Just Run in the Republican Primary, Dude!

Michael “Stop-and-Frisk” Bloomberg, who ran for mayor of New York City as a Republican and is now spending hundreds of millions of his own dollars in an effort to buy the Democratic presidential nomination, happily destroying any remaining pretense that we live in a democracy, has said that he cast his hat into the ring for one reason, and one reason only: “Let me be clear about why I am in this race. I am running to defeat Donald Trump.”

If that’s the case, then maybe Bloomberg, a terrible, incredibly sexist man who endorsed George W. Bush for president, has donated millions to Republicans over the years, bemoaned the decline in the use of the racist practice of redlining, and evinced a particular disdain for civil rights and liberties as mayor of New York City, should consider running in a different primary? Perhaps, and I know this is a wild idea, the Republican primary, where he is a natural fit and where his direct opponent would be the man he claims to want to defeat?

Just a thought!

[NPR/ABC News/Center for Media and Democracy/CNN/The New Republic]

Meanwhile, Donald Trump continues to embrace full-on authoritarianism, writing in a tweet that as president, he has the right to intervene in Justice Department cases.

This comes after Attorney General William Barr intervened earlier this week to reduce the recommended sentence of Trump’s pal and crime guy Roger Stone, after Trump complained about the length of prison time on Twitter, a move so brazen that all four federal prosecutors who had worked to convict Stone quit the case in protest, with one quitting his job altogether. And right on cue, Barr has now called on an outside prosecutor to review the criminal case of Trump’s former advisor Michael Flynn.

So many authoritarians in U.S. politics these days! Since it’s a Friday, and a long weekend to boot, I’ll leave y’all with this Sophie’s choice—Would U (Vote For): Donald Trump or Michael Bloomberg?

[NBC News/New York Times]

In news that clearly demonstrates we do not live in an authoritarian police state, ICE is now planning on sending what are essentially SWAT teams to sanctuary cities around the country “as part of a supercharged arrest operation” meant to retaliate against cities that have passed laws limiting local law enforcement’s cooperation with federal immigration officials. [New York Times]
Some good news: a federal appeals court ruled against the Trump administration’s rule allowing states to require Medicaid recipients to work in order to receive coverage. [Politico]
Did you know that LGBTQ actually stands for “Let’s Get Buttigieg to Quit?” [The Guardian]
In related news, please enjoy this nice video of Pete Buttigieg forgetting how to speak Spanish, one of the many, many languages he speaks. To be fair, he apparently answered several other questions in decently fluent Spanish at that event, but it’s Friday and we deserve to feel good, if only for a brief moment!