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The Most Loathsome Man in New York City

Let Them Eat Bonuses

2/8    A brief history lesson.  For most of the history of this country the accumulation of great wealth was viewed askance.  The American dream of bettering yourself, having a home and family, leaving your children something tangible, made up, for the most part, our cultural ethos.   What did not factor in was a vast fortune earned nobly, or worse at the expense of others.  It is only a recent phenomenon in this country - generally post War (what's good for General Motors...) - that people want to have the riches of Midas and moreover, admire those who do.  Rockefeller, Carnegie, Frick, Fisk, Gould etc., were all men despised in their time.  Not only by their peers - who certainly had cause to hate them - but by the vast majority of Americans.  It is a distinctly European notion, not American, that we aspire to join the noble classes.  Or, more importantly for this post, that we pay deference to their class and rank.  

Now along comes our Mayor.  Not content to be the richest man in our City.  Not satisfied to be the most powerful man amongst us.  Oh no, he now seeks to turn back the values of this city and country to those of the 19th Century and the Industrial Revolution.

When the MTA raises the fare on subways, buses and commuter railways, the Mayor says - as my grandmother would say - "nicht ein wort," not one word.  He feels no urgency to speak up about a matter that affects the lives of millions of New Yorkers, particularly during the greatest economic downturn since the Depression.  More galling in fact since he controls a healthy number of votes on the MTA Board that would permit him to influence the debate if not the actual outcome.  But when Washington proposes to tax banks and bankers Lord Governor Bloomberg tells the lowly working classes - the municipal serfs - that they should rally, literally, in support of Goldman Sachs, Chase, Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon.  He tells us how grateful we should be that these scoundrels and villains deign to live and work among us.  That they, not us, are the lifeblood of this city.  

Can anyone in modern memory recall such an asinine "let them eat cake" comment from an elected official to his constituents?  He really believes that Raoul, the immigrant, minimum wage earning, dishwasher or Laverne, the hospital aide from Jamaica, should go to D.C. to protest the imposition of a tax on Mr. Dimon's 17 million dollar bonus or Mr. Blankfein's more modest 9 million.  When Lloyd Blankfein says that he's doing "God's work" at Goldman Sachs, I don't get upset.  I merely think he's delusional, a rather pitiable man and someone whose values went astray a long time ago.  Further, I am not a Goldman shareholder or employee so I don't have much to get mad at him about regarding his distorted view of the world and himself.  But when the chief elected official of our city tells us that we peasants - starving, homeless and sick - need to rally on behalf of the fat, villainous, greedy noblemen, it really is Dickensian in it's disassociation from reality and view of the world.

I have told you on this site almost since the first day that Mayor-for-Life Mike hates you.  He is revolted by your presence, his daily requirement to mingle among you and this pesky democratic process. He truly believes that he is doing you a favor by governing you and now will punish you in every way possible for his humiliatingly narrow $100+ million re-election.

Every day and in every way he and his mayoralty remind me of the words of Marshal Petain to the French people upon announcing the armistice in 1940, "I give to the people of France the gift of myself."   One was semi-senile, the other is Napoleonic and deluded.  They share however a sadly misplaced notion as to where their loyalty should reside.

Walking Around Money

One of the chief arguments among the citizenry for his election back in 2002  was that billionaires are incorruptible.  What we have learned lately is that the oft neglected counterargument is equally true.  He might not be corruptible by the system but he might just become the greatest corrupter of the system.

Just as one joint of illegal marijuana probably wont get you in any trouble while 100 lbs most certainly would, a few thousand dollars of election day walking around money - an illegal practice - won't attract much attention or influence the outcome greatly, while $700,000 of walking around money is fantastically illegal and corrupting.  Walking around money for those of you uninitiated in election day politics, is cash handed out to supporters, party machines and others to dispense in order to pull the vote in particular precincts.  The NY Post learned that Bloomberg personally wrote checks to a shell company totaling $700K just prior to the election.  That cash can have been for nothing else but walking around money.  He now says he had no idea to whom or for what he spent this money.  The fear with Bloomberg is not that the system will corrupt him, the nightmare is how out sized his corrupting influence is on the system.

How About a Little Credit?

While the Daily News is taking credit for revealing that CompStat figures have routinely been skewed, let us just step back a moment and remember who it was who first broke this story.  You'll recall that over a year ago I published a post on here recalling what Tony Carbonetti had told me regarding the CompStat murder stats under Giuliani.  He told me flatly that they were routinely fudged in order to keep year over year numbers down.  I received many skeptical e-mails at the time challenging my post.  Now we learn that this was even more routine than I was relaying.  

Precinct Commanders, fearful of their Inquisition-like CompStat grilling at 1 Police Plaza, would hold back entering citizen complaints until the new year so as to push them to the next year's CompStat figures.  One former Commander in the Daily News this weekend specifically referred to his time during the Giuliani years when recounting this story.  

I have no doubt whatever that this practice has continued and flourished during the Bloomberg years, as the only positive message he has had have been his crime stats. I always suspected - that in an administration that in my view has had few successes - their consistently positive crime numbers seemed aberrational.  Let's just remember you heard it here first.

Bring in the Goons

It was one thing when Howard Wolfson was behaving like a boorish, slovenly, ill mannered blow hard for private dollars.  People are entitled to hire whomever they want, no matter how offensive they may be.  But now we're all expected to pay for his swinishness?  

Mayor-for-Life Mike has hired Wolfson, late of his re-election campaign, as Counselor to the Mayor at a cost of $200K a year.  What that something is has yet to be determined.  Policy, communications, new initiatives are all possible options according to the Mayor. As Counselor, think more Luca Brasi than Tom Hagen. 

His real role is to behave as obnoxiously as possible towards anyone who disagrees with Mayor-for-Life Mike so that His Grace can aw shucks and shrug when asked about his aide's outlandish and offensive comments at Blue Room press conferences.  All this is made possible of course by the recent 'bonus' Wolfson received from the campaign in the amount of $500,000.   His Grace charitably subsidizes his aides' service to the city by funneling them huge bonuses every 4 years after his campaign.  This is supposed to tide them over until they finish city service whereupon they receive million dollar contracts at Bloomberg, LLP overseen naturally by former deputy mayor Dan Doctoroff who has demonstrated this cycle nicely for us.  I'm a capitalist, so God bless em.  I just don't think any of this passes even the slightest conflict of interest smell test. But we're all supposed to be grateful for this because His Grace has deigned to give us four more years of his attention & expertise.  

Mayor-for-Life Mike's new initiatives according to his State of the City speech are getting rid of guns in American cities and solving the nation's illegal immigration problem.  Again, you all re-elected him why? Was it to solve Texas's and Missouri's problems or ours?  Wasn't he supposed to prevent the record high unemployment we are experiencing in NYC?  Wasn't his managerial magic supposed to prevent the layoffs he announced as unavoidable last week?  Wasn't it supposed to improve the schools that he now seems intent on closing?  It couldn't be improving mass transit since he abandoned that 8 years ago, with the exception of his tunnel to nowhere.

It would seem to me that what the Rebellion has been saying to his Empire low these many years has come to pass quite openly.  He has no agenda other than perpetuating himself in office.  That is now evidenced by the fact that we have a senior City Hall official whose sole function is to attack His Grace's critics.  When despots become so fearful of their critics that they begin to adopt tactics such as these, they have finally announced that even they aren't going to pretend they stand for anything anymore.  All of this easily makes Mike Bloomberg the most loathsome man in New York City.

All Eyes On The GOP

1-27    The conventional wisdom holds that all attention is now focused on the make or break speech to be delivered by the President at tonight's State of the Union as a meaningful event.  He will get a lot of attention and none it will mean a thing.  I've said since the very first posts on this site that his oratory is completely lost on me.  I can't recall a single memorable line from any speech he's given.  Tonight will be no different. But even should he give great speech today, the real interest for me is not what he will do to turn around his seemingly sinking presidency.  No, the real make or break for Obama is what the Republicans will do.  That's who I will be watching in the days, weeks and months ahead.

Scott Brown's victory, while game changing in the moment, shouldn't be given the transformational labels it's been getting.  Scott Brown basically said no to two things: 1) health care reform and 2) increased government spending and a burgeoning deficit.  What he did not do was say yes to anything.  Major political parties and candidates can't ride electoral tides by only saying NYET.  Eventually they have to say DA.  Sen-Elect Brown is good-looking, photogenic and seemingly possessed of a nice personality and family.  That surely helped him beat the shrewish and dowdy Martha Coakley.  I said after Virginia and New Jersey that there was no national message being sent.  I still say that of those two races.  The same cannot be said for Massachusetts.  People will vent and flail - lift their torches and pitchforks - for awhile at the status quo.  But eventually they need an alternative.  Without one there can be no blow-out for Republicans in 2010.  The Republican Party is going have to, and soon, start enunciating policies besides hating Obama's.  

What is the future like under a Republican Congress or presidential administration? Do you know?  I surely don't.  Is it Bush 41, 43, Reagan, the Gingrich era or something altogether new?  Eventually the party is going to have to tell us.   Here's a test. Obama has proposed some new banking reforms.  To my mind they don't go far enough, but they go further than where we are/were.  How will House and Senate Republicans react when the bill reaches the Hill?  Are they the party of the Wall Street Journal, big banks and hedge funds?  Or are they the party of main street and this Tea Party movement that they are trying so desperately to co-opt?  There can be no middle ground for a party that at present is philosophically amorphous.  I would argue that Republican leaders should go left on this (right and left as terms start to get very fuddled in matters such as these, just as liberal and conservative labels do, as well). 

They rebelled against re-confirming Ben Bernanke - good for them.  But he is only an effect, the causes are the banks, investment banks and hedge funds.  It's a Pyrrhic victory to oust Bernanke and leave banking regulations as they are.  Everyone knows the Frank bill is weak.  All Republicans should have been leading the charge for an end to proprietary trading at a minimum and the full restoration of Glass-Stegall at most.   And while we're on the topic, why is Timothy Geitner not under Federal indictment or at the very least investigation?  He was involved in a conspiracy at the highest levels to cover-up damaging info on the Government's AIG bailout that benefited enormously his former employer, Goldman Sachs.  His actions are the very definition of a criminal conspiracy.  Why is the Republican Party not clamoring incessantly for an investigation by the Justice Department, not merely Ed Towns's committee.   What is the Public Integrity Section for, if not exactly this?  Bernie Madoff is a piker compared to Tim Geitner.  In a Congress filled - on both sides of the aisle - by gutless, political hacks, my hat's off to Ed Towns for pushing this as far as he has, even at the expense of embarrassing his President and party's leader.

I've said for over a year that the Republican Party cannot reform itself with the same old generation of leaders.  McConnell, Boehner, Steele, McCain, Palin are not what this party needs.  It needs fresh faces with articulable ideas.  Some, for the moment, see that in Scott Brown. Of course he's not the future of anything.  It's silly to suggest it. But in a total vacuum people will grasp at straws.  Sarah Palin is the natural result of this phenomenon.  In a robust political climate would this woman even get a voice above the din?  Of course not.  Just this morning Boehner was on NPR mouthing mindless drivel about cooperation and spending cuts.  No specifics, no action plan, no agenda just play it safe - more NYET and no DA.

I've recently been listening again to Harry Truman's 1948 acceptance speech in Chicago.  I've listened to it maybe 3 dozen times of late.  We're all familiar with two lines from that speech: his opening paragraph where he tells the audience that he and "Sen. Barkley are going to win this election and make these Republicans like it," and his calling the Congress back into session to work on his legislative agenda.  But what's amazing about that speech was his passion as well as his verbiage.  Within the passion of the speech was clearly a truthful man.  He was angry, disappointed (in others) and eager to set the record straight.  He says things in those remarks that no political figure, let alone a sitting President, could get away with today.  He calls the 80th Congress (he never says Do-Nothing, that would come later) anti-semitic, anti-catholic and corrupt.  Can you imagine that today?  He tells the farmers of this country that "if they don't do their duty by the Democratic Party on election day, (and vote Democratic) they are the most ungrateful people in the world."  He then says exactly the same thing to Labor.  It was honest, angry, heartfelt and genuine. No one could give a speech like that now because no one believes that our elected officials care about anything.  There's no passion or authenticity, that's reserved apparently for talk radio.  

Contrary to the current wisdom, what Obama needs to do tomorrow is not to be milquetoasty and conciliatory but rather rip the barn doors off.  Get mad, get angry.  And also come up with a Nixon goes to China idea.  I don't know what - abolish the Dept of Commerce or Dept of Education, order all cabinet depts. to slash their budgets by 10%.  Something at least that appears to be not only fiscally responsible, but evidence that he gets the public's outrage at federal spending and its growth. Throw the ball in Congress's court - his own party as well as the Republicans.  A little triangulation won't hurt anyone.  His proposal to cut $250 Billion out of a pool of approximately $50 trillion + over the next ten years, is a joke and will be viewed as such tomorrow.  

The Senate took up and rejected this week the idea of a bipartisan deficit reduction commission modeled after the successful base-closing commissions.  Harry Reid dismissed it immediately.  He talked about his fear of cuts in education and infrastructure.  The fantastical aspect of his response was that he simply doesn't get this isn't his money. He dismissed this as though he genuinely has a choice.  It's no one's money but the creditors since what he's defending is trillions more in borrowing to fund this wasteful, bloated, corrupt central government.  Nope, he said, we're just gonna keep borrowing.  This is the perfect opportunity for the Republicans to present real, meaningful, deep cuts.  I know they believe, and history has probably taught them, that any proposed cuts will be used by the Democrats as a truncheon against them.  But the mood has changed.  People are ready for honest talk and shared pain to fix this.  I truly believe that.  It is so easy to make the Democrats the party of bloat and cynicism if only the Republicans will make an honest change that's credible and believable.

Obama is no Clinton for better and worse.  Clinton had 30 years of wily instincts and Newt Gingrich as a perfect bogeyman to begin the journey back in 1995 when everyone was pronouncing his presidency kaput.   Obama has neither.  He may very well never have cheated on Michelle, but that fact won't save his presidency.   

CHANGE, WHAT CHANGE?

Change, that was his mantra.  Change from politics as usual, change from the evil Bush years, change for the better for the middle and lower classes - change.  So where are we one year later?  More than 100,000 troops still in Iraq.  Tens of thousands more in Afghanistan.  Guantanamo still open and will be one year from now. Unemployment is up and the credit markets and banks to which he has given billions are still shut-off to most Americans.  He's done nothing to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act or the ban on gays in the military.  Helping the middle-class?  No President and Treasury Secretary since Herbert Hoover and Andrew Mellon have been as kind to Wall Street as have Obama and Geitner.    Civil liberties?  He now supports illegal wiretapping and has expanded it.  

As proof positive that nothing has changed in the last year, this past week the Inspector General at the Justice Department revealed that over 2,300 illegal wiretaps were conducted by the FBI, in most cases agents falsified them as terrorist investigations.  OK, maybe it didn't all happen on Obama's watch.  But the telling thing was the reaction at Justice to these revelations.  After being caught, the FBI's General Counsel said these actions were, "good-hearted but not well thought out." Good-hearted???  Not even Dick Cheney could have issued a more dismissive, cavalier response than that.  Why aren't David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel ripping Eric Holder's head off for issuing a statement like that?  Why aren't those agents responsible and their superiors being fired or prosecuted? How is this possibly defensible behavior in a government bound by the limits of the Constitution?  The answer is that all his permanent-government type advisers tell him it will be bad for morale in the FBI or CIA if he prosecutes their criminal behavior.  Nice to know in a nation supposedly ruled by law that what that really means is we're spending nearly 4 trillion dollars a year to insure against hurt feelings by armies of jack-booted thugs. He was supposed to stop this kind of abuse from happening and when it did occur, crush it and those responsible in the name of liberty. He has done nothing. 

The Democratic party has had one completely unhindred year in power and what have they done with it?  Zippo.  They've done nothing to reward or appease their base.  They've done nothing to restore fiscal or monetary sanity to our economy.  By the end of his second year in office, Barack Obama's Treasury Department will have issued over 4 trillion dollars in bonds to pay for these deficits. It's really unimaginable to be talking of numbers like that.  And after all that spending and borrowing does the nation feel better?  Does the country think it has gotten its 4 trillion dollars worth? Sadly, no.  That money is now gone without anything to show for it.  It would be like spending $20,000 on your VISA card at McDonalds.  You've spent all that money and have nothing tangible one the food is eaten.  Not even something intangible like a child's education or cleaner air.  But, of course, you're left with the debt. Nothing except the Tim Geitner promise that it all could have been so much worse had we not spent our 4 trillion dollars.  

Speaker Pelosi has lead Obama around by the nose for a year and he has poll numbers in the 40's to show for it.  She worried about her members and their pork.  He assumed, naively, she was keeping an out eye for him and his presidency.  That's what one term in the Senate and no private sector experience will get you.  Since Obama did not have a lifetime of ideals and convictions hardened by political trial, he came into office easily swayed by Bernanke, Geitner and Summers.  His real ideological ally, Paul Volker, was shunted aside while Obama was dazzled by all these Ivy League, Wall Street wizards. They just wanted to protect the markets and Goldman Sachs. They had no interest in his agenda or those of the vast majority of suffering Americans. Reagan could never have been swayed by aides on matters as fundamental as these. That's because he'd thought about them for decades.  His beliefs, for better or worse, were rooted in the deepest of convictions and ideology. Obama has no such core and it's becoming more evident every time he speaks.     

I am a Republican and a patriot.  I'm more worried about the country and my party than the President's poll numbers.  Yes, the Obama Administration is a disappointment in every possible way.  His core supporters feel completely let down and abandoned. Those like myself who had serious doubts about him but found it unpalatable to endorse another four years of Bush's party are saddened, but not surprised.  Maybe a little surprised at how inept these people are after such a brilliant campaign.  Yes, tax credits are fine, forced retirement accounts on business might be interesting, student loan relief is, I am sure, welcome.  But these are not going to fundamentally alter his downward trajectory. 

In the new book, Game Change, Obama and his brain trust sit around a table in December 2006.  Michelle asks him pointedly, what specifically he hopes to accomplish by being President.  He says, two things: 1. inspire the nation and particularly children at the possibilities as a result of his election and 2. change the way the U.S. is perceived in the rest of the world after the disastrous Bush years.  To call that a modest agenda would the understatement of all time.  If that's all he wanted to accomplish, I guess he's succeeded.  But I thought he had promised and held the promise of so much more.  I guess we were wrong.  And if we were, the GOP needs to get its act together and be bold in order to capitalize on that. It is their boldness or timidity that will ultimately decide whether he is a one or two term president, not his.  That's why my focus going forward is on them.

President Jim Hacker

12/23    One of my favorite television shows was Yes, Minister/Prime Minister.  In one currently significant episode the Prime Minister, Jim Hacker, complains to his Cabinet Secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby, that he is in need of some good news for his premiership and wants a summit with the French President in order to conclude the stalled negotiations over the Channel tunnel leading to a well publicized ground-breaking ceremony.

Sir Humphrey, aghast, explains that this would be quite impossible.  Negotiations are left to the Foreign Office and for good reason.  The PM says that he believes he could iron out the remaining issues himself with the wily French President without the aid of Whitehall.  Sir Humphrey then poses the tunnel's sticking point questions to Mr. Hacker: where will the new border be between Britain and France; which language should appear first on signs; who would have legal jurisdiction were a British truck to be hijacked in France, French or British police?  And on and on.  Hacker thought these silly points of minutiae although he had no simple answers for any of them.  Sir Humphrey explained that they weren't silly to the French who were demanding the border be at Dover, French be the first language on all signs, etc, etc.  That is why these matters were left to the diplomats to iron out first.  He further reminded him that the reason the Concorde was spelled the French way - with an 'E' at the end - was due to prior British Government's hastily giving in to the French.

Why am I bringing this up and why am I claiming it's currently relevant?  Because of the unprecedented performance by and towards our President in Copenhagen.  For decades, the American media have criticized the pre-packaged nature of U.S. summits; whether with the Soviets, Chinese, or whomever.  But as we know from history, working out the details in advance is crucial to avoiding huge historical missteps.  You work out treaties in advance of a presidential visit in order to avoid the embarrassment of accomplishing nothing and to guarantee that the details are in U.S. national interest.  Neo-cons are still losing sleep over what almost happened in Reykjavik when a U.S. President decided to wing it.

Barack Obama went to Copenhagen yet again hoping to charm himself into a successful outcome.  First he flew in for the Olympics without any groundwork having been laid and came in fourth.  Now he swoops in at the last minute and cobbles together a 'treaty' that is a sell-out to his supporters and a gift to his enemies.  Moreover, the President is treated in a manner by other leaders that has never been seen in the modern era.  For starters, he was lied to and left standing alone by the Chinese.  Then, like a dissident union delegation, he was forced to storm a meeting to which he had not been invited.  Finding no chair he had to squeeze in next to Brazil's President where he made awkward pleasantries in order to appear relevant.  He looked like of one those H.S. band kids trying unsuccessfully to fit in at the cool kids table during lunch.  How did this man go from being rock star cool to the world's biggest nerd in the span of one year? 

The answer is lack of focus and poor planning.  I actually like Hillary Clinton now after spending the whole of the 90's hating her guts.  I think she is smart and capable.  But these embarrassments have to be the result of State dropping the ball.  On the other hand,  it's also entirely possible Obama ignores her advice, feeling like FDR that if only he could engage personally all problems would slip away.  That didn't work out too well at Yalta and it's not going to produce any international accords for this administration.

As a conservative and someone who does not believe at all in so-called Global Warming, I am deliriously happy with the outcome in Copenhagen.  I actually think that George Bush would have felt compelled to accomplish more because of the domestic and international criticism lobbed at him on this issue.  Ironically we made out better with a true believer then an unabashed skeptic.  Now that may make me feel better, but to the President's fans and other world leaders who care about this issue and were looking for him to carry the day, he is looking weak, abused, and inept.  

It seems to me that this White House needs to stop buying their own P.R. and start putting a little faith in the striped pants set at Foggy Bottom.  Sir Humphrey, in the episode, provided the PM with a mechanism to get what he wanted.  It's too bad no one at the White House is a fan of the show or as smart as a fictional British Cabinet Secretary.  Surely Sir Humphrey would be shaking his head and saying, "I told you so," to Rahm Emmanuel right about now.

The End of ....Something

12/22    So now what I told you months ago is official, Rudy is not running for the U.S. Senate.  In fact he's not running for anything, ever again.  He gave as his reason the one I told you he would, he wants to make money.  All I can say is that it's sad.  Rudy Giuliani's political career is now over.  It ended apparently on January 1, 2002 only none of us knew it then.  His presidential foray was an ego sop never intended to actually achieve victory and in my mind didn't count as a serious effort.  So now he's going to be an extreme right-wing TV pundit and a worldwide salesman for the Giuliani brand.  It's all so sad.

Old Rudy used to care about things besides money.  Old Rudy wanted to be in the arena, mixing it up and making a difference.  Modern Rudy wants to be adored and above all else, paid.  The AP, in its story today, claimed that, "Giuliani's consulting business, Giuliani Partners (GP), is flourishing."  Don't you believe that for a nanosecond.  Yes, Lula has somehow missed the results from the last Latin American country that wrote a big check to GP, but the result will be the same.  Rudy & Company were supposed to clean-up Mexico City's crime problem.  Hmmmm, how did that work out? 

Now the deep poverty of Rio's favelas has fallen to Rudy Giuliani to fix.  Most of Rio's crime emanates from its slums.  The City's answer last year was to build walls around them so they would stop spreading and remove the eyesore.  Old Rudy might have gone in there with a multi-phased plan on how to combat poverty which is the cause after all of Rio's crime.  Modern Rudy will propose guns, cops, checkpoints and maybe even rendition and torture.  He'll then scurry home to cash the check.  Rio will be no safer after Rudy's departure than before his arrival.  GP is not flourishing.  If it were he might have actually considered one these races.  But it's not and if he hopes to live for another 20 years in the type of luxury he and especially Judith have become accustomed to, he knows it's Rudy who is going to have to pop his head in at client pitch meetings.  He can't do that as Governor or Senator.  The business is not self-sustaining without him.

So for the next 15-20 years of his life he will run around the world representing the interests of tyrants, despots and dictators who not so long ago he would not even shake hands with.  He'll represent the who's who of white collar villainy.  Who not so long ago he prosecuted.  He's a modern day Duke of Windsor for the politcal set.  Wanting the company and adoration of his Cafe Society (red state yahoos & Fox News) but actually contributing nothing in return except a fading memory of who he was and all that he did.  To those of us who would have done anything for him once upon a time, it's all so sad.

Repealing the Repeal

12/17    As readers of this site know, I am not a huge John McCain fan.  Nothing personal, I just don't like where he stands on most issues.  But he has now proposed something that all of us can and should get behind. 

When I worked in the U.S. Senate in the late 80's, one of the big issues forever debated, but never acted upon, was the repeal of the Depression era legislation known as The Glass-Steagall Act.  Basically, it split apart financial firms into their core functions.  Banks couldn't offer stocks or insurance products and investment firms couldn't write you a mortgage.  It was said, back in the 80's, that Glass-Steagall was antiquated and not in keeping with the modern financial times we lived in.  How wonderful it would be, said Citibank, if all its branches could offer you a range of stock investments to go along with your CD.  Everything under one roof, one-stop shopping.  I bought into that argument and supported repeal, which came about a few years later.  Silly me, however, I actually assumed government regulators would monitor the activities of these new giant financial behemoths after repeal.  That of course was not to be.

Sen. McCain, who is a principled man, voted for that repeal and like few in D.C. acknowledges now that it didn't work and seeks to reinstate the Chinese wall between banks, investment firms and insurance companies.  I haven't read his bill and don't know how hedge funds and the multiple hydras that have emerged over the last decade would be treated.  My understanding is that within one year of enactment, an institution would basically have to declare its core function and leave the others behind.  Barack Obama should support new Glass Steagall, but sadly I am betting he won't.  It will be another in a laundry list of disappointments to his base that he will surely come out against rebuilding the wall.

I think there is growing awareness that the Barney Frank financial regulation bill making its way through the House is a tame tiger.  It will do nothing to prevent another market calamity.   I do have one idea that I have not heard mentioned that I believe would prevent another housing crisis at least.  It certainly would have prevented this one.

Remember the scene in The Best Years of Our Lives where Fredric March has to decide whether to give this itinerant farmer/veteran a loan in order for him to purchase his own farm?  March struggles with the loan because the farmer has no collateral.  He explains to him that it's the bank and its depositors who will be taking this huge risk and he's just not sure the man is credit worthy.  Well eventually he gives the farmer/veteran the loan backed by the G.I. Bill.  But the anguish March expressed has all but disappeared in modern banking.  What we saw in the housing market over the last decade was none of that angst.  The reason?  Banks don't hold onto their mortgages.  They bundle them up and sell them in huge multi-billion dollar pools.  Banks often held onto new mortgages for a matter of days or weeks before selling them off to be re-packaged and sold in the market eventually as sub-prime bonds.  A local banker didn't really care how credit worthy you were because he knew they weren't going to hold onto the note.  Why would he care if you didn't make the mortgage payments, it's going to be someone else's headache. 

Had that local banker cared, had that banker known that the note would stay on the bank's books for some lengthy period of time, you can be sure he would have tested the credit worthiness of the applicant and sought sufficient collateral.  Consumers all over the country, now in trouble, have discovered how many times their loan has been turned over from one institution to the next.  Often these institutions are not banks but mortgage servicing companies.  In the old days you could have gone the entire length of your thirty year mortgage writing your monthly payment to the exact same institution.   Your bank held that loan for the entire time. 

I propose that as a central component of any financial services reform there should be a mandatory hold provision for any institution that initiates residential loans: mortgages, seconds, home equity.  Whether it's three, five or ten years doesn't really matter.  What matters is that the loan will stay on the bank's books and therefore concern itself with the soundness of the loan.  

In the decade since it was repealed, banks, investment firms and holding companies have demonstrated that they cannot be trusted to operate in an environment essentially free from regulation.  The zany list of financial instruments and products offered is clear proof of that.  Sen. Dodd has said it would prove "pretty difficult" to reimpose Glass-Steagall.  What he means is not that there isn't the will in Congress, I believe there is.  What the import of his remark suggests is that the millions and millions of dollars that will surely be pouring into Congress to lobby against rebuidling the wall, makes this proposition herculean.  On that point, I agree.  But polls will be solidly behind the idea.  This is not only a populist idea it makes financial sense.  Notwithstanding Barney Frank's legislation that grants the government authority to declare institutions too large, no such thing will happen and we will be back to 2008 all over again a decade from now.  Maybe not about housing, but surely some other essential part of our economy will be strangled by Wall Street.

There was good reason to do this in 1933.  We should own up to our mistake of 1999 and repeal the repeal now.

The Ever Do-Nothing Mayor

12/16    A terrific contrast today as to where Mayor-for-Life Mike places his priorities.  While our Mayor gazes at The Little Mermaid and strolls through the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, his administration back home has told us New Yorkers where their focus is.  All three mayoral appointees to the MTA board voted for the punishing cuts to transit service, the lifeblood of New York City.  No alternatives were offered by them or by the Mayor's staff left behind in NYC.  Rather today's big announcement from the City was a contest to design condom wrappers to be distributed by the NYC Dept. of Health. 

I am often criticized for being hard on Rudy Giulani.  But any regular reader of this site knows that when it comes to defending his tenure in office I defer to no one.  It would have been unthinkable for Rudy Giuliani to have let the wasteful, bloated MTA get away with what they did today.  He would have offered sensible alternatives and barring that he would have galvanized state leaders to find solutions to avert this calamity.  And our beloved jet-setting Mayor?  He needs to be addressing the climate change conference in Denmark apparently, while the MTA punishes us with lousier service and fewer trains and buses.

I have said here repeatedly that Mayor-for-Life Mike not only shows no leadership over the MTA, he proudly abdicates that role.  Unfortunately, it has been picked up by no one else and here we have the result.  In eight years as Mayor, Rudy Giuliani never took a vacation and with the exception of the rare quicky trip to Israel, never left the country.  He worked hard and for all New York's passengers, notwithstanding the fact that he never rode the subway.  He didn't need to demonstrate his bona fides as a real New Yorker by taking the subway every day.  He knew in his soul that a. mass transit was the glue that held this city's people and commerce together and b. a diminution in the quality of mass transit - a return to the 1970's - was a one-way ticket back to the bad old days in New York.  A good transit system makes this city.  A bad one harbingers its decline.

It's too bad that in riding the subway every day Mayor-for-Life Mike, a foreigner to our city, hasn't learned any of these historic lessons.  Of course there is little chance of him learning any of this amidst the canals of Copenhagen.

Better Late Than Never

12/16    I told you months ago that whether or not The Working Families Party (WFP) was violating state election law, I did not know.  But I sure as hell knew they were violating federal election law.  Now the U.S. Attorney has gotten around to issuing subpoenas.  Apparently more will be going out. 

The clever dance by WFP in nominating candidates and then showing them where they can sign up for their for- profit arm, Data & Field Services, has finally given the Feds proper fits.  It's so nakedly a Chicago-shakedown, it's a wonder they thought they could get away with it.  I've said all along; mix big labor, extremist left wing policies, access to the ballot and a lot of money, and you will surely have a toxic brew.  How great for us that we now have incoming city-wide elected officials created by WFP - Liu & de Blassio - who enter under a cloud due to their tainted association.  WFP Exec Dir Dan Cantor says he welcomes the inquiry.  Uhh yea, sure.

In Defense of Arnold

12/15    Every December, The Economist puts out a year end issue that sums up the past year and makes predictions for the coming one.  This year's issue devoted a page to the "mess" in California.  The Economist is probably the finest news magazine in the world and it pissed me off that they had such a myopic view of this.  I think they have it wrong and it is really time that someone speaks up for the California version of democratic government, especially now.

It was accepted dogma in my house growing up that California democracy was something to be derided and avoided at all costs.  Unlike New York: California elects most of its statewide officials, allows for ballot initiative and referendum, term limits its elected officials and permits the recall of its elected officials. This was democracy gone amok, hyper-democracy, I was told and believed.  Something no one would wish to emulate.  Then came Prop. 13 and direct voter input on taxes.  Most of the chattering class in America treated that with equal derision. 

So now here we are.  California apparently has a significant and seemingly irreparable structural budget deficit.  Nothing they do there appears to cauterize the fiscal wound for any length of time.  And the resulting chaos only causes the rest of America to shake its head and sneer at the California brand of democracy.

But contrast California with the U.S. Government.  California has to balance it budget, it's in their Constitution.  California has no ability to print money or run year to year deficits.  At the end of the day, the asset and debit columns have to equal out.  The California budget, as well as any tax increases, require super majorities to pass inside the legislature.  So their Governor and legislature have cut and cut and cut.  The size of Government - not only its personnel, but functions - has shrunk.  They had a defined pot of money and they had to figure out how to spend it and on what.  They re-prioritized what the Government does and is ultimately supposed to do.  The people of California - who pundits say would never stand for this and will now come to regret their low-tax impositions on government - will have their say.  And you know what?  No backlash will result from the results that Gov. Schwarzenegger and the legislature have taken.  The ill-will of Californians is directed at those who hinder action, not what's been done.

The argument goes that what we see in California could never happen in Washington, D.C.  Well, at the moment that's certainly true.  There exists no awareness whatever of a problem.  Therefore the desire to fix it is non-existent.  For the first two years of the Obama Administration, the federal government will issue 4 trillion dollars in bonds to pay for his deficits.  I can't even get my head around that kind of deficit spending, let alone in two years.  And yet - the government just gave across the board wage increases to its employees, the budgets of every single department have been increased, and Congress - before they were caught - were happily buying new Gulfstreams to ferry members of Congress and the military around.  No one in Washington is compelled to see a problem, so they don't.  They have no sword hanging over their head if they don't act responsibly.  Sure, the Chinese could stop buying our debt, but that won't happen.  No balanced budget amendment to trigger action and a totally useless Republican Party drunk on pork. 

The way back for my party from the shameful Bush years is staring them in the face but they can't/won't see it.  When the government does 10,000 things but in reality can only afford to do 1,000 things then hard choices need to be made.  I honestly believe the reason that this Tea Party movement has caught some fire is because the nation is ready to have that discussion.  The federal government needs to shrink because, A. we can't afford what it does and b. a lot of us don't believe it should be  doing many of those things.  This is the perfect time to have the fiscal and philosophical argument simultaneously.  If you had a Gingrich-like platform to shrink the government, I really think people would respond and the demagoging Democrats would have to engage. 

Former Congressman Jim Leach was on NPR the other day complaining that the NEH and other agencies he oversees as the new chairman have only gotten 12-14% budget increases this year.  This complaint, with a multi-trillion dollar deficit, coming from an agency that can only marginally rationalize its existence, is typical Washington.  Do you need any better proof that no one there gets it?

We are in perilous fiscal times and choices need to be made.  What you're seeing in California is representative democracy at its best.  The People laid out some basic ground rules and the legislature has to craft its spending plan accordingly.  It's wrenching to do and painful to watch, but they're doing it; they are bringing California's budget in-line with what the state can afford and what the people want to spend.   If the critics are right, Californians will rebel and repeal many of their prior initiatives in order to pay for more services.  But guess what, it ain't gonna happen. 

The critics are wrong because they view this through a Washington mindset.  Californians get they are going to have less government, fewer parks, longer lines at the DMV and they are going to be OK with that.  This is the scope and size of government that they can afford and like responsible adults, they get that.  What no one can fathom is why these hard choices can't be made at the federal level.  With a multi-trillion dollar deficit, where are the mass lay-offs?  Where is the order from OMB for every department and agency to amass a 20% reduction that OMB will take to Congress?  What is it about Washington that makes these things totally doable in cities and states and yet not only not possible, but not even considered in D.C.?

There are many answers.  The lack of a balanced budget amendment, the lack of term limits, no super majorities for tax increases, lobbyists and huge PAC money, and a culture of total inertia, that prohibits radical change.  A real fiscally, conservative Republican Party in California also makes a huge difference.  Lots and lots of reasons.  But what we know for sure, is that Washington is rapidly becoming out-of-step with much of America, and that crosses party lines.  The ridiculousness of a Sarah Palin candidacy or book is a clear sign of that.  People are yearning for leadership, so in that search they turn to false prophets.

You cannot tell the nation that its tax dollars are going to bail-out Goldman, Bear, BoA, et al.,  produce no tangible results (they are not lending more, they're lending less) and then say we can't find anywhere in a $3 trillion bureaucracy to cut.  It's wearing thin, the anger is growing and if not directed will be co-opted by right wing nut jobs like Glen Beck, Michael Savage and Mark Levin.   That to me would be the most unfortunate thing.   This is a crisis tailor made for the Western, libertarian wing of the party.  Forget the social issues for now.  Put aside abortion and gay marriage and focus on personal liberty, low taxes and small, non-intrusive government.  Like Barry Goldwater, I would rather have a party that lead, was right on the issues and lost elections, than one that simply went along, stood for nothing and won.  In the end we'll achieve victory at the polls because we are right.  That is the way back.  California and Gov. Arnold have shown you the path.

Is This a Joke?

12/15    I can only assume that it must be Marc Mukasey's birthday this week and either his stepfather or Rudy Giuliani didn't know what to get him so they bought him an item in the New York Post.

Someone sent me a link yesterday to a story in the Post.  I found the story so hard to believe that I thought it must be a hoax and went to the Post to see if it indeed was there.  Sure enough, the Post is reporting that Marc Mukasey nee Saroff, wants to run against Kirsten Gillibrand.  More than that, it says he believes he'd be a strong candidate.  

Now what could lead to this sort of delusion?  Is it a mental illness or a physical one?  How long has young Marc been afflicted and should he be practicing law in this impaired state?  Do his clients know?

You remember Marc Mukasey.  I have written about him before.  He's the stepson of former Attorney General and Bush torture apologist, Michael Mukasey.  He's now a defense lawyer who represents Bernie Madoff's right hand guy, Frank DiPascali.  Sadly for DiPacali, he could not get Madoff's attorney who kept him out of jail post indictment. 

Now I deny no one their desire to seek elective office.  I respect those who put themselves out there facing the scrutiny and articulating positions.  It is hard work and if you have the calling to make a difference it can be the most rewarding feeling in the world.  What I have no respect for and never have are people who run for their resume. 

Maybe I'm just dense or been out of the game too long, but what advantages could a Mukasey Senate candidacy possibly have?  By electoral standards he's completely unknown.  He was an Asst. U.S. Attorney and now a white collar defense lawyer.  Ok, so are 10,000 other guys.  He worked for Rudy Giuliani, which sadly has become a liability not an asset in this state.  Rudy's successful endorsements over the last few years have been as infrequent as a Tiger Woods sighting.  Other than an extraordinary ego, is he possessing of any skills or intellectual talents that we've all missed?  And while I certainly except that everyone in this country is entitled to and deserves a good defense, politically we want Bernie Madoff's henchman's lawyer running for the U.S. Senate from New York?

The real question is what in the world makes this punk kid think he's too good to run for City Council, Assembly, or the State Senate.  His list of accomplishments is so vast that he's above it?  He's going to start in politics by running for a seat held by Aaron Burr, Gouverneur Morris, Martin Van Buren, Pat Moynihan, Robert Kennedy and Hillary Clinton?  Honestly, is this April 1?

Is Ed Cox - who seeks to restore a totally shattered party - going to countenance this nonsense even for a second?  Is Rudy - whose credibility is on the wane, to say the least - seriously pushing this idea?  The same Republican Party that gave us the great Jacob Javits and yes, even my old boss, Alfonse D'Amato is now seriously proposing Marc Mukasey?  

The nadir of the state Republican Party is not a Sen. Mukasey.  The nadir has been reached when there is such a dearth of plausible candidates that we have come to even the idea of a Sen. Mukasey.

The Evil of Goldman Sachs

12/15    There are a few lessons and rules that all Jews live by.  The most important of these is 'keep your head down."  With the exception of Israeli Jews, all Jews worldwide live in a diaspora.  For centuries we have made our homes at the sufferance of host countries, until they kicked us out.  The reason I am such an ardent, unapologetic Zionist is because I believe that every Jew, one day, will need an apartment either in Jerusalem or on some settlement on the West Bank.  Staving off the day when we'll need to move there is the job of every Jew.  Any Jew who hastens that cuts the throat of his/her people.

Which brings me to Lloyd Blankfein and Goldman Sachs.  First, let me say that I have no idea if Lloyd Blankfein is Jewish or if he is, if he's a practicing one.  But for the purposes of this post, it is irrelevant.  The issue is that most Americans believe him to be Jewish and that will shortly be my point.

As we survey the carnage and economic rubble of the last two years, many analysts like to say there are no winners, only survivors.  I, along with Matt Taibbi, disagree.  He has famously called Goldman," a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money."  It's not only true and worrisome from an economic perspective, it's more troubling  to us Jews.

Unlike me, who looks upon much of what Treasury and the Federal Reserve did as a cabal of former Goldman employees seeking only to save the great firm, the vast majority of America, especially the middle heartland of the country, sees only Jews and Jewish sounding names working to save Goldman at the expense of Main Street and the U.S. taxpayers.  Making matters worse, the recipient of all this largess is ungrateful and arrogant.  To me what tied all these men together  was not the issue of foreskin, but rather office space - past and present - at 85 Broad Street.  But when the greedy, voracious firm and its management hand out obscene bonuses after taking billions and then compares itself to God, all I see is evangelical mega churches throughout the Midwest thinking, in unison, "God damn bloodsucking Jews."  The inevitable increase in antisemitism throughout this country can be laid squarely at the feet of Lloyd Blankfein and Goldman Sachs. 

Where I see the SEC unbelievably hiring a 29yo Goldman employee to run its "Market Intelligence Division" as more confirmation of the USA as the land 'by and for' Goldman Sachs, the rest of America will see Adam Storch's appointment as a Jewish sounding Goldman employee out to protect their interests from the inside and against the rest of Gentile America.  Think I'm exaggerating?  Then you don't know this country. 

Is it right, is it fair?  It doesn't matter.  It's a stupid academic exercise to look at the fairness of the situation.  The fact is that all Jews who have made it to the highest peaks have a responsibility - especially after Bernie Madoff - to behave responsibly and low-key.  In the Summer of 77 after the Son of Sam was caught, the first words out of my grandmother's mouth after hearing his real name were, "Oh my God, he's Jewish."  It turned out he wasn't, but that mattered little with a name like Berkowitz, everyone would think he was.  She honestly believed that there would be some backlash.  That was her mindset having lived through the Holocaust.  Mentally, her suitcases were always packed; ready to leave when we had outlived our welcome.  She thought it sinful for any Jew to aid that hasty departure.

I get that me and my family may not be the poster example of what I am saying.  But the truth is, we don't have a Jewish name and with the exception of my brother, none of us looks Jewish.  The scandals with which we have been involved were not viewed through the prism of that which I am writing about now.

Blankfein, Winkelried, Geitner, Goldman-Sachs.  These names may in fact all be German and Gentile in origin, I don't know.  But, of course, no one believes that.  You would be shocked how many Americans believe that there is some - or a lot - truth to the Elders of Zion and the vast, worldwide Jewish conspiracy.  That Lloyd Blankfein has so contributed to this current impression with he and his firm's behavior - past and on-going - means that the rest of us Jews will have to be eying God's little acre in Hebron just that much sooner.

Lacking Clean Hands in Westchester

12/1    Imagine, if you will, that 20 years ago Congress gave RJR Reynolds exclusive jurisdiction to delve into the health risks of tobacco at Philip Morris, Brown & Williamson and all other tobacco companies, excepting of course RJR Reynolds.  And RJR put out report after report about the risks of the products sold by their competitors all the while selling their own and making their brands more harmful.  And no one could say a word about it.  Or imagine Bernie Madoff being given the lone charter to investigate criminal activities at U.S. investment funds all the while everyone knowing full well of his activities.  Why am I blathering on like this?  Well those two examples are what come to mind today when I hear of the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) report on Westchester County's jail, Valhalla. 

As I have mentioned in a previous post - Kerik, Valhalla and Me - I was at that facility in 2005 for a number of weeks.  I wrote briefly about my experiences there.  It was not a great correctional facility.  The guards were badly trained and immature, the medical care was terrible, and prisoners had very few rights.  I saw prisoners there beaten routinely.  The prison had an "elite" group of guards referred to by inmates as 'The Turtles.'  They would storm into your unit in full riot gear and tear the place up, busting heads of any inmates who got in their way.  It was a pretty pointless yet frightening experience.  These 'Turtles,' while serving very little purpose from a correctional standpoint, really got off on the experience. 

But why in my previous mention of Valhalla, or even in today's, do I not come down harder on Westchester County for the lousy food, bad medical care and poorly trained staff?  Only one reason.  Anyone, like me, who has served time in many different prisons knows that your reaction and coping skills in one facility are directly related to the places you've served time in before. Why did Valhalla not freak me out?  Why didn't I crack up - as Bernie Kerkik seems to have?  Because I had been to the worst place imaginable two years earlier and after that experience, Valhalla was eminently copeable.  Where had I been that was so much worse?  The federal government's own facility in Lower Manhattan, the Metropolitan Correction Center.  

Now what right does the DOJ have to operate some of the worst prisons in America and then criticize - worse, legally compel - state and county prisons into reform?  Should Valhalla be reformed?  Absolutely, it's a fairly lousy jail.  But who is Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, to tell Westchester County about their jails when he works mere blocks from one of the nation's worst and most brutal prisons?  I have asked this question many times on here:  who monitors the DOJ?  The Justice Department is not only the nation's top law enforcement agency it is also the nation's largest jailer.  It runs prisons that would never meet for a second the conditions it laid down for Westchester County.  Staff brutality, inadequate medical care, insufficient mental health screening and treatment?  The BOP & DOJ could not pass even the most minimum test they might create.

Rumors and lawsuits hint at the brutal treatment at federal correctional facilities.  The MDC - Brooklyn's version of the MCC - has been well documented as a house of torture, literally.  Where is the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District's scathing report and threatening lawsuit if the MDC is not cleaned up?  Nowhere.  Why?  Because you can't sue yourself.  One arm of the DOJ isn't about to sue the other.  The U.S. Attorney and the staffs at the MDC and MCC all get their paychecks from the same place, the U.S. Department of Justice.  Why does Congress allow this self-serving anomaly to exist?  I can only guess it's because there are no votes in prisoner rights and lots of votes to be lost in angering all those constituents who 'work' in those prisons.

Russ Buettner wrote a nice piece in The New York Times laying out the federal government's case against Valhalla.  But where is The New York Times in demanding that the government create an independent agency to monitor the Bureau of Prisons.  Its fine to talk about abuses and remedies at Guantanamo.  As you know, I am all for that.  But where is the equal outrage at the federal government routinely abusing prisoners in the prisons it owns/operates/contracts here in the U.S.?  This is not abstract for The Times.  Two of the worst prisons in America exist in their city - the MCC and MDC.  The DOJ settled a lawsuit recently involving torture at the MDC rather then let it go to trial and expose those conditions in court.

Were I newly elected Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, I would accept the reforms, implement them and then countersue the DOJ and BOP for the exact same claims made in their report on Valhalla.  I'm no lawyer, but there's something in the law about having 'clean hands' when you're commencing a legal action.  The jailer (BOP), it's boss (DOJ) and their henchmen (U.S. Attorney, Preet Bharara) can't run houses of torture and then claim any moral high ground to scold localities.  Someone needs to demand that Congress create some independent authority separate from the DOJ to audit, monitor and review the BOP's practices and individual prisons.  Only then can these reports on local jails from a source such as the DOJ  have any ring of legitimacy.

Sen. Giuliani?? - Follow-up

I received much mail over the weekend regarding Friday's post.  I think I left a misimpression that I believed Marcia Kramer's story.  I was merely commenting on the possibilities of her claim that Rudy was in fact running for the Senate.  I do not at this point believe that to be true.  In fact, I would say the odds remain favorable that he will not run.   Rudy has a number of continuing reasons not to pull this trigger.  First and foremost is the money.  He cannot live on what a Senate salary pays.  He would have to severe all ties to Giuliani Partners (GP) which would be the death of that business.  I do not know this, but I do not believe that Rudy & Judith have a vast nest egg saved up.  I think he requires the millions he brings in each year to maintain his lifestyle.  That is one reason so much has to be comped when he travels for speaking engagements.

If the thought is to play fast and loose with either the business or whatever pay-out he would receive from GP, Rudy is prosecutor enough to take the Ted Stevens example seriously.  Senate rules, although filled with loopholes, are none-the-less very clear on what can and cannot be received as income or gifts.  And are in fact much stricter than when I worked there.  He would have to file annual financial disclosure forms which would be indictable if not truthful.  Also, a senate race would undoubtedly require that he finally reveal the list of GP clients that he refused to during his presidential run.  I have said it many times: The NY press is not going to give him the easy pass that the national press did.  Rudy is completely unused to that after eight years of fawning attention. He doesn't get this yet, but he is not Michael Bloomberg.  The NY press is not going to role over for him as they did for Mayor-for-Life Mike.  The NY press doesn't like what he's become, what he now stands for or what electing the anti-Obama in chief would mean.  If he thought the press was brutal to him as Mayor, wait till they unleash eight years of pent-up Giuliani dislike. And if the idea is not to fold up the GP tent but rather run-it from afar, lest we not forget that there is a new gunslinger in town with his sights set squarely on Rudy and GP.  I speak of course of Bill Bratton who would like nothing better than to best GP at their own game. 

Last but not least, if he should lose this race to Al D'Amato's former intern it would be ruinous politically, financially and personally.  This is a political loss from which there is no return.  For all these reasons I do not accept that this is anywhere near a done deal.  I need a better Giuliani source then Marcia Kramer to convince me this is now full speed ahead.

Sen. Giuliani??

CBS News' Marcia Kramer reports that her sources have told her that Rudy is running for the U.S. Senate against Kirsten Gillibrand.  While I believed his run for Governor was never serious and was a losing effort before it would even have started, this is a different matter. 

Strengths?  He can more easily raise boatloads of cash on national issues as the dark conservative voice in D.C., than he could speaking of Albany's budget issues.  He has stalked out the hard-right Cheneyesque view of America and the world.  Sarah Palin throws in sops to the so-called Tea Party crowd, but Rudy has no love of those Liberty folks.  He's become all about the dark corners and overweening national security apparatus so popular with Bush-Cheney supporters.  It's easy to think of Sarah Palin as a joke - and I do - but she gets, at least, that the Republican party has to reform itself and create something new and appealing.  Even if that 'new thing' is hollow and actually unfulfilling.  Rudy is stuck in the Bush years.  He doesn't want to move on, he wants to go back.  There is absolutely a constituency for that point of view out there; they have money and votes.  It's not a recipe for any long-term success, but in the short term it's certainly a strategy. 

The latest poll shows him beating her 53-40.  Not a terrible starting point for him, but not as great as it would seem.  Most people have no idea who she is and in early polls register ascent for someone they've heard of, Rudy.   She has one great asset which should cause Rudy some sleepless nights - Sen. Schumer.  Chuck Schumer wants a weak junior Senator from New York.  He doesn't want to share any limelight as he did with Hillary.  In fact, he became perceived as the junior although he had the seniority.  He will not let that happen again.  Forget not that the man who ran the Democratic Senatorial Committee when they took back the Senate with win after win was Schumer.  He knows how to raise cash in a fight and throw the mud.  All of Rudy's baggage from his firm's clients to his issue stances in the 08 campaign will be played out over heavy TV rotation.  Sen. Gillibrand is a rather empty suit which brings with it the advantage of being able to fill-out your shoulders however you like.  Except for some issue flip-flopping she has no real negatives.  Schumer can mold and shape her like Gumby.  Lose some weight, hire a stylist, ditch the Eleanor Roosevelt formless, baggy suits and she might be appealing.

Rudy's real negative is that he is ill-equipped to discuss national issues.  The reason his presidential run was so awful centered around the fact that he had no position on a wide range of issues.  I've written before how his staff failed - intentionally - to respond to dozens of issue questionnaires.  Those that they did respond to were simplistic drivel.   Even without his interest in most of what is discussed in the U.S. Senate, he could still win if he had a positive message.  But his message is fear - real or imagined.  He offers no hope for better tomorrows, only blind panic.  Can he scare the public into electing him?  Sadly, that's possible.

Rudy will play very nasty.  It will be Rudy '08' mixed with Rudy '89.'   He will surely say things that are so outrageous and so venomous as to be on a regular apology parade.  This is not the disciplined Rudy of '93' and '97.'  This is the out-of-control Rudy of '08', who believes he can do no wrong.  He will hire the sycophantic, second-raters from his presidential run - who only know America's Mayor and have never met Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mayor of the City of New York -  back to the Senate race.  He will make the mistake of believing the path to victory is national.  You win this race locally, you lose it playing national.  Hillary 2000 was the shining example of that strategy. 

Barack Obama will not like the idea of Sen. Giuliani.  He won't like him devoting all his floor time to bad-mouthing him, as he did at the Republican Convention.  He won't like him blocking his agenda.  And he certainly won't like Rudy planning to use this seat as a stepping stone to the White House in Obama's re-election year.  While I do not accept that NJ and VA were really local expressions of national outrage, a Rudy-Obama match with Gillibrand standing in, would definitely be a major win or huge defeat for the White House.  NY electing Rudy would have national import.   Axelrod, Plouff, Emanuel and Schumer will be a mighty combo against the ever weakening/shrinking Giuliani machine.  This will be one interesting race.

JUST FYI...

Danny Hakim reports in the Times that Rudy is not running for Governor.  No surprise to Rudy Veritas readers.   I think you heard that here months ago. 

SAFE AT ANY COST

11/18    There's so much wrong with this country.  But let me focus today on the various and random news stories that keep bombarding me regarding how completely out-of-control the criminal justice system is in America 2009.

First, let me focus on this little girl in Ozark, Arkansas.  She was tasered by a local police officer when her mother called the police to their house because the 10 year old refused to take a shower.  The officer is now suspended with pay.  Ahhh, but not because he tasered the kid.  No.  He's suspended because he turned off an attached camera to his taser.  His boss, the local police chief, defended the officer's action in tasering the 10 year old saying, "This is something we have to do.  We're required to maintain order and keep the peace."   The child's father - divorced from the mother - asked that the State Police investigate.  The State Police in Arkansas refused.  The FBI is now looking at this but they appear to have no interest. 

Tasering a 10 year old for refusing to take a shower.  Did I mention that after she struggled with the cop and after being tasered, he handcuffed her and booked her for disorderly conduct and that she now faces time in a juvenile detention facility?  The police chief further defended the action by pointing out that tasers are a more effective weapon than chemical agents or dogs.  How incredibly humane that the cop didn't mace the 10 year old girl or order a german shepherd to tear her apart for not bathing.  Is it more outrageous that this child was tasered or that no one in her community finds this barbaric?  This is the post Bush-Cheney America where anything goes in order to "keep us safe."  Clearly this 10 year old girl is just steps away from refusing to eat broccoli which will no doubt result in a life without parole sentence in Ozark, Arkansas.

Next, I move on to two stories in the local NY newspapers today.  One details the indictment brought against the owner of a landmark bagel store in Manhattan, H&H Bagels.  It's a tax fraud case.  He used some bogus accounts to avoid paying unemployment insurance and stole some withholding tax.  He faces 15 years in jail.  The other story regards a NYPD police officer who perjured himself before a grand jury.  He claimed to have seen a suspect in an incriminating location related to a burglary.  The officer, as it turned out, was not in the place he claimed to be and therefore could not have fingered the suspect.  He now faces one year in prison.  See anything wrong here?

Although it is true that judges routinely admonish juries to give no greater or no lesser credence to the testimony of police officers versus civilians, it is well known that juries and especially judges treat police testimony as gospel (that is of course everywhere but Bronx County - jurors there don't like cops).  Since this is a well know fact shouldn't the penalty for a police officer committing perjury be incredibly harsh?  Shouldn't bearing false witness - a commandment, no less - by a police officer be dealt with more severely than not paying your taxes?  Shouldn't the attempt by a law enforcement official to commit perjury in order to put someone in prison be one of the worst things you can do in our society?  I would think so.  But the government that fashions these penalties believes otherwise.  Loss of liberty, no big deal.  Not paying your taxes, very big deal.

I guarantee you if the penalties for police perjury and prosecutorial misconduct were as severe as they are for tax evasion no cop or prosecutor would ever contemplate crossing the law.  Mandatory minimum sentences for cops and prosecutors who lie or engage in conspiracies to deprive the innocent of their liberty should be punishable by no less than 10 years in max. prison.  Do you think any cop or federal prosecutor would slip up?  Never.  But this cop gets a year. Another last month, also in NY, got three months and that was with his refusal to accept any responsibility.

It is no wonder that in a climate such as this the U.S. Supreme Court can't come to simple decisions regarding prosecutors who frame the innocent or life sentences for children.  Poll most Americans and ask if they have a constitutional right not to be framed and see what the results are.  But the Supreme Court is now filled almost entirely with former prosecutors and unsurprisingly they seem far less sure about the answer to this.  They claim it would have a chilling effect on prosecutors if they could be sued for conspiring to frame the innocent.  Well, you kinda hope that prosecutors think long and hard about the evidence they present.  And you'd hope if they think it's false that they wouldn't offer it to a jury.  At least we - who have served on juries - would hope so.  When the decision is handed down basically upholding the lawlessness of prosecutors, especially federal prosecutors, it will fundamentally alter the country we thought we lived in.  'Safe at any cost,' will be the law of the land and we will all be the worse for it.

Total Abandonment

11/4    If you're looking for the specific date that Barack Obama abandoned his base, his roots and his race, mark today on your calendar.  For today President Obama's Solicitor General, Elena Kagan, will concur with the argument that black men - all citizens in fact - have no constitutional right NOT to be framed by prosecutors.  I will write more about this tomorrow, but for those who frequently write me on issues of law and justice, I want you to pay special attention today to the arguments being made at the Supreme Court in the case of Pottawattamie County v. McGhee, et al.  Change indeed!

50,000 Votes

11/4    50,000 votes.  Boy, that is an election outcome I know well.  In 1989, it was Dinkins' victory over Rudy.  In 1993, it was Rudy's margin over Dinkins.  And last night it was Michael Bloomberg's margin over Bill Thompson.  It is interesting how the same outcome could produce vastly different results in mood and psychology.

In 89 there was, in many quarters, a sense of new beginnings and "hope," at the election of the city's first black mayor.  Many of us feared a different outcome, but The New York Times crowd held sway and it was believed to be a new era in NYC.

Four years later, Rudy's 50,000 vote win was a sign that perhaps the Great City might not be dead; maybe there was still some hope after the near cataclysmic tenure of Dave Dinkins.  There was hope coupled with trepidation at the daunting task that lay ahead.  A Giuliani mayoralty was going to be a stark change from anything that preceded it.

Last night's outcome was about bitterness, resentment, and disaffection; no hope, no optimism.  Dinkins' win was enough of a mandate back then.  Rudy's defeat of an incumbent mayor was enough to proceed with a radical agenda.  And last night?  Last night was a rejection of so many different things.  And so many are to blame for the narrow loss for Bill Thompson.  Here is a list, seriatim:

1.    Democrats - National & Local:    The Democratic Party, lead by President Obama, is looking pretty shameful today.  Apparently the old fire to reclaim City Hall no longer exists.  Had the DNC, Obama, Biden, Cuomo, Clinton(s) - even dare I say used selectively, David Paterson - raised the money, done the walking tours, rallied the churches and the base, we now know the outcome would almost surely have been different.  But they have all been bought off - some for reasons understood, some inexplicably - by Bloomberg.  Why in the world was there not a presidential fundraiser at the Sheraton for Thompson, bringing in millions?  It's unthinkable.  In '93' JFK, Jr. did a walking tour on the UWS for Dinkins.  Now the Kennedy family sits opposed to the black Comptroller and firmly in the pocket of the billionaire incumbent.  All the City Council members who endorsed Bloomberg or whose Thompson endorsement was only tepid bear equal guilt.  We had the chance last night to really make history; not racial history, but political history.  But eight years of feeding at the trough of the City's largess handed out personally and selectively by Bloomberg, not to mention his personal endowments made these local Democrats lethargic and torpid.

2.    Black 'Leaders," Ministers & Pols:  Supposedly, everyone tells us, we live in a post-racial U.S.  Based on the behavior of blacks in this election, that must be true.  The public face of black New York abandoned their own in droves to favor the elitist, billionaire, Republican incumbent.   As the City's budget has ballooned, more and more local groups not are totally dependent on City funding.  Bloomberg likes to say hes above politics.  His unprecedentedly blatant use of City funds - your money - to obtain endorsements (or prevent them) is the oldest and crassest political maneuver there is.  He's not above politics, he's just monetized to an extent previously unseen.  Why would any white person trust in an unknown Bill Thompson when the 'leaders' of his own community don't.  It's a really fair question.  The black ministers should especially be called out.  Michael Bloomberg is no friend to the poor, non-white and non-Manhattanite in our city but especially in any black congregation.  Where was the passion for his ouster even if they couldn't manage the fire for Thompson?  

3.    Polls, Papers & Pundits:    Like the Elders of Zion or FDR and Pearl Harbor, there is a persistent rumor that floats around the city that just won't die.  Bloomberg apparently went to the three newspapers before he changed term limits and said, more or less, "Look, you know I'm the only guy who can lead this city through what's coming.  Let's agree to go easy on me as I do it and we'll all be better off."  Also, the rumor goes, it was not lost on the newspapers - who bleed red like a hemophiliac - that another Bloomberg run would mean millions to their respective papers.  So the Times, News and Post basically gave him a pass as he subverted existing law and a twice taken voter mandate.  Then they each, in their own way, gave him the least possible scrutiny any incumbent Mayor has ever received.  They were going to do nothing to hinder his re-election.  They then played up the inevitably angle of his run and pocketed his millions in advertising.  I would very much like some public interest group like Citizens Union to find out how much each of the three papers received from the Bloomberg campaign in advertising dollars.  I think we have a real interest in learning that number, notwithstanding the protestations from them that a Chinese wall exists between business and editorial. 

The Times especially contorted itself to get with the program.  Even down to the perfectly timed and disgustingly sycophantic Bloomberg 'biography' by the Times' dowager city reporter, Joyce Purnick.  She would have been better off writing a Sarah Palin biography for all that her Bloomberg book is going to sell after last night. Funny how quickly the Times ran "Bloomberg Re-Elected" last night, only to have to change it to "Bloomberg Predicted to Win" after NBC rescinded its call.

Yes, the paper had always opposed term limits, but it certainly never supported a subversion of public sentiment like what the City Council and Bloomberg did.  The Times is the nation's strongest advocate for public financing of campaigns and NYC's in particular.  They turned the blindest eye possible to the obscene amounts of money the Bloomberg campaign spent.  And when the time came to stop this train they "enthusiastically endorsed" his hijacking of this election.  In its 2005 endorsement, The Times referred to his spending $20 million as "obscene."  Where does that put the $150 million I guarantee you he spent here?  In its 2001 endorsement of Mark Green, they said Bloomberg was, "ill matched to the office he seeks."  The New York Times has been wrong every time it's endorsed a Mayoral candidate for over a generation.  Wrong in 89, wrong in 93, wrong in 01, 05 and 09.  The glaring exception being in 1997 when to do anything other than endorse Giuliani for another four years would have been laughable.  The New York Times has lost any moral high ground to wag its finger at anyone or anything after its deplorable behavior this election year.

But the Times is an elitist newspaper.  The News and Post, however, bill themselves as the voice of the common Joe.  So how did they react to the legislative coup to overturn term limits and permit this slim re-election?  All for it!!  Full speed ahead.  The News especially has been Bloomberg's greatest champion, he can do no wrong on their editorial page.  As they raked in the million in newspaper and on-line advertising, they each played up the inevitability of all this, ignoring the deep seething voter resentment out there.  They especially failed to see what was coming even after the primaries where it was unmistakable.  All the papers played up the polling showing a hefty double-digit Bloomberg lead, undoubtedly suppressing the overall citywide vote.  To whose advantage was that?  Hard to say, but my guess is the Bloomberg people figured it would be helpful to them since they had thousands lined up to pull out their vote both on phones and in the precincts.  The low turnout proved to be a Thompson help big time.  Had he had the unions and some real money he could have influenced - and pulled out - the other 50,000.

Pollsters were so sure this was going to be a blow-out that they completely missed the quiet voter anger.  Again, even after the primaries, the pollsters didn't find this.  They just weren't asking.    All the newspaper pundits, especially those who clain to have the pulse of 'the street' missed this story.  They didn't report, they parroted. 

4.    Christine Quinn:     No, I don't think Speaker Quinn's endorsement sways 50,00 votes.  However, I do believe that had she coalesced the delegation around Thompson with passion, the momentum would have shifted.  Of course her part in the term limits conspiracy is even worse than Bloomberg's so no such aid could ever have been forthcoming.  The new City Council and the county leaders need to oust her forthwith.  There is a real chance here to present a strong united opposition to Bloomberg over the next four years.  That effort can and could never, ever be lead by Speaker Quinn.  She is to her members, the city and her party the Quisling of our time.  Who betrayed Norway to Hitler?  Vidkun Quisling.  Who betrayed the City Charter, the independence of the City Council and all the people of New York to the venal ambitions of Michael Bloomberg?  Christine Quinn.  Oust her immediately!  Send her to the back rows of the Council chamber today!

I do not believe for one second that last night's results will produce a chastened Michael Bloomberg.  He is an arrogant man who is certain of the rightness of his ways and policies.  His view has always been that he's a billionaire, are you?  Therefore he must know what he's doing.  Only a strong, vibrant, well organized and cohesive opposition can return some democratic government back to New York City.  You can be sure he will have no friends in Albany, as it should be given his behavior.  He should have no friends in the Council Chamber either, most especially and ironically from the non-Manhattan Republicans who represent those most offended by his third term and anti middle-class policies.  

If last night has taught us anything it's that once again the voter reigns supreme.  He/she did when they voted for term limits once and then again.  And last night with a little more help they could have turned back a tsunami.  It's just sad our 'leaders' have once again demonstrated so little faith in them.

10/29    Please see the RUDY VERITAS endorsement in the NYC Mayoral race - Stealing Third   

10/23    Please see the new post on Bernard Kerik's incarceration - Kerik, Valhalla & Me

10/21    If interested, please see my reaction to yesterday's decision by Judge Jeffrey Cohen in Westchester County Court - The Worst of the Worst.

10/12    Just a few thoughts that I have been ruminating over the last week or so  - On My Mind

 

10/22  Farewell, Mr. Welch

In the news, the corpulent and corrupt head of the Public Integrity Section at the U.S. Justice Department is stepping down.  Over the last 25 years, the Public Integrity Section of the U.S. Justice Department has become as much of an oxymoron as military intelligence or jumbo shrimp. 

You may recall William Welch II as the man who oversaw the show trial of former Sen. Ted Stevens.  He and his colleagues at Justice are under criminal contempt investigation by a Special Master appointed by Judge Emmet Sullivan.  Of the six people at Justice under investigation not a single one has been put on leave - paid or otherwise.  It's all jobs for the boys, business as usual.  It does not surprise me for a second that no one at Justice finds this alleged behavior by senior career federal prosecutors shocking.  They've just been reassigned, free to indict other innocent, unsuspecting victims.  Free to employ their mafia style tactics of threats, lies and coercion.  The lead prosecutor in the Stevens case is still working in the Public Integrity Section, only this time in Atlanta.  The other four are all still at Justice: two work for the Office of International Affairs, and the other two remain in the tundra. 

In commenting on his Welch's departure, Asst. Attorney General Lanny Breur said, "I think he's an extraordinary person and a thoughtful lawyer.  Bill's shoes will be hard to fill."  I have no doubt it will take some effort to find a lawyer who is as willing as Welch to undermine the rule of law.  Perhaps John Yu or David Addington would consider the job.  It shows how tone deaf they are at Justice that rather than considering  the very serious P.R. problem they have with Public Integrity, they opt instead to give Bill Welch a nice send-off. 

His departure comes on the heels of another blow to Public Integrity with the mistrial of Kevin Ring, a lobbyist involved in the Jack Abramoff affair.  Justice trotted out, yet again, the 'Honest Services' statute to portray this lobbyist, who was merely plying his craft, with the same level of responsibility as an elected official.  It didn't work.  To demonstrate the never-ending arrogance of Justice, they have said they will retry him even though it looks likely that the Supreme Court will cut the legs out from under their case by strangling 'Honest Services,' not to mention that the number of defense witnesses has increased dramatically as statute of limitations has run out on any possible charges Justice might bring to coerce them not to testify for Mr. Ring.  And yet your tax dollars are going into another pointless show to demonstrate the unending reach and grasp of federal authorities.

I think it is worthwhile, in theory, to have a Public Integrity Section at the U.S. Department of Justice.  I would support one in practice if instead of going after local councilman with no connection whatever to the federal government, they actually strapped on a pair at Justice and launched a full probe into the activities of their good friend Rep. Charles Rangel.  Then maybe the word integrity in the office's title would have some meaning to all these Americans for whose interests they keep claiming their working .

10/8    Please see my update on yesterday's post regarding Ray Harding's plea deal- Copped A Plea - Follow Up

10/7    For those of you interested in my thoughts on yesterday's news that Ray Harding has plead guilty, please see the following post - Copped A Plea

10/16    Federal Justice

Three stories in the news this week, all relating to the federal courts and justice, have me thinking about their connection.  In the first one, Jeffrey Skilling - late of Enron fame -  will finally get his day in court.  What he has had up till now inside a courtroom can only fairly be described as a travesty.  The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the appeal of his conviction.  I could not be happier for him if I actually knew the guy. 

Awhile ago I read Kurt Eichenwald's incredibly researched and minutely detailed account of what transpired at Enron, Conspiracy of Fools.  I followed the Skilling case pretty closely and no actual evidence presented at trial either added to or refuted Eichenwald's account.   What you come away with after reading his tome is irrefutably that Skilling - or Lay, had he lived - were the Federal Government's fall guys in all this.  The real culprit, the villain, was the Government's chief witness, Andrew Fastow.  He was the mastermind and lever puller behind all the criminal behavior and activity at Enron.  What was Skilling?  Well clearly he was a terrible manager.  Fastow deceived Skilling and Lay as to the criminal nature of all this.  They probably should have figured out what he was up to, but Lay was the company's rah-rah guy and Skilling was all about vision and expansion.  But their behavior, at least what they were charged with, was in no way criminal.  The machinations that lead to the collapse of Enron rested squarely on the shoulders of Andrew Fastow.  And how did the Federal Government get him to turn?  They do what they always do.  Like some Colombian gang, they went after his family to apply pressure.  They indicted his wife.  They threatened both of them with prison, leaving their children to be raised by others.  And of course they offered Fastow a great plea if he'd cooperate.  Don't misunderstand me, I am not trying to portray Fastow in any way the victim.  But the Government's behavior makes it easy to portray nearly anyone as sympathetic.  

So Fastow's wife got a year, to be served before her husband.  He then got ten, which considering the climate then and now was nothing.  Jeff Skilling was charged with violating the federal "honest services" fraud statute and sentenced to 24 years.  So vague and meaningless, the statute guarantees that nearly anyone in America can be charged and convicted under it.  It is one of the growing police state tools that the Feds use to cower, coerce and condemn innocent defendants.  It is as pernicious as any "emergency decree" in some third world dictatorship.  And finally, finally, the Supreme Court appears to have had enough.

Here's my prediction on how this will go.  Scalia will champion the cause.  Antonin Scalia is a great jurist.  His instincts are always good.  He actually believes in the rights of the individual no matter how messy it is to achieve the result.  He showed that in flag burning, the primacy of juries over judges and most recently, the right to confront one's accuser in court (forensic lab analysts).  He does get lead astray in matters of national security but usually comes home when the issue is personal freedom.

The anti-Scalia is not Ginsburg - this is not a matter of liberal vs. conservative.  The anti-Scalia is Samuel Alito.  Alito hates the individual and loves the state in all matters.  He makes the perfect Bush appointee.  He is a dark, dark figure.  Think of him best as Dick Cheney in robes.  The Democrats nationwide and especially Senate Democrats will rue for decades their blunder in not preventing his confirmation.  He will cast a dark shadow over this nation.  His years will not be remembered fondly by anyone who loves liberty and freedom.  He is not Roberts, Thomas, Kennedy or Scalia.  Each occupies some place in the legal ideological spectrum.  His home is a dark corner where the Constitution's granting of powers to the government by the people is perpetually twisted to mean the reverse.  It will be interesting to see where he comes out on this "honest services" question.

But a word of warning to Mr. Skilling.  In my own case - the underpinnings of which came under Section 666 of the Program and Bribery Statute - the Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to Section 666 while my case was on-going.  No less a source than The New York Times said that the court would not be taking the case for review unless it intended to overturn the law.  That was the commonly held belief.  Section 666, like "honest services," is widely abused by federal prosecutors.  As it turned out, the court upheld Section 666 in a unanimous decision, 9-0.  You can't predict these things is the lesson here.

Prosecutorial overreach in Skilling leads me to prosecutorial misconduct in Gotti.  We now take it for granted that federal prosecutors will behave as badly, if not worse, than the people they are prosecuting.  I don't know when this trend started, but it clearly accelerated under Clinton and went hog wild under Bush.  Federal prosecutors now routinely lie in court, withhold and tamper with evidence, harass and intimidate witnesses and defendants.   It's now a part of their code of conduct.  Winning is everything and even that does not satisfy their blood lust.  It's not enough to win, you have to destroy the defendant through any means necessary.  And no prosecutor's office exemplifies this behavior more than the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of NY.  It simply doesn't get worse than that office.

Look what happened yesterday in federal court in Manhattan.  A few days ago, John Gotti's prosecutor, Elie Honig, informed the judge in open court that Mr. Gotti had threatened the life of their chief witness.  It was stated flatly that the U.S. Marshals had seen Gotti mouth to the witness, "I'll kill you," and reported same to the U.S. Attorney. 

Now this is some serious shit.  Threatening to kill the government's chief witness?  That is the real deal.  Only problem - it was all a lie.  Thanks to a good judge who seemed to know not to take the U.S. Attorney's Office at their word, it was investigated.  Turns out the Marshals never saw or said any such thing. The U.S. Attorney's Office fabricated the whole incident and stated it as fact to U.S. District Court Judge Kevin Castel.  Now I can tell you as fact that many judges in that courthouse would have just taken the Government at their word.  And who knows the penalties or impression that would have been left had that incident been assumed to have happened.  For God's sake, the man is on trial for his life - life in prison.

What happened there goes on every day by U.S. Attorneys all over this country.  Granted, it happens more often and with greater consequences in the Southern District of NY, but it mostly goes unreported.  What is more troubling than their behavior is the near lack or accountability or penalty.  With the rare exception - Ted Stevens' case comes to mind - federal prosecutors are rarely punished for their misconduct.  The Gotti case is the perfect example.  Kudos to Judge Castel for exposing this, but where is the penalty?  Is AUSA Honig going to suffer some penalty for averring that this incident happened?  I would doubt it.  What does that teach AUSA Honig?  Win some, lose some.  Try again next time with another judge.  The whole criminal justice system is predicated on the idea that punishment is designed to reinforce the message that criminal behavior has consequences.  It seems not to apply to prosecutors, however, who need this reinforcement far more than those they're prosecuting.

My last thought on criminal justice today is a meshing of past and present.  Bernie Kerik, someone I knew from my past, is going on trial soon near my home, my present.  Bernie's case isn't nearly the travesty that Skilling's is, but it's close.  Yes, he was incredibly stupid for going after Secretary of Homeland Security knowing that it is one of the top intelligence positions in the government and therefore would require the most thorough background check.  Just plain ego and stupidity.  The essence of this case is that he lied in his background application for the job.  I was willing to consider that charge small and generally a waste of time, but none the less legally valid until Tom Daschle.  Former Sen. Daschle, as you know, wanted to be HHS Secretary.  He lied about his finances on his background forms and had to withdraw.  But he wasn't prosecuted.  Why not?  He owed serious amounts of back taxes and penalties.  Why weren't the perjured affirmations of his forms as criminal as Bernie Kerik's?  I have no answer other than that his case wasn't within the purview of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of NY.  That, however, is no excuse.  Bernie Kerik's life and fortune are ruined.  If that is to be so than at least it should be based on a consistent application of the law, which clearly this is not.  

I remind you, finally, of something I wrote recently that applies here.  I mentioned how shocked I was to discover during my case the deep antipathy that Rudy's old colleagues have for him at the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District.  They really dislike him.  I believe, more than anything, this over-the-top prosecution of Bernie Kerik is another poke in the eye from that office to Rudy Giuliani.

10/15    I would like to link to El Diaro's withering denunciation of Mayor-for-Life Mike today contained in their endorsement of Bill Thompson for Mayor, but they have a lousy on-line edition and it's only in Spanish.  But what bits and pieces I have read in English, are right on the money.  I hope the Hispanic community in New York City, which does understand Spanish, gives it a look.

Michael Barbaro, in today's NY Times, speaks of a Bloomberg-Giuliani alliance.  Huh??  I sort of see his point how such a renewed coming together would aid Rudy.  But how is this helping Bloomberg? 

Rudy is going to energize Republicans for Bloomberg, according to Barbaro.  As a real NYC Republican, I can tell you that no amount of neighborhood walk-throughs by the two of them together is going to rev-up Republicans for this pretend Republican Mayor.  It's a futile gesture that if remotely useful will be off-set by the Democrats and left leaning independents who find Rudy anathema and would re-think their Bloomberg support.  What Bush was to McCain in 2008, Rudy is close to being for Bloomberg in 2009.  I can see a TV ad now of Bloomberg and Giuliani together with clips of Bloomberg and Giuliani with Bush.  A clever media guy could make a withering ad aimed at NYC Democrats and independents. 

The only place Rudy could have been helpful is with the Jewish community that probably still loves him - at least the aged Jews.  But I can't quite see how someone named Bloomberg needs a whole lotta help with Jews. 

Rudy has become such a completely polarizing figure - far, far more than he ever was back in the 90's - that Bloomberg's support can't ad much.  People now truly love or hate the man.  In the 90's there was room to sway the middle.  Where Rudy is concerned, there is no middle.  And those who love him are fewer and fewer, at least in NYS.

Rudy Giuliani - McGovern Democrat turned Reagan Republican turned moderate independent turned Attila the Hun.  Teaming up with Mike Bloomberg - Mondale Democrat turned Bush Republican turned mushy independent.  Based on that history there wouldn't appear to be a genuine political conviction between these two guys.  God love em, they deserve each other.

10/14    Oh, The Horror of It All

I should say upfront that I experienced last night's debate on radio, not TV.  I mention this because as we all know, given the data from viewers/listeners of the 1960 Nixon/Kennedy Debate, that one's reaction differs widely depending upon the medium by which you received the information.

However, in this instance, I cannot see that it could possibly have mattered.  Bill Thompson was awful; whether on radio or on TV.  I suggest, modestly, that had his staff just lifted whole text from this site and read it, he would have done markedly better.  He was unprepared, unfocused, defensive and weak.  There is an axiom in American politics: Voters will never elect a man to a position of leadership who portrays himself as a victim.  People want strong, forceful leaders, not weak whiny candidates.  From his opening statement Thompson portrayed himself the victim.  Bloomberg was spending all this money to attack him, Thompson whined.  Thompson never introduced himself to the audience.  Who is he?  What is his background?  Family man?  Business experience?  Who knows, he never told us.  All you know is that he's the Comptroller and was the President of the Board of Education.  And in each instance his tenure is suspect, based on last night's debate results.  Was that the outcome Eddie Castell was hoping for? 

On issue after issue Thompson was nowhere to be heard.  Congestion pricing,  MTA, Stop & Frisk, Taxes and Fees, Housing - were all issues that were raised by the panelists, not Thompson.  The three winning issues for Thompson are term limits, Bloomberg as a terrible, out-of-touch manager and his disdain for non-white, non Manhattanites.  Even the non-white aspect isn't entirely true because he's alienated so many middle and lower middle-income whites with his taxes and fees.    

When Bloomberg asked his sole question: How can you want to fire Ray Kelly?  Thompson had the perfect opportunity to say: "Unlike you, Mr. Mayor I do not believe in the theory of the indispensable man."  Boom - gotcha.  But no, he droned on about bringing in his "own people."  

Stop & Frisk?  It's an outrageous practice that I have seen in action many times living at the halfway house in the Bronx.  The NYPD uses this tactic with reckless abandon on blacks and latinos.  Who knew - Bill Thompson's for it.  Unbelievable.  It's like he actually wants to lose.  Gay rights?  Nah, better to defend the man in the White House who cannot even bring himself to utter Thompson's name.  Development - Any projects he'd want to roll-back?  HMMMM.....nope!  Even the idiotic issue of calories was a winning Thompson one.  The recent Yale study showed the whole thing doesn't work.   People almost always go for the fat versus the healthy and then lie about their choices.  Calorie signs don't work.  Ground Zero, for God's sake.  Why wasn't he called out for abandoning that project for 8 years?  Nothing.

Thompson needed to introduce himself, stand-up for taxpayers, call-out the Mayor on his shoddy, hands-off management style, lash out at the corrupt and go-along City Council - especially Speaker Quinn (her endorsement is meaningless) - all while unveiling some vision and specific proposals.  He did not accomplish a single one of those objectives. 

Michael Bloomberg is a thoroughly unlikable guy.  I've met him a number of times and he's as cold and lifeless in person as he appears on TV.  He did not break out of that mold last night.  He was easy pickings for Thompson - but nothing.  It has to be said however, that Bloomberg was prepared, focused and determined; all his handlers could have asked for.  He stayed on message and never got flustered.  For what he's capable of, it was a fine performance. 

We're gonna do this again on October 27th.  I can't imagine it will be much different.  My guess is that the Thompson people, lazy as they are, figured he did fine last night.  Eight more years of Mike Bloomberg - Oh, the horror of it all.

10/13    A Question for Bill Thompson

Mayor-for-Life Mike made a big blunder over the weekend.  He told the Staten Island Advance that the Office of Public Advocate should be abolished.  Having a view on whether to keep or discard the Office wasn't the blunder.  He then backtracked yesterday and said no, it should be reexamined by a charter review commission to see if it was still necessary.  Gotcha!

If I had one question for lazy Bill Thompson to pose at tonight's debate it would be this:  "The Office of Public Advocate was formulated by a charter review commission in the late 80's.   It was not created by the commission, that was done through a voter referendum in 1989.  The voters twice went to the polls on the subject of term limits.  First, to amend the City Charter and later to reaffirm their first vote.  Since the Office of Public Advocate was created by the same method as term limits; namely, a voter approved change to the City Charter, does the Mayor then believe that he and the City Council can legislatively abolish the Office?  And if not, what could the possible difference be legally that would allow one while prohibiting the other?"

He cannot answer that question because there is no answer to that question.  They are precisely the same.  Why have the courts upheld what was clearly an illegal usurpation of the voter's rights?  I cannot answer that.  Why did the Justice Department give clearance?  No idea.  If Mayor-for-Life Mike can change term limits legislatively then there is no part of the City Charter that he and Christine Quinn can't change.  He should be asked, "Which parts of the Charter are off-limits to legislative change and why?"

I'm glossing over the fact that the reason Mayor-for-Life Mike gave for the Office's abolition was that he is scrutinized enough and doesn't need anyone else watching over his shoulder.   That comment alone should tell the voters that you don't want to keep this guy around.  

 Question:  I often ask questions on here to which I already know the answer, but not today.  All over the internet are banner ads attacking Bill Thompson's record on taxes.  The ads are completely silent as to who paid for them.   It's very clever because the banner ad links to a page - also anonymous - that has a video contained within it that plays a Bloomberg attack ad which is identified.  But the banner ads, as well as the ad it links to, remain anonymous.  I have no doubt whatever that these ads are paid for by Mayor-for-Life Mike.  It is not at all self-evident to the unsuspecting public, however, that the banner ad or it's link are Bloomberg purchased.  I could easily link to a Bloomberg ad on this site, it doesn't mean I paid for the ad.  Under federal rules - which don't apply here - the ad's sponsor would absolutely have to identify themselves.  These ads appear completely anonymous as to their purchaser.  Is this legal?  I am pretty sure it would not be legal if they were TV or radio ads.  Is it the web that makes this practice OK?  I'm just asking.

The Deserting Democrats

9/30    After he lost the primary in 1989 and for fours years thereafter, Ed Koch was frequently asked his own catch-phrase, "How Ya Doin?"  Koch's response was, to hear him recount it, "You threw me out and now you must be punished."  By punished of course he meant having to live with Dave Dinkins running - or not - the city.  And punished we were.

My mind wanders today to that Koch story.  I could not vote in the primary or in yesterday's run-off.  I am no longer a NYC resident.  But even if I were I am not an enrolled Democrat.  So the burden for what happened yesterday does not fall unto me.  And yet I feel the weight.  I told you all last week what will happen should de Blassio and Liu succeed in the run-off: the Working Families Party, already flush with power, would only move for greater legislative gains at the expense of the Democratic Party.  The outcome of that will be an inability of the Council to refuse their demands.  And expensive demands they will be.  Just like you can lie by omission as well as co-mission and yet they are both lies, so too the cost of City government can balloon by not reforming its ways just as easily as creating a new program or benefit.   Any plan that Mayor-for-Life Mike might wish to mouth in the next four years that would bring any needed reform just died yesterday.  Labor givebacks?  New Tier for pensions?  Privatization?  Work rules changes?  All died at the hands of the 95% of Democrats who failed to go to the polls yesterday.  The Democratic Party in New York City, fractured though it may be, owes the rest of us better than this.

The interesting paradox in all this is that the vast majority of Democrats in this city do not support any of the WFP's platform items.  Yet they ratified them all yesterday by not showing up at their local school or church as surely as if they had stood out in Times Square and raised their hands.  And what of Comptroller-Elect Liu and Public Advocate-Elect de Blassio (yes, I know, but it's merely a formality)?  Just today they are already speaking of de Blassio for Mayor in 2013, as I said they would the other day. And what of Mr. Liu?  Let me go out on a limb and predict that John Liu will go down as the most corrupt and dishonest citywide official we have had since the 1920's.   John Liu may, perhaps, have uttered a truthful statement once in his life, but it died of loneliness and has long since been forgotten. 

The unions, the WFP and the elected officials beholden to them were the big winners last night.  The big losers were taxpayers and the average joe and jane New Yorker.  They have heavy demands for their support and payback is coming shortly.  It will be all of us who have to foot that bill. 

As an aside: I said the big losers are the taxpayers.  This is true.  But the biggest individual loser and embarrassingly so, was Mark Green.  This was not just a rejection but an outright repudiation.  There was nothing more compelling in the Liu-Yassky race that would have accounted for its tighter numbers as opposed to the blow-out Green-de Blassio results.  The WFP drew out its hoards in equal strength for both its marionettes.  So how do you explain the trouncing that Green took at the hands of de Blassio?    Simple, the voters really dislike this guy.  Mark Green should have won that race by 20 points on name recognition alone.  They see now what we all saw years ago: he's smug, condescending and arrogant.  Yea, he's also out of step with the times as de Blassio pointed out repeatedly.  But still.  It's one thing to lose a race, no shame in that.  It's quite another to feel so openly the scorn of the voting public.  He's finished with elective politics all right, whether he wants to be or not.

If Bill Thompson calls up Dan Cantor (Exec Dir of WFP) and offers his soul, he too may be the beneficiary of the kind of support  we've witnessed over the last 2 weeks.  But WFP doesn't need to do anymore this election cycle.  Their goal is not to succeed in electing candidates, that's only a means to an end.   Their goal is to supplant the Democratic Party.  Their old goal may have been to influence or steer the Democrats but they have succeeded beyond their dreams.  It's immaterial to them whether Thompson or Mayor-for-Life Mike sits in City Hall.  Bloomberg represents no challenge to them.  The WFP could care less how much we smoke or whether we use Oleo.  Those are Bloomberg's chief concerns.  They're after big game.  And they know that their interests will be achieved in the Council not on the other side of the Hall.  They can enact and override anything they want.  Mayor-for-Life Mike - as all three term Mayors of NYC sadly discovered - just inherited a dreary four more years.

In Liu Thereof

9/24    I suggested two weeks ago that voters going to the polls for the Democratic Primary consider two main factors in deciding their ballot.  First, was the issue of whether or not an incumbent voted/supported the repeal of term limits.  Second, was whether a candidate was endorsed by the Working Families Party(WFP).  Unfortunately, results in the two citywide races were inconclusive leading to a run-off this Tuesday.  It is worrisome that the two front runners in those races are tied inextricably to WFP. Good for the WFP, bad for us.  Let's separate the races.

The Office of Public Advocate is a meaningless job; wasting money, resources and attention.  The true negative of a Bill de Blassio victory on Tuesday is not what he might do as Public Advocate - he'll do very little; the concern is that he'll do it well.  That office exists merely as a stepping stone to higher office; Norman Siegel made that his mantra during his campaign.  I worry more about Mr. de Blassio's aspirations once he's done with that office than what he might do while in it.  His ties to WFP and ACORN are well known, he's proud of his association with both.  He cannot do much to help either as Public Advocate.  He can espouse their fringe left-wing agendas from a city-wide pulpit but not to much effect.  He can do greater harm should it appear that his 4 or 8 years as Public Advocate had meaning.  Congressman de Blassio, Mayor de Blassio, Sen. de Blassio - all extremely troubling.  All attempts no doubt with the support of the burgeoning and increasingly corrupt Working Families Party.  The time to stop Bill de Blassio's rise to higher office is now, not later.

John Liu is the more immediate and serious concern.  He is, to use a well worn phrase, a tool of WFP.  Moreover, he lacks maturity both professionally and personally.  It's not too often in politics you'll see a candidate and think, "I just don't trust that guy."  That in a nutshell is John Liu.  He is not seasoned in office for a job as large as NYC Comptroller.  Personally, time and time again, his first instinct - either in a tough situation or for personal advantage - is to lie.  He has weak moral character.  Is it his upbringing?  Is it his age?  Who knows.  That's for a shrink to decide, not the voters.  Unlike Bill Thompson - also endorsed by WFP - John Liu is theirs totally.  He would not be in this race without them and surely would not have done as well as he did on Primary day had he lacked their support.  Unlike Public Advocate, the Comptroller can make many of WFP and ACORN's dreams come true.

Little known is that before each bond deal done at HDC the Comptroller's Office has to sign off.  They are actually on the phone when the bonds are priced.  Goldin, Hevesi, Thompson used that power to ensure the deals were done correctly from a financial standpoint.  They had a viewpoint and an outlook that shaped their tenures, that's to be expected.  But what if a Comptroller's Office became a political organ and not merely a fiscal one?  What if the Office stopped approving HDC's deals unless they contained certain minimum standards deemed necessary?  Maybe more community participation - read ACORN.  Objections would be couched in the most noble and benign way.  But the results would be highly partisan and dangerous.  I am sure there are dozens more examples of the quiet hand of the Comptroller's Office of which I am unaware and yet impact our daily lives as New Yorkers.

We elect a Comptroller to manage the pension funds, audit the books, keep an eye on the agencies' spending, opine on our fiscal health and a few other things.  We have never elected a Comptroller to advance a radical political agenda on behalf of a political party or interest group.  The amount of money Comptroller Liu would get to ACORN and fringe groups like it will be alarming.  More distressing, if history is a guide, he'll lie about it. 

Yes, David Yassky - Mr. Liu's opponent - voted to repeal term limits.  He should have to pay in some way for that terrible decision.  It would be smart of him right now to disavow his vote and make clear that what he did was wrong.  He did not benefit personally from that vote since he is seeking a different office and not reelection. That ameliorates his bad vote slightly.  Ordinarily I would not suggest punishing an elected official by rewarding him with a higher office.  But this is the classic dilemma of a lesser of two evils.  The choice here however is not even close.  John Liu as Comptroller is not something we can afford to see happen.  It would be bad for our fiscal health but disastrous for our political life.

Sadly, this race will be decided by about 5-7% of Democratic enrollees.  With turnout that low the advantage always goes to those with the best vote pulling operation.  Yassky and Green do not have the energized supporters that Liu and de Blassio do.  More importantly they do not have the Working Families Party's database and union troops.  It is up to rank and file, middle class Democrats to take these races seriously and come out to vote for Green and Yassky on Tuesday.  I take no great pleasure in urging their election but the consequences of not doing so will be immediate and far-reaching for all of us.

Councilman Wrangle

9/17    Let's imagine for a moment that there is a NYC Councilman named Wrangle.  And let's further imagine that for years Councilmember Wrangle has been engaging in both illegal and unethical activities.  Here are a few examples: undereports his income to avoid taxes, lies about real estate holdings to avoid taxes, lies about his residency, manipulates and abuses government programs intended for the poor for personal and political advantage, lies on his government ethics filings, uses official stationery to raise campaign cash and help contributors.  And the list goes on and on.

Further, imagine that all this shadiness and illegal activity is revealed about Councilmember Wrangle week after week in the newspapers.  With me so far?  OK.  Now, try and create a scenario where the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of NY is not indicting this guy.  IT IS UNIMAGINABLE.  Let's forget indictment.  Imagine that the U.S. Attorney has not even opened an investigation into Councilmember Wrangle's activities nearly two years after the revelations began. IT IS UNIMAGINABLE.  A New York City Councilmember who had abused his office to the extent just listed would be investigated, indicted, and frog marched before a Federal Judge.  Given the way the U.S. Attorney's office handles itself of late, there can be no other outcome. 

Now here's the reveal (I know, you didn't see it coming). Congressman Charles Rangel committed all the acts just mentioned.  He doesn't even deny it; they weren't criminal or unethical, he says, they were just bad record keeping or slips of memory.

His crimes overlap so much jurisdictionally that almost anyone could investigate and indict him. And yet not a single law enforcement agency - city, state or federal - has begun an investigation of him, not one.  It may be unprecedented.  Say what you will about Patrick Fitzgerald, and I have blasted him for jurisdictional overreach in the past, but there is no way he would not have indicted Rep. Rangel by now.  Not a chance.  

David Dinkins - the man the NY Times said hardly ever invokes race into politics - said at a rally in Harlem this week that "they" were out to get Rep. Rangel.  Who'se "they?"  He also told us to ignore all these charges - forget about them.  This of course coming from the man who presented phony records of stock ownership and caused his son to perjure himself over the famous Dear Dad letter. Remember Andrew Maloney and Elkan Abromovitz?  Both concluded there was sufficient reason to believe that the letter was forged and Dinkins had lied under oath.   Yea, listen to the Prince of Probity, Dave Dinkins - Charlie Rangel's  "brother."

But we expect no better than racial bomb throwing from David Dinkins, all he has is race.  But what about Cuomo, Holder, and Morgenthau?  Why weren't the three candidates for Manhattan D.A. specifically asked by the press whether or not they would launch an investigation into Congressman Rangel?  Why is it that every time the U.S. Attorney's Office announces grandly that they are indicting some member of the Council, the NY Times and especially the Daily News isn't asking, "Where's Rangel?"  You all know my issues with the U.S. Attorney's terrible overreaching into purely local matters whether in NYC or Chicago.  Most of what they do is simply not the federal government's business.  But a federal official with local offices?  What is the point of having U.S. Attorneys out in the hinterlands if not for this exact case. 

Rep. Rangel's use of those apartments for campaign space clearly is a defrauding of the state program under which they are run and financed.  Why is Attorney General Cuomo, who will investigate anything, anywhere, not looking into this?  I have no answer other than the obvious. He along with everyone else is craven and deathly afraid to antagonize the racial hatemongers in our city.  Indicting Rangel, they believe, would cause a Crown Heights, Korean market type upheaval.  Has that ever been reason not to investigate and prosecute someone?  Apparently it is now.

And so it is left up to Nancy Pelosi and the House Ethics Committee - whose members the Daily News tells us receive campaign contributions from Rangel's PAC - to serve as the sole investigation into his activities.  Unbelievable, right?

The next time the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of NY announces some silly indictment of a truly local official the press, every one of them, should be clamoring at the press conference to find out the status of the Rangel investigation.  Rangel gets away with this criminal behavior because he is enabled.  Enabled by the gutless federal prosecutors, the lazy press corps, the Harlem pols and party hacks who rely on Rangel largesse, his congressional colleagues and the local and state prosecutors who seek his endorsement for their campaigns.

It is unconscionable that any councilmember, assemblyman or city official is indicted by the U.S. Attorney when their raison d'etre, an arrogant, corrupt federal official, mocks them openly.  That Eric Holder and Chuck Schumer's boy, Preet Bharara, ignore this behavior is unacceptable, albeit not surprising.  That the NY press corps lets them get away with it is nothing short of sinful.

Where's Your Messiah, Now?

9/16    Rudy Giuliani's inept, ham-handed and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to install a new state GOP chair reminds me - as most things do - of a line from a movie.

It's near the end of C.B. DeMille's 1956 Ten Commandments.  Pharaoh (Yul Brynner) returns to the palace after failing to drown the Israelites at the Red Sea.  He has returned to kill his scheming, manipulative Queen, Nefretiri (Anne Baxter).  As he raises his sword, she says, "Before you strike, show me his blood (Moses's) upon your sword.  I want to see it..."  He defeatedly drops the weapon.  With utter contempt, she says, "You couldn't even kill him."

Rudy Giuliani - friend of kings, presidents, despots & dictators.  Rudy Giuliani - Knight of the Garter, hero of 9/11, America's Mayor, Man of the Year, reformer of welfare and crime fighting.  And he couldn't even best young Ed Cox to engineer the election of the chairman of a withered, fractured, dysfunctional state party.  It is to weep.

It's become harder and harder to recall that the phrase, "Giuliani organization" used to be feared and incredibly effective.  Pretty soon those under 30, with no memory of the salad 90's political scene, will only associate the term Team Giuliani with gross ineptitude.  Much like many under 40 can't recall a time when the term Northeast/Rockefeller Republican would strike fear into the hearts of Western conservatives.

I have to admit, as a Nixon aficionado and former patron of his library, that having young, earnest Ed Cox soundly outmaneuver RWG brings a smile to my face.  What would the old man say?  Ed, he'd be proud.

Ray Harding used to have a mantra that I know he taught Rudy, "Before any meeting - count the votes."  Simple, but oft ignored.  Ed Cox knew he had the votes for weeks.  If he didn't know how shallow Rudy/Wojtaszek support was before, the fact that Rudy had to kill off Joe Mondello personally rather than leaving it to party bigwigs or Giuliani aides surely signaled how weak support was for Rudy.

I told you weeks ago that Rudy was not running for Governor.  The signs however keep adding up that I was correct.  CFL working for Ed Cox?  Shocking.  But if you need solid proof that Rudy is just playing with the press, look no further than Fred Dickers' item about who is heading up the Draft Rudy movement.  Any/every Giuliani insider knows that for eight years no serious initiative, no major issue of consequence was left to be handled by Tony Coles.  Behind the scenes apparatchik?  Handmaiden to Denny Young?  Sure, absolutely.  But Coles as Carbonetti or Powers? Serious pol and organizer?  It is to laugh.  Had Rudy taken out giant neon signs in Times Square he could not have telegraphed more boldly his lack of seriousness in this race. 

But this raises a more troubling question.  Why Tony Coles?  If he's chosen Coles than that means all the A-list candidates to move this effort along either refused or aren't available to him anymore.  If his grand political organization has come down to Tony Coles spearheading the effort than you can make book that this race for Governor is going forward without him.

Hindsight is easy.  It looks now as though what Rudy should have done is gotten his old job back.  He had the Republican line for the asking.  He, like Mayor-for-Life Mike, would have formed an independent party too.  With no major party backing, Bloomberg would have been left to run on Column H  or J, where no voter could have found him.  Rudy would have beaten handily Bill Thompson and Mayor-for-Life Mike.  The only job that will make Rudy truly happy is returning to City Hall and Gracie Mansion.  There would have been no shame; it's not like he's trying to regain the office of Public Advocate.  But Rudy, for whatever reason, is either spooked by Mayor-for-Life Mike's money or feels some misplaced sense of loyalty to him. 

Whatever my misgivings about President Giuliani, Senator Giuliani or Governor Giuliani, I have no fear of a Mayor Giuliani.  I know he would revert to form and govern this city effectively.  We are all the losers this year because he dithers and jerks from here to there.  The worst insult Ray Harding could bestow was to call somebody a "non-serious person."    It appears more and more evident that Rudy Giuliani is rapidly becoming a non-serious person.  And worse for him, irrelevant.

FOR OLDER POSTS PLEASE SEE - OLD MUSINGS III

Comments

[misc]

regarding that whole NYPD "off duty" hiring stuff, check out:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/06222009/news/regionalnews/manhattan/square_tactics_175463.htm

[Pete Fiorillo]

KEEP UP THE GREAT WRITING. I would have paid for the book - I still will if you write it.

Never thought a Gay Guy would be my newest hero. Before that it was Mickey Mantle and Joe D.

[George Cotz]

Your 3/13/09 post about NYPD "overtime" for the TD Bank assignments has a paralell in NJ where municipalities give out "overtime" assignments to police to provide "traffic control" whenever utility work is done in the roadway. It is touted as billed to the utility, but no one has ever answered my questions about how it effects pension calculations. By the way, these are suburban cops whose base is close to $100,000/year.
Another incidental fact-- if it is a municipal crew working in the street, i.e., town sewer or water department, they don't get the traffic control protection!

[Caveman]

I don't know what the point of this guy, putting flyers around riverside california advertizing a websight devoted to a guy, who I guess acted a little immature, not too bad, I don't see a real crimminal here. I was captivated for well over an hour yesturday and I came back today for more. Very engaging writing style. Still I don't see why a guy in california would advertize this page, but whatever.

[june]

Interesting.

[Mary]

You're a piece of crap and everybody should be aware of you. Hope your picture is on every site that marks you as such.

[RA Harding]

Thanx for the nice words, Tom. Keep reading over the next weeks and months. It only gets scarier. Your points are all right on the money.

RAH

[tom]

I just arrived at this blog yesturday and am still trying to absorb the issues about the $400,000 embezzlement and so forth, but from what I gather this was not public money and it is certainly not an extraordinary offense given his position in the HDC, I want to become more clear on the details as time goes by but for now I am just encouraging you to write more. Its really great to read. As for this pontificating cop who comments on blogs, grow up man! "I met you a couple times Russel, once when I pounded on your door" what a jerk! Talking about "owning it" and "growth in prison" or else time in prison will "go to waste"

that is just wierd! As far as I can see the public has both a need and a right to hear everything going on here. Who is this Fred? How on earth do cops obtain warrants based upon what "Fred" gives them? of course we have an interest in knowing what it is that leads to a deprivation of our right to privacy!

Of course cops don't really know the law very well, and when a citizen clings to his rights and declines to submit to a search most pigs think that constitutes probable cause to search "well, if you have nothing to hide...bla bla bla."

Besides, what Russel sais about falsifying chats is true, it is easy and so are emails, the government cannot be trusted, they are out there planting crimminal ideas in people heads, pretending to be women interested in men, getting them to fall in love and then once the guy is hooked, they bring up the subject about sex with minors and direct the conversation in a sexual way untill they have enough to get a warrant.

Now days, they even post salacious adds to URLs that claim to be illegal pornography just to get people to click on them. Once they click on them they go get a warrent and invade their homes. Its all very disgusting. Makeing crimminals out of people who sit passively pointing and clicking on a computer by presenting lively temptations to their sense of curiosity.

Maybe I shouldnt say this, but unlike Russel, I am hot headed, If that cop was speaking to me, I would find out who he is and one day I would give him a double tap right between the eyes.

[Cowleyrobin]

I would think that any kind of insider story on issues that effect public affairs and especially about public offices and officials would be considered valuable information. I enjoy reading these posts and I do not think Russel has committed such bad crimes. The pontificating cops comments not with standing, Russel does not need to accept everything the government throws at him. I noticed he mentioned "Fred" I have only read part one of J'Accuse but I remember a mention of Fred there, if my PDA would down load part two I would read it before posting, but as of now, I suspect the government may have something to do with setting him up. See, I am in suspence, and I want to read more, and I like all these things about gulliani, and others because I suspect politicians of being crooks half the time anyways. Doing things like padding crime statistics for former mayors and then doing the opposite for the present mayor to make it appear that julliani's policies lowered crime! What a joke!

Keep on posting, and ignore the self-rightous, also so far I have not detected vindictive tones to these revelations, to the degree that there is a preponderance about one person or another is just a consequence of writing about ones life.

That cop who arrested you should probably not be posting things like that. I dont know, it seems like it would be against policy or something.

[veritas]

bernard kerik!??!?!? who is he compared to al d'amato!!! Compare the crimes and misdemeanors we all know alfonse has committed compared to the piker kerik. You guys have done a masterful job of taking reality and turning on it's head, spin spin spin, lies lies lies.

[Rudy Corruption]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT-ouQPgMmI

People are now in jail having admited that this bus company bribed city officials.

[Larry]

Can you explain the Atlantic Express deal and Guy Molinari's involvement?

[george cotz]

I hope that you haven't lost your enthusiasm for this site, especially as Rudy has lately been touted as a likely GOP candidate for governor. If he is going to run, all of the voters should have as much information about him, and his proven philosophy of governing, before that happens.

[sbyrd@state.pa.us]

A number of Hillary's supporters clearly did not share that sentiment. At the state Democratic Party's convention in Albany that May, they jeered and spat on an Albany Police honor Guard carrying the American Flag. Some of the convention delegates, who would later formally vote to nominate Hillary as their party's candidate for the Senate, pelted the officers with insults. "It's Giuliani's Third Reich!" one protester screamed at the honor guard, which had been invited to participate. Others simply yelled, "Nazis!"

[Pete F]

MR.HARDING,
I find your messages to be quite illuminating. Keep up the good work. I look forward to reading them.

Another poster has asked you to write something about the Giuliani/Kerik/Pirro connection. I would hope to hear your thoughts on this in the coming posts.

I have always believed,and still believe until proven otherwise that the Kerik/Pirro investigation had nothing to do with them, but to embarass Giuliani to withdraw his nomination to run for the presidency. It appears to me that now that this matter has been resolved the Kerik/Pirro matter has been placed on the back burner. Pirro, now seems to not be a concern of the federal government while Kerik's situation requires some attention.

[Larry]

Can you explain the story behind the Atlantic Express deal?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT-ouQPgMmI

[steveven cawley]

rudy,screwed the civil servants royal during his run as el duca as a supt. in the nycha i saw his man carbonnetti....clear out good people from this agency nycha to put # his mother and dozens of other morons in.

[Upstater]

When are you going to talk about Rudy's connection to Kerik and Pirro?

[joe t]

russ, glad to see you're doing ok and taking your life back. i knew too but didn't say anything. you always treated me well. keep your head up and give em hell.
joe

[NMI]

I can't seem to click on the new posting links. Any suggestions?

[jill]

First off, Jerilyn Perine would never mention anything to you about Tony or anyone else in the administration.
Second, people get it straight, Russell WAS NOT at HPD, he worked at HDC, not very well I might add.
ARe you going to tell everyone what a son of a bitch you were to your staff?

[Chris]

I still don't get it. Why is your anger all against Rudy? Did he set you up or just not support you when your problems hit the news?

I assume you are trying to get a book deal and the Rudy angle might be the only popular angle, but I still don't get why this all about Rudy and not about you.

Any insight?

[NMI]

Hi Ray,

When is your next posting? I eagerly await to read it.

[PETE]

If you know anything about city finances you would know there was no way in hell that Harding could have spent the money that he did and it NOT have gone unnoticed by City Hall.

Somebody was told to keep their mouth shut on this.

You just don't spend that kind of money and not get questioned about it.

Once we had a witness that gave the Manh DA one of the biggest cases ever. We took the informant and his wife out of his home one day and put them up in a Hotel at JFK. The FBI was looking for him, the CIA, and the Mob was looking for him. I bought his wife a pack of stinking cigarettes and put in a $2.00 voucher for it and got my chops broken by the DA executive assistant. OK, that went to the ridiculous, but what do you think would have happened if I spent $100.00 and not get permission for it?

Russel Harding, a virtual incompetnent to hold the position he held spent upwards of $400,000.00 and not even a peep until the FEDS got him.

He was Ray Harding's son and that was the end of it.

[JACK SPRAT]

THE BIGGEST REASON WHY RUDY DIDN'T GET A SINGLE DELEGATE AND COULDN'T HAVE GOTTEN HIMSELF ARRESTED IF HE PEED IN FRONT OF THE PUBLIC LIBRARY ON 42ND ST, GOES BY THE NAME OF BERNARD KERIK. AT THAT POINT IT WAS ALL OVER FOR HIM. GIULIANI IS SUFFERING FROM A WISH TO BE TWO PEOPLE AT THE SAME TIME. ONE IS A LEGIT LAWYER AND THE OTHER IS A WISE GUY. IN TRUTH, HE IS NEITHER. HE WOULD NEVER HAVE THE BALLS TO BE A WISEGUY. I KNEW HIS OLD MAN WHO WAS A BEAN SHOOTER AAA.