A picture is worth a thousand words and $1 trillion
Look at this cartoon, which depicts tech billionaires, including Jeff Bezos, abasing themselves before Donald Trump:
You were never supposed to see it.
The reason you did is because of the bravery, integrity and sacrifice by the gutsy woman — Ann Telnaes — who drew it.
She had to quit her job at The Washington Post to show it to you.
David Shipley is the editorial page editor at the corrupted newspaper. He justified the killing of this cartoon with this self-serving lie:
I respect Ann Telnaes and all she has given to The Post. But I must disagree with her interpretation of events. Not every editorial judgment is a reflection of a malign force.
My decision was guided by the fact that we had just published a column on the same topic as the cartoon and had already scheduled another column – this one a satire – for publication.
It isn’t true.
The cartoon was killed by fear and cowardice. It is going to get much worse because of the fecklessness of men like Bezos, Zuckerberg, Soon-Shiong, Shipley, Iger, Scarborough, and many more.
It will become harder and harder to know what is real as the waters carrying all of the lies continue to rise.
Mike Johnson, the fundamentalist House Speaker, opened Congress by reciting a prayer that he claimed was that of Thomas Jefferson.
It wasn’t.
It was completely made-up, according to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation.
Did you know that the active duty Green Beret Master Sergeant who killed himself in a Tesla Cybertruck in front of the Trump hotel in Vegas called for the rounding-up and killing of Donald Trump’s opposition?
Here is how Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo describes the phenomenon of uncomfortable omissions from the same corrupt media that over and over again looked at Joe Biden up close, and told the American people that he was A-okay:
Most headlines I’d seen in the news report only that he warned of national decline and bore “no ill will toward Mr. Trump,” in the words of one of the investigators. That gloss on Donald Trump is, shall we say, a bit of an understatement, as you can see in these excerpts.
Military and vets move on DC starting now. Militias facilitate and augment this activity.
Occupy every major road along fed buildings and the campus of fed buildings by the hundreds of thousands.
Lock the highways around down with semis right after everybody gets in. Hold until the purge is complete.
Try peaceful means first, but be prepared to fight to get the Dems out of the fed government and military by any means necessary. They all must go and a hard reset must occur for our country to avoid collapse.We must end the war in Ukraine with negotiated settlement. It is the only way.
Focus on strength and winning. Masculinity is good and men must be leaders. Strength is a deterrent and fear is the product.Stop obsessing over diversity. We are all diverse and DEI is a cancer.
Thankfully we rejected the DEI candidate and will have a real President instead of Weekend at Bernie’s.Consider this last sunset of ‘24 and my actions the end of our sickness and a new chapter of health for our people. Rally around the Trump, Musk, Kennedy, and ride this wave to the highest hegemony for all Americans! We are second to no one.
Of course, none of the facts or realities of either New Year’s attack mattered to Fox News, Donald Trump, or scores of MAGA lieutenants in Congress or on television.
All that mattered was the opportunity to inflame the American people with the propaganda that a terrorist had come from across the Mexican border to kill them in New Orleans.
It isn’t true.
It’s a lie.
This is a lie:
Meanwhile, Donald Trump is already busy lionizing the MAGA heroes of January 6th. Last night, he was screening a documentary at Mar-a-Lago that celebrates the fake elector scheme, and hosting its architects Michael Flynn, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and others there. He will pardon every convicted January 6th criminal. Have no doubt that he will string a medal around their necks when this is all said and done.
I want to share two numbers with you:
Trump, under American law, holds much more power than the 49.9% plurality victory would assign if it was apportioned proportionally by vote share.
This is important.
There are 75,019,257 million people who did not vote for this. Our voices, agency, freedom and rights are intact.
I have no doubt whatsoever that, between the two sides, I stand on the right one in that Trump is going to be everything I said he was. He will no doubt throw in some surprises along the way.
I am ready to concede nothing after this election loss to MAGA, except for the fact that they are lucky in the failure of Democrats to stop this. It certainly doesn’t mean that Trump is right.
He remains the dangerous, lying pig that he has always been. What has changed is the time.
For the American media, the age of “niceness” has begun.
The main problem with all of this is that being nice to Trump makes it very hard on the truth.
I like reporters who pursue the truth.
There seems to be less of them every day.
It’s a good thing that a picture is worth a thousand words.
It’s even better that Telnaes’ cartoon is worth about $1 trillion (the total market cap/fortunes of those featured in her cartoon: Mark Zuckerberg/Facebook & Meta founder and CEO, Sam Altman/AI CEO, Patrick Soon-Shiong/LA Times publisher, the Walt Disney Company/ABC News, and Jeff Bezos/Washington Post owner).
I rest my case.
Please support The Warning.
Small platforms that won’t bend or break need your support — or most of them won’t be around in a year.
Dangerous days lie ahead.
Once again: clarity, truth and strategic passion. Thank you Steve. The quotes are daunting. That millions of people swallow the lies whole and consume them readily is most disturbing.
Like every historical horror period and violent crisis: this will pass. We must remain steadfast and strong during peak dreadfulness.
Nearly a decade ago, I briefly had a Facebook account. I quit Facebook because it was apparent then that it was a perfect vehicle for spreading propaganda and disinformation. I doubt Zuckerberg misses me. I quit Twitter when Musk turned it into a rightwing propaganda machine. I know he doesn’t miss me either, but people quitting Twitter/X have had some impact on his bottom line. After watching NYT and WaPO sane wash Trump and MAGA, I dropped both subscriptions. That decision was further vindicated when WAPO chose to placate Trump prior to the election. I know I wasn’t alone in making that choice, and I hope the consequences are magnificent by WAPOs cowardly refusal to post an editorial cartoon critical of America’s most prominent, feckless billionaires.
So this morning, I took another step. I dropped “Amazon Prime”. It amounts to nothing but a transfer payment of $131 from me to Jeff Bezos. I have better uses for that money. I dropped Disney a couple months ago. In recent weeks I have also dropped Netflix. I assume that another feckless billionaire or irresponsible multinational corporations also benefits from such subscription services.
I have also purged Morning Joe, MSNBC, and CNN among others from my YouTube feed.
Will they notice? Perhaps not, but I try to keep in mind something my son observed a while ago: As a social media user, you are the cattle, not the rancher.
Alone, each of us is simply a data point for these billionaires. But I do believe that we can collectively impact their on their bottom lines in some manner influence their behavior by BOYCOTTING the most egregious offenders. Protest with your pocket book. Forego the major expenditures and abandon those media outlets that have repeatedly betrayed your values. Punish the oligarchs by denying them the only thing they value.