Free Republic

The governor’s race in Kentucky may have given the GOP its most satisfying victory of Election Night 2015, but the maintenance of the status quo in Virginia may be the most meaningful. Outside groups poured into the Commonwealth in an attempt to gain Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe more leverage, including the SEIU and Michael Bloomberg’s gun-control activists, who spent more than $2 million on statehouse races. They came up empty, and in the process called into serious question the direction of the Democratic Party and the strategy of its presidential frontrunner: Republicans held onto the Virginia Senate in fiercely contested...

Despite several years of Michael Bloomberg and others spending hundreds of millions of dollars attacking the NRA, a new Gallup poll shows that non-gun owners have a favorable opinion of the NRA (by 7 percentage points). Moderates are even 17 percentage points more likely to have a favorable opinion. Overall, the NRA has a significantly more favorable image than either President Obama or Hillary Clinton. Yet, according to Adam Winkler in The Washington Post, the NRA will inevitably decline in power. The claim is a simple one: Gun ownership is greatest among rural whites, a group whose voting power is...

A critical race in the battle for control of the Virginia Senate has entered a new dimension for state legislative races with a national gun-control group’s announcement that it is buying $700,000 of political advertisements for Democrat Daniel A. Gecker in his race for the 10th District seat in Richmond and its suburbs. Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund, backed by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said Wednesday it will begin airing a television ad today in the Richmond media market that features the father of Alison Parker, a 24-year-old Roanoke television reporter gunned down with her cameraman, Adam...

One of the biggest champions for gun control in the Empire State, State Sen. Liz Krueger, D-Manhattan, is advocating taking over the National Rifle Association from the inside. After broaching the subject in a round table discussion with U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-NY, who is a fan of anti-gun legislation at a national level, Kruger repeated it for clarity to the New York Daily News. “Perhaps if we all join, we could take over that group and start a new (gun control) platform,” Krueger said. “I think we outnumber the people who are members of the NRA and are so...

With whispers that former New York City mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg may mull a run for the White House, politicos are already hyperventilating about how he would shake up the current field. Would he run as a Democrat, a Republican or an independent (he's been all three)? Would he take on billionaire rival Donald Trump? Would he swing at Hillary Clinton (whom he reportedly does not like)? Yet despite the excitement from election-watchers, Bloomberg's entry is unlikely and ill-advised anyway. In an interview with Byron York, Republican strategist Alex Castellanos summed it up: "Michael Bloomberg is a solution in...

Thursday afternoon Michael Bloomberg's anti-gun advocacy group Everytown for America held a small rally in Washington D.C. in front of the Capitol Building in an effort to shame Congress into passing gun control legislation. Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe spoke at the event and brought his armed body guard with him. Terry McAuliffe Shows Up With Armed Body Guard at Anti-Gun EventA few things. First off, McAuliffe's claim that people "can be armed" while we were standing on the Capitol grounds in Washington D.C. is false. It is nearly impossible for law abiding civilians to be legally armed in Washington D.C....

A notorious al Qaeda magazine is encouraging lone-wolf terrorist attacks on U.S. economic leaders, including Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg and Warren Buffett. The list in Inspire magazine also included industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch, internet entrepreneur Larry Ellison, and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. A prominent economist was also on the list but asked that his name be withheld. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke was named, though not Janet Yellen, who succeeded him. Also pictured was Jim Walton, one of the heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune, although he was misidentified in the caption as his late father, Sam Walton. Several...

Gay activists fume over de Blasio’s role in rentboy.com raidGay activists are furious over the rentboy.com raid and arrests for prostitution — and they are wondering why Mayor de Blasio and Police Commissioner William Bratton worked with the federal prosecutors in Brooklyn. Both the mayor and Bratton march in the very same gay pride parade in which rentboy.com has a float. “Koch, Giuliani and Bloomberg didn’t go after rentboy.com. Why is de Blasio?” wondered one gay man who has used the service.

The rumblings are beginning. Just as the Democratic party considers drafting a 2016 challenger into take on a floundering Hillary Clinton, GOP voices are speaking up about shaking up their primary race as well. Conservative stalwarts Bill Kristol is leaving the door open for an “October surprise,” even suggesting the possibility that a business person, such as a “saner and sounder” version of Donald Trump, could emerge. Now enter a man who knows a thing or two of drumming up attention (and selling papers) - Rupert Murdoch. Just as massive stock drop has many investors eyeing the financial headlines, the...

Presidential candidate and former Gov. Jeb Bush got into some hot water recently over his past work with a foundation run by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg for its funding of Planned Parenthood. What went unnoticed, however, was that Bush worked with Bloomberg as he gave millions to environmental groups to take down the coal industry. Bush, who’s looking to win the Republican presidential nomination, served as a founding director of the Bloomberg Family Foundation — now called Bloomberg Philanthropies — from 2010 through 2014. During Bush’s second year with the organization, Bloomberg donated $50 million to the...

The Obama administration estimates that Iranian-supplied bombs killed "hundreds" of American troops in Iraq during the war, and the president himself has explicitly acknowledged that the deal's generous sanctions relief provisions will allow the regime to enhance its world-leading financing of international terrorism. An organization called Veterans Against the Deal has something to say about that: Sgt. Bartlett calls on Senators to reject the Iran deal "I was blown up by an Iranian bomb…that's who we're making a deal with. Every politician who's involved in this will be held accountable…A vote for this deal means more money for Iranian terrorism. What do...

The Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University put out this press release on a paper by Rudolph, Stuart, Vernick, and Webster: "A 1995 Connecticut law requiring a permit or license – contingent on passing a background check – in order to purchase a handgun was associated with a 40 percent reduction in the state’s firearm-related homicide rate, new research suggests. "Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, part of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, compared Connecticut’s homicide rates during the 10 years following the law’s implementation to the rates that...

Wall Street wants Michael Bloomberg to run for president, but the billionaire isn't budging. At the Yale CEO Summit this week, the talk was of "drafting Bloomberg" however possible. The former New York City mayor seems like the perfect solution for Wall Street's problems with the current field of presidential candidates. The Street sees him as a centrist technocrat who adeptly managed one of the most complex cities in the world. They think he understands the global business community. Rumblings about a Bloomberg run are especially strong at several bulge bracket banks, including Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Merrill once...

Columbia University would never sponsor an event funded by the National Rifle Association. What’s more, the idea would seem especially outlandish if most of the speakers at the event were NRA supporters. Yet, gun control advocate and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his gun control group Everytown are now funding a two-day workshop in Phoenix on Friday and Saturday sponsored by Columbia University’s Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. The event will bring together journalists from around the country to learn about “covering guns and gun violence.” Bruce Shapiro, executive director of the Dart Center, claims that...

New York Times Co. shares leaped 10.7 percent in after-hours trading after Fox Business Network reported billionaire businessman Michael Bloomberg had expressed renewed interest in buying the paper. The former New York City mayor was prepared to pay up to $5 billion to acquire the Gray Lady — more than double the $2.3 billion market cap of the company. Bloomberg LP completely dismissed the FBN report as untrue. “There is no truth to this rumor,” Ty Trippet, a spokesman for the data and business news service, said in an e-mail. Mike Bloomberg has in the past expressed interest in buying...

This past Saturday Bloomberg’s Everytown representative, Ted Alcorn, insisted that he would not appear simultaneously with John Lott (the author of More Guns, Less Crime (University of Chicago Press) and the president of the Crime Prevention Research Center) on C-SPAN. Alcorn would only appear after Lott's segment was finished. Here is John Lott's discussion of Bloomberg's gun control advocates unwillingness to ever debate http://www.c-span.org/video/standalone/?c4535462 Here is Bloomberg’s Research Director’s explanation for why his organization won't ever debate. http://www.c-span.org/video/standalone/?c4535518 Acorn's explanation for why Bloomberg's groups refuse to debate is pretty embarrassing. Hopefully, these clips will get a lot of attention and...

Last year, Michael Bloomberg’s gun control organization launched a “six-figure ad campaign” pressuring Kroger to ban guns on its property. The extensive campaign had “print and digital ads in USA Today, the Cincinnati Enquirer, Columbus Dispatch, Detroit Free Press, Detroit News and Houston Chronicle. Print-only ads will run in the Tennessean.” On April 22nd, fortunately a concealed handgun permit holder who was leaving a Kroger had his handgun with him. From Fox News 16 in Little Rock, Arkansas:

Who is the last great hope for Republicans in 2016 as they seek to maintain control of the Senate… and possibly the White House? One surprising answer is coming out of the annual convention of the NRA, and his name is Michael Bloomberg. The well monied former New York mayor and head honcho of Everytown for Gun Safety is holding his own event in Tennessee to focus attention on politicians who aren’t willing to sign on to ever increasing restrictions of the rights of gun owners. And it’s got some Democrats worried with good reason. “Every time a Democrat starts...

Michael Bloomberg is spending tens of millions of dollars trying to convince state legislatures to support restrictive gun control laws. From television and newspaper ads, to blanketing communities with flyers, to bringing in people from out of state to testify, no effort seems too great. Then again, he is worth of over $36 billion. But Bloombeg’s newest campaign has become so extreme that even gun control advocates may wonder that he is becoming a liability to their cause. And he has already earned a reputation for fabricating numbers, with even liberal-leaning PolitiFact slamming Bloomberg for exaggerating the number of school...

Bloomberg's argument here is that the bill to allow concealed handgun permit holders to carry on school property is really an attempt to let criminals carry guns around schools. The fact that people will need a permit that requires a criminal background check is never mentioned. So what is the rate that permit holders cause problems? It is very, very rare. . . .