Poland

Another Border Crisis

CjonesRGB11182021

If the first thing you were concerned over upon hearing about the migration crisis on the border between Belarus and Poland, then your priorities are messed up. Oil before humanity, right?

This crisis began over the summer when Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko threatened to bring in human traffickers, drug smugglers, and armed migrants into his nation to cross into European Union nations. Democratic nations in the west have been at odds with Lukashenko over his fraudulent election (the kind Trump hopes for), the crackdown against protesters, the forced-landing of Ryanair 4978 to capture a Lukashenko critic, and the attempted forced repatriation of Belarusian Olympic sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya.

Lukashenko started advertising in Asia and Africa that people who needed to flee their home nations were welcome to pass through Belarus (nobody wants to immigrate to Belarus. Ask Krystsina) and into western Europe. Airlines in the Middle East increased their flights to Belarus, offered discounts and Belarusian visas. Several social media pages started providing false information on how to cross over the border from Belarus and into Poland.

After the immigrants arrived in Belarus, they were provided with axes and wire cutters to cross the border. When they arrived at the border, they discovered Poland didn’t want them and turned them around and back in to Belarus, although about 800 were able to pass through by evading authorities. For those who were not able to pass through, Belarus prevented Poland from providing the refugees with tents and blankets. As an incentive for the migrants to try again to enter Poland, Belarusian soldiers started beating them.

This is kinda like the Mariel Boatlift in 1980 when Fidel Castro “humanely” allowed Cubans to leave and paddle the 90 or miles to the United States. Among the 125,000 Cubans, and 25,000 Haitians who pretended to be Cubans (Reagan would only take Cubans, not Haitians), were some of the worst criminals Cuba had to offer. Most of the people Castro considered criminals were guilty of stuff like selling radios on the black market (here in the U.S, it’s more of an assault to force somebody to listen to pop radio). But the media in southern Florida identified at least 2,700 as “hardened” criminals. We’re talking Scarface here. This is what Lukashenko is hoping to do to the EU…give them Scarface. Lukashenko is a cockaroach.

The nations that border Belarus, Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia, have accused Lukashenko of using the migrants as weapons to attack the European Union. Most of these immigrants are trying to get to Germany, where people are civil. In Poland and Belarus, the people are more like Trumpers. In fact, the three border nations have decided to build a wall on the border with Belarus with the European Union’s support.

Belarus and Lukashenko suck, but Poland sucks too. Poland has refused asylum to immigrants who have entered its nation. They’ve also refused access to the media, doctors, and non-government organizations like the Red Cross. Yesterday, Polish border guards shot tear gas and water cannons at the migrants. Apparently, Poland has made Stephen Miller their new border czar.

Lukashenko is a monster and the true victims here are the refugees he created in order to use them as weapons. Here in the United States, we may not pay much attention to it since it’s not in the United States. And if gas prices do increase because of this, as Lukashenko may shut off pipelines from Russia to the European Union, we’ll probably blame President Biden.

The real victims in this aren’t the people paying higher gas prices, but the refugees being weaponized. And if your first concern was your gas tank, you need to check your heart and your head, because you’re a cockaroach.

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.

Watch me draw: I am currently on one-week probation from posting new videos on YouTube because somebody got upset with me for criticizing Marjorie Taylor Green, Qanon, white nationalists, and Nazis ten months ago.

Advertisement

Freedom Undefended

cjones07082017

You know that oath the president takes upon assuming office? It’s when the incoming president swears to defend and protect the United States. Yeah, that one. Donald Trump mouthed the words at his inauguration but he’s not defending or protecting our nation.

Trump chose to start his second presidential trip to Europe in Poland, as they have a president who is from the far right, promotes nationalism, and is working to oppress freedom in his country.

During a press conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda, the man who occupies the position that was formerly viewed as the leader of the free world, attacked his own nation.

While on foreign soil, Trump attacked American intelligence. He said Russia probably hacked our election, along with a lot of other people and other nations. In Trump’s mind, there was an international hootenanny attacking our Democratic process.

He attacked President Obama. Though he’s not sure Russia attacked our Democracy, he blamed Obama for not doing anything about it, which is a lie. Maybe he didn’t do enough, but he did act. In comparison to Trump, he’s done a lot more which starts with acknowledging Russia attacked our election.

Then, the guy who is supposed to promote American freedom to the rest of the world, attacked press freedom. He continued to describe the American media as “fake news.”

Trump only took two questions. The first was from The Daily Mail’s David Martosko, a guy who was once considered the front-runner for the administration’s communications director position. He used the friendly question from a friendly source to continue his war on CNN and the rest of the American press.

He declared that CNN has “been fake news for a long time. They’ve been covering me in a very, very dishonest way.” He called NBC “equally as bad, despite the fact that I made them a fortune with The Apprentice, but they forgot that.” How dare NBC disregard the fortune Trump made for them with his crappy reality show and allow their news division to actually do their job, which is asking questions and reporting the news.

Trump kept whining: “What we want to see in the United States is honest, beautiful, free but honest press. We want to see fair press. I think it’s a very important thing. We don’t want fake news. And by the way, not everybody is fake news. But we don’t want fake news.” Apparently, his safe place is not in Poland.

In Trump’s mind, those who are not fake is Fox News, the National Enquirer, and InfoWars. If delivering information that’s not true makes one fake, does that mean Donald Trump is a fake president?

The president should be defending and promoting what Reagan called America, the “shining city on the hill.”  Trump goes out and sells us as a shitty city on a hill.

Trump is destroying our nation’s image, credibility, and stature in the world. Never in our history have we had an American president put his ego above national interest to the extent Donald Trump has.

American presidents usually encourage their counterparts to support and allow freedom of the press in their nations. Instead, Trump is giving cover to oppressive leaders who seek to limit and control what their media does.

After whining that the press has been “dishonest” with him, he asked President Duda if he had this problem. Well, not as much as he used to.

After assuming office in 2015 as a member of the Law And Justice Party (scary name), Duda signed a law allowing the government to take political control of state media outlets, resulting in claims that the government is turning public news organizations into mouthpieces for the party.

Trump may be interested in turning American news outlets into his mouthpieces, well those that aren’t filling that role already, like Fox, Breitbart, InfoWars, and The Daily Mail’s David Martosko.

Last week, South Korean President Moon Jae-in told Trump in the Oval Office “I also suffer a bit from fake news, as you do.” They laughed and giggled together over their shared hatred of the press.

Today, Trump will be meeting with Vladimir Putin. Trump and Putin may bond over their shared loathing of people who ask questions and report facts. Except in Russia, Putin doesn’t make GIFS slamming the media or tweet vulgar insults at female talk show hosts. Putin has his critics silenced….permanently.

Trump has declared the press the “enemy of the American people” and has been waging war on the press since before he took office. He’s turning off the cameras and audio for White House Briefings. The State Department has stopped doing daily briefings. On top of all this, he’s finding like-minded souls in his party.

Maine Governor Paul LePage recently suggested that he makes up stories to “mislead the press.” LePage also said, “The sooner the print press goes away, the better society will be.”

People like Putin, Duda, Moon Jae-in, Paul LePage, and Donald Trump should keep this Thomas Jefferson quote in mind: “were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

That’s Jefferson’s view despite the fact that he couldn’t stand the press. He also said, “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper.” Yet, he understood the importance of a free press and that’s you can’t have freedom of any kind without a free press.

What’s getting scary is that a lot of citizens share LePage’s view that society will be better off without the press. It’s amazing that people want to be ruled and willingly uninformed. Why would anyone be satisfied with receiving information only from the government?

Between a free press and Donald Trump, there’s only one of them that a free society can do without. Guess which one that is. I’ll give you a hint: It’s orange and white and read all over.

I want to thank everyone who has donated in the past. Your support helps me continue creating cartoons and columns with a little less stress in my life. Between competing syndicates with much larger resources, timid editors, and Trump supporters who attempt to intimidate the editors who do publish anything that criticizes their idol, it’s a challenge to make a career out of this. So your support (if you can) is appreciated. Want to help me continue to create cartoons and keep doing what I’m doing (pissing off conservatives)? Look to the right of this page and make a donation through PayPal. Every $50 donation will receive a signed print. All donations will receive my eternal gratitude.