Yes, I dropped this joke in a blog two days ago, and I liked it. I was worried another cartoonist would steal it, but I posted it on a Friday and most cartoonists don’t work weekends, especially holiday weekends.
Do not expect the Republican-controlled House to accomplish much, if anything, for the next two years. You can’t take a party seriously when they give the chair of a committee to a lying asswipe goon like Jim Jordan whose face is still embedded between the orange buttcheeks of Donald Trump. This is a guy who helped Donald Trump commit sedition and a coup attempt and got caught lying his treasonous balls off about it, and now he’s the one who’s going to try to get to the bottom of a supposed crime? As Sarah Marshall said in the excellent movie, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.”
You also can’t take these people seriously when goons like high-school dropout Lauren Boebert, prom-dating Matt Gaetz, and white nationalist terrorist enthusiast Marjorie Taylor Greene are among its members who the party circles the wagons around to protect.
And, you can’t take them seriously when they don’t do anything about incoming freshman liar George Santos. Remember, the Democrats forced out Al Franken for a decades-old joke.
Republicans are not good at multitasking. They can’t walk and chew gum at the same time. The likes of each of those mentioned above have made it clear that they intend to spend the next two years using their majority to lie, gaslight, and smear their political enemies over a conspiracy theory.
Seriously, the only person who’s going to accomplish anything with a GOP majority for the next two years is, well…me.
Happy new year.
Music note: I tried to listen to the new Bush album.
Facebook Suspension Update: There are 11 days left, so it says, in my Facebook suspension for typing the word “Taliban.” Quannah had a countdown clock for it, but it broke.
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.
Here’s a Santa’s lap cartoon about Hunter Biden’s laptop. I’m not a big fan of using the Santa’s lap cliché in political cartoons, but I liked the correlation here. Maybe I’m the only one who will get it. But I also wanted to take the opportunity to use Christmas to point out once again that there is NOTHING on this laptop incriminating or that provides any evidence of illegalities by either Hunter or his father, President Joe Biden.
Republicans make a lot of noise about Hunter Biden’s laptop and the Twitter Files without stating what’s in them or what they’re about. Most of the time when they mention either, it’s the mentioning that’s supposed to raise the alarm bells. But when they do claim that something is in them, they’re often lying. And some of the actual stuff that’s on the laptop they mention doesn’t really mean anything.
I was going to analyze and go over this cartoon for all the lies in it, but decided it’s not worth the time or grief it’ll bring, but trust me…everything in it is a lie, like on the level of a Ben Garrison lie. It’s ironic it’s titled “Except for the Facts, why worry?” when it doesn’t actually contain any facts. But what else would you expect from an American citizen and so-called journalist who works for a Russian state-owned propaganda outlet?
Republicans have nothing with this laptop business, but they’re going to make a lot of noise about it over the next two years without proving anything. Nothing criminal will ever come from it.
If you’re younger than ten, stop reading right here, but Santa Claus doesn’t exist…and neither does anything incriminating on Hunter’s laptop.
Music note: I listened to Outkast, but not to “Hey ya.”
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.
Republicans campaigned for the midterms promising to fight crime, inflation, the recession, open borders, and high gas prices. For all that, they won the House with an itty bitty tiny minuscule majority. Naturally, with a tiny majority, the GOP is on notice and needs to be productive at governing and producing significant legislation in order to retain power and perhaps even grow its majority in two years. To pass anything significant, they’ll need to compromise with Democrats. They’re not going to do that.
The Republicans are going to spend the next two years on partisan bullshit. They’re going to make a lot of noise over nothing. They’re going to repeat what they did with Benghazi. What did they do there? They conducted multiple investigations which were effective politically but that’s it. They didn’t prove any crimes or negligence…but they hurt Hillary Clinton.
Back in 2015 just as the race for the presidency was beginning, Kevin McCarthy told Sean Hannity, “Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened, had we not fought.”
The GOP had the majority in the House then and McCarthy was the second goon in command. He openly admitted the entire reason for the Benghazi investigation was to hurt Hillary Clinton. That’s it. They didn’t produce any results and the GOP was lousy at legislating, but boy, could they investigate the shit out of nothing. That investigation cost you $7 million. Thanks, fiscal conservatives.
Also, remember McCarthy is the same goon who cries that the select committee investigating the insurrection is partisan and political.
Now, they’re going to investigate Hunter Biden. They’ve been barking nonstop over the past two years about Hunter Biden’s laptop without producing anything significant. Again, what’s on Hunter’s laptop? They couldn’t tell you. And in two more years, after they’ve spent millions investigating Hunter, they still won’t be able to tell you. That’s my prediction and I feel pretty confident about it.
And if Republicans actually cared about corruption, they’d investigate Trump making money from foreign governments while he was in office. They’d investigate why Saudi Arabia gave Jared $2 billion after he left the White House. Instead, they’re going to investigate the Justice Department for investigating actual crimes Donald Trump committed. Which crimes? Take your pick. There are several.
They’re going to make a lot of noise about the military withdrawal from Afghanistan while ignoring it was an agreement Trump negotiated with the Taliban. In two years, we’ll be right where we are today.
It’ll be the same way with Dr. Fauci, Merrick Garland, the border, and whatever other bullshit they can come up with. Republican success with these investigations won’t be any change in policies, legislation, impeachments, or even by providing Americans with answers. Success for them will be if they can convince Americans that Joe Biden is bad, even if they can’t tell you why. They did it with Hillary. Why is Hillary bad? We don’t know but we got decades of Republicans telling us she is so it must be true, right?
For the next two years, Republicans will be giving us nothing but gaslighting. They have the majority which gives them the power to set the agenda and issue subpoenas, which might be awkward after spending the past two years telling the public to ignore congressional subpoenas.
I hope America pays attention. Inflation, high gas prices, crime, the recession, the borders? Republicans don’t solve legitimate problems. Remember this in two years. In two years, tell me what the GOP House majority accomplished. I can jump ahead and tell you now.
Nothing.
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 and his ilk believe he can’t be investigated, indicted, or prosecuted if he’s a candidate for the presidency. If this is true, then expect every lawbreaker under investigation in the future to declare he or she is a presidential candidate. And, they won’t even have to wait until it’s campaign season. Donald Trump didn’t and announced his candidacy the week after the midterms. Now, Donald Trump will be officially running for president for two straight years…unless he’s in prison. But even then, he might continue as a candidate.
Now, Donald Trump will claim any investigation of him is political because he’s a presidential candidate, and President Joe Biden is sicking the government on him because it’s the only way to stop him. Except, he was under investigation before he announced his candidacy. Joe Biden can stop him without sicking the government on him because he did it before and beat him legitimately in the 2020 election. Trump was the only one who tried to use the power of the presidency to go after his opponents, such as extorting Ukraine for dirt on the Bidens and having his Attorney General Bill Barr appoint Special Counsel John Durham to investigate Hillary Clinton’s campaign, which is still going after two years despite not proving anything. And there’s the uncomfortable factoid for MAGAts that Donald Trump is an actual criminal.
Speaking of politically-motivated investigations brings us to Hunter Biden’s laptop which was first reported on in 2020 by The New York Post, though it wasn’t given much attention at the time because it was reported by The New York Post and they didn’t have much to go on. Even the reporters who wrote the story refused to put their names on it because journalistically speaking, there was nothing there.
Most stories on the laptop that were initially repeated only said there was a laptop that once belonged to Hunter Biden. That alone made people start screaming. Donald Trump even tried to bring it up during a debate with Joe Biden. “Well, your son owned a laptop.”
Over the past two years, legitimate media outlets have acknowledged that there is indeed a laptop and The Washington Post even hired experts to go over a copy of the hard drive who authenticated parts of it. This week, CBS News did the same thing.
What they have found is that much of the information on the hard drive is authentic and did come from Hunter Biden.
So now, Republicans who will have a slim majority in the House in January are promising investigations into Hunter Biden and they’re going to use this laptop as part of it. They get to point out that it actually once belonged to Hunter and lots of stuff on it is authentic. But, what’s on it? What has been authenticated?
The laptop came into GOP possession through a MAGAt who owns a computer repair shop in Delaware. He claims Hunter dropped it off for repairs and never paid for the repairs and abandoned the laptop. So the repair shop goon did what any concerned individual would do who’d want a legitimate and credible investigation into something, and gave it to… wait for it… Rudy Giuliani.
But before Rudy could get his hands on it, the FBI picked it up because they were investigating Hunter for lobbying for a foreign government without registering as a foreign lobbyist and for possible tax evasion. In fact, they’re still investigating him. So, what Rudy got was a copy from which he sent further copies covered in farts and hair dye to the goon universe. If this laptop is ever produced as evidence in a court trial, it will be dismissed pretty quickly.
So even if everything on the laptop is legitimate, what’s on it that implicates President Biden in a crime? Well, nothing. I mean, Republicans have yet to produce anything that shows a crime being committed by anyone, even Hunter. They haven’t even found downloaded Nickelback songs on the laptop. Even the bad stuff they claim, like photos of Hunter with underage girls, has turned out to be a lie. There are also rumors that there’s a pic of Hunter in the nude, but hell, even Reagan’s daughter posed for Playboy, so no crime there unless he was naked in a Starbucks.
This just in! Hunter’s laptop has a picture of Hunter naked in a Starbucks! Impeach his dad now! I can assure you from personal experience that Starbucks will make you put on pants while in their stores.
What is proven on the laptop is that Hunter was working on a business deal in China AFTER his father was vice president. There’s an email about bringing a “big guy” in on the deal, which everyone assumes is Joe Biden. And there’s a reply to that from Hunter saying the “big guy” doesn’t want any part of the deal. Then, there’s a voicemail saved to the hard drive from Joe Biden himself. Yeah, now we’re getting somewhere? What does that message say? Was it Joe Biden providing bank account numbers where to deposit bribes from foreign governments, or laying out plants to go pantless in Starbucks? No, it was Joe Biden telling his son to seek help for his drug addiction because he loves him very much. So…Aha! Joe Biden is a man who cares about his son and wants him to get help for his drug addiction. Can we impeach him for that? You never heard a voicemail from Donald Trump telling Jr. to seek help for his cocaine addiction. I’m not saying Donald Trump Jr has a coke addiction, I’m just saying we never heard that voicemail from his father.
But, even if the laptop proves Hunter is a criminal, he’s not Joe Biden. He’s not in a government office. He’s not the president. He doesn’t even work in the White House.
Surely Hunter did profit from being his father’s son when he got a job for Burisma, a Ukraine energy company, but that’s not illegal. If it was illegal to make money from your father’s name while he’s in office, then JaVanka would be answering a lot of serious questions regarding how they made $640 million while Trump was president (sic) and while they worked in his administration.
There are questions about Hunter trying to make a business deal in China, which he failed at, but also isn’t illegal. Did you know that Donald Trump owns businesses in foreign countries? Did you know that Donald Trump continued to make money off foreign governments while he was president (sic)? Did you know that it’s legal to own a laptop?
So, I’m going to tell you what I’ve told you in previous blogs. Anytime you hear someone talking about Hunter Biden’s laptop, ask them, “What’s on it?”. If they tell you, then they’re lying (like Ted Rall when he said the laptop incriminates Joe Biden without telling us how). It doesn’t matter if it’s a real laptop that really belonged to the president’s son once upon a time, you need something incriminating on it to go after someone.
And despite there not being a damn thing on it that even suggest illegalities, Republicans are about to start spending millions of your money investigating Hunter and Joe based on this insignificant laptop. They can’t even tell you what crimes they’re investigating. They’re going to Benghazi the fuck out of this laptop.
If Republicans really cared about the rule of law, then they’d investigate the guy who attempted to extort a foreign president for dirt on his political opponent, or an attempt to steal an election, or an insurrection, or stolen classified government documents, or sexually assaulting women, or Jared for receiving $2 billion from Saudi Arabia immediately upon his resignation from his White House job where he worked on government deals with Saudi Arabia.
What we’re going to get from a Republican House majority are investigations by the goons who engage in coverups.
I think Hunter should declare his candidacy for president just to fuck with them.
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.
During most of the time Republicans were screaming about Hunter Biden’s laptop without any substance to speak of, Jared Kushner was sitting on top of $2 billion received from the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. Yes, that’s the same crown prince who ordered the execution of a Washington Post journalist. Also, while MAGAts were screaming about Hunter Biden, there was the existence of texts from Donald Trump Jr. to Trump chief-of-staff Mark Meadows about stealing the election before the election was called.
Republicans have been screaming about this laptop bullshit for over two years without providing any substance as to why it’s important. So far, the bulk of their argument is that since it exists, it means there was corruption from Hunter Biden which means there’s corruption from President Joe Biden. They also say there’s evidence of Hunter using drugs, which we already know, and that the laptop has images of Hunter having sex with minors, which is not true.
What is true is there’s an email from a business contact in Ukraine thanking Hunter for introducing him to Vice President Joe Biden at a dinner with a dozen other people in public. There’s another email, after the Obama presidency from a Chinese business contact, that mentions giving Joe Biden a cut, and there’s a third email from Hunter saying Joe Biden wants nothing to do with the deal, which never got off the ground. A lot of this is in code, but that’s all they have.
Photos have been posted that Republicans claim show Hunter smoking crack, but Hunter’s drug use and addictions are public knowledge. Hunter and his father have been open about this. Also, how do you know it’s crack he’s smoking? Photos of someone smoking crack or marijuana are just photos of someone smoking. They don’t fly in court. The claim that child pornography is on the laptop comes straight from InfoWars. Also, keep in mind that this laptop was in the possession of Rudy Giuliani.
One thing that is a fact is Hunter Biden was never a member of the White House staff in the Obama or Biden administrations or ever given the responsibility of international diplomacy. But Jared Kushner was.
Jared Kushner, along with his wife, was on the staff of the Trump White House (sic). In case you forgot, Jared is married to Ivanka, Donald Trump’s daughter. In case you’re a Republican, that makes Jared Donald Trump’s son-in-law.
Jared was put in charge of a lot of stuff, like immigration and denying states medical equipment during the COVID pandemic. He was also involved with foreign policy, outside the boundaries of the State Department which frustrated the entire department. Part of Jared’s job was to build a relationship with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia.
Jared and MBS, the Crown Prince, liked to communicate through WhatsApp, a phone app that’s encrypted and is an excellent way to talk in secret so your conversations are NOT archived, as required by the Presidential Records Act. Basically, it’s a great way to talk privately when you’re involved in some sketchy shady shit. Jared is a big fan of back-channel communications and asked the Russians to create a backchannel to talk to the Trump administration (sic).
The Crown Prince is not a nice guy. He ordered the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist under the protection of the United States and employed by The Washington Post. Khashoggi was murdered inside Saudi Arabia’s Turkish embassy where they dismembered him with a bone saw. Jared, who probably sees himself as a prince, is buddy-buddy with the Crown Prince, a ruthless person who orders murders. Jared helped broker $110 billion in weapon sales to Saudi Arabia over the next decade and defended the Kingdom from congressional criticism over its involvement in the Yemeni Civil War and the murder of Khashoggi.
During this time, Jared’s failing 5th Avenue property, 666, was bailed out by a Canadian asset company that signed a 99-year lease and paid a near-century’s worth of rent upfront. This saved Kushner from defaulting on a mortgage he couldn’t afford which would have brought all his debtors down on him. One of the owners of the Canadian asset company is the nation Qatar. The deal came through right after Jared helped negotiate the end of Saudi Arabia’s blockade of Qatar. I’m sure the timing was just a coincidence. Qatar even denied they knew it was going down even though it was widely reported and Jared’s company had sough investment from them before. But the Canadian company was a much better attempt at hiding their involvement.
Jared had financial involvement with multiple foreign nations before Trump became president (sic). That should have automatically disqualified him from working in the White House. It took over a year for him to receive a security clearance as he had to reapply three times as he kept omitting important business and relationship details on his applications. Remembering stuff is hard. Finally, Trump, as president (sic), ordered that Jared and Ivanka both be given security clearances despite what the background checks found.
Jared’s newly formed private equity firm, Affinity Partners, received $2 billion from a fund led by the Crown Prince six months after he left the White House. The Saudi fund’s advisory board objected to the investment. According to the minutes of the meeting, the board cited “the inexperience of the Affinity Fund management”;the possibility the kingdom would be responsible for “the bulk of the investment and risk”; due diligence on the fledgling firm’s operations that found them “unsatisfactory in all aspects”; a proposed asset management fee that “seems excessive”; and “public relations risks” from Jared’s prior role as a senior adviser to his daddy-in-law, President (sic) Donald Trump.
Basically, the advisory board cited that Jared had zero experience in this sort of business enterprise, is inept, is shady as fuck, and that eventually, the Saudi fund would end up eating its investment because it fucked up and got into business with a Trump.
Mohammad bin Salman ignored the advice and invested $2 billion anyway. This was back in July of 2021 and we just now finding out about it. The $2 billion probably isn’t all from MBS, as it’s a fund, but that amount is probably nothing to him anyway as reports put his net worth between $10-18 billion. He’ll be worth a lot more when he’s king.
This deal is not illegal. Jared had a right to do business with foreign nations after serving in a presidential administration. But, it sure does seem like a payoff of some sort for services already rendered. You would need testimony and documents to prove this was discussed while Jared was in the Trump administration and remember, he and MBS used WhatsApp.
There were tons of sketchy foreign deals with Javanka during the Trump presidency, like that time Ivanka was granted three trademarks in China the very same day she and daddy Dingdong had dinner with the Chinese president. What another coinkydink. And if photos had come out of Ivanka smoking crack during the dinner, Republicans would still be talking about Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Steve Baby FishMouth Mnuchin, Treasury Secretary for Trump, also received $1 billion from the Saudi fund.
Before the Trump administration (sic) was over, Donald Trump Jr was texting Mark Meadows about how his father could stay in power despite losing the election. Before there was a coup attempt, Jr was suggesting a coup attempt. In November 2020, before the election was called for President Biden but while it was still in the air, Jr texted Meadows on how they could overturn the results. They knew they were going to lose the election.
This included having Republican-controlled state Houses discard the electors legally won by Joe Biden, and putting forward “Trump electors” in their place. Referring to recounts and audits, he texted, “It’s very simple. We have multiple paths We control them all.”
He was also suggesting they at least create enough confusion that the election was never called or confirmed by Congress, then have the House vote for the president by state delegations. Even though the House was Democratic Party controlled, Republicans had the most state delegations.
Looking at how much money the Trumps were making off the presidency, it’s no wonder they tried to steal the 2020 election. The Trump presidency may be over but the Trump Crime Family is still in business. But hey, let’s keep talking about Hunter’s laptop.
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 next time you hear a Republican bring up Hunter Biden’s laptop, which will probably be within the next 30 seconds, just ask, “What’s on it?” His answer will most likely be a blank expression. But, let’s back up.
This entire laptop thing started when a legally blind right-wing goon who owns a computer repair shop took a laptop he claimed belonged to Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son, and gave it to Rudy Giuliani. Right out of the gate, it’s suspect.
The man says Hunter Biden brought his laptop to his repair shop and never returned to pick it up. Since the man is legally blind, he can’t tell you if the computer’s owner looked like Hunter Biden but he did sign his name as Hunter. The computer repair dude claims he called the FBI in regards to this laptop before handing it over to Rudy Giuliani, but to his horror, he discovered that owning a laptop is not a crime. You would think a guy who repairs computers for a living would have known this. He said the FBI expressed no interest in Hunter’s laptop, but Rudy called him back immediately. The laptop was dropped off at the shop in Delaware in April 2019. The goons started circulating a story about this laptop in October 2020.
So, according to this story, Hunter took a laptop with incriminating evidence of his illegal activities, that would also implicate his father, dropped it off at a repair shop with a bunch of MAGA signs on the windows, and never came back for it. There should be an investigation into how Rudy actually acquired this laptop.
The repair guy saw a lot of stuff on the laptop he found scandalous, so he made a copy onto a hard drive and gave the laptop to Robert Costello, Rudy Giuliani’s lawyer. Copies of this hard drive were then given to The New York Post, Steve Bannon, and other assorted MAGA goons. I’m not a computer expert but I do know that when you make copies from copies from copies, and not from the original source, they get damaged. Data will be missing. And with it coming from Republicans, it’s as trustworthy as if it came from Sputnik through Weekly World News through Breitbart through RT through Daily Wire through Tucker Carlson through Jeanine Pirro through Newsmax through InfoWars through Donald Trump Jr through Kyle Rittenhouse through Ted Rall, and finally to you.
The laptop contained a lot of information about Hunter’s personal life, including details of his drug addiction and his sex life. But there were also emails and files pertaining to his foreign work with a Ukrainian gas company and Chinese businesses. Republicans claimed this is evidence of Hunter Biden’s corruption, which implicated his father, who is now president of the United States of America.
The mainstream media mostly ignored the story. Why would they do that? They ignored it because there was no authenticity to the story and it was coming from Rudy Giuliani, who had spent the past few years screaming about Joe Biden’s corruption in Ukraine without anything to prove anything. There was also concern this was a story being pushed in October of an election year by Russian propaganda. The media didn’t want to help that. Neither did social media as Twitter blocked most stories on the laptop, even suspending the New York Post’s account for over a week, and Facebook did fact-checks on stories from the Post.
The New York Post is a right-wing sensationalistic tabloid. It often runs headlines that aren’t supported by the articles. Several employees of the Post protested the publication of the laptop story for the failure of any verification and even questioned why it was a story. One of the reporters who wrote the article refused to have his name on it.
Republicans who cried that the mainstream media ignored the story are now shouting that they’re running corrections…but you don’t run corrections and retractions on stories you didn’t publish.
Republicans who screamed about the Steele Dossier and had high standards for FISA warrants were all about exposing Hunter Biden’s private emails and documents in a goon tabloid.
Now, it’s back in the news after The New York Times published a story about the Justice Department’s investigation into Hunter’s taxes and foreign work, and cited emails it described as “from a cache of files that appears to have come from a laptop abandoned by Mr. Biden in a Delaware repair shop.”
The New York Post ran an editorial stating, “The Times finally admits: Hunter’s laptop is real.” But, the Times didn’t do that. Technically, the Times only vouched for certain emails they’d “authenticated” with the help of “people familiar with them and with the investigation.” The Washington Post hired two computer forensic experts to authenticate the files from the laptop, which was given to the Post by Jack Maxey, another Republican operative. The Post’s forensic people were able to verify 22,000 emails from over 286,000 user files.
Note how it was given to the Post by a Republican activist. Note how it was passed around from one Republican to another Republican. Note that the drives were copied and re-copied and re-copied repeatedly. Also, since the FBI finally took possession of the laptop, with a warrant, for their investigation into Hunter’s taxes, the files keep changing. Someone, or someones, with access to the drive from a cloud keeps changing and adding to the drive. This laptop is damaged goods and after all the handling through the hands of partisan political hacks, it would be hard to ever enter into a court of law, even if there was evidence of corruption.
But, what’s on it? What’s on the laptop that makes it so relevant? Again, if you ask a Republican, they’ll give you a blank look. They believe there being a laptop is enough to prove President Biden is corrupt. But I’m here to tell you the best they got is nothing.
There is one email the New York Post labeled as “blockbuster” from an executive at the Ukrainian gas company, Burisma, thanking Hunter for the “opportunity to meet your father” in 2015. There was a dinner in Ukraine that the then-vice-president attended along with at least a dozen other people. If you’re not a Republican and you’re capable of comprehension, you’ll see this is not a smoking gun. If this dinner is a smoking gun then what was that meeting at Trump Tower with the Russians?
What Republicans were trying to prove in 2019 and 2020 was that as vice president, Joe Biden used his influence to have a prosecutor in Ukraine fired to protect the gas company his son worked for from being investigated. The problem with this claim is that the entire European Union were with the United States in having this prosecutor fired, not because the EU was so interested in protecting Hunter Biden, but because this was a prosecutor who they deemed as corrupt who WOULD NOT investigate corruption. And even if the Burisma was corrupt, that doesn’t prove all the people who worked for it are corrupt. Republicans suck at comprehending this stuff.
There’s a second email the GOP is harping on about involving a business venture Hunter was embarking on in China in 2017. Joe Biden was NOT in office in 2017. The email mentions the equity split would include “10 held by H for the big guy.” A former business partner of Hunter’s claims “the big guy” was Joe Biden. But, there’s a reply to this email from Hunter stating his “Chairman” gave him “an emphatic no,” and a further email clarifies that the chairman is his dad. Oh my gosh…did the GOP inadvertently expose that Joe Biden refused a payoff and is not corrupt? Yes, yes they did.
The emails don’t have the goods the Republicans claim they do. Out of over 22,000 emails, they can only cite three that don’t even suggest Hunter’s corrupt, not to mention his father.
Is it unseemly, or at best, tacky for the child or relative of an elected official to make money off that official’s name and position? Yes. I’m not naive enough to believe Hunter Biden was able to swing big money energy deals in foreign nations without any experience with energy companies. But, it’s not illegal.
These Republicans don’t really care about corruption because if they did, wouldn’t they have asked over the past five years about Ivanka Trump’s trademarks getting fast-track approval in China while her dad was president (sic)? Wouldn’t they have asked about Jared Kushner’s businesses getting multi-million dollar bailouts from Persian Gulf nations? Wouldn’t they have asked about all the Trump towers and resorts in foreign nations? Wouldn’t they have asked about Trump’s hotels and resorts doing big business with foreign diplomats? Wouldn’t they have asked about Trump holding mini-summits with the leaders of Japan and China at Mar-a-Lago, where I’m sure he didn’t give them free rooms and meals. wouldn’t they have asked about the president (sic) having debts to foreign banks? Wouldn’t they have asked about the president (sic) not paying taxes? Wouldn’t they have asked about the president (sic) lying on tax filings and loan applications about the value of his businesses? Wouldn’t they have asked about the president (sic) raising campaign money and spending all that money for events at his resorts? Wouldn’t they have asked about his scam university or scam charity? Wouldn’t they have asked why a business partner paid off Trump’s $25 million settlement to Trump University victims? Wouldn’t they have asked about Trump offering a bribe to Vladimir Putin to build a Trump Tower in Moscow? Wouldn’t they have asked why the government had to pay millions to Trump for Trump to play cheating golf at his shitty bedbug-ridden resorts? You’d think at least one would ask why Trump charged the Secret Service golf cart rentals to protect him.
Do they make hard drives large enough to contain all of Trump’s corruption?
Donald Trump is corrupt. We have real evidence of that and he’s under multiple investigations, criminal and civil. The man tried to overthrow the government and told a Secretary of State to “find the votes.”
There is nothing about President Joe Biden being corrupt. Nothing at all. He has a long history in politics and he’s squeaky clean. Is his son a bad guy? Possibly, but this laptop doesn’t seem to prove that he’s a criminal. And if there’s something on it that did, I think the GOP would have shown it to us by now after having the laptop for nearly three years. And again, why should we trust anything on it after they’ve had it for three years? Have you heard all their lies about the stolen election?
So with this laptop, I have to ask Republicans, “where’s the beef”? There isn’t any. There’s a lot of bark and no bite.
And that’s why you don’t hear any of them telling you what’s on the laptop or what makes it relevant. Don’t believe me? Next time you see someone post about it, ask. When you read headlines and articles on this laptop story, comprehend them. Republicans aren’t.
Music note: I had my window open in 50-degree weather and listened to the traffic in the rain while drawing this.
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You gotta be careful with where you put those conspiracies. They’re like car keys…or that one missing sock. Where’d it go? For me, it’s batteries. I’ll buy a pack of 20 batteries then when the remote dies, I can’t find the batteries. I go insane hunting for them until I finally give up and buy another package which also can’t be found six months later. I bet Hunter Biden’s taking them.
For the past few years, Rudy Giuliani has been on a Hunter Biden snipe hunt in Ukraine. And just like a real snipe hunt, Rudy hasn’t caught shit.
A snipe hunt is what you do to get the kids out of your hair while camping or hanging out with friends. You send the kids on a snipe hunt so you and the rest of the adults can get hammered or do whatever it is you don’t want the kids there to witness. The thing is, there is no such thing as a snipe. IF the kids are really stupid, they’ll be gone for hours. Don’t ask me how I know this. Come to think of it, I can’t think of a better way to get Rudy out of your hair than sending him an Eastern European snipe hunt. The only bad thing is, he comes back to go on Fox News to tell Hannity about the snipes he caught that we can’t see. Hannity gets excited about snipes. So does Tucker Carlson.
A few weeks ago, Rudy convinced The New York Post to run a story about Hunter Biden’s laptop which contained incriminating emails that implicated him in nefarious evil plots with his father, Joe Biden. The only problem was, there was no actual proof the laptop belonged to Hunter Biden.
No credible news outlets would take the story. Not even Fox News. The reporter who was forced to write the story for the Post refused to put his name on it. Later, a former associate of Hunter, Tony Bobulinski, turned up with “incriminating” documents proving Hunter is one bad dude and his father bwahahahahahahas with him.
Once again, no credible media outlets would touch the story. The documents were crap. The Wall Street Journal refused the story. But good ole Tucker Carlson came along and gave Bobabooey an interview on his crap show, which made a lot of conspiracy theorists say, “A-ha!” But of course, it was all a bunch of accusations without any proof. I mean, if allegations were proof, then Donald Trump is a rapist.
Then it got even weirder. On Wednesday night, Tucker claimed a shipment of “damning” documents being shipped to him had VANISHED!!! He wondered how such a nefarious thing could happen to a “trove of materials that are directly relevant to the presidential campaign that’s six days away.” Did the Satanic pedophiliac deep state intercept them in Wichita?
Then, on Thursday morning, Tucker said they had been found but there was still malfeasance. Somehow, the package had been opened and the flash drive containing all the evil Biden stuff had fallen out. Is UPS part of the deep state? Does Hillary drive a brown truck?
Of course, when you have such important documents incriminating a presidential candidate in evil plots, you make copies. Right? Right! And Tucker made copies. And……….he still hasn’t released the copies. While complaining about the documents disappearing, then reappearing while being shipped, he never once told us anything about what was in the documents.
For all we know, the documents are like that giant book given to Lesley Stahl by Kayleigh McEnany which she claimed contained Trump’s healthcare plan. The book was actually like 7,000 pages of Trump word salad. Unlike Tucker would do, Lesley opened the book.
Then, NBC reported that a 64-page dossier floating around on the dark web (4chan and Qanon) documenting a complex conspiracy involving Hunter Biden and China was actually authored by a fake persona. In case you’re a Republican…or you watch Tucker Carlson Tonight…or you are Tucker Carlson, “fake persona” means the person doesn’t exist. The documents are fake, bogus, bullshit. I’m so sorry.
The question is, was this 64-page fake dossier the documents Tucker was waiting on from UPS? If so, why didn’t he just download them off the internet? Why were they even shipped in the first place? This isn’t 1992. You can email files now. If the files are really large, you can share them through Google Drive. I know this from personal experience. I have a computer. It seems like the only reason you would actually ship documents is because you’re hoping to lose them or they get mangled in a sorting machine.
Not only do these Hunter stories not pass muster for real journalists, they don’t pass the stink test for bar gossip. Who, what, where, when, why? They don’t have any of that. And if you were pushing this stuff in a bar, the bartender should cut you off.
Tucker Carlson is not a journalist. He’s not even a good fearmonger. Now, Tucker says we should just forget about all of it and leave Hunter Biden alone. You know what that means, don’t you? It means Tucker actually looked at the documents, finally, and discovered they were so full of shit, they didn’t even meet his standards. Who’s researching this shit for Tucker? Does he have the same clerk as Brett Kavanaugh?
It’s too bad Tucker isn’t a journalist. If he was, he would have taken a look at the info before telling his viewers he had info. As it turned out, he had shit. Tucker promised and he didn’t deliver. He’s like Geraldo and Al Capone’s vault. He cracked the safe and found dirt and empty bottles.
When Geraldo opened Al Capone’s safe and struck out, he knew he failed. He went across the street and got “tequila drunk.” Geraldo knew he sold an empty promise and there was nothing journalistic about it. But it made for great ratings. Really. Thirty million people watched for two hours as Geraldo opened an empty box….kinda like those Republican California ballot boxes.
Tucker isn’t that aware. He’s just going to ignore this ever happened and jump on the next bullshit conspiracy theory…what is it now, illegal voters with mail-in ballots? Are they all brown? Is George Soros behind it?
Hey, maybe someone will mail him documents.
Tip Jar: This pandemic is hitting everyone, including your favorite goofy cartoonist. I have lost clients and I’m afraid I might lose more. The PayPal button has always been included here for those who can and want to voluntarily support what I do. I understand this time is hard on everyone. If you can’t, don’t contribute. Take care of yourself and your family first. But, all and any help is greatly appreciated and it helps keep me going. Think of me like a street performer busking out tunes on a corner (I won’t play “Wonderwall.” I promise). If you like the tune, or in this case, toon, throw a buck into the tip jar. It’ll help me play another song, draw another toon, write another blog, make another video, and post another snarky post on social media. It’ll help keep me alive. You can also order a signed print for $40. And if you don’t like the PayPal option, you can snail mail it to my P.O. Box.
Rudy is still at it. Despite the arguments during Donald Trump’s impeachment hearings that everything was on the up-and-up with their asking Ukraine for election help, Rudy is still mining that nation for fools gold.
Now, Rudy has acquired a laptop he claims belongs to Hunter Biden. He took it to The New York Post with a shady story no other news outlet would accept. This story didn’t even land on Fox News first. Hell, even the National Enquirer didn’t go for it.
Basically, there’s an email in the laptop supposedly between Hunter Biden and an official from Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company Hunter worked for, that claims a meeting was held between him and then-Vice President Joe Biden in 2015. Yet, there is no evidence or public records of any such meeting. A vice-president’s schedule is usually on a public record. Yet, for some stupid reason, the FBI is still investigating it. Maybe because Donald Trump is screaming for his political opponent to be arrested, even though he can’t specify any crimes.
The reporter who wrote the story refused to have his name attached to it. Other journalists at the Post have protested their publication’s running of a story that doesn’t meet journalistic ethic requirements…and this is The New York Post.
The back story is: An owner of a computer repair shop in Delaware claims the laptop was dropped off by Hunter Biden, but his eyesight is poor so he’s not sure Hunter dropped it off. It could have been the Cookie Monster for all he knows. The computer was water damaged and for some reason, there’s no story about Hunter or anyone returning to retrieve the computer. Then, the owner saw the email and contacted Rudy Giuliani.
There’s a lot that smells here. The owner of the shop went through the private emails on the hard drive? The owner of the shop gave the hard drive or computer to be used politically? And, the owner doesn’t know who his customer is? If you live in Delaware, find out where this computer repair shop is and NEVER EVER EVER EVER give them your business.
Also, Hunter is a rich dude. Typically, if a laptop messes up or is seriously damaged, you’d just trash it, even way back in 2015. I’m a poor dude and I have three useless laptops in my closet. The only reason a guy like Hunter Biden would take a laptop in to be repaired would be because there’s something important on there he needs, and it wouldn’t be emails because you can just get those off whichever server you’re using. But, that can’t be the case because he never returned to pick it up. The story about dropping it off at a repair shop doesn’t make sense.
It doesn’t make sense The New York Post ran with it. The only story the press should run with this is that the guy we used to call “America’s mayor” and who is a former federal prosecutor, is now pushing bogus crazy uncle Qanon-type conspiracy theories. What has Rudy Colludy done now? Rudy’s even saying that America needs to know this Hunter Biden laptop story, even if it’s not true.
Hey, America needs to know that Rudy Giuliani married his second cousin, whether it’s true or not. Spoiler alert: It’s true.
Is this how Rudy used to prosecute cases? Your Honor, we don’t know who did it, who owns the laptop, if there was a meeting, and if there was, what it was about, and we don’t have any reliable witnesses…but we think there was somebody who did something bad and Joe Biden is connected to it somehow…I have a feeling about these sorts of things, also…I need a DNA test on some demon sperm.
It doesn’t make sense the FBI is investigating the story. Are they going to investigate chemtrails next? Maybe the FBI should look into the Qanon theory about cannibalistic pedophiliac Democrats worshipping Satan.
It doesn’t make sense Rudy hasn’t been arrested…or the computer shop owner. Rudy is running around with stolen property. Now, there are reports he’s taking it to a local police department in Delaware which also doesn’t make sense if the FBI is already on it. Also, why doesn’t that police department arrest Rudy as soon as he shows up with stolen property? And Rudy can’t say he’s holding onto it for evidence because Rudy is no authority. He’s a private citizen…who’s insane.
Rudy isn’t just on Trump’s leash. He’s on Putin’s. America’s mayor is now Putin’s poodle.
What else doesn’t make sense is that Jeffrey Toobin story… Yeah, that’s just weird. Who does that?
Tip Jar: This pandemic is hitting everyone, including your favorite goofy cartoonist. I have lost clients and I’m afraid I might lose more. The PayPal button has always been included here for those who can and want to voluntarily support what I do. I understand this time is hard on everyone. If you can’t, don’t contribute. Take care of yourself and your family first. But, all and any help is greatly appreciated and it helps keep me going. Think of me like a street performer busking out tunes on a corner (I won’t play “Wonderwall.” I promise). If you like the tune, or in this case, toon, throw a buck into the tip jar. It’ll help me play another song, draw another toon, write another blog, make another video, and post another snarky post on social media. It’ll help keep me alive. You can also order a signed print for $40. And if you don’t like the PayPal option, you can snail mail it to my P.O. Box.
Carrie Cordero, a former Justice Department and intelligence official who’s served in Republican and Democratic administrations asked the question in a PBS interview that we all need to ask.
Cordero said, “The problem has to do with whether or not he is in violation of the Constitution and of the constitutional principles of whether or not he is fulfilling the oath of office, whether or not he is abusing his constitutional authorities to conduct foreign affairs by using that access to foreign leaders to basically work in his own personal interest.”
Her question is: Is the president (sic), when he’s conducting foreign affairs, acting in the United States’ interests, or is he using that position to work in the benefit of his own personal political ambitions?
Many Trump supporters say our president should root out corruption in nations that are receiving financial aid from the United States. That’s a fair point and it’s one previous administrations have done. In fact, it’s what the Obama administration was doing when Joe Biden pressed Ukraine to get rid of a prosecutor, who was NOT investigating his son. But, why is Joe Biden, who has not been accused of doing anything illegal the focus of Trump’s pursuit of rooting out corruption in foreign nations?
Some Trump supporters argue that Joe Biden was not a candidate when Trump was asking other nations to investigate him, so that means he wasn’t a political opponent at the time. But as reported yesterday, Trump brought up Biden’s presidential prospects to China’s president Xi Jinping last June. Biden announced his presidential campaign last April. In case you’re a Republican, April comes before June. Even before Biden announced his campaign, Trump was tweeting attacks at Biden and mentioning his potential campaign. Donald Trump viewed Biden as a political opponent.
Hunter Biden is accused of leveraging his name and father’s position as vice-president to make money off foreign nations, specifically Ukraine and China. But, that’s not illegal. Even if it was illegal, it probably wouldn’t stop Trump and his children from doing the exact same thing.
Since January 2017, Eric and Don Jr. have sold more than $100 million of the family’s real estate, according to Forbes. That includes a $3.2 million deal in the Dominican Republic, despite their daddy’s pledge not to do any new foreign deals while in office. Yes, he promised that. That also hasn’t stopped the Trumps from making $41 million last year from their Washington hotel, which foreign money is pouring into on a daily basis. It hasn’t stopped them from engaging in a $1.7 billion Trump project in Indonesia which received a $500 billion infusion from a state-owned Chinese construction company. It hasn’t stopped Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, of getting a massive cash infusion from Qatar. That hasn’t stopped Ivanka from receiving trademarks for her brands in China. Yet, let’s investigate Hunter Biden.
When Eric and Don Jr. aren’t making money off the presidency in foreign countries, they like to spend their spare time attacking Hunter Biden for making money in foreign countries.
Back to the question, is Trump using the presidency to advance the nation’s interests when he talks to foreign leaders, or his own? According to new reports, Trump has asked Australia to help discredit the Mueller investigation. According to the Times of London, just two days after Boris Johnson became prime minister, Trump called him seeking help to discredit the Mueller investigation. That was just one day after his call to Ukraine where he asked that nation’s president to investigate Joe Biden. Last week, Attorney General William Barr flew to Italy to pressure that nation to help discredit the Mueller investigation. Yesterday, Trump publicly called for China to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden.
The impeachment inquiry began because of Trump asking a foreign nation to help his campaign. That’s exactly what Trump did publicly yesterday. Remember that “no collusion” line? It’s the same thing he did during the 2016 campaign when he asked Russia if they were listening, to help his campaign. Later that day, they proved they were listening and started hacking Democrats.
Trump withheld foreign aid from Ukraine that was approved by a majority in both houses of Congress until that nation’s president told Trump he’d help with investigating the Bidens. If all these dealings are for the nation’s interests and not his, then why is Trump sending his personal goon/attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to harass Ukraine instead of it being an initiative of the State Department? Why did he remove the ambassador of Ukraine, a staunch advocate of ridding corruption in Ukraine, after Giuliani complained about her?
Is Trump abusing his power by threatening the whistleblower and those who helped him? Is he abusing his power by insinuating they should receive the death penalty for exposing his corruption?
Russia helped Donald Trump win the presidency. Since then, he’s forgiven them for invading Ukraine and has argued they should be allowed to rejoin the G7. He’s taken Vladimir Putin’s word over his own intelligence agencies about Russia meddling in our elections. He’s pulled us out of a nuclear treaty with Russia. He’s destroyed notes of his meetings his Putin. On top of all that, he refuses to say one negative word about the Russian president. What will China receive for digging up dirt on the Bidens? Will it end the trade war?
Yesterday, it was revealed that text messages between top diplomats and a representative for Ukraine’s government were discussions that a high profile visit for Ukraine’s president to Washington was contingent on that nation investigating Burisma, the gas company whose board Hunter Biden served on, and an investigation to prop up the conspiracy that Ukraine, not Russia, meddled in the 2016 election to help Hillary Clinton.
The diplomats, Special Envoy Kurt Volker, William “Bill” Taylor, the charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, and Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, were the diplomats trying to get Ukraine to announce an investigation before they would receive a date on a visit to D.C. After aid to Ukraine was withheld, Taylor sent a message stating, “As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.” At that point, Sondland messaged, “I suggest we stop the back and forth by text.”
Taylor also wrote at one point, “Are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?” From the messages, yes, it was.
This abuse of power, trading U.S. security for political favors with foreign leaders, threatening whistleblowers, and Trump’s daily corruption is OK with his cult. For them, they would be fine if Trump shot someone on 5th Avenue. But what about the rest of us?
We’ve become desensitized to Trump’s emolument violations, his sexual assaults, his vulgarity, his lies, his stupidity, his greed, and his narcissism. We kinda stopped demanding to see his taxes. But if enough time passes, will we become inoculated to this? Will we not care anymore? After Christmas, will we struggle to remember why there’s an impeachment inquiry? This is the very definition of corruption and Trump is flagrantly waving it around, daring the nation to remove him. This is a man who believes he’s above the law. These acts of corruption are enough to make Richard Nixon say, “Damn.” Seriously, we should have thrown the guy out when he suggested hosting the G7 at one of his crappy resorts.
Republicans will try to distract us at some point, but I’m not going to let it go. I hope you don’t either. Trump cultists may not deserve better but we do.
In response to Carrie Cordero’s question; Yes, Donald Trump is abusing his office and using his position for political (and financial) gain. My question is: Are we going to let him get away with it?
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