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FOR FIRST TIME VISITORS, PLEASE START BY READING THE WHY & WHY NOW Post

     Please see the latest installment of J'ACCUSE - Part VIII, the story of my case.

WHY WE'RE BROKE

3/11    Let me tell you a little story.  When I became President of HDC the corporation's computer system - the various applications which managed our mortgages, contracts, and investments - was on an old WANG platform.  So antiquated was this system that WANG no longer offered any support and spare parts, no longer available, had to be bastardized from complete systems we purchased for the sole purpose of breaking them down for their component parts.  I was determined to bring HDC into the 21st century.

After extensive analysis we reached out to the Oracle Corporation which was very interested in building a fully integrated system for us from scratch.  After months of lengthy negotiations, conducted by our CIO and General Counsel, the final unresolved sticking point required me to deal directly with the Oracle SR VP in charge of the contract.

The last point was my insistence that any cost overruns - not related to add-ons initiated by us - would be borne by Oracle.  I had never negotiated a contract this complex or for this many millions before.  But my simple guiding principle was that we would not pay for any Oracle delay or miscalculation.  The contract's parameters were clear.  The work required was based on Oracle's expertise in estimating manpower and resources required.  Should they estimate wrong, HDC would not be on the hook for that.

After a long session in my office, the Oracle exec said he would have to go back to California and discuss this with their General Counsel.  He explained that Oracle had never signed a contract before that made them liable for cost overruns.  It was always paid for by the customer.  I acknowledged the precedent but assured him we would not proceed unless that was included.  He called a few days later and said that Oracle's GC had agreed and this was indeed precedent setting for them.

That project took a year longer than either Oracle or us had anticipated.  This required their programmers and managers to work longer and for many more to be added to the project.  The result was that when the project concluded the cost had been off by $1,000,000.  Thanks to my insistence of the insertion of that clause, HDC saved one million dollars and we had a state-of-the-art system that lowered costs and increased productivity.

Kudos to me, right?  Yea, but that's not why I am telling you this story.  Last month Robert Gates, testifying before Congress, revealed that DOD had finally canceled their grand plan for a unified department-wide personnel management system.   All the services plus civilians and Reserve and Guard soldiers operate under separate, stand-alone systems for payroll and Human Resources.  It has been the goal of DOD for many years to bring all DOD entities into one unified system.

Gates quipped in acknowledging this failure by saying, "I would say that what we’ve gotten for a half billion dollars is an unpronounceable acronym."  He was referring to the projects name, DIMHRS (Defense Integrated Military Human Resources System).  Secretary Gates misspoke when he made that flippant remark.  DIMHRS has actually cost taxpayers one billion dollars; he was off by half.

And what did DOD get after 12 years and one billion dollars?  Absolutely nothing.  There is not a single line of code that came out of this project that can be transferred to the existing service' systems or to a new program.  How is it possible, even conceivable, that year after year after year DOD, OMB, Congressional appropriations committees allocated millions upon millions for a program that showed no results or hope of succeeding?   And why is the Federal Government the biggest patsy in America when it comes to results-based contracting?

I mention the story at the beginning to demonstrate that even I, a widely condemned political hack, had the foresight and brains to anticipate the obvious. Namely, that without proper initial planning, intense on-going oversight and effective stakeholder coordination on the part of the customer (DOD), the project was doomed to failure.   But hey, I am not singling out DOD. Every Federal department and agency is this incompetent and wasteful, every single one.  Why?  Think about it.  One billion dollars out of the trillions allocated and spent by DOD during this project's twelve year life is a minuscule percentage of its budget.  The reason I rail against Federal spending all the time is for exactly this reason.  There was a time that a billion dollars would have caught someone's attention, no longer apparently.  And while I don't know this as fact, I will guarantee you that the person in charge of this integration at the Pentagon has not been fired, but is still working there.  Can you imagine this type of gross incompetence and mismanagement taking place at the non-boardroom level of corporate America and someone not being fired and blacklisted?  It's the equivalent of making 'Ishtar' or 'Heaven's Gate' in Hollywood.

But here's the really interesting point.  Have you noticed that you never hear of this sort of data migration/integration snafu happening in the private sector?  Does this sort of thing happen when Walmart tries to consolidate its various warehouse tracking functions or Ford tries to manage its worldwide parts system.  I never hear of it.  But the best, most relevant and current example is banks.  Over the last few years - as we know all too well - banks have failed and been subsumed by larger banks.  Each of these banks operates on a unique computer system, incompatible with their merged partner.  Is it even fathomable that a major bank would tell its new customers, "Sorry it's going to take a dozen years for you to use our ATMs."   In 2008 Wells Fargo bought Wachovia.  14 months later they were fully integrated.  JP Morgan Chase bought Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns.  18 months later all are integrated.  Old WaMu customers have full use of Chase products, accounts and equipment.  In most instances the functionality was there a lot sooner.  The Federal government acts and wants us to accept that these things are impossible to achieve.  They're not.  They may be impossible for the corrupt, bloated, wasteful U.S. Government to accomplish, but they are easily attainable goals in the real world.

And best of all there is no penalty for failure.  DOD wastes one billion dollars and no Congressman is calling for heads.  Bob Gates was at DOD for at least 1/3 of that project.  Accountability?  He sloughs it off with a joke.  I'd have more respect for the Government if that billion dollar contract was lost to fraud or corruption at DOD.  At least then someone would have gotten a yacht or jewelry or a small city for that money.  As it stands no one has anything to show for this boondoggle.

What's a really good reason as to why we are 14 trillion dollars in debt?  Why do we have an annual budget deficit of 1.5 trillion dollars?  The example I've given you - and hundreds like it - doesn't explain it all.  But this type of arrogance and waste, coupled with earmarks and pork sure goes a good long way towards explaining it.

Good Old Jerry

3/9    My laziness prevented me from getting credit for a prediction I meant to make about 4 weeks ago.  I was going to post that the Letterman blackmailer - represented by my former attorney Gerald Shargel - would soon cop a plea.

How did I know this?  Because it's standard Shargel.  He makes a huge splash - for himself - with accompanying profiles, declaring his firm stand that this will go all the way and then his client cops a plea and winds up in prison.  Who benefited?  Jerry of course.  His client was a blackmailer.   This could have and should have been handled quietly and quickly early on.  Doing so however would have deprived Jerry of the profiles and all the TV interviews that accompanied such a high profile case.  And his client?  He now owes Shargel a fortune because this went on for months and months longer than it ever should have with Mr. Halderman paying the tab. 

For me, Jerry was all fight and bravado at the beginning.  As time wore on and the money was depleted he said what he said publicly today in the Letterman case, "I was very excited about the defense," as he threw in the towel happily.  It's now over for him. 

I have no doubt Jerry spoke comforting words to Halderman at the end.  Just as he told Mr. Halderman that his novel legal approach of blackmail not really being blackmail stood a good chance at the beginning.  So now Mr. Halderman is shuffled off to prison and Jerry cashes his checks.  Could Mr. Halderman have gotten this same six month deal back in September?  I have no doubt.  But then we would have missed the endless Shargel profiles that fuel more clients who will be encouraged to fight.  That is before they plead.

Is Jerry a good attorney?  He can be.  But only for the very, very deep pocketed.  He's your greatest ally if you can go the distance financially.  Otherwise you're just along for the Shargel P.R. ride until you're bled dry, he loses interest and the plea is your only option. 

More and More of the Same

3/5    By now you've heard that a 17yo girl was murdered in San Diego by a man who was a registered sex offender.  All over cable TV and talk radio there are calls for tougher regulations on released sex offenders.  I am uniquely qualified to explain to you why these calls, if heeded, will have the exact opposite effect their sponsors are hoping for and more than that, how these same advocates contributed to this girl's death.

First, let's be clear on some facts in this case.  He brutally raped and beat up a 13yo girl in 2000.  The judge in that case, ignoring the psychiatrists report which said clearly that he was a serious predator, sentenced him to the lowest end of the range - namely, five years.  Outrage number one is directed at this judge who would sentence someone who raped a 13yo to five years.  But I have heard not a word of condemnation towards this judge.  Next, he is released from prison and registered a Level 3 sex offender, the most predatory and dangerous.  He reports his residence to the local authorities and subsequently lives elsewhere without notifying law enforcement.  Commentators and - if John Walsh is to be believed - President Obama want to see tougher laws as a result of this girl's death.

Now let's be clear.  Assuming he did this crime - and possibly others - he is a horrible, terrible person who should have the maximum punishment leveled at him.  No argument from me on that.  And if he did this crime than he is solely responsible for it at the end of the day.  But that's not enough in light of all this anger and outrage and calls for further abridgment of civil liberties.  It's equally important to see what allowed him to be able to do this.  And that is where from my experience I draw different conclusions than most and lay the blame squarely on the advocates for more and tougher regulations.  They permitted this to happen as surely as if they drove this guy to the park that night of the murder.  Tough accusation?  I'll show you why it's not made frivolously and why I am uniquely qualified to make it.

As a Level 3 sex offender law enforcement has an obligation under the law to keep a close eye on this guy and to make sure the community is safe; so goes the thinking behind these levels.  But as crazed advocates and the media demand that more and more crimes be labeled "sex offenses" and as more and more judges behave with complete reckless abandon - handing out Level 3 designations on minor offenses to be appear tough and out of cowardice should some Level 1 re-offend - more and more of law enforcement ignore the level distinction. 

It's no secret to the cops who handle these matters that the system is nuts.  They know that many Level 2s and Level 3s committed relatively minor offenses.  And as more crimes are included in this designation it waters down the effect on the most serious.  Originally, when the idea of registering human beings was proposed, it was supposed to be for the worst of the worst.  As time went on, legislatures threw more and more crimes into the pot.  The craziness and the fear go hand in hand.  The advocates get the legislatures to add more and more categories and then naturally the number of sex offenders goes up, and then the media goes insane because we have nearly 1 million registered sex offenders in this country.  Well, you can add enough crimes and offenses to the mix that we can have a nation with nearly 100% sex offenders.  As I have said before, in some states you can be a registered sex offender for public urination.  On TV yesterday morning John Walsh seemed to suggest that was just fine.  

As more and more people are designated sex offenders for non-contact crimes - and further, they are designated 2s and 3s - naturally law enforcement can't monitor 1 million people.   Especially when the judges have made such a mess of this as to make the levels meaningless to cops.

I first learned of this case earlier this week on Good Morning America.  Robin Roberts was interviewing the Exec Dir of the Center for Missing and Exploited Children.  "What are we going to do about this?  Self reporting is crazy," she said.  We?  Isn't she pretending to me a morning journalist?  We?  It got worse.  She carried on so, it actually made George Stephanopolous nervous.  It's one thing when Bill O'Reilly goes on his screed about, "we gotta do something about the kids," but when ABC News pretend journalists do it, that's just tough to watch.  But she wasn't done.  She had on John Walsh the next morning.  Instead of being treated like a guy who has cashed in on his dead kid for the better part of two decades she treated him like Jonas Salk.  It was sickening to watch how she slobbered all over him.  She then repeated, "what are we going to do?" 

The fascinating thing to me in each interview was how each guest attempted to make the point that the judges aren't behaving responsibly in assigning these levels and that this was a cause of what happened in San Diego.  But Robin Roberts over talked them each time in pouring out her concern for "the children."  Instead of actually having a useful discussion, which was where they were leading her, she opted for maudlin sensationalism.  

Instead of focusing on the worst of the worst, what we will get out of this is more useless federal involvement, more federal money to pay for cops to monitor more and more wrongly assigned people, and more and more categories of crimes included to make this all self-perpetuating in its total ineffectiveness.

The news media and popular entertainment in general is blameworthy as well.  Just this past week I counted seven TV dramas that had sex offenders as main or secondary plot points to the episode.  The NY Times attempts to write a thoughtful article on prison overcrowding and budget cuts.  It degenerates into a panic piece about a sex offender who was released - and hasn't done anything!!!  If I were the average Jane or Joe sitting at home, I am sure I too would be completely freaked out that the nation is being overwhelmed by zombie sex offenders from the coverage this topic gets. 

Judge Jeffrey Cohen assigned me as a Level 3 sex offender.  My crime was possessing 11 images.  Nothing more than that was ever proven or for that matter even alleged.  And yet I am as great a risk to society as the guy in San Diego who raped and beat up a 13 year old girl.  I pose the same risk and law enforcement should devote the same resources to each of us.  That's why that girl is dead.

It is not I - and others advocating genuine reform - who placed that girl in danger.  It's the Bill O'Reillys, the Nancy Graces, the Sean Hannitys, the so-called children's advocates, the NY Times and the rest of the braying mob that made it impossible for anyone to check on what he was doing out there in California.  More laws, more regulations, more ankle bracelets, more communities under bridges will all guarantee that the worst of the worst remain hidden.  All so that these advocates can feel good about themselves.

Analysts, Consultants & Strategists

3/5    I've got this real serious pet peeve.  It was rekindled last night while watching the local news.

You know how you watch the news, often cable news, and the anchor will introduce someone as a Democratic political strategist or a Republican consultant or a Dem. or Rep. analyst.  Well prior to 1998 I assumed, as I guess you do, that these people were legit.  I believed that if a major news network like CNN, MSNBC or FOX had someone on claiming to be one of those things, that they in fact actually were.

When you hear someone is a political strategist or consultant with a major party label before his/her name, you'd think that by the very definition this person had/has clients.  Some candidate or party, past or present, has paid this person for their keen insight or strategic acumen.  In many cases you'd be wrong.

I'm a fairly savvy guy as it relates to NYS and national politics.  So before 1998 when I saw one of these people on-air that I had never heard of, I chalked it up to the fact that they must be a consultant in the West or Mid-West handling elected officials in those states.  Then one afternoon I'm watching CNN and the anchor introduces Pete Snyder as a Republican strategist.  Well I knew Pete Snyder, he was a Frank Luntz employee and no strategist by any means.  He and Luntz had recently had a falling out.  While he was still on the air, I called Frank and told him to put on CNN.  Frank Luntz and I were good friends back then.

Luntz was furious.  He and I both marveled at how this guy had: a) gotten himself on the air and; b) convinced them that he had the bona fides to comment on anything.  It was after that when I started to scrutinize these guest commentators.  I would run internet searches trying to find out who their clients were.  More often than not the only web references were as it regarded their TV appearances, not any paying clients.

A number of Rudy alumni popped up on TV after his term as analysts and consultants.  One press person, who mostly put together the daily press clips, was all over TV and eventually landed a West coast radio show as a commentator.  His junior speechwriter, a nice kid named John Avlon, wound up commenting on all sorts of things and writing a book.  The thing you need to know about Rudy speechwriters, as opposed to say a Reagan speechwriter, is that Rudy never used their speeches.  They would meet and work for weeks on major addresses and then Rudy would wing it.  So having your resume burnished with "Giuliani Speechwriter," never really meant a whole hell of a lot.

But why am I mentioning this today?  Last night I am watching local FOX news.  The lead story is the implosion of David Paterson.  Within one minute of the broadcast starting, the anchor, Ernie Anastos, turns to introduce Mike Paul, a crisis management expert, for his analysis.  Mr. Paul spoke some meaningless nonsense and predicted Paterson may not last till the weekend. 

I was shocked and bemused.  Who is Mike Paul?  He's the fellow who took my job at EDC after I left to become President of HDC.  Mike Paul knows as much about what's going on in Harlem politics or on the 2nd floor in Albany right now as I do, which is to say nothing.  And yet, there he is with the FOX imprimatur.  Is he a crisis management expert?  He must be, FOX just said so!  Utter craziness.  And yet the public has no idea.  I know the guy is a fraud, but does the public?  Of course not.

A little background on this charlatan.  I was Executive VP of Corporate Communications at EDC.  When I announced my departure Charlie Millard dutifully called Cristyne Lategano (CFL) to let her know there was a vacancy.  I was pushing my deputy as my replacement, Bernadette O'Leary.  Charlie agreed with that.  But Cristyne, as was her way, 'suggested' a candidate to Charlie.  That was what Charlie and I were fearing. 

CFL was famous, not only for these "suggestions," which were really orders, but she was renown for her complete lack of ability to spot talent.  She would foist the most incompetent people on Commissioners or City Hall.  Commissioners lived in utter terror of her personnel "suggestions."  She was deeply put-off by smart, competent people and relished the company of sycophantic light-weights.  What these job candidates all had in common was their total loyalty to her, not Rudy.

So when she told me that my replacement was a guy named Mike Paul I asked two questions of her.  First, what was his Rudy nexus - how had he earned his way in?  Second, what was his experience?  His experience was that he claimed to run his own P.R. company.  His Rudy connection was through CFL.  Apparently, early every morning this guy would scour the internet for interesting news stories and forward them to CFL.  She seemed to find this incredibly useful and thereby deserving of one of the top agency jobs. 

I did some research and no one had ever heard of his firm.  Bear in mind I worked at a P.R. firm for nearly 3 years before City Hall and had some contacts.  He claimed to represent some rap stars, but that wasn't totally verifiable either.  It became very clear to me that he was flat broke as he insisted on starting work even before I had left.  I found that incredibly strange.  For two weeks he sat in a temporary office just waiting for me to leave.  It was important that he got on the payroll right away and receive benefits.   

What was his tenure?  He lasted a few months before resigning under fire and being replaced by my former deputy.  He had gotten into some drunken brawl at Asia de Cuba.  He kept insisting they give him a table and was screaming he worked for the Mayor.  He was forced to resign when it came to light that he had fraudulently applied for and received an EDC Amex card.  Only the President of EDC had a credit card and when Mike Paul was rebuffed in his request for one from EDC staff, he got Amex to issue him one claiming EDC approved and guaranteed it. 

Now here we are more than a decade later and this Mike Paul is on TV with the same company name claiming to be a crisis management expert.  Is it possible in a decade he has turned himself around and now runs a profitable, thriving, legitimate business?  It's possible, but the chances of it are zero.

So I'm back to where I started.  Analysts, experts, consultants all over television whose sole credential for appearing is that they're on television.  Am I a Republican strategist/consultant/analyst?  Sure, why not?  I have a website, you're reading me right now, aren't you?  I just hope that at least my readers, if not the larger public,  will view these guest analysts with just a bit more skepticism in the future.

Equal Justice?  We'll See.

2/23    The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of Carr v. U.S.  Nominally it's a case about a sex offender challenging his punishment for violating a federal law known as SORNA.  More than that however, it is a test as to whether equal justice, separation of powers and the very foundation of constitutional law still exists in this country even for those convicted of crimes we really abhor.

SORNA - The Sex Offender Registration Notification Act - is part of the larger Adam Walsh Act that seeks to nationalize sex offender registration.  When it was passed in 2006 and became effective in 2007 it mandated that anyone who had EVER been convicted of a crime under its provisions would be covered by this act.

Imagine if your state, working to get tough with drunk drivers, passed a new law that said anyone EVER convicted of drunk driving - going back to the first statute criminalizing it - would now ____ (fill in the blank).  Maybe lose their car, have license plates that identified them as a drunk driver, not be allowed to have children in the car when they drove, pay much higher registration fees - whatever.  Even if your crime was committed 25 years ago and you had a great driving record since then.  Do you think that would pass court muster?  

What SORNA does is require that anyone who has ever been convicted of a certain series of crimes be subject to its registration provisions and penalties.  Even if your crime was committed 15 years before the Act was written.  Never in the history of this country has a law like that been upheld by an appellate court.   Until now.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has upheld this clearly ex post facto law.  And now the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the appeal of that decision. 

In my own case, I plead, was sentenced and served most of my time before this law was ever enacted.  I asked federal officials in prison repeatedly how this law could possibly apply to me since it was written after my conviction.  I was given universally the same idiotic response.  It applies to me, I was told, because the law says it applies to me.  Which it does.  But that was no answer, of course.  The U.S. Constitution has a rather clear Ex Post Facto Clause.

How could the entire process of plea bargaining function if every plea was easily nullified by future acts of Congress or the legislature.  What if you were serving a 5 year sentence for cocaine possession and the law changed.  Could they apply a much stiffer sentence to you or alter the conditions of your release?  No, the government cannot do that.  Who would ever take a plea deal knowing that nothing they agreed to would be enforceable or totally subject to the whim of the changing legislature and political climate?  I won't even get into the entire 10th Amendment issue surrounding all this.  Why is the federal government involving itself at all in this matter in the first place?

A perfect example illustrating the insanity of the government's action is the drug Ecstasy.  Ten years ago it was perfectly legal to possess and ingest Ecstasy.  Then one day the federal government criminalized it and now you can easily serve 10 years for something you couldn't even be arrested for 10 years earlier.  But what if the legislation criminalizing it had a provision that the DEA and Justice could go back and indict anyone who had ever been arrested with Ecstasy in their possession retroactively.  Do you think in that situation the court would stand for that?  Of course not!

The American people have almost zero understanding of what the states and federal government have done and are doing regarding so called 'Sex Offenders.'  All they know is that TV, talk radio, the news media and their elected officials scare them day and night with the idea that sex offenders are everywhere, can't control themselves and that any minor act leads inevitably to serious hands-on molestation.  None of that is true, but the hysteria surrounding it trumps facts.

The government is civilly committing people based on junk science regarding sex offenses.  Worse yet, there is now way out once you have been committed.  No test to pass or provable mental state or behavior that will get you freed.  Nothing.  You're there essentially for life.

The question is, if the court would never entertain upholding a law like SORNA for drugs, why would it in this instance?  And if it does, is there any end to what the next hysteria du jour will be that justifies nullifying a fundamental tenet of the Constitution. 

Dear readers, you may buy into the Sex Offender bogeyman, but ask yourself if this precedent is the one worth setting that surely and inevitably leads to the end of this constitutional government as we have known it.

On My Mind & In the News

2-22    First, let me say that I received a slew of e-mails today asking me my thoughts on Mayor-for-Life Mike's new housing proposal.  Since the plan rests mainly on the shoulders of HDC, people are naturally curious for my reaction.  All I can say today is that I need to read the fine points.  The Times story was not enough for me to determine if it is good for the city and more importantly, if it does long-term harm to HDC's financial stability.  When I read his speech, I will let you know.

Lots of news over the weekend.  Not the most important of the weekend's events but did you see Bernie Kerik, his family and his lawyers on Geraldo last night?  I honestly don't know what to make of that.  On the one hand it was rather manipulative and maudlin.  On the other, it was nice to see that Geraldo is a stand-up guy who sticks by his friends.  He pointed out how Bernie was massively fucked by the judge presiding in his case.  Not merely because he upward departed from the guidelines and the plea agreement.  That's not an everyday occurrence, but it happens.  But apparently there was a pattern of bias in this case.  I agree with Geraldo that the judge just hated Kerik and threw out any notion of fairness and impartiality.  He upward departed because: a) Bernie plead not guilty originally and; b) in the course of pleading not guilty, he wasn't remorseful.  Further - and this truly irritates me - he lashed out at him for having abused his position.  

Now, you may not fully get my outrage on this point.  You may think it perfectly reasonable to throw the book at him because of his former high office.  I receive a lot of anti-Bernie Kerik mail on this site, believe me I know where most of you stand on this.  But what you don't understand - either because you're not a criminal defense lawyer or a felon/defendant (yours truly), is that it is already factored into determining the sentence.

When a Pre-Sentencing Report is written, all the factors (they're called enhancements in the Federal system) surrounding your crime are taken into account and credited against you.  Any abuse of his former position was already factored into the recommended sentence.  The underlying charge alone is based on him having a public office.  Had he accepted free renovations on his apartment as a marine biologist there wouldn't be any crime.  It was his position that made it criminal (if it was) in the first place.  So the judge dinged him for it again and again.  It is a terrible fundamental flaw in the federal system.  Defendants are routinely enhanced or the acceptance of responsibility points awarded to those pleading guilty are yanked away at the last minute because "you're not remorseful enough," based on having previously plead not guilty.

The federal system is so biased towards the prosecution, it rarely serves the interest of a defendant to plead guilty.  The 97% conviction rate in the federal system is almost entirely from people pleading guilty.  It's not because federal prosecutors are so talented, it's because they are ruthless and corrupt; routinely leaking false information or threatening the safety of loved ones should a defendant choose to go to trial.  Sadly, most federal judges are former prosecutors and naturally find this conduct acceptable.  I have praised those judges who single it out for condemnation.  But it happens rarely.

Bernie Kerik did whatever he did.  But I can certainly understand the pressure from your attorneys, your family, your friends, and the press to plead to something that in your heart of hearts you don't feel guilty for.  I've met lots of people who were put into that position.

Just a quick calculation on the 48 month sentence.  In the federal system, unlike the far more generous state system, you get 15% off your sentence for good behavior.  Call that 7 months.  You get 10% of your time in a halfway house, not to exceed 6 months.  Call that 5 months.  He served, I think, 2 months in Valhalla (that time counts).  7+5+2= 14 months.  48-14= 34 months.  Once he goes inside in May, he should be out 34 months later.  I wish him well.  I can only tell him that the time will go faster than he now thinks.

2/22   CPAC

What to make of CPAC?  I've been writing for months about the libertarian strain that underpins the anger in this country and in theory, what generated the Tea Party movement.  So it came as no surprise to me that Ron Paul would be the beneficiary and therefore the winner of the straw poll.  Unlike Bill Kristol, who dismissed his win as the product of, "some nice college kids," I think there's more to it.  True, that like the Tea Partiers, the GOP is deeply schismed between those who cheer wildly for Dick Cheney - a libertarians worst enemy - and those who voted for Rep Paul.  But it's the GOP that will have to craft the Obama alternative and its enrollees are hungering for a libertarian message.

So what do they stand for?  I think that question was the sum and substance of Glen Beck's message.  As I have said, you can't win something with nothing.  And while the 2010 and 2012 anger may propel Republicans into control, it can't last without a message - and a positive one at that.  Grass roots Republicans get that their leaders ran amok for eight years with nothing in the end to show for it.  I think the days of voting in lock step for GOP candidates is over.  Karl Rove's permanent robotic majority doesn't exist.  Without a positive, clear message, we will have perhaps decades of see-saw party dominance every 2-4 years. 

What came out of CPAC mostly was that there is no leader of the Republican Party.  They are adrift, notwithstanding that they perceive themselves as on a roll shouting NO to every roll call vote.  Huckabee and Palin didn't show.  Romney is a non-starter for a myriad of reasons.  And Tim Pawlenty?  Is it just me or does that permanent smile plastered on his face give you the creeps too?  As much as I like Ron Paul's message, I would agree he is not the nominee.  So who is it?  Right back where we started; you can't win something with nothing.  I will tell you what should keep GOP leaders up at night - 1964. 

The mainstream majority of the party absolutely did not want "extremist" Barry Goldwater leading the ticket.  Well the grass roots wasn't listening and nominated Goldwater.  Viewed disastrously at the time, we now know it was the precursor to Reagan.  Maybe it's time for the grass roots to ignore Washington and pick itself a candidate; get behind him and work their asses off to the convention.  Someone dynamic, fresh, controversial and articulate.  Any suggestions?

Neverending TSA Idiocy

2/18    The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced yesterday that they would begin testing  - not just passengers waiting to board flights, but all airport visitors - for bomb making materials. This technology involves swabbing people's hands and baggage for bomb materiel residue.  So sensitive is this equipment, we were told, that it would even detect nitroglycerin residue from tablets taken by heart patients. 

Unlike security screening which takes place only once you attempt to enter the boarding gates, this procedure will target anyone inside the entire airport complex.  So you might be sitting in Sbarros at the food court eating pizza when a TSA agent will attempt to swab your hands.  Can you say no?  Will they kick you out of the airport for refusing?  We don't know.  But I am not writing this post because of any of those concerns, valid as they may be. 

I will predict here and now that in the long litany of TSA boondoggles, this will be the biggest.  Why?  Let me digress and tell you a little story.

In the last prison I was in, FMC Devens, they instituted a new procedure for anyone wishing to visit inmates.  Apparently, the Federal Bureau of Prisons had spent a fortune purchasing machines that could detect minute traces of illegal drugs on an individual.  The goal was not to prevent drugs from being smuggled in - although that was a planned benefit, the idea was to prevent inmates from consorting with people who use illegal drugs.  I won't go on a rant right now about that aspect, but I could!

This machine would scan you - non-invasively, of course - and print out what illicit drugs it had found on you.  It wasn't designed to x-ray and detect if you were carrying drugs, just if any remained on your hands, somewhat similar to what the TSA is doing.  As I say, the BOP before doing any real testing, spent a lot of money purchasing these machines for its prisons.  The result?  Apparently the machine had an error rate of somewhere between 50-60%, roughly 6 out of 10 scans were false positives.  Every day wives, children, friends were routinely turned away after traveling great distances and being told they had tested positive for cocaine, heroin, pot, etc.  It was the usual BOP waste of money.

My all time favorite story involved the wife of one the mobsters at Devens.  This short 80+ year old Italian woman showed up to visit her mob husband and was turned away for heroin use.  It seems kinda funny until you realize that testing positive put you on a restrict list that prevented you from visiting the inmate for a period of months.  Only a note from a doctor or lab that certified you had been tested for that drug and found negative could you get back on your loved one's visitor list after many weeks. 

After a few months the machines - which we being used daily - were put away and only taken out every 4-6 weeks for a few hours.  It was done just to somehow justify the massive amount of money that the BOP had wasted on these useless machines.  Classic BOP procurement and implementation.  Arrogance and incompetency matched only perhaps by the TSA.

One roommate of mine had his 17yo daughter visit.  She traveled two states to the prison for the first time by herself, without her mother, in order to visit her father (incidentally, the former CFO of Ben & Jerry's).  The machine did its thing and she was informed she had tested positive for cocaine.  They apparently treated her very badly (typical for Devens) and she left crying, never seeing her father and placed on a restrict list.  If you knew the father and the family, there was no way his daughter  was doing drugs of any kind - she was a straight edge kid.

So how is this possible?  The answer is really kind of fascinating.  Moreover, it will show you why this TSA proposal is doomed even before it starts.  Let me digress once more.

When I was a younger man I enjoyed snorting cocaine.  It was a pleasurable drug and I'd recommend it to anyone.  Then as now - I assume - you snorted coke with a rolled-up bill; fifty, hundred, twenty, one, whatever you had.  Now when you were finished, you didn't tear up that hundred or twenty and throw it in the garbage; no, you unrolled it and spent it.  The residue of that drug-filled night remaining on that bill, free to circulate throughout the economy.  What that machine at Devens taught all of us in prison was that our currency is coated with illegal drugs, which we're handling daily and for which we are clueless.  The residue of touching the currency remains on your hands, apparently even after you wash.

Many visitors at Devens had stories of washing with soap and water, hand sanitizers, anything to clean their hands before visiting.  Nothing worked.  False positives were reported all the time at very high rates.  The only thing that worked was waking up, taking a shower, scrubbing hard and then not touching anything without gloves before you reached the prison.  That's what it took to pass this machine.

I know nothing about bombs or bomb making equipment - what goes into it or more importantly what those components might resemble chemically in everyday life.  I am assuring you, dear reader, that this TSA swab process will find things on people's hands transmitted through currency in exactly the same way the useless BOP machines did.  Little old ladies, children, anyone will be subjected to what Janet Napolitano this morning called a "hard pat-down" should they test for something.  There will be constant false positives. 

TSA employees are some of the worst federal employees - stupid, arrogant, poorly educated, drunk with power, and completely incapable of making rational distinctions.  Anyone who has flown during the last 7 years knows exactly of what I am speaking.  The idea of giving law enforcement equipment, capable of seriously disrupting someones life, with the certainty that it will register mainly false positives to these TSA monkeys, to me, is reckless and outrageous behavior on the part of our government.  Just remember when you hear how this program failed, you heard it hear first.

Tea For How Many?

2/17    The old adage in politics, as with most things, is that you can't win something with nothing.  Up until a few weeks ago I still believed that.  Now, I'm not so sure.

The level of anger and frustration in this country directed at Washington is now apparently unprecedented.  Here are some findings from the latest polls:

1.    Americans, when asked, "Do you believe the Government (federal) tries to do the right thing most of the time," has hit an all time low of 34%.

2.    Most Americans want to see their own representative in Congress replaced. That's never been seen before in polling history.

3.    With only one year in office, most Americans believe Barack Obama doesn't deserve a second term.  Notwithstanding that his approval rating is still a respectable 50%.

4.    20% of Americans are inclined not to fill out the Census because they don't trust the Government to protect the privacy of their information.

5.    70% of Americans are dissatisfied or angry with the way Washington handles the people's business.

6.    58% believe the economic outlook is getting worse, not better.  This, one year into a $750 billion dollar economic stimulus plan.

It would seem that this coalescing of angry voters known as the Tea Party movement would find the electorate ripe for the picking in 2010.  Certainly the Republican Party should be in good shape this year.  Here's the problem though: 1. The Tea Party Movement, besides being a group of angry people, agrees on almost nothing; and 2. The Republican Party, unlike in 1994, has not put forth and appears unwilling to, a positive, specific plan of action should they take back the House or the Senate.  That's the something with nothing adage at work.  Based on the polling, people appear ready to chuck out their elected officials and replace them with Y.  The policies and identity of candidate Y appearing to mean very little.

Pollsters will tell you that these numbers are deceptive and in the end voters don't actually cast their ballot this cavalierly.  In essence, voters are expected to behave responsibly with their franchise.  But here's what I'm sensing out there: people look at Congress and the White House behaving as irresponsibly as they ever have since the Republic's founding and ask themselves, "why am I supposed to be the adult when my leaders are engaged in a mindless free-for-all in D.C.?"

The X factor in this year's election is the Responsibility Factor.  The Government, the parties, elected officials all know that historically voters will calm down by election day and do the rational thing - they will behave responsibly.  But at these levels of voter disgust with Washington, people are less and less inclined to behave rationally.  Now don't get me wrong, I don't think "throw the bums out," is irrational.  In fact, I'm all for it.  But in my lifetime I have never seen white rage anger this intense with Washington.  Notwithstanding Peter Jennings famous comment that the "nation had a fit," in 1994, there was nothing irrational or irresponsible with that Congressional turnover and repudiation of Clintonsim.  The GOP argued and presented a cogent, sane platform that many people embraced and voted for.  The difference this year is that doesn't exist, so voter anger is left unchanneled and unfocused - other than amorphously, "at Washington."

Tea Party people only agree vaguely that Government is too big, taxes are too high, Wall Street is evil and that they believe in liberty and freedom.  Society and especially government don't function on vague pronouncements.  Ideas need to be formed into concrete policies and proposals.  And that's where this Tea Party movement runs to ground.  It is comprised of fervent pro-lifers and ardent pro-choicers.  Tea Party leaders favor drug legalization while others favor harsher penalties because of, "the children."  If Government is too big - and it certainly is - where would they chop? I guarantee you they wouldn't form any consensus.   So of what value is it?  In the long term it is of zero value.  The hard right Tea Partiers will be co-opted by the Republican Party and the hard left will go back to trying to influence Democratic primaries.  Absolutely nothing will come of this.  Excepting, of course, in election year 2010 and possibly 2012. 

And that's unfortunate because I agree with almost all their bumper sticker ravings: Government is too big, it is too intrusive, taxes and spending are way too high.  I'm down with all of that.  Which is the reason why I enrolled as a Republican nearly thirty years ago!!  That was the raison d'etre of the Republican Party.  Make no mistake, the rise of the Tea Party movement is not a reaction to Obama it is a direct response to George W. Bush.  Had Bush governed as a Republican, had he kept any of his campaign promises - besides tax cuts - there never would have been a need for this venting.  All these people would reside happily in the GOP waiting for more spending cuts, less regulation and smaller government.  But Bush grew the Federal Government more than any president in history.  More spending, more programs, more intrusion into state functions, more federal employees.  This is all Bush, not Obama.  Congressional Republicans naturally went along with all this so they are equally culpable for the rise of these Tea Partiers.

Where Fox, the Weekly Standard, National Review and these right wing talk show hosts go wrong is pinning this on Obama.  These people had a home, it was the Republican Party.  The fact that they are out there flailing around is a tremendous failure of GOP leaders for the last dozen years.  What's needed until a vibrant Libertarian Party exists, is wholesale reform of the GOP platform.

But there's a disconnect here that's being missed. When asked this question (so help me this is the exact wording), "Do you believe you've given up enough of your civil liberties in the fight against terrorism or do you need to give up more," an insane 63% of Americans said they need to give up more.  Can you imagine?  In this home of liberty and freedom where the vast, vast majority of people do not trust their government to do the right thing "most of the time," two-thirds want to give up more rights and freedoms to this same government.  They don't trust their government to do something simple like spend their money but they apparently trust them enough to return basic constitutional rights.  How do you explain this?  You can't.  It's a schism deep in the psyche of the current voting public. It's at the core of why the Tea Party movement won't last.  They embody fully this inexplicable contradiction.  They hate the government yet fully embrace the Bush/Cheney agenda on terrorism which are directly at odds with one another.  You can't claim to hate Washington - to mistrust it nearly 100% - and then say you're OK with warrantless wiretaps and the Patriot Act.  You just can't.  It's illogical and makes the speaker absurdly foolish if so claimed.  But that, in a nutshell, is the Tea Party movement. "We hate DC except for the most fundamental abridgment of our liberties."  It simply can't be.

The core of any movement has to be about something.  It's members have to agree on principles, aims, strategies and eventually specific goals.  The Tea Party movement does not fit this definition.  Sure, you can have a big tent but not the size of Wyoming. Something other than hating the federal government - which I'm fine with - has to bind you.  I hope desperately that someone, even a wealthy patron like Perot or Golisano (preferably saner and more ethical) comes in to focus these people and start a national Libertarian Party.  I'd be even happier if my own party, the GOP, would return to its modern Goldwater roots and denounce the Bush years, cleanse itself of permanent government types and present a radical agenda to slash the federal government - not only in size, but in scope.  You can cut the budget by 75% but all the laws currently on the books giving Washington power over our lives remain.  It's the dual pronged attack to slash the budget and restore adherence to the 10th Amendment that is required.  Sadly, I don't see my party doing any of this any time soon.  Not when it looks like, 'Winning Something with Nothing' appears to be a successful slogan for 2010.

Brennan is Right

2-12    Obama counter-terrorism official John Brennan is absolutely right.  Sadly, Congressional Democrats and other Obama Administration officials aren't saying the same thing.  He's received the most attention for one line of that USA Today Op-Ed piece, "Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda."  Opponents claim he's questioning their patriotism and their right to dissent against administration policy.  Unfortunately, the most important line was the one that followed, "Terrorists are not 100-feet tall," Brennan said.

When Osama Bin-laden sent planes into the Twin Towers we pass the Patriot Act, initiate illegal wiretaps, systematize extraordinary rendition, fabricate the hulking behemoth Department of Homeland Security, create the ever more incompetent Transportation Security Administration, launch two wars and routinely start torturing people.  And we still don't have Bin-laden or Mullah Omar!!  Bin-laden flicks his wrist, sends Richard Reid on his way, and we're all removing our shoes at airports.  He waves his other at Europe and we're all measuring out 3 oz of liquid into tiny bottles. 

I have to assume that Bin-laden must be chuckling, during his lengthy dialysis sessions, at how so little effort on his part causes the world - and especially the United States - to upend itself.  There's nothing brave or manly about our actions since 9/11.  Our actions - with the exception of the Afghanistan invasion - were all motivated out of blind panic and fear.  What is the nature of terrorism, whether Islamic or any other variety?  It is simply to cause irrational, unbridled panic.  Have they achieved their goal to the greatest extent possible?  It's inconceivable how they could be doing any better.  They do nothing that wasn't completely preventable and we rewrite our Constitution.  9/11 was not nothing.  I was here and dealt with the aftermath, so no lectures please from people who've never stepped foot in NYC.  But had our Government done the job it was supposed to do with the then available tools it had, none of this would have happened in the first place.  More and more bad, incompetent government is not the answer to fixing the problem of bloated incompetence.

I get completely that from the Congressional standpoint more is always better.  More money, more government, more laws, more bureaucrats.  More, more, more.  But as Kit Bond - wrong on the Brennan issue - stated yesterday, maybe it's time to rethink DHS.  It has shocked me for years that the Democrats have not torn asunder this monstrosity.  At a bare minimum I would have thought that a Democratic majority or a new Democratic President would at least have changed the name.  Homeland Security has always sounded to me like I live in some pre-invasion Austria or Czechoslovakia replete with quisling cabinet minsters heading up a ministry called Homeland Security, ready to hand over the country to soon to be invading Nazi forces.  The name itself is so fascistic, so Hitlerian that I have never stopped being stupefied that Democrats and libertarian Republicans weren't wincing since the first time George Bush said it.  And the best part is that this NKVD rival isn't even good at being Big Brother.  What they're great at is expansion.  Tens of billions are being spent to create giant buildings, bunkers and campuses to house all these new DHS bureaucrats.  Again, all a reaction to Bin-laden sitting in a cave somewhere in Pakistan.  In the history of our country, no enemy has been this weak and yet wrecked more damage on us.

Our reaction to it has been irrational, illogical and wholly political.  The center of world terrorism does not emanate from a cave in Pakistan.  The epicenter of Islamic radical hate America, destroy the West, fundamentalism is in Riyadh.  The appropriate action after 9/11 was always to simultaneously invade Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.  Clean out the place and install a reform, moderate Prince on the throne who will not export radical Wahhabism to the rest of the world.  Saudi Arabia, like Austria, puts forward the canard that they "were the first victims."  It's not coincidence that most 9/11 hijackers were Saudi.  No coincidence that most of the mosques they found sanctuary in prior were funded by the Saudi Govt.  The money trail to these people was established within days.  It's also surely no coincidence that Prince Bandar was sitting on the Truman balcony less than 72 hours after 9/11.  The Saudis were sure that their time was up and we'd be coming for them.  They knew that even though we didn't.  They were totally sweating bullets during the first few days after 9/11.  But no, all these pieces were simply ignored.  How hard would it have been to invade and conquer the Kingdom?  Less than 3 days from start to finish.  The world would be a safer, more democratic place and we'd have a ton of oil to compensate us for September 11th.  

So what's the upshot of all this?  Dismember DHS, try these terrorists in civilian courts, stop scaring the public with fear and these outlandish cost estimates for trial security.  We've indicted, tried and convicted plenty of terrorists in U.S. civilian courts and there hasn't been a single event surrounding the trials.  Most importantly, heed John Brennan's words.  They are not 100 feet tall.  They are just a rag tag band of Muslim nut jobs who we've elevated to the status of Supermen - Uber Menschen in the German.  Come back to reality and realize that this panic and fear only provides them with victory after victory.  Bin-laden can't defeat us, only we can do that.  And so far we're doing a hell of a job.

Don't Forget the Brother

2-11    A 13 count federal indictment was unsealed against NYC  Councilmember Larry Seabrook.  I think it's fair to say that the chattering classes have known for some time that he would be indicted, it was only a matter of when.  I can add only one piece to this story from my own first-hand experience.  Councilmember Seabrook's brother, Oliver, runs one of two major federal halfway houses in the city.  They are both owned by the private GEO Corp. and run under a very lucrative contract with the Federal Bureau of Prisons.  Oliver Seabrook has run both houses at some point and last I knew ran the one at 2534 Creston Ave in the Bronx. I was at that halfway house for 6 months.  Oliver Seabrook was the definition of a shady guy.  He routinely abused his position as administrator to shake down residents for money.  Presumably he did it to benefit the GEO Corp., but extorting funds took place just the same. 

He regularly told residents the day before they were to leave and return home that unless they coughed up additional sums, he would not permit them to leave.  This is of course highly illegal.  An administrator of a halfway house cannot extend your stay once your time there is up, only a federal judge can do that.  But you knew that if he were to trump up some charge against you, even the night before you were scheduled to leave, he could have the Marshals pick you up and return you to prison.  I'd seen him do it. 

When he did this to me 10 hours before I was scheduled to leave I told him I would not pay.  He threatened me - screaming, spitting and slamming the table - that I would be sent back to prison.  I still told him calmly that I would not pay monies I did not owe.  And if these sums were legit, I said, why was I finding out about them 10 hours before I was leaving.  My calm demeanor made him go apoplectic.  I have never seen another human being behave the way he did that night.  Constantly pounding the table, screaming at me only centimeters from my face.  He then threatened to hit me.  This was said in front of a member of his staff (who was fired a few days later I heard).  Now Oliver Seabrook is a tiny man, he's probably 5'8 and 135 lbs.  The fact that I might get into a fight didn't scare me, I'd been in prison for 5 years. 

The thing that scared the shit out of me was that this guy, charged with being responsible for the well being of 160 people, was actually going to assault me for $165.00.  This was right after he made me pay $1200 in order to leave, or so I believed.  And if he did hit me and I did something back - which would have been stupid - I would absolutely be on my way back to prison.  It was the most surreal moments of my life.  At one point he had my discharge papers in his hand and started to tear them up.  Again, at 6:30 the next morning legally he had to let me leave regardless of what I owed him.  I knew that rationally.  There was no way he could keep me without a judge's order.  But you become conditioned to the cruelties of prison; the abuse and constant violation of your rights. 

So as he started to tear them up I realized I had better try and calm him down.  I said calmly, "why are you being so aggressive?"  Not having scored an 1100 on his SATs, he said to me, "Aggressive means being violent - hitting you.  And I haven't done that, Yet!"   I told him I'd be happy to examine this matter another time when all this pressure didn't exist.  After more pounding of the table, he screamed at the top of his lungs for me to get out and wait outside.  He said if I were in his presence for another minute he didn't know what he would do.

When I came back he had a document prepared stating that I would owe GEO Corp. $165.  I paused to sign it.   He threatened me again. On the one hand, no one on Earth could make that document enforceable since it was signed under such incredible duress.  On the other hand I didn't like signing it because I didn't owe the money.  But I signed it just to get my papers so I could leave the next morning and be out of that asylum.

I have never in my life met anyone as crazy as Oliver Seabrook who was still functional.  I've met plenty of totally whacked out people who were non-functional (can't eat, can't dress, can't manage the rigors of daily life).  But I had never met anyone who was that nuts and still functioned independently.  His rambling incoherent lectures to the residents every Wednesday night were legendary.   His comments and references to the female residents were more strange, bordering on creepy.

I don't believe where there's smoke there's always fire.  My case is certainly proof of that.  But if Oliver Seabrook is not somehow hooked into the financial shenanigans of his brother, I'll eat my hat.

Lastly, let me just comment once again on the utter joke that is NYC's Department of Investigation.  Moreover, let me say, yet again, what an outrage it is that the NYC press gives it a never ending free pass.

The not-for-profit organization at the heart of the Seabrook matter was investigated by the City in 2006.  Improprieties were found, serious ones.  And yet DOI did nothing - didn't even seem to know about it.  Only after the U.S. Attorney's Office launched a full investigation into Council practices regarding the awarding of member items did DOI glom onto their investigation as they always do.  This notion of a "joint" anything by DOI with either the State or Feds is always laughable.  The State and Feds roll their collective eyes at DOI's incompetence and permits them to make these "joint" claims just to keep peace with the City.  Ask any State or Federal investigator if they feel their investigation was aided in any way by DOI and you'll receive chortles as a response.  The NYC media never questions how DOI comes late to every party and then takes credit for others' work.  They have the freest pass of any City agency.  I've just never understood why.  Everyone else is left to undercover the very corruption they claim is their rasion d'etre and yet it actually occurs only once in a blue moon.

The Most Loathsome Man in New York City

Let Them Eat Bonuses

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

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

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

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

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

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

Walking Around Money

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

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

How About a Little Credit?

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

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

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

Bring in the Goons

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

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

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

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

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

All Eyes On The GOP

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHANGE, WHAT CHANGE?

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

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

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

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

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

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

President Jim Hacker

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The End of ....Something

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

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

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

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

Repealing the Repeal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Ever Do-Nothing Mayor

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

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

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

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

Better Late Than Never

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

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

In Defense of Arnold

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is This a Joke?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Evil of Goldman Sachs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lacking Clean Hands in Westchester

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sen. Giuliani?? - Follow-up

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

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

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

Sen. Giuliani??

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

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

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

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

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

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

JUST FYI...

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

SAFE AT ANY COST

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Total Abandonment

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

50,000 Votes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

10/22  Farewell, Mr. Welch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

10/16    Federal Justice

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

10/14    Oh, The Horror of It All

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

10/13    A Question for Bill Thompson

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

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

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

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

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

The Deserting Democrats

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Liu Thereof

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Councilman Wrangle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where's Your Messiah, Now?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FOR OLDER POSTS PLEASE SEE - OLD MUSINGS III

Comments

[RAH]

I take the integrity of the site and the whole Veritas label seriously. I have received a lot of e-mails assuring me that Shelly Silver did not send that post. I do not review posts before they are published. There is a setting that allows me to do that. I may have to start screening these if this persists. For anyones information the sender of the Silver e-mail used this info:
Speaker@assembly.state.ny.us
IP address: 198.232.36.10

Apologies to the Speaker.

RAH

[why is the guy from 9/29/08]

Why is the guy who met Harding at the house break-in afraid to sign his name? Harding has signed his and promises an honest account. The police guy stalks his former arrests to post on their blogs to talk about the character-building process of going to prison? Like we should send little kids to prison to build their characters. What a bunch of crap. It's no wonder the police dude didn't sign his name. Toiletville bullshit.

[We met at the search warrant....]

I met you a few times, Russell. It was early one morning as we pounded on your door, demanding entry. We seized documents and your computer. I even went out to buy you a pack of cigarettes. I remember your questions about why Customs was present rather than just DOI personnel. That became clear once you read the warrant, of course, and saw what Fred had given us. Our second meeting involved putting a certain pair of silver bracelets on you. In the face of my objections, you were cuffed in front rather than behind. Your collar points were removed and we took you to MCC. I hope your experiences in prison brought about growth and change. I hope even more that you have the courage to take responsibility for your actions rather than blaming others. I'm no fan of Rudy's but I would urge you to look inward rather than focus your rage on others. Own it, Russell, or those years in prison were truly a waste.

[Pete]

Sir,
What do you know about the last minute Xmas present Rudy gave to Stapleton Studios when he provided them with concessions to build a movie studio on Staten Island. That was a good-bye gift in the post 911 days, and the last week of Rudy's Administration.

Stapleton Studios was a company that was run my Marlowe Walker Jr., and people were brought into it by his son, Walker III.

At that time, III had already been convicted of stock fraud with two heavy hitters named Abraham Salaman and Allen Berkun.

Walker placed at least one Suffolk Detective on his company known as Harbour Entertainment. Harbour was supposed to be a window into Stapleton. In all, SCPD and NYPD cops invested up to $1.25 million in this doomed enterprise with the promise of sharing in the success of Stapleton. The only person that made any money was Walker III. Not once, but twice. He sold off 1M or restricted stock to a LI investment banker. They all lost their money with the exception of the ScPD D/Sgt that worked as an investigator in the office of SC DA Spota.

Walker passed on his already prison sentence of 1 year, beginning on June 4, 2002, when he somehow managed to get SCPD IA involved in a case of steroids and drugs, and convinced them to convince the US Attorney to expunge the jail sentence.

He went bankrupt and his his assets.

He went to Florida and somwhow managed to buy two homes of more than 1.25Million, get 100% mortgages, and did this while he went bankrkupt only a few years earlier.

6 Months after Bloomberg took office, Bloomberg killed the lucrative deal Rudy made with Stapleton/Walker and said, "The City of NY doesn't do business with crooks."

I have always believed that the aftermath of 911, and Rudy becoming "America's Mayor" caused the FEDS and NYC not to pursue this matter further as they should have.

I am told there was a $50,000.00 bribe passed to a deputy mayor whose name I have since forgotten.

Do you know anything about this abomination?

PS. Salaman was also arrested with a Lawrence Ray in another stock scheme that originated on Staten Island. Lawrence Ray is the person that caused Kerik to fall from Grace. Salamna also took down Gov.Rowland when Salaman was part of a company that swindled the CT Pension Fund of $19M.

[walter77777]

I don't see where you can blame Tony Carbonetti for averting his eyes and not speaking to you. The bad publicity surrounding your crimes and about you being appointed to HPD made many people worry about Rudy's ability to make good appointments and not use his ability to hire to pay off political debts and to reward friends.

The worry is well-justified. Neither you, Tony Carbonetti, nor Bernie Kerik had college degrees when you were appointed to high offices by Rudy, and we might be very lucky that Rudy dropped out of the presidential contests so early. I shudder to imagine the type of apppointments a President Giuliani might have made.

W.

[MiroWare]

This "Teresa Taylor" is stupid. Rudolf did NOTHING on 9/11 except for running around like a scared rabbit, giving emotional press conferences, and going to funerals. He never explained why he put the command of NYC Emergency center in the WTC building, an obvious target...

[AJ Weberman]

Check out the first chapter from HOMOTHUG a new biography of Rudy.

[dennis brady]

what do you know about DOI investiation of sanitation trucks chassis cracking with jerry dell corte and why was it shut down after 2years

[L. Walsh]

I'd rather read Shakespeare.
These "characters"
reflect the human condition;
a troubled gay man with a strong desire to be liked verses a powerful, arrogant
bully. However, the plot will become interesting once these personalities come to opposite
sides of the table!

[Pete]

The worst thing I can say for you is that you aligned yourself with Rudy Giuliani. Your troubles and demons are hopefully behind you.

What you did was wrong, and I believe you couldn't have done it without the knowledge of Giuliani. He should have saved you from yourself, but Rudy can't admit a mistake, and he certainly wasn't going to risk the ire of your father.

You do realize that there was another mayor whose friend got herself into deep trouble, and he never bad-mouthed her, or leave her out there to hang. Maybe she knew too much about him for him to take the chance of creating something that you appear to be, or are coming to be.

You did the crime and you have done the time. No one could ask more of you.

I am looking forward to your revelations. As far as I am concerned you are on your way to a Pulitzer.

[Tank]

Its about time someone from his staff speaks up. His ties with Kerik was very strong, Rudy name a Jail after Kerik. These two guys were like peanut butter & jelly. Rudy recommended him to Bush for the homeland security czar. Rudy should have payed for that because he knew Kerik is (felon) a crook. Please give us info on these two guys relationship. Birds of a fearther flock together. Give Rudy up he deserves a seat in jail too.

[Tea Bag]

You're a sad sack of shit, Russell Harding. A thief, a betrayer of public trust and privilege and a sick f'ng pedophile caught red handed.So Rudy's private consulting firm doesn't want anything to do with you. You react with indignation. Who would want a kiddie porn embezzling ex con on their staff?? You are a proven liar. Why go on the attack against Rudy? What's your motivation? You will never convince most of us you can be trusted. But, we'll probably read your hopefully entertaining slander for kicks.

[burningrabbit]

If you have always been a Republician, I could give a fuck about you in conjunction with your blog. About Rudy, maybe, because he is a public figure that needs outing. You are probably just another scumbag, a willing executioner for rich and powerful douchebags more lucky than yourself. Take your debts and your imprisonment and swallow them down, whole, which, like your pitiable pride are not poison and will not kill you. Silence yourself for four more years, then pray each day from sun-up 'til sun-down. I make no stray revelations, believe that, bucko.

[FDNY EMS Website]

Rudy was always a jerk. He was at best a C+ Mayor. As for his private life he gets an F. What a moron.

[westernqueensland]

Good work. Please keep it up. I really look forward to hearing the ins and outs of your time with the politicians.
Please fill us in on your "backstory" WHo is your father Ray Harding? WHat did you think when il-Rudy race baited? How would you compare Mr. Giuliani to other Pols?

[Brooklyngadfly]

A group of outraged New Yorkers produced a 3 minute music video to help people understand Rudy Giuliani's shameless exploitation of 9/11 and his unfitness for elective office. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnEgq6mShQ0

[Brooklyngadfly]

A group of outraged New Yorkers produced a 3 minute music video to help people understand Rudy Giuliani's shameless exploitation of 9/11 and his unfitness for elective office. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnEgq6mShQ0

[Menno de Ruiter (The Netherlands, Amsterdam)]

Rudy is just tired.

And probably being blackmailed by some mafia here and there.

Probably he was pissed off he didn't knew anything before 9/11 and some people made him clear he had to play the game on there way. Probably because he HAS a core, he didn't fit in well with having to play as an actor after 9/11.

leave the guy alone

the inability of him of not doing theatre so good, makes clear for me he DOES have core very core.

Anyway, i think he would have been the best president.

[HARDING DIE]

Harding is not exactly an unimpeachable source: He pleaded guilty in 2003 to embezzling city funds and possessing child porn after being accused of spending some $400,000 in Housing Preservation and Development Corp. funds - for a car, fancy vacations, spa treatments, parties and more.

Can you tell us why were in federal prison for ? I will not even give you my time by reading your garbage.

CHILD PORN on your computer, you are disgusting and no one should even visit this site. You have any kids asshole????? Been abused as a little boy??? DISGUSTING...out of prison, broke ass and now trying to get a little attention leading to a book or movie deal right??? Its hard being in prison, cant beat anyone for 400k?? you daddy or mommy who abused you wont take u back in huh?? YOu are a disgrace to life and societ, do us a favor and take your life away...

[kevin]

Forgiveness comes through hard work, integrity, humility and determination.
I'm just a regular guy, not an insider and Rudy screwed this city. I consider him the worst mayor ever- You contributed also-
In helping the city 'right" itself, it also helps you to find your next path in life. I wish you well.

[JAX JOE]

so glad to see in today's daily news that this website is here. I am an educated caring individual and didn't realize i could despise a person as much as i despise rudy. being a psychotherapist for 40 years, its hard for me to not belive that rudy is "mentally ill". he is truely the personification of "EVIL". HE IS RIGHT UP THERE WITH LUCIFER AND DICK CHANEY - PURE 100% EVIL!!! I LOOK FORWARD TO READING THIS WEBSITE EVERY DAY TO SEE THE COMMENTS OF OTHER PEOPLE. JAX JOE

[Joe moretti]

You've already done time so they can't touch you. Please just tell us like it is

[Louis]

I would be interested in how the mayor got world series rings and how the yankees got a free ride in NYC and the new stadium.

[Grace12_34]

What was the REAL TRUTH about Rudy's love for dressing up in drag?

I hope he's kept so busy with this web site that he stays OUT of the 2008 Presidential campaign. He has NO business there.

[Jim Bo]

What I would like to know is how someone as bad as Kerik could be so close to Guiliani, and him not know it. Kerik hired mob related contractors to work at this apartment - and Rudy did not know? I find that hard to believe.