THE BRUTALIST: The Raw Concrete of America.

The story follows the fortunes of the Hungarian architect László Tóth (Adrien Brody) after he flees the aftermath of the Holocaust in Europe to seek his freedom in the United States…Tóth settles with his cousin Attila (Alessandro Nivola), a furniture-maker in Philadelphia, who is enslaved by his desire to assimilate: He marries a shiksa, he becomes Catholic, he even changes his Hungarian surname to Miller. Tóth regards him with contempt. Soon, he encounters the wealthy industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), an ersatz Charles Foster Kane, who is of course enslaved to his own money, but also to a driving desire to be thought of as a serious, intellectual man. Van Buren, in turn, enslaves Tóth, all but forcing him to design and build a large, self-consciously modern community center in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. And of course, Tóth enslaves himself, first to drugs to numb his despair, and then to despair itself, as he comes to see his American experience as little more than an extension of his detainment in the concentration camps.

In case anyone in the audience isn’t tracking with the brutality of it all, Corbet helpfully includes a scene where Van Buren rapes a drunken Tóth while making antisemitic observations about the causes of the Holocaust. (Yes, yes, we get it—America has raped the world….) And in case that brainy symbol isn’t clear enough, shortly after, he restates the film’s thesis in the mouth of Erzsébet, who declares to her dejected husband, “You were right, this place is rotten. The landscape, the food we eat—this whole country is rotten.” And so it goes until the very end, when Corbet unveils his final exhibit: At the first Venice Biennale, Tóth’s niece reveals in a speech that his forced labor for Van Buren was really just an extension of his Holocaust experience, that what his patron has intended as a monument to a modern, forward-looking America was in fact a re-envisioning of the death houses at Buchenwald.

Wow, I’ll be happy to see the Biden era come to end as well next week, but this film sounds like a massive overreaction to its worst excesses.

FINALLY, REUTERS UNCOVERS THE MOST TERRIFYING ASPECT OF THE L.A. FIRES:

Questions about California's preparedness and response to the massive fires have rendered its Democratic leaders vulnerable to escalating attacks from the right, in a possible prelude to the politicization of disaster response under President-elect Trump https://t.co/38Lsmb5BHA

— Reuters (@Reuters) January 14, 2025

THIS EXPLAINS SO MUCH: Surprise! Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is a life-long rabid supporter of communism and the Cuban dictatorship.

IS THE MORE OF THE “JOY” OR “BRAT” VIBE? Harris declines to invite Vance for courtesy visit to vice president’s residence before inauguration.

CHANGE: Despite Long-Standing Tradition, Texas Gov. Abbott Orders Flags to Full-Staff for Trump’s Inauguration.

Abbott’s concern may well be that the left will conflate the symbology of commemorating the death of one president with the inauguration of another, and, in all candor, some on the left will certainly try to make that comparison. The president-elect certainly is; he took to his Truth Social platform to express that view:

President-elect Trump’s full post reads:

The Democrats are all “giddy” about our magnificent American Flag potentially being at “half mast” during my Inauguration. They think it’s so great, and are so happy about it because, in actuality, they don’t love our Country, they only think about themselves. Look at what they’ve done to our once GREAT America over the past four years – It’s a total mess! In any event, because of the death of President Jimmy Carter, the Flag may, for the first time ever during an Inauguration of a future President, be at half mast. Nobody wants to see this, and no American can be happy about it. Let’s see how it plays out. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

This has happened once before: Flags were at half-mast to mark the death of former President Harry Truman when Richard Nixon was inaugurated for his second term in 1973.

Given how that certainly foretold of worse things to come, I can understand Gov. Abbott’s decision.

SHOCK: BIDEN NAMES AIRCRAFT CARRIER AFTER HITLER! Biden names Navy aircraft carriers after Bill Clinton, George W. Bush.

President Biden on Monday named Navy aircraft carriers after former Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush.

“I am proud to announce that the next two Gerald R. Ford-class nuclear-powered aircraft carriers will be named for two former presidents: Bill Clinton and George W. Bush,” Biden said in a statement on Monday.

“When I personally delivered the news to Bill and George, they were deeply humbled,” the president added. “Each knows firsthand the weight of the responsibilities that come with being Commander-in-Chief. And both know well our duty to support the families and loved ones who wait and worry for the safe return of their servicemember.”

Bush, Clinton and Biden attended funeral services for former President Carter last week, alongside the two other living presidents, former President Obama and President-elect Trump.

In his Monday statement on the aircraft carriers, Biden said construction on the two ships named for his predecessors is coming “in the years ahead.” Upon the ships’ completion, the president added, “They will join the most capable, flexible, and professional Navy that has ever put to sea.”

Chester Nimitz could not be reached for comment regarding that last statement, but it’s been hilarious to see first Kamala and now Joe rehabilitate Dick Cheney and George W. Bush and rescue them from the Fuhrerbunker they were trapped in from 2000 to 2008.

TRUMP’S WORST NIGHTMARE: Jennifer Rubin Leaves Washington Post To Launch ‘Pro-Democracy’ Website.

Rubin, widely regarded as the most courageous and intellectually dynamic opinion columnist in the history of American journalism, finally “resigned” from the Washington Post on Monday and launched a “pro-democracy” website, the Contrarian, on Substack. In a note announcing her alleged resignation, less than a week after the Post laid off roughly 100 employees in an effort to stop losing $77 million a year, Rubin accused the paper’s owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, of sabotaging journalism’s “sacred mission” of “defending, protecting and advancing democracy.”

The Contrarian is built on a premise some would describe as delusional. In Rubin’s view, the mainstream media have been too soft on Donald Trump, if not openly supportive of his MAGA agenda. Mainstream journalists have been too afraid to criticize him and alert the public to the existential threat he poses to American democracy. They’ve been too polite to fight back by lashing out Trump’s voters for ignoring the experts and making the wrong decisions.

* * * * * * *

A press release circulated by the Dewey Square Group, a political consultancy founded by former Democratic operatives, heralded the list of contributors as “a broad range of respected voices in law, politics, foreign policy, and culture.” It’s actually a bunch of people you’ve never heard of with utterly predictable opinions about everything:

Esosa Osa, a former adviser to Stacey Abrams. David Litt, a former speechwriter and “comic muse” for Barack Obama. Ilan Goldenberg, a Middle East expert who helped John Kerry negotiate the Iran nuclear deal. Karen Agnifilo, defense counsel for Luigi Mangione. Mike Podhorzer, the former political director of the AFL-CIO. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a fascism expert from New York University. Kim Lane Scheppele, a Princeton professor at the University Center for Human Values. Nancy Gertner, a Harvard Law School professor and author of the book In Defense of Women: Memoirs of an Unrepentant Advocate. 

And more! Are you not impressed?

In a VIP post at RedState, Brandon Morse adds: Jen Rubin’s Independent Move Is Living in the Future, But Her Mind’s in the Past.

Rubin’s anti-Trump nature is so rabid that she’s willing to flat-out say some crazy things that can make even people on the left cringe. In order to keep up the rage bait, she’s going to have to flat-out go so extreme that she ends up lying about situations or people. Back when Rubin was on top of the world and WaPo was a top player in the narrative game, she could get away this.

But as I wrote in my aforementioned article, that age is dead. Now, anything extreme Rubin or her people put out can immediately be debunked, and that debunking will be very, very public. The embarrassment will be constant, and this won’t be good for subs.

So while, Rubin is living in the future in terms of her craft, she’s operating on an old set of rules that don’t apply anymore. Rubin’s only hope is that Trump’s second term is a monumental failure, but it’s not shaping up to be. Time will tell, of course, but the odds aren’t exactly on Rubin’s side.

The anti-Trump audience is actually very small, and Rubin is trying to tap into a sentiment that not a lot of people share. Moreover, once Trump is gone, organizations like Rubin’s will have to find ways of tapping into a leftist base that will effectively be “anti-Republican” at all costs.

See also: the WaPo after Trump was on the losing side of the 2020 election: Washington Post traffic craters, loses $100M amid identity crisis as talent, readers flee: reports.

FASTER, PLEASE: TSMC’s Arizona Fab 21 is already making 4nm chips — yield and quality reportedly on par with Taiwan fabs.

TSMC has started producing chips at its Fab 21 near Phoenix, Arizona, using its 4nm-class process technology, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told Reuters. This marks the first time such a cutting-edge production node has been manufactured in the United States. The confirmation from a high-ranking official comes months after the first unofficial information emerged that the fab was mass-producing chips for Apple.

“For the first time ever in our country’s history, we are making leading-edge 4nm chips on American soil, American workers — on par in yield and quality with Taiwan,” Raimondo told Reuters.

And not a moment too soon: China Suddenly Building Fleet Of Special Barges Suitable For Taiwan Landings — Unusual Barges Similar To D-Day Mulberry Harbours.

NEWEST MARVEL SEQUEL SOUNDS TERRIBLE. ONE STAR OUT OF FOUR. CANNOT RECOMMEND: MSNBC Ups Rachel Maddow to Five Nights, Sends Alex Wagner Into Field for Trump’s First 100 Days.

A cable-news outlet’s primetime schedule has in past years largely remained inviolate, except when anchors and networks part ways. Under Rashida Jones, MSNBC’s president, the network has experimented with new concepts. Jen Psaki, who anchors a Sunday program, also holds forth on Monday nights at 8, giving host Chris Hayes a schedule like Wagner’s — Tuesdays through Fridays. MSNBC has also tested programs that air separate originals on the Peacock streaming hub and the MSNBC weekend schedule.

Some of those new ideas have made Maddow a more frequent primetime presence than many had previously envisioned. She also leads a schedule-busting concept known internally as “The Avengers” that MSNBC uses on nights of exceptional news. Maddow sits for multiple hours at a dais with a shifting lineup of MSNBC personalities that range from Joy Reid and Nicolle Wallace to Ari Melber and Stephanie Ruhle.

“I made a promise that when you need me, I’ll be there,” Maddow told Variety late last year about her appearances on MSNBC beyond her regular Monday duties.

Other hosts will weave new elements into the mix during Trump’s first weeks in the Oval Office. Jen Psaki will launch “The Blueprint with Jen Psaki,” a new podcast that examines the future for the Democratic Party after a brutal election season. Chris Hayes will debut a new recurring segment, “Here is What is True,” that will scrutinize misinformation tied to news coming out of Washington and how it affects political discourse.

Wagner’s reports may crop up across the MSNBC schedule, as well as in specials, on digital platforms and through live events. “We are building the plane on the runway,” says Wagner as her journey looms.

“Building the plane on the runway” sounds like a recipe for a spectacular crash. Will Boeing be involved in the engineering?

Related: MSNBC’s Avengers will be minus one comic book superhero: Jen Rubin “Exits” the Washington Post; Chuck Todd “Exits” NBC.

As Ace of Spades suggests, “Maybe they can do a show together. Can you imagine the sexual heat that would convect out of your TV? NBC wouldn’t agree to Chuck Todd’s terms, so his contract his ending. I assume that NBC wanted him to take a pay cut, because no one’s watched him in eight years, and he refused, as he couldn’t suffer that indignity.”

BOTTOM STORY OF THE DAY: WaPo’s Pretend Conservative Resigns — And Rage-Quits X — Over Trump-Musk Alliance.

The Washington Post’s longtime “conservative blogger” Jennifer Rubin announced on Monday that she had resigned from the paper, effective immediately, to launch a new outlet that was “not owned by anybody.”

Rubin, who became an outspoken advocate for Democrats in her efforts to “resist” Donald Trump, lionized President Joe Biden until the very end, and then went so far as to fawn over Vice President Kamala Harris even before she was foisted on the Democratic Party as their de facto nominee.

But the media landscape has begun to change with Trump’s re-election — and even some legacy media personalities and outlets have started to show signs of coming around, resigning themselves to the fact that if they don’t at least attempt to speak to Trump and his allies in good faith, they may find themselves ousted by podcasters, citizen journalists, and other less traditional media outlets.

Rubin, according to her Monday announcement, is having none of that — in addition to launching her new outlet, she declared her intention to leave X altogether in protest of Trump’s alliance with billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk.

“BIG NEWS. I have left the Post. Corporate and billionaire media are failing to meet the moment,” she claimed in her post to X. “With @normeisen.bsky.social I’m launching @contrariannews.bsky.social. We’ll have politics but also cooking, humor, film and even pets. Please subscribe and join the fight. And because I want to be true to my values I am leaving X. I refuse to enable the Elon-Trump presidency.”

Ace of Spades posits that Rubin was likely pushed out of the newspaper:

She demanded other journalists resign in protest when their owners made decisions prioritizing profit and sales over wokeness, but didn’t resign herself.

She’s finally resigned. Except, of course, I don’t believe she “resigned.” I would bet any amount of money that the Washington Post, losing money and readers at such a pace the paper’s existence is literally in danger, looked at its staff and decided to fire the non-performers.

She literally has no constituency at all. Almost no NeverTrumper does. Almost every single NeverTrumper in the country has a high-paid media gig despite having no audience or constituency. They have been paid simply for loyal service to the Democrat/Progressive Cult, and to astroturf a propaganda front against Trump.

And the paper really does have quite the astonishing burn rate: Washington Post traffic craters, loses $100M amid identity crisis as talent, readers flee: reports.

The Washington Post’s readership reportedly cratered during Joe Biden’s presidency — and the Jeff Bezos-owned broadsheet lost $100 million last year alone — as the embattled paper continues to suffer an exodus of top talent.

The left-leaning publication drew about 2.5 million to 3 million daily users to its site last summer, a fraction of the 22.5 million daily visitors at its peak when Biden took office in January 2021, according to internal data shared with Semafor.

The plummeting site traffic led the business to lose around $100 million on weak subscription and ad revenue in 2024, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

WaPo took a hit to its bottom line after reportedly 250,000 readers canceled their subscriptions following Bezos’ decision to kill an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris just weeks before the election.

The Washington Post had 54 million digital visitors last November — down from 114 million in November 2020, according to global media analytics firm Comscore.

Leaders at the company have discussed ways to hit a goal of 200 million users, according to the Journal. Executives at the paper once vaunted for its Watergate coverage have suggested using artificial-intelligence tools and news aggregation to reach the goal, the outlet said.

AI “journalists” really would be the next logical step for the beleaguered paper:

UNEXPECTEDLY! Dallas Cowboys moving on from Mike McCarthy as head coach.

KURT SCHLICHTER: There Is No Bottom for Blue California.

I don’t want to be pessimistic, but I’ve lived here 50-odd years, and I know the score. I got here when California was the Golden State, and now it’s the Charred Black State. It was a middle-class state in the 70s and 80s, but today’s California is a feudal society with an affluent aristocracy – their castles and keeps were the ones burned in this fire – lording over a huge caste of serfs. The middle class is either gone or leaving. That’s OK with the Democrats because it was the middle class that made California a Republican state for so long. They were the ones who demanded good government. Most of them are now in Texas or Idaho.

That leaves a bunch of really poor people and a few really rich ones. The poor people vote Democrat because the Dems feed them scraps, and the rich people vote Democrat because it makes them feel that they’re not the complete scumbags that, in many cases, they are. Have you noticed how it’s always the worst people who seem to be the most vocally liberal? Paging Harvey Weinstein – he probably worked with half the people whose houses burned down, and he probably tried to score with the other half.

The thing you must understand about the rich Californians who vote for Democrats – and not only vote for them but actively campaign for them and donate to them – is that this kind of leftism isn’t just a belief system. It’s their religion. Well, more accurately, it’s a substitute for religion. There’s an empty space inside every human being that normal people fill up with things like faith, family, and patriotism. The rich blue voters of California fill it up with commie gobbledygook. They add some wokeness, a dash of climate change, and a heaping helping of smug self-satisfaction. The resulting dog’s breakfast is what passes for their souls.

Zev Chafets’ 1990 book Devil’s Night portrays the dwindling post-riot population of Detroit utterly enthralled to leftist identity politics, no matter how badly it’s wrecked their city. Those who remain in Los Angeles will likely also triple-down on their leftist politics, no matter how badly it literally burned much of their city to the ground:

WHEN YOU CAN’T SURVIVE THE SOFTEST OF SOFTBALL INTERVIEWS:

Newsom: "We've got a Marshall plan."
NBC: "Tell us about that Marshall plan."
Newsom: "Okay, we've got a name for a plan." https://t.co/TlrDR6xdR3

— Margot Cleveland (@ProfMJCleveland) January 13, 2025

MOVIE THEATER EMPLOYEES AGAINST MOVIES: Alamo Drafthouse Workers Seek to Cancel September 5.

A new petition with roughly 1,000 signatures hopes to cancel the film at the Alamo Drafthouse’s Brooklyn location. The chain runs three theaters in New York City.

Why?

September 5 is yet another attempt by the Western media to push its imperialist and racist agenda, manufacturing consent for the continued genocide and cultural decimation of Palestine and its peoples….We, NYC Alamo United, wholeheartedly condemn the Alamo’s willingness to profit off of the genocide of Palestine.

The cancellation attempt is hardly surprising. The modern Left routinely tries to censor art that doesn’t align with its worldview. Modern film festivals also steer clear of controversial topics in recent months.

This is worse on a few levels.

One, the petition features 101 signatures from NYC Alamo United, a union tied to the theater in question. They’ve brazenly trumpeted the petition on X, demanding their employer bend the knee.

When Netflix employees got the vapors over Dave Chappelle in 2022, the company’s CEO had to remind them, “We’re programming for a lot of diverse people who have different opinions and different tastes and different styles…If you find it hard to support our content breadth, Netflix may not be the best place for you.” Alamo employees should receive a similar reminder.

On the other hand, I thought the trailers for September 5 looked intriguing this fall. I appreciate Alamo employees further recommending the movie to me.

GLOBAL WARMING INTENSIFIES: Palisades Fire likely started near the remnants of a blaze believed to have been sparked by NYE fireworks: report.

SHOCK AND AWE: Trump: I’m Coming, and I’ve Got 100 Executive Orders Ready.

WHAT IS THIS MYSTERIOUS WITCHCRAFT I’M SEEING? HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?

Sure that’s wild and wacky Japan. But as Francisco of Small Dead Animals deadpans, “This would never work in Los Angeles. Where would they get the water? From the ocean?”

HIDE THE DECLINE: Two Months Before Deadly Blazes, LA Fire Chief Said She Needed More Firefighters—Then Karen Bass’s Admin Scrubbed the Memo.

Los Angeles fire chief Kristin Crowley warned city officials in November that her department had about half as many firefighters as it needed. When deadly wildfires struck the city two months later, Mayor Karen Bass’s administration pulled Crowley’s memo from its website.

Crowley wrote to the city’s fire commissioners—a five-person board appointed by Bass—on Nov. 18 and asked them to transmit the message to Bass and the city council. The fire department’s size, she said, hadn’t increased in decades despite significant population growth.

“In many ways, the current staffing, deployment model, and size of the LAFD have not changed since the 1960s,” wrote Crowley, who also complained that a spike in emergency calls and a shortage of fire stations had led to longer response times. In 2022, Crowley said, 61 percent of the department’s firefighters failed to meet the 4-minute first response time, a national firefighting standard. The National Fire Protection Association, meanwhile, recommends that cities like Los Angeles employ some 1.51 to 1.81 firefighters per 1,000 residents. But Los Angeles, Crowley wrote, only staffs 0.91 firefighters per 1,000 people.

In contrast:

LA Mayor’s race, 2022. The guy I voted for. https://t.co/W3UVIg00Mm

— Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) January 13, 2025

Bari Weiss’s Free Press has an article that went up yesterday originally titled “Stop Blaming Politicians. L.A. was Built to Burn.” By the evening the first sentence in the title was quietly deleted. And on one level, the second sentence in its title is understandable — Joan Didion was writing about the Orwellian-levels of doublethink of the people who lived in the fire zones of Los Angeles in the late 1960s. On the one hand, they knew that a catastrophic fire was always a possibility, and yet many simultaneously had plenty of ‘60s-era “California Dreamin,’” “Good Day Sunshine” levels of optimism. But there’s no doubt that over the past twenty years or so, a combination of incompetence and hopeless far left radical environmentalism have made last week’s disastrous fires a far more likely — and deadly — occurrence.

THE CYCLE OF LIFE:

Shot: L.A. County Fire Department donating surplus supplies to Ukraine’s first responders.

Ukrainian first responders will soon be receiving some much-needed equipment from all the way in Los Angeles County.

The Los Angeles County Fire Department announced this week it would be sending some surplus supplies across the globe to Ukraine as the country staves off the ongoing Russian invasion.

Boots, hoses, nozzles, body armor and medication were among the items packed and shipped out during an event earlier this week.

The care package was loaded at an L.A. County fire station in Inglewood on Thursday afternoon. Fire Chief Daryl Osby and county supervisor Janice Hahn were in attendance and helped pack up the items.

“As Ukrainian firefighters continue to work under extreme peril to remove victims with limited resources, we felt the need to step up and help in some way,” said Osby in a news release.

—L.A.’s KTLA, March 18th, 2022

Chaser: Zelensky says Ukraine has offered assistance on California wildfires.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday that his country has offered assistance on the California wildfires.

“Today, I instructed Ukraine’s Minister of Internal Affairs and our diplomats to prepare for the possible participation of our rescuers in combating the wildfires in California,” Zelensky said in an address, according to an English transcript on his website.

“The situation there is extremely challenging, and Ukrainians can help Americans protect lives,” he added.

—The Hill, today.

Will the Ukrainians be bringing our equipment back with them if decide to parachute in?

CHRISTOPHER CALDWELL: The dawn of the anti-woke era.

In late November, a California judge rejected a demand by several women’s volleyball teams to disqualify a transgender player for San Jose State before this year’s tournament. Six opponents have forfeited games against the team this year rather than collude in what they see as cheating. The larger question of transgender athletes in college sports will be decided later, but the judge is defending a lost cause. Fewer than a quarter of Americans (23 per cent) support allowing transgender athletes to play on women’s teams. Teams that do field trans athletes are sometimes booed off the pitch. Such feelings go a long way towards explaining Donald Trump’s resounding win in November’s presidential elections.

Washingtonians are often asked what it feels like to watch the second age of Trump dawn. Oddly, it does not feel much like his first arrival in 2016. It feels more like Barack Obama’s in 2008 or Bill Clinton’s in 1992 – less a political than a social revolution, in which philosophical habits will be broken along with political hierarchies. This particular social revolution owes most of its energy to a revulsion against woke. That is the source of the new era’s promise and danger.

There’s way too much here for me to quote; definitely read the whole thing.

THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONTINUES APACE: The Biden Legacy Unmasked: If You Thought Antisemitism Was Bad Before, Hold Onto Your Yarmulkas.

Each year, the oldest generations cede new ground to the youngest. By the end of Trump’s second term, the Democratic Party will be — overwhelmingly! — anti-Israel.

It didn’t have to be this way.

During the first few years of the Biden administration, the moderate wing still had enough power to stave off the antisemites. Biden still had the stature to win the debate — and to defeat and discredit the Antifa-inspired radicals. He could’ve used his age to his benefit by describing the rising tide of Jew hatred in personal, emotional language, making it perfectly clear that there’s no place for antisemitism in the Democratic Party — and YES, treating Israel dramatically differently than you treat China (*cough* Tibet and the Uyghurs), Iran (*cough* terrorism), Russia (*cough* Ukraine), Cuba (*cough* human rights), and so on IS A FORM OF  ANTISEMITISM.

Back then, it was still a winnable debate.

But today, the political climate and Democratic demographics have shifted: The anti-Israel movement is ascending. The anti-Hamas opposition is dying out. And the impulse to define yourself by doing the opposite of Trump will be too irresistible to resist.

Which is why 2025 will be a banner year for antisemitism. And it’s also why 2026, 2027, and 2028 will be even worse.

That’s the final legacy of the Biden years: He mainstreamed antisemitism in the Democratic Party. And unlike most of his “legacy,” this one will last for decades.

John Gill smiles.

READ THE ROOM: Even in a Crisis, the LA Times Makes Sure Its Evacuation Advice Remains Stupidly Woke:

Only women get pregnant. If you can’t be trusted with that basic fact, what else are you messing up?

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) January 12, 2025

A year ago, Victoria Taft asked: The Lefty L.A. Times Is in Hospice. Could There Be a Death Bed Conversion?

In 2018, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong bought the newspaper. The South African-born emigre discovered a drug to slow metastatic cancer and became a billionaire. He believed it was his civic duty to take over the troubled newspaper as online news and social media platforms eviscerate print journalism.

The newspaper went even more woke. Soon-Shiong was derided as an absentee landlord and excoriated by the newspaper’s union shop. The clashes continued and so did the layoffs. This week’s layoff, which goes into effect in March, was the worst in the paper’s history.

* * * * * * * *

What good is a regional newspaper if it tells only one point of view and chooses stories based on young, dumb, activist reporters’ confirmation biases? As a result, the Fourth Estate has become the Fifth Column. These flaws are the reason PJ Media and other conservative media exist.

Soon-Shiong has vowed in the weeks leading up to the election and afterwards to reduce the activist journalism at the L.A. Times — and yet this sort of leftist Newspeak “unexpectedly” keeps getting past his paper’s editors.

ABIGAIL SHRIER: Cabinet of the Canceled.

One could say many things about Trump’s cabinet picks. At times, they seem to embody Government by Middle Finger. But they also, undeniably, represent Government by the Canceled: an assemblage that doesn’t need to be reminded of the administrative state’s ability to coerce the American public by calling in favors from Big Tech or pulling the levers of regulation, audit, or investigation. Many have experienced such treatment firsthand.

Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick to lead the intelligence community, was briefly placed on a government watch list, she says, for criticizing Kamala Harris. The Biden White House and surgeon general pressured social-media companies to censor Stanford epidemiologist Jay Bhattacharya’s attempts to warn the public that the Covid lockdowns were the biggest policy error in American history; Trump named Bhattacharya to head the National Institutes of Health. And Elon Musk, appointed to lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, knowingly overpaid for Twitter to give Americans a sphere for free speech. At takeover, Musk immediately released the Twitter Files, revealing a coordinated effort by the Biden administration to censor the speech of Americans whose views it disfavored. The Biden administration repaid Musk by targeting his businesses with unprecedented levels of regulatory harassment.

One wonderful thing about Americans: we despise being bullied by our government. Not even our Anglosphere allies share this aspect of our national character. Yet, over the last decade, for anyone with views departing from progressive orthodoxy, American life has become increasingly suffocating. Our posts have been censored on social media—or labeled “misinformation” by “fact-checkers”—as mine were, for criticizing Biden administration policy on boys participating in girls’ sports. We got booted from Twitter for opposing gender ideology or expressing skepticism about Covid vaccine safety.

Read the whole thing.

SF CHRONICLE: Private firefighters protected a Hollywood talent manager’s home. Why are some people so mad?

As [Miley Cyrus’ manager Adam Leber] rushed his family to safety amid a broader firestorm engulfing wide swaths of Los Angeles County, a private firefighting service arrived to ensure his 6,000-square-foot home — once owned by filmmaker Preston Sturges and “rumored to be the site of Charlie Chaplin’s first wedding,” according to an old real estate listing — remained standing.

Leber is one of a growing number of Californians who, faced with the growing threat of wildfires in populated areas, have turned to private firefighting teams as an added layer of protection. Supporters of private firefighting teams argue they can augment the work of government-run efforts, stepping in to fill the cracks caused by depleted city and state budgets and an ever-worsening climate crisis.

But not everyone is a fan of private firefighters, particularly those that contract directly with homeowners outside of insurance, like the company Leber hired. Critics contend that when wealthy individuals hire their own firefighters, they compete with public teams for precious resources such as water, and could potentially interfere with those teams’ efforts by, for example, blocking or crowding narrow access points.

Moreover, they say, private firefighters widen the already-vast chasm between rich and poor, safeguarding the interests of the former at the expense of the latter.

“The rich suffer zero consequences of anything, even cataclysmic natural disasters,” one user wrote on X, responding to a video the Chronicle posted showing private firefighters saving Leber’s house. “Private and firefighter should not be in the same sentence,” wrote another.

As Jon Levine of the New York Post tweets, “Imagine paying into one of the highest tax cities in the nation, and then none of the municipal services you pay for are there for you when you need them and so you have to resort to private services — and then are shamed for doing so!”

Between championing riots and looting that destroy local businesses (recall Tim Walz’s wife saying, she kept her windows open to “smell the burning tires” during the 2020 BLM riots), cheering on Luigi Mangione after he assassinated an insurance company CEO, and now wishing that the wealthy lose their homes in the L.A. fires, American leftists are now reduced to being the crusty conservative in the “Point/Counterpoint” segment of Airplane:

UPDATE: And again: Billionaire tycoon is blasted after hiring a private fire crew to protect his luxury outdoor mall as devastating wildfires continue to rip through LA.

Los Angeles residents are furious a billionaire tycoon spent thousands of dollars on private firefighters to help protect his business while emergency services struggle to contain the flames.

Billionaire developer and former mayoral candidate Rick Caruso is receiving backlash online after the New York Times reported that he had hired private fire crews to protect Palisades Village – an upscale outdoor mall owned by the businessman.

‘So Rick directly or indirectly contributed to the fires by diverting resources to himself and away from the greater population. I think this needs to be investigated ASAP’, one user wrote on X.

Another said: ‘We cannot survive the billionaire class’. A separate account commented: ‘Dystopian capitalism’.

DailyMail.com has reached out to Caruso’s team.

Fire crews for hire can cost between $3,000 and $10,000 a day and are mostly contracted with insurance companies or the government.

Shana, they bought their tickets…

Rick Caruso, the Businessman Who Ran Against Karen Bass for Mayor, Saved Palisades Village Mall with Private Firefighters, Water Tankers pic.twitter.com/DwUB3zLbvF

— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) January 12, 2025

UPDATE: “They genuinely want you to die.” Exactly:

so the city won't come to your rescue with the services you paid for. and if you come to your own rescue you'll be demonized by the press. there is no other reading here: they genuinely want you to die. pic.twitter.com/1rN67cBL2Z

— Mike Solana (@micsolana) January 12, 2025

ROGER KIMBALL: Merchan’s Verdict: A Conviction Without Consequence.

Jimmy Carter’s administration is remembered as a period of “malaise” and waning American prestige. Because Donald Trump is not shy about repeating himself, everyone now knows that the Panama Canal, one of the great engineering feats in all of history, cost some 38,000 American lives. The transoceanic passage was built by Americans, paid for by Americans, and was undertaken to serve a vital national security interest. In 1977, Carter sold the canal to Panama for one dollar, thus marking one of the nadirs of his term in office.

The “vibe shift” that Trump’s victory precipitated is, first of all, a matter of feeling and emotion, not doctrines.  As with Reagan’s “morning in America” motif, the MAGA moment involvespolicies.  But it is fired by an uptick in energy, enthusiasm, and cultural confidence.  From where I sit, it seems like “morning in America” on steroids. Donald Trump will not be sworn in for another week, yet already he has utterly changed the conversation on both domestic issues and, especially, foreign affairs. He has spoken early and often about retaking the Panama Canal, absorbing or otherwise laying claim to Greenland, and making official Canada’s status as a dependent of the United States. World leaders and various celebrities have flocked to Mar-a-Lago to receive his blessing or just to bask in the reflected glow of “the Trump Effect.”

All of which makes John Roberts’s and Amy Coney Barrett’s defection to the anti-Trump wing of the Court puzzling. Merchan sentenced Trump to—nothing. No fine, no jail time, no probation. Only the obloquy, such as it is, of having officially been found guilty by Juan Merchan. As the judge put it in delivering the sentence, “The only lawful sentence that permits entry of a judgment of conviction without encroaching upon the highest office in the land is an unconditional discharge.”

“Unconditional discharge.”  Is that what these months of harassment have been leading up to?

In passing sentence, Merchan indulged in a bit of stern-sounding legal persiflage about the rule of law, the gravity of Trump’s offenses, and the distinction between the privilege due to the office of the president and that due to an individual who just happened to be a former president as well as current president-elect.

Read the whole thing.