Daddy state
Michael "Call Me Mike" Bloomberg knows what's best for people. When he was mayor of New York he banned smoking in bars and restaurants, which is a good thing for people who don't want their clothes to stink. He founded Everytown For Gun Safety back when the NRA was flush with rubles and not yet fighting with its own officials, so that was brave. He tried to stop the sale of giant sugary drinks because of obesity and diabetes, but that just got him slapped down by the courts and mocked by Sarah Palin. He gave so much money to his old college that there's talk of changing its name from Johns Hopkins to Michael Bloomberg; who now remembers Johns Hopkins, or can remember that it's not "John"?
New Yorkers voted to amend their city charter in order to limit the mayor to two terms, mostly because twelve years of Ed Koch was giving everybody indigestion. Koch was an admirable Congressman but power went to his head and turned him right-wing cranky. Bloomberg understood this, so he got the city council to "amend" the charter and permit him to continue his good works, creating bike lanes and making contraceptives available to public school children. It wasn't all admirable -- he wanted people in public housing fingerprinted because those people don't have enough to contend with, and when the taxi fleets refused to adopt new technology he promised to "destroy your fucking industry" (Uber did it for him). Money doesn't talk in politics, it screams. How many mayors have disdained Gracie Mansion because they already owned a house in Manhattan? And a website that reflects their positions on an hourly basis (bloomberg.com)? By comparison, Trump's Twitter account is like passing out fliers.
Other ways they differ: Bloomberg is highly intelligent, not a racist or a misogynist, and does not appear to be clinically mad. The same could be said of many people. For a President, these should be basic requirements, the kinds of things we once took for granted. So when Bloomberg announces he is entering the race, we are entitled to ask why. Not enough rich, entitled white men? Howard Schultz is gone but we still have Tom Steyer, thank you. Fear of an Elizabeth Warren planet? It seems to be confined to the plutocrats she promises to tax -- the rest of us are more than happy with that. He probably isn't excited by the prospect of witnessing an actual Moscow May Day parade. He would not be complicit in slaughtering the Kurds and might even close the border concentration camps. It still isn't enough. Bloomberg should empty the pockets of his old suits and use the cash to turn Texas and Georgia as blue as the bonny blue Virginia. It can be done. This vanity candidacy, on the other hand, is a non-starter.
Of course, the next president will be a lame duck because Kanye West is running in 2024. Sorry for the TMZ link, but no serious media are taking it seriously. Kanye -- sorry, Christian Genius Billionaire Kanye West -- is a huge Trump supporter when off his meds. "What y'all laughing at?"
What indeed?
New Yorkers voted to amend their city charter in order to limit the mayor to two terms, mostly because twelve years of Ed Koch was giving everybody indigestion. Koch was an admirable Congressman but power went to his head and turned him right-wing cranky. Bloomberg understood this, so he got the city council to "amend" the charter and permit him to continue his good works, creating bike lanes and making contraceptives available to public school children. It wasn't all admirable -- he wanted people in public housing fingerprinted because those people don't have enough to contend with, and when the taxi fleets refused to adopt new technology he promised to "destroy your fucking industry" (Uber did it for him). Money doesn't talk in politics, it screams. How many mayors have disdained Gracie Mansion because they already owned a house in Manhattan? And a website that reflects their positions on an hourly basis (bloomberg.com)? By comparison, Trump's Twitter account is like passing out fliers.
Other ways they differ: Bloomberg is highly intelligent, not a racist or a misogynist, and does not appear to be clinically mad. The same could be said of many people. For a President, these should be basic requirements, the kinds of things we once took for granted. So when Bloomberg announces he is entering the race, we are entitled to ask why. Not enough rich, entitled white men? Howard Schultz is gone but we still have Tom Steyer, thank you. Fear of an Elizabeth Warren planet? It seems to be confined to the plutocrats she promises to tax -- the rest of us are more than happy with that. He probably isn't excited by the prospect of witnessing an actual Moscow May Day parade. He would not be complicit in slaughtering the Kurds and might even close the border concentration camps. It still isn't enough. Bloomberg should empty the pockets of his old suits and use the cash to turn Texas and Georgia as blue as the bonny blue Virginia. It can be done. This vanity candidacy, on the other hand, is a non-starter.
Of course, the next president will be a lame duck because Kanye West is running in 2024. Sorry for the TMZ link, but no serious media are taking it seriously. Kanye -- sorry, Christian Genius Billionaire Kanye West -- is a huge Trump supporter when off his meds. "What y'all laughing at?"
What indeed?
posted by Buttermilk Sky at 12:16 PM
1 Comments:
"How many mayors have disdained Gracie Mansion because they already owned a house in Manhattan? "
Actually, Michael Bloomberg had a house and a third. Or maybe a house and a half. The townhouse next door to Bloomberg's near-mansion-sized townhouse on East 79th Street was divided into condo apartments. Every time an apartment next door went up for sale, Bloomberg bought it and broke through. That's because you can't have too much living space in New York.
I'm not sure how much of next door Monied Mike had already purchased by the time a series of unfortunate events forced me to move in 2011 from a few blocks from him on the Upper East Side to Miserable Murray Hill, but by now he may have fully combined both houses. That's gotta be useful in case, at the last moment, he has to put up 40 of his closest friends for the weekend, and the weather's too chilly for the house in the Hamptons.
While almost anybody including Michael Bloomberg or a wild squirrel in Central Park would be a better president than Trump, I would hope we can somehow, miraculously, despite what the wise pundits say, move the ball a bit further to the left. Or at least start trying to nudge it that way. I'm not looking for Utopia. But it would be nice if we could catch up to, oh I dunno, Norway maybe.
Yours crankily,
The New York Crank
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