What keeps former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani awake at night? So, what, if anything, keeps former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani awake at night? Actually, he told a BlackBerry event today, there is this one thing. “You gotta always worry about a nation with an insane leader,” he told startled attendees. Well, Rudy. It’s funny you should say that. Giuliani had flown overnight from …
It seems he's beginning to model his speaking style on that of his new best friend: rambling, irrational, backtracking on obvious errors (but not all of them, naturally). Maybe this will become a new trend for American politics -- fascinating, if somewhat disturbing, for political watchers.
Just that he tends towards the iron-fisted dictator end of the political spectrum.
I dunno whether he would be better or worse than Trump, or Hillary; just a different route to the "Interesting Times" mentioned above.
Hmm... if you combined the nut-bag crazy cult of personality of trump, with the political slime skill and "the ends justify the means" of Hillary, and the authoritarian stance of Giuliani, we could make our very own Kim Jong Il.
I would fear a Giuliani presidency over Drumpf any day of the week. Giuliani has enough political know-how to get something done, whereas Drumpf would just be slamming his head against the wall trying to get congress to listen to his insanity rather than just filibustering until he goes away. The president only has power so long as congress allows them to, and congress thinks he is a loud, hateful idiot, and will kill any budget he ever tries to propose. He would have a small amount of power, but anything long-term requires congressional approval.
What frightens me is that a healthy percentage of congress is up for re-election this year and there might be enough crazy people swept in that some of the Don's rhetoric might get through or at least tie up congress too long so the big kids can't get any real work done.
If I've learned anything about the US government, is that the vast majority of power is held by local elected politicians who nobody cares about or even know who they are. The water crisis in Flint was the fault of the local city councilors and utilities commissioners (not to say that the state and federal governments weren't blameless, just that they didn't have direct control over what happened and it really isn't their responsibility to monitor the local authorities)
The only way anything to do with blackberry is keeping him awake at night is if he hasn't figured out how to turn off one of those repeating alarms he set 15 years ago.
The only way a mad guy in charge of a nuclear powered country is keeping him awake is if he hasn't paid any attention to US politics in the last 100 years. He was nominated by Reagan. Does it get any madder than that?
I suspect he sleeps really pretty well, in a real nice bed each night and reads the same papers as the rest of us the next morning. Then gets briefed by aides on what to say about gun control and stuff.
He has some kind of medal from Margaret Thatcher. Anyone who can sleep with one of those.. well I guess different things keep different people awake and it is a real comfy bed. But hey.. he said his bit and now.. to the chopper! Bed awaits.
I tend to doubt that, politicians have no time to read something when they have golf games and $1000 a plate meals to attend to. They tend to leave such tasks to sycophants that filter current events so that their lord only hears things that agree with what they are saying.
Politicians like Rudy rarely do anything like a normal person, yet regulate their lives. They wake up in the morning next to their trophy wives while an assistant picks their outfit for the day and dresses them, they go to their dining room where a chef has already prepared them a meal. Then its off to the roof to catch a helicopter or down to their private parking area where a limo is waiting for them; either way, they never see what the city actually looks like to a normal person. At work, they almost never interact with a normal citizen, its always some assistant or one-level-lower politician. When they do meet with a normal person, its because they did something extraordinary where meeting with them either re-affirms their beliefs or is politically advantageous to be associated with them. All they hear about the real world is what they ass-kissing aides tell them. And then when they travel, they have their limo drive right up next to their private plane.
What I want a politician to tell me, rather than, or in addition to, their tax returns, is the last time they've had to manage breakfast in one hand, and a suitcase in the other so they have enough time to get to the airport in enough time to get through a fondling by the TSA and get to their gate and on their flight in time. It seems just wrong that all a senator knows about how people actually fly is the bogus reports that the TSA / DHS feed them, yet they are allowed to legislate how the average person gets around.
I frequently whine that 'Cyber' should be limited to William Gibson, Exclusively. Except perhaps The News...but They pay a 10,000€* mandatory per-use royalty to William for same**.
* Fine ammount and completely random. Just wanted to use Euros because it's on my fondleslab's soft keyboard.
**I bet they pay it and continue to look like tools.
Apparently our attention spans are so short in the US, and we've watched so much reality TV, that this is the best we can do any more, I'm sad to say. I believe this is why so many hate Pres. Obama, who I've always thought was (mostly) eloquent, intelligent, tactful, and genial---he just isn't erratic enough to satisfy the unwashed masses' need for everything to be like TV wrestling.
I have to admit that this election scares the hell out of me too.
Its too bad that law enforcement doesn't have access to some kind of van full that can operate as a cell phone tower to forward calls onto another network or another cell phone in the area. Maybe they could name the device after some kind of sea creature, like a "Sting Ray" or something... Of course such a device would be in clear violation of civil liberties and the 6th amendment to the constitution, but its not like anyone would care, right?
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