How thick is your campaign Velveeta, Mr. Bloomberg?
This tid bit came out on the wires yesterday:
"We urge Fernando Ferrer and all candidates to return all contributions from tobacco interests. The citizens of New York City deserve a mayoral race that is entirely free of any and all tobacco influence."---
NOTE:
The Tobacco-Free Kids Action Fund reviewed disclosure statements for each of the major mayoral candidates in the 2005 election. For the purpose of this analysis, the total contributions from tobacco interests include the following: contributions from tobacco company employees, contributions from employees of a company or organization with a major interest in tobacco (tobacco distribution, parent company, etc.), contributions from spouses of a tobacco company employee or employee of an organization with a major interest in tobacco, and contributions where the listed "intermediary" is an employee of a tobacco company or organization with a major interest in tobacco.
It was picked up by the Times and Post:
Ferrer and Bloomberg Trade Barbs on Cash - New York Times | Tobacco money has no place in our political process," she said.Mr. Ferrer has been criticized for these donations before, prompting his aides to label yesterday's attack as an attempt to shift attention away from the mayor's spending. They also noted that one speaker at the Bloomberg event was a Bloomberg volunteer and that the mayor had donated to a group affiliated with the Tobacco-Free Kids Action Fund.
MIKE KICKS FERRER'S ASH CASH - Yahoo! News | "Integrity is first and foremost," Kavanah said, insisting that she has no connection with Bloomberg's campaign.
"You have to wonder what they want in return," Kavanah said of the donors, which include Marvin Shanken, owner of Cigar Aficionado magazine, and representatives from several cigar companies, such as Padron and Fuentes.
But Ferrer said he's been very clear about his position.
"I've said time and time again I will not overturn the smoking ban. This is nonsense. They know it's nonsense," Ferrer said.
Asked whether he'd give the money back, Ferrer said the billionaire mayor was nickel-and-diming him and his cash strapped campaign.
Bloomberg has donated money to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the umbrella group for the Tobacco-Free Kids Action Fund, which was also represented at the press conference.
But his campaign could not immediately say how much.
Here' the deal : The largest tobacco company happens to also be the largest company of packaged and canned goods. Altria used to go by the moniker of Phillip Morris. Phillip Morris bought Kraft Foods back in the 1980's when, at a time of clusterfuck mergers, people thought it was one of the weirdest and unholiest of alliances ever.
If these people from the Tobacoo-Free Kids are serious about their standards, bodega owners who sell cigarrettes would be considered a "tobacco interest group" as well as anybody remotely affiliated to Altria.
It's despicable how people use "the children" as an excuse for gnawing at the ankles of power. For one, even though I find US tobacco companies despicable, I am a 'social' smoker who hates the bar and club smoking ban. Restaurants? OK, I can live withouth that, but a bar or club? This is social engineering at its worse.
And you know they will go after how we eat because earlier this year Bloomberg tossed around the idea of legislating trans-fats.
Consumption patterns ought not to be legislated at any level. The smoking ban has set a dangerous precedent on how republicans are leaving it to localities and states to curtail the freedom at every level of society.
