Bloomberg's secret political campaign contributions

Thompson Challenges Mayor’s Financial Disclosures

The New York Times reported that City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr.'s mayoral campaign has filed a complaint with the city’s Campaign Finance Board arguing that Mayor Michael Bloomberg had failed to disclose more than $3.3 million in political contributions for the 2009 election, much of it to Republican organizations. An anonymous expert reported that these contributions were most likely made from Mr. Bloomberg’s own personal funds.

For the record, I did not post the following reader-reaction to the article in the NYTimes :

August 20, 2009 6:57 pm

"Bloomberg is like Nixon, if the mayor does it, it’s not against the law.

"In that thicket of haywire within his head, they mayor is a law unto himself. This was reflected recently when the mayor had distributed money to community groups purportedly at the request of city council members, but in fact solely on the mayor’s initiative. Then the mayor says, well, recollections may differ.

"If there is any taped recording of the mayoral conversations regarding the unreported contributions, you can be sure there are gaps on it, and probably more than 18 minutes worth."

— Nat

Bloomberg kept no records of city's own audit

NYT: City Hall Broke Rules Funneling Money to Groups

After The New York Times reported that the Bloomberg administration had violated city contracting rules by directing substantial amounts of taxpayer funds (possibly in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to The Times ) to two politically connected groups, Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. and Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum asked the mayor on Thursday for all documents relating to his office’s use of discretionary funds to finance nonprofit groups.

In a blog post by Ray Rivera, the The Times reported that, "...the mayor’s office has said that there is little paperwork supporting the review and that it relied on interviews with staff members to reconstruct the financing. When The Times asked this week for a copy of the audit, a spokesman for the mayor said the report was really little more than a, 'spreadsheet that detailed what was funded and by whom.' "

Mayor Michael Bloomberg will spy on 2004 G.O.P. convention protesters and secretly audio-tape his political rival's campaign events, but neither he nor his office has any substantial record of City Hall's own audit of the slush fund scandal ?

If there's nothing to hide, then why suppress where the money went ?

I encourage everybody to follow the courageous and inspiring vlog postings by Suzannah B. Troy, who doesn't let us forget about the misuse of discretionary funds by City Hall and the New York City Council.

Bloomberg continues to 'track' Thompson's every move

The Daily News reports that Mayor Bloomberg is following his rival, City Comptroller William Thompson, in mayoral race.

In his power-mad campaign to win a previously-prohibited third term, Mayor Bloomberg's re-election campaign staff are tailing Bill Thompson at his election rallies.

The pressure of being followed and taped by Mayor Bloomberg's re-election staff is weighing down on Mr. Thompson. For example, Mr. Thompson is being baited by hecklers or activists into having to respond to criticisms of Mayor Bloomberg and his deputy mayor, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. Having to respond to the deep resentment and disappointment that voters feel towards Mayor Bloomberg is becoming a challenge, because Mayor Bloomberg's re-election campaign staff is using Mr. Thompson's response (or non-response) as fodder for campaign attacks.

At a campaign event last week, [Mr. Thompson] said nothing as a cafe owner called City Council Speaker Christine Quinn a whore, instead of calling him out.

A month ago, he seemed helpless when a disheveled man started screaming obscenities about Bloomberg in the background of a Chinatown press conference.

"We're on camera?" Thompson asked. "Why does this always happen to me?"

Thompson now knows that Bloomberg's team is tracking him at every public event.

Let's hope that somebody is following and taping Mayor Bloomberg, to see how Mayor Bloomberg likes it.

Read more at: Controller needs to figure out which William Thompson is running for Mayor

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Bloomberg's Campaign peddles tapes to The New York Post

Mayor Bloomberg has a history of spying on protest groups during the 2004 Republican National Convention. Now, his third term re-election staff have started spying on Bill Thompson's campaign events.

Remember when, back in 2004, Mayor Michael Bloomberg admitted that he had ordered the NYPD to collect surveillance on groups protesting the Republican National Convention ?

Well, now comes the blogger Roy Edroso of The Village Voice, and he has reported that Mayor Bloomberg's campaign operatives are shopping around secretly-recorded audio tapes to humiliate NYC Mayoral candidate Bill Thompson. It is known that at least one media outlet, The New York Post, has been taken this bait.

"The Post says his operatives sent them a tape of Bill Thompson not reacting when the co-owner of the delightful West Village Brit boite Tea and Sympathy called Christine Quinn a "whore." "

The prefabricated outrage that is being intentionally generated by this scandal is ludicrous. Restauranteur Sean Kavanagh-Dowsett's only wrong-doing was that he had no thesaurus within easy reach; his poor choice of an adjective to describe a sell-out is understandable. When I can't think of a word to describe my disappointment in someone, I usually do turn to profanity as a literary clutch.

Meanwhile, it seems Nixon-esque for Mayor Bloomberg's political campaign to go around audio-taping his rival's campaign events. Should that be cause for more concern than the wrong use of the word, "whore?"