Category: Abuse

2 From Clay Jones

Old Man Yells From White House by Clay Jones

Making Twisters and Hurricanes Great Again Read on Substack

Of course, Donald Trump doesn’t take weather forecasting seriously. He thinks you can move a hurricane with a Sharpie. Or, he thinks only he can move a hurricane with a Sharpie, because everyone’s supposed to listen to the Almighty Trump, even hurricanes.

Naturally, the National Weather Service isn’t going to be spared from DOGE cuts. Who cares if we’re only about two weeks from hurricane season? Last season, there were 18 named storms, 11 hurricanes, and five major hurricanes. It was the first since 2019 to feature multiple Category 5 storms. Hurricane season 2024 also closed the most Waffle Houses (I made that up, but it’s a thing).

And it’s tornado season, bringing 42 deaths to Missouri, Kentucky, and Virginia over the weekend. Would there have been as many deaths if there hadn’t been cuts to our weather systems? The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Weather Service (NWS) are crucial for the nation’s emergency-response system. Hurricanes are easier to track, but tornadoes don’t give much time at all to prepare. And now, the offices that track them are understaffed because of Trump and Elon (an unelected billionaire bureaucrat).

Five former NWS directors from both Democratic and Republican administrations wrote an open letter on May 2, stating, “Our worst nightmare is that weather forecast offices will be so understaffed that there will be needless loss of life.”

Climate scientist Daniel Swain said, “The net result is going to be massive economic harm. As we break these things, eventually it will become painfully and unignorably obvious what we’ve broken and how important it was. And it’s going to be unbelievably expensive in the scramble to try and get it back—and we might not be able to get it back.”

After the NWS’s first wave of firings and early retirements under the Trump regime, staffing at the service’s 122 field offices across the country has dropped to a 19 percent vacancy rate. Fifty-two offices are now considered “critically understaffed,” meaning a shortage of more than 20 percent. Some branches are down by more than 40 percent. The good news is that the budget for White House Sharpies has gone up.

There has also been huge reductions and cancellations of weather balloon launches, which are supposed to happen twice a day at every forecast office across the country. According to reports, they’re being saved for Trump’s birthday parade on June 14, which also explains the nation’s shortage of cakes and hot dogs (joke, but the parade is real). (snip-MORE, along these lines that should be read.)

Save Whitey by Clay Jones

Won’t you save an Afrikaner too? Read on Substack

Donald Trump set another trap for a foreign leader in the Oval Office. This time, it didn’t go like the trap set for President Volodymyr Zelensky (where Trump and JD harangued him for not surrendering to Putin), but more like the trap he set for a reporter, claiming a doctored pic of Abrigo Garcia with MS-13 labeled on his fingers was real.

This time, Donald Trump was trying to lecture South African President Cyril Ramaphosa about White genocide in his nation. This would be like me going to New York City and lecturing the locals that C.H.U.D.s are real.

I could tell them that I saw a documentary hosted by John Goodman on HBO back in the 80s proving that Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers are living in their sewers, leaping out at the right opportunities to grab old ladies while they’re walking their dogs for a late-night snack. The reason you’re not hearing about the C.H.U.D.s is that the liberal media and the Deep State are working together to hide it until you and your Schnauzer or C.H.U.D. meat. Why should they think they know NYC better than I do, because they actually live there? Hmph!

Did you know that last April, C.H.U.D.s ate 27,687 human beings, three Schnauzers, two poodles, and one of those skinny hairless cats that nobody is sure is an actual cat? I haven’t actually researched or verified these numbers, but someone on the internet said it’s true (that was me). And, most of those eaten were White people, because White people are the most persecuted segment of civilization in world history.

That has to be true because people like Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Stephen Miller, Tucker Carlson, and crazy old White guys wearing MAGA caps on the city bus keep warning us about the Great Replacement theory, where White people are being replaced by Mexicans and other people with suspicious skin tones. It has to be true because I saw another documentary, this one hosted by Mel Brooks, showing a Black man screaming, “Where all the White women at?”

I’m telling ya, White people can’t catch a break anymore, especially the White billionaire president (sic). Just this week, he was forced to listen to a Black man in the Oval Office refuse to be browbeaten to agree with his conspiracy theory. What next? Is someone going to park a Venezuelan food truck in front of the White House on what was White Lives Matter Plaza (there’s one near L’enfant station and it’s amazeballs)?

Ramaphosa was sitting next to Trump, engaging in fake pleasantries, talking about golf and other assorted bullshit, knowing he was sitting in a trap. Fortunately for the South African prez, the trap springer is a moron (person, woman, man, camera, TV). Ramaphosa said “listening to the stories” of South Africans would help Trump better understand the bullshit he was talking about, except Trump doesn’t listen. But then, Trump had the lights dimmed (It’s a trap!), as a MAGAt aide turned on the TV and played a video of South African opposition politicians singing apartheid-era songs about shooting Boers, a term that refers to farmers or Afrikaners (the term for White South Africans). The video was several years old.

Drone footage showed supposed Afrikaner graves marked by white crosses. Then Trump whipped out newspaper clippings (probably all from Breitbart) about recent killings in South Africa, muttering, “Death, death, death, horrible death.” My gosh. It sounds like there might be an agenda here.

It must have been tough for Ramaphosa to sit still when Trump said White genocide is “sort of the opposite of apartheid.” Read the room, Grandpa.

Trump got distracted when he called NBC reporter Peter Alexander a “jerk” for asking why he accepted a $400 million plane from Qatar.

Trump said rhetorically, “Why did a country give an airplane to the United States Air Force? So they could help us out, because we need an Air Force One. That’s what that idiot talks about, after viewing a thing where thousands of people are dead,” that Trump had made up. He’s so touchy when called out for taking a bribe.

Seizing the moment and embarrassing Trump, Ramaphosa said, “I’m sorry I don’t have a plane to give you.” Not realizing that Ramaphosa basically said, “I’m sorry, I don’t have a bribe for you,” Trump said, “I wish you did. I would take it. If your country offered the United States Air Force a plane, I would take it.”

Trump is an idiot.

There is no White genocide. It’s a lie that racist Elon Musk (who was in the room with Trump and Ramaphosa) has been pushing for years. (snip-again, MORE along the same lines; it ought to be read.)

The News We Don’t See, Behind The Story We Did See

The Story Behind the Mystery White Billionaire Who Told Trump There’s No ‘White Genocide’ in South Africa

During the White House meeting, Johann Peter Rupert told President Trump, “Just Google my name.”

By Phenix S Halley

A meeting in the Oval Office turned sour after President Donald Trump ambushed South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa with claims of a “white genocide.” But one white man standing in the back of the room stood up to Trump, and though the world might not recognize him, he continues to play a vital role in mending the countries’ shaky relationship.

Growing tensions between the two countries began after Trump’s reelection. That’s when the president cut off trade to South Africa and recently gave 59 white South Africans— better known as Afrikaners— refugee status, as we previously reported. Trump falsely argued the Afrikaners were being targeted based on their race, but in fact the amount of Black murders in the country drastically outweigh that of white killings.

The issue comes down to South Africa’s immigration and crime problems. Ramaphosa came to Washington, D.C. in hopes of refocusing his relationship with America and also get Trump’s help tackling crime.

He even brought famous guests with him to cool off the temperature in the room: Two well-known golfers and— most importantly— the second richest man in South Africa. Johann Peter Rupert is one of 22 billionaires on the entire continent of Africa and one of only seven billionaires in South Africa, according to Forbes’ 2025 report. 

The 74-year-old is an international business mogul, so his appearance with Ramaphosa holds more weight than you can imagine.

Rupert got real with Trump after President Ramaphosa’s attempt to refocus the conversation to technological and trade needs was disregarded. While the president perpetuated claims that Afrikaners— the most privileged ethnic group in South Africa— are being targeted, Rupert echoed Ramaphosa’s words saying, “We have too many deaths, but it’s across the board.” The billionaire continued, “It’s not only white farmers… We need technological help.”

Experts told PBS that although white farmers have been murdered in South Africa, those killings account for less than one percent of the total 27,000 annual nationwide report— most of them being murders of native, Black South Africans. “The idea of a ‘white genocide’ taking place in South Africa is completely false,” said Gareth Newham, head of a justice and violence prevention program at the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa.

Rupert even added that he’s building cottages for his grandchildren, but despite his wealth and his status as an Afrikaner, he doesn’t feel unsafe. “I often go to bed without locking the door,” he said. The 74-year-old even tried to level with Trump and Vice President JD Vance saying South Africa’s immigration and gang issues are more pressing than the fake genocide Trump continues to claim. (snip-news video on the page)

Inside the White House Meeting

What the public saw was only the meeting before the two leaders got together in a private discussion. But according to New York Times reporter, Jon Elligon, who was in the Oval Office during the media blitz, the pre-meeting not going as planned could lead to further tensions.

“The [pre]meeting essentially turned into an ambush of the South African president,” Elligon said. “It was very tense and it broke down quickly.” According to him, if there’s any hope of patching the relationship between the two countries, “a lot of it is going to depend on whether the South African delegation can successfully get Trump to not focus on the Afrikaner issue anymore.”

‘Appeased To Meet You’, and more in Peace & Justice History for 5/21

May 21, 1930
Sarojini Naidu, a renowned Indian poet, was arrested as a leader of the nonviolent “raid” on the Dharasana Salt Works, a salt production facility. She had assumed leadership of the effort to break the salt monopoly after the arrest of Mahatma Gandhi.
She and as many as 2500 filled the local jails for their civil disobedience. Column after column of Indians advanced toward the gates and had been severely beaten by the native police under British direction.
Not one satyagrahi (one who works for justice with courage and sacrifice but without violent force) raised a hand to defend himself; many lost consciousness, and some died.
The British Raj, the ruling colonial authority, controlled all production of salt, a dietary necessity in the tropics; the government taxed it as well. Gandhi decided to focus attention on salt as an example of unfair British oppression in his effort toward national independence for India.
British public opinion was deeply affected by the Dharasana nonviolent movement, which revealed the violence inherent in the British colonial system.

Sarojini Naidu
More on the Dharasana Salt Works The Pinch Heard “Round the World”
May 21, 1956
The United States conducted the first airborne test of an improved hydrogen bomb, dropping it from a B-52 bomber over the tiny island of Namu, part of the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. The United States first detonated a hydrogen bomb in 1952 in the Marshall Islands, also in the Pacific. This bomb was far more powerful than those previously tested and was estimated at 15 megatons or larger (one megaton is roughly equivalent to one million tons of TNT). Observers said that the fireball caused by the explosion measured at least four miles in diameter and was “brighter than the light from 500 suns.”
May 21, 1981
The U.S. Senate approved a $20 billion program to return the U.S. to full-scale production of chemical and nerve-gas weapons (CW).
President Reagan’s Special Envoy to the Mideast Donald Rumsfeld meeting Saddam Hussein in 1983. Rumsfeld had become a member of the President’s General Advisory Committee on Arms Control the previous year.
Though the U.S. maintained a public policy opposing chemical weapons, it extended financial and military assistance to Iraq in its war against Iran (1980-88), despite the Iraqi military’s frequent use of such weapons. Iraq had developed its “CW production capability, primarily from Western firms, including possibly a U.S. foreign subsidiary” (from a memorandum to Secretary of State Alexander Haig).
Watch a video on the U.S./Saddam Hussein partnership 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymay.htm#may21

Clay Jones

He Sells Sea Shells By The Sea Shore by Clay Jones

86 doesn’t mean what 47 thinks it does. Read on Substack

(I worked in restaurants from mid-70s through mid-80s. 86 means cancel or never mind, not kill. Else the call “86 99” would have been very awkward, especially because usually the kitchen only called the boss when something the boss needed to know about was occurring. You could hear a call, “99” when the boss was wanted for something, then if whatever it was resolved, or the caller made a change, it was “86 99” so the boss could continue what they were up to. So to me, this controversy is just weird, stupid, and definitely a waste of we the people’s resources, since the highest offices are sounding off about investigating. On to Clay Jones. -A)

The number 86 doesn’t mean what Donald Trump thinks it means.

Former FBI Director James Comey tweeted an image of seashells forming the numbers 8647. What that means is replace Trump. But Trump and his cult freaked out and claimed that Comey was calling for the assassination of Trump.

But 86 doesn’t mean killing someone. It simply means to replace them, or get rid of someone or something. The term started in the restaurant industry way back in the 1920s or 1930s. The term meant an item on the menu was no longer available, so they would have to 86 it. Then it spread to customers they wanted out of their restaurant, so they would 86 a customer, NOT murder the customer.

There are different theories as to why they used the number 86. Some believe it came from the word “nix.” Others believe it came from the address of 86 Bedford Street in the West Village of lower Manhattan during prohibition. An informant inside the police department would call the restaurant to warn of a police raid, and tell the restaurant that their customers needed to leave through the door on 86th Street. That became “86 the customers.”

I don’t know if those stories or theories are true, but 86 does NOT mean someone should be assassinated. It’s not a death threat or a call to kill somebody, like all the times Trump has tweeted insinuations for his goons to attack people.

A good example of 86 is when Trump fired James Comey. He 86’ed Comey. In 2020, the voters 86’ed Trump by kicking him out of office. Hopefully, in the midterms, we 86 Republicans from the House.

As we all know, Donald Trump is a hypocrite.

When MAGAts were chanting, “Hang Mike Pence” during the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, they weren’t trying to “86” Pence. They were trying to murder him.

When Donald Trump called for the death penalty for General Mark Milley, was he trying to 86 him? No, just kill him. Milley had retired, so he couldn’t be replaced.

When Trump posted a video of President Joe Biden hog tied in the back of a pickup truck, was he calling for Biden to be 86’ed or murdered?

When Trump Jr. tweeted a picture of a hammer after Paul Pelosi was attacked by a hammer-wielding lunatic, was he calling for him to be 86’ed or bashed in the head with a hammer?

What Trump is trying to do is 86 all criticism of him. The Secret Service is investigating Comey for his 86 post, which is bullshit.

In addition to howling about Comey, Trump is crying about Bruce Springsteen criticizing him, which he did from Scotland. Trump got all bent out of shape from the Boss’s criticism and went on the attack. Remember when presidents would ignore criticism from celebrities?

Trump threatened Springsteen, posting, “This dried out ‘prune’ of a rocker (his skin is all atrophied!) ought to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT until he gets back into the Country, that’s just ‘standard fare.’ Then we’ll all see how it goes for him!”

Trump is threatening Springsteen for saying, “My home America, the America I’ve written about that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration.” That sounds about right.

Trump said, “Never liked him, never liked his music, or his Radical Left Politics and, importantly, he’s not a talented guy − Just a pushy, obnoxious JERK, who fervently supported Crooked Joe Biden, a mentally incompetent FOOL, and our WORST EVER President, who came close to destroying our Country.”

If Trump never liked Springsteen or his music, then why did he steal it for his hate rallies? The Boss had to send a legal notice for Trump to stop playing Born in the USA.

Trump didn’t stop there, and on the same day he was filling his diapers over the Boss’ criticism, he attacked Taylor Swift, and posted on ShitSocial, “Has anyone noticed that, since I said ‘I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT,’ she’s no longer ‘HOT?’“

Are we still talking about Biden having dementia? Trump’s definition of “hot” is his daughter.

In case the Secret Service is reading, I wholeheartedly endorse 8647.

By the way, Springsteen, the “dried-up prune,” is younger than Trump, and his face definitely looks better than Donald’s dried-up face covered with orange pancake batter.

Creative note: A couple of readers told me they were looking forward to my cartoon about Bruce Springsteen. But I didn’t know if I was going to do one. There are four or five other things I wanted to hit, and that I thought were more important. The Comey/86 thing was one of them. But what do you know? I found a way to get two of those subjects off my list with one cartoon.

I had a long conversation with Proofer Laura about the license plate. She didn’t know the significance. I didn’t tell her.

Music note: I listened to the Smashing Pumpkins.

Drawn in 30 seconds: (snip-go see it!)

A GA woman is being kept on life support despite being brain dead because she is pregnant.

Alliance Defending Freedom: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

“Libyan Gov’t Decries Fake News about Taking 1 mn. Palestinian Refugees: ‘Committed to the Palestinian Cause’”

Juan Cole 05/17/2025

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Abu Dhabi-based Erem News reports that the Prime Minister of Libya’s internationally recognized Government of National Unity (GNU) in Tripoli, Abdul Hamid al-Dbeibeh, has vehemently denied the report in the “American Thinker” by what Libya called the “notorious conspiracy theorist” Jerome Corsi that the Trump administration is negotiating with the Libyan government to take one million Palestinians. It is an absurd allegation on the face of it. Libyans have long been extremely pro-Palestinian and any leader that cooperated with the extremist government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in ethnically cleansing so many Palestinians from …

Read More Here:  https://www.juancole.com/2025/05/scurrilous-palestinian-committed.html

They are doing it. Gross, corrupt, and hateful

WH Official Ordered Redo Of Venezuelan Gang Story

Kent, a twice-failed House candidate and self-professed fan of the Proud Boys, last appeared here when he declared that he would be keeping a $8600 campaign donation from a Capitol rioter then-facing felony assault charges. We first heard from Kent in 2022 when he gave an interview to a white nationalist Nazi podcaster.

New from Julian Barnes, Maggie Haberman and me:Trump Appointee Pressed Analyst to Redo Intelligence on Venezuelan GangThe move followed a disclosure that intelligence agencies disagree with a key factual claim Trump made to invoke a wartime deportation law.www.nytimes.com/2025/05/16/u…

— Charlie Savage (@charliesavage.bsky.social) 2025-05-16T22:15:47.077Z

Moody’s Downgrades Credit Rating Of United States

Breaking news: The US has been stripped of its top-notch triple-a credit rating by Moody’s on concerns about rising levels of government debt http://www.ft.com/content/e456…

— Financial Times (@financialtimes.com) 2025-05-16T21:04:22.468Z

 

Fox Host Agrees With Oklahoma Schools Chief That Students Should Be Taught 2020 Election Was Stolen

Christian Nationalist Pastors To Open DC Church To Help The Trump Administration “Go After Sodomy” [VIDEO]

“And they’re like, ‘Yeah, yeah. Look, we’re doing it.’ But all the sodomites are still there and we’re not going to talk about that. And I need a guy there, I need a minister there who’s gonna say, ‘Oh, but we are. Obergefell is next, we’re coming for that,’ so that you calibrate the Christians in DC by the word of God and not by whatever the present administration can tolerate.

“We’re gonna come for feminism. We’re going to go after sodomy. Those are the sins in that town. Those are sins that are acceptable among both parties in that town. And we want to plant that flag and say the Bible has something to say about this.” – Christian nationalist pastor Joe Rigney.

 

Trump Threatens “Dried Out Prune” Springsteen: He Better “Keep His Mouth Shut, Just An Obnoxious Jerk”

Trump: Taylor Swift Is “No Longer Hot” Because Of Me

Felon Threatens SCOTUS Justices In Birthright Rant

USAID Leaves 66,000 Metric Tons Of Food Relief To Rot

Food rations that could supply 3.5 million people for a month are mouldering in warehouses around the world because of U.S. aid cuts and risk becoming unusable, according to five people familiar with the situation. The food stocks have been stuck inside four U.S. government warehouses since the Trump administration’s decision in January to cut global aid programmes.

 

Trump Is Selling “VIP Access” To Birthday Parade

Those who give to America250, a committee created to support what Trump envisions as a large national celebration next year for America’s 250th birthday, will be given special access to three events, according to a pitch shared with donors. Those include a military parade Trump is planning on his birthday, a “military readiness” event he is leading at Fort Bragg military base with thousands of troops and an Independence Day celebration in Washington, the people said.

https://x.com/jdawsey1/status/1923335215700758761

 

FEMA Head: We Don’t Have A Hurricane Season Plan

On his first day on the job, Richardson threatened staffers, telling them “I’ll run right over you” if they object to his orders.

Duffy: FAA Is Scrounging Replacement Parts On eBay

Yesterday Duffy also posted a video about moving a painting of Jesus “out of the basement” at the Merchant Marine Academy.

https://x.com/MacFarlaneNews/status/1923120841413521425

 

Kid Rock: Birth Rate Is Low Due To “Ugly Ass Broke Crazy Deranged TDS Liberal Women” And Gay Men

He continued, “I mean, you look at these rallies, it’s like a bunch of women that no guy wants to sleep with and a bunch of dudes that want to sleep with each other.”

You’ll note that Watters did not ask Kid Rock about sending his undocumented kitchen staff home to evade arrest by ICE.

Trump Admin Fires 600 Voice Of America Employees And Puts Organization’s DC Headquarters Up For Sale

Trump Administration Fires Hundreds of Voice of America Employees – The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/15/u…

— Timothy McBride (@mcbridetd.bsky.social) 2025-05-16T06:24:06.074Z

ICE Barbie And “Duck Dynasty” Producer Plot Reality Show In Which Migrants Compete For US Citizenship

 

 

 

 

Trump Claims Hitler Gave “Speech At The Eiffel Tower”

https://x.com/atrupar/status/1923053942759358935

This is as close as Hitler got to the Tower. He couldn’t go up it because the French had cut the elevator cables.

Thumbnail

BTO and Pork Chops

Freak Off Crypto by Clay Jones

How much Trump Crypto to keep Diddy out of prison? Read on Substack

I was reading some of my colleagues’ work this morning at GoComics, and I came across a cartoon by Gary Varvel defending Trump’s bribes (also, Gary, plane tires don’t have treads). An idiot in the comments section wrote, “So they gave him a bribe and then they gave him trillions of investments? I don’t think you know how bribes work.” The idiot doesn’t know how bribes work… or facts.

None of these three bribing nations, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, or Saudi Arabia, is investing trillions, which is a lie mentioned in the cartoon. A good way to tell if a cartoonist is instead a propagandist is when he/she rely on Trump for their research.

A lot of the “deals” Trump announced were actually made by President Joe Biden, while the rest aren’t binding, and won’t take effect until Trump is “supposed” to leave office, like that 747, Bribe Force One, won’t be ready until then either.

By the way, Qatar had been trying to sell that plane with no takers for over five years. Grifting, er, I mean gifting it to Trump will save them millions in storage fees. The entire world is moving away from that type of jet, including Qatar, which no longer includes it in its fleet of aircraft. This jet will now cost us more than its asking price to refit it.

This is like giving a dog a pork chop to make it like you, but in this case, the pork chop is a 747 jet. Also, the Qataris could have just given Donald Trump a pork chop.

What these nations really want from Trump is the arms deals and being legitimized by an American president (sic). It’s true they like Trump more than they liked President Biden or President Obama. The Crown Prince, who had Jamal Khashoggi murdered, rarely greets visitors when they arrive at the airport. He didn’t greet Biden at the airport, but he met Trump. Naturally, corrupt fascists governing monarchies without elections, who are also murderers, would love Trump. It’s like being loved by mobsters, Jason Vorhees, Jeffrey Epstein, and Roger Stone.

They also love Trump because they got a sucker who is easy to play.

Trump has been using his entire second regime to enrich himself. He’s fired the people who root out corruption in government, and then he got busy.

Our Attorney General, Pam Bondi, ruled that accepting Qatar’s gift of a jet doesn’t violate the Emoluments Clause, but she took a bribe from Trump years ago to stop investigating Trump University in Florida, and she used to be a lobbyist for…wait for it…Qatar.

By accepting the gift, Trump announced to the rest of the world that he’s open for business, and corruption is his business. If you thought his first regime was corrupt, as Bachman-Turner Overdrive would say, you ain’t seen nothing yet, B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-Baby.

In the first regime, Trump and the Trump Organization said it wouldn’t create “new” business with foreign nations. In Trump 2.0, they announced that they WILL take in new business from foreign nations, and they just secured a bunch of golf resorts and other real estate deals in the three nations Trump visited this week, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

The Trump Org. is now involved in six Middle Eastern real estate projects sponsored by Dar Global, the international subsidiary of a Saudi-based firm with close ties to the Saudi royal family. It gets worse.

Don Sniffy Jr. and his buddies have created a new private club in Washington, DC that costs $500,000 to join. It’s called the Executive Club. The purpose of the club is to sell access to Trump and officials in the regime. Remember when Republicans howled about Hunter Biden selling access to his father, and felt the need to waste a lot of our money investigating it? There’s no investigation needed here because they’re doing it out in the open.

And then there’s $Trump Crypto.

Trump used to hate crypto and has posted in the past, “I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air.”

He also said, “Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity.”

And he said that bitcoin “just seems like a scam,” and it’s a “disaster waiting to happen,” and “I think they should regulate them very, very high.”

It must be true that it’s a scam that can facilitate unlawful behavior because now, Trump LOVES crypto and has created his own. In fact, $Trump Crypto was created in January, three days before he was inaugurated, and promised to make the United States “the crypto capital of the planet.” And then the crypto industry donated $18 million to his inauguration, where donations go to disappear…which is much like how crypto works.

Foreigners are jumping to donate to $Trump, including a tiny TikTok e-commerce company with ties to the Chinese government that has zero revenue, yet found the funds to buy $300 million of $Trump Crypto, just when Trump is delaying the shutdown of TikTok in America. Now we know why the delay was instituted. Maybe that’s why he’s delaying tariffs on China for 90 days. There are 90s days to bribe Trump not to place 145 percent tariffs on China.

Follow the money. Follow the shell game.

If you need further proof that Trump is taking bribes, then listen to this: If you buy enough of $TRUMP Criminal, oops… $Trump Crypto to become one of its top 220 investors, then you’ll get to attend an “intimate private” dinner with him later this month. If you buy enough to become one of the top 25, you will win a “VIP White House Tour.” And if you give him a plane, you’ll get to spend the night with Trump in the Lincoln Bedroom, and with guaranteed spooning time.

Trump is not even hiding that he’s selling access and using the White House to grift.

According to Bloomberg, $Trump Criminal, I mean Crypto, is nearing the value of $1 billion. Did you know the value of the Trump family has increased by nearly $4 billion since January? At that rate, their value will be $32 billion by the time Trump 2.0 is “supposed” to end. Also, at this rate, by the time 2029 gets here, Trump will have eight 747s.

And finally, the Justice Department disbanded a division dedicated to investigating cryptocurrency crimes, declared that meme coins are no longer subject to regulatory oversight, and paused a fraud case against a top crypto mogul who pumped $75 million into $Trump Criminal…oops, I mean Trump Crypto.

Now we know how Diddy can beat the rap, and getting a pardon from Trump is not out of the question. According to Rolling Stone, Diddy’s people are talking to Trump’s people.

Trump has attended Diddy’s parties, which are often called “freak offs.” Tiffany Trump has attended the “freak offs.” Trump and Diddy have both said they like each other. They’ve both been prosecuted in cases involving sex or sex abuse. They were both tried in Manhattan. They have a lot in common. They’re both criminals because Trump stole classified documents and Diddy stole Every Breath You Take by the Police.

How much $Trump Criminal can Diddy buy? Oops.

I meant $Trump Crypto.

Creative note: One of my concerns with this cartoon is that it may be too subtle. Well, too subtle for MAGAts maybe.
The bribe in the cartoon was originally a 747, but I realized I hadn’t hit the $Trump Crypto bribes yet. Oops.

I meant $Trump Criminal.

Music note: I listened to some tunes today that have been remastered, and they sounded much better before the remastering. Yo, remastering MoFos. Some of us like to hear the bass.

I did not listen to Diddy.

Drawn in 30 seconds: (snip-go see it)

Appeals Court Decides In Favor of First Amendment to US Constitution

Hamburger Mary’s Goes to the 11th Circuit by Joyce Vance

A case you need to know about! Read on Substack

This post is about a case that could be easily overlooked with so much Trump news spewing through the fire hose these days. But Florida’s continued aggression in the culture wars has the potential to affect all of us. So, as here, when a brave plaintiff takes its case to court and wins, it’s news we all need to know about.

On Tuesday, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals decided HM Florida-ORL, LLC v. Sec. of Florida DBPR, a case involving Hamburger Mary’s, a restaurant and bar in Orlando that regularly hosted drag performances, including family-friendly shows. When the Florida legislature passed SB 1438 in 2023, Hamburger Mary’s canceled its family-friendly drag shows and prohibited minors from attending any of its other shows out of fear of losing its business and/or liquor license. As a result, Hamburger Mary’s lost 20% of its bookings.

The new law gave state agencies the power to target LGBTQ+ friendly businesses in two major ways:

  • It gave the Department of Business and Professional Regulation discretionary authority to fine, revoke liquor licenses, and even shut down establishments.
  • It made it a crime to admit young people to any performance, exhibit, play, or show that the state deems inappropriate, even if the child’s parents think it is appropriate for their family.

The bill was an effort by conservative politicians, led by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, to impose their beliefs on the entire state. It was a major salvo in the culture wars. Their too-clever-by-half mechanism was to punish private businesses that included or supported the LGBTQ+ community in order to exclude that community from being a public presence in Florida. The law’s language was so vague that businesses had no realistic way of knowing what it prohibited, meaning they had to take the extreme steps Hamburger Mary’s took to pull back their offerings in order to avoid the risk they’d be put out of business.

So, Hamburger Mary’s filed a lawsuit against Florida, its governor, and Secretary of the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (FDBPR) Melanie Griffin, seeking a preliminary injunction that would keep the state from enforcing its law while the litigation proceeded. The district court granted the preliminary injunction and the Secretary appealed to the Eleventh Circuit.

The issue in the case involves the First Amendment, as you’ve probably figured out by now. Although the technical legal issue was whether the district court had been correct to grant the injunction, the substantive issue is whether Florida’s Senate Bill 1438 (“The Protection of Children Act”), which prohibits children from attending “adult live performances,” is unconstitutional under the First Amendment, because it is both vaguene and overly broad.

The Eleventh Circuit ruled in Hamburger Mary’s favor, keeping the injunction against enforcement of SB 1438 in place, because the panel believed the law was likely unconstitutional—both too vague for people to understand what they could and couldn’t do to remain in compliance with it and overbroad in its supposed efforts to protect children without regard to their parents’ views.

It’s significant that this decision comes out of the conservative Eleventh Circuit, although admittedly, the composition of this panel, which included both an Obama and a Biden appointee, is unusual. Florida could seek en banc review from the full court, in hopes of getting a more favorable hearing. The decision was 2-1. The third judge on the panel, Senior Judge Gerald Bard Tjoflat, was appointed by President Gerald Ford. His objection to the majority’s decision primarily involved a belief that the injunction came too early, and the courts should have demurred until they saw how the state enforced the law in practice.

Among the most interesting points made in the opinion:

  • The Court found the penalties for violations under SB 1438 “grievous.” The penalties for violations include a $5,000 fine for a first offense or a misdemeanor prison sentence of up to a year.
  • On protecting First Amendment rights, they noted that “The government cannot shroud rules in foggy language and then blame would-be speakers for their fears of what may lurk in the fog.” Laws like this use vagueness as a means to get private individuals and businesses to obey in advance, staying as far back as possible from the line of conduct the law prohibits in order to avoid the consequences of violating it. In this way, the state restricts far more First Amendment-protected conduct than they are legally entitled to. The panel wasn’t having any of it. It noted the importance of securing “breathing room for free expression” in a case like this.
  • We’ve seen injunction cases before, so we know that Hamburger Mary’s had to demonstrate it was likely to succeed on the merits of its claim in order to get the injunction. The court underscored the point above when it found that they met this burden, discussing the “chilling effect” laws like this have, and the way they discourage people from speaking their minds, even if their speech doesn’t fall squarely within what the law prohibits. They noted that “[T]he Act’s vagueness…means it is likely to stifle a substantial amount of protected speech,” explaing that at oral argument, the state had been unable to explain, for instance, how to decide what kind of performances would be acceptable for kids of different ages, which the law requires venues to do to avoid penalties. They concluded, “If the Secretary’s attorney can’t articulate the difference, it’s hard to imagine how we could expect performance proprietors to know what the Act means.”

At least for now, the First Amendment is still alive and kicking in Florida. The majority in this case held that the state was trying to “empower those who would limit speech” but that “the First Amendment empowers speakers instead.” “Requiring clarity in speech regulations,” the court wrote, “shields us from the whims of government censors.” This case is important for Floridians and for the LGBTQ+ community. Beyond that, in a time when our rights are under attack, it’s important for all of us.

We’re in this together,

Joyce