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| Jeff Bezos |
Bezos sticks a fork in WaPo… The Washington Post should abandon its effort to “win back” readers who cancelled their subscriptions following owner Jeff Bezos' decision to end the endorsement of presidential campaigns.
The Post had prepared an endorsement of Kamala Harris for the presidency, which the Amazon and Space X founder thought might be risky for his businesses in the event of Donald Trump’s election.
More cancellations are on the way following Bezos’ move to neuter the Post’s opinion pages by eliminating viewpoints that do not share his mandate of reporting and defending “personal liberties and free markets.” Is he trying to transform the Post into the Wall Street Journal?
In a memo outlining his decision to squash dissenting points of view, Bezos wrote:
“We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”
The self-professed proud American wrote that a big part of the country’s success “has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else.”
He could have given a shout out to the importance of a free and unfettered press as one of the hallmarks of American success. But that would have been hypocritical for a guy like Bezos, who doesn’t buy the marketplace of ideas line.
David Shipley, the well-respected WaPo editor who was in charge of the opinion section, did the right thing in resigning following Bezos’ edict.
Rocket Man is looking for a replacement for Shipley who will spread the word that “free markets and personal liberties are right for America.”
Bezos apparently lives in a dream world where everyday is like Ronald Reagan’s fictious morning in America. It’s a place where politicians wouldn't dream of cutting $880B in Medicaid funding for the poor and working class, while dishing out $4T in tax breaks for the well-off.
His world is easy to imagine, if one is a member of Jeff's pampered and indulgent billionaire class.
Please bring back Project 2025. In the run-up to the presidential election, Democrats hammered away at Republicans for their support of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 game plan to reel in the federal government. But in light of Shadow President Elon Musk’s assault on the federal system, Project 2025 doesn’t look so bad.
Musk, for instance, boasts that he has tossed the United States Agency for International Development “into the wood chipper.”
Project 2025's plan for USAID called for scaling back its footprint and returning it to the 2019 pre-COVID-19 pandemic budget level, not trashing it.
The next administration “should deradicalize USAID’s programs and structures and build on the conservative reforms instituted by the Trump Administration,” said Project 2025.
Project 2025 called on the White House to work closely with congress to make cuts in USAID’s international budget, while granting it greater flexibility in spending its appropriated funds to achieve better developmental outcomes.
Musk and his gang of tech bros are far more scarier than Project 2025 ever was.
Let’s hear it from the Senate DOGE Caucus. That august group stands silent, while Musk’s Dept. of Government Efficiency wreaks havoc and destruction on federal agencies.
The Caucus was to work hand-in-hand with the Trump administration to identify and eliminate wasteful spending and resources in the federal government. What in the world happened?
Members apparently are untroubled by Musk’s team roaming the halls of federal DC, and accessing sensitive data of millions of Americans.
The all-Republican DOGE caucus members are chair Joni Ernst (IA), John Cornyn (TX), Ted Budd (NC), Mike Lee (UT), Rick Scott (FL), Roger Marshall (KS), Eric Schmitt (MO), James Lankford (OK), Dan Sullivan (AK), Bernie Moreno (OH), Ted Cruz (TX), Pete Ricketts (NE), Bill Hagerty (TN), Jim Risch (ID), Marsha Blackburn (TN), John Hoeven (ND), Bill Cassidy (LA) and Chuck Grassley (IA).
Because of their surrender to Musk, the DOGE Caucus should be renamed the DODGE-DOGE Caucus.
Not exactly the huddled masses… In Donald Trump’s latest move to debase what it means to be an American, the US will sell $5M “gold cards” to wealthy foreigners for permanent residency. It’s not clear what sort of cut that Trump will get from the sale of gold cards.
Buying a gold card puts a person on the path to US citizenship. Will there be another citizen charge shake-down?
Trump, of course, isn’t concerned about Russian oligarchs gobbling up gold cards. “I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people,” said Trump.
Of course, he does. Trump’s pal Vladimir Putin is Russia’s No. 1 oligarch. That war criminal is worth something north of $200B, which is pretty good for a guy who earns $140K a year from his day job.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick claims there's a waiting list of 250K plutocrats who are eager to settle in the US. “If they’re willing to pay the $5M, that’s over a trillion dollars that comes directly to — $1.25 trillion just for that line," he said.
New York city mayor Eric Adams should roll out the red carpet for them. He could arrange temporary shelters for the goldies at places like Manhattan's Roosevelt Hotel, or Brooklyn's Floyd Bennett Field, which are in the process of evicting undocumented immigrants.
Who’s next? Maine governor Janet Mills has emerged as the unlikely leader of the Democratic resistance to Donald Trump. The 77-year-old told the president at a White House dinner on Feb. 21 that Maine is not going to comply with his Executive Order banning transgender athletes from women’s sports. “See you in court,” Mills said.
She then released the following statement:
“Today, the President of the United States has targeted one particular group on one particular issue which Maine law has addressed. But you must ask yourself: who and what will he target next, and what will he do?
“Will it be you? Will it be because of your race or your religion? Will it be because you look different or think differently? Where does it end? In America, the President is neither a King nor a dictator, as much as this one tries to act like it – and it is the rule of law that prevents him from being so.”
Who is going to follow in Janet's footsteps?
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