Cakes For War Crimes

One of my proofreaders isn’t entirely comfortable with this cartoon. While she’s not a fan of Bush, Cheney, and the war in Iraq, she disagreed with calling them war criminals and comparing them with Putin. She has a valid point and I always appreciate her input. I don’t just send my cartoons to her for her exceptional spelling skills.

But I am not uncomfortable with calling Bush and Cheney war criminals. Are they on par with Putin? No. Bush and Cheney did not intentionally target apartment buildings, playgrounds, schools, etc. But they did do what Vladimir Putin did and that was violate another nation’s sovereignty and conduct an illegal invasion based on a lie.

Putin says he invaded Ukraine to liberate that nation from Nazis. That is a lie. Bush and Cheney justified their invasion, and hoodwinked other nations to form an international coalition all based on the lie that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. That bad thing is, there are more Nazis in Ukraine than there were WMDs in Iraq at the time of the invasion in 2003 as in, there was zero WMDs in Iraq.

Even if there were WMDs in Iraq, the invasion still wasn’t justified because Saddam Hussien never used those WMDs after Desert Storm, the conflict to oust him from Kuwait in 1991. Yes, Saddam dropped bombs on Kurds after that conflict but he didn’t use what’s described as weapons of mass destruction (he had done it before 1991 and in the war against Iran in the late 1980s).

Other than Kuwait over a decade earlier, Saddam Hussein never attacked the nations who were a part of the coalition. Never. He never attacked the United Kingdom. He never dropped a bomb on Mongolia. He never pushed Poland. He never slapped Spain. He never hit Iceland, Macedonia, Japan, South Korea, Nicaragua, Slovakia, etc. He never even tickled Tonga.

In addition to the lie that Saddam possessed WMDs, which was a violation of the sanctions placed against Iraq, the lie was pushed that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program (you know, one of those secret things Israel has). On top of that, the Bush administration allowed the belief to run rampant that Saddam Hussein played a part in 9/11, which was committed by al Qaida, NOT Iraq.

During one interview with Vice President Dick Cheney when it was pointed out that many Americans believed Iraq was responsible for 9/11, instead of correcting those many Americans, Cheney simply said, “I can see why they would believe that.” While the Bush administration never explicitly blamed Iraq for 9/11, they used it to justify the invasion of Iraq. According to some reports, the planning of invading Iraq started on September 11, 2001.

They also sent Secretary of State Colin Powell, the only guy with any credibility in the administration at that point (which was lost after this stunt), to stand in the United Nations and show photos of trucks and buildings with the claim, “there’s bad stuff in there.” And it worked. Everybody believed there was bad stuff in there.

The Bush administration also received notice from U.S. and British intelligence that all the information it was using to justify the invasion, like Iraq trying to buy 500 tons of yellow cake from Niger, was not reliable. Quite frankly, I think the Bush administration just liked the sound of “Niger.”

For all their trouble of invading a nation on a lie and with half-ass intelligence, the United States spent over $3 trillion on the war while giving billionaires tax cuts. Nearly 5,000 coalition troops died in the conflict with nearly 32,000 casualties. The Iraqi civilian death toll is between 275,306 and 306,000. It also destabilized the entire region and gave birth to the Islamic State, which Republicans tried to blame President Obama for. That’s like Lauren Boebert claiming President Biden shut down businesses because of the Coronavirus pandemic while Trump was president (sic). Yes, she really did that.

But a lot of Americans made money on the war. The Pentagon awarded over $30 billion in no-bid contracts to U.S. companies throughout the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Haliburton, a company whose CEO was Dick Cheney before he became Bush’s veep, was awarded a $7 billion contract. Halliburton is still being given contracts for work in Iraq today.

A president who was installed in office by a court stacked by his daddy’s cronies after losing the popular vote started a war against a nation that never attacked us based on lies which was used to profit his own cronies. Are Bush and Cheney war criminals? Fucking A they are.

No, I’m not trying to take heat off Vladimir Putin. He’s a war criminal too and there should be a warrant out for his arrest. I’m just saying that he’s not the only one.

Signed prints: The signed prints are just $40.00 each. Every cartoon on this site is available. You can pay through PayPal. If you don’t like PayPal, you can snail mail it to Clay Jones, P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402. I can mail the prints directly to you or if you’re purchasing as a gift, directly to the person you’re gifting.

Notes on my book, Tales From The Trumpster Fire: There are 19 copies of my book in stock, which go for $45.00 each, signed. Also, I have copies of my first book from 1997, Knee-Deep in Mississippi available for $20.00.

Tip Jar: if you want to support the cartoonist, please send a donation through PayPal to clayjonz@gmail.com. You can also snail it to P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402.

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Here’s your cartoon for this week’s CNN Opinion newsletter. Please sign up to get these in your inbox every Sunday

When China sends a spy balloon to fly over the United States (and other nations), it lies. When Russia knocks down a U.S. drone in international air space over the Black Sea, it lies.

I hadn’t gotten to draw the spy balloon in a few weeks.

Signed prints: The signed prints are just $40.00 each. Every cartoon on this site is available. You can pay through PayPal. If you don’t like PayPal, you can snail mail it to Clay Jones, P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402. I can mail the prints directly to you or if you’re purchasing as a gift, directly to the person you’re gifting.

Notes on my book, Tales From The Trumpster Fire: There are 19 copies of my book in stock, which go for $45.00 each, signed. Also, I have copies of my first book from 1997, Knee-Deep in Mississippi available for $20.00.

Tip Jar: if you want to support the cartoonist, please send a donation through PayPal to clayjonz@gmail.com. You can also snail it to P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402.

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MAGA-Lardo Subpoenas

Donald Trump is preparing to be arrested by the Manhattan District Attorney next week, politicizing it, fundraising off it, and trying to create another violent riot from it. This case stems from paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016, days before the election, to keep quiet about boinking in a Las Vegas hotel room just four months after Melania gave birth to Baron. It’s not illegal to cheat on your wife four months after she gave birth to your fifth child. It’s not illegal to shag porn stars in Vegas. It’s not even illegal to pay hush money to a porn star to keep quiet about boinking in Vegas. But…it is a crime to donate money to your own campaign and not file it.

Michael Cohen, who was Trump’s lawyer/fixer at the time, paid Stormy $130,000 in the scheme, and Trump reimbursed Cohen later with a check…AFTER he was in the White House. Trump committed a crime and he did it while he was president. This should be his third impeachment.

Trump has denied having sex with Stormy Daniels but has admitted reimbursing Michael Cohen.

Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker should also be facing criminal charges for paying a Playboy playmate $150,000 shortly before the 2016 election to keep quiet about her trysts with Tiny.

While the Manhattan case may be historic in that a former president (sic) is arrested, and extremely embarrassing when we get to see Trump’s mug shot and hopefully a perp walk (pleeeeeeeeeeeeease let there be a perp walk of Trump in handcuffs), it’s not the case that’s the biggest threat to Trump.

The greatest threat to Trump is the case in Georgia where Trump engaged in election interference, fraud, tampering, intimidation, etc, and the Special Counsel probe of Trump trying to steal the election, instigating a terrorist attack on the Capitol, obstructing Congress while it was performing a constitutionally-mandated duty, committing an insurrection, and stealing classified documents and obstructing justice.

We learned last week that Special Counsel Jack Smith has subpoenaed at least two dozen people over Trump’s handling of the documents, including employees of Mar-a-Lago. Multiple sources close to the situation said the list includes former attorneys, aides, housekeepers, restaurant workers, and other employees of the country club that has become Trump’s full-time residence.

I’ve read in the past that Trump is actually a pretty good tipper, often handing $50 bills to housekeepers. Now we know why. But I think silence should cost more than $50. If you’re an employee at Mar-a-Lago and you see something, then say something.

These investigations and prosecutions are NOT political. The Manhattan DA refused to prosecute Trump personally when he went after the Trump Organization. Donald Trump attacked our country and tried to steal an election. Sure, it’s unprecedented for a former president (sic) to be arrested, but it’s also unprecedented that a president (sic) is a traitor.

Indict Trump, arrest Trump, convict Trump, and imprison Trump. It’s the American thing to do.

Music note: I listened to Hole.

Signed prints: The signed prints are just $40.00 each. Every cartoon on this site is available. You can pay through PayPal. If you don’t like PayPal, you can snail mail it to Clay Jones, P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402. I can mail the prints directly to you or if you’re purchasing as a gift, directly to the person you’re gifting.

Notes on my book, Tales From The Trumpster Fire: There are 19 copies of my book in stock, which go for $45.00 each, signed. Also, I have copies of my first book from 1997, Knee-Deep in Mississippi available for $20.00.

Tip Jar: if you want to support the cartoonist, please send a donation through PayPal to clayjonz@gmail.com. You can also snail it to P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402.

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Roughs, Volume 174

This batch of roughs was Thursday, March 9. I only drew seven and I took one out for possible future use. I don’t know if there’s anything special here since you’ve seen the final products from four of these.

My editor assigned Nikki Haley and her proposal to raise the retirement age for people who are currently in their 20s. I liked this one. It’s my favorite of the three on the subject.

I don’t like this one at all.

This is the one that became the cartoon for the CNN Opinion newsletter and it did really well on social media.

This became an official cartoon which I drew in two airports.

This became an official cartoon and I changed very little about it.

And this became an official cartoon, even if you didn’t get it.

That’s it, kids. Which one is your favorite?

Signed prints: The signed prints are just $40.00 each. Every cartoon on this site is available. You can pay through PayPal. If you don’t like PayPal, you can snail mail it to Clay Jones, P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402. I can mail the prints directly to you or if you’re purchasing as a gift, directly to the person you’re gifting.

Notes on my book, Tales From The Trumpster Fire: There are 19 copies of my book in stock, which go for $45.00 each, signed. Also, I have copies of my first book from 1997, Knee-Deep in Mississippi available for $20.00.

Tip Jar: if you want to support the cartoonist, please send a donation through PayPal to clayjonz@gmail.com. You can also snail it to P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402.

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Let’s Go To Prison

Fucknut Qanon troglodyte she-beast Marjorie Taylor Greene plans to visit January 6 defendants in prison. She believes the white nationalist terrorists who committed an insurrection in attacking our nation in a failed coup attempt are patriots. But hey, maybe while she’s there, she can visit the biggest January 6 defendant, former president (sic) of the United States Donald J. Trump. The “J” is for jagoff.

Donald Trump predicted this morning, Saturday, March 18, 2023, that he’s going to be arrested this Tuesday. Trump “truthed” in all caps because nobody’s taught grandpa how to use the caps lock key yet, “THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE AND FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”

Wow, right? He admits he’s the former president.

An indictment is expected soon from the Manhattan grand jury that’s been hearing the district attorney’s case against Trump in the hush money scheme to silence Stormy Daniels in the 2016 presidential election. Does Trump actually know when the indictment is coming down? He probably doesn’t. But what he is doing is using this to raise money. He’s also calling for a protest much like he did for January 6 when Congress was certifying the Electoral College and Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.

Within hours, Speaker Kevin McCarthy tweeted that he is calling for investigations into whether federal funds were being used for “politically motivated prosecutions.” But Donald Trump did pay Stormy Daniels to remain silent about their shagfest, the toad, and yeti pubes without filing it as a campaign expense. McCarthy should wait until after a trial before calling for more bullshit investigations. This is the same guy who bragged that the Benghazi investigations were used to hurt Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. How much in federal funds is the Republican House using for politically motivated investigations into Hunter Biden?

MTG has now added defunding federal investigations into Mr. Yeti Pubes before she’ll vote to raise the debt ceiling. Republicans want criminals to run wild.

But if you’re excited about the prospect of Trump being convicted and sent to prison on the Stormy Daniels thing, don’t be. Out of all the investigations currently ongoing against Trump, this is the one he’s not really worried about. In fact, he may insist upon doing a perp walk as it’ll be a great fundraiser and aid in creating another MAGA white nationalist terrorist riot. What fun.

For Trump to be indicted, prosecutors will have to convince a jury that Trump intentionally violated campaign finance laws with the strongest testimony coming from a convicted perjurer in Michael Cohen, and a porn star. And even if he is convicted, jail time is not mandatory. Since this will be the first time he’s ever been convicted criminally, I wouldn’t put money on a jail sentence.

The cases that should truly worry Trump are the investigations by Special Counsel Jack Smith and the one over election tampering in Georgia. Trying to steal an election, overthrow the government, and stealing and hiding classified documents is much more serious than boinking a porn star. The biggest excitement I’ll gain from this is the possibility that we’ll see Sniffles in handcuffs.

But even in the Stormy case, Trump has a greater chance of eating prison food before Russian President Vladimir Putin does.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Putin. Don’t get excited about this one either because not only can’t the ICC go and get Putin out of Russia, it’s a warrant that’s not recognized by a lot of nations, including the United States. President Biden said it’s “justified” even as he pointed out that we don’t recognize it.

Even if he’s never arrested, Vladimir Putin is a war criminal. And the warrant is still a big deal because this is the leader of a G0 nation.

But if Putin is ever put in prison, let’s make it convenient for MTG, who loves and defends both men, and make Trump and Putin cellmates.

Signed prints: The signed prints are just $40.00 each. Every cartoon on this site is available. You can pay through PayPal. If you don’t like PayPal, you can snail mail it to Clay Jones, P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402. I can mail the prints directly to you or if you’re purchasing as a gift, directly to the person you’re gifting.

Notes on my book, Tales From The Trumpster Fire: There are 19 copies of my book in stock, which go for $45.00 each, signed. Also, I have copies of my first book from 1997, Knee-Deep in Mississippi available for $20.00.

Tip Jar: if you want to support the cartoonist, please send a donation through PayPal to clayjonz@gmail.com. You can also snail it to P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402.

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Freedom Caucus Terrorism

Instead of agreeing to raise the debt ceiling like responsible legislators should, Republicans would rather use it to hold the nation hostage, which has become a right of passage for the GOP anytime a Democrat is in the White House. They rubber-stamp this shit when a Republican is in there.

Newt Gingrich figured this out in 1995 and despite the fact it didn’t work out for them, the GOP has been doing it ever since.

Again, the debt ceiling does NOT create new spending. It only authorizes the government to continue borrowing to pay its bills, like military spending, bailouts to corporations, and all the shortages created by giving huge tax cuts to corporations, trust-fund babies, and billionaire assholes.

Kevin McCarthy has demanded that President Biden cut government spending before his party will agree to raise the debt ceiling…but he wants the president to find the cuts. Even terrorists are better at providing lists of demands than Republicans. Enter the House Freedom Caucus.

The Freedom Caucus is the most conservative group in Congress. They’re more far-right than actually conservative and they’re not really a policy-focused group. They’d rather ban books than read them. They’re more about culture wars and loud noises. They are also the vilest, most racist, and biggest liars in Congress. Its chairman is Scott Perry and the vice-chairman is Jim Gym Jordan. Prominent members include Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar, and Ronny Jackson. Former members include Louie Gohmert, Devin Nunes, Mo Brooks, Madison Cawthorn, Mark Meadows, Barry Loudermilk, Mick Mulvaney, Mark Sanford, and Ron DeSantis.

The Freedom Caucus is less about freedom and more about gooning. From here on out, that’s how we’ll refer to them, as the Goon Caucus.

The Goon Caucus has power because of the GOP’s slim majority. It was their efforts that forced 15 votes before Kevin McCarthy could win the speakership. Some of the deals he made with the Goon Caucus members were sweet committee assignments, guns on the floor of the house, removal of metal detectors to enter the House, Fucknut Fridays (everybody wears a wife-beater and gets a kazoo), and giving over 44 thousand hours of security footage to Tucker Carlson so he could edit it all down to four minutes to prove the January 6 attack on the Capitol wasn’t violent.

The Goon Caucus also played a heavy part in helping Donald Trump try to steal the 2020 election. And, many of them played a heavy part in the white nationalist terrorist MAGA attack on the capitol with Barry Loudermilk giving tours to terrorists the day before and Lauren Boebert attempting to tweet out Nancy Pelosi’s location. Several members of the Goon Caucus asked Trump for presidential (sic) pardons before he fled D.C. for Mar-a-Lago with stolen classified documents. They’re a swell bunch who probably smells like cinnamon and vanilla.

But since they do have power in the House, Kevin McCarthy has to at least patronize their demands or one of them can call for his removal. It only takes one member which is another one of those conditions he met to win the speakership thus becoming the weakest Speaker in House history. Many believe it was the Goon Caucus that made John Boehner and Paul Ryan just give up on Congress altogether.

So what are the goons’ demands to consider voting to raise the debt ceiling?

They want to revoke all new spending that helps the IRS go after billionaire tax cheats. They want to revoke all spending on climate investments. They also want President Biden to scrap his plan to forgive more than $400 billion in student loan debt, which the Supreme Court will probably do for them.

They want to cut discretionary spending back to 2022 levels and keep it there for a decade except for yearly increases of just one percent, but they want to leave out cuts to the military and veterans and haven’t specified where these cuts will come from. Economists believe cutting back to last year’s level would cause a recession which would then grant the Goon Caucus the ability to blame Biden.

They’re demanding more work requirements for welfare recipients even though there are already work requirements to receive welfare. They also want work requirements for Medicaid.

They want to recover unspent COVID relief funds. About 60 percent of what’s left is to shore up pensions for machinists and iron workers. Other remaining funds are meant for veterans’ health care and vaccine distribution and development, as well as transit funding that’s been promised to specific states and cities but is still technically unobligated. They’re not asking Marjorie Taylor Greene to pay back the $183,504 she received in PPP “loans”.

They want to cut non-defense spending to totals from five years ago. 

They want an end to all federal energy regulations. Look how well cutting regulations have done recently for the railway and banking industries.

They basically want to revoke all spending approved by Congress when it had a Democratic majority.

If the Goon Caucus doesn’t get what it wants, even if it can’t be specific on what it wants, it’ll shut down the government. And Kevin McCarthy can’t stop this. The government will shut down and the entire world’s economy may be trashed on the whims of 20 percent of the House.

This isn’t legislating. This is terrorism.

Music note: I listened to The Breeders.

Signed prints: The signed prints are just $40.00 each. Every cartoon on this site is available. You can pay through PayPal. If you don’t like PayPal, you can snail mail it to Clay Jones, P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402. I can mail the prints directly to you or if you’re purchasing as a gift, directly to the person you’re gifting.

Notes on my book, Tales From The Trumpster Fire: There are 19 copies of my book in stock, which go for $45.00 each, signed. Also, I have copies of my first book from 1997, Knee-Deep in Mississippi available for $20.00.

Tip Jar: if you want to support the cartoonist, please send a donation through PayPal to clayjonz@gmail.com. You can also snail it to P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402.

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Woke Brackets

I got home really late last night and I was exhausted. I checked out of my hotel in Pigeon Forge early in the morning, drew my cartoon at Starbucks, then got an Uber to the Knoxville airport, ate, flew to Atlanta, and had a Frosty during that four-hour layover while my flight was delayed…then delayed again, flew to Washington, took the Metro to Springfield, called a Lyft to take me home to Fredericksburg…and then stayed up two more hours because while being exhausted, I was also kinda wired. I ordered some food from Wawa and then they canceled my turkey sandwich, so I went ahead and cooked something at 1 a.m.

I spent that time catching up on the news and reading about Republicans blaming wokeness for SVB’s collapse. And then I saw an article about the military’s “woke” response to Russia downing a U.S. drone, and then something about March Madness popped up and I thought, “Can I blame wokeness if my bracket busts?”. That’s how I write sometimes. I thought the idea of a woke bracket was funny because it really sounds stupid. And then I found out this morning that woke brackets are a thing.

Proofer Laura told me this morning that she thought I had invented woke brackets, and I thought I had too…but she Googled and it’s a thing, though it seems most aren’t about basketball.

In 2021, Outkick started this bracket thing where readers can vote on Twitter called the “Woke Bracket Challenge” where I think you pit one bracket predictor against another which turns it into something I don’t care about at all.

And then I found the “anti-woke bracket” from the Washington Examiner, a failing conservative online publication based in Washington, D.C. You make your picks based on which schools have the fewest “freedom-hating bureaucrats” at their institution. It’s based on a report from the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, which has counted all the diversity, equity, and inclusion administrators for every school in the Power Five conferences, and then compared that number to the number of teaching faculty at each university and wow…someone has too much time on his hands.

And I thought it was already a huge distraction and waste of time with the regular brackets.

As I’m trying to understand these woke and anti-woke brackets, it suddenly occurred to me that I don’t have to understand it…because all the right-wing goons who scream about woke can’t tell you what woke is. Ron DeSantis sure can’t and neither can Bethany Mandel, an author who co-wrote a book (with a DeSantis goon) claiming the far-left has indoctrinated today’s youth with racial ideology, victimhood, culture, and “gender madness.” When asked to define “wokeness,” Mandel couldn’t.

Mandel was on The Hill’s online show, The Rising when co-host Briahna Joy Gray asked her to define the word “woke.”

Mandel’s response was, “So, I mean, woke is sort of the idea that, um,…This is going to be one of those moments that goes viral.” And it did.

Mandel then said, “I mean, woke is something that’s very hard to define, and we’ve spent an entire chapter defining it. It is sort of the understanding that we need to totally reimagine and reduce society in order to create hierarchies of oppression. Um, sorry, I—it’s hard to explain in a 15-second sound bite.” So she wrote an entire chapter defining it but couldn’t define it.

The co-host of the show, libertarian Robby Soave, jumped in to rescue Mandel and defined woke as “the tendency to punish people formally or often informally for expressing ideas using language that is very new that no one would have objected to like five seconds ago.” Wrong! It’s not about punishing people who disagree with you. Soave wasn’t even close. It’s about understanding.

While Republicans are howling about wokeness and clearly struggling to understand it, a new poll by USA Today found that 56 percent of those surveyed say the term means “to be informed, educated on, and aware of social injustices.”

Republicans are going to have to find another word to describe all that bullshit they’re crying about, because “woke” isn’t it. They’re claiming that understanding social injustice makes them a victim while writing books that blame the left for indoctrinating kids into victimhood.

And like Republicans with “woke,” I don’t understand college basketball this year because I didn’t follow it, which means my bracket has just as good of a chance as anyone else’s.

Music note: I listened to The Pixies.

Signed prints: The signed prints are just $40.00 each. Every cartoon on this site is available. You can pay through PayPal. If you don’t like PayPal, you can snail mail it to Clay Jones, P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402. I can mail the prints directly to you or if you’re purchasing as a gift, directly to the person you’re gifting.

Notes on my book, Tales From The Trumpster Fire: There are 19 copies of my book in stock, which go for $45.00 each, signed. Also, I have copies of my first book from 1997, Knee-Deep in Mississippi available for $20.00.

Tip Jar: if you want to support the cartoonist, please send a donation through PayPal to clayjonz@gmail.com. You can also snail it to P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402.

Watch me draw:

DeSantis Loves Putin

Any candidate who can’t see that democracy in Europe and the defeat of fascism is in our vital national interest has no place in the White House…or Congress, or a governor’s mansion, or have his own talk show.

While talking to Tucker Carlson on Fox News, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said, “While the US has many vital national interests, securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party, becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them.”

First, checking the military power of China is a vital national interest, but Russia’s military invasion of a soveriegn nation is not? Second, Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine is NOT a territorial dispute.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has firebombed the entire nation of Ukraine which he’s justified with lies about Nazis. If Ukraine was actually controlled by Nazis, they’d be siding with Putin. Putin is trying to make Ukraine a part of Russia again and destroy the government elected by the people of Ukraine. He’s bombed homes, hospitals, schools, and playgrounds killing over 400 children in the process. Anyone who calls this a “territorial dispute” is a vile disgusting despicable human being. This is Ron DeSantis.

You can include Ron DeSantis with Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, and Donald Trump, who all are on the side of Putin’s fascist Russia over democratic Ukraine. In choosing Russia over Ukraine, they’re choosing Russia over the vital national interests of the United States.

Of course, Ron DeSantis would side with the fascist who doesn’t allow fair elections in his nation over the democratically-elected Volodimyr Zelenskyy. DeSantis has modeled his tyranny of Florida on the fascist states of Russia and Hungary. He’s waged war on science, history, LGBTQ, education, and all dissent.

Ron DeSantis says “Florida is where woke goes to die.” “Woke” is an idealogy of open-mindedness, thoughtfulness, and compassion. Woke is understanding positions you will never be in and being aware and conscious of the plights of others. If you’re a white male and you understand others who are not white males will have a more difficult path than you and realize that you do indeed have white privilege, then congratulations. You are woke. Ron DeSantis wants “woke” to die and is trying to kill it through legislation. Ron DeSantis is trying to cancel, not just free speech, but free thinking. He’s currently trying to turn one state college into a reeducation camp.

It’s shocking that Republicans don’t believe Russian aggression, threatening NATO and Europe, is not in America’s vital interests. Ronald Reagan must be rolling in his grave while Ron DeSantis is rolling in Putin’s propaganda.

Creative note: This cartoon was drawn at a Starbucks in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. The blog was written inside a Ruby Tuesdays in the terminal of the Knoxville airport.

Signed prints: The signed prints are just $40.00 each. Every cartoon on this site is available. You can pay through PayPal. If you don’t like PayPal, you can snail mail it to Clay Jones, P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402. I can mail the prints directly to you or if you’re purchasing as a gift, directly to the person you’re gifting.

Notes on my book, Tales From The Trumpster Fire: There are 19 copies of my book in stock, which go for $45.00 each, signed. Also, I have copies of my first book from 1997, Knee-Deep in Mississippi available for $20.00.

Tip Jar: if you want to support the cartoonist, please send a donation through PayPal to clayjonz@gmail.com. You can also snail it to P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402.

Watch me draw:

Conjunction Misfunction

Silicone Valley Bank crashed Saturday with $212 billion in assets. It’s the second-largest bank failure in history. This prompted Cocaine Bear, I mean Donald Trump Jr, to tweet, “I don’t remember banks collapsing under Trump.”

Seaway Bank and Trust Company, Proficio Bank, First NBC Bank, Guaranty Bank, Fayette County Bank, The Farmers and Merchants State Bank of Argonia, Washington Federal Bank for Savings, The Enloe State Bank, Louisa Community Bank, Resolute Bank, City National Bank of New Jersey, Ericson State Bank, The First State Bank, First City Bank of Florida, Almena State Bank all collapsed during the Trump administration. In case you’re counting, that’s 15 banks that collapsed during the Trump administration. Just because Sniffles Jr doesn’t remember something doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Ten years from now and he won’t remember dating Kimberly Guilfoyle.

Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted, “They give money to Silicon Valley Bank. They give money to Ukraine. But no money for East Palestine.” MTG’s received a bailout of over $183,504 which she didn’t refuse. And why should taxpayers pay for a corporation’s fuck up in East Palestine? The government paying to clean up the disaster in East Palestine, Ohio would be a taxpayer-paid bailout for a corporation. Norfolk Southern is a huge campaign contributor to Republicans.

On Sunday, the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, and the FDIC announced they were taking “decisive actions” to protect the economy and shore up confidence in the banking system. This is so there isn’t a panic and everyone in the nation pulls their money out of their banks, which is what happened to SVB. This is a bailout but it’s not a taxpayer bailout like the one we saw in 2008.

SVB is not going to be revived and lenders and shareholders won’t be getting any government money. But depositors will be paid back from a fund that banks pay into called the “Depositors Insurance Fund.”

Conservatives are blaming the bank’s collapse on…wait for it…”wokeism.” Wait, what? Seriously? Yes, seriously. It’s because the bank hired gay bank tellers and trans security guards. No, really, they blame investments that promote environmental and social goals and SVB’s commitment to diversity and equity programs. The reason conservatives hate SVB so much is that it was a bank used by the tech industry, which of course they believe discriminates against them. For them, it’s an easy target if you don’t look at the details.

And yes, Trump’s deregulation of the banking industry is a contributing factor in SVB’s collapse.

President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010 which was designed to prevent another collapse like the one we saw in 2018. Dodd-Frank mandated stricter capital and liquidity standards for institutions with $50 billion in assets. Trump’s rewrite raised the minimum to $250 billion in assets.

SVB’s CEO was a huge supporter to raise that minimum and at the time, SVG had less than $50 billion in assets. When SVB crashed last week, it had $212 billion.

If Republicans want to scream and hootin’ and hollerin’ (I’m in Tennesse) about the bank’s collapse, then they need to scream at themselves.

You can’t keep deregulating banks and railroads and then wonder why they crash…or blame wokeism.

Creative note: This cartoon was drawn at a Starbucks in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. I wrote the blog back in my hotel room.

Signed prints: The signed prints are just $40.00 each. Every cartoon on this site is available. You can pay through PayPal. If you don’t like PayPal, you can snail mail it to Clay Jones, P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402. I can mail the prints directly to you or if you’re purchasing as a gift, directly to the person you’re gifting.

Notes on my book, Tales From The Trumpster Fire: There are 19 copies of my book in stock, which go for $45.00 each, signed. Also, I have copies of my first book from 1997, Knee-Deep in Mississippi available for $20.00.

Tip Jar: if you want to support the cartoonist, please send a donation through PayPal to clayjonz@gmail.com. You can also snail it to P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402.

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Woke Scarecrows

Ron DeSantis, who hasn’t announced whether he’s running for president or not, is visiting Iowa because he’s running for president. He just hasn’t told anybody yet.

His excuse is that he’s on a book tour and every author’s book tour takes him or her to the Iowa State Fair. While he’s doing the meet-and-greet, kissing babies, and slobbering over himself, the one rule for reporters is: Don’t ask him any questions. He doesn’t do good with questions and thinking on his feet.

Ron DeSantis is untested on the national stage and the thing going against him is that he lacks charisma and is a total asshole. He’s smarter than Trump but he doesn’t know how to appeal beyond his hateful policies. But DeSantis’ speeches in Iowa are just like the one he gave in California at the Reagan Library last week. Woke this, woke that, I hate gays and immigrants, Fauci sucks, blah blah blah.

DeSantis paints Florida with its new hardline policies against gays and black history as a model for the world to follow…as he’s following the model set in fascist Hungary.

Nikki Haley has already been in Iowa and Trump will be there today. The race has begun.

Creative note: This cartoon was started at the Washington airport and finished at the Atlanta airport on very little sleep. It’s hard to sleep when you can’t breathe. Sorry for the short blog but I’m on a layover and have to catch a plane.

Signed prints: The signed prints are just $40.00 each. Every cartoon on this site is available. You can pay through PayPal. If you don’t like PayPal, you can snail mail it to Clay Jones, P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402. I can mail the prints directly to you or if you’re purchasing as a gift, directly to the person you’re gifting.

Notes on my book, Tales From The Trumpster Fire: There are 19 copies of my book in stock, which go for $45.00 each, signed. Also, I have copies of my first book from 1997, Knee-Deep in Mississippi available for $20.00.

Tip Jar: if you want to support the cartoonist, please send a donation through PayPal to clayjonz@gmail.com. You can also snail it to P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402.

Watch me draw: