Tag: Rudy Giuliani (page 2)

Rudy Giuliani's in trouble in Florida. McCain and Romney are likely to beat him. The latest polls show him battling Mike Huckabee for third place.

The LA Times reports on a conversation Rudy had with reporters on his campaign plane Monday. He hinted he would be dropping out if he doesn't win Florida.

In a meeting in the back of his chartered plane en route to St. Petersburg, Fla., a short while ago, the onetime, longtime GOP front-runner told a small group of reporters, including The Times' Louise Roug: "The winner of Florida will win the nomination."

Other papers are predicting doom and gloom for Rudy in Florida tomorrow. I'm keeping my fingers crossed they are correct.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp announced it has settled the lawsuit filed by Judith Regan for $25 million. (Background here.)

Regan had also accused her former employers of asking her to lie to federal investigators about Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner who was once her lover, and had tried to smear her.

Regan said the smear campaign stems from her past intimate relationship with Kerik, who was police commissioner under former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and from the political agenda of News Corp.

Sounds like Rudy Giuliani will breathe a little easier tonight.

For the second time, a lawyer for Bernie Kerik has been disqualified from representing him.

During the federal investigation leading to his Indictment, the Government disqualified long-time Kerik lawyer (and TalkLeft pal) Joe Tacopina. (Background from the Washington Post here.

Today, on the Government's motion, the Court granted a request to disqualify Kerik's chief counsel Ken Breen.

Prosecutors had asked for the ruling in the criminal case against Kerik, arguing that defense lawyer Kenneth Breen was at meetings when Kerik gave his lawyers false information.

The potential conflict is "so severe that no remedial measure will cure it," U.S. District Judge Stephen Robinson said in his ruling from White Plains.

The Judge said the removal was necessary to preserve "both the defendant's right to effective assistance of counsel and the court's need to preserve the integrity of the process."

A new lawyer will require lots of time to get up to speed on the case, putting off a trial date -- possibly until after the November elections. In the unlikely event Rudy is the nominee, that would be a big boost for him.

Here are the Government's request to disqualify Breen, Breen's response and declaration, and another Government response.

On the Republican side, the New York Times endorses John McCain. That's not a story. The story is why it says it doesn't support Giuliani. It says the man who cleaned up New York and stood tall on 9/11 is not the man running for President.

The real Mr. Giuliani, whom many New Yorkers came to know and mistrust, is a narrow, obsessively secretive, vindictive man who saw no need to limit police power. Racial polarization was as much a legacy of his tenure as the rebirth of Times Square.

Mr. Giuliani’s arrogance and bad judgment are breathtaking. When he claims fiscal prudence, we remember how he ran through surpluses without a thought to the inevitable downturn and bequeathed huge deficits to his successor. He fired Police Commissioner William Bratton, the architect of the drop in crime, because he couldn’t share the limelight. He later gave the job to Bernard Kerik, who has now been indicted on fraud and corruption charges.

The Rudolph Giuliani of 2008 first shamelessly turned the horror of 9/11 into a lucrative business, with a secret client list, then exploited his city’s and the country’s nightmare to promote his presidential campaign.

Ouch! But how true.

Just in case the fork isn't deep enough into Rudy Giuliani's presidential aspirations, the New York Times helps out a bit.

It's a three page article filled with examples. It begins:

Rudolph W. Giuliani likens himself to a boxer who never takes a punch without swinging back. As mayor, he made the vengeful roundhouse an instrument of government, clipping anyone who crossed him.

A new Marist poll taken Jan. 15-17 finds John McCain ahead of Rudy Giuliani in New York and Hillary Clinton leading Barack Obama, 48% to 32%. The full poll is here.

• 79% of likely Democrats who back Hillary Clinton say they are strongly committed to her. This compares with 58% of Barack Obama’s supporters who are firmly committed to him.

• A majority of likely Democratic primary voters in New York think Hillary Clinton has the best chance of beating the Republican candidate for president in November. 59% think Clinton is the most electable Democratic presidential candidate compared with 24% who believe Obama is.

The Guardian reports on Rudy's strategy of foregoing the early states to focus on Florida.

Shorter version: Rudy's last stand.

My take: A loss in Florida will be a body blow. But Tsunami Tuesday, with California, New York, New Jersey and others still count. Don't underestimate him and don't over-estimate McCain. Rudy still needs defeating. Ignoring him or dismissing him is not the right strategy. It's what he's hoping for, that while others see him as laying low in the weeds and stop paying attention, he's been making gains pounding the pavement in Florida with a ten day advantage over his rivals.

Will it work? Hopefully not. But it's not over yet. From the Guardian: [More...]

Efforts to compare the top Democratic candidates are leading to candidate-bashing. That's unfortunate, because people are taking their eye off the ball -- defeating Republicans.

Case in point: Rudy Giuliani gets "a rock star's welcome" Saturday in Florida.

And to top that, today he got religion. He told a church congregation he was not seeking their votes, but their prayers.

Rudy Giuliani's immigration reform plan contains a requirement that immigrants learn to read, write and speak English before being allowed to become citizens.

Think Progress reports today he released a new campaign ad in Florida ...in Spanish.

I watched the documentary Giuliani Time last night. It chronicles Rudy's years as Mayor of New York.

The film nicely debunks the perception that he was responsible for the drop in New York City's crime rate and adequately establishes that "Broken Windows" policing has never been shown to reduce serious crime.

It does a great job of explaining his misguided welfare policy. He called it a work for jobs program but it failed to train people for real jobs and instead made them work for their welfare payment at menial jobs without wages and with no hope of a job or advancement or skills at the end of the term. His policy ended up increasing the number of homeless (he shuttled them into shelters or the outlying boroughs to make it appear to tourists and Manhattan residents they had decreased in number)and it forced some who were attending school to drop out and sweep streets in order not to lose their financial assistance. At the same time his administration doled out corporate welfare by the millions.

The film also adeptly and accurately, in my view, portrays Rudy's atrocious record on civil liberties, from busting the homeless, squeegee men and turnstile jumpers to authorizing massive stop and frisk policies that targeted minorities on the flimsy justification they were going to confiscate weapons, to his frequently overturned first amendment crackdowns.

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Last month I chronicled the adventures of FBI informant and Bernie Kerik pal Larry Ray. I ended the last post with,

A lingering question is, what did Rudy know about Ray and Bernie (not just Interstate and Bernie) and when did he know it?

The Washington Post addressed that question yesterday. Larry Ray, who is now in jail on a probation violation, contacted WaPo reporters and shared Berie's e-mails (pdfs), photos of himself and Gorbachev in Rudy's office when Rudy was Mayor, as well as other documents previously shared with the feds when he cooperated against Bernie.

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Aside from 9/11, there's nothing Rudy Giuliani touts more than his crime record. Now, even that is being exposed. Former U.S. District Court Judge John Martin, who was Rudy's predecessor as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, has an op-ed in today's New York Times, The Office I Left Giuliani.

What set Martin off was Rudy's defense of his judgment regarding Bernie Kerik on Meet the Press, saying it had to weighed against his other accomplishments. Rudy said:

“How can I not have pretty good judgment about the people who work for me and not been able to turn around the United States attorney’s office?”

Martin responds:

But Mr. Giuliani’s claim to have turned around the Manhattan United States attorney’s office is not only untrue, it is an insult to the outstanding men and women who have served in that office over the last 50 years.

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