Political Memes, Comics, and other Shenanigans, Part 39

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[Black Aliss]

Is good cartoon, da?

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[GreyhoundFan]

Least popular vampire, Stephen Miller, is suing to prevent the January 6th committee from seeing his phone records because he’s on his parents’ cell phone plan and it would “violate their privacy.”  I saw this and laughed so hard I know have hiccups. 
 

 

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[Cartmann99]

Sorry, wrong thread!

Edited March 12, 2022 by Cartmann99

[Cartmann99]

 

[WiseGirl]

[ADoyle90815]

For DeathSantis

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"Fat Guy In A Little Coat"

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“Fat guy in a little coat” is a classic scene in the great 1995 comedy Tommy Boy, a film with a lot of classic scenes. If you believe the Chris Farley/David Spade classic is just a bunch of juvenile sophomoric comedy you’re right, but it’s still a great movie. It’s one of those movies that fans can quote at a moment’s notice.

After having a few beers within a month of moving to Fredericksburg for a job at The Free Lance-Star in 1998, the assistant editorial page editor, James Lakely, put on my jacket and started singing “Fat guy in a little coat.” He wasn’t a fat guy but he was larger than I am/was, but he knew I knew that scene, even though we hadn’t known each other very long. He probably knew a goofy cartoonist my age would definitely be a fan of Tommy Boy. He was right.

When I draw a cartoon like this, I know a lot of readers won’t get it. You will probably have to be in a specific age range, somewhere between my son’s age and mine. My son was only five when the film came out, but he probably watched it as much as he watched Lion King and Toy Story.

But now, William Barr is the fat guy in the little coat. Barr is trying to put on the image of being a sober responsible person, the adult in the room, during the Trump administration, but this blazer’s not going to fit. He’s not just the fat guy in a little coat, but also a big fat liar.

It’s funny but a lot of members of the Trump administration are trying to repair their images after serving as goons for Trumpalina. There’s James Mattis, Anthony Scaramucci, John Bolton, John Kelly, H.R. McMaster, Tom Bossert, Cliff Sims, Omarosa Manigault Newman, Gary Cohn, Ty Cobb, Nikki Haley, Rex Tillerson, Kurt Volker, and many other assorted goons. Add former Attorney General William Barr to that list.

William Barr is another attempting to rewrite history and he’s doing so in his new book, “Memoirs of a Trump goon.” What? That’s not the title? OK, the actual title is “Big Fat Liar.” No, wait. It’s “A Goon’s Gotta Goon.” OK, last try. The title is, “One Damn Thing After Another. Memoirs of an Attorney General.” In it, Barr is trying to justify his tenure as Trump’s personal lapdog while defending all the lies he told and the bullshit he engaged in. Barr is trying to erase his legacy as Donald Trump’s groveling ass kisser and personal defense lawyer.

Even though Barr didn’t support Trump’s claims of the election being stolen, he did echo Trump’s lies about voter fraud before the election. Today, he’s still pushing the lie that mail-in voting was vulnerable to fraud in the 2020 election even though all the evidence points that it was not. A goon’s gotta goon.

In 2020, Barr repeatedly raised, without evidence, the threat that mail-in ballots would be mass counterfeited by foreign countries. When asked for evidence, he would only say it was “logic” and “common sense.” If we had a president in 2020 with logic and common sense, Barr wouldn’t have been Attorney General.

In Barr’s book, he describes several episodes where Donald Trump displayed erratic and manic behavior but doesn’t believe any of it disqualified Trump from serving as president. He even says if Trump is the nominee in 2024, he’ll vote for him again.

Barr told CNN’s Jake Tapper, “I supported his policies. I was very conscious of his personal failings, especially his pettiness and his temper when he’s not getting his way. But, up until the election, I felt that if you had strong Cabinet secretaries who are willing to do battle, you could keep things on track, and I personally felt that we did a pretty good job of that. But after the election…he just went off the rails.”

Unfortunately for the strong cabinet theory to work, you would need someone other than Donald Trump selecting members of the cabinet, or else you’re going to get goons like William Barr. And make no mistakes about it, William Barr is a goon. If there was an actual strong cabinet during the Trump administration, they would have enacted the 25th Amendment.

It was William Barr who took the Mueller Report, sat on it for two weeks, then issued a statement saying it cleared Donald Trump of any involvement with Russia’s meddling in our election. Today, Republicans are still screaming “Russia hoax.” But, the Mueller Report did NOT clear Trump and did NOT unequivocally say there was no collusion between the Trump Campaign and Russia.

Before he was Attorney General, Barr campaigned for the job by defending Trump’s calls to investigate and prosecute Hillary Clinton. He said the Uranium One conspiracy theory should be investigated while Trump’s Russia connections shouldn’t be looked into. He spent his casual hours attacking the Mueller investigation.
He defended Trump firing acting-Attorney General Sally Yates for refusing to enact Trump’s illegal and racist ban on Muslims entering the country.
He sent an unsolicited 20-page memo to the Justice Department that criticized the Mueller Report and included a section defending Trump’s firing of James Comey to get him to stop his investigations of Trump, Russia, and Michael Flynn. In case you’re a Republican, “unsolicited” means nobody asked for it. You know, like all your comments on social media and on this website.

Before Barr was made Attorney General, Donald Trump sought to make him his lead defense lawyer against the Mueller investigation. When Trump made Barr his Attorney General, he became Trump’s lead defense lawyer against the Mueller investigation.

As Trump’s personal defense lawyer atop the United States Justice Department, Barr intercepted the Mueller Report, which he had spent months attacking and downplaying. He attempted to speak for Robert Mueller.

Barr’s Justice Department labeled Obamacare as “unconstitutional,” even though the Supreme Court had already ruled on it.

While he was AG, Barr was held in contempt of Congress for refusing to hand over documents in investigations and forbidding Justice officials from testifying.

During the 2019 impeachment inquiry, Trump ordered Barr to visit with Rupert Murdoch in his Manhattan home. Trump was upset over a Fox News poll showing support for his impeachment (after he tried to extort the president of Ukraine) and was angered by a Fox News analyst, Andrew Napolitano, who was in favor of the impeachment. According to reports, Napolitano was discussed at this meeting where Barr was acting as Trump’s personal henchman. Do you still think Fox News is a news organization?

In 2019, Barr said, “communities that do not show the respect and support that law enforcement deserves, might find themselves without the police protection they need.” Then he dropped the Department of Justice’s case against the cop who killed Eric Garner.

It was William Barr who had the park and streets outside the White House cleared of Black Lives Matter protesters with teargas, pepper spray, pepper balls, cops in riot gears, cops on horses, and cops swinging batons so Trump could stage a photo-op while holding an upside-down bible. He claimed that pepper balls were not chemical irritants even though the product’s manufacturer describes them as chemical irritants. I mean, that’s exactly how they’re advertised. Later, Barr invoked “qualified immunity” before a federal court to protect himself from liability in a lawsuit regarding the Lafayette Square incident.

Barr was a big fat liar during his tenure as AG. In 2020, he claimed the Justice Department had indicted a Texas man for fraudulently completing 1,700 mail-in ballots. That was a lie. After Barr spread one fear-mongering conspiracy theory after another, more than 1,600 former DOJ attorneys signed an open letter stating, “We fear that Attorney General Barr intends to use the DOJ’s vast law enforcement powers to undermine our most fundamental democratic value: free and fair elections.”

Barr also claimed the Obama presidency had spied on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign which was another big fat lie from the big fat liar.

In June 2020, Barr announced the resignation of Geoffrey Berman, the court-appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, who had been investigating the Trump organization, Trump’s inaugural committee, and Rudy Giuliani. Berman was also prosecuting a Turkish-owned bank, and that nation’s fascist president, Recep Erdogan, had asked Trump to have it dropped.
As it turned out, Barr, the big fat liar, lied again as Berman had not resigned and said he had zero intentions of doing so. They eventually had to force him out.

In 2019, Barr claimed Black Lives Matter is a “revolutionary group that is interested in some form of socialism, communism.” He called them “bolsheviks” and “fascists.” Barr reportedly told federal prosecutors to charge protesters for attempting to overthrow the government and had other conversations about arresting the leaders of BLM and Antifa.
Barr supported Trump’s lies that Antifa was the greatest terrorist threat to the nation, while the FBI stated honestly that the great terror threat is white supremacist groups.

In 2020, Barr said liberals were “projecting” and “all this bullshit about how the president is going to stay in office and seize power? I’ve never heard of any of that crap. I mean, I’m the attorney general. I would think I would have heard about it.” I haven’t read Barr’s book, but I wonder if this detail’s in it.

Barr designated New York City, Seattle, and Portland, Oregon as “anarchist” jurisdictions, suggesting they should lose their federal funding stating, “We cannot allow federal tax dollars to be wasted when the safety of the citizenry hangs in the balance.” This is when he sent Homeland Security goons to help make protests more violent in Portland, Oregon.

Even though Barr later disagreed with Trump on there being voter fraud in the 2020 election, shortly after Biden’s victory, he sent a memo to DOJ prosecutors authorizing them to investigate “vote tabulation irregularities” before voting results had been certified, which was a reversal of long-standing department policy.

Barr even had the DOJ subpoena Twitter to find out who created the Devin Nune’s Cow account.

After several Trump tweets on the matter, Barr’s DOJ requested a lighter prison sentence for Trump goon Roger Stone, which made the four prosecuting attorneys resign in protest. Also in protest, more than 2,000 former DOJ employees signed a letter calling for Barr’s resignation.

After more interventions by Trump, Barr’s DOJ dropped all charges against Michael Flynn for lying to the FBI. Later, Trump pardoned both goons, Stone and Flynn, who were both free to help organize the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol building.

There’s more…a lot more. Now, Barr says Trump is “not my idea of a president” because of his “pettiness” and “obnoxious behavior.” In return, Trump says Barr is a “big disappointment” and that he’s “slow.” But the summation is: Barr can try to rewrite history as much as he wants, but he was and will always be remembered as a Trump goon. He’s a fat guy in a little coat.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

"Republican Targets"

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Republicans are only outraged at Vladimir Putin now because they’re supposed to be. If the public was indifferent to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Republicans would either be silent about it or siding with Russia the way Tucker Carlson has. Even Donald Trump has seen it’s better to be silent on the war than siding with Putin after he called the guy a genius. It’s really hard to build support when you’re bombing baby hospitals and kindergartens.

And while there is support for Russia on the far right, there’s also support for Russia coming from the lunatic fringe that’s the far left. You have to wonder if the same signature is on both, Tucker Carlson’s and Ted Rall’s checks. Both of these individuals have a pro-Russia, anti-USA following they’re pushing Putin’s propaganda to.

The far-left uses the false equivalence of the United States’ invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan to claim we have no right to criticize Russia’s invasion. But those comparisons are almost as bad as the comparisons of prices of gas to coffee. You have a choice with coffee and you’re not consuming gallons of it a day, so stop with those moronic comparisons. And stop with the war comparisons.

The far-left lunatics forget that liberals were opposed to the war in Iraq. Liberals, not the leftists, are consistent. And while I personally protested the war in Iraq, I don’t see it as the same as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. For starters, Ukraine is a democracy led by a democratically-elected president. Saddam Hussein was no Volodymyr Zelensky. And while the invasion of Iraq was illegal and based on lies, the United States had multiple partners. Putin only has Belarus which is another fascist nation. I supported our removing the Taliban and al Qaeda while not in favor of remaining in that nation for two decades. The war in Afghanistan was a NATO effort after the United States was attacked by terrorists that nation was harboring. We were attacked from Afghanistan. But even if you believe all three wars are identical, then why denounce two while supporting one? Why support Putin’s unprovoked attack on a democratic nation?

Also, a lot of Americans who initially supported the invasion of Iraq did so based on the lies they were told. Now if you’re supporting Putin, now you’re the liar. The Tuckers and Teds are repeating Putin’s lies. You hear “Nazi” a lot, but I bet there weren’t a lot of Nazis in that kindergarten or baby hospital he bombed this week.

But let’s get back to the Republicans. If they could, they’d make this war as partisan as they made the coronavirus pandemic. to them, support for Ukraine would be the same as supporting social distancing and face mask and vaccine mandates. They’d be crying about forcing kids to wear face masks to school while being silent about Ukrainian elementary schools being bombed. They’d all be like Ron DeSantis, who believe the worst thing in a school isn’t a Russian bomb, but the word “gay”. If they could, they’d ignore Putin’s attack on Ukraine’s democracy just like they ignored Putin’s attack on American democracy.

Oh, sure. They’re all outraged at Putin’s war crimes on Ukraine now, but they were fine with his crimes against the United States when they made gains off them. They were fine with Putin handing them the White House. They were fine with Putin’s puppet giving billionaires tax breaks. They were more than happy to make a cult leader out of the orange racist stooge Putin put in the Oval Office. And they were jubilant with the Supreme Court picks Vladimir Putin gave them.

Fact: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett would NOT be on the Supreme Court today, and for the next 30 years, if it wasn’t for Vladimir Putin. I am a radical because I believe every sitting federal judge who was nominated by Vladimir Putin, through his conduit Donald Trump, should step down.

The GOP acknowledges Putin is a bad guy today, but they were silent over the past half-decade when he was giving them shit. They were as silent about his attacks on the United States of America as they were each time an abortion clinic was attacked.

In November 2015, a deranged lunatic opened fire on a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs. He killed three people and injured nine others. He attacked the clinic based upon right-wing lies that Planned Parenthood was harvesting baby body parts for profit. These lies were created by a conservative outlet that produced heavily manipulated videos to push their anti-choice agenda. This outlet is still in operation today. The GOP repeated these lies. They supported the actions that led to the attack.

A few months later, the 2016 presidential campaign began and none of the 16 (probably more) Republican candidates wanted to talk about the shooting. The entire Republican Party brushed it off despite having blood on its hands.

What would Republicans be saying if instead of Putin bombing a maternity hospital, he had bombed a Kyiv women’s clinic? Would they be silent or would they cheer? The only thing I’m certain of is that they wouldn’t condemn it.

What would they do? With the way Vladimir Putin is conducting his war and hitting civilian targets, we may find out.

Republicans who are just now opposing Vladimir Putin are a little too late for me.

 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Cartoon placed under spoiler due to homophobic language used as part of a point about the GQP

Spoiler

This is the note that accompanied this cartoon to my clients today:

Dear editors,

Yeah, I’m a bad boy.

I didn’t do today’s cartoon lightly. I had serious doubts about this cartoon as soon as I thought of it and I wasn’t certain I would draw it. This is a curse word and for many, it’s equivalent to the n-word. It’s bad.

I also knew that if I did it differently that it would make the cartoon weaker, which is something I’m not fond of. So, I sent it to a few trusted individuals. Two of my friends who are straight said I should find another way to do this, although they did like it. One of my straight friends said, “Go for it,” though I had to factor in that she might be a bit crazy and she gets banned on social media a LOT. 

My cousin in Houston, who is gay, married, and is the same age as I am, said while it made him uncomfortable, that was the point and I should do it as is. As he said, it’s OK since it’s the elephants saying the bad word.

A fellow cartoonist, a Herblock Award and Pulitzer Prize winner loved it but told me to sleep on it. He was concerned it would be misinterpreted. His wife, another person I have great respect for, said the same thing. I slept on it and woke up with the decision to change it, to use asterisks in the word. 

But then…Laura Hutchison, a former editor from my last newspaper job, who is a high school teacher today and a board member of the Herblock Foundation (though not speaking for the board here), replied to a message I had sent last night.

She said she loved it and I should go for it. She said adding asterisks would only make it weaker and destroy the power and the point. We had a long conversation about it and she was more concerned about me taking hits for it, but believed in the cartoon without any changes. 

So, I know you probably won’t run this and I’m Ok with that. I just want you to understand where I’m coming from and that I’m not doing this lightly…and I fully expect to take some hits for it. I probably won’t have any Facebook access for the rest of the week.

In pushing me to do this cartoon, Laura, the teacher, wrote:

I’ve gotten to the f ‘em stage of life. We’ve been teaching the Harlem Renaissance. My kids have had some majorly deep conversations about race and change and the lack of change. I have a male student who has the most exquisite nails, and no one blinks an eye. Gay couples hold hands in the hallway. The “don’t say gay” law pushes people back into the closet and makes them feel “wrong.” Moll and I never hold hands in public, and when people ask if we are sisters, we usually lie and say yes. We came up in a different time. I didn’t come out until I was 31. I lived more of my life as a lie than I still have as who I really am. I hate seeing the clock turned back to a time like that.

 

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