Also, maybe he should have called it the "Whitney Houston Bill" instead.

In the wake of another police shooting last night, Assemblyman Rory Lancman called on Congress to pass the “Gabby Giffords Bill,” which would close gun loopholes and reform the nation’s firearm background check system.

...

After last night’s shooting, Mayor Bloomberg reminded reporters that it was the third such incident in two months, and said “The three shooters have at least one thing in common and that is that they possessed their guns illegally, and that is true for nearly every shooting that occurs in our city. As long as federal laws allow guns to flow onto our streets, criminals will be able to get them and police officers will be in danger.”

Even though pretty much everybody at a gun show is a licensed dealer that has to perform a background check anyway.

And of course, Giffords was shot with a legally-purchased handgun. And the person pulling the trigger was the purchaser only a few days before the shooting. So this law really has nothing to do with the Giffords assassination attempt.

The "Whitney Houston Bill" fits just as well.

I like the ring of that one.

I think a handful of Xanax and a warm bath would be exactly what is needed for would-be violent offenders.

What more could you ask for?

Everything from child porn to assault to simple fraud and bribery.

I'd really like to see the membership from they have to fill out to get their MAIG decoder ring from Bloomie? I bet it's a doozy.

that is a higher percentage of criminals even than Republicans in congress.

I have every confidence that Bloomie will turn up with a few more crooks and scoundrels in his ranks on a regular basis, as soon as the latest round of grand juries and Federal investigations convenes. But not to worry, we'll keep you up to date on how many crooks and liars he has in his ranks so you don't even have to go to the NRA website.

The other 580 mayors, if he even still has that many and I doubt it since he had a bunch resign after they came near losing elections over his actions, are simply gullible born followers who know he's picking up the tab for lunch every time. Kind of like the simpletons that join the Brady bunch and actually pay their dues, then wind up on every mailing list.

But as has been pointed out to you several times, it's a much, much higher percentage of criminals than any state's CCW ranks.

So to use your own logic, "So what's wrong with the thousands of other CCW 'toters' that don't do anything wrong?"

Now excuse us while we all go off to pollute society with our evil guns some more. I need a good holster for my new Colt Detective Special.

Probably why he gets re-elected in a heavily Democratic city. He is definitely a sane voice in a time of need.

His margin of victory last time was much smaller than anticipated.



And, of course, he runs as an independent.

He is a New Yorker and he loves New York. He doesn't need the job, doesn't appear to be on a political power trip and I think his head and heart are in the right place. He had some problems with OWS and I can see both sides and his decision wasn't based on restricting 1A rights, but on what's best for New York, public health and safety. His opposition to illegal guns is again in the interests of the residents of New York, who, by a huge majority, do not want guns, legal or illegal, in their city. Manhattan, in particular, is a place where it would be difficult to carry a gun more than ten feet without it being pointed at someone. The thought of firing a weapon in such an environment is beyond crazy. The pro-carry crowd needs to find a different target.

I think he is on a power trip. The pro carry crowd did not make him a target, he made himself (and his band of mayors of questionable repute) a target of not only gun rights advocates, but also the ATF in the form of cease and desist letters.

In the meantime, he can clean up his own house with NYPD selling NYPD guns to gangsters, and rubber stamping CCWs to racist cokehead/alcoholics like Don Imus simply because he is one of the one percent.

Give me a break. He's a fucking politician. Of course he's on a power trip. So what? It's a job requirement. The man is a liberal on virtually every issue. The only issue he backed off of was decriminalizing marijuana. That gives him a 9+ ranking in my opinion.
Please show me where this man has sold guns to gangsters or issued gun permits. I think he's a little busy for that shit.

his responsibility.
He is a liberal only in relative terms, given the shift to the right. In the 1950s both him and Obama would be Republicans. The Dems kind of moved to the right, and the Republicans went off the deep end.

It is pretty well known that NYPD gives CCWs only to rich people who have no or less need than many working people and often by passes the hoops the 99 percent does. In all fairness, that has mostly been the case since 1911. Do you seriously think an aristocrat, let alone a member of the royal family, would face the same hassle for their Holland and Hollands (sold in only three gun shops in the world. One in London, NYC, and Moscow) that you would? I doubt it.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-26/n-y-police-officers-charged-with-1-million-gun-running-scheme.html

...a bit of rubberstamping here, yourself.

Mine tanked when he ran for a 3rd term, even though when he was first elected the law was a two-term limit. Magically, that changed just in time for him to run for a third term. It's scuzzy.

I don't agree with term limits; I think they're a half-assed solution to a decoy problem. Regardless, this kind of crap pisses me off.

The OWS treatment was shameful; I was there for a couple of hours fairly early in the protest, before the cops began breaking heads for exercise, and all it was was a bunch of people milling around and waving signs.

I wish Wall Street was watched as closely by the police as the OWS protesters were. Armored riot cops swinging truncheons at insider-traders and using plexiglass shields to slam them to the ground before handcuffing them and stuffing them in the backs of paddy wagons.


As to the wishes of New Yorkers regarding guns, well, that's not as relevant as New Yorkers want it to matter. Gun ownership is an individual constitutional right, and not subject to the whims of the majority. I don't buy it with marriage equality, I don't buy it with Jim Crow, I don't buy it with literacy tests to vote, and I don't buy it with gun ownership.

Nobody wants illegally-owned guns around. That's not the issue. If individual New Yorkers want to not own a gun because they feel it is better for society and their neighborhoods and themselves if they don't, that's fine. But that does not extend to their neighbors, no matter how much they may wish it is so.

And if anti-gun New Yorkers can't realize that their ingrained opinion of guns is the result of a steady feedback of their gun control laws, then that's their blind spot.

And I think you have an over-developed sense of Manhattan crowding. Parts of it have very high population densities at certain times, but it is of course highly variable. Lets not forget such things as parking garages, either.

I lived in Manhattan through Koch and Dinkins. Not good years for New Yorkers. I was gone by the time asshole Giuliani came in. I've been back twice in the last four years and am impressed, as are most of my NY friends. Bloomberg is about as liberal as any elected politician in the country. True he's very rich, but that doesn't make him a bad guy. He truly cares about the city, it's safety and well being. To suggest that he is against constitutional rights is ridiculous. It's a tough call, trying to keep guns out of the city is not easy, without putting detectors at the bridges and tunnels, which hopefully will be doable one day soon.

The clean up in Zucotti Park was necessary. It wasn't a protest any longer, but an unsanitary urban camping disaster that was counterproductive. If you want to protest Wall Street, go to Wall Street and get in their faces. Don't bring tents and bongs to Zucotti Park.
OWS is currently active in NYC protesting school closures and challenging Bloomberg to stop them. That's how it should work.

If the people of NYC, and other cities across the country, don't want guns carried around, why should they not be allowed that? They aren't telling folk in Maine or Wyoming what to do.

Telling them what to do in their own state is another.

I have yet to see evidence of this iron pipeline. Given that the average of crime guns is something like 11-14 years old, it does not seem very logical. The problem are gangsters killing each other and their coke and pot head customers fueling it with their money.

Those are symptoms of the problem.

The problem is prohibition.

Strike the root, my friend.

Anything else you like to impugn him for that is against liberal causes.

I support OWS. I've seen nothing to indicate his opposition to it. If you are referencing Zuccotti (Liberty) Park, I support what the city and courts decided. Bloomberg made a tough call in favor of public health and safety.
The demonstrations outside his home I don't support. There are better ways to get one's message across than alienating whole neighborhoods.

Last edited Fri Feb 17, 2012, 11:48 PM - Edit history (1)

he will use the power of the state to quash civil rights if he think it is best for society. His kind of leaders gave us the Patriot Act - "lets give up some civil rights so we can all be safe."

Sorry - I have no use for such men.

But some people's behavior is a response to a credible threat, not some fantasy.
If you were in charge of a city, would you ignore the community where just about all threats and attacks have come from recently.
If NYC had been bombed and threatened by the IRA, you can bet your life they would be doing the same and half the NYPD is Irish. Hell the other half is Italian and they've been infiltrating, spying and raking that community for over a hundred years. Remember Sacco and Vanzetti?

Self-defense is now only a Conservative value? Did I miss a memo?

Or did you not notice that? Equating self defense with carrying a gun is delusional and self defense isn't a "value", it's an attitude, a state of mind. True self defense entails being smart and avoidance of physical confrontation. Carrying a gun has nothing to do with self defense. Just the opposite, in fact. Liberals understand that concept.

he pointed out somethings are not avoidable. Carrying a gun, pepper spray, etc. has everything to do with self defense.

That's part of his job. A citizen's job is to avoid them. Pepper spray, I can see as a last resort. Probably won't induce nightmares either.

a CCW. In places like DC and Chicago, pepper spray is also illegal. It is not always effective against humans and I would never use it indoors or in a headwind.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Some situations can not be avoided. Criminals are pesky like that, they don't care about whether you want to avoid a situation or not.

Some situations must be dealt with immediately, not whenever LEO's can get to the scene. Any Citizen who accepts the benefits of society, without being willing to defend that society, is a parasite, and should be dealt with as such. And, before you can make up a fake claim to the contrary, "defend that society" is by no means limited to carrying weapons, or even to physical confrontation. But it certainly includes such.

Anyway, let me make a "genuine" claim to the contrary.

Unless you are suggesting that the individual is meaningless? Considering that if, as you claim, society is flodded with guns, so few are actually used criminally, I'm not sure how this "flood" is an "attack on society". When a gun is used defensively, do you consider that an attack on society?

If you continue to use that as a starting point, you're never going to realize how contrary that behavior is to social evolution. I don't recall claiming that society is flooded with guns. Guns are not the problem. People carrying them around other people is the problem. A productive, civilized society doesn't engage in such behavior. The idea that the only way to defend oneself from a potential attack is by carrying a loaded weapon, is a socially destructive mindset.

I'll be happy to "evolve" socially, if you can guarantee there are no criminals to be concerned about.

And no-one is claiming it's "the only way", but it is certainly highly effective. SOP? Hardly. And if you aren't going to be my personal bodyguard and bullet-catcher, your platitudes are worthless.

A firearm is hardly "primitive". It is, in fact, a highly evolved tool.

You keep characterising certain methods of self-defense as negative, but you don't explain why. I don't think you can, unless you offer an alternative, something you and those you agree with have notably failed to do.

That says it all. Firstly, it is all about you and your fear of "criminals", then you judge my reasoning as "platitudes". Secondly, I never said a firearm was primitive, I said the behavior of people who point guns at others as a problem solving technique is primitive; in the same way that the US bombing the crap out of 2 countries as a reaction to a criminal act (Afghanistan) and a family feud (Iraq) was primitive.
I don't characterize any methods of self defense as primitive, I object to calling the carrying of a handgun an act of self defense. Carrying a gun, for no specific reason, is inherently an offensive act, conducted by those who, for whatever reason, expect to use it, at some point, to solve an imaginary problem.

Last edited Tue Feb 21, 2012, 01:30 AM - Edit history (1)

is not at all anything like war between nations. That is a most dishonest analogy.

And the rest of your wailing is likewise total bullshit.

Edit: Neither is it an assault on society. It is ending an assault on society.

You know as well as I do that several members have stated that they would and have brandished and would shoot those who pose no threat to their lives. One brandished his weapon at guys who were running off with his tools. Another has stated several times that he would shoot people who break windows or who commit what he considers acts of vandalism, like TPing houses. He supports holding teenage girls with toilet paper in their cars at gunpoint. Are you part of that mindset? Because people who act like that are a true danger to society.
Or are you just one of those guys who got caught up in the gun culture as a kid and never outgrew it?

(yes, you missed that part of your reference) that may very well mean the difference between being able to pay rent/morgatage, or being homeless on the street. Easily readable as an assault on my life, whether the thief knows this or not. And before you prattle about insurance, that never pays full replacement value, and takes time a person may not have before that next payment is due.

What kind of world do you live in that you would kill someone over your inability to pay your rent/mortgage?
Fair enough, you've shown your hand. You would kill over tools. I didn't think you were one of the extremists. Guess I was wrong. How about the girls with toilet paper and other dangerous vandals, like window breakers, who might steal your peace of mind? You wanna shoot them all or just point your loaded gun at them?

that being homeless is a safe and healthy life-style, then yeah, making me homeless (or providing a significant threat to do so) is a threat to my life. By the way, I wouldn't simply shoot someone that I caught stealing from me. I would try to stop them, verbally, then, if neccesary, physically. If they then threatened my life or safety, I would respond accordingly.

No, I wouldn't pull a gun on mere TP'ers, but I would try to stop them, see above.

Also good to know that you would make other efforts, to prevent stuff being stolen, before blasting away. As regards being homeless, the experience can vary tremendously from individual to individual. For some it may be catastrophic, while for others it may be a healthy growth experience. I experienced the latter during my own periods of homelessness. Having a home isn't all it's made out to be, in my experience, but each to his own.
I get the feeling that you and probably many like you have become so dependent on things like tools and homes and other material possessions, that you have lost your resourcefulness and your spirit of adventure. Nothing kills like rigidity.

If you think that living without tools is so great, I urge you to do so. My ancestors ditched natural caves and trees and never looked back. I've also had the experience of primitive living, at various levels. I prefer steel axes to bronze or flint ones. I know how to survive a number of environments with little or nothing outside of my own skin, and I will readily aknowledge that it has made me profoundly grateful for our modern plethora of mechanical aids. But to dismiss them all as hardly more than impediments to/of... something... is hubris of an exceptionaly high order.

I love tools, especially having the right tool for the job. I respect your resourcefulness and admire it in anyone. We just disagree on the use of one particular tool for one particular purpose, so I don't know where you get the idea that I reject tools from my comment about dependency. We really aren't that far apart in our thinking. I think the only place we differ is on the appropriateness of routinely carrying a gun in public.

"I don't characterize any methods of self defense as primitive, I object to calling the carrying of a handgun an act of self defense." What about the carrying of mace or a tazer? These are both "self defense" tools that carry the potential of physical harm and death.

Carrying a gun, for no specific reason, is inherently an offensive act(on whom?), conducted by those who, for whatever reason, expect to use it(does anyone truly expect to use it?), at some point, to solve an imaginary(violent crime does not exist?) problem.

That's what reasonable people do. I'm not saying a gun cannot be used in self defense, I'm saying the routine carrying of a gun is not a form of self defense, nor is using it to deter thieves, vandals etc.. Mace and tasers are more legitimate tools of preparedness, because they are designed to temporarily incapacitate, rather than kill or cause serious bodily harm.
Carrying a gun is an offensive act on anyone within that gun's potential range. That's on whom. Of course gun carriers expect to use the gun at some arbitrary time, that they deem necessary. Otherwise, there would be absolutely no point in carrying it. Why do they expect to use it? Because they imagine they are eventually going to be targeted by "thugs" or "vandals" or whatever the flavor of the week is. If they didn't expect to have to use it, they would take other effective defensive precautions.

There, fixed it for you. You dilute the correct intent when you get all wordy tlike that.

"A citizens job is to avoid them. Pepper spray, I can see as a last resort"

How about dropping all methods of self defense and go to the old standby, "STOP what you're doing or I shall say stop again".

That one always works.

And, for the record, physical tools can be every bit as much a part of self-defense as mental tools. Your "concept" is a non-factual fabrication.

Many, including myself, support RKBA, but do not interpret it to mean carrying in public for supposed self defense. Liberal doesn't mean being helpless and afraid of thugs and rapists who might be hiding around every corner. Most violence is not committed by strangers, nor is it committed outside the home.
Being armed, if and when necessary, is and should be one's choice. Roaming around armed regardless of when or where, feeling that the only way to be safe is by carrying a concealed weapon, has nothing to do with civil rights or being liberal. It is pure madness and the more who engage in it, the less safe we are as a society.
Part of being a liberal involves acting like one, not just thinking you are one.

"To suggest that he is against constitutional rights is ridiculous."

Followed immediately by:

" ...trying to keep guns out of the city is not easy, without putting detectors at the bridges and tunnels, which hopefully will be doable one day soon."

And this is where you and I differ. We're both in favor of keeping guns out of the hands of criminals. However, you are in favor of setting up conditions (laws, regulations, general social norms) where it is impossible to legally own a gun. I am in favor of recognizing that anybody who can legally own a gun be able to purchase one without undo burden or cost.

If not, his and your hypocrisy is self-evident.

If you were worth in excess of 20 billion dollars, you might have armed security?
This guy supports every liberal cause except NORMAL. He takes no public money besides his $1/yr salary.
Please explain my hypocrisy.

Bloomfuck believes in armed security for anyone rich enough to pay for it. The little people... not so much.

And you seem to approve of armed securty for the "1%", but not for people to protect themselves.

That's pretty fucked, in my book.

First quote me where he said anything like that. Obviously high profile people need security, regardless of their personal wealth. We live in a loony/stalker society. The NYPD do a pretty good job of protecting the city. Not perfect, but pretty damned good. I have never met a New Yorker who voiced the need or desire for an armed populace in the city. It is an insane notion, just like it is to carry guns in any urban environment.

he does it by continuing the same policy that has been in place since 1911. The average person who has to deal with stalkers, live in crime ridden area, gets hassled and in inane test questions. Don Imus (racist cokehead who should not have a gun) and the band Aerosmith bribing a city clerk, no problem.
I seriously doubt high profile have more than their share of stalkers etc. than the average single mother. The only difference, you tell working class people to "get a dog". I have not seen anyone on your side denounce Brock's flunky committing a felony by violating DC's gun laws. Some time ago, one anti even defended Carl Rowan for shooting some kid who was no threat, and defended Million Mom Marcher Barbra Graham for attempted murder. Some College student in Philly defends himself after getting shot, everyone on your side attacked him. Why is that? No one on your side explained this yet.

It should be shall issue, or no issue across the board.

Give us a dollar figure...

If you are a target, you'll know. Don't try to turn a public safety issue into a class issue. I personally don't think anyone should be protected in public by armed security or personal firearms unless they can demonstrate credible threats having been made against them.
Permits to carry personal firearms should be the hardest thing to obtain with more hoops to jump through than most would have the stomach for. At the same time, penalties for carrying one without a permit should be so severe as to deter all, including the criminal element.
The real question is - which is preferable, a society where the public feel safe, or a society where individuals have the right to carry guns around in public? For most it's a no-brainer. Public safety trumps personal desire to carry a gun.

We didn't, you did.

"Permits to carry personal firearms should be the hardest thing to obtain with more hoops to jump through than most would have the stomach for."

Thus making them impossible for the poor, or even the 'middle class' to obtain even if they are targets/victims. Class warfare, eh?

Own your words.


"...which is preferable, a society where the public feel safe, or a society where individuals have the right to carry guns around in public?"

The two are not at all mutually exclusive as you imply.

Makes me wonder about your bona fides.

Bloomberg can certainly be accused of being an opportunist and a political power player, for example running for a third term or switching from Democrat to Republican before his first run for mayor. But overall, on social issues, he's quite liberal, including of course gun control but also things like abortion, gay marriage, global warming, etc. For example, he was quick to step in with a donation to planned parenthood after Komen cut their funding. He's also not afraid to confront the backward right-wing elements of the political scene, gun control again being a prime example, but another instance of this is his impassioned standing up for the so-called "ground zero mosque".

The irrational hatred of Bloomberg here is simply because he supports gun control, so pro-gunners assume he must be evil. Along with that there is a palpable anti-urbanism which is unfortunately a common prejudice, at least among pro-gunners and right-wingers generally (witness Sarah Palin's claims that "real Americans" have "small town values" in the 08 campaign).

What's more, what Bloomberg is proposing here in terms of gun control is a law requiring background checks for private gun sales. It is difficult to imagine how any sane person could be opposed to this (and polls show support runs about 80%-90% of the population), since this loophole makes it easy for any criminal to buy a gun without going through a background check.

As far as NYC's gun laws, as you have pointed out downthread (or upthread), there are very few New Yorkers who feel that there should be more guns in New York City. For being the largest and most densely populated city in the nation, New York's violent crime statistics are remarkably good, no doubt in part because of it's strict gun laws (but of course not entirely), and people who actually live in NYC have no interest in sacrificing this for some extremist notion of "gun rights". The people who whine about NYC's "draconian" gun laws are almost exclusively right-wingers who share Sarah Palin's dislike of all things urban and liberal, and who want to force more guns into cities for ideological reasons.

It is definitely an urban vs. rural issue and the right wingnuts like to claim rural America as their domain. They use NRA scare tactics to suck in the rural Democrats. I have family in WV and TN and many of them buy that shit. There are many places in this country where I would probably choose to own a gun if I lived there, but none are major metropolitan areas. The pro 2A purists who hang out here don't seem to understand much about places like NYC, LA and Chicago and that they operate by different sets of rules. Rules designed for masses of people who choose to live in close proximity to each other. Public safety, health and transportation are foremost in their minds. The Second Amendment is little more than a paragraph in a historical document and very distant from their daily reality.

right wingnuts claim to rural America only because the left (over the past 40 years) have largely treated those "hicks, hillbillies, rednecks, racists if you are white and uncle tom if you are not" with disdain. That is the main reason the DC and NYC media hated the Clintons and repeated made up bullshit (some of it written by David Brock) as fact. That is why the last GOP convention speeches were rich urban cosmopolitan elitists being self loathing rich urban elitists.
If you read the comments in other places (or even here) when guns come up, the antis rarely mention public safety concerns, or crime, or civilized society. It is about those "pick up truck driving, one toothed, race car driving, blue collar yahoos."

I don't know about the NYC and DC media hating the Clintons. Both are very popular in NYC. The only criticism I ever heard about them came from Republicans I talked to in LA, Arkansas, Tennessee and West Virginia. All from folk who get their opinions from Faux News and Limbaugh.
Public safety is the only issue, IMO, and trumps personal predilections every time. Freedom of the public to move around safely is more relevant than an individual's "freedom" to be armed in their midst.

at the time, but conventional wisdom was that the society elites (including pundits, probably not the same NYC folks you know) did not regard them as their kind of people. Those same people would be caught dead in either the part of Harlem where Bill has his office or a gun show in Wyoming.
I was in South Carolina when Bill was elected, half of the gun owners there (and all of the ones I knew) loved him too. They were mostly African American and Democrats, but gun owning hicks all the same. I noticed something interesting:
African American evangelicals (who are just as socially conservative as their white counter parts), gun owners, and rural folks vote Dem.
Their white counterparts vote more GOP.
That is worth exploring.
The Sullivan Law's intent was not public safety in 1911.

broad brush and constant irrelevant nonsense about climate change? I don't know about the people who you hang out with, but the two hardly overlaps.

Bloomberg would be despicable even if his attitude towards guns was the same as Rick Perry's.
Because, you know, some of us aren't believers in the "salvation by faith" aspect of gun control advocacy- the idea that embracing gun control
washes away all sins. Do that, answer the altar call, and your fellow churchgoers will happily explain away your criminal records, your violations
of the Constitution, and much else besides....

The Bloomberg hatred here is clearly based on his stance on guns, and attempts to rationalize it by pretending he is some kind of right-winger a hopeless attempt at "tit-for-tat".

The fact of the matter is that almost all prominent pro-gun politicians and "gun rights" advocates come from the ugly, loony wing of the Republican party (speaking of "salvation by faith&quot . So after cozying up the likes of Rick Perry and Sarah Palin, the pro-gunners here see in Mike Bloomberg the opportunity to pretend that it is actually the pro-controllers who are conservative. So they demonize him as an "evil" Republican, despite the fact that he is actually an independent with largely liberal views on social issues, and has done a pretty good job as mayor, all things considered.

No politician is perfect. Obama, for example, is a somewhat controversial character on DU, with many people accusing him of being too close to wall street, or failing to close Gitmo or prosecute war crimes, etc. But portraying Obama as some kind of right-winger is silly, and ignores the good things he has done, as well as the fact that he also has to deal with political reality.

Similarly, portraying Bloomberg as some kind of right-wing autocrat is just more of the delusional hyperbole that is second nature to pro-gunners. A rational assessment of Bloomberg must take into account all the good things he has done for progressive causes such as abortion, gay marriage, the environment, etc., as well as some of his more conservative stances on economic issues, his questionable handling of OWS, etc.

There may be some politicians who deserve "rational hatred", but Bloomberg is certainly not one of him.

but certainly not really left wing. Kind of liberal in the 1950s Republican kind of way. He is a plutocrat. I have yet to see anyone saying anything nice about Palin or Perry here.

Or are we supposed to accept your assertion on faith?

Perry and Palin are a pair of dimbulb reactionaries with the power to cloud the minds of those even stupider than themselves. Their stance on guns does not
alter that in the least, any more than Dick Cheney's support of marriage equality makes him a progressive.

Reading the excuses given for (or outright refusal to acknowledge) Bloomberg's persistent disregard of the US Constitution in various forms over many years,
I once again ask his apologists: What flavor was your Kool-Aid?

You mean the same guy that likes the freedom to peacefully assemble as much as the right to bear arms? At least OWS changed his mind about extending the Bush tax cut.

He was a life long Democrat who switched parties to run for mayor the first time. He's now an independent. Running as a Dem in NYC is not a pretty picture. Unfortunately, our party does not have the best record when it comes to big city politics.

Yeah, that's all about honesty and principle....

The NYC Democratic party had reached a level of corruption that many were loathe to associate with it. I care more about liberal social values than party loyalty. That's why people like Bloomberg in NYC and Dick Riordan in LA get elected to run those cities. Social liberals with business acumen. Not a bad combination for a big city mayor.

"liberal social values"?!

So he went from being a Dem to a Rep so he could get elected, then went to IND so he could win AGAIN. What's next, is he going to announce himself to be a Libertarian?

He then bought his election spending as much to destroy his DEMOCRATIC opponent as was spent in entire presidential elections a few years ago. Fuck that man. He is a hypocrite, a liar, and an egomaniacal asshole.

Sounds to me like you're peeved about his stand on public safety in NYC by not having folk carrying guns around. If he were an egomaniac, I think he would be running for higher political office, like his predecessor, who is an egomaniac. No, I think his heart and mind are in the right place, which is making his city a better and safer place and he is succeeding IMHO.

Because it's pretty clear that you don't.

Anyone who is involved in New York statewide politics--and I know most of the people in the state liberal blogger scene by the way--will tell you that Bloomberg is the personification of everything that is wrong with American politics. Starting with the fact that he personally bankrolled the campaigns of any City Council members who backed him in overturning the term limits law that had been approved TWICE by the voters. Extending through his repeated and massive violations of campaign finance laws; he doesn't care, because he can simply pay the fines after the fact. Or the fact that he mouths support for gay marriage in New York while donating literally millions of dollars to the campaigns of Republican State Senators and would-be State Senator who were pledged to block or defeat the gay marriage bill. Talking up respect for muslims in the Park 51 mess while having the NYPD conducting illegal surveillance and racial profiling on a massive scale. Constantly threatening New York's junior Senator with a challenger funded by him, either in the Democratic primary or a Republican in the general election--including Bloomberg's own girlfriend--because Senator Gillibrand isn't from NYC and is insufficiently deferential to Bloomberg. Or the fact that he backed up the Republican line by refusing stimulus funds for New York City--but only the ones going to the POOR people, in the form of food stamps. The money he could siphon off to other things he was more than happy to take.

Let me make a suggestion: go to any of the major New York political blogs, look for anything about Bloomberg, and see if you can find one single positive mention about him for something that he didn't turn out to be a complete hypocrite on, like gay marriage or islamophobia. Bloomberg is everything that is despicable in politics, and it makes me sick that some people here defend him and fall for his lies.

Including saying, outright, that the Iraq War started with the World Trade Center attacks. And five years on when the Dems wanted to talk timetables, his calling the Democrats "irresponsible" for doing so. Or his loud support for the PATRIOT Act. Or his support for a national DNA and fingerprint database of EVERY CITIZEN. Or the $1.65 billion in tax breaks he gave to Goldman Sachs to "keep them in New York."

I think the better question here is, why do you support a right-wing Republican like him?

I'll have to check it out. Haven't found anything to support your statements so far, except for highly biased sources. I usually look at independent sources before making my mind up on anything. Maybe you could help me there.
I have never seen Bloomberg as a RW Republican, but rather a liberal centrist. Right wing Republicans don't get elected in NYC. I'm not a big supporter of gun control, which is a liberal issue, but I prefer it in a climate of no self control. Gun proliferation is most definitely a RW libertarian issue.

...development facilities?

There has to be at least one proctologist.

'cause he seems to know the subject inside-out.....

Ba-da boom!

Minuimus cranio maximus rectal.

That name, as fucked up as it sounds, in all honesty, would actually apply more to the subject at hand than the "Gabby Giffords Bill".

honest approaches?