The quote in the cartoon is direct from the tortoise’s mouth.

If you make $70,000 a year or less, you’re getting a $600 check from the government. This is a stimulus to help you get through the pandemic. Does $600 help? Sure…a little. If you’re like me, that’s not even a month’s rent. If you’re a single mom with two kids, that might be your month’s food budget. Nobody’s going to refuse $600, but it’s a joke to think that’ll solve anyone’s financial woes. If you’re months behind on rent and facing eviction, $600 might get your landlord to leave you alone…for a day. He’ll be back tomorrow.

Americans need real help and what we have been hoping for is a $2,000 stimulus check. That’s not going to solve everything either, but 2,000 is more than 600. Even Donald Trump is pushing Congress to increase the stimulus to 2,000. Now it would have helped even more if he had done this while the relief package was being negotiated, or if he had fought for it half as hard as he did for tax cuts for billionaires and corporations and ending the inheritance tax for trust-fund babies named Trump.

Donald Trump fought a lot harder to put more money into his own pocket than he fought to put money into yours. Republicans only care about increasing the deficit when money is proposed to help people who actually need it. But when it comes to tax cuts for yacht-riding, Dijon-eating billionaire assholes with private helicopters and golf-club memberships, no problem.

Now, Mitch McConnell has stated there’s “no realistic path” for the senate to pass a stand-alone bill on providing relief checks of $2,000.

What does stand-alone mean? That means there’s nothing else in the bill. All that’s in the bill is raising your check to $2,000. This way, no senator can say they were for the raise but against other bullshit in the bill, like making our national anthem “Who Let The Dogs Out.”

That’s what McConnell wants to do. No, not attach a rider to the bill changing our national anthem to “Who Let The Dogs Out,” or “Macarena,” or “MMMBop,” or James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful” (I can do this all day). But he does want to “poison” the bill by putting shit in there Democrats can’t vote for. It’s a trick and it’s one Republican voters can’t catch even with it sitting right in front of them.

McConnell wants to attach “investigating the integrity of the 2020 election” and revoking legal protections for social media platforms to the bill. You’ve probably already heard “integrity” as part of the GOP talking point for the lie and conspiracy theory of mass voter fraud. Republicans want to waste a lot of time and money (but the deficit!) investigating something that doesn’t exist, mostly in order to delegitimize Joe Biden’s presidency. The other issue, revoking legal protections for social media platforms, is an issue that we shouldn’t slap into a bill because Donald Trump gets his feelings hurt on the internet.

Republicans do NOT want “integrity” in our elections and they do NOT care about facts on social media. They don’t want Twitter to be protected when a third party calls Donald Trump “Mr. Orange Shitgibbon,” or “Hair Fuehrer,” or “Orange Julius,” or “Tiny McGrope-A-Lot,” (I can do this all day). Keep in mind, this is the same crowd that’s facing libel lawsuits for claiming Dominion changed votes. As for “integrity,” these are the same fuckers who want to disenfranchise Americans’ Constitutionally-protected voting rights and overthrow an election. There’s not much “integrity” in coup attempts. So to everyone using the word “integrity” with your “voter fraud” claims, screw you, you lying MAGAt shitweasel asshats.

And for McConnell to say there’s no “realistic” path to a stand-alone bill giving us $2,000, he’s lying.

Mitch McConnell is the Senate Majority Leader. It’s up to him and him alone as to what is and isn’t voted on. He can allow a stand-alone bill. He can put it up for a vote today. But he doesn’t have the balls to put it on the floor and finding out which senators are truly for it and which ones aren’t…like the two Republicans in Georgia facing a runoff.

Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue both say they’re for the stimulus increase, but they’re not talking about it a lot. What they should both do is demand McConnell put a stand-alone bill on the floor. I mean, that’s what they’d do if they were really for it, right? Why doesn’t Donald Trump make the same demand?

But if you live in Georgia and you really want $2,000 to help you out, then don’t vote for Loeffler and Perdue. Pretty simple, isn’t it?

And election integrity? What we need is integrity in the United States Senate and from the Senate Majority Leader.

McConnell also said, “The Senate is not going to be bullied into rushing out more borrowed money into the hands of Democrats’ rich friends who don’t need the help.” Have you seen the lines at food banks across the country? Those are NOT Democrats’ rich friends who don’t need help.

When it comes to rich friends who don’t need help, McConnell and Trump are all about borrowing money to give it to them. They gave huge tax cuts to billionaires like Trump and to millionaires like McConnell. They gave permanent tax cuts to corporations. Donald Trump is a corporation. Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell are not at food banks and I seriously doubt they know anyone who needs help putting food on their table.

Part of the argument for tax cuts for the rich was that it would skyrocket the economy. That was four years ago and it didn’t. But you’ll be glad to know that during this pandemic, the rich have gotten richer.

So when you get that $600 relief check, remember…it could have been $2,000 but Mitch McConnell stopped it. And all the other Republicans in the Senate helped prevent you from receiving more help by not forcing McConnell to help you.

This is what Republicans do. They help the rich and screw the poor and middle-class. You can bank on that.

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 an order of 20 copies of my book (12 are left to purchase) on the way, which I’m selling for $45.00 each, signed. The books won’t arrive until after the new year, but orders are being taken and they’ll be shipped as soon as I receive them. Also, I have copies of my first book from 1997, Knee-Deep in Mississippi available for $20.00.

Update on book: They’re here but…I forgot to order envelopes. Shit. Envelopes are on the way. I’m sorry and I shouldn’t have assumed I had enough on hand. I swear that about 30 book envelopes disappeared out of my apartment.

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.

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