Bloomberg: Wrong Mayor, Wrong City, Wrong Time

Any erstwhile liberal New Yorkers thinking of supporting Mike Bloomberg's bid for a third term should read the New York Times carefully. The city hasn't been spared the ravages of the recession. As of December, unemployment stood at 7.4 percent, and experts predict almost 300,000 more jobs will be gone by the summer of 2010. Homeless rates are at record highs; the city's overstretched shelters now take in an average of 36,000 people each night. The city's already beleagured middle-class is in full flight. According to a recent study by the Center for an Urban Future, over 150,000 middle income residents left New York City in 2006, driven away by the highest rent, food, child care and utilities bills in the country. Meanwhile, Manhattan has been thoroughly rezoned--thanks to Rudy Giuliani's quality of life campaign and plush subsidies for developers--as the almost exclusive playground of the rich.

If Mayor Mike gets reelected, it will stay this way--or get worse. As the NYT reported on February 17, Bloomberg is refusing to accept extra food stamp money from Obama's stimulus package:

"The provision overturns a 1996 rule limiting able-bodied adults who have no dependents to three months of food stamps in a three-year period. But the Bloomberg administration said on Tuesday that nothing had changed and that it was not obligated to extend benefits to anyone not enrolled in the Work Experience Program, a workfare program that provides temporary jobs, usually in city agencies."

In this climate, Bloomberg's decision is an act of cruel sadism, withholding food (food!) from thousands of hungry mouths to make an ideological point about work (at fake jobs that don't exist). It's also straight from the playbook of the most reactionary Republican governors like Sarah Palin, Mark Sanford and Bobby Jindal, who are threatening to return stimulus money to prove just how much better free markets are than government (South Carolina, check back with me in a year to see how well that plan's going, okay?).

But here's the really unbelievable part: the next day Mayor Mike announced a $45 million program that would use taxpayer money to retrain "investment bankers, traders and others who have lost jobs on Wall Street." And what will these poor bankers who can no longer afford their Frette sheets and Barney's baubles be trained to do? Sweep streets? File paperwork? Scoop poop? Teach nursery school (remember those high child care costs!)? No way! That's make work for the poor.

Instead, Bloomberg intends to set them up with "seed capital and office space" so that they can 'promote innovation' and 'capture growth.' According to Seth Pinksy, president of the city's Economic Development Corporation, the plan could target those laid-off from jobs in "capital markets" (i.e. the collateralized debt obligations and mortgage securities that got us into this mess). "We have a substantial number of very talented people coming out of Wall Street," he whined. "Where do these people go?"

I have a slighly different reaction to their plight than Pinksy, which is chiefly: F**K if I care. But there you have a succinct encapsulation of Mike Bloomberg's priorities. Poor, hungry New Yorkers will be stripped of food stamps that the federal government says is both necessary and good stimulus, while the bollocks-for-brains bankers who got us into this mess will get office space and taxpayer moolah to restart the cycle of speculation.

I love NYC. (If I knew how to make a little heart sign in the last sentence, I would.) It's been my home for most of my life, and I'm convinced it needs a new mayor for a new moment. Not someone who represents the FIRE industries (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate), throws around lavish bonuses to his supporters and buys off the city's political elite with his foundation's cash. Right now, NYC needs a mayor for all of us--for the boroughs, for the poor, for the working class and the strivers and laborers and artists, musicians and writers who have made the Big Apple the best place on earth.

UPDATE: Here's NY state senator Liz Krueger on the folly of refusing to participate in the federal food stamp extension. NB: every $1 in food stamps translates into $1.70 in immediate economic activity.

Comments (45)

1. git him, RICHARD!

   Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/18/2009 @ 6:38pm

2. When was the last time food stamps, welfare, and unemployment payment produced JOBS and a thriving economy? That is the reason this porkbarrel spending bill will do NOTHING to create any kind of commerce, industry, or service jobs! It will insure a base of Undemocrat voters looking for more handouts in the future! Get real for once!

   Posted by comancheamerican at 02/18/2009 @ 7:02pm

3. News of crises and taxpayer bailouts in the financial industry may dominate headlines, but the national economic news is not all bad.

   Key government economic indicators show there is some good news about the economy, too.

   According to U.S. Department of Commerce, the economy has been growing, not contracting, this year. While Gross Domestic Product did decline by 0.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007, it rebounded in the first two quarters of this year, growing 0.9 percent in the first quarter, and 3.3 percent in the second.

   According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the dollar is gaining strength against the Euro; gas and crude oil prices are falling (down 6.3 percent since July); and exports have increased 13 percent.

   Desmond Lachman, an economist with the conservative American Enterprise Institute who said he is pessimistic about the longer-term economic prospects, said overall economic growth has been good for the year--driven in part by rising exports and government stimulus.

   Private wages and salaries increased by 7.9 billion in June and $13.2 billion in July. Over the course of the past twelve months, the Consumer Price Index (which measures inflation) is up 5.4%. In August, however, it fell 0.1%, the first decline in almost two years.

   The trouble in the financial sector, however, as well as recessions in Japan and Europe, will put a drag on U.S. economic growth by the end of the year, Lachman predicts.

   The nation's financial and insurance industry has taken a hit this year, but that is only one part of the economy. Bureau of Economic Analysis statistics show that 25 percent of the economy has accounted for nearly 80 percent of the slowdown, with the financial industry accounting for 50 percent of the slowdown alone.

   Posted by comancheamerican at 02/18/2009 @ 7:08pm

4. "Mortgage default numbers aren't a big national issue," said Sheldon Richman, an economist with the Foundation for Economic Education and editor of The Freeman. "When put in perspective; we're not on the verge of a Great Depression."

   "The economy will work its way through it," said Richman. "We got through the S&L crisis and we didn't suffer a depression and there was growth after that, and there's growth going on now."

   The pork barrel spending spree of Obamanation and the Undemocrats based on shameless scare tactics will amount to nothing more than the "political power grab" that it really is! Unfortunately it will be at the expense of every American and their families and will go down as the biggest porulus giveaway ever recorded!

   Posted by comancheamerican at 02/18/2009 @ 7:11pm

5. "Mortgage default numbers aren't a big national issue," said Sheldon Richman, an economist with the Foundation for Economic Education and editor of The Freeman. "When put in perspective; we're not on the verge of a Great Depression."

   You know once upon a time when Happy wasn't worried and used to be well, Happy ...

   "The economy will work its way through it," said Richman. "We got through the S&L crisis and we didn't suffer a depression and there was growth after that, and there's growth going on now."

   He use to use the same tack, wow I have not heard that for some time. Laughable. The economy (such as it was, to such a degree that a credit rollover mechanism fused time bomb has the capacity to mimic an economy, in any case ...) disintegrated years ago, the truth will not be told till the people own the paper. Like I said ...

   Posted by V at 02/18/2009 @ 7:30pm

6. Bloomberg must go. he is a liar.

   Posted by emile duBois at 02/18/2009 @ 8:27pm

7. Bloomberg should be recalled or impeached, and then tarred and feathered, and then driven out of NYC barefoot in the dead of winter. Turning down food stamps to make an ideological point during a bad recession essentially de-legitimizes any claim Bloomberg has towards being a legitimate public official. What's next, debtor's prisons? No, what's next is the coddling and pampering of the rich and slimy and recently unemployed of Wall Street. Take the food stamps, and give them in the form of carte blanche cache to rich bankers and investors to do with as they please.

   Bloomberg is hardly alone in showing what a reprehensible scumbag he is in doing these things - this recession and the economic crises are really bringing out the true colors of American public officials, and those colors are ugly indeed - but Bloomberg apparently is apparently so tone deaf to public outrage and loss in this recession that he doesn't even try to conceal his activities.

   Get the tar, get the feathers, get out the angry mob, and drag that worthless son of a bitch out of town behind a rope attached to a pickup truck trailer hitch. He deserves it.

   Posted by syfriendly at 02/18/2009 @ 8:31pm

8. What a joke. Kim and the liberal bloggers rail against Bloomberg who is a liberal because he doesn't promote a total welfare state in NY city.

   you folks are the worst kind of socialists, pseudo intellectuals who believe the grasshopper was right

   "Oh the world owes me a living".

   Posted by antisocialist at 02/18/2009 @ 8:37pm

9. The FIRE industries are destroying the entire country. The citizenry required to sustain these bums will increasingly have to travel from many miles away after being priced out of the city. But the same thing is happening to communities far away from the urban core.

   Are we headed for a gilded age situation again? We have the muckrakers here at the Nation. When will the public awaken?

   Posted by Sorelish at 02/18/2009 @ 8:39pm

10. Bloomberg is like some sort of antagonist out of a Charles Dickens novel. A big city mayor who turns down free food stamps from the Federal government during a historic economic crash?!!! What, does he WANT people going hungry needlessly?

    Tell Bloomberg that if he wants to turn down free foodstamps from the Federal government, that he should be the first to eat one poor meal a day and go very hungry for an extended period of time, because that is what he is doing to the poorest people in the city he supposedly administers. He is deliberately attacking the poorest and most vulnerable people in the city he is supposedly administering. Bloomberg is a reprehensible scumbag who should not only be driven from New York City but made to feel uncomfortable anywhere he resides where anyone might recognize him after this.

    Posted by syfriendly at 02/18/2009 @ 8:44pm

11. Two thoughts

    1. Richard Kim makes the statement ".......that the federal government says is both necessary and good stimulus......"

    Apparently Mr. Kim has not learned yet that just because the government says something is good it doesn't mean it IS good.

    2. I have not been too fond of Mayor Bloomberg lately, with his propensity to micromanage peoples lives and dictate through New York City law what people should eat (ban on Trans Fats, worry about salt in diets)

    Jan 28, 2009 7:29 pm US/Eastern Mayor Bloomberg Declares War On ... Salt Hizzoner Calls On U.S. Manufacturers To Reduce Salt Content Until It Results In A 50 Percent Cut In 10 Years Citizens Revolt, Claim NYC Is Turning Into Nanny State

    http://wcbstv.com/politics /bloomberg.war.on.2.920343.html

    I have high blood pressure and long ago stopped putting salt on my food - and somehow I did this without being told by Mayor Bloomberg to do it!

    However, that having been said, if libs such as the author of the article above (Richard Kim) are critical of Mayor Bloomberg, then maybe he is not so bad after all, because I have learned that the more agitated libs are about someone, the better they would be for the country (such as the next U.S. President, Sarah Palin, for example).

    Posted by sjchermak at 02/18/2009 @ 8:45pm

12. However, that having been said, if libs such as the author of the article above (Richard Kim) are critical of Mayor Bloomberg, then maybe he is not so bad after all, because I have learned that the more agitated libs are about someone, the better they would be for the country (such as the next U.S. President, Sarah Palin, for example).

    Posted by sjchermak at 02/18/2009 @ 8:45pm

    I really wonder what world some folks are living in. GW had the libs (including myself) pretty damn agitated. And he was just GREAT for the country, look at how wonderful everything is now, he sure did leave us in great shape. Good Greif!

    Posted by Extraneous at 02/18/2009 @ 8:55pm

13. "Bloomberg must go. he is a liar."

    Posted by emile duBois at 02/18/2009 @ 8:27pm

    I second that, and think him worse.

    What is pathological in Bloomberg (in DLC-crats as a rule) is a perfect metaphor for the high priests and leaders of the 28% and 12%'ers taken as a whole.

    What's in a name indeed.

    Posted by V at 02/18/2009 @ 8:56pm

14. "Oh the world owes me a living".---Posted by antisocialist at 02/18/2009 @ 8:37pm

    "Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?"

    (Hey, if YOU can hyperbole...so can I, right?)

    Posted by Mask at 02/18/2009 @ 9:52pm

15. (such as the next U.S. President, Sarah Palin, for example).----Posted by sjchermak at 02/18/2009 @ 8:45pm |

    Hey, SJCHER....can we pull all of Rush's comments on Tom Daschle and "not paying his taxes"...

    when Sarah runs in 2012?!?!??!

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/8364737

    Posted by Mask at 02/18/2009 @ 9:54pm

16. Like I said; When was the last time food stamps, welfare, and unemployment payment produced JOBS and a thriving economy? That is the reason this porkbarrel spending bill will do NOTHING to create any kind of commerce, industry, or service jobs! It will insure a base of Undemocrat voters looking for more handouts in the future! Get real for once!

    Hopefully these blind pigs will find the acorn of truth if they care at all about the economic survival of the U.S.A.. The funniest thing the nation has posted on a thread was AFTER the pork barrel spending bill was passed a thread was caption "What we need now is jobs creation" revealing they DO know the truth about this rape of the taxpayer@

    Posted by comancheamerican at 02/18/2009 @ 11:12pm

17. Bloomberg has only contempt for anyone needing public education, food stamps, public health care. These are untermenschen who deserve to be punished. Among his backers, colleagues, friends he is far from alone.

    As a billionaire, no surprise Bloomberg is an egomaniac with immense ambitions ... the White House looms large, hence his buying enough city council votes for an illegal 3rd term as mayor. He needs the political platform for a run in '12 when/if Obama looks sufficiently beaten down by an intractable economy in the toilet & 2 disastrous foreign wars (at least).

    And unless the unlikely should befall him (money not enough), most media will treat him as a highly viable presidential candidate.

    He's prepared to spend 2 whole yards (billions, that is, in his class speak) of his own money to reach the imperial top. (Estimated $15-16B net worth.) That's a lot of time saved,a lot of energy set to work, a lot of pols bought.

    Watch.

    Posted by sloper at 02/18/2009 @ 11:44pm

18. (such as the next U.S. President, Sarah Palin, for example).

    Posted by sjchermak at 02/18/2009 @ 8:45pm

    ooooh,

    i bet you've got her poster.........

    Posted by frosty zoom at 02/19/2009 @ 12:25am

19. because I have learned that the more agitated libs are about someone, the better they would be for the country (such as the next U.S. President, Sarah Palin, for example).

    Posted by sjchermak

    Sarah Palin is a rube and will never be POTUS.

    As far as Mayor Mcscrooge...He should be impeached the hell out of office. Whether he likes poor people or not, he is their mayor too. And, rejecting free food for them, for no good reason except to prove a point, is callous and irresponsible.

    Posted by koroviev at 02/19/2009 @ 02:06am

20. Come back a day later and the leftists are still crying about not getting a free life..free food, housing, medical, retirement.

    Ah, life is good for those who contribute nothing......

    Posted by antisocialist at 02/19/2009 @ 10:47am

21. "Like I said; When was the last time food stamps, welfare, and unemployment payment produced JOBS and a thriving economy?"

    Posted by comancheamerican at 02/18/2009 @ 11:12pm

    The last time people had food to eat, a roof over their heads, and were able to maintain both after they lost employment.

    Dauh ...

    Posted by V at 02/19/2009 @ 10:49am

22. I was always under the impression that food stamps helped shore up the rural economy by helping people buy its products, i.e., food.

    Welfare and unemployment insurance help people get through the bad times (most people who used to be on welfare spent relatively short periods on it, but often had to go on and off it because the low-wage economy made it impossible for them to save for a rainy day.). As imperfect as they are, they serve as bulwarks against self-righteous a**holes like comanche and Bloomburg who want to force people into working for poverty wages, if any wage at all.

    It's times like these that I have to remind myself that the gulag was a BAD thing, and that tarring and feathering is torture. How about we just expropriate all of Bloomburg's wealth and exile him? You know, like the founding fathers did to the Loyalists?

    Posted by cka2nd at 02/19/2009 @ 10:58am

23. . How about we just expropriate all of Bloomburg's wealth and exile him? You know, like the founding fathers did to the Loyalists?

    Posted by cka2nd at 02/19/2009 @ 10:58am

    How about we just raise funds and send all of you good marxist/socialists to be with dictator for life Hugo Chavez? There you can enjoy your "workers paradise".

    Posted by antisocialist at 02/19/2009 @ 11:04am

24. You know what, antisocialist, this is my country just as much as it is yours, and I have just as much right to try to change things as you do. And the next time you hear me use the term "worker's paradise" without irony will be the first time I've said it.

    I saw Alexandra Pelosi's documentary on McCain voters the other night, and it was amusing to see some of them say that if Obama won, they would leave the country for places like Spain (Social Democratic), the Bahamas (off-shore tax haven with shady financial services, now that makes more sense) and CANADA (to join the Kerry voters who left after Bush got re-elected). If you offered to move to some Christain, god-fearing paradise, maybe a few of us on this board would be willing to kick in a few bucks to wish you on your way. Columbia kills union activists at a high rate; maybe that would suit you?

    By the way, I've said on this site in the past that Chavez was wrong to move to overturn presidential term limits. Maybe Mask can dig it up for you.

    Posted by cka2nd at 02/19/2009 @ 11:31am

25. By the way, I've said on this site in the past that Chavez was wrong to move to overturn presidential term limits. Maybe Mask can dig it up for you.

    Posted by cka2nd at 02/19/2009 @ 11:31am

    Glad to hear that but it doesn't change the fact that you would like to see the US run more like Venezuela.

    Posted by antisocialist at 02/19/2009 @ 11:39am

26. antisocialist, If you have nothing good to say (including a decent rebuttal) then you should just keep it to yourself. Attempting to put words in other people's mouths serves no one, least of all yourself.

    Bloomberg needs to go. Overdevelopment has run its course. NYers need to reclaim our space.

    Posted by dadixon at 02/19/2009 @ 1:17pm

27. Bloomberg needs to go. Overdevelopment has run its course. NYers need to reclaim our space.

    Posted by dadixon at 02/19/2009 @ 1:17pm

    Well I do agree that Bloomberg needs to go. New Yorkers deserve a decent conservative Mayor if one can be found.

    Posted by antisocialist at 02/19/2009 @ 1:28pm

28. antisocialist,

    According to a website I have found, A-Rod is Republican... but I don't know how people would react to a mayor who had used steroids.

    Also, Yogi Berra shows up as a Republican, but he lives in New Jersey, I believe.

    Tom Coughlin also shows up as a Republican, but he works in New Jersey currently as coach of a team I hate, the Morons. (everybody else but me calls them NY Giants). Fortunately, they are no longer the current Super Bowl champions.

    So we conservatives need to keep looking, I guess.

    http://www.newsmeat.com/ sports_political_donations/

    Posted by sjchermak at 02/19/2009 @ 2:16pm

29. Also, libs will go beserk at this suggestion, which is good, but Sean Hannity would make a good Mayor.

    However, even though he is native to the area, he is a native and resident on Long Island and would probably have to establish actual residence in New York City.

    Posted by sjchermak at 02/19/2009 @ 2:19pm

30. Also, libs will go beserk at this suggestion, which is good, but Sean Hannity would make a good Mayor.

    However, even though he is native to the area, he is a native and resident on Long Island and would probably have to establish actual residence in New York City.

    Posted by sjchermak at 02/19/2009 @ 2:19pm

    Sorry SJ, but I'm no fan of Hannity. I find him simplistic and a shallow thinker.

    He is popular and plays to a certain mindset-got to give him credit for that.

    Posted by antisocialist at 02/19/2009 @ 2:48pm

31. Glad to hear that but it doesn't change the fact that you would like to see the US run more like Venezuela.

    Posted by antisocialist at 02/19/2009 @ 11:39am

    In some respects, yes.

    Posted by cka2nd at 02/19/2009 @ 3:28pm

32. I actually agree with this article, but the very idea of a major, American political leader championing the working class, in the year 2009, is too ridiculous to take seriously. Maybe if the working class didn't comprise such a huge component of our non-voters. Maybe. But I still doubt it. The working class (myself included) are just contemptible slaves to people like Bloomberg, Obama, and the rest of our political class. The most we should ever expect from them is to not be rounded up, and herded into camps (until such times as that becomes good for business, in which case, all bets are off).

    Posted by KevinRiley at 02/19/2009 @ 3:33pm

33. Withholding food stamps, by the way, doesn't prevent people like me from eating. What it does, you see, is allow us to buy our food without using our money for a period of time, so that we can catch up on our other bills, that only take money. And on that basis, food stamps perform a vital function for the working class in America, because sometimes we just need to catch up on things, or its out on the street we go. Being able to devote a larger share of our meager financial resources to our various bills, due to temporary receipt of food stamps taking care of the grocery aspect of our expenses, can be a big help, and thus Bloomberg is a total scumbag for rejecting the offered funds in this regard.

    Although, like most actual people familiar with the realities of food stamps, I think you'll find most of us don't want them given out to foreigners. That's something you leftists are going to have to work out, if you ever want working class support in this country. You can extoll the virutes of diversity, or champion the working class, but you can't do both. Most of us working class-types won't ever be as excited about "diversity" as you are. And why should we be? Its our homes that get broken to, and our daughters that get raped, etc. I'm sure the writer knows as much about those realities as he or she knows about food stamps, in thinking that by not distributing them, Mayor Bloomberg is denying us "food."

    Posted by KevinRiley at 02/19/2009 @ 3:42pm

34. antisocialist,

    I don't live in New York City but my first attempts at identifying any prominent local New York City conservatives through internet searching shows that there don't seem to be too many right now with enough prominence to win a city wide election, in a city with lots of libs.

    It seems it would be a long-term project to develop one.

    Somebody coming from out of the area would probably not be a good idea, New York as a state seems to have had enough of that already, such as the person that lives in Chappaqua and just became Secretary of State - only because she came up empty last year on her real reason for moving to Chappaqua, NY in the first place.

    Posted by sjchermak at 02/19/2009 @ 4:47pm

35. Richard Kim writes:

    >> New York City needs a mayor who champions the working class, not a billionaire who cuts foods stamps for the poor and rewards busted bankers. <<

    Kim is the classic socialist demagogue, dumb as a stalk of celery, who thunders class war and would deny the city, and its poor, what they needs most, a competence.

    Requiring able bodied men register for workfare, before they receive hand-outs, is not cruel or unjust. And retraining tens of thousands of unemployed back room clerks is not helping undeserving bankers.

    Bloomberg is a working man out of Queens who built a multi billion dollar business. The city is lucky to have a man with such skills willing to organize and lead it in a difficult time.

    The last time Kim's cry was heeded, the city got the David Dinkins a natty dresser, who took the police helicopter to Forest Hills tennis matches, but an incompetent bungler who produced one disaster after another, not least an annual 2,260 homicide record which his successor brought down to around 600 +.

    Kim's class warfare is unAmerican. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson no less than JFK were among the richest men in the country, but that did not make them hostile to working people. Teddy Roosevelt, a mulit millionaire, busted the monopolies. Governor Rockefeller and FDR championed the working man. Being a laborer or poor does not create knowledge on how to beat unemployment or poverty, any more than having cancer creates knowledge on how to treat cancer.

    Kim is right at home, here at THE NATION. One more jerk.

    Posted by Hugo_Pirovano at 02/19/2009 @ 5:13pm

36. Why does The Nation have so many of these right-wing nut-jobs writing letters? Is the fame of The Nation as a progressive magazine what attracts them?

    Posted by SK9 at 02/19/2009 @ 8:50pm

37. Why does The Nation have so many of these right-wing nut-jobs writing letters? Is the fame of The Nation as a progressive magazine what attracts them? Posted by SK9 at 02/19/2009 @ 8:50pm |

    As soon as you spot a rightwing provo, put that nut on yr ignore list. very simple.

    Posted by sloper at 02/19/2009 @ 9:14pm

38. "Bloomberg is a working man out of Queens"

    [Posted by Hugo_Pirovano at 02/19/2009 @ 5:13pm]

    is the best bit of Bloomberg mythologizing yet. The Mayor is from an upper-middle class family in Massachusetts. (Go Sox!) Prior to running for mayor, I don't know that he spent any time in Queens.

    It's a funny thing that he wants to spend $45 million to retrain these financial professionals. Couldn't he give them jobs at Bloomberg? Oh, wait, they've had to lay off people at Bloomberg.

    So, where's the retraining money for all those editors and writers and designers who've been laid off in the diminishing media biz?

    P.S. Thanks to Richard Kim and The Nation for this story. Keep an eye on Mike as he runs for his third term.

    Posted by Citizen54 at 02/19/2009 @ 9:31pm

39. As soon as you spot a rightwing provo, put that nut on yr ignore list. very simple.

    Posted by sloper at 02/19/2009 @ 9:14pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    One of the funniest things about leftist blog and political activism sites is that they prosper so well in the vacuum of their Echo Chamber philosphy. Maybe if they all started their own "regressive talk radio" people would flock to hear their views? Oh wait, the second and last one of those just filed banruptcy like their idealogies when aired for the general public!

    Posted by comancheamerican at 02/20/2009 @ 03:23am

40. as if the right wing has any credibility when talking about "Echo Chamber Philosophy." What a joke...

    Posted by erazma at 02/20/2009 @ 09:21am

41. Thanks for the further detail in the long list of counts against Michael Bloomberg. He has been terrible on the civil rights of New Yorkers, the rights of students in schools, infrastructure, education, housing. Why anyone would think he is a good mayor escapes me.

    The blog http://www.blockbloomberg.com/ is compiling info on Bloomberg.

    Posted by HuSan at 02/20/2009 @ 12:11pm

42. Why anyone would think he is a good mayor escapes me.

    it's the comparison with Giuliani that allows him to shine.

    Posted by emile duBois at 02/20/2009 @ 12:24pm

43. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812">War of 1812</a> remember...

    Posted by todd.zuckermann at 02/24/2009 @ 1:57pm

44. Dont know how to post link. :(

    [html]<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812">War of 1812</a>[html] [a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812"]War of 1812[/a] [a="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812"]War of 1812[/a] [URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812]War of 1812[/URL] [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812]War of 1812[/url] [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812[/url]

    Posted by todd.zuckermann at 02/24/2009 @ 2:06pm

45. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812">War of 1812</a>

    Posted by todd.zuckermann at 02/24/2009 @ 2:16pm