Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
by $8 blue check mistermix| 101 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
Wow. Presidential candidate @MikeBloomberg lists every single school shooting that’s happened since Donald Trump took office. pic.twitter.com/5h3omr5Biq
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) December 16, 2019
This is a good ad. I don’t have Bloomentum yet, but if he’s spending his money on ads like these rather than auto-fellatory “meet Mike Bloomberg, a great, great guy” media, good for him. Open thread.
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schrodingers_cat
FWIW I also liked the two Biden ads I saw. This is good too. Orange Concealer gotta go.
schrodingers_cat
OT: I wrote a blog post about what is happening in India, the Citizenship Amendment Act which passed last week and the protests that have followed after that.
I have sent it to AL and she will FP it but if you have questions leave them on the link I have included here.
Betty Cracker
The only Bloomberg ads I’ve seen have been “Bloomberg, super citizen job creator and not a socialist” type ads, so yeah, this is much, much better. Still wish he wasn’t running for president in the Democratic Party, but if he’s going to set fire to piles of money, this is a positive way to do it.
glory b
Interestingly, my daughter and a few other young African American voters I know of (nieces, nephews, their friends) are interested in Bloomberg.
They brush off stop and frisk (I’m surprised too) saying it’s no different than a lot of other mistakes made by white folks in charge. They admire his (and Steyer’s) self-made stories, and are fervently anti- gun, mentioning that no one else has gone as far with that issue as they’d like.
My daughter has a number (larger than I want to think about) of acquaintances killed by guns, a former boyfriend shot and killed during a robbery attempt, and a friend from elementary school killed standing on his front porch for reasons no one has figured out.
A girl who lived down the street from us was shot in the head (no one knows why) sitting in front of a police commander’s house with the commander’s daughter and a few friends. She lived.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I can’t see anything in Bloomberg except an old white man with too much money trying to buy the nomination. That just blocks out everything else for me, even stuff like his position on guns.
sdhays
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Same.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
you’d think the fact that Bloomberg is wiling to spend $100,000,000– one hundred million freaking dollars– to stop Warren’s wealth tax, even discussion of the wealth tax, cause I don’t even think a Schumer-led Senate could pass it, would be a great argument for the wealth tax, but what the fuck do I know.
@glory b: Uber-Bernie Bro Jon Fugelsang counts Bloomberg and Biden as real liberals who would be a good corrective to that do-nothing corporate sell-out closet-Republican Barack Obama. /shrug emoji/
joel hanes
The ad is excellent.
Bloomberg did not have to run for President to make and air it.
He could do so much good with GOTV.
Or buying Fox News and neutering it.
Or funding a permanent liberal equivalent of The Heritage Society.
Or …
Yutsano
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Translation: they’re white.
Tim C.
@joel hanes: Running for president to just spend billions on attacking Trump isn’t the worst though. And he correctly identifies the thing that unites Democrats.
catclub
Exactly. His highest use would be running in the GOP primary. When he ran for NY mayor? Republican.
catclub
I think technically, he might have to be running. Otherwise, the places where he wants to post the ad can turn him down, and the large ads might be viewed as illegal political donations to other candidates.
glory b
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Crazy! I’ve mentioned this before, but lots of my daughter’s friends (and her herself) work for the big banks and the healthcare companies and the insurance companies. They make decent money, most do form processing/customer service type work, enough to have a decent place, a car, child care, etc.
Some get promoted, even without college degrees. A friend of a friend of mine worked her way up from teller to Vice President, without a degree.
They live in Pittsburgh. If you break up the banks, eliminate insurance companies, etc., they see the place they’ve carved out for themselves disappearing. Frankly, no one proposing those things has mentioned any ideas for what they’d do for a living if those things happen. Many aren’t necessarily interested in going back to school, more than you’d think already have degrees.
Let’s not discount the years of hip hop, glorifying making money, as having some influence in admiring self made millionaires.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Is there a “Dumber than Trump” contest I’m unaware of?
Wag
ABT for President. If the Democratic nominee is Warren, I’m on board. If Bloomberg, I’m on board. If anyone in between (except Gabbard), I’m on board
Jim, Foolish Literalist
one ad I’m looking for in this same style of using trump’s words against him is health care: “We’re gonna get rid of Obamacare and replace it with something terrific that’ll cost a lot less and we’re gonna take care of everybody and it’ll be easy believe me”
Mandalay
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Bloomberg trying to pull this shit is what makes him dead to me:
That was ten years ago, but I still get angry when I think about it. I can (barely) accept the argument that stop and frisk was an awful mistake made with good intentions, but naked power grabbing is a bridge too far. I don’t trust him on anything now, and never will.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That’ll probably have to wait until the general election.
glory b
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes, this!!!
I can’t figure out why no one has used it already!
He said he already had figured out his plan ,better, cheaper. covered more illnesses and more people. It was already done (according to him)!
No one in the MSM ever asked about it, that I ever saw.
WhatsMyNym
@glory b: Self-made is all relative…
via wikipedia
James E Powell
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yes, yes, yes! Especially since Trump appears to be running on a theme of promises kept.
JPL
Steyer was viewed by me as being the better billionaire, because his money wasn’t used to just puff up his ego. Bloomberg has a ways to go but I will say that’s a darn good ad.
joel hanes
@glory b:
Breaking up the big banks will create a number of small banks, which will tend to employ more, not less, bank employees.
Similarly, if most corporate-funded health insurance goes away and is replaced by some single-payer scheme, the government and its contractors will need to hire scads of people in every state with experience in administering health benefits.
But one thing one learns as a software guy: people hate change they didn’t choose.
HumboldtBlue
@Betty Cracker:
This is how I imagine Betty and her Boxer
He’s supposed to walk over and calmly sit.
joel hanes
@Baud:
Is there a “Dumber than Trump” contest
Contenders:
Louie Gohmert
Devin Nunes
Ron Johnson
Gym Jordan
county Republican party aparatchiks literally everywhere
Immanentize
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
@glory b:
This line of attack (which I am sure we will see in the general) also has the added advantage in that it will trigger Trump to lash out at McCain again. Popcorn, please!
zhena gogolia
@Wag:
I’m there too, except I’d add Sanders to my no-go list.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@joel hanes: After watching the Judiciary committee hearings, Doug Collins has moved onto that list.
Barbara
@joel hanes: It might be harder for networks to turn down ads from actual candidates. Not sure.
mad citizen
Good ad–I was able to see my godsons’ school in the list. Come on Liz Warren, though–first time typing that since Kamala left.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@joel hanes:
well put, and something I wish were clear to more of our candidates and lefty-twitter
Betty Cracker
@HumboldtBlue: That clip captures boxer exuberance perfectly. “Sit calmly” really isn’t in their wheelhouse. :)
debbie
@JPL:
Bloomberg has worked a lot and spent lots of money on gun control, so at least we know this ad is heartfelt.
Searcher
@catclub: I’m willing to pretend that as long as he doesn’t attack real Democratic candidates or progressive policies.
I kind of assume that has already happened, but TBH I pay so little attention to vanity campaigns by the billionaires and the millionaires that I don’t actually know.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@debbie: he’s done a lot on the environment, too. I just wish the thought of being slightly less wealthy didn’t trigger his Napoleon complex to the point where he’ll light all this money on fire instead of say, using it to get the Democrats the Senate majority.
debbie
@glory b:
They might want to ask all the laid off factory workers who were given no idea of what to do either. //
(FWIW, you’re wrong about job losses after bank breakups. The number of jobs added when banks began to be held accountable (ie, stress tests, OCC consent order, etc.) was very significant. And they haven’t been let go since.
glory b
@joel hanes: Yes, if you tell them that, they’d ask what they are supposed to do in the meantime.
debbie
@joel hanes:
No Doug Collins?!?
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yes, I think he and Steyer both would be far more valuable to getting Trump out by bankrolling PACs like the Kochs have.
WhatsMyNym
@glory b: They should be more worried about the coming insurance company mergers which will lead to layoffs. The big banks are pulling out of areas already.
glory b
@debbie: I may not have made myself clear, those are the things they are saying. They have older relatives who lost jobs when the steel mills collapsed, some of them just getting those jobs after integration. They are reluctant to embrace changes, they see themselves as likely to come out with the short end of the stick.
Some of them see this as catering to predominantly white, upper middle class young people, who they also see as being mostly Bernie supporters. Don’t get me wrong, some of them see something in Sanders, but like the other jackals of color have pointed out, most of us are afraid of change, not revolutionaries, trying to maintain what we’ve managed to obtain.
hueyplong
It’s possible there are 63 million Americans dumber than Trump.
That’s a lot of the problem.
Betty Cracker
@glory b: Maybe they’re just conservatives in the classic sense? Kinda sounds like it.
Ella in New Mexico
@joel hanes:
Amen.
Bloomberg and Steyer alone could use their money in ways that far out-power anything one, single President could ever do for posterity. We don’t need them as President to do all the things we want to do, but we need changes to the laws, institutions and structures that will support those changes for more than 8 years.
They could be powerful forces for good and do just that. I wish I knew how that message could be transmitted to them before 2020.
Maybe someone could get Barack to pay these two a visit?
Kay (not the front-pager)
Not only is Bloomberg a rich a-hole trying to buy his way into the presidency, he has more than a little in common with the current occupant. For instance, he is a sexist <blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Thirty years ago. Do we care? "I know for a fact that any self-respecting woman who walks past a construction site doesn’t get a whistle will turn around and walk past again and again until she does get one." <a href=”https://t.co/B9tulq5EGE”>https://t.co/B9tulq5EGE</a></p>— Connie Schultz (@ConnieSchultz) <a href=”https://twitter.com/ConnieSchultz/status/1206549748074917889?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>December 16, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
He was an Epstein buddy.
He opposes raising minimum wage.
He’s a basic rich-guy who thinks he should control us peons, but with a slight leftist bent (i.e. anti-sugar, anti-global warming, anti-gun). No thanks.
Jay
@catclub:
Nope, just air them as a “single issue” PAC product. The contents of such ads do not have to be nonpartizan, fair or true, and only count as “in kind” contributions if the FEC can prove collusion,
given that the FEC no longer “exists”, and has rarely managed to “prove” such cases, even as blatant as the NRA/Russia/ReThug collusion of 2016, it’s a no brainer.
Kay (not the front-pager)
@HumboldtBlue: I love this so so much! I watched it till it wouldn’t let me watch anymore, laughing out loud every time.
Jay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Change is constant. Change you know is coming from a long way off, beats the “surprise” changes.
Funny how none of the “Whattabout Becky anti-MFA” employment articles and retweets exist for ACA changes that caused Insurer Bankruptcies and layoffs.
Kay (not the front-pager)
@Kay (not the front-pager): Well this screwed up royally. I was trying to embed a tweet with a quote from Bloomberg. He said, “I know for a fact that any self-respecting woman who walks past a construction site doesn’t get a whistle will turn around and walk past again and again until she does get one.” He said it 30 years ago, but that was the ’90s so really no excuse.
trollhattan
The ad is perfect. I’d just edit out the last frames and run it relentlessly. Sadly, the tally would need frequent updating.
Our kids have what the Germans call Galgenhumor about school shootings, and a large cohort, maybe even a majority, consider it just a matter of time before they too experience it. They have complex discussions over which of their classmates are Most Likely to Shoot Up the School. This is our saddest gift to the upcoming generation.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kay (not the front-pager): Yeah, it turns out that when you copy and try to embed a tweet, you have to click the “text” tab at the top of the comment box. Why, I don’t know.
I don’t know what the “visual” tab is for either.
Also I don’t know how to reply to more than one commenter at a time
debbie
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I have come to learn that Visual shows you how it looks. Embed a tweet on the text tab and then switch over to visual. You’ll see what I mean.
To reply to multiple posts, I learned to click one name, close the box, click another name. When the box opens, both names will be there.
Disclosure: This is what has worked for me; I am not an expert — by any means!
Jay
White Men are being White Men again,….
John Revolta
In some uplifting news: some British heiress/model had Fifty Meellyun Pounds worth of jewelry stolen from her house in West London over the weekend. Made my day. Go, International Jewel Thieves!
trollhattan
@debbie:
The trick is to be a chapter ahead of the rest of the class. Then you’re magically an expert. ?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
The “visual” tab should be the default editing mode. It’s a “What You See Is What You Get”(sort of) editing mode, the “text” tab shows the HTML code.
Close the reply box by hitting the “X” at the top right. Go to the next comment you wish to reply to, click reply(repeat as needed).
Jay
Dorothy A. Winsor
@debbie:
Thank you. That’s helpful. I thought I might have missed some instructions while I was away.
evap
@catclub: Yes, I wonder if Bloomberg is only running for president so he can air ads like this. He must know he hasn’t much of a chance (famous last words!)
trollhattan
@Jay:
Ye gods. Misogyny–never out of fashion.
Stumbled across the video from early December of Warren answering a young lady’s difficult question about not getting approval from somebody she looked up to, and Warren responded by relating how difficult it was to tell her disapproving mother about breaking with her first husband, then hugging the young lady.
Apparently, that’s not presidential material.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I do use the “visual” tab as a default. So I got that right anyway. Thanks.
Jay
@John Revolta:
no tears for restolen F1 stolen money and wages even when laundered by a generation,….
zhena gogolia
Slotkin is a yes on impeachment.
Baud
@trollhattan:
A real President would have mocked the young lady.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
Baud!2020!
Yutsano
@zhena gogolia: Max Rose of Staten Island came out as a yes for impeachment too.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Yutsano: and Conor Lamb, who was the anti-Pelosi in Chuck Todd’s mind until a different Broderist Butterfly distracted him
JPL
@trollhattan: Warren received some pretty good coverage for that, but pigs gonna be pigs and old white misogynistic men are gonna be old white misogynistic men.
Yutsano
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I would love for the caucus to be unanimous on this, but Nancy can count votes. She also respects decisions of her individual members and whether she can cut them loose or needs to whip them.
And I want every Republican to vote no. And hang that albatross around all their necks.
joel hanes
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Collins was pretending to be dumb.
That makes him despicable.
Zinsky
@Betty Cracker: As usual, Betty nails it. Bloomberg running as a Republican would have been far, far better! This twerpy little Richie Rich ads can inflict a few cuts on Trump with his millions but taking electoral votes away from Trumpo would be far more helpful.
Jay
@joel hanes:
can you say that again, but in a Daffy Duck voice?
Kay
Yeah, this is a trade I won’t make. Some weak gun regulations aren’t worth trading health care and income issues and education.
Bloomberg is a bad deal for Democrats. The “liberal on social issues but Right wing on economic issues” combo is a loser. It only works for his voters- well off, college educated urban voters. That’s just not enough to beat Trump and it excludes too much of our coalition.
He’s a moderate Republican. It’s not my fault his Party collapsed in a heap of conspiracy theories and corruption. I shouldn’t have to become a moderate Republican.
joel hanes
@Jay:
I can do a passable Donald Duck, but the only one of Mel Blanc’s wonderful voicings I can imitate with any degree of fidelity is Foghorn Leghorn. I try to do Bugs, but just can’t quite get it right.
Jay
@Zinsky:
a bunch of State GOP parties have closed the Primaries to anybody but Dotus.
running as a ReThug won’t harm Dotus in the general.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
debbie
@trollhattan:
Oh, now you tell me!
debbie
@Yutsano:
Knowing Staten Island, that is very, very impressive.
Kay (not the front-pager)
Kay, we share more than a first name. This guy is not our team and he can’t be our team captain. He’ll just have to try to get his own team to make sense again.
Meanwhile, we have several good candidates, and a lot of work ahead of us to clean up the mess left by his team.
debbie
Oh, FFS:
...now I try to be amused
@glory b:
It confirms my impression that African Americans are the most politically pragmatic people in America. I wish white Democrats were more like that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I am pleasantly surprised, to the extent that twitter and the internet is a measure, how little noise has been made by that nitwit’s party switch
J R in WV
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
To reply to multiple comments, reply to one, type your comment below the @Nym, then click the big X in the upper right corner of the Leave a Comment block. Return to the second comment you want to reply to, click that Reply link, and the second @Nym will appear where your point of focus was when you clicked the big X after your first reply.
You can do this up to 6 or 7 times IIRC.
It actually says this [To reply to more than one person, click the X to save & close the box.] in the fine print at the botton of the comment box, below the Nym and Email fields.
By not clicking on the Clear Comment your @Nyms and text remain behind the scenes when you close the comment box.
That’s a version of your comment, the way it will look to a viewer after it is submitted. The “Text” tab allows HTML code to be entered, which is the gobbledegook you see when you enter a Twit on the Visual tab. It’s called What You See Is What You Get, WYSISYG technically.
Tools are invented to allow people who can’t code to enter text which is converted to HTML behind the scenes. But people who know how to code in HyperText Markup Language, aka HTML, sometimes prefer to use the actual HTML rather than allowing the machine to produce the HTML for them. That’s the difference between the Visual tab and the Text tab. The Text is raw HTML in part.
ETA the 5th and last…. I see others have answered more concisely. Sorry to take up the space!
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
McDrew is holding off switching at Trump’s request (he likes the idea of seeming conflicts in the Dems’ ranks). My guess is all these tweets are exploding his tiny brain.
Jay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
there was lots of noise and fury, signifying nothing,…….
except that all his staff, from his Campaign Manager to the person who empties the trashcans quit in under 24 hours,…..
catclub
@John Revolta: The guys who stole from that German Museum must have been on holiday in London.
catclub
Well put
Jay
Quite the thread,….
Jay
Spoiler alert, it’s about the Holodomor and a bunch of “The Ususal Suspects” (FTFNYT) make an appearance.
Barbara
@debbie: She has never been the brightest star in the sky.
Jay
The mess in Lybia keeps spiraling outwards;
Anya
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: “@BernieSanders is the Barack Obama we’ve been waiting for” — John Fugelsang
The Moar You Know
REALIZATION: Even shithead Republican Michael Bloomberg would be nine million times better as president than the loser we have now.
The primary kind of doesn’t even matter. Pick one. Any one. Better than Trump? Oh yeah. Christ, even Gabbard can speak in public with words recognizable as English, doesn’t change her mind every thirty seconds, and knows enough to look sad when kids get shot – vast improvement. Literally doesn’t matter. Just pick one. And then vote for the person that is not Donald Trump.
In a way, easiest election ever.
Anya
@debbie: didn’t he already suffer the collective quitting of all of his staff? I mean, who are they kidding about this morally coward’s stand?
Steeplejack (phone)
Redacted because this editor sucks balls.
Steeplejack (phone)
@trollhattan:
As we used to say when I was still somebody in software development, you don’t have to be faster than the bear, you just have to be faster than the slowest camper (who quite often was the client).
Terraformer
Lots of great ideas for ads here. But really, that’s always been the case though, right?
This really is a “the ads write themselves” environment. Any pol that doesn’t make use of the wealth of ad material that Republicans and the great orange shitbag have provided is guilty of gross but incompetence.
Sab
@Kay (not the front-pager): Everyhing I know about Bloomberg I learned from Steve Gilliard. This fish is not biting that lure.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Anya: I really like him when the subject is not Sanders or Obama. I think he’s very smart, and I like having a liberal who can quote the bible like a medieval monk, but his belief that Sanders could, and Obama could have, shout(ed) the Nordic welfare state into law is amazing.
Anya
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I like him a lot. Like you said, despite that one flaw is good on all other things
Amir Khalid
@debbie:
We see in this statement the mental acuity and grasp of logic that made Carly Fiorina a legend among corporate CEOs.