Bad News For Hillary In The South

English: New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg with Spider-Man at Midtown Comics Downtown. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Iowa was pretty much a draw. This huge gulf that Bernie has drawn in New Hampshire is bad news for Hillary in the South. Times have changed. Bernie already pulled a giant sum of money in January. This month he might double that haul. That makes a huge difference.

Used to be, you waited to get to the South, and the South was that one place where you could go hugely negative on your opponent, and it would work. That is no longer true. The South itself has changed much. And it stays a national campaign.

Suddenly the Republican race feels much more competitive than the Democratic race.

And the winner is? Mike Bloomberg. The way the two races are shaping is making a lot of room for someone like the Mayor.

Idealism is back. Bernie is sweeping the young vote like Obama swept the black vote. After JFK-RFK-MLK, there were decades of cynicism. Looks like Barack Obama has managed to put idealism back into American politics. That is such a good thing. That is a reward in its own right. These are not young fools. These are smart, young people who do understand the political process. Precisely because they understand how things work, they are willing to take idealism up one notch. Because they feel that is how they can beat the system.

This race is shaping up to be pretty interesting.

US News (7)

Bloomberg: I'm considering 2016 bid

"I find the level of discourse and discussion distressingly banal and an outrage and an insult to the voters," Bloomberg told the Financial Times, adding that the public deserved "a lot better." ..... he was troubled by Donald Trump's success on the Republican side, and Hillary Clinton's inability to stanch Bernie Sanders' growth on the Democratic side. ..... Bloomberg would run as a moderate promising to bring compromise and business savvy to an election characterized by highly charged disputes and political partisanship....... Bloomberg is seen as a pragmatist and fiscal conservative who has taken liberal positions on issues like gun control and the environment...... With a $39 billion fortune, Bloomberg is expected to self-fund his campaign and would likely spend north of $1 billion to do it.

Donald Trump: 'I'd beat Bloomberg'

Donald Trump says he's unfazed by the prospect of running against Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor who is considering a possible third party bid in 2016....... "I'd beat him," the Republican presidential frontrunner told CNN's Wolf Blitzer in an interview on Monday....... The braggadocious real estate magnate also appeared to goad Bloomberg. At one point, Trump cast doubt on Bloomberg's business success, suggesting that the head of the Bloomberg media empire wasn't actually worth the $36.5 billion estimated by Forbes. ...... "I don't believe it, I don't believe it," Trump said....... Trump said that the success of Bloomberg's company could easily be undermined if someone came up with a better machine than the Bloomberg Terminal, the costly financial data hardware that accounts for the bulk of Bloomberg's revenues. ...... Bloomberg, who has long been said to harbor presidential ambitions, has taken a more serious look at the 2016 race after concluding that

Trump's victory on the right and a Bernie Sanders victory on the left could leave moderate voters without an alternative.

Michael Bloomberg has no patience for your argument that he can’t win the presidency

It is funny to think of a presidential race featuring a guy from Manhattan, a guy from Queens and a guy from Brooklyn. Granted the Manhattan guy is Bloomberg who is actually from Boston, and granted the guy from Brooklyn lives in Vermont, and granted the guy from Queens now also lives in Manhattan -- but there's something perfect about the idea. Bernie Sanders's gruff Brooklyn socialism battles Donald Trump's appropriated Queens blue-collar roughness, facing off against the polished persona of Michael Bloomberg, the guy who wouldn't move into the New York City mayor's mansion -- a freestanding house in the middle of a beautiful park -- because he would rather stay in his expansive Upper East Side townhouse. ........... More than half of the people surveyed told Quinnipiac that they hadn't heard enough about Bloomberg to have an opinion of him, a pretty staggering number for a guy who 1) owns a magazine and 2) was mayor of the largest city in the country for 12 years. But still: People don't know him. So asking how this unknown person would fare against Bernie Sanders (who is still unknown to a fifth of Americans) and Donald Trump is a bit iffy. ....... Bloomberg's motivating principle is that he knows better than you. He knew better than the people he asked to watch over the Bloomberg media empire while he was mayor, cleaning house and upending the organization's newly created politics site. He knew better than the people who opposed his various efforts to fight obesity in New York City, including the infamous ban on large sodas (which is not in effect, FYI). He knew better than the term limits placed on mayors in the city of New York, convincing the city council to allow him to run for a third term despite those limits, a third term that he won by a surprisingly narrow margin. (Why'd the city council go for it? They got another term, too.) And Michael Bloomberg knows better than to think has no shot at winning the White House.

Mike Bloomberg: American public deserves "a lot better" in 2016 race
Donald Trump rolls out the expletives at Portsmouth rally

Another less literal screw-you of sorts: Trump took the stage to strains of Adele's," Rolling in the Deep." Earlier this week, the award-winning British pop star banned Trump from playing her music at his campaign events.

इस धरती पर तो कुछ नहीं

या अल्लाह, ए भगवान
इस धरती पर तो कुछ नहीं
रणभुमि में मरुभुमि में
सब जगह तु ही तु
कर्म के पथ पर
मैं समा जाऊँ
मैं समाहित हो जाऊँ
ये काम जो करना है
तेरे को समर्पित
मैं उस धरती पे
जिस धरती पर तो कुछ नहीं
दे ताकत
रणभुमि पर मैं कुद परुँ
बिगुल की आवाज
सुनाइ दे रही मुझे
तेरी प्रार्थना करते वक्त
मैं रोया था

US News (4)

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg opening the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dems to Bloomberg: Don't run

Senate Democrats say former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has almost no chance of winning the presidency if he mounts an independent run and would likely only act as a spoiler. ..... A new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows Bloomberg’s entry into the race would cut Clinton’s lead over Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump from 10 percentage points to six. ..... A recent Morning Consult poll showed that Bloomberg has only 13 percent support in a three-way match against Trump and Clinton. ..... Sources close to Bloomberg say the most likely scenario for him to get into the race would be if Trump or conservative Texas Sen. Ted Cruz won the Republican nomination and Sanders, a self-described socialist, won the Democratic nod. ...... But even if Clinton wins the Democratic primary, Bloomberg might still run if she looks weak enough to give him an opening for success. .....

He will likely have to make a decision before the end of March in order to get his name on the ballot in all 50 states. The outcomes of the Democratic and Republican primary fights may not be known at that time.

....... One Senate Republican speculated that he might even be able to carry New York state — an unlikely possibility but one that would prove devastating to Democratic chances of winning. .......

Bloomberg is widely seen as a pragmatic centrist. He was a longtime registered Democrat who switched his party affiliation to Republican before running to become mayor of New York. He left the GOP to become an independent before running for a third mayoral term.

...... “He’s not been known to make a lot of unwise decisions. He’s been known to make pretty good decisions. I think he’ll evaluate it pretty well.”

Iowa and New Hampshire Are As Good As It Gets for Bernie Sanders

You don't have to be white and liberal to support Bernie Sanders, but it is a thing. ..... his biggest challenge is to find some traction in states dominated by centrist and minority voters. ..... the top three states by this measurement are Vermont (59 percent), New Hampshire (54 percent), and Iowa (50 percent). ..... Sanders could prove to have greater appeal among African-Americans and Latinos — and maybe even non-liberal white folks .....

we should not underestimate the media reaction to back-to-back Clinton losses in Iowa and New Hampshire

...... Sanders would have an avalanche of momentum going for him after wins in Iowa and New Hampshire. The national press corps, which spins even minor stories into crises for Clinton, would portray Clinton’s campaign as being in a meltdown. Momentum usually matters in the primaries — and sometimes it matters a lot ....... if Sanders wins Iowa Monday, the odds of him winning New Hampshire, perhaps by a big margin, are extremely high.

The Trump Party vs. the Republican Party

a party that is cleft in two. But there is something puzzling and ethereal about this schism. The opposing factions are not divided over a policy question, like pro– and anti–Vietnam War Democrats in 1968, or pro- and anti-slavery Whigs in the 1850s. ....... Trump’s main policy differentiator is immigration, and here he differs from his opponents only in tone and emphasis. ....... Trump is offering something genuinely transformational.

His candidacy would reshape the Republican Party as more of a European-style white-identity party

, rather than a party rooted in opposition to big government. ....... a welfare state whose benefits should be restricted to people like us. ...... Richard Nixon’s “silent majority,” Ronald Reagan’s disdain for “welfare queens,” both presidents Bush depicting their opponents as elitist fops — these are all iterations of white identity politics. The second President Bush took the racial edge off his appeal without losing the cultural thrust. ....... his racial demagoguery .... Cultural appeal was the means, and economics the ends. What conservatives fear is that Trump might upend that delicate, unstated system by turning the means into the ends. ...... He has in the past praised single-payer health care, proposed higher taxes on the wealthy, and supported Democrats, casting justifiable suspicions on his true intentions. ...... Trump has promised to save Social Security, to raise taxes on the rich, to let Medicare negotiate down the price of the prescription drugs it finances,

and to replace Obamacare with “something terrific.”

......... Conservatives justifiably fear that Trump could upend this configuration — that he might use populism not just as an electoral strategy but as a governing blueprint.

How Barack Obama has reformed America’s prisons

Mr Obama continues to emphasise action over rhetoric. Nowhere is this more evident than in his continuing efforts to reform the criminal justice system, an American institution that incarcerates nearly 1m black people. According to statistics provided by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the fact-gathering wing of the Department of Justice,

non-Hispanic blacks make up about 13% of America’s population and about 40% of its prison population.

........ at its heart, America is a nation of second chances

Obama targets gender pay gap with plan to collect companies’ salary data

would require every large company in America to report employees' pay based on race and gender, an effort to reduce longstanding pay inequities for women and minorities. ...... would order companies with at least 100 employees to add salary numbers on a form they already annually submit that reports employees’ sex, age and job groups .......

Oftentimes, folks are doing the same job and being paid differently

......... if company data shows typical female managers earn, say, 25 percent less than typical male managers, the government may launch an investigation. ...... The EEOC also intends to turn the aggregated data into an annual salary report, showing the average pay for workers in different sectors and industries across the country ....... The measure also abolished all “gag rules,” which prevented federal contractors from discussing their salaries. ...... The proposed policy, she said, would “allow enforcement agencies to look at it, and it will allow researchers to get at it. It’s definite progress.” ...... Federal law has prohibited pay discrimination since 1963. But in the United States, women on average earn 79 cents for every dollar paid to men. The gap widens by race, with black women ........ Women, for example, concentrate in low-paying jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while male-dominated fields, like finance and technology, tend to pay more. Mothers also tend more time off work than fathers to care for children, delaying professional growth and promotion opportunities. ........

“Discrimination is not necessarily overt or conscious,” Blau said. “It could be subtle. People have stereotypes about males and females, and they can creep in during hiring or promotion decisions.”

...... Bosses in corner offices may not be aware that men in their company may make, say, 20 percent more than their female counterparts.

Rihanna's Anti Capitalism
The new way to make money off a blockbuster album

her tweeting out a free download code for an album that fans have spent three years anticipating. ..... The Recording Industry Association was then able to certify Anti as platinum—one million downloads or physical copies sold in the U.S., as opposed to streams—within about 14 hours of its release. ....... Another financial factor is that Rihanna is a co-owner of Tidal; the platform’s success is to some extent also her success. It getting Anti before Apple or Spotify probably counts as its biggest win yet in the streaming wars. The many people who used the free download code for Anti are also possible new Tidal customers (they’re each eligible for two-month subscriptions, and the company now has their contact info). Tidal reps said the album was streamed 13 million times in 14 hours.

'Autism in Love': Dating and Courtship on the Spectrum





Why Isn't Bernie Sanders's Superior Foreign-Policy Judgment a Decisive Edge?
The Vermont senator seems far less likely to start a war of choice as president, but that doesn’t seem to count for much in the Democratic primary.

Bernie is off to Hillary's left—either genuinely or rhetorically—but in office they'd both be constrained to the same place. ....... Hillary doesn't want to highlight her relative hawkishness in a Democratic primary and Bernie doesn't really want to highlight what his dovishness would mean in practice. ...... she’s a bit more electable than her opponent and a bit more likely to broker effective deals with Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell. “There have been a million noxious compromises along the way, but that's how politics works in the real world. Plus I'd love to see a woman in the White House,” he concludes. “I like Bernie. I like what he says. If I believed he could do all the stuff he talks about, he'd have my vote. But I don’t.” ........ the consequences of the Iraq War that Hillary Clinton favored: ..... The rise of ISIS......Hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis.......Roughly 4,500 dead American soldiers.....Tens of thousands of Americans wounded.....

$6 trillion in costs.

......... War must be the last recourse in international relations, not the first. ....... We are opposed by Osama bin Laden and religious fanatics who are prepared to engage in a kind of warfare that we have never experienced before. ..... “An attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardize, if not destroy, the global counterterrorist campaign we have undertaken.” ..... Who will govern Iraq when Saddam Hussein is removed and what role will the U.S. play in ensuing a civil war that could develop in that country? Will moderate governments in the region who have large Islamic fundamentalist populations be overthrown and replaced by extremists? .......

Sanders has much better foreign-policy judgment than Hillary Clinton. You could hardly make up a more stark illustration. They were on different sides of the most consequential and disastrous war since Vietnam. Yet this difference is dismissed as if it amounts to no more than an afterthought in most comparisons.

....... Clinton lobbied President Obama to help orchestrate a regime change in Libya. Predictably, that country is in chaos too ...... Hawkish Democrats should vote for Clinton. ..... Another dumb war of choice is much more likely with Clinton in the White House.

Why the Gap Between Worker Pay and Productivity Is So Problematic
Labor has become more efficient and profitable, but employees aren't sharing in the benefits.

The stock market may be booming, corporate profits increasing, and home values rising, but middle and lower-class workers often don't truly feel the benefit of such improvements unless wages rise. ...... Though productivity (defined as the output of goods and services per hours worked) grew by about 74 percent between 1973 and 2013, compensation for workers grew at a much slower rate of only 9 percent during the same time period ...... companies and the people who own and run them are doing much better than the people who work at the companies. ...... Large businesses and the people who run them, and invest in them, are thriving but working and middle-class Americans are struggling—as are many small businesses. ..... systematic underinvestment in the commons, which is a set of shared resources that every business needs in order to be productive: an educated populace, pools of skilled labor, a vibrant network of suppliers, strong infrastructure, basic R&D and so on. ....... the decline in collective bargaining and the weakening of labor unions. ....... weakened the connections between companies and their communities ..... intense pressure on the middle class, which found itself competing for jobs with hundreds of millions of skilled, ambitious workers around the world—so this is the point at which we see the divergence between productivity growth and median-wage growth. ........... For those who had unique skills, this became a golden age because now those individuals were able to sell their talents around the world, amplified by technology. ....... We could have doubled down on making the middle class so capable that it could compete with anyone, but I think instead, what we did collectively is we made a series of unsustainable promises to maintain the illusion of prosperity. Promises like let's extend credit to the middle class so that people can consume—especially houses; promises like the government will increasingly cover your healthcare costs in retirement; promises like the government will directly employ you. You then take those promises, couple them with a nasty recession and two wars and you wind up with a government that is physically hobbled and politically divided. So

from government and from business you've got a systematic underinvestment in those shared resources that we need for the middle class to thrive.

............... Without a strong middle class we see weak consumption. .......

The damage done by underinvestment is a self-inflicted wound.

...... companies can't thrive for long if their communities are struggling. ...... The current path is one where federal policy makers squabble for partisan gains, delay tough choices, and make America a less attractive place to compete. Business leaders pursue their narrow short-term interest and free ride off each other's investments—the business environment deteriorates, businesses leave America, the government enacts anti-business policies, companies reduce their U.S. activities further, and distrust deepens. ........ far-better path possible.

Federal policy makers put their long-term fiscal house in order, invest in infrastructure, enact policies that make America a great place to do business.

........ a skilled workforce, to upgrade local suppliers, to foster innovation, to reinforce education ...... with robust growth, government and business gather the resources to reinvest in making the business environment better and better over time. ..... The first steps down that attractive path are fairly clear

Can We Ever Take a 3rd Party Run Seriously?
Here's Ralph Nader with some advice for Michael Bloomberg.

The biggest variable Bloomberg faces is whether the two parties will nominate candidates he considers to be polarizing figures representing the extremes of each party: Donald Trump—or worse, Ted Cruz—and Senator Bernie Sanders. ...... the speaker is John Crittenden of the Constitutional Union Party. The year is 1860 and Crittenden is arguing to push the uncomfortable issue of slavery down the road once again. The "statesmen of great integrity" are John Bell and Edward Everett, the CUP's national ticket in that year's election. The man whose election would be "a great calamity" was the Republican nominee, a gawky Illinois lawyer named Abraham Lincoln. ......... We have problems in this country with how we have chosen to govern ourselves. The only solution to most of them are rigorous, involved, and occasionally raucous politics.

What The Washington Post (and Nearly Everyone) Gets Wrong About Bernie Sanders
Every presidential campaign is necessary aspirational.

The Washington Post, a once-great newspaper now doing business as an adjunct to the home delivery industry ..... There's nothing like the scorn of the Church Of The Savvy. ...... Fred and his minions find Sanders' proposals to be unrealistic, an insight now shared by almost every putatively liberal pundit, as well as every gas station attendant between Des Moines and Ottumwa. ....... Wall Street has already undergone a round of reform, significantly reducing the risks big banks pose to the financial system. The evolution and structure of the world economy, not mere corporate deck-stacking, explained many of the big economic challenges the country still faces. And even with radical campaign finance reform, many Americans and their representatives would still oppose the Sanders agenda. .......

"The evolution and structure of the world economy" is a nice touch, especially coming from folks with sinecures in places like the editorial boards of once-great newspapers. (Talk to a steelworker.)

..... the many legitimate checks and balances in the political system that he cannot wish away. ..... there is no indication from recent history that President Hillary Rodham Clinton will be treated any differently than either President Bernie Sanders or the guy who has the job at the moment. She claims that her financial-reform package is tougher than both the existing Dodd-Frank regime and the proposals put forth by Sanders. If we assume that to be the case, then her proposal is as dead as Kelsey's nuts in the House of Representatives. So, by the way, would be any attempt to use the Affordable Care Act as a stepping-stone to true universal health-care. ....... His proposals may seem a bit blue-sky, but are they really as improbable as Ted Cruz's promises to roll us back to the Counter-Reformation, or Marco Rubio's threats to go to war in Iran, or Jeb (!) Bush's sudden lust for a second Constitutional Convention? Every single Republican candidate is pledged to the death to defend the complete fiction that is supply-side economics. ........

What Bernie Sanders proposes may be blue-sky stuff, but at least it's looking at the sky. It's not the shoe-gazing trudge toward oligarchy with which The Washington Post is comfortable.

Poll shows Bloomberg has a good shot at becoming president

Mike Bloomberg has a better chance of becoming president as an independent candidate than most people realize, a new poll found Thursday.

....... The survey by veteran pollster Frank Luntz

shows Bloomberg within striking distance

of the two leading major party candidates — Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary ­Clinton. ........

Bloomberg would garner 29 percent, compared to 37 percent for Trump and 33 percent for Clinton.

Bernie Sanders tries to be the next Barack Obama in Iowa, not the next Howard Dean

“the energy, the enthusiasm is with our campaign.” ....... Obama bested Clinton by motivating huge numbers of voters who normally wouldn’t participate in the caucus process to show up. Sanders himself is doubtful his campaign can reproduce the turnout Obama achieved, saying this week that the 2008 election “is really going to stay in the history books. It was an unbelievable campaign. In places they ran out of ballots, as I understand it.” ........

he will be using a lot of the same organizational tools Obama did

...... Targeting technologies pioneered by Obama’s campaign have made it possible for outsider candidates like Sanders to turn out Iowans who a decade ago might have showed up at a rally and then faded away before the caucuses. Now, computers can quickly link them up with a caucus coach who can walk them through the bewildering voting process and even make sure they have a ride on election night. ......

ultimately, much of the work of sealing a commitment from voters happens through human contact

....... the Sanders campaign has been rushing to build the infrastructure to capture enthusiasm and turn it into votes. ...... Sanders has invested heavily in field offices, opening nearly two dozen in Iowa, just a few less than the much better-funded Clinton operation.

The offices are a crucial hub for connecting with voters, and Obama opened an unprecedented 37 in Iowa in 2008.

........ Another problem for Sanders is that everything he is doing, Clinton is also doing. Her campaign is determined not to be out-organized in Iowa again, and many of the strategists who set up Obama’s infrastructure are now working to elect her. ....... Clinton is, of course, using the same tactics. ...... The enthusiasm for Sanders, meanwhile, tends to be concentrated in a few parts of the state where there are big college campuses. That creates a challenge on caucus night, when the victor is decided by how many local precincts choose them, not the total number of votes they garner statewide. ...... It’s a big problem that did not affect Obama, even though his support was also concentrated in college towns. The caucuses were held in early January of 2008, when most students were home on break, so they voted all over the state. ....... he wants help college students return to their hometowns to caucus, rather than just gathering on campus, to spread support as widely as possible.......“We’ve rented every van in a four-state area” ......

said he became a fan of the senator after watching the debates and researching his speeches on YouTube.

...... “I said, ‘This is the guy,’” Miller said. “Everything I support, he supports.” .....

“She’s like a robot,” he said. “Bernie talks with passion.”

...... “He gets at the issue more. I feel like Hillary skirts around it,” said Hannah Will, 20, a nursing student at Luther College who has attended speeches from both candidates.

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Mike Bloomberg is polling at 28-29% nationally with zero campaigning.

If he enters the race, he could win it all. https://t.co/QZrujPIfVE

— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) January 30, 2016

All Debate Is Good

Eliot Spitzer, Barack Obama
Preet Bharara, Eliot Spitzer Parallels
Bloom Ponders
2016 And Gender
Bloomberg 2016?
What Did I Do?
Barack Obama: FDR, Lincoln And Washington
Inequality
Twitter Board Diversity
Zuck, Free Basics, India
Zuck, Free Basics, India (2)

The US presidential election perhaps can be called the World Cup Soccer of democratic elections. It is quite spectacular to watch. It is designed well. It is designed to sweep through the entire political spectrum, from left to right. Even fringe candidates have followers, and of course they matter. During a presidential election Americans become aware of each other's existence. As in, I did not realize you were also around.

Personally I am surprised how well Trump is doing. I am also surprised how well Sanders has been doing. But then who am I? There are tens of millions out there who will get heard. The fermentation is spectacular.

And Bloomberg stares from the horizon. People talk about taking money out of politics. There is a Bloomberg way to do that. For a guy who has been both a Democrat and a Republican, who Al Sharpton likes. This is not a born rich billionaire. He is self made. He is 10% of Steve Jobs. A lot of people don't look at him that way. But he is. He is a divorced billionaire like Donald Trump. He is Jewish like Sanders. He would be a first Jewish president like Hillary would be the first woman. He has been a Republican like Trump and a Democrat like Hillary. I am tempted to go meet him.

I am also amazed how everybody who is running is a New Yorker. Everybody, from left to right. Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders. Bernie has the most pronounced Brooklyn accent. The looming candidate Bloomberg is a New Yorker. Has this ever happened in history when everybody who was running for the top job was a New Yorker? And Barack Obama is moving to New York when he is done. Capital city of the world.

I was expecting to not even tune in until the two parties were done nominating. But now I find myself checking in daily. I am already looking at the twists and turns. The churn is spectacular.

The Indian election of 2014 was also pretty spectacular. But the polls in India are not there yet. They tend to be way off from actual results. And there are not yet organized debates between the leading candidates. In India the spectacle is at the level of mass rallies. They tend to be huge with no parallels anywhere on the planet. In 2007 Obama gathered 30,000 in Washington Square Park, and that was announced a record. That was a culture shock to me. Even in Nepal, which is smallish, a 30,000 strong crowd is a joke. A small time politico could pull that off. In India there is a "million man march" going on somewhere in the country every year. Often there are multiple ones. And they don't even stand out locally. A large rally is just landscape. Politicians organize large rallies for no rhyme or reason. In Bhutan they have a Gross Happiness Index, in India they have a Gross Democracy Index. You attend rallies, just because. It is like a New Yorker hitting a bar. You don't need a reason.

Donald Trump is running so hard, because he thinks he is getting paid for this. This feels like reality TV, but this is not, Donald.

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• Which US presidential candidate is good for Israel?

US News (2)

Michael Bloomberg Will Never Be the Next U.S. President
If he runs, the former New York City mayor will hand the election over to Republicans

Once again, Mr. Bloomberg seems to be channeling his inner Frank Sinatra and musing that if he can make it there—in the Big Apple—he can make it anywhere. ......

If Mr. Bloomberg does launch an independent run for the White House, he’ll be attempting to do what nobody has done since George Washington: win the presidency without the backing of a major political party.

........... the former mayor does have something going for him that past independent candidates have not: a billion dollars. Reports indicate Mr. Bloomberg says he is willing to sink at least that much money into mounting a run, if he decides to go. .........

Mr. Bloomberg has as much of a chance of winning 270 electoral votes as the proverbial camel has of passing through the eye of a needle.

....... Conservatives don’t trust Mr. Trump, who has demonstrated that he is not particularly doctrinaire about political issues ..... Among Democratic regulars, there is scarcely more love for Mr. Sanders, who seeks the nomination of a party he never joined and has consistently criticized throughout his career as an independent politician and admitted socialist. ....... it could well be that Mr. Bloomberg, backed by his bundles of billions, might be able to siphon off moderates from both left and right. But winning the election—that’s a whole different deal, one complicated considerably by that most American anachronism, the Electoral College. ......

With the exception of Maine and Nebraska, the candidate who receives the largest number of votes wins each state’s entire cache of electors

....... Bottom line: if Michael Bloomberg runs for president as an independent this year and achieves a significant percentage of the votes, the end result is a Republican victory. ..... the last billionaire to mount an independent presidential run, H. Ross Perot, failed to win a single electoral vote in 1992 despite earning more than 19 percent of the national popular vote. ...... Mr. Perot’s percentage of the popular vote marked the best showing by an independent or third-party candidate since former President Theodore Roosevelt, denied the Republican nomination in his 1912 comeback attempt, formed his own party (the Progressive or “Bull Moose” Party) and won 27 percent of the national vote. Mr. Roosevelt won eight states that year—something no independent or third-party candidate has ever matched—but the only tangible effect of his candidacy was to split the Republican Party’s votes and deny a second term to President William Howard Taft, as Democrat Woodrow Wilson won the presidency with a mere 41 percent of the national popular vote. ........ The institutional advantages enjoyed by the Democratic and Republican parties make it exceptionally difficult for a third-party or independent candidate to win any states at all. The last third-party candidate to win any states was the segregationist Alabama governor George C. Wallace, who took five Southern states in 1968 for a total of 46 electoral votes. ........ what he doesn’t have is the ability to win any states in which gun-rights supporters hold sway. ....... He starts the race with at least 206 electoral votes off the table. ....... That would leave Mr. Bloomberg battling the Democratic nominee for electors in the solidly Democratic “blue states” and in the swingy “purple states” that tend to swing back and forth between Democrats and Republicans. In 2012, these states accounted for 332 electoral votes. The ultimate effect would be the dilution of left-wing and center-left votes in these states between Mr. Bloomberg and the Democrats, thus enabling the Republican candidate to win the “purple states” and even a boatload of states that normally go Democratic. ........

no independent or third-party candidate has ever won more than 88 electoral votes—less than one-third of the total currently required to win the presidency.

....... The other, far more unlikely, outcome is that he wins a handful of states and prevents any candidate from receiving the required 270 electoral-vote majority, thereby leaving the election to be decided by the House of Representatives for the first time since 1824.

Donald Trump won’t participate in debate over feud with Fox News

“There are powerful forces that are really controlling our lives,” Gilmore said. “The biggest one is the organized establishment media. And I just noticed, just now, you gave Carly Fiorina two one-minute answers in a row.” ..... All of the low-polling candidate have been overshadowed by Trump, the bombastic billionaire who rose to the top of the GOP field with promises to erect a giant wall on the border with Mexico and to bar Muslim foreigners from entering the country. ..... But they may never have been as overshadowed as they were tonight. That’s because, just as their early-evening debate begins, Trump will be holding a press availability elsewhere in Iowa, stirring speculation that he might change his mind and attend the main debate, which is set to begin at 9 p.m. ....... But the timing of Trump’s event could still leave him time to make an appearance,

and still be able to make the debate – or make a spectacle that would overshadow it.

........ So far, Fox hasn’t blinked. Trump hasn’t either. ..... As of Thursday morning, Kelly was still set to moderate the debate. And Trump had scheduled his own “special event for veterans” rally, to be held elsewhere in Des Moines on the same evening. Trump will be joined by a pair of long-shot candidates, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, after they participate in the 7 p.m. “undercard” GOP debate. ....... “Fox is playing games,” Trump said in a news conference Wednesday. “They can’t toy with me like they toy with everybody else. Let them have the debate. Let’s see how they do with the ratings.” ........

a race dominated by the reality-TV-trained showman.

..... could allow Trump to dominate the debate without even having to show up. If networks show his rally before, or even during, the formal debate, Trump could steal the moment again. ....

A few days ago on Twitter, Gilmore compared himself to, yes, a toe.

How Trump Will Foil The Desperation Prayer Of Democrats, Liberals

For the first time in its history, the United States has had four, and arguably five, consecutive terms of unsuccessful federal government, from administrations and Congresses of both parties.

The last Clinton term under-reacted to the original terrorist incidents at the Khobar Towers (1996), the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam embassies (1998) and the USS Cole (also 1998); and stoked up the housing bubble through the Community Reinvestment Act and executive orders to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to invest massively in sub-prime mortgages. ......... Two-thirds of Americans, in all polls, feel the country is headed in the wrong direction ....... It is a corrupt and vulgar system and virtually all Americans know it, and everyone above the age of 40 has seen an alarming decline in the quality of candidates for high, and especially national, office since the Reagan years. ...... The presidencies between Polk and Lincoln (Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce, and Buchanan sharing three terms) were inadequate, and so were those between Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt (Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover, though Coolidge retains his apologists), but none of these presidents was re-elected after a full term, and neither talent drought was as profound or extended as the 20 years of misgovernment the United States is reeling from now.In the circumstances,

it is little wonder that the country is looking elsewhere than the ranks of its elected officials to find a possible president.

.......... Viewed from that perspective, the rise of Donald Trump is not so surprising, and he is not running as a spoiler, as Ross Perot did against George H. W. Bush did in 1992, nor as an aggrieved Theodore Roosevelt did in 1912 against William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson. He has the populist aptitudes of the old Progressive party because of his often outlandish Archie Bunker–esque political incorrectness,

but he is more credible than Archie because his views emanate not from a blue-collar reactionary, but from an accomplished billionaire as well as a successful television personality.

........... Mr. Trump is financing himself ..... there is no point merely to ejecting the incumbents ...... They have tried turning the rascals out many times in the last 30 years and they just get worse rascals. ....... The liberal press establishment is frenzied in its animosity to Donald Trump, and their hysteria is becoming more vociferous and desperate

as he utters clangorous violations of the normal parameters of political discourse.

The echo chamber explodes, the commentariat foams at the mouth, but he seems to pay no penalty in the polls. I think there are two explanations for this: Donald doesn’t really say such outrageous things as his opponents spinningly impute to him; and vast sections of the population are more bitterly disappointed and angry at the deterioration of their country and the misinformation of the mainstream media than the subjects of that resentment can imagine. .......... Mr. Trump’s durability now scares them. Last week, the New York Times accused Mr. Trump of being on “the brink of fascism.” ....... On health care, he seeks the repeal of Obamacare, the shattering of the insurance cartel, and the provision of universal health care, with health-savings accounts and with, presumably, where necessary, the according of discretionary tax credits. He is for gradual, extensive legalization of drugs with some of the proceeds of savings available to drug education and treatment. ......... thinks climate change is a hoax, and cap-and-trade both insane and hypocritical. ....... He would disband the Department of Education and distribute its funds to the states, and leave legalization of specific drugs, like the rules over same-sex marriage, to the states. ...... He would abolish super PACs, lift limits on individual contributions to candidates, and ban soft money. ...... his tax plan is a moderate reduction in income taxes and a steeper reduction in the corporate rates;

he seeks, effectively, to turn the national debt into a sinking fund, cutting expenses beneath revenues and steadily shrinking the deficit.

....... Germany, he believes, can sort out Ukraine with the Russians, who are welcome to Syria, and let Russia destroy ISIS. .......

his policy positions, though vague in places, and subject to being moved around in response to his apparently spontaneous aperçus and reminiscences, are not especially radical or provocative.

....... The Trump effect appears to rest on his talent for shocking conventional opinion, and on his extreme contempt for the conventional wisdom, the degraded political modus operandi, and the snipers’ gallery of the biased and lazy senior media. He still leads the polls of those for whom people absolutely will not vote, and I suspect that

in the end the elected Republican politicians will stand on each other’s shoulders and deny him the nomination

, while making profound concessions to his policy preferences.......... is striking very close to the heart of the American problem: the corrupt, dysfunctional political system and the dishonest press. ..... it all started to go horribly wrong with Watergate, when one of the most successful administrations in the country’s history was torn apart for no remotely adequate reason and the mendacious assassins in the liberal media have been awarding themselves prizes and commendations for 40 years since. ......... I suspect the Bush-Clinton era, which had its moments, is ending, and that whatever happens next year, Donald Trump will have played an important role in it........ To adapt George Wallace’s old phrase, he has shaken the American political system “by the eyeteeth,” and it will be better for it.

Donald Trump’s Hostile Takeover of the G.O.P.

What, in the frantic year leading up to the nomination of a Presidential candidate, look like mass movements that are on the cusp of taking over a party often turn out to be nothing more than gyrations in the polls, even if they are extended ones, or the inflation of one noisy slice of the electorate that gets disproportionate media attention. .......

The history of Presidential primaries is the history of small and exciting movements that quickly get snuffed out.

...... For a moment in the 2012 campaign cycle it seemed like Michele Bachmann was going to remake the G.O.P into a vehicle for the religious right, but she never made it past Iowa ...... On the Republican side, you have to go back to Senator Barry Goldwater’s nomination, in 1964, to find a Republican who captured a party against the will of the party’s élites. ......

Donald Trump’s attempt at a hostile takeover of the G.O.P. is astonishing in its breadth. He is not just competing against a large field of candidates for votes in the primaries; he is at war with nearly every power center in the Republican Party—and he is winning.

...... the rise of a movement on the right that dislikes Republican leaders almost as much as it dislikes the President. ....... his pattern of insulting women with terms like “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.” After the debate, Trump seemed to make Kelly’s point by attacking her in a vulgar way. .......

Fox News has long been considered the most influential news organization for conservatives.

........ Castellanos called Fox “the most powerful Republican institution in contemporary American politics” and “the stage on which Republicans play.” ...... “Most Republican candidates kneel before it, supplicants hoping to sip airtime from its chalice.” ........ Similarly, Trump has been attacking, and been attacked by, the main organs of conservative opinion—National Review and The Weekly Standard—which were previously considered the enforcers of conservative ideology and institutions to be flattered rather than condemned. ......

And, of course, Trump has his nearly six million Twitter followers, which he has sometimes described as better than owning his own newspaper.

...... Trump is also at war with his Party’s more interventionist foreign-policy establishment, and he often attacks the biggest donors in the G.O.P. ......

Trump would undoubtedly welcome the support of any of the establishment figures he now ridicules. Like an inept high-school boy trying to win the affections of a girl, he sometimes seems to mock people in order to get their attention.

..... Nobody has voted yet, and what looks now like an unstoppable movement may in a few weeks or months seem more like a passing fad. .... Trump, at the moment, rather than trying to ingratiate himself with the power brokers of his adopted Party, is trying to destroy them. What’s astonishing is that it’s working.

A Saudi Prince Burns Donald Trump

With his battle with Megyn Kelly and Fox News still raging, Donald Trump got into another spat on Thursday—this time with an ultra-wealthy Saudi prince who helped him out, financially, twice in the nineteen-nineties, when some of Trump’s businesses were struggling. ......... the Prince isn’t the sort of fellow to sit back and ignore such antics. On Thursday afternoon, he posted a tweet of his own, in English, which read, “Trump:You base your statements on photoshopped pics?I bailed you out twice;a 3rd time,maybe?” ........ this isn’t the first time that bin Talal, who is a nephew of the late King Abdullah, has tangled with Trump on Twitter. .......

In December, after Trump called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States, the Prince tweeted, “You are a disgrace not only to the GOP but to all America. Withdraw from the U.S presidential race as you will never win.”

Trump fired back: “Dopey Prince @Alwaleed_Talal wants to control our U.S. politicians with daddy’s money. Can’t do it when I get elected. #Trump2016.” ........ According to Forbes magazine, he is the richest individual in the Arab world, with a net worth of more than seventeen billion dollars.

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• How Trump Will Foil The Desperation Prayer Of Democrats, Liberals

The Planet? Or The Republican Party?

Do you want to save the planet? Or do you want to save the Republican Party? That is the key 2016 question. You can have only one. Take your pick.

One way to look at this race right now is, Trump has narrowed down the GOP space. That entire party is more to the right, and occupying less space. Bernie has enlarged the left space. There are more people rooting for him. A whole lot of young people. People who might carry the fire a few election cycles. A lot of them young and white.

What Bernie is doing right now is expand the Democratic base. And the positions that he is taking, a human being could actually debate and dialogue around it. How do you debate Trump? The only way to debate Trump would be if you also called him names. That would not make for a great democracy.

With Bernie, you can agree. You can disagree. I don't find myself disagreeing. For me it is more like, show me a path to victory. And show me some concrete proposals. Show me possibilities of implementation. As in, Bernie does touch me on several intellectual levels. He is opening up my mind.

When you have idealistic young people excited, I am going to pay some attention to you.

This race has become competitive. I always thought it would be because this is a US presidential election. It always has been, always will be competitive. You are only in for the most powerful office on the planet.

I am not taking sides myself. But I watch this election the way some people watch sports. I don't watch baseball. I do watch elections. Primarily in India. In the US I don't follow local or state elections.

I Wish The 2016 Race Were Laser Focused On The Fourth Industrial Revolution

The thing about inequality is there is this raging debate on the topic in Silicon Valley. A lot of super rich are part of that debate. And these are people almost totally disconnected from DC. They don't care for Sanders. Actually they feel Sanders does not fathom the depths of what is about to happen.

Used to be liberals did not like that label, and they stayed apologetic. I don't see Bernie apologizing. That is a good thing. The center itself has shifted more to the left.

Noam Chomsky Says GOP Is 'Literally A Serious Danger To Human Survival’

the Republican Party has become so extreme in its rhetoric and policies that it poses a “serious danger to human survival.” ........ “It’s become what the respected conservative political analysts Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein call

‘a radical insurgency’ that has pretty much abandoned parliamentary politics.”

....... “ideologically extreme, scornful of facts and compromise, and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.” ...... “literally a serious danger to decent human survival” and cited Republicans' rejection of measures to deal with climate change, which he called a “looming environmental catastrophe.” ..... "I am not a believer," Donald Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner, said recently. "Unless somebody can prove something to me,

I believe there’s weather.

" ....... "What they are saying is, let's destroy the world. Is that worth voting against? Yeah" .......... GOP proposals would effectively raise taxes on lower-income Americans and reduce them for the wealthy. ....... In an ideal world, Chomsky might vote for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who Chomsky has called an "honest and committed New Dealer" who has “the best policies,” despite some criticisms. ...... Regardless of who wins the Democratic nomination, Chomsky told Al Jazeera he'd cast his general election vote "against the Republican candidate” because there may be dire consequences to a GOP victory.

Bernie Sanders Refuses to Melt

Bernie Sanders keeps refusing to run the way that the pundits think he should -- that's what makes this primary so interesting and perhaps a turning point in American politics. ...... He even -- in an ad released earlier in the day -- dared to advocate that people who have spent their lives working might deserve the chance to relax and be grandparents at the end of the day. ..... In the last few days, we've seen folks such as Paul Krugman in the New York Times and Paul Starr in Politico patiently explain that Bernie is too far to the left to be president. It's like they're dumping water on the Wicked Witch of the West and waiting for her to shriek, "I'm melting!" But actually, he's just shrugging it off, like a duck. As Cuomo tried to get him to confess to his socialism, his team just tweeted out a list of "socialist" accomplishments: Social Security, the minimum wage, Medicare, the 40-hour workweek. ........

The Beltway polls don't quite get how much America has changed -- how unequal and desperate it's become.

...... In the D.C. world, "experience" is crucial. It doesn't matter what you believe -- it matters how much power you've exercised. Do your time, and you're in the club. ...... But, hey, experience isn't everything. If it was, we'd elect Dick Cheney to every possible office, because he's had the most experience of all. Instead, as Bernie pointed out, judgment is really more important. .......

why did she set up a wing of the State Department to spread fracking around the planet, for instance?

....... A leader is someone who figures out where the future is going, not someone who joins the party once it's underway. A canny politician, by contrast, is precisely someone who waits until it's safe and then runs up to lead the parade. ...... Our Earth is becoming hopelessly unequal (a report last week showed that

62 people owned more assets than the poorest 3.5 billion on the planet

) and hopelessly hot.

CNN/ORC Poll: Donald Trump dominates GOP field at 41%

Donald Trump has hit a new high in the race for the Republican nomination, according to a new CNN/ORC Poll, with more than 4-in-10 Republican voters nationwide now saying they back the billionaire. ..... Trump has topped the 40% mark for the first time in CNN/ORC polling, standing at 41%. That more than doubles the support of his nearest competitor, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who notches 19% support in the poll. No other candidate hit double-digits. ..... Trump's lead is clearly significant, however, and the poll finds him well ahead of the field among a range of GOP subgroups. He leads among both men and women, younger and older voters, white evangelicals, conservatives and both self-identified Republicans and independents who lean toward the party. ...... Among those holding degrees, 26% back Trump, 20% Cruz, and tea party supporters split 37% for Trump, 34% for Cruz. ..... (70% of Trump's supporters say they are locked in compared with 40% who back other candidates). ...... the prospect of a Trump candidacy generates more enthusiasm overall (40% of Republican voters say they would be enthusiastic about a Trump nomination) than the possibility of Cruz (25% enthusiastic) or Rubio (18% enthusiastic) at the head of the ticket. ....... Trump holds his widest advantage on handling the economy: 60% of GOP voters say Trump would best handle it .....

Trump has a 55% to 16% edge on handling illegal immigration.

..... Republican voters in the poll rated terrorism their most important issue in considering a candidate for president: 49% called it "extremely important," outpacing the share calling the economy, government spending or illegal immigration as central to their vote. ....... a broad swath of GOP voters (55%) say they feel completely unrepresented by the government in Washington, and among those voters, Trump holds a 47% to 19% lead over Cruz. ....... But Rubio and Cruz each hit 50% support when matched against Clinton, while Trump stalls at 47%. ...... a majority of registered voters (56%) now say they think Trump will win his party's nomination for president, and that rises to 68% among Republican voters

A scary thought for the GOP establishment

They believed our candidate, Panama's version of Italy's Silvio Berlusconi, was having fun because he was confident in his ability not just to win, but to govern. ..... Voters understood he was enjoying his electoral adventure because he was not cowed by his opposition nor intimidated by the job beyond the campaign.......Doubts about his lack of governing experience were overcome by his buoyant strength and self-assurance........ We won. Ricardo Martinelli was elected Panama's president. Though he found troubles down the road, he served from 2009 to 2014. .......

a new rule: The candidate having the most fun usually wins.

Bloom Ponders

Bloomberg 2016?



Bloomberg, Sensing an Opening, Revisits a Potential White House Run

Michael R. Bloomberg has instructed advisers to draw up plans for a potential independent campaign in this year’s presidential race. His advisers and associates said he was galled by Donald J. Trump’s dominance of the Republican field, and troubled by Hillary Clinton’s stumbles and the rise of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont on the Democratic side. ....... has in the past contemplated running for the White House on a third-party ticket, but always concluded he could not win. A confluence of unlikely events in the 2016 election, however, has given new impetus to his presidential aspirations. ...... would be willing to spend at least $1 billion of his fortune on it ......

He has set a deadline for making a final decision in early March

....... intends to conduct another round of polling after the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 9 to gauge whether there is indeed an opening for him ..... a version of a campaign plan that would have the former mayor, a low-key and cerebral personality, give a series of detailed policy speeches backed by an intense television advertising campaign. The ads would introduce him to voters around the country as a technocratic problem-solver and self-made businessman who understands the economy and who built a bipartisan administration in New York. .......

No independent candidate has ever been elected to the White House

, and Mr. Bloomberg’s close Wall Street ties and liberal social views, including his strong support for abortion rights and gun control, could repel voters on the left and right....... Mr. Bloomberg is irked by the perception that he has toyed too often with running for national office, according to several associates, and is said to be wary of another public flirtation. ....

At the same time, these associates said, he has grown more frustrated with what he sees a race gone haywire.

...... At a dinner party late last fall at the home of Roger C. Altman, an investment banker and former deputy Treasury secretary, Mr. Bloomberg delivered a piquant assessment of Mrs. Clinton as a presidential candidate. ...... described her as a flawed politician, shadowed by questions about her honesty and the continuing investigation into her email practices .......

Even a victory by Mrs. Clinton in the Democratic primaries might not preclude a bid by Mr. Bloomberg, his associates said, if he believed she had been gravely weakened by the contest.

....... Bloomberg’s preparations reflected the unsettled state of the race, and the perception that Mrs. Clinton was flagging against Mr. Sanders. ......... voters want “a nonideological, bipartisan, results-oriented vision” that the early primary favorites have not presented. ...... “The fact is Hillary Clinton is behind in Iowa and New Hampshire. That should scare a lot of people — and it does.” ......

Social acquaintances and political and business leaders said they had been surprised to find their encouraging remarks about a possible 2016 campaign answered with intense seriousness by Mr. Bloomberg, who has stressed that he would run if he saw a path to victory.

...... supports many of the Democratic Party’s social policies, he has been a fierce defender of the financial services industry, which is unpopular with many liberals, and enacted aggressive policing policies in New York City that are anathema to left-leaning voters. ......

Bloomberg has seen Mr. Trump’s campaign rhetoric on immigration as especially distasteful.

...... it would be “a terrible thing” for the Democratic Party’s prospects of winning the White House if the former mayor ran as an independent. ...... He governed more in pragmatic ways than in ideals

Bloomberg seriously considering White House bid

aides to the three-term mayor are looking at ballot access issues ..... Bloomberg sees the Republican and Democratic presidential races as becoming increasingly polarized, and neither fits Bloomberg's views. But Bloomberg, who has flirted with Oval Office aspirations in the past, is serious about a possible candidacy .....

A decision will have to be made by the first week of March, likely before it's clear who the Democratic and Republican nominees are

...... the media mogul would be willing to spend $1 billion of his own money on a White House bid. ...... Bloomberg would seriously consider entering the race if it appeared Donald Trump or Texas Sen. Ted Cruz would face Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the general election. ..... The poll was requested after Bloomberg saw Trump's meteoric rise to the top of the GOP field, and he's also eyed a run as Sanders has mounted a serious challenge to Clinton. .....

internal polling found that he would theoretically take away more Republican votes from Trump or Cruz than Democratic votes from Sanders.

..... you know, he was a good mayor of New York, and if he wants to run, it will probably stimulate the debate. I'm all in favor of that ...... a Bloomberg run would split the Democratic vote due to the former mayor's longtime support for greater gun restrictions. ..... Bloomberg, a longtime Democrat who switched to the Republican Party to seek the NYC mayoralty in 2001, but who ran for his third term as an independent, are not new, and he remains a nationally recognized political figure. ...... He launched a research effort into his chances as an independent ahead of the 2008 campaign before ruling out a bid early in the primary fight. He waited until November to endorse President Barack Obama for re-election in 2012 ..... New York Democrats approached Bloomberg to gauge his interest in a presidential run.

Koch brother: Trump plan would 'destroy free society'

GOP kingmaker Charles Koch said he is "disappointed" by the field of 2016 Republican candidates and sharply criticized the rhetoric and policies put forth by front-runners Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. .... Koch, who along with billionaire brother David famously pledged to spend $900 million supporting Republicans in 2016, expressed dissatisfaction with the GOP primary thus far ....... Asked about Trump's proposal for a registry of Muslims in the U.S., Koch said, "Well, then you destroy a free society ... Who is it that said, 'If you want to defend your liberty, the first thing you've got to do is defend the liberty of people you like the least?'" ..... Koch also panned Cruz's aggressive strategy to fight ISIS, which has included calls for "carpet bombing" and declarations that Cruz would direct strikes until "sand glows in the dark." ..... "I've studied revolutionaries a lot," Koch said. "Mao said that the people are the sea in which the revolutionary swims. Not that we don't need to defend ourselves and have better intelligence and all that, but how do we create an unfriendly sea for the terrorists in the Muslims communities? We haven't done a good job of that." ....... Noting that 1.6 billion Muslims live around the world, Koch asked, "What are we going to do, go bomb each one of them?" .....Later in the interview, Koch said he was unimpressed by the rest of the Republican field. ....."It is hard for me to get a high level of enthusiasm because the things I'm passionate about and I think this country urgently needs aren't being addressed," he explained.......And though the Kochs' political operation has highlighted their priorities to the candidates, "it doesn't seem to faze them much," Koch said. "You think we could have a little more influence." ......The Koch brothers have said they will not endorse during the primary, and plan instead to save their considerable financial firepower for the general election and the eventual Republican nominee.

Ironic that Bloomberg, a truly self-made billionaire, is Acela elite candidate, while Trump, who took over dad's business, is man o' people.

— Ben White (@morningmoneyben) January 25, 2016