Free Republic

'AMERICAN HERO' BERNIE CALL$ IN BACKUP Bernard Kerik's pals are holding a fund-raiser to help keep him out of jail. Attendees will spring for at least $75.......to help defray his legal costs. The Bernard Kerik Legal Defense Fund's attempts to raise money for Mayor Giuliani's former driver and top cop tanked. ".....noone wanted to come. People didn't want to be involved with him anymore. " * Kerik is charged with accepting about $225K in renovations from a company seeking to do business with the city - and didn't report it to the IRS (Kerik pleaded guilty 2006 to misdemeanors from...

Giuliani's run for the White House ended in Florida.......He had bet the rent n the Sunshine State - and lost...he's expected to withdraw - and endorse McCain. Experts will be analyzing the Giuliani campaign in hopes of figuring out just why Rudy - who entered the race enjoying a wide lead over Republican and Democratic challengers - nose-dived so quickly. Many will second-guess his strategy of skipping early contests. Giuliani failed to contest Iowa, NH, Michigan and SC - and, by yesterday, the parade had passed him by. It's also not clear why he stayed stuck on the 9/11 theme........by...

Rudy Giuliani's toughness edged toward ruthlessness and became a defining aspect of his mayoralty. NYC spent at least $7M settling civil rights lawsuits and paying retaliatory damages during the Giuliani years. After unidentified city workers complained of pressure to hand contracts to Giuliani-favored organizations, investigators examined not the charges but the leakers' identity. “There were constant loyalty tests: ‘Will you shoot your brother?’ ” said Marilyn Gelber, environmental commissioner under Mr. Giuliani. “People were marked for destruction for disloyal jokes.” Giuliani paid careful attention to the art of political payback. When former Mayors Koch and Dinkins spoke publicly of Mr....

Shortly before Rudy Giuliani left the New York mayor's office in 2001, close associates worked out an unprecedented and controversial deal to transfer his mayoral papers from city hall to a private, tax-exempt foundation, the Rudolph W. Giuliani Center for Urban Affairs. Billed as a leadership think tank, the center served as a conduit for Giuliani to copy and archive 2,100 boxes of documents from his time as mayor before returning the originals to the city. That record, which includes the months after the Sept. 11 attacks when he was anointed as "America's mayor," serves as the foundation of Giuliani's...

There have been quite a few threads posted on the subject of Rudy Giuliani’s prospective candidacy for the Republican nomination in 2008, and the endless back-and-forth on these threads has reached a fever pitch at times. I’ve refrained from posting extensively on these threads in recent days because they’ve started to get someone repetitive and tiresome, but also because I’ve been compiling a lot of material to include in a thread of my own. I post my comments here without any “cross-dressing” photos or “Rudy trading card” images (though I do appreciate them, folks!), and without any personal animosity toward...

From the May print issue: Gun control? Welcoming immigrants? A woman's right to choose? Never mind his past positions. The only -ism that Rudy Giuliani believes in is sadism. Conservatives who admire Rudolph Giuliani for his association with the date September 11, 2001, may wish to consult Google on the question of the mayor's behavior on May 10, 2000. The Rudy of that date should give them, and everyone, reason to stop and think about the great hero's moral architecture. The weeks leading up to the date had been surreal. Giuliani was running for a U.S. Senate seat against Hillary...

Rudy Giuliani, a contender for the presidency in 2008, is receiving an inordinate amount of positive attention. That's quite understandable since Rudy is charismatic, did a great job on the campaign trail for President Bush in 2004, and his phenomenal performance after 9/11 was much appreciated. However, likeable or not, having Rudy as the GOP's candidate in 2008 would be a big mistake. Here's a short, but sweet primer on some of Rudy's many flaws. 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...

Rudy Guiliani has marched in lockstep with liberals on affirmative action, gay rights, gay marriage, gun control, school prayer, tuition tax credits, liberal immigration policies, and he's reinforced it, time and time again. Just about everytime Rudy opens his mouth, offensive liberal words come pouring out. As Mayor, Rudy put liberals in high-paid city jobs, an indication what a Rudy WH would look like. Here then is Rudy in his own words: --The New York State Liberal Party on its endorsement of Rudy Giuliani for Mayor: "When the Liberal Party Policy Committee reviewed a list of key social issues of...

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani left City Hall with a legacy as "America's Mayor" -- but he left something else behind: a whole slew of lawsuits costing the city big bucks. In the three years since Michael R. Bloomberg succeeded Giuliani, the New York Times reports that the city has spent almost $2 million to settle lawsuits brought by residents and city workers who accused the Giuliani administration of running roughshod over their free speech or other constitutional rights. Among them, the Times reports: In 2002 the city settled with limousine driver James Schillaci for $290,000. He had...