Giuliani
By Ad astra
Giuliani. You know him well. He’s been in the public eye for decades. Now, he’s Donald Trump’s attorney, caught in the middle of Trump’s futile campaign to wrest the presidency from Joe Biden, the acknowledged and certified winner of the recent election. That he is prepared to join Trump in this inane, some would say insane campaign, brands him as loopy as Trump. What does he expect to gain? Attorney fees would be of no interest; notoriety will be the only dividend he can expect. Why would he covet that? Is he, like Trump, so desperate for publicity, no matter how tawdry, that he is prepared to take his hand and accompany him to the political oblivion and the ridicule and loss of respect Trump will surely suffer?
We have often asserted that Trump’s narcissistic personality disorder is now so advanced that he is incurably deranged. Anyone doubting that need only to reflect on his recent insistence that he won the election and examine his bizarre attempts to prove it via a variety of nefarious, illegal and laughable moves, to conclude that he is even more deranged than ever. Although Trump’s supporters blindly cling to him like followers of a weird cult while he continues to insist that he won the election despite all the documented evidence that he did not, why would Giuliani?
Until now, Giuliani has had a distinguished career, successively filling major posts as United States Associate Attorney General, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York and Mayor of New York City where he ran successful campaigns against crime and social disorder. For his mayoral leadership after the September 11 attacks in 2001, he was called ‘America’s mayor’. He was named Time magazine’s ‘Person of the Year’ for 2001, and was given an honorary knighthood in 2002 by Queen Elizabeth.
As mayor of New York, he reformed the police department’s administration and policing practices, applying the broken windows theory, which cites social disorder, like disrepair and vandalism, for attracting loitering addicts, panhandlers, prostitutes, and violent criminals. In particular, Giuliani focused on removing panhandlers and sex clubs from Times Square, promoting a ‘family values’ vibe and a return to the area’s earlier focus on business, theatre, and the arts. As crime rates fell steeply, well ahead of the national average, Giuliani was widely credited, although critics cite other contributing factors. In 2000, he ran against then First Lady Hillary Clinton for a US Senate seat from New York, but left the race once diagnosed with prostate cancer.
In April 2018, Giuliani joined President Donald Trump’s personal legal team. His activities as Trump’s attorney have drawn media scrutiny, including allegations of corruption and profiteering. In late 2019, Giuliani was reportedly under federal investigation for violating lobbying laws, and possibly several other charges as a central figure in the Trump-Ukraine scandal which resulted in Trump’s impeachment.
After the 2020 election, following Joe Biden being named President-elect, Trump placed Giuliani in charge of lawsuits related to alleged voter irregularities through unsubstantiated conspiracy theories involving a communist conspiracy, rigged voting machines and polling place fraud to claim that the election had been stolen from him. Guiliani still occupies that role.
The question then is why he would risk contaminating his career, which although it has low points, includes several significant achievements, by associating so closely with the deranged Trump who will soon limp into obscurity and disgrace? Is this just old fashioned loyalty, or is it another example of publicity, no matter how disgraceful, being more important than obscurity? Is this another instance of the menace of Trumpism?
For Giuliani, the enduring image that will be recalled by political commentators though is that of rivulets of hair dye streaming down his face in the heat of the political turmoil into which he has so foolishly wandered. What a sad legacy!
This article was originally published on The Political Sword
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33 comments
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Josephus -
Andrew J. Smith -
Matters Not -
wam -
mark delmege -
leefe -
leefe -
Kronomex -
mark delmege -
Geoff Andrews -
mark delmege -
Geoff Andrews -
wam -
mark delmege -
Michael Taylor -
wam- -
Geoff Andrews -
Jack Cade -
Geoff Andrews -
Terence Mills -
Matters Not -
Geoff Andrews -
Geoff Andrews -
Jack Cade -
Geoff Andrews -
Roswell -
g -
Geoff Andrews -
Roswell -
Terence Mills -
Kronomex -
mark delmege -
mark delmege
Return to home pagePerhaps he cannot face his own stupidity so clings to the losing horse. Seems rather like a Greek tragedy-how the mighty have fallen etc. Or, he has dementia. Why on earth did Liz give him a gong? as mad as tony abbot’s gong given to the racist duke she married.
Humans are not superior to other animals, only more pernicious. Dean Swift said it long ago.
Also a reflection of the often opaque and dodgy political PR ‘infrastructure’ in the background and the employment opportunities that exist; in this case Guiliani has gone rogue in support of a desperate president following the evangelical GOP mantra ‘whatever it takes’.
One would draw a parallel with e.g. Tony ‘whatever it takes’ Abbott who seems to be everywhere in the same ‘eco-system’ popping up to present at libertarian (Koch linked) think tanks/events, deny climate science, promote Catholic conservatism (while implicitly criticising the Pope), support Brexit, attack the EU, praise Hungary/Polish nativist media and judicial policies, complain aggressively about any non white Christian nationalists including immigrants, Moslems refugees, environmentalists etc.
For now much of this eco-system revolves round radical right libertarian think tanks/policies (many Koch linked), white Christian nationalism/xenophobia, dominant right wing media and hollowed or ‘owned’ conservative parties.
In Australia and elsewhere, hopefully it will have a use by date when demographic change with increased diversity in (with regions to follow urban areas) electorates makes such tactics self defeating when needing to attract younger, more diverse and more centre votes (as the Cafe con leche Republicans warned a decade ago).
Trumpism is not yet dead and buried. Indeed with support approaching 75 million voters, it’s alive and well. If Biden et al elect to ignore its status in the hope it will simply wither on the vine, then a resurrected Donald or close relative remains not only a distinct possibility but more likely a strong probability for next time around – which begins almost immediately a changeover is complete.
On the local scene, many in Labor now regret that a metaphorical stake through the heart wasn’t delivered to Hansonism many, many years ago when the opportunity presented. Underestimate at your peril. There’s deep roots.
beauty Ad Astra
The man is a semi-trumpist:
yahoo finance – “The clearest picture of Giuliani’s career net worth comes from his 2007 financial disclosure when he was running for the Republican nomination for president. In the disclosure, Giuliani reported assets of between $18.1 million and $70.4 million, a significant jump from the $7,000 in assets he reported to a divorce court during the end of 2001.”
once a crook?????
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/rudy-giuliani-trump-ukraine-impeachment-scandal-new-york-mayor-race-baiting-a9168176.html
Is there not a chance that the senate may be tied???? Whatever trumpism will make it difficult for the democrats in the senate.
How ironic if trump’s rampaging supporters in the streets mean biden has to call out the military??.
I think it is entirely possible that the so called deep state stole the election and made Biden the Pres and Trump knows there is nothing he can do about it. The thing is when Obama was Pres they had a cool dude as front man for a rotten corrupt outfit. Now they just have a rotten corrupt outfit.
” … loss of respect Trump will surely suffer?”
For the Trumpster to suffer a loss of respect would require people to have had some for him in the first place. No-one with half a brain would have.
Giulianii has further to fall, not having clearly been such a trashfire of a human being before all this happened.
“I think it is entirely possible that the so called deep state stole the election and made Biden the Pres … ”
But not only made it a relatively close race (particularly in the early stages of the count), but failed to flip the Senate in the process. No doubt your fellow tinfoilers can come up with a reason for that, but can you at least try to find one that makes sense? For once.
Mark,
I have the new catalogue for tin foil caps, want a copy? You might be interested in the Gold Foil Mark 4 Cap with built-in head cooler and miniature deep state detector (with added brainwashing rays deflector) all for the never to be repeated price of $9.50 with free postage if you order 6 or more.
Lets be honest its the sort of thing they have been doing to other countries for ever. The media too is forever complicit in the lies of war… and peace – as any decent observer of the last 12 years would know.
And many would argue (if they they were honest) it was a necessary action by the so called deep state to maintain continuity and at least they didn’t assassinate him – just dont call it democracy – its a Republic.
I think , leefe & Kronomex, that you should apologise to Mark.
His revelations that:
1. democracy & a republic are mutually exclusive and
2. that a “deep state” (cue spooky music) is necessary to maintain continuity (except in the last election apparently because the “deep state” … wooooo …. was/were complicit in Trump’s “loss” ) and
3. the media has been complicit for 12 years in lies – from my experience, if I’m honest, more than 45 years is closer to the mark, Mark and
4. he is an honest man having invoked it twice in four lines.
We can empathize with his & President Trump’s sense of injustice and hope that an honest reassessment will carry them through the coming months of nights of troubled rest.
Geoff are you another one of those binary thinkers?
It’s hard to give a yes/no answer to that rhetorical question, Mark and I hesitate to respond with “maybe” as I don’t want to sound indecisive or opinionated.
Was it a trick question, possibly?
leefe,
Guliani further to fall??
pourquoi??? Did trump get 74 million votes? That is 5m better than obama’s best and 8m more than hilary
How many would guliani get??
ps
the reason is obvious trump said no postal votes and turn out tuesday and biden said yes vote vote early and by post with results like:
‘A record-breaking 98.4 million Americans have chosen to vote early in-person and by postal ballot this year, according to the US Elections Project, with pre-voting in Texas and Hawaii surpassing their total number of votes in the 2016 election.’
(BY MAANI TRUU)
Geoff I was afraid you might think I was a Trump supporter. ie if not Biden then Trump. Not me. BTW I did say ‘possible’.
Andrew is right when he says ‘dominant right wing media ‘ And I’d include the ABC/SBS state media in that too. They perpetrate the right wing agenda with every word.
True. I’d say it’s been heading that way for 13 years in the ABC’s case, following Rudd’s win. And as soon as Abbott become leader of the opposition almost every political article started with; “Tony Abbott says…” or “The leader of the opposition says…”
The rabbottians bash the ABC without watching it, using the anti-abc evidence produced by rupert, the morning shows and ‘informed’ views of the government and pollies like christenson, who took some cash out of his government manilla fund to pay for anti-ABC ads.
My rabbottian ABC bashers are successful businessmen, university graduates, men and women as well as the god fearing sheep that are bashed by us here. The former have seen the same PMs as me but their book has only pages from menzies, the lying rodent, the rabbott and scummo. The labor pages are blank with turnbull’s and fraser’s torn out.
ps
For the 10 years of the rabbott and with the quasi-sacking of kerry, the ABC standard line of questioning labor has been
‘when will you stop lying about debt, about the lying rodent, the rabbott, murdoch, the economy or has the stabbing ended’ and similar loaded question all under the ‘sales’ version of the autocue journalists technique of ask and get ready for the next question without listening to the answer.
But on the appearance the rabbott sales quickly went from ‘have you read the report?’ to ‘would you like me to nod whilst you talk mister rabbott?’ The first time I watched the abc 24 it was standing by to cross to the rabbott they were stationed out side of a melb house fo hours then the rabbott and a candidate came out the rabbott introduced him with a labor is lousy comment he said labor is lousy and they went back inside. I have rarely watched it since. Now ch2 on fox is EST meaning the news is not 90 minutes behind like the morning shows making a mockery of ‘live’ and the ubiquitous and abominable breaking news.
Mark.
“when Obama was Pres they had a cool dude as front man for a rotten corrupt outfit. Now they just have a rotten corrupt outfit.”
Ah, at last! Like a breath of fresh air – some non-binary opinion – AIMN contributors please note.
And let’s be honest. many would argue (if they WERE honest) that in less than a month, Biden’s rotten corrupt outfit has swiftly nobbled a biased Supreme Court, caused the deaths of more American in one month than that of the two months before the election and is now thinking of pardoning himself of all past and future crimes!
Unfathomable depravity! I hope that’s not too binary.
Geoff Andrews
Obama was as much a creature of the ‘military-industrial complex’ (oh how we all love that meaningless phrase) as any other prez’dent, including Clinton. In fact the only one in living memory who wasn’t was was Carter, and we all know what they did to him. The most surprising thing about post-war US presidents is that Eisenhower – who most would think was emphatically one of the dreaded ‘them’, spoke out forcefully about the danger the US faced from ‘them’.
I hold no hopes for a Biden presidency. He has already signalled reinstatement of the people who destroyed Libya and the bombing of Syria.
What Aussies don’t appear to grasp is that Biden is an interregnum; we led the world in Trumpism; had OUR Trump in Tony Abbott, who was equally unbalanced. .\
Murdoch realised what a loser he had backed in the onion eater, and engineered the rise of the ‘apparently’ benign hologram in Turnbull as OUR interregnum, while all the while plotting to install his main man, Dutton. That Morrison – the creme de la creme
of snakes in the grass – second-guessed Rupert has not gone unnoticed by Newscorp. His end is ticking away. Dutton is still accumulating power, in readiness for the next display of Morrison cowardice, when the ordure next gets into the air-conditioning and ‘Jesus loves me and tells me what he wants’ bolts for the hills or for a holiday.
I am unable to open AIMN on my mobile so I will wish you all a covid-and Morrison-free Xmas.
Jack,
You are obviously more au fait with Biden’s proposed appointments than I but when you say that he “has already signalled reinstatement of the people who destroyed Libya and the bombing of Syria” would they be the ones that advised Reagan to bomb Libya in 1986 or assisted the United Nations’ attacks in 2011?
I doubt if they are the advisors to President Trump’s attacks on Syria for the past four years but I seem to remember that there was a US attack in the last months of 2016 but America claimed it was a mistake.
I’m also curious as to why the phrase “military-industrial complex” is meaningless when it appears to perfectly describe something that you assert controls all Presidents except two.
The supreme irony is that, in trying to convince the American people that the election was stolen from him, Trump is trying to steal the election !
Re:
Perhaps all phrases/sentences are meaningless, at least in terms of themselves. Seems to me that humans are always the meaning makers. It’s is the humans who give meaning. The writer of the phrase (employer of the concept) probably intended to convey a particular meaning and those who are also familiar with the notion know what meaning(s) to give.
C Wright-Mills (The Power Elite)certainly made the concept well known among students of sociology at least but he wasn’t the first user which can be traced to the 1930s. At one stage, there were three players in the mix namely the Military, Industry and the Congress which in my view is a better representation of this unholy alliance.
Certainly the book is worth a read.
What odds for Trump to develop a heart attack or similar just before or, better still, during the inauguration ceremony.
Get on to it now before the odds shorten to evens!
Matters Not,
What a wonderful example of giving meaning to the phrase “taking the piss”, particularly the profundity of the paragraph commencing with “Perhaps all phrases…”.
The title of the book you recommend is, in itself, an example of the very point you make.
“Power”, a noun is used as an adjective describing another adjective “elite”. (In French, of course, it makes some sort of sense) but the author, a human, has given meaning to the phrase and can therefore be described as the employer of the concept, which as you have pointed out is meaningless.
Perhaps we should restrict our potentially meaningless phrases to one word! I have two small dogs. When I shout out “TREAT”, the little bastards have learned to deconstruct the meaninglessness of the word and are able to present themselves, expectantly, in the kitchen in no more than ten seconds from any part of the yard.
Geoff Andrews
The phrase is meaningless in that lots of people use it without remotely understanding what it means. And Obama bombed Libya, not Reagan or Truman or even Trump. Seeing the Democrats as a leftist democratic party gives us hope without even an iota of justification. Obama bailed out the creatures of Wall Street who promptly rewarded themselves with bonuses. That’s how much a ‘president of the people Obama was, and how ‘left’ the Democratic Party is.
You can make a word or phrase mean anything you like. Cretin used to mean Christian, and it’s come back into its own of late.
Reagan bombed Libya in 1986; the NATO countries bombed it in 2011, I never mentioned Truman and whoever’s been bombing Syria for the past four years is irrelevant to the original opinion (Friday 1.32pm) of Mark Delmege that Biden’s proposed team of warmongers will continue the Democratic tradition of being a “rotten corrupt outfit”.
From there it’s drifted into a meaningless exchange about meaningless phrases; plumbing the depths of Semiotics 101 or the American school of Sociology.
As TISM would say, “BFW”
In the most unsurprising piece of news, Giuliani is now in hospital with COVID-19.
What rotten luck for the poor man (and the President too, of course). Positive PR starting to peak; encouraging signs from the Courts and, most worrying of all, that business in the electoral college thingo this week. I sense Biden’s hand in this – Biden and his rotten, corrupt outfit of warmongers.
Great news!!! Mr Giullani is now out of hospital – and after only 2 days! Must have had the same crack team that fixed up Mr Trump. That layoff could seriously damage Mr Trump’s legal appeal against the election fraud!
Maybe he just had a bit of flatulence. 😉
Geoff, praise be. Must be all that bleach he drank.
They said that Trump’s was man-flu so perhaps so with Rudy.
The election – It’s all over bar the farting !
Geoff Andrews,
I see that they didn’t mention that they were unable resuscitate his severely atrophied morals and scruples because his cupidity was sucking up all the available nutrients.
Always like his writing. https://thesaker.is/mess-with-texas-via-mail-in-ballot-states-secede-from-presidential-vote/?fbclid=IwAR2DW1B_PCxT9_RLA3BnDqV1qFJ_m3dhP050vtm6M-nkg5htik-3KBqcVt0
just a follow up to that last comment – as expected
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/12/12/640563/Supreme-Court-rejects-red-state-lawsuit-major-Biden-win?fbclid=IwAR00s5mHQLMrpq0utfauD0WOdi5xr-Zrpx8_7eG6FH0kdFMmxiZbll5tie0