Edited on Fri Nov-02-07 11:28 PM by Dems Will Win
Rudy has no experience in national-level policy.Rudy picked a police chief who was mob-connected, and who is now headed for federal charges — tax fraud, bribery, taking money from the Mafia (he later recommended this guy for the U.S. cabinet!)He hired an unqualified crony for the NY Housing Development Corporation who later went to jail for child porn.Rudy’s key supporter in the Senate has been exposed using prostitutes both in Washington and Louisiana. Later he hired a child molester, boyhoood friend and Priest, Alan Paca, at his law firm.His urban reconstruction effort displaced low-income families to make room for big corporations.He indulged in racial profiling.He angered big chunks of his community for his support of the NYPD during the aftermath of the Amadou Diallo shooting.He tried so often to restrict free speech against his opponents that he lost 35 lawsuits on that one issue alone — thirty-five!The Farmersville garbage scandal helped force him to quit the 2000 Senate race.Rudy’s many scandals also forced him to take himself out of consideration for the Homeland Security job.He had to annul his first marriage because he was found to have married his first cousin; he dumped his second wife via a press conference rather than break the news in person — he was having an affair with the woman who would become his third wife. He actually was having 2 simultaneous affairs at the same time: Judith Nathan AND Christyne Letagano, from his office!Rudy unilaterally grabbed a $7 million endowment for the Brooklyn Museum of Art because he didn’t like one of their artworks. Then he tried to evict the entire museum. A judge slapped him down, and then warned him not to try to retaliate.Rudy tried to put public schools under a Catholic curriculum.Rudy told the police to permanently confiscate the vehicles of drunk-driving suspects — some of whom were acquitted.Rudy claims credit for reducing crime in New York, which actually began during the tenure of his predecessor, Dinkins, because of Dinkins’ policies (and enhanced by Clinton‘s decision to fund additional police officers, and the work of police chief Richard Bratton who later did the same for LA; Rudy still doesn‘t give Clinton or Bratton credit).He claimed credit to crafting the strategy for destroying the Mafia in New York, which was actually the work of Professor Bob Blakey at Cornell.He claimed he spent as much time at Ground Zero as the first responders; he later had to admit he lied. Giuliani also claims he knows more about foreign policy than McCain (Senate Armed Services Committee) or Biden (Foreign Relations Committee Chairman), but then he had to admit that he didn’t know North Korea was much further along than Iran in developing nuclear weapons!Giuliani spend a ton of money on ads claiming he turned a deficit into a surplus in New York. Actually he left a bigger deficit than he started with, and it would have been bigger even if 911 hadn’t happened. The next mayor, Bloomberg, was forced take extraordinary measures to save the city from collapse. How did this happen? Giuliani indulged in the same brain-dead wishful thinking Bush has indulged in, passing irresponsible tax cuts, occasionally raiding pension funds for money (which experts called irresponsible). Even there, Rudy’s claims are misleading: he claims he cut taxes 17 percent, but taxes really went from 8.73 percent to 7.24 percent..Rudy ignored the threat from Islamic extremists in New York even after the first WTC attack.His decision to locate the Office of Emergency Management headquarters in a long-identified target for a terrorist attack at the World Trade Center damaged the city’s response — the center was of course wiped out. The diesel fuel tanks placed at 7 World Trade Center to power the command center actually caused the building to collapse and burn.Firefighters on 911 were using exactly the same kind of radios that failed after the 1993 WTC bombing: 343 firefighters didn’t hear the evacuation order and died in the towers; Giuliani later claimed falsely they heard the order but ignored it.Ten days after 911 he claimed the air was safe to breathe despite the presence of serious contaminants; he botched the air quality issue at Ground Zero even though he knew there was a safety problem, and firefighters lacked proper protective gear and were insufficiently protected against pollutants (contrariwise at the Pentagon the workers were properly equipped and no one got sick).After 911, turf wars, sweetheart deals and Giuliani’s personal projects impeded the handling of the crisis further.Victims’ families complain they were shut out of the process of designing the 911 memorial.By 2007 Giuliani had to limit his appearances in New York because of protest from victims’ families, police and firefighters. Relatives and firemen said they didn’t want Giuliani even to speak at the 911 ceremonies in September 2007, saying it would be a “disgrace”.As Rudy left office he put his office records under the control of a private firm so that he could retain permanent control.Rudy represented heavily-polluting coal plants and Big Tobacco.His firm represented Purdue Pharma when the drug maker was nailed for lying about Oxycontin; the federal prosecutor who was handling the case was threatened by the White House to back off the investigation, and when the lawyer said no, the White House, only days later, put him on the list of US attorneys to be fired.Rudy’s firm worked for a guy who wants to do security work for the federal government — even though he is a confessed drug smuggler.Rudy probably hasn’t told the far right that his firm worked for the race tracking gambling industry.Rudy promised to leave his security consulting firm when he began his campaign, but he failed to do so; firm employees work for his campaign and the firm pays for his campaign security. He is violating federal campaign law.Only a small percentage of the electorate really knows Rudy, even on the social issues which have been the central focus for months: only 37 percent even know he’s pro-choice, and only 18 percent know he originally favored civil unions before he changed his mind. He supports school vouchers, supports torture, supports school prayer, supports putting the Ten Commandments in schools, and promises to appoint Scalia-like judges to the bench.Rudy wants to ban late-term abortion, mandate parental notification, and ban federal funding for most abortions under Medicaid.Rudy flipflopped on immigration and on civil unionsRepublicans in Iowa already complain that Giuliani only talks about one issue, terrorism.Rudy incessantly claims the Democrats will slash military budgets, impose socialism, and cause more people to die from terrorism. Lies and smears.Rudy hired the same smear team that crushed a black Senate candidate, Harold Ford, in the Tennessee Senate race by implying he had sex with a Playboy bunny (the same team that smeared McCain for Bush in South Carolina in 2000).A number of Republicans think he’s unfit for office. One might expect that from the far right, which has already rejected him because of abortion and his flipflops on some of their favorite issues. But even Al D’Amato – no reactionary – admitted that sponsoring Giuliani for a prosecutor job in New York was “the biggest mistake I ever made”.My favorite Rudy quote: “Freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.”
Via Dem U
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