45 Comments

Brilliant cartoon as always. As an American citizen now living in Ireland, I'll offer my adaptation of a classic Irish song as a comment:

Oh, Donny boy, the press, the press is caving,

The owners are afraid to make you mad.

Cartoonists who once kept our leaders honest,

Are being silenced and it’s very sad.

Your billionaires are taking over everything,

The rest of us have nowhere left to go,

If we speak up, you’ll drag us to the courthouse.

Oh, Donny boy, oh Donny boy, we hate you so!

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It's breaking the Irish mood but the only word to describe the ignominy is "a schande!" [Yiddish for shame]. "Very sad” is a little mild for the occasion.

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That’s a good one!; thanks for your comment! I know a few Yiddish words too—I’d describe Donny as a “momzer,” a “kacker,” and a “schmendrik,” among other things.

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Forgot to say how much I liked your “Donnie Boy.” It's a sad song for a tragic situation. If I ever got to visit his grave, I just might weep with relief.

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Thank you! Yep, it’s about as tragic as it gets!

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WAPO first fires you, then censors the paper's second-best cartoonist, takes away the editorial decision to endorse a candidate in the most important election in a very very long time . . . I was a journalist for almost two decades, the publisher/owner has a right to make the newspaper profitable and popular but NOT line his other pocket and make him personally feel safer in his ivory tower.

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Idiots! A cartoonist is the glue tat holds a paper together. The better the art, stronger the bond!

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Thank you to you all for supporting Michael de Adder. We need him!

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I shall be so bold as to suggest a change in the caption on the right panel:

One of all the president's men.

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And perhaps a *thought bubble* 💭 with the convicted felon picturing the rest of the billionaires huddling in the tub 🛀 beside the boxes of stolen Top Secret docs 🤐 📦 From a Canadian 🙋🏻‍♀️ 🇨🇦

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Ha ha!

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When you're reduced to being a butt kisser, you're bound to have a shitstain around your mouth. Bezos is a disgrace. He'll do to WaPo what Musk did to Twitter.

Democracy dies when self-serving billionaires abase themselves to a corrupt despot.

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The cartoonists left at WaPo are now just dreck.

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I find I'm reading fewer and fewer articles from the Wapo and I don't look at any cartoons.

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Drop your subscription. I did last July and haven't missed anything.

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Yep- me too - not missing it at all - I’m sure my cardiologist approves

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Michael Ramirez is a career talentless hack.

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My take is that Ramirez is a talented artist, but his cartoons are painfully on the nose, besides being aligned with the powerful instead of speaking truth to power.

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Ramirez seems to be a cheer leader for the right wing of thought and acts.

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That's what makes him a talentless hack.

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👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

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Nixon once said he'd like to put Katie Graham's "tits in a wringer." The felon found a way to do just that, only with Bezos's ( "I won't interfere with the paper") balls.

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Lol! Normally I lean toward politeness but your comment (& that typically Nixonian quip) encapsulates present and past as graphically as our esteemed De Adder's cartoon does. I still wonder, though, who's got whose balls in a squeeze, as it seems that politicians & voters are being neutered by the mega billionaires. They're driving me nuts!

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In my head I hear "They're driving me nuts!" in an Irish Brogue.

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I've been dreaming about a version of JM Synge's Playboy of the Western World, only with billionaires. Also, a version of Survivor featuring billionaires only, and I can't wait to see whose torch gets extinguished first. In my version, after their torch goes out, they're dropped unconscious onto an island with no media platforms and no technology of any type. Their assets are frozen and given to charity.

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Interesting thought. I, too, try to be polite in my posting, but when I saw Ann's cartoon and read her commentary, followed by Michael's cartoon, this was the first thing that came to mind.

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Another coward at the cash register, Mr. Bezos.....

I'll bet you'd be good at darts Mr. d

From this day in quotes on the web http://thisdayinquotes.com

“Th’ newspaper does ivrything f’r us…comforts th’ afflicted, afflicts th’ comfortable.”

Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936)

American journalist and humorist

Dunne put this quote in the mouth of “Mr. Dooley,” the witty Irish character who was featured in Dunne’s popular newspaper column relating what Dooley said on various topics in a heavy Irish brogue. The line was first used in a column titled “Mr. Dooley on Newspaper Publicity,” published in many US newspapers on October 5, 1902 and reprinted in the book collecting Dunne’s columns, Observations by Mr. Dooley (1902). Dooley’s remark led to many other quotes about comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.

“Th’ newspaper does ivrything f’r us. It runs th’ polis foorce an’ th’ banks, commands th’ milishy, conthrols th’ ligislachure, baptizes th’ young, marries th’ foolish, comforts th’ afflicted, afflicts th’ comfortable, buries th’ dead an’ roasts thim aftherward.”

And from the movie The post:

"Fritz Beebe: If the government wins and we're convicted, the Washington Post as we know it will cease to exist.

Ben Bradlee: Well, if we live in a world where the government could tell us what we can and cannot print, then the Washington Post as we know it has already ceased to exist."

Bring out the Ladys from Hell with their pipes for a timely dirge...........

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One of your best! The rightward slide of WAPO is depressing and dangerous.

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Well done.

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✅✅

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I subscribed to WaPo largely because Michael de Adder's work was being featured there (~3 years ago, +/-. I'd been 'following' his work for a couple of decades because then, as now, it was brilliant). And once more I find myself angered by the actions of a billionaire-owned news corporation (as previously in Canada--Brunswick News, later sold to Postmedia) for 'disappearing' his work. As they used to say in Saint John (New Brunswick): "You're not really a Saint Johner 'til you've been fired by the Irvings." In other words, it seems you're not really a great cartoonist until you've been ghosted by a few billionaires. So...Well done, Michael! So glad you're here on Substack.

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In the recto panel, you could easily swap the characters and it’d still work.

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Your talent is staggering. THANK YOU. ✌️

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Well done.

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