Free Republic

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....

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.

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...

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...

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...

Despite years of enforcement stings, many New York stores still aren't complying with state rules banning the sale of toy guns that could be confused with the real thing, state officials said Tuesday. (NOT PHOTOSHOP)

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has pushed an ambitious green agenda and cast himself as a national environmental leader, routinely runs afoul of his own anti-pollution policy by letting his official SUVs idle, sometimes for more than an hour. In spot checks over the past week, The Associated Press timed idling periods for the mayor's city-owned SUVs, which shuttle him around the city or trail him when he takes the subway. The parked vehicles idled at least eight times for periods of 10 minutes to over an hour. The mayor earlier this year strengthened the city's anti-idling law -- which allows...

Mayor Michael Bloomberg says New York City's schools can't close for Muslim holidays. The City Council is considering a non-binding resolution on Tuesday asking the Education Department to observe Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. The city has the nation's largest school system. A 2008 study by Columbia University's Teachers College estimates at least 10 percent of its 1.1 million students are Muslim.

Bloomberg: Schools Won't Close For Muslim Holidays ALBANY (CBS) ― Mayor Michael Bloomberg says New York City's schools can't close for Muslim holidays. The City Council is considering a nonbinding resolution on Tuesday asking the Education Department to observe Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. The city has the nation's largest school system. A 2008 study by Columbia University's Teachers College estimates at least 10 percent of its 1.1 million students are Muslim. Eid, which means "festivity", al-Fitr, "to break fast," marks the end of Ramadan. Eid al-Adha celebrates the willingness of Ibrahim -- known as Abraham to Christians and Jews...

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is turning his attention to women voters in his bid for a third term, with three new ads and a town hall meeting this week. Monday's town hall will be moderated by one of Bloomberg's celebrity admirers, Whoopi Goldberg. The campaign said the audience will be comprised of invited guests, but questions from the audience won't be prescreened. The meeting comes as his campaign is releasing new television ads that feature testimonials from members of his "Women for Bloomberg" campaign group, including Kelli Conlin, president of NARAL Pro-Choice New York, an abortion rights organization. The ads focus...

Most New Yorkers do not know Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s political party affiliation, a new poll of New York City residents conducted by The New York Times with Cornell University and NY1 News finds. But their confusion is perhaps well founded, as Mr. Bloomberg has been a Democrat as well as a Republican, before becoming an independent a couple of years ago. The poll asked respondents if they knew if Mr. Bloomberg was a Democrat, Republican, independent or something else. Just one in three New Yorkers correctly answered that he was an independent. More than one in four thought he...

More evidence that today's "photo op" jumbo jet flight in Manhattan was a major SNAFU. Mayor Bloomberg just held a press conference saying he was "furious" at the "ridiculous" stunt and that he was not informed of the planned flight. Someone here screwed up big time if even the Mayor wasn't informed.

Rudy Giuliani: Mr. Mayor of America. Today the US Government flew the Presidential Jet known as Air Force 2, with two fighter jets in tow, over the great city of New York. This Mr. Mayor was stunt that was performed for more than 30 minutes while flying low over the Manhattan sky Line, with steep banking turns and full throttle verticals. Mr. Mayor the great people of New York were not just alarmed they were scared by this shameful act. The memories of 9-11 were brought to the forefront of New Yorkers who were scared and thinking "Not again"! This...

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is at it again. Two years ago, mere weeks after the shootings at Virginia Tech, Mr. Bloomberg, who seems to think most gun violence originates in Virginia, authorized a rogue sting operation, sending teams of private investigators into the Old Dominion to set up “straw” purchases of firearms. He did this without informing any of the pertinent authorities of his intention, thus eliciting somewhat more than quizzical looks from Gov. Kaine and Attorney General Bob McDonnell. Just this past week, Mr. Bloomberg took aim at Virginia yet again — and at Mr. McDonnell in...

Michael Bloomberg is planning to run for reelection as the candidate of the Republican Party, and of the Independence Party. He is also running, for all intents and purposes, as the candidate of the Democratic Party. Take the mayor’s apparently successful pre-election quest for the favor of Barack Obama. In recent days and weeks, he has defended embattled Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on Meet the Press, lambasted critics wishing failure on the president, enthusiastically endorsed the president’s health care plan, featured a special video message from Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett at an event on volunteerism and finally, on April 21,...

According to an article in the New York Daily News of April 11, Mayor Mike Bloomberg has now secured the support of the county chair of the Bronx Borough Republican Party. New York election laws permit an independent (or a member of another party) to run in a party primary for Mayor of New York City, if that candidate gets permission to run from 3 of the 5 boroughs of the city. Bloomberg had already been endorsed for re-election this year by the leaders of the Brooklyn and Staten Island Republican Parties. Bloomberg has been a registered independent since late...

An ad campaign is being launched today to try to force New York City's gun-control laws on Virginians. The ads running in the commonwealth are funded by New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. The mayor should keep his big-government politics north of the Mason-Dixon Line where they belong. Mr. Bloomberg donated $500,000 last year to a gun-control lobbying outfit called Americans United for Safe Streets, which is running the campaign. The mayor's largesse accounts for 99.5 percent of all money raised by the group. The ads are pegged to the second anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings and link...

NYDN: Michael Bloomberg twice ran for mayor as a Republican, but quit the party in 2007 when he was contemplating an independent run for President. He is still a registered Independent, and thus needed permission from a majority of the five party chairmen to run on their line.

Mayor Bloomberg will run for reelection as a Republican this fall, the Daily News has learned, after successfully courting the party to let him back on its ballot line two years after he left it. "Mayor Bloomberg and I have had healthy disagreements over issues at times, but I know he is the right person to lead this city forward," said Jay Savino, chairman of the Bronx GOP, who followed his Brooklyn and Staten Island counterparts to become the third county chairman to back the mayor. Bloomberg twice ran for mayor as a Republican, but quit the party in 2007...