Michael Bloomberg

Bloomberg: The NYPD Is 'My Own Army'

David Taintor | November 30, 2011, 3:08PM

Being mayor of New York is awesome, Michael Bloomberg said Tuesday during a speech at MIT.

"I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world," Bloomberg said, according to the New York Observer. "I have my own State Department, much to Foggy Bottom's annoyance. We have the United Nations in New York, and so we have an entree into the diplomatic world that Washington does not have."

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Occupy Wall Street

Legal Observer Under Arrest After Being Injured By Police Scooter In Occupy Wall Street Protests

Jillian Rayfield | October 14, 2011, 2:54PM

The National Lawyers Guild confirms to TPM that one of its legal observers was injured and arrested in an incident involving a NYPD motor scooter that was captured on video Friday morning during the Occupy Wall Street protests.

Gideon Oliver, who is on the executive committee of the New York City chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, confirmed to TPM that the man in the video is one of their legal observers. Oliver wouldn't give the man's name or confirm the extent of his injuries, but he did say the man is currently in the emergency room receiving medical attention -- and that he is under arrest.

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Occupy Wall Street

The Occupy Wall Street Showdown That Only Went Down A Little Bit

Jillian Rayfield | October 14, 2011, 11:23AM

Occupy Wall Street protesters had been gearing up for a confrontation with law enforcement over a planned clean-up in lower Manhattan's Zuccotti Park on Friday morning that amounted to an eviction notice. But though there were some arrests made and a few fights with the cops, in the end the protesters were allowed to stay.

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Osama Bin Laden

Bloomberg At Ground Zero: 'The Forces Of Freedom And Justice' Have Prevailed

Jillian Rayfield | May 2, 2011, 3:55PM

Michael Bloomberg

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg spoke at a press conference Monday afternoon at Ground Zero, in response to the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed. In his remarks, Bloomberg congratulated President Obama and proclaimed that bin Laden's death shows that "the forces of freedom and justice have once again prevailed over those who use terror to pursue tyranny."

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Cordoba House

Poll: NYC Opposes Muslim Center -- But Acknowledges Right To Build

Eric Kleefeld | September 3, 2010, 2:15PM

Protesters against a proposed community center and mosque near ground zero called Cordoba House.

The New York Times polled residents of New York City, asking for people's views on the Park 51 Muslim community center set to be built two blocks from Ground Zero. And from the poll, a picture emerges of a city that opposes the building of the center -- but simultaneously acknowledges by a wide margin the right of Muslims to build it.

"Do you favor or oppose the building of a mosque and Islamic community center two blocks from Ground Zero?" Here the answer was 35% favor to 50% oppose. Interestingly, the poll continued to show a pattern that has emerged before, of opposition actually being lower in Manhattan itself, at only 41%.

"Do you think people have the right to build a mosque and Islamic community center near Ground Zero, or don't they have that right?" The answer becomes 62% that they have that right, to 28% who say that Muslims do not have that right. (A more general question came immediately before, asking about any house of worship near Ground Zero -- the answer was 72%-21%.)

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Charlie Rangel

Rangel: I'm 'Proud' Cordoba House Developers Are 'Sticking To Their Guns'

Jillian Rayfield | August 19, 2010, 11:43AM

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY)

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) came out in support of the proposed Cordoba House Islamic community center two blocks from Ground Zero yesterday, saying that he's "kind of proud that they're sticking to their guns and saying this is where they would want to worship."

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Cordoba House

Anti-'Mosque' Geller: 'Strip Clubs Didn't Bring Down The Towers'

Christina Bellantoni | August 18, 2010, 4:47PM

Conservative activist Pamela Geller

Pamela Geller, one of the most prominent opponents of the proposed Islamic center two blocks from the former World Trade Center, said today in an interview the treatment of the "South Park" creators is a prominent factor in her quest to stop the center from being built.

Geller, author of the book, The Obama Administration's War on America, is the force behind the anti-Muslim group Stop Islamization of America and the Atlas Shrugs blog but insists her opposition to the Islamic center is not racist or bigoted. "It's a common decency issue," she said.

In a lengthy phone interview today with TPM, Geller cited her problems with Islam and its practices; offered spotty historic references and cherry picked the things she doesn't like about those "non-secular" Muslims while swearing she has no problem with most members of the Islamic faith.

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'Ground Zero Mosque'

Religious Leaders Fret Over Lack Of Dem Support For Cordoba House

Evan McMorris-Santoro | August 17, 2010, 2:00PM

Imam Mahdi Bray, Executive Director of the Muslim American Society's Freedom Foundation.

An interfaith group gathered in Washington this morning in an event organized by the Muslim American Society and expressed concern that Democrats were joining many of their colleagues in the Republican Party in calling for the Cordoba House project to be moved from its planned location near Ground Zero in New York City.

The group said it was worried that political concerns were overriding moral ones in the national debate about the project, and they said it looked to them like President Obama and many other Democrats were getting swept up in the stream.

"It's interesting how this evolved," Mahdi Bray, Executive Director of the Muslim American Society's Freedom Foundation, told reporters. Bray said opposition to the Cordoba House project began on "known Islamophobic websites" before spilling into the tea party and then into mainstream conservatism. From there, he said, it quickly became "a political football."

"I think it speaks to the worst of politics to use that issue to maybe advance" a political agenda, Bray said. He lashed out at Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who he said was trying to "out-oppose the mosque" with his opponent in the Nevada Senate race, Republican Sharron Angle.

Bray said he was "disappointed" by the direction the political debate has taken and said he was concerned by Obama's recent "couching" of his statement about the rights of Muslims to build religious sites where they wanted. Bray told me he still considers Obama "an ally of the [moral] right" when it comes to Cordoba House.

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'Ground Zero Mosque'

Pro-Mosque Mom Who Lost Pregnant Daughter In Trade Center: 9/11 Families 'Not Monolithic'

Christina Bellantoni | August 16, 2010, 3:28PM

Sign at the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan

As plans to build an Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero in New York City become political fodder for the fall elections on a national scale, it's become shorthand to imply that all 9/11 families oppose the erection of the mosque two blocks from the site where terrorists downed the World Trade Center nearly nine years ago.

But in fact, no cohesive position has emerged from the thousands of 9/11 families who have been politically influential on many issues in the past. One group which has opposed war has come out strongly in favor of the mosque project, known as Cordoba House. Others have avoided even addressing the issue.

"There is no simple, singular 9/11 group who really should or could speak for all 9/11 family members," said Donna Marsh O'Connor of September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, a coalition of more than 250 families which recently endorsed the mosque. Since the endorsement, the membership numbers have grown, she said.

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New York City

Muslim Rights Advocate: Why Aren't NY Dems Speaking Up For Us?

Evan McMorris-Santoro | August 5, 2010, 4:55PM

A Muslim civil rights advocate says it's "concerning" that more prominent New York Democrats aren't speaking up in the debate over new mosque projects in New York City. Ibrahim Ramey, civil rights director for the Muslim American Society in Washington, told me today that it surprises him how few Democratic politicians have spoken up as angry right-wing protesters have taken on mosque projects in Staten Island, Brooklyn and, of course, lower Manhattan.

"It's been very, very disappointing really," Ramey said. "To the extent that we're not hearing from prominent Democrats, it really is a concerning thing. Concerning for Muslims and for the nation as a whole."

Check out TPM's roundup on what New York Dems have said -- and haven't said -- about the issue here.

Ramey said for him, it's not about the politics. He just expects more politicians to offer the no-holds-barred statements in support of Muslim rights that he said New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg did in his recent speech endorsing the so-called Ground Zero mosque project.

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Democrats

Where Do NY Dems Stand On The 'Ground Zero Mosque'?

Jillian Rayfield | August 5, 2010, 11:51AM

Clock wise from top left: NY Democratic Senators Kristen Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer, NY Democratic Reps. Anthony Weiner and Carolyn Maloney.

A lot of attention has been paid to what Republicans are saying about plans to build a Muslim community center near Ground Zero in New York City, but many New York Democrats have been relatively silent on the issue.

Here's a round-up of what some prominent New York Democrats are saying -- or not saying -- about the Cordoba House plans, which won a key legislative approval earlier this week.

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