“Make the customer think he’s getting laid when he’s getting fucked.” -- The first entry in “Portable Bloomberg,” a booklet compiled by a former employee of Michael Bloomberg.
The Portable Bloomberg: The Wit & Wisdom of Michael Bloomberg
Bloomberg is not your guy.
"In total, 1,806 people were arrested during the [Republican] convention. Some were legal observers and members of the press. Some were mere bystanders who unwittingly encountered protesters while walking in the city and got swept up in indiscriminate mass arrests. 'I was just walking by –– I had a receipt from a store that I had bought something from on that street' V'epa Majamutar told Democracy Now some 12 hours after her arrest. 'All of a sudden the street basically just gets cordoned off and we cannot move. So before I was arrested I was just standing still because that's all we could really do. And then they just started putting handcuffs on people. They gave us no warning.'"
At the 2004 Republican National Convention, Michael Bloomberg presided over dubious arrests: What Bloomberg Did to Peaceful Protesters by Conor Friedersdorf (The Atlantic)
At the 2004 Republican National Convention, Michael Bloomberg presided over dubious arrests: What Bloomberg Did to Peaceful Protesters by Conor Friedersdorf (The Atlantic)
That time Bloomberg said a $10 minimum wage proposal was creeping state communism.
This is from 2012:
"On Wednesday night, City Council speaker Christine Quinn announced that negotiations were finally complete on a living wage bill that would require some recipients of large economic development subsidies to pay their employees at least $10 an hour.
"Quinn calls it 'the most impactful living-wage law in the United States,' but experts say it will actually impact about 500 workers a year.
"Even so, today, Bloomberg compared the legislation to communism and said he would veto the bill and if the veto is overridden, his administration will file a lawsuit.
"'It's interesting if you think about it,' said the mayor. 'The last time we really had a big managed economy was the USSR and that didn't work out so well.'"
"'It would be great if all jobs in the city paid a lot of money and had great benefits for the workers. Not good for the employers. But if you force that you will just drive businesses out of the city.'"
The rest of the story: 'Living wage' reminds Bloomberg of Soviet communism; he says he'll stop it in court if he has to by Dana Rubinstein (Politico)
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| Mike Bloomberg in a hard hat. (photo: Dana Rubenstein) |
"Quinn calls it 'the most impactful living-wage law in the United States,' but experts say it will actually impact about 500 workers a year.
"Even so, today, Bloomberg compared the legislation to communism and said he would veto the bill and if the veto is overridden, his administration will file a lawsuit.
"'It's interesting if you think about it,' said the mayor. 'The last time we really had a big managed economy was the USSR and that didn't work out so well.'"
"'It would be great if all jobs in the city paid a lot of money and had great benefits for the workers. Not good for the employers. But if you force that you will just drive businesses out of the city.'"
The rest of the story: 'Living wage' reminds Bloomberg of Soviet communism; he says he'll stop it in court if he has to by Dana Rubinstein (Politico)
You must never vote for Michael Bloomberg
Michael Bloomberg, to borrow a line from Elizabeth Warren, is running in the wrong presidential primary.
Reading List:
✓ “In 2002, the first year Bloomberg was mayor, 97,296 of these stops were recorded. They surged during Bloomberg’s tenure to a peak of 685,724 stops in 2011, near the end of his third term. Nearly 90 percent of the people who were stopped and frisked were innocent of any wrongdoing”: You Must Never Vote for Bloomberg by Charles M. Blow (New York Times)
✓ Michael Bloomberg’s Right-Wing Views on Foreign Policy Make Him a Perfect Candidate for the Republican Nomination by Mehdi Hasan (The Intercept)
✓ The surging Democratic presidential candidate and Bloomberg LP have fielded nearly 40 sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuits over decades: Why Is Bloomberg's Long History of Egregious Sexism Getting a Pass? by Laura Bassett (GQ)
Disparaging comments. Demeaning jokes. As the mogul reportedly considers a 2020 presidential run, it remains an open question whether his long-alleged history of undermining women will affect his chances: ‘I’d Do Her’: Mike Bloomberg and the Underbelly of #MeToo by Megan Garber (The Atlantic)
✓ "We need to confront the shameful legacy of discrimination, not lie about it like Mike Bloomberg": Warren Slams Bloomberg for Blaming 2008 Financial Meltdown On End of Redlining Policy by Julia Conley (Common Dreams)
✓ Bloomberg education plan to promote charter school expansion by Carl Campanile (New York Post)
✓ Michael Bloomberg On Marijuana: Legalizing 'Another Addictive Narcotic' Is Perhaps the 'Stupidest Thing Anybody Has Ever Done' by Tim Marcin (Newsweek)
✓ I’m an art teacher. Mike’s policies gutted my school. During those years, I was lucky to have enough copy paper for my students to draw on. How Bloomberg Trashed Public Education in New York by Jake Jacobs (The Progressive)
✓ The billionaire’s long history of contradictions, gaffes, and self-owns, in his own words: A List of Things Bloomberg Actually Said About Fat People, Rape, George W. Bush, and J.Lo by Tim Murphy (Mother Jones)
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| (Cagle Cartoons) |
Reading List:
✓ “In 2002, the first year Bloomberg was mayor, 97,296 of these stops were recorded. They surged during Bloomberg’s tenure to a peak of 685,724 stops in 2011, near the end of his third term. Nearly 90 percent of the people who were stopped and frisked were innocent of any wrongdoing”: You Must Never Vote for Bloomberg by Charles M. Blow (New York Times)
✓ Michael Bloomberg’s Right-Wing Views on Foreign Policy Make Him a Perfect Candidate for the Republican Nomination by Mehdi Hasan (The Intercept)
✓ The surging Democratic presidential candidate and Bloomberg LP have fielded nearly 40 sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuits over decades: Why Is Bloomberg's Long History of Egregious Sexism Getting a Pass? by Laura Bassett (GQ)
Disparaging comments. Demeaning jokes. As the mogul reportedly considers a 2020 presidential run, it remains an open question whether his long-alleged history of undermining women will affect his chances: ‘I’d Do Her’: Mike Bloomberg and the Underbelly of #MeToo by Megan Garber (The Atlantic)
✓ "We need to confront the shameful legacy of discrimination, not lie about it like Mike Bloomberg": Warren Slams Bloomberg for Blaming 2008 Financial Meltdown On End of Redlining Policy by Julia Conley (Common Dreams)
✓ Bloomberg education plan to promote charter school expansion by Carl Campanile (New York Post)
✓ Michael Bloomberg On Marijuana: Legalizing 'Another Addictive Narcotic' Is Perhaps the 'Stupidest Thing Anybody Has Ever Done' by Tim Marcin (Newsweek)
✓ I’m an art teacher. Mike’s policies gutted my school. During those years, I was lucky to have enough copy paper for my students to draw on. How Bloomberg Trashed Public Education in New York by Jake Jacobs (The Progressive)
✓ The billionaire’s long history of contradictions, gaffes, and self-owns, in his own words: A List of Things Bloomberg Actually Said About Fat People, Rape, George W. Bush, and J.Lo by Tim Murphy (Mother Jones)
Iowa
Bernie Sanders is ahead in the tally of votes; the delegate count is arriverd at by an arcane counting methodology (think Electoral College). Pete Buttigieg benefited from Joe Biden's collapse; there is no foreseeable pathway for the mayor to the Oval Office, but it was good of him to stick a fork in Uncle Joe. Donald Trump had a good night ... and so did Michael Bloomberg. Nevada is undecided. New Hampshire is Sanders' to lose. Biden is up by only 10% in South Carolina. Sanders supporters need to double their efforts. In 2008, progressives put aside their differences to stop Clinton (John Edwards got out of the way by suspending his campaign); expect the party centrists to try the same thing on March 3 to stop Sanders. Get to work.
Not Us, You
So when, as is likely, the nomination is stolen from him at the Democratic
Convention, will Bernie Sanders 1) concede as he did in 2016 and try
to get the "us" in his campaign slogan to fall in line behind Joe Biden or Michael Bloomberg or whatever member of the kleptocracy the Democratic poobahs have chosen as designated hitman (which millions of "us" will probably perceive as a betrayal); 2) lead his delegates out of the convention to continue the fight in the streets; 3) declare the Democratic Party null and void and conduct an independent campaign; 4) convert his campaign into an independent political movement to organize the people to take on the political class; or 5) use his political organization as the starting place to create a new progressive party to take on the parties of the center and the right in 2022 and beyond?
The Party’s Over: Bernie’s Last Dance With the Dems by Jim Kavanaugh (CounterPunch)
Convention, will Bernie Sanders 1) concede as he did in 2016 and try
The Party’s Over: Bernie’s Last Dance With the Dems by Jim Kavanaugh (CounterPunch)
The fact that Bernie Sanders can succeed without the party machine enrages those who sacrificed their idealism to play the game
"Yes, our electoral system is in substantial ways anti-democratic, and the influence of money in politics is pernicious, and Republicans suppress the vote in earnest. But those things have been true forever. They are a given. The job of capitalizing on the enormous demographic disadvantage that the upper class faces in the class war falls to the Democratic party. The Democratic party, however, has never had any interest in really capitalizing on it.
"Now, Bernie Sanders is threatening to make the class war reality by winning the Democratic presidential nomination. His biggest obstacle is not the Republican candidate – a rich, evil cartoon man who is a perfect foil for Bernie’s analysis of what plagues us – but the Democratic establishment. In their eyes, he is an existential threat to their traditional approach of determining their stance on moral issues by finding a point halfway between 'What’s right' and 'What the Koch brothers are advocating via attack ads.'
"You can sense their panic, rising like tree sap. As time grows shorter and the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire trend in Bernie’s favor, the Third Way-style Democrats voice increasingly desperate warnings that a party that lost to Trump may be about to make a mistake. The Wall Street set throws more money at Joe Biden; the famous columnists who backed the Iraq war sound the alarm about unelectability; the candidate who lost to a reality television clown joins in the doomsaying. A Hollywood casting agency specializing in budget comedies could not assemble a less credible group of opponents. One of Bernie Sanders’ greatest advantages in the race is that many of the most unlikable hypocrites in America despise him."
The rest of the story:
Bernie Sanders' real obstacle is not Trump. It's the Democratic establishment. by Hamilton Nolan (The Guardian)
"You can sense their panic, rising like tree sap. As time grows shorter and the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire trend in Bernie’s favor, the Third Way-style Democrats voice increasingly desperate warnings that a party that lost to Trump may be about to make a mistake. The Wall Street set throws more money at Joe Biden; the famous columnists who backed the Iraq war sound the alarm about unelectability; the candidate who lost to a reality television clown joins in the doomsaying. A Hollywood casting agency specializing in budget comedies could not assemble a less credible group of opponents. One of Bernie Sanders’ greatest advantages in the race is that many of the most unlikable hypocrites in America despise him."
The rest of the story:
Bernie Sanders' real obstacle is not Trump. It's the Democratic establishment. by Hamilton Nolan (The Guardian)
Should there be an independent left outside of the Democratic Party?
"The Democratic Party is now the full-throated proponent of neoliberal austerity at home, aggressive militarism abroad, and the ubiquitous national security state. Democrats gave landslide approvals to a record high war budget and renewal of the Patriot Act, while Pelosi’s 'pay-go' act doomed prospects for future progressive legislation. The last Democratic president’s deportations, drone strikes, wars in seven countries, multi-trillion-dollar upgrading of the US’s nuclear war fighting capacity, multi-trillion-dollar quantitative easing gift to finance capitalists, extension of the tax cut for the rich, and so forth also rise – giving credit where credit is due – to the level of catastrophe."
The rest of the story:
✓ The Imminent Threat of Trump and the Value of Progressive Third Parties by Roger Harris (CounterPunch)
✓ An Open Letter to the Green Party for 2020 by Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, Bill Fletcher, Leslie Cagan, Ron Daniels, Kathy Kelly, Norman Solomon, Cynthia Peters and Michael Albert (TruthDig)
✓ The Green Party Is Not the Democrats’ Problem by Howie Hawkins (CounterPunch)
The rest of the story:
✓ The Imminent Threat of Trump and the Value of Progressive Third Parties by Roger Harris (CounterPunch)
✓ An Open Letter to the Green Party for 2020 by Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, Bill Fletcher, Leslie Cagan, Ron Daniels, Kathy Kelly, Norman Solomon, Cynthia Peters and Michael Albert (TruthDig)
✓ The Green Party Is Not the Democrats’ Problem by Howie Hawkins (CounterPunch)
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