A noun, a verb and 9/11: Lawrence O’Donnell rewrites Rudy Giuliani
Required viewing ahead of the 9/11 anniversary, as Rudy Giuliani ramps up his 9/11 industry … again…
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*UPDATE: Roger Ailes to be indicted? Judith Regan tapes could spell trouble for Fox chief
Last week’s bombshell report about Roger Ailes asking publisher Judith Regan to lie to investigators about an affair with NYC police chief Bernie Kerik, in order to protect Rudy Giuliani’s presidential bid, could soon produce another headline: Roger Ailes indicted. Read more
Rick Scott blasts McCollum ties to ‘pro-homosexuality’ Rudy Giuliani, Jim Greer
What’s a little drag, now and then, and a couple of gay roommates between friends? Apparently, the smoke monster disapproves of Rudy’s “attitude” toward “the gay,” and he’s hitting Bill McCollum for hanging around with the New York reprobate (funny he doesn’t attack him for hiring George “Rentboy” Rekers…) And there’s more … Politico reprints an extraordinarily revealing memo from the Scott campaign. Read more
Morning clicks: Morning jerk, Florida is the new Texas, Erickson’s freak-out, and the WV mine
The unending joke that is Rudy Giuliani was on “Morning Joe” this morning, and got a proper skewering from Arianna Huffington, over his endorsement of Bernie Kerik, the felon, for homeland security secretary. Arianna was asking whether someone who thought Kerik was a good nominee should really be listened to when he endorses Marco Rubio. (Personally, I say the Rubio endorsement is vintage Giuliani — he did it out of spite, because Charlie Crist reneged on an endorsement of his failure of a campaign in 2008, he did it to grandstand and get his hideous face back on television so he could tout his 9/11 “leadership” again, and again, and again … and Rubio fits the Rudy mold of spending other people’s money on yourself and your woman. Score! … (though to be fair, it appears that Rubio hasn’t married and ditched multiple women along the way, or married his own cousin …)
Meanwhile, elsewhere around the web … Read more
Morning clicks: Glenn Beck’s civil war, Bachman-Palin overdrive, Crist talks ‘hot mess’
Hope everybody had a happy Easter if that’s what you celebrate! (Or passover). Here are the a.m. clicks for a manic Monday.
Well here’s an idea whose time has come: Glenn Beck writing a novel for his whacked out followers that depicts America in the throes of a race … sorry, a “civil war” … not that he’s hoping anything like that will happen.
Her ratings and programming may have failed to impress, but “real America” Sarah will be heading to Minnesota on Wednesday, where she and Michelle Bachman will form the Thelma and Louise of crazy. Should be exciting! RCP reports Mitt Romney will be in the state too, for a separate event.
Rudy “Mr. 9/11″ Giuliani will be in town today endorsing fellow spendthrift Marco Rubio, but I’m still wondering what the value of that is for Rubio. Giuliani is a proven loser, who is despised in his home city and a joke everywhere else (think “noun, verb and 9/11.”) Besides, won’t the anti-abortion zealots in his wacky base hate on Marco for palling around with a pro choice RINO? … Oh, that’s right, the Rubio believers will never forsake him, no matter what, because anyone with disciples has got to be divine …
And speaking of divine, how divinely idiotic is it to blame Democrats for the racial heckling they received, which righties are now claiming they incited just by walking to work?
In case you missed it: both Michael Steele and Barack Obama are black.
And Charlie Crist thinks his party’s money party scandal is a big, red hot, stinking mess. No truer words, governor. No truer words … I sure wish we had an attorney general who had an interest in enforcing the law, rather than wasting tax money on bogus, political lawsuits.
And speaking of that: what’s the matter with the Kansas A.G.? Absolutely nothing.
We’re now officially on Supreme Court retirement watch, also known as Republican filibuster watch.
In international news, here’s a thing you shouldn’t say in public if you’re Hamid Karzai: “I swear I’m going to join the Taliban.”
And in case you care: Tiger Woods heads to the Masters today. No hinky press though — only sports journalists allowed. Woods is supposed to have a press conference, where the big issue will likely not be infidelity, but rather Woods’ relationship with a doc who was dispensing steroids.
BTW, now, even Tiger Woods’ kindergarten teacher hates his guts, and is seeking publicity for it. She claims he made up a story about facing racial taunts when he was a wee one. Is Gloria Alred the actual devil, or just his henchwoman?
Is a Rudy Giuliani endorsement worth anything?
I mean, he did so well in his run for president with that Florida firewall strategy … he’s like, really respected for his noun and verb usage when it comes to terrorism (even if he can’t remember when the actual terrorism did or didn’t occur) … and isn’t at all despised by the people he used to govern … and it’s not like he ever used taxpayer resources to make New York City cops chauffeur his mistress around, provide her with taxpayer-funded personal security or walk her dog, which of course would be totally different from you using donor money to fly you and your boys to a resort for your family reunion or fly the “first lady of the Florida House” around the state to hang with you and your “12 disciples” … or that time you used taxpayer money to build a special “members only” dining room for you and your political friends.
So yeah, go with that, Marco. That Giuliani endorsement should work out nicely for you.
Remainders: Sarah Palin: like Reagan, only dumber, Rudy won’t be ‘America’s governor,’ and more
Missed this one yesterday in the blizzard of co-dependent, obsessive media coverage of Sarah Palin: she now says “death panels” aren’t really “panels of death,” just like the Soviet Union wasn’t really an evil empire … see how that works?
Marco Rubio (otherwise known as the “Florida Sarah Palin”) has some thoughts on Reagan, too, only his weren’t so flattering to the Gipper when it comes to immigration. Andrew Sullivan, however, agrees with a point Rubio surely would have run, screaming, from the room, had he known he was making it: much of Reagan’s legacy must be repudiated in order to get to today’s GOP.
Meanwhile, as a new DKos poll shows him ahead of Rubio by a mere 10 points, Charlie Crist will next try to get right with the jihadis by announcing that he now believes the earth is 6,000 years old, and man lived side-by-side with the dinosaurs. Okay, I made that last part up, but the poll is real. (Apparently, it contains no good news for Kendrick Meek, however, who barely registers unless it’s a three-way race.) Well, if Charlie needs some advice, here’s some from a veteran political reporter at the St. Pete Times.
Over to Newsweek, where Michael Isikoff reports that Judge Jay Bybee, author of the infamous “torture memo,” is lawyering up, in anticipation of a possible impeachment. An interesting tidbit in the piece: Isikoff reports that when the initial draft report from the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility emerged during the waning days of the Bush administration, then-Attorney General Mukasey not only killed it, he ordered it to be sent to the targets, including Bybee and John Yoo. Talk about not knowing which team you’re supposed to be playing for, Mr. then-”attorney for the people of the United States …”
Also at Newsweek: have we seen the last of the Ayatollahs of Iran? If so, it will apparently be the fault of the current one, Mr. Khameini.
Over to ABC News, which reports that finally, Rudy Giuliani has figured out that New Yorkers can’t stand him, and wouldn’t want him as their governor… or something like that. Bottom line: he would have had the floor mopped with his balding head by Andrew Cuomo, so he’s eyeing a race against the less flashy Kirsten Gillibrand instead. Good luck with that, ya jerk.
Who you gonna call? Charlie!
If you were going to quit your governorship in mid-stream, and you were a winger, who would you call? If you’re Sarah Palin, add Rudy Giuliani (hopefully he didn’t propose to her too much… or drool into the phone about how much she reminds him of his cousin…) Dick Cheney (who apparently discussed the ogre-like family’s possible vacation trip to Alaska, during which ‘m sure Sarah and her kin will keep their whale guns at the ready…) [sidebar: Jesus, Republicans are creepy!] … and Florida’s very own Charlie Crist to the list. Reports ABC News:
Palin’s phone calls are shown on her official schedule for May 2009, obtained by Alaskan Andree McLeod through an open-records request with the state and shared with ABC News. McLeod has filed numerous open-records requests for Palin-related documents, as well as four ethics complaints against the governor and her aides.“GOV: Telephone Call Into Governor Crist,” reads a May 4 entry in Palin’s schedule. A spokeswoman for Crist said she did not know who had initiated contact, or what the subject of conversation was to have been, but the two did not speak. “It was a courtesy call. They know each other, both being governors,” said Crist spokeswoman Erin Isaac.
Well she didn’t call poor Bobby Jindal… or Michael Steele…! There too, also:
Crist may have had his own reasons to chat with Palin: to promote his candidacy for U.S. Senate, which Crist launched one week after Palin’s phone call. Nine days later, Crist announced an endorsement by Sen. John McCain, Palin’s 2008 GOP ticket-topper.
So will the Barricuda endorse the tan guy in Tallahassee over the RedState base’s choice, Marco Rubio, or will she “go rogue” again and oppose McCain’s choice and add fresh drama to the Florida GOP Senate primary? (Hell, at least their party HAS primary drama …) The plot thickens…
Aunt Rudy’s war on gay marriage
He’ll nip it in the bud, he will! Then again, maybe gay marriage will give Rudy a little nip!
Meanwhile, Rudy’s anti-gay marriage stance, as he preps for a run for governor (perhaps against Andrew Cuomo after Cuomo smacks down Guv Patterson in a primary???) hasn’t stopped his gay former roommates from looking forward to tying the knot:
While Rudy Giuliani is waging war on gay marriage, his pals Howard Koeppel and Mark Hsaio are planning to go to Connecticut next month to tie the knot.They see no contradiction in the ex-mayor’s opposition to gay marriage and the fact he roomed with them for six months in 2001.
“Rudy doesn’t discriminate. I should know. I lived with him for six months,” Koeppel, 68, a car dealer, said yesterday outside his West Side apartment.
Koeppel, a Republican, said he believes that Giuliani’s opposition to gay marriage stems from his religious and political beliefs, not his personal ones.
“He isn’t an advocate for gay marriage because of his religious beliefs,” he said of Giuliani, who has supported abortion rights. “He is a traditional Catholic. Those teachings say marriage should be between a man and a woman.”
Koeppel said Giuliani told him that if gay marriage ever became legal in New York, “he would marry us himself.”
That last bit won’t look good on a Giuliani campaign poster … nor will the part about Rudy living with them because he had committed the sins of adultery and divorce. But on a more important note, will Rudy get an invite to the wedding, and will he wear blushing pink or bridal white???
The final word on the Bush years
The final quarter of the Bush era was as bad as you thought it was … almost…
The economy shrank at a 3.8 percent pace at the end of 2008, the worst showing in a quarter-century, as the deepening recession forced consumers and businesses to throttle back spending.Although the initial result was better than economists expected, the figure is likely to be revised even lower in the months ahead and some believe the economy is contracting in the current quarter at an even faster pace.
The new figure, released Friday by the Commerce Department, showed the economy sinking at a much faster clip in the October-December period than the 0.5 percent decline logged in prior quarter.
Although economists expected an even worse fourth-quarter performance — a staggering 5.4 percent rate of decline — the results were still grim.
Meanwhile, things weren’t as bad for some people as for others. Those who did better than the rest of us include…
Bank executives, who handed out about $18 billion in bonuses to themselves, as a reward for screwing up the mortgage market… (President Obama scolded them roundly for it today.)
Exxon Mobile, which posted earth shattering, record profits of $45.2 billion, due to Bushian sky-high oil prices through most of last year. And get this: those profits were DOWN 33%…
And last, and actually, least … Rudy Giuliani, who’s still getting people to listen to him warble, on cable TV, talk radio and on and on, despite having gotten exactly ONE electoral vote during his presidential campaign, and becoming the laughing stock, not just of New York, but of the world, with his scandal-tainted, one state strategy bid for greatness.
Other than that, it’s all bad news.
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WTF Has Barack Obama Done So Far?
