The Times reports, "The rough formula used by the White House, of about $1 million per soldier a year, appears almost constant." The same Times article quotes Congressman John Murtha (D-PA), chairman of a subcommittee on defense appropriations, as saying that "total spending on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars would surge past $1 trillion next year, which could...]]> Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600 The U.S. Army and President Barack Obama are understandably seeking desperately to prevent U.S. public opinion from reaching any conclusion with respect to the motive of Major Nidal Malik Hasan who killed 12 soldiers and one civilian, and wounded 28 soldiers and one civilian last week at Fort Hood in Texas. In the court of public opinion, subject to change based on hearings to be conducted on the subject by U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, Major Hasan has been found guilty of engaging in a terrorist act. Many factors have brought the public to that conclusion.

According to The Wall Street Journal of November 9:

"Maj. Hasan, a U.S.-born Muslim of Jordanian and Palestinian...]]> Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600 According to the October 30th New York Times, "The nation's gross domestic product expanded at an annual rate of 3.5 percent in the quarter that ended in September, matching its average growth rate of the last 80 years."

I'm no economist, but that tells me we are no longer in a recession, even if some of that is attributable to the government's huge spending in that period.

The nation doesn't feel secure, however, and the reason is obvious. Our unemployment rate is currently at 9.8 percent. If you count the unemployed people who are no longer looking for jobs, the actual rate is much higher.

During my mayoralty, particularly during the earlier years, I would often...]]> Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0500 I see no difference between the lack of concern displayed by Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama to the plight of the residents of New Orleans.

George Bush flew over New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and was photographed looking down at it. Barack Obama visited the city for four hours on his way to a fundraiser in San Francisco. A person in the audience at a New Orleans town hall meeting asked the President for help in securing funds for the remaining hospital so that it could handle all situations. His reply that he could not write a check to pay for expanded services to the city might be technically correct. However, there are many things the President could do to...]]> Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0500 President Obama did an excellent job, in both delivery and substance, when he addressed a joint session of Congress last week. As I listened to him, I was reminded of my days in Congress. Before I left Congress in 1977 to serve as Mayor of New York City, I attended similar addresses of Presidents Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. I sat in the House of Representatives Chamber thinking how lucky I was to live in such a great country and to have been given the opportunity to represent my fellow citizens in Congress.

I recall when President Johnson appeared in that Chamber in January 1969 after President Nixon had been elected but before he took office. ...]]> Tue, 11 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0500 I continue to be a supporter of President Barack Obama. He has had several outstanding successes. The major one has been a positive change in the economy due primarily, I believe, to his hand-picked team of economic advisers who, from all indications, have fashioned an effective economic recovery plan. The recovery still has a long way to go, but using the language of my doctors at the hospital in which I recently spent six critical weeks recovering from open-heart surgery, "All the numbers are going in the right direction." I also believe his reaching out to our allies and those not allied with us has somewhat calmed the world's roiled waters.

Yet, strangely, the President's...]]> Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Pakistan, a nuclear nation, is in danger of falling to the Taliban. The Pakistani army, which the world has relied on to prevent the Taliban from taking over the northwest frontier tribal areas, is collapsing. The Taliban, by agreement with the army, has already moved into the Swat Valley and recently partially occupied the adjacent Buner area which is 60 miles from the Pakistan capital of Islamabad.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, husband of the former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated on December 27, 2007, is weak and ineffective. He and his government depend on the Pakistani army to keep the country under control and most importantly, to secure the...]]> Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Remember the phrase from the Nixon years and Watergate - follow the money. Well, it still applies. Prior to the release of the partial list of names, the Secretary of the Treasury and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, who knew where the money was going, told us that it is "proprietary information" and not publicly available. Only the proprietor - the owner - should have that information.

When banks lend money to you, the consumer, they can and do put restrictions on what you can do with it. What is worse, in this case, is that as a result of our pushing money into the coffers of institutions like A.I.G., we, the American public, have become the real owners of...]]> Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0600 A little history: We were told by Bush's Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson that liquidity - the availability of credit - was our greatest financial problem and our greatest failing. He terrified Congress into voting for his plan, which the House first rejected, by telling us that unless the plan was accepted, we would have an economic debacle comparable to the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Six weeks later, after his $700 billion bailout plan was approved, Paulson told us that his original plan to buy up "toxic assets" was no longer the way to go, and he simply shoveled out money to the extent of nearly half of the appropriated funds -- $350 billion -- which...]]> Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0600 The new team under President Obama has asked the Congress for an additional so-called stimulus bill, now at about $800 billion and still growing - with about $350 billion remaining and available to the Obama administration for use from the prior stimulus package. The administration has the power now or through laws that Congress could pass to make the banks lend and provide the needed liquidity. When I wrote to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on October 9, 2008 and asked why he didn't impose a requirement that the banks do their job to lend for which they were licensed - and only to those applicants who were creditworthy and at the same rate as the prior year, his...]]> Tue, 27 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0600 Obama is moving quickly as he said he would to implement foreign and domestic policy changes, e.g., appointing a special representative -- Richard C. Holbrooke -- for Afghan and Pakistani issues and another - George Mitchell - for Israeli-Palestinian affairs. Domestically, he is moving quickly on the economic front with his stimulus package, requiring tighter Wall Street regulations and higher car pollution standards.

We have the bizarre situation that the presidential candidate of the left, Barack Obama, who astonishingly won the election with a near landslide against all expectations, ends up as the clear moderate next to the Congressional Democratic...]]> Tue, 20 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0600 What a great and extraordinary outcome. What a great country. What a great people. And what a great man who won. He also surprised many of us all in his post election political comments and governmental decisions. He conveyed his humility and intelligence with his statements and appointments. He took as his model Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator who, 145 years ago, kept the nation together through leadership exhibited in personality and policies. How true it was when said by Lincoln's Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, "Now he belongs to the ages." We who line the streets of Washington D.C. or are watching the swearing-in on television are participating in the crowning...]]> Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0600 The governments of the United States, Great Britain, Egypt, as well as the Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas, all acknowledge that Hamas began the latest hostilities by declaring the cease-fire that was agreed to in June 2008 to be at an end in mid-December 2008.

The position of the United States, as expressed by a White House spokesman, is that "Hamas, the group that controls Gaza, was responsible for the outbreak of violence and called its rocket attacks 'completely unacceptable.' The people are nothing but thugs.and Israel is going to defend its people against terrorists like Hamas."

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called...]]> Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0600 Every day during the bombing of Gaza, Hamas proudly announced that it was keeping up its rocketing of Israel. Never did the number of rockets fall below 20 per day, and on some days it reached 70. On one day, one of the rockets landed in an Israeli classroom which, had it been occupied at the time, would have injured or killed dozens of Israeli children.

There is a difference between the injuries and deaths of Palestinian civilians and in particular, children in Gaza - which everyone, including the Israelis deplore -- and the deaths of Israeli civilians and children in Israel, which apparently no one in Gaza regrets. Hamas wants to deliberately kill...]]> Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0600 To put a stop to this rocket bombardment, Israel has now taken the offensive. The Wall Street Journal in its editorial of December 29, summed up the facts: "The chronology of this latest violence is important to understand. Israel withdrew both its soldiers and all of its settlers from Gaza in August 2005. Hamas won its internal power struggle with Mr. Abbas' Fatah organization to control Gaza in 2006. Since 2005, Hamas has fired some 6,300 rockets at Israeli civilians from Gaza, killing 10 and wounding more than 780." More than 200 rockets have been fired into Israel since the ceasefire ended.

The Israelis, according to The New York Times of December 28, have...]]> Wed, 17 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0600 Now we are learning of individuals in the private financial sector who have stolen billions in so-called Ponzi schemes. Charles Ponzi was a con man who promised large profits to investors, but who in reality was using the money of later investors to pay huge profits to earlier investors, while stealing some of the money for himself. The swindle works for a while, but when there are no new investors and existing investors begin asking for their money back, the scheme collapses quickly.

The public is frightened about the future and has every reason and right to be. Retired people worry how they will pay their current expenses, with their savings depleted....]]> Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0600 Congress only authorized Paulson to spend half of the $700 billion bailout fund and to come back to Congress for permission to spend the balance. However, with all of the publicly announced Treasury actions, including the recent bailout deals made with Citibank, it seems to me the Treasury Secretary may have invaded the second pot of bailout funds. Secretary Paulson is apparently not subject to FOIL requests, so attempts by the media to ascertain the amounts and conditions of loans made have been rejected. According to a recent press statement, the Secretary still has $15 billion uncommitted, and he said he wanted to leave the balance of $350 billion for the incoming Obama...]]> Tue, 18 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0600 Our economy does not grow, indeed quickly diminishes, when businesses, large and small, are unable to obtain short and long term loans to deal with payrolls, purchases and expansion measures.

Congress was not convinced but Paulson assured the House and Senate that if the bailout bill did not pass, Congress would be responsible for driving the U.S. economy into another Great Depression like the one that almost destroyed America in the 1930s.

In 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who inherited a devastated economy from Herbert Hoover, took heroic measures to get America going again. At age 83 I remember that era well. ...]]> Wed, 12 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0600 At first, some members of Congress -- both Republicans and Democrats -- balked at the huge bailout package. They said at the very least there should be some minimal safeguards since the legislation was drawn to give the Secretary of the Treasury what appeared to be total power to determine how the bailout would be structured.

These concerns were addressed to some extent in the revised bailout bill which, among other things, staggered the bailout payments and provided for some Congressional lending oversight for half of the $700 billion rescue package. Congress apparently assured that having waited and then passing the legislation on the second time it was...]]> Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500 I pretend no special expertise on how to deal with terror suspects, but I do believe there is a vast difference between criminal acts generally involving individuals or a small group engaged in a conspiracy to commit a crime, as opposed to terrorist acts. Criminals are attempting to make an illegal buck or engage in random or premeditated acts of violence. Terrorists, on the other hand, are seeking to impose their will on government and affect its foreign policy.

In the case of Islamic terrorists, they are part of a worldwide conspiracy aimed at bringing the West to its knees. For example, the 19 Muslim terrorists on 9/11 were really enemy soldiers on a mission to inflict...]]> Tue, 21 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Azizabad is in an area where, according to The Times, "Taliban forces have been battling NATO forces." Guerrillas make it their business to infiltrate civilian areas to provoke civilian casualties caused by the coalition and American forces, while fighting to fend off the Taliban and the forces of al-Qaeda led by bin-Laden. President Karzai apparently does not inspire his own people. His brother is rumored to be a drug lord in charge of the poppy fields of Afghanistan. The Times in an editorial of October 15th, reported that his brother "may be involved in the heroin trade that is pouring $100 million annually into the Taliban's coffers."

We are not...]]> Mon, 13 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500 The absence of protests now when our economy has been driven into the ground by greed on Wall Street and in Washington is a mystery. We saw some of that greed uncovered when the CEO of Lehman Brothers, Richard Fuld, Jr., was interrogated before the House Oversight Committee chaired by Henry Waxman. I served with Waxman when I was in the Congress from 1969 to 1977, and there could be no better legislator to make public what happened. According to Fox News, "Richard S. Fuld Jr., chief executive officer of Lehman Brothers, declared to the committee 'I take full responsibility for the decisions that I made and for the actions that I took.' He defended his actions as "prudent...]]> Wed, 08 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Sarah Palin later explained when she learned what the Bush Doctrine stood for, that she did too.

When Katie Couric in a later interview asked Palin if she disagreed with any United States Supreme Court decisions other than Roe v. Wade, a case deciding that abortion was a privacy right protected under the Constitution, Palin, having no Supreme Court decision in mind again obfuscated and again looked bad.

Interestingly, I am a lawyer - not a Constitutional expert - and had I been asked the same question, no particular decision would have come to mind. This recalls President Eisenhower, who when asked at a press conference to describe Nixon's...]]> Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Here I was, four years later in those same Jewish communities, consisting of many retired New Yorkers, urging the Jewish residents of Florida to vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden. On this trip, I told the four Jewish communities I visited - about 1,000 Jews in attendance in the aggregate - why I was there and why I was supporting Obama.

I told them why I supported President Bush four years ago, and that I had no regrets. I said there was an important difference now in that I believe the candidates and the political parties they represent understand the existential danger to Western civilization posed by Islamic terrorism. Since the candidates and...]]> Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500 According to the Times, the retirement board's inspector general acknowledged that "the board's rejection rate (for the benefit) was almost nonexistent," adding, "If Congress wants to change the statute and raise the threshold that's up to Congress. That is not up to us to do."

What's happening here is a massive rip-off. The public,which ultimately pays for these disability claims, is being fleeced. "In each year since 2000, between 93 percent and 97 percent of (LIRR) employees over 50 who retired with 20 years of service also received disability payments," reports The Times.

The Times investigation also uncovered significant abuses in work rules. ...]]> Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500 I believe that Bush and Tony Blair, Bush's main international ally with regard to the war in Iraq and against Islamic terrorism, will be redeemed by history. President Harry Truman was reviled when he left office, but is now honored for his courage and vision.

Now, once again, I have to make a decision to either endorse the Democratic ticket of Obama and Biden or support the Republican ticket of McCain and Palin. I am 83 years old. If I am lucky, I may yet vote not only in this election, but in the presidential election of 2012 and perhaps, if luckier, even in that of 2016. I believe I must vote my conscience, and that means for the presidential candidate who in my...]]> Wed, 03 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Palin has so far come across as an extraordinary woman whose political experience includes serving as a mayor of an Alaska town and governor of Alaska. She is a reformer who has proven to be a tough negotiator with Big Oil, pushing for both more taxes on oil companies and more drilling. Her husband is a member of the steel workers union and her son has joined the U.S. Army. She is an opponent of the right to choose an abortion, including in cases of incest and rape, and she is a hunter.

McCain selected Palin from a short list that included Mitt Romney, Joe Lieberman and several Republican governors. He clearly thought she added to the strength of his ticket by...]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Barack Obama, who comes out of Chicago's ward politics and the Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.'s church, seeks to inherit the mantle of Bobby Kennedy's populist legacy with his slogan, "Yes, we can." His inspiring speeches are intended to unite us in a struggle against special interests that have had their way in the halls of Congress, preventing us from achieving our potential as a nation. Whether or not he will prevail in convincing the voters of his sincerity, ability and effectiveness, we will soon know.

The Republicans have as their standard bearer a bona fide war hero, John McCain, a person of recognized integrity. While running as a true conservative on a...]]> Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 In the meanwhile, we have to make a decision. Do we want to engage Russia as a full partner in our efforts to keep the peace or do we want to humble them as we have for a number of years when we were aided by their declining economy. Their economy is no longer in decline. Instead, it is now booming based on oil and natural gas wealth. Russia now supplies European countries as a whole with two-thirds of their energy needs. The Russians have chafed for years as a result of the U.S. including the Baltic states and Poland in NATO and proposing NATO membership for Georgia and the Ukraine.

The Russians have made clear that they see the installation by the U.S. of radar in...]]> Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 On the opening day of the Olympics, Georgia sent troops to take back the provincial capital of South Ossetia. Big mistake. Russia, using the same pretext that Hitler used when he invaded Czechoslovakia in 1938, invaded the province and then Georgia itself. Why is Russia taking this aggressive action? The Russians are furious that the U.S. and Europe allowed Kosovo, formerly a part of Serbia, a Russian ally, to gain independence. Putin is now showing that two can play at that game.

In my view, it was an error to allow Kosovo to separate from Serbia and become independent. I also believe it was a mistake to seek to encircle Russia and cause it to believe the U.S....]]> Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500 I've always been impressed that the adults I know who were raised by a single mother are well adjusted. They tell me they received all the parental love and attention any child could have wished for.

There are certainly adoptions that should never have occurred. We recently learned of a woman in Florida who adopted 11 children from New York City's foster care system, apparently for the government subsidies that accompanied each adoption. She reportedly physically abused the children. A New York judge sentenced her to nearly 11 years in prison for abusing the children and for using false names and addresses to adopt them.

That outrage is in...]]> Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500 The Kurds and Sunnis, who together represent 40 percent of the Iraqi population, may, in large part, want a continuing U.S. presence to protect them from the 60 percent Shiite majority, but the Shiites do not want us to stay long-term. The U.S. has pledged to withdraw from Iraq at the Iraqi government's request. The likelihood that we will be asked to leave grows with each passing day.

Instead of waiting until we are asked to leave, we should notify the Iraqi government that we intend to begin our withdrawal at the end of the U.N. mandate. If Iraq requires further military assistance to protect their internal security and borders, they should ask the U.N. to...]]> Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Bruno, before he resigned, apparently called the U.S. law enforcement authorities to ask if the resignation will cause them to end their investigation of his business activities then and still under investigation, and was told no.

Now we have a state legislature totally dominated by the Speaker, Sheldon Silver, who while conducting the state's affairs also draws an alleged $1 million per year as a partner in a law firm in a state where the trial lawyers wield great influence on state legislation. Then there is the enormous influence of the municipal unions on the state legislature and the laws it enacts affecting the relationship of those unions and New York City, particularly...]]> Wed, 28 May 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Wed, 21 May 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0500