What about the people who’ve gotten some kind of government money or a job funded through the government because of the work of their Senator or Representative? Is their endorsement and vote being bought? Is it okay if politicians use public tax money to buy votes, but not okay if they use their own money to buy votes?
Neither. I am not considering this, because as I have told you, I think it’s a bad analogy. I have nothing more to say about it. Seriously.
Because all points I am arguing stem from what I came here to discuss. So if you disagree with something I say and raise an objection to it, I address it.
No, I’m not retracting anything, and I don’t know what you are getting at here.
Bold: Yes, I do give him credit, and we just disagree. I don’t think of it in terms of you being wrong necessarily, because that would mean I have absolute knowledge, rather than just having formed my own opinion with my limited intellect. And I respect your right to form your own opinion, as I’m sure you do mine.
You keep saying “terrorized”. I saw the link where the article had audio recordings of experiences detainees had. I did not listen to those, because they are anecdotal. They very well may be 100% correct, but I have no way to judge that. You also linked to a tweet by someone called Sean Perryman. I have no idea who he is, so the same applies. Do you have better (any) evidence of how detainees were supposedly abused? I can’t answer your question if you don’t provide corrborated details to back up what you are saying. But for the record, I have not decided as of yet how I would vote or if I would vote for Bloomberg if he get’s the nomination, but such details as I ask for would help.
At some point the connection becomes so attenuated that it’s no longer a thing. Let’s not get into a paradox of the mound situation. But if for example I’m hired by the mayor, and then she comes asking me for an endorsement, that’s hinky.
It’s interesting that this piece is getting so focused on. Is that because everyone agrees that it’s weird that he’s paying social media influencers to endorse him, and that he’s catering his rallies with alcohol and meals, and that he’s asking billionaire buddies to not fund his rivals, and that he’s starving rival campaigns of staff by offering their employees much higher wages than they can afford to pay? Or is everyone just cool with all that?
Avoiding the question suggests that your position is weak.
What if you give an endorsement of your own free will? Is that kinky?
Sounds like good tactics. Why wouldn’t you exploit every advantage?
…have you even looked at Floyd v. City of New York, the class action lawsuit that determined stop and frisk was unconstitutional? In one of my first responses to you I cited “The Stories Behind the Numbers, the Effects on our Communities”, published by the Centre for Constitutional Rights. Did you read that? Did you look at the hashtag #mybloombergstory I linked to earlier where hundreds of people were sharing their story of their experiences under stop and frisk?
I’ve done much more in this thread than link to a single tweet by Sean Perryman. Theimpact of stop and frisk is well documented.
I’ve provided 12 citations right now, several of them I’ve already posted. I’m more than happy to keep posting them if you like, but to be honest the information is more than easy enough to find out there, and the first cite should be more than enough.
As to why I think terrorized is the right way to characterize what happened? Because if you were a black man living in the area that was targeted there was no way to avoid being stopped and frisked. You could be a perfect citizen. You might not own a gun. You might never have used drugs. You could be only fourteen. But everytime you walked down the street you risked being stopped, thrown against the wall, thrown to the ground, or even worse. For nothing more than the colour of their skin. You are a former New Yorker and you never had to live with that fear. Imagine what it was like for those that did.
How can you give him credit when you know so little about stop and frisk?
Let’s take those one at a time.
Using social media influencer marketing techniques? Here’s about that.
Paying social media influencers for product mentions is a pretty common technique for many products and services. As long as it is legal doing this is smart and the demonstrates that Team Bloomberg knows how the modern media battle is fought. In particular it is an effort to reach and bring in the less likely voters in ways that they might respond to. We’ll need tactics like that for the general no matter who is running.
Catered rallies? More amusing than anything else. I don’t think votes can be bought for a goat cheese puff, some fig jam, and glass of wine. But I’ve gone to political house parties with them. Not sure how it jives with his anti-obesity messaging though … 
Asking billionaire buddies to not fund his rivals? Well while Warren Buffet’s donations are generally fairly modest (he eschews the SuperPAC route in general) he last February said he thought Bloomberg would make an excellent president and would support him. I guess he’s starving Sanders out of billionaire funding? Buttigieg seems to have no shortage of billionaire donors. And let’s be real, if the money dries up for Biden it aint because Bloomberg made the ask. Nah. The closest I can find to your claim is that he is hitting on wealthy donors to act as his surrogates in his campaign and to donate to, and to encourage donations to candidates up and down the Democratic side ticket. No ask to not fund others, but sure, if they are sold on and selling him, they are less likely to support his competition. That seems pretty … normal.
Starving other campaigns of staff? Do you have reports of the Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg, Biden, or even Klobuchar campaigns being unable to find staff? The NYT article discussing the “waterfall of cash” that is his campaign is a bit more straightforward about the generous pay and benefits he offers:
Sanders problem was that he was using a loophole to avoid paying minimum wage to his workers. Paying well seems the lesser offense doncha think?
…well yeah. Bloomberg is literally buying the election. That’s what we are saying. He is saturating the market with propaganda. If the other candidates for the nomination could afford to do this they would be: it isn’t that Team Bloomberg knows any better, its just they’ve literally got enough money to burn. It was a problem when Brexit did it, it was a problem when Trump did it, its a problem now. The system was already almost already broken and Bloomberg is just accelerating its destruction. If Trump wins then America descends into autocracy. If Bloomberg wins then the presidency will become the domain of the billionaire class.
Unfortunately this is beyond a paywall, usually, but this is a good article on just that subject. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/15/opinion/bloomberg-trump-2020.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
This, and everything else, is of course an intelligent tactic for a man who’s got no scruples about flooding out his opponents with money rather than with ideas. But it’s also an intelligent tactic for folks who don’t want a billionaire to buy the election to publicize what he’s doing, in order to counteract the effect of his billions.
Bolding mine.
Yes, I completely get that you are saying that spending lots of his own money is unfair and “buying” the election. Again, I don’t think voters are bought for so little. Money can buy a megaphone and a chance to be heard. It isn’t fair but it has been that way for all of this country’s history. It does not get people to like what they hearing. Buying a chance to make your pitch is not the same as buying votes. Agreed though that we will persistently disagree about this.
But do try to keep your facts straight. I don’t think Brexiters won by massive outspending. And I know that Trump did not. He was well outspent by his closest primary rivals and by the Clinton campaign. It’s this cycle that his war chest is huge. And that he has the presidency to use as his selling platform.
Given that the claim is that Bloomberg’s plan includes not only spending in excess of a billion of his own money for this campaign, but has spent $10 billion in philanthropy as part of the plan to win influence for this election, the class of American billionaires that are in that domain is pretty small. Buffet and Gates are uninterested. I guess you could be looking at Bezos at some point. Zuckerberg, Page, Ellison, Brin? I don’t think so.One of the Walton family? The Kochs had already been doing it just not as the frontmen.
LHOD, if advertising in ways that reach the less likely voters in ways that connect with them (in this case by humorous self-mocking that raises “brand awareness”) is “no scruples” then I’d rather leave such scruples behind. But having scruples is not the same as being naive and too pure to wage an effective modern battle. The general is not going to be the place for “hey kids let’s put on a show” gee whiz and shucks. I like his ideas on Climate Change, on reducing gun violence, on the expansion of the ACA, and more … but I know you know that having the best ideas is not always enough to win. If your scruples want to keep your election efforts clean of having money taint its purity, especially money from those who have more of it, I’d prefer we ignore your scruples. Or do you only have such scruples when they serve the support of your preferred candidate?
I agree with this 1000%. The Democrats will not be able to come close to winning the general with small dollar donations. And I’d rather see a candidate buy the election with his own money than sell it to special interests, which is the only other alternative that’s realistic.
And if Bloomberg is able to legally use his influence to slow down corporate donations to the Republican Party, I can’t cheer him loudly enough.
I’m really impressed with the work Bloomberg has done with cities around the country. It’s not so much about buying influence, it’s about “workshopping” public policy ideas and developing data and methodologies. And when people accuse him of buying elections, are you accusing his supporters (like the mayor of Flint MI) of being bought off?
Because I think he gave them help that they genuinely needed when no one else would. And I see that as a positive for Bloomberg.
I’ll give Bloomberg some credit, he has a powerful ad attacking Bernie Bros. Using his money to destroy Sanders is an excellent idea.
It’s not destroying Sanders at all. It isn’t even attacking him. It even shows him advocating for NOT under the belt attacking other candidates. It does attack the idea that Sanders is resulting in the sort of energy the party needs, by showing how some of those who support him behave. Sanders is not responsible for the behavior of his supporters, but it is what he is inspiring, whether he wants to or not.
I think the nightmare scenario for the Democrats is that Bloomberg’s money proves to be enough to overwhelm the primary but doesn’t matter that much against a well-funded Trump who , let’s not forget, won last time despite a large money disadvantage against Hillary.
What does Bloomberg bring other than money? Not much IMO. He is a remarkably wooden and uninspiring speaker, prone to gaffes (like his bizarre comments about farmers), and has a long list of negatives ranging from stop and frisk and sexual harassment allegations which are perfect fodder for GOP attack ads aiming to depress Dem turnout.
As you brought that up in a reply to me, let me say I ignored nothing. You wrote one sentence with “the neutralization of illegal drug personalities nationwide” about Duterte, and expected me to go track down who said this, etc. If you had something to say then, you should spell it out specifically. I don’t have time to track down every random comment you make. As for Hitler, it was blown out of proportion by default when you brought it up, as it didn’t apply, IMO! But as you said, we never have to bring up Hitler again.
I have not looked at Floyd* in detail*, but I don’t have to, as I am aware that SaF was found to be unconstitutional. As for your citations, they spell out the degree to which innocent people were stopped, and other awful details of the policy. But you asked me if I could support Bloomberg after *terrorizing *people. What I read at your cites are numerous accounts of humiliating searches, to say the least. I am not ready to call “no way to avoid being stopped and frisked”, as you said, or details at your links, as being terrorized. But after a bit more thought from my last post, I can say based on what I know now, I would support Bloomberg wholeheartedly if he gets the nomination.
Banquet Bear, I cannot keep discussing this with you if you keep misrepresenting what I say. I give him credit for attempting to address the problem of gun violence where it exists the most, and you continually find a way to ignore this.
Bernie OWNS his bros, he knows what they’re doing and his campaign is staffed with professional trolls. No other candidate has called him out on it except Bloomberg and I give Bloomberg all the credit in the world.
…but what is Bloomberg’s pitch? All you’ve offered is “executive experience”. He “knows how to delegate.” “He can manage.” “He can analyse data.” He will move away from “othering” (whatever that means).
And he has lots of money.
Just think for a moment how fundamentally weak that platform is. Think how many people in the country can do all of these things, including all of the other candidates for the nomination. They aren’t being bought “for so little.” They are being bought for so much. It isn’t just a megaphone. Its propaganda saturation.
My facts are perfectly straight.
You are missing the point. It wasn’t the amount of money they had in the chest. It was where that money was spent. Microtargeted propaganda at the most vulnerable based on information from data scientists who knew exactly who to target. Bloomberg is using the same tactics but he has escalated pumping even more money than the other two campaigns. And this won’t be the end of the escalation.
What Bloomberg is demonstrating is that the likes of the Kochs don’t have to operate from the shadows any more. And if Bloomberg successfully wins the presidency then the only hope the Republicans will have at the next election will be to pump billions into the next campaign. It isn’t going to be a one time thing. This will break the traditional system of nominations…
And I don’t think its fair to characterise $10 billion dollars as part of a plan to win influence for the election as “philanthropy.” Its just dollars for endorsements, plain and simple.
…it’s not as if Duterte is an obscure figure. He is all over the news. He’s one of many authoritarians that Trump aspires too. His campaign to openly murder drug dealers isn’t a secret.
But since you decided to drag this up again (I have no idea why) I may as well take this to its conclusion.
Why was his campaign killing on average 34 people a day?
Duterte, just like Bloomberg, did it because of the children. You give Bloomberg credit because he wanted to save the kids. Do you give Duterte the same credit because his stated motivations are the same? You don’t even have to look Duterte up. I’ve posted all the relevant information here for you.
The point of looking af Floyd isn’t to show you that stop and frisk was unconstitutional. It was to provide examples of people who had been terrorised by stop and frisk.
I’m not surprised at all at this response from you. A bit sad. But not surprised.
And this was never in doubt. As I’ve said from the beginning, its almost as if black lives don’t matter.
I know exactly what you said. You asked for corroboration of Sean Perryman’s account as if Perryman was some sort of exception when (as shown by my cites) he was very much the rule. It isn’t as if any of this was secret. It isn’t as if none of this information could be accessed with a very quick google search. It isn’t as if I hadn’t already cited that information in my very first reply to you. I don’t think its unfair to say you know very little about stop and frisk. If you did then you wouldn’t need to keep asking me for cites on things I’ve already provided.
I’m sorry if this has been asked before, but Banquet Bear, if the election comes down to Trump and Bloomberg, how would you vote?