Free Republic

Mayor Bloomberg said Wednesday night he stands ready to ask the Legislature to allow gay marriage in New York State, but doesn't know when the time will be right. "We see that the tide is turning, that support is mounting," Bloomberg told the annual dinner of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center. "Make no mistake, the time will come ... and we will pass this bill." Bloomberg has made similar pledges to testify in Albany for almost three years, but the GOP-run state Senate blocked any such bill. Democrats now run the Senate but have not been able...

A new poll says only 52% of New York City residents believe Mayor Michael Bloomberg is doing a good job. That's his lowest Marist Poll approval rating in nearly four years and a 7-point drop since November. The poll of 827 registered city voters was conducted this week. It also found that more people disapprove of how Mr. Bloomberg is handling the economic crisis than approve. As mayor, Mr. Bloomberg has enjoyed record popularity. But his numbers have slipped since his move last fall to change the city’s term limits law. The billionaire businessman has said his financial expertise makes...

Shazam! Mayor Bloomberg Finally Understands Who Pays NYC TaxesFebruary 19, 2009 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Mayor Bloomberg, state and city revenues in New York are falling because of the Wall Street collapse. State lawmakers are considering income tax increases for households earning between $250,000 and $1 million. They already pay a 6.85% income tax rate. Mayor Bloomberg, who as recently as six months ago would have supported this, had something different to say about it recently on the radio. It's sound bite number 11. BLOOMBERG: One percent of the people that live in the city, the households that file in the...

Mayor Michael Bloomberg paid a visit to an apparently-disgruntled constituent nicknamed 'Staten Island Chuck' on Groundhog's Day -- and got bit for his trouble. Staten Island's famous groundhog, Charles G. Hogg, inexplicably bit Mayor Bloomberg during his annual holiday ceremony on Monday, drawing blood from the billionaire. Said Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser: "It nicked his hand." Bloomberg wrapped the cut with a napkin until he could check with his doctor. He was told there was no risk of rabies. The 2-year-old animal was born and raised in captivity and has had no interaction with other animals.

While many U.S. cities worry that their economies are deteriorating to the level of the 1930s Great Depression, New York City fears reliving a more recent decade that features strongly in city lore. The 1970s were a low point in city history as a fiscal crisis almost pushed it into bankruptcy, crime rates soared, and homeless people crowded sidewalks as public services crumbled. Almost a million people fled New York's Mean Streets during the decade for the safer, more stable suburbs, a population decline that took more than 20 years to reverse. When discussing the current crisis, Mayor Michael Bloomberg,...

Mayor Bloomberg has begun reaching out to city Republican leaders to gauge whether he could run on the GOP line in his re-election bid this year, several sources told The Post. The maneuvering began in the past two weeks, and sources said the mayor is expected to try to run on a major-party as well as a third-party line, likely one of his own creation.

A federal appeals court panel has ruled that a defamation case brought by gun store owners against New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg should proceed in Georgia's Cobb County Superior Court, not federal court. Finding that the federal courts don't have jurisdiction over the matter, the Dec. 19 ruling by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the lawsuit be sent back to Marietta, where it was filed originally. Jasper lawyer Edwin D. Marger, who represents the gun store and its owners, said his clients "absolutely" have a better chance of prevailing on their defamation suit in Cobb County...

December 15, 2008, 4:00 a.m. He’s No RudyBloomberg busies himself with meddlesome gestures while ignoring his core responsibilities. By Deroy Murdock The winner of the 2008 Nero’s Fiddle Award is New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. The richest guy in Gotham recently visited the Eugene O’Neill Theater on West 49th Street to promote an initiative called Broadway Goes Green. The Great White Way’s marquees soon will feature 30,000 more compact-fluorescent light bulbs, the mayor marveled. Playbills and sets will be recycled. Also, costumes will be washed in cold water, not hot. “That is going to have an impact that...

As everybody knows by now, the mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, is so indispensable at a time of financial crisis that he had to get enough hacks in the City Council - led by chief hack Christine Quinn - to overturn the city's law on term limits so he could run for a third term. It is Bloomberg's position that of all the people who want to be the mayor next year, only he, Bloomberg, can save New York from certain disaster.

After once calling an effort to revise his city's term limits law “disgusting,” Michael Bloomberg, the liberal mayor of New York City, has decided to gut the law so he can seek a third term in office. This nasty little tyrant who wants to control nearly every aspect of New Yorkers' lives is reportedly ignoring the advice of his three top aides at City Hall. Bloomberg plans to change the law through city council, rather than by going to the voters who put the law in place by referendum in the 1990s. Guys like Bloomberg are why term limits were...

After months of speculation about his political future, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg plans to announce on Thursday morning that he will seek a third term as mayor, according to three people who have been told of his plans. ight now, Mr. Bloomberg is barred by law from seeking re-election. But he will propose trying to revise the city’s 15-year-old term limits law, which would otherwise force him and dozens of other elected leaders out of office in 2009, the three people said. In his announcement, Mr. Bloomberg, a former Wall Street trader and founder of a billion-dollar financial data firm,...

A South Carolina gun dealer who sued New York's mayor for saying that his shop engaged in "criminal behavior," has asked judges in two states to put his case on hold so he can fight an unrelated criminal charge. Licensed firearms dealer Larry Mickalis was indicted earlier this month on a charge that he illegally sold a rifle to an ex-convict two years ago at his pawn shop in Summerville, S.C.

NEW YORK - Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he is not running for president. The New York mayor says in a New York Times op-ed piece that he has listened carefully to those who encouraged him to make a bid for the White House but that he is not and will not be a candidate for president. Bloomberg, an independent, for two years has played coy about his presidential ambitions. He declares in the piece, posted on the newspaper's Web site, that he might lend his support to a candidate who, in his words, takes an independent, nonpartisan approach.

Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, back-to-back mayors of New York, use nearly identical sales pitches as they try market themselves to a nation often wary of city folks. Being New York City mayor "is about as good a preparation for being president as exists," Giuliani said one morning last spring in Houston. Bloomberg coincidentally was across town delivering a similar message that same day. Giuliani, he said, "couldn't have been more right. I could not have said it better myself." Two months before the first presidential primaries, Giuliani is nursing the front-runner's position among the Republican candidates. Bloomberg is considering...

Twenty-five years ago, long before Rudy Giuliani became mayor of New York City, he made a decision that advanced the cause of gay rights nationally. As the Justice Department's number three official in 1982, Giuliani authorized the hiring of the first openly gay lawyer for a prosecutor post requiring a security clearance, according to records and interviews. That precedent-setting but little-known action, combined with his successful push as mayor for domestic partnership and hate crime laws in New York, make Giuliani an anomaly: a front-runner for the GOP nomination who is a top champion of gay rights. Like the other...

New York, NY (LifeNews.com) -- Pro-abortion mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday switched his party affiliation from Republican to independent in a move many say is a stepping stone to an independent bid for the presidency. Should he decide to run, the mayor's $5 billion fortune provides him with the cash necessary to make a huge dent on the 2008 race. Bloomberg released a statement Tuesday in association with his party switch and it largely avoided any comments about his plans for 2008. He said he filed papers “to change my status as a voter and register as...

Associated Press New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg left the Republican Party on Tuesday and switched to unaffiliated, a move certain to be seen as a prelude to an independent presidential bid that would upend the 2008 race. The billionaire former CEO, who was a lifelong Democrat before he switched to the Republican Party in 2001 for his first mayoral run, said the change in his voter registration does not mean he is running for president. "Although my plans for the future haven't changed, I believe this brings my affiliation into alignment with how I have led and will continue to...

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Mayor Bloomberg is decrying the state of the 2008 presidential race, faulting the major party candidates for offering shallow, simplistic prescriptions, and scolding the press for failing to demand more from those seeking the White House. During an appearance at Google's headquarters in Silicon Valley yesterday, Mr. Bloomberg said the televised debates among the presidential candidates have been, in essence, a waste of time. "They have absolutely nothing to do with the job and the qualifications. And they don't tell you anything about whether or not any of those candidates would be good or bad presidents....

Mayor Michael Bloonberg has announced that he is leaving the Republican Party, and will continue his Mayoralty as an Independent.

August 24, 2006 -- Florida Gov. Jeb Bush will join Mayor Bloomberg at an Association for a Better New York forum next week to push for increased accountability in public schools. The two co-wrote an op-ed piece in The Washington Post ...