Mayor Bloomberg Opens Own Wallet To Erect Protective Wall Of Money Around His Beloved Stop And Frisk Program
from the this-stack-of-cash-says-your-rights-are-invalid dept
We wrote recently about New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg's apoplectic response to the passage of two bills aimed at his beloved stop and frisk program. In addition to claiming the city would fall immediately and be beset on all sides by the tyranny of evil men swept up in an unprecedented crime wave (which would seem to imply stop and frisk isn't catching that many criminals), he also promised to veto both bills despite both having landed on his desk with veto-proof votes.
The odds are stacked against him and the city council doesn't currently seem to be stocked with a large number of Bloomberg supporters, but the Mayor's apparently not going to let others not take "No" for an answer.
Aides and advisors said the billionaire lame-duck mayor intends to use some of his fortune to influence the outcome of a vote to override his coming veto of measures to install an NYPD inspector general and to modify the controversial stop-and-frisk program.Now, if we didn't participate in a democratic system that is rarely, if ever, abused [brief pause to reinsert still-rolling eyes back in sockets], one could easily mistake Bloomberg's statement to mean he's going to reach into his deep pockets and start handing out bribes. That, of course, would be illegal. Instead, he's going to go the morally acceptable route [pause to tighten eyeroll-resistant goggles] and throw his money into various campaign war chests.
"The bottom line is I make no bones about it, I'm telling you I'm going to support those candidates," said Bloomberg. "Some of these things are life and death issues, like these two horrendous bills in the City Council and they're going to put our police officers at risk and they're going to put the public at risk and I've got an obligation to tell people that."Once again, the criminal apocalypse is nigh and only Bloomberg's constitutionally-unsound stop and frisk program can prevent it. Part of Bloomberg's billions will now be flowing directly to those who share his views -- specifically, that the NYPD is the mayor's personal army, and that any attempt to provide it with oversight or steer it away from violating civil liberties en masse will weaken the force and damage the city.
Even if Bloomberg fails to secure the vetoes before he leaves office, he appears willing to spare no expense stacking the legislative deck in order to see these new laws repealed or gutted. He'll no longer have the title and everything that comes with it, but if he spends his money wisely (or just spends enough of it), he'll still be able to keep at least one hand on the reins.
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Filed Under: mike bloomberg, money and politics, nyc, stop and frisk
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At one point...
And yet he supports stuff like this.
*sigh*
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here's the thing
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The way I see it, he thinks that he truly knows what's best for the people of New York City and he will do anything he can to protect them, even from themselves.
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He needs to look in the damn mirror. El Presidente's in banana republics use these kind of tactics over their subjects all the time. I am sick and tired of our politicians trying to emulate petty dictators!!
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At the risk of seeming pedantic:
* Boss A puts finger on someone he needs out of the picture "for a while" -- gives names, pictures, normal schedule.
* Cops stop and frisk
* Sprinkle a little crack
* Profit!
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Re: here's the thing
Then again... he is already worth Billions, and we know he's a Jewish control freak with "Small Man" syndrome... so MAYBE he's just spending all this money (peanuts to him) so he can retain his POWER AND CONTROL over the citizens.... Think about it... You're already a billionaire, everything that money can buy (including your "own private army" the NYPD) what's left for a man like that?.... POWER.
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One more reason to tax the HELL out of The Rich.
The Rich get far beyond fair rewards for their small efforts. They're parasites, not creators: their privileged position allows them to direct the labors of many others and then to scrape off the profits. To be Rich is better than "money for nothin'", it's simply feudal entitlement in which the slaves get just enough to feed themselves and must hand over the rest to the high born. -- Worst aspect is that "money" can be passed on forever. -- But the notion of money requires action, of trading value for value. Money is not property: it's the ability to command laborers. Property requires efforts to get any gain from it. The Rich don't produce or trade values: they use money sheerly for power over other people. Therefore society needs to tax away "money" to stop accumulations of power.
No society has ever prospered by allowing The Rich to do whatever they wish; the only path to general prosperity is to pull down The Rich, to break their rigid controls.
Taxing the few down from truly obscene levels to merely filthy rich is justified by public need to put some limits on bad actors, to maintain some equality, to allow some social mobility. High taxes are not penalizing success: and it's not even punishing the bad acts that got the money (robbing laborers of fair rewards), as they'll still be plenty Rich enough.
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Re: One more reason to tax the HELL out of The Rich.
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i don't get it: 99% of the benefits of copymaximalists accrue to korporations, etc, NOT the po' l'il artiste; YET, he/she/it is foaming-at-the-mouth rabid about insisting that enforcing these UNFAIR laws against us 99% for the benefit of the 1% is somehow the right and moral thing to do...
funny guy/gal/hermaphrodite
art guerrilla
aka ann archy
eof
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I don't. Sure, it makes a great song lyrics: "Tax the rich, feed the poor. Till there are no rich no more."
But in reality there are problems. One would be figuring out who is "too rich" and another is the fact that Blue's notion is nothing more than a "success tax" that would curtail the normal motivation factors that drive a capitalistic economy.
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Oh wait, you're the United Corporate Stasi of Murica...
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Re: One more reason to tax the HELL out of The Rich.
In other words, you don't have to be rich to be a pain in the ass to the general population, but it helps, both in being a pain in the ass yourself and in influencing others to be a pain in the ass as well.
Would returning income taxation to the old 98% level work? I don't think so. You can try, but since the ruling elite currently hold the reins of government (and therefore taxation), good luck with that.
What we need to do is quit letting our representatives act on our behalves without our keeping an eye on them to make sure they do their jobs. What we usually do is vote for the ones who least offend our sensibilities and hope they make some kind of effort to represent us. Let's be more in their faces, letting them know we are watching them — and woe betide them in the next election if they fail to serve us properly.
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further, psych research has shown that 'rich' people are LESS likely to give to charity/others, AND give a smaller percentage of income than 'poor' people, AND they are far more likely to cheat their fellow nekkid apes (who they don'[t regard as 'fellow nekkid apes', but peons)...
EVERYONE exhibits some level of that behavior when they get relative power/wealth over other nekkid apes...
just nekkid apes justifying their oppression of other nekkid apes... hence the validity of the quote:
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
art guerrilla
aka ann archy
eof
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True. But the accumulation of great wealth in the hands of a few is very much a bad thing in and of itself.
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Try to get people to understand why they believe this and you'll be called a commie yourself. They do it to me.
I can understand a rich person looking down on the Great Unwashed and calling us smelly and lazy, etc., but why do our fellow Great Unwashed seem to think that hitching their wagons to the Super Rich makes them any better than the rest of us? Maintaining the status quo won't benefit poor right-wingers any more than it would benefit us, so what gives?
Just a rhetorical answer because they seem to be afraid to think for themselves. I've actually seen this. It'd be funny if it wasn't contributing to the mess we're in by keeping those bozos in power.
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So where do you start?
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Remember before 911
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At least he's leaving office.
I'm so grateful he's going to leave.
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I'm a little...
I'll use my money, I'll use my clout...
I'm a little despot... short and stout...
We'll stop and frisk you... you better not pout!
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Now let's see how many have the cojones to not be bought off their ideaology...
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Did they phrase it like that? I'd like to know the exact words they used. Quid pro quo is illegal, and the mayor is walking a very fine line by declaring this before the final vote.
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Saying dumb things in public
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