OK Oligarch

Politico

Michael Bloomberg announced Sunday he is running for president, bringing a narrow following but boundless bank account to the crowded Democratic primary.

The 77-year-old former New York City mayor, positioning himself as a centrist alternative to Joe Biden, launched his candidacy in an online video that is part personal story, part attack on President Donald Trump. 

Michael Bloomberg announced Sunday he is running for president, bringing a narrow following but boundless bank account to the crowded Democratic primary.

The 77-year-old former New York City mayor, positioning himself as a centrist alternative to Joe Biden, launched his candidacy in an online video that is part personal story, part attack on President Donald Trump.

“I’m running for president to defeat Donald Trump and rebuild America. We cannot afford four more years of President Trump’s reckless and unethical actions. He represents an existential threat to our country and our values,” Bloomberg declared in a statement Sunday. “If he wins another term in office, we may never recover from the damage.”

 The former mayor, who is worth an estimated $54.1 billion, plans to forgo competing in early voting states and instead focus his resources on Super Tuesday, when 15 states head to the polls March 3. His aides believe the strategy will help him lay claim to delegate-rich territory that has been somewhat overlooked as the top-tier candidates focus their energies in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. 

Bloomberg's presidential quest is a hedge for his business.

 And to his campaign rivals, this is an extension of his "philanthropy"

Huffington Post

In a memo to staff, the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News told the newsroom that the publication will continue its “tradition of not investigating” its CEO and namesake, Michael Bloomberg, or his family and foundations after he declared his candidacy for president on Sunday.

The head of Bloomberg News, John Micklethwait, said the policy not to investigate will be extended to other candidates in the Democratic primary.

Impunity candidate, Bill de Blasio

 Impunity City


Well, there and off he goes again, Warren de Blasio-Wilhelm has thrown himself into the presidential race, whose sudden announcement was induced by a high school student who accidentally found an ad for an event Sioux City featuring the derelict mayor touting his candidacy on social media. The ad itself should be a foreboding for the Blaz  for it’s comical misspelling of his current name.


Now he has a legitimate excuse to leave the town he was elected to.


The habitually, perpetually late and derelict mayor is jumping into the primary with 23 other Democrats, despite polling at 0% and absolutely no chance to participate in the first debate in June with the others, including favorites Bernie Sanders and Unkie Joe Biden along with stalwart candidates like the outstanding Tulsi Gabbard and Elizabeth Warren and establishment DNC bots like Pete Buttegieg and Kamala Harris.


Even with these mountainous obstacles and in concert with universal rejection from his constituents and solidarity hatred from people with disparate political ideologies, de Blasio will not be deterred. The defiant hypocrite and ignoramus even blew off the advice of his staffers and his political peers. It’s like if the emperor who wore no clothes realized what he looked like and still arrogantly continued walking in public with his pus oozing herpes sore covered cock and balls flapping in the breeze as he swayed.

I posted a Twitter presidential poll between the Blaz and the guy who smashed 42 LinkNYC kiosks in Manhattan. So far, it's unanimous.

Defiantly hypocritical, stupid, moronic, incompetent, unethical, amoral, and corrupt idiot mayor of New York City is running for President of the United States of America

No other words for now.

But his campaign is already off to a comically disastrous start...

Mayor de Blasio is exploiting a city PAC fund to finance his farcical presidential exploration and for pay to play deals with greedy developers

CBS NY

  A new ethical firestorm is engulfing Mayor de Blasio as questions are being raised about where he’s getting all the money to fund his cross-country presidential campaign trips.

It’s deja vu all over again for “On The Road Bill,” the mail-it-in mayor of New York City who has been galloping all over the country to test the presidential waters with a suspicious campaign cash box that’s raising lots of eyebrows.

“To me, that’s a real no-no,” Betsy Gotbaum of the Citizens Union said.

Gotbaum is questioning how de Blasio is raising money for his “Fairness PAC” – the political action committee that is allowing the mayor to dream about running the country.

“Is it the appearance of something wrong?” CBS2’s Marcia Kramer asked the government watchdog’s executive.

“I think it is something wrong. I think you do not take money from people who are doing business with or who want to do business with the city. I’m shocked,” Gotbaum replied.

The mayor, who has already been the subject of an investigation into an earlier political action committee, is now being asked to explain two new issues.

 One is a fundraiser held in Boston on Friday by John Fish of Suffolk Construction.

The company is apparently so keen to expand into New York City that it hired disgraced former NYCHA chair Shola Olatoye, who de Blasio shockingly kept praising even after she was forced out in the agency’s lead paint scandal.


City Comptroller Scott Stringer subpoenaed the records because the buildings were first appraised at just $50 million – less than a third of the deal’s final price tag.

“When I feel that things are being done in secret, that we don’t get the data, when you have a huge purchase of $173 million… we use the power of subpoena to get the documents,” Stringer explained.

 This time, instead of obfuscating his spirit of the law breaking, this dumbass and his greedy benefactors are doing all this in plain sight.

God help us all

From the Wall Street Journal:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo took pains to stay in New York and avoid presidential speculation during his first few years in office, once even questioning if he should travel to Washington to ask for storm-recovery funds.

Times have changed.

Since Hillary Clinton lost the presidential race in November, Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat in his second term, has courted a national profile and done little to lower the volume on 2020 buzz.

The past several days have seen Mr. Cuomo crisscrossing continents and speaking to audiences far from the state he governs.

On Friday, USA Today published an essay on criminal justice he co-wrote with Van Jones, a former adviser to former President Barack Obama. Later that day, he flew to Florida to address a conference of trade unions. And over the weekend, he took a 24-hour trip to Israel and met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Mr. Cuomo’s staff says his focus is on New York and his next race will be his 2018 re-election campaign. They also said his recent actions weren’t purely national in theme: The USA Today piece pushed a proposal in New York to lessen criminal penalties against minors; in Florida, Mr. Cuomo spoke before New York unions; and his trip to Israel came after anti-Semitic incidents, some of which occurred in New York.

Since Mrs. Clinton’s loss, the governor has quietly courted advisers with national experience. A senior Cuomo administration aide spent time earlier this year recruiting former Obama staffers to consider working for Mr. Cuomo, people familiar with the efforts said.

There he goes again

From the NY Post:

Fanciers and critics of Michael Bloomberg alike, take note; there are signs he’s noodling once again about making an independent run for president.

At a press conference in Staten Island, he declared: “The failure of the supercommittee to come to an agreement is just a damning indictment of Washington’s inability to govern this country.”

He went after Obama especially: “It’s the chief executive’s job to bring people together and to provide leadership in difficult situations. I don’t see that happening. . . This partisan paralysis and political cowardice is defining Washington, and we just cannot afford to have that continue.”

That’s the kind of talk we heard from Ross Perot before he decided to take the plunge and run as an independent in early 1992.

None of this comes anywhere near demonstrating that Bloomberg will run. We do know he took the idea seriously last year and spent a considerable amount of money researching the possibilities.

I suppose he'd live on 79th Street because it's better than the White House?

Honest coverage of Bloomberg administration begins!

From the NY Post:

...when a mayoralty comes to be defined by fanciful notions -- political labels, bike paths, french fries and other irrelevancies -- forgiveness following catastrophe will be a long time coming.

Especially when the mayor's reaction to the debacle ranges from surly condescension to bewildered resentment to transparently feigned contrition.

Actually, there's scant evidence that Mike Bloomberg even now knows what hit him -- apart from 20-plus inches of snow, of course.

And the sanitation slowdown. Wildcat strike would be too strong a term -- wild kitten, maybe. But, still, the mayor couldn't cope. The truth is that while Mike Bloomberg was off trash talking Democratic/Republican rancor, he lost control of the New York City Department of Sanitation.

Snowstorms are among that department's responsibilities -- and it hasn't been so overmatched by Mother Nature since John V. Lindsay was mayor.

There was a spectacular failure of field leadership last week. Supervisors couldn't -- some just wouldn't -- put down spot mutinies all over Brooklyn and Queens. The results were lethal.

From the NY Post:

It is said that once a man be comes a bishop, he never again hears the truth or eats a bad meal. Imagine, then, the pampered life of the Emperor of Bloomstan.

To understand how King Mike could deny the snow truth that all New Yorkers could see, you first must understand his golden bubble. It's not just the weekend trips to warmer climes, or the routine comforts of a multibillionaire with homes here and there.

It's that he surrounds himself with yes men and women. They don't dare bring him bad news. They know he doesn't want to hear it.

The mayor himself is the problem, and it won't be fixed until he decides to fix it. To save the city and his reputation, he's got to get his head back into the job.

So far, there is zero evidence he will. His performance last week was distressingly shoddy. The failure to competently manage the Sanitation Department was only the tip of the blizzard.

The greater failure was to understand and manage public expectations. His reaction to the criticism was a microcosm of the worst moments of his tenure. The tone-deaf elitist, the haughty rich guy who oozes contempt for anybody who challenges him -- all of it captured on the X-ray cameras of television.

Imagine being the deputy mayor or lesser aide who knows that New Yorkers are rightfully furious. After the mayor's public lashing of critics, few are the brave souls willing to tell him the truth and risk a blow-up or banishment.

He bought the third term not because he wanted it, but because it was the best job on the market. He wanted to run for president but didn't have the courage to try.

Now he and New York are stuck with each other, but we're not really in it together. Emotionally and mentally, he has checked out. The job is beneath him now.

So New York burns while he fiddles. The signs of imperiousness are everywhere.

The CityTime scandal, an $80 million rip-off, was just another day at the office for him. Bike lanes proliferate even though nobody except a few zealots want them.

Commissioners in health and transportation brazenly fudge facts to sell his pet projects. Land-use rules are manipulated to justify sweetheart deals to favored contractors, such as the whopping homeless shelter on West 25th Street.

The only hope is for a course correction at the top. And New Year's is the perfect time for a new beginning. But even kings can't merely wish a change. They must commit to it and work at it, all day and every day.

So which is it, Mayor Mike? Are you in or out?

From the Daily News:

He does talk a great game and some of his innovations are actually innovative and even necessary, particularly in an ongoing financial crisis.

Too bad he is so taken with himself and his own brilliance that he is too often blinded by the spotlight he perpetually shines on himself.

Here is what Goldsmith said back in October, when he announced a plan to demote 100 sanitation supervisors so the city could hire 100 new sanitation workers.

"A win-win for everybody!"

Everybody clearly not including those 100 supervisors who were still on the job during the storm.

That may not have been a primary cause of the city's failure in the face of the blizzard, but it sure did not help. And a guy who was in the midst of reinventing the department should have at least been there.

What we got was a lose-lose for everybody, most particularly for those who lost their lives.

In his last tweet of 2010, Goldsmith said: "We want your feedback on City's snow response. Tweet to me w/thoughts on what went wrong & how we can do better next time."

As Eminem would say, the next time, there should be no next time. Let this tweeting Nero go back to Washington, where he fits right in.

John Liu for president?

From the Wall Street Journal:

City Comptroller John Liu, who emigrated from Taiwan at age 5 and this year became the first Asian-American to hold citywide elected office, admits to some very lofty ambitions: Beyond merely wanting to become mayor, he'd aspire to the White House if the Constitution allowed.

"I would very much like to be the president of the United States and the leader of the free world," the 43-year-old former City Council member said during an interview in his fifth-floor Municipal Building office, where mice occasionally are seen scurrying.

"I'd like to do anything that allows me to have the maximum impact possible—impact in terms of making changes that I feel are necessary, and there are lots of changes I feel are necessary in the world, certainly in this country and certainly in this city," Mr. Liu said. "So, I will always look to see what I can do."

Mr. Liu, completing on Friday his first year in office as the city's chief financial officer, knows full well that becoming president—while not impossible, he points out—would be very difficult because the Constitution prohibits the foreign-born from serving as commander in chief.

Not that being mayor of New York is anything to sniff at. Mr. Liu calls it "the second most important job in this country."

"Don't tell Andrew that," he added with a smirk, referring to New York's incoming governor, Andrew Cuomo.

Naked ambition—a blessing or a curse, depending on the observer and the situation—has dominated every aspect of Mr. Liu's near decade in New York public life.

He hopes to be NYC's best mayor ever!

From the Daily News:

Mayor Bloomberg's ego got the best of him Sunday when he confessed he wants to be remembered as "the greatest mayor ever."

The confession from Hizzoner, who usually says he hopes his eventual successor will do a better job than he has done, came as he once again denied any interest in running for President.

"I've got a great job. I want to go out being, having a reputation as a very good, maybe the greatest mayor ever," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

He again wore a purple tie, which some have seen as his attempt to brand himself as a bridge between the red and blue states in a divided America. But he once again insisted he's not thinking about running for President and said any of his advisers who may be plotting those moves should "cease and desist."

He also thinks the founding fathers weren't interested in party politics, which is news to anyone who paid attention in history class in high school.

Unsolicited opinion

From the Daily News:

Mayor Bloomberg's big jobs speech at the Brooklyn Navy Yard Wednesday was beautifully staged, artfully promoted and unmistakably aimed at presenting him as a man who could run America.

Expect more such speeches in the months to come - plain-spoken advice better suited for a President than a mayor.

Bloomberg's half hour in the spotlight was light on details about how to boost the economy - cut business taxes! Promote trade! - but heavy on the kind of optimistic, jobs-oriented talk that both average Americans and business leaders want to hear.

"As families struggle to get by, they have seen little but partisan gridlock, political pandering and legislative influence-peddling," the mayor said. "When did success become a bad word in America? When did cooperation in government become treason?"

There will be more like this: Aides say to expect a series of similar speeches on the country's big issues, delivered both in New York and in other states, in forums designed to make him an appealing independent alternative as the Democrats and Republicans shape their fields for 2012.

From Restless:

Just what America needs -- a Wall Street billionaire running as a "centrist" to split the difference between "blue dog" corporate shills and the billionaire-bootlickers of the GOP. Maybe he can bundle the federal debt in a financial instrument and swap it for swampland on Uranus.

It's hard to believe that anyone would be sucker enough to buy his hogwash, or see him for anything but the arrogant Wall Street prince he is, but it's become obvious over the years that lies financed by billionaires can turn night into day and voters into self-sabotaging fools.

Bloomberg for President!

There he goes again...

NEW YORK (AP) - Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent who has considered running for president, declared Monday that an independent has a better chance at succeeding in the White House than a Republican or a Democrat.

The billionaire Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent mayor toyed with a third-party run in 2008 but ultimately abandoned the idea. He has said unequivocally he won't run in 2012, but during a forum at Harvard University on Monday he endorsed the idea of an independent in the White House.

"I think actually a third-party candidate could run the government easier than a partisan political president because the partisan political president — yeah he's got half the votes, but he can't get the others — whereas the guy in the middle may very well be able to get enough across the aisle," Bloomberg said.

The mayor, who founded the financial information company Bloomberg LP and whose fortune is estimated at $18 billion by Forbes magazine, is considered a potential, if long shot, candidate in 2012. He can afford to wait until well into the election year before he has to decide whether to run, largely because he doesn't have to raise money.

It also serves Bloomberg well to keep the door open and buzz alive because it sustains an air of mystery around him and makes him a relevant national figure well into the later years of his third term as the head of the nation's biggest city.

When asked during the forum Monday whether he would run, Bloomberg said he will not. He said he asked the New York City voters who elected him in 2009 for another four years, adding that he is "sort of inclined" to fulfill that promise.

He said, though, he believes there will be a point at which "the public gets so upset that they say, 'I'm going to pick the third party.'"

And you thought Paladino-Cuomo was bad!

The latest from Bloombergland

More rumors that his majesty is running for president from multiple sources. But even New Yorkers don't want that.

If you think President Bloomberg is possible, then answer this question.

He also wants your feedback on how to save money. And here we thought that's why we needed to hire him a third time - because he was the only one who could solve our budget problems.

Bloomberg pretends to run for president again

From the Daily News:

Mayor Bloomberg is headed to primary battleground New Hampshire Friday, fueling speculation he's planning a 2012 presidential run.

The mayor will be the first speaker in a presidential lecture series at Dartmouth College, alma mater of gal pal Diana Taylor.

The speech comes as the third-term mayor has been raising his political profile, including making a trip to Milwaukee today to endorse Democratic Mayor Tom Barrett in his bid for governor of Wisconsin.

"I think it's in his interest as a lame duck mayor to be appearing to run for higher office. It helps his political currency," said Columbia University's Steven Cohen.

But voters shouldn't read too much into his visit to the Granite State, home to the nation's first presidential primary in 2012. "I am not running for President," he insisted recently.

Bloomberg revamps campaign website

From the AP:

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose presidential aspirations never got off the ground in 2008, has revamped his personal website to boast about his life's work in business, philanthropy and "national issues."

The billionaire's reworked site at mikebloomberg.com features slick photographs of him in various settings, mixing with diverse groups of people - images that evoke the tone of a political campaign site.

Mikebloomberg.com served as Bloomberg's campaign site during his third mayoral race last year. Previously, it was a general site featuring Bloomberg's accomplishments and positions. Spokesman Stu Loeser said Thursday the re-launch is a continuation of that. The new content went live in recent days, he said.

The site includes information about Bloomberg's experience in the three main areas where he has worked during his adult life.

The founder and former CEO of the financial company, Bloomberg LP, spent two years exploring the idea of running for president in 2008, ultimately deciding not to go ahead with a third-party campaign.

He has said he has "no plans" to run in 2012, but that is also what he said in the years when he was testing the waters for a 2008 run. Bloomberg will be 70 in 2012.