Replies

BUMP!

This particular cut & paste with respect to the video on Youtube is especially interesting. I posted the thread which had the Rudy Giuliani video on YouTube: “I would like to run on the Democratic line “
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1793570/posts

Video of Rudy Giuliani in his own words
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVBtPIrEleM
And, sure enough, the ENTIRE THREAD was an example of crickets coming from team rudy. Flashbunny was kind enough to write up a transcript of the video and put it on his home page, so I started posting the transcript alongside the video link for those people who have slow connections and might even be afraid of a virus download from Youtube or whatnot.

As I continued to post the transcript, a few people posted to thank me for doing so because the information has been so enlightening.

Now we see that there is this online petition spreading around the internet, and this one example has had 100 social conservatives from Iowa sign it. And yes, parts of it do appear to be a cut & paste from the video transcript that flashbunny posted and that I have been using. So at this very moment, it appears that HUNDREDS OF SOCIAL CONSERVATIVES ARE SIGNING PETITIONS that contain cut&paste material from the stuff I’ve been posting. All because the rudybots didn’t want to respond with substance.

More than 100 Iowans sign Online Peition:
http://theconservativedeclaration.wordpress.com/

Conservatives:

Rudy Giuliani is an unacceptable Republican nominee for President of the United States. He is pro-abortion, pro-partial birth abortion, pro-registration of handguns, and pro-homosexual rights. He is the most liberal Republican candidate for President in our nation’s history.

Conservatives should leave no doubt that we will not support his candidacy under any circumstances. Therefore, we have created the Conservative Declaration of Independence to publicly state our position regarding the Republican Party’s consideration of a liberal as our Presidential nominee.

Please email theconservativedeclaration@hotmail.com to add your name to the list of signers.

Article II Supporting Evidence

Rudolf Giuliani explaining his liberal views:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVBtPIrEleM

Rudolf Giuliani explaining his position on abortion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALDfwXIYUX0

Rudolf Giuliani dressed as female:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IrE6FMpai8

Interview with gay couple Rudolf Giuliani lived with when Sept 11th occurred:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1589/is_2001_Sept_11/ai_78265968

Ban on Partial Birth Abortions:

“No, I do not support that (a ban on partial birth abortion), and I do not see my position on that changing.”

Abortion:

“There must be public funding of abortion for poor women. We cannot deny any woman the right to make her own decision about abortion because she lacks resources. I have also stated that I disagree with President’s Bush’s veto for public funding of abortion.”

Immigration:

“There is not a Mayor or Public Official in this country who is more pro-immigrant than I am.”

Gun Control:

“I am in favor of gun control”

“You know I am in favor of that (registration of all hand guns)”

Gay Rights:

”I support domestic partnership legislation and I signed it.”

Free Speech:

“I am a big supporter of McCain-Feingold and have been for a long time”

Party Loyalty:

”Frankly, I would like to run on all the lines. The liberal line, the conservative line, I would like to run on the Democratic line if I could figure out how to do it.”

Rudy Giuliani video on YouTube: “I would like to run on the Democratic line “
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1793570/posts

Video of Rudy Giuliani in his own words
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVBtPIrEle

Transcript of video below.

Will the real Rudy show up at CPAC?

Culture of life:

ABC clip:

George Will: “Do you think Roe v Wade was good constitutional law?”

Rudy Giuliani: “Yes I believe, I believe it is.”

Cnn Clip December 2, 1999:

Announcer: “Giuliani was then asked whether he supports a ban on what critics call partial birth abortions, something Bush strongly supports.”

Rudy Giuliani : “No, I have not supported that, and I don’t see my position on that changing.”

Immigration

CNN clip:

Announcer: “Back in 1996, mayor Giuliani went to federal court to challenge new federal laws requiring the city to inform the federal government about illegal immigrants.”

Rudy Giuliani: “There isn’t a mayor or a public official in this country that’s more strongly pro immigrant than I am. Including disagreeing with President Clinton when he signed an anti-immigration legislation about two or three years ago.”

Gun control:

CNN clip

Rudy Giuliani: “I’m in favor of gun control”

Meet The Press:

Tim Russert: “How about registration of all handguns?”

Rudy Giuliani: “You know I’m in favor of that. I’ve been on your show many times.”

Gay Rights:

CNN Clip:

Announcer: “As mayor he supported civil unions, and extending health and other benefits to gay couples.”

ABC Clip: “I supported domestic partnership legislation and signed it”

Meet The Press:

Tim Russert: “So should gay people be openly allowed to serve?”

Rudy Giuliani: “I think people should be judged on the merits. And there should not be a specific focus on someone’s sexual orientation.”

First Amendment:

ABC Clip

Cokie Roberts: “Would you vote in the senate in favor of Mccain / Feingold?”

Rudy Giuliani: “Yes, I’m a big supporter of Mccain / Feingold. I have been for a long time.”

Party Loyalty:

ABC Clip:

Rudy Giuliani: “Frankly George, I’d like to run on all the lines. I’d like to run on the liberal line, the conservative line, I’d like to run on the democratic line if I could figure out how to do it.”

Conservative Values:

Meet The Press:

Tim Russert: “Whether it’s gays in the military, gun control, campaign finance, late term abortion - you and Hillary Clinton are in sync on those issues.”

Rudy Giuliani: “Well then maybe the other side should stop the ‘He’s part of the vast right wing conspiracy’.”

Welcome To CPAC, Rudy!

End clip.

bookmark

Ellery had an intriguing quote used as a tagline: (I don’t remember a constitutional amendment that gives you the right not to be identified-R.Giuliani)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1821435/replies?c=2480

To: Kevmo
Thanks! I have more research to do — I read one reference to NYC synagogue firebombings during Giuliani’s tenure, but I haven’t had time to follow up on it. The picture that is emerging when Giuliani was confronted with a terrorist attack on NYC is of a mayor who tended to deny a terrorism motive, and prosecuted the attack as a stand-alone crime (rather than what they were: part of an interconnected war the Islamofascists were waging against us). He rejected the idea that these murderous Islamofascists were basically being encouraged and deployed by a larger community of global Islamofascists (some of these communities operated right in NYC), and instead took pains to insist that Islmofascist communities as a whole were in no way responsible for the actions of an individual attacker. This is the action of a crimefighter, not a warfighter.
Even when he later called something terrorism, or broke up a terrorist plot, he didn’t connect the dots back to a concerted war against us — he just kept swatting at flies.

Even your tagline is intriguing... what’s the context of it?

Here’s the background — Giuliani argued in favor of collecting DNA from all newborns. More troubling to me than the issue itself is that the statement shows that this former prosecuter (who should absolutely innately understand how the Constitution works) thinks that the Constitution “gives” us a limited number of rights, that we have no rights beyond that, and everything else is fair game for government intrustion. In fact, as you probably know, the Constitution limits government power, not our freedoms. As Reagan said: “Almost all the world’s constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which ‘We the people’ tell the government what it is allowed to do. ‘We the people’ are free.” Giuliani lacks this most basic understanding.

Here’s are the links:

Support for collecting DNA from every newborn —

While not actually proposing it here, he defends the idea (and demonstrates a truly flawed view of how the Constitution works in the process): http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE5DF103DF934A25751C1A96E958260

Key excerpt: When asked whether all children should have DNA tests at birth, the Mayor said: ‘’I don’t know that that’s the proposal, but I would have no problem with that, or fingerprinting all children. We go through a massive effort to try to fingerprint large numbers of children’’ now, he said, ‘’so in case they are lost they can be found again or in case if they are kidnapped they can be found again. There is absolutely no reason why people should be afraid of being identified.’’

-snip-

‘’It’s not invasive,’’ the Mayor said. ‘’It doesn’t invade any right of privacy. You don’t have a right not to be identified. I don’t remember a constitutional amendment that gives you the right not to be identified.’’

Later, he does propose that the state legislature mandate collection of DNA from all newborns:

http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/1999/11/32617

Key excerpt: Many experts believe the FBI’s database will be expanded in the future. The International Association of Police Chiefs has asked Congress to require DNA samples from anyone arrested, and New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani has requested that the state legislature require DNA samples from every newborn baby.

2,480 posted on 04/22/2007 12:32:37 PM PDT by ellery (I don’t remember a constitutional amendment that gives you the right not to be identified-R.Giuliani)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2036 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]

A lot of great information here. I know its been posted before but great information.

Rudy Giuliani: Lifelong Liberal The Politico ^ | 4/16/07 | George J. Marlin

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1815610/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1806866/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1818816/posts

On President Bill Clinton: Shortly before his last-minute endorsement of Bob Dole in the 1996 presidential election, Giuliani told the Post's Jack Newfield that "most of Clinton's policies are very similar to most of mine." -Rudy! An Investigative Biography of Rudolph Giuliani, Wayne Barrett.

The Real Rudy Giuliani:

From Human Events (ALSO THE LINK/SOURCE FOR THIS ARTICLE)::

Rudy's Strong Pro-Abortion Stance

As these comments from a 1989 conversation with Phil Donahue show, Rudy Giuliani is staunchly in favor of abortion:

"I've said that I'll uphold a woman's right of choice, that I will fund abortion so that a poor woman is not deprived of a right that others can exercise, and that I would oppose going back to a day in which abortions were illegal.

I do that in spite of my own personal reservations. I have a daughter now; if a close relative or a daughter were pregnant, I would give my personal advice, my religious and moral views ...

Donahue: Which would be to continue the pregnancy.

Giuliani: Which would be that I would help her with taking care of the baby. But if the ultimate choice of the woman - my daughter or any other woman - would be that in this particular circumstance [if she had] to have an abortion, I'd support that. I'd give my daughter the money for it."

Worse yet, Giuliani even supports partial birth abortion:

"I'm pro-choice. I'm pro-gay rights,Giuliani said. He was then asked whether he supports a ban on what critics call partial-birth abortions. "No, I have not supported that, and I don't see my position on that changing," he responded." -- CNN.com, "Inside Politics" Dec 2, 1999

It's bad enough that Rudy is so adamantly pro-abortion, but consider what that could mean when it comes time to select Supreme Court Justices. Does the description of Giuliani that you've just read make you think he's going to select an originalist like Clarence Thomas, who would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade -- or does it make you think he would prefer justices like Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy who'd leave Roe v. Wade in place?

Rudy's abortion stance is bad news for conservatives who are pro-life or who are concerned about getting originalist judges on the Supreme Court.

An Anti-Second Amendment Candidate

In the last couple of election cycles, 2nd Amendment issues have moved to the back burner mainly because even Democratic candidates have learned that being tagged with the "gun grabber" label is political poison.

Unfortunately, Rudy Giuliani is a proponent of gun control who supported the Brady Bill and the Assault Weapon Ban.

Do Republicans really want to abandon their strong 2nd Amendment stance by selecting a pro-gun control nominee?

Soft on Gay Marriage

Other than tax cuts, the biggest domestic issue of the 2004 election was President Bush's support of a Constitutional Amendment to define marriage as being between a man and a woman. Unfortunately, Rudy Giuliani has taken a "Kerryesque" position on gay marriage.

Although Rudy, like John Kerry, has said that marriage should remain between a man and a woman, he also supports civil unions, "marched in gay-pride parades" ...dressed up in drag on national television for a skit on Saturday Night Live (and moved in with a) wealthy gay couple" after his divorce. He also very vocally opposed running on a gay marriage amendment:

His thoughts on the gay-marriage amendment? "I don't think you should run a campaign on this issue," he told the Daily News earlier this month. "I think it would be a mistake for anybody to run a campaign on it -- the Democrats, the president, or anybody else."

Here's more from the New York Daily News:

"Rudy Giuliani came out yesterday against President Bush's call for a ban on gay marriage.

The former mayor, who Vice President Cheney joked the other night is after his job, vigorously defended the President on his post-9/11 leadership but made clear he disagrees with Bush's proposal to rewrite the Constitution to outlaw gays and lesbians from tying the knot.

"I don't think it's ripe for decision at this point," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"I certainly wouldn't support [a ban] at this time," added Giuliani..."

Although Rudy may grudgingly say he doesn't support gay marriage (and it would be political suicide for him to do otherwise), where he really stands on the issue is an open question.

Pro-Illegal Immigration

As Tom Bevan of RealClearPolitics has pointed out, Rudy is an adherent of the same approach to illegal immigration that John McCain, Ted Kennedy, George Bush, and Harry Reid have championed:

"While McCain has taken heat for his support of comprehensive immigration reform, Rudy is every bit as pro-immigration as McCain - if not more so. On the O'Reilly Factor last week Giuliani argued for a "practical approach" to immigration and cited his efforts as Mayor of New York City to "regularize" illegal immigrants by providing them with access to city services like public education to "make their lives reasonable." Giuliani did say that "a tremendous amount of money should be put into the physical security" needed to stop the flow of illegal immigrants coming across the border, but his overall position on immigration is essentially indistinguishable from McCain's."

That's bad enough. But, as Michelle Malkin has revealed, under Giuliani, New York was an illegal alien sanctuary and "America's Mayor" actually sued the federal government in an effort to keep New York City employees from having to cooperate with the INS:

"When Congress enacted immigration reform laws that forbade local governments from barring employees from cooperating with the INS, Mayor Rudy Giuliani filed suit against the feds in 1997. He was rebuffed by two lower courts, which ruled that the sanctuary order amounted to special treatment for illegal aliens and were nothing more than an unlawful effort to flaunt federal enforcement efforts against illegal aliens. In January 2000, the Supreme Court rejected his appeal, but Giuliani vowed to ignore the law."

If you agree with the way that Nancy Pelosi and Company deal with illegal immigration, then you'll find the way that Rudy Giuliani tackles the issue to be right down your alley.

A More Charismatic Version of Arlen Specter

Rudy Giuliani may have many fine qualities, but he is not a conservative, nor has he always been a loyal Republican.

For example, back in the mid-nineties, when he was actually running New York City, Rudy could have fairly been said to have governed as a moderate at best and to the left-of-center at worst:

"The National Journal’s rating system put him at 56 percent conservative and 44 percent liberal on economic issues in 1996 and assessed him as liberal by 59 to 40 percent in looking at his social issues votes."

The New York Observer also had a very interesting selection of quotes from and about Rudy over the years that may give his conservative supporters more than a little pause. Here are a few of those quotations:

Some ask, How can the Liberal Party support a candidate who disagrees with the Liberal Party position on so many gut issues? But when the Liberal Party Policy Committee reviewed a list of key social issues of deep concern to progressive New Yorkers, we found that Rudy Giuliani agreed with the Liberal Party's stance on a majority of such issues. He agreed with the Liberal Party's views on affirmative action, gay rights, gun control, school prayer and tuition tax credits. As Mayor, Rudy Giuliani would uphold the Constitutional and legal rights to abortion. -- N.Y.S. Liberal Party Endorsement Statement of R. Giuliani for Mayor of New York City April 8, 1989

Mr. Rockefeller represented "a tradition in the Republican Party I've worked hard to re-kindle - the Rockefeller, Javits, Lefkowitz tradition." -- Rudy Giuliani, New York Times, July 9, 1992

What kind of Republican? Is [Giuliani], for instance, a Reagan Republican? [Giuliani] pauses before answering: "I'm a Republican." -- Village Voice, January 24, 1989

"Shortly before his last-minute endorsement of Bob Dole in the 1996 presidential election, [Giuliani] told the Post's Jack Newfield that "most of Clinton's policies are very similar to most of mine." The Daily News quoted [Giuliani] as saying that March: "Whether you talk about President Clinton, Senator Dole.... The country would be in very good hands in the hands of any of that group."

Revealing at one point that he was "open" to the idea of endorsing Clinton, he explained: "When I ran for mayor both times, '89 and '93, I promised people that I would be, if not bipartisan, at least open to the possibility of supporting Democrats." -- Rudy - An Investigative Biography of Rudolph Giuliani, Wayne Barrett, Page 459

"From my point of view as the mayor of New York City, the question that I have to ask is, 'Who has the best chance in the next four years of successfully fighting for our interest? Who understands them, and who will make the best case for it?' Our future, our destiny is not a matter of chance. It's a matter of choice. My choice is Mario Cuomo." -- Rudy Giuliani: Emperor of the City, Andrew Kirtzman, Page 133

"[Quite] frankly, you have to understand the fact that Rudy Giuliani was a McGovern Democrat, he was endorsed by the Liberal Party when he ran for Mayor. In his heart, he's a Democrat. He's paraded all over this country with Bill Clinton and, in fact, he's very comfortable with Mario Cuomo. But what Rudy Giuliani wants is to be bailed out in the city, in the mess he's in, and everybody understands very clearly in politics that they struck a deal, that Mario's going to continue to be the big spender, save Rudy the options of raising taxes by pouring money statewide into the City of New York and bailing it out. Quite frankly, I predict that he will join the Democratic Party." -- Interview with Michael Long, Chairman N.Y.S., Conservative Party, CNN Crossfire, October 25, 1994

Does this really sound like the sort of candidate we want as a standard bearer for the Republican Party?

He Can't Keep His Pants Up

There has only been one man who has ever made it to the White House after being divorced and that was Ronald Reagan, who had been married to Nancy for more than 25 years before his campaign in 1980. Rudy, on the other hand, is on his third wife.

Furthermore, his second divorce from Donna Hanover was extremely ugly. Hanover accused Rudy of "open and notorious adultery." She also claimed Rudy had an affair with a staffer, Christyne Lategano-Nicholas, which both Giuliani and Lategano-Nicholas denied. However, Rudy has acknowledged that he started seeing his current wife, Judith Nathan, before his divorce from Hanover was finalized in 2002.

Given how recent this divorce was, Rudy's adultery, and the fact that he married, "the other woman," the press can be expected to cover Rudy's marriage to Hanover exhaustively if he gets the nomination and needless to say, Rudy, quite deservedly, will not come off very well.

Does He Have The Judgment To Be President?

As you've just seen, Rudy hasn't necessarily made the best decisions in his personal life. Unfortunately, the Bernard Kerik incident shows that Giuliani's poor judgment can spill over into political matters as well.

Rudy recommended his friend and business partner, Bernard Kerik, for the position of Homeland Security Secretary and the Bush administration, perhaps because Rudy vouched for him, didn't do a very thorough job of vetting him.

Soon after Kerik's nomination became public, allegations surfaced that Kerik was having two simultaneous affairs, had ties to a construction company "linked to the mob," and had an illegal alien nanny whose taxes hadn't been paid. Under fire from the press, Kerik withdrew his name from consideration for the Homeland Security position and the Bush administration was left with egg on its face for putting up such a scandal ridden nominee.

While the whole debacle was embarrassing for the Bush Administration, it raised even more serious questions about Rudy. After all, if Bernard Kerik is the sort of person Rudy sees as an appropriate friend, business partner, and nominee to run the Homeland Security Department, it makes you wonder what kind of people he is surrounding himself with on a day to day basis.

How Electable Is Rudy Giuliani Really?

One of the biggest selling points for Rudy Giuliani is supposed to be that he's "electable" because a lot of independents and Democrats will vote for him. The problem with that sort of thinking is that if he becomes the Republican nominee, the very liberal mainstream media will spend nine months relentlessly savaging him in an effort to help the Democrats. Because of that, Giuliani's sky high polling numbers with non-Republicans are 100% guaranteed to drop significantly before election time rolls around in 2008.

That is not necessarily a problem; after all the mainstream media is always against the Republican nominee, if -- and this is a big "if" -- the GOP nominee has strong support from the Republican base.

The big problem Rudy has is that he isn't going to be able to generate that kind of support. For one thing, as a candidate, he offers almost nothing to social conservatives, without whom a victory for George Bush in 2004 wouldn't have been possible. If the choice in 2008 comes down to a Democrat and a pro-abortion, soft on gay marriage, left-of-center candidate on social issues -- like Rudy -- you can be sure that millions of "moral values voters" will simply stay home and cost the GOP the election.

The other issue is in the South. George Bush swept every Southern state in 2000 and 2004, which is quite an impressive feat when you consider that the Democrats had Southerner Al Gore at the top of the ticket in 2000 and John Edwards as the veep in 2004. Unfortunately, a pro-abortion, soft on gay marriage, pro-gun control RINO from New York City just isn't going to be able to repeat that performance. Even against a carpetbagger like Hillary Clinton, it's entirely likely that you'll see at least 2 or 3 states in the South turn from red to blue if Rudy Giuliani is the nominee.

Also, the reason why George Bush's approval numbers have been mired in the high thirties/low forties of late is because he has lost a significant amount of Republican support, primarily because his domestic policies aren't considered conservative enough. Since that's the case, running a candidate who is several steps to Bush's left on domestic policy certainly doesn't seem like a great way to unite the base again.

Conclusion

Despite all of his charisma and the wonderful leadership he showed after 9/11, Rudy Giuliani is not a Reagan Republican. To the contrary, Giuliani is another Christie Todd Whitman, another Arlen Specter, another Olympia Snowe. He's a throwback to the "bad old days" before Reagan, when the GOP was run by moderate Country Club Republicans who considered conservatives to be extremists. Trying to revive that failed strategy again is likely to lead to a Democratic President in 2008 and numerous setbacks for the Republican Party.

Here are some of his speeches on DUI asset seizures. He seems to think that its the greatest thing since sliced bread:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/records/rwg/html/99a/me990404.html
http://www.nyc.gov/html/records/rwg/html/99a/me990221.html
http://www.nyc.gov/html/records/rwg/html/2001b/weekly/wkly0813.html

NEW YORK LAW JOURNAL MAY 20, 1999: The Giuliani Administration won a sweeping court victory yesterday upholding its get-tough policy of confiscating the cars of motorists arrested for drunk driving, which started in February. Acting Justice Michael Stallman broadly affirmed the statutory and constitutional underpinnings of the new seizure policy offered by the City Corporation Counsel’s Office, finding that no hearing — pre-or post-seizure — is required under state or federal due process principles as long as a criminal case is pending. Similarly, on one of the thorniest legal issues presented by the new policy, he concluded, the car seizures did not run afoul of the federal constitutional ban on “excessive fines.” Justice Stallman found that all of the objections ~~ dissolved under the common-sense observation that “the automobile of a drunk driver is the quintessential instrumentality of a crime — the sine qua non without which the crime could not be committed

I have read many but not all of his speeches. They show his liberal positions in his own words. They are at:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/records/rwg/

Haven’t had a chance to go thru the press releases yet!

Enjoy!

Vote in the primaries, ABR - Anybody But Rudy!

Rudy Giuliani's Law Firm Lobbying in Texas for Venezuela-Owned Citgo

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Fox News.com

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,258899,00.html

We look upon authority too often and focus over and over again, for 30 or 40 or 50 years, as if there is something wrong with authority. We see only the oppressive side of authority. Maybe it comes out of our history and our background. What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do. - Rudy Giuliani, 1994.

Cut from the same cloth?

"We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." - Hillary Clinton, 2004.

LAW SCHOOLS USE GIULIANI TO TEACH FIRST AMENDMENT (Giuliani 101)
Associated Press | Nov 28, 1999 | Beth J. Harpaz
The Record. Bergen County, N.J.: Nov 28, 1999. pg. A.09

FR Posted on 04/12/2007 8:48:56 AM PDT by calcowgirl

Move over, Thomas Jefferson and the Pentagon Papers. The hottest topic in law school these days is New York’s Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who has been sued two dozen times on First Amendment grounds and lost nearly every case - including three in the last three weeks. “Lately it seems as if I could teach a First Amendment course just on Mayor Giuliani,” mused Amy Adler, a professor at New York University School of Law.

Professors say their favorite cases include Giuliani’s recent fight with the Brooklyn Museum of Art over a painting of the Virgin Mary decorated with elephant dung.

The mayor tried to cut the museum’s funding but a judge ruled he could not. Others are the New York magazine case, in which the courts said the mayor could not stop the magazine from buying ad space on city buses just because the ads poked fun at him, and numerous cases in which he tried to deny permits for demonstrations by groups ranging from taxi drivers to the Million Youth March to the Ku Klux Klan.

“It’s important in any area of the law to try to show students that what they’re learning is relevant,” said Michael Dorff, a Columbia Law School professor. “It’s
especially relevant in constitutional law because the backdrop is what is the proper role of the court with respect to questions that have an importantly political dimension? The beauty of living in New York is that the mayor is constantly generating classroom hypotheticals.”

But it is not just New York where Giuliani’s First Amendment follies are required reading.

“Giuliani is an object lesson of the temptation the government feels to enforce various orthodoxies,” said Bruce Miller, a professor at Western New England College of Law in Springfield, Mass.

“He’s like an archetype of the figure that the First Amendment was kind of aimed at protecting us from - the government official out of control.”

Robert O’Neil printed out copies of the judge’s decision on the Brooklyn Museum for the class he teaches at the University of Virginia Law School. We were talking about prior restraint - the removal of controversial books from school and public libraries - and this helps my students appreciate the currency and vitality of these issues,” O’Neil said.

O’Neil is also the director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, which recently gave Giuliani a lifetime “Muzzle Award” for “unprecedented disregard for freedom of expression in a wide variety of settings and contexts.”

Jeffrey M. Shaman, a professor at DePaul University College of Law in Chicago, says he uses the Giuliani cases “to talk about the idea that offensiveness of speech is not a reason to restrict it. And we use it to talk about the tendency of some governmental officials to overreach their authority and try to regulate speech they don’t like.”

The Giuliani administration doesn’t see it that way. “We are not against the First Amendment,” said Daniel S. Connolly, a lawyer with the corporation counsel, which represents Giuliani and the city. “The decisions made by this administration are not made against the First Amendment. They are made for independent reasons of public policy.

“If a group seeks to close off 29 city streets to hold a rally for 12 hours, as they did with the Million Youth March, we’re going to say no for public policy reasons, not because we’re against the First Amendment,” Connolly continued.

“If a group of taxi drivers wants to take 1,000 cars over the 59th Street Bridge at rush hour, we’re going to say no for public policy reasons, not because we’re against the First Amendment.”

Connolly added: “What all of this has been about is government maintaining its responsibility to everyone, while at the same time balancing the individual’s right to express themselves.”

Giuliani’s critics disagree. “The reason why I think professors are teaching Giuliani 101, in effect, is that this is a clear example of government abuse of authority,” said Norman Siegel, the director of the New York Civil Liberties Union and party to many of the anti- Giuliani lawsuits. The NYCLU is holding a conference called “The Muzzled Metropolis” next year about Giuliani’s First Amendment run-ins.

It’s not just law professors making Giuliani part of the curriculum. Ken Paulson uses the New York magazine and Brooklyn Museum cases in a class on continuing journalism education at the American Press Institute in Reston, Va.

“They really bring home to the class just how precarious a position the First Amendment is in on a daily basis,” he said.

RUDY IS CHILLED BY DRAFT; HE’S A DODGER: VETS

By CATHY BURKE April 15, 2007 NY POST

For a man intent on moving into the White House, Rudy Giuliani carries a lot of baggage - but it’s his draft-dodging past that may prove the biggest drag in the campaign, prominent veterans tell New York magazine in tomorrow’s issue. Speaking about terrorism and the Iraq war last week, Giuliani boasted, “It is something I understand better than anyone else running for president.”

But it was draft deferments that kept Giuliani, 62, out of Vietnam while he attended law school.

He was granted a 2-A occupational deferment for his job as a law clerk in 1969 after his boss, the late Manhattan federal Judge Lloyd MacMahon, wrote a letter to the local draft board - a move criticized years later as rare and questionable.

Law clerks were not on the 1968 list of critical jobs that qualified for occupational deferments. When the deferment expired in 1970, Giuliani became susceptible again - but lucked out with such a high draft number that it would have been unnecessary to attempt to continue his exemption. He was never called.

“Giuliani was opposed to the war in Vietnam on “strategic and tactical” grounds......” his spokesman added, although she wouldn’t offer specifics. —SNIP—

SOURCE http://www.nypost.com/seven/04152007/news/regionalnews/rudy_is_chilled_by_draft_regionalnews_cathy_burke.htm

Read it and weep.

COLMES: Now, Roe vs. Wade -- You are pro-choice. How important is it to you as a pro-choice Republican to have a pro-choice on the court as someone...
GIULIANI: That is not the critical factor. And what's important to me is to have a very intelligent, very honest, very good lawyer on the court. And he (Roberts) fits that category, in the same way Justice Ginsburg fit that category.
I mean, she was — she maybe came at it from a very different political background, very qualified lawyer, very smart person.
COLMES: ... donated money to the guy whose nominated you, if you've given him money, money to his campaign, if you've worked to get him elected, behind the scenes advising the attorney general?
GIULIANI: Sure. That's be exactly the kind of person you'd think that you'd want to appoint, somebody who shares kind of your general outlook, but hasn't indicated and hasn't really predetermined most of the cases that are going to be determined by the court.
Presidents, going back to the beginning of the republic, generally appoint people on the Supreme Court that they believe agree with them. It's sort of an extraordinary thing to ask of President Bush. Nobody asked it of President Clinton.

President Clinton appointed people that basically agreed with his political philosophy, which is left of center. Of course, President Bush is going to appoint people that basically agree with his political philosophy

Rudy will appoint judges that agree with his political philosophy. What has Rootie's political philosophy been all his life? Remember, he started out as a democrat and even endorsed St. Mario the Pious, an extreme liberal democrat over Pataki, the Republican candidate for Governor of New York.

Rootie is a political opportunist. Treat him accordingly.

I happened on this gem while searching for some other information.

Giuliani, after the Empire State Observation Deck shootings.

It seems Rudy G. ran right to Carolyn McCarthy after that one.

BTTT

You’ve done a good job here informing the public of Rudy’s faults. I am a New Yorker and I thought he did some good things as Mayor, but you have to realize that this is because his predecessor was a left wing liberal who obviously hurt New York.

Rudy was good as the lessor evil in New York. But nationally, he will not motivate true conservatives across the nation that elected George Bush twice, even with all the negative press the President receives.

Keep up the good work!

I see that a new keyword is being used: GiulianiTruthFile.

It’s chock full of excellent giuliani material for use.

If y’all find a good thread, throw that keyword on it.

Neponsit Refugees Win $5 Million Settlement from City

Overlooking the ocean on Rockaway Beach Boulevard and Beach 148 Street quietly stands the vacant Neponsit Health Care Center, which once was home to nearly 300 senior citizens, who Monday were awarded a $5 million settlement from the city in compensation for trauma suffered from the abrupt 1998 closing of the facility.

Shortly after a Labor Day storm in September of 1998, which caused structural damage, the Neponsit nursing home was completely evacuated over a two-day period without prior notice to the patients, their families or the staff. Residents, some of whom had lived at the nursing home for 15 years, were bused to a number of different hospital wards and nursing homes across the city.

The mass transfer was so sudden that some family members learned of the transfer from watching the news. "They were moved out like cattle in the night," said Lew M. Simon, Democratic District Leader. Elderly patients were left confused and uncertain of their own whereabouts. A 71-year-old woman was missing for several days immediately following the closing of the Neponsit home. "Some people couldn’t find their teeth after [the move]," said Audrey Pheffer, Assemblywoman.

"According to the Giuliani administration, the buildings were in imminent danger of collapse," said John Gaska, district manager Community Board 14. Though almost five years later (9 years now) all four brick buildings of the Neponsit Health Care Center stand intact. "We all know that it was not at the brink of falling down," said Pheffer.

In February and March of 2000, Merritt & Harris, Inc., hired by the City Council, conducted an independent structural survey of the Neponsit home. "We were retained to see if the buildings were in imminent danger of collapse," said Peter Brady, Project Manager, Merritt & Harris. "We concluded, no." The buildings were in "fair to good structural condition" according to the March 2000 Merritt & Harris report.

Once they were able to get their bearings, the 278 residents of the Neponsit Health Care Center filed a class action lawsuit against the city alleging massive violations of the due process rights of the residents who were evacuated without prior notice, according to April Newbauer of The Legal Aid Society, who represented the plaintiffs. Under a settlement reached Monday, each patient will receive $18,000 and for the 110 who have died since September 1998 the settlement money will go to their families. "All the money in the world is not worth what took place that day," said Brenda Tripp, daughter of Eunice, a Neponsit patient. In addition, the city agrees to provide prior notice, preparation and discharge planning in the event that the city intends to transfer 100 or more nursing home residents, according to The Legal Aid Society. "When you move someone frail, medically it can have devastating consequences," said Newbauer.

Unlike many communities, Neponsit embraced the nursing home on Rockaway Beach Blvd near Riis Park. "The community was quite upset [by the closing]," said Michael O’Connor, President of the Neponsit Property Owners Association. "It was disturbing to all of us." Supporters, including union members and residents, held rallies in which they stood outside the nursing home alongside a casket, said Simon, who one day wants to retire in the Neponsit nursing home. Though the lawsuit has been settled, after a nearly five-year battle, not all will give up the fight. "My dream is to get it re-opened, get the patients back, get the staff back," said Simon.

The four buildings that once served as a nursing home lies on land that is zoned as park land. If the property were to be used for anything other than a health related facility it must be park land. Once a site is determined to be park land it can only be changed by an act of the State legislature. The class action lawsuit filed by the former patients of the Neponsit nursing home was filed the day before a proposed demolition of the site. A federal court granted an injunction preventing demolition and the Neponsit Health Care Center still stands untouched to this day. In late summer or early fall Community Board 14 will sit down and discuss future plans for the site, said Gaska.

Small potatoes to most but very important to me.