Maine Smokers Rights �

Sex suit could be problem for Bloomberg 

By SARA KUGLER, Associated Press Writer 

7-29-07

NEW YORK - Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaks his mind and that is a big part of his cachet in anything-goes New York. But a sexual harassment lawsuit he settled in 2000 and other racy comments over the years show how his blunt style could prove a liability if he runs for president as an independent. 

Before his election as mayor in 2001, Bloomberg was the target of a sexual harassment suit by a female executive who accused him of making repeated raunchy sexual comments while he was chief executive of his financial company, Bloomberg LP.

Bloomberg denied the accusations. Both sides were barred from commenting because of confidentiality agreements. Stu Loeser, the mayor's spokesman, said Friday he had no comment for this story.

The suit was a minor annoyance for Bloomberg during the mayoral race in 2001 and was not an issue in his 2005 re-election.

But the suit and other potential embarrassments resulting from Bloomberg's tendency to speak his mind are largely unknown to the rest of the country and are certain to be re-examined if the billionaire media mogul undertakes a third-party, self-financed presidential campaign for 2008.

Bloomberg has denied having any plans to seek the presidency. Yet he recently left the Republican Party to become an independent and has increased his out-of-state travel.

The harassment suit was filed in 1997 by former Bloomberg LP sales executive Sekiko Sakai Garrison. Bloomberg adamantly denied the allegations and settled the case in 2000 for an undisclosed amount without admitting any wrongdoing.

Bloomberg�s World

Imagine a world where all adults are put into a giant playpen, and guarded by adolescent babysitters. Welcome to the world of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. It is a world where all adults are treated like children. Where dangerous things are labeled, "keep out of reach of children." It is a world where they are not permitted to exercise responsibility. It is a world where only "experts" can be trusted.

The week of the Virginia Tech (VPI) shooting, Bloomberg assembled a bunch of mayors in Newark N.J. to discuss gun violence and gun control, his new favourite subject. At one point, the normally self-controlled mayor became quietly enraged. Bloomberg said this:

I can't think of anything dumber than to say, "Let�s give all students on campus a gun. The only thing that's......It's.....It's...In....In...In some sense....uh...ah...I hate to even answer the question, because it's SICK!!"

First of all notice the assumption, "...give all students guns," as if they were toddlers that some fool parent would entrust with a 12-bore shotgun. I know of no one who proposes that the government or the school give them guns. What I have heard is that these adult students � future engineers, architects, and soldiers (VPI has a corpse of cadets and has a military program) � not be forbidden from having their own guns on campus. I just read a biography of Theodore Roosevelt. He kept several hunting rifles in his room at Harvard. A lot of ex-WW2 veterans in college had guns in their closet. Remember, the first shootings took place in a dorm. If he had been taken out there by a hunter or target shooter, the other students would still be alive.

In Bloomberg's world people should not be allowed to defend themselves with firearms against armed maniacs. Instead they should be locked in their playpens, with the armed bad boy, until the adults get there to deal with the schoolyard fight. Bloomberg thinks guns should be kept out of the reach of children. Children include any adult who is not in law enforcement, licensed private security, or the military; in other words, those who are not "experts." Anyone who disagrees with him by practicing ancient common sense, or who thinks he should exercise his own judgment instead of those of others is sick.

This is the same Bloomberg who thinks that business owners should not be allowed to set smoking policies in their establishments, or that restaurant cooks must not be allowed to determine what ingredients go into their cooking. The reason that Bloomberg ALWAYS gives for his decrees is that they save lives. Bloomie wants to be your father.

Here is how Bloomie saves lives. On the exact same day he told rational people they were sick, we had a murder suicide in Queens. A 20-year-old man, with a history of mental disturbances, shot and killed his mother, his mother�s invalid boyfriend, and the boyfriend's hired nurse. He then wounded a nephew, and turned the gun on himself. Before the incident, the mother three times tried to get the cops to do something, but they said she needed a court order. The victim's sister said, "He was threatening to kill her, and she told the police everything. The police said we can't do anything about it."

Had it not been for the VPI story, or the huge N.J. flooding, this story would have made page one, and led the TV and radio news. Bloomberg would have had to make a speech. He would have blamed guns and not the system for three dead people. He might even blame gun dealers in VA. After all, he has set up sting operations to entrap Va. gun dealers. He would have said that we need "to study" the procedures for domestic violence in the courts, and appoint a special deputy mayor to look into this......etc...etc.

Imagine a world where they criminalised owning a fire extinguisher. Now imagine forbidding people to use fire escapes, saying that they are too dangerous, and you can fall; that they are only for "professional use" for firefighters to climb up and save you. Imagine owners of office buildings getting on the P.A. system telling people to stay in their offices during a big fire. This last one I didn�t make up. It happened on 9-11 when the first plane hit. All those who blew off the commands are alive. All who did what they were told are dead.

One of the reasons the planes hit the WTC, is because passengers and crewmembers on the flights did what they were told. They were told not to resist � to submit. They banned guns � even from the cockpit and the captain many, of whom are ex-Air force or Navy. They used to be in charge of weapons policy on their planes, as a ship master is on his ship, but that changed in the 1960�s. In Bloomberg�s world we can trust pilots to fly hundreds of people 30,000 feet over US population centers, but we can't trust them to safeguard their passengers. I guess they need a background check.

Bloomberg�s world, as in most of today's establishment America, is about spin and taking credit if the policy works. When it doesn't, as it usually doesn't, they blame the other party, call for more studies, for more funding, for more of the same laws that force us into the role of the child. They patronise us.

For example. Dr. Christopher Flynn is comfortable in Bloomberg�s world. He is the Director of the Counseling Center at VPI. He was on ABC's Good Morning America. He talked a lot about closure and the grieving process whilst they ran video of students hugging and weeping. He said that the system worked, and that the killer was released from psychiatric treatment because there was no reason to believe he was dangerous. He said it's impossible to track mental cases in society. He said we need more funding for mental health and blamed Ronald Reagan for cutting it off.

Since Bloomberg�s world is all about making a show at saving lives and taking credit, they must make it easier on the paid babysitters guarding the playpen at the expense of the adult toddlers. So we see the lunacy of locking the students in with the killer. This is to make it easier on the cops, who are in business of catching guys for the prosecutor�s office or the coroner�s office � preferably the latter. They are also not going to commit suicide. So they contain the gunman in a building with unarmed people while they, the cops, prepare by getting into body armour.

Just why is it that these people are called experts and are allowed to have massive firepower, but taxpayers who pay their salary are not? Is it that they are trained in the use of firearms? Well, the NRA and other gun organisations give firearm training. Is it that they undergo extensive "tactical combat" training, that they are trained on which tree to hide behind whilst unarmed people are getting slaughtered by a madman? Is it that the future engineers and physicists of VPI are too stupid to learn how a mechanical device like a pistol or rifle or shotgun operates? And it seems that most of this training is more like military training not the training of a peace officer.

I covered a trial ten years ago in Wilmington N.C. It involved an army Sergeant who went off his nut at Ft. Bragg and shot up a diner in Fayetteville N.C. killing 4 people. One of the patrons ran out the door to his truck to get his rifle. He was met by a cop who had just arrived. He wasn't arrested. He with his rifle, and the officer crawled to the restaurant door and shot and wounded the killer. No body armour, no histrionics, just two guys who needed to do something RIGHT THEN AND THERE. They knew they had the upper hand and they had the confidence to do it. Bloomberg calls this John Wayne behaviour.

The world is increasingly becoming Bloomberg�s world, a world of pathetic whining children. Maybe it�s just me, but when I look at the college kids of today, I actually DO see children. Why is it, when I look at old college class pictures I see adult men and women? They look different, even though they are the same age in the pictures. What effect does this patronizing have on kids? Is the Bloombergian world creating perpetual children?

There seem to be more "disaffected" kids who fantasise about murdering people. Why are there more and more kids listening to really violent music, playing fantasy video games about killing people? Why did Mr. Cho make a tape of his infantile ranting and send them to NBC? Why did NBC air them and turn this guy into a hero for other freaks? Is the powerlessness that increasingly forbids people from acting like adults in the Bloombergian world having a disastrous affect on the human psyche? I don�t know. Just a thought.

Maybe it�s Bloomberg�s world that, "...is sick."

CIG-BANNING DR. BLOOMY FANS THE FUMES OF HYPOCRISY

Let's go back to Dec. 30, 2002, when Bloomberg said of the bar-smoking ban, "We will save literally tens of thousands of lives."

He was talking about secondhand smoke in bars and restaurants and said we would all be healthier, if not wealthier, after the city curtailed it.

So smoking became the first legal product sold in New York that was partly banned in the city, based on Bloomberg's medical expertise, or access to pristine statistics about the effects of secondhand smoke in bars.

Some bars have lost from 10 to 30 percent of their business from Bloomberg's genius as a medical doctor - not to mention places that have gone out of business and lost the city tax money.

In fact, there has been absolutely no scientific, completely scientific study that links secondhand smoke to cancer. The city has never come up with one credible statistic.

But there has been a complete scientific study - from Mount Sinai research that shows that at least 70 percent of the thousands who labored at Ground Zero as first responders reported, and proved, that they had awful trouble breathing or worse.

Some are dead.

Bloomberg thinks these highly respected doctors are so crazy that they're barbecuing with the leprechauns.

"I don't believe that you can say specifically a particular problem came from this particular effect. There is no way to tell for sure and you've got to be very careful . . . If I say, 'I've got something because of this,' that's not just the way it works," said Dr. Bloomberg.

So now I have it perfectly clear: You ban smoking in bars with no statistics on secondhand smoke, but you are telling Mount Sinai, one of the best facilities in the world, they don't know their ear from their elbow when it comes to poison attacking the lungs like a spear.

Mayor Bloomberg, stick to politics and being a genius businessman, but you are as much of a medical expert as Dr. Kildare.

http://www.nypost.com/commentary/cig_banning_dr__bloomy_fans_the_fumes_of_hypocrisy_commentary_steve_dunleavy.htm

Bloomberg puts $125M into anti-smoking

14 AUGUST 2006

NEW YORK - Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire and former smoker, announced Tuesday he is throwing $125 million of his own money into a new anti-smoking campaign targeting tobacco worldwide.

MIKE'S UGLY RX - BLOOMY PRESIDENCY = NANNY-STATE AMERICA  

June 18, 2006

Adam Brodsky

MAYOR Bloomberg may have been joshing last weekend when he hinted of a possible bid for president.
By Friday, he was again denying it - though he says he sends articles on the idea to his mom.

But for those who enjoy parlor games, here's a question: Suppose Bloomberg does run - and wins. What exactly would a Michael Bloomberg presidency look like?

The answer?

Think: Big Government.

Actually, Huge, Obscenely Intrusive Government.

For all Bloomberg's efforts to appear above partisan politics, the guy is simply a No-Bureaucracy-Is-Too-Big liberal.

Always was.

Always will be.

Mike can claim he switched from Democrat to Republican when he first ran for mayor because, after all, "There's no Democratic or Republican way to pick up the garbage."

He can pretend he's an independent; if he does go for the gold in '08, he may well run as one. "Neither political party is blameless" in letting "ideology . . . trump science in public-health decision-making," Bloomberg said in Atlanta last week.

But don't buy it.

Bloomberg can seem non-partisan only because his context is leftist New York. Anywhere else, his government-knows-best elitism would be seen for what it is: left-wing nanny-state radicalism.

Hizzoner couldn't have proved that point better than in his Atlanta talk. His premise, in essence, was that all health issues are public-health issues - that is, matters for government to deal with.

If you stuff your face with cake and pizza and then tip the scales at 300 pounds, setting you up for obesity-related diseases, that's government's problem.

If moving your thumb on the TV's remote is your only exercise, obviously government is not doing its job.

Using tobacco? The bureaucracy needs to act.

Unsafe sex? Let's not even go there.

Most folks would agree that communicable diseases are a legitimate public-policy concern. But President Bloomberg wouldn't be satisfied with that.

"Chronic and non-communicable diseases have now replaced communicable diseases as our society's most pervasive killers," he said. Which to him, of course, signals a new imperative for government intervention.

But something will always be the leading cause of death; that doesn't make it government's responsibility. Arguably, the fact that contagious diseases have grown relatively less worrisome suggests that government's role should shrink - not expand.

No matter. Hizzoner has often said that the public always wants more government services. And he certainly aims to provide them.

Nor does he care much about what's lost in the tradeoffs: whether it's social approbation, economic benefits or the simple euphoria of a few scoops of New York Super Fudge Chunk.

"These new threats result from, and are aggravated by, our forbearance, and even social and economic encouragement, of such behavior as tobacco addiction, unhealthy nutrition and excessively sedentary lifestyles."

At bottom, he believes we're all fools. "All these deadly menaces result from our choices, both as individuals and as a society, to ignore or encourage life-threatening risks."

Which is why, one supposes, he doesn't think that educational programs are enough.

"Public-information campaigns are insufficient," he said. "In the realm of public health, law really does the work."

Bloomberg means to force people, in other words, not just to wear seat belts, but to stop drinking, monitor their health, get on the treadmill.

He's right about one thing: Such thinking can't quite be characterized as liberal or conservative - because it contains elements of both the wacky, New Age left and the authoritarianism often linked to the right.

In any case, it's radical. (It certainly makes you wonder about Democrats who freak out when the feds want to look at anonymous phone records to protect Americans from terror but who don't say boo about being battered into giving up vices, in an attempt to protect them from disease.)

And it's not just the loss of personal choices that's problematic. Or the fact that Bloomberg-style bureaucrats, who claim to base their planning on scientific findings, really have little handle on the medical and economic issues involved.

On top of all this, it's fair to wonder whether such pervasive paternalism will usher in a new kind of dependency - where folks accustomed to being taken care of by Uncle Sam become incapable of taking care of themselves.

Far-fetched? Perhaps.

But it would be a dream come true for President Bloomberg.

Read

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/mikes_ugly_rx_opedcolumnists_adam_brodsky.htm

New York City Smokers are in trouble: WEB BUYERS $MOKED OUT

02/04/2006-Now, officials say, they're ready to get really serious and impose a $100-a-carton penalty - plus the $1.50-a-pack tax.
 

Bloomberg has now been caught clearly in two lies:  refusing to prove his claim of the profitability and popularity of his ban by raising it, and of claiming his taxes are to save the children when clearly they increase cigarette sales to children. - Michael 

MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG, scourge of the smoking class    

NYC: Dem lights into Mike on cig ban

5-30-05 - If you're steamed up about Mayor Bloomberg's smoking ban in bars and restaurants, mayoral hopeful Anthony Weiner wants you to light up with him at the voting booth.

Smoking bans force you to hang a sign and tell your patrons there is no smoking.
They DO NOT force you to enforce the law. 
NY is doing it and so can you!

NYC: Mike's run may go up in smoke

3-25-04 

"He rammed it through without ever having campaigned for it. He did it without considering what it would do to the small bars in the city, particularly the outer boroughs, what it would do to the soul of New York, which to me is libertarianism, the right to live your life without onerous government intervention. I sum it up this way: New York does not want or need Nurse Ratched as mayor."

NEW YORK MAYOR FUMED OVER 'SMOKING' ON STAGE AT STONES CONCERT...

20 January 2003-New York City

NEW YORK CITY MAYOR FUMED OVER 'SMOKING' ON STAGE AT STONES CONCERT; BAND RACED OUT OF GARDEN AVOIDING COPS

Mayor Bloomberg is OUTTA CONTROL!

story here

Bars, patrons in a slow burn over new law

28 December 20

"If I'm worried about my health, I'll stay in the middle of a field, picking corn," said Ann Marie Bowes, 31, a bartender at the Village Idiot on W 14th St. at Ninth Ave.

"You know what you're getting into when you work in a bar," said Colleen, 24, a bartender at the Gaslight Lounge, across the street, who declined to give her last name.
click here

No smoking - anywhere

26 December 2002

We tell you this anecdote so you can warn your out-of-town friends: Come spring, when Mayor Bloomberg's tough smoking ban goes into effect, there will be a lot more people lurking in doorways.

click here

NYC's Bar Business: Up In Smoke?

23 December 2002

As a manager of a Manhattan bar, I can easily point out the dramatic drop in business which will occur when the ban commences. Not only is my bar going to lose business, but how about the extra security that I'm going to be forced to hire to control people outside of my establishment when they go outside to smoke? Or what about the noise complaints I'll receive due to drunken smokers chatting outside at 3 a.m.?
click here

PARTY FAVOR: MIKE GIVES RUDY'S CIGAR PAL A SMOKE BREAK (NYC Smoking Ban

23 December 2002

In a surprise move at the 11th hour, Mayor Bloomberg secured an exemption in his tough anti-smoking bill to accommodate a cigar fest sponsored by a pal of Rudy Giuliani�s, The Post has learned. Bloomberg�s loophole was crafted specifically for Cigar Aficionado magazine - the sponsor of the twice-a-year Big Smoke cigar bash run by Marvin Shanken, a friend of Giuliani. The former mayor is a stogie fan himself and once appeared on a Cigar Aficionado cover.

(So he has utter contempt and no problem when "Mom & Pop" bodegas go out of business but he throws in a loophole to protect his cronies at the well to do Marriott Marquis).

click here

New York passes tough anti-smoking law

18 December 2002

The City Council on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed one of the country's toughest anti-smoking bills, outlawing smoking in virtually all workplaces, including bars, nightclubs and restaurants. The most populous U.S. city would join California and Delaware in adopting sweeping curbs on smoking in public.

article here

NYC Smokers' and Small Businesses' Last Chance
15 December 2002

Seems the City Council and the Mayor came to an agreement on Friday, giving Bloominidiot 90% of everything he wanted in the anti-smoker, anti-business bill. Apparently Gifford Miller was just pouting because Hizzoner stepped on his toes awhile back and never intended to give this a fair hearing. He's now parroting the party line. The amended bill can be found in its entirety in the Mad Max War Room.

article here

Mayor Bloomberg Exaggerates Secondhand Smoke Risk
December 12, 2002 ` By Dr. Elizabeth Whelan

"...it's literally true that something like a thousand people will not die each year that would have otherwise died..."

click here

Tough new smoking ban clearing hurdles in New York
11 December 2002

New York officials agreed on Wednesday on a tough new anti-smoking policy, one of the most stringent in the country, that would ban smoking in most public places including bars, nightclubs and restaurants.

click here

NICOTINE TAX COMES UP SHORT

November 26, 2002-New York City

But it's still short of the $158 million projected by the Bloomberg administration when it imposed the nicotine tax in July.

click here

Up in smoke: Cigarettes are no cash cow for N.Y.

New York boosted cigarette taxes by 39 cents per pack earlier this year as a way to fill its sagging coffers and to help raise the salaries of health-care workers. Gov. George E. Pataki and state legislators approved the increase, expecting to boost tobacco revenue by $800 million. But it hasn't worked out as planned.

story here

Kentuckian Blows Smoke in Face of Bloomberg Tax

24 November 2002

Mr. Smith sees it differently. "Our plan is to make sure everybody has access," he said. "People have the right to smoke. I'm waiting for Bloomberg to quit drinking, so he'll start calling for prohibition."
click here

ANTISMOKERS GET PHYSICAL

November 19, 2002 -- THE anti-smoking climate in the city is getting so fanatical, indignant non-smokers are taking the fight to the streets. Literally.

click here

Another Protest Against Mayor Bloomberg

As New Yorkers know, Mr. Bloomberg is a reformed smoker who approaches the subject of evil tobacco with the fervor of a religious convert determined that everyone share his enlightenment. But he sat unflinchingly among smokers in Athens yesterday, and he is unlikely to rebuke the people of Istanbul for their wicked ways. They want to smoke? Well, as the old song goes, that's nobody's business but the Turks'.

click here

Victim Of Zealotry - Many are amazed and some are increasingly worried about the behavior of Mayor Mike Bloomberg of New York City.  He came into office as New York bid farewell to a popular mayor and after the trauma of September 11.  Looking for leadership to inspire the rebuilding of the city, Bloomberg has become bogged down on the trivial issue of smoking.  He's against it and as time passes his hatred of tobacco seems almost a mania.

Last month a story about city employees and their smoking breaks drove the mayor bonkers and he fired a well-respected city employee for the crime of smoking in public. Although the story indicated that the smokers highlighted in the story were exceeding their smoke break allotment, subsequent evidence, uncovered by the paper that wrote the original story indicates that the terminated employee was dismissed unjustly.

The employee, Bob Swinton, has retained legal assistance so cannot speak directly about this case. His wife, however, does want to set the record straight:

What happened to my husband was wrong and we will get our day in court. My husband was used as a scape goat in his campaign and the sad part is, he does not care that he has wrecked our lives because he is surrounded by money and power. My husband is so depressed and I hope he survives this. I have to push myself to get out of bed every day just to function and to show my children that I am not quitting.
Mayor Bloomberg is breaking every law of the land and getting away with it. I feel that we let him get away with any of these issues he is trying to pass, we are going to live in a communist city. This smoking issue is only the beginning and if he gets his wish and is able to pass his smoking ban, this man will not stop at that. He has all that money backing him up.

Bob was an excellent employee and his record proves the same. He went to work every day, worked his butt off from the time he went there, worked late nights, brought work home, canceled vacations for that stupid job. Hardly every took lunches, which many people will be able to prove. His employees told my husband's boss once that Bob was a tough person to work for. They said he was tough, but fair. So he was an extremely effective manager. Bob, was not connected to anybody, he was not politically appointed and received 2 promotions in 5 1/2 years.

Mayor Bloomberg is the richest politician in the United States.  That a man worth over a billion dollars ruins a man and his family because he has a batty obsession against smoking is the act of an oligarch.  Firing employees who are inefficient or dishonest is one thing but making an example of a hard worker to pursue a personal agenda is wrong.  Bob Swinton must be reinistated. 

Forces click here

Deal in works on smoke, wage bills

30 October 2002 ~ NYC
Sources said Bloomberg may agree to sign an altered version of the wage bill if the Council approves his controversial smoking ban.

article here \

VOICE OF THE PEOPLE: Health message 
If smoking is banned in bars and restaurants, loudness and vulgar language should also be banned...
Cigarette bans and price hikes, $2 tokens, alcohol-free street fairs, cops pulled from street crime by noise-meter duty and now tolls on the East River bridges? Mayor Mike spent millions to get elected to turn the city into a boring, pricey, lifeless place...

click here

OLSON: Nanny Bloomberg
Author: WALTER OLSON
Intro: Sid Zion says it would turn New York into "Los Angeles East." Nonsmoking Times Metro columnist Clyde Haberman says the mayor is trying to "reinvent Prohibition."
Those are the mild ones. "It's peevish, pious, anti-urban," satirist Fran Lebowitz told a cable host. . .

Even more infuriating was to hear from the mayor that they didn't know their best interests. "All of the evidence," quoth Mr. Bloomberg, is that "patronage of restaurants and bars goes up, not down" after smoking is banned. In fact, a quick trawl on NEXIS yields stories in which California taverners told reporters that the ban had cost them 25% to 40% of their business, forcing them to lay off servers. In New York, some restaurateurs invested small fortunes setting up separately ventilated smoking rooms after the last round of legislation just a few years ago -- the chumps. . .

Elaine Kaufman, the renowned owner of Elaine's, has an interesting idea: giving restaurants the right to buy smoking licenses as they now buy cabaret licenses. But that makes the mistake of assuming that the proposal's aim is merely to ensure an abundance of nonsmoking options for diners and servers, when the real point is to make sure that no such refuges remain for smokers. If even one smoky bar remains in the city, how can the mayor be sure of having saved his soul?

click here

BLOOMY VS. BODEGAS IN BATTLE OVER CIG TAX

October 23, 2002 -- Mayor Bloomberg yesterday lit into bodega owners who griped on the steps of City Hall that their businesses will soon go up in smoke because of a dramatic drop in cigarette sales.

article here

Another Protest Against Mayor Bloomberg

MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG, scourge of the smoking class , has journeyed to the heart of enemy territory. The mayor was in Athens yesterday. After spending more time there today, he heads for Istanbul.

click here

Cigarettes Up to $7 a Pack With New Tax

New York - 1 July 2002

RINO Mayor Bloomberg said: "If it were totally up to me, I would raise the cigarette tax so high the revenues from it would go to zero," said the mayor, who has said he hopes that the higher taxes will persuade smokers to quit and will prevent children from becoming smokers.

article here

Ad features Bloomberg saying he liked pot
April 10, 2002 Posted: 3:02 AM EDT (0702 GMT)
 
( Seems the mayor, has a double standard, when it comes to smoking. This is the same Mayor, which advocated, the $1.50 hike in the city cigarette tax, to "discourage smoking".)

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