The Trump regime has learned to its utter dismay that Iran’s (admittedly awful) government is far smarter — including a brilliant use of social media — than what they faced in Venezuela.
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Bazillions for war profiteers, scurvy for the sailors.
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Well that didn’t last long, if only we could say that about Trump!
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Funny, but I didn’t read the NYT’s profile of Lauren Sanchez Bezos the way Allegra Kirkland did. I only bothered to read it after reading Kirkland’s comments this morning. I skip those NYT’s profiles, usually of Hollywood actors – today it’s Charlize Theron. Yeah, it’s click-bait but kind of irrelevant to assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the NYT as a “corporate” news organization when it comes to serious reporting.
The profile struck me as highlighting the self-absorption and cluelessness of Sanchez Bezos and, by extension, Jeff Bezos, without being a nasty hit-piece. I guess the word “wry” characterizes it. A number of commenters shared my reaction. I mean, take paragraphs like these (the first set opens the article):
A lot of things make Lauren Sánchez Bezos ridiculously happy. Helicopters. Fashion. Protecting the narwhal. Her little sister, Elena. Her five best girlfriends. And, of course, her new husband, Jeff Bezos. [Sanchez Bezos’ “I am always happy and want everyone to be happy” is the article’s through-line.]
She and Mr. Bezos do everything together. On a typical day, the newlyweds wake up around 6 in their new, roughly $230 million compound on Indian Creek, an exclusive private island in Miami often called “Billionaire Bunker.” They don’t touch their phones. Instead, they begin each day by listing 10 things they’re grateful for — and they can’t repeat what they named the day before.
From there, the couple drink their morning coffee in a sunroom and watch the sun rise: hers from a mug that reads “Woke Up Sexy as Hell Again, his from one she got him that spells HUNK in symbols from the periodic table. They play pickleball. Six days a week, they work out for an hour with a private trainer. “He looks good, doesn’t he?” Mrs. Sánchez Bezos said of her new husband, in an interview in Miami in January. She slow-nodded, repeating, “He looks good.”
By now, it is hard to conjure the version of Mr. Bezos that existed before [hooking up with Lauren]. Mildly awkward; faintly hermetic in Seattle. The logistical mastermind of two-day shipping. Now, he is gym-hardened, frequently shirtless, captured mid-laugh in paparazzi photos, canoodling on his megayacht, a man who has discovered joy, love and cosmetic dermatology.
…
Her happiness is infectious, undeniable, world-historical. Mrs. Sánchez Bezos treats the pursuit — and spreading — of joy as a kind of mandate. But when one of the world’s wealthiest people radiates this much happiness, is it celebration, or provocation? Is she just rubbing it in?
…
In January, the couple made the couture rounds in Paris. Mrs. Sánchez Bezos was dripping in vintage Dior with fur and diamonds. She stepped out of a chauffeured Mercedes in a blood-red Schiaparelli skirt suit alongside Anna Wintour. The trip happened to coincide with an announcement that Amazon planned to lay off 16,000 employees. It was a juxtaposition that some TikTok users compared to “The Hunger Games.” (Mr. Bezos stepped down as chief executive of Amazon in 2021, though he remains executive chairman and its largest individual shareholder.)
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Regarding that $1.5 Trillion dollar defense budget ask, it’s not just Lockheed, Boeing, etc. pushing for heavy metal vs. cheap drones. A big part of that budget is apparently going to the Golden Dome project, which involves space-based missile platforms, which means most of it goes into funding for SpaceX.
All of that money for something that can’t possibly work at the scale needed for a full shield against Russia’s strategic nukes or what China is building towards. Even if it did work, it would upend the MAD doctrine that has kept the world safe from nuclear war.
Golden Dome is basically just Musk grifting the government by leaning on the SpaceX attractive launch economics, when this should never have been funded in the first place.
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Because sure, let’s treat the richest people on the planet as celebrity gossip fodder instead of a danger to society.
You go, Allegra! : - )
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Just like Trump’s pyrite trappings all over the White House, Hegseth is all hat and no cattle.
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“Why Is the NYT Subjecting Us to Ragebait About Happy Billionaires?”
Because they are a propaganda outlet and they can. The Democrats still subscribing aren’t going anywhere. They are slowly being converted into wordle GOPers.
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You could reach the conclusion that God isn’t providing adequately for them. Pete should pray harder.
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Trump will pardon him.
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Here is a great discussion of the Orban machine and the system it created.
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I’m going to ask for clarification here. Is that because we were saved from greater evil because they’re incompetent? Or is it because we’ll elect people even worse? I’ll support you in the former, but the latter causes me to shudder.
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ETA: Note the high proportion of third party candidate voters who pay attention to the traditional outlets. The effect (purpose in some cases - e.g. NYT, WSJ) of traditional media may be to report the Dem flaws and create pox-on-both-your-houses voters in order to benefit the GOP/billionaires.
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What BS.
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Where is that from?
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The Food section of the Sunday Times could at least include a couple of billionaire recipes.
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Pisco Packin’ Pete (@tiowally) is putting as much or more effort into fighting this war by Tweet and PR than by paying attention to logistics or sober hard work. He spends his time going after the Pope, the press, and preaching about an invisible, fictional deity that he does not really believe in or follow…and who’s most basic precepts are mocked by how he lives and the work he is doing.
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