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Bloomberg throws in the towel



So much for the good fight, Mayor Bloom's retreat is the equivalent of giving up after 7 rounds in what one hoped would be a long fight.  Of course, the former New York mayor appears to have tentatively announced his own run for President in 2020 in the process, but who will support a guy who now says, "Let's just hope that Donald Trump is a good president of the United States?"

The funny thing is that the Russia investigation is finally starting to heat up.  The President was forced to admit that meddling took place, but in typical Trumpian fashion passed the blame off on Obama for not having responded sooner.  In fact, the Obama administration announced several times during the campaign that Russian hacking and meddling had taken place, but the media was too caught up in the many personal scandals surrounding Trump to care.  As a result, Russian hacking was relegated to the back pages.  Now, it seems Trump and his accomplices are actually starting to worry.

This is the time to turn up the heat, not "sit back" and wait four years to see how all this shakes out.  Of course, Mayor Bloom supported the rights of others to continue their protests, but he seems to believe it is a lost cause.  "The public has spoken," apparently in reference to the recent House special elections in which Republicans successfully defended all their seats.

If anyone thought Bloomberg was going to be their champion against Trump they were sadly mistaken.  Like Trump, he's only looking after his own self-interests here despite putting on a big show regarding the Paris Climate Agreement, in which he vowed to cover America's dues.  One wonders if the former mayor will still honor his pledge?

So, what gives?  Did Trump threaten a nasty tax audit or find some other way to twist Mayor Bloom's arm into submission?  Or, maybe Donald just threatened to sit on him?

Donald has long claimed to have the dirt on everyone, having once threatened the Ricketts family on the campaign trail.  He not only got the Chicago Cubs owners to cease and desist in their campaign against him but to support him in the general election.  Will we now see Bloomberg invited to the White House to take part in Trump's economic forums, sitting next to Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos?  It's truly amazing how Trump has all these billionaires eating out of his hand.

My guess is that they are sniffing rough times ahead and are looking for whatever tax breaks they can get out of Washington.  It was only a matter of time before we faced another recession and with Trump that will come sooner rather than later.  He's done nothing to spur the economy or anything else of note in his first 150 days, despite his tweets to the contrary.  Rather than stand up to him, our billionaire class is caving in.  Content to ride out the storm with all their major personal assets safely hidden away in offshore accounts.

The rest of us will have to go through Hurricane Donald as we went through Hurricane George nine years ago.  We should know by now that our elected leaders never learn from their mistakes, repeating them ad nauseam.

Even more nauseous is having Bloomberg lecture to us on The View that we should work together with a guy who clearly doesn't have the better interests of this country at heart.  Trump has shown that time and again.  I can only hope that Democrats won't be as sanguine as Mayor Bloom or we just might be forced to ride out this storm for eight instead of four years.

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