Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) criticized the Republican party for opposing equality for gays and lesbians during an interview on CNN, saying, “I think beyond all the religious and social part of it, it makes the party look like it isn’t a modern party. It doesn’t understand the modern world”:
Giuliani, who has supported civil unions, says he still believes marriage should be between one man and one woman, but can “live with” the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York. He has called on Republicans to “get the heck out of people’s bedrooms” and “ease up a little bit” on social issues.
Polls have overwhelmingly shown an age divide on gay and lesbian rights, with an overwhelming percentage of younger voters supporting full equality for the LGBT community. (HT: Towleroad)
Rudy Giuliani with MEK leader Maryam Rajavi on January 20, 2012
Last Thursday, NBC News reported that the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), an exiled Iranian opposition group designated a “foreign terrorist organization” by the State Department, conducted a series of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists.
Former CIA official and visiting Georgetown professor Paul Pillar, citing the U.S. government’s definition of terrorism, observed that “with or without confirmation of details of this story, the assassinations are terrorism.” But numerous right-wing pundits and politicians here in the United States — many of whom regularly decry the use of terrorism as a means to political ends — have celebrated the MEK’s alleged attacks.
Appearing on Fox News on Sunday, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani declared that the MEK should be the Time Magazine “person of the year” if they were behind assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists.
An editorial in Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post said on Friday that the MEK deserves a Nobel Peace Prize:
Let’s be frank: Were the MeK to play the critical role in derailing an Iranian bomb, it would be far more deserving of a Nobel Peace Prize than a certain president of the United States we could mention.
And Commentary’s Jonathan Tobin justified the MEK’s action and Israel’s alleged role in financing, arming and training the group:
To those who say it is immoral to use those who have employed terrorism, the only reply can be that it would be far worse for Israel’s government to allow such scruples to prevent them from carrying out actions that might stop the Iranians from going nuclear.
Noticeably, the MEK’s defenders chose not to address the NBC report’s other major disclosure. The MEK reportedly worked with Ramzi Yousef, the terrorist behind the first attack on the World Trade Center, to bomb an Iranian shrine, killing at least 26 people.
The NBC report did not go on to substantiate any direct links between the Israeli government and the assassination campaign, and the MEK denied any involvement in the attacks.
Indeed, the MEK’s American supporters find themselves in the increasingly difficult position of lobbying to remove the organization from the State Department’s terror list while openly celebrating the group’s involvement in terrorist attacks.
By utilizing the MEK—a group which Iranians view in the same way Americans see John Walker Lindh, the American convicted of aiding the Taliban—the Israelis risk winning some short-term gain at the tremendous expense of rallying Iranians around the regime’s flag. A far better strategy would be to facilitate regime change. Not only would the MEK be incapable of that mission, but involving them even cursorily would set the goal back years.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s (R) past as an executive at Bain Capital has faced scrutiny from his fellow Republican presidential candidates, who have raised questions about the firm’s propensity to send companies into bankruptcy and lay off workers — all while investors made millions of dollars. Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) slammed Romney as a “vulture capitalist” in South Carolina yesterday, and a super PAC supporting former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R) released a 27-minute video about Romney’s history at Bain.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) attempted to rebut those attacks today, telling Fox & Friends that Gingrich and Perry’s attacks were reflective of “total ignorant populist view of the economy that was proven incorrect with the Soviet Union and Chinese Communism.”
GIULIANI: I’m outraged about what he and Rick, who is a very close friend of mine, I’m shocked what they’re doing. It’s ignorant, dumb. It is building something we should be fighting in America, ignorance of the American economic system. Playing on the dumbest, most ridiculous ideas about how you grow jobs. [...] You get rid of venture capital and private equity, you get rid of risk taking, which is what it’s about, risk taking, Romney was a risk taker. [...] And the stuff you’re saying is one of the reasons we’re in the trouble we’re in right now. This total, ignorant, populist view of the economy that was proven to be incorrect with the Soviet Union, with Chinese Communism.
Watch it:
Giuliani’s eagerness to defend venture capitalism, private equity, and hedge funds from legitimate questions may be because he has a history in private equity himself. As Forbes noted yesterday, Giuliani was chairman of the advisory board of a private equity fund now known as Leeds Private Equity Partners. According to a 2002 press release from Giuliani Partners, Leeds Weld, as it was then known, was “the largest private equity fund in the United States focused on investments in the education, information and training industry.”
In 2003, Giuliani partnered with financial giant Bear Stearns to launch a private equity fund focused on the security and public safety industries. And during his 2008 run for president, Giuliani was a favorite of the hedge fund and private equity industries — according to OpenSecrets.org, Giuliani took more than $1.1 million from hedge funds and private equity firms in the first three fundraising quarters of 2007, more than any other candidate, Romney included.
GOP presidential frontrunner Newt Gingrich moved from outlandish to downright offensive last week when he declared the Palestinians are an “invented people” only capable of terrorism. “Somebody ought to have the courage to tell the truth. These people are terrorists,” he said. “It’s fundamentally time for somebody to have the guts to stand up and say, enough lying about the Middle East.”
Today on Fox and Friends, New York City’s former Mayor Rudy Giuliani exulted in Gingrich’s inflammatory remarks. “I jumped up out of my chair and cheered for Newt when he said what he said about Palestine,” Giuliani exclaimed. “Finally. Thank God. Someone is saying the right things about Palestine.” Taking Gingrich’s extremism a step further, Giuliani proclaimed that the creation of a Palestinian state would just create a “terrorist state” that “will be training people to come over here and blow us up”:
GIULIANI: I jumped up out of my chair and cheered for Newt when he said what he said about Palestine. Finally. Thank God. Someone is saying the right things about Palestine. Somebody has to question why are we creating a Palestinian state that’s going to be another terrorist state. Put Israel aside for a minute. Is it in the interest of the United States of America to create another state where they’re going to be training people to come over here and blow us up? Of course it isn’t. And somebody’s got to have the guts to stand and say that like Ronald Reagan said, “the Evil Empire.” Like Ronald Reagan said, “Tear down the wall.” We need somebody like that.
Watch it:
Giuliani may want to take another look at his hero. As Politico’s Ben Smith noted yesterday, Reagan was nowhere near the “no-daylight-with-Israel policy that leading Republicans advocate” today. in 1982, he called for a settlement freeze, stating that it “could create the confidence needed for wider participation in these talks.” He even complained about Israel’s participation in the war in Lebanon, saying “the relationship between our two countries is at stake.” In 1987, he called on Israelis to “step back from confrontation” regarding the violence in the West Bank, adding that their occupation “also damages the self-respect and world opinion of the Israeli people.”
As Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz noted, “If Obama treated Israel like Reagan did, he’d be impeached.” And yet, Republicans like Gingrich and Giuliani continue to insist that their regressive, prejudicial, and ignorance of the Palestinian people is a position Reagan — or anyone who believes in the peace process — would support.
This week on Fox News, anchors Bill O’Reilly and John Stossel discussed former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean’s advocacy for the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), an exiled Iranian opposition group designated as a “foreign terror organization” by the State Department. The leadership of the group is based in Paris, while more than 3,000 former fighters linger in Camp Ashraf — a base set up outside Baghdad in the 1980s when the group allied with Saddam Hussein against Iran — where they face violent harassment by the Iraqi authorities.
O’Reilly and Stossel went through some background about the group and Dean’s history of paid speeches advocating for their removal from the terror rolls and U.S.recognition of the group’s leader, Maryam Rajavi, as the president of Iran.
But the really staggering ignorance on the part of Stossel is his misunderstanding of the statutes that criminalize material support for groups designated as terrorists. Stossel compares Dean’s paid speeches advocating for the MEK to speeches on behalf of medical industry groups and Stossel’s own paid speeches. O’Reilly, to his credit, pushes back:
O’REILLY: He’s lobbying, and he’s getting paid by this group, Dean, to…
STOSSEL: We don’t know that he’s lobbying for them. He’s made speeches for them, but so has Rudy Giuliani.
O’REILLY: Come on. Why would these guys do that unless they were getting paid?
STOSSEL: Because they say, “Oh, we have Howard Dean speaking here in Belgium. Come over and meet Howard Dean.”
O’REILLY: That’s right. And Dean wouldn’t do that unless they were greasing him.
STOSSEL: Right. They’re greasing him.
O’REILLY: Yes, so he’s getting money from these people.
STOSSEL: So? I make speeches for money.
O’REILLY: Yes.
STOSSEL: If he checked them out and he believes…
O’REILLY: You do the chamber of commerce in Toledo. Not the Muhajadeen.
STOSSEL: If I believed in their cause, as he says he does.
O’REILLY: Oh, yes, he believes in their cause. Socialized medicine people? That’s what he believes in.
STOSSEL: He’s also taken money to change the patent rules for pharmaceutical companies. I don’t blame him for doing that.
O’REILLY: Dean is a lobbyist now, that’s what he does. And he gets paid by MSNBC.
That Dean was paid by the group — or more accurately, American supporters of the group (if that’s indeed the case) — is less important than whether or not he made what is considered speech that was “coordinated” with the group. Having spoken to actual MEK rallies in Europe alongside Rajavi, that is a difficult defense for Dean and other paid or unpaid advocates to make. (This is not to say one shouldn’t be able to speak in favor of delisting the MEK, or that they do not deserve today to be delisted, but simply that until they are delisted, the laws on the matter are clear.)
But one does not simply get to choose which laws they follow and which designations they recognize. In a nation where the rule of law matters, it needs to be applied equally to all violators, irrespective of what they or others feel about it. That’s why the false comparison between the MEK and the Toledo Chamber of Commerce is so staggering.
“America’s Mayor” Rudy Guiliani spoke at a College Republican-sponsored event at Dartmouth last week and weighed in on the debt ceiling debate, saying that if it does get raised, the U.S. could potentially have “one of the weaker economies in the world.” (Actually dire economic consequences will result if the debt ceiling isn’t raised.) Then, Giuliani — who is reportedly considering another run for president — said that whatever happens, military spending should be left alone because it’s apparently not a big part of the federal budget anyway:
“I think we use our foreign aid budget pretty efficiently,” he said. “There are much more important things to cut.
He also said that defense spending is “not a major part” of the federal government’s budget, only constituting “about four or five percent” of the total.
Military spending actually is a major part of the federal government’s budget. Not only does the Pentagon’s budget make up 20 percent of total spending — not “4 or 5 percent” as Giuliani claimed — but the defense budget represents 50 percent of discretionary spending.
The United States is now spending more on defense than at any time since World War II. Moreover, the Senate Appropriations Committee recently found that the military’s budget increased more as a percentage than all other government expenditures since 2001. Indeed, the Pentagon’s baseline budget has nearly doubled in the last 10 years.
To his credit, Giuliani did tell Dartmouth students that he “would try to get control of defense spending.” But it seems like the first step would be for the former mayor to get the facts on how much the U.S. actually spends.
When New York legalized marriage equality, conservatives decried the law, with Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York calling it a form of government tyranny. But former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has some advice for his party: He suggested Republicans should stop worrying about what happens in people’s bedrooms and instead focus on the party’s economic roots. In an interview this morning with CNN’s Candy Crowley, Giuliani said the issue of marriage equality should be left up to the states.
Giuliani, who has supported civil unions, said he still believes marriage should be between one man and one woman, but can “live with” the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York. Watch it:
I think it’s wrong, but there are other things that I think are wrong that get decided by democratic vote. … I see more harm, however, by dwelling so much on this subject of gays and lesbians and whether it’s right or wrong in politics.
After New York approved the measure, Giuliani said he was glad the “burden of discrimination” had been lifted for gays, but he reportedly dodged calls from a gay couple he had once promised to marry. At the same time, polls show that more and more Americans support marriage equality.
But when Giuliani ran for president in 2008, he even backed away from his strong support for civil unions to appeal to conservative GOP voters. So as long as even support for civil unions is a deal breaker for most Iowa Republican caucus-goers, it is unlikely many GOP presidential candidates will take Giuliani’s advice.
When former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) was going through a messy divorce in 2001, he was taken in by gay car dealer Howard Koeppel and his partner, Mark Hsiao. Giuliani stayed with the couple for six months, during which he promised to preside over their wedding if and when marriage equality came to New York.
Koeppel and Hsiao have been together since 1991 and were married in Connecticut in 2009, but now that New York has legalized marriage equality, they would like to repeat the ceremony with Giuliani presiding. Now that he has the chance to follow through on his promise, however, Giuliani is ducking their phone calls, the New York Post reports:
“He said, ‘Howard, I don’t ever do anything that’s not legal. If it becomes legal in New York, you’ll be one of the first ones I would marry.’ ”
Ten years later, Koeppel is distressed that his former house guest hasn’t returned the many calls he began making before the legislation was passed last week.
“It seems like a lot of people he was close to become persona non grata,” Koeppel observed.
Recent polls show that a majority of New Yorkers are happy with the new law, and Giuliani recently told reporters at a golf outing he was “glad that people who felt discriminated against have that, sort of, burden of discrimination lifted,” even though he is opposed to marriage equality.
But if Giuliani has his sights set on higher office — he is reportedly flirting with another bid to become the Republican Party’s presidential nominee — he likely views the New York law as one he cannot appear to support. Republican voters still oppose marriage equality overwhelmingly, and conservative outlets have spent the last week coming up with bogus reasons why the New York law is a threat to the institution of marriage.
Koeppel told the Post he thought Giuliani was sincere when he promised to preside over the wedding. “He doesn’t usually say things just to make you feel good,” he said. But Koeppel and Hsiao shouldn’t be shocked that Giuliani is apparently putting his political aspirations ahead of their friendship. In 2009, when the couple was married in Connecticut, Giuliani didn’t even bother to show up.
Kristol: Rudy Giuliani Is Running For President |
Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol reports that “two reliable sources” tell him former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani will run for the GOP’s presidential nomination in 2012. “He may throw his hat in the ring soon,” Kristol writes. Giuliani’s last run at the presidency in 2008 ended rather quickly after several early primary losses. The most memorable moment of his campaign became Joe Biden’s “a noun, a verb, and 9/11” retort during a Democratic debate in Philadelphia. This fall will mark the 10th anniversary of 9/11.
NEWS FLASH
Giuliani: Romneycare Was A ‘Terrible Mistake’ |
Earlier last week, Rudy Giulini argued that “Obamacare and Romneycare are almost exactly the same,” and today the former New York Mayor took another hit at the GOP presidential frontrunner, calling Mitt Romney’s health care plan a “terrible mistake” that is “taking away people’s freedom.” “[It] hurts us in being able to overthrow Obamacare,” he said.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s (R) past as an executive at Bain Capital has faced scrutiny from his fellow Republican presidential candidates, who have raised questions about the firm’s propensity to send companies into bankruptcy and lay off workers — all while investors made millions of dollars. Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) slammed Romney as a “
When former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) was going through a 
