Political Cartoons

Underdogs

The University of Virginia has always been good to me. The Center for Politics at UVA has had me speak and take part in seminars and while doing so, they’ve put me in nice hotels, a great bed and breakfast, have fed me in swanky restaurants, and even once gave me football tickets. Yeah, it was UVA vs Duke, but still…it was nice. I was on a panel at UVA just a few months ago. They have one of the most beautiful campuses in the nation when Trump-supporting tiki-torch Nazis aren’t invading it. So, even though I’m an SEC guy, I feel that I have to root for UVA in at least one sport. I root for them in basketball. Go, Cavaliers!

Virginia’s basketball program has been great since the hiring of coach Tony Bennett in 2009. He inherited the worst UVA team since the 1960s and turned it into a program that’s won two ACC tournaments (remember Duke and North Carolina are in the same conference), won or shared 6 ACC regular season titles, has four 30-win seasons, and won the national championship in 2019. Unfortunately, this great basketball powerhouse that runs with the likes of Duke and UNC also has epic losses of historic proportions.

Teams that are first seeds in the NCAA tournament don’t lose to teams ranked 16…until Virginia did it. In 2018, number-one seed Virginia lost to the 16-ranked University of Maryland at Baltimore County, the Retrievers. They won the national championship the next year and have had ups and downs since.

This year, I actually made a bracket and picked fourth-seed UVA to win the national championship. Once again, UVA gave us another epic loss, falling to 13-ranked Furman. Furman? Where the hell is Furman? It’s in Greenville, South Carolina. You gotta watch out for those Paladins? What the hell is a Paladin? Anyway, my bracket went bust on day one. The sun hadn’t even gone down yet and my bracket was toast.

Anyway, don’t take underdogs lightly. So far in this year’s NCAA tournaments, we’ve seen #1 Perdue fall to #16 Fairleigh Dickson, #2 Arizona fall to #15 Princeton, and in the woman’s tournament, we’ve seen #1 Stanford fall to #8 Ole Miss, and #1 Indiana fall to #9 Miami.

We’re also seeing Russia fall to underdog Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin expected to crush Ukraine within weeks, capture its president Volodymir Zelenskyy, absorb the entire nation as a Russian state, and stroll through the streets of Kyiv for photo-ops. Now, he’s begging for military supplies from China, Iran, and possibly North Korea. Putin is getting his ass kicked by this underdog.

It’s like Putin is a basketball coach but he doesn’t know the sport, with the only games he’s ever watched being those by the Harlem Globetrotters, who are as much of a real basketball team as they are real sleuths when they help out Scooby-Doo.

Putin probably has the means to keep fighting this illegal invasion, even if he has to use hardware from Iran, private armies, other assorted mercenaries, and recruits from prison, but he’ll never win as long as Ukraine has the support of the west. The west needs to give Ukraine everything it asks for because if it falls to Putin, so will other nations in the future. Putin will go west.

This is NOT what Florida Governor has called it, a “territorial dispute.” This is an illegal invasion of a sovereign democratic nation by a war criminal. And even though there are a lot of Republicans who are not rooting for them, I saw we cheer on and support the underdogs.

Except for the Paladins. Yeah, screw those guys.

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.

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Lock Him Up

Donald Trump “truthed” that he’s going to be arrested on Tuesday. It’s Tuesday. As Ted Knight said in Caddyshack, “Well? We’re waiting.”

Republicans are in an uproar over the possibility Donald Trump will be indicted and arrested in Manhattan over the hush-money payment scheme to porn star Stormy Daniels. It didn’t work because we still found out about the “Yeti pubes.” They claim the statutes of limitations have passed in the case which is not true but is an admission of guilt. They claim the investigation is solely political since, as Trump puts it, he’s the “leading” candidate in the presidential race.

Trump claimed that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg “has allowed violent crime to reach new heights in New York without any retribution” in order to prosecute Trump. Other Republicans have made the same claim, saying Bragg should focus on other crimes in New York…and then without an ounce of awareness promise to investigate Bragg.

Instead of focusing on the border, inflation, the economy, China, and making sure Matt Gaetz isn’t hitting on underage congressional pages, Republicans want to investigate another Trump investigation.

Republican Florida congressman and Goon Caucus member Byron Donalds was on CNN this morning complaining about Bragg not focusing on New York, defended Congress going after Bragg, and then talked about how FEMA hasn’t provided enough trailers to his district after the last hurricane. Maybe you worry more about FEMA trailers in Florida and less about prosecutions in New York.

Republicans are threatening and harassing the Manhattan DA before any charges have been announced. While calling Bragg’s investigation political, they promise to investigate Bragg, and again without any awareness, with Jim Gym Jordan leading the committee.

Republicans are screaming and howling that a presidential candidate can’t be prosecuted, investigated, indicted, arrested, etc…while forgetting that they’re the “lock her up” gang.

Have you ever been to a Trump rally? I have. Have you at least seen one on TV? They do love their chants at Trump rallies. There’s “space force,” “fire Fauci,” “drain the swamp,” “build the wall,” and the always popular and very racist “send her back,” but perhaps the most popular of the chants that don’t exceed three syllables is “lock her up.”

In 2016, attendees of MAGA rallies started the chant “lock her up” in regard to Hillary Clinton, who at the time was the leading presidential candidate. Hmm. That’s weird. Right now, Republicans are saying it’s a bad thing to try to arrest leading presidential candidates and political opponents.

Donald Trump never disavowed these “lock her up” chants. Usually, he just stood at the podium with that creepy smile on his face ike he had just spotted a ten-year-old in Trump Tower that he’d like to date in eight years, allowing the crowd to continue the chant.

In 2020, while he was president (sic), he said during one of these “lock her up” chants, “I agree with you 100 percent.”

Throughout his presidency (sic), Trump called for investigations, prosecutions, indictments, and arrests of political opponents. He claimed Hillary Clinton and President Obama committed “treason” for their parts in the Russia investigation (they had zero parts in it).

In 2020, he tweeted at his Attorney General William Barr to “arrest somebody,” and wondered aloud why President Obama, then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton hadn’t been imprisoned for launching a “coup” against his administration.

In the same 24-hour period, he tweeted, “Where are all of the arrests? Can you imagine if the roles were reversed? Long term sentences would have started two years ago. Shameful!”

And then he let loose a barrage of tweets in all caps, stating, “DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS, THE BIGGEST OF ALL POLITICAL SCANDALS (IN HISTORY)!!! BIDEN, OBAMA AND CROOKED HILLARY LED THIS TREASONOUS PLOT!!! BIDEN SHOULDN’T BE ALLOWED TO RUN – GOT CAUGHT!!!”

These tweets were sent right after Trump returned to the White House from Walter Reed Hospital where he was recovering from COVID, so he was probably pretty high on bleach, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, Diet Coke, and Adderall.

Elise Stefanik has called Bragg’s investigation “unAmerican.” Rand Paul, missing the irony of accusing Bragg of arresting political opponents while calling for Bragg’s arrest.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy said a possible indictment would be “an outrageous abuse of power by a radical DA who lets violent criminals walk as he pursues political vengeance.”

Mike Pence said it was a “politically-charged environment in New York where the attorney general and other elected officials literally campaigned on a pledge to prosecute the former president.” But it’s not as politically charged as the riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, that was chanting, “Hang Mike Pence.” Again, only three syllables.

Tech investor, Republican presidential candidate, and guy you never heard of before until now Vivek Ramaswamy said he didn’t want to live in a country where “the party in power is able to use police force to arrest its political opposition.”

Lauren Boebert tweeted, “We’re witnessing the most obscene political witch-hunt in American history.” And then her son impregnated the witch.

Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted with a link to MTG merchandise, “George Soros puppet and Democrat activist Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg has declared us all Enemies of State by declaring war on MAGA.” But you too can proudly wear “Enemy of the State” panties.

Jim Gym Jordan said it was an “unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority.”

Matt Gaetz said to a young woman walking past him in a hallway, “Hey, are you 18 yet?”

George Santos said, “I never abused my office politically when I was the Manhattan DA.”

But if you can remember, the party in power in the House of Representatives in 2016 conducted the Benghazi hearings. They forced Hillary Clinton to testify during her campaign. Kevin McCarthy praised the hearings for hurting Clinton’s poll numbers.

None of the goons, not McCarthy, Stefanik, Donalds, Paul, Pence, MTG, Boebert, or Ramalamadingdong ever told Trump to stop tweeting to his Attorney General to arrest his political opponents. None of them called it “unAmerican.” Remember, all of these goons were A-OK with President (sic) Trump using taxpayer-funded military aid approved by Congress to extort the President of Ukraine to dig up dirt on his political opponent.

Attorney General (sic) Bill Barr did use the Justice Department to defend Trump and his goons and appointed a Special Counsel to investigate the Russia investigation, which has turned up diddly. So yeah, they did try to go after Trump’s political opponents. The problem was, they didn’t have anything on Trump’s political enemies. That’s the same problem they have today with the Bidens and all the claims of corruption and payments from China…they don’t have anything.

Republicans impeached President Bill Clinton for lying about oral sex but they want to sweep under the rug that Donald Trump paid hush money to a porn star to keep quiet about doing the wild thing in Vegas and that his ding-dong looks really really weird.

Republican outrage can’t be taken seriously. McCarthy says justice isn’t being applied evenly…and neither is his outrage.

If Democrats are actually using the law to go after political opponents, then Republicans are outraged that Democrats are acting like them.

If Republicans don’t want their candidates to be arrested, then stop making criminals your candidates.

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.

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Cakes For War Crimes

One of my proofreaders isn’t entirely comfortable with this cartoon. While she’s not a fan of Bush, Cheney, and the war in Iraq, she disagreed with calling them war criminals and comparing them with Putin. She has a valid point and I always appreciate her input. I don’t just send my cartoons to her for her exceptional spelling skills.

But I am not uncomfortable with calling Bush and Cheney war criminals. Are they on par with Putin? No. Bush and Cheney did not intentionally target apartment buildings, playgrounds, schools, etc. But they did do what Vladimir Putin did and that was violate another nation’s sovereignty and conduct an illegal invasion based on a lie.

Putin says he invaded Ukraine to liberate that nation from Nazis. That is a lie. Bush and Cheney justified their invasion, and hoodwinked other nations to form an international coalition all based on the lie that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. That bad thing is, there are more Nazis in Ukraine than there were WMDs in Iraq at the time of the invasion in 2003 as in, there was zero WMDs in Iraq.

Even if there were WMDs in Iraq, the invasion still wasn’t justified because Saddam Hussien never used those WMDs after Desert Storm, the conflict to oust him from Kuwait in 1991. Yes, Saddam dropped bombs on Kurds after that conflict but he didn’t use what’s described as weapons of mass destruction (he had done it before 1991 and in the war against Iran in the late 1980s).

Other than Kuwait over a decade earlier, Saddam Hussein never attacked the nations who were a part of the coalition. Never. He never attacked the United Kingdom. He never dropped a bomb on Mongolia. He never pushed Poland. He never slapped Spain. He never hit Iceland, Macedonia, Japan, South Korea, Nicaragua, Slovakia, etc. He never even tickled Tonga.

In addition to the lie that Saddam possessed WMDs, which was a violation of the sanctions placed against Iraq, the lie was pushed that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program (you know, one of those secret things Israel has). On top of that, the Bush administration allowed the belief to run rampant that Saddam Hussein played a part in 9/11, which was committed by al Qaida, NOT Iraq.

During one interview with Vice President Dick Cheney when it was pointed out that many Americans believed Iraq was responsible for 9/11, instead of correcting those many Americans, Cheney simply said, “I can see why they would believe that.” While the Bush administration never explicitly blamed Iraq for 9/11, they used it to justify the invasion of Iraq. According to some reports, the planning of invading Iraq started on September 11, 2001.

They also sent Secretary of State Colin Powell, the only guy with any credibility in the administration at that point (which was lost after this stunt), to stand in the United Nations and show photos of trucks and buildings with the claim, “there’s bad stuff in there.” And it worked. Everybody believed there was bad stuff in there.

The Bush administration also received notice from U.S. and British intelligence that all the information it was using to justify the invasion, like Iraq trying to buy 500 tons of yellow cake from Niger, was not reliable. Quite frankly, I think the Bush administration just liked the sound of “Niger.”

For all their trouble of invading a nation on a lie and with half-ass intelligence, the United States spent over $3 trillion on the war while giving billionaires tax cuts. Nearly 5,000 coalition troops died in the conflict with nearly 32,000 casualties. The Iraqi civilian death toll is between 275,306 and 306,000. It also destabilized the entire region and gave birth to the Islamic State, which Republicans tried to blame President Obama for. That’s like Lauren Boebert claiming President Biden shut down businesses because of the Coronavirus pandemic while Trump was president (sic). Yes, she really did that.

But a lot of Americans made money on the war. The Pentagon awarded over $30 billion in no-bid contracts to U.S. companies throughout the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Haliburton, a company whose CEO was Dick Cheney before he became Bush’s veep, was awarded a $7 billion contract. Halliburton is still being given contracts for work in Iraq today.

A president who was installed in office by a court stacked by his daddy’s cronies after losing the popular vote started a war against a nation that never attacked us based on lies which was used to profit his own cronies. Are Bush and Cheney war criminals? Fucking A they are.

No, I’m not trying to take heat off Vladimir Putin. He’s a war criminal too and there should be a warrant out for his arrest. I’m just saying that he’s not the only one.

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.

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Support Balloons

Here’s your cartoon for this week’s CNN Opinion newsletter. Please sign up to get these in your inbox every Sunday

When China sends a spy balloon to fly over the United States (and other nations), it lies. When Russia knocks down a U.S. drone in international air space over the Black Sea, it lies.

I hadn’t gotten to draw the spy balloon in a few weeks.

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.

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MAGA-Lardo Subpoenas

Donald Trump is preparing to be arrested by the Manhattan District Attorney next week, politicizing it, fundraising off it, and trying to create another violent riot from it. This case stems from paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016, days before the election, to keep quiet about boinking in a Las Vegas hotel room just four months after Melania gave birth to Baron. It’s not illegal to cheat on your wife four months after she gave birth to your fifth child. It’s not illegal to shag porn stars in Vegas. It’s not even illegal to pay hush money to a porn star to keep quiet about boinking in Vegas. But…it is a crime to donate money to your own campaign and not file it.

Michael Cohen, who was Trump’s lawyer/fixer at the time, paid Stormy $130,000 in the scheme, and Trump reimbursed Cohen later with a check…AFTER he was in the White House. Trump committed a crime and he did it while he was president. This should be his third impeachment.

Trump has denied having sex with Stormy Daniels but has admitted reimbursing Michael Cohen.

Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker should also be facing criminal charges for paying a Playboy playmate $150,000 shortly before the 2016 election to keep quiet about her trysts with Tiny.

While the Manhattan case may be historic in that a former president (sic) is arrested, and extremely embarrassing when we get to see Trump’s mug shot and hopefully a perp walk (pleeeeeeeeeeeeease let there be a perp walk of Trump in handcuffs), it’s not the case that’s the biggest threat to Trump.

The greatest threat to Trump is the case in Georgia where Trump engaged in election interference, fraud, tampering, intimidation, etc, and the Special Counsel probe of Trump trying to steal the election, instigating a terrorist attack on the Capitol, obstructing Congress while it was performing a constitutionally-mandated duty, committing an insurrection, and stealing classified documents and obstructing justice.

We learned last week that Special Counsel Jack Smith has subpoenaed at least two dozen people over Trump’s handling of the documents, including employees of Mar-a-Lago. Multiple sources close to the situation said the list includes former attorneys, aides, housekeepers, restaurant workers, and other employees of the country club that has become Trump’s full-time residence.

I’ve read in the past that Trump is actually a pretty good tipper, often handing $50 bills to housekeepers. Now we know why. But I think silence should cost more than $50. If you’re an employee at Mar-a-Lago and you see something, then say something.

These investigations and prosecutions are NOT political. The Manhattan DA refused to prosecute Trump personally when he went after the Trump Organization. Donald Trump attacked our country and tried to steal an election. Sure, it’s unprecedented for a former president (sic) to be arrested, but it’s also unprecedented that a president (sic) is a traitor.

Indict Trump, arrest Trump, convict Trump, and imprison Trump. It’s the American thing to do.

Music note: I listened to Hole.

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.

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Roughs, Volume 174

This batch of roughs was Thursday, March 9. I only drew seven and I took one out for possible future use. I don’t know if there’s anything special here since you’ve seen the final products from four of these.

My editor assigned Nikki Haley and her proposal to raise the retirement age for people who are currently in their 20s. I liked this one. It’s my favorite of the three on the subject.

I don’t like this one at all.

This is the one that became the cartoon for the CNN Opinion newsletter and it did really well on social media.

This became an official cartoon which I drew in two airports.

This became an official cartoon and I changed very little about it.

And this became an official cartoon, even if you didn’t get it.

That’s it, kids. Which one is your favorite?

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:

Let’s Go To Prison

Fucknut Qanon troglodyte she-beast Marjorie Taylor Greene plans to visit January 6 defendants in prison. She believes the white nationalist terrorists who committed an insurrection in attacking our nation in a failed coup attempt are patriots. But hey, maybe while she’s there, she can visit the biggest January 6 defendant, former president (sic) of the United States Donald J. Trump. The “J” is for jagoff.

Donald Trump predicted this morning, Saturday, March 18, 2023, that he’s going to be arrested this Tuesday. Trump “truthed” in all caps because nobody’s taught grandpa how to use the caps lock key yet, “THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE AND FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”

Wow, right? He admits he’s the former president.

An indictment is expected soon from the Manhattan grand jury that’s been hearing the district attorney’s case against Trump in the hush money scheme to silence Stormy Daniels in the 2016 presidential election. Does Trump actually know when the indictment is coming down? He probably doesn’t. But what he is doing is using this to raise money. He’s also calling for a protest much like he did for January 6 when Congress was certifying the Electoral College and Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.

Within hours, Speaker Kevin McCarthy tweeted that he is calling for investigations into whether federal funds were being used for “politically motivated prosecutions.” But Donald Trump did pay Stormy Daniels to remain silent about their shagfest, the toad, and yeti pubes without filing it as a campaign expense. McCarthy should wait until after a trial before calling for more bullshit investigations. This is the same guy who bragged that the Benghazi investigations were used to hurt Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. How much in federal funds is the Republican House using for politically motivated investigations into Hunter Biden?

MTG has now added defunding federal investigations into Mr. Yeti Pubes before she’ll vote to raise the debt ceiling. Republicans want criminals to run wild.

But if you’re excited about the prospect of Trump being convicted and sent to prison on the Stormy Daniels thing, don’t be. Out of all the investigations currently ongoing against Trump, this is the one he’s not really worried about. In fact, he may insist upon doing a perp walk as it’ll be a great fundraiser and aid in creating another MAGA white nationalist terrorist riot. What fun.

For Trump to be indicted, prosecutors will have to convince a jury that Trump intentionally violated campaign finance laws with the strongest testimony coming from a convicted perjurer in Michael Cohen, and a porn star. And even if he is convicted, jail time is not mandatory. Since this will be the first time he’s ever been convicted criminally, I wouldn’t put money on a jail sentence.

The cases that should truly worry Trump are the investigations by Special Counsel Jack Smith and the one over election tampering in Georgia. Trying to steal an election, overthrow the government, and stealing and hiding classified documents is much more serious than boinking a porn star. The biggest excitement I’ll gain from this is the possibility that we’ll see Sniffles in handcuffs.

But even in the Stormy case, Trump has a greater chance of eating prison food before Russian President Vladimir Putin does.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Putin. Don’t get excited about this one either because not only can’t the ICC go and get Putin out of Russia, it’s a warrant that’s not recognized by a lot of nations, including the United States. President Biden said it’s “justified” even as he pointed out that we don’t recognize it.

Even if he’s never arrested, Vladimir Putin is a war criminal. And the warrant is still a big deal because this is the leader of a G0 nation.

But if Putin is ever put in prison, let’s make it convenient for MTG, who loves and defends both men, and make Trump and Putin cellmates.

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:

Freedom Caucus Terrorism

Instead of agreeing to raise the debt ceiling like responsible legislators should, Republicans would rather use it to hold the nation hostage, which has become a right of passage for the GOP anytime a Democrat is in the White House. They rubber-stamp this shit when a Republican is in there.

Newt Gingrich figured this out in 1995 and despite the fact it didn’t work out for them, the GOP has been doing it ever since.

Again, the debt ceiling does NOT create new spending. It only authorizes the government to continue borrowing to pay its bills, like military spending, bailouts to corporations, and all the shortages created by giving huge tax cuts to corporations, trust-fund babies, and billionaire assholes.

Kevin McCarthy has demanded that President Biden cut government spending before his party will agree to raise the debt ceiling…but he wants the president to find the cuts. Even terrorists are better at providing lists of demands than Republicans. Enter the House Freedom Caucus.

The Freedom Caucus is the most conservative group in Congress. They’re more far-right than actually conservative and they’re not really a policy-focused group. They’d rather ban books than read them. They’re more about culture wars and loud noises. They are also the vilest, most racist, and biggest liars in Congress. Its chairman is Scott Perry and the vice-chairman is Jim Gym Jordan. Prominent members include Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar, and Ronny Jackson. Former members include Louie Gohmert, Devin Nunes, Mo Brooks, Madison Cawthorn, Mark Meadows, Barry Loudermilk, Mick Mulvaney, Mark Sanford, and Ron DeSantis.

The Freedom Caucus is less about freedom and more about gooning. From here on out, that’s how we’ll refer to them, as the Goon Caucus.

The Goon Caucus has power because of the GOP’s slim majority. It was their efforts that forced 15 votes before Kevin McCarthy could win the speakership. Some of the deals he made with the Goon Caucus members were sweet committee assignments, guns on the floor of the house, removal of metal detectors to enter the House, Fucknut Fridays (everybody wears a wife-beater and gets a kazoo), and giving over 44 thousand hours of security footage to Tucker Carlson so he could edit it all down to four minutes to prove the January 6 attack on the Capitol wasn’t violent.

The Goon Caucus also played a heavy part in helping Donald Trump try to steal the 2020 election. And, many of them played a heavy part in the white nationalist terrorist MAGA attack on the capitol with Barry Loudermilk giving tours to terrorists the day before and Lauren Boebert attempting to tweet out Nancy Pelosi’s location. Several members of the Goon Caucus asked Trump for presidential (sic) pardons before he fled D.C. for Mar-a-Lago with stolen classified documents. They’re a swell bunch who probably smells like cinnamon and vanilla.

But since they do have power in the House, Kevin McCarthy has to at least patronize their demands or one of them can call for his removal. It only takes one member which is another one of those conditions he met to win the speakership thus becoming the weakest Speaker in House history. Many believe it was the Goon Caucus that made John Boehner and Paul Ryan just give up on Congress altogether.

So what are the goons’ demands to consider voting to raise the debt ceiling?

They want to revoke all new spending that helps the IRS go after billionaire tax cheats. They want to revoke all spending on climate investments. They also want President Biden to scrap his plan to forgive more than $400 billion in student loan debt, which the Supreme Court will probably do for them.

They want to cut discretionary spending back to 2022 levels and keep it there for a decade except for yearly increases of just one percent, but they want to leave out cuts to the military and veterans and haven’t specified where these cuts will come from. Economists believe cutting back to last year’s level would cause a recession which would then grant the Goon Caucus the ability to blame Biden.

They’re demanding more work requirements for welfare recipients even though there are already work requirements to receive welfare. They also want work requirements for Medicaid.

They want to recover unspent COVID relief funds. About 60 percent of what’s left is to shore up pensions for machinists and iron workers. Other remaining funds are meant for veterans’ health care and vaccine distribution and development, as well as transit funding that’s been promised to specific states and cities but is still technically unobligated. They’re not asking Marjorie Taylor Greene to pay back the $183,504 she received in PPP “loans”.

They want to cut non-defense spending to totals from five years ago. 

They want an end to all federal energy regulations. Look how well cutting regulations have done recently for the railway and banking industries.

They basically want to revoke all spending approved by Congress when it had a Democratic majority.

If the Goon Caucus doesn’t get what it wants, even if it can’t be specific on what it wants, it’ll shut down the government. And Kevin McCarthy can’t stop this. The government will shut down and the entire world’s economy may be trashed on the whims of 20 percent of the House.

This isn’t legislating. This is terrorism.

Music note: I listened to The Breeders.

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.

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Woke Brackets

I got home really late last night and I was exhausted. I checked out of my hotel in Pigeon Forge early in the morning, drew my cartoon at Starbucks, then got an Uber to the Knoxville airport, ate, flew to Atlanta, and had a Frosty during that four-hour layover while my flight was delayed…then delayed again, flew to Washington, took the Metro to Springfield, called a Lyft to take me home to Fredericksburg…and then stayed up two more hours because while being exhausted, I was also kinda wired. I ordered some food from Wawa and then they canceled my turkey sandwich, so I went ahead and cooked something at 1 a.m.

I spent that time catching up on the news and reading about Republicans blaming wokeness for SVB’s collapse. And then I saw an article about the military’s “woke” response to Russia downing a U.S. drone, and then something about March Madness popped up and I thought, “Can I blame wokeness if my bracket busts?”. That’s how I write sometimes. I thought the idea of a woke bracket was funny because it really sounds stupid. And then I found out this morning that woke brackets are a thing.

Proofer Laura told me this morning that she thought I had invented woke brackets, and I thought I had too…but she Googled and it’s a thing, though it seems most aren’t about basketball.

In 2021, Outkick started this bracket thing where readers can vote on Twitter called the “Woke Bracket Challenge” where I think you pit one bracket predictor against another which turns it into something I don’t care about at all.

And then I found the “anti-woke bracket” from the Washington Examiner, a failing conservative online publication based in Washington, D.C. You make your picks based on which schools have the fewest “freedom-hating bureaucrats” at their institution. It’s based on a report from the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, which has counted all the diversity, equity, and inclusion administrators for every school in the Power Five conferences, and then compared that number to the number of teaching faculty at each university and wow…someone has too much time on his hands.

And I thought it was already a huge distraction and waste of time with the regular brackets.

As I’m trying to understand these woke and anti-woke brackets, it suddenly occurred to me that I don’t have to understand it…because all the right-wing goons who scream about woke can’t tell you what woke is. Ron DeSantis sure can’t and neither can Bethany Mandel, an author who co-wrote a book (with a DeSantis goon) claiming the far-left has indoctrinated today’s youth with racial ideology, victimhood, culture, and “gender madness.” When asked to define “wokeness,” Mandel couldn’t.

Mandel was on The Hill’s online show, The Rising when co-host Briahna Joy Gray asked her to define the word “woke.”

Mandel’s response was, “So, I mean, woke is sort of the idea that, um,…This is going to be one of those moments that goes viral.” And it did.

Mandel then said, “I mean, woke is something that’s very hard to define, and we’ve spent an entire chapter defining it. It is sort of the understanding that we need to totally reimagine and reduce society in order to create hierarchies of oppression. Um, sorry, I—it’s hard to explain in a 15-second sound bite.” So she wrote an entire chapter defining it but couldn’t define it.

The co-host of the show, libertarian Robby Soave, jumped in to rescue Mandel and defined woke as “the tendency to punish people formally or often informally for expressing ideas using language that is very new that no one would have objected to like five seconds ago.” Wrong! It’s not about punishing people who disagree with you. Soave wasn’t even close. It’s about understanding.

While Republicans are howling about wokeness and clearly struggling to understand it, a new poll by USA Today found that 56 percent of those surveyed say the term means “to be informed, educated on, and aware of social injustices.”

Republicans are going to have to find another word to describe all that bullshit they’re crying about, because “woke” isn’t it. They’re claiming that understanding social injustice makes them a victim while writing books that blame the left for indoctrinating kids into victimhood.

And like Republicans with “woke,” I don’t understand college basketball this year because I didn’t follow it, which means my bracket has just as good of a chance as anyone else’s.

Music note: I listened to The Pixies.

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.

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DeSantis Loves Putin

Any candidate who can’t see that democracy in Europe and the defeat of fascism is in our vital national interest has no place in the White House…or Congress, or a governor’s mansion, or have his own talk show.

While talking to Tucker Carlson on Fox News, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said, “While the US has many vital national interests, securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party, becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them.”

First, checking the military power of China is a vital national interest, but Russia’s military invasion of a soveriegn nation is not? Second, Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine is NOT a territorial dispute.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has firebombed the entire nation of Ukraine which he’s justified with lies about Nazis. If Ukraine was actually controlled by Nazis, they’d be siding with Putin. Putin is trying to make Ukraine a part of Russia again and destroy the government elected by the people of Ukraine. He’s bombed homes, hospitals, schools, and playgrounds killing over 400 children in the process. Anyone who calls this a “territorial dispute” is a vile disgusting despicable human being. This is Ron DeSantis.

You can include Ron DeSantis with Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, and Donald Trump, who all are on the side of Putin’s fascist Russia over democratic Ukraine. In choosing Russia over Ukraine, they’re choosing Russia over the vital national interests of the United States.

Of course, Ron DeSantis would side with the fascist who doesn’t allow fair elections in his nation over the democratically-elected Volodimyr Zelenskyy. DeSantis has modeled his tyranny of Florida on the fascist states of Russia and Hungary. He’s waged war on science, history, LGBTQ, education, and all dissent.

Ron DeSantis says “Florida is where woke goes to die.” “Woke” is an idealogy of open-mindedness, thoughtfulness, and compassion. Woke is understanding positions you will never be in and being aware and conscious of the plights of others. If you’re a white male and you understand others who are not white males will have a more difficult path than you and realize that you do indeed have white privilege, then congratulations. You are woke. Ron DeSantis wants “woke” to die and is trying to kill it through legislation. Ron DeSantis is trying to cancel, not just free speech, but free thinking. He’s currently trying to turn one state college into a reeducation camp.

It’s shocking that Republicans don’t believe Russian aggression, threatening NATO and Europe, is not in America’s vital interests. Ronald Reagan must be rolling in his grave while Ron DeSantis is rolling in Putin’s propaganda.

Creative note: This cartoon was drawn at a Starbucks in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. The blog was written inside a Ruby Tuesdays in the terminal of the Knoxville airport.

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.

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