Saturday 18th of January 2025

the perfect toon of the day.......

Washington Post cartoonist has quit her role at the paper, saying that her bosses blocked publication of a satirical cartoon that depicted billionaires, including one resembling Post owner Jeff Bezos, kneeling before President-elect Donald Trump.

Ann Telnaes, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, said in a blog post Friday that she quit the paper after a drawing was rejected. This was the first time at the Post that a cartoon was “killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at,” Telnaes wrote.

 

A rough sketch of the cartoon, published on Telnaes’ Substack blog, shows several men kneeling before a larger man wearing a suit and a long tie, representing Trump. Telnaes wrote that the likenesses are of Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Los Angeles Times Publisher Patrick Soon-Shiong, and Bezos. Three of the men are holding bags of money. Also included is a drawing of cartoon character Mickey Mouse, representing Walt Disney’s ABC News.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/04/washington-post-cartoonist-quits-after-drawing-of-bezos-other-billionaires-with-trump-rejected.html

 

WELCOME TO THE CENSORSHIP OF SATIRE.....

 

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

HYPOCRISY ISN’T ONE OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS SINS.

HENCE ITS POPULARITY IN THE ABRAHAMIC TRADITIONS…

 

 

PLEASE DO NOT BLAME RUSSIA IF WW3 STARTS. BLAME AMERICA.

 

SEE ALSO: 

entertainment after dessert...

 

futility...

 

preparing the revolution...

rich man's world....

Federal Reserve officials at their December meeting expressed concern about inflation and the impact that President-elect Donald Trump’s policies could have, indicating that they would be moving more slowly on interest rate cuts because of the uncertainty, minutes released Wednesday showed.

Without calling out Trump by name, the meeting summary featured at least four mentions about the effect that changes in immigration and trade policy could have on the U.S. economy.

Since Trump’s November election victory, he has signaled plans for aggressive, punitive tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada as well as the other U.S. trading partners. In addition, he intends to pursue more deregulation and mass deportations.

However, the extent of what Trump’s actions will be and specifically how they will be directed creates a band of ambiguity about what is ahead, which Federal Open Market Committee members said would require caution.

“Almost all participants judged that upside risks to the inflation outlook had increased,” the minutes said. “As reasons for this judgment, participants cited recent stronger-than-expected readings on inflation and the likely effects of potential changes in trade and immigration policy.”

FOMC members voted to lower the central bank’s benchmark borrowing rate to a target range of 4.25%-4.5%.

 

However, they also reduced their outlook for expected cuts in 2025 to two from four in the previous estimate at September’s meeting, assuming quarter-point increments. The Fed cut a full point off the funds rate since September, and current market pricing is indicating just one or two more moves lower this year. Traders are assigning a nearly 100% chance that the FOMC will stand pat at its Jan. 28-29 meeting, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch gauge.

Minutes indicated that the pace of cuts ahead indeed is likely to be slower.

“In discussing the outlook for monetary policy, participants indicated that the Committee was at or near the point at which it would be appropriate to slow the pace of policy easing,” the document said.

Moreover, members agreed that “the policy rate was now significantly closer to its neutral value than when the Committee commenced policy easing in September. In addition, many participants suggested that a variety of factors underlined the need for a careful approach to monetary policy decisions over coming quarters.“

Those conditions include inflation readings that remain above the Fed’s 2% annual target, a solid pace of consumer spending, a stable labor market and otherwise strong economic activity in which gross domestic product had been growing at an above-trend clip through 2024.

“A substantial majority of participants observed that, at the current juncture, with its policy stance still meaningfully restrictive, the Committee was well positioned to take time to assess the evolving outlook for economic activity and inflation, including the economy’s responses to the Committee’s earlier policy actions,” the minutes said.

The summary further noted that some members had begun to incorporate policy changes into their forecasts, though how many did so was unclear.

Officials stressed that future policy moves will be dependent on how the data unfolds and are not on a set schedule. The Fed’s preferred gauge showed core inflation running at a 2.4% rate in November, and 2.8% when including food and energy prices, compared with the prior year. The Fed targets inflation at 2%.

 

In documents handed out at the meeting, most officials indicated that while they see inflation gravitating down to 2%, they don’t forecast that happening until 2027 and expect that near-term risks are to the upside.

At his news conference following the Dec. 18 rate decision, Chair Jerome Powell likened the situation to “driving on a foggy night or walking into a dark room full of furniture. You just slow down.“

That statement reflected that mindset of meeting participants, many of whom “observed that the current high degree of uncertainty made it appropriate for the Committee to take a gradual approach as it moved toward a neutral policy stance,” the minutes said.

The “dot plot” of individual members’ expectations showed that they anticipate two more rate cuts in 2026 and possibly another one or two after, ultimately taking the long-run fed funds rate down to 3%.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/08/fed-minutes-january-2025.html

 

READ FROM TOP.

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

HYPOCRISY ISN’T ONE OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS SINS.

HENCE ITS POPULARITY IN THE ABRAHAMIC TRADITIONS…

 

 

PLEASE DO NOT BLAME RUSSIA IF WW3 STARTS. BLAME AMERICA.

 

every day.....

Society has become “less and less tolerant of controversy”, said Chappatte, making it all the more necessary to protect freedom of speech today.

“Those principles have to be defended every day,” he reminds us, highlighting the importance of free speech. “They are more important today than even yesterday.”

“It takes the collective courage of editors to publish and the courage of the audience to support those voices for freedom of expression. It’s a collective fight that goes on every day.”

He also urged others to show courage – those in newsrooms, editors, journalists and even audiences and readers.

“The goal of political cartooning is not to provoke or to shock; it’s to make a point and if in that process you’re going to provoke or shock some beliefs, well that’s the deal. That’s the importance of satire.”

https://www.france24.com/en/france/20250107-collective-courage-is-key-to-protecting-freedom-of-speech-cartoonist-tells-france-24

 

Ten years after a deadly attack on its office that shocked FranceCharlie Hebdo magazine is marking the anniversary with a cartoon contest mocking God.

The satirical weekly was targeted by two Islamic extremists on January 7, 2014, who gunned down eight members of staff including some of the country's most famous cartoonists inside its premises in central Paris.

The attackers – two brothers who were later killed by police – targeted Charlie Hebdo after its decision to publish caricatures lampooning the Prophet MohammedIslam's most revered figure.

In typically provocative style, the staunchly atheist magazine has invited cartoonists to submit the "funniest and meanest" drawings mocking God possible ahead of the anniversary.

Launched last month, it addressed a message to "everyone who is fed up with living in a society directed by God and religion. Everyone who is fed up with the so-called good and evil. Everyone who is fed up with religious leaders dictating our lives."

There was no immediate confirmation of how many had been sent for publication.

Free speech defence

The attack on Charlie Hebdo fuelled an outpouring of sympathy and wave of "Je Suis Charlie" ("I Am Charlie") solidarity with its editorial team and famed cartoonists Cabu, Charb, Honore, Tignous and Wolinski who lost their lives.

The massacre was part of a slew of Islamist-inspired plots that claimed hundreds of lives in France and western Europe over the following years.

Ahead of the 10th anniversary, the magazine has published a book featuring work by its deceased contributors and the day of the attack is likely to see public tributes. 

Since its founding in 1970, Charlie Hebdo has regularly tested the boundaries of French hate speech laws, which offer protection to minorities and outlaw inciting violence but allow criticism and mockery of religion.

Free-speech defenders in France see the ability to criticise and ridicule religion as a key victory in a centuries-long battle within the country to escape the influence of the Catholic Church.

But critics argue Charlie Hebdo has been gratuitously offensive to believers and even Islamophobic, pointing to Prophet Mohammed caricatures that appear to associate Islam with terrorism.

It regularly publishes cartoons lampooning other religions, including Christianity.

A depiction of the Virgin Mary in August suffering from the mpox virus incited two legal complaints from Catholic organisations. 

On the first anniversary of the attack, the weekly published a front-page cartoon of a bearded God-like figure carrying a Kalashnikov rifle under the title "One year after, the killer is still on the run".

https://www.france24.com/en/france/20241215-france-charlie-hebdo-magazine-holds-funniest-meanest-god-cartoon-contest-10-years-after-attack

 

SEE ALSO: 

crappie hebdo....

 

 

READ FROM TOP.

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

HYPOCRISY ISN’T ONE OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS SINS.

HENCE ITS POPULARITY IN THE ABRAHAMIC TRADITIONS…

 

 

PLEASE DO NOT BLAME RUSSIA IF WW3 STARTS. BLAME AMERICA.