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.
Enjoy the cartoon. I’m taking the rest of Thanksgiving off. I’ll blog on this soon enough.
Have a happy Thanksgiving, readers.
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 check in on a few pages of right-wing “friends” on social media to see which narrative they’re pushing that day. Most of the time, I don’t comment or engage as it’s pointless. But it’s good to see what the Tucker fuckers are talking about. I have discovered that if you go from one cultist’s page to another, they’re all on the same talking point and often using the same code words. It only takes a few minutes each day and it beats having to watch Fox News.
One of the narratives making the rounds is that the liberal media is outraged at an Ohio police officer for shooting a 16-year-old black girl as she was swinging a knife at another young black woman. The narrative is not true.
I watch a lot of CNN and I haven’t heard anyone from the network express outrage over this shooting. Don Lemon, who is one of the right’s favorites to hate, has not gone after the police over this one and has said it may be justified. Ooh, there goes that narrative. I’ve heard people on CNN express it was a tragedy. It was a tragedy. For Fox News and their ilk, it’s another opportunity to drive up outrage and increase ratings from their racist audience. The young woman was shot by a black cop.
I’m not saying the officer shouldn’t have shot the girl. I’m also not saying he didn’t have a choice. The national Fraternal Order of Police, which called it “an act of heroism, but one with tragic results.” Maybe they should learn when it’s best to shut up. Shooting a 16-year-old girl four times in the chest is NOT heroic.
I’m not a cop. This was not something that took nine and a half minutes. This was an event that transpired in 11 seconds. I have not been trained in law enforcement so I don’t know how I would have reacted with 11 seconds and a gun on my hip when it seems there may be a life on the line.
But, I am pretty sure about one thing: If this was two white guys fighting in front of a cop and he only had 11 seconds, I bet the knife-wielding white guy would still be alive.
The cop shot Ma’Khia Bryant four times. It took four bullets to stop a 16-year-old girl. Why couldn’t he have stopped her with one bullet? Or better yet, why couldn’t he have stopped her with a taser? He’s a trained officer of the law. Why couldn’t he have physically stopped her? Again, she was a 16-year-old girl.
Here’s what white conservatives don’t understand: Breaking the law doesn’t mean you should die. It doesn’t mean a cop gets to be your judge, jury, and executioner. The “obey the rules” argument is horse shit. It’s like blaming a rape victim for the way she dressed. And as outdated as that argument is, they’re still using it.
George Floyd broke the law but he shouldn’t have been killed. I know the right wants to villainize the guy and put him on trial, but the kind of person he was is not relevant. He was murdered. People shouldn’t be murdered for passing a fake $20 bill. There was a warrant for Daunte Wright but that doesn’t mean he should have been killed. Resisting arrest is not a call for the death sentence. How many people are on death row for resisting arrest? How many people are on death row for not following a cop’s instructions?
And Ma’Khia Bryant should still be alive. Maybe she would be a little worse for wear than she started that day, but she shouldn’t be dead. We still don’t know what the circumstances are. She may have even been the one to call the police to come to her neighborhood.
How do police in nations where they don’t carry guns respond to incidents like this?
I know this will sound crazy to the right-wing fucknuts, and others will say it’s a dangerous and radical opinion, but cops shouldn’t be shooting multiple bullets into 16-year-old girls.
Creative note: I did a virtual happy hour with about 30 other cartoonists last Friday. It’s a big Zoom meeting where everyone brings drinks except for guys like me who forgot to bring a drink. Anyway, during the meeting I made a joke about the number of lady justice cartoons last week. So naturally, I drew a lady justice cartoon today.
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 9103, Fredericksburg, VA 22403. 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: I have FIVE copies of my book in stock, which I’m selling 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 9103, Fredericksburg, VA 22403.
Eric Garner’s death at the hands of New York City police was one of several fatal encounters that gave life to the Black Lives Movement. It has been five years since Garner’s death and justice still has not been served. It’s events like this that totally justifies the BLM movement and protests, such as kneeling during the national anthem.
Garner was approached by cops on Staten Island on suspicion of selling loose cigarettes from packs without tax stamps. One of the police officers, Daniel Pantaleo put Garner into a chokehold while other officers held him on the ground. After the chokehold was removed, he pushed Garner’s face into the ground while four officers held him down. Garner told the officers he couldn’t breath eleven times before losing consciousness. None of the officers attempted CRP on Garner at the scene. He died an hour after arriving at the hospital.
Pantaleo denied choking Garner despite there being multiple cellphone recordings of it by bystanders. NYPD policy prohibits chokeholds but despite the no-chokeholds policy, an NYC Medical Examiner and an NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau determining that a chokehold was used (and disciplinary charges recommended), an independent autopsy finding hemorrhaging around Garner’s neck, and a $5.9 million out-of-court settlement with Garner’s family, Pantaleo is still an NYPD cop and not in prison for killing Eric Garner.
Attorney General William Barr also believes there shouldn’t be charges as he has ordered the Justice Department to drop the case.
The U.S. attorney in Brooklyn said the “evidence does not support charging Police Officer Pantaleo with federal civil rights violation,” despite the evidence that Garner is no longer alive. A secret grand jury chose not to indict Pantaleo, proving the adage true that you can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, but not a cop.
There was debate within the Justice Department over charging the officer, which started during the Obama administration and stretched into the Trump era of politicizing the department. I’m sure this decision weighs on Barr’s conscience about as much lying about the Mueller Report.
The cop wasn’t charged in Ferguson. The cop who killed a kid in Cleveland wasn’t charged. Now, this cop isn’t going to be charged. With decisions like this compounded by the fact we have an openly racist president, a political base cheering his racism on, and a complicit Republican Party, the Black Lives Matter movement is needed now more than ever. There are too many villains and not enough people speaking up. Now, we need heroes.
In a nation that has more outrage at a black athlete kneeling during a song than it does at police killing unarmed black men…and boys, and presidential hate rallies where the crowd chants “send her back,” it’s easy to lose faith in your country. But you have to remember that when Black Lives Matter is speaking out, that this is just as much their country as it is the Trump crowd.
Donald Trump and William Barr, and all those who follow them are working to tear this nation down by promoting hate. Where we can find faith is in the people who are fighting to save our country.
Be Complicit
What kind of person would want to be part of something that disparages, slanders, and disrespects Dear Leader and his sycophantic followers? Hopefully, you.
Making a contribution supports my work and keeps the cartoons, columns, and videos coming. My income is from newspapers that subscribe to my work and small contributors. George Soros hasn’t sent me a million dollar check in weeks. Making a contribution of any amount, or buying a print for $40.00, makes you part of this specific resistance, and a member of Team Claytoonz (we’re still working on the name). You are complicit, an accomplice, and in cahoots (and whatever gangster terms we can think of) with this political satire pointing out that the stupid emperor has no clothes. Contributions can be made through PayPal, checks, and wads of cash exchanged in back alleys.
Whether you can help support, can’t, or just choose not to, please continue to enjoy and keep reading my work. Thank you!!!
With Alabama Senator and Elmer Fudd lookalike Jefferson Beauregard Sessions becoming Attorney General, that department’s “justice” will only be in the name. Even his name is kinda racist. This guy probably snores the n-word (I stole that joke).
Sessions has voiced hostility toward the department for not defending a federal ban on gay marriage. Look for sessions to wipe away progress in civil rights and police accountability. He’s likely to push Trump’s hard-line agenda on immigration, guns, terrorism, and drugs.
Sessions is one of the most anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-L.G.B.T. voices in the Senate. He once called the Voting Rights Act of 1965 a “piece of intrusive legislation.” He once brought voter-fraud charges against three civil rights workers trying to register black voters in rural Alabama who were eventually acquitted. He has voted against legislation that would lower charges against low-level drug offenders. Instead he would fight to continue the for-profit private prison system by implementing more mandatory-minimum sentences and harsher punishments for drug crimes.
Sessions’ nomination to a federal judgeship was voted down by the Senate in the 1980s after accusations of making racist comments such as calling a black prosecutor “boy,” and using the n-word.
He’s also described groups like the N.A.A.C.P. and the American Civil Liberties Union as “un-American” and joked that the Ku Klux Klan was “okay, until he learned that they smoked marijuana.” He also said “Good people don’t smoke marijuana.” He wasn’t joking that time. It’ll be interesting, and perhaps scary, how he deals with states that have legalized the stuff.
On top of everything else, he’s game for a ban on Muslims entering the United States.
If Trump wants a special prosecutor to go after Hillary Clinton, Sessions will be the person to make that call where millions will be spent in another pointless investigation of the Clintons.
Is the joke that Donald Trump will be president setting in for you yet?
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Prosecutors usually prosecute. That’s their job. When it comes to prosecuting police, some act more like defense lawyers.
Cleveland police shot 12-year-0ld Tamir Rice within two seconds of stopping their cruiser a few feet from him. Rice was playing in a park with a toy gun. A citizen called the police and said he thought the person with a gun was a juvenile and the gun could be a toy. The dispatcher didn’t convey either of those points to the responding officers.
Prosecutors usually work closely with police. So when it comes time to see if they should be charged for shooting someone, the prosecutor can be resistant. That’s what happened in Ferguson.
Prosecutors put together a grand jury and they control the process and the information the jurors are exposed to. California, realizing there could be conflicts of interest, doesn’t allow grand juries to make decisions on charging the police in shootings. In the Cleveland case, the prosecutor brought in witnesses and evidence that pointed toward it being a “perfect storm of human error.” Tamir Rice’s mother described it more as a sabotage.
The defense centers on the police mistaking the fake gun as a real gun. But even then, should police shoot someone within two seconds? Tamir was playing with a toy gun. Some police shouldn’t be playing with real ones.
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One symptom that you might suffer from Affluenza is when mommy and daddy can purchase high-priced lawyers to help you squirm out of consequences of your bratty behavior.
Affluenza is when you are so rich, spoiled, and privileged that you can not tell the difference between wrong and right. Apparently you suffered and were neglected by being raised in a prosperous and privileged family. I believe that is possible. Maybe Daddy Warbucks did drop the ball with you and today you feel you don’t have to pay for your mistakes, even when you harm and kill others. I think when that happens then it’s a good time for you to start learning the difference between right and wrong, learn some responsibility, and be held accountable for your actions. Hard Knocks U. can be very educational and enlightening.
Ethan Couch is a spoiled, WHITE, kid in Texas. Or he was in Texas before he went on the lamb. Ethan’s father owns a sheet metal company with estimated yearly sales at $15 million. When little Ethan was 13 he drove himself to his fancy pants private school and when the principal questioned it, his father threatened to purchase the school. In 2013 he was busted with alcohol and a naked 14-year-old girl in his pickup. Yeehaw! He got 12 hours of community service, alcohol classes and probation.
Things for Little Privileged Ethan got much worse that same year. On June 15, 2013 he was witnessed on surveillance video stealing two cases of beer from a Walmart, driving with seven passengers in his father’s sweet Ford F-150 pickup truck, and speeding (70 MPH in a designated 40 MPH zone). Three hours after the incident, he had a blood alcohol content of 0.24, three times the legal limit for adult drivers in Texas, and tested positive for Valium. Shortly afterward he killed four pedestrians and seriously injured two others.
His defense attorneys hired a psychologist who testified in court that Ethan was a product of “affluenza” and was unable to link his bad behavior with consequences because of his parents teaching him that wealth buys privilege. As a great example of wealth buying privilege the judge went very light on Ethan and decided not to send him to prison.
Ethan was sentenced to ten years probation and sent to a rehab facility. and ordered not to drink.
Later in 2015 someone uploaded a video on Twitter which alleges Couch was drinking while playing beer pong. Since this is a direct violation of his probation, and he could face ten years in prison. So Couch and his mommy went on the run. Today there is a manhunt for the affluenza baby which involves the FBI and the U.S. Marshals. If you see him you can claim the $5,000 reward for information on his whereabouts.
You have to ask yourself: If Ethan was poor and black would he have avoided prison time? Black kids are being shot just for being outside while being black and Ethan is released after killing four people to go play beer pong. It’s a nice country to live in, especially if you’re the 1%.
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Earlier this week a fan on social media shared one of my cartoons and said it was “Monty Pythonesque.” That’s high praise. Today I decided to steal from Mel Brooks’ movie Blazing Saddles. A true classic.
Obama wants to reform the judicial system. He’s not the only one. A lot of Republicans want to also, though they might want to go about it differently.
The president has ordered the release of 6,000 non-violent prisoners convicted of drug charges. Releasing 6,000 will not make much of a dent in our prison population. And despite the fears of a lot of conservatives like Bill O’Reilly, it’s not a threat to society.
The United States has the largest prison population in the world. Many of those are non-violent drug users. This is insane. Rehabilitation for many of these prisoners would be a lot more cost effective, and better suited for prisoners and society, than sitting in a cell.
We do need to reform our judicial system. There are three parts I believe in.
We need to legalize marijuana. It’s no more of a threat than alcohol and it’s not a gateway drug or something that kills people or ruin lives.
We need to end mandatory sentencing. Judging should be left to judges, not legislators.
We need to end private prisons. No one should be making a profit in punishing people. What’s next? For profit executions?
Back to this prisoner release: Some of them will end up back in prison. You can’t have a group of 6,000 of group without someone getting in trouble. It’s going to happen and then look for the likes of Bill O’Reilly to paint it as a Willie Horton situation.
O’Reilly played the race card. He says there’s a racial component for Obama to release these prisoners. On a recent show of his he said this is driven by race with Barack Obama. I know it is. I know it’s race: The cops are huntin’ down inner-city black dealers. They don’t care about the white collar dealers. That’s what’s motivating this.
This is why everyone who watches Fox News is angry. They need to stop scaring old white people like that.
Here’s a couple of roughs I played around with before I settled on my final idea.
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claytoonz 