This shouldn’t surprise you, Rich. Tacoma City Council is and has been since the nineties under the thumb of the Chamber of Commerce. The last Mayor of Tacoma, in fact, runs the Seattle Chamber. Nathe Lawver lost election to the City Council this year just because of his union history. Rob Thoms refused to mirror Inslee’s ban on government funded travel to Indiana after that state passed RFRA, largely because he believes economic growth is more important than human rights. Anders Ibsen fought a long and difficult campaign to stay in his seat after the Chamber endorsed his opponent. Marty Campbell has repeatedly denied plans to develop economic growth in this city in any sort of planned way, as he believes only the invisible hand should direct growth.

Every city council member and mayor Tacoma has had for 30 years, right down the line, has made efforts to win Chamber support for their campaigns. At every turn, gentrification has been the only strategy considered seriously as a cure for the city’s problems.

There’s even a statue on the corner of Sixth and St Helens to “The Goddess of Commerce” a block away from City Hall.

Thanks for clearing that up - I thought that was an umlaut in the guy's first name.

@1 Wandering Star: How long before all the road construction along north and south I-5, Exit 132 flyover to SR 16, etc. SR 16 in Pierce County (between Steilacoom, Lakewood, DuPont, JBLM, and Tacoma) will be completed? Daily commutes must be horrible.

Oh, come on, if you don't vote for the billionaires, we'll end up with the fake billionaire again.

What, Democratic Socialists?

Just because everyone wants Sanders and Warren, doesn't mean they won't deny you that choice, because we live in a Dictatorial Monarchy now, and all must bow before the God King.

Fucking Bloomberg. Just what we need: another billionaire trying to buy his way into the presidency. I'm stunned that he's getting much support from African-Americans after his notorious stop and frisk policies in New York. Bloomberg is a former republican. The only reason he's even considered a democrat now is because the Overton window in this country has shifted so far to the right that it passed him by a few years back. He's shed some of the worse republicanisms, like snuggling up to the religious right and humping the NRA. He admits climate change exists. Good for him. But fiscally he's still basically a Reagan republican. He's still perfectly willing to fuck over the poor to keep stuffing the pockets of his fellow billionaires.

No thank you.

@4: Not I. I will forever remain Big D all the way. Let the bloody revolution begin, and the spillage of RepubliKKKan black blood flow like sour milk until every member of the TRump / Pence Evil Empire is gone. Death to the GOP!

It takes good man with a billion dollars to beat a bad man with a billion dollars. #Bloomberg2020

I bet Warren knows what a diaresis is, but Bloomberg doesn't. Partly because she is much smarter than Bloomberg, but also because she got her bachelor's degree in speech pathology and audiology. The Democrats need to stop fucking around and nominate the smartest person running, like they did with Obama and Bill Clinton. It isn't that close: Warren should be the nominee.

" I'm stunned that he's getting much support from African-Americans after his notorious stop and frisk policies "

Maybe because it made their neighborhoods safer?

"I'm stunned that he's getting much support from African-Americans after his notorious stop and frisk policies."

Maybe because they know not to fuck around with their vote by throwing it away on a Bolshevik or the lightweight McKinsey guy. I'm not a Bloomberg supporter. I'd rather see Warren. But Bloomberg can beat Trump. Maybe African-Americans understand that we need someone who can win. Trump and his minions will eat Bernie and the lightweight McKinsey guy alive, and nominating those two will put the House at risk.

@8 Ross for the WIN!!

@9 do you think all black people live in Brooklyn or something you dumbfuck?

@13,

That’s WSDOT, not Pierce County or Tacoma. And to answer your question, never. There is no evidence that adding more lanes relieves traffic congestion. In fact, several studies have concluded exactly the opposite:

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.101.6.2616
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b3477&view=1up&seq=457

This implies that the Law of Supply and Demand is exactly backwards: supply drives demand, not the other way around. The more lanes you build to accommodate traffic, the more people will use single passenger vehicles to saturate that lane increase.

Further, this is not limited to Pierce County. Take I-90 to the 405 from Bellevue during rush hour. Or, take I-5 at any time of day during the week. Take I-5 north from any point south of Boeing Field until you get to the Seneca Street exit. JBLM and the Centralia Outlet Mall, SouthCenter Mall, there’s bad traffic everywhere from Seattle southward except for a lonely stretch between Chehalis and Portland.

The Eastside is far from immune. Puyallup was in the middle 1990’s a quiet little town with not much traffic except during the fair. Now, it’s a nightmare driving along Meridian or anywhere on South Hill. Bellevue, Renton, Bryn-Mawr and Burien are all traffic nightmares, too. Issaquah is a traffic nightmare, that area has seen a massive population explosion in the last ten years. Black Diamond is undergoing a housing boom. Pretty soon, there will not be any part of King County, even in the very far eastern parts of that county, which will not be completely paralyzed with gridlock.

I’d like to point out that this is the central flaw inherent to capitalism. Capitalism is anarchic and unplanned, and while that might seem romantic on some levels, it also inevitably causes avoidable disasters. We have known for the past forty years that Seattle and the surrounding areas would see massive population growth. Yet, we flatly refuse to plan for this. As out population has expanded, growth has been chaotic, with asphalt laid out in often bizarre patterns rather than a coherent grid. Nobody mapped out where all these new people were going to go when they got here, and so we have shortages in housing stock that have driven up the cost of housing and with it, the number of homeless. Healthcare centers are scattered out in a chaotic fashion, with some areas saturated with multiple large hospitals and others with none at all. Expensive traffic alleviation efforts such as the tunnel that replaced the viaduct had no effect on reducing traffic at all. Nothing about our growth and development as a city has been evidence based, nothing we have proposed or tried to do is supported by research.

We do some crazy shit to alleviate traffic. The tunnel for one. Putting light rail on a floating bridge for another. And while we hold never ending ,retinas to ensure everyone has buy-in and input, that every possibly affected group gets to have their say and nobody’s feelings get hurt, we don’t plan based on evidence.

I mean, look- would you go to a heart surgeon that had never been to medical school and told you he was just gonna cut according to what he thinks feels right to him? Or would you want someone to do whatever the best current medical research as determined is most likely to save your life? Well, do you want urban planners to go by what feels good to everyone, or by what the research says?

I mean, fuck feelings, fuck buy-in, fuck the whole Seattle process. Rather than dick around with asking everyone where they think the light rail lines ought to go, get a map, open the research journals, plan the routes based on evidence, and put some fucking trains to Tacoma and Everett in before the voters lose patience and vote for whatever stupid initiative Tim Eyman comes up with.

Remember when some right-wing Trump skeptics said they would vote for him anyway because "Flight 93 election"? Well, I think of Bloomberg that way, as our side's "Flight 93 candidate." He's our absolute last resort, someone who could very well rid us of Trump but would likely give us nothing else and who clearly has some dangerous authoritarian tendencies of his own. Anyone else still in the Democratic primary race would be preferable.

15,

I will vote for Sanders in the primary. If he or Warren make it to the general, I will support either. If anyone else does, I will vote Third Party.

Which Third Party candidate, I don’t know. I guess I’ll have to see who is out there.

The thing of it is, if you choose to vote for a capitalist in the general election, I won’t try to convince you to do otherwise. However, as I will only vote for a socialist, or at least socialist-adjacent candidate, I’m almost certain I will be condemned for this.

Bring on the hate, folks. It only makes me stronger,

@Wanders -- if you vote in WA
the Dem's GONNA win -- it's WA.

I agree that beyond Bernie and Elizabeth
there's damn little Electoral Motivation
unless one is pro-staus quo.

Shall we try it again.
just for ole time's sake
anyway?

@17 kristofarian: Count me in for Warren / Sanders! Ross (@8) nailed it--the Democrats need to nominate their smartest, sharpest candidate. And we really need to get rid of the electoral college. Trump / Pence /McConnell / William Barr ad nauseum for Prison 2020 after getting voted OUT.

Fuck Bloomy?
Fuck the System that allows
Money to EQUAL Free Speech.

And when Bloomy's finally out, he's gonna fawking FLOOD the market with anti-trump adverts 24/7 and show us (and Repubs, too) exactly what too much Money can buy.

Let's hope he invests it vastly
more Wisely than Bozos did here.

Oh and fuck (Republican) Bloomy, too
for, I suppose, all the reasons
peeps hated on Bernie for being
a Socialist running with the damn
Dems -- just. like. ol Bloomy.

Please spell it correctly “dieresis” “the separation of two adjacent vowels dividing one syllable into two” I have to assume your devoting more space to me then to the candidate was to enhance my credibility and credentials in calling the Donald a “crook”.
Thanks for the advice (I will try and keep my shoelaces tied and if you have nothing to say try to keep the spelling, grammar, and punctuation correct)

I concur, auntie Gee:
Vote 'em t.f. OUT
send 'em Packin'
right straight to Prison

solitary Confinement
NO communications
We don't want us another
Adolf on our hands in five or ten years...

"(I will try and keep my shoelaces tied and if you have nothing to say try to keep the spelling, grammar, and punctuation correct)"

@Ajjooel -- whilst I usually always have nothing to say,
haven't I always said, anyways, that Good Grammar
(and punctuation)(And Spelling!) is/are
the Key/s to my Success?

Washington doesn't vote on Super Tuesday, so whatever purpose Bloomberg has in opening this office, it can't have to do with winning Super Tuesday. Do you people even have a fact-checker?

Warren's great -- she'd make an Awesome Sect. of Labor or Consumer's Rights or Banking -- if there were some royal shit-stirring to be done, I'd want Elizabeth all over it....

But way down yonder in Houston there's a gal, Texas' first Hispanic US Congress member, ever; former judge; fiery and articulate, strongly Progressive no-holds-barred no-quarter-given kinda gal, and she's (for now) captured my Veep heart.

I do hope Bernie'll give Sylvia Garcia a Glance...
She might even deliver Texas.
Who knows?

Anyone remember Ann Richards (D-TX-Gov)?

@26 -- we hire Republicans to do all our Facts-checking.
Why?

@13 Wandering Star: That's truly sad, and why I won't drive on freeways (i.e.: I-5, for one) anymore. SR 20 in Skagit County between the Farmhouse Restaurant and Anacortes is getting bad All. The. Time Now.
@24 kristofarian: Agreed and seconded. Your turn! :)

@24 kristofarian: Trumpty Dumpty is no Jojo Rabbit. And director Taika Maititi is too cute to be Adolf Hitler!
@27 kristofarian: I remember the 45th Governor of Texas, Ann Richards--also mother of Cecile Richards, former spokes representative of Planned Parenthood. What a model Democratic family. All appeared to be going quite well in the Lone Star State until Dubya got bought into both the Governor's Mansion---and then the White House in 2001. Now Texas just seems to be one big glowing red state of angry MAGA confusion. At least there's Austin, a blue oasis in all that glaring red.

@31 -- Doctor Nelson has Herbal medicine for preventing the coronavirus?

Vick23, get off your (now Herpes-FREE!)
(CONGRATS!) butt and contact
WHO* Immediately!

People Are DYING.
Doctor Nelson can (possibly) save the Planet
if you act NOW.

Thank you!

*who is WHO?
the World Health Organization
that's WHO.

@32: Replies to spam is spam.

Calm down, commies. I very much doubt Bloomberg is actually interested in the presidency. His main goal is to build up Hawkfish into a viable competitor to the Mercer funded, Cambridge Analytica developed monster machine that Trump owes his victory to. And what better way to develop it than a live fire trial?

Seriously. Love him or hate him, he's doing something Bernie (or most of the dem candidates for that matter) wouldn't have a damn clue about.

And wandering stars, you talk a good game but at the end of the day your net contribution to 2020 will be Trump's re-election. So I think you know what you can do with that lofty BS.

This idiotic presumption that you can break the party into submission by sowing division got Nixon, Reagan and Dubya re-elected. Learn a fcuking history lesson.

Out of solidarity with all the people of color who endured his stop and frisk strategy, I could never vote for Bloomberg with a clear conscience even if he won the nomination. It is entirely possible, however, that Trump could piss me off enough to reconsider voting for Bloomberg.

And that's exactly why I hate America's politics so much, we're all forced to swallow things we don't want to swallow and accept extremely uncomfortable compromises while we watch this once great country deteriorate before our very eyes.

@33 kindly
fuck
off
thanks!

@37: Well, now @32 is residual spam cyber-rot. I trust you've learned your lesson.

@38 kindly
fuck
off
thanks!

Bloomberg is your only chance of beating Trump, go ahead and bash on him more than the other candidates who are beating Bernie you fucking idiots.

Also, multiple African American political operatives are about to announce their support of Bloomberg. So get out your knee pads because Al Sharpton is about to drop a bomb on you

Well, I was going to head down to the Bloomberg campaign office just for the free snacks, but it sounds like he's too fucking cheap to offer up anything above fast food. No offense Dick's or Dick's eaters, but when a billionaire wants to buy my vote, they have to do better than that. My vote is worth, oh I dunno, at least a buffet catered by Tom Douglas himself.

And this is exactly what we can expect from shitstains like Bloomberg. His "friends" will be treated to an entirely different standard of service. If we're not in his class, he will mow us over with scripted rhetoric, the same parroted bullshit lines about how he can't afford to care for THE PEOPLE with such a skinny budget after the military industrial complex takes their cut of our taxes and his buddies are rewarded well endowed contracts...

He's Hillary 2.0. "NOT TRUMP" was Hillary's campaign slogan, also, and it didn't work out too well for her... Fuck this noise. After the DNC appoints him the nomination, because he is indeed buying this position, he will lose to Trump, but he and his friends will profit regardless.

We will suffer another 4 years of Trump, "they" will lose absolutely nothing.

I don’t think I’ve ever read a more biased article in my life. This had way too much opinion with no facts to back a lot of it up. While throwing jabs at Bloomberg’s missteps you forgot about the bad things other candidates have done- and also forgot to mention he is the most qualified and most likely to beat trump.