Richard Nixon

Shut The Tat’s Trap

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Roger Stone is the kind of guy, that when he watches Die Hard, he roots for Hans Gruber. This man is a villain who rejoices at being a villain. To him, it’s an art. For the love of God, he has a Richard Nixon tattoo on his back. And you thought a MAGA hat was a people repellant. As if just being Roger Stone wasn’t repellant enough.

Stone worked on the Nixon campaign and is considered by many to be a “dirty trickster.” He’s a liar who promotes conspiracy theories and other assorted bullshit. So naturally, he was all in on the Trump campaign. In fact, he was a lobbyist for Trump’s failed casino and encouraged him to run for president back in 1998. During the 2016 campaign, he engaged in conspiracy theories and according to two of his associates, was in communication with Julian Assange with whom he coordinated a smear campaign against Hillary Clinton.

Last year, the Mueller investigation (you remember that investigation. The one where Republicans say didn’t find anything?) charged Stone with witness tampering, obstructing an official proceeding, and five counts of making false statements. A court found him guilty on all seven charges. Not just one or even a few of them but every single charge Mueller presented. This week, prosecutors recommended Stone serve nine years in a federal penitentiary. Guess who flipped out crying that Stone was being mistreated.

Donald Trump went on a Twitter rampage about the mistreatment Stone received. He said the investigation never should have happened. It was illegal and a witch hunt. Keep in mind, Roger Stone was found guilty on all seven counts.

The president (sic) of the United States is defending a known liar and a conman. He’s defending a sexist who was banned from CNN after calling one of their contributors an “entitled diva bitch” and said he imagined her “killing herself.” The president (sic) of the United States is defending a racist who called another CNN contributor a “stupid negro” and a “fat negro.” This is a guy who sought to hire members of the far-right, neo-fascist, Nazi-loving Proud Boys as his personal security at a Republican conference. After his arraignment, Proud Boys stood on the steps of the courthouse screaming that Stone is innocent. The president (sic) of the United States is defending a guy who threatened a witness’ dog. At this point, I’m feeling bad for Nixon that he’s associated with this guy.

Roger Stone is one of Trump’s goons. He’s a henchman. If he wasn’t headed to federal prison right now, he’d probably be in Ukraine with Rudy Giuliani creating more conspiracy theories.

But, mere hours after Trump’s free-Roger tweetstorm, where he called it a “miscarriage of justice,” a senior Justice Department official said the department would recommend a lighter sentence. What? Go light on Roger because of Trump’s Twitter tirade?

Trump says he wasn’t involved but that he could have made the Justice Department go lighter (that alone tells you this guy will never willfully give up his power). But that’s a lie as he was involved. His tweets and public comments are him getting involved. The department says they made this call before the tweetstorm, but they’re not very good at lying. Just because you do something a lot, doesn’t always mean you’re good at it.

Later yesterday afternoon, all four of the Assistant US Attorneys who were prosecuting the case withdrew from the case, with one of them leaving the Justice Department altogether. Can’t blame the guy as you can see where the department is going, what with Attorney General William Barr publicly acknowledging that he would work with Giuliani in his Ukraine conspiracy theories. Why work for the Justice Department when the AG is just another Trump goon? This morning, Trump congratulated Barr for intervening.

This is the kind of stuff people should care about. Even Republicans should care about this. This is corruption. It’s the very definition of corruption. And along with my predictions that after/if he’s reelected, that Trump will pull all U.S. troops out of the Korean peninsula, pull the U.S. out of NATO, and host Vladimir Putin in the White House, he’ll also pardon Roger Stone and Paul Manafort. Actually, those pardons will come after the election, whether he wins or not.

The judge of this case has final say on the sentencing. Let’s hope she ignores Trump and the Justice Department and gives Stone what he deserves.

Roger Stone is a dirty trickster, liar, conman, evil, and corrupt. Donald Trump is defending the guy because he is too.

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Nixon Derangement Syndrome

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John Dean, the former White House Counsel for Richard Nixon, testified last week before the House Judiciary Committee about the parallels between the obstruction of Nixon and Donald Trump. Republicans were livid. How dare he compare the corruption and lies of Nixon to the corruption and lies of Trump? What the hell makes John Dean qualified to talk about corruption in the Trump White House?

Who the hell is he? He’s an expert witness on obstruction, that’s who he is. During his tenure, he oversaw FBI interviews with White House employees to keep their stories straight. He plotted with Nixon on the coverup. He was present when Nixon discussed the $1 million hush payment to the Watergate burglarers.

What are the parallels? Nixon asked his chief aide HR Haldeman to have the CIA direct the FBI to halt its investigation into the break-in. Trump asked James Comey to end the Russia investigation.

Nixon fired the Special Prosecutor in a failed attempt to end the Watergate investigation. Trump fired the FBI director in a failed attempt to end the Russia investigation.

Nixon dangled pardons. Trump has and is dangling pardons.

After Dean pled guilty to obstruction, Nixon called him a liar. Trump has called his former White House Counsel, Don McGhan, a liar.

Nixon said, “it’s not illegal if the president does it.” Trump fully believes he’s above the law.

Nixon said, “I am not a crook.” Donald Trump is a crook.

Republicans are sick of Trump being compared to Nixon. But just like they get upset about having their racism pointed out, the reason Trump is compared to Nixon so much is that Trump is repeating Nixon’s corruption.

But, since they don’t like corrupt Trump being compared to corrupt Nixon, let’s point out their differences.

Nixon could read. Nixon hired competent people. Nixon had a dog. Nixon never moved on women “like a bitch.” He never grabbed anyone by the vagina. He never barged into the locker rooms of teenage beauty contestants. He never raw-dogged a porn star. He never openly talked about dating his daughter. He never considered Canadian cheese a threat to our national security.

Nixon was also smart. He knew how the government worked. He appreciated NATO. He understood that Russia was an adversary. Nixon could tell the difference between friends and foes. Nixon couldn’t be easily swayed by flattery, parades, and sword dances. Nixon never tried to hijack a holiday to turn it into a Nixon rally.

Richard Nixon was a horrible person. So is Donald Trump. Perhaps the most horrible people right now are those who continue to defend Trump.

The greatest difference between Nixon and Trump is that Republicans finally decided to hold Nixon accountable. Today’s Republicans have put the cult of Trump before their party and even their nation. They defend treasonous behavior while defending Trump. They will never hold Trump accountable for the security of our nation.

The one thing we can hope for is that eventually they’ll have another thing in common, and that’s being removed from office.

The rough.

This was one of the ideas submitted to CNN for this week’s opinion newsletter. I threw a lot of roughs at them this week and they could only choose one. You’ll notice the list has changed. I’m kinda sad I took the “weird” hair line out. Honestly, I forgot it. I kinda like the positioning of the placard better in the rough.

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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.
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A Poor Man’s Nixon

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“A poor man’s something” is an expression used to describe an item or a person as being similar to something else of a higher quality. For example; you can say an Epiphone guitar is a poor man’s Gibson. If you own an Epiphone, don’t feel bad. I own one too and it’s awesome but it’s not a Gibson. You get my point.

Yesterday, Donald Trump described former Deputy Director of the FBI, and briefly acting director, as a liar, “disgrace to his country,” and a “poor man’s J. Edgar Hoover.”

Donald Trump projects himself onto others. Naturally, he’s a liar, a disgrace to his country, and now I think he’s a cross dresser.

McCabe was fired from the FBI, mere hours before he was to qualify for his pension. Trump spent months smearing the guy at rallies, press conferences, and on Twitter before the bureau finally felt enough pressure to remove McCabe from his job and rob him of benefits earned through years of service. After the firing, Trump took a victory lap on Twitter.

Trump has worked hard to ruin lives, reputations, and careers, not just to save his own skin, but to feed his base.

McCabe is promoting his new book, “The Threat: How the FBI protects America in the age of terror and Trump.” Trump is complaining about the guy writing a book…after he stole his pension.

While Trump is claiming the book is full of lies, he’s contradicting himself by using one of the book’s claims as an example of the “Deep State” plotting a coup.

After Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, then bragged to Russians in the Oval Office that he ended the problem of being investigated over Russia, then gave those same Russians classified information, in addition to a long train of him being submissive to and defensive of Vladimir Putin, the guys at the FBI started to detect a pattern. It doesn’t take a career professional in intelligence to see that Trump is beholden to Russia and is eyeball deep in corruption. But Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein discussed options for invoking the Constitution’s 25th Amendment to oust Trump. During these conversations, according to McCabe, Rosenstein talked about wearing a wire while talking to Trump.

McCabe maintains that Rosenstein discussed it on more than one occasion. The Justice Department’s denial of this is that Rosenstein never wore a wire while in the presence of Trump. That’s not a denial it wasn’t discussed.

Two things here; these guys can’t invoke the 25th Amendment. That is a process for the president’s cabinet. The guys at Justice can cajole, prod, and attempt to influence, but they can’t enact it. The second thing is, I don’t think catching Trump admitting corrupt things on a wire would do anything. They guy yelled at campaign rallies for Putin to help him and proudly told NBC’s Lester Hold that he obstructed justice in firing James Comey.

Trump is all over this. He tweeted, “Wow, so many lies by now disgraced acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe. He was fired for lying, and now his story gets even more deranged. He and Rod Rosenstein, who was hired by Jeff Sessions (another beauty), look like they were planning a very illegal act, and got caught.”

McCabe was for making an “unauthorized disclosure” to the media, that didn’t actually violate FBI rules. He was also fired for “lack of candor.” It’s funny that these career professionals, like McCabe, Comey, and Peter Stzrok all had stellar reputations and respect until Trump discovered their “corruption.” And, how did they “get caught” if McCabe revealed it? Someone should explain to Trump “caught” is when you’re caught, like the time Michael Cohen released a tape of Trump talking about paying hush money to pornstars and Playmates, after he denied ever knowing about it. That’s an example of being “caught.”

Trump also attacked Jeff Sessions for hiring Rosenstein, even though Trump hired Sessions and…wait for it…Rod Rosenstein. As it turns out, McCabe had authorized a criminal investigation into Jeff Sessions over “whether Sessions lacked candor when testifying before Congress about contacts with Russian operatives.”

Donald Trump has done everything he can to subvert the Constitution and obstruct justice. He’s fired people investigating him. He’s pressured others to make the firings. He’s placed sycophants in high positions who swear to protect him, like interim Attorney General Matthew Whitaker who said his job was to “jump on a grenade” to protect Trump. While Whitaker was in charge at Justice, Trump reportedly called to ask him to put an ally in charge of the hush money investigation in New York.

The FBI started to investigate Trump after the Comey firing, which they handed off to the Special Counsel. The bureau was also working to preserve evidence on Trump and Russia, because people in charge of investigations kept getting fired and sycophants were replacing them.

The investigation was to determine if Trump had obstructed justice and whether he might be, wittingly or not, in league with the Russians. The goal of the backup plan was to ensure that the information collected under the investigations, which included probes of Trump associates and possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign, would survive the firings or reassignments of top law enforcement officials.

After Mueller finishes his report and hands it off the newly appointed Attorney General, we’ll find out how well those backup plans work.

I don’t think McCabe is a poor man’s J. Edgar Hoover, but Trump is the poor man’s Richard Nixon.

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!!! 

You can purchase a signed print of this cartoon.

Watch the video.

It’s Tricky

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Sometimes a cartoonist has to be careful that he may love the drawing so much that the idea isn’t actually very good. I had to ask myself that tonight as I love drawing Richard Nixon. I don’t get many opportunities because, you know, he’s dead.

My very first convention for political cartoonists took place in Memphis in 1992. I was just a puppy back then and one of the old dogs, Draper Hill, drew a little sketch of Nixon for me in a book and he wrote something about how it’s too bad I’d never get to cover the likes of him again. It had been thirty years and Draper still had not gotten over Richard Nixon. I wonder if 30 years from now, if I’m still around, I’ll be that old dog (OK, a very much older dog than I am now) who still hasn’t gotten over Donald Trump.

Nixon was such a huge disaster for this nation that every scandal is compared to him. Every crisis has the word “gate” tagged to it from Nixon’s scandal. It turns out the one scandal that everyone has to measure up to, Watergate, may not be Nixon’s most egregious crime against a Constitution and a nation he swore to uphold and protect. Richard Nixon committed treason. Dicky was Tricky.

Nixon attempted to halt the 1968 peace talks during the war in Vietnam. He did this as a candidate so he could further weaken his Democratic opponent. It sounds very similar to our current president-elect who’s asking us to stop questioning hacking by Russia, and if we can just move on.

I’ve had a lot of scandals to cover since I started my professional cartooning career in 1990. I had George W. Bush and Desert Storm. I had Clinton’s sex scandals and impeachment. I had Newt Gingrich’s Republican revolution. I had the Florida hanging chad crisis and the Supreme Court handing the presidency off to George W. Bush. I had 9/11, the second Iraq war and the other war in Afghanistan. I got Obama and his racist critics freaking out that we elected a black guy.

Now I have Donald Trump who I boldly predict will have the most corrupt administration in American history. The one fortunate thing in all this is that Trump has good timing as right now I think I’m getting pretty good at this cartoon stuff.

Herblock, Paul Conrad, and Patrick Oliphant are my cartooning heroes. They had Richard Nixon who was a direct threat to the country. The threat I have has the potential to be even more destructive. I understand Draper not being over Nixon 30 years later. I’m still pissed off about the second Bush administration. Right now I think W. would be a pleasure cruise over where Trump’s going to take us.

I really didn’t want to do another cartoon related to Trump today but….damn…Richard Nixon.

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