Free Republic

     Almost a month ago, I pointed out that Mayor Bloomberg's gun show "sting" operation may itself have broken federal gun trafficking laws.At the time, I urged readers to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATFE) to inquire as to whether or not Mayor Bloomberg's "investigation" was itself being investigated for possible  criminal activity, and to request that such an investigation be initiated.Yesterday, I received a response, of sorts: Thank you for your e-mail inquiry to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). We are sorry for the delay in responding.  Please go to the...

Would Obama have helped Thompson? A Times expose explains how it never happenedBill Thompson didn't have Michael Bloomberg's big bucks, his renown or any real help aside from his own political muscle, but he made the mayoral race awfully close. Imagine if he had someone like, oh, President Barack Obama, backing him up. Early on, Bloomberg saw to it that the president wouldn't come to Thompson's aid -- not in the unequivocal sense, anyway, reports The New York Times . Sure, Obama offered a limp endorsement a few weeks before Election Day. But he didn't stand by Thompson, hands pumping,...

NBC reverses Bloomberg call Wow: This is looking to be a very long night for the billionaire-incumben-frontrunner in New York. With more than a third of the votes in, it's a one-point race. NBC called it for Bloomberg -- but just reversed that call. The New York Times continues to indicate that Bloomberg has won.

BNO News: Independent candidate Michael Bloomberg re-elected as Mayor of New York City, defeating Democrat Bill Thompson.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg exits a voting booth in New York November 3, 2009. Mayor Bloomberg appeared headed to victory over Democrat Bill Thompson after engineering a rules change to allow him to run for a third term and spending millions of his own money on his campaign. As of last month, the billionaire mayor had spent $85 million to Thompson's $6 million.

Mayors Against Illegal Guns, led by New York's Michael Bloomberg, is losing members after the National Rifle Association mounted a campaign against the group. The NRA and various gun proponents contend that the mayors' efforts represent a slippery slope. JACKI LYDEN, host: This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden. Mayors Against Illegal Guns, led by New York's Michael Bloomberg, is losing members after the National Rifle Association mounted a campaign against the group. The NRA and other gun proponents contend that the mayors' efforts represent a slippery slope. WNYC's Arun Venugopal reports. ARUN VENUGOPAL: Pennsylvania has about...

With the leaves turning and the mayoral race down to its final paces, William C. Thompson Jr., the Democratic candidate, sketched out a liberal policy agenda Friday, saying he would fight to repeal laws that allow landlords to charge market rents for regulated apartments. He promised to appoint pro-tenant members to the Rent Guidelines Board to oppose higher rents and pro-rider members to the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to oppose raising fares. He said he would keep subway station agents on the job, and try to place all rent-regulated middle-class apartments that are part of the Mitchell-Lama program...

On October 20, 2009, Buckeye Firearms Chairman Jim Irvine appeared as a guest on WCPN's (Clevland Public Radio) "The Sound of Ideas," hosted by Dan Moulthrop. In a typical display of your tax dollars at work on the "impartial" forum of National Public Radio (NPR), the opening half of the show was given solely to one of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's cronies - John Feinblatt, the city's Criminal Justice Coordinator. The first words out of Feinblatt's mouth during that segment were provably false: "Everybody, at every level of law enforcement, federal, state and local has always known that the...

Virginia - The antis have “learned” about VCDL protesting the Falls Church Mayor, tomorrow, Monday, October 26 and the Norfolk Mayor, Tuesday, October 27 and are, er, up in arms. They are trying to get their members to turn out at the city council meetings to counter our protest. As EM Matt Gottshalk said when he saw this, “I’ve never seen so much slander in so few words.” Here is what the Virginia Center for Public Safety (how’s that for a misnomer?) sent to their members (my comments imbedded in brackets) CRITICAL ALERT! Please forward this to anyone who can...

By MICHAEL BARBARO and DAVID W. CHEN Michael R. Bloomberg, the Wall Street mogul whose fortune catapulted him into New York’s City Hall, has set another staggering financial record: He has now spent more of his own money than any other individual in United States history in the pursuit of public office. Newly released campaign records show the mayor, as of Friday, had spent $85 million on his latest re-election campaign, and is on pace to spend between $110 million and $140 million before the election on Nov. 3. That means Mr. Bloomberg, in his three bids for mayor, will...

·11250 Waples Mill Road ·   Fairfax, Virginia 22030    ·800-392-8683   Newspapers Gush Over Bloomberg's Latest Gun Control Escapade   Friday, October 09, 2009   Bathed in camera flashes during a "news conference" on October 7, 2009, New York City's mayor, Michael Bloomberg was in his element in announcing "a wide-ranging undercover investigation by the City of New York into illegal gun sales" that revealed "a willful disregard of the law" by "74% of gun show sellers." Or, so he claimed.  The ego-driven multi-billionaire's publicity stunt was neither "wide-ranging" nor representative of what occurs at gun shows, nor was it intended to be. ...

Democratic pols Monday accused former Mayor Rudy Giuliani of deliberately fomenting racial tension in a coded appeal to get Mayor Bloomberg re-elected. Bronx Democratic chairman and Assemblyman Carl Heastie said Giuliani had used "code words to try and strike fear in the hearts and minds of persons in the Jewish faith." State Senator Eric Adams (D-Brooklyn) said Giuliani's remarks were "Willie Horton-style" dirty tricks, reminscient of ads used in the 1988 presidential campaign to stir racial fears among white voters about Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. The fury began on Sunday when Giuliani invoked the Holocaust, the 9/11 terrorist attacks and...

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is back on the trail, this time stumping for his successor, Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The failed Republican presidential candidate is talking up the billionaire mayor Sunday in areas of Brooklyn and Queens where he is still well-liked. ------------------------------------------------ Maybe Rudy will put in a good word for Arlen Specter while he is up on that stump!

As Wall Street shrinks, public-sector unions have become the dominant force in New York politics. New Yorkers take pride in their city's ability to reinvent itself, as witnessed most recently in the bubble-aided recovery from the 9/11 attacks. "While any city may have one period of magnificence," journalist A.J. Libeling wrote of New York in 1938, "it takes a real one to keep renewing itself until the past is perennially forgotten." But as next month's mayoral election approaches, the city faces an economic downturn and a political reordering that augur badly for the future. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a two-term incumbent...

Bloomberg is taking another step from the trading floor into the corner office. The company said Tuesday that it was the winning bidder for BusinessWeek, the troubled 80-year-old title that McGraw-Hill had put on sale this summer. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the price was said to be near $5 million, plus assumption of liabilities, which were $31.9 million as of April. The magazine will continue to be a weekly print publication, rechristened Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Decisions have not been made about BusinessWeek’s staff of more than 400 people; Bloomberg will select which of those employees it wants...

AN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Bloomberg LP is buying BusinessWeek magazine in a deal that brings together a financial news service specializing in rapid-fire updates with a print publication struggling to adapt to the Internet's information whirlwind. Terms of the sale announced Tuesday were not disclosed. Citing unnamed people privy to the negotiations, BusinessWeek pegged the acquisition price at $2 million to $5 million in cash. Bloomberg also would be responsible for paying other costs, such as severance pay to any of the roughly 400 BusinessWeek employees who might be laid off, the magazine's Web site reported.snip

Anthony Lawrence and Shamel King are charged with dealing drugs - but the city doled out $157,500 to them in legal settlements. Mayor Bloomberg Sunday defended city bureaucrats who handed out half a million bucks to members of a violent Brooklyn drug gang who sued the Police Department. "The city gets sued 200 times a week," Bloomberg told the Daily News. "We take as many cases to trial as we possibly can, but we would [go] bankrupt if we tried to defend every one of them." The mayor was reacting to a front-page News exclusive that exposed a city practice...

I've received dozens of emails forwarded to me in the past month, with the senders' grave concern over an alleged U.S. Senate bill, SB2009, that would require gun owners to list all their firearms on their tax documents and pay upward of $50 per gun owned, annually. While this bill is very believable, considering President Obama's rabid, unjustified and foolhardy anti-gun/anti-hunting administration, it's another urban legend, at least for now. The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) wishes to be perfectly clear on this matter: "There is no such bill," the NSSF stated in a news release. "And if the NSSF...

It was the most lukewarm and indirect of endorsements, delivered in the conditional tense, and coming from a presidential spokesman, no less. But for William C. Thompson Jr., the Democratic nominee for mayor, the surprising comments Friday made by Robert Gibbs, President Obama’s press secretary, that Mr. Obama would support “the Democratic nominee” was tantamount to a life preserver in his uphill battle to unseat Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. --snip-- The comments prompted Mr. Thompson, the city comptroller, to quickly issue a statement titled “Yes We Can in New York City: President Barack Obama Supports Bill Thompson for Mayor.” And...

New York - On the heels of breaking up an alleged bomb terror plot, New York is planning to place high-tech security cameras, license plate readers, and "weapons sensors" in midtown Manhattan. Office workers and tourists – and possible terrorists – will have cameras watching their every move as they visit Macy's, shop for diamonds at Tiffany & Co., or gawk in Times Square. The apparatus, paid for by some $24 million in Department of Homeland Security funding, will expand a similar effort already underway in lower Manhattan where cameras focus on the Federal Reserve, the New York Stock Exchange,...

Stings were conducted at seven gun shows in Tennessee, Ohio and NevadaInvestigators hired by New York City conducted stings at gun shows in states that have not closed the "gun show loophole'' and found some vendors openly selling weapons to buyers who admitted they couldn't pass background checks. The stings, described in a city report released Wednesday, were conducted at seven gun shows in Tennessee, Ohio and Nevada. Those states are among the many that permit private unlicensed dealers, known as "occasional sellers," to sell weapons at gun shows without conducting background checks. Some 30 weapons were sold to NYPD...

Gov. Jan Brewer recently signed five pieces of legislation that foster gun-safety education in Arizona’s schools and reinforce the rights of gun owners in the state into law. The legislation was sponsored by Sens. Jack Harper and Russell Pearce, and mandates that Arizona’s Right-to-Carry permit holders are allowed to defend themselves in public restaurants, store their firearm in a locked vehicle while parked in a publicly accessible parking lot, and reveal their firearm to an individual threatening them or a loved one. Furthermore, the new law states that an individual who shoots someone in self-defense is innocent until proven guilty....

·11250 Waples Mill Road ·   Fairfax, Virginia 22030    ·800-392-8683   Usual Suspects Attack Wicker Amendment   Friday, September 25, 2009   Last week, we reported on the Wicker amendment—a NRA-backed amendment to H.R. 3288 (the FY 2010 Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development appropriations bill) that would reform policies regarding the transportation of firearms on Amtrak trains.  The measure was adopted by the Senate on Wednesday, September 16, by a vote of 68-30, and would allow law-abiding Amtrak passengers the ability to securely transport firearms in their checked baggage while traveling by Amtrak train. Currently, passengers who choose to travel by passenger...

The New York Times reports today that Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been caught “salt-handed.� Despite targeting sodium in his latest nanny-state crusade, the mayor privately enjoys pouring it on by the shaker-load: Under his watch, the city has declared sodium an enemy, asking restaurants and food manufacturers to voluntarily cut the salt in their dishes by 20 percent or more, and encouraging diners to “shake the habit� by asking waiters for food without added salt.But Mr. Bloomberg, 67, likes his popcorn so salty that it burns others’ lips. (At Gracie Mansion, the cooks deliver it to him with a salt...

HE dumps salt on almost everything, even saltine crackers. He devours burnt bacon and peanut butter sandwiches. He has a weakness for hot dogs, cheeseburgers, and fried chicken, washing them down with a glass of merlot. And his snack of choice? Cheez-Its. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has become New York City’s nutritional nag, banning the use of trans fats, forcing chain restaurants to post calorie counts and exhorting diners to consume less salt. Now he is at it again, directing his wrath at sugary drinks in a new series of arresting advertisements that ask subway riders: “Are you pouring on...

DELAWARE, OH - As a growing number of mayors in Ohio and around the country resign from Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's gun control group, new evidence suggests some of their names have been added to the member list and used to promote Bloomberg's political agenda without their knowledge or permission. "Mayor Robert Shiner" (Mentor, OH) was listed in a letter from MAIG to Congress in June 2009 opposing reforms to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE), as well as in a full page advertisement opposing nationwide reciprocity of concealed handgun licenses....

Last Monday dawned clear and bright in the nanny state of New York City. The newspaper brought word that the city's new health commissioner was working on ways to get residents to exercise more. That same morning, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his latest assault on unhealthy behavior. By 2012, the mayor hopes "to lower the proportion of adults who drink one or more sugar-sweetened beverages each day by 20 percent." Tuesday's news was about plans to forbid smoking at public parks and beaches. If the past pattern holds, initial gasps of outrage at such bureaucratic interference will sputter into acceptance....

Email Address: liza.park@wctv.tv The NRA is asking mayors who are members of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns to resign from the group. Lately the economy and health care have taken over the headlines across the country. But the issue of gun control may be front page news very soon as the fight is re-surfacing in cities like Tallahassee. The National Rifle Association is currently asking people to see if their mayor has joined the Mayors Against Illegal Guns organization... and if so, to ask him or her to resign from it. Former NRA president Marion Hammer has asked Tallahassee Mayor...

Some local mayors have joined "Mayors Against Illegal Guns" (MAIG) which was founded and is funded by activist anti-gun billionaire and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Is your mayor one of them? Click here to find out! You may also look at the list below.Despite its very misleading name, this national group of anti-gun mayors has lobbied Congress against national reciprocity of state Right-to-Carry permits, against much-needed reform of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE), for regulating gun shows out of existence, and for repealing the Tiahrt Amendment that protects the privacy rights of law-abiding...

The latest school grades released by the city's Education Department are bogus. An astonishing 84% of 1,058 elementary and middle schools received an A (compared with 38% last year and 23% in 2007). Another 13% got a B. Only seven schools rated a D or an F. Four schools labeled "persistently dangerous" by the state got an A from the city, and three of these deeply troubled schools got a B. Three schools that the city wants to close because of low performance got an A. Every school that got an F last year got an A or B this...

The ancient Greeks gave us the gift of democracy, a system defined as the rule of the people. They also gave us the word hubris, the attitude defined as overweening pride or arrogance. As he runs for a third term. our mayor is using—or misusing---the processes of democracy by investing tens of millions of dollars in an effort to smother his financially poorer opponents and return to City Hall. And, if you doubt that he has hubris, consider what he said the other day about this campaign. Bloomberg, who is not facing anyone in a primary, told reporters he wasn’t...

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has just brought arrogance to a whole new level. The billionaire says he's not really running against anyone in this year's mayoral election. The Republican-turned-independent is casting the other candidates as irrelevant and says his campaign is a lone effort to advertise his record since taking office in 2002. He says the Democratic candidates who debated Wednesday night "wasted an opportunity'' by attacking him instead of saying why they want to be mayor. At least, he heard that's what they said. He didn't watch the debate because he said he wasn't curious to hear what his potential...

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Mayor Mike Bloomberg enjoys a cold one like any other New Yorker. And like any other New Yorker, he's bewildered by the city's ban on drinking in the park. "I never understood why we don't let you drink in the park," Bloomberg told Community Newspaper Groups, a chain of weeklies owned by News Corp., which also owns the Post. "I mean, you go to watch the Philharmonic, you can't have a bottle of wine." Asked about Brooklynite Kimber VanRy's legal battle over a ticket he received for drinking a beer on the stoop of his Prospect Heights home, the mayor...

This is in relation to a lawsuit filed by Bloomberg LP against the Federal Reserve on November 7, 2008, in Southern District of New York (08-09595), in which Bloomberg sought material loan and collateral data in relation to emergency loans released by the Fed, and which were previously claimed to be non-FOIAble. This is a large blow against the Fed and specifically against organizations using FOIA loopholes from providing critical information, particularly in cases involving trillions of taxpayer dollars bailing out huge, systematically and politically embedded financial organizations (which lately is pretty much all of them).

A bouncer at a slick East Village lounge was killed and two revelers wounded during a wild sidewalk shooting that rattled the trendy neighborhood early Sunday, police and witnesses said. Eric "Taz" Pagan was off-duty but hanging out at Forbidden City, a hip Asian-themed bar on Ave. A near E. 13th St., when he took a fatal bullet to the head trying to break up a fight just outside the lounge at 5 a.m., police and witnesses said. Pagan, 42, and other Forbidden City employees ran from the shuttered bar just as a man stepped out of a idling white...

For the past several years, Buckeye Firearms Association has published a series of articles entitled "All Politicians Are Not The Same," highlighting elected officials who have proven strong support for the Second Amendment. Today, I believe we can add two more names to the list: Rep. Josh Mandel and Village of Walton Hills Mayor Marlene Anielski. Many pro-gun voters will already be familiar with Rep. Mandel's Second Amendment credentials. As a freshman representative in the Ohio House he co-sponsored the House version of Senate Bill 184, Ohio's 'Castle Doctrine' Law, supported it from his position on the House Criminal Justice...

·11250 Waples Mill Road ·   Fairfax, Virginia 22030    ·800-392-8683   Bloomberg Wants to "Counter" the NRA   Friday, August 14, 2009   It is old news to gun owners that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is not a friend.  As one of the leading proponents of new gun laws, Bloomberg has already earned his place in the Second Amendment rights hall of shame.  But apparently, Hizzoner does not believe he is doing enough to destroy our rights. On an appearance on "Meet the Press," Bloomberg announced that he would raise money to counter the influence of the NRA.  Bloomberg was on the...

Call him the new Moses -- Robert Moses, that is. Mayor Bloomberg says that since 9/11 he has tried to transform the city on a scale not seen since the days of the legendary and controversial master builder of highways, bridges and parks that changed the metropolitan landscape. "I think if you look we've done more in the last seven years than -- I don't know if it's fair to say more than Moses did -- but I hope history will show the things we did made a lot more sense," Bloomberg tells The New Yorker.

ALBANY — Gov. David A. Paterson is set to reject a sweeping overhaul of the state’s hundreds of public authorities that was passed by lawmakers last month but is opposed by the governor’s staff and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York City. The Paterson administration will ask the Assembly to delay sending the bill to the governor’s desk, officials said, and will try to devise a new version of the legislation before a special legislative session next month. But the governor and mayor have so many objections to the current bill that it could be difficult to negotiate a...

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg uses Twitter as a campaign tool. Video courtesy of Fox News.

NEW YORK -- Mayor Michael Bloomberg was dealt a political setback as the city's largest municipal union endorsed his chief Democratic challenger. District Council 37 is backing City Comptroller William Thompson Jr. The endorsement will give Mr. Thompson much-needed help against the billionaire incumbent, who has already spent more than $36 million on his third-term bid. The union has 125,000 members and 50,000 retirees across many city departments. They maintain bridges, roads and subways and work in health care, schools and libraries. It is a diverse force that will provide Mr. Thompson with troops on the ground for his campaign....

New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg has repeatedly proven that he hates the U.S. Constitution and that he feels that he a right to harass any citizen he pleases -- even ones that have broken no laws. But now he has also shown his lack of manhood because it has been revealed that Bloomberg is afraid of a 200-year-old style of rifle called a flintlock, the style that helped the founders defeat Mad King George in the Revolutionary War. The ancient shooter has Bloomie hiding under his sheets at night. Mad King Bloomie has initiated a harassment campaign against Michael...

Mayor Bloomberg is still the undisputed educator-in-chief of New York City public schools! The state Senate passed legislation today by a 47-8 vote renewing mayoral control of the Big Apple's vast education system serving 1.1 million students. Gov. Paterson said he will sign the long-awaited measure into law. The legislative action follows an extensive, three-month Post series highlighting progress made in the schools under mayoral control since 2002. Stories focused on controversial accountability measures that helped boost the graduation rate and narrow the racial achievement gap. Other articles shed light on increased options for parents and students through the dramatic...

New rules issued by the Bloomberg administration allow minority- and women-owned businesses to circumvent the system for awarding small city contracts -- an advantage denied white-owned firms, The Post has learned. In a memo issued July 15, the mayor's Office of Contract Services told city agencies they could no longer solicit vendors to bid on small contracts -- defined as between $5,000 and $100,000 -- unless they're certified as at least 51 percent minority- or female-owned. That means that even longtime vendors won't be able to sell goods and services to the city in that price range if the owner...

Mayor Bloomberg said Tuesday he never thought he was on the short list to be Republican Sen. John McCain's running mate last year -- even though a new book claims he was one of the six finalists for the coveted slot. McCain's staff took Bloomberg's chances seriously, the book claims -- especially when they were told to set up a short podium for the still-secret vice-presidential candidate. "When I told them to lower it for someone who was 5-7, they thought it was Bloomberg," McCain aide Davis White says in "The Battle for America 2008: The Story of an Extraordinary...

ORLANDO, FLA. The city of New York, under the administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has been offering its homeless population one-way tickets to leave the city under the umbrella of a city program that began in 2007. One of the most popular destinations for the Big Apple's homeless population is the Sunshine State, according to the New York City Mayor's Office. The Orange County Mayor, Rich Crotty, learned of that Thursday and sent a letter that was part request and part rebuke to the mayor of New York City. Crotty's letter read, in part, that he was "disappointed" to learn...

Like America's first soldiers at the Battle of Brooklyn, Michael Littlejohn is fighting for his right to bear arms. The Revolutionary War buff charges the Bloomberg administration with tyranny for trying to seize his handmade flintlock rifle - a dead ringer for the weapon once used against the redcoats. "This is the last legal gun that you can have without registration in New York," Littlejohn said. "And yet Mayor Bloomberg is driven crazy by my flintlock gun - the one that won the American Revolution." Littlejohn fired the first shot when he hired a Tennessee blacksmith to recreate the vintage...

New York City is buying one-way plane tickets for homeless families to leave the city. It's part of a program by Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration to keep the homeless out of the expensive shelter system, which costs $36,000 a year per family. More than 550 families have left the city since 2007. All it takes is for a relative to agree to take them in. The city employs a travel agency for domestic travel and the Department of Homeless Services handles international travel. City officials say there are no limits on where a family can be sent and families can...

Like America's first soldiers at the Battle of Brooklyn, Michael Littlejohn is fighting for his right to bear arms. The Revolutionary War buff charges the Bloomberg administration with tyranny for trying to seize his handmade flintlock rifle - a dead ringer for the weapon once used against the redcoats. "This is the last legal gun that you can have without registration in New York," Littlejohn said. "And yet Mayor Bloomberg is driven crazy by my flintlock gun - the one that won the American Revolution." Littlejohn fired the first shot when he hired a Tennessee blacksmith to recreate the vintage...