Supreme Court

Justice Jackson

by a 53-47 vote, The United States Senate confirmed Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court yesterday, making her the first black woman in history to be on the court. Three Republicans, Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski joined every Democrat in voting for her.

There should have been more Republicans voting for Justice Jackson as she’s one of the most qualified judges to ever be nominated for the Supreme Court, if not the most qualified. The three Republicans who voted for her know full well that Jackson will cast votes they disagree with, but they also know she’s qualified and understands the Constitution. These are qualifications the rest of the GOP in the Senate don’t care about, or at least not when their racist cultist base is watching.

Sure, you had Tom Cotton saying she would have defended Nazi war criminals. You had Marsha Blackburn asking her to define “woman.” You had Ted Cruz on a tangent about racist babies. You had Lindsey Graham upset and flailing his arms around about something or others. And then there was Josh Hawley, the goon who gave a fist salute to terrorists, being the ringleader for the attacks painting her as soft on pedophiles. But where were the more rational members of the GOP during this?

I get there was no hope to get votes from Ron Johnson, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Tommy Tuberville, Chuck Grassley, or Rick Scott, even though some of them have voted for her in the past. But why didn’t Mitch McConnell vote for her? Voting for her could have helped his arguments for stealing Supreme Court seats and had made him look somewhat reasonable.

Why didn’t Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy vote for her? Cassidy voted to impeach Trump so he’s somewhat reasonable. John Kennedy once rejected a Trump nominee for a lower court because he was unqualified…so why reject someone who is?

Others I could see crossing party lines to vote for her are Richard Burr, Thom Tillis, Ben Sasse, Rob Portman, Jim Inhofe, Pat Toomey, John Cornyn, Mike Lee, and Tim Scott.

Tim Scott is the only black Republican in the Senate. He’s acknowledged racism from conservatives at times, so why join the racists in rejecting the first black woman on the Supreme Court? I know he represents South Carlina, but he could have chosen to be a powerful voice in doing the right thing. His vote to confirm could have prompted more yes votes from his side of the aisle. Besides, he had voted for her in the past.

And Lindsey Graham…this guy previously voted to confirm Judge Jackson to federal courts…twice. In fact…a lot of these Republicans had supported Jackson in the past.

Which Republicans voted to confirm Judge Jackson to federal courts in the past? They are Lindsey Graham, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Chuck Grassley, Richard Shelby, Mitch McConnell, Mitch Inhofe, John Cornyn, Mike Crapo, Richard Burr, John Thune, John Barrasso, Roger Wicker, Jim Risch, Roy Blunt, Jerry Moran, Rob Portman, John Boozman, Pat Toomey, John Hoeven, Marco Rubio, Ron Johnson, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Deb Fischer, Tim Scott…wait for it…Ted Cruz.

So what happened between these Republicans voting yes to voting no? Did they not do their research last time? Did Judge Jackson do something new and despicable between the votes? Or…hear me out…the cameras were on?

After the vote and while Democrats celebrated, the Republicans walked out of the chamber. They went from voting for her to voting no to being disgusted she was confirmed. Republicans are all a bunch of posers who won’t even consider doing what’s right if there’s a camera in the room. They all just want to grovel and appeal to their MAGA racist bases…even the black guy.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson won’t change the political makeup of the court. Conservatives hold a 6-3 advantage. But I hope President Biden gets another appointment. Hell, the orange ass-clown got three. I’m looking long-term. I hope the future brings us Democratic presidents who get Supreme Court nominations who will stop Republicans from putting justices on the bench dragging this nation backward.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is a step in the right direction.

How disgusting do you have to be to be proud it’s on your record that you voted against the first black woman on the Supreme Court?

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:

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Ginni’s Disappointing Hole

When the Supreme Court rejected Donald Trump’s efforts to block the National Archives from giving documents from his presidency (sic) to the January 6 committee investigating the attack on the Capitol building, only one justice dissented. I’ll give you one guess who that justice was.

In the weeks between the 2020 presidential election, won by Joe Biden over Donald Trump, and the January 6 attack, Ginni Thomas sent multiple text messages to Trump’s Chief-of-Staff Mark Meadows to do everything he could to overturn the election. Ginni is the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Did you think that same-last-name-thing was just a coincidence?

In one of those messages, she urged Meadows to “release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down.” The “Kraken” is what Trump’s ridiculous Qanon lawyer Sidney Powell kept promising to release which would prove the election was stolen by Democrats. We never got that Kraken. We did get a bunch of Crapen. Get it? Crap, Crapen, Kraken? Never mind.

In another text, she wrote, “I can’t see Americans swallowing the obvious fraud. Just going with one more thing with no frickin consequences.” She also wrote, “We just cave to people wanting Biden to be anointed? Many of us can’t continue the GOP charade.”

The texts were a part of more than 9,000 documents turned over to the Jan 6 Committee. The texts detailed Meadows’s interactions with Republican politicians and other assorted goons as they planned strategies to steal the election and install the guy who lost it, Donald Trump, as a fascist Cheeto dictator.

The committee got 29 text messages, most of which were from Ginni which makes me assume that at some point, it got too crazy even for Meadows to respond to, which is like the morning I woke up to find 19 blood-curdling messages from the girl I met in Las Vegas. Is it blood “curdling” or “curling?” Anyway, I was scared.

Here’s the thing, kiddos: Ginni was a part of the effort, coordinating with the Trump White House (sic), to steal an election and install Tiny Orange as a dictator. Her husband sits on the Supreme Court, which is supposed to be a check on the other branches of government (in case you’re a Republican, there are three branches of government, In case you’re Senator Tommy Tuberville, Congress is NOT two of them), and would later hear cases involving Trump’s attempt to overturn the election he lost.

Ginni is a GOP operative goon and a lot of the crap she’s involved in lands before the Supreme Court…which her husband, who is also a goon, will vote on. Does he ever recuse himself from cases that involve his wife? No. She claims they never discuss their work with each other. If they did, I can see it in my head in the style of one of J.D’s fantasies from the TV show Scrubs.

Clarence and Ginni are at the breakfast nook.
Clarence: Ginni, what will you be working on today?
Ginni: Oh, Clarence. I expect a busy day trying to install Donald Trump as a fascist Cheeto dictator by overturning the election he lost to the actual winner, Joe Biden. Grr, I hate Joe Biden.
Clarence: And how will you overturn it?
Ginni: By releasing the Kraken. What are your plans for today?
Clarence: Obviously, voting to support your Kraken. Grr, I hate Joe Biden too.
Ginni: You are the bestest judge ever, Clarence.
Clarence: I know. Can you pass the Coco Puffs? I’m really coo-coo for them.
Ginni: The doctor says you’re supposed to be eating Grape Nuts, but since you’re going to vote for my Kraken…

So, have you figured out which one of the nine Supreme Court justices voted to keep the Jan 6 Committee from seeing that Ginni Thomas tried to overturn a democratically-held election and install a fascist Cheeto dictator?

I’ll give you just one hint: He’s coo-coo.

Music Note: It’s Friday and I don’t have the idea for this week’s CNN cartoon yet, so I didn’t listen to music. I was thinking and watching news. It didn’t work.

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:

Talking To Ketanji

I do not expect Ketanji Brown Jackson to get a fair hearing from Republicans today. If they take their cues from Tucker Carlson, they’ll all demand to see her LSAT scores, something they didn’t request from Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, or Amy Coney Barrett.

Republicans are seeking reasons to oppose confirming Jackson other than they don’t like her politics or that she was nominated by the other team. It was more common in the past for senators to vote for a judge nominated by the president of the opposing party. What really mattered to most was if they were qualified. In1993, 96 senators voted to confirm Ruth Bader Ginsburg and it didn’t surprise anyone she turned out to be a liberal Supreme Court Justice because everyone already knew she was a liberal judge. Everyone knew John Roberts was a conservative in 2005 and he got 78 votes. The Supreme Court used to be a much more serious place before it got jackasses like Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Rick Scott, Tommy Tuberville, Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio, Cindy Hyde-Smith, Marsha Blackburn, Lindsey Graham, Ron Johnson, and Rand Paul.

Now, it’s much more partisan and none of Donald Trump’s three picks for the Supreme Court could reach the super-majority requirement of 60 votes, so Mitch McConnell lowered the requirement to 50. To be fair to Democrats though, there were major problems with each of Trump’s picks other than all three being goons

Neil Gorsuch was a pick stolen from President Obama and Republicans wouldn’t even allow a hearing for Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland. Brett Kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault and proved himself to be too vindictive, whiny, and immature for a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land. Amy Coney Barrett was another stolen pick and she’s in a cult. Also, all three picks were chosen by the fundamentalist right-wing fucknut organization the Federalist Society, which is a legal club for goons where there is probably a lot of harumphing.

President Biden promised on the campaign trail he would pick a black woman for his first SCOTUS pick. Republicans, who were enthusiastic when Ronald Reagan and Cheeto both promised to pick women, were very upset over Biden’s promise to pick a black woman. It makes me think their outrage is less about the woman part and more about the black part. Maybe that’s why Tucker wants to see her LSAT scores but not those from white nominees.

Also, conservatives never demanded to see Trump’s school transcripts but did demand to see Obama’s. I’m starting to detect a pattern here.

Of the115 Supreme Court justices in our nation’s history, 108 have been white men. None have been a black woman. Republicans today are acting like Ketanji Brown Jackson is taking an opportunity away from a white guy.

If Donald Trump had openly admitted his first nomination would be a white guy, Republicans never would have claimed he was limiting the pool of talented and qualified candidates to choose from. They’d claim there are plenty of qualified white men for the Supreme Court, so selecting from a list of only white male candidates isn’t an issue. The same is true of picking from only black female judicial candidates. There are multiple black females qualified to serve on the Supreme Court.

Jackson is currently a judge in the DC federal appellate court. She worked as a clerk for the man she’s replacing, Justice Stephen Breyer. She’s also been a federal public defender, an attorney in private practice, a federal district court judge, and a member of the US Sentencing Commission. She’s qualified. Also, she’s not a goon.

As long as all 50 members of the Senate vote for her, Jackson will be our next justice on the Supreme Court. Some Republicans have already voiced opposition to her. Senator Chuck Grassley implied today that she disagrees with criminal law.

Senator John Cornyn has speculated she’s a “true believer” in defending terrorists.

Senator Josh Hawley, who is also a head-up-his-ass imbecile with a horse face, has implied she supports child pornographers and sex offenders. But, Jackson comes from a family of law enforcement and has the support of law enforcement groups, including the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Fraternal Order of Police, and dozens of former state attorneys general. She’s already been confirmed by the Senate three times.

Grassley has already objected to her statement, “”presidents are not kings” and some Republicans are demanding she recuses herself from any cases that may (most definitely will) come before the court involving Donald Trump since she has already heard a case involving the Tiny and obstruction of justice. Of course, Republicans aren’t going to ask Trump’s three picks on the court to recuse themselves. Can I get a harumph?

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is demanding that she oppose expanding the court and stacking the deck for liberals, you know…after he spent eight years blocking Obama’s justices to federal courts, then rushing in the least qualified cultist shitweasels he could find to stack the decks during the Trump years, including the three MAGAt morons he put on the Supreme Court. Can I get another harumph?

Ketanji Brown Jackson will not change the balance of the court since she’s replacing a liberal, but did you hear that Clarence Thomas is in the hospital? Can I get a harumph?

Music Note: I listened to The Hives while drawing today.

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:

Picky For Putin

Like the United States, Russia has a Supreme Court with justices nominated by the president. Unlike in the United States, Russia’s court system is not independent. In the United States, there are three branches of government. In case you’re a Republican, like Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville, those branches are congress, courts, and the presidency. They are equal branches.

Donald Trump never understood the separation of courts from the presidency. Before he was president (sic), he claimed a judge was unqualified to hear one of his lawsuit cases because that judge was “Mexican.” After he became president (sic) and a judge from a lower court halted his racist travel ban, Trump called him a “so-called judge.” He threatened to dismantle the 9th Circuit. He said “that’s not law” with one ruling as it came from an “Obama judge.”

Regarding the 9th Circuit, Trump said, “People should not be allowed to immediately run to this very friendly circuit and file their case…and you people know better than anybody what is happening is a disgrace, in my opinion, it is a disgrace what happens with the 9th Circuit.”

Trump also said, “The 9th circuit is something we have to take a look at because it is not fair.”

Vladimir Putin controls Russia’s courts by appointing goons and stooges he can control economically and politically. People get thrown off buildings in Russia for disagreeing with Putin. When the government presents evidence in a Putin court, it is taken as absolute fact without challenges. Trials in Russia are often held the day after the arrest. People go to jail for saying bad things about Vladimir Putin. Ask Pussy Riot. Russia’s courts put Alexei Navalny in prison for failing to die after being poisoned by Putin’s goons.

Russia’s constitution barred Putin from seeking a third term in 2008, so his prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, ran for president and appointed Putin as his prime minister after he “won.” When Medvedev’s first term was over, he didn’t run for reelection. Instead, he nominated Putin as the party candidate. After Putin won the election, he re-installed Medvedev as prime minister. Medvedev spoke openly about their arrangement. Hee-hee, corruption is fun.
Putin is in his fourth term as president and he was scheduled to step down in 2024, but they fixed that. The Duma, Russia’s congress, passed legislation that allows Putin to serve two more terms. If Putin, who is 69 now, serves two more terms, he will be in office until 2036. Guess who signed the law allowing Putin to stay in power beyond his constitutional term limits? That was a rhetorical question but in case your name is Tommy Tuberville, it was Putin.

If Putin can usurp the Russian constitution and stay in power for three decades, don’t you believe he controls the courts?

This is why Trump loves authoritarians like Vladimir Putin (Nicknames: Pale Mouth, Botox, Pootie-Poot), Recep Erdogan (Modern Yazid), Rodrigo Duterte (Duterte Harry), Xi Jinping (Big Daddy Xi), Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi (The Pimp), and Kim Jong Un (Kim Fatty III). They don’t have things like pesky constitutions giving them term limits, or at least not real ones, which Donald (Cheeto Hair Fuhrer) would love to have done away with.

Trump can’t appoint puppets to the courts unless the judges just agree to follow Trump out of some cultist adoration without any payoff. Judges aren’t congressmen. So the best Trump could do was to appoint goons like Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barret. Fortunately for Trump, the people he does control were the ones who put them on the Supreme Court. Yet, these three goons have each handed Trump losses, especially in regards to him stealing an election he lost and hiding evidence that he tried to steal that election. Trump wants what Putin has, a corrupt system. Despite all of Tiny McGrimage Gropenfuhrer’s efforts, we still have a court system independent of the presidency.

This is why it’s so refreshing to have Ketanji Jackson Brown as our next Supreme Court Justice, barring any disaster coming from the Senate. She will be an independent voice. She’ll make the court look more like America. She’s not a pick from the Federal Society. Unlike Neil Gorsuch, she’s not taking a stolen seat. Unlike Brett Kavanaugh, she’s never been accused of sexual assault or of boofing. Unlike Amy Coney Barrett, she’s not stealing a seat or a member of a religious cult.

Republicans are taking a few minutes away from focusing on repeating Russia propaganda to attack KBJ as being a “radical.” What’s so “radical” about her? I think for Republicans, the “radical” part is she doesn’t look like them.

Ketanji Jackson Brown has already issued a ruling against the Trump administration for her seat on the Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit. In that ruling, she wrote, “Presidents are not kings.”

How radical.

Music Note: I listened to Pete Yorn and some Stones while drawing today’s cartoon.

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:

Ginni

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Kids, I’m in the Denver airport and it’s 5 AM. The coffee places are just now opening and they’re calling to me. I’m also super sleepy, so you’re not going to get a blog for this until later. Probably much later. Sorry. I’m on the move.

For now, someone else write the blog for me on this issue and leave it in the comments. This should be fun.

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:

Cruzin’ Into A Flytrap

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As I prepare to write this blog, I did a news search on Google for “Ted Cruz,” and there’s a brand new Cruz controversy since he made his stupid racist statement about Biden nominating a black woman to the Supreme Court. Take a day off, Ted.

Last year during a winter freeze that froze Texas, Ted Cruz bailed on the state for an impromptu getaway in sunny Cancun, Mexico. Yesterday, as another winter freeze was bearing down on his state, he tweeted out a joke about rising ticket prices to Cancun. I know Ted Cruz is trying to be funny, but it’s not working. Ted will never be as funny as his face, but his soul is uglier.

Monday, Ted Cruz went off on his podcast…wait. Ted Cruz has a podcast? Are podcasts becoming the new memes when it comes to racist right-wingers disseminating conspiracy theories and lies?

Anyway, Ted took to his podcast to gripe about President Joe Biden’s promise to nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court. Ted said Biden’s pledge to nominate a Black woman sent a message to other Americans that they are automatically “ineligible” because of race and gender.

Ted screamed, “The fact that he’s willing to make a promise at the outset, that it must be a Black woman, I got to say that’s offensive. You know, Black women are what, six percent of the U.S. population? He’s saying to 94 percent of Americans, ‘I don’t give a damn about you, you are ineligible.’”

Actually, Ted. Most Americans are ineligible as typically, only lawyers serve on the Supreme Court, so technically, each justice on the Supreme Court represents less than 0.003 percent of Americans. And don’t get me started on all the lawyers in the House and Senate.

My friend Mike Peterson pointed out today on his blog at The Daily Cartoonist, while black women represent seven percent of the population (not six), they represent 12% of the population by race and 51% by gender.

Ted also said, “If he came and said, ‘I’m gonna put the best jurist on the court and he looked at a number of people and he ended up nominating a Black woman, ‘Okay, I’m nominating the person who’s most qualified.’ He’s not even pretending to say that, he’s saying, ‘If you’re a White guy, tough luck. If you’re a White woman, tough luck. You don’t qualify.’”

Is that what Donald Trump said when he promised to nominate a woman before he nominated Amy Coney Barret to the Supreme Court? Do you remember Ted Cruz clutching his pearls on that one? No, you don’t because he never did.

Also, if President Biden promised to put the best jurist on the court, never made a statement about race, and then nominated a spectacular black female judge for the position, Ted Cruz would still vote against that person and would most likely make a pubic statement about the candidate’s race and gender.

He also claimed Biden’s upcoming Supreme Court pick was “actually an insult to Black women,” though the only black woman we could find insulted by it is Candace Owens, who herself is actually an insult to black women.

Ted is worried there’s going to be a nomination to the Supreme Court that will only represent six percent of the population. Hey, good job pretending you care about shit like that, Ted. But let me point out that all three of Donald Trump’s picks represented the minority vote of the 2016 election as more voters preferred Hilary Clinton over Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Let me also point out that these picks barely scraped by on Republican votes in the Senate, where despite there being a GOP majority during the Trump administration, Democratic Senate candidates received 7 million more votes than Republican Senate candidates in 2016. Today, at this very moment, Democrats in the Senate represent 41,549,808 more people than Republicans represent. Let me write that so a Republican can read it. That’s more than FORTY-ONE MILLION.

Let’s not forget Ted is in favor and in full support of Republicans wiping out voting rights for black Americans, thus increasing a minority-Republican hold on power. There’s also that little incident where Ted supported a coup to overturn a democratic election to install the Republican loser, who lost by nearly eight million votes, as a fascist dictator.

White men are 30 percent of the U.S. population yet held 62 percent of ALL elected offices. Women hold just 31 percent of elected offices despite making up 51 percent of the population, and non-whites hold just 13 percent of elected offices despite making up 40 percent of the population.

On top of all that, Ted Cruz represents the state of Texas despite the fact that racist demagogic sleazy condescending lying douchebags who might be the Zodiac Killer and who throw their wives and daughters under the bus while burying their faces between the orange ass cheeks of fascists wannabes are not the majority of the state’s population.

Do us all a favor, Ted. Go back to Cancun, but this time…don’t come back.

Creative note: After I made the WKRP joke in yesterday’s blog, I thought it would make a good cartoon. I was going to remove it before publishing the blog but then decided to leave it in as there are not a lot of people who read this blog.
When proofer Laura saw this cartoon, she told me that I’m old. I am old and I was a huge fan of WKRP in Cincinnati. Dr. Johnny Fever and Venus Flytrap were my two favorite characters…after Bailey Quarters. Unlike most kids, I didn’t have a crush on Loni Anderson. I was crushing on Bailey.

Music Note: Today I listened to Traffic and The Who while drawing.

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:

Color GOP Sexy

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Republicans are having racist conniption fits over President Joe Biden’s pledge to nominate a black woman to fill the vacancy left on the Supreme Court by Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement. They’re trying to mask their opposition to Biden’s promise by claiming it’s about choosing the most qualified person to sit on the highest court in the land, no matter what their race or sex may be.

Really? No.

Before Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, he promised during his campaign that if he got a nomination to the Supreme Court, his first would be a woman. When a vacancy did come up in his first year, he kept his promise and nominated Sandra Day O’Connor. Reagan got three justices on the court, but he made four nominations. The three that made it, O’Connor, Antonin Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy, each got over 97 votes. Trump’s three steals barely got 50 each.
Reagan nominated Robert Bork who was so far right, even several Republicans voted against him. He only got 42 votes. This was back when Republicans, some of them, would refuse an unqualified and racist nominee.
Reagan’s next choice wasn’t ever formally nominated though Reagan said it was his intention to do so. Douglas Ginsburg was the choice but withdrew after it was discovered he had smoked some marijuana once upon a time. This was the 80s. Kennedy was the nominee who finally got through the Senate.

After Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away, Trump promised to nominate a woman. Trump did nominate Amy Coney Barret but she was actually chosen by Mitch McConnell. No other candidate was vetted, or at least not seriously.

When Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump both promised to nominate a woman to the Supreme Court, Republicans howled in protest and demanded they nominate the best person, regardless of sex or race. Just kidding. There was none of that. The only real requirement for these justices was that they would be religious zealots who’d strike down abortion and recognize that guns and corporations are human beings. Two of Reagan’s picks let him down on those scores.

Today, Republicans are screaming about nominating the most qualified person and we shouldn’t even look at sex or race. But this party talking about the most qualified also put lightweight sex fiends Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh on the court.

Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker said during a radio interview, “The irony is that the supreme court is at the very time hearing cases about this sort of affirmative racial discrimination while adding someone who is the beneficiary of this sort of quota.”
He added, “The majority of the court may be saying writ large that it’s unconstitutional. We’ll see how that irony works out.” Wicker didn’t express any opinions on the constitutionality of Clarence Thomas voting on cases his wife is tied to.

The Supreme Court was founded in 1789 and it took nearly 200 years before a woman was placed on it. Of the 115 people who’ve been seated on the court, 108 have been white men. Roger Wicker now wants to yell about affirmative action? Do you honestly believe each of those 108 white men was the most qualified in their time? Being a white wan was one of the qualifications for the Supreme Court until 1967.

Without knowing who President Biden is going to nominate, Wicker said, “I think they will misinterpret the law.” Good job keeping an open mind there, Roger. Could you at least pretend?
Wicker is worried about the judgment of a person he’s judging without even knowing yet. That’s like when I knew the guys my little sister was bringing home to meet me were idiots before I met them. Except, in that case, they were all idiots.

Fortunately for Roger Wicker, Mississippi does NOT pick the most qualified for its Senate seats. Case in point: Cyndi Hyde-Smith, a woman, is the other Senator. She’s a big fan of campaigning with nooses and Confederate flags.

Wicker predicts Biden’s nomination of a black woman won’t get one Republican vote. He may be right.

Georgetown Law faculty member and former lawyer for the right-wing CATO Institute Ilya Shapiro tweeted his preferred pick, Sri Srinivasan, is Asian and “doesn’t fit into the latest intersectionality hierarchy so we’ll get a lesser black woman.”
He also tweeted Biden’s pick “will always have an asterisk attached” to her name, a kind of “affirmative action” scarlet letter on her permanent judicial record. I’ve been saying the same thing about the three goons on the court only because Vladimir Putin helped the reality TV host who nominated them to steal the Oval Office.

Florida state representative Anthony Sabatini demanded the president “be impeached for his anti-white racist exclusion of any white nominee to the Supreme Court.” Again, 108 white guys on the Supreme Court.

George Washington University legal professor Jonathan Turley tweeted that Biden’s pick will cause all kinds of “jarring and incongruous moments” because “when the justices will hear arguments on the use of race in (college) admissions, one member will have been selected initially through an exclusionary criteria of race and sex.” One member? How about Clarence Thomas, who is only on the court because he’s a black male conservative?

When did President Biden EVER state he was making his pick on an “exclusionary” criteria?

Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens have also both falsely claimed being black and female is the only qualification President Biden is seeking. Owens, who is black and female, claims she fits the bill and conservative white men have brought her name up as a nominee because they like black friends who say what they say (Candace, a former liberal, figured out there’s an industry to that). But these fuckers screaming about qualifications ignore the fact Owens is not a judge, or a lawyer, or have a bachelor’s degree, or any college degree, or is even competent at doing whatever it is she does.

Tucker, proving once again he’s a real piece of something and that conservative “humor” only relies on stupidity and vileness, said Biden should nominate the sister of George Floyd, Bridgette Floyd. He said, “she is not a judge or a lawyer or whatever, but in this case, who cares? Clearly, that’s not the point anymore…this law stuff.”

Tucker spreads racism and conspiracy theories on a supposed news network. Clearly, that’s not the point anymore…this journalism stuff.

Where were these conservatives’ howls of protests and pearl-clutching over qualifications when Reagan and Trump promised to nominate women? Where were these protests when Trump put nine judges on the federal bench that the American Bar Association rated as not qualified? Seven of them have lifetime appointments.

Of President Barack Obama’s federal appointments (that weren’t blocked by McConnell), 42 percent were women. Only 24% of Trump’s were women.

When it comes to race, Trump appointed fewer non-white judges than Obama (36%), Clinton (25%), Carter (22%), and even George W. Bush (18%). Only 16% of Trump’s judges were non-white, and he only got his percentage that high because a few of them were Oompa-Loompas.

There has NEVER been a black woman on the Supreme Court. Some of the most qualified people to serve on federal benches, including the Supreme Court are black women. If anything, being a black woman is another qualification to add on top of the rest of their qualifications. This nation is actually being robbed from a lack of diversity. Hell, Reagan even once said he wanted to put an Italian on the court, and Republicans didn’t yelp about affirmative action or asterisks.

Hell, these people didn’t like it when President Obama nominated a moderate white guy for the Supreme Court in 2016. Republicans will scream over any nomination President Biden makes. Now, they’re thinking if they pick something specific, even before they know who the person is, they can make it seem like they’re not opposing just because it’s a Democratic president’s pick. Unfortunately, that one thing they chose is racist. But this probably sells really well in Mississippi.

Biden’s pick will be more qualified than any of Trump’s three picks. And, his pick wasn’t stolen or influenced by Russia. This will be the purest confirmation to the Supreme Court since Elena Kagan, even if no Republicans vote for whomever Biden selects.

Republicans are claiming 239 years is too soon to appoint a black woman to the Supreme Court. That’s racist.

Music Note: I listened to some Beatles while drawing today.

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:

Breyer Retires

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President Joe Biden gets a Supreme Court pick and there’s very little Republicans can do to stop it. Justice Stephen Breyer is retiring and he’s picked the right time to do it because by this time next year, Republicans may control the Senate again, and despite there being two years left in President Biden’s term, yeah.

Even though it would be unprecedented for a Senate majority to refuse to hold hearings and a vote for a SCOTUS nomination for two years, Mitch McConnell and his ilk of sleazy Republicans have established a precedent of being lying thieving snakes. My apologies to snakes.

Donald Trump got three Supreme Court picks. He shouldn’t have gotten one. This is a man who shouldn’t be allowed to make his own choices from Shoney’s Big Boy menu, but he gets three picks for lifetime Supreme Court appointments. That’s just not right. Why should Vladimir Putin have influence over our Supreme Court for the next 40 years?

When Justice Antonin Scalia died in February 2016, that gave President Obama a Supreme Court pick. Obama’s justice would have swung the court from a 5-4 conservative majority to a liberal majority. But, McConnell wouldn’t allow Merrick Garland, Obama’s pick, to even have a hearing. McConnell argued it was unprecedented to fill a Supreme Court vacancy during an election year. The seat remained open for over a year which was filled by Neil Gorsuch, a pick by Donald Trump. This was steal number one.

In 2018, Justice Anthony Kennedy retired giving Donald Trump his second SCOTUS nomination. It’s safe to bet that Kennedy would not have retired if Donald Trump wasn’t in office (thanks again, Putin). It’s also really weird that Kennedy retired to give Trump a selection on the court after Kennedy’s son, who was global head of real estate capital markets for Deutsche Bank, helped Donald Trump secure over $640 million in loans. At least now we know how much a Supreme Court seat is worth in monetary terms. If anyone asks, it’s $640 million.

Kennedy’s seat was filled by Brett Kavanaugh, a guy who can’t remember if he ever got black-out drunk and sexually assaulted women. This guy should be chasing ambulances somewhere, or defending himself for butt-pinching on elevators, and not on the Supreme Court. This was steal number two.

In 2020, less than two months before the presidential election, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. Remember Mitch McConnell and that stuff about it being unprecedented to fill a Supreme Court seat during an election year? Yeah, he and Trump filled it. They put a religious zealot, Amy Coney Barret, into Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat which may be a greater crime than when George H. W. Bush filled Thurgood Marshall’s seat with Clarence Thomas.

Amy Coney Barret was steal number three.

If it wasn’t for the art of the steal, and a bribe here and there, Donald Trump would have had zero picks. Today, the court would be a 5-4 liberal majority. Obama would have placed Garland on the court, Anthony Kennedy would not have retired, and President Joe Biden would have filled the vacancy left by Ginsburg. All would be better in the world.

I’m sure the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her seat being filled by a religious nutball has greatly influenced Justice Breyer to retire. If he waited another three years, he could have been replaced by Jeannine Pirro. Liberals have been pressuring Breyer to retire. A liberal group even paid for a billboard truck to drive around the Supreme Court building last year with a large sign saying, “Breyer, retire.” What we need are trucks, planes, trains, zeppelins, and whatever the fuck else to circle the court with signs calling for Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barret to retire, since they’re all occupying stolen seats because of an election with Russian meddling but where the popular vote still prevailed which would have given us liberal justices.

If there was any honor in Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barret, they’d each step down. But then again, if they had any honor, they never would have accepted a nomination from President (sic) Pussy-Grabber and Moscow Mitch.

At this time, there is very little Republicans can do to stop President Biden from filling this seat. There is no filibuster for Supreme Court nominees. Do you know who took that away? Mitch McConnell, which he did for the nomination of Neil Gorsuch. McConnell knew Trump would never nominate someone capable enough to secure 60 votes to sit on the Supreme Court. This is backward too as there should be a super-majority requirement for judicial nominees and a simple majority, 51 votes, for legislation. Oh, and never mind the fact it was “unprecedented” to seat Supreme Court justices with a simple 51-vote majority.

When they stole a seat from President Obama, Republicans loved to say “elections have consequences,” ignoring the fact that Obama won two elections and was still president when they stole his pick. Here, Republican actions have consequences.

This pick will not change the balance of the court, but it preserves the seat from being stolen in the future by Putin’s puppets. President Biden promised to pick a black woman for his first appointment and he’s going to keep that promise. He did with his vice-presidential pick.

President Obama made diverse selections. He chose two women, one white and one Latino, and one white guy, who wasn’t seated. Donald Trump’s three picks were white, white, and white. There have been 115 Supreme Court justices. Out of the 115, 110 have been men. In case you’re a Republican, that means only five of the 115 have been women. Only two of those men have been black.

President Biden is about to make history. And he better do it fast.

Music Note: Today’s cartooning tunes were provided by Jane’s Addiction and Porno for Pyros.

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:

Ruth And Betty

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It was a struggle for me a few weeks ago when I did a cartoon honoring Betty White after her death. I was happy with the cartoon I did create and it did really well with my clients and on social media, which is rare. A couple days later, I thought of this idea and did one of those I-should-have-had-a-V8 slaps to my head. This was more my style. But, I decided to save it for Betty’s 100th birthday. My plan was to do the cartoon a day or two before her birthday so my newspaper clients could run it on her birthday. And then I forgot.

Over the weekend, I drew cartoons on Boris Johnson, Prince Andrew, Glenn Youngkin, and on Trump’s racists (which got me slapped by TikTok and YouTube. Racists have feelings, you know). I totally spaced out on Betty’s birthday. I usually tell Alexa to remind me of something upcoming, but I whiffed on this one. Alexa already has about 50 reminders for me and sometimes I don’t enunciate well and then six months later, I can’t understand what Alexa is reminding me to do. What the hell is “upload to goats?”

When Betty died, there was a lot of focus on her not making it to her 100th birthday, which was only weeks away. There was even a TV special planned for the event. Apparently, Death doesn’t care much for Neilsen ratings. But living to 99 is still an accomplishment, especially considering Betty White had good health for most of her life which is probably something required to live to be 99. I think the real injustice is that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg didn’t survive long enough for her replacement to be someone who shares her values, and before Republicans and Donald Trump would be able to put a cult-dwelling lunatic in her seat.

And you know what? Ruth Bader Ginsburg did survive long enough for her replacement to be someone more like her. I mean, she lived long enough if you were going to go by the Mitch McConnell rule for SCOTUS nominees. It was just too bad Mitch McConnell didn’t go by the Mitch McConnell rule for SCOTUS nominees.

Obama had ten months left in office when Justice Antonin Scalia died but McConnell said they couldn’t replace a justice in an election year as the people need to decide at the ballot box in the upcoming November election of 2016. Except, the people did decide when they elected President Obama to serve four years in 2012. McConnell refused to allow Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, a hearing. After Trump came into office with the aid of Vladimir Putin meddling in our election, McConnell gave the nomination to the orange toddler.

Four years later, in 2020, when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, it was two months before the election. This time, McConnell rushed through the nomination of Amy Coney Barret, a right-wing religious zealot. His argument was that the people had spoken by giving the Senate the Republicans. But, going on Mitch’s previous argument, the people should have been allowed to have their say in the upcoming November 2020 presidential election, where they selected Joe Biden. Also, his argument about the people choosing a GOP senate is bunk too as most American voters voted for Democratic candidates for the United States Senate.

For the slow kids (Republicans), the U.S. Senate isn’t decided by population. It’s decided by states. It doesn’t matter if your state only has 500,000 people or 40 million, it gets two senators. Wyoming’s population is so small that they only have one representative in the House (which is decided by population). But Wyoming also gets two senators, the exact number California has, where the population is represented by 54 House representatives. If that doesn’t seem fair, it’s because it isn’t. Why should you have more representation than I do?

My point is, Mitch McConnell is a sonofabitch and you can’t trust him on anything. He lies. He doesn’t have principles. If he ever puts a line in the sand, the line moves. If the Golden Girls was still on TV when Betty White died, Mitch McConnell would have stolen that seat and had given it to Ann Coulter.

People like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema need to be aware of this. These two are so dedicated to the filibuster that they refuse to bend for voting rights. How in the hell is the filibuster more sacred than voting rights? But if the GOP retakes the Senate, Mitch McConnell isn’t going to care that two Democrats saved the Filibuster when their party had control. He doesn’t feel a need to honor the principles and ethics of others. He doesn’t care if people point out that he totally lacks principles and is a lying thieving hypocrite. He chuckles when people call him “Cocaine Mitch”. He laughed when asked if he’d replace a Supreme Court justice if an opening came up in the last year of a Trump presidency (sic). I remember this because it made my skin crawl.

The really bad thing is, while Sinema may be a newbie, kinda stupid, and not aware of this, Joe Manchin is fully aware of this. He’s been around long enough. He knows better. He knows you can’t trust Mitch McConnell or any of the Republicans. Unless he has amnesia, he doesn’t have an excuse.

I like Betty White. She was a great person. But when she died, I wasn’t sad because she was 99. I was much sadder and truly mourned when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. When RBG died, we lost a lot more.

Music Note: The music I listen to while drawing usually doesn’t have anything to do with the cartoon’s subject matter. It’s usually something to put me in a zone for shading, crosshatching, and coloring. For today’s cartoon, I listened to the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, which has nothing to do with Betty White or Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

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: There will not be any new YouTube videos for at least the next two weeks. I’m on suspension…again.

Supeme Exceptions

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

You will not see a YouTube video of this as I have been suspended again. It was for the cartoon on the racist racists. This suspension will last two weeks unless I win my appeal, which I don’t have a great track record with. I also had a cartoon taken down yesterday on LinkedIn. That was for the Boris and Andrew cartoon. Either LinkedIn doesn’t like pedophiles or werewolves. They were not specific.

Music Note: What did I listen to while drawing this cartoon? Why, The Supremes, of course.

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: