What can I say after another mass shooting? What can I say after a second mass shooting in the span of a week? What can I say that I haven’t already said?
Since I put about seven hours into this cartoon on a holiday, I’m gonna let you spend time finding all the goodies in it by sparing you a blog.
Happy Thanksgiving.
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.
Every time I touch on Trump’s “very fine people” statement on the violence in Charlottesville that occurred on August 12, 2017, I get angry responses from his cult of defenders. They claim he never praised Nazis and he did condemn them. Let’s look at the facts.
On August 12, 2017, there was a rally by Neo-Nazis to preserve a statue of Robert E. Lee that the city planned to remove. They held a march with tiki torches and chanted “blood and soil” and “Jews will not replace us.” There was violence between the racists and anti-racists. One of the racists murdered Heather Heyer and injured several others when he drove into a crowd of peaceful innocent anti-racism protesters. Donald Trump spoke about the violence on that day.
From his bed-bug infested golf resort in New Jersey, Turdberry, I think it’s called, Trump condemned the violence and hate. He said, “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides, on many sides.” That was his strongest statement that day against hate and bigotry, by blaming both sides. It was his first statement. It was prepared beforehand.
On August 14, 2017, two days later, Trump issued an official statement from the White House condemning Neo-Nazis. The short statement included, “Racism is evil. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.” Donald Trump could never say something this forcefully off the cuff or as a response to a question. He could only do so two days after the fact and as an official statement prepared by a staff of goons. It took him two days to say something negative about hate groups. The only thing more difficult to get him to criticize is Russia. But yes, Donald Trump condemned Neo-Nazis…and a day later, he defended them.
On August 15, 2017, during a press conference in Trump Tower, Donald Trump told reporters there were “very fine people on both sides.”
When a reporter pointed out it took Trump over 48 hours to criticize hate groups, he asked Trump, “why did you wait so long to blast neo-Nazis?” Trump’s excuse was that he didn’t want to condemn the hate groups until he knew the facts. Yes, the man who told over 30,500 lies while president (sic) and admitted he didn’t have any information that George Soros was funding migrant caravans even though he made the claim, and who often supported his bullshit with “many people are saying,” didn’t want to say something without having all the facts.
It was pointed out to Trump that Senator John McCain blamed the alt-right, and Trump refused to join him. Trump instead asked the reporter to define the “alt-right,” and defended Steve Bannon as someone who’s “not a racist.”
And then he asked the reporter, “Okay, what about the alt-left that came charging at — excuse me, what about the alt-left that came charging at the, as you say, the alt-right? Do they have any semblance of guilt?”
He continued to equate the anti-racists with the hate groups, using the bogus term “alt-left,” and said, “Let me ask you this: What about the fact that they came charging with clubs in their hands, swinging clubs? Do they have any problem? I think they do. As far as I’m concerned, that was a horrible, horrible day. Wait a minute. I’m not finished. I’m not finished, fake news. That was a horrible day.”
He then defended the hate groups, because they had a permit, and said, “I will tell you something. I watched those very closely — much more closely than you people watched it. And you have — you had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent. And nobody wants to say that, but I’ll say it right now. You had a group — you had a group on the other side that came charging in, without a permit, and they were very, very violent.”
A reporter asked him, “Mr. President (sic), are you putting what you’re calling the alt-left and white supremacists on the same moral plane?” Trump: “I’m not putting anybody on a moral plane. What I’m saying is this: You had a group on one side and you had a group on the other, and they came at each other with clubs — and it was vicious and it was horrible. And it was a horrible thing to watch. But there is another side. There was a group on this side. You can call them the left — you just called them the left — that came violently attacking the other group. So you can say what you want, but that’s the way it is.”
Reporter: “You said there was hatred, there was violence on both sides. Are the…” Trump: “Yes, I think there’s blame on both sides. If you look at both sides — I think there’s blame on both sides. And I have no doubt about it, and you don’t have any doubt about it either. And if you reported it accurately, you would say.”
Reporter: “The neo-Nazis started this. They showed up in Charlottesville to protest…” Trump: “Excuse me, excuse me. They didn’t put themselves — and you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. You had people in that group. Excuse me, excuse me. I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.”
Kids, he defended Nazis and hate groups. He defended the hate groups in Charlottesville. He defended the people marching with tiki torches while chanting “Jews will not replace us” and “blood and soil.”
What he did was equate anti-racist groups with hate groups. He refused to say something bad about the alt-right and came up with the term “alt-left,” ignoring that if the “alt-left” is a bad thing, then the comparable group, the “alt-right,” is bad too. Yes, he condemnded Nazis the day before, but then turned around and defended them the next day by pointing out they had a permit as if they had a right to be there but the left didn’t. Then, by saying “very fine people” on both sides, he claimed very fine people march with Nazis who chant “Jews will not replace us.”
Let me make one thing clear: Very fine people do NOT march with Nazis. Very fine people don’t socialize and mingle with people who chant “blood and soil” and “Jews will not replace us.”
I don’t care how much you love a statue, you don’t march with Nazis unless you’re a Nazi. I don’t care if the government is trying to take down a statue of one of my heroes, like Tom Petty, Charles Schulz, or Herblock, as soon as a Nazi showed up, for whatever reason, I wouldn’t march with him. This isn’t like a school assembly thing where you mouth the words while the rest of your classmates are singing. Even if you don’t mouth the words, your silence while marching with people chanting antisemitic slogans is an endorsement of those statements.
Good people don’t hang out with Nazis. The only people who march with Nazis are Nazis. But then again, maybe they’re like those Trump voters who claim they’re not racist, but racism isn’t a dealbreaker.
Racism and Nazis should be a dealbreaker. And if they’re not a dealbreaker for you, like they’re not with the peddlers of the “Great Replacement Theory,” such as Trump and Tucker Carlson, then you’re just as racist as the white supremacist shooter in Buffalo.
Music Note: I listened to the Butthole Surfers (because I was drawing a butthole), Cake, and Everclear.
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.
After a recent mass shooting when Democrats in the Senate said we need legislation to stop this insanity, and not JUST thoughts and prayers, Senator Ted Cruz, the most disingenuous sonofabitch who has ever hatched from an egg, was livid. How dare Democrats play “theatrics” by attacking thoughts and prayers and instead, suggesting solutions. Even saying we need more than thoughts and prayers is an assault on our Christian values.
If you had listened to Ted Cruz, you would have thought Democrats had left a flaming bag of turds on the steps of the Thoughts and Prayers Institute for Gun Violence and Other Things To Be Sad About.
Ted Cruz talked about how he believes in the power of prayer. But here’s the thing about believing in the power of prayer like Ted does: It’s not working.
Ted talked about the power of prayer several mass shootings ago. Thursday night, another mass shooting took eight lives. This one was in Indianapolis at a FedEx facility. This was at least the 45th mass shooting since March 16, 2021.
In case you’re a Republican, let me lay that out for you. It was the 45th mass shooting in the span of a month. CNN defines a mass shooting as when four or more people, excluding the gunman, are wounded or killed. If you are going to order cards for thoughts and prayers, you better place a bulk order.
After the mass shooting in Georgia, or maybe it was Colorado (it’s getting harder to keep track), two right-wing fucknut fundamentalist cartoonists did cartoons of a crying Uncle Sam on the exact same day. They didn’t address the problem except to say it was sad. One of those morons lives in Indianapolis. Since he had just drawn a crying Uncle Sam, he had to come up with something different for an empty useless gesture. For this one, he had someone hugging a FedEx delivery driver.
The most revolting thing to me about this is that cartoonist works for himself. Nobody demanded he draw something that was a totally useless cliché. No editor held him back and forced him to take a coward’s way out. His response to something in his community was just as empty as his response to when it happens somewhere else. He didn’t even both trying to make it unique or particular to his home. He let his community down just as he’s been letting his country down. And nobody made him do it. He chose to suck all on his own. Just like Ted Cruz.
I don’t expect my cartoon above, or any of the others I’ve drawn on the subject, to end gun violence. But I am adding my voice to many others to find a solution other than just praying for it. I don’t keep repeating the same empty gesture again and again. For right-wing cartoonists, they express it’s sad people die from weapons they believe everyone should be able to own. Tomorrow, they’ll draw some phony outrage about a Hunter Biden sex tape or some shit that doesn’t affect anyone except their white privilege. Maybe they’ll draw a cartoon telling black people cops will stop shooting them if they just follow basic instructions. But when faced with a real challenge, they will fail. Like me, they’re just cartoonists.
Ted Cruz is a politician. Ted was elected to stop shit like this. He’s paid to confront gun violence. He’s one of 50 members of the United States Senate that doesn’t want to do anything about gun violence. Seriously. They don’t want to do anything. They are owned and controlled by the National Rifle Association. And when pressed to do something, they react as if you attacked their lord and savior. It’s a great deflection when you’re full of shit.
Ted Cruz giving thoughts and prayers when a mass shooting happens is him fleeing the situation just like when he fled to Cancun when his state was hit with a freeze. Ted Cruz says drafting legislation to combat gun violence is “theater.” This guy calling it “theater” is the same fucko who once made a campaign commercial of him cooking bacon by wrapping it around the barrel of an AR-15, then heating the barrel by shooting the gun a thousand times…then he ate that flaccid bacon as if that was owning the libs. That doesn’t own the libs. What it does is make libs lose their appetites after seeing Ted Cruz put stuff in his mouth. It works like reverse porn. Also, it’s shit like this that makes people think he’s the Zodiac Killer.
I believe in thoughts and prayers. I’m agnostic, but I think praying for someone is positive. It can be like meditation. Also, thinking is good. Give problems some thought. But, that’s what you do while you’re also tackling the problem.
When I have a problem with my Surface Pro, like the stylus decides to stop working while I’m on a CNN deadline, I tackle the problem. I’m googling up solutions and trying them out. All during that time, I’m praying it’s going to work. Granted, my prayers are probably different from yours and go something like, “You better work, you no good useless piece of crap sonofabitch mother forkerforkerforkforkforker….etc.” But, praying, or cursing at the problem, isn’t the only thing I’m doing.
Have you ever told someone you’re “still thinking about it” when you’re actually not? Like being asked if you’re coming home for Thanksgiving where all your troglodyte Trump-supporting cousins will be there talking about the stolen election and Jewish space lasers, and you say, “I’m still thinking about it”? But you’re not thinking about it. There’s no way you’re going to that shit festival of morons. You’ve already made up your mind that instead of going home to eat turkey and casserole with lunatics, you’re going to get a WaWa gobbler sandwich and a six-pack of Red Stripe, then sit home and watch Dallas lose to whoever they’re playing this year. That’s what I’m gonna do.
That’s thoughts and prayers for politicians.
Is it too much to ask politicians, even the most creepy disingenuous ones like Ted Cruz, to multitask and pray while also actually doing something? I mean, doing something other than accepting a campaign contribution?
When you pray for something to get better, are you literally asking God to fix it? Are you putting it entirely on God to do what you were elected to do? And as I’ve mentioned before, when you offer thoughts and prayers, you don’t even have to do it. Nobody knows if you’re actually giving something a thought or a prayer. It’s really the most useless thing you can do for a problem. Next time you get a flat tire, just pray for it. Don’t change the tire yourself or get your hands dirty. Let God fix it. Let me know how that works out.
FedEx used to have a slogan that said, “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.” FedEx doesn’t pray packages get to their destinations. They actually physically deliver them. Washington Republican mofos need to do more than pray to end gun violence. Obviously, their thoughts and prayers are NOT working. Nobody is paying me the kind of money Ted Cruz is being given by taxpayers, but I know that if you don’t do anything about a problem, it’s just going to get worse.
We need gun control, not last night or overnight. We need to ban assault weapons absolutely, positively right fucking now.
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 9103, Fredericksburg, VA 22403. 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: I have FIVE copies of my book in stock, which I’m selling 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.
If you’re out there defending Donald Trump from accusations that he’s a racist, and you really believe he’s not racist, the feelings are not mutual because Donald Trump believes you’re a racist.
Donald Trump believes that you are so racist, that throwing out racist dog whistles so loud that cats can hear them, will strengthen your support of him. In fact, he’s counting on it. Trump’s 2020 election strategy is to win by receiving the white vote and only the white vote. With this strategy, he’s counting on white America to be as racist as he is.
Yesterday, a Trump supporter mocked the media for figuring out the “code” he uses when he attacks people of color. The code is using the word “infest.” But with a simpleton like Trump, it wasn’t a difficult code to crack.
Another code you don’t need the Enigma crackers for is his response to massacres. His response to the mass shooting in Gilroy, California that left three dead (two of them minors) and injured 12 is a perfect example. While he tweeted out condolences and “we must stop evil,” he didn’t identify the incident as terrorism or the shooter as a white supremacist (I took artistic license with that detail in the cartoon). He never does that when the shooter is white or a racist. He’s afraid of offending his base of white supremacists. Hell, the guy couldn’t even disavow David Duke. Trump has argued in the past that he didn’t identify the shooter’s beliefs and motivations because he doesn’t have all the information. It’s hard to “stop evil” when you refuse to identify it.
But, when the killer is Muslim, he’s really quick to respond without any information. He used the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando in 2016 to double-down on his call for a Muslim ban, even though the killer was born in the United States. He was quick to blame Islamic terrorists and he was right in that instance, even though the killer was a lone wolf.
When MS-13 murders someone, Trump quickly identifies them as such and uses it for his stupid, racist vanity project in the form of a border wall argument.
When a gunman killed 50 worshippers in two mosques in New Zealand, it took days for Trump to issue any comment, with his first tweet casting himself as the victim. He tweeted that the media was “working overtime to blame me for the horrible attack in New Zealand.” What Trump failed to do was express condolences to the Muslim community or acknowledge the gunman was a fan of his. The shooter used Trump’s term “invader” to describe immigrants and wrote that Trump was a “symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose.”
A guy who killed 50 Muslims believed that Donald Trump and he had a common purpose. You would think Trump would be quick to disavow such a person. But, you’d also think Trump’s supporters, his cultists, would be quick to disavow Trump’s racism instead of defending it.
Trump supporters would rather be lackeys for their dear leader than to have any independence or dignity. And, don’t expect any of them to speak out against Trump for assuming they’re as racist as he is, even if they were smart enough to detect it.
On Sunday evening, Trump was attacking black Americans through Twitter, even accusing Congressman Elijah Cummings of being a racist. He paused to comment on the shooting at Gilroy. Shortly afterward, he resumed attacking black Americans, this time calling Al Sharpton a “troublemaker” (there’s another racist codeword against blacks), a “con man” and that he “hates whites and cops.”
Al Sharpton may have issued the best retort to Trump we’ve seen all year. Sharpton said, “If he really thought I was a con man he would want me in his cabinet.”
If Trump was presidential, he would have taken at least one day off from being divisive, attacking fellow Americans, and telling his white supporters that black leaders hate them. A real president would respond to the need of unifying the nation, not engage in further divisiveness. But, it’s hard to be presidential when you’re a racist. For his supporters, it’s hard to spot racism when you’re racist.
If you are ever accused of something racist and the people currently defending Trump today start defending you, I got bad news for you. You said something racist.
Donald Trump is fostering hate in this nation and hoping the divisiveness wins him a second term. He says, “We must stop evil.” If he really wanted to stop evil, he’d submit his resignation and leave the White House.
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I’m too exasperated over this happening again and again to columnize about it today. What else is there to say about it anyway? You know the drill. Brown guy, we gotta change policy with something racist. White guy, thoughts and prayers.
The thoughts-and-prayers people are totally thoughtless.
Here’s the video.
I want to thank everyone who has donated in the past. Your support helps me continue creating cartoons and columns with a little less stress in my life. Between competing syndicates with much larger resources, timid editors, and Trump supporters who attempt to intimidate the editors who do publish anything that criticizes their idol, it’s a challenge to make a career out of this. So your support (if you can) is appreciated. Want to help me continue to create cartoons and keep doing what I’m doing (pissing off conservatives)? Look to the right of this page and make a donation through PayPal. Every $40 donation will receive a signed print (please specify which print you want or I won’t mail one). All donations will receive my eternal gratitude
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