Three students and three school staffers were murdered today in another American mass shooting, this time in Nashville, Tennessee. According to the Gun Violence Archive, this is the 129th mass shooting in the United States this year. That’s 129 mass shootings in the past three months, and we still have four more days before this month is over. Hell, the day’s not over. For one person at the scene, it was her second time witnessing a mass shooting. Only in the United States can a person be a witness to two mass shootings.
And this happened in Tennessee where out of “concern” for child safety, the Republican-controlled state legislature just banned public drag shows. Last year, they banned Critical Race Theory even though it didn’t exist in any schools in the state.
There have been no mass murders in schools or anywhere else in this nation by drag queens or Critical Race Theory. But school shootings happen. They happen a lot. So why is it so easy to ban drag shows and a black history course that doesn’t exist yet we can’t talk about gun control? Why can’t we talk about a ban on assault weapons?
Republicans became very comfortable with kids being murdered by assault rifles several years ago. Guns are more important to them than the lives of our children. So is homophobia and racism which is why they’re so eager to act against drag queens and black history which multiple states are now banning.
And the thing is, I’ve already written this blog. I’ve already drawn this cartoon. And I’m going to write it again and I’m going to draw it again. I’m tired of drawing dead bodies. And, a lot of Republicans are going to tell me “too soon” with this cartoon.
Within minutes of posting this cartoon on Twitter, a goon tweeted a meme at me about Nazis and gun bans. It’s “too soon” for me to talk about gun control on the day of a school shooting, but the goons can go ahead and lie about Nazis and gun bans.
So if the day of a mass shooting is “too soon,” when does “too soon” expire? When can I talk about gun control after a mass shooting? With 129 within three months, it better be a short window. There have been more mass shootings than days which would mean we can never talk about it.
Mass shootings have become a Republican industry.
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.
Donald Trump is going to make as much money as he can off this arrest…if he’s arrested. But I think everyone who’s donated after his prediction that he would be arrested last Tuesday should ask for a refund. But then again, they’re dumb enough to give him money in the first place so they’ll probably be dumb enough to do it again.
By the way, calm down. Don’t get too excited if he’s indicted in New York. Yeah, giggle and laugh about his perp walk and mug shot because I know I will, but don’t expect much more after that. This is the weakest criminal case he’s facing. The worst that can possibly happen to him with the Manhatta case is a fine and maybe some weak probation. Manhattan isn’t scaring Trump.
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.
I went to sleep with the radio on when I was a kid. For a couple of years in the early 80s, I lived in Ellaville, Georgia (I hated it) and the station I listened to was in Columbus and every Sunday night right around bedtime it played the Dr. Demento Show. Dr. Demento introduced me to Weird Al Yankovic and lots of other novelty songs. Obviously, I didn’t fall asleep during the Dr. Demento Show. I bet every political cartoonist listened to Dr. Demento.
One of the songs that seemed to play every Sunday was “They’re Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!” by Napoleon XIV. There’s no actual singing in the song and the only music is rhythm from drums and hand claps. The speaking is at a normal pace but increases in speed and pitch during the chorus. It comes off as a guy going insane over his girlfriend dumping him but you discover in the end that it’s actually his dog who dumped him. It’s hilarious and a timeless classic.
I wrote this cartoon Friday for CNN but didn’t think they’d take it and I didn’t think I’d draw it for my newspapers either. I was thinking that at this point that the song is too obscure and no one would know what I was talking about. But I had second thoughts this morning with one of those being, “Fuck it. It is a classic.” I know my fellow weirdos will get it instantly and they’ll love it. But maybe it’s not that obscure.
In fact, the song reached number three on the charts in 1966 which comes as news to me because when I was listening to this in 1982, I thought it was new.
Napoleon XIV was actually Jerry Samuels and he didn’t make a career out of novelty songs. He was a singer, songwriter, studio producer, engineer, and talent agent. While working for a record label in New York City, he put together “They’re Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!” and he made a hit and became a one-hit-wonder. The B-side was the song in reverse, titled, “”!aaaH-aH ,yawA eM ekaT oT gnimoC er’yehT” Rock critic Dave Marsh called it the “most obnoxious song ever” and claims it once cleared out a diner of 40 people in under two minutes.
As I was trying to decide between this cartoon and a few others I wrote on Friday, I did some Googling about the song, wanting to know who Napoleon XIV really was and I discovered that Jerry Samuels died two weeks ago on March 3, 2023, at the age of 84. That nailed it for my choice of which cartoon to draw today. This cartoon is dedicated to Napoleon XIV.
And in case you’re curious, Napoleon XIV died from dementia.
You gotta be a little crazy to write a song like “They’re Coming To Take Me Away! Ha-Haa!” and really crazy to draw cartoons or at least good ones. But you gotta be totally deranged and out of your fucking mind if you’re Donald Trump.
Ha-Haa! Ho-Ho! Hee-Hee! Hoo-Hoo! Ha-Haa!
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.
Yesterday, someone commented on my Facebook post about my roughs, telling me to “be careful” because some cartoons could land me in Facebook jail. Seriously? I don’t already know that? I’m the king of being thrown into Facebook and other social media jails. And how am I supposed to be careful with posting my cartoons on Facebook? Maybe I should post them quietly. Fuck that…I will post everything thing I draw on Facebook and other social media accounts. I’m not afraid of Facebook jail and REFUSE to allow Facebook or any other platform to dictate (I said “dick”) how I work or what I can publish. Facebook doesn’t pay me. But, at least I know who’s been reporting my cartoons now. Fuckers from Florida.
How do I know it’s Florida fucks? Because a school principal in Florida was forced to resign over students seeing a photo of Michelangelo’s “David.” David is naked and his uncircumcised penis is in full view for all to see. It’s like Ken Jeong in one of the Hangover movies, but not as tiny.
Hope Carrasquilla of Tallahassee Classical School in Leon County is now the former principal after being forced to resign. What did you expect to happen in a Florida county named “Leon?” Barney Bishop III, the chair of the school board and a lobbyist (wanna take one guess which party he lobbies?) said Mrs. Carrasquilla voluntarily resigned after they gave her an ultimatum of resigning or being fired. I guess if she had chosen option B then Barney would say she was voluntarily fired.
Barney also said she wasn’t fired for showing the kid’s “David,” but she was shit-canned, I mean, asked to “voluntarily” resign after complaints from three parents who believed the material on David was “controversial” and not age-appropriate for their children.
Barney said she “wasn’t let go because of the artistic nude pictures. We show it every year to our students. The problem with this particular issue was the lack of follow-through on the process.”
They claim the problem is that she didn’t inform parents before educating the kids on “David.” The former principal said two parents were upset about not being bothered and another said it was pornography. But, Barey said they show it to the students every year…so don’t the parents already know this? Since Barney knows this and parents don’t, he should be fired for not “following through.”
Tallahassee Classical follows a curriculum from Hillsdale College, a conservative Christian institution in Michigan that has helped launch dozens of “classical” charter schools nationwide and is required to teach Renaissance art to sixth graders. Clarence Thomas called Hillsdale College a “shining city on a hill” and his wife and insurrectionist Ginni is a lobbyist for the school. The lesson featuring “David” also included images of “The Creation of Adam” fresco painting and “Birth of Venus” by Botticelli.
So the principal was required to teach about “David” but was fired for not telling parents beforehand? If the parents understand their children are going to a school with these requirements, then weren’t they basically already told beforehand? This sounds more like a failure on the parents’ part in understanding what their kids are being taught and what kind of school they’re going to.
A penis is not pornographic. Nudity is not pornographic. It depends on the context. “David” is a classical piece of art. The only people who could be upset over stuff like this are people who want to send their kids to fundamentalist fucknut charter schools.
Florida has enacted bills reshaping education with a Republican mindset, with one limiting education on gender identity and sexual orientation to fourth grade and above and another that prohibited certain ways of teaching about race. Don’t say “gay” and don’t say “black.” Now, there’s another bill that will make “don’t say gay” apply all the way to 12th grade. And then DeSantis is trying to remake colleges into fucknut troglodyte re-education camps with new courses like Goose-Stepping 101.
Now, there’s another bill in the state legislature that would grant parents greater power to read over and object to school instructional materials and even limit their child’s ability to explore the school library. The bill also bans teaching about health education, sexually transmitted diseases, and human sexuality before the sixth grade. It even bans girls from talking about their menstrual periods. Naturally, a man wrote this bill. His name is Stan and Stan the Florida Man thinks periods are yucky and girls should keep their mysterious lady parts to themselves.
Florida is turning into Afghanistan where talking about periods is also probably outlawed. Florida’s GOP is turning into the Taliban under Ron DeSantis’ leadership with the help of Stan the Florida Man. Hey, can we start calling Florida “Floridastan?”
The problem isn’t with parents having a say in their children’s education, but that parents are having a say over the education of other people’s children. Now, no child at this school will ever learn about classical art because one uptight nag thinks a penis is porn.
“Penis” isn’t even a bad word. Watch. Penis, penis, penis, penis, penis. It’s actually required now if you want to talk about Florida politics because the state is being governed by a bunch of dicks.
Creative note: This was a pain in the ass and I hope to never do it again.
I kinda jump on cartoonists who import art into their cartoons. A lot of them are now doing it with backgrounds and logos. I saw quite a few last week with the Silicon Savings Bank logo and I’m always seeing it with the Twitter bird. C’mon, guys. Just draw it. But I made an exception here because there’s no way anyone is going to believe I drew “David.” I’m not trying to trick anyone. I also wanted to use the actual image to show readers exactly what the fuss is about. Will Facebook remove it because of the penis?
I also think the ownership is fair use. I snagged this photo from Wayfair which is selling little statues of it.
I used to joke that editors are always afraid of my cartoons like I’m going to sneak a penis into one of them. I wouldn’t commit career suicide in such a way. I’ve vowed never to draw a penis in one of my cartoons, and guess what. I still haven’t.
My technical issue with this is that I couldn’t color in Procreate on a layer underneath the imported layer. I tried to figure it out and it just wouldn’t work. I even saved the entire cartoon and imported it onto a new canvas and it still wouldn’t work. So, I imported it into Corel which I haven’t used in a couple of years. I forgot how to use it. But it worked…and it was a pain in the ass. God, I hate Corel now.
This also means I couldn’t record the entire creation of the cartoon, so you may not get any video today.
Music note: I started to listen to Abba but turned it off after two songs to focus on how to color this thing. Why’d I have to do that? Read the creative note.
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.
Ding dong! Roughs are here! All of these were drawn last Thursday, March 16, and Friday, March 17. I was already whipping up ideas for CNN when Donald Trump truthed that he would be arrested on Tuesday (which didn’t happen).
This is actually the second rough of this idea. I threw away the first as what you’re looking at here was the beginning of my making it an official cartoon…until I stopped. I pushed it aside and drew this instead.
This didn’t turn into anything.
I liked this one and probably should have done it.
I kinda liked this one too. I would have offered it to my friend Joe Heller who lives in Green Bay, but like me, he doesn’t take ideas from other people.
I’ve been seeing other cartoonists pimping their Patreons (where you pay a fee to support the cartoonist) and by subscribing, they’ll show you their cartoons early, the roughs, and the timelapse videos of their creations. Some even add blogs. Am I an idiot for not charging for any of that stuff and just hoping people will be generous and donate? A few do and I really appreciate those supporters. But would I get the support financially that others get if I took my work into a subscription platform? Just thinking out loud.
Now, Which of these cartoons are your favorites?
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.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified for hours yesterday before the House Energy and Science Committee and was hammered from the left and the right. Washington observers came away with the impression that it was a huge disaster for TikTok. But content creators on TikTok were less impressed by the Washington establishment.
Full disclaimer: I’m a TikTok user and I love it. It’s a great tool to expand my audience and it’s fun to make 30-second timelapse videos of my cartoons to music. But I can see the concerns about it. Even when I was a smoker I was not a fan of tobacco companies.
During yesterday’s hearing, the representatives kept trying to pin Chew down on TikTok being a tool for China to spy on users in the United States. The best they could get was “no,” and the best they could do was, “Nyuh-huh.”
Daniel Castro, the vice president of a science and tech policy think tank tweeted, “Congressional hearings would be much better if Committee rules prohibited loaded questions. Not all questions can be answered with yes/no answers.” It’s like it’s the first time this crowd has ever watched a congressional hearing. And this committee didn’t feature the likes of Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, or Jim Gym Jordan.
Elizabeth Nolan Brown, the senior editor at Reason, tweeted, “TikTok’s CEO keeps essentially saying he’s not an agent of the Chinese Communist Party and the lawmakers are like… BUT AREN’T YOU ACTUALLY? like he’s going to trip up Scooby Doo villain style if they keep saying it.” Will you admit to being a spy if I give you a Scooby Snack?
TikTok is a private company in China, but China is an authoritarian state. Is anything totally private in China? The government owns one percent of ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, and has placed a government official on the board. Financial Times describes the one percent share as a “golden share” investment, which is a nominal share that can outvote all other shares in certain circumstances.
Surely we need to protect our nation from China’s spying, but there’s a fine line between security and xenophobia. What information is China going to get from American users that are not already being data mined by Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and maybe even LinkedIn (the most inept and useless app since MySpace)? Several representatives from yesterday’s hearing gloated over their performance and questioning of Chew…on Twitter. Couldn’t at least one of them detect the irony in that?
Eva, director of cybersecurity at Electronic Frontier Foundation tweeted, “If you think the US needs a TikTok ban and not a comprehensive privacy law regulating data brokers, you don’t care about privacy, you just hate that a Chinese company has built a dominant social media platform.”
The TikTok kids are right in that this was a bunch of old people screaming about something they don’t understand. The entire hearing was basically, “Get off my lawn.”
Olivia Julianna, director of Politics and government affairs at Gen-Z for Change was upset TikTok’s CEO wasn’t given much of a chance to talk, tweeting, “Watching the hearing on TikTok right now, and the amount of leading questions and interruption to the CEO trying to answer questions is so extremely unprofessional and irritating. This is a hearing— let us ACTUALLY HEAR him.”
I’m all for the government banning TikTok’s app on government-owned devices. Corporations can do the same thing. In fact, it’s probably smart to ban most apps on government and corporate-owned devices. Angry Birds knows where you live.
Both parties are coming down hard on TikTok. Both Trump and Biden have threatened to ban it in the United States. But I personally believe the Republican outrage is all Sarah Cooper’s fault.
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.
Pardon me while I pat myself on the back here but this is the difference between me and right-wing MAGAt fucknut editorial cartoonists. In fact, it’s not just me but also the difference between many liberal cartoonists and the MAGAts. Liberal cartoonists research. MAGAts use the most simplistic talking point that’s handed to them. They don’t even come up with it themselves. Yes, dear readers. I’m about to bash my conservative Trump cult colleague again. Make a pot of coffee.
I’m not really that smart but at least I know it. I once booked a flight out of Dulles International Airport and tried to catch it out of Washington Reagan. When Silicon Savings Bank collapsed, I didn’t know why. That meant I had to read up on it, research, Google, and other shit like that. A few years ago I was in a debate with one of my troglodyte colleagues when he accused me of knowing something only because I looked it up. He had me there.
When it comes to history, politics, government, and useless rock-n-roll trivia (for ten points, who did “Going Down to Liverpool” before the Bangles? No cheating), I’m pretty solid but I still research if it’s something that will be included in my work. When it comes to finances, the economy, the stock market, or banking, I get confused easily. I really have to put the work into it. For a lot of cartoonists, they can take something complicated and just draw a car with a label, like “SVB,” and have it going over a cliff. It’s easier than trying to understand the situation. Not understanding the subject they’re covering is very common among shitweasel cartoonists. A great example is putting a label on a cloud of smoke without any specifics at all. The labeled smoke cloud trope is really popular with MAGA cartoonists. Really popular. Did I say it was popular?
Editorial cartoonists do simplify issues for readers. You don’t wanna go word heavy every day like I did here. There’s nothing wrong with simplifying the issue and breaking it down…but the cartoonist should try to understand what he’s talking about and maybe not lie about it. It’s what I tried to do a couple weeks ago (and while I was traveling). It has to be extremely easy to be a conservative cartoonist and not have the burden of using facts in your coverage.
But the conservative cartoonists who don’t know what they’re talking about have to get their talking points from somewhere, which brings us to the Republican Party. They don’t understand the issue either and they’re the ones who helped make SVB’s collapse possible. Screaming “woke” isn’t just easier than understanding the issue, but helps deflect blame. As a bonus, you get to go after your favorite boogeyman.
Silicon Valley Bank is an easy target as it’s in liberal California and it was popular with tech companies (which Republicans believe discriminate against them) and start-ups. Screaming “woke” gives the impression that all the tellers were drag queens and they only accepted currency with Harriet Tubman on it. But this is still a bank that supported and lobbied Republicans to deregulate Dodd/Frank in 2018. Facts are fun.
Donald Trump Jr tweeted that the bank’s collapse is “what happens when you push a leftist/woke ideology.” Do you think Cocaine Bear understands the logistics of the issue?
Senator Josh “Flash” Hawley tweeted, “So these SVB guys spend all their time funding woke garbage (‘climate change solutions’) rather than actual banking and now want a handout from taxpayers to save them.” This guy is the government so he should know that the government isn’t paying for the bailout. He’s either too stupid for his job or lying. I accept that both can be true.
House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (who wants to investigate the Manhattan DA and Hunter Biden but believes it’ll be “politically unstainable” to investigate Jared Kushner) that SVB was “one of the most woke banks in their quest for ESG-type policy,” which is environmental stuff.
The California bank had been “so concerned with DEI and politics” said Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida on one of his many daily appearances on Fox News.
Stephen “Baby Goebbels” Miller, one of the architects of the build-the-wall scam tweeted the question: “how many hours & dollars were spent on equity/DEI/ESG/climate scams?”
In arguing that “woke” killed the bank, Republicans are saying corporations should get rid of diversity requirements and just hire white people. Wall Street Journal columnist Andy Kessler highlighted that the bank’s board was 45 percent women and also had one Black member, one “LGBTQ+” member, and two veterans. He wrote, “I’m not saying 12 white men would have avoided this mess, but the company may have been distracted by diversity demands.” One could also say that since the majority of the board was made up of white guys, then it was white guys who killed the bank. Kessler is literally blaming the minority.
The finance industry is not “woke” as 64 percent of executives in the financial services industry remain white men.
The thing about dum-dums dumbing down the reasons why SVB collapsed to other dum-dums is that it works. Now, MAGA morons will believe that any diversity is bad and if the system isn’t all white, drag queens will be teaching black history that’ll turn your kids gay while stealing your hard-earned white people money. The only solution to all this is to vote for Donald Trump, but if his being in prison bothers you, then vote for Ron DeSantis. Either way, we’re fucked.
Question: Does writing a lot of words in a cartoon make me woke?
Music note: I listened to Weezer and the new Pinocchio soundtrack. Really.
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.
The University of Virginia has always been good to me. The Center for Politics at UVA has had me speak and take part in seminars and while doing so, they’ve put me in nice hotels, a great bed and breakfast, have fed me in swanky restaurants, and even once gave me football tickets. Yeah, it was UVA vs Duke, but still…it was nice. I was on a panel at UVA just a few months ago. They have one of the most beautiful campuses in the nation when Trump-supporting tiki-torch Nazis aren’t invading it. So, even though I’m an SEC guy, I feel that I have to root for UVA in at least one sport. I root for them in basketball. Go, Cavaliers!
Virginia’s basketball program has been great since the hiring of coach Tony Bennett in 2009. He inherited the worst UVA team since the 1960s and turned it into a program that’s won two ACC tournaments (remember Duke and North Carolina are in the same conference), won or shared 6 ACC regular season titles, has four 30-win seasons, and won the national championship in 2019. Unfortunately, this great basketball powerhouse that runs with the likes of Duke and UNC also has epic losses of historic proportions.
Teams that are first seeds in the NCAA tournament don’t lose to teams ranked 16…until Virginia did it. In 2018, number-one seed Virginia lost to the 16-ranked University of Maryland at Baltimore County, the Retrievers. They won the national championship the next year and have had ups and downs since.
This year, I actually made a bracket and picked fourth-seed UVA to win the national championship. Once again, UVA gave us another epic loss, falling to 13-ranked Furman. Furman? Where the hell is Furman? It’s in Greenville, South Carolina. You gotta watch out for those Paladins? What the hell is a Paladin? Anyway, my bracket went bust on day one. The sun hadn’t even gone down yet and my bracket was toast.
Anyway, don’t take underdogs lightly. So far in this year’s NCAA tournaments, we’ve seen #1 Perdue fall to #16 Fairleigh Dickson, #2 Arizona fall to #15 Princeton, and in the woman’s tournament, we’ve seen #1 Stanford fall to #8 Ole Miss, and #1 Indiana fall to #9 Miami.
We’re also seeing Russia fall to underdog Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin expected to crush Ukraine within weeks, capture its president Volodymir Zelenskyy, absorb the entire nation as a Russian state, and stroll through the streets of Kyiv for photo-ops. Now, he’s begging for military supplies from China, Iran, and possibly North Korea. Putin is getting his ass kicked by this underdog.
It’s like Putin is a basketball coach but he doesn’t know the sport, with the only games he’s ever watched being those by the Harlem Globetrotters, who are as much of a real basketball team as they are real sleuths when they help out Scooby-Doo.
Putin probably has the means to keep fighting this illegal invasion, even if he has to use hardware from Iran, private armies, other assorted mercenaries, and recruits from prison, but he’ll never win as long as Ukraine has the support of the west. The west needs to give Ukraine everything it asks for because if it falls to Putin, so will other nations in the future. Putin will go west.
This is NOT what Florida Governor has called it, a “territorial dispute.” This is an illegal invasion of a sovereign democratic nation by a war criminal. And even though there are a lot of Republicans who are not rooting for them, I saw we cheer on and support the underdogs.
Except for the Paladins. Yeah, screw those guys.
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.
Donald Trump “truthed” that he’s going to be arrested on Tuesday. It’s Tuesday. As Ted Knight said in Caddyshack, “Well? We’re waiting.”
Republicans are in an uproar over the possibility Donald Trump will be indicted and arrested in Manhattan over the hush-money payment scheme to porn star Stormy Daniels. It didn’t work because we still found out about the “Yeti pubes.” They claim the statutes of limitations have passed in the case which is not true but is an admission of guilt. They claim the investigation is solely political since, as Trump puts it, he’s the “leading” candidate in the presidential race.
Trump claimed that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg “has allowed violent crime to reach new heights in New York without any retribution” in order to prosecute Trump. Other Republicans have made the same claim, saying Bragg should focus on other crimes in New York…and then without an ounce of awareness promise to investigate Bragg.
Instead of focusing on the border, inflation, the economy, China, and making sure Matt Gaetz isn’t hitting on underage congressional pages, Republicans want to investigate another Trump investigation.
Republican Florida congressman and Goon Caucus member Byron Donalds was on CNN this morning complaining about Bragg not focusing on New York, defended Congress going after Bragg, and then talked about how FEMA hasn’t provided enough trailers to his district after the last hurricane. Maybe you worry more about FEMA trailers in Florida and less about prosecutions in New York.
Republicans are threatening and harassing the Manhattan DA before any charges have been announced. While calling Bragg’s investigation political, they promise to investigate Bragg, and again without any awareness, with Jim Gym Jordan leading the committee.
Republicans are screaming and howling that a presidential candidate can’t be prosecuted, investigated, indicted, arrested, etc…while forgetting that they’re the “lock her up” gang.
Have you ever been to a Trump rally? I have. Have you at least seen one on TV? They do love their chants at Trump rallies. There’s “space force,” “fire Fauci,” “drain the swamp,” “build the wall,” and the always popular and very racist “send her back,” but perhaps the most popular of the chants that don’t exceed three syllables is “lock her up.”
In 2016, attendees of MAGA rallies started the chant “lock her up” in regard to Hillary Clinton, who at the time was the leading presidential candidate. Hmm. That’s weird. Right now, Republicans are saying it’s a bad thing to try to arrest leading presidential candidates and political opponents.
Donald Trump never disavowed these “lock her up” chants. Usually, he just stood at the podium with that creepy smile on his face ike he had just spotted a ten-year-old in Trump Tower that he’d like to date in eight years, allowing the crowd to continue the chant.
In 2020, while he was president (sic), he said during one of these “lock her up” chants, “I agree with you 100 percent.”
Throughout his presidency (sic), Trump called for investigations, prosecutions, indictments, and arrests of political opponents. He claimed Hillary Clinton and President Obama committed “treason” for their parts in the Russia investigation (they had zero parts in it).
In 2020, he tweeted at his Attorney General William Barr to “arrest somebody,” and wondered aloud why President Obama, then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton hadn’t been imprisoned for launching a “coup” against his administration.
In the same 24-hour period, he tweeted, “Where are all of the arrests? Can you imagine if the roles were reversed? Long term sentences would have started two years ago. Shameful!”
And then he let loose a barrage of tweets in all caps, stating, “DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS, THE BIGGEST OF ALL POLITICAL SCANDALS (IN HISTORY)!!! BIDEN, OBAMA AND CROOKED HILLARY LED THIS TREASONOUS PLOT!!! BIDEN SHOULDN’T BE ALLOWED TO RUN – GOT CAUGHT!!!”
These tweets were sent right after Trump returned to the White House from Walter Reed Hospital where he was recovering from COVID, so he was probably pretty high on bleach, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, Diet Coke, and Adderall.
Elise Stefanik has called Bragg’s investigation “unAmerican.” Rand Paul, missing the irony of accusing Bragg of arresting political opponents while calling for Bragg’s arrest.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy said a possible indictment would be “an outrageous abuse of power by a radical DA who lets violent criminals walk as he pursues political vengeance.”
Mike Pence said it was a “politically-charged environment in New York where the attorney general and other elected officials literally campaigned on a pledge to prosecute the former president.” But it’s not as politically charged as the riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, that was chanting, “Hang Mike Pence.” Again, only three syllables.
Tech investor, Republican presidential candidate, and guy you never heard of before until now Vivek Ramaswamy said he didn’t want to live in a country where “the party in power is able to use police force to arrest its political opposition.”
Lauren Boebert tweeted, “We’re witnessing the most obscene political witch-hunt in American history.” And then her son impregnated the witch.
Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted with a link to MTG merchandise, “George Soros puppet and Democrat activist Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg has declared us all Enemies of State by declaring war on MAGA.” But you too can proudly wear “Enemy of the State” panties.
Jim Gym Jordan said it was an “unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority.”
Matt Gaetz said to a young woman walking past him in a hallway, “Hey, are you 18 yet?”
George Santos said, “I never abused my office politically when I was the Manhattan DA.”
But if you can remember, the party in power in the House of Representatives in 2016 conducted the Benghazi hearings. They forced Hillary Clinton to testify during her campaign. Kevin McCarthy praised the hearings for hurting Clinton’s poll numbers.
None of the goons, not McCarthy, Stefanik, Donalds, Paul, Pence, MTG, Boebert, or Ramalamadingdong ever told Trump to stop tweeting to his Attorney General to arrest his political opponents. None of them called it “unAmerican.” Remember, all of these goons were A-OK with President (sic) Trump using taxpayer-funded military aid approved by Congress to extort the President of Ukraine to dig up dirt on his political opponent.
Attorney General (sic) Bill Barr did use the Justice Department to defend Trump and his goons and appointed a Special Counsel to investigate the Russia investigation, which has turned up diddly. So yeah, they did try to go after Trump’s political opponents. The problem was, they didn’t have anything on Trump’s political enemies. That’s the same problem they have today with the Bidens and all the claims of corruption and payments from China…they don’t have anything.
Republicans impeached President Bill Clinton for lying about oral sex but they want to sweep under the rug that Donald Trump paid hush money to a porn star to keep quiet about doing the wild thing in Vegas and that his ding-dong looks really really weird.
Republican outrage can’t be taken seriously. McCarthy says justice isn’t being applied evenly…and neither is his outrage.
If Democrats are actually using the law to go after political opponents, then Republicans are outraged that Democrats are acting like them.
If Republicans don’t want their candidates to be arrested, then stop making criminals your candidates.
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.
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.
claytoonz 