Well, It’s Definitely a Thing Now
I commented yesterday in El Jefe’s post about some of my African American girlfriends going gung-ho over supporting Mike Bloomberg for president.
It’s officially a thing now.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner is endorsing Mike Bloomberg for president, giving the former New York City mayor his biggest Texas endorsement yet as early voting is set to begin in just five days.
“We need a president who knows how cities run,” Turner said. “It’s why I’m proud to endorse Mike for president, and I look forward to sending him to Washington in November.”
Turner, an African American, is coming off a big election win in the mayor’s race.
Bloomberg is on the Texas ballot. (See mine over to the right.) The primary in Texas is on March 3rd, but early voting starts next week.
It’s a thing, y’all.
There’s none so blind as those who will not see. I hope your girlfriends enjoy their “stop and frisk” billionaire boy.
1“Stop and frisk” should be enough for anyone capable of thinking to not be in favor of him-much less the billionaire part.
2Pete S. – or deaf who will not hear. My friends are not dumb nor blind. Stop & Frisk? They said that a man who has learned his lesson is most apt to not repeat it. And that they voted for a racist sumbitch from Texas and he gave them the Civil Rights Bill. Billionaire? Tell me how that worked out for the Roosevelts and the Kennedys. I took notice of this because these are people I don’t write off.
3Pete S. and Mike: I think the point is that he is getting this support from African-Americans, and it’s not from ignorance (you don’t become mayor of Houston based on your good looks). While to Old White Guys like me it seems senseless, what we need to do is try to understand why, e.g., Bloomberg’s past is not a showstopper among people that we’d think would shy away from him. At this point my curiosity is aroused.
Looking at the primary list JJ posted I would vote for any of them, because they have the all-important qualification of Not Being Trump.
4A thing some might come to regret. In the manner in which history repeats itself to take a nasty bite out of those who do not learn. Too many did not do their due diligence on Donnie*, and could be making the same mistake with Magic Mike. Mike was mayor of NYC for ~11 years, I’d be asking him wth he did about white collar criminals such as Donnie* and what would he as president do about Donnie* and his maladministration. If the media were at all curious, they do the minor digging to reveal the ditty on Bloomberg LP.
Ladies and gentlemen, what would you think of a guy who reportedly said: “If his Bloomberg terminals could provide oral sex, it would put female employees out of work.” For the record, he didn’t defend it as “locker room” talk. He called it a “borscht belt” joke. What a guy throwing in some ethnic ‘humor’ with the misogyny.
He might be the Republicons’ oligarch, but seriously Democrats, et tu?
5As for support from the African American communities, that’s an “all bets are off” consideration. Why should they trust either party, Democratic or Republicon? Conversely, why not take a flier on Mike? IDK But I’m listening.
6… and JJ’s response was a microsecond before mine. Now I gotta go find what Donna Brazile or Ta-Nehisi Coates have to say about Bloomberg.
I’ve been living in a lily-white midwestern college town for 30 years. So I don’t have the network of minority friends who could tell me just what is going on here. Having grown up in a Hispanic neighborhood in Texas in the 50s and 60s, I’m well aware that life looks very different if you’re more than a little brown.
So let’s first get some more info about this and try to educate ourselves. JJ may be able to help in this.
7Bloomberg sucks. But if it comes down to Mikey or Donnei– it’s blue no matter who…
OT– Yet another example of never believing government ‘officials’:
8A week or so ago federal and San Antonio ‘officials’ were busy assuring the populace that opening a ‘quarantine center’ for incoming travelers from China at Lackland AFB would be perfectly safe [Lackland is surrounded by ‘city’, it’s not isolated like many military installations]…
Yeah, right, now a case of COVID19 has been reported in a non-quarantee [I think a contractor who was working at Lackland].
Well, correction, per a news conference just started: this case was a passenger from China. Supposedly the quarantine will maintain a safe isolation. Lots of PR assurances forthcoming in this presser. We’ll see…
1] Switching parties like he changes underwear.
2] Stop and frisk.
3] Having to walk back racist comments he made before an open mike.
These are just a few of my least favorite things about this guy who will get my vote if and only if it comes to a choice between him and Trump.
9Sandridge, trusting our government or any government is a leap some prefer not to take. This article might answer questions for some as to actual dangers of the coronavirus, or not:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/02/11/people-are-more-frightened-of-coronavirus-than-they-need-to-be-but-the-culprit-is-not-who-you-think/
** And no, Donnie*, it’s not a bottle of beer gone bad.
As for Magic Mike, another thing twanging in the recesses of my head is wth was the conversation Donnie* had with Reince Priebus when Reince was RNC chair and suddenly doors opened to Donnies* campaign. Similarly now, what are the conversations happening between the Bloomberg campaign and DNC chair Tom Perez? Are they discussing “rules are meant to be broken” or there are no rules for oligarchs?
“Blue No Matter Who” …. a Republicon-lite oligarch …. that wafer may be tougher to swallow than Hilz 2016. Recommendations, please, on beer or scotch to wash it down. Again.
Further O/T Hope Hicks is returning to Donnie*.
10Bloomberg was a Republican before he became a Democrat. His majesty was a Democrat before he became a Republican. Bernie is an Independent running as a Democrat. Although I would like a real lifelong sensible Democrat for President, at this point I would vote for a turnip if it would get his majesty out of the WH and his Twitter account closed!
11Oh, one more thing: I am absolutely in favor of whoever does win the nomination [not Bloomberg, PLEASE not Bloomberg] to accept Bloomberg’s money.
It’s going to take bottomless pockets to drown out Trump’s name-calling, fake-accusing ads. And money does talk in elections. After all, look what it’s done, already, to get people to ignore Bloomberg’s own history. Imagine what it could do for someone who 1] has always been a Democrat and 2] isn’t a racist.
12My question is – just how far to the left is this guy? My impression, garnered from occasional news reports while he was mayor of NYC, is he is pretty centrist which is the last thing this country needs at this time.
13As a boomer, my world was, for the most part, one where the country was on a path to ‘liberty and justice for all”. The left, figuring everything would continue on that path, put the country on autopilot. Those on the right, seeing this, began their long-term plan to turn this country into an autocracy, with “liberty and justice for the rich and their sycophants, and damnall (with apologies to Mama) for the rest of us”.
We can’t combat this with baby steps back to the left. As I have remarked elsewhere, you can’t leap a 20 foot chasm with 20 one foot hops, it has to be all or nothing.
@Bob #13 – BINGO!
See: The Powell Memo
https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/democracy/the-lewis-powell-memo-a-corporate-blueprint-to-dominate-democracy/
I had no clue it existed until graduate school.
14Bad boy, bad boy. Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?
Ocasio-Cortez Rips Bloomberg on Stop and Frisk: ‘Just a Billionaire Trying to Cover Up Authoritarian and Racist Policy’
“Stop and frisk was an unconstitutional, devastating practice for the entire city.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s comments came days after progressive radio host Benjamin Dixon posted to Twitter an audio clip of a 2015 speech in which Bloomberg defended stop and frisk as necessary and dismissed its harms as “unintended consequences.”
Benjamin Dixon
@BenjaminPDixon
Share this far and wide. Unless the mainstream media picks it up, it will be isolated to twitter. Video:
After the clip went viral, Bloomberg issued a statement distancing himself from his past comments on stop and frisk.
“This issue and my comments about it do not reflect my commitment to criminal justice reform and racial equity,” said Bloomberg.
Ocasio-Cortez told reporters Wednesday that she found Bloomberg’s statement woefully inadequate.
“I think quite a few things happened under him as mayor,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “Frankly, we all know ‘stop and frisk’—that was my family, and that was my community, and that was my neighborhood, and we know this was a policy that decimated a lot of families.”
After the clip went viral, Bloomberg issued a statement distancing himself from his past comments on stop and frisk.
“This issue and my comments about it do not reflect my commitment to criminal justice reform and racial equity,” said Bloomberg.
Ocasio-Cortez told reporters Wednesday that she found Bloomberg’s statement woefully inadequate. “I think quite a few things happened under him as mayor,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “Frankly, we all know ‘stop and frisk’—that was my family, and that was my community, and that was my neighborhood, and we know this was a policy that decimated a lot of families.”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/13/ocasio-cortez-rips-bloomberg-stop-and-frisk-just-billionaire-trying-cover
15I now know what it feels like to be a Trump supporter. Almost. I believe that Bloomberg does not share my values or those of the Democratic Party. He is wrong for this job. This what I kept hearing from voters in ’16, because there were a lot of people just didn’t like Hillary Clinton (a fire stoked again and again by Fox News). If it were Trump vs. Bloomberg in November, I will lose some of my enthusiasm as a voter, because I am not thrilled with the idea of the presidency being reserved only for the rich (or people who claim to be). With one difference. I could never vote for that ego-maniacal narcissist. And I could never allow an election to go by that I don’t vote a straight Democratic ticket.
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