OLD MUSINGS III

Primary Day in NYC

9/14    Tomorrow is Primary Day here in New York City.  This year there has been much heat but very little fire.  Newspapers have commented on the fact that the candidates for citywide office are tired, old retreads, no new blood.

There is much truth to this but those of you enrolled as Democrats have to play the hand you've been dealt tomorrow.  So may I, as an enrollee of the other major party, offer some advice on how to choose your nominees. It seems to me that this year, more than any other, there is a major guiding principle that should lead all voters, not just Democrats, in choosing their candidates.  I am not one for single issue politics.  A candidate for office, especially for higher office and those seeking reelection, should be judged on the totality of their record, not just one vote or one position on an issue.  But this year is very different.

We live in a representative democracy. This is not ancient Greece.  We cannot all stand in the public square and raise our hands to decide every issue.  That is why we have representatives who act in our best interests and on our behalf.  They should reflect the will of the people that elected them but I have respect for the courageous man who bucks the tide when the moment demands it. 

What we cannot respect and never abide is the elected official who acts purely out of self interest or for the special interest when the public clearly demands otherwise.  That is especially true when no compelling reason exists to defy the public will.  In New York City in 2009 that issue is term limits.  Be for or against the issue itself, I can see arguments for both sides, but you cannot accept that after two public referendums where the issue was decided clearly and decisively, a public official who for no explainable reason other than to perpetuate him/herself in office, blatantly defies the expressed public will.  It is intolerable and unacceptable.  It is a mockery of and an affront to our form of government.   Made worse - and nakedly exposed - by the fact that term limits were not repealed, only extended to allow the current office holders to remain incumbents.  It might be one thing had they openly repealed the law on the grounds that it is awful policy leading to a dysfunctional government, as many critics have charged.  But no.  They only extended it to allow Mayor-for-Life Mike and his accomplices to hang around a little longer.

You have this year running for citywide office a number of candidates who voted for or supported the successful effort to extend term limits.  As none of the candidates for Public Advocate or Comptroller has caught the public's imagination and there appears to be no huge divide on their issue stances, you should let there vote/support on term limits guide you.

I will make two endorsements in tomorrow's primary.

For Comptroller, you should seriously consider David Weprin.  He was a champion against the extension of term limits; he has been an effective and independent Chair of the Council's Finance Committee and, like civil service exams where you get 5 points for residency or being a veteran, I give him 5 points for being from a distinguished and honorable political family that has served NYS and NYC well.

For the vestigial office of Public Advocate I will shock those who have known me over the years and strongly urge you to support Norman Siegel.  Why?  Well a few reasons.  Yes it is a totally needless office that exists, as I have said, because of a quirk in the charter reform process back in the 1980's.  But it's here to stay for now and has been lately decimated by the Mayor and City Council.  With a shrunken budget and staff you are going to need someone who has experience working within those confines.  As Mayor-for-Life Mike looks to be headed towards another term, you need some check, however feeble the office, against his power.  The City Council has become a joke when it comes to providing any meaningful restraint against him.  Norman Siegel has been the leader, literally and figuratively, in the fight to turn back the Council's term limits power grab.  Mr. Siegel has said repeatedly in his campaign that he views the office as a voice for the unrepresented and that his opponents view it merely as a stepping stone.  He's right.  He actually wants to do something, if possible, with that office, whereas they want to be someone from that office.  It makes a difference.  I do not believe that he can be bought off by Mayor-for-Life Mike like his opponents, yes, including Mark Green.  I have probably agreed with almost no stand that Norman Siegel has taken over the years, especially in the Giuliani years, but I think he's probably what that office needs at this moment in time.

The other factor that should weigh in your decision tomorrow is the Working Families Party.  They are becoming a corrupting and corrosive influence in New York State politics.  You should seriously consider not voting for any candidate who has been cross-endorsed by the Working Families Party.  I fully acknowledge that come the General Election I will have to eat those words for the office of Mayor, but that will be the unique exception and I will explain why when the time comes.

As for why you should care what I think on any of this, let me just say this.  I have more experience and knowledge regarding NYC politics and government than 99% of those who read this blog.  I began my political activity in 1972, at the age of eight,  working on the campaign of Rep. William Fitts Ryan against Rep. Bella Abzug.  Weeks later working on the widow Ryan's campaign after a successful Rep. Ryan died after the primary but before the General Election.  I never stopped after that working on campaigns and following the players.  I may have worked on campaigns before the age of eight, but I don't remember.  Maybe that longevity and my insight on how city government works from the inside is worth a little something to you.  But as with any issue, you decide.

Not Gonna Happen in 2010
 

9/9    Remember Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night?  She and Clark Gable are trying to hitch a ride.  Macho Gable is striking out using his thumb.  Then Miss. Colbert tells him to step aside, lifts up her skirt to expose some leg and a car screeches to a halt to pick them up.  I'm reminded of that scene witnessing Rudy Giuliani of late.  He appeared on Meet the Press this weekend to show some leg and stop the presses.

His performance on the show and lately in general have caused me to conclude that he is not running.  In fact, as sure as I can be without actually knowing his inner thoughts, I am convinced of it.  What an aging, out of office politician of Rudy's stature fears most is becoming irrelevant, the phone stops ringing.  The only way to reverse that is to get back in the arena.  All arguments for getting into the race.  But he's not.

When political reporters, observers and pundits look at a Giuliani candidacy next year they ask themselves two questions: 1. can he win and 2. what happens to him if he doesn't.  What is causing Rudy Giuliani sleepless nights is neither of those questions, actually quite the opposite.  What he fears most is not losing but winning.  Not because he fears governing or leadership.  No, I believe some reincarnation, however modest, of old Rudy would reemerge to manage the state and he is certainly very confident of his abilities.  Modesty is not a Giuliani trait.  What terrifies him is the bi-weekly paycheck from Tom DiNapoli.  You see unlike other millionaire/billionaire candidates (Kohl, Corzine, Bloomberg, Schwarzenegger, Bredesen etc.) who have made their pile and can govern while maintaining the deluxe lifestyle, Rudy cannot.  Rudy is something of a modern Sherman McCoy, Tom Wolfe's main character in Bonfire of the Vanities.  Sherman made millions a year but could just barely keep his head above water due to his expenses.  It was Wolfe's genius as a writer that you actually empathized with Sherman's money woes.  That is Rudy - minus the sympathy.  He makes millions a year.  But he also shells out millions a year.

A win next year would cause him to severe his ties to all Giuliani Partners and Bracewell and Giuliani streams of revenue.  No more paid speeches at 100Gs a pop either.  He would actually have to live on $179,000 a year.  Granted, he would work out ahead of time some large payout from both the law firm and consulting firm to tide him over, but neither is raking in the bucks now that they once did.  The payout will not be tens of millions, just millions.  Is there some reason to believe that a former Governor Giuliani will be worth millions and millions in the private sector like he was after 9/11?  The answer is no.  His political career would be at an end.  His attractiveness to the right wing yahoos from Texas and Oklahoma that he so assiduously courts would once again be tempered by the sure to be moderate record of a Gov. Giuliani.  It is a simple political fact that a Dick Cheney wannabe Rudy could not govern this state.  A Rudy Giuliani from 93, 97 or even 89 could.  The Limbaughs, Hannitys, Coulters, Savages and Levins would not like that. Fred Dicker would postpone his mused retirement to chronicle the ethical accommodations of a Giuliani term in Albany, not to mention the clamor for release of his clients, past and present.  No more tiaras for Judith or G5s to travel.  Have you ever ridden the state plane?  It sucks.  Yes, a law firm would snap him up in a minute post service, but not for the $$$ he once commanded. 

No, what's at stake here is a yen to serve, matter and make a difference or be Jay Gatsby.  FDR was faced with a similar choice after his polio struck.  Mama wanted him to return to Hyde park and live the easy life of a country squire.  He instead chose the difficult and painful - yet fulfilling - life in the arena.  Of course FDR didn't have money concerns.

I have come to the conclusion that like the Duke and Wallis Simpson what matters to the Giulianis is the adulation and cafe society, no heavy lifting involved.  There are a number of factors and indicators besides the ones just stated that lead me to say this: I will go out on a limb here and say that there will be no Giuliani candidacy.  He is just appearing on these shows and giving these interviews because for the moment he matters again.  And what political figure of Rudy's stature doesn't need to be needed.  In his case, so long as it doesn't cost anything.

ABOVE THE FRAY

8/31    Like some of you, I listened to the Public Advocate debate this weekend.  Hearing the debate and seeing Mark Green run again for his old office reminded me of a famous Saturday Night Live sketch.  It was 1988, shortly before the New Hampshire primary.  The SNL sketch was a debate between the Republican contenders.  It was most memorable as the first time Dan Ackroyd did his Bob Dole impression nationally and Al Franken tried out his Pat Robertson.  Nora Dunn, playing Rep. Pat Schroeder, was the moderator.  The last question to the candidates was, "you're all bright, articulate spokesmen for your party.  But only one of you can be the nominee.  Would you accept the number two spot on the ticket?"  Each candidate in order mocked the position and derisively scorned the notion of serving as Vice President.  Bob Dole added, "the only person I can think spineless enough to want the job would be my good friend George Bush."

Then she came to Bush, who said he wouldn't rule it out.  "I'd make a damn good vice president.  I've been there, I've done it - for eight years  - and I could do it or eight more."  Now that to me was one of the funniest bits in a sketch that was already hilarious.  It's commonly accepted in American politics - or used to be - that nobody really wants to be Vice President.  Mondale, Gore and Cheney have changed that view somewhat but conventional wisdom still held in 1988.  And here was Bush, having done the number two job for eight long years, saying he'd do it again for eight more. And what's more he admits it in a presidential debate.

Now here you have Mark Green saying essentially the same thing.  Isn't his whole candidacy premised on the Bush/Carvey line, "I've been there, I've don't it - for eight years - and I could do it for eight more."  Except he's not running to return to the majesty and power of the Vice Presidency of the United States.  He wants to reclaim a job that only exists because the powers that be (county bosses) who amended the City Charter after it was ruled unconstitutional agreed to save a job for Andrew Stein.  That is the sole reason that position exists.

I think Mark Green's candidacy is pitiable.  He has become the living embodiment of the caricature that Dana Cavey tried to turn George Bush into 21 years ago.  The difference of course being that George Bush never wanted to be V.P. a second time.  That would have been mockable.  Mark Green does want to be Public Advocate again.  And that's just sad.

I Want to Be a Part of B.A.
 

8/27    Argentina has never been known as a bastion of democracy and freedom.  Images that come to the fore are more likely military coups and the financial crisis of the 90's than freedom of the press.  But this past week something extraordinary happened there.  We, the United States, like to think of ourselves as the example for the world in democratic rule.  GW bush wanted to export it like Coca-Cola or blue jeans.  Sadly, if we were a model he surely tarnished our brand for generations.  The cause of freedom and the libertarian ideal got a big shot in the arm this week not from Washington, D.C. but from Buenos Aires of all places.

The Supreme Court of Argentina handed down a decision that many of us can't imagine happening here in our lifetime.  The justices did not decriminalize marijuana for personal use, they legalized it.  The distinction is extremely important.  Decriminalization amounts to holding your nose and permitting behavior you believe criminal or immoral but societally tolerable.  What the court said was that this was a matter of personal freedom.  The use of marijuana was a decision for adults to make without interference from the state.  Those of us who believe that drug laws in this country are not only ineffective and harmful but contrary to the American principle of personal responsibility can only look upon the court's ruling with wonder and envy.  I don't use drugs, haven't in nearly twenty years, but should I choose to that decision should be mine alone, not the governments.

Argentina has now legalized drug use in small quantities.  Mexico quietly decriminalized personal possession of most drugs.  Brazil will shortly legalize personal drug use.  The drug war is lost and never should have been fought.  In the coming decade, country after country from Sweden to Portugal will lead the way.  How long will the U.S. hold out?

As for Argentine democracy, however much it might make many chortle, Democrats can only look down Argnetine way with lust at a nation that freely elected first the husband and then the wife (Nestor & Cristina Kirchner) as its President.  That is something the Democratic Party and the U.S. itself could not achieve in 2008.

ON MY MIND
 

8/26   1. Rudy Giuliani's favorite movie, as everyone knows, is 'The Godfather.'  Apparently he sought to act out a scene from that film this past week.  Usually Rudy is Don Corleone.  But this time he was playing the Tom Hagen part.  I am guessing that Tony Carbonetti and Peter Powers were unavailable or have decided to step back from chores like these. 

Rudy ventured out to Wolz Studios - in this case Nassau County - in order to see Joe Mondello and obtain his signature on a piece of paper.  Fans of the movie will recall Tom Hagen went to see Mr. Wolz in order to get the producer to sign Johnny Fontane to his new picture.  Fans will also recall the unnamed bandleader who wouldn't let Johnny out of his contract and was assured that "either his brains or signature would be on that piece of paper" - the famous, "offer he couldn't refuse."

Well Rudy left Joe Mondello's office and shortly thereafter his signature was affixed to a press release announcing his intention to step down as Chairman of the State GOP.  One has to wonder what offer did Rudy make Joe that he could not refuse.  There have been no reports of decapitated equine down state so that can't be it.  So what was it and what does it mean?  Rudy clearly wants the state party lined-up for something.  Governor in 2010?  I am not a betting man, but if I were I am not prepared yet to see him doing this. 

Second acts in politics are hard, third acts nearly impossible.  Richard Nixon most famously lost - narrowly - a presidential election and then went on to an ill conceived race for Governor of California. He doggedly worked the next six years to reestablish himself within the party and in the voters' minds as the "New Nixon" of 68.  Rudy Giuliani is not Richard Nixon; he lacks his discipline and focus, not to mention his analytical ability on domestic and global affairs.  A losing race in 2010 would finish him off for good. 

I think Rudy, like many, isn't convinced Andrew Cuomo has the guts to do this.  No one has ever lost money betting on the cowardice of the Cuomos and people just don't see Andrew stepping up to the plate and killing the king.  That is Rudy's reluctance and that is what he is waiting to see.  But in the meantime Rudy is acting as Don and Consilgiere all-in-one.  His circle is shrinking instead of expanding.  That is what fated his downfall in 2008.  Unlike RN he doesn't seem capable of learning from his mistakes.

2.    Ted Kennedy.  Naturally, there was almost nothing I saw eye to eye on with the late Senator.  But I respected him as a legislator.  I worked in the Senate and saw him up close.  Both the good and the bad.  He was what everyone is saying today - a hard worker who could form coalitions on issues he was passionate about.  He was a fighter for what he believed in and a dogged, tenacious opponent of that which he opposed.  The bad was his personal behavior as was constantly talked about on the Hill.  He and Chris Dodd banging and sharing waitresses at La Colline over and over again.  Not pretty.

My favorite Ted Kennedy moment happened years before I went to work in the Senate.  I was 16 years old working as a page at the 1980 Democratic Convention in New York.  As now, I was a Republican - if then only in spirit.  But there looked never to be a Republican Convention being held in NYC and working any national convention seemed thrilling.  I hated Jimmy Carter.  I was glad Ted Kennedy challenged him even if he couldn't enunciate his reasons for wanting the job to Roger Mudd.  I was working the convention floor the night of his speech.  Just as I would be the night Jimmy Carter mangled Hubert Humphrey's name and Ted Kennedy deprived him of the 'arms held high' victory/unity symbol.

I was raised in a household that carried the Kennedy torch; JFK and RFK were true heroes to both my parents and instilled in them their love of politics.   I didn't share the crowd's passion that night but only an idiot could fail not to be moved by the moment.  It was electric.  I was standing right beneath the podium when Ted Kennedy said, "the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die."  It wasn't my hope or dream but the place erupted and wept.  It was certainly one of the most memorable moments of my young life. 

3.    I of course have no personal knowledge of Bernie Madoff's health or lack thereof.  But I am an expert in the ways of the US Federal Bureau of Prisons.  I suspected all along, the minute I heard he was being sent to Butner, that he was ill.  A few facts:  The BOP has a 500 mile rule.  You will be incarcerated within 500 miles of the Court in which you were sentenced.  There are three exceptions that the BOP makes to that rule: 1. You have family in another part of the country.  In that case the BOP will consider another region; 2. They are punishing you.  The BOP routinely punishes inmates; either inmates who don't follow the rules or just inmates the BOP considers troublesome (suing the BOP too much, appealing your conviction, filing grievances against the staff)by sending them far away from their families; or 3. There is no space in a prison of your security level within 500 miles of your court.  

Now Butner is 481 miles from Bernie Madoff's home.  Just under the limit.  But there were closer facilities to which he could have been sent.  Why there?  Because the prison he is in is feet away from  the BOP's "premier" medical facility.  In fact, it's their cancer center, FMC Butner.  I was there for 20 months.  I suspected that was the reason he was assigned there.  Furthermore, knowing the BOP as I do, I can tell you with absolute certainty that their statement yesterday denying it is almost unprecedented.  The BOP makes a point of not countering press speculation.  I knew many high profile inmates who asked the BOP to issue a statement denying something and the response was always the same, "that's what your lawyer is for."  Equally suspicious, was the BOP's attack on the Post.  Even if the Post story were inaccurate, it wasn't a malicious story regarding the BOP - the Post wasn't claiming Madoff was being denied treatment.  But the BOP launched into an outright attack against the Post.  Why?  I suspect they don't want to appear in any way to be providing him favorable treatment.  Sending him to the prison next door to their cancer center would make it far, far easier for him to be moved there permanently than if he were in another prison nowhere near North Carolina.  As for Madoff's attorney, Ira Sorkin, he had no comment.  The Post story sounds about right to me.

4.    Race.  We have reached the nadir of our political lives when Dave Dinkins and Al Sharpton are giving Gov. Paterson soothing advice on race and polling.  In essence telling him to chill out.  The NY Times yesterday wrote a very kindly piece - as they always have - about David Dinkins and race.  They rewrote history by claiming he rarely mentioned it as Mayor.  It seems the Times is still trying to overturn the 93 result.  David Dinkins was never stupid enough to do what Dave Paterson did and claim outright that his poll numbers were as a result of racism.  But anyone who attended or watched his press conferences saw him over and over again ask these rhetorical questions of the press leading to only one answer - in his mind - racism.  After leaving office he spent the next eight years on NY 1 as a guest asking these same questions over and over, never able to come to terms that he was a failed leader and that in 89 he was an unproven party hack which accounted for the narrow race after the primary (not to mention the fraudulent letter and stock deal).  He did it again in the Times story which ironically was claiming that he almost never did it.  In today's paper there is a story about Al Sharpton advising Paterson on how to modulate comments on race.   It's truly Alice in Wonderland.  You need Dave Paterson out of office just so that Sharpton and Dinkins are not the voice of reason on the subject of race. That's apparently what we've come to.

5.    Is it just me or has the press failed to take notice of a pattern of lying from Mayor-for-Life Mike.  The incident the other day about transit pay raises; did anyone believe Mike when he totally disputed Roger Toussaint's account of their phone conversation?  I don't think so.  Mayor-for-Like Mike has a truly despicable habit of lying when he's been caught in something, even something innocent.  That is a very troubling predilection in a Mayor.  Recently, in a Vanity Fair  story about the Madoff sons, Bloomberg totally denied writing one of them a letter of recommendation to a country club.  The reporter had the letter, it was undeniable, and yet Mayor-for-Life Mike denied it.  So he wrote one of the kids a letter, who cares?  Why would someone deny something like that?  In my own case, he denied having met me, although we had met, dined and chatted on numerous occasions.  It was a ridiculous thing to deny, but he did. 

More troublesome - and I have been mentioning it on this site since the day I launched it - is how completely out of touch our billionaire Mayor is with common folk.  The exchange the other day on his radio show regarding the pay for execs at big pharma is a prime example.  First, why would someone assume that execs at those companies don't make heavy bucks?  Second, why did he instinctively defend them?  Third, when he discovered he was wrong, his admission - which sought to show some outrage at their compensation - sounded more like he was impressed.  "Oh, the guy makes $27 million, that's better," it seemed like he was saying from his tone.  He can't relate to 99.9% of New Yorkers and worse, never makes the slightest effort to show that he can.  He thinks schmoes making $50k are just that, schmoes.  He truly believes that there has to be something wrong with someone who isn't making at least $30 mill.  They must be lazy or stupid, he assumes.  His utter disdain for most of the city is evident in his poll numbers.  There can be no other explanation why someone with a 60% approval rating is at 47% in the polls.  People don't like him because they know he is openly contemptuous of them.

6.    The NY Times ran an editorial yesterday bemoaning the plight of juvenile offenders at NY State prison facilities.  The Justice Dept has issued a scathing report on conditions in those prisons.  Two years ago, everyone's favorite prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, also released a report on the abuse in Chicago prisons; the physical abuse and lack of medical treatment.  I shook my head then and shake it now.

When Patrick Fitzgerald released that report nearly every single charge he made was true, and worse, in federal prisons.  The BOP is monitored by no one.  The BOP and US Attorney's Office are housed within the US Dept of Justice.  No sister agency is going to investigate the other.  Where was the US Attorney investigation into abuses at federal prisons?  You, the reader, assume they don't happen because you never read about them.  You never read about them because no one has jurisdiction to investigate.  No state official can investigate a federal prison in that state; no D.A., state attorney general, sheriff, or state crime bureau.  There is no federal oversight of the BOP other than by that agency's inspector general and everyone knows that office in the BOP is a joke.  So while the NY Times rants and raves about state prison conditions someone should be asking these US Attorneys why they never look within their own jurisdiction?  Inmate abuse, withholding of medical treatment through neglect, malice or incompetence is rife throughout the BOP.  Violation of prisoner rights is the norm in the BOP not the exception.  I will be detailing stories later in J'ACCUSE, especially of the medical horrors.  Just ask yourself the last time you heard or read about a federal prison under investigation and ask yourself why you haven't.  I assure you it is not because they are abuse free.

8/10    Please see the new post, THE GIULIANI - MADOFF CONNECTION.

8/12    Please see the new post, J'ACCUSE - Part VII



 

YOU HUG IT, YOU OWN IT
 

8/11    Colin Powell famously said of the Iraq invasion and the American occupation to follow, "You broke it, you own it."  Much the same could be said of President Obama's inept handling, not of the economy - which is most definitely mishandled - but of the public's perception surrounding those responsible for its sorry state.  In Gen. Powell's example there was no way of invading and occupying a country and not being seen as laying claim to the action.  But Obama didn't create this mess, he inherited it.  So why is he creating no daylight between himself and the bad numbers?

Those old enough to remember or have studied FDR, know that he spent nearly his entire 12 years in office blaming Herbert Hoover for everything.  FDR had a visceral hatred of the man and his policies.  At the first sign that the economy was retreating - and it did for much of the 30's - he would start talking about the 20's and Hoover.  Mostly it was politics but some of it had a basis in fact.

The Great Communicator had eight years in the White House and from Jan 20, 1981 until the day he left, he blamed Jimmy Carter: his philosophy, management, ideology, for all of the nation's ills.  And in the main he was correct.  Ronald Reagan didn't accept ownership of the recession he inherited ever!  He accepted credit for the recovery that he initiated and engineered.  It was always Jimmy Carter's disaster. Reagan and his aides never let you forget it.  I lived in DC for the last few years of the Reagan Administration.  The failed policies of Jimmy Carter was still the mantra even 8 years later.  It worked.  Carter was a pariah even within his own party for a decade.  He couldn't attend the Democratic National Conventions for years.  Ronald Reagan did that.  Barack Obama seems to have learned the wrong lessons in those fancy schools he attended.  His attack dog advisors have given him nothing but losing advice.  

On or about his 60th day in office he started trumpeting how the economy was turning around.  Once he did that he owned it.  You hold a baby's dirty diapers at arms length and hold your nose, you don't embrace the mess.  The "not bad" bad jobs numbers that came out last week are a perfect example.  Yes, its possible to twist and squint so that they looked less than awful.  But why would you?  We're in a horrific recession.  George Bush, his policies, his management, his detached, ineffectual leadership caused it.  Why would anyone else take responsibility for it?  Those of you who admire Obama for "stepping up to the plate" or "putting the past behind him" may be satisfied with your hero being in office for a very short time. There's nothing admirable about letting George W. Bush off the hook.  Certainly not to the millions who believed Obama was their savior.    `

It is insulting intellectually for Obama and Biden to tell the American people that this stimulus package has done anything - good or bad - yet.  With only 20% of the funds having made their way into the economy and only a few months having passed no sensible person could be made to believe that Obama's policies have made any difference.  And yet we all know the economy, at least the employment numbers and the perception - if not actual growth, will get worse through this year and the beginning of 2010.  So why identify yourself with these awful numbers, why spin them when they're not yours yet to spin? 

The Obama Administration should have only started accepting this economy as its own sometime in the early Spring of 2010, the serious start of the midterm elections. At that point time would have ended the recession, as it does with most of them, or his policies, as he claims, would have produced results.  If neither were true it really wouldn't matter by then because there would be nothing to do about it except blame George Bush for destroying the economy.   But those options have been removed.  The president for better or worse owns this mess he's hugged it to his and Larry Summers' bosom.  Like so much of what he's done already: Guantanamo, torture, wiretaps, constitutional accountability and gay rights, it's another in a disturbing string of perplexing Obama letdowns.

Memory Woes

8/6    Great wealth breeds great arrogance.  In the continuing saga of who asked for $1.5 million for two Jewish service organizations, Mayor-for Life Mike says yet again, it's a faulty memory (NYT Blog).  He now says we should keep paper records because people can't be expected to remember these things.  Oh, really?  A $60 billion enterprise keeping records, wow that is some great management innovation from him.  Only one problem, records were always kept by the Mayor's Office of Contracts (MOC).  It was only under this administration that they seemed to have stopped doing so. The question is why.  Why didn't MOC have a record of these particular requests? And what were they doing approving the funds without one, if as they say none exists/existed?  There is so obviously more here than meets they eye.  The Councilmember involved has no known reason to lie and moreover, only the paperwork for these two organizations are non-existent out of the dozens of requests documented by MOC for Councilmember Felder.  This episode is the very definition of a conspiracy.  That's clear.  What is unclear is why and by whom.  Amazing to me still that in this age of runaway prosecutions for nearly everything, this can't attract the eye of any prosecutor or investigative agency.  I wonder why.

Nicht Ein Wort

8/5    It used to be said that people liked billionaire candidates for public office because they weren't corruptible.  They wouldn't steal your money, the theory went,  because they have so much of their own.  That still remains true.  But what now seems apparent is that they needn't line their own pockets for them to be politically corrupt.  Mayor-for-Life Mike has been engaging in some pretty impressive political corruption of his own to the tune of nearly $1,500,000.  Now as is his habit, he's lying about it.  I will not attempt to explain the minutiae of the scandal, the New York Times can explain it much better than I can (NYT story).   

Essentially Bloomberg wanted to augment his own personal charitable giving to two Jewish groups with City money without any scrutiny or fingerprints.  So he and his staff violated long-standing city rules as well as the rules of his own Mayor's Office of Contracts (MOC).  Monies, such as they disbursed, require that either a Borough President or a City Councilmember be listed as the requester of funds.  No such office made the request for those funds.  The Mayor or his staff assigned to those disbursements the name of a City Councilmember.  That Councilmember, Simcha Felder, vehemently denies ever requesting the money.  Moreover, the Mayor's Jewish liaison left city government to become a lobbyist for one of the two groups shortly after the funds were disbursed.  Does this thing smell or what?

I was head of Inter-Governmental Affairs in the Mayor's Office for 2 1/2 years.  This cover-up of an appropriation and violation of MOC rules is unprecedented.  The Mayor and his staff are playing this off as a simple disagreement in remembering events -  "Felder says he didn't and we say he did, end of story."  This he said/he said explanation is fine were it not for the fact that laws have been broken and about $1.5 million dollars was improperly and secretly dispersed.  Why was it done?  Why was Felder's name used and not another elected official?  What ties existed before between Bloomberg staff and these organizations?  In our day, MOC checked with officials to verify they requested the money.  Why was that not done here?  I could go on.  I ask these questions to make the point that clearly this needs to be investigated.  But by whom?  The joke in all this is that there is, in theory, the perfect agency to do the work.  But, not surprisingly, they have been deadly silent.  As my mother would say, "Nicht Ein Wort."  Not one word. 

The NYC Dept of Investigation has a checkered and mostly ignoble history.  It is common knowledge that no serious investigation of a senior member of a Mayoral administration has ever taken place by DOI.  Whether it was Koch, Dinkins, Giuliani or Bloomberg, any investigation that you want kept away from serious law enforcement is sent to DOI.  It is the place where tough scrutiny goes to die.  Sure, they'll investigate building inspectors and contractors for corruption but an administration official of high rank?  Never.  The irony in all this is that the current scandal is tailor made for a supposed administration watchdog like DOI.  Someone is clearly lying.  This is not a difference of memory.  Who better than they to find out who.  They absolutely do not need the mayor's invitation to begin an inquiry.  The Commissioner of DOI, Rose Hearn, made a big point upon taking office of throwing barbs at the Giuliani Administration's management of DOI and promised unbiased and ruthless investigations.  

Of course that was a joke.  She may not have fully understood that back in 2002.  It's possible she didn't know the Keystone Cops that comprise most of DOI.  Or that from Day One Mayor-for-Life Mike was never going to let her run wild through his backyard.  But here we are.  Cover-ups, paybacks, lies within City governement, who knows what else.  And DOI sits whistling, starring at the ceiling, trying to avert its gaze from the curious onlookers waiting to see what they'll do.  It's a rather mute point since if the pressure becomes strong enough and Mayor-for-Life Mike does send this DOI's way it will be with the full understanding of where this can go and how far.  But it would be nice, for once, to see Rose Hearn at least pretend to live up to those tough words of January 2002. 

 

The Utter Nerve

8/4    Imagine for a moment a Mayor of New York City running for reelection telling the voters that in his next term he would lobby his Dept of Transportation commissioner to pave more streets.  Or he would beseech his Sanitation commissioner to plow roads faster during blizzards.  You would have a citizenry scratching its head at the total disconnect of the man.  And yet Mayor-for-Life Mike has said essentially that.  He proposes in his next term to 'lobby' the MTA to do various things incorporated in a new campaign document his staff dreamed up.  Faithful readers of this site know I have railed over and over again that Mayor-for-Life Mike has cynically avoided accepting any responsibility for the abysmal management of the MTA.  He has pretended for 8 years that the MTA is some amorphous being over which he has no power.  Rather than the truth which is that he has three crucial appointments to the board that can and have shaped policy in previous administrations.  Now, not content with that fiction, he seeks to perpetuate it.  I had expected him to say, "In my next term I will make the MTA eliminate fares on cross-town buses.  If they don't, I will hold up business till they do."  He can if he so chose (I will write at greater length closer to the election how this is done if the will is there). Basically do an about face in an election year.  

But instead he has said the same thing over and over.  He'll lobby the MTA, like he would lobby Albany for a piece of legislation.  But of course, that is another fiction.  He is so utterly despised in the State Senate and by much of the Assembly that he dare not step foot past Kingston.  He can't get anything done in Albany.  He can't get anything done at the MTA.  He can't get anything done at the Port Authority.  D.C. felt free to snub him and the P.D. by denying the greatest terrorist target in America extra police funding.  Can you imagine them doing that to Giuliani?  And the MTA knowing his record and lack of fangs responded to his pledges by saying, "they would study them."  In case you haven't spent time amidst giant bureaucracies, that means, "Fuck Off!"

There was a report yesterday listing the worst airports in America.  Guess who has the top three?  Yup, the Port Authority of NY & NJ (PA): JFK, LaGuardia and Newark.  You may recall some time ago I blasted Mayor-for-Life Mike for blowing the literally once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that Rudy handed him to take back JFK & LaGuardia once their leases expired.  Rudy had laid out the groundwork, the leases were expiring in a short time.  All Rudy's successor had to do was set-up a new authority to accept them and begin the transition.  The financial markets were no longer going to lend to an entity whose very existence was in question.  Rudy had them.  But no.  Mayor-for-Life Mike, seeking as always less responsibility not more and as one of his very first acts as Mayor, extended the leases for marginally better terms.  Thereby dooming the local, domestic, and international traveling public to a miserable flying experience for generations. It was the greatest gift the PA had received since its inception.

Some enterprising reporter - or Bill Thompson's opp research team - should go back and check what Bloomberg had said about the PA when he handed them the airports for another 50 years.  I am sure it would contrast sharply with his current view that "Perhaps, the PA doesn't represent the interests of NYC."  Ya think?  A TV commercial on this would be a no-brainer.  NYers hate the airports more than anyone.  Rightfully so.  Is this a man whose judgment and honesty you can trust on crucial matters?

I am desperate to ask - how stupid exactly does he think we are?  But the answer is we're pretty stupid.  He was reelected with absolutely no rationale.  He pulled a coup d'etat by hijacking the City Charter in order to perpetuate himself in office.  And yet he has a 60% + approval rating.  It is telling however, that if these polls are to be believed - and I am not sure they are - that with $20 million already spent versus a nearly non-existent opponent, he is losing ground.  The only explanation I can see after studying polls for over 30 years is that people genuinely dislike him.  Why else would someone with a 60+% approval rating have below 50% against a nobody opponent.  Clearly nearly a decade of open contempt for his constituents, their problems and their lives, is coming home to roost.   I have always found him to be intensely dislikable; that was one reason I chose to leave rather than serve under him and run HDC.  I urge Bill Thompson's staff to read my Mark Green post.  Howard Wolfson is one mean motherfucker.  If these polls are accurate and Thompson gains traction, Bloomberg's City Hall will be looking very closely at the Comptroller's Intel detail to see what they might know about their charge and what the Bloomberg campaign can leak.

During the transition in 2001 Vinny LaPadula told me that Bloomberg had told him that he had every intention of continuing to run the day to day operations of Bloomberg, Inc.  Testimony from the various sexual harassment suits at Bloomberg pretty much confirms that.  Profits for the company and himself have increased exponentially over the last eight years.  He's the richest man in the city.  The city however hasn't fared so well.  Our budget has doubled, our debt is skyrocketing and will consume us in the out years, pension costs due to giveaway labor contracts will become crippling, crime is rising, the subways are slower and dirtier, everything is more expensive.  But luckily we can't smoke, eat trans-fats or drive through much of Manhattan.   His value as mayor has been exactly what he commands, $1 a year.

Why exactly 47% of the city still would vote for him is a mystery to me but maybe we're waking up.  Trans fats, smoking, urban beaches at the crossroads of the world and calorie counting may be cited as an impressive set of accomplishments for a Surgeon General.  It is laughable as an 8 year record for a Mayor of New York City seeking voter reaffirmation. 

 

To Be or Not To Be

8/3    We've reached some point in NYS politics when even the New York Post is getting fed up with Rudy.  The Post, long a Giuliani promoter, had an editorial over the weekend regarding the 2010 Governor's race and essentially telling him to (insert scatological aphorism here).  They reminded him that his delay in 2000 to enter the US Senate race against Hillary Clinton left an already weak Rick Lazio even more hapless by stymieing his fundraising and support.  Thereby costing him any real chance of victory.

What precipitated this admonishment was a Crain's breakfast last week in which Rudy said that things would have to be pretty bad in the State for him to consider running.  He joked - his trademark these days - that he only runs when things are at their worst.  The moderator, Greg David, even commented that Rudy didn't seem prepared to run.  It wasn't clear to the former Mayor if David meant organizationally or by his vague answers to the questions.

So what is Mr. Giuliani trying to tell us?  I can guarantee that he doesn't know so there is no way we can.  But we do know a few things.  First, what he really wants is to run for president again.  He truly believes that four more years of Bush-Cheney policies would have righted the ship with him at the helm.  Unfortunately, no one - save one delegate - believed that in 2008 and fewer will buy it in 2012.  I would bet a lot of money on a second Obama term; less for political reasons than for historical ones.  But even if 2012 turns out to be a good year for Republicans they will not be turning to the past.  I can assure you that the nominee of my party will be someone whose name did not appear on a presidential ballot in 2008.  That's right, Mitt Romney will not be the nominee.

But a stateless Rudy Giuliani needs a home.  1600 Pennsylvania Avenue appears blocked for now.  Gracie Mansion has a lifetime occupant who refuses to leave.  That leaves 138 Eagle Street, better known as the Executive Mansion.  So Rudy looks over the dusty drapes and carpets and muses aloud, "I might consider it, if the offer were right."  The offer apparently is that we have to beg and plead for him to save us.  Rudy is Moses, you see, and we the Israelites turn to him in our time of fiscal and legislative bondage.  Rudy sees himself leading us out of the dark Albany corridors and into a prosperous land flowing with budget surpluses and tough appelate judges.

But the question I have been asking for almost a year still remains unanswered; which Rudy would be running in 2010?  Is it the far-right, Cheney admiring, giggling, torture apologist of 2008?  Perhaps it's the unsteady, philosophically unsure and organizationally challenged candidate of 1989.  Or maybe it's the open, inclusive, independent, confident, sometimes polarizing but always serious leader of 1993.  Of these three Rudy personas which would you choose?  Not only the man you would vote for but the one you'd want to project to the voters in a time of crisis.  The answer of course is C.  But inexplicably Rudy and his advisors over at Giuliani Partners believe A is the winner.  There is no explaining it so there can be no explanation.  The full Randy Levine conversion of Giuliani from an independent maverick into a Tom Coburn clone is complete. 

More disturbing than how he would run is how he would govern.  Again, we do not know because we don't know which Rudy currently inhabits the body.  1993 Rudy would restore New York State to fiscal and political sanity.  1989 Rudy would do a competent job, with slip-ups along the way.  And 2008 Giuliani would have us in a full scale political civil war within 6 months.  That is how stark the differences would be.

Personally, I do not want to beg anyone to take the reigns of leadership.  Part of being a great leader is having a burning need to do the job.  Giuliani made it clear at the Crain's breakfast that no such fire exists yet.   I do not know what to make of all this.  But I do know that he is quickly becoming a tragically flawed figure of Shakespearean dimension.  My advice to him at this point would be to leave the Hamlet act to the Cuomos.  They have it perfected .

 

7/30    I have taken yesterday's post recounting my time with Charlie Millard entitled, The Zarb, and created a separate post.  I have also added some new analysis and an addendum.  Please see the new post - THE ZARB.
 

So the sentence is in and it's 150 years.  First, let me say that I cannot understand why Bernie Madoff did not commit suicide before he plead in March.  I can only assume he had no full understanding of how horrible life would be in the Federal Bureau of Prisons.  I am sure he now regrets not having done so.  I don't say that because I have any blood lust about this whole matter.  But a man entering his twilight years does not want to spend all of them in a federal prison.  His life will be hell from now until the day he dies.  Satisfaction to his victims, I am sure, but bewildering to me as to why he would want to endure that.  The cruelty shown him by BOP personnel and the lack of decent medical care, just as he really starts to need it, will blow his mind.    I can only assume he bought into this notion of 'country club prisons.'  No such thing exists in the BOP and because of his sentence he will have to go to a USP (United States Penitentiary - Maximum Security Federal Prison).  Ira Sorkin did him no favors by not painting as brutal a picture as possible.  He'll probably wind up at Lewisburg in Pennsylvania.  I knew many people who did time there.  While it is not the worst of the worst, it ain't no fun for a 71 year old man who had maids and butlers.  I befriended an elderly man who had done time there.  He regalled me with stories of his one-time bunk mate - Alger Hiss.

I respect Denny Chin as a jurist and I do not believe he gave into the braying crowd.  I will say I am sorry that he did not admonish these greedy investors who put total blind faith in Maddof and now shriek and cry of their miserable lives.  He conned them, no question.  But he also gave them plenty of clues that he was conning them; they just chose to ignore them.  I read an article this weekend that said on the firm's statements sent out to investors, it would routinely refer to some of their assets being invested in a Vanguard fund that had been discontinued years earlier.  Do investors have no personal responsibility?   Especially investors of this caliber.  I think a psychiatrist would say that the white hot intensity of their hatred has as much to do with their inability to come to terms with their own culpability in all this as it does with Madoff's. 

On another judicial front let me applaud the Supreme Court's ruling in the New Haven firefighter case.  The one piece missing in the reporting on this story from the liberal media is that the City of New Haven spent hundred of thousands of dollars with an outside consultant specifically to design the test  so that black firefighters would score well - and they still didn't!  How fixed did this process need to be?  Their argument about lawsuits was specious from the start exactly because they had taken the precaution of having the text designed so that black firemen would score higher.  Other than outright quotas there was nothing more the City could have done.  But they were cowardly in the aftermath.  Instead of sticking by the results after all their efforts they decided merit had absolutely no place in this, even a merit-based test that was partially fixed.  Ruth Gingburg can keep her sympathy for the white firemen.  The court partially redeemed itself today from its weak decision of last week on Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

I am sorry they did not decide the McCain-Feingold case, however.  I have no hatred of Hillary Clinton.  She is merely a vehicle in this case.  McCain-Feingold is terrible law.  Whenever and whatever the Court can do to erode it is fine with me.  I hope when they rehear arguments in September that the right decision will result from it. 

6/25    The rehabilitation has begun.  Rudy Giuliani sought to remind us yesterday that he is a citizen not of Texas or North Carolina but rather New York.  He wrote an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times calling for a state constitutional convention - "Putting New York Back Together."  

There's very little doubt that New York State needs some constitutional changes.  Anyone reading a newspaper these days can pretty well see that.  We have a vacancy for Lt. Governor, with no mechanism for selecting or confirming one.  Our budget is constantly late and estimates are invariably wrong or shoe horned to fit the Assembly Speaker's spending priorities.  These were two of the issues raised by Rudy.  The others were judicial pay increases, term limits, campaign finance reform, supermajorities for tax increases and redistricting reform.  Most of these are laudatory and if he were an academic writing in the Manhattan Institute's journal I'd say 'interesting.' 

But he's not an academic, he's Rudy Giuliani.  And what we expect - or should - from Mayor Giuliani is leadership.  A constitutional convention would take years - probably two or three - to commence.  Unlike his stated expectation, it would be seated and staffed with the exact same people who are playing 'hide the key' in Albany right now; trust me they would have it no other way.  California and Connecticut have both rejected such conventions in the last few years.  Each had its own parochial reasons for rejecting the idea but the common one was that neither saw how it was possible to create a body of citizens that would not wind up being controlled by the same people who've created the mess the convention was chartered to fix.  No one has yet come up with an answer for that.

But putting aside the mechanics and the rather bland 7 point plan the Mayor proposes, what would he do now?  Sure, it's fine to say 3 years from now a convention would be a nice thing, but what would he do today were he in a position of leadership?  He's silent on that point.

I notice two things coming out of the Mayor's Op-Ed.  One most striking feature is what he did not call for - public referendum.  The other is how little attention he received for this first foray back.   The two go hand-in-hand.  His proposals were bland, rote and unoriginal.  Hence, the lack of coverage.

True conservatives - not of the Dick Cheney strain - believe in public referendum.  It is no panacea - especially when the voter's will is ignored as with term limits in NYC -  but in a state as politically and governmentally dysfunctional as New York; where our leaders no longer lead, the public has a right to express itself and change the direction of the state.  Usually that is done at election time by selecting candidates.  But it is not working here anymore.  With the status quo in Albany seemingly impervious to change, does anyone see hope for reform through the normal channels?  

Conservatives such as Rudy fear the public will unchecked.  This is not without reason: the public can behave as crazy as our legislators.  But it is deep rooted in a fundamental mistrust of citizens, much as we see in Iran.  Just enough democracy is ok, too much is dangerous; so the thinking goes.  I have always rejected that.  The old conservatives - what I like to call the Western Cons (Goldwater & Reagan) - always supported public referenda on the local level, so it is notable that Rudy left it out.

If this piece in the Times yesterday was his start at rehabilitating himself, it's too little and too late.  He needs to do what I have told him to do for months: Explain, and if need be, apologize for his positions of 2007 & 2008.  Return to Mayor Giuliani and leave behind too clever by half candidate Giuliani.  Only until he does that can he begin to reform and regain our trust.

6/22    As President Obama signs the most significant smoking legislation since the 1960's; giving the FDA unprecedented oversight over tobacco, I thought you might be interested in the last time the new FDA Commissioner, Dr. Margaret Hamburg, was involved in significant smoking legislation.  It occurred in 1995 and Rudy Giuliani was Mayor.  New Post:   Where There's Smoke...

6/23    On Monday, the Supreme Court issued its decision in the much anticipated case, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder.  The case was widely seen as a verdict on the future of a key provision, Section 5, of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  The case involved the pre-clearance provision of the Act.  Named states, cities and counties must seek clearance from the Justice Department before making any substantive changes to their voting procedures or jurisdictions.  Most had thought, many had hoped, that the justices would throw out that provision maybe even invalidate the whole Act.  Unfortunately, they gave the plaintiff what they wanted but left everything else intact.

The Supreme Court will often not decide a matter that it has not been asked to decide but rather settle the narrow issues if possible.   That is what it did here.  They said Northwest Utility could opt out but said no more than that.  It is clear that there were at least three possibly four votes to throw out Section 5: Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and Scalia.   So why not decide the broader issue?  My guess is that they didn't have Justice Kennedy on board and they preferred a small win as opposed to a large defeat.

Chief Justice Roberts made it clear, once again, that the country has changed dramatically in the last 40 years and he is seeing no real need for these types of measures.

As all politics is local, I will bring this back to NYC.  Many of you not from NY would be shocked to learn that three of the five counties that make up New York City (Manhattan, Brooklyn & The Bronx) are covered by the pre-clearance section.  People tend to think these statutes apply to the deep south only.  But the named entities are spread throughout the country.  Recently, the Mayor and City Council overturned our term limits law here.  Two separate voter referendum had enacted and then confirmed, by substantial majorities, the voters determination to impose term limits on our local elected officials.  Those referendum made no provision whatever for an elected body to overturn the voter's decision. 

And yet, our term limited Mayor and City Council by a simple legislative vote overturned term limits.  I had assumed that when this went to the division of the Justice Department that handles Section 5, it would deny approval for the change.  But no, it gave its blessing.  Millions of voters, including many minority voters, voted for term limits without any 'out' for the incumbent politicians.   True, a federal judge rejected a challenge to the Mayor's self-serving move.  But I felt sure that if this provision was supposed to have some meaning it was that self-interested localities could not up-end the will of the electorate.  And the minority electorate in particular.  But no.

This was the most blatant act of voter disenfranchisement in the history of our city.  And the Justice Department is fine with it.  I can tell you that Justice's acquiescence surely doomed the chances of a black man, Bill Thompson, from running an effective race against the incumbent, Michael Bloomberg.  This landmark piece of civil rights legislation has been used to deny a black man his opportunity to seek higher office.  Could that have possibly been the intent?  I don't think so.  This is Chief Justice Roberts' point in practice.  Evidence that laws can outlive their intended original purpose.

So here we are.  Section 5 does not protect minority or majority voting rights from a small group of grubby, self-interested politicians.  Then what is the point of it?  And how can we rationalize its further applicability in a nation that has just elected a black President or a city that has elected a black Mayor, black Comptroller, and various Hispanic Boro Presidents.  Or a state that elected a black Lieutenant Governor who is now our sitting Governor.

It seems that when it comes to the rights of prisoners and defendants the Supreme Court is only too happy to make broad, precedent setting decisions denying them their rights and vastly expanding those of the police.  But when it comes to the rights of average voters in a possibly courageous decision, timidity seemed to be the watchword of the day.

6/18    Honestly, is it just me?  Tell me, I can take it.  Am I the only one in this city who sees what a buffoon and dullard Mayor-for-Life Mike is?  He has gotten to be so out of touch that he doesn't have the faintest realization to be embarrassed at the things that come out of his mouth.

He tells us yesterday that maybe, just maybe, the Port Authority of NY & NJ doesn't have New York City's interests at heart.  Really.  This is just dawning on him apparently.  For eight long years the Mayor of this city has told the Port Authority he wanted nothing to do with them.  Not in the way Rudy did, however.  When Rudy said I want nothing to do with you, he referred to their total bloat and incompetence. He meant, I'll go it alone where I can and torture you unmercifully where I can't.  No, what Mayor-for-Life Mike meant was, do what you want, I won't trouble you.  And he never has, until now. 

The PA is dragging its feet on rebuilding Ground Zero.  They won't renegotiate terms with the developer, Larry Silverstein.  For the moment I won't get into the merits of that argument.  But it is nothing new.  I walk by Ground Zero every day and it is a testament to the failed leadership of this Red Sox fan masquerading as a New Yorker. 

Let me take you back in time.  First, almost one hundred years ago when the Port Authority was created.  It was created for one purpose and one purpose only; to build a cross harbor rail freight tunnel between NY & NJ.  Here we sit almost a century later and no tunnel.  Worse, the tunnel was alive and kicking again 10 years ago thanks to Rudy having revived the idea.  But Mayor-for-Life Mike, no fan of the tunnel, passed the buck from EDC to the PA and there it continues to languish.  The one and only thing the PA was supposed to do and it never has.  Bloomberg, the man who has made a disgusting beach of Times Square, all in the name of environmentalism, opposes the most green project in our lifetimes.  Namely, taking off our streets hundreds of trucks a day and moving their cargo on rail underground.  Could anything be more green than that?  No.  But he has done nothing.  

Second, go back a decade.  Rudy Giuliani told the PA to prepare to lose control of JFK and LaGuardia when their contract expired to run the airports.  JFK and LaGuardia rank consistently at the top of every list of worst airports in the United States.  One of the very first things Bloomberg did upon taking office was tell the PA he would renew the contracts.  Yea, the city got slightly better terms but the traveling public suffers and will in perpetuity.  Imagine, had Bloomberg been the innovator he pretends to be.  If he had privatized the airports like in his beloved London or most of Europe.  The cash windfall to the City would have been incredible and the improvement in infrastructure and service would have been commensurately impressive.  But no, the PA would and will continue to run NYC's airports.  Why?  I cannot imagine.

And now to present day and Ground Zero.  Again, for eight years, Mayor-for-Life Mike has consistently said,  this is a state issue, this is a Port issue.  He has shown no leadership on this matter whatsoever.  He gave millions to the the Memorial Fund.  Kudos to him for having done that.  But he can do that as a private citizen.  We need a Mayor, not a benefactor.

And now cynically, in an election year, he claims to have had an epiphany.  The interests of this bi-state agency don't coincide with those of New York City.  What Rudy Giuliani knew on the day he took office, Mayor-for-Life Mike claims to have discovered in his eighth year.  It is then not all that surprising that against the non-entity of non-entities, Bill Thompson, he musters only 53%.  I concede the point that he will be re-elected - or really elected since I do not believe this term limits extension was legal - but it is so bone crushingly disheartening to have to watch just how clueless and inept he continues to become.  The Great City deserves so much better than this for four, eight or twelve more years. 

{I wrote the above post prior to Port Authority Executive Director Chris Ward's speech today.  If you see the excerpts he really makes my point for me.  He's not modernizing LaGuardia or JFK because of Ground Zero.  He blames others for the PA having to commit so many resources there which is wreaking havoc with his capital budget.  He's right up to a point.  The PA shouldn't be running our airports and then they wouldn't factor into these equations.  They should never have retained control of Ground Zero after 9/11.  But the subtext to all this - if you are a student of NYC politics - is that Chris Ward is telling Mayor-for-Life Mike to go fuck himself.  He's saying very plainly that he's not afraid of him and unlike the Mayor, who seeks responsibility for nothing but our schools, Ward is willing, up to a point, to honestly debate his options.  I don't think he should have these options, but at this moment in time they are his responsibility.  What a contrast with Giuliani.  No PA Exec. Dir. would have dared challenge Rudy this way.  It would have been unthinkable.  And rightly so.  He's the Mayor. His priorities should govern, not some unelected body. God, Rudy would have punished Chris Ward; it would have been amazing to watch.  But Bloomberg will say something in response not commanding but peevish.  He doesn't really care about NYC or New Yorkers so these fights don't trouble him in his gut. He views them from the prism of his Napoleanic complex and not as the Chief Magistrate.}      
 

Searching For Mayor Giuliani

6/16    Old axiom - never speak in absolutes, it will come back to bite you in the ass.  While I give virtually no weight whatever to some flighty ex-flack for Rudy offering inside tidbits and getting the vapors over the prospect of an RWG run for Governor, I have to say the Democrats are doing everything but circulating his nominating petitions for him.  It sure looks like he may have no choice but to run.  A near guarantee of victory is a lulling thing.  If ex Mrs. Andrew Cuomo, Kerry Kennedy, is to be believed, Andrew ain't running.  I've always said without the power to indict and subpoena, Andrew's political cowardice is nearly unmatched. 

So if there is no Andrew, Gov. Paterson is a political eunuch, and the total disarray in Albany keeps up, who but the man who tamed the wild City can clean up the current mess?  Even I buy that rationale.  Right now we have three majority leaders of the NYS Senate.  Can you imagine?  Can Paterson fix this?  Surely not.  He's too concerned about how this is affecting the poor lobbyists.  Can Andrew - if he were so inclined to take on the Gov - fix this?  Nah.  He's never shown the courage to take on the established order when it meant a fight.  So who else?  Charlie Rangel won't let anyone else challenge Paterson.  So no Democrat will be allowed to save the state or party.  That leaves the Republicans.  And who can they field?  The return of Pataki?  Don't laugh.  But not while a living, breathing Rudy Giuliani is around.  Personally I am a John Faso fan.  But I don't think he can muster the charisma wattage necessary for this battle.  So once again all eyes turn to Rudy. 

Back in 89, the first year the NYC Campaign Finance Law had teeth, Rudy hired a large accounting and compliance staff.  They were very young Republicans from D.C.  They all had one thing in common - they hated, absolutely hated, New York City.  They couldn't wait to get back to Northern Virginia and the watering holes of Capitol Hill.  I always found this amusing.  That influx, coupled with Bond, Schriefer, Ailes and Teeter created a very alien and extremely Bush presence in what was supposed to be a gritty New York campaign.  He learned from his 89 mistakes when it came time to staff-up in 93 but forgot them again in time for 08. He once again turned to a President Bush for a campaign staff with the same results.  Sitting in prison in 07 I knew Rudy would go down in flames when I saw whom he was hiring; it was 89 all over again.  The amazing thing to me then was that none of his people could see that.

Ethicists, lawyers, bankers and insurers are known to speak of Moral Hazard.  The practice of rewarding past bad behavior.  Saving or bailing out a liable party without assurance that their actions will be different in the future.  My fear in the coming Giuliani frenzy is that his 07 & 08 behavior will go unrepented, he will have to atone for nothing and he will in effect be rewarded for it.  The man who opposes gay marriage - not because he believes in the position, I happen to know he has no firmly held view, but because he thinks upstate voters are one issue on this - now finds himself opposed by Joe Bruno and yes, the Dark Lord himself, Dick Cheney.  I told him here a few months ago it was an unwise position with no upside.  He was on the wrong side of history, I said.  But it was cynical and calculated.  The Rudy of 08 and not of 93.

The Albany Democrats may have handed Rudy the 2010 election, time will tell, it's still early days.  To me the waste is that he would not challenge Mayor-for-Life Mike.  Bloomberg's new poll numbers against Bill Thompson are good but it's clear the voters don't want a third term for him.  They just want a first Thompson term even less.  Can you imagine Mayor Giuliani issuing a deadline to rebuild Ground Zero and having everyone ignore him?  But we have come to expect this from Mayor-for-Life Mike.  Inept and ineffectual, that's him.  The one common thread here is leadership; Albany and New York City.  The last great leader in this state any of us can remember was Mayor Giuliani.  God, how I wish we could find him.

    You've Never Had it So Good

6/9    With apologies to Harold Macmillan, that phrase comes to mind today as the first Guantanamo "detainee" (prisoner) is transferred from Cuba to the United States.  Unfortunately for him, he is being moved to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan (home to Mr. Madoff).  Having had a stay in the MCC, as I have previously mentioned, I can tell you that Mr. Ahmed Ghailani is in for a rude awakening.  The proponents of keeping Guantanamo open always fail to acknowledge that the vast majority of the prisoners there are guilty in all likelihood of nothing.  Two-thirds of all prisoners who have passed through there have been repatriated without a trial but after being incarcerated for years without charge.  These tours that the Army conducts showing how lush life is for the 'detainees' on the base always sicken me.  We know from the numbers that most of these men will eventually go home, wherever that is, and never be put on trial.  A prison is a prison whether you have a basketball court, Muslim food, access to a Koran, or they wind up putting in a spa.  Being held unjustly - without charge - as most of these men are, is criminal.  The irony is that all these members of congress who think Guantanamo is this magical place have no idea how much worse it will be for the "detainees" in Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) custody.   If they really want to seriously punish these guys close Guantanamo and send them to the MCC in solitary for a year.  That is far worse than any Guantanamo experience.  And yet American prisoners are subjected to it daily, all over the U.S., as part of the cruel administration of the BOP.  

It is almost laughable that North Korea and Iran will put suspects on trial - even if just show trials - but the U.S. refuses to grant suspects these same basic rights.  That is what we've been reduced to.  The sad part is that the "detainees" do not realize how much worse things are going to get for them inside the BOP compared with Guantanamo.  My positon has been the same on this matter for seven years; if they are guilty of something, put them on trial in the U.S.  We're tough enough to handle it.  If they're not, then set them free.  That is justice - or at least it used to be.  Reflecting back on his island stay from the filth of the MCC, Mr. Ghailiani will come to realize he never had it so good.



    Someone Is Listening

6/9    I just came across this piece on SLATE from the lovely Dahlia Lithwick, who has replaced Linda Greenhouse as my favorite Supreme Court reporter.  I can rant and rave on here all I want about prison reform, particularly federal prison reform, but nothing will happen until Congress forces the DOJ's hand.  So it appears that the ever surprising Sen. James Webb (D-VA) is a champion of this cause.  Who knew?  I encourage you to read this piece.  Cage Match


    Here We Go Again

6/8    Deja Vu.  Charlie Rangel - perhaps the most corrupt unindicted political figure in America - is throwing his racial Molotovs once again.  Peter Powers, Rudy's First Deputy Mayor, used to say his own management technique was, "we do what we know."  That appears to be the guiding principle behind Rep. Rangel's latest attempt at ensuring the success of another mediocre black Harlem pol.  On NY 1 the other night he said that an Andrew Cuomo primary against the failed governorship of David Paterson would lead to "racial polarization" and would be devastating to New York State Democrats.

You'll recall that during the primary of 2002, Rangel said that Cuomo should drop out of the governor's race against Carl McCall.  Carl McCall was the Bill Thompson of his time although with perhaps a bit more flash.  Well, Andrew heeded Rep. Rangel's advice and dropped out before the primary.  He did so presumably to save himself for another day.  There was, it was said, fence mending that needed to be done after that race between Andrew and black Democrats.  

Well here we are - another day.  Although Andrew finds himself in the unlucky position of having to achieve his aim by competing against another black man.  Back in 2002 he was told to drop out because "it was McCall's time."  Whatever that meant.  Also, as with David Dinkins, we were told it was time for a black man to be allowed to reach for the stars.  Now the excuse is that it would be treasonous to blacks or black democrats or the state party - I'm not really sure which - for Andrew to primary the sitting black governor.

I never bought into the whole mystique surrounding Obama and the triumph of the black man.  Instead, like Dr. King, I looked upon it as an amazing achievement of a very talented man - white or black, and applauded him for his tenacity, drive and intellect.  Hillary Clinton did exactly what she should have done.  She thought herself the best candidate, she ran and almost won.  She ceded nothing to him and I believe, in the end, he respected her for it.  It made his victory genuine instead of token.

But that's not good enough in New York State.  We have to rig our primaries lest the voters actually have a say.  And the strangeness of all this is that these admonitions are coming from the most corrupt man in elective office today.  Rangel cheats on his taxes, keeps affordable housing away from the economically disadvantaged and uses them for campaign lairs, lies on his federal disclosure forms and spend millions to create useless edifices to himself that his intense narcissism requires be branded in his own name.  And he is so powerful that no one will investigate him.  It is left to the newspapers to uncover his crimes.  But all without result.  No revelation seems to cause the slightest interest in any prosecutor.  Even the House, duty bound to investigate him, won't.

But he feels perfectly free to dictate to Andrew Cuomo how his conscience should behave.  Prior to attaining the power to subpoena and indict, Andrew was never known as a ballsy guy.  In fact, for all his Cuomo bravado, he was rather timid politically.  Bear in mind he would have beaten McCall in 2002 and yet he dropped out anyway.  So know here wo go again.  Rangel figured it worked once so he and the racial flamethrowers will try again.  Has Andrew learned anything in seven years?  We'll see. Giving in to bullys never works.  If Andrew were smart he'd open an investigation on Rangel and leave it hanging until 2010.  Trust me, with an easy indictment and conviction awaiting Rangel, he'd shut up.

    The Age of Obama

6/5    Nearly bumped into Mr. Carbonetti a few minutes ago.  I was walking down Vesey next to the Trade Center construction site and he was walking up.  Blue blazer, tan slacks and what looked suspiciously like the EDC umbrella I gave him so long ago.  I thought of saying hi - he didn't see me - but I figured too much water under the bridge.  I doubt he'd take a warm greeting from me as sincere; although it would have been.  I do miss him though.  Guess I always will.  Friends as close as brothers are a hard thing to lose.  They don't come along too often.

But missing Tony Carbonetti is not what brings me here today.  Fury and outrage are.  Although I am a firm opponent of racial quotas and affirmative action however practiced, I am always extremely reticent to begin sentences with, "Now if a white man said (or did)......."  It's not that I am cowed by liberal political correctness.  Rather, I fear being associated with imbecilic, half-literate, right wing, talk show hosts like Michael Savage or Marc Levin.  While I occasionally may agree with something they say, I loathe being joined in their company.  But I am making an exception today.  My anger has gotten the better of me.  I am not aware that either of them has commented on what I am about to mention.  But I am pretty sure they'd agree with me.

Imagine this: a white newspaper columnist - in addition to being an Ivy League professor - not only defends a white mob brutally beating a black man but states that future such beatings are a necessary way to redress a failed judicial system.  Can you imagine what would happen to this person?  Would he keep either of his jobs at the paper or the university?  You know the answer.

Apparently, in Philadelphia, an 11yo black girl was raped and brutally so.  The police named a "person of interest" that they were looking to question.  This person - not black - was discovered by an angry black mob and himself brutally beaten until the police stepped-in to stop it.  Now comes Marc Lamont Hill - Columbia Professor, regular columnist for the daily free NYC newspaper 'metro' and a contributor, I believe, to Fox News.  He writes a column in 'metro' that says he's saddened that the neighborhood felt it necessary to do what they did to this man but, "Until the broader society gets it, the community's brand of justice is both appropriate and necessary."  Necessary?  Appropriate?  The man named by the police was not a suspect, not accused, not convicted of anything - not that that would have justified the mob's behavior in any case.  He was, they were careful to say, a "person of interest."  

Mr. Lamont Hill wrote a column a few weeks ago comparing smokers with child rapists and serial killers.  He backtracked a few days later to say he meant chain smokers.  Nice save on his part.  If Mr. Lamont Hill is equating smokers with child rapists and according to him it's OK for  black mobs to beat or kill alleged white and Hispanic child rapists, does that mean it's OK for black mobs to attack and kill smokers?   Using his sick, twisted logic it doesn't seem too much of a stretch. 

If Mr. Lamont Hill wants to make speeches advocating this point of view I will take to the Web to defend his right.  If he wants to take out ads in the Times calling on black mobs to attack whites I will stand on the principle that he should be allowed to, however repugnant his views may be.  But what is this 'metro' newspaper doing paying him to advocate black-on-white/Hispanic violence?  It is shocking that he is not only a professor but an Ivy League one.  Less shocking is that he is employed at Columbia which has lately become a safe haven for black racists, anti-semites and Arab terrorist apologists.  Do the white and Hispanic parents of Columbia students know this man is teaching their children?  I can only imagine what the syllabus must look like for his classes.

The outrage here is not that he seems to be this century's Leonard Jeffries.  The outrage is that Leonard Jeffries wasn't paid by a daily newspaper to write about Ice and Sun people or by a major cable news channel to comment on the day's goings-on.  He was paid by a university, just as Mr. Lamont Hill is.  He had tenure however, I do not believe that Mr. Lamont Hill enjoys that honor yet.  Fox, 'metro', and Columbia really need to examine if they want this man on their payroll. 

If this type of incendiary rhetoric by someone seemingly in the mainstream of our society is what is meant by being in the "Age of Obama," then I truly want no part of it and neither should you.
 {I do not have a link to his column, but if you want a PDF of the whole thing, E-mail me and I will send it.}

5/28    First, a very Happy Birthday to this site's namesake.  Next, a number of you have written asking me for thoughts on the altercation in the Hamptons involving Rudy.  I have no comment.  I know what you know.  The alleged assailant seems kind of unbalanced to me, but who knows.  I don't, and never have, wished any harm to come to the Mayor.  It's his current ideas and philosophy I would like to see scrambled, not his face.  As of today the Mayor is officially a senior citizen.  It seems to me that at 65 his options for elective office are dwindling.  The 2010 race for NY Governor or maybe the 2012 presidential race and that's it.  Personally, the more I think about it, the more I think he should take the Jerry Brown route and run for NYS Attorney General.  He loves the law; its practice and nuances.  He's a law and order kind of guy, which is perfect for that job.  Moreover, like Louis Lefkowitz or Bob Morgenthau, he could hold the job in perpetuity; age would never become an issue.  He'd be great at it (too harsh for my tastes, I'm sure).  Being NYS AG involves you in so many different and varied aspects of the law; look at the huge exposure Spitzer and Cuomo get, involving themselves in large national issues. He'd remain relevant in the national debate.   I think at this point in his life nothing would provide him with a greater sense of fulfillment.   But I sense the call to destiny and the seeming letdown in status would prevent this run.  But what do I know.  Anyway, Happy 65, Mr. Mayor.



5/20    As promised, the brief background on how the '93' campaign attempted to remove the New York Times reporter covering RWG. New Post:  All The News.... 

5/18    As promised, the conclusion to GOV'T SHUTDOWN.

 

5/18    Please see '5/18 Updates' for info about this site.


5/15 - Here is my reaction to the smear against me in yesterday's New York Times.  New Post: Smeared by the NYT  

 

5/20    LOOKING BACKWARDS

I really don't get Barack Obama.  He decries - more and more forcefully - the national security policies of the Bush Administration and yet will do nothing to fully enlighten the nation on what went on for the past eight years.  He declared today that he is against a national truth commission inquiry stating, "our existing democratic institutions are strong enough to deliver accountability."  But there's the paradox: he will not permit or endorse those institutions proceeding lawfully with uncovering the truth.  Congress wants to establish a 9/11 style commission to explore and report on torture and surveillance excesses.  Obama is opposed.  In a pending court matter the ACLU is trying to have torture photos released.  Obama was for and now he's opposed, saying today that it would, "inflame anti-American opinion."  The Justice Department will issue a report shortly that does not call for any criminal prosecutions of the Bush Administration officials who concocted and condoned the criminal torture policies. 

So as the Obama Administration is fast becoming George Bush's chief enabler who, what and where are the "existing democratic institutions" that are supposed to provide this accountability?  It's not the Justice Department.  It's not the courts; Obama will block any attempt to access info, that now seems clear.  It's not Congress; he won't support their commission - which does not mean that they can't move forward without him.  Obama keeps saying let's move forward, not look back.  History, Univ. of Chicago Prof. Obama should know, is a study of the past.  We study the past to try and apply those lessons/outcomes to the present and future.  We don't know what went on in the Bush Administration.  Dick Cheney's room-size safes contain all those answers.   We know, most of us, that from what we do know that we don't like what went on.  But I, as a citizen, can't make a rational informed decision about my country's future without knowing what was done in my name and by my government for the past eight years.  No democracy can move forward on those terms.

I just can't fathom whether Obama really believes the things he's doing or he's nervous politically.  If he's changed his mind, then he's as inexperienced and untested as his opponents claimed in 08.  If he's calculating politically, then he's a craven sell-out to the internet base that funded and supported him.  All I know is the nation needs, wants and deserves answers.  At this rate, President Obama is laying a  foundation for the George Bush Library at SMU far better than any mason will ever pour.

5-18    TC - Farewell & Good Luck

Two weeks ago someone sent me an anonymous e-mail informing me that Tony Carbonetti was leaving Giuliani Partners to go work for Ken Langone.  He was telling me this to reinforce his belief that Rudy wasn't running for governor.  This anonymous writer used the non-de-plume of a dead friend and former Liberal Party Executive Director, Carl Grillo.  I have no idea why he did that.  I didn't mention it on here because I don't trade in gossip especially from unknown sources.  But, as it turned out, this person was correct.  In addition to working for Ken Langone Tony is setting up a consulting business with a former Karl Rove henchman to help hedge funds maneuver in the forthcoming regulatory tangle.

First, let me say I wish Tony all the best.   I have no doubt he will succeed in this as he has in everything he has done.  My guess is, however,  that there is something behind this departure.  I have many guesses, but no facts.  I doubt it's a Giuliani rupture between the two and lean more towards the notion that Giuliani Partners is in real trouble financially.

But this exit and the way I found out about it got me thinking.  Many of you don't know that Carl Grillo was the closest thing Tony had to a mentor.  Ironic that Tony has become this confidante and facilitator of the extreme right while Carl was a shlubby, left activist who was despised by the Republican Party on Staten Island, his home and base.  Tony loved Carl like family and I know Carl was very proud of how far Tony went and how gifted he became.

Carl Grillo was the one who taught Tony the mechanics and nuances to campaign field operations and also taught him the ins and outs of professional casino gambling.  After Carl passed away it was Tony who rammed through the naming of a new section of the S.I. Botanical Gardens over the vehement objections of Staten Island Republicans.  Carl had a fantastic garden, that he tended himself, in the backyard of his house.

What this got me thinking was what Carl would think of where Tony's life has taken him and where he's heading.  Tony knew Carl more intimately than I did from their frequent long weekends at the blackjack tables in Atlantic City.  But I knew Carl for decades before Tony did.  Carl was a true believer in liberal policy, not just politics.  In the Liberal Party he was much more the ideologue to Ray Harding's pragmatist.  As Ray would say, " He actually believes in this shit."  Carl loved winning, no doubt about that.  But to him you ran races to accomplish policy aims.  You supported candidates who wanted to do something to improve people's lives.  I don't think Tony ever knew that side of Carl but it was always there since his days as a very young Liberal Party activist.  It's unfortunate that Tony never understood that side of Carl and learned the positive lessons of why we do what we do; those of us who practice the political art. 

What would Carl think?  I feel I know.  He would be very impressed that Tony is a millionaire many times over.  He would be proud that Tony found someone as good as Carol and that, from what I have heard, they have a beautiful family.  He would admire the skills in business that Tony has acquired over the last seven years.  But, he would be deeply disappointed that Tony is putting these skills to the purposes that he is.  He would be saddened to know that Tony intends to spend his years helping hedge fund billionaires evade taxes and avoid regulations.  He would be truly horrified that Tony's befriended those who condone and initiate torture and illegal surveillance.  Carl would have spent his last breath fighting everything the Bush Administration stood for and did.  Tony could never have made him understand how supporting him and his friends was anything close to moral.  

Sadly, somewhere in Heaven, Carl is looking down and shedding a tear at these developments; that money and power have so corrupted someone who has infinite gifts and talents.  As I said, I wish Tony well.   But it pains me that his is a life and promise that is rapidly being squandered.  What I wish for Tony more than anything else is to find the candidate out there who excites him the way Rudy once did and help that person win.  Whether it be Mayor, Senator or some Assemblyman in Wisconsin.   Get back in the arena and make a real difference.  Find the passion and innocence for the game you used to have before money, fame, power and cynicism turned you into a hedge fund shill.

5/15 - I promised earlier today to post a piece on the battle during the 93 Giuliani-Dinkins campaign to have the NYT  replace its reporter covering RWG.  I apologize.  I ran out of time today.  It's a short piece and I will have it up by Wednesday.

 

5/14/09 - Well here it is, The Big Rudy piece.  I welcome your reactions. 
GOV'T SHUTDOWN 

                 

 

4/23/09 - Here is the new post, the continuing series on my case - J'ACCUSE  PART VI

5/5/09 -  MR. SCHLAFLY?

I feel compelled to write about something I saw this past weekend in the wedding section of the paper. Not my usual beat.  It was the the marriage of Howard Koeppel to Mark Hsaio.  I knew Mark and Howard back in the day.  I lived 2 blocks from them.  I took a car of mine to Howard's dealership for repairs and he generously gave me a loaner each time I had to leave it overnight.  I have to say though that I found Howard off-putting because of his habit of hitting on me and making endless double entendre.  He did it to lots of guys and I don't really think he meant anything by it, it was just his manner.  I finally had to tell him once sternly to cut it out.  I was never sure what bothered me so much about it: was it the inappropriateness of it or more likely the fact that by hitting on me, even playfully, people might think I was gay, which was something I was desperate to conceal.  I can't say.

Howard and Mark made a nice couple.  Mark is a sweet guy; goodhearted and seemingly without guile.  It was extremely decent and generous of them to have taken Rudy into their home for what was probably two years.  Rudy didn't have much money back then and to have to shell out a few thousand a month for an apartment would have been a strain if not an impossibility.  There were lots of developers who would gladly have given him a place rent free but as he was mayor that would have been unthinkable.  So Mark & Howard played landlord, friend, shoulder, and safe haven.  Bear in mind that Rudy lived there for part of the time he was dealing with his cancer.

So it is inconceivable to me that he would refuse to attend their wedding this past weekend in Connecticut.  I just can't get my head around such poor manners and ingratitude.  I have been to dozens of Catholic services: weddings, funerals, confirmations, memorials, and I agree with very little of Church doctrine, why would I, I'm Jewish.  But my presence didn't confirm anything other than respect to whatever the proceeding happened to be.  So if the newspapers are correct, Rudy committed three appalling acts: he didn't attend, he had an aide inform Howard that he wasn't attending (rather than making the call himself) and he did it at the last minute.  I want to shake him and say: you were raised better than this.  Rudy, notwithstanding his public persona, used to be the king of the magnanimous gesture.  Early in his mayoralty he never minded the hostile audience or the backlash.  That changed over time, it's natural with power.  But he was at his best when he put himself out there.

What would cause him to behave this shamefully?  One of three things.  He and Howard have had a falling out over the years.  My understanding is that they are not close as they were but there has not been a serious falling out.  Next, Judith - for reasons that can only be Judith's - didn't want Rudy to go.  I give this some credence.  There's a whole psychology at work with Judith when it comes to those years that Rudy was dating her and still married to Donna.  One would think she would be grateful to Howard for putting Rudy up in his home that allowed him to continue this liaison.  But my guess is he's a reminder of the period when she was not "legitimate."  The third reason is possibly political.  This would be the most unforgivable reason if that's what it was.  What exactly is in these advisor's heads over at 5 Times Square?  Do they really think New York is North Carolina?  Do they think they're still running for something that North Carolinians have a say about or ever will?  The idea of embracing, rather than fleeing, from what I have dubbed the Randy Levine strategy of positioning Rudy to the hard-right, is madness in New York State in 2009. 

All this has done is to make Rudy look like Phyllis Schlafly.  Mrs. Schlafly is the type of person who would refuse to attend the wedding ceremony of gay friends (not that she would ever have any) on principle.  It looks mean and calculating.  Is Tony Carbonetti getting this advice from Karl Rove - the man who put anti-gay marriage amendments on state ballots in order to bring out the base - that this is a winning position?  Because he's wrong.  The national approval numbers on gay marriage are going up.  It is now the majority opinion of New Yorkers and only will increase before 2010.  And if Rudy is going to make a moral or religious argument for his position, all i can say is give me a break.  He married his cousin, cheated on his second wife first with an aide and then with his third wife.  I, along with the rest of New York, will not be requiring morality instruction from Rudy Giuliani. 

Hard,tough, unforgiving Rudy - Rudy the Prosecutor - was what we all spent the 1993 campaign trying to erase; to show his humanity to the electorate.  This notion that attending a gay wedding will make him lose Chemung County is crazy.  If I am wrong about everything I've just said and it was a simple matter that Rudy had to be in Zurich giving a long planned speech, better he say so publicly than leave the impression that he really is this aloof, cold, ungrateful person we're all perceiving him to be.  Even at the risk of offending 8 people in Elmira.

 

4/29/09 - Please see the new post on last night's presidential press conference and the dangers of The Big Lie.

  

4/24/09 - RUDY & TORTURE

Every day seems to bring more news that is just not good for Rudy.  Events keep reminding us that he is not part of the future but rather part of our past. I have to admit I am at a total loss as to what everyone is so worked up about regarding torture.  Does the minutiae of all these memos really matter except for figuring out to whom the indictments should be addressed?  I have been railing on this subject for a long time.  It's wrong and should never have been permitted.  John Yoo should be banned from teaching or appearing at any institution of learning in this country right before he's indicted for conspiracy.  That goes for Addintgton, Gonzalez, Bibey, Cheney, Ashcroft and probably a dozen others.  These men were clearly what Hannah Arendt had in mind when she spoke of 'The Banality of Evil.'

Does the fact that someone was waterboarded 83 or 183 times really shock you more than the fact that we're doing it at all?  It shouldn't.  Condi Rice apparently lied to a Senate Committee.  Shocking?  I'm shocked, you're shocked. It would be more entertaining to find the instances where she didn't lie over the last eight years than when she did. 

A senior Justice Department official, Jay Bibey, lies by omission to the Senate Judiciary Committee in order to speed his judicial confirmation.  All regarding torture.  Surprised?  These people may in fact be without morals; many may be truly evil, but they are not stupid - they knew what they were doing was wrong and certainly not within the limits of constitutional government.  Hence the need to conceal and deceive.

Obama could not be more out of touch in his instinct to forgive and forget.  We are punishing John Demanjuk 50+ years after the fact because we do not want anyone to forget or minimize what he and others like him did and stood for.  This generation cannot let the Bush years pass without clear, firm and legal denunciations of what transpired.  This ridiculous notion that Bibey, Yoo et al. just gave legal opinions and there is no basis for holding someone accountable for a legal opinion is fanciful.  The Wansee Conference was a day-long legal opinion.  Who would argue those men weren't responsible?

The sanctioning of torture by Yoo, Bibey, et al., lead to mostly innocent people being viciously abused; first by the CIA then by the Army.  It became easier to do as more people gave ascent and more participated in performing these acts.  From seasoned CIA interogators down to lowly Army grunts.  The conspiracy widened and became presumably less illegal because more men willingly joined.  Soon an industry formed around this: Bagram, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, probably a dozen secret CIA prisons, not to mention rendering suspects to counties where we knew they'd be tortured.  You still think my Third Reich analogy is far off the mark?  What would have happened had none of this been revealed or US Courts intervened?  How far would this have gone?  Certainly the Bush-Cheney doctrine on this subject does not preclude these practices being performed on US citizens with no constitutional protections.  Would there have been foreseeable limits?

The nation's comfort level with this subject is changing fast.  The release of these documents has not only put their defenders on the defensive it has made their position indefensible.  Watch the TV talk shows and see how difficult it's become for pro-torture advocates to defend themselves once their questioner starts reading the memos out-loud.  The country's view on this is becoming more moral and humane. People who took opposing views have a lot to answer for now. This is not about show trials, it's about accountability.

What you may ask does any of this have to do with Rudy Giuliani?  Simple.  Google 'Giuliani & Torture.'  Read Rudy's views on torture and watch the video of his debate responses to waterboarding.  It's kinda scary, mainly in his flippancy towards the subject.  But this was back in 2007 when he thought his campaign was going somewhere and he hadn't stopped that horrible practice of giggling all the time and at the most inappropriate moments.

Remember the Defense Dept memo that approved enhanced interrogation techniques and the Rumsfeld note on the bottom about how limiting standing to 4 hours seemed lax to him since he stands 8 hours a day?  Well watch Rudy's response to the waterboarding question and his answer will creep you out.  Like Rumsfeld, who compared torture to working in an office, Rudy compares torture with campaigning for President - and laughs.  The point I am making is that this whole subject is no longer glib.  Those Bush-worn phrases like "the evildoers" or "the terrorists" - designed to simultaneously obfuscate, confuse and widen the known threat in order to numb our innate response to torture - don't work anymore.  This is another example of what I have been saying for months.  Namely, that Rudy cannot move on until he settles the past 7 years.  When asked about these issues Rudy will, no doubt, instinctively defend Bush and Cheney.  He'll mention his years at Justice and how it would be wrong to hold people there accountable.  All these answers, while perhaps sincere, will play terribly with the changing  public mood on this subject.  They will, however, play with the ever decreasing fringe that Rudy seems determined to market himself to.  If the folks at 5 Times Square continue to allow this Rudy to be Rudy the 2010 campaign will be over a lot sooner than they expect.

 


4/21/09 - Here are some thoughts on Rudy's poll numbers, his possible entry into the Governor's race and where he needs to go from here.   New post:   The High Water Mark



4/20/09 - 

The New York Times on Saturday published an editorial about the need for more 'resources' for the Justice Department in fighting financial white collar crime.  Congress has a bill, The Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009.  It would appropriate $490 million for more prosecutors, agents and analysts to detect, investigate and prosecute financial misdeeds.  The Times says that's not enough and any expenditures will pay for itself in found ill-gotten gains.  Naturally a big government newspaper like the Times believes it's not enough.  The NYT has never been the house organ for fiscal responsibility; either in government or its own company.  It is bewildering to me that in this time of severe fiscal calamity, no one ever, ever asks - Is the Justice Department apportioning its resources wisely?  Are its prosecutors overwhelmed because their workload is too big or rather just too much?

The Justice Department could free up resources - and a lot of them - immediately if it, or Congress, took some simple steps.  First, stop prosecuting essentially state crimes in federal court.  I have said over and over again that the proliferation of federal criminal statutes mirroring state ones has lead to this huge increase in the number of federal prosecutions, incarcerations and federal prisons.  It's not that there is more crime, it's rather that the feds are prosecuting the same crimes that were tried in state court instead in federal court.  Federal prosecutors routinely force and bully state and local prosecutors to turn over cases residing in local prosecutors' offices and instead claim federal jurisdiction.  It is needless and inexplicable.  Not to mention much, much more costly in time and dollars.  Bear in mind that after 9/11 Justice was given a large increase in dollars and manpower because it was assumed that the influx of terrorist cases would overwhelm it.  Ashcroft, Gonzalez, Yoo, Addington, Cheney, Bush, et al, decided instead that a constitutional process was too quaint and time-consuming.  So all those cases never materialized at Justice; they went to Guantanamo.  But the dollars and staff remained.  That's why I served time with pot smokers and small time arsonists.

Secondly, the Justice Department needs to clean up the US Attorneys section and force it to prioritize its workload.  I have said before that unlike states that are constrained by shrinking budgets - in this case often a good thing - the feds never have to consider that and treat every single case as though it were a major terrorist investigation, of which they have virtually none.  Not every investigation and prosecution has to be dragged on for months and years and lead to the maximum number of charges and sentence.  Some things are disposed of better through negotiation and plea with reasonable accommodations.  And how often do you hear of a federal investigation resulting in no charges?  It happens so rarely that it is big news when it does.  The Justice Department is simply incapable of saying we looked and found nothing really criminal.  They will always find something in the end to justify their lengthy and costly investigation, even if - as we have seen in the few terrorist cases Justice has - the charges have nothing to do with the original investigation; just something to rationalize to the bosses at Justice and Congress why years and millions have been spent.

It's wrong and dangerous to continue prosecuting people this way.  Rather than giving Justice more money, their budget should be severely cut.  Make them go through the same management exercise every other law enforcement agency in the states has to endure.  They can't have every item be the highest priority.  That is a contradiction in terms.  When times change priorities do as well and you make adjustments.  But Justice and Sens. Leahy and Grassley say no, Justice need not refrain from prosecuting pimps in Louisiana or pot smokers in California.  It's all equally important.  We need to give them nearly half a billion dollars more so that they can keep on prosecuting state crimes.  You would think the wastefulness of all this, the disruptive cruelty to defendants lives and the budget deficit would finally cause these people to stop and reexamine the way they do business.  But no.  I think Rick Perry is a kook too, but maybe I will have to start reassessing that.  This system just doesn't work anymore.

4/15/09    The prescience of these posts lately reminds me of that Albert Brooks line from 'Broadcast News' - "I say it here and it comes out there."  First, a number of weeks ago I predicted that Mayor-for-Life Mike would buy the endorsements of the Independence and Republican parties.  Further, I said he would not obtain the Working Families Party's endorsement.  Three for three.  Now you don't have to have spent a lifetime toiling in the vineyards of NYC politics to have seen that coming.  But still, the Republican county chairs just 4 weeks ago were near unanimous that he was not going to be on the party's ballot line this November.  So I deserve a tiny bit of credit for my gazing. 

The size of the checks he will be handing out to these guys for their endorsements must be staggering to the average mortal.  As I have said before, when candidate Bloomberg went to see Ray Harding in the Winter of 2001, seeking the Liberal Party endorsement, he promised him the moon: he would bankroll the Liberal Party, transfer business to Ray's law firm and keep and increase Liberal hires in City Government.  One truism in politics is that people will go to much greater lengths to retain power than they ever would have to obtain it in the first place.  Given that, I say again, Mike-for-Life Mike must have been like Ed McMahon swooping down from Publishers Clearing House with a giant check.  No more stale pizza and bridge tables for the Queens or Kings County GOP HQs.  It is all the deluxe treatment from here on out. 

There is probably not a single thing in the platform of the Working Families Party I agree with, but I will give them credit.  Bill Thompson will lose just as surely as George Bush cannot pronounce the word 'Nuclear'.  Yet they will endorse him because he matches up ideology-wise with them.  They could, I believe, figure out some way to hedge and endorse Mayor-for-Life Mike and collect the windfall due all his faithful.  But they've chosen not to and I gotta respect that a little.

The second item I mentioned a few weeks ago that seems to have gotten some action was the issue of 'Sexting".  I mentioned that unless people developed some common sense and realized there was in fact nothing that could be done about this, we would continue to prosecute and register as sex offenders 13 year old girls and boys.  Well the progressive state legislators in Burlington have taken action.  They are debating a bill that would legalize 'Sexting'.  Vermont would legalize Sexting between consenting youngsters between the ages of 13-18.  Someone referred to it as a "perverted form of courtship."  Maybe, but it's not going anywhere.  I still don't think the acknowledgment of realities goes far enough, however.  Say a 17yo HS senior Sexted her 19yo freshman college boyfriend - serious, serious crime under that law.  It's OK, under this legislation, for two 13yos to pass nude pictures of themselves back and forth over a phone, but not between a 17yo and a 19yo?  We're still not at the full extent of real world practicality yet.  But I give Vermont huge credit for doing this.  I have no doubt the crazies from law enforcement and child welfare groups will pillory the members of the legislature who vote for this.  But it's a great first step. 

 

4/7/09    New Post - A few thoughts about Rudy, Giuliani Partners & the 2010 race.  See: What To Do About Rudy?
 

 

4/3/09    NEW POST - Please see:  SENATE DAYS - Part II

3/23/09  NEW POST - Please see:  J'ACCUSE - Part V.

 

4/2/09       LESSONS FROM ALASKA

            I am concerned that the public is taking away the wrong lessons from the outrageous behavior by the Justice Department in the Ted Stevens case.  Not the request for dismissal by AG Holder, I commend that.  You can be damn sure that Ashcroft, Gonzalez and Mukasey would never have publicly admitted these failures and conceded defeat.  They would have continued covering this up.  No, that isn't the lesson I am speaking of.  First, the papers and airways are inundated with former federal prosecutors - and doesn't it seem that 1/2 of America is a former federal prosecutor - claiming that while this is shameful it is also rare.  Bullshit.  Common sense and the facts tells us that the only reason we know about any of this is because Ted Stevens had a top notch legal team headed by "I'm not a potted plant" Brendan Sullivan and was very lucky to have had a fair judge; something that is rare in the federal courts.  This sort of abuse is rife in the federal system.  Anyone who has been prosecuted by the feds knows how proud the Justice Department is of its 97% conviction rate.  The reason for that astronomically high rate is that US Attorneys all over the country bring to bear enormous resources that virtually no defendant, including Innocent ones, can withstand.  Most defendants plead guilty because they cannot match resources and federal guidelines mandate ridiculous amounts of prison time.  So an offer of a plea deal to a lesser sentence, than might otherwise be achieved at trial, gains them a victory.  I met many people in prison who pled guilty only because the time they were facing at trial would be 30 years, if found guilty, and the plea offer was for 5.  I read many of their cases and became convinced of their innocence.  But they knew they couldn't fight the feds.

In my own case, what should have taken a junior lawyer and a competent secretary 8 weeks to investigate ended up taking three years, millions of dollars and thousands of hours of inter-agency manpower.  The reason?  Unlike states and cities that have actual budgets that require balance and restraint, the federal government has unlimited spending.  There is in fact a great value to tight budgets.  In the case of District Attorneys there has to be some process for prioritizing their cases.  They cannot afford a full hammer and tongs trial and investigation into every matter that comes before them.  It forces them to examine their cases much closer to weed out those deserving of the full treatment.  No such governor exists in the federal system.  With totally unlimited resources, every case is treated the same.  Some argue that's a good thing.  And in the old days when there were actually very few federal criminal laws - remember the original meaning of the phrase "let's not make a federal case out of this" - it may have been worthy to prosecute most cases fully.  But now Congress has passed statutes that mirror nearly every state crime.  There is virtually nothing that cannot be prosecuted in federal court, which 30 years ago was not the case.  The full and massive weight of the US Justice Department is brought down on smaller and more trivial matters daily.  But the resources never diminish.  US Attorneys are willing to bring the same blowtorch response to a petty arson case as to a complex securities fraud.  They make no distinction because they don't have to.

The second missed lesson in all this is the terrible and growing overuse of the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department.  I ask you to Google 'public officials and corruption.'  Nearly every case of malfeasance by a public official these days is being brought by the US Justice Department.  I have very, very serious misgivings about this and so should you.  Forgetting the whole 10th Amendment issue, what is the national interest - and that's what a prosecution by the federal government represents - in some small town mayor taking kickbacks?  When you are indicted by the feds the indictment reads, "The United States of America vs. ______."  Inherent in that is a notion that this crime, this indictment, has meaning and resonance for people everywhere in this country.  When everyone's golden boy, Patrick Fitzgerald, went after Rod Blagoievic I asked myself: why do I as a citizen of New York have any interest in the back room deals of the Governor of Illinois?  The answer is I don't.  There was and is no evidence that Illinois is some backwater, corrupt state unwilling to investigate or prosecute their officials; which might give some reason to federal involvement.  If Fitzgerald found something, the proper thing to do was to turn it over to that states attorney general or even to the legislature for possible removal from office.  The arrogance in refusing to turn over documents to the legislature during impeachment because it might hinder his investigation was breathtaking.  In a democratic society the remaining tenure in office of the highest elected official of the state and that debate by its elected representatives clearly takes precedence over any criminal prosecution.  The minute Fitzgerald raised the slightest issue of turning over those documents the legislature should have been in court suing him.  Not a snowball's chance in hell would they have lost.  But they, like all states these days, cowered in the face of federal involvement.  

Having worked for the 107th Mayor of New York, I think back to the 96th, Jimmy Walker.  He was surely a corrupt official of one of the nation's largest cities.  There was very little secret about that.  But his downfall and removal played out as it should have, by act of the responsible state officials.  When FDR had enough he appointed the Seabury Commission to investigate Tammany corruption at City Hall and that was the beginning of the end for Mayor Walker who eventually sailed away to Europe.  His actions were dealt with correctly as an internal NYS matter to be handled by the appropriate and constitutionally designated agents.  

In White Plains Federal Court the other day a woman was found guilty of using her office as a town commissioner to steer some housing work to her boyfriend.  It was local corruption - favors for friends - in its most basic form.  Did this rise to the level of a federal prosecution???  Do people in Alaska have a vested interest in the clean running of this Westchester town's government?  Yes, there were federal funds involved because it involved housing , but the state could have prosecuted this matter on a whole host of grounds without that nexus.   And besides, in a 3 1/2 trillion dollar budget what don't federal funds touch?   If federal funds are the excuse for prosecution then nothing can be exempt when it is now 25% of our economy. There is also no question that the prosecution cost double and triple the amount alleged to have been misspent.  A state prosecutor would have achieved the same result at a much more reasonable cost.  And now this woman will travel all over the United States, at an added cost, in serving her sentence for malfeasance in some small suburban town in NY.

Be assured if the Justice Department can so flagrantly abuse the rights of Ted Stevens, a sitting United States Senator, one can only imagine how brazenly they trample the rights of poor defendants out of the spotlight on a daily basis.  It should worry and concern all of us.

 

4/1        SEXTING

 

Here is the dictionary definition of the word 'exploit': "to use selfishly for one's own ends...to advance or further through exploitation, promote".  I am sure you've read about this girl in NJ who was arrested and is to be charged with promoting, creating and distributing child pornography for sending her boyfriend nude pictures of herself via her cellphone; referred to in the vernacular as 'sexting'.  She was turned into the police by the Center for Missing and Exploited Children.  Since I first read about this I have been confused about one thing.  Who is exploiting this girl?  So far the only party I can see exploiting her for their own ends is the Center for Missing and Exploited Children.  They've ruined her life all in the name of making a point.   Like all these groups, MADD, the anti-smoking zealots, and many of these foundations that seek to help children, they all end up becoming extremists, incapable of reason or sane argument.  21 year old drinking age?  It is only leading to more underage drinking, college binging, and drinking and driving by youth.  Every indicator over the last 25 years demonstrates it.  Tougher smoking laws?  Crime in the area of illegal cigarette trafficking is skyrocketing.  We can't find funding for poor children's health care in this country without tobacco revenue apparently, but at the same time repressive smoking laws with no scientific basis are promulgated and passed routinely.  And now we have a new phenomenon.  I first read about this in Dahlia Lithwick's column in Newsweek a few months ago.  Teenagers using phones and PDAs to take and send sexual pictures of themselves to friends.

Law enforcement, as usual, is perplexed how to handle this since it doesn't comport to the norms they've been taught.  It's not the Russian mob or seedy men in trenchcoats forcing youngsters to pose.  It's free-spirited - likely not very intelligent - teenagers having fun with technology.  The basis of all these laws on child pornography is predicated on one fundamental rationale: kids who pose for nude pictures are forced to do so and further, could not consent anyway. But what happens when the kids take the pictures and send them to other kids all in the name of good fun? 

The logic of these arguments has been reduced to this:  it's OK for 14yos to have sex, in fact the school will provide them with the condoms and teach them how to use them.  We will absolutely not prosecute them for that.  But for a 14yo boy or girl to send a picture of the act to his/her partner is a major state and federal crime.  I fully get to many if not most people in this country that makes perfect sense.  Many people will argue it is OK for a 14yo girl to have an abortion.  Some will argue she should be able to terminate the fetus without the knowledge or consent of her parents.  But apparently those very same people say she does not have the right to knowingly and willfully take a picture of herself and share it.  The ownership of her body only extends so far as to major and traumatic medical procedures but not a Kodak moment.

The argument I made recently about Harvey Milk and Proposition 6 is exactly on point in this case.  Of course most people in their hearts believe it's completely insane to arrest, prosecute, imprison and register this 14yo girl as a sex offender.  But where is the chorus of voices saying so?  Where are the newspapers editorializing for saner laws?  It is exactly what I said last week.  They are silent because the zealots will label them pedophiles, perverts or child haters if they speak rationally and sensibly. 

Why have we become so obsessed with law enforcement as the answer to every problem.  Don't parents have a right to weigh-in?  If the police inform this 14yos' parents what she's doing, shouldn't they ultimately be responsible for her discipline in a matter such as this?  And if they decide that it's harmless - they don't care - who is to tell these parents that they're wrong?    We have become so used to interceding in what are basically private matters that we cannot stop ourselves. 

It is so sad in this country when we reach the point - and we reached it a long time ago - that you cannot stare idiocy in the face and label it such.  Law enforcement is now wracking its brains as to how not to treat this girl as a child pornographer without creating a loophole.  Without saying: OK, sometimes nude pictures of kids aren't criminal.  Does anyone believe that with tens of millions of horny teenagers armed with camera phones and PDAs, that there is some way to stop this?  Do you really think the average teen who would send nude pictures of themselves in the first place, is going to be deterred by an abstract notion of prison or registration?  For God's sakes, that is the premise of the death penalty and we know empirically that was never a deterrent.  If an adult doesn't pause in his actions to avoid death, do we really believe immature and horny teens are going to reflect on the long term consequences?

So here we are.  I don't know what will happen to this girl.  My guess is that she'll get a slap on the wrist and be forced into some sort of "treatment".  The long term band-aid approach will go in one of two directions.  Either these crazy advocacy groups will call on the major phone carriers to start screening photos sent over phones, thereby breaching another wall of privacy, in the name of protecting children.  Or the police will adopt the Army's 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy.  Cops desperately don't want to know about this sexting business because it can only produce bad headlines for local police like the ones in NJ.  They would much prefer not to know that kids are doing this, since there is no way to prevent it or to prosecute without looking foolish.

I hope someone forms a new organization to help teens from being exploited by huge national organizations intent on preventing their exploitation.  I'll be interested to see which way this goes.  The answer of course depends on whether sane people of conscience speak truth to zealotry.

REASON # 1,012 WHY WE NEED A NEW MAYOR

3-30-09    When I am wrong, I am the first one to admit it.  Based on David Seifman's piece in this weekend's NY Post I was clearly wrong when I said  Mayor-for-Life Mike sat silent on the issue of the MTA budget mess because he had no interest in asserting himself.  According to Seifman, it was not because he did not care - although I maintain that he doesn't - it was rather because he is so hated in the state capital that he cannot lobby or travel there on behalf of NYC issues. 

Yup.  It's astounding.  Can you in living memory recall a Mayor of New York City so despised by the legislature that the mere mention of his name would instantly doom legislation?  Don't say Giuliani, because I know that was never true of him.  He had his disagreements with Silver, Weprin, Marino & Bruno but never to the point that it effected the City's ability to lobby and influence NYC legislation.  We certainly lost some battles but Rudy never sat out the fight.

If Seifman's sources are to be belived Mayor-for-Life Mike didn't intervene publicly or privately, travel to Albany, or speak out sooner because his voice would have only made things worse for New York City.  Now ask yourselves this question: are we really going to re-elect a mayor who cannot call legislators or travel to Albany to push for the interests of New Yorkers because he is universally loathed?  It appears we are and I say for the 50th time; I cannot understand it.

3/27/09    UPDATE

A little Friday update.  Some of you complained that I removed old posts and thoughts from the HOME Page.  I was trying to clean things up a bit and make it more navigable.  But I am if anything responsive, so I created a new post called, "Old Musings" and bundled them there.  I have been flooded with e-mails about J'ACCUSE - Part V.  Thank you all for your thoughts.  In the days ahead, be on the lookout for J'ACCUSE - Part VI, Senate Days II, a piece on Cristyne Lategano and as always the countdown continues.  For those of you new to the site, the number in the upper right hand corner reflects the days until I post the big Rudy story.  Expectations seem high for it.  I think you'll enjoy reading it, it's the longest piece to be published.  Have a nice weekend.  RAH 

3/25/09   FILLING THE VOID

Read today's newspapers and you will witness the ultimate in leadership abrogation:  Mayor-for-Life Mike calling on the citizens to call someone and say something.  Where to start?  Leaders can and have asked voters to call on legislatures for action.  But they do it only as a single tool in an arsenal.  Ronald Reagan did it effectively many times to pass his budgets and tax cuts.  But he NEVER took to the airwaves in support of nothing and asked his fellow Americans to merely vent at someone.  Imagine the fool he would have looked had he done that.

This was a very calculated move on Mayor-for-Life Mike's part.  He waited until the last minute, offered no leadership of his own and then like an irate idiot taxpayer yelling "I pay your salary" at an elected official, he behaves like some common helpless Joe importuning his fellow Joes to yell at someone. 

Back in the real fiscal crisis of the 70's we had a mayor who was in over his head.  I have great respect for Abe Beame - I got to know him slightly during the Giuliani years - but he was not up to the tremendous task that faced the Mayor of New York in 74, 75, and 76.  So Providence lent a hand.  Hugh L. Carey was elected governor in 1974 and filled the leadership void left by the Beame Administration.  I won't bore those of you too young to remember of the greatness of the early Carey years.   But Hugh Carey didn't care about credit or avoiding the blame that attaches to bold action.  The city was in deep trouble and was compounding the serious trouble the state was already in.   So he took Beame by the hand; forged unprecedented coalitions, devised unique funding solutions and also inflicted necessary fiscal pain.

Now we have as inept a governor as we may well witness in this or any lifetime; an accident of history.  OK, it happens.  What would Rudy Giuliani do?  What would Ed Koch do?  What would Fiorello LaGuardia do?  What would they do?  They'd fill the void, that's what they'd do.  They would take charge of the MTA using their three votes and shape a plan.  They would coalesce the surrounding counties that will be equally devastated by these commuter increases.  They would lead, not complain.  But Mayor-for-Life Mike does nothing.  His hatred of the automobile and drivers, or at least those of us with less than twenty automobiles, blinds him to seeking any other solution than bridge taxes - another term for his beloved Congestion Tax.  So while Gov. Paterson tells the MTA to do its worst our Mayor first stays silent and then at the 11th hour tells us, like Howard Beale, that he is mad as hell and encourages us to open our windows and shout the same.

I have told you since I started this blog that Mayor-for-Life-Mike has no leadership abilities.  So I expect nothing more than he is giving me.  What I never expected and sit stymied by is how stupid and compliant the voters are.  This man has a 65% approval rating?????  How is that possible?  Of what are people approving?  His inability to prioritize his budget cuts, his lack of leadership on a whole host of development projects throughout the city, his aloof and condescending manner?  Or maybe it's just his general cowardice and blame shifting.  He says today that, "He tells it like it is".  What he has always failed to understand is that we don't elect echos, we elect leaders.  Paterson is a totally lost cause.  The New York press corps is in love with Mayor-for-Life Mike and gives him a pass on almost everything.  But I would strongly recommend that Col Allan go to press tomorrow with a banner headline reminiscent of another failed mayor and proclaim, "MIKE: DO SOMETHING".

3/24/09  Escaping The Deficit

The New York Times today has a good story about closing prisons and other reforms in order to balance desperate state budgets.  Jennifer Steinhauer looks at very red states like Kentucky and Kansas and their search for innovative ways to deal with their criminal justice programs cost effectively.  I applaud them, although it is too bad they are doing the right thing for the wrong reason.  The 80's and 90's saw states and the federal government go on a spending spree building prisons, creating tough mandatory minimum sentencing laws, reducing time for good behavior and increasing time spent on parole.  All this resulted in a burgeoning of the prison-industrial complex.  As it was with military bases, it has become nearly impossible to stand the political heat necessary to close a prison.  But states are doing what states always do because they have to balance their budgets; namely they make choices, they prioritize and they innovate.  The pernicious evil of the central government in Washington is that it is never forced to do any of these things.  Not having to balance a budget means our elected officials can duck and pass on ever making a truly hard budget decision.  The U.S. government, so says the CBO, is going to run trillion dollar deficits for years.  Not the budget, just the deficit.  As they do not have to balance their budget no tough choices are called for.  Take prisons.  Every state gives more "good time" than the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, 15%.  The average time a felon is on probation after leaving a U.S. prison is 3 years.   The vast majority of first-time offenders do not require three years of supervised release post prison.  It is wasteful and unnecessary.  But the trend has been for longer and longer probation in the federal system at a staggering financial cost.  The U.S. Justice Department has no plans to close any prisons, increase good time, shorten probation or propose to Congress that the spiderweb of overlapping federal laws be streamlined so as not to mimic every single state law in existence. 

Why?  No incentive.  If New York City or New York State or Michigan or the nightmare that is California's state budget is wildly out of whack, something has to give.  It's just that simple.  In the federal system - remember I worked in Congress for 2 years - nothing has to give because there is no imperative.  Print more money, pass a CR (continuing resolution) sell China another trillion in debt, anything but deal with the underlying issue that we either cannot afford what we want or we are going to have to pay more for it.  It's that simple.  Tax more or spend less. My conservative inclination is to always fall on the spend less side of that argument. 

In every state in America when the bad times come the executive says to his cabinet: I want your list of programs to be axed or give me a proposal for 7% reductions in your department.  Why has it become so completely unthinkable for the federal government to do the same?  The short answer, and I am not saying anything new, is that we want it both ways.  If they actually started cutting many would howl.  We have come to the mistaken conviction that most of what the federal government does is essential.  In fact, very little of what it does is essential.  Think about your daily life and figure how much the federal government has to do with it.  Not your mail, they're off-budget and self sustaining.  The intangibles you cant see are worthwhile to a small degree, namely the common defense and some public good.  I agree the meat should be inspected and someone should sit over a screen to make sure planes don't crash into each other.  But even there cuts could be sustained.  When a budget becomes so enormous, 3 1/2 trillion dollars, that you cannot effectively manage it - and no one is managing this budget - then it is time to cut and cut and cut until you can rationally explain to the citizenry what your priorities are and why.  It would take Obama 10 years just to explain what's in that budget and why.  Rest assured he doesn't know 1/100th what is being spent in his name.  Can the exercise hurt?  Ask the cabinet secretaries for that 7% reduction and send it to congress.  Let's have the debate.   People like to belittle and ridicule Newt Gingrich but he was one of the very few people who had the courage to say: let's discuss what it is we're spending on and see if it still makes sense.  Federal Depts of Education and Commerce?  He rightly called for their elimination and was mocked.  

My focus these days is prison reform so let me do my part and call on Eric Holder to ask the BOP for those reductions and the lawyers in the criminal division for those legislative changes.  Most people don't belong in federal prison.  They either belong in a state prison or no prison at all.  Unfortunately, we've reached the point where even a trillion dollars in the red can't force a corrupted, bloated and atrophied system to create priorities.