Government Shutdown

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.

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Trump Relates

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There are so many ways Donald Trump can relate to furloughed federal workers unable to pay their bills because of his shutdown. For example; none of them were able to spend New Years Eve and day at Mar-a-Lago. Why, Trump was forced to spend it in the cold, drab White House. He probably didn’t even have those plastic little thingies that look like tiny champagne bottles with a string attached, and when you pull the string confetti flies out. Sad. Especially considering they’re the only noisemakers tiny-fingered people can play with.

Speaking to reporters Sunday about furloughed government workers, Trump said, “I can relate, and I’m sure that the people that are on the receiving end will make adjustments, they always do, and they’ll make adjustments. People understand exactly what’s going on. But many of those people that won’t be receiving a paycheck, many of those people agree 100 percent with what I’m doing.”

Trump believes the bubble that is his Twitter page correctly gauges the mood of the nation. It doesn’t. Most government employees would rather have a paycheck, pay their bills, and feed their families than have a wall on the Mexican border. I can relate. I enjoy eating much more than erecting racist symbols in a desert.

We’re nearing three weeks into this Trump shutdown and on Friday, workers will miss their first paychecks. The rancor and anger at Donald Trump will surely increase by then and continue to grow after. Hundreds are actually setting up GoFundMe campaigns to try to make ends meet. According to CBS News, over 700 campaigns have been launched. I guess the government’s advice about doing chores for rent didn’t go over that well with landlords.

The Coast Guard also gave their employees helpful advice to make ends meet, such as babysitting (Senate Republicans will show you how to do that), dog walking, holding garage sales (let me know if you find any GOP backbones), and becoming a mystery shopper. Mystery shoppers are hired to rate businesses, but right now I’m pretty sure they’d all give Donald Trump a you-suck rating.

Trump is not hearing that message. He also said, “Many of those people, maybe most of those people, that really have not been — and will not be getting their money in at this moment — those people, in many cases, are the biggest fan of what we’re doing.” Yes, hostages love being hostages. They especially love being bartered for racist, medieval vanity projects.

Last Thursday, in a surprise briefing, Trump laid some more stupidity on us by saying, “I have never had so much support as I have in the last week over my stance for border security … or, frankly, the wall or the barrier. I have never had anything like it in terms of calls coming in, in terms of people writing in and tweeting. I’ve never had this much support.”

I’m not sure how those calls are coming in since the White House switchboard and the call-in phone line to the White House are not operating due to the government shutdown. Maybe they’re using the same line some of our former presidents used to tell Trump they wish they had built a wall. They probably said they wish they had BOUGHT The Wall because discovering that Pink Floyd album late in life truly is a tragedy.

A Quinnipiac poll found that 54% of Americans oppose the wall and a Harvard CAPS/Harris online survey found that number to be 56%. Despite this, Trump says he’s determined to keep the government shutdown for months or even years if he doesn’t get what his wants.

The Democrats in the House are passing bills to reopen the government but the Republican Senate refuses to hold votes on them. Despite their fear of Trump, Republicans will cave before we get to months of a shutdown. They already know this entire ordeal is stupid and is being waged over Trump’s pride and ego. When the public starts to come down on them, they’ll throw Trump under the bus to save their own skin. They’re Republicans. They’re cowards. It’s what they do. In two years, no one is going to punish them for funding the government, but voters will punish them if they keep this going.

The shutdown doesn’t just hurt those employed by the government. It hurts their families. It hurts government contractors. Businesses that rely on government workers are feeling the crunch. People with loans, mortgages, health care needs, tax situations, etc, will be impacted. This will go beyond the 800,000 government workers and stretch into the millions.

Donald Trump, a man who was given an allowance of over $200,000 a year by the time he was two, can’t relate to people who aren’t receiving paychecks. They don’t have a rich daddy to bail them out. They don’t have a sham university grifting stupid people. They don’t have charitable foundations they can steal from. They can’t license their name on cheap crap that only sells when people accidentally click the Buy-It-Now button. They don’t have Russian benefactors, and they probably can’t get loans from Deutsche Bank.

If Trump could relate to the pain and suffering of others, he wouldn’t use them as bargaining chips to satisfy his ego. He never would have started this useless shutdown over a broken campaign promise for a useless wall that Mexico was going to pay for. Right now, government workers are paying for Trump’s broken campaign promises. American workers are paying for Trump’s lies. The only way Trump could relate to those 800,000 furloughed is if they all have extremely tiny, mushroom-shaped penises.

When future historians get to this page, they’re going to say, “Well that was stupid.” They will also be educated on what happens to a nation when it elects an idiot to the highest office in the land…as they’re climbing out of the rubble that idiot left for them.

As I wrote and drew, the other day, Donald Trump is the national emergency. Republicans need to join Democrats, put their nation over a stupid cult of personality, and shut him down.

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What kind of person would want to be part of something that disparages, slanders, and disrespects Dear Leader and his sycophantic followers? Hopefully, you. 
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Whether you can help support, can’t, or just choose not to, please continue to enjoy and keep reading my work. Thank you!!! 

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Trumpie’s Choice

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Republicans are blaming Democrats for the shutdown despite the fact they control the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. Donald Trump even said in 2013, “A shutdown falls on the President’s lack of leadership. He can’t even control his party and get people together in a room. A shutdown means the President is weak.”

The Republicans are complaining that the Democrats are holding the government hostage for “illegals.” Trump said publicly last week that he would sign a bipartisan agreement and “take the heat” for it. He lied. After a bipartisan deal was brought to him, he rejected it.

The situation of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), the program that allows immigrants to remain in this nation who were brought here as children, became a crisis after Trump revoked Obama’s Executive Order allowing them to stay. These are people who are basically Americans, brought here by no fault of their own, and contribute to society. These are not lawbreakers or criminals. Trump is the one who inserted DACA into the government showdown.

The Republicans say they will address DACA before March when they’ll be deported or forced into hiding if nothing is done, but in case you haven’t been paying attention, you can’t trust the Republicans. Trump has lied daily since he started his campaign, and his words and actions from this past week alone, from breaking his promise on DACA and saying he didn’t want people from “shithole countries” and wanted more white people from Norway, shows what sort of negotiating partner the Democrats are dealing with.

While Republicans in government say they want to work out an agreement to allow the Dreamers to stay, every Republican you talk to on social media talks about kicking them all out. If the base wants to screw them over, then what will a president, who only appeals to his base, do?

If DACA shouldn’t be a part of this, then Trump’s border wall shouldn’t be a part of the budget. Trump wants $20 billion for the wall. Let me refresh your memory: Trump’s primary campaign promise, the message he gave when he announced his candidacy after riding down that escalator, was that Mexico will pay for this wall. You and I are not Mexico, yet that’s who he wants to pay for the wall.

Democrats are willing to give Trump some funding for the wall. Personally, I don’t think they should give him one cent. I don’t want to pay for his broken campaign promises, even if his sycophants do. Let them pay for his racist wall.

Republicans don’t want DACA in the deal, but they do want to fund Trump’s broken promises. Tell me again why we can trust them?

Republicans threw CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) into the deal, offering to fund it for six years. The program has bipartisan support, somewhat. While they point out the urgency for funding CHIP, they overlook that it ran out last September and there was no GOP urgency at that time. Why? Because CHIP is being used against DACA. Republicans are trying to force Democrats to choose between children’s health and Dreamers being allowed to stay in the country, which Trump already promised. But, we’ve seen what becomes of Trump’s promises.

Trump also wants to hold the Dreamers hostage to get full funding for his wall, which again, he said Mexico would pay for.

This is the first time since the Carter Administration that there’s been a government shutdown while one party controlled the Presidency, House, and Senate. There were five shutdowns and they were all about abortion. The Republicans should own this.

The Republicans have broken promises, and they’re holding children as hostages. Why should we give them our trust? Why should we accept the choices they are offering? This isn’t about politics. This is about people.

In 2013, Trump said a shutdown means the president is weak. Trump is weak, and he’s proven he’s a shitty negotiator. You don’t negotiate in good faith by holding children hostage, making people choose one or the other, while you continue to break promises after promises. Democrats need to show Trump they’re the honest ones, and they’re not weak. Don’t give him a cent for his wall and don’t sign a deal hoping he’ll keep a promise later. I don’t want to hang the future of 800,000 Dreamers on the hope Donald Trump keeps his word.

We can’t trust him.

I want to thank everyone who has donated in the past. Your support helps me continue creating cartoons and columns with a little less stress in my life. Between competing syndicates with much larger resources, timid editors, and Trump supporters who attempt to intimidate the editors who do publish anything that criticizes their idol, it’s a challenge to make a career out of this. So your support (if you can) is appreciated. Want to help me continue to create cartoons and keep doing what I’m doing (pissing off conservatives)? Look to the right of this page and make a donation through PayPal. Every $40 donation will receive a signed print (please specify which print you want or I won’t mail one). All donations will receive my eternal gratitude

The Jerk

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During the presidential campaign Donald Trump promised his supporters repeatedly that he will build a wall along the Mexican border, because he’s good at building things, and that Mexico will pay for it. He based his entire campaign around the dumb wall idea. In fact, he first proposed the wall during his announcement for the presidency.

Now he’s pushing Congress to start the initial funding for the wall promising that Mexico will eventually pay for it one way or another. During the campaign he’d say “we’re gonna build a wall, and who’s gonna pay for it?” His racist supporters would gleefully shout in between chants of “lock her up” and beating up black protesters “Mexico!” At no point during that campaign did he ever say “we’re gonna build a wall, and who’s gonna pay for it?” with his supporters responding “Mexico…eventually one way or another after we pay for it initially.” Do you recall that? No you do not because it never happened.

From the very first day of the campaign when he first proposed the stupid wall everyone who possesses just the tiniest bit of sense knew it was total BS. Not only will Mexico not pay for that wall, but we’ll never build it. His supporters, however, believed it. Many Republicans in Congress still believe. Many just give it lip service knowing full well it’ll never happen. His supporters, who are still happy they voted for him, still believe in the wall fantasy.

Why won’t we build it? We shouldn’t build it because it’s a stupid-ass idea that’s racist and hateful to its core. Quite frankly, I don’t want to pay for stupid-ass racist ideas. Hell, they’re tearing them down in New Orleans (in the dead of night while wearing bulletproof vests so Nazis don’t shoot them). The real reason we won’t build it is because it will cost too much and it’s not even feasible. The government doesn’t even own all the land along our border with Mexico, and a lot of it runs along rivers and mountains. As for the cost, no one really knows. Do you know what’s a better idea? Taco trucks on every corner.

Trump first stated that it would cost $10 billion. Now they’re saying around $21 billion. Others are stating it’ll cost up to $70 billion and $150 million a year to maintain. That wall is not a toll booth that will pay for itself. Plus, after you build a 20-foot wall Mexicans will come up with 21-foot ladders. Besides, most people who are in this nation illegally didn’t enter over our border with Mexico. Building the wall is a statement that the only illegal immigrants we have an issue with are the brown ones.

I’m gonna go out on short limb here and say that illegal immigration is not the gravest threat to our nation. President Obama deported more people here without documentation than George W. Illegal immigration is down. It went down further over the winter, which it does every winter, and of course Trump took credit for that. He doesn’t believe man-made Climate Change can affect the weather, but he can. God just parts the clouds and ends the rain during his inauguration.

Trump wanted the wall so badly, and funding passed and signed before this weekend so he can have a legislative achievement before the 100-day marker, that he was willing to shut down the government. Attorney General Jeff Sessions complained that if the Democrats blocked it then it was their fault for shutting down the government.

How does it work that you can blame the Democrats when Republicans control the White House, Senate, and House? Oops, I forgot. By lying. By the way, Mr. Attorney General, you’re not in the Senate anymore. It’s time to remove yourself from partisan politics and to remove your lips which are firmly stuck to Trump’s pasty orange ass.

Trump is starting to realize that Congress isn’t going to fund the wall and he’s backing off. He still hasn’t embraced the reality that if Congress, which loves to throw money at bad ideas, won’t fund the wall then how in the world is he going to make the Mexican government pay for it?

Trump has already lied and broken several campaign promises. He’s broken the promise of Mexico paying for the wall so why not just let the lie happen in that the wall is never going to happen.

I do have a prediction for you: If they do start building the wall, it will never be finished. It will be a fitting monument to our stupidity, xenophobia, and racism.

Creative notes: I was having a cartoon discussion with one of my colleagues a couple weeks ago and we talked about using movies in our work. We were mocking this one guy who loves to use outdated movies, and the posters for those movies, for his cartoons (because he’s out of ideas). Do you know why Republican political cartoonists ran out of ideas? Because Jeff MacNelly died. I digress. This one cartoonist uses the Jim Carrey movie “Liar Liar” at least twice a year. It’s stupid. He also uses “Dumb And Dumber.” 

My buddy and I created a rule for our use. That rule is, don’t use a movie for a political cartoon unless it’s recent or a classic. Some classics, for example, are “Gone With The Wind,” “The Wizard Of Oz,” “Casablanca,” and “Jaws.” Some more fairly recent classics, which you know I’ve used, are “Airplane,” “Blazing Saddles,” and “The Jerk.” I think my pal disagreed on using “The Jerk.” I don’t and I just created a new rule. That rule is: If the average red-blooded American can name one quote from the movie, then you can use it in a cartoon.

I’m sure everyone in the world knows “there’s no place like home,” “this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” “frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” “We’re gonna need a bigger boat,” “yes I am serious and don’t call me “Shirley,'” “where all the white women at?”, and “he hates these cans.” 

I didn’t have to Google any of those quotes. Of course, I am a geek and a trove of useless information, but I’m sure you recognize every single quote and the film they came from. If you didn’t, stop reading my blog. I disown you.

I’ve also learned that when you use quotes, especially from the comedies, people love it almost as much as they love seeing a Beagle in the cartoon.

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