"The Notorious Michael R. Bloomberg"

[emmaverybo]

Snip——————————————

The Notorious Michael R. Bloomberg
His racist stop-and-frisk policy as New York mayor can’t be forgotten.

Let’s state some facts: Michael Rubens Bloomberg notoriously expanded stop-and-frisk in New York City to obscene proportions, violating the bodies and constitutional rights of mostly minority men and boys, and not only defended the policy, but mocked his detractors and bragged about it.

What Bloomberg did as mayor amounted to a police occupation of minority neighborhoods, a terroristic pressure campaign, with little evidence that it was accomplishing the goal of sustained, long-term crime reduction.

Nearly 90 percent of the people stopped were completely innocent. He knew that. They were the collateral damage in his crusade, black and brown bodies up against walls and down on the ground, groped in the middle of the city by strange men with guns, a vast expanse of human psychological wreckage about which he couldn’t care less.

A recording from a speech Bloomberg delivered at the Aspen Institute in 2015 underscores just how callous and cavalier he was in his thinking about this racist policy.


https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/opinion/michael-bloomberg-stop-frisk.html

[slumcamper]

1. Let he who is without baggage cast the first stone?

Of course, dirt runs deep. Therefore, lest we bury each other in a frantic contest of shovels, perhaps a better imperative is that we find a way to actually WIN?

Especially at this juncture in history, winning is everything, is it not?

Let's pull together.

[BeckyDem]

3. Baggage? That is not baggage that is a warning.

[uponit7771]

6. Ummm no, Bloomberg has NOT apologized for racial profiling and is now saying he "didn't understand

..." the impact of racial profiling bullshit, he's smarter than Trump.

[slumcamper]

16. "smarter than Trump"

For sure.

The guy has a BA in ELECTRICAL Engineering--for chrissakes! (And an MBA from Harvard)

That doesn't make him a sociologist!

But I have confidence that intelligent people can learn things, and I believe he has.

At this point--early 'tho it is--who else is galling "Donald"?

Folks, I think we've got a winner here. But to my larger point: We've gotta pull together.

I think we can. It's early. Passions are high, and that is a good thing. Best of luck to everyone as they work to win!

[Locrian]

2. then there's his (continued) support of redlining....

At a Georgetown University forum in September 2008, then-New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg was asked about the major economic story of the day: the roots of the exploding global financial crisis. This was the month that Lehman Brothers had filed for bankruptcy and the federal government had placed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship. What was behind the bust?

Bloomberg’s answer: The implosion of the nation’s housing market was the result of the prohibition of redlining, the discriminatory practice by which lenders denied African-American homebuyers access to loans in the same neighborhoods where white homeowners lived.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/us/politics/michael-bloomberg-redlining.html
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2020/02/bloomberg-redlining-financial-crisis-housing-discrimination/606526/


Bloomberg made his $$ in the stock market. He KNOWS it was the greed, CDO's, etc that caused the collapse. But he chooses to blame minorities.

[jmg257]

7. Redlining was outlawed in 1968...is THAT the redlining YOU say he said was the cause?

Because that is not what he said at all.


He did however say the crash was linked - "It all started back when there was a lot of pressure on banks to make loans to everyone..."
"Redlining, if you remember, was the term where banks took whole neighborhoods and said, 'People in these neighborhoods are poor, they're not going to be able to pay off their mortgages, tell your salesmen don't go into those areas.'"
"And then Congress got involved — local elected officials, as well — and said, 'Oh that's not fair, these people should be able to get credit.' And once you started pushing in that direction, banks started making more and more loans where the credit of the person buying the house wasn't as good as you would like."

Please post where he says he supports it.

“Here’s the future that the Greenwood Initiative envisions for Black America. Over the next decade, we’re going to help one million more Black families own a home, we’re going to double the number of Black-owned businesses, and we’re going to triple the wealth of Black families to substantially close the racial wealth gap. Together, let me tell you, we will get it done. I know how to do it – we did it in New York City, we can do it here.

Sure doesn't seem that he supports redlining here.

[Locrian]

10. YES

The interview is disgusting. He KNOWS that it was orders of magnitude more caused by the banking industry (his gang) yet he spins it to be by minorities with zero responsibility by the banks. Truly ugly.



Not just me either: He's Warren on it:

Speaking on Thursday evening in Virginia, Ms. Warren said the comments should disqualify Mr. Bloomberg from being the Democratic nominee.

“A video just came out yesterday in which Michael Bloomberg is saying, in effect, that the 2008 financial crash was caused because the banks weren’t permitted to discriminate against black and brown people,” Ms. Warren told supporters at a high school gymnasium. “That crisis would not have been averted if the banks had been able to be bigger racists. And anyone who thinks that should not be the leader of our party.”

[jmg257]

12. Yes he knows that - and he said so. In the video it starts around 3:30 where he talks about

the banks and wall street.

But he indeed is rather tame about laying the blame where it mostly belongs.

[Locrian]

15. way to tame....

And it's the pattern that bothers me....


https://reason.com/2020/02/11/bloombergs-awful-old-quotes-defending-unconstitutional-stop-and-frisk-are-coming-back-to-haunt-him/

"Put the cops where the crime is, which means in minority neighborhoods. So, one of the unintended consequences is, 'Oh my god, you're arresting kids for marijuana that are all minorities.' Yes, that's true. Why? Because we put all the cops in minority neighborhoods. Yes, that's true. Why do we do it? Because that's where all the crime is. And the way you get the guns out of the kids' hands is to throw them up against the walls and frisk them."

So to summarize: The young minority men searched without probable cause and then arrested for marijuana possession were merely the side effects of the more important goal of stopping violent crime. And New York City just had to break all these eggs to make this pretty, crime-free cake.

And that was 2015.....

[jmg257]

13. Ms Warren made up some thing he didn't say. Unfortunately that's the kid of race we have.

Maybe she should blame FDR and/or the New Deal.

Or at the least Herbert Hoover.

[BusyBeingBest]

11. I will say he is a very intelligent guy. His explanation here

of the mortgage situation is thorough and impressive.

[snowybirdie]

8. You are So right

Having been in the business, I know the major reasons for the crash were greedy financial institutions and people pushing unsafe investment vehicles to unsuspecting and unsophisticated investors. Also, Banks got greedy and did loan to people not able to afford the mortgages they got, but it was the Bush Administration pushing them to loan to anyone. Banks got lots of fees for their efforts regardless. And Remember, Bloomberg earned his billions in the financial sector! I'm very wary of him.

[jmg257]

9. You should listen to the interview on NPR - he seems to know that too. nt

[tiredtoo]

4. Use caution here

I posted a similar commentary on Bloomberg two days ago and got pinned to the wall. Jury voted to remove my post as it "Bashed Democratic candidates". Just read in another thread "If I wanted to vote for a republican, i would change parties." My sentiments exactly.

[jmg257]

5. Glad he apologized for it. Can we move on now? He is gonna be hard to beat.

Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg used a rally at Houston’s Buffalo Soldiers National Museum to tell a predominately black audience that he “deeply regrets” ever supporting the controversial stop and frisk policy he employed while mayor of New York City.
Bloomberg told the audience that he knows now he was wrong to defend the policy that targeted black and Hispanic residents for pat downs to see if they had weapons. That program has become a major stumbling block for many Democratic voters as they weigh Bloomberg’s run for the White House.

“I should have acted sooner and faster to stop it, and for that I apologize,” said Bloomberg, who was mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/article/Mike-Bloomberg-uses-Houston-rally-to-apologize-15055626.php

[progressoid]

17. The question is will the important African American voting bloc just move on.

I have feeling this isn't something that is going to go away.

[jmg257]

18. Yes true - but looks like they are warming up...

“There are signs that black support for Mike Bloomberg in 2020 could be a mirror image of white support for Trump in 2016, when voters who didn’t want to admit their decision to pollsters nonetheless pulled the lever for him”), Quinnipiac released a new poll showing that black voters are warming to his campaign. Bloomberg shot up 7 points to third overall in the new poll released Monday afternoon, just two points behind Biden, who dropped 7 points. And Bloomberg shot up to second among black voters at 22%, behind Biden at 27% and falling.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/are-black-voters-quietly-turning-to-mike-bloomberg

This before his appearance in Houston;, along with continued increase in endorsements.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/why-mike-bloomberg-could-win-black-voters-support-joe-biden-ncna1136766

[TheCowsCameHome]

14. He's vowed to do whatever it takes to beat Trump.

I'm in. That's all that matters this year.