Marco Rubio

To Solemnly Lickspittle

cjones01192020

I spent last Thursday morning nauseous and queasy from food poisoning. This morning, I was looking up photos of Senate Republicans, so yeah…another Thursday morning feeling nauseous and queasy.

Senate Republicans have already abandoned the oath they swore to when they took office. You know, that quaint idea of protecting and defending the United States of America from all forms of aggression, foreign and domestic. Because with Donald Trump, our nation’s received forms for aggression, foreign and domestic. How have Senate Republicans responded to it? They’ve all rolled over for belly rubs.

On the 2016 campaign trail, Donald Trump gave loyalty oaths at his hate rallies. He defended the practice from comparisons to the oaths Hitler demanded as “fun.” Republicans in Congress haven’t had a problem with the oath, at least not since the election. Before Trump was elected was another matter.

Lindsey Graham said of Trump, “He’s a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot,” and “You know how you make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell.” Now, he promises not to be a fair juror in Trump’s impeachment trial which is starting next week and said “I’ve clearly made up my mind, I’m not trying to hide the fact that I have disdain for the accusations and the process.”

Ted Cruz called Trump a “pathological liar” and a “sniveling coward” after Trump retweeted a meme comparing the beauty between their wives. Now, he’s defending coming to a conclusion before the trial.

Marco Rubio said, “No senator can be impartial.” Back in 2016, he was making fun of the size of Trump’s penis.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has resisted calling witnesses, despite new ones coming out every day stating how Trump was trying to bribe a foreign leader to help his reelection. McConnell is totally coordinating the trial with the White House.

This morning, Senate Republicans are going to take an impeachment oath they’ve already promised to break. You can argue that Democrats are doing the same, but at least they can base their opinion that Trump is guilty on the fact that all the witnesses, documents, and facts support that Trump is guilty.

And the Republicans who are promising to be openminded will only do so if they don’t have to hear any more witnesses or evidence against Trump. The only way this could be any worse would be if we found out later that one of the Senators was helping Trump bribe Ukraine. But fortunately, the guy who did that in Congress is in the House.

The impeachment trial of Donald Trump beings next week and should continue for two more. But this morning, Republicans will get a head start by swearing on an oath they don’t have any intention to follow. At the same time, they don’t have any intention of representing the United States.

Creative note: Can’t recognize all the Republicans and wanna give up? Here you go. Left to right (top row); Tom Cotton, Rand Paul, Rick Scott, Joni Ernst, Jerry Moran, Ben Sasse (bottom row) Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Cindy Hyde-Smith, John Kennedy (very bottom) Marco Rubio.

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New Book: Tales From The Trumpster Fire

Watch me draw.

Podesta’s Prince Of An Email

I have beaten Marco Rubio up a lot over issues and grand standing and the fact he doesn’t have any accomplishments. But more than once this week I have called out Republicans and Trump supporters for not speaking out against Wikileaks. Now I have to be fair and commend Senator Rubio for doing just that.

Rubio is in a race for his senate seat yet he’s refusing to use any information provided by Wikileaks and the Russian government. He says “Today it is the Democrats. Tomorrow, it could be us.” What do you want to bet they have information from the Trump campaign they’re holding onto until they need it?

Rubio also said “I will not discuss any issue that has become public solely on the basis of WikiLeaks. As our intelligence agencies have said, these leaks are an effort by a foreign government to interfere with our electoral process, and I will not indulge in it.” Good for you, Senator Rubio for exhibiting principles that the rest of your party seems to be lacking. Now if you only had enough to pull your support from Donald Trump.

Everyday there are new dumps from the Clinton campaign’s emails. Most notably they’ve been fishing in campaign manager John Podesta’s in and out boxes. What we have discovered is that he grouped vice presidential candidates into “food groups.” There were groups for business leaders, military leaders, women, white guys, and black guys. There was also one exclusively for Bernie Sanders who Podesta referred to in one email as a “doofus.” I’ve been called worse by friends and family than “doofus,” though that word is one of their favorites for me. At least I never got “hipster doofus” which is another Seinfeld reference.

Still, there’s no real dirt in the emails greater than what is probably in Podesta’s spam folder, like free credit checks, check out my webcam, viagra ads and offers from that persistent Nigerian prince.

This is all you’re getting from me today for a column. I have more work with the debate tonight, an exclusive cartoon comping up this weekend for The Costa Rica Star, and I have to work on a special double-secret project for an alternative publication. At some point tonight I plan to eat something.

Yes, there will be a cartoon on the debate by tomorrow. I’m sure I’ll also tweet out a lot of sarcasm so go follow me on Twitter and enjoy the show.

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Gorilla Of Marco’s Dreams

Someone’s going to accuse me of being heartless, tasteless, and crass with this cartoon. Well, yeah. I don’t have too many sacred cows. However, if the child had died I wouldn’t have even considered drawing this cartoon. I am sorry the Gorilla was killed.

In case you get your news from editorial cartoons, a four-year-old child fell into the gorilla pet at the Cincinnati Zoo on Sunday. The child was hurt but he’s going to be OK. But before anyone knew that, the gorilla was dragging the child through some water and very interested. Zoo keepers decided the only way to be sure the child wouldn’t be killed was to shoot and kill the gorilla. It is very sad the gorilla had to die.

A lot of people think the zoo reacted poorly. Some say he should have been tranquilized but that can take up to ten minutes to work after the injection. It might have also upset the gorilla and further endanger the child. Other people say the gorilla wasn’t going to hurt the kid and was trying to protect it. Yeah, nobody knows that. Others say the gorilla’s life is just important as the child’s. No, it’s not. I have a little experience with this as I briefly worked in a zoo before I became a professional smart ass (back before I went pro).

I support animal rights but that shouldn’t, no pun intended, trump the life of a child. Sorry.

On the other end of this, Marco Rubio is kissing some serious Trump booty. He’s apologizing for insinuating The Donald has a tiny penis. John Miller says it’s “yuuuuuuge.” He’s lobbying to speak in support of Trump at the RNC National Convention. He’s denied he’d be interested in the Veep slot, but Marco doesn’t have a job after January. Yeah, he’s sucking up for it. And you know what? Monkeying with Trump will damage his career.

I’m not advocating anyone shoot Trump, but maybe he could take a downer every now and then.

I avoided drawing Trump for six cartoons last week and now I’ve monkeyed around and drawn three in a row. I had three other subjects in mind for my next cartoon but I really couldn’t resist drawing a gorilla. That was an urge I resisted successfully during the New York primaries and I sat back and watched twelve other cartoonists draw a gorilla Trump on top of the Empire State building.

Update: In the hours since I posted this cartoon there’s been a bunch of comments about how horrible the parents are. Many are saying they’re they ones who should have been shot. I don’t see how that would have helped the child.

I don’t know if these are good parents. I also don’t know if they’re not. Neither do you. I do know as a parent, and a former child myself, that stuff happens. Every child gets into a dangerous situation. People who say the parents are to blame, either don’t have kids, or they don’t remember that they do and have also forgotten every dangerous and near-death experience their child ever had.

Stop being a parenting expert on the internet. Especially before you have any information. Yes, I’m sure the parents could have done a better job in this situation, but again, stuff happens. Even overprotective mama Gump couldn’t keep track of little Forrest every day. He was even chased by bullies and had to run, Forrest, run. One, or even a few instances, of a child encountering a dangerous situation does not make bad parents. If it’s something that’s frequent, then you might need to call protective services.

I think a better question might be: Why is it so easy for a child to fall into a gorilla pit?

Hasta La Vista, Marco

Marco Rubio has dropped out of the presidential race and it’s a tragedy that makes me very sad. I was just starting to enjoy drawing the religious zealot. The only candidate left promising to rule us all by the hand of God now is Ted Cruz. Did I just get a chill?

Rubio lost in his home state of Florida to Donald Trump. He didn’t just lose. He lost big. He only won one county, his home of Miami-Dade. It’s as if nobody in Florida had ever heard of their Senator…or in his case, they were very familiar with him and didn’t like what he had to offer, or his performance as Senator. Rubio started running for the presidency as soon as he won his senate seat.

I worked in Batesville, Mississippi for five years and in that time I probably talked in person to then Senator Trent Lott seven times. The mayor of Tampa said he never met Marco Rubio.

Now Rubio can spend the next four years running for the presidency in 2020, but not on the taxpayer’s dime. I’m sure he’ll get plenty of job offers from think tanks and consulting firms.

I am going to miss his bottles of water and platform heels. I won’t miss his condescending tone of speech. Being humbled may be good for Marco. Let’s hope it’s a lesson his rival Ted Cruz learns very soon…and after that Donald Trump. Who am I kidding? These people don’t have the ability of understanding reality to be humbled.

The Incredible Shrinking Rubio

You’re not going to get much of a column today. I have a tiny cold and it’s really hard to care about much when you feel like giant rat turds. At one point I actually drooled on the drawing paper for this cartoon. As bad as I feel I’m sure Marco Rubio feels worse.

Marco had a bad night. Correction: Marco had ANOTHER bad night. The only primaries he’s won has been Minnesota and Puerto Rico. He didn’t just lose on Tuesday night. He lost big. There were four states holding Republican primaries which included Michigan, Idaho, Hawaii and Mississippi (where my career started) where Rubio was coming in fifth behind Ben Carson. FIFTH BEHIND BEN CARSON who’s not even in the race anymore. Rubio came in fourth in Michigan and Mississippi. At this writing Hawaii’s returns haven’t come in yet, but you really don’t want to be clinging all your hopes on Hawaii (where my career went after Mississippi).

Next Tuesday the race goes to Ohio and Florida. Rubio should be fighting for Ohio since he’s been endorsed by almost every establishment figure in the party. Instead he’s fighting desperately for his home state of Florida. That tells us a lot about his tenure as Florida’s senator since the voters of that state aren’t impressed enough by his service to give him more votes than Donald Trump. If Florida, who knows him, doesn’t want him then why should the rest of the country? Quite frankly, can anyone name an accomplishment of Rubio’s…other than finding great deals on heels?

Your Mama

Donald Trump’s penchant for being vulgar and slinging very uncreative personal insults is one of the reasons many believe he isn’t presidential. To take him down Marco Rubio has decided he too does not have to present himself in a presidential manner.

After saying he didn’t want to attack his fellow Republican candidates Rubio has made fun of Trump’s “spray tan,” his spelling, for wearing makeup, for having a “sweat mustache” and insinuated that Donald Trump wet his pants and has a small penis.

Two questions regarding Rubio’s new tactic are: Is it too late for him to take Trump down, and is this diminishing Rubio? Yes and yes.

Do we want a comedian as president? Minnesota elected one to the U.S. Senate. Presidents can tell jokes and Obama has displayed a natural skill at comedic delivery. Rubio, not so much. While Rubio and Obama probably aren’t writing their material, I don’t think anyone in the world wants to take credit for Trump’s set list. Though making fun of the handicapped goes over really well with the Trump crowd.

While Trump isn’t intentionally funny, he’s very entertaining. Entertaining much the same way a train wreck can entertain. Especially if that train is full of Republicans.

And the mama joke in this cartoon: I can’t take credit for it. I found it on the internet on a mama joke site. Most of the jokes weren’t suitable for family newspapers.

Trump Looks Under The Hood

Donald Trump claims he doesn’t hire pollsters. That’s well and good because you shouldn’t need a consultant to tell you that you should disavow any association with the Ku Klux Klan. But for Donald Trump that question is a real thinker.

White supremacists love Donald Trump. They’ve been loving the GOP for a long time which is something the party pretends they’re ignorant of. “The Klan who? We don’t know nothing about them. Oh yeah…those guys who were Democrats back in the 1800’s….yeah, blame Democrats.”

David Duke is from my home state of Louisiana. He’s been a national embarrassment for the state since the 1980’s. He’s run for president several times. He ran for governor and almost won. My favorite political slogan came from that race which is “Vote for the crook. It’s important.” His Grand Wizardness was running as a Republican and made the runoff against Democrat Edwin Edwards, a man chased out of the governorship more than once and later convicted of racketeering. Years earlier a journalist stated the only way Edwards would ever be elected governor again would be if his opponent was Adolph Hitler. Duke actually won an election as a state representative but he only served one term.

Duke started his political life as a Grand Wizard in the KKK, left the group but not their values. He’s even taken part in visiting Iran’s Holocaust denial party. Yes, they have one of those annually or something like that. That’s gotta be a lot of fun for a white supremacist to share hatred with Muslims.

Trump didn’t realize being endorsed by Sarah Palin was an embarrassment and came off as a joke. We satirists had a very difficult time making it funnier and more ridiculous than it actually was. Now Trump has been endorsed by Duke, which only sounds like a joke, who said “Voting against Donald Trump at this point, is really treason to your heritage.” There have also been white power robocalls on Trump’s behalf with one proclaiming “The white race is dying out. . . . Few schools anymore have beautiful white children as the majority.” I guess those schools have a bunch of ugly white kids. Who knows. If only all their mothers where white Slovenian supermodels.

Trump says he doesn’t know who Duke is (he’s lying as he made a statement against the guy in 2000), and that he’s not familiar with white supremacists. What? Not familiar with white supremacist? Maybe someone should make him familiar with Wikipedia.

Not being familiar with racist groups was his excuse on CNN Sunday morning when asked if he’d disavow the endorsement. He wouldn’t. But about two hours later (after someone probably told him that being associated with the KKK might seem kinda negative), Trump disavowed the Duke endorsement. He did it in a begrudging manner too like “OK you babies, I disavow, now watch me roll my eyes. Are you happy now? Leave me alone.” Why can’t a guy go out and troll the nation with racist comments without attracting Klansmen? Sheesh!

Marco Rubio says the conservative movement has no place for David Duke, white supremacists, bigots or racists. The Republican party and the conservative movement has spent decades attracting racists and now they want to pretend there’s no room for them? Do they honestly believe racists are voting Democrat?

Wanna Buy A Watch?

Did you watch the latest Republican debate? The final debate before Super Tuesday as every debate is the final debate before something. I did and it was a slobberknocker. Basically it was Ted and Marco versus The Donald. It couldn’t have been much worse than if Trump was caught between the Pope, Vicente Fox, and Mitt Romney.

First impression I got was how sad it was to see President George H.W. Bush and former First Lady Barbara at the debate after Jeb had dropped out. It’s like your parents going to your little league game after you were kicked off the team.

The high point of the debate that will be talked about Friday was when Marco Rubio stated that if Donald Trump hadn’t inherited $200 million, he’d be selling watches in Manhattan. That was a good one. It was so prepared that Marco is pretend selling broken Trump watches at his site. You don’t actually get a watch but you get the privilege of giving Marco $10.00. The remark was as prepared as the audience because Rubio’s people had planted screamers to react to everything Marco said. It was annoying. This was supposed to be a debate, not Beatlemania.

But Marco came out swinging at Trump. He attacked him for his fortune, his taxes, his hiring illegals, his fake university, his lawsuits, donating to Democrats and charities (Republicans are so terrible that donating to charitable causes will be used agaist you), his bankruptcies,, his lack of specifics, and I’m kinda surprised he didn’t squeeze a “your mama is so ugly” in there somewhere. He hit Trump on issues that aren’t new, some out there for over a decade. Someone discovered Google.

Cruz was more than happy to join the pile-on. The thing is, where was this before? Why did they wait until the tenth debate to go hard against Trump? Rubio has yet to win a primary or a caucus and he’s behind Trump by double digits in his home state of Florida. Cruz is barely leading Trump in his state of Texas and has a lead in Arkansas, but that’s it. Did they do a Christie and hurt Trump without helping themselves? Quite possible. If Rubio loses Florida, it’s over for him. If he wins Florida, which is over two weeks from now and several primaries away, and half the delegates are already gone…it’s still probably over. Rubio might actually working on Campaign 2020 at this point.

For Trump, who states he can shoot a guy and his supporters will still love him, will any attack hurt him? Plus, people may not really interpret anything that was said as it was mostly inaudible as all three guys were talking over each other most of the night. Trump’s defense against his rivals were that Cruz is a liar and a basketcase and Rubio suffers from meltdowns.

Oh yeah, John Kasich and Dr. Ben Carson were also on the stage. Kasich, who is NOT a moderate, is the most qualified and prepared for the presidency out of all these guys. Carson, desperate for time, begged for someone to attack him. Seriously.

Republican Fun With Photoshop

We all know Ted Cruz is sleazy and is running the dirtiest campaign of anyone currently seeking the presidency. That’s in addition to his general all around creepiness and unlikeability. On the day of the Iowa caucus he told supporters that Ben Carson had dropped out, and he hadn’t. This week his campaign circulated a fake photo of Marco Rubio shaking hands with President Obama. Rubio freaked out.

Is that what it’s come to? Being seen with the president of the United States can be used against you? Marco Rubio is a sitting United States senator, as is Ted Cruz. It would seem you wouldn’t have a hard time finding a photo of a senator and the president together, even of Rubio despite his rare trips to do his job in Washington. But no. Being seen with Obama can be used against you (ask Chris Christie). And they say the president is the divisive one.

I’m also amazed the media has focused more on the photoshopping of the picture and not on the absurdity of the fear of an Obama connection. Yeah, being seen with Obama can tarnish your reputation with conservatives but Ted Cruz can hang out with the Duck Dynasty dude and pastors who advocate killing homosexuals. I don’t know if I’m freaked out more by the candidates, or people who consider voting for them.

I don’t see what’s so scandalous about being seen with the president of the United States. Any president. I can definitely see people not wanting to be seen or associated with Ted Cruz.

Republican Road Rage

I hate the Clown Car analogy that’s been tossed around to describe the Republican candidates for president. It’s not that I disagree with the description. It’s that it’s a lazy analogy and not creative at all. If Chris Matthews uses it then you shouldn’t (and it’s an analogy he repeats every day). So I may be the only American editorial cartoonist (who’s not a conservative hacker) who has not used that analogy. But after seeing the last Republican debate (I didn’t watch all of it, just the hightlights), it did remind me of family road trips from Hell.

Sorry if this brings up bad memories. I was raised the youngest and had an older brother and sister so I probably can’t complain about them being the pain in the butt…it was me. I also have a younger sister and brother but I wasn’t raised with them. Long story.

I never intended to insert Kasich into this cartoon. As I was lettering the text I thought how funny it would be if he was left at a rest stop (probably in Ohio). There’s always that kid without any charisma that you forget, sometimes because the other kids are competing for attention. At the debate before the New Hampshire primary Kasich was forgotten. It took Chris Christie to remind the moderators that they forgot to introduce Governor Blah.

claytoonz

Nationally Syndicated Editorial Cartoonist