Dem Billionaires Morally Bankrupt
"Good" billionaires are ending Democratic funding and sucking up to Trump
Feb. 17: Democratic bankrollers are dropping the party and joining Trump’s … Trump’s power grab goes to the Supreme Court … Ten percent of CDC fired as measles outbreak expands … Day of protest …
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A big point of contention in last month’s contest to choose the new Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair was whether the party should take money from billionaire donors.
The alternative, of course, would be to build such a vast and powerful grassroots popular movement that all those billions and their respective -aires wouldn’t matter or be missed. But the two top DNC candidates weren’t exactly hostile to the whole billionaire model.
New DNC Chair Ken Martin defended taking money from “good billionaires.” His top rival was said to be friends with Democratic billionaire Reid Hoffman.
Democrats who defer to science, however, point out that there is no such thing as a good billionaire, as evidenced by their possession of more than one billion dollars, which is physically impossible to earn and can only be acquired outside the space-morality continuum.
And now the question of whether Democrats should take billionaire money may be moot. Even the “good” billionaires are getting on the Trump train.
Some of the most notable Democratic billionaires have filed for moral bankruptcy in the aftermath of America’s political Big Bang, the re-election of President Donald JesusVapingChristThisAgentOfChthuluAgain Trump.
Jeff Skoll reportedly has donated tens of millions of dollars to Democratic candidates and causes. You’ve probably seen his money on the screen in the form of movies made by his company, Participant Media, which brought us the Al Gore “Inconvenient Truth” documentary and the movie “Spotlight” about the Boston Globe and local church sex scandals.
Turns out, Skoll didn’t vote last year because many billionaires lack the brain power to figure out whether the Democratic Party or modern-day Republican Party would do a better job. How is one supposed to know?!?
He also shut down his company because he couldn’t figure out how to make money producing successful movies.
Then, on Inauguration Day, Skoll had what he called “an adventure of a lifetime” — which is every adventure unless you believe in zombies you fucking money-addled spatula — assisting with the festivities, meeting Trump (“sharp as a tack” according to the high standards of a cliche-spewing, money-addled spatula), and ensuring that celebrants at the Capital One Center were treated with the “care, food and much welcomed warmth” that they would soon get to work denying to poor people.
Also in on the fun, fellow billionaire Ted Leonsis, who once worked for Sen. Paul Tsongas (D-MA) and was a Barack Obama donor. Leonsis was left morally disfigured and tragically butt-hurt by the aftermath of the financial meltdown, when people started to figure out rich people caused it and were profiting off it.
Leonsis actually wrote a blog post titled “Class Warfare – Yuck!” when he was 54 and apparently in the 49th grade. Leonsis’s brain experienced such devastating TBI (Traumatic Billions Impairment) that he now suffers from chronic disorientation. For instance, he has so lost his bearings that he thinks owning sports teams means he should call himself, in his Twitter bio, both “WNBA Champion” and “NHL Champion,” presumably the first person ever to pull off this miraculous two-peat, let alone do so without being an athlete.
Wait til Trump finds out he was partying with a man who plays women’s sports!
Skoll explained to the New York Times that there has been “an awful lot of pressure” to get on Team Trump. And that he is yielding to that pressure due to his bankrupt moral character.
Skoll also ratted out his fellow morally bankrupt billionaires: “There are people who were absolutely against Trump, never Trumpers, who fear that they’ll be retaliated against and they’ll have to leave the country,” Skoll told the Times. “Folks who wish to oppose him — it may take some time before they gather up the courage.”
Courage and smarts seem to be the only resources these billionaires are lacking. And Skoll doesn’t seem to be on the verge of discovering any large deposits of either any time soon. Skoll’s Twitter feed reads like a Human Centipede of metaphorical fellatio/ass-kissing.
Skoll made his money the old-fashioned way, by being friends with eBay’s founder. And he’s supposedly long-time friends with Elon Musk, who, lest we forget, was a Democrat, like, last year or something.
So what explains this seismic shift? Who knows. These are weak people, besotted with money and fear and the unscientific belief that they should wield power.
But there’s no question they stand to gain from the ass-kissing and up-sucking. Here’s Skoll asking Musk for regulatory approval for some Uber-with-wings thing Skoll wants to do.
And then there’s Hoffman, who got rich off LinkedIn, but has now LinkedOut progressive causes. A spokesperson for Hoffman, who’s rich enough to have a spokesperson, told the Times, “[T]he Democratic Party strategy needs to reform, and when it does, he’s happy to hear new ideas and new pitches.”
Translation: I will support democracy when it adheres to my wishes.
Bless you, Your Linkship.
And, just like Skoll said, Hoffman’s afraid of Trump. Hoffman said on a podcast he thinks there’s a 50-50 chance there will be “repercussions” from the federal government for trying to elect Vice Pres. Kamala Harris president.
Meanwhile, there’s a 100-0 chance of repercussions for women, transgender people, non-white people, and poor people, who will also be happy to hear new ideas and new pitches from the Democratic Party.
One Silicon Valley “strategist” told the Times they knew of six major donors sitting on their cash because the bad man scared them.
These people are folding pre-emptively because someone might be mean to them later on. Meanwhile, Justice Department prosecutors refused corrupt orders, quit, and wrote public letters excoriating the corrupt.
Losing these billionaires is good. It’s what progressives have pushed for. Now we understand that they were weak. Feckless and craven.
(Anecdote: During one of my periodic jobless spells I cold-called a “progressive” media company funded by a billionaire who wasn’t necessarily Skoll but wasn’t necessarily not Skoll. I got an exec on the line and my pitch was that they were terrible and their programming lacked any sign of courage or willingness to take a stand, so of course no one gave a shit about their shows. There was a long a pause — there wasn’t, but pausing to address whether there was or wasn’t a long pause seems like a good way to build suspense — and then he fairly yelled at me: “I KNOW!!!” I had confirmed everything he’d been stewing about and we had a great conversation and I didn’t get a job.)
The Democratic Party’s former billionaires were not geniuses. They had the desiccated brains of billionaires. How did Hoffman and Skoll get rich? What did they invent? Classified ads.
And now they’re abandoning a party that they fucking controlled. They had their hands on the wheel and their record was one for three up against Donald AllMyBusinessesFailOrGetConvicted Trump.
They’re not powerful men or masters of anything. One by one they fell to this clown. The media companies. Mark Zuckerberg.
Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post just turned down an ad that would’ve wrapped around tomorrow’s edition. This ad:
The Post didn’t explain the rejection — and had provided as an acceptable example a wraparound ad paid for by the American Petroleum Institute celebrating Trump’s hostility to electric vehicles and Earth’s atmosphere (in case anyone still has a Post subscription and is considering dropping it to become a paid Newsfucker.)
Just how unbrilliant are these billioneheads? As I brilliantly noted in TFN last year, Bezos killed the Post’s editorial endorsement of Harris, saying that editorials were pointless and didn’t change anyone’s minds, an argument he made in a fucking amigoingcrazy editorial.
The billionaire exodus goes a long way toward explaining why Democratic leaders seem so hapless and disorganized. No one’s texting them anymore telling them what to do and what not to do to avoid any class warfare yuck.
These are the people who staffed campaigns with consultants who insisted Democrats had to pursue the legions of Joe Manchin fans.
These are the people we’ve been trying to evict from our politics for decades. We’ve finally molted away the stupidity and fear constraining the party. So what now?
The danger isn’t losing them, the danger is that Martin and the Democrats will seek to replace them with even more craven billionaires.
But while they’re cowering in the dark taking some time to gather up their courage, our leaders are already all around us. Right now. Today.
Tens of thousands of fearless progressives will show up today in state capitals around the country. It’s the second day of protest led by the 50501 movement. I didn’t publicize the first one because I wasn’t seeing the kind of language that typically appears to dissuade against violence and ensure safe civil disobedience. I am now.
You can find events near you on their website here.
Democratic politicians have lost their billionaire bosses. Now’s the time to remind them who their real bosses are.
Trump Appeals to Supreme Court to Stop Other Courts
Pres. Donald Trump yesterday filed the first (of many) of his second administration’s appeals to the Supreme Court to let him keep doing what he wants.
Lower courts had ruled that Trump lacked the legal authority to fire Office of Special Counsel chief Hampton Dellinger, whose office protects whistleblowers and enforces laws against, ahem, politicizing public offices.
Trump’s appeal also asked the Supreme Court to put a stop to judicial restraining orders which have been issued in response to many of his unconstitutional firings and other actions.
One judge ordered the White House to reinstate Dellinger, and an appeals court Saturday refused to reverse that order. So acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris wrote in her filing to the Supreme Court that “This case involves an unprecedented assault on the separation of powers that warrants immediate relief.”
In other words, Harris is arguing that the courts are grabbing too much power and should be stopped by, uh, the court. She’s literally telling the Supreme Court that no court is supreme.
On Saturday, Trump posted that “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” a stupid statement once attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte and now attributed to Donapoleon Bonerparts.
While Democrats freaked out about the quote’s blatant unconstitutionality, it seems worth dwelling on how fucking stupid it is. The point of laws is to give the people a process to litigate how the country will be saved.
Trump’s begging the question the way he begs his lenders.
In any case, Harris said in her filing that Trump has been adhering to judicial orders and will continue to do so. “The Executive Branch takes seriously its constitutional duty to comply,” Harris wrote, presumably without telling Trump first.
It’s worth noting that federal law says the president — even ones as awesome as Trump — can only remove the special counsel for cause. (No cause was given for Dellinger’s removal other than “Cuz I’m Donapoleon Bonerparts.”)
Trump Fires Health Workers as Measles March Through Texas
Pres. Donald Trump this weekend fired workers at the Health and Human Services Department, now headed by Secretary Robert F-ucking Actual Health Secretary Kennedy, Jr.
The firings consist mostly of new hires, who are easier to get rid of. In other words, yes, Trump is firing all of the health agency’s recent hires except for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
The fired workers — throughout the government — are those on what’s called probationary status, which implies they’re new and untested in the gig. But apparently probationary status includes promotions. So if you were so good at fighting measles that you were promoted last year to Chief Measles Fighter, your probationary status — at that level — put you on the indiscriminate list of Elon Musk’s worker purgers. (While the rival you beat out for the job is safe because they weren’t good enough1 to get promoted.)
Trump is firing some 3,600 Health Department employees across multiple divisions:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
National Institutes of Health
Food and Drug Administration
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response
Laboratory Leadership Service
Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (Obamacare)
Firing 10% of the CDC, of course, is just what the people voted for because Americans hate disease control and prevention, institutes of health, food and drugs, and healthcare for the poor, elderly, and disabled. (They do not.)
Potential consequences:
Fewer people to approve new drugs or medical devices, and more whoopsie-doodles letting through dangerous instances of both.
Fewer people to detect and fight bird flu; more bird flu.
Fewer people in the FDA arm that does inspections; more uninspected food.
MEANWHILE An outbreak of measles in West Texas has doubled in one week, with 48 cases reported.
Some stats from Texas, while they’re still compiling stats:
Ages
18 and older: Five
5-17 years old: 29
Under 5 years old: 13
Number known to be vaccinated: 0
Number hospitalized: 13
More Consequences
I’m planning to write about this more explicitly, but Pres. Donald Trump has embarked upon an epic mission: The greatest educational endeavor the country has known since the Russians beat us to space and goaded us to get our educational shit together by scaring the shit out of us and into our pants.
Trump’s goal: To teach the shit out of us about civics. Not just separation of powers shit, but the purpose of it. Specifically, to illuminate (the way Democratic politicians failed to) just how much government does and how awesome our bureaucrats are.
And because education is most effective when it’s hands-on — learning by doing/suffering — Trump is unleashing thousands of curricula individually tailored to the educational needs of Americans everywhere. For instance…
As fellow Substacker Judd Leggum reported last week, about 250 residents of Huntsville, AL, just got hit with a $100 charge thanks to Trump. Turns out that Alabama gets got federal funding as part of LIHEAP, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program.
Without that LIHEAP funding Trump just froze, Huntsville residents have to make up the difference. And it’s not clear whether these new charges will repeat, or how widespread they’ll be in the rest of the country.
But here’s how some of those Alabamans heard from their new president roughly two weeks after he got into office:
Here endeth the lesson.
And if anyone in Huntsville thinks the Trump White House is all “ohnoes!” right now, they knew this pain was coming. And they were fully prepared not to give grants or a shit.
They already decided that complaints about the human suffering are mere impediments the media will create to stop the sacred work of the Department of Government Efficiency:
As one White House official told the Washington Post, “They get the one [sic] starving kid in Sudan that isn’t going to have a USAID bottle, and they make everything DOGE has done about the starving kid in Sudan.”
Or the freezing resident of Huntsville, AL.
TCB
FEDERAL HOLIDAY! Today is Washington’s Birthday, a federal holiday also celebrated as President’s Day. I said on Friday that it would be emotionally manipulative and wrong to say that I’d take today off if 25 Newsfuckers upgraded their subscriptions to paid. And so they didn’t.
A beautiful handful of you did upgrade anyway — thank you! — but the vast majority saw right through me, so here I am working today! (I’ve gotta get better at this whole fundraising thing. Maybe Jeff Skoll will take my call…)
CONNECTING Come say hi on Bluesky, Mastodon or Spoutible!
Go get ‘em, kids. (Unless you have the day off, of course, in which case be safe and loud at your nearest 50501 action!)
TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with John Stewart and The Young Turks.
Just kidding, there’s no meritocracy.
The Democrats will do better without billionaires and by recasting themselves back to the party representing middle class and working people. We should run against billionaires and grotesque wealth inequality. F*ck the billionaires, we don’t want or need them.
Take a day off! I’m going to hold a sign at the federal building. Gotta start somewhere.