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By Marcia Moxam Comrie

Special to the Eagle

Former New York CityMayor Michael Bloomberg has flirted with running for president for years, and this might finally be the year he does it.

You dont go as far as to dispatch campaign workers to distant states to get you on the ballot to run in the primary election if you dont plan to run. But Bloomberg is no ordinary candidate. He is financially equipped to take his time. Right now he has the five toes of one foot in the water; but by early December he might be fully wading in.

The question is, do enough voters care about candidate Bloomberg to switch loyalties from anyone they may be currently supporting? Hes not exciting. Hes a bit of an elitist and definitely not warm and fuzzy if thats your thing. But sitting on the sidelines watching Mayor Pete thriving in the polls, Mayor Mike must be feeling hes the more qualified mayor of the two. And one cannot argue with that. Say what you will about him, but Bloomberg did some good things in New York that can be sold nationally.

Bloomberg, like Tom Stayer, would be the green president. He would get us right back into the Paris Agreement, which Trump took us out of shortly after taking office. One of his biggest accomplishments as mayor was the greening of New York, both literally with the planting of more than 1 million new trees across the five boroughs; and figuratively by working with corporations and public institutions to narrow their carbon footprints.

He also proved his leadership upon taking office in January 2002 in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. The mayor and an almost entirely new City Council body led by Speakers Gifford Miller and Christine Quinn, respectively, brought the city back from the brink of financial disaster setting the wheels in motion to rebuild lower Manhattan and lure tourists back to a safe New York City. Mayor Bloomberg was also a great public health mayor.

His policy in this area was often met with scorn, but in the end we are a healthier city for it. He outlawed smoking in public spaces, including public transportation, restaurants, and even some sidewalks. This was, and continues to be a great thing for people with respiratory maladies and everyone else for that matter.

Other health policies included the banning of trans fat in restaurants as well as calorie count so diners can make informed food choices. If some of these policies sound dictatorial, they were, but for many, it was good public policy. He was a mayor concerned about the health of the city and its residents. He would also fight the good fight for sensible gun laws, just as he has been doing for years in and out of office. On this front, he has poured tens of millions of his own money into the fight against the NRA and other such interests.

But heres where Bloomberg caused a lot of damage: Stop and Frisk. Young Black men in particular were singled out for the controversial stop and frisk practice by the NYPD. African-American and darker hued Latino men felt they couldnt catch a break. Bill de Blasio ran on a promise to end the Blomberg stop and frisk era, and he won and kept his promise.

Today, according to Mayor de Blasio, crime is at its lowest in decades. And Mayor Bloomberg has embarked on what sounds like an apology tour. I like Mike and think he definitely has something to add to the 2020 conversation. However, it seems disingenuous to have waited until hes on the verge of a national campaign to start apologizing. He should have realized the harm that policy was doing to our community and at least monitored it more closely to ensure it wasnt being abused.

He also could have made his apologies at any time during the six years hes been out of office. The optics of waiting until hes considering a run for president just reeks of insincerity. Going to a mega church in Brooklyn or a conversation with Rev. Al Sharpton cannot undo the time people spent in jail on petty or trumped up charges. It rings hollow. Sharpton says he accepts the apology and good for him! But he does not speak for the rest of us.

Of course our hurt over stop and frisk shouldnt make us vote for Trump if Mike is the nominee next year. Bloomberg would be an honorable president with good ideas. He is a statesman. He would never sell out our country to further enrich himself nor win an election. He would not be tweeting insults nor encouraging ethnic divides. In fact, on paper hes almost perfect. I would never dismiss his candidacy because hes messed up badly in one area.

A wise retired politician once told me that sometimes you hold your nose and vote. He probably meant this more in the legislative sense, but its workable for elections too. In the 90s the Clintons caused a lot of damage with the crime bill, but we still voted for them in large numbers. Kamala Harris brought up Joe Bidens record on busing, but we have not turned away from him either. Just as no person is perfect, no presidential candidate is perfect. We just have to weigh the totality of their record.

Bloomberg, and just about everyone else on the Democratic side, would bring back respectability, if nothing else to the Office of the President. We would regain respectability on the world stage, respect the value of every human life and dignity including at the Southern border. So lets see what Bloomberg has to say if he really joins the race.

Marcia Moxam Comrie is a freelance writer from St. Albans, Queens. She is a former columnist and founding editor of the Southeast Queens PRESS. She has a special affinity for political commentary.

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Opinion: Candidate Bloomberg and the delayed apology - Queens Daily Eagle

New York He was the billionaire businessman and untested politician who took charge of a scarred city and steered it into a new era, shaping a New York that projected glittering prosperity, governmental innovation and cosmopolitan confidence.

Michael Bloomberg will be highlighting, and answering for, that legacy in his newly launched Democratic presidential campaign as a doer and a problem-solver.

File-This photo from Sunday, July, 4, 2004, shows developer Larry Silverstein, right, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg at the unveiling of a 9-foot-by-4-foot granite cornerstone, after it was lifted into its resting spot at the World Trade Center site in New York.(Photo: DEAN COX, AP)

Over 12 years as mayor of the nations largest city, Bloomberg governed with a focus on functionality and a vision of New York rebounding from the trauma of 9/11 to become safer, shinier and more of a magnet than before.

The Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent (now turned Democrat again) was unbeholden to the citys Democratic power structure or the combative law-and-order conservatism of predecessor Rudy Giuliani. But Bloombergs City Hall wasnt without ideology of its own: data-driven; tech-friendly; committed to making national waves on gun control, public health and climate change; unapologetic and unafraid of backlash if officials were confident theyd be proven right in the end.

The approach did much to transform the city. But many New Yorkers were chafing as Bloombergs tenure neared its 2013 end, in a third term hed won after engineering a term-limits-law change.

Some felt Bloombergs New York worked better for a well-off elite than for others, including hundreds of thousands of black and Hispanic men experiencing police stop and frisks each year, the homeless whose numbers had surged, the tenants who rued seeing rents rise along with pricey skyscrapers. The term-limited mayors successor, Democrat Bill de Blasio, told a campaign tale of two cities that resonated with voters who felt Bloomberg was out of touch.

Nonetheless, Bloomberg left office with nearly two-thirds of voters saying he made the city better, according to a Quinnipiac University poll, and a long list of important mayoral moments.

Here are some.

File-This photo from Saturday, Oct. 27, 2001, shows Mayor Rudolph Giuliani endorsing then Republican mayoral candidate Michael Bloomberg, left, on the steps of City Hall in New York. Saturday, Oct. 27, 2001. The Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent (now turned Democrat again) was unbeholden to the city's Democratic power structure or the combative law-and-order conservatism of predecessor Rudy Giuliani.(Photo: ROBERT SPENCER, AP)

I commit to you today that I will make the schools better, Bloomberg said when an education overhaul he muscled through the Legislature became law in 2002.

He had campaigned on gaining control of the nations largest public school system, troubled by low test scores and high dropout rates. It was overseen by an unwieldy combination of an appointed board which Bloomberg said ran the schools like a rinky-dink candy store and 32 elected school boards.

After getting control, Bloomberg left his mark by championing charter schools, expanding school choice, giving schools letter grades, and replacing scores of struggling institutions with clusters of small schools. His presidential-campaign announcement boasted that he gave teachers the largest raise in America and improved high school graduation rates by 42%.

Many of his education initiatives were contentious. Protests erupted when some schools closed. Bloombergs choice system gave families options, but was criticized as fueling segregation by expanding the number of schools allowed to screen students by test scores, interviews and auditions.

Six months into his tenure, Bloomberg signed what he said may be the most important measure my administration takes to save peoples lives.

It raised the citys cigarette taxes to the highest level in the nation.

Bloomberg went on to prioritize public health, banning smoking in bars and parks, making chain restaurants post calorie counts and prohibiting artificial trans fats in restaurant food. He lobbied food manufacturers to use less salt.

Then, in 2012, Bloomberg took aim at soda.

Pointing to rising obesity rates, he proposed a 16-ounce cap on non-diet soda and other sugary beverages sold in restaurants and other venues.

Health officials praised the first-of-its kind measure. Industry groups and believers in laissez-faire called it unfair to businesses and condescending toward consumers, dubbing the mayor Nanny Bloomberg and Mayor Poppins.

Courts struck the measure down.

Bloomberg called the outcome unfortunate but remained proud of his public-health record, saying his administrations biggest accomplishment was a roughly 3-year increase in residents life expectancy.

File-This photo from Friday, Oct. 12, 2012, shows District Attorney Cyrus Vance, left, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, center, NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, right, with confiscated illegal firearm during a press conference in New York.(Photo: John Minchillo, AP)

Saying he wanted to stanch gun violence at the source, Bloomberg announced in May 2006 that he was suing 15 dealers he accused of selling firearms illegally in other states.

Efforts to stop this bloodshed have to reach across state lines, said Bloomberg, whose administration said the shops were linked to guns used in New York City crimes.

The lawsuits resulted in court-appointed monitoring for many targeted shops and a burgeoning role for Bloomberg as a public face of gun control.

He went on to co-found Mayors Against Illegal Guns now part of his Everytown for Gun Safety advocacy group and has given millions of dollars to pro-gun control candidates.

Critics complained he was deaf to the views of millions of firearms owners.

The National Rifle Association caricatured Bloomberg as an octopus on the cover of its magazine in 2007. A Virginia group organized a taunting Bloomberg Gun Giveaway.

File-This photo from Friday April 15, 2011, shows the New York by Gehry tower, center, in downtown New York--which was originally supposed to include 200 sprawling condos along with 700 rentals, but now all apartments are for rent.(Photo: Mary Altaffer, AP)

A rail yard on Manhattans Far West Side had been a linchpin of Bloombergs bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics. After it failed in 2005, Bloomberg pivoted to reconceiving the 28-acre area as a new neighborhood of offices, apartments, arts spaces and more.

To facilitate it, the city took an unusual step to finance a subway line extension.

The December 2007 groundbreaking for the citys first additional subway station in a quarter-century was a milestone in the citys biggest private real estate development since Rockefeller Center.

Hudson Yards, which opened this March, was part of the roughly 40 percent of the city that was rezoned during Bloombergs tenure.

Bloomberg said his administration created or preserved more than 175,000 affordable housing units. But for many New Yorkers, affordability slipped from reach.

By 2013, some 54% of renter households were spending 30% or more of their income on housing, up from 43% in 2000, according to New York Universitys Furman Center. The number of people in homeless shelters rose about 60% during Bloombergs tenure, despite his pledge to reduce homelessness by two-thirds.

Bloomberg insisted he had worked to fight poverty. Yet he was unabashed about also courting the rich.

Thats where the revenue comes to take care of everybody else, he told New York magazine in 2013. Wouldnt it be great if we could get all the Russian billionaires to move here?

When a proposal to build a Muslim community center near ground zero generated a bitter debate over tolerance and the legacy of 9/11, Bloomberg delivered one of the most impassioned speeches of his career.

When first responders rushed to save people on Sept. 11, 2001, he noted, not one of them asked, What God do you pray to?

Muslims are as much a part of our city and our country as the people of any faith, and they are as welcome to worship in lower Manhattan as any other group, he said.

The terror attacks happened two months before Bloomberg won the mayoralty, partly by arguing that his business experience would help revitalizing the city.

Bloomberg at times alienated some Sept. 11 victims relatives, but he also led the development of the ground zero memorial.

As progress stalled in 2006, Bloomberg joined the 9/11 memorial foundation board and became chairman to boost fundraising, giving at least $15 million of his own fortune. Organizers credited him with injecting momentum. The memorial plaza opened in 2011, followed by the museum in 2014.

Superstorm Sandy slammed New York City with a surge of water that killed 44 people and plunged swaths of the city into darkness. Flooding damaged tens of thousands of homes, swamped subways and forced evacuations of hospitals and nursing homes.

Bloomberg offered a voice of on-top-of-it assurance.

We will get through the days ahead by doing what we always do in tough times by standing together, he said.

Those days were packed with problems: enduring outages, gas shortages, senior citizens stranded in high-rises where elevators didnt work.

Bloomberg embarked on home-repair initiatives that drew initial praise for performing basic fixes on 20,000 dwellings in five months, but led to years-long delays for more substantial repairs.

He also proposed a $20 billion plan to protect New York with levees, flood gates and other defenses.

File-This photo from Sunday, June 17, 2012, shows Rev. Al Sharpton, center, with demonstrators during a silent march to end the "stop-and-frisk" program in New York.(Photo: Seth Wenig, AP)

During the Bloomberg administration, civil rights groups went to court to end the NYPDs use of a tactic known as stop and frisk, which involved detaining, questioning and sometimes searching people deemed suspicious by officers.

A federal judges 2013 ruling on the program was unsparing: The police had violated thousands of peoples civil rights.

The citys highest officials have turned a blind eye to the evidence that officers are conducting stops in a racially discriminatory manner, U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin wrote.

The tactic was longstanding, but its use soared under Bloomberg and then-Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, from about 97,000 stops in 2002 to a high of almost 685,000 in 2011.

They argued the tactic helped drive crime down to record-low levels, but only about 10 percent of stops yielded arrests or summonses.

De Blasio later dropped the citys appeal of the ruling, agreeing to reforms and a court-appointed monitor.

Bloomberg apologized for this month for supporting stop and frisk.

I cant change history, he told a black church congregation in Brooklyn, but I realize back then I was wrong.

Jennifer Peltz covered New York City Hall during part of Bloombergs final term. Associated Press writer Karen Matthews contributed to this report.

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Bloomberg as mayor: A New York that sparkled, and chafed - The Detroit News

The new legislation, which is expected to be passed by the City Council on Tuesday, includes menthol-flavored products; the only vaping liquid that would be allowed for sale are tobacco-flavored products. The bill would then go to Mayor Bill de Blasio to sign.

The mayor supports it. We will either sign it or let it lapse into law, said Freddi Goldstein, Mr. de Blasios press secretary.

The Council, however, set aside a companion measure that would have banned the sale of menthol cigarettes amid concerted lobbying efforts and opposition from the Rev. Al Sharpton, whose nonprofit National Action Network has regularly taken five-figure contributions from the tobacco giant Reynolds American.

That legislation has come under attack from some civil rights activists who say that since menthol cigarettes are largely smoked by African-Americans, banning them would create an underground market that could lead to tragedies like the death of Eric Garner, a Staten Island man who died after a confrontation with police officers who accused him of selling loose cigarettes. Others have argued for a ban, citing health concerns.

Mr. Levine said there is still a strong commitment to the menthol ban.

Kirsten John Foy, a civil rights activist who was formerly a part of Mr. Sharptons organization, said that delaying a menthol cigarette ban was a capitulation to the tobacco industry.

The vaping industrys lobbying efforts have also been strenuous, if less successful. In 2019 alone, Juul paid more than $250,000 to lobbyists from five separate firms to lobby on its behalf in New York City, mostly related to the flavored e-cigarette bill, state filings show. (The company also paid to lobby against restrictions in Albany.)

The City Council speaker, Corey Johnson, who has shared on social media about his use of e-cigarettes to quit smoking cigarettes, proudly supports the vaping legislation, said his spokeswoman Jennifer Fermino, and is meeting with stakeholders to find a compromise on the menthol ban.

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After Deaths, Ban on Flavored Vapes to Be Passed by New York City - The New York Times

Washington, D.C. Today, U.S. Congressman Matt Gaetz (FL-01) exposed Reverend Al Sharptons history of racist remarks and inflammatory actions by quoting a concurrent resolution by former U.S. Congressman Joe Scarborough, which detailed a pattern of questionable conduct by Reverend Al Sharpton.

The resolution, named Condemning the Racist and Anti-Semitic Views of Reverend Al Sharpton, recounted instances where Reverend Sharpton uttered repeated animosities toward the Jewish people, toward people of white descent, and toward people of color. Congressman Gaetz entered Mr. Scarboroughs resolution into the Congressional Record via unanimous consent.

A rough video of Congressman Gaetzs exchange with Reverend Sharpton, excerpts from the exchange, and text of the resolution can be found below:

EXCERPTS:

Congressman Gaetz: Have you ever referred to members of the Jewish faith as white interlopers or diamond merchants?

Mr. Sharpton: No sir I referred to one in Harlem, an individual.

______________________________________

Congressman Gaetz: Did you march next to a sign that said, the white man is the devil?

Mr. Sharpton: I have no recollection of that.

__________________________________

Congressman Gaetz: Have you ever referred to African Americans that disagreed with you as cocktail-sip negros?

Mr. Sharpton: I have.

_________________________

Congressman Gaetz: Have you ever referred to African Americans who disagreed with you as yellow, and then the N-word?

Mr. Sharpton: I dont know that I haveIve referred to people as names.

_________________________

Congressman Gaetz: Have you ever referred to African Americans that disagreed with you as negro militants?

Mr. Sharpton: I dont know, I dont recall.

RESOLUTION:

106th CONGRESS

2d Session

H. CON. RES. 270

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

Condemning the racist and anti-Semitic views of the Reverend Al Sharpton

Whereas the Congress strongly rejects the racist and incendiary actions of the Reverend Al Sharpton;

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton has referred to members of the Jewish faith as bloodsucking [J]ews, and Jew bastards;

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton has referred to members of the Jewish faith as white interlopers and diamond merchants;

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton was found guilty of defamation by a jury in a New York court arising from the false accusation that former Assistant District Attorney Steven Pagones, who is white, raped and assaulted a fifteen year-old black girl;

Whereas, to this day, the Reverend Al Sharpton has refused to accept responsibility and expresses no regret for defaming Mr. Pagones;

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharptons vicious verbal anti-Semitic attacks directed at members of the Jewish faith, and in particular, a Jewish landlord, arising from a simple landlord-tenant dispute with a black tenant, incited widespread violence, riots, and the murder of five innocent people;

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharptons fierce demagoguery incited violence, riots, and murder in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York, following the accidental death of a black pedestrian child hit by the motorcade of Orthodox Rabbi Menachem Schneerson;

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton led a protest in the Crown Heights neighborhood and marched next to a protester with a sign that read, The White Man is the Devil;

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton has insulted members of the Jewish faith by challenging Jews to violence and stating to Jews to pin down their yarmulkes; and

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton has practiced the politics of racial division and made inflammatory remarks against whites by characterizing the death of Amadou Diallo as a racially motivated police assassination:

Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring),

That the Congress

(1) condemns the practices of the Reverend Al Sharpton, which seek to divide Americans on the basis of race, ethnicity, and religion;

(2) expresses its outrage over the violence that has resulted due to the Reverend Al Sharptons incendiary words and actions; and

(3) fervently urges elected officials and public servants, who have condoned and legitimized the Reverend Al Sharptons incendiary words and actions, to publicly denounce and condemn such racist and anti-Semitic views.

###

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Congressman Matt Gaetz Exposes Reverend Al Sharpton During ...

Born in Brooklyn, New York, on October 3, 1954, Reverend Alfred "Al" Sharpton has been preaching since age four. He was licensed and ordained at age nine. In 1971, he founded the National Youth Movement and for seventeen years he led the organization, registering young people to vote and giving them job opportunities. His direct-action and civil disobedience campaigns have brought attention to injustice in many areas.

Sharpton has pursued other interests while continuing to preach: in his teens, he established a close bond with James Brown and developed a father-son relationship, eventually recording the record God Smiled on Me with him. In the 1970s and early 1980s, he worked as a youth organizer with boxing promoter Don King, while learning more about African American politics and entertainment.

However, Sharpton never strayed far from activism. He formed the National Action Network in 1991 to fight for progressive, people-based social policies by providing extensive voter education and registration campaigns, economic support for small community businesses and by confronting corporate racism. That same year, Sharpton was stabbed in a Bensonhurst school yard. This represented a turning point for him. Eventually, he met and reconciled with his attacker.

Sharpton has never hesitated to act in support of African Americans, from individuals seeking public offices to Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant brutalized by Brooklyn police in 1997. Now he is also seeking to build a national multi-cultural, multi-racial movement addressing a range of issues. To that end, in 1999 Sharpton, former New York City Mayor Ed Koch and Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree formed "Second Chance", a program to serve non-violent felony offenders after their release from prison. Sharpton also orchestrated a massive protest when police shot unarmed Amadou Diallo 42 times in 1999. In 2001, Sharpton protested the U.S. Navy's bombing of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques. Attempting to fight injustice wherever he finds it, Sharpton is following in the footsteps of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. and Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr.

Bibliography:

Sharpton, Al. Go and Tell the Pharaoh: The Autobiography of Reverend Al Sharpton. New York: Doubleday, 1996.

Sharpton, Al. Al on America. New York: Kensington Pub Corp, 2002.

Marcovitz, Hal. Al Sharpton (Black Americans of Achievement). Philadelphia: Chelsea House Pub, 2001.

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Reverend Al Sharpton's Biography - thehistorymakers.org