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David Brody has some good posts up on Rudy.  One post counters Rudy's Planned Parenthood donation story by listing Giuliani's Pro-Family Donations. 

Another one lists some of his more conservative past "Proclamations."

Of course, not all of Rudy's "proclamations" have been so conservative ...

Lesbian And Gay Pride And History Month. (Giuliani Press Release, 6/24/97)

Giuliani’s Deputy Mayor, On Behalf Of The Mayor, Proclaimed June 18, 2001 “Out In Government Day.” (Giuliani Press Release, 6/18/01)

Giuliani Proclaimed June 20, 2000 “Out In Government Day.” (Giuliani Press Release, 6/20/00)

Giuliani Proclaimed June 23, 1999 “Out In Government Day.” (Giuliani Press Release, 6/23/99)

Giuliani Proclaimed June 22, 1998 “Out In Government Day.” (Giuliani Press Release, 6/22/98)

Update:  Here's an interesting story from 2005, in which Gov. Romney "removed a reference to Roe v. Wade in a proclamation he signed this week, raising eyebrows among abortion rights advocates ..."

He'll be gone as of June 27th.

• "And then came the utterly unanticipated and dramatic September 11,2001 and the death of 3,000 or more on the streets of New York and I decided we should stand shoulder to shoulder with our oldest ally and I did so out of belief."

• "And so Afghanistan and then Iraq, the latter bitterly controversial, and removing Saddam and his sons from power, as with removing the Taliban was over with relative ease, but the blowbacksince from global terrorism and those elements that support it has beenfierce and unrelenting and costly and for many it simply isn't andcan't be worth it."

• "For me I think we must see it through. They, the terrorists who threaten us here and round the world, will never give up if we give up. It is a test of will and of belief and we can't fail it."...

• "I ask you to accept one thing. Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right. I may have been wrong - that's your call. But believe one thing if nothing else. I did what I thought was right for our country and I came into office with high hopes for Britain's future and you know I leave it with even higher hopes for Britain's future."

Video of his farewell speech, here.

Rick Moran has a long remembrance of the Bush/Blair odd couple:

Blair forged one of the unique personal relationships of our times with George Bush that, much to his detriment and own personal political standing in Great Britain, has sustained the war effort in Iraq. The two made something of an odd couple although they complemented each other beautifully. Bush as the blunt, outspoken and emotional leader while Blair played counterpoint as the suave, sophisticated and often eloquent partner. Where Bush’s defense of his policies sometimes fell flat, Blair’s ringing endorsement of the war and the necessity for it made it seem at times that he was the senior member of the partnership.

And this is where the Bush-Blair relationship differed markedly from the FDR-Churchill and Reagan-Thatcher partnerships of the past. Blair was much more Bush’s equal in the “special relationship” that has endured between the United Kingdom and America for more than a century. It was Blair who convinced Bush at the beginning of the war to try and get the United Nations on board – a futile effort given the amount of Oil For Food bribery Saddam had spread around the Security Council membership as well as the general anti-American feelings in that body. But by taking his case to the Security Council, Bush gained some much needed legitimacy for the war with the American people – at least for a time.

And it was also Blair who outshone the President in defending the decision to go to war in Iraq as well as advocating a united western response to the threat of Islamic radicals – a threat that to this day is not acknowledged by much of the western left.

It is truly a testament to his charm and skill that Blair was able to last so long across the pond while embracing the Euro-Left's least favorite cowboy and having the temerity to routinely laud the merits of western civilization and the need to defend it, all while warning against the dangers of indulging in rampant anti-Americanism as a national pastime.

Gordon Brown will succeed Blair:

From January 2007, Brown, Blair and the machinery of government have increasingly begun to treat Brown as premier-in-waiting, with a wider range of visits, foreign trips and speeches beyond Brown's Chancellor role, the media reported that Brown had now "dropped any pretence of not wanting, or expecting, to move into Number 10 in the next few months" - although he and his family will likely use the more spacious 11 Downing Street.

This enabled Brown to signal the most significant priorities for his agenda as Prime Minister - stressing education, international development, narrowing inequalities (to pursue 'equality of opportunity and fairness of outcome'), renewing Britishness, restoring trust in politics, and winning hearts and minds in the war on terror as key priorities - speaking at a Fabian Society conference on 'The Next Decade' in January 2007.

 In this way, Brown has used the final months of the Blair premiership to set out the themes of a Brown premiership while remaining constrained from setting out publicly, the policy detail of his agenda in these areas.

I know this is Hugh's specialty, but the recent fallout over Al Sharpton's remark leaves me with two immediate thoughts ...

1.  This helps Romney by giving him publicity, and more importantly, by casting him as the victim.  Republican Primary voters hate Al Sharpton -- and will jump at the chance to disagree with him.  And the fact that he was involved in the recent Imus scandal gives this story extra legs ..,.

2.  Whether or not Mitt Romney wins, I think it is clear that his candidacy has helped the image of The Church of Latter-Day Saints.  If nothing else, Americans will be more familiar with the church.

Soren Dayton of Eyeon08 makes has an interesting take on the whole Ann Romney story.

He makes the case that: "Mitt Romney uses his wife as a political weapon," and that, "...Romney uses his donations strategically"( As evidence, Dayton points out that Romney is now being honored by a Mass. Pro-Life group for whom he is a donor)" 

Let me play Devil’s advocate for a second: Let's say that the donations were strategic. Should Republicans forgive a Republican for doing what he has to do to get elected in a liberal state like Massachusetts?

Update: AmSpecBlog has a post up about the "strategic donations." 

So I've had some time to think about the fact that Mitt Romney's wife donated to Planned Parenthood.  While donating to Planned Parenthood is, in my estimation, a worse offense than merely being pro-choice, It occurs to me that almost every recent First Lady has been pro-choice.  The latest example is Laura Bush, who reportedly wanted the GOP to drop the anti-abortion plank from the national platform.  Barbara Bush was Pro-Choice, and if Nancy Reagan is Pro-Life, I would bet it's not her hot-button issue.  My point is that it wouldn't be abnormal for a President Romney to have a Pro-Choice First Lady ...

... In a related story, Politico has posted a letter from Planned Parenthood in which the group "lit into the (John McCain) for the comment made by his top campaign strategist, John Weaver."  This, of course, is good news for McCain (which is, no doubt, why his campaign made the letter public).
 

  Everyone makes mistakes, and not every misstatement of fact amounts to a lie.

  But if a gross distortion is repeated and defended, despite clear-cut evidence of its inaccuracy,  then a mistake can become a lie – a deliberate, or at least shamefully careless, falsehood.

  Senator Barack Obama recently provided a good example of a stupid mistake that in no way qualifies as a lie. Speaking to a campaign rally, the enthusiastic Senator expressed horror at the Kansas tornado which, he declared, “wiped out a whole town…. 10,000 people died.” Actually, he fell 9,988 casualties from the mark: only 12 people perished in the Greensburg tornado. Within minutes of his embarrassing speech, his campaign aides acknowledged the error and apologized to the media.

   In a similar if less spectacular vein, I also misstated a victim count on my radio show on Tuesday. A caller tried to make the ridiculous point that my talk about the “Fort Dix Jihadis” amounted to a deliberate diversion from the national emergency involving criminal aliens. The caller said that the New Jersey conspirators hoped to kill “only” 100 soldiers, but that illegal aliens murder several times that number every single week. He went on to claim that illegals murdered some 8,000 to 9,000 Americans every year.

   I insisted that his number counted as absurd, laughable, dishonest and ridiculous --- since, I said, only 10,600 Americans die of murder each year, and there is no chance that the heavy majority of them are killed by immigrants.

   Actually, the figure that I pulled from memory covers gun deaths each year – which is why it stuck in my mind after heavy repetition following Virginia Tech. Recent statistics for all murders are, in fact, somewhat higher – amounting to a bit over 16,000 killed annually in recent years. That number is still way down from the 23,438 murders logged in 1990 (before the current wave of mass immigration, by the way) and a dramatic decline in the murder rate—which reached 10.2 per 100,000 population in 1980, and stands at 5.5 per 100,000 today (all statistics from the FBI: Uniform Crime Reports). As I accurately commented on the air, the overall murder rate has been cut nearly in half in the last quarter century, despite a proliferation of guns and immigrants. Within minutes of my misstatement of the actual raw number of murder victims, I corrected the number on the air—and acknowledged my mistake to the listeners.

   But the claim of “8,000 to 9,000” killed by illegals remains ridiculous, unsubstantiated, irresponsible and, in fact, demented. The government doesn’t provide statistics on who committed every murder because many killings, of course, remain unsolved. We do have numbers, however, on those arrested for murder and those numbers (classified by race) show no basis whatever for suggesting that illegals predominate when it comes to killing their fellow US residents. The “Uniform Crime Report” doesn’t list a separate figure for “illegal aliens” or even for Hispanics, but it does divide murder arrests between blacks and whites --- with “blacks” representing 47.2% of all arrested murderers, “whites” amounting to 50.5% and “other” (mostly Native Americans) counted as 2.3%.

   Since only a tiny percentage of American blacks (most of whom descend from slaves forced to this country before the War Between the States) qualify as illegal aliens (or legal immigrants, for that matter), these numbers would mean that at least two-thirds of the self-described “white” murderers would have to be “illegals” to come up with anything close to the ludicrous figure of 8,000 murder victims of undocumented immigrants per year.

   To further settle the issue, consider the states with the highest murder rates per 100,000: they are Louisiana (12.7), Maryland (9.4), and by far the winner, the District of Columbia (with a staggering 35.8). None of these bloody jurisdictions is known for concentrations of illegals. Meanwhile, those states most famous for burgeoning populations of the undocumented show murder rates that only moderately exceed the national average of 5.5 – including Texas at 6.1 and California at 6.7. In other words, illegals may create a host of other serious problems (particularly for our over-taxed medical and educational institutions) but they can’t be blamed for the majority or even for half of the national murder rate.

   This conclusion then raises the touchy issue of a “statistic” that may have arisen from an honest misunderstanding, but now amounts to a ludicrous distortion, an irresponsible bit of demagoguery or, most likely, an outright lie.

    A few politicians and many, many conservative talk show hosts (who honestly ought to know better) have taken up the cry that “nearly one third of all inmates crowding our prisons are illegal aliens.” Sometimes, those citing this number will make a slightly more modest claim: that 29% of all prisoners are illegals, or 27%, or some other hugely disproportionate number.

    This claim is so dishonest, so wide of the mark, so utterly unsubstantiated that the people who continue to recycle it ought to apologize, and acknowledge their mistake – or else they’re participating in a deliberate lie.

     Here are the facts, easily available from the FBI, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, the General Accounting Office, the Congressional Budget Office, or any other reputable source:

    Among inmates in federal prisons, it’s true that a highly disproportionate number of prisoners have been classified as “non-citizens” or “criminal aliens.” Many of these immigrants turn up in federal prison because of problems with their immigration status (surprise!) or because they’re involved with the interstate or international drug trade.

     But federal prisoners represent only a small percentage – just 8%--of our total prison population. The bulk of inmates have been incarcerated in state prisons (including nearly all convicts accused of murder)and there, non-citizens are, if anything, under-represented: amounting to less than 5% of the prisoner population.

    Taking the total state-federal prison population (2,193,798) and the total number of non-citizens in both systems (122,708), the actual percentage of “criminal aliens” in our prisons amounts to 5.5% --- not even remotely close to the 29% or “one third” claimed by clownish demagogues. 

   Repeatedly misrepresenting the percentage of “illegals” in our prisons by a factor of more than 5 to 1 amounts to more than a trivial mistake, and becomes an outrageous, irresponsible, indefensible lie.

   As a matter of fact, the distortion is even worse than an overstatement of some 500% because the 5.5% in the prison system represents not “illegal aliens” but all “non-citizens” –including legal immigrants, and those here on temporary visas, and so forth. Every academic study (including conclusive work done at Harvard, University of Chicago, University of California, San Diego, and elsewhere) suggests that illegal immigrants are less likely, not more likely, than legal immigrants to involve themselves in criminal activity—in part because of their fear of deportation.

  According to most estimates, legal immigrants who haven’t yet qualified for citizenship probably outnumber illegal immigrants in the overall population. There’s every reason to believe, therefore, that such legal immigrants also outnumber the illegals among the “non-citizens” or “criminal aliens” counted in the prison population.

   In any event, with a total of 5.5% of the prison population, including both legal and illegal immigrants, it’s virtually certain that illegals are actually under-represented among prisoners. The lowest current estimate for “undocumented immigrants” is 12 million--- or 4% of the national population. There’s little chance that these illegals represent more than – or even as much as --- 4% of our total prison population.

   Does this mean that illegal immigration is okay, or that it isn’t a problem, or that we ought to give up efforts to stem the flow of unauthorized entrants across our southern border?

   Of course not. As I’ve acknowledged time and again, illegal immigration represents a significant problem and a very real threat to US security and prosperity. We need to deal with that crisis honestly and effectively.

   But continuing to repeat and to recycle phony numbers about the number of illegals in our jails doesn’t help us move toward a solution. It only serves to marginalize the legitimate concerns of patriotic people who yearn to take effective control of our borders.

   The numbers are available, for anyone who cares about the truth.

Sure, it was in 1994.  But in lieu of yesterday's news, this could cause some problems ...

ABC News: Exclusive: Romney Wife Donated To Planned Parenthood

Former governor Mitt Romney's wife, Ann, gave a $150 donation to the abortion-rights group Planned Parenthood in 1994, at a time that Romney considered himself to be effectively "pro-choice," the Romney campaign confirmed today.

The next question to ask is: Did she have a conversion, too?

Since the Democrats took power last January, they have authorized the government to spend over $61,856,100,000.00 in new spending. Last week alone, they authorized $2,584,000,000.00 in spending. Included in these figures, you will find money being spent for research on the sexual politics of waste in Dakar, Senegal, reproductive strategies of Phayre’s Leaf Monkeys, and bison hunting on the late prehistoric Great Plains.

What’s more, these figures do no even account for $126,000,000 that was authorized last night to give reparations to the people of Guam for losses they experienced during the Japanese occupation of WWII.

Spending is absolutely out of control here. The Democrats have decided to spend money on just about everything.

However, when some important issues come up like national security and illegal immigration law enforcement, they all of a sudden become frugal. Today, the House is debating the Department of Homeland Security Authorization Act. Rep. John Sullivan (R-OK) offered an amendment to the bill that was blocked by the Democrat's from coming to the floor for a vote. It would have allowed state and local authorities to be reimbursed for expenses related to immigration enforcement training. These expenses sometimes can run as high as $10,000 per week. The 9/11 Commission even championed greater involvement by local law enforcement officials, stating in their report that "there is a growing need for state and local law enforcement agencies. They need more training and work with federal agencies so that they can cooperate more effectively with those federal authorities..." Further, existing programs like 287(g) that train and enhance cooperation have been successes.

Nonetheless, the Democrats apparently think Phayre's Leaf Monkeys and reparations to Guam are more important, and blocked this amendment from getting to the floor.

Proof it doesn't take a ton of money to make a good web ad ...

H/T: On Call