Posted on 03/03/2007 11:30:16 PM PST by FairOpinion
McCain-hating and Romney-bashing have been pretty much equal-opportunity pastimes around CPAC this year.
Rudy, on the other hand, has gotten mostly a free pass. And, today, his speech was filled to capacity with folks waiting in the hallway to get in. There were also dense crowds around all the TVs in the exhibit halls. The charm offensive is strong, indeed. People just love listening to him.
I took some video of conservatives quite mesmerized by the Mayor, so I'm working on getting that up. They were doing crowd control outside the hall in which he was speaking. Many of those folks crowding the hall are pro-life, social conservatives who just can't resist him, despite the policy differences. I don't think Rudy will remain unattacked, as he was this week, but the feel-good factor is big for him, no matter what kind of conservative he's talking to.
Today, he talked about leadership, security, toughness, and Reagan to a crowd who's looking for a leader in the image of Reagan in a time that needs security. It was a good pitch, and there were more people listening than have listened to anything at CPAC this week.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
Cool!
That makes my day.. Thank you dear girl..
I totally agree.. :)
- Rudy tossed Arafat out of a city sponsored celebrations saying, "I would rather not have someone who has been implicated in the murders of Americans there, if I have the discretion not to have him there”.
- Rudy did the same to Fidel Castro.
- When a Saudi prince donated millions to 9/11 relief efforts and later suggested that United States policy in the Middle East may have been partially responsible for the attacks, Rudy returned the money.
- Rudy refused to meet with racial arsonist Al Sharpton.
- Rudy as mayor was strong on law and order. Rudy said that "government exists above all to keep people safe in their homes and in the streets, not to redistribute income, run a welfare state, or perform social engineering". And Rudy backed this all up by going after both quality-of-life crimes and serious crimes. Total crime went down by some 64 percent during the Giuliani years, and murder went down 67 percent. Auto thefts went down on average about 80,000 per year.
- Rudy supported the police when the police had to enter and deal with Muslims at a mosque.
- Rudy closed down many porn shops across the city and specifically shutdown porn shops in residential neighborhoods.
- Rudy went after both low level and high level drug dealers for the first time in the cities history.
- Rudy had zero tolerance for quality of life crimes such as squeegee extortionists, graffiti vandals, panhandling and public urination.
- Rudy launched a welfare revolution, removing illegal recipients, cutting the rolls by 20% the first year alone and dropping the welfare rolls by 600,000 over the course of his plan.
- Rudy launched a work requirement program for the remaining welfare recipients. The NY Times called it slavery.
- Rudy constantly spoke out against illegitimacy and fatherless families. One of many things that Rudy said on the subject was the following: " If you wanted a social program that would really save these kids, . . . I guess the social program would be called fatherhood."
- Rudy objected to affirmative action. Rudy ended the cities set-aside program for minority contractors.
- Rudy rejected the idea of lowering the job requirement standards for minorities and woman.
- Rudy ended open-ended enrollment at the City University of NY.
- Rudy said. "it was unfair to expect middle-class kids to work their way through college by holding down jobs and going to classes while exempting students on welfare from working."
- Rudy reformed the public school system and forced out liberal chancellors who wouldn't install his reforms.
- Rudy tried to privatize 5 of the cities worst public schools.
- Rudy was for school vouchers. Rudy said, "The whole notion of choice is really about more freedom for people, rather than being subjugated by a government system that says you have no choice about the education of your child,".
- Rudy fought against public money for an art display that defiled Christ and he fought against other obscene so-called works of art.
- Rudy played hardball with city unions winning concessions from city workers that other mayors had failed to do.
- Rudy strong armed state leaders to merge the cities Housing Police and Transit Police into the NYPD saving the city hundreds of millions. Rudy did this by threatening to fire every housing and transit officer and rehire each as a city cop if legislative leaders did not go along.
- Rudy did the same with the city’s garbageman, many of whom worked only half days because the department was so overstaffed with union jobs. Rudy won $300 million in savings from them by threatening to contract out trash collection to private companies.
- Rudy cut or killed 23 levies and taxes, saving taxpayers $9.8 billion during his terms.
- Rudy cut NYC's top income-tax rate by 20.6%.
- Local NYC taxes on a family of four dropped 23.7% during Rudy's term.
- Rudy cut the commercial-rent tax.
- Rudy cut sales taxes, including taxes on clothing.
- Rudy cut the marriage penalty on taxpaying couples.
- Rudy cut taxes on commercial rents everywhere outside of Manhattan’s major business districts, and various taxes on small businesses and self-employed New Yorkers.
- Rudy's expenditure growth averaged 2.9% annually, while local inflation between January 1994 and December 2001 averaged 3.6%.
- Rudy privatized municipal assets.
- Rudy sold WNYC radio for $20 million, WNYC-TV for $207 million, and NYC's share of the U.N. Plaza Hotel for $85 million.
- Rudy divested the the City from the New York Coliseum adding $345 million to city coffers.
- Rudy let the private Central Park Conservancy manage Central Park.
- Rudy cut NYC's hotel tax from 6% to 5%. Consequently, hotel tax revenues increased from $135 million in Fiscal Year 1995 to $239 million in FY 2001.
- When asked if Rudy would raise taxes after 9/11 Rudy said that would be "a dumb, stupid, idiotic, and moronic thing to do."
- A quote from Rudy on his economic philosophy: “City government should not and cannot create jobs through government planning...The best it can do, and what it has a responsibility to do, is to deal with its own finances first, to create a solid budgetary foundation that allows businesses to move the economy forward on the strength of their energy and ideas. After all, businesses are and have always been the backbone of New York City.”
- Construction permits increased by more than 50% in the city per year during Rudy's terms.
- Tourism increased 50% in the city per year during Rudy's terms.
- City jobs increased by 430,000 to an all time high of 3.72 million during Rudy's terms.
- City personal income increased 50% during Rudy's terms.
- The percentage income that city residence paid in taxes declined from 8.8 to 7.3 percent during Rudy's terms.
- Unemployment in the city went form 10.3% to 5.1% during Rudy's terms.
- Rudy was an outstanding leader during the 9/11 crisis.
- Rudy has been a strong supporting in our WOT including supporting the mission in Iraq.
- Rudy was chosen by Ronald Reagan in 1981 as an Associate Attorney General placing him in the third highest position in the Reagan's DOJ.
- In 1983, Rudy was appointed by Reagan to be U.S. Attorney for the SD of NY. In that position, Rudy amassed 4,152 convictions including the heads of NY's so-called "Five Families". Rudy also procecuted terrorists and illegal immigrants.
Angry archivists and historians denounced the unprecedented hijacking of public property to private hands. Tom Connors, of the Society of American Archivists, said the transfer seemed part of a movement to "create barriers to the American citizen's right to know what their governments are doing."
The families of the police and fire rescuers who died in the attack balked at Giuliani's plan to take up to a year to dole out the money, with his new organization billing $2.2 million in anticipated administrative expenses (including six-figure salaries for friends he appointed as officers). The families argued that the fire union had far more quickly distributed $111 million with an estimated administrative cost of just $30,000.
Under embarrassing pressure from the victims' families, unions and state Attorney General Elliot Spitzer, Giuliani backed down. He promised to distribute the money within 60 days and fund his overhead from new donations. The families of the deceased rescuers, the real heroes of the September 11 attacks, received a one-time benefit of about $230,000 each from the Giuliani-privatized fund in 2002. That year, the former mayor earned some $8 million in speaking fees alone, more than $650,000 per month.
New York conveniently forgot the 1996 federal ban on sanctuary laws until a gang of five Mexicans—four of them illegal—abducted and brutally raped a 42-year-old mother of two near some railroad tracks in Queens. The NYPD had already arrested three of the illegal aliens numerous times for such crimes as assault, attempted robbery, criminal trespass, illegal gun possession, and drug offenses. The department had never notified the INS.
Thanks. It's Lent, I gave up flame wars.
Thank you for clear, factual, reasoned postings. I may not agree with everything you post, but I definately respect the way that you post them.
I does amaze me that the defenders of Rudy are so hostile. Not only does their politics resemble the liberal left, but so does their "style" of discourse.
Sincerely
Thank you.
Only to Barney Frank. He loves nusicals..
Every thing except the last one is a good thing. Freedom without authority is indeed, not freedom at all, but anarchy. The only problem with the other two things is that Giuliani didn't get his way. He should have.
And the last thing is highly questionable. I have yet to see any proof of this accusation.
Senatorial courtesy demands that you endorse your fellow same-state senator from your own party.
Even Rick Santorum endorsed Arlen Specter in the early going in 2000.
Assault? Anti-Christian? Perhaps you need to be educated a bit. To begin with, I AM a Christian, and was educated in Catholic schools my entire life. I certainly do not find anything in Christian teachings that is objectionable. What I find objectionable is the selective application of Christian teachings by a self-appointed bunch of busy-bodies who cannot recognize the mockery they make of the most basic tenets of the faith with their ignorance.
While I am certainly NOT anti-Christian, I am certainly anti-Christianization of the American political process. While it's absolutely fine for your religion to inform your views and opinions, it's certainly not alright to impose your dogma through force of law or political office. Some "conservatives" (small 'c' intentional) neither recognize the difference, nor care that there is a distinction to be made.
That's how the Middle East got themselves a mess of Hezbollahs, Talibans, etc --when the religious becomes the political, oppression and the eroding of rights is the ONLY outcome. Not in my country, pal.
I and many of my Southern Baptist conservatives are supporting Rudy. Saving the USA is vital and Rudy is the one to do it.
Vote for all the others and give Hillary or Obama a walk into the White House. Rudy can win!
"I'm sure your winning the hearts and minds of many people."
And so are you with your rhetoric.
I object, strenuopusly, to the assumption that the only person worthy of winning a Republican primary and representing the party in a general election MUST be a paragon of narrowly-defined Christian virtues.
Thank you for illustrating the lunacy of the vitriolic right-wing of the republican party.
If we left it to people like you, we'd all have the unenviable choice between the Nanny-State (democrats) and the Granny-state (the Buchannanite One Percenters). No thanks.
I never called you a liar, Pahrmboy, I've only pointed out that your complaint never seems to include the reason why your permits were yanked. There MUST be a legally-defensible, logical reason for taking your permits away, and the authorities involved MUST have informed you of them, no?
Considering that I've asked you twice to state the reason given for the taking away of your permits, and you haven't, I'm beginning to think that perhaps the reason is either personally embarassing to you, or that it was quite justified.
If you want to vote for Rudy and you don't care much for gun rights (I know, I know, you don't carry yours anymore--yawn) please do. Just do not try and tell anyone here that he is NOT a gun grabber, because he is ALL of that.
Ah, so the rules changed and you failed to make yourself aware of it, and somehow that's Rudy's fault?
As a responsible gun owner and afficianado, it is your job to ensure that you are aware of the law and your requirements for complying with it, at all times. Rudy was not required to personally ensure that you were aware of the changes, that was YOUR job.
As for the complaint about the mail-in renewal, cry me a river. Convenience and gun-ownership should not mix; owning a weapon is a right, but one that comes with corrersponding responsibilities. Insisting that you be allowed to enjoy a right without having to uphold your responsibilities (like not knowing the law, not knowing the conditions under which your permit is issued and renewed, and expecting the process to conform to your personal definition of convenience) makes you sound like a democrat.
Rudy is a gun grabber. Deal with it.
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