You Can Buy a Stake in a Buggy-Whip Factory!

The Los Angeles Times newspaper plans to go public within the next year, its owner Patrick Soon-Shiong said in a television interview, aiming to give the public ownership of the 143-year-old publication.

"We're literally going to take LA Times public and allow it to be democratized and allow the public to have ownership of this paper," Soon-Shiong said on "The Daily Show" in a taped interview with the host, Jon Stewart, on Monday.

The shitbird billionaire who owns the LAT has pretty much run it into the ground, gutting the newsroom and shifting the paper towards being a propaganda organ for the billionaires' project of turning the country into a autocracy. So now he's setting up an arrangement where the other billionaires and hedge fund pirates can control what's in the paper.

Which means that they'll be pouring more and more money into the paper as the subscriber base disappears.

In other "Oligarchs Control the News" news, Bezos may buy CNBC.

Napster vs. AI

Remember Napster and other file-sharing systems? The music industry went batshit. The threatened and, in some cases brought, legal action against people who downloaded music. They threatened criminal action.

But when you're a billionaire and have an AI company, you can get away with vacuuming up millions of copyrighted works in order to train your program and you don't have to pay a fucking nickel for that.

Once again, laws and rules are only for little people to obey.

Another Streisand Effect Lesson

It’s been almost three years since a San Francisco judge sealed the record of tech executive Maury Blackman’s 2021 arrest for domestic violence. But the allegations still show up in his Google search results, thanks to an independent journalist — one who Blackman is now suing for $25 million.

On Dec. 22, 2021, Blackman, a self-described venture capitalist and former chief executive officer at intelligence contractor Premise Data, was arrested by San Francisco police after an altercation with his girlfriend in their apartment in the Mission Bay neighborhood.

Nothing says "I wanna keep this quiet" like suing someone for talking about it. Especialy when the person you're suing is a reporter.

The CEO and Majority Shareholder of Facebook is a Major-League, Whiny-Ass Pussy

Zuckerberg has been leaning into the pro-masculinity and pro-white-bigotry movements of the Trumpies.

So who does he blame for FB's DEI policies that the fascists hate? Not himself, of course, for he's only the boss and owner. Nosiree bob!

He's blaming Sheryl Sandberg, who left over two years ago.

That's a real masculine move to blame a woman who is long gone for his current problems.

What a fucking pussy. He owns the store, he could have changed things at any time and on a whim. But no, it's someone else's fault, isn't it.

Zuckerberg is the Frank Burns of the tech world.

Bezos and the Streisand Effect

I'm going to bet that this cartoon by Ann Telnaes is getting far wider circulation than it would have if his birdcage-liner of a paper had just printed it without a fuss.

ETA: Her fellow cartoonists have stepped up.

Shorter Amazon: Fuck You and Your Injuries, Get Back to Work

A woman who was hit by the New Orleans Terror Truck and then shot in the foot was denied a leave of absence by the Amazon warehouse where she works.

Those billions Bezos has don't get added to by themselves.

It’s Really Sad

The World's Richest Apartheid Refugee is almost comically obsessed that people like him. He has a sock-puppet account on the Hellscape Formerly Known As Twitter, under the name of Adrian Dittmann. People who really know shit about cyberstuff have linked the two.

Anyhoo, Dittmann's purpose is to tell everyone what a great guy, no shit, Elon is, a real super and stable genius.

Musk should have paid attention to a Beatles' song: "Money Can't Buy Me Love." A half-trillion smackers and he has to create avatars in order to have friends. For it's clear that the only way he can have human friends is to rent them, witness his relationship with the Orange Shitbag.

Cleveland: Dumb Then, Dumb Now

Cleveland is fighting over the NFL Browns's desire to leave the city for a proposed domed stadium in the 'burbs.

There was no shortage of people, at the time, who thought that the city was dumb as a truck of rocks for a) spend a third of a billion, in 1998 dollars, to build a stadium for a football team; and b) for making it an open-air stadium right next to Lake Erie. So they will, in the end, be stuck with a large lemon on the lake because some goddamned billionaire who could pay for a new stadium out of his pocket change wants a shiny new stadium so he can lord it over the other pro-team-owning billionaires.

Tax the motherfucking billionaires, AKA the Parasitic Class,

Taxation or Tumbrels

Lord Bezos's upcoming wedding might come in at about $600 million. He's denying it, but considering that he dropped $2.5 million on the engagement ring and proposed on a yacht so large that there were plans to dismantle a bridge to get it out to sea. (They didn't, but it's still so honking large it needs a support ship to follow it around like a nautical butler.)

As much as I don't give a fuck about the Teamsters, I wish them well in their fight against the second-richest man on Earth.

The super-rich are almost daring us to take action against them. There seems to be three paths ahead: A police state, where the oligarchs stamp on our faces for fun and profit; taxation to cut down their fortunes to merely filthy rich; or a revolution to take them all down. This level of inequity cannot stand.

Bezos may be a canary in the coal mine with this wedding. And so is Luigi Mangione. Oh, the press is out there telling everyone that Luigi is evil and emphasizing "OMG, he kilt somebody", but those who live the sub-millionaire life, which is most of us, know the truth. Insurers, for example, deny that prosthetic limbs are necessary, figuring that people can be just as productive and active in wheelchairs, on peg legs and with hooks for hands.

Things will change, someday. The question is can it be managed to bring about a fairer society without a lot of turmoil.

The easy fix is to tax the billionaires down to a merely obscene level of wealth, to bring taxation back to 1950s levels and to tax capital gains over a certain amount as ordinary income (and pay into Social security). But since the billionaires have captured the incoming administration and one of them owns the GOP, I don't see it changing. Trump and his circle want to bring back 1890s America, where workers didn't have unions, worked for pittance wages and the plutocrats lived free and untaxed lives. But what they may get is 1790s France, where the plutocrats got separated from their heads.

Will Space Karen Now Sue Former Twitter Users?

After all, if he's thick in the head enough to think he can sue former advertisers, why not sue former users of Twitter?

That might be difficult, since there was no contractual obligation between the parties to begin with and users weren't paying anything to be there, nor were they paid to be there. But no doubt that Space Karen can find some cyber equivalent of an ambulance chaser (or copyright/patent troll) to do his filthy work for him.

Space Karen Has a Mad!

He hired lawyers to stamp their feet and whine for him.

Elon Musk’s social media platform X has sued a group of advertisers, alleging that a “massive advertiser boycott” deprived the company of billions of dollars in revenue and violated antitrust laws.

Boycotts, last time I checked, whether organized or not, are considered to be free speech. Space Karen is no different from the segregationists who brought criminal charges against Dr. King because of the Montgomery bus boycott.

It might be worth remembering that the first boycott was against an economic thug with that name. In that one, the British occupiers also sought to jail the boycott organizers (and failed).

Musk is just another right-wing wannabee tyrant who believes that "freedom of speech" means "freedom to agree with me." He's no different from the Christian Talibanistas, who believe that only they have the freedom of religion and everyone else has to believe as they do under the pain of death.

So I hope that not only will Space Karen lose his case, that he then has to pay the legal fees of those he sued.

Meanwhile, the QAnon Shaman is getting back his spear and magic helmet.

Democrats Who Buy a Tesla Have Rocks in Their Heads

Technology billionaire Elon Musk donated to a super PAC supporting the reelection efforts of former President Trump, according to reporting from Bloomberg.

MAGA Republicans, especially the FOFF, have been very dismissive of electric cars. Space Karen doesn't care about that, he's just more interested in keeping the Billionaires Protection Society going.

So why would any thinking person buy a Tesla from here on out? Let Space Karen sell his cars to Texans, since he's so in love with that state.

Apparently, Tesla owners can buy bumperstickers to deflect criticism about buying a car from that wealthy Christianofascist.

Meanwhile, Tam points out that Space Karen, who styles himself to be a "free speech absolutist", wants people who are mean to him to be sent to prison. He's a typical fascist free speech guy: It's OK to speak your mind as long as you agree with him. That doesn't make him much different from most dictators, or the various iterations of the Taliban, both Muslim and Christian, who think that anyone who doesn't follow their particular flavor of religion deserves to die.

Rich People Are Assholes, Especially Kit Bond's Family

It takes rich, self-entitled assholes to poison a neighbor's trees because the neighbor's trees are blocking their view, but that's Arthur and Amelia Bond fromMissouri are.

Suspicious deaths in an idyllic seaside community and detective work that points to poison sound like themes from a classic murder mystery. But the victims in this Maine whodunnit were trees that stood in the way of a wealthy family’s oceanfront view, allegedly felled by well-heeled killers who, while ostracized and publicly shamed, remain free.
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To make matters worse, the herbicide used to poison the trees leached into a neighboring park and the town’s only public seaside beach. The state attorney general is now investigating.
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Amelia Bond, former CEO of the St. Louis Foundation, which oversees charitable funds with more than $500 million in assets, brought the herbicide [Tebuthiuron] from Missouri in 2021 and applied it near oak trees on the waterfront property of Lisa Gorman, wife of the late Leon Gorman, L.L. Bean’s president and grandson of L.L. himself, according to a pair of consent agreements with the town and the state pesticide board.

Bond’s husband, Arthur Bond III, is an architect and the nephew of former U.S. Sen. Kit Bond. Their summer home, owned by a trust, is situated directly behind Gorman’s home, farther up the hill.

When the trees and other vegetation began dying, Amelia Bond told Gorman in June 2022 that the tree didn’t look good and offered to share the cost of removing them, Gorman’s lawyer wrote in a document.

Instead, Gorman had the trees tested.

$4,500 for illegal use of pesticide, $180,000 to the town for violations, $30,000 for environmental testing and $1.5 million to the nieghbors. That's probably a drop in the bucket for the Bonds.

That's what the rich do: Break the law and, if they get caught, pay the fines. At least Toll-Booth Ned claimed he didn't know about illegal tree-cutting, but the Bonds sure as shit knew what they were doing.

Klanned Karenhood Is a Sleazy As We All Suspected They Were

The conservative parental rights group Moms for Liberty plans to spend more than $3 million on a multi-state advertising blitz to increase its membership and engage voters before November, following through on a pledge it made last year to become more politically active across the country in 2024.
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The coordinated push in presidential swing states also raises questions about the group’s intentions and funding. The nonprofit has long classified itself as a grassroots collection of like-minded parents. But Moms for Liberty co-founder Tina Descovich told The Associated Press that the new campaign came about as "investors" have approached the group wanting to see it “grow in specific states.”

She declined to identify the funders, and the nonprofit is not required to disclose them as a federally recognized 501(c)4 social welfare group. Federal Election Commission records show the group's affiliated PAC, Moms for Liberty Action, has received $161,000 since October from Restoration PAC, which is funded by the conservative billionaire Richard Uihlein. Restoration PAC didn't respond to a call from the AP, and it was unclear whether its funding was supporting Moms for Liberty's latest campaign.

So much for Klanned Karenhood's claims of being a grassroots organization. They're nothing more than an astroturf group, operating on dark money from the same sort of über-rich assholes who are backing the TOFF and who think that they can control him. But Cadet Bone Spurs is no more controllable than the other thugs that the rich have tried putting in power in other nations before: Hitler and Putin, to name two. In both those nations, the monster of the rich turned on them and it will happen with Don Snoreleone, as well.

Don't Worry. Some Billionaire With a Bad Case of Butthurt Will Buy Reddit and Run It Into the Ground

Reddit went public today.

Shares of social forum giant Reddit opened Thursday at $47 per share, then quickly soared to around $55, up about 60% in heavy volume from its IPO price of $34 per share. It bounced around before stabilizing at around $50 a share. The company had indicated a target range of $31 to $34 per share in the run-up to its public-market debut, eventually settling on the top-end of that interval. The peak share price as of the writing of this post was $57.80, though prices are, at the moment, a couple of dollars cooler, and a few percentage points down, from that price.

Say Bye-Bye to the Baltimore Sun

A local buyer taking over a struggling newspaper in the 21st century is normally cause for some celebration. But The Baltimore Sun’s newly announced owner has a very specific political background, and some are concerned about what the 187-year-old publication could become.

David D. Smith, executive chairman of the Sinclair broadcasting chain and an active contributor to conservative causes, has bought Baltimore Sun Media from the investment firm Alden Global Capital.

This is not the first time that a right-wing rich guy has gotten ahold of a newspaper in a city that leans Democratic. It has not gone well before. Richard Scafie bought the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, took it to the right and ran it into the ground. What happens is if a paper is far out of synch with the population, then subscribers drop their subscriptions. Advertisers see the declining numbers and either stop advertising or demand lower rates. The loss in revenue results in firings in the newsroom, less local reportage and more reliance on the wire services. Readers notice and more drop their subscriptions. The paper tries to do more on the Internet, but the revenue is a tiny fraction of what they need to keep the lights on. The paper "transitions" from being a daily to printing five days a week to three to going wholly online. At that point, it becomes just another website that few people pay attention to.

The real beneficiaries of all that are the local politicians, government officials and companies, whose fuckery then goes unreported and unremarked upon.

Dean Phillips Apparently Can Be Bought for One Million Dollars

Democratic presidential candidate Dean Phillips removed a reference to promoting “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” on his campaign website after one of his top financial backers, a leading DEI opponent, prodded Phillips publicly on the subject.

That donor, the hedge fund investor Bill Ackman, has at different times called Phillips’s language about DEI a “mistake” and said the candidate was “getting educated” on the issue. Writing on X, he said several times that he expected Phillips would revise his campaign website’s reference to DEI.
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Phillips’s super PAC recently received a commitment for a $1 million donation from Ackman who has engaged in a highly public campaign against DEI initiatives at universities. Ackman recently took part in a conversation on X with Phillips in which the subject was broached.

This is an old jole, but it is relevant:

George Bernard Shaw: Madam, would you sleep with me for a million pounds?

Actress: My goodness. Well, I'd certainly think about it.

Shaw: Would you sleep with me for a pound?

Actress: Certainly not! What kind of woman do you think I am?

Shaw: Madam, we've already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.

We know what Phillips is and he has apparently set his price. It may be higher, we don't know how much Ackman has previously given him. But it is now established that if you have a pet cause, bring your checkbook, for Phillips is open for business.

Phillips might as well be honest and show up to his campaign events wearins a micro-mini and spike heels. Maybe then he'd get somebody to show up.

The Uber-Rich Hate It When the Spotlight Is Turned Back on Them

So Bill Ackerman, a really rich fuckwad, pressured Harvard University to fire its president for, among other things, plaigarism. Harvard obliged him, because keeping rich doners is Job One for a university.

His wife is a tenured professor at MIT and, guess what some reporter at Business Insider found out that she did: Yep, you guessed it. She allegedly repeatedly lifted stuff from Wikipedia.

So what does said rich fuckwad do? He contacts one of his asshole buddies who owns Business Insider and weeps foul to the owner. Who promises to look into it.

My guess is that people are going to lose their jobs because they upset the wife of some rich tool.

Space Karen Has a Sad

Tesla’s troubles with labor unions in Scandinavia deepened as it lost legal action against Sweden’s postal service over its refusal to deliver license plates to the U.S. electric vehicle giant.

The postal service’s workers blocked Tesla license plate deliveries late last month in a show of solidarity with mechanics striking over the company’s refusal to sign a collective bargaining agreement with employees, which is customary in Sweden
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Earlier this week, Denmark’s largest trade union announced its own sympathy strike to prevent Tesla cars being delivered to Danish ports and transported into Sweden.

Norway’s largest private sector union then on Wednesday announced its intention to begin blocking vehicle shipments destined for Sweden from Dec. 20.

Finnish transport workers’ union AKT on Thursday confirmed that a blockade on Tesla vehicles earmarked for Sweden would also come into force across all Finnish ports from Dec. 20..

The richest people in the world don't become and stay that way by treating their workers fairly. So it's no surprise that Herr Musk's reaction to the unions in Scandinavia has been to stomp his feet and threaten legal action.

Another Whiney-Ass Billionaire Theatens to Sue

This time, Elon "Crybaby" Musk, who is threatening to sue a nonprofit that studies hate speech online. Musk/Twitter/X had their lawyers send a nastygram to the Center for Countering Digital Hate.

The letter follows CCDH research published in June, which studied the propagation of hate speech on the social media platform since Musk’s buyout. In one report looking at 100 different accounts subscribed to Twitter Blue, CCDH found that X Corp. failed to act on 99% of hate posted by the subscribers and questioned whether the social media platform’s algorithm boosts “toxic tweets.”

Other CCDH research found that the social media company failed to act on 89% of anti-Jewish hate speech and 97% of anti-Muslim hate speech on the platform.

Maybe if Crybaby is upset that advertisers are fleeing his hate-enabled platform, he should do something about the stread of hate speech on his rusting new toy instead of threatening those who are reporting about it.

One can only hope that Crybaby has as much success in court as does the TOFF.