The federal government is suing Bloomberg LP. The Equal Employment Opportunities Commission claims that the company discriminated against two women who took maternity leave.

The eve of Michael Bloomberg's announcement -- or final, equivocal non-announcement -- of a run for the Oval Office recalls a several years old Michael Wolff New York magazine column on the eve of the former CEO's first run for the mayoralty. From New York, circa September 17, 2001:

''The column also produced something else -- an artifact (or, as we say in the journalism business, a document). A smoking gun of sorts: an actual example of literal hard-ass words. Most often we don't get to see real CEO hard-assedness, we get a ghostwriter's version of it (isolated and disputed remarks sometimes slip into the public record through lawsuits and depositions -- for instance, Bloomberg's alleged, and denied, admonition to a pregnant employee: 'Kill it').''

Mayor Michael Bloomberg -- who still owns more than half Bloomberg LP despite stepping down from day-to-day operations to run for Mayor -- refused to comment on the lawsuit. ''You'll have to talk to Bloomberg L.P.,'' Bloomberg was reported to have said by The Daily News. ''I haven't worked there, as you know, in an awful long time.''

(image via nyc.gov)