Free Republic

In Monday’s editorial, the New York Times reported the results of a Frank Luntz poll indicating that NRA members are much softer on key issues than the National Rifle Association itself. Unfortunately, the editorial was rife with filters in the form of hot labels and emotionally-laden words and phrases that immediately impugned the validity of the results of the study. For example, the opening sentence said, “The National Rifle Association has long fulminated….” Fulminate is a “hot label” that means “to issue or pronounce with vehement denunciation, condemnation, etc.” The second sentence calls Frank Luntz, the author of the study,...

Mayor Bloomberg's crusade against guns comes with a price tag attached. Bills obtained by the Daily News show the city Law Department has paid almost $1.5 million to Kroll Associates, a high-end detective firm, for its undercover probe of out-of-state gun sales. The mayor announced the results of that investigation with a big splash in October, playing secretly recorded videos of dealers improperly selling guns at gun shows. Detectives were able to buy guns even after saying they wouldn't pass a background check, or after having a friend fill out the required purchase forms for them. "I wouldn't pass either,...

Better late than never, Gov. Paterson and Mayor Bloomberg have woken up to a pending disaster aimed at New York, otherwise known as the health-care overhaul. A letter they wrote to Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand is so damning about the cost to the city and state that two questions arise. First, why are Schumer and Gillibrand, along with local House Democrats, supporting legislation that would slam the home team? Second, why did Paterson and Bloomberg not speak up sooner, given the Medicare cuts and tax hikes they suddenly worry about have been on the table all along? Paterson...

It comes as little surprise that liberal political bloggers, along with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, continue to heap criticism on the Tiahrt amendment ("On gun-privacy rights," Dec. 3 WE Blog excerpts). Now permanent law, the Tiahrt amendment protects the privacy rights of legal firearm owners and ensures that undercover agents and their investigations are not compromised. The latest smear campaign spearheaded by Bloomberg and Mayors Against Illegal Guns brazenly casts blame on the Tiahrt amendment for the Fort Hood massacre. One of their primary solutions to prevent another Fort Hood tragedy is, of course, to repeal the Tiahrt...

·11250 Waples Mill Road ·   Fairfax, Virginia 22030    ·800-392-8683   Two Against Two: Bloomberg And Lautenberg Pair Up To Violate The Second And Fourteenth Amendments   Friday, December 04, 2009   Is your name the same as, or similar to, that of someone on the FBI’s “terrorist watchlist?”  Or, have you been erroneously placed on the watchlist?  You can’t find out because the FBI won’t say exactly why people get watchlisted, won’t say who has been watchlisted, and therefore doesn’t offer watchlisted people the chance to clear their names immediately.  In fact, small children, federal air marshals, military personnel who have...

Mayor Bloomberg's "future-crime" vision of American gun control is one where a United States citizen [will be denied gun purchases if] her name was added by a federal bureaucrat to the no-fly list . . . It is also at least foreseeable that under this scheme . . . TSA agents might confiscate guns from the checked baggage of airport travelers.

When a small church comes to the Bowery Mission bearing fried chicken with trans fat, unwittingly breaking the law, they’re told “thank you.” Then workers quietly chuck the food, mission director Tom Bastile said. “It’s always hard for us to do,” Basile said. “We know we have to do it.” A Manhattan deli going out of business delivered a pickup truck’s worth of lettuce, sundried tomatoes, hamburgers, sausages and other food to the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen last week. With 1,400 meals to serve daily, Operations Manager Michael Ottley was extremely grateful. He didn’t check the trans fat content of...

YOU HAVE PROBABLY HEARD IT SAID THAT guns have two enemies: rust and politicians. Of the two, by far the most menacing threat today is the latter. Of those, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg ranks near the top of the list. Bloomberg possesses two attributes that make him a serious nemesis to Second Amendment freedoms—not just in New York, but everywhere in the United States: money and influence. Currently listed as the eighth richest man in America with a net worth of $16 billion, Bloomberg is the founder and 88 percent owner of the financial software services company, Bloomberg LP....

Enabling the next Fort Hood? Congress's curbs on gun data hurt investigations By Michael Bloomberg and Thomas Kean Friday, November 27, 2009 The news from Fort Hood shocked the nation: American soldiers shot on American soil. Thirteen dead and 38 injured. It was almost too terrible to believe. Almost. Unfortunately, the Fort Hood rampage was not the first time that our military personnel have been murdered in the United States this year. In June, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad shot and killed an Army private and wounded another soldier at a military recruiting station in Little Rock. In both cases, the loss...

·11250 Waples Mill Road ·   Fairfax, Virginia 22030    ·800-392-8683   Bloomberg Uses Ft. Hood Murders To Push Gun Control   Thursday, November 26, 2009   In another transparent attempt to undercut the Second Amendment fresh on the heels of his hidden-camera attack on gun shows, Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, has alleged that the multiple murders that took place on Ft. Hood recently could have been prevented by changes in federal gun laws. In an ad in the Washington Post on Monday, Bloomberg’s group claimed that the Ft. Hood murder suspect’s “gun purchase could have been key to the...

WASHINGTON—U.S. Congressman Todd Tiahrt (pronounced TEE-hart), R-Kan., released the following statement in response to heinous accusations from Mayor Bloomberg’s political organization Mayors Against Illegal Guns. On Monday the Bloomberg organization paid for a full-page advertisement in the Washington Post assigning blame for the Fort Hood massacre, in part, to firearm policy authored by Tiahrt and approved by Congress since 2002. “The mayors who politicized the tragic deaths of those whose lives were taken along with the dozens who sustained injuries at Fort Hood should immediately issue a public apology to the victims and their families,� said Tiahrt. “Their use of...

Against a backdrop of recent shootings of innocent bystanders, including a 13-year-old boy from Queens and a 15-year-old girl from the Bronx, city officials and activists each did their part on Monday in their fight against gun violence, albeit in different ways and at different venues. At City Hall, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and other city officials announced the takedown of an illegal gun sales operation in Brooklyn, while the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network gathered supporters for a “day of outrage” in cities across the country. Mayor Bloomberg blamed “extremists in the pro-gun movement” for lax gun laws,...

Today, Michael Bloomberg's coalition against illegal guns placed a full-page ad in the Washington Post urging lawmakers to prevent suspects on a federally maintained "terror watch list" from being allowed to purchase guns. "500 mayors agree with the Obama and Bush Administrations: stop terror suspects from getting guns," the ad says. It's also been an issue that Rahm Emanuel voiced support for back in 2007, according to this video clip. "We got to make this a number one issue, as a test vote, and take it into the election." He added, "If it's between that terrorist list and the NRA,...

Showdown is playing out across the country in blogs, on the editorial pages of newspapers, and at countless gun clubs NEW YORK, NY November 23, 2009 —Mayor Michael Bloomberg is a known gun control advocate, and has built a national platform to stem the flow of illegal guns into cities and towns. The group he co-founded in 2006, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, has grown from 15 to 526 mayors. Its success has raised the ire of gun rights groups, most notably the National Rifle Association. The showdown between the NRA and Mayors Against Illegal Guns is playing out across the...

Recently in the Cincinnatus Standard I wrote about "teachable moments with the media." Sadly the lesson must continue as we talk about how the media looks at issues with bias and distortion. One must conclude they are quite lazy, as they don't do their homework and seem quite willing to accept anything spoon-fed to them that fits their liberal mental template without critical thought. In the process they miss the facts, pass on the fabricated material, and thus do the public a great general disservice. October was a hot month of media activity and there is much I can comment...

Explaining officials must "talk to everybody" to "prevent tragedies," New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg hosted yesterday at City Hall controversial imam Siraj Wahhaj, a fundraiser for the Council on American-Islamic Relations and an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing who urges the violent overthrow of the "filthy" U.S. government and the establishment of Islamic law. Wahhaj was among religious and civic leaders who met with Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to discuss the massacre at Fort Hood in Texas allegedly carried out by Muslim Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the New York Post reported. Bloomberg...

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg welcomed to City Hall an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, later claiming he didn't know the radical Muslim cleric had been invited, the New York Post reported. Siraj Wahhaj has called the FBI and CIA the "real terrorists," defended the convicted World Trade Center attack plotters and said his hope is that all Americans will become Muslim. Wahhaj was among a group of religious and community leaders who met Wednesday with Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to talk about the Fort Hood massacre that killed 13 last week in...

     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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