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We had all been warned that The Washington Post, under its Trump-courting zillionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, was transitioning to a more “market friendly” editorial page approach. 

The transformation of what was once a beacon of the liberal establishment has now apparently reached its apotheosis, with shockingly trashy commentaries that read less like The Washington Post and more like Rupert Murdoch’s fear-mongering tabloid New York Post. 

One hysterical screed, headlined “Zohran Mamdani drops the mask,” slams the mayor-elect’s victory speech and dubs him “Generalissimo,” asserting that he can’t wait to essentially start lopping off the heads of rich people. They accomplished this by luridly distorting his comments — which, out of context, sound like Karl Marx:

Across 23 angry minutes laced with identity politics and seething with resentment, Mamdani abandoned his cool disposition and made clear that his view of politics isn’t about unity. It isn’t about letting people build better lives for themselves. It is about identifying class enemies — from landlords who take advantage of tenants to “the bosses” who exploit workers — and then crushing them. His goal is not to increase wealth but to dole it out to favored groups. …

Such crass appeals have real support in New York, where overpriced housing is a real problem. But it’s important to recognize that high rents are a function of too much government rather than too little. 

That laughable statement completely ignores market factors, like greedy landlords, corporate housing speculation, private equity AirBnB operations, and the increasing transformation of every square inch of desirable cities into playspaces and investments for the haves and the have-mores. 

It’s clear that the editorial, expressing panic about “class warfare” at a time when the superrich worry that they can’t spend money fast enough — and ordinary people struggle to live and eat — can only have been dictated by Bezos himself, or emerged from the desk of some toady with a tin ear and a hard heart. 

Apparently, I wasn’t alone in feeling shock and disgust at the Post piece (do read it for yourself to appreciate what I mean). Readers were, almost to a person, repulsed. Here are a few samples: 

I’m going to miss reading the Post, but then again, it isn’t the Post anymore. (Voice_of_Reason)

Did Jeff Bezos write this using an AI bot trained by Fox? (Brooke)

So sad, no, tragic what this once great paper of Woodward and Bernstein, not to mention the Pentagon Papers, has become!!!! Cancellation incoming!!  (JRW in Swing State)

What we’re witnessing is Bezos single-handedly destroying a long-lived, critical media pillar, just as fellow greedster Elon Musk did with Twitter, and David Ellison/Bari Weiss are doing with CBS. Among others. Where will this vulgar cultural takeover end? 

Related: Who Is Zohran Mamdani? And How Do You Know?

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It’s not just the superrich, of course, who don’t care about the rapid sell-off of seemingly every square inch of a once-proud country — one that often aspired to the common good. 

And yet, we have cause for hope, albeit for the wrong reasons. While few will sympathize sufficiently with poor people who can’t eat thanks to SNAP funding cuts, many are likely to rise up if they continue to be inconvenienced in their air travel. 

Which means Trump and the GOP are going to have to blink before long..

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Speaking of comfort, and extreme comfort, I was reading in The New York Times about Musk being offered a $1 trillion pay package. This should be science fiction or comedy considering his long history of failures and lies. But it’s today’s reality.

Anyway, I read that investors figure, well, why not give him that insane amount if he makes all of them enough money. 

But the thing is: What exactly does he have to deliver? They say he has to achieve some astonishing results for Tesla, but when you start digging in, it all becomes more dubious. And vague. 

I wanted to see who was touting the cool trillion — and it’s the chair of the Tesla board, Robyn Denholm. I had never heard of her, so I looked her up. Hmm. She’s from Australia, and in fact not well known before Musk plucked her to be the chair. And made her the highest-paid board chair… anywhere. 

So it’s this Robyn Denholm who is out there being quoted about how the Musk compensation package is rock solid and no way will he get it unless he delivers in spades. But given her indebtedness to Musk, why consider her a neutral arbiter? 

Plus, one of the things Musk is supposed to do is get Tesla to invest heavily in his AI play. Oh, and by the way, enable him to build an army of robots — the Optimus humanoid robot — that he promises will “actually create a world where there is no poverty, where everyone has access to the finest medical care. Optimus will be an incredible surgeon, and imagine if everyone had access to an incredible surgeon.”

And he said everyone will want one. “Working will be optional, like growing your own vegetables, instead of buying them from the store.”

Though the Times doesn’t mention this, one of the brilliant reader comments questions whether Musk is worth the hype and the loot: 

Is there anything unique that Musk brings to the table? His vision has already been announced and competent engineers (unlike him) are executing on those things. Exactly what is his contribution going to be at this point?”

*** 

Speaking of what we want, I noticed that, besides winning governors’ races, judicial races, the NY mayoral race, and making it possible for California to add blue seats to counter Trump’s reapportionment madness, the Dems also made gains in traditionally Republican upstate NY local races. And not just in NY — pretty much everywhere. School boards, city council, on and on. 

Maybe Trump really does have worries. 

But his old friends are still glad to help him out. The FBI says bomb threats against several polling places in several states came from RUSSIAN domains. Huh! So Putin is still messing up US elections to help his buddy Trump. 

This, while Trump hunts down those who were establishing proof that Russia was helping him. 

The expanding chaos is everywhere; for instance, the FBI fires, rehires, then re-fires agents assigned to Trump’s special counsel case. One of the people FBI Director Kash Patel canned was Steven Palmer, a 27-year veteran of the FBI, and head of the critical response team. Why? Patel became furious about revelations of his own use of a government jet to watch his girlfriend sing the national anthem at a wrestling match — and, for reasons unknown, he blamed Palmer.

That’s what happens when a criminal crackpot appoints an incompetent, sleazy grifter as the nation’s top law enforcement official. A man whose face always has that “It wasn’t me” look, like he is perpetually trying to get away with something he just did.

Before he became FBI director, Patel tried to discredit conclusions that the 2016 Trump campaign had ties to Russia — by falsely linking them to the Steele dossier, a political-opposition report on the 2016 Trump campaign. But, in fact, those conclusions about Trump-campaign ties to Russia were based on solid FBI and CIA investigations. 

Patel also spread the nonsensical claim that the FBI helped instigate the January 6 violent storming of the Capitol. And was most helpful in sabotaging the inquiry into Trump’s refusal to return classified documents after leaving office.

So, when he claims there’s nothing of interest about Trump in the Epstein files, should we believe him?

Take a Break With Michael Rios

From the superrich, to the superbad, it’s all in a day’s work. And it makes one pine for something — er, slightly more elevated. Ah, yes, as the saying goes, more or less: “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” 

I recently made a new friend, Michael Rios. Michael is a brilliantly talented artist and musician who made the first mural in San Francisco’s Mission District, which is now famous for its murals. 

Michael did many of guitar legend Carlos Santana’s album covers and the art on Santana’s guitars. He continues to work with Santana. 

Michael was just showing me his stuff and I asked him if I could share it with all of you. So here is a sampling. Enjoy.