Political Memes, Comics, and other Shenanigans, Part 51

[ADoyle90815]

[GreyhoundFan]

 

"Goodbye George"

Quote

I was surprised at the margin of the House vote yesterday that expelled pathological lying fraudster George Santos. Santos is now just the sixth person to be expelled from the House. He was not expelled for lying but for 13 credible criminal charges against him. As one Republican member said, “He is a disgusting human being, and he shouldn’t be here,” which can be said about most Republicans. But the entirety of GOP leadership voted against expulsion (while wanting to impeach President Biden without any evidence of anything). Nevertheless, the two-thirds majority needed to expel the fraudster was achieved with 311 votes with 114 against (there were two cowardly present votes). Two Democrats voted against expelling Santos.

I respect the argument against expulsion because he hasn’t been convicted yet and the fear of setting a precedent (Adam Schiff was removed from all his committees only because Republicans don’t like him), but the Constitution says both chambers are to choose how they conduct themselves. So while Bob Menendez hasn’t been expelled from the Senate, the House decided they couldn’t live any longer with Santos.

What will Santos do next? Some of those possibilities will be in tomorrow’s cartoon for CNN, so be sure to check that out. But in the real world, he’s probably going to prison if he doesn’t flee the country.

Santos was defended by the likes of disgusting Goon Caucus liar Byron Donalds and “suspected” pedophile Matt Gaetz. But the report from the bipartisan Ethics Committee, which is controlled by Republicans, was too damning, which detailed “substantial evidence” of “uncharged and unlawful conduct” including allegedly stealing from his 2022 campaign. There were reports of campaign spending on trips to Atlantic City, swanky department stores, Botox treatments, and a subscription to OnlyFans which is a porn site…so I hear.

The governor of New York now has ten days to set a date for a special election for the vacant seat. The seat is in a Democratic-leaning Queens district that Biden won easily in 2020, but as Santos demonstrated, it’s competitive. If a total piece of shit like Santos can win it then perhaps your run-of-the-mill daily variety piece-of-shit Republican can win it too.

Santos was a failure in his short time in Congress. He only introduced 40 bills with every single one dying in committee without receiving even a single vote. He only convinced one colleague, jackass Paul Gosar, to sign onto one of them which was a bill to defund the Scooby Doo Gang from solving mysteries that would lead to indicting evil mask-wearing billionaires with criminal schemes that they’d normally get away with if it wasn’t for them meddling kids. No, seriously, it was a bill to defund the Chinese Communist Party from hanging out on college campuses. That Scooby Doo shit sounds less ridiculous.

As Santos left the Capitol, even while the expulsion vote was ongoing, he said, “To hell with this place.”

As a reminder of what sort of moron he is, Santos tweeted that he’ll seek revenge and file ethics complaints on Monday against four of the members who voted to expel him…even though he can’t file anything since he’s not a member of Congress anymore…unless he does a George Costanza and shows up for work Monday like nothing happened.

I’m a little heartbroken by Santo’s expulsion because I really enjoyed drawing him. Fortunately, there is no shortage of goons in the Republican Party.

Na-Na-Na-Na!
Hey-Hey-Hey!
Goodbye!

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

 

"Kiss Off"

Quote

Henry Kissinger is dead and he does NOT belong in Heaven. Sure, I don’t actually believe in shit like Heaven and Hell, but when your top concern is if the paparazzi will notice the movie star you’re dining with in a swanky Manhattan restaurant after a long day of bombing children, you’re not going to Heaven.

While a lot of politicians and dignitaries considered Kissinger an elder statesman and expert on foreign policy, many others consider him a war criminal. And ya know, you hear that about some people like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and a lot of times, it’s hyperbole but with Kissinger, yeah. He’s a war criminal.

Henry Kissinger died yesterday at 100. He outlived Betty White, who missed living to 100 by 17 days, which proves there is not a God or a Heaven.

Kissinger was Nixon’s National Security Advisor and Secretary of State. He was the only person to ever hold both titles simultaneously (in case you’re a Trumper, “simultaneously” means at the same time). He was also Gerald Ford’s Secretary of State. He’s considered the most powerful Secretary of State in U.S. history. He advised 12 presidents starting with Kennedy and ending with Biden. It was President Obama who was the most skeptical.

Kissinger was responsible for opening a relationship with Red China. But it wasn’t done as much for peace as it was a Cold-War tactic to isolate the Soviet Union. That was probably his greatest achievement though you can’t see much the success from it today, what with China taking back their pandas. Couldn’t we have just kept the pandas and had sent them Kissinger instead?

He negotiated the peace accords that ended the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, for which he shared the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize. He called it “peace with honor,” but these accords didn’t end the war and he could have made the same deal years earlier, saving thousands of lives. Kissinger didn’t care about lives or human rights. The U.S. remained in Vietnam for two more years and only left after a humiliating defeat. Remember those photos of helicopters on rooftops evacuating during the fall of Saigon? Thank Kissinger for that.

Kissinger saw smaller nations as pawns and gave up on Vietnam when he felt it wasn’t a strategic interest to the United States anymore. He was the architect of the Nixon administration’s efforts to overthrow Chile’s democratically elected Socialist president, Salvador Allende. He authorized the secret carpet-bombing of neutral natoin Cambodia in 1969-70, which was a neutral nation, killing over 50,000 civilians.

He told our military “to strike “anything that flies or anything that moves.” How did a Secretary of State have so much power? Hillary Clinton couldn’t even authorize a uranium sale to Russia by herself.

When Pakistan’s U.S.-backed military was committing genocide in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, in 1971, he and Nixon ignored pleas from the American consulate in East Pakistan to stop the massacre and instead, approved weapons shipments to Pakistan, including the illegal transfer of 10 fighter-bombers from Jordan. At least 300,000 people were killed in East Pakistan and 10 million refugees were driven into India. Kissinger didn’t care. He got to have dinner with Actress Jill St. John.

The fun didn’t stop after Nixon resigned. Kissinger and Ford secretly approved the invasion of the former Portuguese colony of East Timor by Indonesia’s U.S.-backed military. More than 100,000 East Timorese were killed or starved to death. Kissinger told the leaders of Indonesia to “do it quickly.”

When Kissinger was criticized for these moves, he’d attempt to respond with heartless sarcasm, saying more than once, “The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.” That’s knee-slapping hilarious stuff right there. He must have been fun at parties.

President Obama said he had spent much of his presidency trying to repair the world Kissinger left. In 2016, Obama said in an interview, “We dropped more ordnance on Cambodia and Laos than on Europe in World War II and yet, ultimately, Nixon withdrew, Kissinger went to Paris, and all we left behind was chaos, slaughter and authoritarian governments that finally, over time, have emerged from that hell.”

Obama noted that while in office he was still trying to help countries “remove bombs that are still blowing off the legs of little kids.” President Obama asked, “In what way did that strategy promote our interests?”

Kissinger was vain, conspiratorial, arrogant, obnoxious, and short-tempered. He would praise an aide as indispensable while ordering the FBI to illegally tap his home phones to see if he was leaking to the press…and then Kissinger would leak to the press. He would have outbursts that would challenge Donald Trump’s ketchup tantrums.

In 1969, Kissinger was so enraged by the leaks behind The New York Times report on the Cambodia bombing that he ordered the FBI to tap the phones of more than a dozen White House aides, including members of his own staff. The recordings never turned up a culprit. And who knew a Secretary of State could order the FBI to install illegal wiretaps? Republicans in Congess got upset in 2017 over the FBI getting WARRANTS to follow Russian spies in the Trump Campaign. They’re still upset over the pee-pee-tape story.

After the Times and Washington Post published the Pentagon Papers, the classified documents chronicling the government’s war policies and planning in Vietnam, Kissinger was furious once again. He considered leaking them a threat to his hidden diplomacy. His complaints helped create the White House burglary team, the leak-plugging Plumbers unit that would later break into Democratic headquarters at the Watergate building. From there, he even had a hand in making Watergate happen.

I’m looking forward very much to my right-wing colleagues to draw obtuse cartoons praising and mourning Kissinger. I’m not one of them.

Creative notes: I was thinking this cartoon wouldn’t do very well on social media as a lot of readers may be too young to remember Kissinger, but the shares and reactions are surprising me. It was taking off after just a few minutes of it being published. I also had two other ideas of him in Hell but decided that was too obvious and in fact, I’ve already seen one cartoon like that in the past hour. There will be more.

Also, I know Kissinger didn’t believe in Heaven or Hell, but it’s a cartoon. Don’t take eveything so literal.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

I can’t stop laughing:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

More fun:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[47of74]

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

 

"Watch Your Step"

Quote

The Fox News debate between Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and California Governor Gavin Newsom was a red state versus a blue state. The deck was stacked for DeSantis as it was on Fox News and hosted by Sean Hannity who asked questions based on Republican tropes, like asking DeSantis if President Biden is in “significant cognitive decline.”

The debate was mostly for pure entertainment since these guys aren’t in a race with each other, despite presidential candidate DeSantis accusing Newsom of conducting a shadow campaign. But if you want to argue red state versus blue state, or DeSantis’ accomplishments versus Newsom’s, soak in the fact that DeSantis is behind Donald Trump by over 40 points…in Florida. Republicans in Florida would rather have a racist twice-impeached Putin-loving pussy-grabbing fascist who’s currently facing 91 criminal charges to be president over their governor.

You can also look at the fact that two-thirds of Florida’s deaths occurred after the rollout of vaccines while less than half of California’s Covid deaths happened during that time. This is because the red state governor is anti-science and discourages his constituents from taking preventive care for Covid while the blue state governor uses sciences, facts, and promoted vaccines to his people. Ron DeSantis is personally responsible for tens of thousands of Floridians dying from Covid because he wanted to be a hero on Fox News.

Instead of looking at facts, DeSantis would rather you look at a map that tracks feces.

During the debate, DeSantis pulled out a map that tracked locations of human feces in San Francisco. The map was from a website that claims to track human waste reported in San Francisco from 2011 to 2019. It was DeSantis’ argument that San Francisco is a failed leftist hell hole with a runaway homeless problem. The city is a favorite punching bag of the right, who claim the sidewalks aren’t just covered in human poo, but needles, and you can’t walk through the city without being randomly attacked by “illegal” immigrants who’ve been given sanctuary by “leftist” politicians.

This was big talk from a guy who has Jacksonville in his state. As you may recall, I took a train from Fredericksburg to Miami last June and Jacksonville is where all the freaks got on. Oh my god, so many freaks. So…many…freaks. To be fair, I did like Miami.

Newsome replied to DeSantis’ with laughter and pointed out that Florida has the worst health system in the nation after Texas and Mississippi.

Democrats later claimed that props weren’t allowed, except for DeSantis, and that he was also granted the privilege of having a monitor to show him the upcoming questions while Newsom did not. Fox News denied this which means it’s true.

I can tell you from very recent personal experience, that San Francisco is NOT covered in human feces. Last October, I walked all over that city.

I walked with a few colleagues (Matt Davis, Rob Rogers, Nick Anderson, Kevin Kallaugher, Ted Rall…yes, really, and Mark Fiore) to Grant Avenue, through Chinatown, from the Cartoon Museum that is across from the Bay, which was about a 20 block walk. I later walked from the Capital One Cafe (where I drew) to Fisherman’s Wharf, which was about 22 blocks. I walked up Washington Street to a diner with several cartoonists who can vouch that it felt like ten blocks all uphill. I walked eight blocks from my hotel to the Golden State Tap Room to watch the 49ers beat the Cowboys. I took a very long walk of about 15 blocks one night during my trip. My usual drawing spot was closed on Saturday, so I took a long walk to find a decent coffee shop to draw in, which was probably about another 15 blocks.

Sure, I saw homeless people but I didn’t see any needles on the ground. I didn’t see a lot of litter either. I didn’t get stabbed. In fact, even walking at night and seeing homeless people, I didn’t even panhandled. The one thing I definitely did not see, and if I had, it would have stood out to me, was…feces. I didn’t see any poo. I didn’t see human poo, dog poo, cat poo, horse poo…I didn’t even see sea lion poo. I didn’t see one turd on the sidewalk or streets of San Francisco.

Ron DeSantis once claimed that during a trip to San Francisco, he saw someone taking a dump. Maybe he did. Once while getting breakfast at a McDonald’s in Washington, D.C., I saw a homeless guy peeing in a garbage can while there was a lot of pedestrian traffic. It happens but I can’t take that one experience and tell you that the city smells like urine. That’s New Orleans. D.C. is actually a very clean city, and I loved San Francisco. It’s a beautiful place that I hate to see Republicans trash out of stupidity and ignorance.

Someone told me that the city was probably cleaned up for the then-upcoming APEC summit, but I seriously doubt someone was following homeless people around with a pooper scooper.

I will take living in a blue state over living in a red state.

Ron DeSantis is full of shit.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

[47of74]

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

[47of74]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I wonder if that's a real license plate or if it's one of those fake Sov-cit plates?