Saturday, February 21, 2015


News Clips For The Day


http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2015/02/16/why-do-luna-moths-have-such-absurdly-long-tails/

Why Do Luna Moths Have Such Absurdly Long Tails?
by Ed Yong
February 16, 2015

Photograph – Luna moth close-up. By Oliver Dodd. CC-BY-2.0

You don’t need a field guide to recognise a luna moth. This large insect, found throughout the eastern half of North America, is unmistakeable. It has a fuzzy white body, red legs, feathery yellow antennae, and huge lime-green wings that can stretch up to 4.5 inches across. And at the end of its hindwings are a pair of long, streaming tails that can double the moth’s length.

In 1903, an entomologist named Archibald Weeks suggested that the tails direct predators away from the moth’s body. “Again and again may predator bat or bird, in an effort to capture a moth or butterfly, successively tear away sections of the tails, of which a sacrifice can be readily afforded, without disabling it or retarding its flight,” he wrote.

He was roughly right. More than a century on, Jesse Barber from Boise State University has shown that the luna moth’s tails are the equivalent of eyespots on fish and butterflies. These distinctive markings are typically found on dispensable body parts like tails and outer wings. They serve to draw a predator’s attention away from more vulnerable regions; better to lose a tail than a head.

Eyespots are visual defences, and bats—the main nemeses of moths—are not visual hunters. They find their prey with sonar—they make high-pitched squeaks and visualise the world using the rebounding echoes. To divert a bat, you need something that makes distracting echoes.

That, according to Barber, is what the luna moth’s tails do. They are “auditory deflectors”. Bat distractors.

Barber pitted luna moths against bats in a dark room, and filmed their encounters with infrared cameras. Under normal circumstances, the bats only managed to snag 35 percent of the moths. But if Barber cut off the insects’ tails beforehand, the bats caught 81 percent of them. That’s not because they become worse fliers—in fact, the tails don’t seem to affect their aerial abilities at all.

When bats aim their sonar at insects, they analyse the rebounding echoes for the distinctive signatures of beating wings. But the luna moths tails, which spin behind them as they fly, also produce echoes that resemble wingbeats. To the bat, they either sound like a very conspicuous part of their target, or like a different target entirely. As a result, they fumble their attacks.

When bats attack, they usually use their wings and tail to scoop an insect towards their faces, so they can deliver a killing bite to their victim’s body. But when bats attack luna moths, they aim about half their attacks at the tails. That’s a mistake—only 4 percent of those attacks succeed. Sometimes, the bat misses the moth entirely (see above). Other times, it bites off a tail while the moth escapes—down one inessential body part, and still alive (see below)

The tails also make the luna moths bigger, which might make them harder for the bats to handle and dispatch. But when Barber pitted bats against the polyphemus moth—an even bigger species that lacks tails—he saw that the predators killed 66 percent of their targets. The luna moths, despite being smaller, were harder to catch. “Clearly, tails provide an anti-bat advantage beyond increased size alone,” Barber wrote.

It’s possible that female moths also judge the health and quality of a male by looking at the size of his tails. But this doesn’t fit with the moths’ behaviour. Female moths spend most of their time hiding in protected nests and drawing males to them by releasing pheromones. They also mate with the first males they find, so there’s no evidence that they’re choosy—much less that they choose on the basis of tail length.

Luna moths belong to a group of large moths called the saturniids—a group that contains members like Copiopteryx and Eudaimonia, with even more extreme tails. By comparing the tail lengths of 113 saturniid species, Barber showed that these moths have evolved long tails on at least four separate occasions. He now wants to know if these other species are also good at foiling bats.




“He was roughly right. More than a century on, Jesse Barber from Boise State University has shown that the luna moth’s tails are the equivalent of eyespots on fish and butterflies. These distinctive markings are typically found on dispensable body parts like tails and outer wings. They serve to draw a predator’s attention away from more vulnerable regions; better to lose a tail than a head. Eyespots are visual defences, and bats—the main nemeses of moths—are not visual hunters. They find their prey with sonar—they make high-pitched squeaks and visualise the world using the rebounding echoes. To divert a bat, you need something that makes distracting echoes. That, according to Barber, is what the luna moth’s tails do. They are “auditory deflectors”. Bat distractors.... When bats aim their sonar at insects, they analyse the rebounding echoes for the distinctive signatures of beating wings. But the luna moths tails, which spin behind them as they fly, also produce echoes that resemble wingbeats. To the bat, they either sound like a very conspicuous part of their target, or like a different target entirely. As a result, they fumble their attacks.... That’s a mistake—only 4 percent of those attacks succeed. Sometimes, the bat misses the moth entirely (see above). Other times, it bites off a tail while the moth escapes—down one inessential body part, and still alive.”

This article is very interesting, and it makes lots of sense, but it ignores the possibility that there is a small group of animals that, when God saw them, he chose them as his favorites. Some because they are strong – elephants and gorillas – and others because they are exquisitely beautiful, like birds, white tailed deer, jellyfish, and the butterfly/moth group, especially the luna moth. Clearly that is the true reason for this slightly curly and graceful long “tail.” I once found a luna moth in the daytime when I was walking my dog in the woods behind our house. They are, of course, nocturnal, but they have to go somewhere at night. This one was clinging to the underside of a large leaf on a sapling. I moved the leaf to look at it closely, and it totally ignored my presence rather than flying away. Perhaps they actually sleep in the daytime and it couldn't see me, or it was using the ruse of “playing dead,” as a number of animals do. That is one of the more thrilling things I encountered while walking in those woods.





http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2015/02/stopping-hiv-artificial-protein

Stopping HIV with an artificial protein
By 
Jon Cohen 
18 February 2015

For 30 years, researchers have struggled to determine which immune responses best foil HIV, information that has guided the design of AIDS vaccines and other prevention approaches. Now, a research team has shown that a lab-made molecule that mimics an antibody from our immune system may have more protective power than anything the body produces, keeping four monkeys free of HIV infection despite injection of large doses of the virus. 

Intensive hunts are under way for natural HIV antibodies that can stop—or “neutralize”—the many variants of the constantly mutating AIDS virus. Researchers have recently found several dozen broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) that are highly potent and work at low doses. But viral immunologist Michael Farzan of the Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Florida, and 33 co-workers have recently taken a different strategy, building a novel molecule based on our knowledge of how HIV infects cells. HIV infects white blood cells by sequentially attaching to two receptors on their surfaces. First, HIV’s own surface protein, gp120, docks on the cell’s CD4 receptor. This attachment twists gp120 such that it exposes a region on the virus that can attach to the second cellular receptor, CCR5. The new construct combines a piece of CD4 with a smidgen of CCR5 and attaches both receptors to a piece of an antibody. In essence, the AIDS virus locks onto the construct, dubbed eCD4-Ig, as though it were attaching to a cell and thus is neutralized.

In test-tube experiments, eCD4-Ig outperformed all known natural HIV antibodies at stopping the virus from infecting cells, Farzan’s team reports in this week’s issue of Nature. To test how it works in animals, they then put a gene for eCD4-Ig into a harmless virus and infected four monkeys; the virus forces the monkey’s cells to mass produce the construct. When they “challenged” these monkeys and four controls with successively higher doses of an AIDS virus for up to 34 weeks, none of the animals that received eCD4-Ig became infected, whereas all of the untreated ones did.

The new study ups the ante on a similar gene therapy approach with natural antibodies that 6 years ago showed promise in monkey experiments, says an accompanying Nature editorial by AIDS vaccine researcher Nancy Haigwood of Oregon Health & Science University in Beaverton. “I am a huge fan of this paper,” Haigwood says. “It’s really very creative and a breakthrough as far as I am concerned.” Pediatrician Philip Johnson of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, whose lab in 2009 showed success with a gene therapy that delivers an HIV bNAb, adds that eCD4-Ig “is a beautiful thing.”

Building on work by Johnson’s group, Farzan’s team stitched the gene for eCD4-Ig into an adeno-associated virus (AAV) that is harmless to humans. Those viruses, injected into monkey muscles, continued to produce eCD4-Ig for the 40 weeks of the experiment. “Everyone expects with AAV that this can go on forever,” Farzan says. The animals had no detectable immune response against the eCD4-Ig, presumably because it is so similar to pieces of their own cells.

Not everyone is convinced that eCD4-Ig will ultimately work better than natural HIV antibodies. Virologist David Baltimore, a Nobel laureate based at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, is working with a group developing its own AAV gene therapy that delivers an HIV bNAb. He describes the eCD4-Ig chimera and the paper as “impressive” and says he welcomes this new approach. But Baltimore, who like Johnson has already moved into early phase human trials with his gene therapy, notes that the new work offers only test-tube and animal data. “It’s perhaps a better construct than the antibodies we’ve been using, but it’s a matter of how it plays out in human trials,” Baltimore says. “I don’t think it’s easy to tell how that will happen.”

Johnson agrees that eCD4-Ig may not work as well as bNAbs in humans, but also says the natural antibodies, even if they have less potency and breadth, may be powerful enough to stop HIV. “How good is good enough?” Johnson asks. “Nobody has a clue about that. The only way you would know really is to do a bake-off in a human trial.”

Farzan says in theory at least, it will be harder for the virus to mutate its way around eCD4-Ig than a bNAb, because HIV needs to bind to CD4 and CCR5. Whether any of these gene therapies will prove safe and practical remains to be seen. Farzan, for his part, has more experiments planned before moving into humans. “We need to do a lot more monkey studies to see if there’s anything weird,” he says.
Posted in Biology, Health




“Now, a research team has shown that a lab-made molecule that mimics an antibody from our immune system may have more protective power than anything the body produces, keeping four monkeys free of HIV infection despite injection of large doses of the virus.... Researchers have recently found several dozen broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) that are highly potent and work at low doses. But viral immunologist Michael Farzan of the Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Florida, and 33 co-workers have recently taken a different strategy, building a novel molecule based on our knowledge of how HIV infects cells.... The new construct combines a piece of CD4 with a smidgen of CCR5 and attaches both receptors to a piece of an antibody. In essence, the AIDS virus locks onto the construct, dubbed eCD4-Ig, as though it were attaching to a cell and thus is neutralized. In test-tube experiments, eCD4-Ig outperformed all known natural HIV antibodies at stopping the virus from infecting cells.... they then put a gene for eCD4-Ig into a harmless virus and infected four monkeys; the virus forces the monkey’s cells to mass produce the construct. When they “challenged” these monkeys and four controls with successively higher doses of an AIDS virus for up to 34 weeks, none of the animals that received eCD4-Ig became infected, whereas all of the untreated ones did.... The new study ups the ante on a similar gene therapy approach with natural antibodies that 6 years ago showed promise in monkey experiments, says an accompanying Nature editorial by AIDS vaccine researcher Nancy Haigwood of Oregon Health & Science University in Beaverton.... Farzan says in theory at least, it will be harder for the virus to mutate its way around eCD4-Ig than a bNAb, because HIV needs to bind to CD4 and CCR5. Whether any of these gene therapies will prove safe and practical remains to be seen. Farzan, for his part, has more experiments planned before moving into humans. “We need to do a lot more monkey studies to see if there’s anything weird,” he says. Posted in Biology, Health ."

I collected this article because, even though it is still being tested, it will be a preventative against contracting HIV rather than a treatment. A vaccine is what we need rather than a highly expensive "drug coctail" that merely extends life. Of course Magic Johnson has been on the drug coctail for years since his announcement that he was infected, and he still appears on TV interviews looking healthy and strong. This research is a great step forward, and we may have human trials soon. I hope so.





Islamic Radicalization – Two Articles


http://www.npr.org/2015/02/18/387302748/minneapolis-st-paul-remains-a-focus-of-jihadi-recruiting

For Somalis In Minneapolis, Jihadi Recruiting Is A Recurring Nightmare
Dina Temple-Raston
Counterterrorism Correspondent
FEBRUARY 18, 2015

Photograph – Somali-American youths play basketball before the start of a September 2013 solidarity rally by the Minneapolis Somali community to denounce al-Shabab's attack of a shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya. Less than a decade after groups of teens from Minneapolis emigrated to Somalia to join the terrorist group, more have been recruited to join the self-declared Islamic State in Syria.
Eric Miller/Reuters/Landov

This week officials are gathering in Washington to discuss how to counter extremist messages, particularly those from the self-proclaimed Islamic State.

ISIS has been luring thousands of Westerners to the battlefields of Syria and Iraq. The number of Americans who have traveled to Syria is still relatively small — in the neighborhood of 150 people — and a thin slice of that group, perhaps as many as two dozen Americans, are thought to have joined ISIS.

In the discussions at the White House this week, one city has focused minds: Minneapolis-St Paul. It had been ground zero for terrorist recruiters in the past, and is fast becoming the center of ISIS' recruitment effort in the United States.

"I know one guy who tweets the community all the time," said Abdirizak Bihi, the director of Somali education at a local advocacy group. "He left with my nephew 2008, and he's still alive. And he's been tweeting about who died in ISIS and where they come from, kind of maybe the new spokesman."

From Americans To Jihadists To Evangelists

Bihi's nephew was a Minneapolis teenager named Burhan Hassan, who joined a handful of young men from the Twin Cities and traveled to Somalia to join a terrorist group there called al-Shabab. Hassan died there several years ago. Between 2006 and 2011, some 27 Somali-Americans from the community disappeared to fight in Somalia.

That's important to what's going on now because officials believe that prior connection to jihad is one reason why ISIS has been so successful at recruiting in Minnesota today.

Since the end of 2013, law enforcement officials say, eleven men and one woman with ties to the Twin Cities have traveled to Syria. Another dozen or so either have tried to travel there before authorities intercepted them, or are believed to be preparing to go. What's more, officials say, the ISIS travelers are young: 15 and 16-year-olds are signing up.

Parents in the community are frightened. They have experienced this before, and there is a sinking feeling among parents that they'll be losing their children again.

"They are more afraid now than ever before because ISIS is something worse than anything we have ever seen," said Bihi.

Officials believe ISIS is taking advantage of the recruiting infrastructure al-Shabab developed almost a decade ago.

Back then, the departures came three or four friends at a time. They would suddenly vanish. Eventually parents would get text messages from their sons saying they had gone to Somalia to fight in the civil war.

Bihi's nephew, Burhan Hassan, left with a handful of other young men on election night 2008. Bihi and Hassan's mother thought he hadn't come home because he was out celebrating the election of America's first black president; instead he was boarding a plane to Africa.

Authorities never captured a mastermind in those al-Shabab cases. Instead, they managed to arrest someone they believed was a midlevel player — a local janitor who had connections to al-Shabab. He was convicted of, among other things, helping recruit the young men and financing their trips.

In the latest recruitment cases, law enforcement officials believe that a page has been torn from al-Shabab's playbook, and that there is someone — or a group of people — on the ground in Minnesota recruiting for ISIS.

Bihi says nothing else makes sense.

"I do not believe that a kid gets up in the morning — a normal kid — and decides not to go to school, but decides to open a Google and Google al-Shabab or ISIS, and to self-radicalize," he said. "There has to be someone helping them on the ground. These kids don't know how to make plans to travel, they don't have money, but somehow they are managing to leave anyway. Someone must be helping them."

A Teen Tries To Make The Trip

One morning in May 2014, an 18-year-old Somali-American named Abdullahi Yusuf had his dad drop him off at school, but never made it to class. He waited until the car was out of sight, then walked to a mosque that was just two short blocks up the street.

What Yusuf didn't know was that the FBI was watching him. They had staked out the school because they were convinced that Yusuf intended to board a flight to Turkey that afternoon. They had been tipped off because he had gone to the Minneapolis passport office days earlier and a passport officer got suspicious.

According to the criminal complaint, Yusuf told the passport officer where he was going. The officer asked if Yusuf was traveling with someone, and the question seemed to flummox him.

First he said he was going alone; then he said his mom couldn't afford to go. He changed his story a third time and added that he hoped to join up with a friend he'd just met on Facebook.

"A girl?" the officer asked. No, Yusuf allegedly said, a guy.

Days later, the FBI says, Yusuf opened a bank account and made a series of small deposits totalling $1500. Then he bought a plane ticket to Turkey. It took Abdullahi Yusuf just a couple of weeks to get everything he needed to leave home.

Jean Brandl, one of Yusuf's attorneys, said he was eventually charged with material support. The complaint says he intended to go to Syria and join up with ISIS.

'Of Course It Is Heartbreaking'

One of the wrenching themes to come out of this week's conference on countering violent extremism conference just how difficult recruiting and radicalization is for the families.

I met Abdullahi Yusuf's parents in Brandl's law offices last week. Sidik Yusuf is tall and thin. He's a driver in the Twin Cities. His wife Sarah wears a hijab and twists a tissue while she talks. They seemed shocked at finding themselves in law offices talking about a son who was arrested on terrorism charges. He had never been in trouble before.

"Abdullahi is my son," Sidik Yusuf says. "Now is 18 years and a half almost started 18. He come to this country when he was three years old and finished his education until the 12th grade."

He talked about how good Abdullahi was at math, how he played football on the high school team. How worried he became when his tall, skinny son was tackled.

"He doesn't have much muscles," he explained.

Sidik Yusuf didn't want to talk directly about his son's case, but said his family wasn't the only family dealing with young men stolen by ISIS.

"I think any parent can understand — who have a child or raised a child — knows what's the value of the children," Sidik Yusuf said. "Of course it is heartbreaking. That's the thing anybody can understand."

Six people from the Twin Cities, including Sidik Yusuf's son, have been charged in the ongoing ISIS investigation so far, with more to come: Local officials expect another three to five arrests in the next few weeks.




“Less than a decade after groups of teens from Minneapolis emigrated to Somalia to join the terrorist group, more have been recruited to join the self-declared Islamic State in Syria.... The number of Americans who have traveled to Syria is still relatively small — in the neighborhood of 150 people — and a thin slice of that group, perhaps as many as two dozen Americans, are thought to have joined ISIS.... Another dozen or so either have tried to travel there before authorities intercepted them, or are believed to be preparing to go. What's more, officials say, the ISIS travelers are young: 15 and 16-year-olds are signing up.... Authorities never captured a mastermind in those al-Shabab cases. Instead, they managed to arrest someone they believed was a midlevel player — a local janitor who had connections to al-Shabab. He was convicted of, among other things, helping recruit the young men and financing their trips.... What Yusuf didn't know was that the FBI was watching him. They had staked out the school because they were convinced that Yusuf intended to board a flight to Turkey that afternoon. They had been tipped off because he had gone to the Minneapolis passport office days earlier and a passport officer got suspicious.... I met Abdullahi Yusuf's parents in Brandl's law offices last week. Sidik Yusuf is tall and thin. He's a driver in the Twin Cities. His wife Sarah wears a hijab and twists a tissue while she talks. They seemed shocked at finding themselves in law offices talking about a son who was arrested on terrorism charges. He had never been in trouble before.... Six people from the Twin Cities, including Sidik Yusuf's son, have been charged in the ongoing ISIS investigation so far, with more to come: Local officials expect another three to five arrests in the next few weeks.”

"I know one guy who tweets the community all the time," said Abdirizak Bihi, the director of Somali education at a local advocacy group. "He left with my nephew 2008, and he's still alive. And he's been tweeting about who died in ISIS and where they come from, kind of maybe the new spokesman." Until I read this paragraph I was thinking of ISIS as being thousands of miles away, and therefore a little less dangerous to Americans, but modern technology has taken away that margin of safety. It also shows that many Somalians in the US are in fact in communication with ISIS and maybe rendering aid to them. It gives me some relief to see that the FBI was alert enough to arrest this young man before he could leave the US. His parents are mystified and full of grief about his change from their bright young student to a federal criminal. In this article there were two links which hopefully the FBI will be watching – the janitor who was acting as a recruiter, and he met his ISIS contact at a mosque, which may or may not be actually preaching a radical doctrine.

In Britain a couple of months ago the BBC reported on a radical Cleric in London who has since been arrested. If we have any radical clerics of that stamp, perhaps we should arrest them here also. All of our freedoms have some limitations. Someone who is working against Western culture and our governments is not simply “practicing his religion.” I don't know what leeway our laws give for such people being put into prison, but they are clearly very dangerous. We can't afford to fail in our attempts to control them.



http://www.npr.org/2015/01/29/382326933/court-order-may-signal-new-approach-to-preventing-radicalization

Court Order May Signal New Approach To Preventing Radicalization
Dina Temple-Rastin
JANUARY 29, 2015

A judge sent a Somali-American man accused of planning to fight in Syria to a halfway house. The decision not to hold him in jail is a first involving someone accused of traveling to join ISIS.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

We've heard a lot lately about Americans trying to go to Syria to join the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. Mostly, they are arrested just before stepping aboard a plane and charged with supporting terrorists.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Now a twist on that scenario. In Minneapolis, an 18-year-old Somali American had tried to go to Syria. He was arrested. And then this week, a judge ordered the young man be held at a halfway house and receive counseling rather than sit in jail. The judge's choice could signal a new approach to preventing radicalization. NPR's Dina Temple-Raston has our report.

DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: Abdullahi Yusuf did two things last year that he'd never done before. According to court documents, first, he applied for a passport. And then he opened a bank account. A few weeks later, though he was just a part-time employee at a local Best Buy, he made a large deposit - $1,500 in cash. And then using a debit card linked to the account, he bought a round-trip ticket to Turkey. He didn't get that far.

JEAN BRANDL: He was arrested and brought to court with a complaint of providing material support to a terrorist organization - in particular, ISIS.

TEMPLE-RASTON: That's Jean Brandl, Abdullahi Yusuf's lawyer.

BRANDL: They had what they thought was probable cause to arrest him for going to aid a terrorist organization in Syria.

TEMPLE-RASTON: There have been more than a dozen cases involving Americans who have been radicalized on the Internet and then decided to go to Syria to fight for or live in the so-called Islamic State. But instead of keeping Abdullahi Yusuf in jail while he awaits trial, Chief U.S. District Court Judge Michael Davis sent him to a halfway house where, among other things, counselors will see if they can figure out why he got attracted to radical Islam in the first place. His terrorism case is still moving forward, but the judge said he could try this program while he waits. And that's new.

MARY MCKINLEY: Well, we are starting very slowly with Mr. Yusuf.

TEMPLE-RASTON: Mary McKinley is the executive director of Heartland Democracy, a Minneapolis nonprofit that works with people who've been involved with gangs or drugs or the law.

MCKINLEY: He'll be extremely limited with his movement, his association - no Internet or cell phone use. So we're starting with him very slowly with just some one-on-one mentoring and counseling.

TEMPLE-RASTON: Counseling that looks at the problems he sees with being Somali Muslim in America.

MCKINLEY: Figuring out where he is ideologically if that's an issue, whether deradicalization curriculum needs to be brought in - but really just kind of exploring how he sees his future on kind of a one-on-one basis.

TEMPLE-RASTON: McKinley and her organization, Heartland Democracy, haven't handled this kind of case before. Everyone seems to agree it's a giant experiment, but an experiment worth trying. Bruce Hoffman is a terrorism expert at Georgetown University. He says sending young men to jail can't be the only solution to the problem.

BRUCE HOFFMAN: So in this case, I think the judge is looking at it as a community and even a social problem, not just a criminal problem and that perhaps there are different approaches that might yield better long-term benefits.

TEMPLE-RASTON: Long-term benefits that include not just avoiding jail time but also allowing young men who may have joined ISIS a way to come home and admit they've made a terrible mistake.

HOFFMAN: I think by holding out the opportunity of some form of redemption - that gives them the hope of reclaiming the life that they had turned their back on - is a positive development.

TEMPLE-RASTON: Abdullahi Yusuf was one of the lucky ones. Authorities caught him before he left. His case may be about trying to help more than just one defendant. The judge's decision could help keep young Americans from trying to leave in the first place. Dina Temple-Raston, NPR News.




“We've heard a lot lately about Americans trying to go to Syria to join the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. Mostly, they are arrested just before stepping aboard a plane and charged with supporting terrorists. Now a twist on that scenario. In Minneapolis, an 18-year-old Somali American had tried to go to Syria. He was arrested. And then this week, a judge ordered the young man be held at a halfway house and receive counseling rather than sit in jail. The judge's choice could signal a new approach to preventing radicalization. NPR's Dina Temple-Raston has our report.... But instead of keeping Abdullahi Yusuf in jail while he awaits trial, Chief U.S. District Court Judge Michael Davis sent him to a halfway house where, among other things, counselors will see if they can figure out why he got attracted to radical Islam in the first place. His terrorism case is still moving forward, but the judge said he could try this program while he waits. And that's new.... He'll be extremely limited with his movement, his association - no Internet or cell phone use. So we're starting with him very slowly with just some one-on-one mentoring and counseling. TEMPLE-RASTON: Counseling that looks at the problems he sees with being Somali Muslim in America. MCKINLEY: Figuring out where he is ideologically if that's an issue, whether deradicalization curriculum needs to be brought in - but really just kind of exploring how he sees his future on kind of a one-on-one basis.... Long-term benefits that include not just avoiding jail time but also allowing young men who may have joined ISIS a way to come home and admit they've made a terrible mistake. HOFFMAN: I think by holding out the opportunity of some form of redemption - that gives them the hope of reclaiming the life that they had turned their back on - is a positive development.”

The law, especially the prison system, has mostly been about “punishment,” which can include solitary confinement for weeks or months and a singularly unpalatable form of food called “the loaf” if the prisoner has proven himself to be a problem case. Ordinary criminals almost always do get an hour or so of outside exercise, but their mental health needs are more likely to be a mandatory medication than a weekly one hour session with a psychotherapist. People who are not judged to be “insane” will be incarcerated and ignored, except for privileges such as working under supervision in the prison laundry, office, library or kitchen. If they are very, very good prisoners they may be put out, toward the end of their term, into the community to work. That could become a step for them to integrate into the outside world after their sentence has been served. If they have had an alcohol or drug problem they may have access to AA or NA meetings.

This intervention by a judge with therapy and a halfway house is highly unusual. It makes a great deal of sense to me, though, as mental health difficulties are more likely than not the real cause of such a decision as going to a rather primitive foreign country to fight with an army of radical religious zealots who will cut ones head off for the slightest infraction of the rules. One of the ISIS news articles recently was an interview with one of those Americans who found that he really didn't like ISIS at all, and he managed to escape them and come home. I hope more such youths will be caught and treated as Yusuf is being now. I wonder if Mosque sponsored therapy sessions could be set up in their home neighborhoods for the young people or even older ones who have the temptation to go to Syria, rather than waiting until they run away from home. I wonder if Islam has youth programs such our Methodist Youth Fellowship? That would help, too. These kids often are feeling alienated from their peers and neighborhood – literally lonely and without roots. Probably they also need to deprived of their Internet hookups, since that is where they may first hear the “siren song” of radicalism.





Rudy Giuliana And His Propoganda Machine – Three Articles


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/schieffer-dont-think-it-spoke-well-of-rudy-giuliani/

Bob Schieffer: "I don't think it spoke well of Rudy Giuliani"
By REENA FLORES CBS NEWS
February 20, 2015

Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is under a lot of heat for questioning President Obama's love of America. And CBS News' Chief Washington Correspondent Bob Schieffer has some thoughts about whether Giuliani deserves the backlash he's suffered since his remarks became public.

"I don't think it spoke well of Rudy Giuliani," Schieffer opined. "I think he could have said a lot of things without saying what he did."

Giuliani came under fire for his "racist" comments after he attacked the president's upbringing during a private New York City event with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on Wednesday.

"I do not believe that the president loves America," Giuliani said at the Manhattan dinner, according to Politico. "He doesn't love you. And he doesn't love me. He wasn't brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up, through love of this country."

Giuliani later dismissed the accusations directed at him in an interview Thursday with the New York Times.

"Some people thought it was racist," Giuliani said to the Times. "I thought that was a joke, since he was brought up by a white mother, a white grandfather, went to white schools, and most of this he learned from white people."

For Schieffer, the questioning of the president's patriotism by Giuliani was problematic. It's one thing to characterize a person's feelings and entirely another to quantify them.

"You can question their actions, you can raise questions about things that they do," Schieffer said. "But when you attempt to analyze them and say they don't love someone or they don't love their country, how do you prove that?"

Schieffer, who has known Giuliani for many years and has interviewed the former mayor on several occasions, said that he doesn't always agree with the president either. But Giuliani's criticism may go too far. "Just because the president says this about terrorism--he may be dead wrong," Schieffer said. "In fact a lot of the things the president says on that front, I kind of question. But I would never, ever question his patriotism."




"I don't think it spoke well of Rudy Giuliani," Schieffer opined. "I think he could have said a lot of things without saying what he did.".... He wasn't brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up, through love of this country." Giuliani later dismissed the accusations directed at him in an interview Thursday with the New York Times. "Some people thought it was racist," Giuliani said to the Times. "I thought that was a joke, since he was brought up by a white mother, a white grandfather, went to white schools, and most of this he learned from white people." For Schieffer, the questioning of the president's patriotism by Giuliani was problematic. It's one thing to characterize a person's feelings and entirely another to quantify them. "You can question their actions, you can raise questions about things that they do," Schieffer said. "But when you attempt to analyze them and say they don't love someone or they don't love their country, how do you prove that?"

All Obama said was that being a Muslim doesn't make you a radical jihadist, and he has said before that our own home grown white Christian radicals like the Militias and the White Supremacist movement are equally radical and dangerous. Being a terrorist is being a criminal, not a religious person. Giuliani should close him mouth and say less against Obama. He reminds me of various right wing nut cases that I have heard before, such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, and I hadn't thought of him in that class before now. I thought he was a Republican who had reserved the right to use his own brain rather than following the leader – “Bah, Bah Bah!”



http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/20/politics/giuliani-obama-love-america/index.html

Giuliani stands by Obama comments
By Jim Acosta, CNN Senior White House Correspondent
Updated 10:38 AM ET, Sat February 21, 2015

(CNN)Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said his office has received death threats since his controversial commentsaccusing President Barack Obama of not loving America.

"My secretary has received some death threats," Giuliani said in a brief interview by phone. But the former mayor emphasized the majority of the voice mails left at his office were supportive of his remarks. Giuliani did not say whether he alerted police to the threatening calls. CNN cannot confirm whether the threats were made.

As for his initial remarks that ignited the firestorm, spoken at a private dinner for Wisconsin's Republican Gov. Scott Walker, a potential 2016 presidential contender, Giuliani offered no apologies.

"I don't regret making the statement. I believe it," Giuliani said. "I don't know if he loves America," he added.

"I don't feel the same enthusiasm from him for America," he continued during the interview.

Giuliani said he didn't mind that his comments became public. At the dinner, he said, were well-known members of the news media, including CNBC anchor Larry Kudlow who, Giuliani said, was the event's moderator.

The former mayor said he's received calls congratulating him for his remarks, including one from Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.

A spokesman for the Louisiana governor confirms Jindal did speak with Giuliani by phone. While the spokesman, who asked not to be named, said Jindal did not endorse everything the former mayor said about Obama, he added the governor also has deep concerns about the president's leadership on Islamist radicalism.

"The Governor did call him and they did speak," the spokesman said.

"(Jindal) wanted to buck him up because he knows everyone is in a rush to condemn him. The Governor acknowledges that not everything that the Mayor said was good, but he believes that Guiliani is a great leader and that this rush by the left and the media to condemn and marginalize him is ridiculous," the Jindal spokesman added.

"In short, the Governor is not going to throw Guiliani overboard for saying some inadvisable things," this spokesman added.

Jindal, according to this spokesman, "believes that the President loves this country and that the President has proven to be an inept and incapable commander in chief."

The spokesman says Jindal agrees that "Guiliani asked a very important question which the press has glossed over -- it was this -- 'What's wrong with this man that he can't stand up and say there's a part of Islam that's sick?'"

"The Governor believes this is question that needs to be answered," the spokesman.

John Catsimatidis, a tycoon in the grocery store industry who sponsored the event, also called to say Giuliani was saying what was on other people's minds, the former mayor added.

Earlier this week, the former mayor laid into Obama's foreign policy as coming from a leader who is somehow disenchanted with the country he leads.

"I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the President loves America. He doesn't love you. And he doesn't love me. He wasn't brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country," Giuliani said at the dinner.

Giuliani's Obama critique puts 2016ers in a bind.

In his latest comments to CNN, Giuliani noted he is not running for president in 2016. But he tried to explain why he made the comments.

Giuliani said he was disgusted with Obama's response to the executions of Egyptian Coptic Christians by ISIS and the attack on a Jewish market in Paris by radicals inspired by the terrorist group.

The President erred, Giuliani maintains, in not holding a press conference to immediately denounce those acts of terrorism.

"Islamic extremism is not an abstraction," he continued.

By contrast, Giuliani pointed out, the President did make comments to the press after the racial unrest in Ferguson, Missouri.

"There's something wrong with the rhetoric here," Giuliani said.

"I think the President is a very poor leader," Giuliani added, saying Obama doesn't measure up to past presidents Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton.

Opinion: Giuliani's outburst is ugly, divisive

Giuliani said some of his comments were based on Obama's autobiography, "Dreams of My Father," which he said he read during the 2008 campaign at the urging of his wife, who predicted the then-Illinois senator would be the Democratic nominee.

Giuliani said the White House owes him an apology after stating that he had made similar remarks about Obama during the 2008 campaign. Giuliani said that claim from White House spokesman Eric Schultz was not true.

"I think they should apologize to me," Giuliani said.

On Friday, the White House sharply criticized Giuliani's comments.

"I can tell you that it's sad to see when somebody who has attained a certain level of public stature, and even admiration, tarnishes that legacy so thoroughly," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters.

"And the truth is, I don't take any joy, or vindication, or satisfaction from that. I think, really, the only thing that I feel is I feel sorry for Rudy Giuliani today," Earnest added.

Giuliani's fall from America's Mayor





"As for his initial remarks that ignited the firestorm, spoken at a private dinner for Wisconsin's Republican Gov. Scott Walker, a potential 2016 presidential contender, Giuliani offered no apologies. "I don't regret making the statement. I believe it," Giuliani said. "I don't know if he loves America," he added.... "(Jindal) wanted to buck him up because he knows everyone is in a rush to condemn him. The Governor acknowledges that not everything that the Mayor said was good, but he believes that Guiliani is a great leader and that this rush by the left and the media to condemn and marginalize him is ridiculous," the Jindal spokesman added. "In short, the Governor is not going to throw Guiliani overboard for saying some inadvisable things," this spokesman added..... and that the President has proven to be an inept and incapable commander in chief." The spokesman says Jindal agrees that "Guiliani asked a very important question which the press has glossed over -- it was this -- 'What's wrong with this man that he can't stand up and say there's a part of Islam that's sick?'" "The Governor believes this is question that needs to be answered," the spokesman..... The President erred, Giuliani maintains, in not holding a press conference to immediately denounce those acts of terrorism. "Islamic extremism is not an abstraction," he continued. By contrast, Giuliani pointed out, the President did make comments to the press after the racial unrest in Ferguson, Missouri. "There's something wrong with the rhetoric here," Giuliani said.”

Giuliani wants Obama to rant and rave against Islam as many Christians do today. Obama wants to avoid a religious war in our streets here, and it's not his style to rant, anyway. He thinks carefully, and then he calmly talks, at least in most cases. He has “popped off” a few times and had to step back from his comments, but those times have been rare. I like that about him. That doesn't mean that he “doesn't love the USA.” He was brought up by his mother and grandparents to be a liberal, of course, and is not very emotional in general, at least as far as I can tell. I love my country, but I don't love it better than I do its human welfare and justice system. Our country is “of the people, by the people, and FOR the people” – not for massive corporations and a very wealthy class structure that overshadows the poor and the working classes completely.

About the ISIS threat, Obama is using the FBI and CIA actively to track and detain these radicals who are trying to leave the US and join ISIS. He is treating it as a crime and handling them one by one. I think there may be a need to watch individual preachers and mosques in this country as they are doing in England. To advocate war or terrorism against the US is a clearcut crime, and not an approved religious right.

To me, this is exactly what Obama should be doing. I don't want the ugly talk that is appearing on the Internet now against blacks and Islamic people. It's like the way Germany became under Hitler, with German citizens, who were not themselves rabid followers of his “philosophy,” being too often afraid of stepping out to help the Jews. Some did, but if they were caught they were killed. All it would take is the gradual degradation of our US system of rights and a fierce uprising of racial or religious hatred here to destroy our precious governmental guarantees. Of course we need to fight ISIS, but not by vigilante actions such as “Krystallnacht” in Germany, and our leaders need to be careful how they speak in public. Our love of our country is a good thing if it doesn't overcome our love of our fellow man.




http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/20/politics/politics-rudy-obama/index.html

Rudy Giuliani's fall from America's Mayor
By Stephen Collinson, CNN
February 20, 2015

Washington (CNN)Rudy wouldn't be Rudy if he backed down.

But by amplifying his charge that President Barack Obama doesn't love America, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani appears ready to risk sullying the powerful mythology that grew around his leadership when he steadied and steeled the nation in the terrible, confusing time after 9/11.

Since those fleeting days when he was a unifying figure, Giuliani has more often dealt in waspish rhetoric and savage mockery -- especially of a president he says has "failed."

"America's Mayor" has gone rogue, lashing out at Democrats and liberal orthodoxy on the war on terror and saying, for example, during the Ferguson controversy last year that the biggest danger to a black child was not from a white police officer but from another African American.

The latest firestorm over Obama's patriotism may complete Giuliani's political journey from the center left of the Republican Party to the conservative jungles where Sarah Palin and Donald Trump roam.

READ: Giuliani puts 2016ers in a bind

"Rudy has devolved into this red meat Republican base ideologue who periodically seems to need self identification," said Douglas Muzzio, a political scientist at Baruch College and a New York City media commentator. "Maybe it is Rudy in his dotage, where he has lost whatever boundaries he once had. He sounds like a bitter old man."

Giuliani seems to be relishing his moment back in the spotlight.

But he's also causing awkward moments for Republican candidates limbering up for a crack at the presidency in 2016 -- a fact the White House was quick to exploit on Friday.

"It's sad to see when somebody who has attained a certain level of public stature, and even admiration, tarnishes that legacy so thoroughly," said Obama's spokesman, Josh Earnest. "And the truth is, I don't take any joy, or vindication, or satisfaction from that. I think, really, the only thing that I feel is I feel sorry for Rudy Giuliani today."

Democratic National Committee Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz also joined in, seeking to use Giuliani to frustrate the GOP's effort to short circuit controversies which could tarnish the party's image.

"Now is the time for its leaders to stop this kind of nonsense. Enough," she said.

Giuliani's blast, delivered in a closed door Republican dinner, and repeated in a media tour, centers on a claim that Obama was not brought up to "love" his country like most Americans.

It's a familiar charge from the conservative fringe, that Obama is somehow different and doesn't view America as an exceptional paragon but is obsessed with apologizing for its failings.

"I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe the president loves America," Giuliani was quoted as saying by Politico.

Asked by Fox News host Megyn Kelly Thursday whether he wanted to apologize, Giuliani replied: "Not at all. I want to repeat it."
"I don't feel this love of America," Giuliani said. "I believe his initial approach is to criticize the United States."

Giuliani dug in further in an interview with the New York Times, rejecting the idea that his remarks were born of racism.

"I thought that was a joke, since (Obama) was brought up by a white mother, a white grandfather, went to white schools, " said Giuliani. "This isn't racism. This is socialism or possibly anti-colonialism," said Giuliani.

Far from being chastened, Giuliani, who wore a conspiratorial grin on Fox News, seems gleeful in the firestorm. His behavior might be explained by a boxing maxim he was taught as a boy, which may also shed light on his calmness on 9/11.

"My father taught me ... when you get hit in the face for the first time, you're going to panic," Giuliani said in an interview with Forbes magazine in 2011. "Instead of panicking, just accept it. Stay calm. And any time anybody hits you, they always leave themselves open to be hit."

Giuliani's actions may be both a glimpse at his political philosophy and reflect a decision to wade into the political echo chamber to solidify his standing among a certain group of conservatives.

"He understands political posturing, he understands the effectiveness of rhetoric," said Errol Louis, a CNN political commentator from New York. "He clearly wants to play a role on the national stage. I guess he has chosen the role of bulldog -- go after the president, attack him, make wild accusations."

With a failed presidential campaign behind him, and having been out of office for a decade-and-a-half, it may be that Giuliani sees his future on the conservative talk circuit.

"To the extent that Giuliani will be involved in the game moving forward, it will be as a commentator or an analyst," said Costas Panagopoulos, a campaigns expert at Fordham University, New York. "In order to do that successfully these days, it helps to be controversial, sometimes inflammatory. I am not surprised that he has become increasingly forceful in his comments in the media. He is convinced that will help him."

Giuliani has rarely been known to back down. He was a Yankee fan growing up in Brooklyn, a ruthless prosecutor who took on unions and the Mob and a hard driving Republican who ran a liberal city.

When he awoke on September 11, 2001, Giuliani was a polarizing figure with a large ego and a sharp tongue. He might have purged New York street crime but was starting to grate on the city's nerves at the end of his second term.

Within hours, with a staggering display of calm, purpose and leadership, he had recast himself as a modern-era Winston Churchill, steadying and inspiring his people in their darkest hour. His heroics were such that he became one of those politicians who become known by a single name.

Marching up Broadway, he grabbed a mike and told people to evacuate southern Manhattan. He conjured up national resolve and resistance, as a country waited hours to see its president, out of sight on Air Force One.

"People tonight should say a prayer, for the people that we have lost, and be grateful that we are all here," he said in a late night press conference 12 hours after the Twin Towers came crashing down in a toxic cloud of fire and ash. "Tomorrow New York is going to be here and we are going to rebuild and we are going to be stronger from before."

Making Giuliani its Man of the Year, Time Magazine said: "When the day of infamy came, Giuliani seized it as if he had been waiting for it all his life."

But he struggled to meet huge expectations. His 2008 presidential campaign was a bust, plagued by poor organization and his liberal views on social issues that conflicted with the conservative base.

But there was also a sense that he was playing the September 11 card too much: Joe Biden's crack that there were "only three things he mentions in a sentence, a noun a verb and 9/11" was funny because it bore more than a ring of truth.

That was years ago now. But while his years of elective office are behind him, Giuliani still seems to pine for the political spotlight. So he has every incentive to keep this row going as long as he can.




“Since those fleeting days when he was a unifying figure, Giuliani has more often dealt in waspish rhetoric and savage mockery -- especially of a president he says has "failed." "America's Mayor" has gone rogue, lashing out at Democrats and liberal orthodoxy on the war on terror and saying, for example, during the Ferguson controversy last year that the biggest danger to a black child was not from a white police officer but from another African American. The latest firestorm over Obama's patriotism may complete Giuliani's political journey from the center left of the Republican Party to the conservative jungles where Sarah Palin and Donald Trump roam. ... "Maybe it is Rudy in his dotage, where he has lost whatever boundaries he once had. He sounds like a bitter old man." Giuliani seems to be relishing his moment back in the spotlight. But he's also causing awkward moments for Republican candidates limbering up for a crack at the presidency in 2016 -- a fact the White House was quick to exploit on Friday.”

According to Wikipedia, Giuliani is a little young to be “in his dotage.” He was born in 1944, one year before I was, so he is 70 now. I think the comment that he may be “relishing his moment back in the spotlight” is more likely. The following article gives some background on his current political stances. He has gone from a moderate Democrat to a right wing Republican. See the following biography from the Net.


http://www.biography.com/people/rudolph-giuliani-9312674#early-life

Rudolph Giuliani Biography
Lawyer, Mayor, U.S. Representative (1944–)

Synopsis

Rudolph Giuliani, born on May 28, 1944, in Brooklyn, New York, worked as a private attorney and with the U.S. Department of Justice. He later won the New York City mayoral race as the Republican candidate in 1993. He stayed in office for two terms, taking a tough view on crime while becoming a divisive figure, and later unsuccessfully campaigned for his party’s presidential nomination in 2008.

Former mayor of New York City Rudolph William Louis Giuliani was born on May 28, 1944, in Brooklyn, New York, into a large Italian-American family that consisted mostly of cops and firefighters. "I grew up with uniforms all around me and their stories of heroism," Giuliani remembers. His mother, Helen Giuliani, was a smart and serious woman, and his father, Harold Giuliani, worked for a brother's mob-connected loan sharking business

Although Giuliani only learned the full story as an adult, his father had been arrested in 1934 for robbing a milkman at gunpoint and had spent a year and a half in jail. "I knew he had gotten into trouble as a young man, but I never knew exactly what it was," Giuliani recalled. Nevertheless, Harold Giuliani was an excellent father who was determined not to allow his son to repeat his mistakes.

When Rudy Giuliani was 7 years old, his father moved the family from Brooklyn out to Long Island to distance his son from the mob-connected members of the family, and he instilled in him a deep respect for authority, order and personal property. "My father compensated through me," Rudy Giuliani later said. "In a very exaggerated way, he made sure that I didn't repeat his mistakes in my life—which I thank him for, because it worked out."

Giuliani attended Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School, where he was only a decent student but an active participant and leader in student politics. Upon graduating in 1961, he continued on to Manhattan College in The Bronx, graduating in 1965. Inspired by his father's constant lecturing on the importance of order and authority in society, Giuliani resolved to become a lawyer and attended New York University Law School.

At NYU, Giuliani truly excelled as a student for the first time, graduating magna cum laude in 1968 and landing a prestigious clerkship with Judge Lloyd MacMahon, a United States District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York. At Judge MacMahon's encouragement, Giuliani then moved to Washington, D.C. to work for the U.S. Attorney's Office. He received his first big promotion in 1973, at the age of 29, when he was appointed the attorney in charge of the police corruption cases resulting from the high profile Knapp Commission.

New York City Mayor

In 1989, Giuliani ran for mayor of New York City as a Republican against Democrat David Dinkins. He lost by a razor-thin margin in one of the closest mayoral elections in New York City history, and Dinkins became the city's first black mayor. Four years later, in 1993, Giuliani again challenged Dinkins. With more than one million New Yorkers on welfare, crime rates skyrocketing and an ever-worsening crack cocaine epidemic plaguing the city, the mild-mannered Dinkins had fallen out of favor and a tough-on-crime prosecutor appeared—to many—to be exactly what the city needed. Giuliani won the election and took office as New York City's 107th mayor on January 1, 1994.

Comparing himself to Winston Churchill leading London through The Blitz of 1940, Giuliani set out to tackle New York's problems with a single-mindedness that bordered on ruthlessness. In his first two years in office, his policies helped reduce serious crime by one-third and cut the city's murder rate in half. Police shootings fell by 40 percent and incidents of violence in city jails, once a seemingly insurmountable problem, virtually disappeared by the end of his first term, dropping by 95 percent. Giuliani's highly successful "welfare-to-work" initiative helped more than 600,000 New Yorkers land employment and achieve self-sufficiency.

Perhaps inevitably for a mayor so determined to fundamentally change the way city politics operated, Giuliani earned nearly as many enemies as admirers. Minority leaders abhorred him for his widespread reliance on racial profiling in law enforcement and liberals criticized his failure to reform the city's troubled public school system. "Civility" campaigns against jaywalking, street vendors and public funding of controversial art likewise provoked some public ire. Although he won reelection by a landslide in 1997, by 2000—as his second term was nearing its end—Giuliani's popularity had fallen off considerably. That same year was he diagnosed with prostate cancer, the disease that had killed his father, and began undergoing treatments that sapped him of his usual vigor.

September 11th Attacks

However, just as Giuliani appeared to be fading into retirement, he was suddenly thrust into the international spotlight by a tragedy that shocked the world and came to define his public career. On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked two commercial passenger airliners and crashed them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan. Both towers collapsed within hours and 2,752 people perished from the attacks. Giuliani's leadership during the city's moment of crisis inspired many.

Arriving on the scene within minutes of the second plane crash, Giuliani coordinated rescue operations that saved as many as 20,000 lives and emerged as the national voice of reassurance and consolation. "Tomorrow New York is going to be here," a somber but resolved Giuliani announced to the city, the nation and the world. "And we're going to rebuild, and we're going to be stronger than we were before... I want the people of New York to be an example to the rest of the country, and the rest of the world, that terrorism can't stop us."

Due in large part to his leadership during the terrorists attacks of September 11, 2001, Rudy Giuliani will forever be known as one of the great mayors in the history of New York City. He left office on December 31, 2001 and was replaced by Michael Bloomberg, whose election was all but secured the moment he received Giuliani's endorsement. Since then, Giuliani has remained in the national political spotlight.

In 2008, he ran for the Republican presidential nomination, but despite being an early frontrunner his campaign failed to generate much momentum and he dropped out after finishing a distant third in the Florida primary. During the 2012 presidential election, Giullani endorsed Republican candidate Mitt Romney.

Even if he never again holds public office, Rudy Giuliani may be remembered as one of the most prominent leaders of early 21st century American history for his leadership in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks. He ensured that New York City was operating again within days of the terror attacks and helped encourage the outpouring of patriotism and national reconciliation that, albeit briefly, united all Americans in the attacks' aftermath. "What could have destroyed us made us stronger," Giuliani proclaimed in a speech that captured the essence of his resilient spirit.