Losing My Perspicacity, February 5, 2026

Good morning and Happy Thursday! Thanks for reading today.

Yesterday, Jeff Bezos, a man reportedly worth upwards of $250 billion, cut one-third of the staff at the Washington Post, including the entire sports and books departments.

I mourned WaPo ahead of the 2024 election, when Bezos made the decision not to endorse a candidate in the Presidential election, but my heart broke anew for their newsroom yesterday, and for all the journalists — many of whom have continued to do excellent work in desperate circumstances — who now join the ever-swelling ranks of unemployed reporters. Perhaps most disgustingly, Bezos fired reporter Lizzie Johnson, who is currently covering Ukraine, in the midst of a war zone.

As Brandon Friedman noted above, it’s hard to imagine that the ongoing decimation of the Post is about money. After all, Bezos has so much that it would be difficult for him to give it all away in his lifetime. And, as I’ve asked before, how much money is enough? And what does he need all that money for, anyway? A support yacht for his megayacht’s support yacht? Why would anyone even want so much wealth if they aren’t using it to help people?

In 2023, Bezos pledged to give away most of his $118 billion fortune. A great place to start would have been America’s struggling media industry, which is chock full of really good journalists who just want to do meaningful work and earn a living wage. Bezos is now worth twice what he was when he made the pledge. Meanwhile, Bezos’s ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, has given away more than $26 billion to over 2,700 organizations since 2019, and she’s only worth a measly $35 billion.

I can’t help but lament what a news media start-up could do with $75 million dollars. Or even $10 million.

Until now, I’ve resisted the idea that guys like Bezos and his fellow media oligarchs have planned things to shake out this way. While I do believe a select few right-wingers, like Russell Vought and Peter Thiel, have planned to decimate media and control what information the public has access to, it’s been hard for me to imagine all these broligarchs (Bezos, Zuckerberg, Musk, etc) being smart enough to 1) figure out how to control information and 2) be patient enough to play the long game.

For example, Bezos bought WaPo in 2013 and vowed to stay out of the newsroom. And for many years, it appears he did just that. I’ve always believed that, while they are undoubtedly bad people, the media bros suffer from a combination of 1) knowing nothing about how newspapers/the media industry runs, 2) being surrounded by yes men, and 3) laboring under the delusion that news is supposed to make you rich. It’s not.

To some extent, it’s still hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that all these guys sit around a table and plot how they can hasten America’s slide into fascism. But what I am coming around to is the notion that these tech bros exist in an insular world, where they are constantly told that every idea they have is a good one, and they can’t imagine a world in which they aren’t the smartest guy in every room. That, and they are so warped by their vast wealth that the only thing they care about is getting more of it. Which brings me back to my original question — How much money is enough money?

Look at the Epstein files. Never in my wildest dreams did I think we’d see Noam Chomsky, Bill Gates, Katie Couric, and Martha Stewart casually emailing with Jeffrey Epstein or his minions, after he was convicted of soliciting sex from a minor (later amended to soliciting prostitution) in 2008. I guess I’m naive, because I also didn’t realize that journalists attend events where they sup and rub elbows with nefarious billionaires, or go on retreats held by the publisher of the New York Times. It’s hard to imagine what version of reality these people live in, where no one is off limits, no one can ever really be canceled, no matter what they’ve done, where everything is a conflict of interest, so nothing is a conflict of interest. Where even seeking favor from a disgraced billionaire who is into raping girls isn’t frowned upon, because money, power, fame.

Michael Wolff should be fired into the sun, but these guys are like shapeshifting cockroaches. They never go away.

To paraphrase George Carlin, the elites are a big club, and we ain’t in it.

The best journalists are the ones who never expect to become rich or famous, but do a grueling job, day in and day out, because they believe it’s important. Those are the kinds of people we should be giving our money, our attention, and our trust to. Sure, some journalists do better than others, some write bestsellers or rise to the top of the organization, but the pursuit of truth and the public’s right to know must always be the primary goal.

And what do they need all that money for, anyway?

In other news: Trump is coming for our ballots; Good news from SCOTUS?; Leave trans women alone, Part 47,982; and The High Note.

Let’s go.

Donald Trump is coming for national elections

When Donald Trump suggested earlier this week that the federal government should take over the running of national elections, I rolled my eyes and snorted. Elections, pursuant to Article I of the Constitution, are the domain of individual states. I figured it was one of those thousands of things that Trump throws out there and then promptly forgets about five minutes later. More fool I. I should know better by now.

First, Mike Johnson continued to play the buffoon about this issue, because God forbid he ever contradict Dear Leader.

Gosh, Mike, have you ever considered that you’re becoming less popular because of your terrible policies?

Then, we got Steven Bannon, who has morphed into some kind of dystopian Eddie Bauer brand ambassador from hell, telling us that the plan is for ICE to patrol polling places on election day. ICE.

Not to alarm anyone, but Trump increasingly wants to use ICE as his personal police force, which is how we got the SS. I’m sure it’s fine, though.

Between Trump’s comments, Bannon’s comments, and the raid on the Fulton County election office, Americans have more than a few reasons to be concerned. Luckily, the states are already preparing for this contingency.

Good news from SCOTUS (and it’s not a typo!)

Yesterday, the Supreme Court refused to intervene in California Republicans’ challenge to the state’s redistricting, which was undertaken in response to Texas’s redistricting, which was done at the behest of Donald Trump.

The SCOTUS ruling was a one-sentence denial of California Republicans’ appeal of a lower court's refusal to block the map. Not a single justice dissented. The reason? The Court has previously ruled that redistricting for partisan reasons is the province of the states, not the Court.

I’m sure this ruling will come back to bite Democrats in the ass in some way, but for now, we’ll take it.

Trans women athletes don’t have a strength advantage over cis women

A new study should make all the men who only care about women’s sports when they can use them as a cudgel in the culture war rethink their position. Too bad we don’t believe in science anymore. Or admitting being wrong.

This is the second study that has found that trans women don’t have the advantages in sports that the right claims they do. I really hope someone is compiling all this research to slap it down on the table in front of the IOC and the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

(Speaking of not believing in science, did you guys hear that Ballerina Farms had to stop selling raw milk? “Producing raw milk takes careful planning from a facility and infrastructure standpoint. Unfortunately, we learned this after the fact.” God, these people are so dumb.)

The High Note

Each Day, I do my best to leave you with a smile on your face, a song in your heart, and the will to fight another day.

Hats off to this guy, who spoke at a town hall in Surprise, Arizona, about a massive ICE facility DHS wants to build in their community.

Also:

If you didn’t hear, Minneapolis has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Can you imagine Trump’s reaction if they win?

Hey, survive and advance out there today, kids. Don’t let the bastards get you down.

Follow Julie on Bluesky and Instagram so she can get another book contract. Tips? JulieDiCaro.46 on Signal or [email protected].