One of the saddest spectacles of the last year and a half in American politics -- besides pretty much everything -- has been the sight of oligarchs and their hand-picked apple-polishers doing everything they can to turn some of the nation's storied media properties into pathetic simulacra of right-wing outlets. This has all been done in the service of sucking up to Donald Trump, who people treat like the all-powerful Oz instead of what he actually is: the doddering, dementia-blasted near-octogenarian aging faster than a wheel of brie in the middle of the Sonoran Desert.

This process has involved turning those media properties over to the management of incompetent boobs who we wouldn't put in charge of a pretzel cart occupying a couple of square feet of sidewalk outside the Port Authority. These folks have taken the storied brands of The Washington Post and CBS and turned them the equivalent of, respectively, a lower-tier conservative blog from 2008 and a cable-access channel that can barely figure out how to operate a camera.

It has been something to see. And in the last week, we have had prominent examples of why, instead of throwing your hard-earned money at David Ellison or Jeff Bezos, you should support independent media. (Like Wonkette!)

First, the Post. The one-time home of such legends as Woodward and Bernstein, of David Broder, of Ben Bradlee and Marty Baron, laid off nearly half of its newsroom staff. But not to worry! The paper replaced all that wealth of knowledge of newsgathering with ... with ... with whatever the fuck this is:

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