A local mother who lost her home in the Palisades Fire is fighting back after the New York Times smeared Pacific Palisades residents as the “rogue rich” who are exploiting the disaster to buy up the lots of their neighbors.
The Times‘ Ronda Kaysen wrote:
Its deep-pocketed, well-connected residents have access to power that few have: They can pick up the phone and call Gov. Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass or Steven Soboroff, whom the mayor appointed as the rebuilding czar. The sheer concentration of affluence — coupled with the frustration that the government’s response to one of the biggest American catastrophes in recent history has been inadequate — could greatly shape the future of the Palisades.
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“I suspect that because these are pretty wealthy households with a lot of economic and also political power, they’re going to be able to dictate the terms of their own recovery,” Dr. Besbris said.
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The city of Los Angeles is already gently pushing back at the rogue rich.
Kaysen also quoted so-called experts who said that Palisades would “dictate” the terms of its rebuilding, unlike the community of Altadena on the east side of L.A., a working-class suburb that has a larger minority population.
In response, Kaye Steinsapir posted a short YouTube video of a walk around her destroyed neighborhood, adding the caption below:
Thank you, @WCKitchen, @fema, @LAPDHQ, @LAFD, @SBAgov, and everyone else who’s helping our community. @nytimes, . We aren’t the “rogue rich.” You came to our home a few years ago. Come back. I’ll show you the reality and introduce you to hundreds who literally lost everything and are destitute. Your “reporting” has become grossly biased and inaccurate. Thanks for reminding me to cancel my subscription.
In the video, Steinsapir noted that many of her neighbors were “senior citizens on fixed incomes” who had bought into the community decades before, and had their entire savings in their homes. She added:
It’s so hurtful and it’s so outrageous that people want to pretend that this doesn’t matter because they assume people here are wealthy. It’s just literally not true. The New York Times published a piece yesterday that was so incredibly false and hurtful. I know people who were interviewed for that piece who had their quotes taken out of context. The person who wrote the piece clearly had an agenda when she spoke to them, and it’s just sickening. So, New York Times: Fuck you! This is what it’s like.
Steinsapir noted the failure of public services to prevent the fire, and noted the local public school, and the fact that Palisades is a “pretty regular place … not a gated community.”
She added in a message to Breitbart News: “I grew up poor. I worked my way through college and law school with no assistance. I became a lawyer but my career was sidelined by cancer at age 39. The idea that I’m an out of touch rich person is bullshit. … Most of my neighbors are not rich. The people who came to our community room are desperate. I’m livid at how we’ve been inaccurately portrayed.”
Many other residents also balked at the Times‘ portrayal of the community, where prices per square foot were actually cheaper than other nearby areas, and where there had been (until recent events) more middle-class housing stock.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
