Quotes from Michael Bloomberg

Michael Bloomberg's staff at Bloomberg presented him with a book of his own personal quotes in 2001. Jeffrey Dunetz has uploaded it here.

"We, the intelligencia!"

"Highly misleading" Bloomberg Super Bowl ad

Brad Polumbo writes in the Washington Examiner,

When millions of viewers tune in to the Super Bowl on Sunday, they’ll be hoping for a unifying, authentic American football experience, hopefully with some hilarious advertisements thrown in for good measure, as has become the norm in recent years. But they’ll also be forced to sit through a highly-misleading gun control advertisement from anti-gun activist and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg, who is throwing millions of dollars into advertising in a desperate bid to buy the Democratic nomination.

Of course, Bloomberg has every right to spend his money to spread his views and advocate his anti-gun message. But in this case, the advertisement is extremely misleading overall and downright false in parts.

Read more here.

Tucker vents!

Keeping mediocre people in charge.

"Russia, Russia, Russia": a talking point invented by Hillary Clinton to explain her loss to Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election!

Michael Bloomberg says China isn't even a dictatorship!

The progressive media gets behind Bloomberg

He will try!

On Bloomberg’s platform of “I have a lot of ideas about how you should live your life”

Kurt Schlichter writes in Town Hall on the prospects of a Michael Bloomberg candidacy for the Democratic nomination.

...Bloomberg’s platform of “I have a lot of ideas about how you should live your life” may play in the Upper Whatever Side where the peeps we used to call Yuppies live in Manhattan and in similar elite enclaves, but the last four years of populist revolt in the rest of the country have been against just that sort of micro-management of our lives. This is a populist moment, not one for a tiny totalitarian with a list of decrees designed to make us better people.

...His money will mess things up for the Dems, which is good. And in the unlikely event he gets coronated at the convention – his plan appears to be to skip all the early primaries in an innovative strategy of getting the nomination without actually having anyone vote for him – there’s a whole massive swathe of Democrats on the left who will stay in their mothers’s basements and dorm rooms in protest instead of going out to vote for Mr. Center Left Establishment. Everything about Bloomberg’s potential candidacy is bad for the Democrats, and the beauty is that you know that no one in the petite tycoon’s bubble will dare tell him that the emperor has no clothes and no chance. He’s a loser, and that’s why we should totally hope he runs.

Read more here.

"The bloom is off!"

Here is one more post from Mark Steyn: his comments about Michael Bloomberg eighteen years ago when he was elected mayor of New York City. Bloomberg is the latest entrant into the 2020 Democrat race.

He's also overdressed. And stiff. He's hopeless at pressing the flesh with voters, and prone to say stupid things. He's short, with no lips and two left feet. He has a striking knack for attracting sexual harassment suits from female employees - three in the last five years, one of them withdrawn, another dismissed on appeal, the third settled out of court. (Bloomberg was previously married to a Yorkshire lass, with whom he has two daughters. These days, he seems to be looking for a celeb wife. As he put it to Sharon Stone, "How many heterosexual billionaires are there out there?") If you were to construct a surefire loser candidate under controlled laboratory conditions, it would probably look exactly like Mike Bloomberg, give or take a harassment suit.

...On the other hand, disgruntled members of his mostly female sales team allege that on open display in the Bloomberg offices were blow-up sex dolls and giant rubber breasts with squirting nipples. These would be more problematic innovations for City Hall, though the latter might make an attractive addition to the Statue of Liberty.

Read more here.

Does Michael Bloomberg plan to file as a candidate for the Democratic nomination?

The rumor of today is that Michael Bloomberg is planning to file as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president. Glenn Reynolds links to the story, but not until he makes this comment:

Finally, someone is addressing the Democrats’ desperate shortage of old, white people who want to tell everyone how to live. And this is certainly not a compliment to the existing field of candidates.

What Michael Bloomberg is up to

From Ace of Spades:

Privately-Funded Prosecutions: Michael Bloomberg Paying "Fellows" to Embed Themselves in State and Local Government to File Lawsuits -- With the State's Authority -- Against the Left's Enemies
—Ace of Spades
These positions are not provided for by law, so there is no money budgeted for salaries.

So Michael Bloomberg just pays his anti-gun minions to serve in state and local government and harass energy companies.

Ace links to an article in Real Clear Investigations by Jeff Patch.

A New York University School of Law program funded by billionaire Michael Bloomberg is placing lawyers in the offices of Democratic state attorneys general and paying them to prosecute energy companies and challenge Trump administration policies on energy and the environment.

Nine states and Washington, D.C., including New York, Illinois and Pennsylvania, are participating in the multimillion-dollar program funded by the media magnate and ex-New York City mayor, who re-registered as a Democrat this week amid expectations of a run for president in 2020.

Read more here.

Trump's cover story interview with the Hollywood Reporter

Janice Min writes at The Hollywood Reporter that Donald Trump

admires Ronald Reagan, and a bust of the late commander in chief in his office is a business award with Trump's name on it. If the 40th president was "The Great Communicator," Trump, who rose to prominence not as an actor but by playing himself on TV, is the 21st century version: The Great Entertainer. And right now, it is working.

You voted for Reagan, right?

I did. I was friendly with him.

Is he your model?

No, he's not a model. I didn't like NAFTA [NAFTA was signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1993, but Reagan first proposed a "North American accord" in a 1979 speech, and a precursor to NAFTA was signed by the U.S. and Canada in 1988.], I didn't like some of the economic policies. But he was a man that I respected and liked, and he liked me.

But he also could broach moderates, conservatives, Democrats.

He did. Well, he was a Democrat with a liberal bent as a younger man. And then he became a conservative Republican. He had a great way about him. A great sense of dignity. And he was a wonderful father for the country in a sense. He had a great feel for what the country represents.

...Obviously, the power of your celebrity and brand means something.

If I weren't a successful person, it wouldn't work as well. Voters have great confidence in me because I really have been successful. I have an income of over $400 million a year. I don't need anybody's money. I was offered $5 million last week by a lobbyist to put in the campaign. I said, "No, I don't need it." He said, "What do you mean, 'I don't need it?' " I said I don't need it. This is a guy that I know well, a good lobbyist, a tough cookie. He's not giving to me because he thinks I have the most beautiful hair he's ever seen. He's giving to me because when he has one of his companies in trouble or needs something, they want to call me and say, "Hey, Don, how you doing? Remember me?" I don't need that stuff. Whereas Jeb Bush, with $114 million that he raised [so far this year], and Hillary with the $60 million [CBS News reports she raised $47 million in the campaign's first quarter] and everyone else with the money they raised, they're going to be called upon, and they're going to have to do those things like little puppets. So people do respect that about me. I don't need it.

Do you think Bloomberg will support you?

I don't know. He is a friend of mine, he likes me. I saved him on the big project in the Bronx [Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point], which was taking years. It's been under construction for 25 years, and I got it built in 11 months, got it open [in April]. We are on the opposite side of the spectrum on guns. So for that reason alone perhaps he wouldn't.

Whose side are you on in Deflategate — Tom Brady or Roger Goodell?

Tom Brady. Tom is an unbelievable guy. He's a very good friend of mine. I have his number right here someplace. Whatever. Here, look, he just called me. (He holds up a Post-it that says "Tom Brady's New Cell #.")

If you're Jeb Bush, how would you compete against Donald Trump?

Jeb is a very nice person, but he is very low energy. And you need a person with great energy, enthusiasm and brainpower to straighten out our country. Our country is a mess in almost every way.

Eventually, HBO will do a movie about this election. Who should play you?

Somebody really, really handsome. That's the only thing that matters. I don't care if he can act well. He's got to be really, really good-looking. OK?

Read more here.

“Throw them up against the wall and frisk them.”

Chuck Ross reports:

Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has successfully blocked video from a controversial talk he gave at the Aspen Institute last week from being posted online.

At the Institute’s Feb. 5 event, the pro-gun control multi-billionaire suggested keeping guns out of the hands of young, male minorities.

Ninety-five percent of murders are attributed to the group, said Bloomberg, who has spend tens of millions of dollars on various gun control initiatives, including the group Everytown for Gun Safety.

“These kids think they’re going to get killed anyway because all their friends are getting killed,” Bloomberg said at the summit. “They just don’t have any long-term focus or anything. It’s a joke to have a gun. It’s a joke to pull a trigger.”

Various national media outlets jumped on the pointed comments, for both the pro-gun control sentiment and the racial aspect.

...During his talk, Bloomberg also discussed “stop-and-frisk,” a policing practice he advocated and expanded during his mayoral tenure. He said that one way to deal with the issue of gun proliferation among young, minority males is to “throw them up against the wall and frisk them.”

Read more here.

Can someone say something nice about Michael Bloomberg now?

Sally Goldenberg writes:

Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg is heading to Israel Tuesday night, flying on El Al in a show of unity with the Jewish state while U.S. and European airlines are canceling flights amid deadly fighting in Gaza.

"This evening I will be flying on El Al to Tel Aviv to show solidarity with the Israeli people and to demonstrate that it is safe to fly in and out of Israel," Bloomberg said in a prepared statement emailed by former City Hall spokesman Marc La Vorgna shortly after 8 p.m.

"Ben Gurion is the best protected airport in the world and El Al flights have been regularly flying in and out of it safely," Bloomberg continued. "The U.S. flight restrictions are a mistake that hands Hamas an undeserved victory and should be lifted immediately. I strongly urge the FAA to reverse course and permit US airlines to fly to Israel."

Read more here.

Not fit to print

Michael Bloomberg's commencement address at Harvard:

Campus liberals are "trying to repress conservative ideas,'' particularly in the Ivy League, he said. Shifting from gently reproving to openly caustic, he noted that 96 percent of Ivy League faculty and campus employee donations in the 2012 presidential election had gone to President Obama, adding that "there was more disagreement in the old Soviet Politburo than among Ivy league donors." This was surely the first time a commencement speaker had unfavorably compared faculty of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, et al. to old-time Communist hacks.

On the pressuring of commencement speakers to withdraw at Brandeis, Haverford, Rutgers and Smith, and last year at Johns Hopkins and Swarthmore, Bloomberg said, "in each case, liberals silenced a voice...That is an outrage and we must not let it continue."

Speaking of silence, the New York Times printed not one word of Bloomberg's address, even though he also criticized liberals. Read more here.