by Guess who is coming to town on Thursday?
If you said anyone other than Mike Bloomberg you would be wrong.
Bloomberg is planning campaign stops in Winston-Salem, Greensboro, and Raleigh in conjunction with the start of early voting in the North Carolina primary.
In Winston-Salem, he will be at Campus Gas, 1231 Polo Rd from 7:00am–8:30am. He continues on to his campaign HQ at 300 S. Elm Street in Greensboro and will be there at 9:30am. Doors open to the public at 9am. Finally, he will be in Raleigh at Union Station ( 510 W Martin St) from 11:45am until 1:15pm.
Volunteers from Grass Roots North Carolina plan to give him a warm North Carolina welcome when he arrives at his Greensboro downtown HQ. This is the main event! Try to be there by 9am.
A good turn out will get good press coverage. Please be there around 9am. Our friends in Virginia welcomed his bus in Arlington and greatly outnumbered Bloomberg’s supporters. It sure would be nice to see that happen here in the Tar Heel State.
If you can’t be in Greensboro or you need to get to work earlier, a few people plan to welcome his arrival in Winston-Salem at 7am. I’d suggest being there around 6:30am at Campus Gas.
Bloomberg’s money has bought him a lot of things. It bought him many houses, a well-armed security team, and most recently a compliant legislature in Virginia. It has also bought him silence when it comes to comments he made in a 2015 appearance at the Aspen Institute. He requested video not be made available and the Aspen Institute complied.
However, things have a way of leaking out.
Audio of @MikeBloomberg’s 2015 @AspenInstitute speech where he explains that “you can just Xerox (copy)” the description of male, minorities 16-25 and hand to cops.
— Benjamin Dixon (@BenjaminPDixon) February 10, 2020
Bloomberg had video of speech blocked.
Perhaps because of the problematic explanation he gives for #StopAndFrisk pic.twitter.com/Fm0YCi4ZRy
“Ninety-five percent of your murders, murderers and murder victims, fit one M.O. You can just take the description, Xerox it, and pass it out to all the cops,” Bloomberg said. “They are male, minorities, 16 to 25. That’s true in New York, that’s true in virtually every city. And that’s where the real crime is. You’ve got to get the guns out of the hands of people that are getting killed.”
“So one of the unintended consequences is people say, ‘Oh my God, you are 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,” he continued.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/throw-them-up-against-the-wall-leaked-recording-of-bloomberg-defending-stop-and-frisk-resurfaces
This was a continuation of comments he made in defense of “stop and frisk” back in 2013. You can hear part of his comments to WOR-NY below where he says too many whites are being stopped and not enough minorities.
Mike Bloomberg defending Stop-and-Frisk in 2013: “I think we disproportionately stop whites too much and minorities too little.” pic.twitter.com/KpdKgUALsL
— ً (@upmtn) February 11, 2020
I am reading an excellent book right now on the rise of white supremacy in North Carolina in the post-Civil War days. The book, Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy, details how disarmament of blacks was one goal of the white supremacists. It started with the Black Codes, began again after Reconstruction ended, and continued on into the 20th Century. Armed freedmen and black Union veterans stood up to the Klan which allowed blacks to vote up through the end of the century. It made Wilmington a successful mixed-race community with many black office holders up until the coup of 1898.
Bloomberg’s comments would have found hearty agreement from former Confederate Colonel Roger Moore who headed the KKK in Wilmington and later from the Democrat architect of white supremacy Sen. Furnifold Simmons. The state’s pistol purchase permit is a remnant of laws put in place by the white supremacists. That we still have it is due in part to ad campaigns funded by Bloomberg and his Everytown organization against discarding the system.
So when Mike comes to town, let’s give him the warm North Carolina welcome he so richly deserves.
Bloomy’s problem, (aside from being the most dependable ***hole in American politics) is that what he said is approximately right but can’t be said in America, and especially can’t be said in his party. It’s not 95%, but murder is very concentrated in a few places in the US. A large amount is related to turf wars between drug gangs in a handful of neighborhoods. And it is black men 16-25. A bigger problem is that he thinks taking guns away from the people who aren’t committing these crimes will stop the crimes.
John Lott says, “69% of counties have no more than one murder, and about 20% of the population. These counties account for only 4% of all murders in the country. The worst 1% of counties have 19% of the population and 37% of the murders.” Another researcher (Weisberg) said, “50% of crime occurs on just 4% to 6% of a city’s streets, while 0.8% to 1.6% of streets produce one-quarter of all crime.”
Saying these things doesn’t make someone racist. It’s identifying where priorities should be put on law enforcement and other spending. A problem can’t be solved until it’s recognized. An engineering axiom I use all the time is, “if you ask the wrong questions you’ll never get the right answers.” Except in his party, he’ll be torn to bits over this.
There is lots of thought crime in MAGA hat-wearing precincts. If you think the Democrats won’t go there, you are way more optimistic than I am. The whole thing is violating the 4A in service to killing the 2A.
As a lot of people are finding out: His campaign bus may be coming, but not Bloomberg in the flesh. He evidently does not like mingling with the little people.