The He-Who-I-Refuse-To-Name Round-Up

Things may not work out and He just might not get the nomination despite all the votes from the rightist Big Media noise machine.

Which would be rather bad for me, or at least this blog. It runs on visceral reaction and He gets me going about as much as Our Leaders (too close to figure out and not worth the time).

So let's go to the Round-Up. Yippeekiyay!

TPMMuckraker:

We've been swimming in credit card receipts from Rudy Giuliani's administration today, and one thing in particular has struck us: in 2001, apparently with an eye to future globetrotting, Giuliani's administration sent a check for $400,000 to American Express. Though it was billed to the Assigned Counsel Administrative Office, an office that provides lawyers for indigent defendants, the money served as an advance against future travel and other expenses later incurred by the mayor's office and his security detail.

The unusually large prepayment, as yet unreported, adds weight to the theory that the Giuliani administration was using accounting gimmicks to obscure his office's travel expenditures.

With $400,000 prepaid on the Amex account, the mayor and his staff drew down on the credit card for a number of trips, including a handful out to the Hamptons, where Judith Nathan had her condo. Giuliani's administration ultimately spent approximately $100,000 of the $400,000 before leaving office in January, 2001.

Stu Loeser, a spokesman for Mayor Bloomberg, confirmed to us that his administration put a stop to the practice of putting funds for future travel in bulk on a credit card. Shortly after Bloomberg took office, American Express refunded $298,000, the remaining unused balance on the account. The move came shortly after the city comptroller sent the mayor a letter critical of the Giuliani adminsitration's practice of billing obscure city agencies for mayoral travel expenses.

But Loeser declined to comment when asked directly why the administration did this, and declined to comment when asked directly if the Bloomberg administration thought the Giuliani approach was problematic. "We process spending and travel differently," he said. "We use a different method. If we have government funded travel, we go through the city's travel agent."

Prepaying a city credit card with such a large amount is a procedure that "appears intentionally opaque," a high-level budget official under a previous administration told us. "You're not able to see clearly what [the money] is being used for," the official said, "because it's bundled in an AmEx card as opposed to as direct payments to vendors."

The unusual $400,000 prepayment is revealed in a letter from Giuliani's deputy director of fiscal operations that was contained in a package of documents City Hall released today, in response to reporters' questions about Wednesday's Politico story. You can see the letter here.

Giuliani's administration had done a similar thing in June of 2000, cutting checks for $54,000 worth of "prepayment" and billing them to the New York City Loft Board and other backwater agencies.

One wonders why a state controller gets tossed from office for doing less than America's Mayor. (Short answer: law involved state officials, not city officials.)

TPMMuckraker lays out His really pretty bad week:

On Monday, Bloomberg News reported that Giuliani, despite railing against congressional earmarks on the campaign stump, and pledging to "get rid of" lawmakers' pet projects if elected, actually "sought federal earmarks for 14 companies this year, 11 of which hired [Bracewell & Giuliani] after Giuliani joined in March 2005." Republican consultant Eddie Mahe responded, "It's a bit hypocritical."

On Tuesday, Giuliani attended a campaign fundraiser hosted by a "man convicted in a notorious corruption case." An embarrassed Giuliani "came and went from last night's fundraiser without comment, ducking down in his car as ABC News cameras attempted to photograph him arriving."

On Wednesday morning, a new batch of polls show Giuliani's support fading in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Shag Fund scandal broke.

On Thursday, while the Shag Fund scandal gathers steam, we learn that Giuliani's private security firm provided security consulting and advice in Qatar through contracts overseen by Sheik Abdullah Bin Khalid al-Thani, who is suspected of close ties to Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Osama bin Laden.

On Friday, the New York Times' Michael Cooper reported that Giuliani cites a series of statistics in his stump speech, most of which "are incomplete, exaggerated or just plain wrong."

On Saturday, the Washington Post's conservative editorial board noted that Giuliani's new TV ad is patently ridiculous, premised on tax policy assumptions that even the Bush White House rejects as foolish.

All the while, Giuliani and his aides try one defense after another for the Shag Fund scandal, none of which makes any sense.

His scumminess, a blast from the past:

The Rudy Giuliani campaign has denied allegations that Judith Nathan, Giuliani's one-time mistress and current wife, abused police protection during his tenure as mayor.

The campaign issued a statement, saying: "That assertion is absolutely ridiculous. The security detail was only used to protect the personal safety of Mrs. Giuliani."

At the dawn of 2001, Nathan was Giuliani's good friend and was receiving a blanket of police protection. It was an unusual circumstance, as his wife, first lady Donna Hanover, was still living at Gracie Mansion with their children.

But the mayor was unapologetic, citing security concerns.

"If you had any concern for people's safety, you'd have the decency to leave it alone. You should be ashamed of yourselves," the former mayor said back in 2001.

Six years later, presidential candidate Giuliani is facing questions about that security. A source involved with the mayor's operations at the time tells CBS 2 HD that Nathan took flagrant advantage of that police car and driver.

The source says Nathan forced police to chauffeur her friends and family around the city -- even when she wasn't in the car.

That set off alarms with ethics watchdogs.

"The rules are clear, you can't use city resources for private reasons," said Gene Russianoff of the New York Public Interest Research Group. "And if you're using a city car, a police driven car to chauffeur around relatives, unless they're explicitly protected and their deemed to be the subject of potential security threats, it's just wrong."

Nathan's detail was approved by the NYPD after a stranger made an unspecified threat to her. The commissioner at the time was Bernard Kerik, who was recently indicted on tax fraud charges in an unrelated matter.

"It wasn't about her being the mayor's girlfriend," Kerik said. "The person spoke to her by name and made comments to her."

On Friday, Giuliani avoided reporters' questions about the security for Nathan back then. He told reporters off camera "we've explained it."

Giuliani's press secretary, Maria Comella, angrily denounced the use of an unnamed source in this story.

But she did not deny the assertion that Nathan used her police detail to ferry around friends and family.

And she repeated what Giuliani has said about reports questioning how his security detail was financed, saying, "This is nothing more than partisan politics aimed at the Republican front-runner."

The issue made really simple:

Ed Koch's Budget Director Alaire Townsend on Shag Fund budgeting ...

"Money might get moved around within the mayor's office, but I don't know why an expense of the NYPD would get recorded that way unless you just didn't want people to find it."

And His defense from a person of high moral standing -- His indicted cocksucker:

Bernie Kerik vouches for Rudy on the Shag Fund (from the Times) ...

Bernard B. Kerik, who was Mr. Giuliani’s police commissioner when some of the charges were billed, said in an interview yesterday that the security detail’s travel expenses would normally come out of the Police Department’s budget.

“There would be no need for anyone to conceal his detail’s travel expenses,” said Mr. Kerik, who was indicted earlier this month on unrelated federal tax fraud and corruption charges. “And I think It’s ridiculous for anyone to suggest that the mayor or his staff attempted to do so.”

Well that settles that, right?

A review of the State-Sponsored Adultery is here.

And here is how He is handling it:

Giuliani refused to take questions here today about allegations that travel expenses were picked up by obscure city offices when he was mayor of New York City.

“We’ve already explained it,” he said, walking past reporters after a town hall meeting.

Giuliani, who is normally friendly to reporters, bristled past them, and campaign staffers were unusually physical in keeping the press away. Several campaign aides told campaign reporters to return to the press area, and some of his security detail manhandled reporters. On other occasions, reporters have been free to video Giuliani as he is shaking hands and signing autographs after events, and he often informally takes questions from reporters.

Giuliani is holding a similar town hall meeting in Boca Raton, FL, but traditionally does not hold a press availability after town halls.

And here is the man of principle in action... I mean, political-candidate action, not lying, thieving fuck action:

Jim Cramer is interviewing Rudy. I don't have the sound on, but the captions are funny. First one.

Giuliani: The US Should Increase Its Coal Supply Through Government Subsidies

About 4 minutes later:

Giuliani: Business And Government Are Separate - And That's Non-Negotiable