Subject: Michael Bloomberg

• Poll: Most New Yorkers Find Ground Zero Promises, Bloomberg Bus Plan Bullshit

  ​The first phase of the Ground Zero/9/11 Memorial is supposed to be ready by September 11, 2011. A new Quinnipiac poll shows that most New Yorkers don't believe it, 61 to 28 percent. By a similar margin they disbelieve that the "Freedom Tower" (which, you may recall, lost its patriotic moniker earlier this year and is now just known as One World Trade) will be ready by the end of 2013. They almost believe the WTC Transit Hub will be done by mid-2014, doubting it by just 47-41 percent...

  August 27, 2009

• Bloomberg Gets Billie Jean King Endorsement

  Mike Bloomberg picks up the endorsement of tennis legend Billie Jean King. "Guess what?" says King. "Bloomberg's in my house tonight! Mi casa su casa... Mike Bloomberg really helped, cares about the LGBT community which obviously as a lesbian is very close to my heart. He wants to make New York City a better place in every way whether it be getting crime down, whether it's AIDS-related, whether it's women's issues, whether it's environment, the economics of our city -- he wants us to have a he

  September 1, 2009

• Bloomberg's New Swine Flu Plan: "Flu Centers," Sesame Street

  ​We might call this "David Rosen gets action": Mayor Bloomberg has outlined the city's new plans to meet the swine flu threat. Along with free vaccinations for grade school students, the city will turn some of its medical clinics into "flu centers" at which citizens may obtain information and treatment, create a new dedicated web site, etc. The city is sticking to its plan to close schools only "as a last resort." City and federal agencies will also partner with Sesame Workshop to develop

  September 1, 2009

• Bloomberg Keeps His Billions Separate From His Mayoral Obligations? Yeah, Right!

  September 1, 2009

• This Week in the Voice

  ​Mike Bloomberg has a deal with the city that keeps his mayoralty separate from the business he founded. But Bloomberg the company has a way of benefiting on local deals even without the help of Bloomberg the Mayor. You may have noticed, for instance, that the Yankees' cable network used to be on channel 30. Then, as the city was working on a big new contract with cable provider Time Warner, YES was moved to channel 53. Now on channel 30: Bloomberg TV. There's lots more. Wayne Barrett has

  September 1, 2009

• Bloomberg Flexes Muscle; Q-Tip Strikes Back

  Mayor Bloomberg's new election strategy seems to be an egregious display of his own power. His office announces that he will stage a massive outdoor rally on the West Side of Manhattan at 8 p.m. on September 15 -- just before the polls close in the Democratic Primary. He has also endowed with $1 million a building at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which is to be named for his first deputy mayor, Patricia Harris, who attended the school. Ms. Harris "has an extraordinaril

  September 2, 2009

• Bloomberg Wants to Make Gun-Toting While Intoxicated a Crime

  ​Oh, now come on! If you're walking around New York minding your own business, and drunk, while carrying a gun, Mayor Bloomberg wants you to get a one-year jail term and a $10,000 fine. And 1010 WINS informs us that even free states like South Dakota and Missouri already have anti-armed-drunk laws like this. What is this, Russia? Sure, rightbloggers of the shootist variety are muscling mayors who side with Bloomberg on these issues to stand down, but how can People of the Gun anywhere con

  September 2, 2009

• Barrett: Bloomberg Book Confirms it was McCain's Nomination That Kept Bloomie from a Presidential Run

  ​Politico posted an excerpt from Joyce Purnick's new biography of Mike Bloomberg this morning and, incredibly, no one noticed the astonishing references in it to Bloomberg's real attitude about Barack Obama. The book, entitled Mike Bloomberg: Money, Power, Politics (Public Affairs), will not be released until September 22; this was an exclusive peek inside. Bloomberg pulled out of the 2008 presidential race in a February 28 New York Times op ed piece right after it became clear that John

  September 14, 2009

• Bloomberg's Term Limits Scheme

  September 29, 2009

• Brooklyn Beep Endorses Bloomberg; Barron Calls Him a "Traitor"

  ​You've probably heard that Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger and co-pilot Jeff Skiles flew their old route over the Hudson today to cheers and flash bulbs and the approbation of Dr. Ruth ("I'm glad you're not retiring, but rewiring," said the pint-sized sexologist to Sully). As usual, Sullenberger was accommodating but apparently not hungry for publicity. On the other hand, Bronx Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz took the occasion to compare Mayor Bloomberg to the hero pilot

  October 1, 2009

• Bloomberg Finances Playgrounds, Not from the Public Coffers, But With the Bodies of Obese Children

  Sounds like an Onion headline, right? Unfortunately, it's sadly true that the mayor, while talking about a sugary beverage tax, invites the purveyors of those same beverages to prey on the city's kids by ceding soda machines prime real estate in the city's playgrounds. Many of the playgrounds don't even have drinking fountains. He might as well pry their little mouths open and pour the corn syrup in. Iowa famers thank you, Mayor Bloomberg. ​ And as for the mayor's own eating habits.

  October 1, 2009

• Cheek, in Review: 7 Days of Runnin' Scared

  ​Twitpic by Mom101. Mayor Bloomberg asked Obama for antiterrorism money. Yet his NYPD minions busted a Staten Island citizen for keeping guns 'n' ammo in his kid's bedroom, so how serious can Bloomberg be about fighting terrorists where it counts? No matter, Marty Markowitz backed him anyway. Consider that outdoor smoking ban a done deal! President Obama spoke at the U.N. -- or rather, in the Rightbloggers version, attacked America. Further proof of Obama's perfidy was detected in t

  October 2, 2009

• Bloomy Flack Changes Speeds on Campaign Spending

  This weekend brought a good reminder about how campaign spokespeople are just hired guns, spinning the message for whoever is picking up the tab. When papers reported on Saturday that Mayor Bloomberg - who has refused to participate in the city's public campaign finance system that caps spending - has already spent an astonishing $65 million, chief Bloomberg campaign spokesperson Jill Hazelbaker told the Times the billionaire mayor's spending was "prudent." She took some shots at Democratic mayo

  October 5, 2009

• Not Dead Yet? Thompson Only 8 Points Down on Bloomberg, Poll Says

  This is remarkable, considering the hopelessness that has become attached to the campaign to unseat Mayor Bloomberg, but PolitickerNY reports that a SurveyUSA poll shows Bill Thompson just eight points down. Last time we checked, Quinnipiac had Bloomberg up by 16. (In July the spread was shown to be ten points.) The poll is not so fresh that the recent endorsements of Thompson by Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand could be considered a factor -- though perhaps these worthies got adva

  October 6, 2009

• Bloomberg Pulls Gun Show Sting; "No Fair," Say ACORN Sting Fans

  Mayor Bloomberg brought his nannying touch to gun shows around Ohio, Nevada and Tennessee, where he found guns being sold to buyers -- or, rather, undercover agents pretending to be buyers -- who admit they probably couldn't pass a legally-required background check, which is sort of like a kid going into a bar and saying, "If you looked at my license, you'd probably see the number 13 where it says 'age,'" and getting served anyway, except the kid can't take the beer away and drown someone wit

  October 8, 2009

• Is Mayor Bloomberg Expropriating City Resources to Further His Campaign?

  ​ NY1 reports this morning that 18-20 sanitation, anti-graffiti, and steam-cleaning trucks recently descended on Inwood in preparation for a campaign appearance by Mayor Bloomberg scheduled for that afternoon. Residents seemed astonished as city personnel removed graffiti, swept up garbage, and cleaned the facades of some buildings.

  October 8, 2009

• Latest Out-of-Town Bloomberg Endorsement: Miami Mayor

  ​Mayor Bloomberg continues to rack up endorsements from people outside New York. The latest is that of Miami Mayor Manuel Diaz. To be fair, New York and Miami share a busy flight corridor, A-Rod likes to party there, and New York is always in contention with the Florida city for America's worst road rage. Also, Diaz is part of Bloomberg's anti-gun mayors coalition/NRA hit-list, and the two men shared a friendly bet on the 2003 World Series between the Yankees and the Marlins, which require

  October 9, 2009

• Barrett: Bloomberg's Hypocrisy On View in Ad Slamming Thompson

  It was a sports weekend on the Barrett tube and my only companion, throughout the hours of playoff baseball, was Bill Thompson. Not his ad, of course, but the latest one Mayor Mike has on every channel endlessly about Thompson, railing about the comptroller's supposed flip-flop on a millionaire's tax. We could close the city budget gap simply by taxing a billionaire's television commercials about a millionaire's tax. The ad is a shout-out for the hypocrite vote.

  October 12, 2009

• A Bloomberg Score Card: The Mayor's Hits and Misses

  October 13, 2009

• Mayor Bloomberg's School-Snack Bungle

  October 13, 2009

• Bloomberg-Thompson Debate Blah Blah Who Cares It's Over We're Fucked

  The Times recaps the Bloomberg-Thompson debate, which from their reading sounds like something that would change no one's mind. Bloomberg shrugs off the term limits debate ("In the end, on Nov. 3, we'll have a vote on what really matters"), is made to "fidget with his fingers" when people mock his Spanish, asserts that "the future of the city for real estate is still quite strong " (meaning it will continue to be scarce and expensive) and attacks Thompson as a lousy President of the Board of Edu

  October 13, 2009

• Mayoral Debate's Little Fibs

  ​Debates are always a great temptation for cheap shots and resume inflation and last night's match between Mike Bloomberg and Bill Thompson did not disappoint. The Times has its own tick-tock this morning of swings and misses but a couple other bits of revisionist history that caught our ear were these: --Bloomberg on why he's repeatedly changed his party affiliation: "I did not have the opportunity to run in the Democratic primary so I became a Republican." Hmmm. Unless there's a secre

  October 14, 2009

• Flavored Tobacco Ban, Stronger Than FDA's, Gets Council Vote Today

  The city council is going to vote today on a bill that will ban all kinds of flavored tobacco products in the city -- with a big exception made for the biggest category of flavored tobacco, menthol and wintergreen cigarettes. It's the latest in a round of bad news for smokers, who are already banned from smoking indoors, pay extra taxes -- and may soon be prohibited from smoking on park benches, if Mayor Bloomberg has his way. The Food and Drug Administration banned candy and fruit-flavored

  October 14, 2009

• Video: Rev . Billy Heckles Mayor Bloomberg

  As we mentioned last night, Green Party mayoral candidate Reverend Billy Talen yelled, "What are you doing? We voted for term limits!" at Bloomberg early in last night's debate, to which he was only welcome as a member of the audience. Here is the video. "We're trying to poke through the $65 million TV screen that weighs down on us in Gotham City," the Reverend says at his blog. He also says he warmed up by "shouting in the street" and hosting "a shoe-tossing with an effigy of Mike Bloomberg."

  October 14, 2009

• Bloomberg & Giuliani to Campaign Together in Friendly NY Territories

  Far be it from us to advise Mayor Bloomberg on electioneering, but we wonder if he has thought through his plan to campaign with hated former mayor Rudolph Giuliani. He warmed up for it during the recent mayoral debate, when he said Giuliani would make a good governor. And someone planted an apparently bogus story about the two Mayors battling for Yankee Stadium playoff seating, which we assume was circulated to get their names mentioned together. Admittedly they have chosen appropriate venues.

  October 15, 2009

• Quick Hits

  ​ Twitpic by imabrand. Mayor Bloomberg suggested in a meeting with the Daily News editorial board that he had to spend $65 million on his reelection because New York is a Democratic town ("This is a city where one party happens to dominate and party is very important"), and thus unfairly resistant to even former Republicans like himself. In case you're joining us from outer space, the past four mayoral elections have been won by Rudolph Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg, who is the fucking inc

  October 15, 2009

• Cheek, in Review: 7 Days of Runnin' Scared

  ​ Twitpic via DanaBoscorelli. Up, Up and Awry! The Balloon Boy and his wacky father helped keep our minds off the real world, which sucked even more than usual. In national news, the Nobel Peace Prize continued its deadly rampage across America. But don't despair, rightbloggers: President Obama scored a shockingly-low 15th in the "Hottest Heads of State." And he was seen dancing with Thalia, which has gotta hurt him with Hispanics, and refusing to hang out with hippies, which has gotta

  October 16, 2009

• Staten Island's McMahon Latest Dem to Endorse Bloomberg; Calls Him "Our Mr. October"

  ​Previously Brooklyn Beep Marty Markowitz, both former council speaker Peter Vallone Sr. and current councilman Peter Vallone Jr., and former Mayor Ed Koch had endorsed Mayor Bloomberg for reelection, and now Staten Island Democratic Representative Michael McMahon has joined them. McMahon is "impressed by his leadership and dedication to promoting New York City," etc, and believes "Mayor Bloomberg is the best candidate to ensure that New York City continues to be America's most prosperous,

  October 20, 2009

• Snooty Weekly, Staten Island Daily Endorse Bloomberg

  ​The New York Observer and the Staten Island Advance today endorse Mayor Bloomberg's third term (the Advance "strongly," the Observer in a tasteful shade of salmon). The proletarian Advance shakes its head that some people, upset by Bloomberg's overthrow of term limits, are planning to vote against him "out of spite." At least Bloomberg took the "public, legal route," they argue. (If he'd seized power at gunpoint, the Advance might have endorsed him less strongly)...

  October 21, 2009

• Latest Bloomberg Mailer: Al Gore (Not Actually) for Mike!

  For the record, Al Gore has not endorsed Mike Bloomberg, but this mailer we received from the Bloomberg campaign wants you to get the impression that Big Al wouldn't take it amiss if you voted for him over the Democrat, Whatshisname. Gore has said other nice things about the Mayor in the past ("a spectacular job of providing leadership as the mayor of the capital city of the world"). No far as we know, he hasn't said boo about Thompson.

  October 23, 2009

• Bloomberg Campaign Spends $37,000 an Hour for Three Weeks

  Michael "Money Bags" Bloomberg managed to spend $18.6 million on his campaign in just the past three weeks, according to campaign records released this afternoon. That's more than $37,000 an hour, or $900,000 a day! In all, he's spent more than $82 million, putting him on course to dish out more than $100 million in his race for a third term. Bloomberg's opponent Bill Thompson, by comparison, has spent close to $6 million in all, including $2.5 million in the past three weeks. So, the mayor is

  October 23, 2009

• Anti-Bloomberg Ad Shows New York of Future Maybe Slightly Worse Than New York of Present

  This anti-Bloomberg ad, created by Communication Workers of America 1180 (dba NYC is Not For Sale), is supposed to describe Mayor Bloomberg's sixth term of office in "a city far different from the one who know today." But then they tell us that "Manhattan is home to only the super-rich" and "working families commute from outer regions to work minimum wage jobs." Way ahead of you, guys: Here in 2009, The average rent on a studio in Manhattan is $1,774, and cashier and clerk are our fastest-gr

  October 26, 2009

• Bloomberg's Public Info Approach: All the News We Think You Need to Know

  Mike Bloomberg, mayor and media mogul, "is a big believer in transparency in government," he assured listeners this spring in a radio talk. This still didn't stop him from cutting the Mayor's Management Report, the city charter-mandated index of city business, in half, reducing its "indicators" --- such as the number of shooting victims - from 2500 to 1200. Those dueling points are included in a review out today by City Limits of public information policies in the age of Bloomberg ("Truth and

  October 27, 2009

• Why Bloomberg Should Get Testy in Tonight's Debate

  ​A campaign operative for Mayor Bloomberg' "exhorts volunteers to shift into overdrive" in the final week before the vote. Why? The Times and its experts express caution over turnout: "Elections have been lost -- most notably David N. Dinkins's 1993 re-election race -- because people who insisted to pollsters that they supported a candidate ultimately did not bother to vote." Having been forced at our polling place that year to provide a provisional ballot due to a Republican challenge,

  October 27, 2009

• Home Stretch Interview with Reverend Billy, Candidate for Mayor of New York

  Photos by Brennan Cavanaugh. (This is our third conversation of the campaign with Green Party candidate for Mayor of New York, Reverend Billy.) How's the campaign going? Are you confident? I'm confident that an accelerated evolution is now taking place. Could you elaborate? This government and its landlord development thug-buddies will ultimately be chased out of town by scared neighborhood defenders. (pause) Will this occur on election day, or at some future date? It's taking place

  October 27, 2009

• Cherry Jones Calls for "Astounding Mandate" for Bloomberg -- Which is How Much, Exactly?

  ​Actress Cherry Jones -- Tony-winner, and the President on 24 -- told the crowd at a recent Women for Bloomberg rally at the Hammerstein Ballroom that "Mayor Bloomberg deserves not only to be reelected mayor of New York City, he deserves an astounding mandate, because the mayor, and those who oppose his policies, need to know that the city stands squarely behind him." This gets Azi Paybarah wondering if Bloomberg can "beat the spread" -- that is, win big enough to claim the illusive "ma

  October 28, 2009

• City Repeals Tax on Freelancers -- But Albany Hits 'Em With Another

  ​Last week the Freelancer's Union sent an email encouraging its 75,000 members to go out and stump for Michael Bloomberg's reelection campaign. "Will you join us?" asked Union president Sara Horowitz, who said she'd be volunteering personally. The group is supporting Bloomberg because earlier this year he delivered on a signature issue -- citing the impact of the recession and freelancers' lack of safety nets, he was able to push through the city council a bill that exempted sole proprieto

  October 29, 2009

• Cheek, in Review: 7 Days of Runnin' Scared

  Twitpic by StWiltshire. The last full week of the election campaign was sorta fun -- as it should have been with Mayor Bloomberg spending $37,000 an hour on it. And it worked: the big papers endorsed him, as did another Democrat, and polls showed him way out of Bill Thompson's reach. We still suggested he get testy in his remaining debate -- and he did! (So did Thompson.) Tom Robbins saw a creepy similarity between Bloomberg '01 and Bloomberg '09 and found the Mayor less than informative; Wa

  October 30, 2009

• Bloomberg calls fire at 9/11 chapel arson

  ​The FDNY are saying that a fire in the Memorial Park where unidentified remains of 9/11 victims are stored was deliberately set, an act Mayor Bloomberg calls "craven and contemptible." The remains are being temporarily stored in a weatherproof tent near the Medical Examiner's office while a permanent memorial is being built on the WTC site. The fire broke out in a chapel space which was set up for families. Some mementos and a wooden bench were destroyed, but no remains were damaged.

  October 31, 2009

• Day Before Election, Cake Man Raven Secures Valuable Bloomberg Endorsement

  ​This morning Mike Bloomberg embarked on a whistlestop tour of small business in the five boroughs. So far, he's stopped at two bakeries: Holterman's in Staten Island and Cake Man Raven in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. We caught up with him at Cake Man Raven, where the Mayor spread icing on a six-layer Southern red velvet cake and was gifted with his first baker's jacket (bright red). After spreading the icing, Harlem Cake Man-cum-Broooklyn Cake Man Raven Patrick De'Sean Dennis asked Mayor Mike

  November 2, 2009

• Bloomberg Wins

  With less than ten percent of districts reporting, NBC called it for Bloomberg, so hey, why not. The Post with 22 percent of the vote has it neck and neck. We'll take the risk. "Upbeat mood at Bloomberg Hq," says Michael Harris. The Mayor will probably appear soon to receive their plaudits and give a speech. It's times like this we're relieved not to have a TV. Well, at least the bodega's still open.

  November 3, 2009

• 12 Points Up in Monday Polls, Bloomberg Wins by 5. Was It All Just a Con?

  Hang on a second. Five points? A week ago Quinnipiac had Bloomberg up 18 points. Yesterday they had him up 12 points. If the polls were anywhere near right, and the shift in their numbers reflected the rate of Thompson's gain, he should have lost by about 10 points. What happened?...

  November 3, 2009

• Bloomberg's Election Night Party -- Actually Fun

  Bloomie knows how to party​It was well past 11:00 p.m., and a couple thousand Bloomberg supporters were still waiting in the Metropolitan Ballroom of the Sheraton Hotel for the mayor to show up. They were an enthusiastic group, shouting slogans of "four more years" while noshing on giant soft pretzels, popcorn, and sliders, all paid for by Mayor Mike. If it weren't for the fact that everyone was constantly checking their Blackberries, people seemed to actually be having a lot of fun. Desp

  November 4, 2009

• Media Amazed By Narrow Bloomberg Victory They Helped Achieve

  ​Mayor Bloomberg is getting the first critical coverage of his campaign the day after it ended. "NYC mayor bruised by surprisingly close victory," says AP. They also seem surprised that "Some voters expressed their discontent in the voting booth, even though they did not believe Bloomberg could lose." Only in New York, kids!... "The editorial/opinion side of New York media was in the tank," post-mortems David Carr at the Times (being too kind by half, we think), "making their endorsement

  November 4, 2009

• Is The Bloom Off The Bloomberg?

  ​So Michael Bloomberg bought himself a third mayoral term by spending the gross national product of New Guinea. I know this because I read about it on Bloomberg.com last night. And how do we feel about this unsurprising development? Well, the guy may be obscenely rich and extremely willing to use the cash to promote himself, but he's also whip smart, if distinctly unglamorous and as sexually, um, ambiguous as Ed Koch was. And under him, New York has become a garbage-strewn wasteland whe

  November 4, 2009

• Barrett: Just How Strange and Pathetic was Bloomberg's Victory?

  ​The key question coming out of this election is whether Mike Bloomberg got the message. Can he listen to voters he'll never face again? If Bloomberg L.P took a hit like he did Tuesday, wouldn't the company take stock and make real changes? Bloomberg spent $80 million in 2005 and won by 19 percent of the vote. He spent more than a hundred million this year (the final number isn't in yet), and won by 4.6 percent of the vote. Diminishing returns on an investment like that might trigger a c

  November 4, 2009

• With Thompson Done, Union People Consider Their Options

  Photo (cc) eliotwb. By Steve Patrick Ercolani. As a crowded elevator car ascended to the third floor of the Hilton on Sixth Avenue Tuesday night, a campaign aide informed former Democratic mayoral nominee Fernando Ferrer that WCBS wanted an interview. "It seems like just yesterday I was at the Waldorf," he whispered to his aide. "But it's Bill's night tonight." That it was. The Hilton's third-floor ballroom was packed with depot lights and television crews. Members of the press and cocktail

  November 5, 2009

• Reverend Billy's Last Stand (of the Campaign)

  By Kate Rose.With a huge Ed McMahon-style check worth $100 million and 99 cents and a bullhorn, Reverend Billy Talen of The Church of Life After Shopping stood in Washington Square Park and announced his miraculous news: "Politics is serious business, and you need $100 million dollars. I won the lottery, I got lucky, and I'm going to be mayor now!" Although it was late in the afternoon on Election Day, the Reverend, in a cobalt blue suit and white clerical collar, was extremely optimistic. (T

  November 5, 2009

• The Bloomberg Blowout That Wasn't

  November 10, 2009

• The Meat Hook Arrives; Mommy Bloggers Shill for Big Food

  ​International aid agencies are saying that a United Nations summit on food security that kicked off in Rome today could be a "waste of time" as it won't commit donors to provide more money to end world hunger. [Bloomberg] Companies like Nestle and Frito Lay are offering "mommy bloggers" all-expense-paid luxury trips to learn about their latest product lines, as well as other perks like free steaks, in return for tweets and blog posts from the bloggers raving about the new products. [LA T

  November 16, 2009