Tag: Mister Coffee

  • No thanks, we have one already

    Jim Wright nails the Mister Coffee thing.

    Everything I’ve seen from this guy, every word he’s spoken, every interview he’s given, every poll he’s bought, every article he paid someone to write, everything over the last few days tells me just how utterly horrible he’d be as President.

    And we already have someone utterly horrible as president. We don’t need more of that.

    Look at this. Look at what Schultz tweeted this morning.

    Lots of opinions this week. Here’s another: ‘They’re trying to bully Mr. Schultz out of running, but along the way they’re making the case for why he should.’

    Bully.

    He thinks he’s being bullied.

    He thinks he’s a victim. Of bullying. This guy.

    He’s quoting the conservative press, who thinks he’s being bullied.

    Bullied.

    Howard Schultz, billionaire straight white guy running for president – the very epitome of power and privilege in America – thinks he’s the victim.

    He thinks he is being bullied because the press asked him some questions.

    And, again, we already have someone who reacts that way to normal questions and criticism. We don’t need another one.

    Great. Another rich white straight male martyr, just what America needs.

    These sons of bitches should be bullied. Maybe they’d understand what it actually means. How it actually feels. The damage that it actually does. The lives it destroys.

    Listen to me: bullying is what happens when those who have power use that power to brutalize those who do not.

    Trump and Mister Coffee have power because they have money and Rampant Ego. They are the bullies around here.

    I, I, I, I, that’s all these guys ever talk about. I. Me. Because that’s all they ever think about. Themselves. You don’t get to be Donald Trump, you don’t get be Howard Schultz, without first being a self-centered self-involved self-aggrandizing prick. If you do anything for anybody else, it’s only because there’s something in it for you.

    And…[whining a little]…we already have one of those.

  • $4 for Cheerios???!

    Also in the Mister Coffee file: Howard “from the projects” Schultz was surprised to learn that Cheerios cost four bucks for an 18 ounce box.

    When asked on “Morning Joe” Wednesday about the price of a box of Cheerios, Schultz, who is exploring running as an independent for president, did not have the answer.

    “An 18-ounce box of Cheerios? I don’t eat Cheerios,” he told host Mika Brzezinski. When she told him it costs $4, he seemed surprised, saying, “That’s a lot.”

    Hmm. Yes, but it’s enough for several breakfasts, while a single Starbucks “latte”…

    Which makes you wonder: If Schultz thinks $4 is expensive for cereal, then by extension, isn’t a $4 coffee “a lot?” After all, an 18-ounce box of Cheerios will feed a family breakfast for nearly a week, and contains whole grains and fiber. A grande cafe mocha, which is about $4, will caffeinate you for a few hours. Heck, you can get a whole box of Cheerios for just 50 cents more than a two-pack of cake pops at Starbucks.

    Yes but part of what you’re paying for at Starbucks is the luxury, the ambiance, the glamour, the intangible but very real thrill of it all. You pay extra to stay at the Plaza, and you pay extra to partake of the unique beauty and elegance of Starbucks.

  • Oh no, a woman said sharp words about a man

    Yet more from Mister Coffee.

    He’s gonna restore faith in the American dream!

    The American dream is to grow up in the projects in Canarsie and then invent coffee and become a billionaire. The American dream is not equality or justice, not a living wage for all, not a national health, not immediate effective action to reverse climate change so that future generations will have a chance to exist – no no, none of that Weird Crazy Unrealistic stuff which would involve raising marginal tax rates on the super-rich. The American dream is winning a lottery! Dream big, kids – until the droughts and crop failures and mass migrations make it too difficult.

  • “Don’t help elect Trump, you egotistical billionaire asshole!”

    The Starbucks guy threw a launch party for himself at a Manhattan Barnes & Noble last night; attendance was minimal.

    Schultz had no sooner begun to answer his first question from moderator Andrew Ross Sorkin, the CNBC host and New York Times columnist, when he was interrupted by a voice in the back of the room.

    “Don’t help elect Trump, you egotistical billionaire asshole!” a bearded man in an Adidas track jacket shouted. “Go back to getting ratioed on Twitter!”

    Schultz started to respond, but the man kept going: “Go back to Davos with the other billionaire elites who think they know how to run the world!”

    Well put.

    When Schultz eventually regained the floor, he said he was running to put a stop to President Donald Trump’s agenda. But there is already a process by which a lifelong Democrat with center-left policy positions can run for president: It’s called the Democratic primary. It is the responsibility of the person reinventing the wheel to explain why what he is doing is necessary.

    Or, in this case, it’s his responsibility to not do the thing he’s doing.

    The buzzwords flew this way and that as he laid out the case for his candidacy. “For the first time since George Washington,” Schultz said, “an independent person can ignite a national movement to say, ‘It’s time for us to come together, to send a powerful, strong, robust message to everyone they see that we want change, real change, we want to reimagine the system, we want to disrupt it.’” He was tired of “the toxicity of both parties.”

    I’ve been tired of the timidity and conservatism of the Dems my whole damn life, but that doesn’t mean confused narcissistic Starbucks guy is the solution.

    The prospective candidate is right about one thing—there is a vocal faction of Democrats who have begun to speak more aggressively against concentrated wealth, and the policy prescriptions they offer would come down hard on billionaires like himself. Asked about New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s recent comment that the existence of billionaires is immoral and a reflection of a failed economic system, Schultz expressed frustration.

    “It’s so un-American to think that way,” he said. For all his rhetorical nods to unity and civility, Schultz has a habit of dismissing people who don’t agree with him as “un-American.” On Tuesday, he suggested that Harris’ proposal to get rid of private health insurance was “un-American” and tweeted that opponents of his third-party bid were, too. (Yes, of course, that tweet got ratioed.)

    He’s right that it’s un-American to think the combination of a few billionaires with millions in poverty is a reflection of a failed economic system, but that’s because we have a failed economic system and an ideology that props it up. (Short version: too many Americans have read and believed Ayn Rand.) We’ve been indoctrinated to accept a system that leads to a few billionaires and millions of people in poverty.

    Schultz told the crowd at Barnes & Noble that he likes the Affordable Care Act and wants to expand it; he’d like to negotiate lower drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. He thinks corporate taxes are too low and inequality is a serious problem, but that free college, universal health care, and a federal jobs guarantee are also bad because they cost too much. He’s worried about the debt and less worried about, though generally aware of the existence of, the ongoing crisis of food insecurity.

    Schultz is, in another words, an extremely generic moderate Democrat in 2019, not so different from the kinds of Democrats who have won the party’s nomination in the recent past. The only real mystery is why he thinks that makes him George Washington.

    Or even interesting.

  • Spoiler

    Oh I see, he’s doing it on purpose. Stupid of me not to realize.

    https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1089907949148012545

    Bloomberg is one of those critics.

    Andrew Ross Sorkin at the Times:

    Mr. Schultz, in an interview with The New York Times on Sunday, said he planned to crisscross the country for the next three months as part of a book tour before deciding whether to enter the race to challenge President Trump in 2020.

    No need for that. Decide not to right now. Being a CEO is not a good apprenticeship for being president, even before we get to the electing Trump issue.

    “We have a broken political system with both parties basically in business to preserve their own ideology without a recognition and responsibility to represent the interests of the American people,” Mr. Schultz said in the interview.

    “Republicans and Democrats alike — who no longer see themselves as part of the far extreme of the far right and the far left — are looking for a home,” he added. “The word ‘independent,’ for me, is simply a designation on the ballot.”

    “The far left” – what is he smoking. The Democratic party is to the right of Nixon. It’s a million miles from anything that could be called the far left.

    Mr. Schultz said he was well aware of the criticism, but said it was misplaced.

    “I am certainly prepared for the cynics and the naysayers to come out and say this cannot be done,” he said. “I don’t agree with them. I think it’s un-American to say it can’t be done. I’m not doing this to be a spoiler.”

    Asked if he would consider changing his mind and run as a Democrat, he said, “I feel if I ran as a Democrat I would have to be disingenuous and say things that I don’t believe because the party has shifted so far to the left.”

    “When I hear people espousing free government-paid college, free government-paid health care and a free government job for everyone — on top of a $21 trillion debt — the question is, how are we paying for all this and not bankrupting the country?” Mr. Schultz said.

    In other words, he doesn’t want to pay higher taxes on his billions of dollars. He’s rich, therefore the Democratic party is Far Left. We already have one of those but hey let’s have another. Real estate fraud meets syrupy coffee: who will prevail?

    “It’s as big of a false narrative as the wall,” he added. “Doesn’t someone have to speak the truth about what we can afford while maintaining a deep level of compassion and empathy for the American people?”

    Deep compassion and get your fucking filthy hands off my billions.

    Mr. Schultz’s success or failure may lie in who emerges as a top contender in the Democratic Party. If Joseph R. Biden Jr., who is seen as a moderate, decides to run, it would probably make it difficult for Mr. Schultz. However, he said he sees a clear opportunity if a far-left candidate emerges.

    “If you have a choice between President Trump and a far-left progressive Democrat,” he said, “many people think President Trump will get re-elected.”

    They’re not far left. Let go of the damn Overton window.