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Rudy Giuliani, who pioneered the use of RICO when he was a US attorney, just got indicted on RICO charges
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
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If Giuliani had retired from public life in the years after 9/11 he would have had a positive entry in the history of the USA.
Now?
Well...
The praise he received after 9/11 was how I first heard his name. Shining example of "You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
My sister lived in New York for a decade before 9/11. You do not want to know what the New Yorkers thought of Guiliani.
Yep. The guy has always been a total tool all his life. 9/11 gave him a positive reaction for people outside NYC.
The fact that you said "at the time" twice makes it impossible not to read your comment in a thick Sopranos accent.
Very Observant. The sacred and the propane.
Yes, please. We do want to know.
(I read somewhere, long ago, that some suspect he went after the Italian mob in NY merely to clear room for the Russian mob.. with attendant kickbacks to him for doing so... any juice to that?)
Long story short, he was always a slimy asshole, but here are some key points from wikipedia and just in regards to his mayoral position:
Hated the homeless and tried to have them "removed"(used cops to arrest them and shove them in overcrowded shetlers. A church ended up suing the city for their right to help homeless people)
"cracked down on crime", by basically aggressively arresting people for minor crimes like jumping the turnstile.
Tried to stop multiple community service proogram for the mentally ill, elderly, day-care, etc.
Big fan of "eminent domain" to take buildings and give them to his sponsors.
Racist with multiple racist pollcies, many staffers and leaders left because of him.
He threaten funding for the Brooklyn Musem if they didn't remove several pieces, specifically including one called "The Holy Virgin Mary" which was of a black person. Calling it a governement-supported attack on christianity and they had to sue the city.
Campaigned on fixing public schools, but cut $2bill of their budget and $4.7bill from the repairs budget
Two days after Columbine he said he wanted to "blow up" the Board of Education.
Wanted to imprison the teachers union president if they went into strike(their contract was up and the city hadn't started any renegotiation)
Allegedly cheated on his wife with his spokeswoman
Tried to threaten Time Warner to have Fox on their cable network, and defended Murdoch when all the surveillance and bribery scandals came about
His administration lost 22 out of 26 civil liberty lawsuits against them, mostly for trying to stifle first amandment rights.
He wanted a deal with Virginia in which they had to take NYCs trash, in exchange for them being able to visit NYCs culture sites. He also tried to send it to New Jersey, and announced that wihtout actually talking to them first, at all. This all happened because he closed a landfill 20-30 years too early , because he didn't like how it looked, so it had to be shipped out of town. Costing millions, causing even more pollution, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayoralty_of_Rudy_Giuliani#Criticisms_and_controversies
And much, much more.
Don't forget 'Rudy To the Rescue,' when he libelled an EMS crew and their Lieutenant because they wanted to take a kid who'd been hit by a car to the nearest hospital.
Holy crap. I shouldn't be surprised, but.. wow.
I mean... they voted for him. More than once. He was mayor from 1994 to 2001.
He won his first because a newspaper man named Jimmy Breslin discovered a huge scandal involving a Democrat politician, Donald Manes. Breslin did the hard work and Rudy got to play Mr. DA
As a Californian dealing with Feinstein, I am so sick of the "well you voted for them!" bs. We all know how fucked American elections are. We all know that we are not given any true choice of who gets in office. Why would state elections be any better? Even living in a state that's technically a direct democracy, it still comes down to whoever has the most money. Local elections tend to have more candidates, but less information available on them, and while anyone can propose a ballot initiative here, it again comes down to having enough money to do that.
The whole thing is a shit show that comes down to choosing democrats or fascists. And while democrats may not be the best choice, the "both sides" thing is also bs because there's an obvious right choice there.
This was a mayoral election, not a state election. And what's your solution, not to bother voting?
As another Californian I can give you my solution, but the Irish has copyright. My second solution is copyrighted by the French. And my third one is copyrighted by the Czechs.
Not who you responded to but states can use ranked choice voting instead of stupid first past the post, you just need to pass the laws. Some states already do.
People need to think outside the current system, its absolutely rigged to create exactly this predicament we're in: no real political competition making it easy for the rich to buy the 2 remaining parties and essentially give you a bad and worse choice.
Well part of it might come naturally. Ballotpedia and other sites will expand and it will be possible to learn more about local candidates.
I was toying with an idea for my area. There is a noticeable difference between my rich white district and the poor POC district nextdoor in terms of how easy it is to vote. What if this shame could be harvested? Document the differences, make it easy to report so it can be crowdsourced. And hammer leadership about it. Every single open session, every campaign speech just play the footage of the longer voter lines. Release it under open license so creative types can add music whatnot.
I am not sure if the idea has any value.
I do actually. Please tell.
New Yorker here.
It was out of town newspapers/media that pushed Rudy. Locals knew that he'd fumbled the terrorism ball dozens of times. Police and Fire Department were using incompatible radios and weren't able to coordinate efforts; his anti-terror HQ was destroyed on the day because he didn't listen to the experts who told him to put it in Brooklyn.
No one in NYC was priaisning him on 9/12.
He was always a villain.
I have always felt this expression only applies to those who strive to be heros.
It probably applies to those who strive to be villains too.
what's hilarious is he wasn't really all that good of a mayor. he constantly got in the way of the 9/11 response, constantly fucked people over as a prosecuter, etc. The only noteworthy "good" thing he did was be mayor of a a city, when that city became the site of the worst terrorist attack in US history.