California Democrats are reportedly freaking out as aflood of new political spending by the state’s wealthiestthreatens to upend the status quo in the deep-blue state, where Dems have enjoyed a supermajority in the state Legislature for years.
“It scares the s**t out of me,” Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal said at an event promoting kids’ online safety, according to Politico.
Sergey Brin, pictured with girlfriend Gerelyn Gilbert-Soto, has funded Building a Better California to the tune of $20M.Instagram/GG
“The alarm bells should be on for all of us. I’m trying to raise them as best as I can,” he added, fretting that the infusion of cash could result in a “generational” shift in California politics.
The sources of angst are three groups connected to Silicon Valley: Grow California, backed by billionaire crypto exec Chris Larsen and investor Tim Draper; Building a Better California, with funding from Google co-founder Sergey Brin and former Google chief Eric Schmidt; and California Leads, a super PAC with funding from Google, Meta and others.
Grow California is backed by billionaire venture capital investor Tim Draper.Sportsfile via Getty Images
“We don’t have enough advocates for having a good business environment,” Larsen told The Post in an interview. “That’s really a problem in the Legislature: It’s too beholden to to some long-term players that are very narrowly focused on their interests.
“It’s a new day in California,” Larsen added.
Larsen’s group, which has about $40 million in commitments, plans to pinpoint the issues that matter most to California voters — like affordability and the cost of housing — through surveys and other research and back candidates that they think take a pragmatic approach to fixing those problems.
“It’s one symptom of a bigger problem,” he said. “These unions that don’t understand business — it would be like us telling them how to build a house or treat a patient. That’s why business needs to be a counterforce, and we’re missing that.”
Building a Better California has raised $46 million, according to a financial disclosure — including a $20 million from Brin — and plans to back moderate candidates and ballot measures that promote housing production, among other issues.
Billionaire crypto exec Chris Larsen plans to highlight issues that matter to California voters, including affordability and the cost of housing.Bloomberg via Getty Images
At the same time, labor unions are bearing down for a rash of bills to regulate AI, according to Politico.
“It’s time that the governor listened to us,” Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Labor Federation, told reporters at the group’s headquarters this week,per Politico.“If he doesn’t want to talk to us? Well, when he’s on the campaign trail, he can talk to my colleagues around the nation.”
Gonzalez previously told the New York Times that unions “won’t be bullied” by billionaires flexing their political muscles.
The 55-year-old Biden DEI candidate was nominated for a Grammy for narrating the audiobook of her memoir “Lovely One,” which she unashamedly believes herself to be.
(From left) Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and Queen Latifah attend the 68th GrammyAwards on February 1, 2026, in Los Angeles, California.Getty Images for The Recording A
But she should have stayed home rather than laughing and clapping in the audience with a bunch of virtue-signaling luvvies ranting “F–k ICE” every time they got on stage.
It should have been obvious to Jackson that the event would be politically charged.
She has to sit in judgment on various Trump administration immigration enforcement cases.
How can she be seen as impartial?
The answer is: She can’t, any more than she can be impartial on transgender-related cases after she refused to “define” a woman during her 2022 Senate confirmation.
“I’m not a biologist,” she replied to Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s (R-Tenn.) question, possibly the most embarrassing answer ever provided to Congress by a judicial nominee.
Using the same rule book Democrats have used in their prolonged attacks on conservative-leaning justices, Jackson should recuse herself from all immigration cases due to her enthusiastic involvement in the anti-ICE Grammys.
Left’s double standard
After all, the left has waged a years-long campaign to get Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito thrown off the court for such sins as holidaying with a friend who happens to be wealthy, in Thomas’ case, or in Alito’s, having a wife who flew a patriotic flag outside their home.
Liberals are sticklers about the appearance of propriety — but only for their perceived ideological opponents.
Of course, Jackson won’t recuse herself or endure any effective undermining from Republicans despite the fact that she is a left-wing activist in judicial robes, who gabs inanely during oral arguments and writes nonsensical dissents attacking her fellow justices.
The real problem with Jackson is her inability to think logically or in any way that departs from the liberal soup that she has swum in her entire privileged life.
It’s not really her fault that she’s in this position.
She doesn’t know any better, having been told all her life how special she is, when she appears not to be anything but a diligent girl who has followed a golden path.
From her upbringing in the affluent Jewish suburb of Palmetto in Miami as the daughter of two high-achieving professional parents — a school principal and an attorney — to her inevitable ascension into Harvard, graduating to a prestigious clerkship with liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, and then getting the nod from President Barack Obama to serve as a district judge for DC, her life was foreordained.
Ironically, she was chosen by President Joe Biden entirely because she is black and a woman, supposedly to make the court look “more like America.”
Yet the only group she represents is the privileged elite who haunt the halls of Harvard.
Again, we can blame Biden for the landmine he inserted into the nation’s legal DNA.
When he was a desperate straggler in the 2020 Democrat primary, it was his promise to South Carolina kingmaker Rep. Jim Clyburn that he would appoint a black female to the Supreme Court that clinched his nomination.
Boastful kingmaker
Clyburn later boasted about his role to the Washington Post: “Not a single time has a black woman ever been seriously considered. And so I took that issue up with then-candidate Biden back in 2020 … How many times have you heard it said that black women are the backbone of the Democratic Party? Well, you just can’t say, you’ve got to show it.”
The unscrupulous Biden had no qualms about drastically narrowing the field of candidates and spurning merit in the selection process, just as he did when he chose the disastrous non-entity Kamala Harris as his DEI VP — his insurance policy against being forced out of office until it was too late.
Dems were forced to run the unelectable, self-deluded Harris in 2024 due to her protected-identity status.
The same lack of humility and sense of entitlement is evident in Jackson, who, instead of being at least slightly embarrassed by the nature of her appointment and resolving to knuckle down and prove herself on her merits, came out of the gate hot.
In her first two weeks on the court, she spoke more than twice as many words as any of her colleagues, according to statistics compiled by the Empirical SCOTUS blog.
Ignoring the adage that “It’s better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt,” she has persisted with that unenviable record.
In the 2024-2025 Supreme Court term, for instance, the junior justice spoke more than 76,000 words in oral argument.
She spoke seven times more than the least loquacious — and wisest — member of the court, Thomas, whose 11,000 words were polished gems.
Her fellow liberal females on the court are the next most talkative after Jackson, but at 50,000 words from Sonia Sotomayor and 49,000 from Elena Kagan, she leaves them in the dust.
Jackson was twice as voluble as the other five justices, who spoke an average of 32,000 words each.
We can only guess how irritating her constant chatter is to her colleagues on the bench.
But we got a clue last year in a majority opinion written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
“We will not dwell on JUSTICE JACKSON’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself,” wrote Barrett.
Labeling all as ‘victims’
But the most searing criticism of Jackson came in 2023, from Thomas’ concurring opinion in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.
“Justice Jackson uses her broad observations about statistical relationships between race and select measures of health, wealth and well-being to label all blacks as victims …
“[She claims the legacy of slavery and the nature of inherited wealth] locks blacks into a seemingly perpetual inferior caste. Such a view is irrational; it is an insult to individual achievement and cancerous to young minds seeking to push through barriers, rather than consign themselves to permanent victimhood.
“Her dissent is not a vanguard of the innocent and helpless. It is instead a call to empower privileged elites, who will ‘tell us [what] is required to level the playing field’ among castes and classifications that they alone can divine.”
Yes, Jackson may be a nice woman with an impeccable pedigree whose ill-advised decision to attend the politicized Grammys can be excused as naivete or childhood theatrical ambitions.
But her formation by the most elite institutions in the country as an insufferably entitled far-left ideologue is indeed “cancerous” to young minds, to the court, and ultimately to the nation.
Of course, that is exactly what Democrats like Biden wanted.
A popular honeymoon destination is the site of the Pacific’s fastest-growing HIV epidemic, with officials pointing to rising meth use as a key driver.
In Fiji, HIV/AIDS cases are projected to double this year to more than 3,000, according to UNAIDS and Fiji’s Ministry of Health.
Officials say drug use is fueling the surge across the Pacific island nation.
In December, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a rapid assessment detecting unsafe injecting practices.
These practices can put people who inject drugs in Fiji at an increased risk of HIV transmission.
The “Bluetooth trend” has impacted the spread, with individuals injecting the blood of an already intoxicated person to achieve a high when they cannot afford their own drugs.
A popular honeymoon destination is the site of the Pacific’s fastest-growing HIV epidemic, with officials pointing to rising meth use as a key driver.Orion Media Group – stock.adobe.com
There were 1,583 new HIV cases reported in 2024, while 1,226 cases were reported in the first six months of 2025, according to the assessment.
The most popular drug was crystal methamphetamine, with the assessment finding that 50% of interview participants injected themselves with a potentially contaminated syringe.
An informant with Talanoa Law and Justice told researchers that drugs impact the areas of the brain that control thinking and emotions.
In Fiji, HIV/AIDS cases are projected to double this year to more than 3,000, according to UNAIDS and Fiji’s Ministry of Health.Rafael Ben-Ari – stock.adobe.com
“[People] can interpret the happenings around them very differently,” the individual said.
“Maybe you just happen to walk by him … and [he] think[s] you’re after him. Especially if they cannot control their impulses, they become aggressive,” the informant added.
Munkhtuya Altangerel, United Nations Development Program representative, said the findings of the assessments are a wake-up call.
“Fiji’s HIV epidemic is not just a health issue — it is a development and human rights challenge that threatens lives, communities and progress,” said Altangerel in a release.
The most popular drug was crystal methamphetamine, with the assessment finding that 50% of interview participants injected themselves with a potentially contaminated syringe.àtÃâºpán Kápl – stock.adobe.com
“We must act decisively and urgently to scale up harm reduction, expand access to HIV testing and treatment, and ensure that no one is left behind.”
Last year, 986,367 people visited Fiji, according to government data.
Fiji is a hot spot for honeymooners, with its white-sand beaches, coral diving, and remote island resorts.
Australia’s travel advisory for Fiji lists HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases as health risks for tourists.
“The rates of HIV/AIDS infections are rising, and the Fiji government has declared an HIV outbreak. Take precautions if you engage in activities that may expose you to the risk of infection,” it reads.
I know that it makes me a terrible person that I don’t care about the plight of theWashington Post’semployees that the paper’s owner, Jeff Bezos, has just put out of their porridge.
I know, but I don’t care about that part, either.
Oh, you didn’t hear about the professional abattoir being established at the Post?Yes, this is happening:
The Washington Post told employees Wednesday that it will begin sweeping layoffs, the latest blow to the storied newspaper under billionaire owner Jeff Bezos, confirming weeks of speculation about drastic newsroom cuts.
“We have grappled with financial challenges for some time. They have affected us in multiple rounds of cost cuts and buyouts, along with periodic constraints on other kinds of spending,” The Post’s Executive Editor Matt Murray said in a newsroom note seen by POLITICO, stating that the reductions would impact “nearly all news departments.”
The size and scope of the layoffs are not immediately clear. But hundreds of Post employees could lose their jobs, according to Post reporters, with sections including sports, metro, books and international coverage hit particularly hard.
The latest round of layoffs cap a tumultuous 18 months for The Post, which Bezos purchased in 2013. The newspaper has undergone significant leadership changes and was roiled by a decision from Bezos and publisher Will Lewis to scrap a planned editorial that would have endorsed then-Vice President Kamala Harris over now-President Donald Trump shortly before the November 2024 election.
Murray’s note to the newsroom said the paper will “concentrate on areas that demonstrate authority, distinctiveness, and impact,” naming sections like politics, national security, science, technology and business.
Yawn.
Yeah, it sucks when your job gets blown up.
But the employees at the Washington Post have been, for far longer than Jeff Bezos has owned it, almost universally in favor of an ideology that is injurious to prosperity, entrepreneurship, and behavioral success.
Another way to say this is that the destruction of wealth — personal, community, and national — has been the chief philosophical pursuit at the Washington Post for quite some time.
Ronald Reagan summed up that philosophy pretty well:
Well, Bezos has been subsidizing it since 2013.
The Washington Post has been losing money hand over fist for more than a dozen years now, and it’s proof of the veracity of another famous saying, this one by Charles Krauthammer, among others: “That which cannot continue, won’t.”
You can’t keep losing money forever. Things don’t exist to diminish. If you don’t produce anything, you will ultimately perish.
And the Washington Post has been losing its owners money for two decades now.
Yes, but money isn’t everything, right?
It’s too bad that sanctimony can’t be monetized. Otherwise this would sustain the Post into the next millennium:
“This ranks among the darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organizations,” said Marty Baron, former executive editor of The Post. “The Washington Post’s ambitions will be sharply diminished, its talented and brave staff will be further depleted, and the public will be denied the ground-level, fact-based reporting in our communities and around the world that is needed more than ever.”
Lighten up, Marty.
Nobody has believed the Washington Post was a great news organization since the previous century. It’s been a disgrace, in the eyes of the majority of the American public, at least since George W. Bush was elected, and its subscribership has been on the wane since. The Washington Post employed Jen Rubin and Taylor Lorenz, for crying out loud.
Yes, you say, but that’s to do with the internet. Sure, that’s certainly true, but it doesn’t make the point you think it does. It turns out that the internet is, on balance, a superior news medium than is newsprint (and I say this as someone who used to publish a print publication). The internet provides for dynamic content, audio and video, live streaming, and lots of other things you can’t get from print. And it doesn’t require the use of a printing press to disseminate information.
Which means the market isn’t in need of legacy prestige publications like the Washington Post like it once was, and so the trappings of significance that publication has carried far past the reality of its circumstances have made for red ink.
And lots of it.
The Post loses money because it ran off the conservative side of its subscription base, and then, when it attempted to recover some sort of balance by refusing to endorse the farcical Kamala Harris in 2024, it ran off the leftist subscribers who remained. And it did these things at a time when it was of decreasing necessity to have a bloated, lavish news agency like the Post to cover events from sea to shining sea.
So eventually the destruction of wealth by incompetent people — both businessmen and journalists — was going to result in a correction. Bezos doesn’t have a perfect record of brilliance in business — he bought this turkey in the first place, after all — but he did build Amazon from nothing and therefore he does understand the concept of a long-term business vision and how that compares to a lack of one.
When you see the inevitable carnage at the Post, it does give you perspective on other things. For example, the ratings came out for the Grammy awards — and they’re not very good.
The final Grammy Awards on CBS took a small ratings hit compared to the previous year.
Sunday’s telecast of the 68th Grammys averaged 14.41 million viewers, according to big data plus panel same-day ratings from Nielsen. That’s down a little more than 6 percent from the 15.4 million who watched the 2025 show. The Grammys audience shrank some for the second consecutive year since hitting a post-pandemic high of 17.09 million viewers in 2024.
CBS has aired three of the four EGOT awards shows in 2025-26, starting with the Emmys in September, and has had mixed ratings results. The Emmys improved year to year (vs. ABC’s telecast in 2024) for their largest audience since 2021, but the Golden Globes in January declined by about the same amount (6.5 percent) as the Grammys. ABC will close out the awards season rush with the Oscars on March 15.
It turns out that having to listen to the insufferable dunce Billie Eilish bleat out that “No one is illegal on stolen land” — which shortly introduced to the American public a tribe of indigenous people named the Tongva, on whose ancestral real estate Eilish’s multimillion-dollar mansion sits, and the Tongva have now made a not-so-sarcastic demand for her eviction — isn’t all that conducive to profitable television. (READ MORE: Give It Back, Then)
Or music, for that matter. Eilish might be a hot seller here and there, but on the whole, the record industry is basically a corpse — and what keeps it from rotting away these days is the one form of music — that being country — which is dominated by people who would very much like for Billie Eilish to close her pie hole. It’s difficult to see how Eilish, or the bearded, dress-wearing Puerto Rican hip-hopper Bad Bunny, publicly bitching about ICE deportations that the American people are pretty happy about will save the business.
Industry by industry, we see that the Left and its votaries are actively destroying wealth. The cities they rule are in ruins, the government treasuries they’ve pillaged are empty, the social programs they’ve touted and run are corrupt and bankrupt, and the institutions they dominate are less relevant and in pronounced decline.
Zohran Mamdani has been mayor of New York for less than a month and there is this…
Another old saying, this one by Adam Smith, is “There is a lot of ruin in a nation.” A lot, yes, but not an infinite amount. And from the Post to the record business to the burgeoning dysfunction of communist New York, we’re beginning to see that ruin has consequences.
Bad ones.
Here’s hoping the Post employees can find gainful employment. But along the way, let’s also hope they learn a lesson from the decline of their former employer — which is that serving an ideology, rather than the public good or the needs of the market, ultimately isn’t a sustainable pursuit.
As for Billie Eilish, one surmises she’ll be fine — whether the tribesmen of the Tongva repossess her house or not. Thought we do wish the best of luck to her in expanding her audience beyond mentally deranged Gen Z females. She’ll need it.
