Buchanan on Rudy's Endless War

[Al Federfer]

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=23352

[NCarolinawoman]

1. This information should be sent to any Independent

or moderate Republican who is considering voting for Rudy. Also, this should be shown to any Democrat who won't vote because their "chosen one" didn't win the primary. ANY Democrat is better than this!

I have bookmarked this for future use. Thanks for posting this.

[TwilightGardener]

2. Agree with Pat here...and can't believe that many of the commenters

do as well, since Human Events is a GOP site.

[Augdog20]

3. wikipedia Controversies of Rudy Giuliani article heading to termination

Unless you join and stop them.

Here is the address: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_of_Rudy_Giuliani

Here is the most of the article preserved, in state before pro=Giuli cutl opted to delete it.
Controversies of Rudy Giuliani
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Learn more about citing Wikipedia • This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia's deletion policy.
Please share your thoughts on the matter at this article's entry on the Articles for deletion page.
Feel free to edit the article, but the article must not be blanked, and this notice must not be removed, until the discussion is closed. For more information, particularly on merging or moving the article during the discussion, read the guide to deletion.

Steps to list an article for deletion: 1. {{subst:afd}} 2. {{subst:afd2|pg=Controversies of Rudy Giuliani|cat=|text=}} ~~~~ (categories) 3. {{subst:afd3|pg=Controversies of Rudy Giuliani}} (add to top of list) 4. Please consider notifying the author(s) by placing {{subst:adw|Controversies of Rudy Giuliani}} ~~~~ on their talk page(s).
Rudy Giuliani

107th Mayor of New York City
In office
January 1, 1994 – December 31, 2001
Preceded by David Dinkins
Succeeded by Michael Bloomberg

Born May 28, 1944 (age 63)
Brooklyn, New York
Political party Republican
Spouse Regina Peruggi (1968–1982) (divorced/annulled)
Donna Hanover(1984–2002) (divorced)
Judith Nathan (2003–Present)
Alma mater Manhattan College
Religion Roman Catholic


Former Mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani has been the subject of various controversies.Contents
1 Annulment of first marriage
2 Conduct as federal prosecutor
3 Promotion of figures
3.1 Bernard Kerik
3.1.1 Briefing of Giuliani
3.1.2 Marc Mukasey and Giuliani campaign
4 Alleged free speech abridgments
5 Relationship with his second wife
6 Representation of City finances
7 Position as mayor toward illegal immigrants
8 Criticism surrounding the 9/11 attacks
8.1 2001 Mayoral election controversy
8.2 Lack of preparedness before the 9/11 attacks
8.3 Handling of Ground Zero air quality issue
8.4 Aftermath of Ground Zero recovery effort
8.5 Claims as to time spent at the Ground Zero "pile" and to being "one of them"
9 Claims as to being an expert on Islamic terrorism
10 Allegations of not having read 9/11 Commission's Report
11 Membership in the Iraq Study Group
11.1 Resignation
12 Giuliani Partners business deals
13 Bracewell & Giuliani
13.1 Lobbying efforts
13.1.1 On behalf of Venezuelan oil company Citgo
13.1.2 On behalf of the makers of Oxycontin
14 New York Yankees gifts
15 Fox News conflict of interest
16 Radio Comments to Parkinson's disease patient
17 Relationship with alleged pedophile priest
18 Accusations of money laundering
19 Notes
20 External links



Annulment of first marriage

Some claim that Giuliani knew all along that his first wife Regina Peruggi, the daughter of Giuliani's father's cousin, was his second cousin once removed<1>. These skeptics claim he simply used his relationship to his wife to get the marriage annulled. According to these accounts, Monsignor Alan Placa, a Catholic priest and childhood friend of both Giuliani and Peruggi, had offered assurances to Giuliani's mother that the relation would not be a problem.<1>


Conduct as federal prosecutor

Critics have characterized some of his prosecutorial actions during his 1980s tenure as a federal prosecutor as overly zealous. He claimed that veteran stock trader Richard Wigton, of Kidder, Peabody & Co. was guilty of insider trading. In February 1987 he had officers handcuff Wigton and march him through the company's trading floor, with Wigton in tears. Giuliani had his agents arrest Tim Tabor, a young arbitrageur and former colleague of Wigton, so late that he had to stay overnight in jail before posting bond.<2><3><4> However, in three months, charges were dropped against Wigton and Tabor. On that occasion, Giuliani said, "We're not going to go to trial. We're just the tip of the iceberg." CNN correspondent Allan Chernoff said, "There was no iceberg."<5> However, their careers as financial analysts and traders were ruined.<6>


Promotion of figures


Bernard Kerik

Critics state that Giuliani showed consistently poor judgment in promoting the career of Bernard Kerik, who started out as a New York Police Department detective driving for his campaign, then became the city's Correction Commissioner and later police commissioner and a founder of Giuliani Partners. Kerik also served as bodyguard for Giuliani.<7><8>Giuliani is godfather to Kerik's two younger children, by Kerik's third wife, Hala Matli (born 1972, married 1998): Celine Christina and Angelina Amber. <9>

More than half of mayor Giuliani's cabinet opposed his 2000 appointment of Kerik as police commissioner. <10> Kerik's selection came despite the fact that he lacked a college degree. (Kerik was a high school dropout with a General Equivalency Diploma. <11>) Possession of a college degree was a requirement of police department officials at the captain rank and higher,<12> a practice instituted by former police commissioner Benjamin Ward.

Giuliani then pushed President Bush to nominate Kerik to be secretary of Homeland Security, at which point multiple scandals derailed the nomination and Kerik's career; subsequently Kerik pled guilty to corruption charges dating from his Corrections days (1999). (He pled guilty in Bronx court to state misdemeanor charges related to undeclared acceptance of $165,000 in apartment renovations performed by Interstate Industrial, a reputably mob-associated firm.)<13><14> In March of 2007, The New York Times reported that Kerik was likely to also be indicted for tax fraud and illegal eavesdropping, and also disclosed that Giuliani had testified under oath in April 2006 that he had in fact been briefed on Kerik's mob links in 2000 — prior to his appointment of Kerik as Corrections Commissioner. Giuliani had previously denied knowing of these connections until years later.<15> Kerik is also under investigation for conspiracy to eavesdrop on the conversations of the husband of Jeanine Pirro, Albert Pirro, whom Ms. Pirro suspected of having an affair.<16>


Briefing of Giuliani

Mayor Giuliani said that neither he nor his aides could remember being briefed about Kerik's involvement with Interstate Industrial. However, a late 2007 New York Times investigation of the diaries and investigator's notes of Edward J. Kuriansky, the city investigations commissioner, indicate that such a meeting did indeed occur. Additionally, Kuriansky also remembered briefing one of Giuliani's closest aides, Dennison Young Jr., about Kerik's involvement with Interstte Industiral just day s before the police commissioner appointment. Regarding Giuliani's appointment patterns and loyalty as a factor in professional relationships, former deputy mayor (under Giuliani) Fran Reiter said, "Rudy can fall for people big time, and sometimes qualifications are secondary to loyalty."<17>


Marc Mukasey and Giuliani campaign

Marc Mukasey, son of Michael Mukasey (Attorney General) and member of Bracewell & Giuliani, has been assigned by Giuliani's campaign to block Kerik's legal defense team from interviewing witnesses that might assist his defense.<18>


Alleged free speech abridgments

Some of the court cases which found the Giuliani administration to have violated First Amendment rights included actions barring public events from their previous location at the City Hall steps, not allowing taxi drivers to assemble for a protest, not allowing city workers to speak to the press without permission, barring church members from delivering an AIDS education program in a park, denying a permit for a march to object to police brutality, issuing summons and seizing literature of three workers collecting signatures to get a candidate on the presidential ballot, imposing strict licensing restrictions on sidewalk artists that were struck down by a court of appeals as a violation of artists' rights, using a 1926 cabaret law to ban dancing in bars and clubs, imposing an excessive daily fee on street musicians, imposing varying city fees for newsstand owners based on the content they sold, a case against Time Warner Cable, and an incident in which Giuliani ordered an ad for New York magazine that featured his image taken down from city buses.<19><20> The ad featured a copy of the magazine with the caption, "Possibly the only good thing Rudy hasn't taken credit for".<21> The next year, the group awarded the Muzzle to Giuliani again for his actions against the Brooklyn Museum exhibit.<22>

Giuliani and his administration encountered accusations of blocking free speech arising from a lawsuit brought by Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church for removing the homeless from the church's steps against the church's will, and during his 1993 campaign, when he criticized incumbent Mayor Dinkins for allowing Louis Farrakhan to speak in the city. After being criticized for impinging on freedom of speech, he backed down from his criticism of Dinkins.<23>

In 2000, Mayor Giuliani received a "Muzzle Award" from the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression in Charlottesville, Virginia. The Muzzles are "awarded as a means to draw national attention to abridgments of free speech."<24> This was Giuliani's third such award, including an unprecedented first awarding of a "Lifetime Muzzle Award," which noted he had "stifled speech and press to so unprecedented a degree, and in so many and varied forms, that simply keeping up with the city's censorious activity has proved a challenge for defenders of free expression."<19>

More than 35 successful lawsuits were brought against Giuliani and his administration for blocking free speech. In his book Speaking Freely, First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams said Giuliani had an "insistence on doing the one thing that the First Amendment most clearly forbids: using the power of government to restrict or punish speech critical of government itself."<25>


Relationship with his second wife

Giuliani had a strained marriage for most of his mayoralty. By 1996, his second wife, Donna Hanover Giuliani had reverted back to only using Donna Hanover as her name and her public appearances with Rudy Giuliani became few.<26> By 1997 there were published reports of his having an affair with mayoral press secretary Cristyne Lategano,<27> and by 2000 with Judith Nathan. On Father's Day, 1995 Giuliani had told reporters that he was returning to Gracie Mansion to play ball with Andrew. However, he instead went to City Hall, to a basement suite with his press secretary. Three hours later, Hanover, angered, appeared at City Hall; yet a mayoral aide prevented her from entering the suite.<28>

In May 2000, the New York Daily News broke news of Giuliani's extramarital relationship with Judith Nathan, a sales manager for a pharmaceutical company. Giuliani then called a press conference to announce that he intended to separate from Hanover.<29><30><31> Hanover, however, had not been told about his plans before his press conference,<32> an omission for which Giuliani was widely criticized.<33>


Representation of City finances

Mayor Giuliani inherited a $2.3 billion deficit from his predecessor, David Dinkins. He left a $4.8 billion deficit for his successor, Michael Bloomberg. However, he has broadcast campaign advertisements in Iowa and other states, asserting that he “turned a $2.3 billion deficit into a multibillion dollar surplus.”<34>


Position as mayor toward illegal immigrants

Giuliani was criticized for embracing the sanctuary city policy protecting illegal immigrants.<35><36> Giuliani continued a policy of preventing city employees from contacting the Immigration and Naturalization Service about immigration violations, on the grounds that illegal aliens must be able to take actions such as to send their children to school or report crime and violations without fear of deportation. ABC News said that Giuliani opposed criticism of illegal immigrants as unfair. It further noted his statement in a 1994 press conference, "If you come here and you work hard and you happen to be in an undocumented status, you're one of the people who we want in this city." In a Minneapolis speech two years later he defended his policy, "There are times when undocumented immigrants must have a substantial degree of protection." ABC News further noted that immigrants' advocacy groups praised him for his policies that were sensitive to their concerns.<37>

In 1996 Giuliani sued the federal government over a new federal law (Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996) that overturned the 1985 executive order that barred government employees from turning in illegal immigrants that were trying to get government benefits from the city.<38> Giuliani said that the Immigration and Naturalization Service "do nothing with those names but terrorize people." His lawsuit claimed that the new federal requirement to report illegal immigrants violated the 10th Amendment. He said that the law, as well as the Welfare Reform Act, were "inherently unfair."<39> Two lower courts issued decisions that contended that the sanctuary order amounted to special treatment for illegal immigrants. Giuliani pursued this lawsuit to the U.S. Supreme Court, but he lost the case in 2000.<40><41><42>


Criticism surrounding the 9/11 attacks


2001 Mayoral election controversy

The 9/11 attack occurred on the scheduled date of the mayoral primary to select the Democratic and Republican candidates to succeed Giuliani. The primary was immediately delayed two weeks to September 25. During this period, Giuliani sought an unprecedented three-month emergency extension of his term, from its scheduled expiration on January 1 to April 1, due to the circumstances of the emergency besetting the city. He threatened to challenge the law imposing term limits on elected New York City officials and run for another full four-year term, if the primary candidates did not consent to permit the extension of his mayoralty.<43>

Advocates for the extension contended that Giuliani was needed to manage the initial requests for funds from Albany and Washington, speed up recovery, and slow down the exodus of jobs from lower Manhattan to outside New York City. And New York State Conservative Party Chairman Michael Long said that Giuliani wanted to "extend his term to allow for a smoother and stronger transition, and (to) incorporate the newly elected mayor to better deal with the problems the city faces."<44> Opponents viewed the extension as an unprecedented power grab and as a means for Giuliani to profit politically from the sudden, international prominence of the role of New York City Mayor. Voices were also countering the refrain that it was the mayor who had pulled the city together. "You didn't bring us together, our pain brought us together and our decency brought us together. We would have come together if Bozo was the mayor", said civil-rights activist Al Sharpton, in a statement largely supported by Fernando Ferrer, one of three main candidates for the mayoralty at the end of 2001. "He was a power-hungry person", Sharpton also said.<45>

Although a provision for emergency extensions is written into the New York State Constitution (Article 3 Section 25),<46> in the end leaders in the State Assembly and Senate indicated that they did not believe the extension was necessary. The election proceeded as scheduled, and the winning candidate, the Giuliani-endorsed Republican Michael Bloomberg, took office on January 1, 2002 per normal custom.


Lack of preparedness before the 9/11 attacks

Giuliani has been criticized for ignoring the ongoing threat to New York City from Islamist terrorists in the years between the first and second attacks on the World Trade Center. Prior to 9/11, Giuliani reportedly never referred to the 1993 WTC bombing publically except for a single metaphorical reference in his inaugural address not referring to terrorism.<47> Giuliani also reportedly never discussed the threat of terrorism with the U.S. Attorney in his district, and had to ask Henry Kissinger for background information on Osama Bin Laden after the September 11th attacks<48> despite the fact that the Bin Laden had previously declared a Fatwa against the United States<49>, the Clinton administration had established a section of the CIA devoted exclusively to hunting Bin Laden<50> and despite Clinton's military attacks on Al Qaeda.<51>

In September 2006, Village Voice writer, and long-time Guiliani critic, Wayne Barrett and senior producer for CBSNews.com, Dan Collins, published The Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11,<52> one of the strongest reassessments of Giuliani's role in the events of 9/11. The book highlights his decision to locate the Office of Emergency Management headquarters (long-identified as a target for a terrorist attack) on the 23rd floor inside the 7 World Trade Center building, a decision that had been criticized at the time in light of the previous terrorist attack against the World Trade Center in 1993.<53><54>

The Office of Emergency Management was created to coordinate efforts between police and firefighters, but with the distraction of evacuating its headquarters, it was not able to conduct these efforts properly.<55>

Large tanks of diesel fuel were placed in 7 World Trade to power the command center, and this fuel was later deemed responsible for the intense fire that caused that building to collapse hours after the Twin Towers.<56> In May 2007, Giuliani put responsibility for selecting the location on Jerome M. Hauer, New York City’s first Director of Emergency Management who had been appointed by Giuliani himself and had served under Giuliani from 1996 to 2000. Hauer has taken exception to that account in interviews and has provided FoxNews and New York Magazine with a memo demonstrating that he recommended a location in Brooklyn but was overruled by Giuliani. Television journalist Chris Wallace interviewed Giuliani on May 13, 2007, about his 1997 decision to locate the command center at the World Trade Center. Giuliani laughed during Wallace's questions and said that Hauer recommended the World Trade Center site and claimed that Hauer said that the WTC site was the best location. Wallace presented Giuliani a photocopy of Hauer directive letter. The letter urged Giuliani to locate the command center in Brooklyn, instead of lower Manhattan, because "not as visible a target as buildings in lower Manhattan."<57><58> <59><60><61> The February 1996 memo read, "The building is secure and not as visible a target as buildings in Lower Manhattan."<62>

Also criticized was Giuliani's focus on personal projects and turf wars rather than vital precautions for the city, and his role in communications failures (which may have been the result of patronage deals inside City Hall). Kirkus Reviews stated, "Giuliani may not have been directly responsible for all those woes, but they happened on his watch".<63>

The 9/11 Commission noted in its report that lack of preparedness could have led to the deaths of first responders at the scene of the attacks. The Commission noted that the radios in use by the fire department were the same radios which had been criticized for their ineffectiveness following the 1993 World Trade Center bombings. Giuliani testified to the Commission, where some family members of responders who had died in the attacks appeared to protest his statements.<64> A 1994 mayoral office study of the radios indicated that they were faulty. Replacement radios were purchased in a no-bid contract. They were implemented in early 2001. However, in March 2001 the replacement radios were found to be faulty also. <65>

Fire Department chiefs issued orders for the firefighters to evacuate. However, the order was issued over the radios that were not working in the towers, thus, the 343 firefighters inside the Twin Towers could not hear the evacuation order. They remained in the towers as the towers collapsed. <66> <67> However, when Giuliani testified before the 9/11 Commission he said that the firefighters ignored the evauation order out of an effort to save lives. <68><69>

A book later published by Commission members Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission, revealed that the Commission had not pursued a tough enough line of questioning with Giuliani when he appeared before the Commission, because its members were afraid of public outcry.<70> Family members had interrupted the proceedings, demanding an explanation from Giuliani for the lack of working radios. Some were removed from the hearing.<70> The Commission had experienced criticism the morning of Giuliani's testimony for allegedly implying that police and firefighters had not done their jobs properly with their hard questions directed to some of Giuliani's staff the previous day. Commission member John Lehman had said that New York City's disaster planning was "not worthy of the Boy Scouts, let alone this great city."<70> The morning of Giuliani's testimony, the New York Post ran a picture of a New York firefighter with the headline "Insult" in response to Lehman's statement.<70>

Some family members of 9/11 victims have openly criticized Giuliani for the significant communication failures that occurred on that day, believing that the lack of working walkie-talkies put the lives of first responders in significant danger. They say that the lack of radios had been a complaint of emergency services responders for years but was never dealt with and led to deaths of first responders in building collapses for which they should have been warned.<71> In December 2006, Sally Regenhard, mother of firefighter Christian Regenhard who died on September 11, and co-founder of the Skyscraper Safety Campaign, vowed to expose the truths of Giuliani's actions on 9/11 before 2008, stating, "I can't see why any 9/11 family member who knows the truth about the failures of the Giuliani administration . . . would not be outraged."<72> She said in April 2007, "The bitter truth is that Rudy Giuliani is building a path to the White House over the bodies of 343 firefighters."<71>
Main article: September 11, 2001 radio communications

By April of 2007 it was reported that Giuliani had been forced to limit his appearances in New York City due to the increasing protests by family members of 9/11 victims, particularly police, fire and other emergency workers.<71>


Handling of Ground Zero air quality issue

Giuliani has been subject to increased criticism for downplaying the health effects of the air in the Financial District and lower Manhattan areas in the vicinity of the Ground Zero.<73> He moved quickly to reopen Wall Street, and it was reopened on September 17. He said, in the first month after the attacks, "The air quality is safe and acceptable."<74> However, in the weeks after the attacks, the United States Geological Survey identified hundreds of asbestos hot spots of debris dust that remained on buildings. By the end of the month the USGS reported that the toxicity of the debris was akin to that of drain cleaner.<75> It would eventually be determined that a wide swath of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn had been heavily contaminated by highly caustic and toxic materials.<75><76> The city's health agencies, such as the Department of Environmental Protection, did not supervise or issue guidelines for the testing and cleanup of private buildings. Instead, the city left this responsibility to building owners.<75>

Firefighters, police and their unions, have criticized Giuliani over the issue of protective equipment and illnesses after the attacks.<73> An October 2001 study by the National Institute of Environmental Safety and Health said that cleanup workers lacked adequate protective gear.<77><78> The Executive Director of the National Fraternal Order of Police reportedly said of Giuliani: "Everybody likes a Churchillian kind of leader who jumps up when the ashes are still falling and takes over. But two or three good days don't expunge an eight-year record."<79> Sally Regenhard, said, "There's a large and growing number of both FDNY families, FDNY members, former and current, and civilian families who want to expose the true failures of the Giuliani administration when it comes to 9/11." She told the New York Daily News that she intends to "Swift Boat" Giuliani.<80>

A May 14, 2007 New York Times article, "Ground Zero Illness Clouding Giuliani's Legacy," gave the interpretation that thousands of workers at Ground Zero have become sick and that "many regard Mr. Giuliani's triumph of leadership as having come with a human cost." The article reported that Giuiliani seized control of the cleanup of Ground Zero, taking control away from experienced federal agencies, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. He instead handed over responsibility to the "largely unknown" city Department of Design and Construction. Documents indicate that the Giuliani administration never enforced federal requirements requiring the wearing of respirators. Concurrently, the administration threatened companies with dismissal if cleanup work slowed.<81> The New York Times faulted his decision-making on the post September 11 cleanup of the World Trade Center site, in the lead editorial of the May 22, 2007 issue. Additionally, the Times took Giuliani to task for his handling of worker safety at the site and the issue of first responder health problems.<82>

Giuliani wrote to the city's Congressional delegation and urged that the city's liability for Ground Zero illnesses be limited, in total, at $350 million. Two years after Mayor Giuliani finished his term, FEMA appropriated $1 billion to a special insurance fund to protect the city against 9/11 lawsuits.<83>

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is contemplating calling Giulani to testify before a Senate committee on whether the government failed to protect recovery workers from the effects of polluted Ground Zero air.<84><85>

Matt Taibbi wrote an article for the June 14, 2007 issue of Rolling Stone, blaming Giuliani for rushing the recovery effort and setting a poor example for recovery workers.<86>

In June of 2007, former Republican Governor of New Jersey and director of the Environmental Protection Agency Christie Whitman reportedly stated that the EPA had pushed for workers at the WTC site to wear respirators but that she had been blocked by Giuliani. She stated that she believed that the subsequent lung disease and deaths suffered by WTC responders were a result of these actions.<87> Former deputy mayor Joe Lhota, now with the Giuliani campaign, replied, "All workers at Ground Zero were instructed repeatedly to wear their respirators." A safety professional who worked at Ground Zero added, "I was absolutely aghast at the refusal of the workers at ground zero to wear the personal protective equipment. All of my efforts to convince these guys to wear the masks was for naught."<88>


Aftermath of Ground Zero recovery effort

In February 2007, the International Association of Fire Fighters issued a letter accusing Giuliani of "egregious acts" against the 343 firemen who had died in the September 11th attacks. The letter asserted that Giuliani rushed to conclude the recovery effort once gold and silver had been recovered from World Trade Center vaults and thereby prevented the remains of many victims from being recovered: "Mayor Giuliani's actions meant that fire fighters and citizens who perished would either remain buried at Ground Zero forever, with no closure for families, or be removed like garbage and deposited at the Fresh Kills Landfill," it said, adding: "Hundreds remained entombed in Ground Zero when Giuliani gave up on them."<89> Lawyers for the International Association of Fire Fighters seek to interview Giuliani under oath as part of a federal legal action alleging that New York City negligently dumped body parts and other human remains in the Fresh Kills Landfill.<90>


Claims as to time spent at the Ground Zero "pile" and to being "one of them"

He claimed on August 9, 2007 that "I was at Ground Zero as often, if not more, than most workers.... I was there working with them. I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I'm one of them." This angered NY Fire and Police personnel 911 workers.<91><92><93> A New York Times study a week later found that --while his appointment logs were unavailable for the six days immediately following the attacks-- he spent a total of 29 hours over three months at the site. This contrasted with recovery workers at the site who spent this much time at the site in two to three days.<94>


Claims as to being an expert on Islamic terrorism

[NCarolinawoman]

4. Not fit to be President any more than our current "Decider-in-Chief".

Creepy and frightening stuff.

Excellent find on your part :thumbsup: