Teachers

Teacher Shortage

There is a national teacher shortage in the United States and just because you’re only hearing about it now doesn’t mean it’s new. Teachers have been leaving the profession for years, it was only exacerbated by COVID and the politicization from the GOP that followed.

States and school districts are getting creative in handling the crisis, some offering bonuses, others cutting school days down to four, and in fascist Florida, they’re allowing veterans to teach without the requirement of a bachelor’s degree, but while pursuing one.

It’s funny that it’s Florida taking the shortcut with teachers as those veterans don’t have to have teaching experience, which shows maybe just how much Ron DeSantis respects education and the teaching profession. Just because you don’t need any experience to be elected president or governor doesn’t mean you can wing it as a teacher.

What’s funny about this in the not-so-funny ha-ha way is that its Republican assholes like Ron DeSantis who should be given a lot of the blame for teacher shortages.

First, they politicized COVID. They didn’t want vaccine or face mask mandates for schools, thus putting your kids’ lives in danger…and your entire family’s in danger as well. They didn’t care because it made good politics. Look what fascist Democrats are doing! They’re mandating personal choice with your children! Bleah! Bleah! Bleah!

Then, they started making laws that schools can’t teach Critical Race Theory, which no school in the United States is teaching. But, Republicans are redefining what is and isn’t Critical Race Theory and in Florida, Ron DeSantis has put out a list of textbooks for the state to ban. They’ve also banned anything that mentions “gay.” Somehow, they found a textbook that teaches “gay math.” No, seriously. And, not to mention all the book bans.

We’re discovering you don’t need any actual experience that pertains to the job to be elected as a school board member either.

In Virginia, Glenn Youngkin, who had zero experience in public office before being elected governor, ran on a campaign that teachers were indoctrinating children into liberalism. He claimed President Biden was sending the FBI after parents who spoke out at school board meetings, which went national despite the fact it wasn’t fact. He won on this bullshit.

Republicans nationwide are demanding that parents, not teachers, set the curriculum for public school students. But the thing is, they have a say in how they vote, from school board elections to state representatives to stupid-ass troglodyte governors like Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott, and Glenn Youngkin.

Youngkin has actually set up a snitch line for parents to call and tell on teachers who are doing bad things, like teaching Critical Race Theory or other divisive topics. The Washington Post and a dozen other media outlets have filed suit under the Freedom of Information Act seeking records related to this snitch line.

Some wisenheimers have published the tipline, which is helpeducation@governor.virginia.gov, and have encouraged its critics to flood it with faux complaints like schools are teaching Arabic numerals. We here at the Research and Other Things Department of Claytoonz Conglomerated maintain the utmost seriousness and a straight face when dealing with today’s top issues and would never encourage such a juvenile, sophomoric, and immature tactic as sending faux complaints about schools to helpeducation@governor.virginia.gov. Things like “Ms. Amanda Hunginkiss is teaching her second grade class about gay frog sex with bananas.” Or, “Mr. Seymour Butz is teaching a history class that Glenn Youngkin is Virginia’s first governor who’s a truck stop glory-hole aficionado. Be sure to spell out “aficionado” for them.

People like Glenn Youngkin and Ron DeSantis are destroying education in this nation by swapping it for propaganda. They’re the real groomers. They’re using children to manipulate parents, and Republicans and many moderate parents are dumb enough to fall for it.

When parents are leaving death threats for teachers, it’s no wonder nobody wants the job anymore.

Pretty soon, it won’t matter that a bachelor’s degree is no longer required to teach education…because all they’ll be teaching is right-wing propaganda.

Creative note: I stared at the template of this cartoon for about an hour before I got busy with it because I wasn’t sure I should do it. I wasn’t sure because you can see the gag in the second panel coming from a mile away. It’s a tactic a lot of cartoonists use and it always makes me groan. But, I figured the point I was making today more than made up for my lack of cleverness.

Music Note: I listened to some Local H, thank you.

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:

Advertisement

Don’t Say “Guns”

Did you know that more than 30 states have laws allowing school districts to arm teachers? Naturally, giving guns to teachers is a Republican idea, like banning doors.

It’s not a great idea to arm teachers. Some states require over 150 hours of firearm training before a school employee can carry a gun to school, but places like Ohio only require 20. And, a lot of these school districts don’t notify parents that teachers can carry guns or which teachers are actually doing so.

Over the past year, we heard all this bullshit about parental rights and how they should set the curriculum. Let’s get rid of Critical Race Theory. Let’s ban controversial books. Don’t say “gay.” But, Republicans don’t want you to know that your child’s teacher has a Sig Sauer in her book bag. Some parents in Ohio learned their kids’ teacher had a gun in her purse when one of her students pulled it out and pointed it at another student.

If more guns in school are what we need to combat school shootings, then by Republican logic, we should put more Critical Race Theory and gays in school.

Giving teachers, coaches, bus drivers, and lunch ladies guns is a horrible idea. It won’t deter mass shooters as most are willing to die. Cafeteria casserole would be more of a deterrent to mass shooters than teachers with guns (remember school casseroles? Yuck). And if cops are like the ones in Uvalde, why should a teacher be willing to engage a shooter when the cops won’t? On top of all that, when the cops do enter, how are they supposed to be able to tell the difference between the bad guy with a gun and the good guy with the gun?

The rest of the world is dismayed by our gun culture. We are the only developed nation with this problem. And our solutions are always more guns. In case you haven’t noticed, the more-guns strategy isn’t working.

The best way to get rid of gun violence is to get rid of guns. Republicans claim that would never work but we have actual proof it does. It only hasn’t worked here because we haven’t done it here.

We need to ban home ownership of assault rifles. Owning an assault rifle should be like owning a horse when you don’t have room on your property for a horse. If you live in a city and own a horse, you pay a stable to house your horse. You don’t take the horse home. You go to the stable to ride your horse, brush his mane, give him an apple, then you go home without your horse…but he’s still there. It should be like that with assault rifles. They should all be licensed and stored at gun ranges. And, there should be training and licensing involved to own a gun. Nobody actually needs an Uzi or an AR-15 for home security. You just don’t.

If we can legislate that people with mental problems can’t own a gun, despite it not being covered in the Constitution, then we can legislate licensing to own a gun. After all, the Second Amendment does say “well-regulated.” It’s time we start regulating.

Allowing teachers to carry guns is an idea approved by the industry that sells guns. That industry is symbiotic with the National Rifle Association…which is a branch of the Republican Party.

As Middle Age Riot on Instagram recently posted, “Republicans think it’s a good idea to give teachers less money, more students, fewer books, fewer resources, more parents in the classroom, more standardized tests, more scrutiny, more pressure, and a gun.”

Teachers and other school employees should not be required to engage mass shooters. Teachers should be required to teach. If Republicans love guns so much, let them engage mass shooters.

Music Note: I started listening to music after the lettering was completed and listened to Verbena, Taylor Swift, Them Crooked Vultures, and the Barenaked Ladies (not that “One Week” song. Ugh).

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:

Fun With Teachers Unions

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This is not a fight between rational people who follow science and want to protect children and Republican troglodytes who are against science, mask mandates, vaccines, and villainize scientists and educators.

Chicago Teachers Union voted to return to remote learning this week, shutting down public schools and sending over 330,000 students back to remote learning. This also sent hundreds of thousands of parents scrambling to balance between being a parent and their full-time jobs.

In Florida, they battle over mask mandates in schools and mandating vaccines. This is not the case.

In Chicago, over 90 percent of public school teachers are vaccinated. Even with the omicron variant spreading through the nation, those fully vaxxed are very unlikely to be hospitalized if they catch COVID. Chicago’s public schools require indoor masking and are also distributing high-quality N95 masks in its schools. The federal government has given public schools over $200 billion to make them safe.

Shutting down schools and going to remote learning was the right thing to do in 2020 and parts of 2021, but it had a damaging effect on our children. We can not take school away from them again, especially since we don’t have to.

Cases in children are rising, but while 830,000 people have died from COVID in this country, only about 1,000 of them have been children.

I know the guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control can be confusing, but they recommend that schools remain open. President Joe Biden is on the side of kids staying in schools.

I think our first reaction when it comes to protecting kids is to shut down schools. I also think a liberal’s first reaction is to shut them down when they hear a teachers union make that call. And tribalists are quick to argue for their side’s position before they do any reading on the issue. but read on this. Talk to an actual teacher instead of the teachers’ unions.

The science still says to keep kids in schools.

Creative note: Sorry for the short blog but my power is out again and I’m trying to preserve battery life on my devices. I also have my CNN deadline today, so I may be moving my work to a Dunks or a Starbucks. This latest outage doesn’t make any fucking sense and I’m pissed. The rest of my neighborhood has power. I also didn’t fully charge my phone before going to bed last night. Dominion Energy, this is bullshit.

Music note: My power is out so I didn’t listen to any music while drawing this cartoon as I was trying to save battery power on all my devices.

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 18 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:

Burning For Youngkin

Cjones10242021

I just told a friend who commented on this that the cartoon started without mentioning Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin. I thought it would have more appeal to all my clients if it could encompass their area. I mean, I don’t have any clients in Virginia which I think is kinda messed up. But then I thought how important it is to call out Glenn Youngkin and make sure this lying vile Trumper is defeated in my state. It’s important to save Virginia.

As anti-vaxxing, anti-mandates, and racist parents demand school boards across the nation stop teaching what they’re not teaching, Critical Race Theory, and threatening teachers and school board members, Republicans are accusing the Biden administration of attacking parents.

It’s funny that when a Republican gets shouted at, or denied service at a restaurant, or someone follows Kyrsten Sinema into a public bathroom to tell her how disappointed with what she’s doing (no, not if she washes her hands after, but obstructing Biden’s agenda without any reason), and it’s an attack. But a conservative parent tells a school board member “I know where you live” and “you better not leave your home alone,” and it’s free speech.

Glenn Youngkin, while presenting himself as a moderate Republican who doesn’t buy into the election lie but loves Trump’s endorsement, has now fully embraced the Republican habit of spreading bullshit.

During an interview with Fox News Radio on October 6, Young claimed his opponent, former governor Terry McAuliffe, had called President Biden to sic the FBI on parents who attend schoolboard meetings. Youngkin lied and said, “Now that parents have stood up and said ‘Terry, we’re rejecting this whole philosophy,’ he goes and gets his friend Joe Biden to dispatch the Department of Justice and the FBI to try to silence parents in Virginia who are standing up for their children.”

This is bullshit. That has never happened. Youngkin is making it up.

Youngkin went on to set his pants on fire with, “If you don’t agree with his big government policy to put government and politicians and bureaucrats between you and your children, if you don’t agree, he’s going to get his friends to sic the F.B.I. on you.”

He also did it the day before on a radio station in Lynchburg when he said, “Now we see Joe Biden and Terry McAuliffe attempting to silence parents completely by intimidating them by force.”

Now he has a commercial claiming Terry McAuliffe is sending the FBI after parents for sticking up for their children.

As Sarah Marshall said in the marvelous film, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.”

Youngkin isn’t just lying. He’s fear-mongering. Next, he’s going to say Terry McAuliffe will come to your house, kick your dog, teach black history to your children (what’s wrong with that?), eat all your Halloween candy except the candy corn, and clog your toilet. I could have had a career writing for Republicans.

Parents are not bad people. Most of us are parents. But parents screaming about Critical Race Theory are bad people and racist. Parents screaming at school board members against vaccine and face-mask mandates are bad people and bad parents. Parents threatening school board members are all of the above.

And allowing parents to dictate the curriculum, where they ban certain courses, is the same as book burning. Do you want your children educated by the demands of an angry mob? That’s what Glenn Youngkin is promising.

These parents Youngkin and Republicans are defending are less responsible and caring for their children and their education and more like the White Citizens Council from 1960s Mississippi. Youngkin wants to take money from public schools and give it to private schools, which is bringing back segregation. Fun fact: Most private schools were created in the 1960s so white parents could pull their kids out of public schools saving them from sitting next to a black kid.

Here’s a fun exercise: Go on the internet (where you are now) and look up your local private school and see the date it was established. I’m sure it being in the 60s is just a big honking coincidence.

Youngkin doesn’t want to talk about facts, like how he’s going to fire educators and ban abortion, and is more interested in lies, like the FBI is going to arrest you for giving your kid extra dessert. You can’t have any pudding unless you eat your meat!

The real threat here is Glenn Youngkin to Virginia. This lying gaslighting abortion-banning segregationist Trump goon wants to destroy our state by giving it to his fellow millionaires to rape and pillage. How’s that for fear-mongering? Except my fears about Youngkin can come true if he’s elected.

And if Youngkin is elected, it can be a bellwether for the rest of the nation during the 2022 midterms. We need to stop the GOP invasion cold in Virginia before it spreads to the rest of the nation. Draw the line in Virginia by defeating Youngkin.

Let’s give Youngkin an education by teaching him his hate, fearmongering and lies won’t work in Virginia.

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 ZERO copies of my book in stock, which go for $45.00 each, signed. A new shipment will come in soon. 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 9103, Fredericksburg, VA 22403.

Watch me draw:

Oppress My Threats

Cjones10142021

The trend among MAGAts to be as vile and corrosive as possible is continuing, this time into school board meetings. What’s next? Going to nursing homes to pee in pudding, or daycare centers to steal juice boxes and string cheese?

The history of school board meetings is that school board meetings are boring. Even members of school boards don’t want to go school board meetings. A lot of school board members take the job only because someone has to do it, and if they don’t, then some atrocious toothless MAGAt-type person might take the spot. It would be like appointing someone like Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, or in Virginia, electing someone like Glenn Youngkin as governor. Your kids would be taught how white Jesus, a Republican, sailed with Christopher Columbus to discover America and invent Pop Rocks.

Over the past few months, there haven’t been as many Trump rallies for MAGAts to attend where they can scream with their white nationalist buddies over stolen elections and the Great Replacement theory. There have also been fewer Black Lives Matter protests for them to disrupt and cause fights so it appears all BLM protests are violent. There hasn’t been another insurrection at the Capitol for them to take part in. All they’ve had since January is Fox News and school board meetings? What? Why school board meeting?

Why school board meetings? Because it’s a great opportunity to mask screaming and threating as caring about your children. That’s why. This started under politicians like Ron DeSantis who tried to ban mask mandates in his state and make saving lives illegal. This went from one stupid racist governor being a gaslighting asshole to MAGAts threatening educators.

For months, Trump cultists have been going to school board meetings to scream conspiracy theories while frothing at the mouth, disrupting meetings, and often being removed after making threats. They’re opposing mask mandates, vaccines, and Critical Race Theory which is not being taught in ANY FUCKING PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN AMERICA, YOU DILLWEEDS!!! Sorry for shouting.

These are the same idiots who lost their minds over more vegetables being included in school lunches. They oppose free lunches, feeding poor kids they insisted upon being born, and when they are fed, they oppose feeding them fruits and vegetables. Every school day should be half-rack of ribs on bacon sugar pizza day.

These threats have gotten to the point that the National School Boards Association felt they needed to write President Joe Biden and ask for help. They wrote that education leaders are feeling unsafe. And they should feel unsafe as these “concerned parents” are screaming during meetings that they know school board members live. In one video, they’re in the parking lot blocking school board members from driving away in their cars, warning they better not leave their homes.

Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice is directing the FBI and each US Attorney to meet with local officials and discuss strategies for addressing these threats. This is pissing conservatives off, who believe threatening educators and anyone who might be literate is free speech protected by the First Amendment.

The directive to each U.S. attorney in the nation mentioned, “Threats against public servants are not only illegal, they run counter to our nation’s core values. In the coming days, the Department will announce a series of measures designed to address the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel.”

The school board association equated some actions to “domestic terrorism and hate crimes” and asked federal law enforcement to review some actions under “Gun-Free School Zones Act, the PATRIOT Act, in regards to domestic terrorism, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act,” and more.

As I said, Republicans believe threats are free speech and just a little dissent, but then again, they think an insurrection to overturn an election and install a fascist dictator was just a little protest. Rand Paul, who also runs counter to our nation’s core values, said, “When you start to criminalize dissent, when the head of the federal government, through the president, through the Department of Justice, is saying you might be a domestic terrorist if you raise your voice, I think that’s appalling and is chilling and is very, very dangerous.”

No one is criminalizing dissent. What’s already criminalized is making threats. As usual, white conservatives are playing the victim card and pretending to be the most persecuted people in the history of the world again. Going after white conservatives for making death threats is an attack on parents. Why can’t white people make death threats without being hassled about it? When will white conservatives finally catch a break in this country?

One school board member in Nevada said she received a letter stating, “We know how to take care of you, we know where you live.” She said, “I was doxxed with my personal information online” and she received pictures of people being hanged, shot, and guns to let her know the ones making threats have guns.

Of course, not every threat means an action will follow, but every threat is a real threat. Every threat is real to the person being threatened. When a troll sent me a picture of the front door of a former apartment I lived in, thinking that was my current address, I was relieved to know he got the wrong place but still concerned he bothered to go to the trouble of looking it up. Who says he won’t try again? When a school board member is threatened at a meeting and later receives a photo of people being hanged, the educator is going to take that threat seriously.

When a Florida Trump cultist living in a van by a river sent non-working Trump bombs to Trump critics, Republicans said it wasn’t serious since no one died. But these same people get upset and claim they’re being attacked when they’re mailed an envelope of baby powder. I don’t care if I receive a box of Play-Doh with a candle wick stuck in it, I’m taking it as a serious threat. Hell, I wasn’t real thrilled with the gynecology instrument someone sent me, and I still don’t know what it means.

Threatening lives is not free speech. Defending goons who make threats under the umbrella of the Constitution you recently tried to destroy while pretending you’re caring about children is vile and disgusting. It’s also complete and total bullshit. But you got to vile and disgusting five years ago when you ditched your humanity, so this is just business as usual for you MAGAts. But it’s really weird to see elected officials defend threatening elected officials.

To Republicans in Congress, I don’t make threats. I make promises and my promise is I’m going to draw you again and again.

I know where you live.

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 FIVE 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 9103, Fredericksburg, VA 22403.

Watch me draw:

Youngkin Education

Cjones10092021

During the final debate between Democratic candidate and former governor Terry McAuliffe and Republican candidate, Trump cultists, businessman, and job outsourcer, Glenn Youngkin, McAuliffe said he doesn’t believe “parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” Since then, that’s all Youngkin has been talking about.

Youngkin turned the footage into a digital ad, then announced spending $1 million on a commercial airing statewide proclaiming “Terry went on the attack against parents.” His campaign created a group called “Teachers for Youngkin” which sent out flyers talking about how McAuliffe is attacking parents. Tonight, Youngkin is going to stage a rally in Northern Virginia titled “Parents Matter.”

How dare a politician say something so callous as parents shouldn’t be telling teachers what to teach. It’s an outrage this big government liberal doesn’t want parents setting the curriculum. Why, what McAuliffe said…makes total and complete sense.

The people Youngkin is appealing to are the same people who want God in public education. They want school prayer. They don’t want vaccination or mask mandates in schools. They already believe teachers are indoctrinating students to be liberal, spit on the flag, and pledge allegiance to teacher unions. These are the same people screaming to remove Critical Race Theory from all public schools even though it’s not being taught in any public schools. These are the same people who believe Donald Trump won an election, January 6 was a protest, Ashley Babbitt just so happened to be strolling by innocently inside the Capitol when a police officer shot her, and that vaccines contain microchips.

Do you really want these people setting the agenda in public education? I bet Glenn Youngkin doesn’t either and is just using the issue as red meat to the Trump base he’s feeding. By going to Northern Virginia, Youngkin is hoping people who normally vote blue aren’t paying attention to the details…or to what he’s actually saying.

Have you seen the videos of parents screaming at school boards about vaccines and face masks? Have you seen the videos of them screaming at school board members and teachers in parking lots? These are not the people I want telling teachers how to teach. I would not trust these people to tell me how to microwave a Hot Pocket. “You have to be sure you stick the knives in the microwave.”

If a football coach can ignore a parent when they try to tell him how to run an offense or they should let their kid play quarterback, then teachers shouldn’t have to listen to dumbass parents. If a parent tells a teacher how we need more God in public school, I believe that teacher can legally give that parent a swirlie.

I’m a parent. Does that mean I can tell teachers to teach black lives matter?

Here’s the thing, kids: Parents do get a say in how their children are educated. It’s the same way they elect presidents, mayors, senators, representatives, etc. They get to vote on who sits on school boards. Voting is a voice. Go to school board and PTA meetings. Sure, be involved. But when you demand how your child is taught, you’re also demanding how my child is taught. But then again, you don’t understand that a virus can go from one child to another. How would you feel about a parent knowingly sending their kid to school with lice? Fun fact: Lice, like the coronavirus, don’t care if your kid’s parents are Democrats or Republicans.

Youngkin says he’s the guy for education and claims he wants to give teachers a pay increase. McAuliffe does too. But it’s Youngkin who wants to take money away from public schools and give it to private and charter schools. It’s Glenn Youngkin who wants to bring back segregation. Fun fact: Most private schools were created in the 1960s. Huh. I wonder why that is.

Glenn Youngkin proposed eliminating the state income tax, and then flipped his position. But did he really? If you really care about education, you should be concerned because eliminating the state income tax, which accounts for 72 percent of school funding, will force Virginia to lay off 43,000 teachers. Youngkin has a net worth of over $300 million which was earned by running an investment firm that gobbled up smaller companies and made them more profitable by laying people off and outsourcing jobs to Asia.

This year, CNBC ranked Virginia as the second-best in the nation for education. A high ranking in education makes Virginia extremely attractive for luring businesses from other states…and helps prevent businesses from leaving. A top-rate education system is great for economic development. Republicans need to go back to school to learn how that adds up because they haven’t connected two-plus-two on this issue yet. It’s like voting for Trump and not understanding why there’s an increase in Nazis and hate crimes.

They say the best way to destroy public education is to take away the state income tax. The second best way is to elect a Republican. Glenn Youngkin has the same ideas toward public education as Betsy DeVos, Trump’s Education Secretary who hates public education and believed we needed more guns in schools to save students from bear attacks. Virginia needs a Democratic governor to save schools from Republican attacks. Fun fact: Bears attack fewer Americans than Republican Nazis. Another fun fact: More students have died from mass shootings at schools than from bears.

Republicans hate public education. Don’t take it from. me Take it from Republicans.

Another fun fact: The least educated vote Republicans. As Donald Trump once said about voters, “I love the poorly educated.” He loves the poorly educated almost as he loves quarter pounders and Nazis. Glenn Youngkin will let the poorly educated tell teachers what to teach your child.

For the sake of your child, keep Virginia blue. Vote for Terry McAuliffe.

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 FIVE 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 9103, Fredericksburg, VA 22403.

Watch me draw:

Three O’Glock High

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Before some overcompensating gun nut comes in here and comments, I know I didn’t draw a Glock.

Conservatives and other assorted gun-lovin’ dumbos have argued for guns in schools for years. They also argue against gun-free zones. It’s their answer to gun control. Let’s not change any laws. The answer to too many shootings is more guns.

I’m not against armed security in schools, but arming teachers is an idea as dumb as making Donald Trump president. We really need to stop listening to ideas from people who like Putin’s choice as America’s president.

First, let’s debunk the good-guy-with-a-gun argument. A good guy with a gun shot at the bad guy with a gun in Sutherland Springs, Texas, after that bad guy with a gun killed 26 people and injured 20 more inside a church.

Let’s overlook the fact that the good guy with a gun didn’t shoot the bad guy with a gun. Let’s overlook that the good guy with a gun went all Rambo and chased the bad guy with a gun instead of checking on those shot inside the church. Let’s also overlook the fact that the bad guy with a gun was out of ammunition and leaving the scene when the good guy with a gun went after him.

Disregarding all those facts, the good-gun-with-a-gun advocates will settle for the bad guy with a gun being stopped after he kills 26 people and injuring 20 more. Of course, these are the same people who believe dead kids are an acceptable price for their gun rights.

We should be better than accepting dead churchgoers and school children. But, we have a president who was on a golf course while survivors of a school shooting were holding a memorial service. As long as our priorities remain this low, we’ll continue to have a mass-shooting problem.

Another problem with arming teachers and the good-guy-with-a-gun argument is the logistics. How are the police and other good guys with guns supposed to tell each other apart from the bad guys with guns?

A lot of teachers have reacted impressively during school shootings. They have hidden their students during shootings, and others have stood between them and the shooters. Those teachers are heroes. Now we’re supposed to expect them to know how to respond with a weapon? A better idea would be preventing those weapons from entering schools in the first place.

Who is going to pay for these guns and the training on how to use them? Lawmakers don’t want to pay teachers what they’re worth or even provide adequate funding. Most teachers have to resort to buying school supplies for their students. We have lawmakers who insist poor students go hungry.

By the way, every cop shot on duty was armed and trained with his weapon.

We need to stop looking for cures other than stricter gun controls. It’s not video games or violent movies that cause school shootings. Other countries have those same games and movies without enduring mass shootings.

I am more liberal than most people. Most people will disagree with me on gun control. I’m for the 2nd Amendment, but I don’t see where that right includes any gun a manufacturer can make. There’s nothing in that Amendment that guarantees how many rounds per minute you can shoot.

Republicans always say that when you outlaw guns, then only outlaws will have guns. Well, we haven’t tried that yet. We should ban assault weapons from leaving gun ranges. If you want to own an assault weapon, fine. But you can’t take it home. You still have pistols, shotguns, and hunting rifles. We need to tighten up the laws on those as well.

Come to think of it, we also haven’t tried outlawing Republicans.

Here’s the video. Please subscribe to my YouTube channel.

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Washington Wrecking Ball

seattle04172016

How about that, regular readers of this site. I drew an exclusive cartoon this week and you’re just now hearing about it and getting to see it. I drew this last Thursday night, eh…Friday morning for The Seattle Times Sunday edition.

This is the routine for charter schools in Washington state. The legislature implements charter schools. The teachers unions sue. The court shuts the schools down. The legislature restructures how the schools are funded. Charter schools reopen. The teachers unions sue. The court shuts the schools down. The legislature…well you get the idea.

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