The Sincerest Endorsement Money Can Buy

Rudy Giuliani is ready and willing to get out and campaign for GOP candidates---if they pay him.

Famous Last Words

CNN showed a few speeches from the candidates. The Democrats had little to say, McCain was gracious in victory, and Mitt Romney worried out loud about losing jobs to "countries like Asia and India."

Our beloved Saint Rudy pleaded for "less lawsuits." While the English teacher in me kept thinking "fewer lawsuits," the newspaper reader in me couldn't help but remember that before 9/11, Mayor Rudy was perpetually involved in lawsuits, suing everyone in sight.

And while he nickel and dimed the cops, the firefighters, and the teachers, I don't personally recall Rudy using 35-dollar-an-hour lawyers in any of his lawsuits.

You see, lawsuits are important when he starts them. They're just not important when you or I start them.

Farewell, Saint Rudy. Not everyone is bold enough to adopt a strategy of ignoring virtually every contest in order to win at the end, and it was tough to see how all those purposeful losses would snare the nomination. Historically, it's never worked, but not everyone is Saint Rudy, who sues for the right to bring his mistress into the home he shares with his wife and young children. Rules don't apply to Saint Rudy, who ignores term limits and doesn't want to be bothered standing for re-election.

Take a broad view, Rudy. Look on the bright side. Whoever wins in November, your loss is the American people's gain.

Ethics Are for the Little People

Saint Rudy and his people don't need to bother. Sure, Roosevelt and Lincoln had to stand for re-election, but Rudy felt he needed to defy term limits and stay on unelected. This was ostensibly to keep up the morale of FDNY and NYPD, to whom he'd been denying contracts for years (At that point, NYPD, originally an ardent supporter, had already begun demonstrating against Giuliani).

Then there was the lawsuit demanding the right to bring his mistress into the home he shared with his wife and two young children, and then there was Bernard Kerik (and we don't seem to have heard the last of him).

Now here's Fred Brown, a Giuliani delegate who lives in a Battery Park high-rise, but votes and holds office in the Bronx. Brown claims it's OK because he owns property in the Bronx. Never mind that it's not actually located in the district he votes in--he's a Rudy supporter, so it's OK.

There's been a lot of chatter in the comments section about the double-zero contract that we took (during one of the biggest economic booms in NYC history). The UFT was the first to vote on this contract. The UFT President wrote a letter to rank-and-file stating anyone who thought we could do better must be "smoking something," and that we'd better get used to double zeros and a 25-year maximum. Nonetheless, rank-and-file rejected this contract.

Immediately thereafter, DC37 voted it up, and many municipal unions followed. A modified version of the contract was presented to the UFT, raising maximum to 22 rather than 25 years, and a demoralized UFT voted for it. As someone who reached maximum salary last year, I can tell you that the UFT Prez was wrong, and that we certainly benefited from our initial rejection.

But later, it was discovered that DC37 leaders had falsified their union election, the one that passed double-zeros and set the precedent for other municipal unions. Several DC37 leaders were relocated up the river to do a stretch. The fact that the municipal contracts were all based on blatant fraud did not trouble Saint Rudy at all. The contracts all stood.

What's the moral here? Morality must be strictly adhered to by working people, while important folks like Saint Rudy can do whatever they want, however they want, whenever they want.

Best Bets

There's an interesting piece in Firedoglake about who can best carry the upcoming 2008 elections. For Republicans, it appears John McCain is their man, but only because FDL has written off Rudy Giuliani. Despite the polls, I wonder how many skeletons would crawl out of Rudy's closet in a major national race.

And though the entire country seems to have written off John Edwards, he looks to be the best chance for Democrats to take the White House, followed by Obama, with Hillary in dead last.

The upshot of all this: If Hillary's the Democratic nominee, we could very easily lose to any likely GOP nominee. If Obama's the nominee, he does OK so long as he doesn't face McCain. But if Edwards is the nominee, we're sitting pretty. Which, I suspect, is one reason why Big Media hates John Edwards so much and does everything it can to destroy him. (Speaking of which: KingOneEye at DailyKos pointed out this morning how the NYT is ignoring a key result of its own poll on the race -- namely, that as more people get to know him, Edwards' favorability rating keeps going up.)

Even though polls show a statistical dead heat in Nevada, Edwards is routinely ignored by mainstream media. Hopefully sometime between now and February 5th, Democrats will take a look at the big picture and vote with their eyes wide open.

Haga como digo, no como hago

Rudy Giuliani insists immigrants must read English, write English, and speak English to become citizens. Curiously, he neglects to mention these demands on his Spanish-language ad:



Hat tip to Crooks and Liars

Rudy's Claim to Fame

Rudy runs on 9/11. But despite his elevation to sainthood on that day, his judgment was questionable at best. I share the feelings of some of these interviewees, who wonder what he actually did beyond looking good on television.



More here.

Our Hero

The NY Post reports today that Saint Rudy Giuliani billed various city agencies $500,000 to repeatedly visit his girlfriend in the Hamptons, while his wife and children sat in Graycie Mansion.

No wonder he couldn't afford to give contracts to cops, firefighters, or teachers.

More detail here.

Saint Rudy Talks Numbers

Well, we all know Saint Rudy's favorite number--9/11. After all, on 9/10 he was a bum, about to slink away from NYC, and the next day he was America's sweetheart. That's pretty good for a guy most people would be afraid to invite to their houses for spaghetti.

And it's damn good for a guy who went to court to demand the right to bring his mistress to a home he shared with his wife and young children. No Bill Clinton there. More like, "Damn right I was with Ms. Lewinski, and I'm bringing her home to meet the wife and kids right now."

But now Rudy is on a mission to make sure health care doesn't get to the bootless and unhorsed. To that end, he put an ad on the radio:

In the radio ad, Giuliani, who has suffered prostate cancer, said the U.S. survival rate for the disease was 82 percent, but the survival rate in Britain was just 44 percent "under socialized medicine."

It appears, though, that Mr. Giuliani got his statistics from the same folks who said we needed to invade Iraq:

A health department spokesman said the latest figures from Britain's Office of National Statistics showed a five-year survival rate of 74.4 percent for prostate cancer.

That's a significant difference. And that's not all:

Even that difference, as experts explained, probably has nothing to do with the British National Health Service and much to do with the aggressive screening programs employed in this country. (And for the moment, let's merely mention another highly pertinent issue, namely that the great majority of prostate cancers occur in men over 65, which indicates that many if not most are treated successfully under Medicare -- our version of national health insurance for the elderly -- or by the Department of Veterans Affairs, which comes as close to truly socialist healthcare as any system in the world.)

But the supreme irony is this--Saint Rudy was actually treated under a government program--specifically GHI, then a non-profit health care network popular with New York City employees (like me). So I guess it's easy for him to say we don't need to help those who've got nothing. After all, that was his entire approach to the school system--My kids don't go there, so what the hell do I care? That's why he had no problem proposing welfare recipients be required to work in public schools. Why shouldn't people chronically unable to find jobs serve as role models for our kids? After all, they're not his kids.

Sadly, that approach is precisely the one taken by the current administration, which has no qualms about sending kids to toxic waste sites or fighting tooth and nail when people ask leased schools be inspected as thoroughly as city-owned schools. Note they don't build sports stadiums on toxic waste sites. The billionaires who own the teams would never put up with that.

I read somewhere, "If Rudy becomes president, every day will be 9/11"

Rudy Stands Up

Ex-education Mayor Rudy Giuliani has taken a strong stand for vouchers for private schools. Rudy, of course, has strong credentials in education. Under his tenure, every time the state raised aid to city schools, he reduced city aid by an equivalent amount (Mayor Mike was forced to abandon this practice in order to gain mayoral control).

It was also the reason a judge determined that the city could be compelled to pay a portion of the CFE lawsuit. Mayor Mike doggedly refused until the award was cut by 75%. He then declared the severely reduced award a great victory for the city since it entailed no mayoral oversight.

Rudy was also the architect of a plan to force welfare recipients to work in public schools. Rudy felt people chronically unable to find work were adequate adult role models for the city's 1.1 million schoolchildren. After all, his kids went to private school anyway, so what did he care?

Under Rudy's tenure, teachers were the lowest paid in the area, standards for hiring teachers were the lowest in the area, conditions were the worst in the area, and class sizes were the highest in the area. So Rudy knows a little about running public schools. He knows how to run them right into the ground.

When Rudy talks education, he hopes people think 9/11. Here in New York, everyone knew he was a bum on 9/10. Some of us have yet to change our opinions.

Why Didn't I Think of That?

Everyone from NYC knows the schools never close, no matter how much snow there is, or how many wicked witches or cows happen to be flying through the air.

I vividly remember driving up the Long Island Expressway one morning with cars crashing to the left and right of me. Then-Mayor Giuliani was on the radio saying, "It's awful out there. If you don't have to come to work, stay home."

The mayor, of course, was referring to people of significance---not teachers or students, who were required to come in.

A pair of creative students from Edgewood, Ohio have decided to forgo such nonsense altogether. They simply stole a password, went to the school website, and announced a snow day themselves.

Spitzer Spits on Mayor Moneybags

Looks like Eliot Spitzer is prepared to compel Mayor Mike to pay for the quality teachers, lower class sizes, and decent facilities he's claimed to want for NYC's 1.1 million schoolchildren.

It appears if Mayor Mike wants to retain control of the school system, paying a portion of the CFE suit will be required. And if not, he might have to pay anyway:

"The only thing I will add to it," he said, "is that ... the city is technically a subservient political entity to the state, and the state could just mandate that the city's contribution be X."

Speculation is the city will have to pay somewhere between 25% (CFE's recommendation) and 40% (Governor Pataki's suggestion) of the cost of the CFE suit. You may recall one of Bloomie's mouthpieces telling the NY Times the city would say, "No thank you," if compelled to pay dime one.

Mayor Giuliani had a standing practice of reducing city aid by precisely whatever the state raised it, a practice Mayor Bloomberg had to renounce in order to win control.

Thanks to reality-based educator