Inside Xi’s Billion-Dollar Parade: Power, Propaganda, and PR

China rolls out tanks, missiles and allies in a parade that look less like a history lesson and more like a global PR spectacle. Google takes a hit in court, forced to share its data with rivals but avoiding the breakup that regulators wanted. And Meta is in hot water after flirty AI chatbots started impersonating Taylor Swift and other celebrities, raising new alarms about consent and safety in the digital age. Plus shocking crime news out of New York City that the mainstream media won't tell you, namely shootings, subway crime and shoplifting are all at get this record lows. And finally, Texas bans lab grown meat in a case study of right wing woke politics telling consumers and corporations what they can and can't do. All that and more on today's debut edition of Filtered With TJ Walker coming to you live around the world and on every major media podcasting platform. Welcome to Filtered with TJ Walker. So happy to be with you today. We've been in a test mode for the last couple of months, but this is the first official podcast edition number one of Filtered with TJ Walker. If you're new to the show, and you should be because this is the first official show ever on podcasting platforms, we've been experimenting on YouTube and other social media the last couple of months. Here's what we do. We look at the top business, technology and culture stories of the day filtered through the lens of communication skills and personal development skills, all with the goal of helping you become more successful in your personal life and your professional life. It's so easy to just scroll the news, get depressed, bummed out. This show is different. It's about learning from the news and then interpreting it in ways to make you more effective in every aspect of your life. So thanks so much for joining me. Thanks to our friends on itunes and Google Play and Spotify, all the other platforms joining us live today and and hello to our friends on TikTok. We have a special feed for them. We hope to get you hooked up with the regular feed shortly on streamyard. Let's dive in right now with story one Xi's Military Parade as a global PR show China's Xi stage a massive military parade in Beijing that was much about television optics as about national pride. Fighter jets, missiles, balloons, doves and perfectly synchronized troops filled Tiananmen Square while Putin and Kim Jong Un sat by Xi's side for the cameras. Every detail was crafted for global messaging. The Mao style suit, the vintage red flag limousine, the call and response chants of Follow the party, Fight to win and the release of 80,000 pigeons and balloons. International media from Reuters to the BBC ran the pictures. She wanted China as unstoppable, disciplined, and flanked by allies hostile to US Power. From a communication standpoint, this was hard and soft power blended into one. A domestic rally, a foreign policy statement, and a perfectly packaged television event. Okay, so what's the real message here? China has arrived. It is on the world stage. It sees itself not just as a power or a superpower, but it sees itself as the preeminent superpower in the world. It no longer wants to take a backseat to the United States or anyone else. It understands its own way of authoritarian style capitalism. But it also understands PR in the modern world of how presidents do it, how Trump does it, how everyone else does it. It understands the power of the big spectacle, and it's announcing to everyone, we are here and we are real. Let's dig a little bit deeper here. I was fascinated by, to the extent of their crafting of every message, every image clearly playing to the TV cameras. 80 cannon blast. This was designed to note 80 years since, since the end of the war. And 80,000 balloons, 80,000 doves, all designed to really focus on the symbolism. You had Putin there, you had the dictator of North Korea, you had Iran's leaders, you had all the people who basically hate the United States. And these days, some with, with good reason. Everyone's there saying, hey, we're powerful. We, we are aligned with these guys, with, with this military might. And it was a very unifying message for the anti Western part of the world. There didn't seem to be any dissent because it was snuffed down quickly for anyone who dared. And it was overall a huge, huge PR success for the Chinese. We live in a world now where increasingly world leaders want to spend their time on the world stage, meaning on a stage in front of TV cameras. And this was a spectacular TV extravaganza. Vast, huge, wide. And Trump was clearly jealous of this. He posted a bunch of petulant tweets and social media messages afterwards talking about how all these leaders that are there conspiring against the United States, well, maybe they were perhaps with good reason. So what's the real lesson here? No matter how many weapons you have, there's always hard power, actual soldiers, actual bullets that anyone might have, literally or figuratively sometimes. But there's also the soft power, the ability to show this, the ability to put it on tv, the ability to get people to look at it and go, wow. And that is a part of power. And I want you to think about this. Not because you're planning on becoming an authoritarian dictator, at least I hope not. As far as I know, we have no viewers in the White House or any other dictator palaces around the world. But the real lesson is give some thought to how you project power in the world. You might not have the ability to show 80,000 balloons or have 80 cannon blast, or have thousands of people goose stepping along in formation to buttress who you are, but it comes down to just symbolism and imagery you have on your own website. For example, how you dress, how you look, how you speak, people are judging you. How you come across in social media. Do you even come across in social media? We are getting quickly to the point where it's simply not going to be enough to be a young entrepreneur, for example, or an old entrepreneur and say, oh, I'm not big on social media. If you're not big on social media, you don't exist. That is going to be, I think, the new mantra of venture capitalists, other investors looking to put money into your company. You're going to have to show your powers. Now, I'm essentially trying to do that here. I've got a set, I've got nice lights. I would be much more comfortable wearing a T shirt and shorts since I am here in Florida and it's hot. But I take the time to put on a business suit, I take the time to shave, I took the time to put on some makeup because I do want to project authority to you. Now, you might not think I have any authority, that's okay, but at least some of the viewers do. The authority I do have is from my own experience. I've spent 40 years working with business executives on how to communicate effectively. I've spent 40 years working with Wall street wizards, billionaire fund managers, presidents of countries, prime ministers, Nobel Peace Prize winners, professional athletes, Ms. Universes, how to communicate effectively on TV, through the media and to live audiences. So that's what I'm doing right here as well on this show. And again, those of you joining us for the first time, and since this is the debut show, whether you're watching it or listening to it on a podcast platform, we come to you every single day dissecting top stories through this communication lens. And if you go to episode two or three, we recorded it in advance, you can find out more about my particular background and why. You may or may not determine that I have authority. But that's, that's what we're doing here in this first week of our official show. So you may want to tune into that I would absolutely love you forever if you did give a review of the show right away on any podcasting platform. Subscribe like sign up for notifications. It would be a great thing. Now we try to do things a little differently here. This is not a multi billion dollar TV operation out of New York City. We're not super fancy. We don't have all the bells and whistles of giant TV networks. But I do try to bring an element of professionalism. Those of you watching may have just noticed, yeah, there's three cameras here. We're trying to give you a little added perspective, a little bit of professionalism so that you actually want to pay attention. So that's what we're here doing. 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Okay, we are back. I am TJ Walker. This is filtered and I very much appreciate your time. Issue 2 Google's antitrust hit According to the New York Times, a federal judge ruled that Google must share parts of its search index with competitors after being found guilty of maintaining an illegal monopoly. While the government had pushed for a breakup, including forcing Google to sell Chrome, the judge stopped short, calling for humility and crafting remedies. The ruling is the most significant antitrust case since Microsoft 20 years ago. Google can still pay for prime placement on smartphones and browsers, but it can no longer rely on exclusive deals to shut out rivals. Investors cheered with Alphabet stock jumping 8%. From a communications perspective, Google spun the decision as validation that competition is intense, while regulators called it a first step in leveling the field. Okay, so what's the real meaning here? I think it's good that the government is taking an action, trying to break up some of the monopoly power of Google. I kind of feel like it's 20 years too late. Google, for so long has been able to do whatever it wants. If you've ever had a YouTube channel shut down and there's nobody to call, like I have, you know, the power of a monopoly that's making so much money they can just thumb their noses at all the customers. And that's the problem Google has had. We've had a real problem with startup culture in America for the last 20 years because a handful of companies, including Google, are so big and powerful, they can just stifle any competition or buy it up. I'm hoping this leads to some change. Let's dig a little deeper here. Again, I wish this had happened 20 years ago. When you look at the history of big tech companies that have been broken up at&T Microsoft, they still do really well. They still do extraordinarily well, but it allows for competition. The whole notion of a free market system is you need to have competition. And ask yourself, when's the last time you said to yourself, hmm, which search engine should I use? Well, if you're like me and most people, until about six months ago, the answer was never. You use Google. Now what is interesting, although sort of after the fact, is this idea that now we do have competition. Now when they're finally breaking up this monopoly, there is competition, the form of artificial intelligence. I find myself frequently not using Google search anymore because I'm doing everything on ChatGPT. And you may use Grok, you may use Claude. There are a lot of good AI systems out there and that do as good, if not better than Google. So it is a bit ironic that at the very time when there's more competition flooding in to Google than ever before, finally the government says, okay, let's break up this monopoly. But, you know, better late than never. From a communication standpoint, I think it's good for anyone who's a small business like I am, like maybe you are to have some dispersion of the power. Because for so long, all of us have lived and died by Google's whims of who gets to show up in SEO. And I'll be the first one to admit I benefited from what they did. I was able to get on the first page, often number one for the search term of media training. I had to hire an SEO company and they figured out how to game the system so that I showed up number one. And that's how I actually got clients who were presidents of countries and prime ministers and world Leaders and owners of baseball teams because of Google. So I benefited from them. But I've also had changes where the algorithm goes, eh? And Now I'm number 11. And the old story of, you know, where's the best place to commit a murder, the second page of Google, because no one will ever find you, is in some respects true. So I think it's high time that the government tried to take away some of the power. It's always funny to see these tech lords who benefit almost their entire existence is because of big government. The big government created the Internet. No one likes to admit that. It came from Defense department initiatives, federal tax dollars. It came from people like Al Gore. Yes. Who passed legislation to enable the Internet. It came from other aspects of defense spending that created gps. Things like Uber wouldn't exist without it. And Google Waze could not exist without big government creating these satellites. So so much of the wealth of the founders of Google and the founders of Facebook and all these other companies comes from government. So they would all be, I don't know if they'd be running gas stations somewhere or general managers at a car dealership, but they would not be these multi, multi, multi billionaires they are today without big government. So it's a bit rich for them to be saying, well, let's get the government out of the free market enterprise system. There would be no high tech industry without big government. Sorry, that's not a politically correct thing to say. It's not going to get me a dinner invitation with Marc Andreessen, but it's just true. And so if you, if your entire existence, if all of your wealth is your existence, if all of your wealth is based on government R and D, it only makes sense. It's only fair play at some point to say, okay, maybe the government can try to regulate in ways to help other people too. Because it was the government regulation that created the Internet, created gps, and it benefited me. If I'm a tech lord, why not use this government regulation to in fact benefit all the other people in the world, especially other entrepreneurs trying to create new businesses. Well, yesterday I don't think went far enough, at least for me and a lot of people. But it did say that Google has to start sharing information. They got to make it easier for other companies to get a foothold on the information superhighway, to use an old term that isn't used very often. And so I think overall that is a good thing. What do you think? Post your comments right here. If you're listening to this on itunes, or Google Play or Spotify or any other podcasting platform. You can always go to The Community the TJ Walker Community TJ Walker Success Channel on YouTube and post on the Community Channel there as well. Any place you are watching or listening to this, thank you so much for doing so. Please subscribe Please Leave Reviews we are brand new and this is the first edition of the show. Back in a moment. Hey, if you're enjoying this kind of take and want to hear more stories filtered through the lens of communication, make sure you're following the show whether you're watching or listening.

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If there's a little notification option where you are now, go ahead and turn it on. It helps you stay in the loop Meta's Celebrity Chatbot Scandal According to Reuters, Meta allowed flirty chatbots to impersonate celebrities including Taylor Swift, Scarlett Johansson and Anne Hathaway, sometimes producing explicit images of and claiming to be the real stars. Some were created by users, but at least three, including two Taylor Swiftbots, were made by a Meta employee. Meta quietly deleted a dozen of them before Reuters published its investigation. Critics say this isn't parody, it's impersonation at scale. SAG aftra, the union representing stars, warns the bots could endanger stars by fueling stalker fantasies. While legal experts say California's publicity laws may have been broken, the scandal comes as researchers predict a booming digital afterlife industry where people will interact with AI avatars of the dead, making consent, privacy and safety even bigger flashpoints. Okay, so what's the real message here? If you're a celebrity and you want to control your own destiny, you got to get prepare to do battle, legal battle. Because whether it's Facebook today or Google tomorrow or some company not quite as big, they are going to steal your image, steal your face, especially if you're a sexy, young, beautiful thing. They're going to steal it to engage people and make more money off of you, and you better get ready for a fight. Let's dig a little deeper here. We live in an age where AI can create images of anything. I mean, I should know. I have my own AI clone. It's what I created. No one's taking advantage of me. But it is something that anyone can create these days. If I can create one, believe me, anyone can create one. The the problem is, however, that if it's being used against your own consent, and it's one thing to say, well, Taylor Swift is already a billionaire. She's still going to be rich. Who cares? It's her right she's worked very hard to create her own image, to create her own brand, to create her own intellectual property that is her music. She deserves to be able to control her own image. Now, it's one thing for some new startup, a character AI or some tiny startup, a couple of kids in a college dormitory who maybe got 50,000 in angel investing to do something like this, but for a company as big and established and ostensibly publicly accountable as Meta to be doing this, I think is brazen. It shows an attitude. We can do anything. We're rich and powerful. We can do anything. Hmm. It does sound like someone else we know in Washington D.C. but let's focus on the immediacy of this technology right now. My recommendation to you is control your own digital identity. And you may say, well, tj, who cares about me? You know, I'm not famous, I'm not a movie star, I don't have lips like Scarlett Johansson. I'm not beloved by tens and hundreds of millions of kids around the world like Taylor Swift, okay, but you still have something of value. You still have some expertise. If you are a software engineer and you answer the same 10 questions 15 times a day from clients, customers, colleagues, vendors, then people value your expertise. Why not create your own digital clone? But doesn't have to be a video on, but you could have a clone of your ideas, your thought patterns, your own intellectual property, so that at some point, whether you work for a big company and they own everything or you are your own company, your own freelancer, your own independent contractor, create your own intellectual property. Create your own clone. That is my recommendation. Now, if you're new to this, you'll see it in ad in a moment. I have my own digital clone, tjwalker AI. It looks just like me. In fact, I'm wearing the same suit I am today. And you can talk to my clone. Ask it any question, it will answer with my voice. Pretty much the same sentiments, the same advice I give as well. And it's completely free the first handful of times you try it. But yes, I do charge. Eventually there is a gate for it, and I do eventually charge people for it, as I have the right to do now. You don't have to pay for it. You don't have to pay for this podcast today. But at some point, if you like it enough and you want more and you want more personalized interaction, it's an option for you. So that's what I'm doing now. We can't all be media hogs like me and podcast seven days a Week. Because by the way, this is a seven day a week show. But if you do anything where people value what you do, even if it's. It could be farming, simply showing people how you farm. There are countless examples of intellectual property creators, YouTubers, TikTokers who've made a fortune simply showing people how they garden, how they farm, how they raise pigs. So no matter what it is you do, if you're good at it and other people value either the service you create or the product you create, there is a real opportunity for you to monetize this. I want you to get the value, not meta. And it's. It's not that I hate Facebook. I use Facebook. I've been on Facebook since 2008. I'm not asking you to push aside all big media companies. I use big media companies all the time and big tech companies. I use Google every day and Apple every day and Facebook every day. But I want you to benefit. So that's why I'm urging you do some research. I've researched a lot of companies to create my own AI clone. I found one that works more or less for me because I wanted full video. I wanted a video clone as well as a text bot and one that could speak to people in audio. You might only want text and you can do those for free on some platforms. My recommendation to you, start experimenting. Get in the game before someone takes your image and someone takes your ideas and makes money off of you. Because if you. It can hurt not to make money, but it really hurts to see other people making money off of your ideas. I've had theft of my online courses before. Those of you who don't know me, I have 300 online communication skills courses, presentation personal development skills courses on a hundred platforms. And yes, sometimes they're stolen and I don't like that. You shouldn't like it either. So do. Don't wait until it happens to you the way it happened to Taylor Swift. And I'm not selling any service. So this is just something I feel passionately about. All of us who are creating ideas using our brains for that matter, using our brawn to create things need to value, need to benefit from it. We need to value that. And the way you can do it now, it's so easy and inexpensive. Through the power of artificial intelligence and through these LLMs you can create some form of a chatbot, a digital clone, and if nothing else, give it away. So at least people are coming to you and you can benefit from it as well. I'm tj Walker, I want to thank you for joining me today. We have lots more to come, some other big stories and yes, some actual good news coming up. The news there's definitely a negativity bias. We'll be talking about that in the next story. There is a negativity bias and we are going to be talking about how you can be smarter to look through that and realize why it's happening and make sure it doesn't filter your own perception of the world because it's so easy to get depressed and damn. I'm here to tell you this is the best time in the history of the world to be alive. It's the best time in the history of the world to start a new business. It's the best time in the history of the world to be creative and to want to flourish. And that's part of the premise of this show. It's about helping you and me and all of us flourish. Back in a moment. We'll be right back after this break. Want to advertise here?

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Welcome back. NYC crime at record lows. Here's the story the media often buries. According to the New York Daily Post, New York just had its safest August on record. Shootings and shooting victims are at all time lows. Subway crime has collapsed and shoplifting is down double digits. The NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch credited more foot patrols and gang takedowns, while Mayor Eric Adams declared New York America's safest big city. In fact, the murder rate is down nearly 20% this year. Staggering compared to the more than 2,200 murders logged in 1990. For all the political talk of sending in troops, the reality is clear. Seven straight cross quarters of crime decline in New York City. Okay, what's the real message here? You're being lied to by the media. The New York Post and most media scream headlines. Violent crime here. Violent crime up. It's always sending a message that crime is going up, up, up, up. The facts are different. Violent crime is at an all time low in New York City. You're never going to see it in a headline in the New York Post because it doesn't suit their political agenda. Let's go a little bit deeper here. Human nature, we are designed to be concerned with risk. So in ancient times, if you're in the savannah and there's a rustling of the leaves, grass, it made sense to assume the worst. It made sense to assume that's a saber tooth tiger. Let's panic, let's run, let's get out of here. It made perfect sense because if you were wrong, nothing bad happened to you. If you were right, you saved your life, you didn't get eaten. So we as human beings have a built in defense mechanism that is very susceptible to latching on to any negative signs, any signs of risk. But sometimes it goes too far and it perverts our sense of reality. For the last 30 years across America, crime has been going down, down, down, down, down. But news stories about crime been going up, up, up, up, up. Therefore, the perception is that crime is up, crime's actually down in la, crime's actually down in Chicago, crime's actually down in Washington D.C. crime is actually down in New York City. You would never know it by listening to most major media outlets and politicians who benefit from stoking fear, stoking anxiety. And I see this every day in my own life of people's perceptions. Oh, you can't let your kids, you know, walk downtown to buy an ice cream or walk two blocks away to the park because it's not like when we were kids. People are talking about 30 years ago. Yeah, it's not like when we were kids. Things are much safer. Crime is much lower than 30 years ago. And yet the perception is that it's not. Ask yourself, who benefits from scaring you the most? Well, politicians, typically from one party, at least in the United States, benefit because now they don't have to worry about you focusing on economic issues, taxation issues, the fact that they are gouging you in the pocketbook, the fact that they are destroying the environment, they don't have to talk about that. All they have to do is say crime is out of control and we're going to be the tough law and order party and crack down on all these criminals, these invading hordes of people, criminals taking over. It's a great political message. And you've got politicians in alignment working very closely with members of the media because media people benefit tremendously by stoking this fear. The old adage, if it bleeds, it leads is definitely true. You're never going to sell more newspapers if the headline is crime down 2% from last year. You're not going to sell a single newspaper with that headline. But you know, headless man choose face off of tourist on subway in New York City. That's going to sell a lot. You're going to get a lot of clicks, you're going to get a lot of views, you're going to get a lot of attention with a headline like that. So you need to be aware of that. There is a strong, strong negativity bias that we as humans have. There's also a strong negativity bias that the media have because they realize humans have that. But if you want to be successful, you can't buy into that. If you listen every day to the media talking about things have never been worse and there's going to be a major depression in the next two months and crime is at an all time high. You whip yourself into a lather and therefore it makes perfect sense not to start a new business. It makes perfect sense not to write that novel because no one's going to be around to read it in two years. It makes perfect sense to not buy a house and just feel sorry for yourself. It makes perfect sense to not start a family because the world is going to hell in a handbasket if you buy into this negativity. Now, look, I'm not sugarcoating things, folks. There are real problems in the world, but there's also solutions every single day. When you look at the world in the last 30 years, where we've gone from, you know, the majority of the world living in poverty to now a tiny percent. Look at just one country like China. 30, 35 years ago, 90% of people lived under the poverty line. Today they've almost wiped out poverty. A tiny percentage live in poverty and that was really in one generation. Now, I'm not a big fan of Chinese authoritarian style governance as you may have deduced from our first segment today, but it's still a huge accomplishment. It still showed the world is getting better. Yeah, there's global warming, I'm not sugarcoating that. But there's also been tremendous advances in other aspects of the environment. When you think of the pollution here in the United States we had in 1970 before all the clean air acts and anti pollution factors were put into play. I mean, I remember as a kid going to Chicago and thinking, wow, kind of weird. The sun never shines here. The air was so polluted. The rivers and streams and ponds in America are so much cleaner than they were 30, 40 years ago because progress is possible and it happens all the time. And it doesn't get the same PR as disaster. It doesn't get as much attention as doom and gloom. So this show is not about, oh, we're only going to do good news. No, there's a lot of problems in the world, but there are solutions. There are solutions that work and there are solutions that make things better all the time. And I'm happy to talk about those right here. And together we're going to form a community about people who want to learn about the world and learn how to be better and how to improve themselves and be more successful as well. That's what we're about right here on Filtered with TJ Walker, where we filter the news through the lens of communication and personal development skills. More in a moment Filtered is brought to you by the following get the deeper takes.

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Want to support the show? Skip the ads and buy me a coffee. That's buymeacoffee.com TJ Walker. Okay, we are back. Texas bans lab grown meat. As of September 1, Texas has outlawed the sale of lab grown meat for two years. Senate Bill 261 makes it illegal to manufacture or sell any cell cultured protein. With ranchers cheering and critics calling it unconstitutional, only one Austin restaurant had even sold lab grown meat, yet lawmakers stepped in to ban it. Opponents argue this is less about safety and more about protecting the cattle industry. From a messaging perspective, this is another case of right wing wokeness. Politicians claiming to fight government overreach while dictating what companies and consumers can and can't do. So what's the real message here? Texas is now ground zero of wokeness in America. Right wing wokeness telling private sector businesses you can't sell lab grown meat. That is authoritarianism. That's communism, that's Fidel Castro. Let's dig a little deeper here. We have reached a point in American culture where people who are afraid to debate issues, who are afraid of facts, feel like they've got sort of an emergency clause. Their attitude is, hey, I know I can't really justify this thing I want through facts or through philosophical principles or legality. I know, I'll just say it's woke. Whatever it is I don't like. I'll just say the thing is woke and that will end the debate because everybody knows you're not supposed to be in favor of anything that's woke. And lab grown meat kind of, kind of, sort of seems like something woke. Let's go even deeper here. Yeah. It is true that there occasionally have been accesses, excess on the left, but nothing compared to what's going on in right wing circles in America today. Using the power of big government. Because let's be candid, Republicans own the government. They're running the government in the United States today. They own the White House, they own the House, they own the Senate, they, they own the Supreme Court, they own most of the judiciary and they own a majority of governorships in the country. So they run things. Power to them. They got a lot more votes in many cases and they have power. And they are using this power in ways that are exactly like what they criticized other people doing when they didn't hold power. They are using the power of big government to tell private sector businesses what they can and cannot do. And it is absolute authoritarianism. If you want to call it fascism, in some ways it's communism. Tell it the government telling private sector businesses what they Can. Now it'd be one thing if there were a study saying, okay, lab grown meat kills kids. Okay, you could say from a health perspective, let's not have lab grown meat. It would be another if you said, okay, let's have a truth in labeling law. You can't call it meat, you have to call it lab grown stuff that kind of looks like meat. If you did something like that, arguably you could make a case. But no, that's not what happened. What you have is a politically influential special interest group using the deep state, using government to basically screw over other people in the private sector and just businesses that are not as politically entrenched. And you have these very same people screwing over the public. Any, any member of the public who wanted to try a lab grown meat and eat it. Apparently there was only one restaurant in all of Texas that ever served it. You've got a situation where you've got government, government regulators, government lawmakers trying to force a solution on something that isn't a problem. They're actually looking for a problem. There's no real problem with lab grown meat. And yes, if you are a cattle, a cattleman, and they're typically men, if you make cows and hamburgers and beef for a living. I can understand why you are worried about competition long run. But this was supposed to be the free market system and people in Texas are supposed to be the ones who were so anti socialist, supposedly in favor of the free market. We always hear them talk about that and now they don't want to compete in the free market for your dollars, for consumers dollars. They want to use the, the stifling hand of big government, saying here's a company that's not politically connected or here's an industry that doesn't have political power. So we're going to use the power of big government to help this incumbent industry, cattle farmers, to snuff out the life of, of a new burgeoning industry. Now this is what so many right wing thinkers, conservative thinkers, libertarian thinkers have warned against for decades, certainly my entire lifetime of more than 60 years they've been warning us about these dangers. And in fact the dangers have come to fruition. It's just not from the people they said would be doing it. It's coming from within, from within these conservative ranks. And it's pretty shameful. But yes, wokeness, the problem of wokeness is a real problem in America, but it's right wing wokeness that is the biggest offender. Let's look at some more of the facts here. The Senate Bill 261 bans all lab grown protein in Texas for two years. The law was pushed by cattle ranchers in the agriculture lobby. There was only one restaurant in the whole state selling lab grown meat. The Institute for Justice says it's blatantly unconstitutional. A lawsuit is likely to come. Florida says, oh, something unconstitutional that panders to a constituency that votes Republican and is socialistic and something Castro would probably do. We're all in. So Florida is looking at doing this. Now. This is part of a pattern here. It's not, this is not a one off. We've gotten to the point where again, as I told you, now we have the word wokeness. It has one specific meaning. It means anything somebody doesn't like. You know, we heard for so many years from conservatives and Republicans that the problem with the so called left is they want to politicize everything. They see something and they go around looking for, oh, that's discrimination, that makes me feel bad, that doesn't make my self esteem grow. We were told that and in some cases there was some truth. But now we're in this funhouse mere reality of the right wing doing exactly the same thing. Only a few weeks ago, the company Cracker Barrel, which has seen its stock price down, its revenues were down and their CEO and their marketing team says, you know, what we're doing isn't working, let's try something new, let's freshen our image. So they came up with a logo that said Cracker Barrel. It didn't have a rainbow flag on, didn't have a picture of Oprah or a modernized Aunt Jemima on it. It just had the word Cracker Barrel on it. That was it. And we saw the entire right wing in America politicize it. Their feelings were hurt. Oh, you took the old guy off, you're woke. I don't like it, so I'm going to criticize you. So now we had government officials all the way up to the White House criticizing what a private sector company could do with its logo. This is exactly the sort of thing the right wing warned us about was. Stifling democracy, stifling free market enterprise, stifling business owners and they are the ones in fact doing it. Again, not an isolated issue. We have government officials and a right wing mob essentially running rampant over Bud Light, for example. Oh, we don't like your commercial. We're going to try to destroy you as a business because we don't like one of your commercials. That is wokeness, my friends. And it's, it's not from Anyone on the so called left, you want more examples? I'll give you more examples. In this great state of Florida, where I live and where I'm broadcasting to from today, the governor here, Ron DeSantis, is constantly picking fights with the Disney Corporation, telling them what they can and cannot say a private sector company, what they can say to their own employees, what they can say to their own customers. This is wokeness. It's a type of fascism. It's disturbing. So yes, my friends, wokeness is real, but it's the right wing wokeness that has taken over America. And they're using the power of the levers of power that exist when you control government. Because it's the right wing that controls government in the vast, vast majority of America today. From the Congress, from the White House to the courts, and on and on. Okay, so we typically cover five top stories of the day, but sometimes there's just so many news stories that are interesting and fascinating, we go into the grab bag section of the show. So that's what we're going to do in just a moment. Welcome to Filtered with TJ Walker. Okay, Dan Rather is still chasing the dues. Dan rather, nearly 94 years old, still publishes his newsletter, steady three times a week to more than half a million readers, leading daily editorial meetings from Austin. So Dan Rather is a marvel. I had the pleasure of meeting him once. He was the longtime CBS anchor and reporter. He's someone wildly famous and I give him credit. He loves reporting. He takes setbacks nicely. He's not doing this for the money. By most accounts he's worth 70 million plus dollars. His wife of 60 some years passed away a couple of years ago and he just keeps plodding away doing more stories. He may have left the anchor desk, but not the news. His typewriter never cooled off. I give a lot of credit to Dan Rather, someone who has integrity, someone because he was nonpartisan and objective, was ridiculed as being partisan. That's what happens in America when one side says, let's just work the refs, let's just try to destroy the career of anyone who doesn't make our side look good. And he was essentially driven out of CBS News. But it did not silence him. And at a time when most reporters say, well, I no longer have all the perks, the limo to work, all the editorial assistance, I'll just sit back in the old anchor's old folks home or go on my private island. He's there working away, holding editorial meetings. I just subscribed to his substack and I'm looking forward to getting the first one. So you may want to check him out. You might not agree with everything he does, but he definitely has a seriousness of a real journalist. At a time when real journalism is having a hard time really figuring out where does it fit into the modern business of media. Dan Rather doesn't have to worry about the business side. He can do this just out of his own love. And his, his quote, which I love, was to quote Popeye, I am what I am. I am a newsman. And he's just going to keep doing it till the day he dies. So good for him. Okay. In other grab bag news, McGovern hammers Comer over Epstein files Representative Jim McGovern blasted Representative James Comer after 33,000 Epstein related documents were released saying 97% were already public and calling the GOP release political theater. Comer promised bombshells, but 97% was old news. Even in scandal, Republicans find a way to oversell and under deliver. So this Epstein issue, we haven't heard too much of it in the last few weeks, but it's coming back. And Donald Trump is always the master at misdirection and coming up with a new skin. Oh, don't look at this. Here's a bigger issue here. I will take over la. I'll take over Chicago. I'll deport this person I don't like. I'll strip citizenship from Rosie o'. Donnell. He's been a master at coming up with new things to get the media to look at. But this is the one time, I think in his career he's really failed at getting an issue to simply go away. The fascinating thing, it has bipartisan appeal. A lot of Democrats are saying to themselves, look, how in the world can Trump get away with this Epstein situation when his entire right wing base is fascinated by it? And all we really know is there's credible reports saying they're saying to themselves, look, that Trump was best friends with Epstein. Trump's on record as saying he likes. How in the world can Trump get away with this Epstein situation when his entire right wing base is fascinated? You know, Epstein's the one guy who likes young, beautiful girls as much as he does. There are the drawings and the private parts about their secret to an awful lot of Democrats who don't normally wallow in filthy conspiracy theories, itched by it and always sure looks like really now is there's credible reports saying that Trump was best friends with Epstein. Trump's on record as saying he likes Trump might be mentioned in some file, some report. And I'm not making this allegation. You know, Epstein's the one guy who likes Yeshua. I'm just saying it sure seems to a lot of of independent minded people and Democrats and liberals and progressives that Trump fits the profile of somebody who young, beautiful girls as much as he does would be at Epstein island or on Palm beach island having a party with Epstein and about a dozen 17, 16 year old girls and everybody's naked. And why my oh my, wouldn't that be nice to read about in a file? Meanwhile you've got all of these right wing Alex Jones types, MAGA supporters who are convinced Epstein has in his file that Bill Gates and all sorts of other people like Bill Clinton and others are in the file. All these Democrats and liberals who are running the world, Fauci for that matter, all these horrible liberals running the world are in the files and there's going to be stories and pictures and documents and videos of them having wild sex orgies with with teen and abusing children. So everybody wants to see it. So I don't see how this story is going to go away anytime soon. We'll be giving you updates on that. Other top stories in our grab bag Ray Dalio warns the United States is sliding towards autocracy. Ray Dalio is a billionaire. He's also widely respected for his writings, his books, his thinking about wealth and wealth accumulation. He warned the US Is starting to look and he's certainly nobody's idea of a communist. He's one of the most successful capitalists in the history of the world. He he loves money, he loves capitalism. He warned that the US is starting to look like 1930s with widening inequality, collapsing trust and state intervention pushing America toward authoritarianism. When even someone like Ray Dalio says America looks more like 1930s Europe every day, it's time to wake up folks. It's not a left wing rant, it's not a progressive rant. It's people who actually love capitalism are worried about what's going on in this country. So it's going to be interesting to see now he has retired, what's going to be more interesting is to see will there be active CEOs, especially heads of publicly traded companies, willing to speak out about what's happening in Washington. I give Ray Dalty a credit to an awful lot of Democrat credit. But it's also frankly easy for him to do. He's retired, he's very old. He's got so many billions he can live in private Islands with his own security forces. Not quite as easy for a lot of current CEOs who seem to be quaking in their boots. And I'm talking about you, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. Okay, our final grab bag story of the day, Walmart. That's right, Walmart takes aim at Amazon with a free streaming service. Walmart is giving Walmart plus members Peacock's ad tiered streaming free, undercutting Amazon prime video and sweetening its $98 subscription package. Walmart has always been a step or two behind Amazon and they are behind too. But maybe they're going to catch up. Because we do live in an age where so much of what happens in Hollywood and production and budgets for big movies, big TV shows, it's all about how do you sell more can openers on Amazon. And I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, but it has changed the entire ecosystem of Hollywood and our culture because there's so much money made by the Amazons of the world. And obviously there's billions and billions made from Walmart. And what Amazon realized a long time ago and Walmart's now realizing is anything you can do to get attention from people, to get in front of people, to give value to people, you increase the odds that they want to just click, buy, click, buy, click, buy from you. I'm guilt. I'm as guilty as I'm guiltier than most people. I buy stuff from Amazon every day. And yes, I'm a member of Amazon prime and yes, I watch movies and TV shows I like on Amazon. I'm not a member of Walmart, but who knows, maybe I'll check them out as well. Here's the real lesson for you and me. It's not that you, if you own a local hardware store, have to think about how do you start giving away free movies to your customers? Or if you run a local restaurant in New Delhi, it's not that you have to be giving away free sitcoms, but I do think it's helpful to think in terms of how can you give interesting content to people to give them a sense to stick around, to come back to you, to associate you with positive things. I mean, that's essentially what I'm doing with this show. I mean, I enjoy doing this show in its own right. But I also like you to think of me. If you ever want to buy a public speaking online course or a media training book, or if you want to use an AI clone to rehearse your next speech or interview, those are all products and services that I sell. So if you're looking for a keynote speaker, you know I'm hoping you think of me and I'm doing that. I want to stay top of mind by giving you content that I hope you find it not entertaining, at least useful and interesting. So I do want you to think about how whatever business you're in, whether you are head of a multi billion dollar corporation, publicly traded, or if you are a one person consultant, how can you give something extra interesting to your customers to get them to keep thinking about you and get them to keep coming back? I hope you keep coming back here. As I mentioned, this is the debut edition of Filtered with TJ Walker. This is a show where we come to you seven days a week typically, and we analyze the top business, technology and culture stories of the day, filtered through the lens of communication skills. If you got any value out of this, please like the show, subscribe to it, Leave a review if you're listening on any of the podcasting platforms, sign up for notifications and let me know what you think. Thanks so much. I'll see you tomorrow.