16:26:49Z

ALBANY, N.Y. — Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is leaning toward running for the U.S. Senate rather than making a bid for governor, two Republican advisers said Thursday.

"From staff, we have been hearing that he has been indicating quietly and privately recently that governor might not be the best fit for him now," one adviser said, "but the U.S. Senate could be a perfect fit for him."

Adam Hanft: Quakers and Shakers: Giuliani and Paterson Unlikely Bedfellows in the Axis of Anxiety

2009-11-19T14:50:35Z

Tough-guy enforcer Rudy Giuliani, and touchy-feely David Paterson are in unlikely and violent agreement: making Manhattan Ground Zero for the Khalid Sheik Mohammed trial is a very bad idea.

As the Times put it, "Giuliani said the trial would give 'an unnecessary advantage to the terrorists' and pose risks to New York. 'Anyone that tells you this doesn't create additional security problems, of course, isn't telling you the truth.'"

Now wait a minute. Wasn't it Giuliani and President Bush who encouraged us to go shopping on September 12th, who said that if we live our lives in fear, it will mean the terrorists have won? Didn't he argue that any fundamental change in our behavior would be nothing less than a wimpy concession to our fierce enemies?

Is it merely that the ex-mayor is looking to make political hay out of this, or is he honestly convinced that trying the "acknowledged mastermind" of September 11th less than a mile from the scene of the tragedy will widen our exposure? I'm no expert on the psychological motivations of terrorists, but I find it hard to believe that there's a guy in an Al Qaeda training camp in Waziristan saying "Well, if they tried the guy in Gitmo I wouldn't even consider blowing myself up on the V train, but now that the trial is in New York, I'm going to take out 14th Street."

New York City is already so much the locus of evil -- with streets overrun by Zionists, gays and women in cleavage-baring garb -- that no further damnation is required to make us destruction-worthy.

And here's the other intellectually unsustainable part of the Giuliani argument. If he is so concerned with not pissing off terrorists, then why doesn't he support the plan to try Sheik Mohammed as a civilian? After all, a military trial mitigates the defendant's rights, and gives the prosecution advantages it doesn't have in a civilian court. So if Giuliani's mission is to make New York safer, he should be supporting Eric Holder's decision to bring this trial to the Southern District where the Sheik Mohammed will have a "fairer" trial before the world.

Governor Paterson's argument appears to be less about the trial putting New York City in the global terrorism crosshairs, and more about the emotional consequences. He sounded less like a chief executive and more like chief shrink earlier this week:

"This is not a decision that I would have made. I think terrorism isn't just attack, it's anxiety and I think you feel the anxiety and frustration of New Yorkers who took the bullet for the rest of the country."

Thomas Kean, who was chairman of the 9/11 Commission, objects for a different reason.

"I worry a little bit about the decision, because it's what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed wants... he wants to be a martyr, so I think he's going to use the trial as propaganda ... and I think he wants to be Che Guevara or something like that. He's going to try to be a hero to the Muslim world."

This doesn't make any sense to me. It's going to be a sensational trial, with unprecedented media attention no matter where in the world it's held. Mohammed will become a martyr because he's likely to get the death penalty; the venue for that sentence is incidental to his execution.

What does the public think? Well, in reporting on a recent poll the Times headlined their story "Many New Yorkers say 9/11 Trial A Security Risk" and began the article "Forty percent of New Yorkers believe the trial of accused September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed makes an attack on the city more likely ... "

That headline and lede combination are misleading; they could have headlined the story "Majority of New Yorkers Believe the 9/11 Trial Will Not Put City In Danger," which would have triggered a completely different reaction among readers.

I think the Obama administration made an appropriate and gutsy choice. Sure there will be security burdens on the city, but both Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Kelly are supportive of the decision. And I can actually imagine a scenario where we'll be safer than we would have been if the trial were held elsewhere. In that case, our exposure as a symbolic target would still be enormous, but we would be in the same amped-up state of vigilance.

Yes, the trial will be traumatic to some and cathartic to others. That's why news interviews with families of the victims show a wide range of opinion; it's impossible to secure moral and emotional unanimity on a decision that will blast open deep wounds and activate the irremediable pain of loss.

And yes, there's a risk that the trial will deteriorate into a more circusy spectacle in New York than it would otherwise devolve. But for me, this is the right place, the best place, and in a real way the only place for the government to make its case. To show the world that we are capable of justice and fairness in the most emotionally-charged location the trial could possibly be held in.

It takes a kind of courage to hold the proceedings here, a courage drawn from the same deep well of toughness and resiliency that New Yorkers showed the world during those dark days themselves.

And bringing back those horrific memories has its heuristic benefits. New York is a city that forgets fast and remembers forward. Already, we've stopped wondering if Wall Street can survive and started wondering how much this year's bonuses will plump up the co-op market. Stopping us in our tracks is a lesson that our hard hearts need.

Giuliani Running For Senate, Aiming For White House In 2012: Report

2009-11-19T14:39:14Z

Following earlier reports that former New York City mayor and Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani had decided not to enter the 2010 governor's race comes word that he has decided to run for Senate instead.

While Giuliani's spokeswoman is denying that he has made up his mind about which race, if any, to enter, sources tell the New York Daily News that Giuliani has been telling people he "plans to run against Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in 2010 to fill out the remaining two years of Hillary Clinton's term."

Giuliani, dubbed "America's Mayor" in the wake of 9/11, ran a failed campaign for senate in 2000 against Hillary Clinton. The former mayor was forced to withdraw from the race following a series of personal revelations including an extramarital affair and his being diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Sessions, Giuliani Backed Trying Moussaoui In Fed Court, Other GOPers Praised Outcome

2009-11-18T14:17:35Z

Addressing the Department of Justice's decision to try terrorist suspects in civilian court rather than a military tribunal, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), on Wednesday, called the move unprecedented and indefensible.

Only, it's happened before, and Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, once defended it.

Back in 2002, when the Bush Department of Justice put Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th 9/11 hijacker, on trial in a federal court in northern Virginia, the Alabama Republican was willing to grant presidential deference.

"[The White House] probably thought it might be good to try this one in public," Sessions said, according to a Lexis-Nexis transcript of a January 2, 2002, Gannett News Service article.

Sessions, who the news service described as backing Bush's decision, noted that the hearings would come with additional hurdles. "Jurors will have to be sequestered and taken back and forth to court in armed motorcades," he said. "Jurors will probably have to be provided protection after the verdict." He also made it clear that if the decision were left to him, he would have opted for the military tribunals. "I hope they thought this through and don't expose intelligence techniques," he said.

But he was far more lenient and forgiving of Bush than he has been towards the Obama administration for choosing the same judicial path. On Wednesday, the Alabama Republican told Fox News that Attorney General Eric Holder's current decision was "really not a defensible position."

"It represents a historic change in how we treat those who are at war with the United States," he said. "It is going to create a lot of complications once we are at trial."

Sessions isn't the only one whistling a harsher tune now than he did nearly eight years ago. Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has been dispatched by the Republican Party this past week to savage the Obama White House for its decision, insisted that putting detainees like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on trial would give "an unnecessary advantage... to the terrorists."

Interviewed after the Moussaoui trial, however, Giuliani insisted that the verdict (no death penalty but six consecutive life terms with no possibly of parole) said "something pretty remarkable" about the American people and legal system.

"I could tell that these jurors were very emotionally affected by this as I was when we went through all of the events," he said. "And yet they were able to come to what they regarded as a rational judgment. It has to say something about what America is like. And even though I am disappointed that they didn't reach the death penalty result, I would have preferred that, I have great respect for what they did here."

There were other Republicans, as well, who praised the Moussaoui case as exemplary of the United States government's commitment to open and fair judicial hearings. Former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said that the verdict was "a small but important piece of justice" that provided "proof that our society is grounded in the liberating power of justice and the rule of law, which are our most valuable weapons in the war on terror."

Both Frist and Giuliani would likely insist that a military tribunal would have achieved the same results for Moussaoui with less of an accompanying circus atmosphere and fewer possibilities of intelligence being publicized or compromised. Also, the admission that Mohammed was waterboarded while in custody presents various complications for the current DOJ -- mainly, the possibility that he will turn the hearing into a referendum on the use of torture.

But Holder has insisted that he has enough evidence to get a guilty verdict from Mohammed without risking the revelation of embarrassing information from his detention. And, in this regard, his position reflects not a radical departure from tradition -- as Sessions suggests -- but a similar thread of legal thinking to one of his predecessors: former Attorney General John Ashcroft.

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Mark Green: Holder's Terror Decision Was His -- the De-Politicization of Justice

2009-11-17T09:34:48Z

Beyond the merits of Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in federal criminal court in Manhattan is the fact that it was his decision. When I asked him about this last night at an event for the Brennan Center for Legal Justice, he candidly said, "that happens to be true. We informed the president while he was on Air Force One enroute to Asia."

Which is what the Founders expected but not the way Nixon and Bush 43 operated.

The 1789 Federal Judiciary Act created the position of Attorney General, who would be appointed by the president and be "a meet [fitting] person learned in the law." The idea was that he (at that time) would not be a crony or pure partisan but a person who would objectively advise on and enforce the laws. The next two centuries saw AGs in the political mold like Mitchell Palmer in the Twenties and Robert F. Kennedy in the early Sixties, as well as Edward Levi, Gerald Ford's Attorney General, a former president of the University of Chicago and its law school dean.

Then came John Mitchell, Richard Nixon's law partner and campaign counsel. It was under instructions from the Nixon White House that the antitrust case against ITT was dropped after the conglomerate made a $400,000 contribution to the 1972 Republican National Convention. (Tapes caught Nixon saying, "I want something clearly understood, and, if it's not understood, McLaren's ass [head of the Antirust Division] is to be out of there within one hour. The ITT thing -- stay the hell out of it. Is that clear? That's an order...I do not want McLaren to run around prosecuting people, raising hell about conglomerates.")

And, of course, Archibald Cox was fired as Watergate special prosecutor when he appeared to be doing his job too well.

Bush 43 adhered more to the Nixon than the Ford model. Attorneys General John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzalez grossly politicized Justice by weakly settling a major tobacco case leading to resignations, by refusing to enforce the environmental and civil rights laws, by rejecting qualified lawyers to civil service jobs because they were Democrats (remember Monica Goodling's admission that they had "crossed the line" and broken the law), and by ordering the firing of U. S. Attorneys who wouldn't toe the White House line on suing people for "voter fraud."

The decision whether to try KSM in a civilian court or a military tribunal, with more secrecy and fewer due process protections, was not an easy one. When announced, the Anti-Terrorist Trio of Rudy Giuliani and Representatives Peter King and Peter Hoekstra predictably said that the sky was falling. Giuliani sarcastically noted that KSM wanted the trial in NYC and "since when are we in the business of granting the wishes of terrorists?" Of course, when the so-called 20th hijacker was previously tried and convicted in federal court, he had lauded that case and result; and since KSM has said that wants to be executed so he could martyr himself to his Islamic war on America, would Giuliani apply his own logic and agree that he shouldn't be "granted his wish" and therefore not be executed after a guilty verdict? (Of course, we should all be grateful that America's Mayor didn't charge a royalty because Holder had referred to "9/11".)

There were indeed difficult and competing arguments about the likelihood of convictions, added risks to New York City, the sentiments of victims' families, the use of evidence after waterboarding, and allowing KSM to exploit his case in open court to propagandize to the world. On the other side, there was the message to the world that America was bigger and better than any murdering terrorist and would adhere to the rule of law rather than a regime of torture and Gitmo.

But even though the choice of trial venue clearly had national and international political and security implications, The Decider ended up being precisely who it should be -- the Attorney General of the United States based on his judgment of law and evidence.

A prosecutor made the decision and took the heat. Unlike Nixon and Bush 43, the person upholding the "original intent" of our Founders -- the de-politicization of law enforcement -- was Eric Holder.

Dan Collins: Giuliani the Brave

2009-11-17T08:54:21Z

The outcry against trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other accused terrorists in New York has a strange flavor to it. The same people who tell us on a daily basis that we have to stand up to terrorism seem to feel that it's too scary to have them in an American courtroom.

Rudy Giuliani is livid at the very idea. "This seems to be an over-concern with the rights of terrorists and a lack of concern for the rights of the public," he told Fox's Brit Hume during a round of TV talk-show appearances.

This is the same man who hailed the conviction -- in a New York City courtroom -- of the terrorists responsible for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. He said the guilty verdicts demonstrated that "our legal system is the most mature legal system in the history of the world," "that it works well, that is the place to seek vindication if you feel your rights have been violated."

Or maybe it isn't.

That earlier Giuliani -- let's call him the Kumbaya version -- was the New York City brand of Republican, the kind who believes in both tax cuts and gay marriage. When a Lebanese immigrant shot four Hasidic students in a bus on the Brooklyn Bridge 1994, that Rudy declined to label the shooting an act of terrorism and denied press reports that the shooter was a member of Hezbollah.

"This act of evil is not the act of a people, but it's the act of a person or persons. Let's
show America and the world that we can make that distinction, that we have not only the best of cities, but the wisest of cities," Giuliani said. [Years later, the government concluded the shooting was a terrorist act.]

Now Giuliani attacks President Obama for failing to label the Fort Hood shootings as a terrorist act: "He doesn't get the fact that there is an Islamic war against us," Giuliani complained to Fox.

Even as late as the 2006 trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the 20th hijacker, in a Virginia courtroom, Giuliani said the proceedings showed that "...we are a free society, a lawful society ... that we have respect for people's rights and that we can have disagreements about whether the death penalty should be imposed on somebody like Moussaoui."

His only reservation was the jury's failure to sentence Moussaoui to death. But now, not even the Justice Department's stated desire to put Khalid and his cohorts to death has been enough to satisfy America's Former Mayor.

Trying Khalid in New York, Giuliani insisted, is a victory for the terrorists. It's exactly what the crafty Khalid had once requested! "He is asking -- he is asking for a trial in New York, and we're giving it to him. Since when are we in the business of granting the wishes of -- wishes of terrorists?"

Khalid has also expressed a desire to be executed so he can die a martyr. Under Giuliani's line of thinking, the government should therefore insist that he be given life. Or maybe permanent home confinement with an ankle bracelet. That'll show him.

On CNN, Giuliani was asked whether the trial would put New Yorkers in danger. He paused, chortled, and then said: "Yes, of course it would."

The earlier Rudy would have added that it was a danger the government would go to great lengths to minimize, and a danger that Americans ought to be prepared to accept as their share of the perils that our men and women in uniform face on a constant basis.

Instead, Giuliani veered off into an odd and unsolicited defense of his decision to fortify City Hall when he was mayor. The tiny building in lower Manhattan was turned into a kind of super-stockade back then, harder to get into than some prisons. It was, he told CNN's John King, an effort forced on him by the FBI and the Bernie Kerik-led NYPD. ("As if I wanted to keep people out of City Hall.")

That unscripted detour in the conversation points to a longstanding weakness in Rudy's attempts to portray himself as the nation's premier terrorism-fighter. Giuliani did not do much at all to protect New York City from attack before 9/11. And the things he did tended to focus on his own personal safety and convenience.

The city's emergency command center went up in flames on 9/11 because Giuliani wanted the facility located within walking distance of his well-defended City Hall. That's how the center wound up in terrorist target No. 1 -- the World Trade Center. That was why Giuliani was famously trudging through the streets of lower Manhattan following the attack -- he had no place to go. (At his side was the faithful Kerik, who reverted his previous role as the mayor's bodyguard instead of running the police department during these fateful hours.)

Now, in his effort to fight Democrats as fiercely as he once wanted to be seen as fighting terrorists, he is warning that New Yorkers can't handle the trial of a dangerous Islamic fanatic because it might be risky and inconvenient

Cynics might say he's trying to turn us into him.

Poll: Paterson Job Approval Increases To 21

2009-11-16T13:56:51Z

After a concerted political blitz including a television ad campaign, a new poll finds David Paterson's approval and favorability ratings inched up this month, but he now trails Andrew Cuomo in a gubernatorial primary by nearly 60 points.

Dan Collins: Joe Bruno Is No Terrorist

2009-11-16T10:53:02Z

The state legislature is back for another round in Albany and Gov. David Paterson is threatening to keep them there until they do something responsible about New York's budget problems.

Since there are only a handful of people in the Assembly and Senate who would be missed back home, that sounds like a good idea. Lock them up forever. It would take that long to get them to make any hard choices about the state's staggering finances.

If you've been following this story at all, you may be wondering why the legislators seem unmoved by the universal denunciation that rains down on them every day from other elected officials, newspaper editorial pages and virtually every student of state government in the country.

Wouldn't you think they'd be embarrassed? Want to do something?

To understand the way Albany thinks, look to the ongoing trial of Joseph Bruno, the 80-year-old former Senate majority leader. Prosecutors say Bruno made $3.2 million by getting unions (who needed his political favors) to invest their pension and other benefit funds with financial firms (who paid him as a consultant).

In 1998, the union that represents New York correction officers was angling for an increase in their pension benefits. This is something that should have been part of contract negotiations. But one of the poisonous aspects of New York politics is that the state legislature frequently elbows into these matters to give special presents to the unions, who of course will be grateful.

But the city is stuck with the bills. Back then, Rudy Giuliani was mayor. He estimated the pension sweetener would cost the city $100 million a year, not to mention the bill from other unions who would line up to demand similar benefits. Giuliani presumed the Assembly - which was run by Democrats after all - would pass the increase, but that his friends in the Senate would kill the whole idea.

After all, the Senate was run by Republicans. Fiscal conservatives.

Joe Bruno was at the time a great supporter of Rudy's plans to run for higher office. Senate. President. God. You name it, Bruno was for it. But not so much that he was willing to cross the Corrections Officers, whose union had very recently hired a financial firm Bruno was associated with to manage $10 million of their money.

The guards got their pension hike. The city paid. Giuliani howled. Bruno shrugged.

There's been a lot of interesting testimony at the trial, including claims by a road contractor that the $270,000 he paid Bruno was not for favors, but for the Senator's skill as a motivational speaker. And Mark ("I ordered people to hurt people") Congi, a former president of Laborers Local 91 turned prison inmate, testified that his union hired one of Bruno's financial firms "to make Mr. Bruno happy - that we would invest in this company and he'd do us favors."

No one seems sure how the Bruno trial will turn out since given the vagueness of the ethics laws governing the legislature, not much bad behavior is clearly illegal.

Bruno himself seems to regard the entire trial as an insult. Anything he did, he did because he is a friend of the working man. He complained in a recent radio interview that the feds were spending too much time and money trying to nail him. "I wasn't a terrorist," he pointed out.

This sums up the good points of the state legislator. None of them seem to be terrorists.

But in many, many cases, the only budget they care about is their own.

Dems, GOP Split On NY Terror Trials

2009-11-16T09:48:04Z

WASHINGTON — Bringing those accused in the Sept. 11 attacks to New York for trial would increase the security threat to the city and give radical Islamists a platform to propagate their ideology, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Sunday.

Giuliani's view that the Obama administration is erring in trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others near the site of the World Trade Center was echoed by other Republicans on the Sunday news programs.

Giuliani: NYC September 11th Trial Puts People At Risk (VIDEO)

2009-11-16T08:47:31Z

WASHINGTON (Associated Press) -- The former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, says putting suspected Sept. 11 terrorists on trial in New York City places residents there at unnecessary risk.

Giuliani tells CNN's "State of the Union" that a more appropriate choice would be military tribunals for the terror suspects. He says that option recognizes that the U.S. is at war with Islamic terrorists.

Giuliani was mayor of New York when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Attorney General Eric Holder says he decided to bring the suspects to trial in New York because of the nature of the undisclosed evidence against them, because the 9/11 victims were mostly civilians, and because the attacks took place on U.S. soil.

Andy Ostroy: Republicans Once Again Shamelessly Exploiting Terrorism For Political Purposes

2009-11-16T08:14:39Z

It's been a great week for Republicans -- that is if you consider raging hypocrisy and shameless propaganda successful virtues. Two national security issues have come to the forefront and have given the GOP and its allies a major opportunity to criticize President Obama and the Democratic leadership.

The first case involves the November 5th Fort Hood shooting rampage by US Army Major Malik Nadal Hassan, who Republicans are demanding be called a terrorist for killing 13 people in what they claim is the first act of terrorism on U.S. soil since the September 11, 2001 attacks. The second involves the Obama Administration's decision last week to try alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other terrorists in civilian court in New York rather than through a military tribunal, a move the right warns puts Manhattan, the judge, jury and victims' families in grave danger. You can literally smell the political posturing. The opportunity to hang a terrorist attack on Obama is a Republican's wet dream.

In the Hasan case, it's certainly quite politically expedient for Republicans to throw the terrorist tag on the psychotic psychiatrist. But perhaps they should wait for evidentiary proof that Hasan was indeed an Islamist jihadist connected to a terror organization in a plot to kill U.S. soldiers and not simply a horribly deranged, conflicted individual who committed a random act of violence.

Those who rush to label Hasan a terrorist must remember the charges of WMD and al Qadea connections against Iraq and Saddam Hussein. They were wrong then and they could be dead wrong now. If Hasan is indeed a terrorist, and his rampage a true act of terrorism, let that be the conclusion of a military investigation rather than indictment by partisan rhetoric. As heinous as Hasan's massacre was, perhaps that's all it was: a horrific, premeditated massacre. But that conclusion would not afford the GOP, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and other conservatives the opportunity to exploit the dead purely for political purposes.

The most important test for Americans in the Hasan case is deciding what actually constitutes as terrorism, and therefore who is a terrorist. Any mentally ill Muslim can walk into a supermarket and yell "Allahu Akbar," as Hasan had before opening fire on his fellow soldiers, but does that in and of itself make him an Islamist terrorist rather than simply a violent fringe lunatic? Does this give license to Republicans to frame the debate with reckless, irresponsible and incendiary rhetoric? As ThinkProgress' Matt Duss put it: "The definition of terrorism is not 'any violence by any Muslim anywhere at any time for any reason'."

The rhetoric is no less in Attorney General Eric Holder's decision on Mohammed. To show how political this situation has become, consider the blatant hypocrisy since Friday of former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who's been harshly criticizing the Obama administration as being soft on terrorism yet had nothing but praise and support amid the New York prosecution of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers:

"It seems to me that the Obama administration is getting away from the fact that we're at war with these terrorists. They no longer use the term, 'War on Terror'....This seems to be an over concern with the rights of terrorists and a lack of concern for the rights of the public...
It gives an unnecessary advantage to the terrorists and why would you want to give an advantage to the terrorists, and it poses risks for New York."

But back in the mid-90's Giuliani sang a different tune:

"It should show that our legal system is the most mature legal
system in the history of the world, that it works well, that that is the place to seek vindication if you feel your rights have been violated." [The New York Times, 3/5/94]

"...New Yorkers won't meet violence with violence, but with a far greater weapon: the law." [The New York Times, 3/5/94]

"I think it shows you put terrorism on one side, you put our legal system on the other, and our legal system comes out ahead." [CBS Evening News, 3/5/94]

The notion that a civilian trial is tantamount to letting these terrorists walk, or inviting them to turn the criminal justice system into a circus, or posing a tremendous threat to New York City, is completely without merit whereas history is concerned: since 2001, 195 cases of terrorism have been uneventfully prosecuted in civilian courts, with 91% ending in convictions, including those of '93 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef, 9/11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui and shoe-bomber Richard C. Reid. But this little factoid surely won't stop Republicans from turning both of the cases into an extremely noisy rallying cry.

Terry Krepel: Newsmax 's Rehab of Bernard Kerik Fails

2009-11-12T17:48:24Z

I've detailed how Newsmax has labored over the past several months to rehabilitate the reputation of former New York City police chief Bernard Kerik, giving him a regular column and publishing articles that whitewashed the corruption charges he was facing.

But all of Newsmax's efforts have gone for naught, undone last week as Kerik pleaded guilty to eight of those charges, including tax fraud and lying to White House officials during his ill-fated 2004 nomination to be Homeland Security secretary. The plea deal included a recommendation that Kerik serve 27 to 33 months in prison.

Until reality so rudely intruded, Newsmax's Kerik rehabilitation efforts were going full-bore.

The September edition of Newsmax's magazine featured an article hyperbolically titled "Bernie Kerik: The Trial of an American Hero." Newsmax thought so much of this piece that it reformatted the article and posted it on the website. But following the Newsmax pattern, writers Dave Eberhart and Jim Meyers hide facts in order to portray Kerik is the victim of "overzealous federal prosecutors."

Eberhart and Meyers allowed Kerik's attorney to criticize "government tactics in this case, especially the recent third indictment in a new jurisdiction, Washington, D.C." But they failed to accurately explain why those charges were filed in the first place, repeating a claim in an earlier article by Eberhart that the dismissal of certain charges in the New York-based indictment against Kerik "apparently irked the prosecutors, who decided on May 26 to open up the new indictment against Kerik in D.C., including charging him with crimes [Judge Stephen] Robinson had dismissed."

In fact those charges were dropped specifically so they could be filed in D.C. The judge essentially told prosecutors to do exactly what they did -- as Newsmax itself reported at the time.

Also as Newsmax has done before, Eberhart and Meyers obfuscated about what exactly Kerik is charged with doing, selectively citing specific charges that they feel can be easily rebutted. There's no mention, for example, of what the Washington Post described as a $250,000 loan allegedly granted to him on an interest-free basis by an Israeli businessman that Kerik allegedly failed to disclose on federal tax returns and when he was nominated to be Homeland Security secretary in 2004. There's also no mention of Kerik's alleged failure to report $500,000 in income to the IRS and falsely claiming tens of thousands of dollars in tax deductions.

Eberhart and Meyers referenced an inquiry into "whether he aided a New Jersey construction firm in gaining city permits in return for a lowball price on the home work" without mentioning that, as the Post also reported, the construction firm in question was under investigation by four government agencies for ties to organized crime at the time it did the work for Kerik.

The writers also falsely suggested that one of the charges Kerik faces involves wiretapped phone conversations with then-local district attorney (and current TV judge) Jeanine Pirro, who "asked him to conduct surveillance on her husband, whom she suspected of marital infidelity. According to published sources, the tapes indicate Kerik had tried to talk Pirro out of the surveillance." But since Kerik apparently did nothing wrong, he was never charged in that particular incident, in which Pirro is the one who looked bad; the recordings came to light as part of the corruption probe of Kerik.

(Just as Newsmax enthusiastically touted Kerik's DHS nomination, it promoted Pirro's abortive 2005 Senate campaign against Hillary Clinton, declaring any and all unsavory claims against her -- and there were many, largely centering around her two-timing, out-of-wedlock-siring, tax-cheat hubby -- to be "old news" even though most people weren't aware of them.)

Eberhart and Meyers are much more interested in burnishing Kerik's credentials. For instance, they noted that "Kerik worked for the Interior Ministry in Baghdad training police recruits," but not that, as the Post reported, the stint "has been widely judged a failure" because Kerik abruptly quit after two months -- or, as Sen. John McCain put it: "Kerik was supposed to be there to help train the police force. He stayed two months, and one day left, just up and left."

The writers cranked up the melodramatic aspect of Kerik's purported victimhood:

Today, Bernard Kerik is fighting for his innocence with a criminal guillotine hanging over his head. Cut off from most of his business and media access, his income has withered.

[...]

Despite depleting his entire personal wealth, Kerik is going into the final rounds a wounded, but not beaten, man.

In other words, Eberhart and Meyers weren't doing reporting, they were writing a hagiography -- which was the whole point of Newsmax's career rehab project.

Even the revocation of Kerik's bail after being accused of trying to taint the jury pool for his trial -- which resulted in him being put in jail -- didn't faze Newsmax, which responded with an Oct. 22 article by John Noble that played up Geraldo Rivera's assertion that Kerik "is a 'patriot' whose civil rights, including the right to a fair trial, are being trampled upon by an overzealous federal prosecutor and federal judge."

(It was only a few months ago that Newsmax was happily repeating Lou Dobbs' description of Rivera as "intellectually challenged.")

Noble was in full protection mode on Kerik, even blaming the reporter to whom a Kerik associate leaked confidential court papers for reporting the leak to prosecutors:

The brouhaha that landed Kerik in prison began in September, when one of his attorneys, Anthony Modafferi, who headed up Kerik's legal defense fund and advised him on an unpaid basis, sent an email to reporter Jerry Seper at The Washington Times.

Though the email was clearly marked confidential, Seper, according to a letter from the federal prosecutor, forwarded the verbatim email he received from Modafferi to the New York City Department of Investigation.

The city department, in turn, turned over the email to the federal prosecutor, suggesting it detailed privileged information that should not have been released publicly.

Is Noble really saying that Seper should not have reported the violation that Modafferi's apparently illegal release of court-sealed information represents? We thought the boys at Newsmax were all law-and-order types.

Noble went on to editorialize that Kerik faces "a laundry list of charges, many trivial" and based on "flimsy evidence."

Newsmax followed up with an unbylined Oct. 25 article featured more ranting from Rivera that Kerik was the victim of a "cynical ploy by a runaway judge." The article also noted:

Joining Rivera was famed security expert Richard "Bo" Dietl, a former NYPD detective who said that revoking Kerik's bail was a "travesty" of justice.

"They should do the right thing - let the man go home, let the man go to trial,'' said Dietl. "If he's guilty, then they should prove that he's guilty. Don't do this to this man. You're destroying this man and his family. He was an American hero."

But, as the New York Post reported in September, Dietl has been accused by "Gambino crime family rat John Alite" of having "fed information to the mob and took part in crimes including drug dealing, armed robbery and murder." Alite is "expected to be the prosecution's star witness at the upcoming racketeering and murder trial of mob scion John 'Junior' Gotti." Dietl denied the allegations: "For this punk to say I took a penny from Richard Gotti, he's a f---- liar. ... I want to be put on the stand. I want to tell the guy to his face he's a f--- liar. My reputation is on the line."

Denied or not, Dietl hardly makes for the ideal character witness for Kerik -- and a particularly ironic one as well, considering that one of the charges against Kerik was accepting $250,000 in renovations to his apartment from a company accused of having ties to organized crime.

When news of Kerik's plea deal broke, Newsmax surprisingly played it straight. A Nov. 4 article by Jim Meyers stated that "is expected to accept a plea bargain agreement on federal corruption charges that would put him behind bars for at least 27 months, according to published reports."

It is rather difficult to put a positive spin on that. And Meyers wasn't as honest as he should have been, failing to note that Kerik is a Newsmax columnist or Newsmax's rehabilitation campaign on his behalf. Meyers also didn't note, as the New York Post did, that his prison time under the reported plea bargain is "more than double the time he would have faced if he'd done the same thing two years ago."

Newsmax went with an Associated Press story on Kerik's court appearance in which he entered his guilty pleas.

Kerik thus becomes the latest idle columnist at Newsmax. Longtime writer John L. Perry hasn't published a thing since Newsmax was forced to yank his column advocating a military coup against President Obama.

Newsmax's rehabilitation efforts, however, appear to be expanding. It has picked up another disgraced conservative to rehabilitate: Ralph Reed.

Reed, the longtime evangelical leader and former executive director of the Christian Coalition, was tarnished by his association with scandal-ridden lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who hired Reed to lobby on behalf of an Indian tribe in Mississippi to stop tribes in neighboring states from opening casinos that would compete with those of the Mississippi tribe. The Washington Post reported that Reed had received at least $4.2 million from Abramoff to mobilize Christian voters against the casinos. Those revelations played a role in Reed getting crushed in a 2006 Republican primary for Georgia lieutenant governor.

But as with Kerik, Reed's political humilation and links to a corrupt lobbyist are all water under the bridge as far as Newsmax is concerned.

Newsmax's Reed rehabilitation appears to have begun with a June 24 article touting Reed's new advocacy group, the Faith and Freedom Coalition, which is "aimed at using the Web to mobilize a new generation of values voters." This was followed up with a July 20 article (and accompanying interview with Newsmax's video operation) touting Reed's claim that "Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings can actually help Republicans in upcoming elections."

By August, Reed was writing columns for Newsmax and awarded a slot on Newsmax's "blog" page, complete with bio. Needless to say, neither of those previous articles nor his Newsmax bio mention Reed's ties to Abramoff nor his ignominious 2006 defeat in Georgia.

Reed, however, seems eager to use his Newsmax slot to discredit himself. In his Sept. 13 column, Reed claimed that President Obama's speech on health care reform contained "falsehood after fib after misrepresentation after distortion about both his plan and his opponents' opposition to it" -- even though Reed himself was making falsehood after fib after misrepresentation after distortion.

All in all, not an auspicious debut as a rehabilitation subject. Interestingly, he has not published a column at Newsmax since Sept. 21.

Reed better hope he quickly gets the full whitewash treatment Newsmax gave Kerik -- at least until reality sets in.

(A version of this column originally appeared at ConWebWatch.)

Len Levitt: Bernie Kerik: The Weeper

2009-11-09T10:09:42Z

Watching Bernie Kerik weep while admitting he was a crook, this reporter could not help recalling past conversations with Judith Regan, his editor, publisher and former lover.

While some may feel sympathy towards him - [Even federal judge Stephen Robinson, who chucked him into jail last month, said he would consider the "good" in Kerik's life at sentencing.] -- Regan feels no sympathy whatsoever.

True, she can be reputably difficult, especially in her relationships with men. Considering her a woman scorned, Your Humble Servant hesitated to report much of what she had said about Kerik over the years. Yet virtually all her assertions have proven true.

To her, Kerik's weeping is a calculated act to curry sympathy.

She said he pulled the same act after she dropped him in the fall of 2002, realizing he'd lied about leaving his wife.

"The night I was done with him was the day of the New York marathon," she had explained. "The guys from his detail took me to the tent he was in. He started crying, 'I love you. You can't leave me.' He was crying in front of everyone inside the tent.

"He convinced me to cancel my plans for the evening. Then he says he is sick to his stomach, that he couldn't take the stress and had to go home and sleep. He gets in his car and two minutes later calls me again, all weepy. He hangs up the phone but it doesn't disconnect and I can hear him telling the guys on the detail how he fooled me and how he was taking his wife out to dinner.

"Another time he called me in the middle of the night, saying, 'I am going to kill myself.' He is screaming, crying. Then he starts talking in his soft voice, 'I am so depressed. My gun is loaded.'

"'Oh my god,' I think. I immediately call someone from his detail. I had him to go to his [Kerik's] house. Kerik was furious."

"He could turn on a dime," said Regan, who fell for Kerik while promoting his book, The Lost Son, onto the best-seller list. She was so smitten she gushed in her publicity blurb: "When Bernie Kerik walked into my office and told his story, my life was transformed."

Later, after they split up, she said of him: "He cries on cue. He did it when he was interviewed on 60 Minutes. He did it when he went on Oprah and he spoke about his mother." Kerik had described her as a prostitute and wrote that he spent his life searching for her.

"It was all manipulation," Regan said. "He cries to manipulate people. He does it to get people to feel sorry for him. He has studied it, it's a psychological skill.

"A hero, as he liked to portray himself? While police commissioner, he spent his days running around the city having sex with women. Not just me and Jeanette Pineiro," she said of the Corrections officer with whom Kerik reportedly had a long-running affair.

Kerik bedded both of them at different times at the Ground Zero penthouse apartment, donated to him as a place to rest after long hours in the rubble of 9/11.

"There were others," Regan said. "His detail was driving these women all over the place. He had deals with hotels around the city. He and I would go in separate doors. He never paid for anything.

"Then there's his story that he couldn't find his daughter, whom he had fathered out of wedlock when he was in Korea. Here she is living in America under her own name and he couldn't find her? All you have to do is Google her. And this is the guy they send to do security in Iraq?"

Tough cookie that she is -- she sued Rupert Murdoch after he fired her and won a $10 million settlement -- she was terrified of Kerik.

After she dumped him, he called to tell her son's exact location as he drove back to college. Another time, she summoned a private detective to escort her home after Kerik, outside in his car, repeatedly telephoned her as she ate dinner at a West Side restaurant.

"He had this guy on his detail from Staten Island. Under the guise of friendship, he would say to me, 'You don't know what Bernie can do to you. Your money will disappear. Your kids will be fucked. You have no idea what he can do to you.' It was all done under guise of I am your friend, like a common mafia move."

Regan refused to discuss Kerik last week, which leaves unanswered the question: was Kerik's weeping in the courtroom for real?

And was Judge Stephen Robinson buying it?

Last month Robinson revoked Kerik's $500,000 bail after he disobeyed Robinson's order not to leak confidential information about the case that Robinson said might poison the jury pool.

Then, Robinson said that Kerik "has a toxic combination of self-minded focus and arrogance," and added, "I fear that confidence leads him to believe that the ends justify the means and the rules that apply to all don't necessarily apply to him in the same way."

While in jail, Kerik signed himself into the Westchester prison psych ward for stress. Had that been for real or was it a bid for sympathy?

Sitting in court last week with his back to the spectators, Kerik bowed his head and dabbed at his eyes as his lawyer, seated next to him, rubbed his back in sympathy and Robinson seemed to exhibit a change of heart.

As Kerik wept, Robinson said, "This is very sad day. But I think you've had a full life. And I should be able to take into account that full life and all of the things that you have done, not just the charges. Because there is much good in that full life I believe."

Dan Collins: Mayor Bloomberg's Mini-Victory

2009-11-04T10:10:07Z

For a normal mortal, Michael Bloomberg's 5-point mayoral win would be a healthy victory. For him, it looks like a desperate scraping of the barrel.

That's the burden that comes with being a multi-billionaire who can afford to clog the airwaves with more TV ads than the pharmaceutical industry.

Bill Thompson, his underfunded, not-terribly-well-known, less-than-charismatic opponent certainly deserves a tip of the hat. All things considered, he came close. Well done, Bill. This is what passes for a victory for Democratic mayoral candidates in New York City these days.

Bloomberg paid $100 million to get elected -- a new national standard. If he had known that the race was this tight -- not 18 points but 5 -- would he have upped the ante? It's hard to imagine how, short of purchasing every television station that beams into New York and instituting an All-Mike-All-The-Time programming schedule.

No, I think we can assume that Bloomberg did everything he could do. The mayor even provided the voters with a few B-movie horror chills by dredging up the Freddy Krueger of New York politics, Rudy Giuliani. Never a strong student of irony, Giuliani reminded us of the way things used to be. New Yorkers remembered all too well how things used to be with Giuliani and shuddered.

And Thompson, both underfunded and underenergized, went to the end of his capacities. In order to defeat Bloomberg, the comptroller would have had to run to the mayor's right by sharply criticizing Bloomberg's sweetheart deals with municipal unions. But that strategy just wasn't in the cards for a traditional New York Democrat.

So what about the voters? Apparently, they weren't as desperate for stable leadership as everyone anticipated.

New York continually falls in love with a quasi-Republican -- a Lindsey or a Giuliani. That's probably because our extreme attachment to the national Democratic Party is coupled by a deep hatred for the New York Democrats who run the state capitol.

We secretly suspect that a real Democrat will give away the store to someone -- the unions or the special interests or political insiders. Bloomberg fulfilled all our needs, at least for a while. He was a good administrator, and a Republican in name only. He did not belong to either of the brain-dead state parties, and he appeared to be both eager and good at the critical job of stitching up the city's gorgeous mosaic.

But he did very little to keep the city's union contracts under control. He could rightfully note that the schools got better, but they also got much more expensive.

And his double cross on term limits was all the more distressing to voters when measured against his oft-repeated promise to devote his life to philanthropy after finishing his two terms in office. Voters who expected to see a smiling St. Francis of Assisi emerge from City Hall just got another four years of Mike in a good suit, holding testy press conferences.

And Bloomberg's expensive, ubiquitous ad campaign grew increasingly ineffective as the campaign wore on. No one believed that he was actually fixing the economy or taking on the MTA. At the end of the campaign, a one-minute TV spot called "one-room office" attempted to turn the tiny billionaire into Abe Lincoln.

Lacking a log cabin, the mayor's media handlers rolled out black-and-white photos of his first ("one-room") office. That was followed by shots of the people's mayor with ordinary New Yorkers. Then the mayor materialized at a kitchen table seated in front of a mug of coffee. Now, this wasn't the mayor's kitchen. He was sitting in a spacious, well-equipped suburban room that was supposed to remind you of your own house. There was no way of telling why the mayor was sitting alone in your kitchen or why your kitchen was apparently located in Katonah.

And this all seemed worse because the kitchen was (as Jon Stewart kept pointing out) much better than most New York City kitchens while it was much worse than the place the mayor's own staff of servants prepare his meals.

He looked out of place and a little lonely. Viewers probably wound up feeling a little sorry for him. But not necessarily sorry enough to vote for him.

Alan Singer: "Show Me The Money"

2009-10-29T10:30:03Z

In the movie Jerry McGuire, football wide receiver Rod Tidwell demands that his agent, "Show me the money!" Some people who responded to recent blogs wanted me to provide more evidence to support my claims. Here it is.

Is Michael Bloomberg buying votes? You be the judge. According to the New York Times, since Mayor Moneybags has been in office, the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem and the Greater Allen A.M.E. Cathedral in Queens each received over seven million dollars in city contracts. In addition, Bloomberg gave personal donations of over $1,000,000 to Abyssinian Baptist. The pastors of both churches are prominent African-American men who are endorsing Bloomberg for reelection. I guess I did not ask Bloomberg for enough money when I offered to sell Mayor Moneybags my vote.

Will Arne Duncan bring a "revolution" to the way our schools operate? According to the same edition of the Times, based on his Chicago "experience" all we will get is more of the same. Duncan in Chicago and Bloomberg in New York believe in "Shake and Bake." Shake it up, close failing schools and reopen (bake) them with new names and somehow things will get better. It turns out that a University of Chicago research report showed that reading and math scores of students in failing schools actually declined because of the disruption in their education when schools were closed. While the study found students who transferred to more middle-class schools did perform better on standardized tests, students who transferred to similar schools with high concentrations of minority youth from poor families did just as poorly in school. What a surprise!

I have also received some more great responses from readers that were sent directly to me.

CUPCAKE WARS

Don Gilson-

I love the fact that at 5 year old your grandchildren have role models in their lives who care enough about them that they teach them how to stand up for themselves and fight back. Those are the lessons we should be teaching our students and children. I have been blessed with the unique opportunity to teach in inner-city schools and then come and get a "real" education at Hofstra at the young age of 53. I coach football and I am now able to ask my players, what are you comfortable doing? I no longer tell them we are going to do things a certain way. I ask them what they are comfortable playing? Now I am all for educating young men and women about eating right and living healthy lifestyles, Lord knows I can use some help and education on this topic myself!

However, I would prefer my politicians spent less time trying to dictate what should and should not be allowed, regarding cupcakes and cookies, and their sale and consumption in public schools, and more concerned about the injustices that befall many people who happen to be the in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and oh yeah, the wrong skin color, religion, or sexual orientation, etc. Maybe Mayor Bloomberg should redirect some of his money that is spent on commercials, trying to win an election that everyone already knows is already bought and paid for, I wonder if he had to bribe anyone with cookies and cupcakes, towards trying to really get to know and understand the students, that are his constituents, and that will some day lead the great City of New York.

I spent way too many years of my life thinking I knew what was best for everybody else and not enough time listening to what others had to say. The creator after all gave us two ears and only one mouth. There are worse things for students, whether living on Long Island, New Jersey, or in New York City, to be doing than eating cupcakes. If I knew at 5 years old, not 53, that my voice, along with my ability to listen, and my ability to speak out againist injustice, were of equal importance, well I can't even imagine how different my life would have been. Long live sugar!!!!!!!!!!

LEAVE THEM BACK!

Andra Milletta-

Another detestable aspect of the Mayor's retention policy, when it was first implemented, was his desire to hold back as many as 15,000 third graders simply because they scored a 1 out of 4 on either the state's LA or math test, when it was the first time in their lives they were taking such a high stakes test (and we know the quality of the test was poor). A friend of mine who is savvy in statistics pointed out that if he succeeded (and he didn't in holding back so many) he would create an artificial bump in the 4th graders' scores the following year, which would serve him well in his bid for reelection. This, more than just about anything, has made me so furious that I can't even stand the sight of his frog-like face on the cover of New York magazine this week.

By the way, at the time, my students teaching third grade (many of the NYCTFs) told me the principals were in such a panic about this policy that they were ordered to drop all regular instruction and just do Kaplan test prep in the weeks leading up to the test. Now our kids are living on a diet of Kaplan and Sylvan more than ever. It's a disgrace. Thanks for your great posts! Huffington lucked out.

Ann Tarantino-

When I was a little girl in grammar school, a boy who was left back (I remember him so well) was razzed, ridiculed and totally embarrassed by unconscionable, insensitive kids (and there were many) who didn't go with the "Do unto others" thing. As I am sure you know kids can be really mean and they were. My heart went out to this kid and I made sure to talk to him and be extra kind to him. What this school system needs is a curriculum that actually teaches human beings what it means to be human and to treat each other with respect. And I think you have to start with educating the parents, who are so out of control and so caught up with the wonder of their wonderful offsprings who are ----heads. Well, not all of them but, society has to definitely make a huge turn around for us to ever hope for a better world. It just seems so hopeless with all the ills of the world that we will ever see a bright future. Guess I am a little on the down side today. Sorry. Have a terrible ache in my jaw, that doesn't seem to want to get better even after I have had two teeth pulled that were supposedly causing the ache. Ah, sweet mystery of life. I like Mayor Moneybags - he only takes one dollar a year as salary.

BIZARRO BLOOMBERG

Mel Grizer -

How come the media (including Bizarro Bloomberg) almost totally overlooked Bloomberg's visit to the Orthodox & Chassidic community in Borough Park with that low life Giuliani to stir up some racial division and fear? Giuliani warned that if Bloomberg were not re-elected, the city would revert to the crime, fear and disorder including a pogrom that existed before the great savior, RG, came to power. Is this an implication that Thompson is cut from the same mold as Dinkins, the demon that Rudy vanquished? Bloomberg accomplished a few good lifestyle things: the smoking ban, trans-fat posting, calorie charts in fast food restaurants, bike lanes (mostly middle class oriented life style issues, although beneficial to everyone) and crime statistics remain low. However, "stop & frisk" police tactics based on racial profiles continued undiminished since Giuliani's time. NY leads the nation in the number of these stops. Bloomberg has also worked to diminish the racial polarization on the political level which was the hallmark of the Giuliani administration.

So why does he choose to go to Borough Park with Giuliani? He could have gone after those votes stressing what he considers to be his positive record. He has already stated that Giuliani would be a good governor. Of course rich Republican Bloomberg, could help build a campaign to replace an inept African American Governor with our hero, RG. History may just repeat itself.
P.S. The taxpayers could save some money by allowing the 2 Bernies (Madoff and Kerik) to share one cell for the next 150 years

DUNCAN/OBAMA AND SCHOOLS OF EDUCATION

Tarik Samuel -

I agree with the points you made and I feel as though educational training is hard to instill without first-hand experience. We could all study the philosophies of teaching or the psychology of children and still become lousy teachers without having that important experience. It is also the job of the parents to make the jobs of teachers easier by supporting their children and their education.

Joanne Gallipoli -

I do not believe that a "New Teacher to be" can possibly get the experience needed simply by reading books or observing in a diverse schools or student teaching for one semester. I have been a teaching assistant for 11 years now and I honestly feel this experience has prepared me better then most of my graduate courses. Don't get me wrong the combination of the classroom experience, coupled with my education has provided me with the latest techniques and theories and has prepared me even further. However, my real knowledge has come from being in the classroom. It has given me the opportunity to become familiar with the curriculum in various subjects. Additionally, working with a diverse number of teachers, has enabled me to learn different techniques of teaching. What works and what doesn't. One can reflect on the year and determine what teachers are effective and who's style you wish to avoid. I would not object to new teachers working 2 or more years as teaching assistants to gain that exposure before moving on to a teaching position. Secretary of Education Duncan has to make changes in order to justify his job as do most public officials.

Jack Zevin-

I applaud your letter, and I would like to sign on to the different revolution, too. But what can we do with this culture? They've been after us for a long time, and have been slowly creeping up on reducing the whole enterprise to a bottom line spread sheet. What is ironic is that an African American President and a Democrat is continuing Bush's policies and Duncan (who I recently heard give a canned pablum speech in DC) is sharpening his hatchet. But who knows, maybe this will set off some change, maybe we won't be the cash cows any more. That's the one line I agree with and wouldn't it be wonderful not to be mediocre but great successes like our military, our bankers, and our leaders!!!!! You have actually inspired me to start writing what my wife calls 'crank' letters (which I used to do all the time but have give up for the fabulous 90s/00s). More power to you, but I would love something practical to do. Where is the left? Where are educators with backbone? I have seen few, how about you?

Andrew Cuomo Told Rudy Giuliani He's Running For Governor: New York Post

2009-10-26T14:50:02Z

Andrew Cuomo has secretly notified Rudy Giuliani that he will run for governor next year, The Post has learned.

The confidential message, conveyed through intermediaries, was delivered to Giuliani recently and is expected to play a central role in the former mayor's impending decision on whether to run as the Republican candidate for governor in 2010, sources with knowledge of the situation said.

The Days Of David Dinkins Revisited, Revised

2009-10-26T09:25:13Z

Do you really want to go back to the bad old days of Mayor David N. Dinkins? Rudolph W. Giuliani, as he had done before, indelicately broached this rhetorical question while campaigning a week ago for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.