Middleman
Defender of the month
FOXNews.com - Seneca Nation Wants Bloomberg Out Over 'Cowboy Hat and a Shotgun' Comment
Are the Indians being too thin skinned, or should Bloomberg resign? Or maybe they're pulling the race card to help them avoid paying taxes.
Are the Indians being too thin skinned, or should Bloomberg resign? Or maybe they're pulling the race card to help them avoid paying taxes.
A Native American tribe is calling on New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to either apologize or resign after he said on a radio show that Gov. David Paterson -- who's trying to rustle up millions in cigarette taxes from the tribes -- should grab "a cowboy hat and a shotgun" and demand the money.
The mayor made the comments last week during an on-air discussion about the cigarette tax the state of New York wants to impose on Indian tribes starting Sept. 1. The hike has already touched off a court battle, but Bloomberg called for Paterson to flex some frontier justice.
"I said, you know, get yourself a cowboy hat and a shotgun. If there's ever a great video it's you standing in the middle of the New York State Thruway saying, you know, 'Read my lips -- The law of the land is this and we're going to enforce the law,'" he said.
That didn't sit well with the New York tribes.
"If it were any other race of people, he would really have been ridiculed over the words that he said," said J.C. Seneca, a Tribal Council member with the Seneca Nation of Indians.