#Patrick Soon-Shiong

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

David Rowe

* * * *

We have been warned.

October 24, 2024

Robert B. Hubbell

Over the last several weeks, dozens of senior advisers to former president Trump have warned about his fascist and dictatorial tendencies in his first term. More urgently, they have warned that those tendencies will be unleashed in a second Trump term in which he will have a “get out of jail free card” from the Supreme Court. Recent revelations from Trump's chief of staff John Kelly remind us that Trump admires “Hitler and his generals.”

See The Atlantic, Trump: ‘I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had’. (“I need the kind of generals that Hitler had. People who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.”)

Trump surely knows that “following orders” included the genocide of Jews and a world war against the nations of Europe. His praise for “Hitler and his generals” should trouble every American regardless of party.

In a bracing admission, John Kelly described his former boss as “a fascist.” Kelly’s acknowledgment echoes the statement by former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley that “Trump is fascist to the core.”

On Wednesday, Kamala Harris took the unusual step of speaking from the steps of the Vice President's residence (the Naval Observatory) to formally condemn Trump's fascist agenda. See NYTimes: Harris seizes on former Trump aide’s warning that he fits the ‘fascist’ label.

Kamala Harris’s critique of Trump began and ended with Trump's own words, i.e., his repeated description of fellow Americans as “the enemy within”—a classic formulation of fascist ideology.

In her remarks, Vice President Harris said,

Donald Trump is increasingly unhinged and unstable, and in a second term, people like John Kelly would not be there to be the guardrails against his propensities and his actions. Those who once tried to stop him from pursuing his worst impulses would no longer be there, and no longer be there to rein him in. The bottom line is this: We know what Donald Trump wants. He wants unchecked power. The question in 13 days will be: What do the American people want?

Harris also responded to Kelly’s comment that Trump said that Adolf Hitler “did some good things.”

Harris said,

It is deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous that Donald Trump would invoke Adolf Hitler. The man who is responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Americans. All of this is further evidence for the American people of who Donald Trump really is.

Kamala Harris is speaking for every American who values democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law. She intends to keep it up. According to reports, she plans to give a speech on the Ellipse on the National Mall—the place where Trump summoned his mob of insurrectionists to assault the Capitol. See CNN, Harris to deliver closing argument speech on Ellipse, site of Trump’s January 6 rally, as she issues warnings over his fitness for office.

We have been warned. But the warnings are merely reminders of events we witnessed firsthand. Still, the fresh warnings are good. For too long, the media treated Trump as a legitimate candidate for the presidency. He is not. The election is not a horse race. His policies are tales told by an idiot, signifying nothing--but have been treated by the major media as though they are legitimate policies worthy of analysis by pundits and surveys by pollsters.

Enough. Trump is a fascist. He sees half the American people as his enemies. He believes he has been freed of constitutional and legal restraints by the Supreme Court to pursue an agenda of vengeance, retribution, and profiteering.

We have been warned. Let’s ensure that everyone hears and heeds that warning.

Coda to “We have been warned.”

Despite the explicit warnings over the last four years (and prior), Republican politicians have consistently excused, dismissed, and amplified Trump's fascist rhetoric. On Wednesday, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu dismissed Trump's praise for Hitler’s generals as a fact that is “baked in” to the election results. See Mediate, Chris Sununu Sticking With Trump After Kelly's Hitler Reveal.

Sununu said,

So, look, we’ve heard a lot of extreme things about Donald Trump from Donald Trump. It’s kind of par for the course. It’s really unfortunately, with with a guy like that, it’s kind of baked into the vote at this point.

In other words, to Sununu, the only thing that matters is whether Trump is winning the horse race. Sununu has ignored the moral dimension of supporting a fascist—and has forever tied his reputation to a man who admires Hitler and his generals. Chris Sununu should be ashamed of himself every day for the rest of his life. He had a good gig as a nepo-baby governor based on his father’s accomplishments; he has tarnished his entire family’s reputation by being a shill for a fascist.

To similar effect are the actions of the owner of the Los Angeles Times, billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong. The LA Times Editorial Board just announced that it would not be endorsing a presidential candidate. On Wednesday, the head of the LA Times Editorial Board resigned in protest, saying that the Board was prepared to endorse Kamala Harris, but Patrick Soon-Shiong ordered the Board to “compare and contrast” the accomplishments of Trump and Harris in a side-by-side format.

Soon-Shiong posted the following statement,

With this clear and non-partisan information side-by-side, our readers could decide who would be worthy of being President for the next four years.

Soon-Shiong’s proposed format of “comparing and contrasting” the “accomplishments” of Trump and Harris is not an endorsement, as the head of the editorial board noted in her resignation statement. See NYTimes, L.A. Times Editorial Chief Quits After Owner Blocks Harris Endorsement. (Behind a paywall.)

Soon-Shiong is using his wealth and ownership of the LA Times to run cover for the fascist policies of Donald Trump. Soon-Shiong has had a brilliant and wildly successful career that he created from scratch as a first-generation immigrant. His legacy may be facilitating a second Trump term that will attack the very immigration policies that welcomed him with open arms.

If Donald Trump wins, it will be in large part because wealthy business leaders (like Soon-Shiong) and spineless politicians like Chris Sununu put their political and monetary fortunes ahead of the democracy that allowed them to succeed. Shame, shame, shame!

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[lenbryant]

Shame on these suck-up billionaire newspaper owners who are obeying the tyrant in advance. Just say no to the oligarchy and vote Blue up and down your ballot in November.

[trendynewsnow]

Renuncia de Mariel Garza en el Comité Editorial de Los Angeles Times

Renuncia en el Comité Editorial de Los Angeles Times La jefa del comité editorial de Los Angeles Times anunció su renuncia el miércoles, un acontecimiento que ha generado gran repercusión en el ámbito periodístico. Su dimisión se produce tras la decisión del propietario del periódico de suprimir el respaldo presidencial a la vicepresidenta Kamala Harris. En una entrevista reveladora concedida al…

[talksthesuccess]

The Best Doctor in the World

The Best Doctor in the World 

Doctors are the elemental keystone for any country’s healthcare system. It is proved that an established education system in a country is always directly proportional to having qualified doctors. The profession of doctor is one of the noblest occupations in the world. Doctors are respected and considered as they have divine qualities.

The world is pleased to have the wonderful and best doctors. Now, who is the best doctor in the world? So here is the answer Patrick Soon-Shiong is reflected as one of the best doctors in the world. Let’s explore the life journey of the best doctor. 

Who is Patrick Soon-Shiong?

Patrick Soon-Shiong, M.D., a physician, surgeon, scientist, inventor, technologist, and philanthropist, has dedicated his career to the fundamental biology driving life-threatening diseases and transforming these discernments into medical innovations with global impact. 

Along with his devotion towards his career as a doctor, he also performs his duties as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of NantWorks, a network of businesses with extensive knowledge of many complicated industries, including physics, data, AI, medical science, communications, and mobility.

Soon-Shiong’s Journey: From South Africa to Medical Innovation

Patrick Soon-Shiong was born on July 29, 1952, in Port Elizabeth, Union of South Africa to Chinese immigrant parents who migrated from China during the Japanese occupation in World War II. His parents were Hakka originally from Mexican District in Guangdong province. 

Eventually, Soon-Shiong received a bachelor’s degree in medicine (MBBCh) at the University of Witwatersrand and graduated with flying colors, the fourth in a group of 200 students. After that, he continued his education at the University of British Columbia, graduating with a master’s degree in 1979.

The American College of Surgeons, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, and the American Association of Academic Surgery all gave him research grants.

Patrick Soon-Shiong: A trailblazing Surgeon 

A total of 30 years of Dr. Soon-Shiong’s working experience belongs to medical revolutions. All over Dr. Soon-Shiong’s career, he has introduced therapies for diabetes and cancer, recognized himself as the publisher of over 100 scientific papers, and has taken over 675 patients worldwide for innovative advancements passing over a multitude of fields of medicine, technology, and artificial intelligence. 

He was the one who performed UCLA’s first whole-organ pancreas transplant and the world’s first enclosed islet cell transplant in Type 1 diabetic patients he performed this transplant as an Assistant Professor at UCLA in 1993. 

He worked at NASA to further his studies in stem cells and nanotechnology during the early 1990s, conducting projects related to the space shuttle program. He was in charge of the California Nanosystems Institute (CNSI) while he was at UCLA.

To incorporate supercomputing data centers and to devise an augmented intelligence for genomic sequencing, NantOmics’ boss, Dr Soon-Shiong, bought the National LambdaRail (NLR) in 2011. This Layer 1 network was further developed by Dr. Soon-Shiong as MOX Networks in 2013. 

Patrick Soon-Shiong: Developer of Abraxane 

Dr. Soon-Shiong was also the developer of Abraxane, a very pioneered drug, in 1995. Abraxane was the first human protein (albumin) nanoparticle invented to activate a specific receptor on the blood vessels that supply the tumor and this drug was purposed to transform the tumor’s microenvironment and activate the immune system.

Abraxane has been used in different types of cancers inclusive of metastatic breast cancer since 2005, cell lung cancer since 2012, and pancreatic cancer since, 2013 as approved by the FDA.

Patrick Soon-Shong: Business Career 

Further on to his medical and scientific career, Soon-Shiong also emerged as an active businessman during the late 1990s, and since the early 2010s, he has grown as an investor. 

Already in the period from 1997 up to 2010, Dr. Soon-Shiong was identified as the founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of two public pharmaceutical companies namely Abraxis BioScience, Inc. (NASDAQ: ABII) and American Pharmaceutical Partners Inc. (NASDAQ: APPX) Vista, the parent company of APPX, have inked a biologic supply agreement.

In addition, Dr. Soon-Shiong is the creator of NantWorks, LLC, a business firm whose primary objective is to establish a next-generation pharmaceutical development network and transformative global health information for the safe communication of genetic and medical data, tackling issues of climate change, and changing the characteristics of new media.

The San Diego Union-Tribune and the Los Angeles Times were purchased by Dr. Soon-Shiong in 2018. The process was put into law through the 21st Century Cures Act, and the committee carrying out this policy is the Health Information Technology Advisory Committee, which has a primary duty to provide the government and President with advice on relevant health IT policies.

He was nominated to this committee too. Before this, Dr. Soon-Shiong was a member of Bank of America’s Global Advisory Board and co-chair of the CEO Council for Health and Innovation at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Patrick Soon-Shiong: Awards and Achievements

Many reputable, prestigious, and honorable awards have been achieved by Soon-Shiong throughout his career. Some noticeable awards include the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the Horatio Alger Award, and the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. He has also been acknowledged as one of the world’s billionaires and one of the most influential people in healthcare.  

Read More:- Taylor Swift: Redefining Pop Music One Album at a Time

[justinspoliticalcorner]

The choice for president has seldom been starker. On one side is Donald Trump, a felonious and twice-impeached conman, raring to finish off the job of dismantling American democracy. On the other is Kamala Harris, a capable and experienced leader who stands for traditional democratic principles. Nevertheless – and shockingly – the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post have decided to sit this one out. Both major news organizations, each owned by a billionaire, announced this week that their editorial boards would not make a presidential endorsement, despite their decades-long traditions of doing so. There’s no other way to see this other than as an appalling display of cowardice and a dereliction of their public duty. At the Los Angeles Times, the decision rests clearly with Patrick Soon-Shiong, who bought the ailing paper in 2018, raising great hopes of a resurgence there. At the Post (where I was the media columnist from 2016 to 2022), the editorial page editor David Shipley said he owned the decision, but it clearly came from above – specifically from the publisher, Will Lewis, the veteran of Rupert Murdoch’s media properties, hand-picked last year by the paper’s owner, Jeff Bezos. Was Bezos himself the author of this abhorrent decision? Maybe not, but it could not have come as a surprise. All of this may look like nonpartisan neutrality, or be intended to, but it’s far from that. For one thing, it’s a shameful smackdown of both papers’ reporting and opinion-writing staffs who have done important work exposing Trump’s dangers for many years. It’s also a strong statement of preference. The papers’ leaders have made it clear that they either want Trump (who is, after all, a boon to large personal fortunes) or that they don’t wish to risk the ex-president’s wrath and retribution if he wins. If the latter was a factor, it’s based on a shortsighted judgment, since Trump has been a hazard to press rights and would only be emboldened in a second term. [...] Some news organizations upheld their duty and remained true to their mission. The New York Times endorsed Harris last month, calling her “the only patriotic choice for president”, and writing that Trump “has proved himself morally unfit for an office that asks its occupant to put the good of the nation above self-interest”. The Guardian, too, strongly endorsed Harris, saying she would “unlock democracy’s potential, not give in to its flaws”, and calling Trump a “transactional and corrupting politician”.

Margaret Sullivan at The Guardian on the cowardly abdication of the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times by refusing to endorse a Presidential candidate (10.25.2024).

The egregious and cowardly actions done by both the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times deciding to sit out the Presidential endorsements process this election is craven and cowardly, as both papers were set to endorse Kamala Harris (D). Even the New York Times, for all their faults, got it right by endorsing Kamala Harris.

[originalleftist]

Please do not blame the editors or writers at the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times for the failure to endorse Harris.

In both cases, the editors planned to endorse Harris.

In both cases, the billionaire owner prevented them from doing so.

In both cases, the head editor resigned in protest.

Reflexively blaming the editors and playing into sweeping, generalized attacks on "the media" or "the Mainstream Media", etc, is defamatory, bolsters fascist attacks on the press as (to quote Trump) "the enemy of the people", and provides cover and scapegoats for the billionaires actually to blame.

It isn't only misguided and useless, it is actively counterproductive to solving the problem you are addressing.

[davidaugust]

Mariel Garza, editorials editor of the Los Angeles Times, resigned on Wednesday after the paper's billionaire owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, blocked the endorsement of Harris for president. I'm shocked another South African billionaire doesn't support a black woman for president, shocked I say.

- written by me for tonight's This Week This Week in LA

[ourquietman]

And so, in advance of a possible Trump presidency, a fair swath of society's most powerful have already begun to assume defensive stances, choosing to stay silent to avoid falling in Trump’s crosshairs. Instead of sounding the alarm about the Adolf Hitler-praising candidate who publicly talks about jailing Americans who speak out against him, they have chosen to self-[censor]. Trump hasn't even been elected to office yet and the powerful have already chosen to bow to pressure. Which raises an important question: What will happen if Trump actually ascends once again to the White House? How far will they bend the knee?

Oliver Darcy in Status.news

[wilwheaton]

Mariel Garza, the editorials editor of the Los Angeles Times, resigned on Wednesday after the newspaper’s owner blocked the editorial board’s plans to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for president. “I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent,” Garza told me in a phone conversation. “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.” On October 11, Patrick Soon-Shiong, who bought the newspaper for $500 million in 2018, informed the paper’s editorial board that the Times would not be making an endorsement for president. The message was conveyed to Garza by Terry Tang, the paper’s editor. The board had intended to endorse Harris, Garza told me, and she had drafted the outline of a proposed editorial. She had hoped to get feedback on the outline and was taken aback upon being told that the newspaper would not take a position.

Los Angeles Times editorials editor resigns after owner blocks presidential endorsement - Columbia Journalism Review

I have been a subscriber since the 80s. I believe in supporting local journalism, especially local papers.

If the only way I can express to the Times’ billionaire owner that his interference in the paper’s editorial independence is by canceling my subscription, so be it.

[reading-writing-revolution]

(via The Appeasers - The Good in Us by Mary L. Trump)

What a bunch of sad fucks! What a fucking failure!

“Of course, the appeasement, or as scholars of authoritarianism call it, anticipatory obedience, by certain outlets began well in advance of the election. Jeff Bezos and Patrick Soon-Shiong, owners of The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times’ respectively, refused to allow the papers’ editorial boards to endorse Kamala Harris.The most embarrassing current example of this appeasement was the spectacle of Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinksi of MSNBC’s Morning Joe announcing on live television that they had visited Donald at Mar-a-Lago. Brzezinksi said the following:For those asking why we would speak to the president-elect during such fraught times, I would ask back: Why wouldn’t we? It’s time to do something different, and that starts with not only talking about Donald Trump, but talking with him.Why wouldn’t you? Because, if you have integrity, if you believe your own warnings, you do not ever make common cause with fascists. That’s why.“

Fuck the media. We’ve watched them fail for the past 10 years. Why? $$$

[posttexasstressdisorder]

Washington Post Says Jeff Bezos Banned it From Endorsing Kamala Harris

DIES IN DARKNESS...

Legendary ex-editor Marty Baron is calling the move “cowardice.”

Corbin Bolies 

Media Reporter

Updated Oct. 25 2024 3:18PM EDT / Published Oct. 25 2024 12:53PM EDT 

Jeff Bezos ordered The Washington Post to censor its endorsement of Kamala Harris, the newspaper’s own reporters said Friday.

The billionaire Amazon founder stopped the publication of an endorsement of the Democratic candidate which its editorial board had already written, the paper reported.

The dramatic move was called “cowardice” by its Pulitzer Prize-winning former editor, Marty Baron. One of the paper’s star reporters, Ashley Parker, called it “a new type of October Surprise.”

The paper’s CEO Will Lewis—not its owner, Bezos—announced the endorsement ban in a note to readers, saying it was an attempt to “provide through the newsroom non-partisan news for all Americans, and thought-provoking, reported views from our opinion team to help our readers make up their own minds.”

“We see it as consistent with the values The Post has always stood for and what we hope for in a leader: character and courage in service to the American ethic, veneration for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects.”

It came days after The Los Angeles Times’ editorial board was blocked from endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris by its billionaire CEO Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, plunging the newsroom into chaos over its owner’s meddling in its editorial affairs.

In D.C., Lewis said the paper was “returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates,” citing the paper’s distant past, which it abstained from presidential endorsements.

But that era ended in 1976 when it endorsed Democrat Jimmy Carter for president, which Lewis said was for “understandable reasons.” “But we had it right before that, and this is what we are going back to,” Lewis wrote. (The Post last abstained from endorsing a presidential candidate in 1988, saying at the time it could not reach “a threshold of confidence in and commitment” in a candidate that year.)

LA Times Chaos After Billionaire Forbids Harris Endorsement

BREAKING THE NEWS

Josh Fiallo

Lewis' note set off an explosive reaction, led by Baron, the highest-profile living former leader of the paper of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

“This is cowardice, a moment of darkness that will leave democracy as a casualty,” Baron, who shepherded the paper during Donald Trump’s first presidency wrote on X. “Donald Trump will celebrate this as an invitation to further intimidate The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos (and other media owners). History will mark a disturbing chapter of spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.”

According to NPR, which first broke the news of the Post’s decision, opinion editor David Shipley informed staff on Friday morning about the decision. Opinion among staff, according to NPR, was “uniformly negative.”

Billionaires, Secrets, Zegnas: Will Lewis’ Thirst for Power

DON’T STOP ME NOW

Harry Lambert

“The message from our chief executive, Will Lewis—not from the Editorial Board itself—makes us concerned that management interfered with the work of our members in Editorial,” the Post’s union leadership said in a statement.

“According to our own reporters and Guild members, an endorsement for Harris was already drafted, and the decision to not to publish was made by The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos. We are already seeing cancellations from once loyal readers. This decision undercuts the work of our members at a time when we should be building our readers’ trust, not losing it.”

Lewis’ nearly yearlong tenure at the Post has been marred by controversy after controversy. Initially welcomed by Post employees as an affable changemaker with ambitions to reinvent the paper, the staff turned on him after he booted the paper’s executive editor, Sally Buzbee, for two former colleagues; reportedly tried to block the paper from reporting on his alleged role in covering up a U.K. phone-hacking scandal; insinuated the paper’s editorial staff was responsible for its business failings; and nearly installed a former U.K. colleague whose ethically questionable reporting practices eventually came to light.

Lewis’ decision came days after Soon-Shiong blocked the Times’ impending endorsement of Harris. Soon-Shiong claimed he allowed the paper to present analyses of the “POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE policies by EACH candidate” to present “clear and non-partisan information to its readers,” but the editorial board refused.

[mariacallous]

Since Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post, blocked the publication’s endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, more than 250,000 people have canceled their subscriptions.

In the wake of Bezos’s surprise move, many journalists have pled for subscribers not to punish hardworking journalists in an increasingly fragile industry—or the public that depends on their reporting—for a press baron’s decision by unsubscribing. Their logic is reasonable, but this cry for sympathy fails to address the problems of this moment in media, when an industry suffering a prolonged crisis has become dependent on billionaires as putative saviors, from Bezos to X’s Elon Musk to the Los Angeles Times’s Patrick Soon-Shiong.

This raises enormous issues for the future of both U.S. democracy and journalism. Yet on the eve of a crucial election, the most pressing one is conflict of interest. Musk has campaigned for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, even as his business interests with Washington—from the survival of Tesla to SpaceX—are in public view. Bezos, Amazon’s founder, denies that his companies’ reliance on government contracts has anything to do with his decisions at the Post. But with such large stakes in Defense Department contracts, cloud storage, and Bezos’s own space business, there is little reason to take his word on faith.

Sadly, for now, the only practical way to check Bezos’s apparent inclination to avoid displeasing Trump might be to weaken the finances of a pillar of reliable journalism. Canceling subscriptions is no solution to the media crisis, but there is merit in making people’s voices heard in this way if it can direct attention to the unique problems posed by this new kind of press ownership.

[lenbryant]

Another billionaire a-hole trying to get another obscene tax cut.

[trendynewsnow]

LA Times Editorial Board Head Resigns Over Presidential Endorsement Controversy

Resignation of LA Times Editorial Board Head Over Presidential Endorsement Controversy The head of The Los Angeles Times’s editorial board, Mariel Garza, announced her resignation on Wednesday following a controversial decision made by the newspaper’s owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, to suppress a planned presidential endorsement for Vice President Kamala Harris. In an interview with The Columbia…

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

David Rowe

* * * *

Good morning. This is what fascism looks like.

Lucian K. Truscott IV

Oct 26, 2024

It crept in overnight, while we were sleeping.  Fascism showed its face not with jackboots and concentration camps…not yet, anyway…but rather as just another day in Capitalist America.  Two major media companies, the Washington Post and the LA Times, made decisions to capitulate to the man they fear will be elected president before a single vote has been counted.  They decided not to run editorials endorsing their preferred candidate for president, Kamala Harris, because the owners of the companies, Jeff Bezos and Patrick Soon-Shiong, are afraid if they anger Donald Trump, he will hit them where it hurts:  In their pocketbooks.

Bezos sees himself as particularly vulnerable to the wrath of Donald Trump.  Before he left office in 2021, Trump appointed a puppet to run the United States Postal Service (USPS):  Louis DeJoy, a long-time Republican fund-raiser and major Trump contributor who was appointed as one of three deputy finance chairmen of the Republican National Committee shortly after Trump took office in 2017.  The USPS prioritizes package delivery for Amazon and sets the price it pays for the service.  Trump has threatened Bezos with jacking up his Amazon delivery prices before, in 2018.  The Postmaster General was then Megan Brennan, appointed during the Obama administration, who resisted Trump’s demand to raise delivery prices, but such resistance is unlikely to happen if Trump is elected and DeJoy is there to carry out his wishes.

This is the way it happens.  An autocrat like Donald Trump, with his history of impulsive decisions and threats against perceived enemies, has two billionaires cowering in fear, and he didn’t even have to pick up the phone.

Fascism is not an all-at-once transformation.  We’ve already had our Brownshirt day, on Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump’s MAGA army stormed the Capitol waving Confederate and Nazi flags and assaulting police officers and attempting to hunt down and kill Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence, all of it, we now know, with Trump cheering them on from the White House.  Fascism uses symbols – MAGA this time, Swastika last time – to rally followers, and then it feeds them fear and lies and the demonization of minorities and others perceived as not like us.

I don’t even know that you can name the period of fascism we’re in right now.  Giving it a name doesn’t matter.  What matters is that it is happening right in front of our eyes, and little if nothing is being done about it, other than fascism finally being called out by political leaders such as Kamala Harris and other Democrats, and some news organizations have at last crossed the Rubicon of using the “F” word of fascism and the “H” word of Hitler in the same sentences with Donald Trump.

What can we do?  We can all vote for Kamala Harris and whatever Democrat is running for whatever office in your district and state. 

Journalists everywhere, but particularly at the Washington Post and LA Times, have a crucial role to play right now.  It is journalism about Donald Trump’s crimes and political extremism that has revealed him as not just a totalitarian politician, but as a man consumed with a fascist lust for absolute power.  It has been people like Timothy Snyder and Heather Cox Richardson who have put Trump’s rise in historical perspective and compared what is happening right now in this country to what happened nearly a century ago in Germany with the rise of Hitler, when German corporate titans of the day bowed down to him in fear. 

Now the reporters and editors at the Post and the LA Times can help show the world what contemporary fascism looks like by refusing to countenance the craven subservience of their owners.  There are leaders at the Washington Post, in particular Bob Woodward and Eugene Robinson and David Ignatius and Ruth Marcus and Karen Tumulty, who can show the way for their colleagues by leading a newspaper-wide walk out.  With what we are seeing every day from Donald Trump, they can call it a “Strike Against Fascism,” or “A Call to Arms.”

You might accuse me as a freelancer of not taking seriously the possibility that people at both papers might lose their jobs for leading or participating in a walk-out.  But people have already resigned in protest at both papers.  This isn’t a time to show fear.  It’s a time to stand up to power. The writers and editors have a lot to lose, but they have already been treated as expendable, and they’ve been told they are in danger of losing their jobs anyway.

The guy Bezos put in as publisher of the Post, former Murdoch hitman Will Lewis, bluntly told Post staffers when he was appointed, “We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”   He could have been talking as well to the staffs of the New York Times and the three major television networks and cable news like CNN and MSNBC.  All of them are in an existential crisis at this crucial moment in our history.  Newspapers are closing across the country.  Television networks and cable news shows are hemorrhaging viewers. 

The arrival of Bezos and Soon-Shiong to “rescue” two major American newspapers has shown us how hollow were any hopes that billionaires will or even can make a difference in today’s economic and political climate. 

But workers can make a difference.  With ten days to go until the election, let’s see if a day with no newspaper in Washington D.C. and Los Angeles can make a difference.  Maybe a strike will teach reporters and editors and the rest of us that we are beyond the point of being able to affect our lives and the lives of others.  Or maybe rallying against the fascism that has been stealing our national politics will help to send more people to the polls to vote for Kamala Harris on November 5.

I do know this:  When you are bullied, you STAND UP or you lose your self-respect and your dignity and your right to life. The fascism of Donald Trump would take away all three.

Lucian Truscott Newsletter

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Judd Legum at Popular Information:

Jeff Bezos is the second-richest person in the world, with a net worth of approximately $211 billion. Most of Bezos' wealth is derived from his 9% stake in Amazon, the company he founded. Bezos also founded and owns Blue Origin, a private space exploration company worth billions.  Bezos also owns the Washington Post, which he purchased in 2013 for $250 million in cash. Is Bezos now making decisions at the Washington Post to protect and enhance the value of his other enterprises? Many current and former employees of the Washington Post believe so. 

[...] The Washington Post, unlike Amazon and Blue Origin, has been a money loser for Bezos, reportedly running a deficit of $100 million last year. More importantly, Bezos believes that former President Trump's hostility toward the Washington Post, which produced critical coverage of Trump's presidency, cost his companies billions in government contracts.

[...] On Friday, days before the election, Washington Post publisher William Lewis — installed by Bezos earlier this year — announced that "the Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election." The announcement, less than 2 weeks before Election Day, was a break from decades of precedent. Bezos made the decision, according to the New York Times, after the Washington Post "editorial board had already drafted an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris."  Marty Baron, the former Executive Editor of the Washington Post, slammed Bezos' decision as "cowardice" and linked it to Bezos' desire to appease Trump. Baron said it would backfire, and Trump would "see this as an invitation to further intimidate owner [Bezos]."  Hours after Lewis published the announcement, Trump was seen meeting with Blue Origin CEO David Limp. Steven Cheung, the Trump campaign's chief spokesman, embraced the suggestion that the meeting and the announcement of the non-endorsement were linked. 

[...]

The billionaire owner of the LA Times

Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire owner of the LA Times, also abruptly demanded his publication stay neutral in the presidential election. Soon-Shiong bought the paper for $500 million in 2018.  Soon-Shiong is a healthcare and biotech entrepreneur whose companies rely on the federal government. His companies regularly seek FDA approval for new drugs, vaccines and therapies and federal funding for research. 

The editorial board had planned to endorse Kamala Harris and publish a series of columns tentatively titled "The Case Against Trump." But in a post on X, Soon-Shiong said he offered the LA Times editorial board "the opportunity to draft a factual analysis of all the POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE policies by EACH candidate during their tenures at the White House, and how these policies affected the nation." Soon-Shiong said that "[i]nstead of adopting this path as suggested, the Editorial Board chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision."  Soon-Shiong did not explain why he did not demand a similar approach for U.S. House and Senate races, state ballot initiatives, and many other contests facing California voters. Beginning in September, the LA Times has endorsed in dozens of races up and down the ballot.  

In response to the spiking of the presidential endorsement, 200 LA Times staff members signed an open letter calling on Soon-Shiong to "provide readers with an explanation for not issuing an endorsement, along with clarity about the broader endorsement process." Three members of the paper's editorial board have resigned. "I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent," Mariel Garza, the LA Times editorials editor, said. "In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up." 

Cowardly billionaire media owners have shunned common sense by taking a pass on endorsing Kamala Harris, such as the Washington Post and LA Times.