Rudy's Henchman Goes Down

NY TIMES: Bernard B. Kerik, a former New York police commissioner who rose to national prominence, was sentenced to four years in prison on Thursday after pleading guilty to eight felony charges, including tax fraud and lying to White House officials.

Under the terms of a plea agreement reached in November on the eve of his trial, the prosecution and the defense recommended that Judge Stephen C. Robinson sentence Mr. Kerik to 27 to 33 months in prison. But the judge departed from the sentencing recommendations, giving Mr. Kerik a longer sentence.

“I think it’s fair to say that with great power comes great responsibility and great consequences,” Judge Robinson said. “I think the damage caused by Mr. Kerik is in some ways immeasurable.”

How much damage would Kerik have caused if the Bush administration went with this mook to head the Department of Homeland Security at Rudy Giuliani's recommendation?

The Downfall of Rudy Giuliani

Good op-ed from Timothy Egan in the New York Times.

From "Goodbye Rudy, Tuesday":

...It’s worth stepping back for a moment to recall how far and how quickly Giuliani has fallen. For most of the summer and well into the fall, he was the Republican frontrunner. His campaign consisted of a hagiography: the hero of 9/11. His fundraising was strong. Now the campaign is all but broke and he’s getting his clock cleaned in some states by Ron Paul – Ron Paul! – the 97-pound libertarian who thinks the war on terror is bogus.

...More broadly, you can summarize Giuliani’s problems in the line he no longer uses. When the World Trade Center towers came down, he turned to his loyal sidekick Bernie Kerik, and said he was glad George Bush was president.

Now, that line is a triple loser. Kerik, his police commissioner, is under federal indictment, in a sea of troubles. Bush is despised by two-thirds of Americans, and even a majority of Republicans want to go in a different direction. As for the big scare, give Senator Joe Biden credit for writing what may be Giuliani’s obit: “There are only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, a verb and 9/11.”

Yet Giuliani still wants to frighten people into voting for him...

Rudy and Bernie and Paul, Oh My!

First Rudy's BFF Bernard Kerik, the man Rudy recommended for Homeland Security Director, is indicted for fraud and now comes this tidbit of information:

Who is Paul Singer? He and Rudy Giuliani would prefer you not think too much about it.

Singer, who founded the multibillion dollar hedge fund Elliott Associates, has raised $200,000 for Giuliani. He flies Giuliani around in his jet.

And as of September, his $175,000 contribution was the sole backing for the Republican scheme to split up California's electoral votes. Instead of all the electoral votes in the country's most populous state going to the state's winner (almost surely the Democrat), the ballot initiative would throw the loser (the Republican) his percentage, potentially swinging the election.

Are Rudy and his backers behind the California electoral votes scheme?

...what has attracted notice recently is Mr. Singer’s September donation of $175,000 to a group called Take Initiative America — California, a corporation that had been set up in Missouri the day before, and which then donated the money to a group called Californians for Equal Representation.
The California group wanted to change the way the state’s 55 electoral votes are apportioned, from winner-take-all, to one apportioning the votes according to Congressional district. Such a change could give Republicans as many as 20 more electoral votes, making it much easier for the party to win the White House.

Rudy & Bernie

What must Rudy Giuliani be thinking at this moment? Just a few days ago, Rudy came to the defense of Bernie Kerik, claiming the successes of the disgraced former police commissioner... outweighed his legal problems, and added that “if I have the same degree of success and failure as president of the United States, this country will be in great shape.”

Mr. Noun-Verb-9/11 then went on to flat out lie and pull more numbers out of that ever voluminous ass, numbers that boggle the mind. But I suppose his ass needs to be that big, as his head is constantly in it.

“There were mistakes made with Bernie Kerik,” Mr. Giuliani said in the interview. “But what’s the ultimate result for the people of New York City? The ultimate result for the people of New York City was a 74 percent reduction in shootings, a 60 percent reduction in crime, a correction program that went from being one of the worst in the country to one that was on ‘60 Minutes’ as one of the best in the country, 90 percent reduction of violence in the jails.”

BULLSHIT.

As Greg Sargent at TPM notes, "Rudy appears to have hit a trifecta of sorts: He may have told three lies in one sentence." Sargent then deftly proceeds to break apart Giuliani's incredibly bold protestations on Kerik's record (no, not his criminal record, not yet anyway).

Kerik is now being indicted on charges that include tax fraud, corruption and conspiracy counts. And through all this, Rudy seems to be morphing into the new Teflon Don. He's getting caught in lie after lie, from having a better chance to survive his prostate cancer because the US doesn't subscribe to the evils of "socialized medicine," to the craptacular statistics on Kerik during his 18 month tenure as New York's Top Cop. And frankly, Rudy the Rat doesn't care. Mr. 9/11 is counting on the fact that the majority of the population is stupid and no one will call him on his lies. And if they do? So what. It'll all fade anyway.

And now to top it all off, the pro-choice, pro-gay, pro-gun control, pro-torture Republican from New York now has gotten the endorsement of that crazy wackjob, Pat Robertson. The same Pat Robertson who once said permissiveness toward homosexuality and abortion led to God’s “lifting his protection” to allow [the 9/11] attacks.

But there they were Wednesday morning, Mr. Robertson endorsing Mr. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, as “an acceptable” Republican “who can win the general election.”

So now Robertson is throwing all that "we deserved 9/11 because of abortion and homos" shit away because apparently the thought of frontrunner Hillary Clinton as the next possible Prez is so abhorrent to these freaks, they'll screw the moral high ground. They're looking for someone who can win! ... Miserable, hypocritical bastards.

As my friend Armadillo Joe at Expatriate Thoughts always tells me, "God I hope he gets the nomination! He'll totally implode!" I hope you're right, Joe.