Sep 21, 2023·edited Sep 21, 2023Liked by Ken LaCorte
Ken the only thing I “take issue with” with your piece is the fact that you directed it only at San Francisco. What about New York City today? What about Denver? What about Los Angeles? What about Austin Texas? What about Chicago? What about Detroit?
It’s such a great peace and should be directed far more broadly!
You're right, of course. I often think/speak of San Francisco as the symbolic stand-in for all of those cities, at least when it comes to the recently increasing problems of crime and homelessness. My only exception may be NYC, where when I visit -- Manhattan at least -- doesn't have the problems that I see on TV.
The surreal aspect of your article is that everybody, including Democrats, knows what Rudi did for New York and the great success it was. The Democrats are actually looking to do the exact opposite of Rudi's blueprint. No bail, ignoring shoplifting, defunding police...they are breaking the windows themselves. They are intentionally dismantling law and order, prosperity, and safety. The insanity is that the people who live in these cities keep electing ever-more destructive Democrats to ruin their cities. Those voters know better, but out of spite or imprisoned in an ideological fog, they refuse to elect the party that wants to save them.
I couldn’t agree with you more. I was a criminal justice major at San Diego State in the 1990s and spent lots of time studying and analyzing criminologists James Q. Wilson’s and George Kelling’s ”broken windows analogy/theory” of crime causation and the subsequent use of CompStat and problem oriented policing strategies to lower crime rates. Truth be told, I’ve always been fascinated by the their theory and my interest always perks up whenever the subject is brought up. At the same time I was studying, I was also working full time in a 25 yearlong federal law enforcement career.
If you ask me, I think that there should be bronze statues of Wilson and Kelling prominently displayed in front of police department headquarters and in front of criminal trial courthouses throughout America because of the number of lives saved, as well as the peace, safety and dignity restored to millions of Americans who had previously lived in crime infested neighborhoods and who could finally breathe sighs of relief.
Lastly … surely you remember and are familiar with the 1990s - early 2000s era TV sitcom “Friends” right? Andrew Breitbart, the late conservative mensch, once keenly observed that “politics is downstream of culture.” In that same vein, I would suggest that the resounding success of that television era’s Friends was also a reflection of the success of “Broken Windows” style policing by the NYPD, later successfully exported to many other cities too.
The show Friends showed America that a group of twenty-something young adults could live together happy, carefree and safe in America’s largest cosmopolitan city, New York, without the fear of getting robbed, raped, shot or killed. Friends reflected the policy and sociological successes of Giuliani, Bratton, Wilson & Kelling, the NYPD, and our then criminal justice system which was then firing on all cylinders.
Why does everybody, including you, Ken, not see Rudy Giuliani is the same man, the same fighter he was in the ‘90s? Because he tried valiantly to stop the certification of what we now suffer in the White House? This country is suffering from mind flatulence - and the total abdication of what made is the country of which we once could be proud.
For me, at least, it's because he made wild claim after claim and virtually never backed them up. He may have been valiant, but he routinely made thing things up out of whole cloth.
I also had the misfortune of reading some of his court filings, which were nonsensical on their face and had often ridiculous logic, one reason why judges across the country threw them out. That includes Republican appointed judges in multiple states.
His charges, never substantiated, included thousands of underage voters in Georgia, Dominion nonsense, and a litany of false statements. He'd claim, as an example, to have seen the death certificates of 900 people who voted, then never back it up.
He's been suspended -- not permanently -- from practicing law in Washington and NY, and is still facing a likely disbarment (DC) for filing false and misleading statements to court.
He lost a defamation lawsuit by 2 election workers, and has a Dominion lawsuit against him for saying things that he never supported. He's now being sued by his own law firm for not paying their fees, sued by former assistant for sexual harassment, has been accused by another White House aide of sexual assault.
Even if I give him the benefit of the doubt on any of the unproven allegations, including the Georgia indictment (which I believe, so far, is nonsense), there's a litany of bad behavior that I can't pretend isn't over-the-top.
And this is coming from someone who worked for his campaign and was proud to know him.
Giuliani didn't work alone to slow the certification of Biden. There were at least two other attorneys working with him and I followed their progress carefully. You say the filings were nonsense - I haven't read them so cannot comment. Simply doesn't compute with me. My feeling is the atmosphere in control of the country AND courts at that time were so firmly against Trump nobody else stood a chance. What has happened since is proof of the control imposed on everybody who attended the J6 rally, political persecution at a level that to me is indicative of just how far this country has fallen. I'd like to think it can turn around - but Trump has too many naysayers. I blame him for "Operation Warp Speed" and the horrible abuses imposed by others in power after him, so I am not personally encouraged to see any way out of our current trajectory. Thanks for replying.
Totally agree. Today's crime problems aren't quite the same as the ones NYC had in the '90s, but a dose of the old Giuliani of 20 years ago would still do wonders for troubled cities like SF. It's hard to conceive in these hyper-partisan times how widely admired Rudy was after 9/11. The Rudy of today though...sigh.
Dallas Texas’s mayor is turning Republican. I don’t know that I trust him, but hell, maybe people are figuring out if one way isn’t working out, why not try a different approach and see if things improve.
Ken the only thing I “take issue with” with your piece is the fact that you directed it only at San Francisco. What about New York City today? What about Denver? What about Los Angeles? What about Austin Texas? What about Chicago? What about Detroit?
It’s such a great peace and should be directed far more broadly!
I can't save the whole world, Stephen!
You're right, of course. I often think/speak of San Francisco as the symbolic stand-in for all of those cities, at least when it comes to the recently increasing problems of crime and homelessness. My only exception may be NYC, where when I visit -- Manhattan at least -- doesn't have the problems that I see on TV.
New York needs mayor Giuliano again itself. Like every other democratic run city. Keep Out.
The surreal aspect of your article is that everybody, including Democrats, knows what Rudi did for New York and the great success it was. The Democrats are actually looking to do the exact opposite of Rudi's blueprint. No bail, ignoring shoplifting, defunding police...they are breaking the windows themselves. They are intentionally dismantling law and order, prosperity, and safety. The insanity is that the people who live in these cities keep electing ever-more destructive Democrats to ruin their cities. Those voters know better, but out of spite or imprisoned in an ideological fog, they refuse to elect the party that wants to save them.
Yes I agree on the Legal LE side for sure & How Rudy ran NYC as Mayor
Bingo dead on here
I couldn’t agree with you more. I was a criminal justice major at San Diego State in the 1990s and spent lots of time studying and analyzing criminologists James Q. Wilson’s and George Kelling’s ”broken windows analogy/theory” of crime causation and the subsequent use of CompStat and problem oriented policing strategies to lower crime rates. Truth be told, I’ve always been fascinated by the their theory and my interest always perks up whenever the subject is brought up. At the same time I was studying, I was also working full time in a 25 yearlong federal law enforcement career.
If you ask me, I think that there should be bronze statues of Wilson and Kelling prominently displayed in front of police department headquarters and in front of criminal trial courthouses throughout America because of the number of lives saved, as well as the peace, safety and dignity restored to millions of Americans who had previously lived in crime infested neighborhoods and who could finally breathe sighs of relief.
Lastly … surely you remember and are familiar with the 1990s - early 2000s era TV sitcom “Friends” right? Andrew Breitbart, the late conservative mensch, once keenly observed that “politics is downstream of culture.” In that same vein, I would suggest that the resounding success of that television era’s Friends was also a reflection of the success of “Broken Windows” style policing by the NYPD, later successfully exported to many other cities too.
The show Friends showed America that a group of twenty-something young adults could live together happy, carefree and safe in America’s largest cosmopolitan city, New York, without the fear of getting robbed, raped, shot or killed. Friends reflected the policy and sociological successes of Giuliani, Bratton, Wilson & Kelling, the NYPD, and our then criminal justice system which was then firing on all cylinders.
G’day!
Why does everybody, including you, Ken, not see Rudy Giuliani is the same man, the same fighter he was in the ‘90s? Because he tried valiantly to stop the certification of what we now suffer in the White House? This country is suffering from mind flatulence - and the total abdication of what made is the country of which we once could be proud.
For me, at least, it's because he made wild claim after claim and virtually never backed them up. He may have been valiant, but he routinely made thing things up out of whole cloth.
I also had the misfortune of reading some of his court filings, which were nonsensical on their face and had often ridiculous logic, one reason why judges across the country threw them out. That includes Republican appointed judges in multiple states.
His charges, never substantiated, included thousands of underage voters in Georgia, Dominion nonsense, and a litany of false statements. He'd claim, as an example, to have seen the death certificates of 900 people who voted, then never back it up.
He's been suspended -- not permanently -- from practicing law in Washington and NY, and is still facing a likely disbarment (DC) for filing false and misleading statements to court.
He lost a defamation lawsuit by 2 election workers, and has a Dominion lawsuit against him for saying things that he never supported. He's now being sued by his own law firm for not paying their fees, sued by former assistant for sexual harassment, has been accused by another White House aide of sexual assault.
Even if I give him the benefit of the doubt on any of the unproven allegations, including the Georgia indictment (which I believe, so far, is nonsense), there's a litany of bad behavior that I can't pretend isn't over-the-top.
And this is coming from someone who worked for his campaign and was proud to know him.
Giuliani didn't work alone to slow the certification of Biden. There were at least two other attorneys working with him and I followed their progress carefully. You say the filings were nonsense - I haven't read them so cannot comment. Simply doesn't compute with me. My feeling is the atmosphere in control of the country AND courts at that time were so firmly against Trump nobody else stood a chance. What has happened since is proof of the control imposed on everybody who attended the J6 rally, political persecution at a level that to me is indicative of just how far this country has fallen. I'd like to think it can turn around - but Trump has too many naysayers. I blame him for "Operation Warp Speed" and the horrible abuses imposed by others in power after him, so I am not personally encouraged to see any way out of our current trajectory. Thanks for replying.
Made US! We need an edit feature.
Totally agree. Today's crime problems aren't quite the same as the ones NYC had in the '90s, but a dose of the old Giuliani of 20 years ago would still do wonders for troubled cities like SF. It's hard to conceive in these hyper-partisan times how widely admired Rudy was after 9/11. The Rudy of today though...sigh.
Dallas Texas’s mayor is turning Republican. I don’t know that I trust him, but hell, maybe people are figuring out if one way isn’t working out, why not try a different approach and see if things improve.