Michael Bloomberg’s Not-So-Heavenly $50 Million Investment

Billionaire former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg assures us he is going to heaven. Not because of a humble spiritual experience, but because of his noble battle against guns

Michael Bloomberg, Credit: State Department

“I am telling you if there is a God, when I get to heaven I’m not stopping to be interviewed,” Bloomberg told The New York Times. “I am heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven. It’s not even close.”

   

The Times reported this week on Bloomberg’s plan to spend $50 million to push gun control and combat the NRA, which reportedly has spent $20 million per year defending the Second Amendment. Bloomberg plans to merge the group he founded, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. The new group will be called Every Town for Gun Safety.

I'll give the benefit of the doubt that the moms have the best of intentions. But I can’t say the same about Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which is filled with unsavory characters. Bloomberg himself has come under question from Politico, the New York Post, Judicial Watch and others for using City Hall resources to push his private nonprofit’s agenda. As I documented in my piece, “Dubious Mayors Against Legal Guns” for the Capital Research Center:

 

Despite Bloomberg’s billions, the mayor used New York City tax dollars and city staff to advance MAIG’s national ambitions. The MAIG domain name was registered in 2006 by the New York City Department of Information and Technology and has remained on city web servers ever since …

 Documents obtained by the government watchdog group Judicial Watch through a lawsuit under the state’s freedom of information law showed even more evidence there was virtually no daylight between Mayor Bloomberg’s city hall staff, supported by the city’s taxpayers, and billionaire Bloomberg’s pet political project. E-mails showed intense communications between John Feinblatt, the chief adviser to Mayor Bloomberg and also the city’s criminal justice coordinator, and MAIG executive director Mark Glaze.

That’s not to imply this would keep the nanny state mayor out of heaven. That’s obviously not up to me, and I wish him the best of luck as far as the afterlife goes. But it does make it clear that this organization is hardly beyond reproach.