On Monday, Secretary of Health (sick) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. removed all 17 members of the vaccine advisory committee for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
RFK Jr. said in a statement, “A clean sweep is necessary to reestablish public confidence in vaccine science. ACIP (Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices) new members will prioritize public health and evidence-based medicine. The Committee will no longer function as a rubber stamp for industry profit-taking agendas.”
RFK Jr. is a rubber stamp for conspiracy theories.
The American Medical Association said Kennedy’s decision undermines “trust and upends a transparent process that has saved countless lives.”
In 2019, RFK Jr. engaged in spreading conspiracy theories and misinformation that helped spread a measles outbreak in Samoa that killed at least 83 people, mostly babies, in that nation.
RFK Jr is an agent of bullshit and only an insane person would listen to him, less enough, put him in charge of the nation’s health. (snip-MORE, and it’s really good!)
Right before Senator Alex Padilla of California was frog-marched out of the room and handcuffed, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said she was going to “liberate” Los Angeles “from the socialists and the burdensome leadership this governor and mayor have placed on this country and this city.”
What happened to the National Guard and the Marines being deployed to Los Angeles to stop non-existent riots? Now it’s “liberate” the city from socialist and “burdensome” leadership? Does that mean Noem plans to overthrow Mayor Karen Bass and Governor Gavin Newsom with the military?
On one hand, the regime is trying to portray what’s going on in LA as a rebellion or insurrection, and on the other hand, they’re talking about staging their own rebellion and insurrection.
Noem, the lying pig she is (I want to use another word that many wouldn’t like), claims Senator Padilla “lunged” toward the stage, and after hearing her plans to “liberate” Los Angeles, who could blame him? Except he didn’t “lunge” toward her.
If you’re in the right in a situation, then why are you lying? Kristi Noem is lying about what happened yesterday with Senator Alex Padilla.
Was Padilla “lunging” here? You don’t see it. You don’t see it from this angle, either. But you do hear him identify himself. So when Noem and other Republicans say he didn’t, you know they’re lying. If they’re lying to cover their actions, then you know they’re wrong. They know they’re wrong.
Noem also claims the senator “barged” into the building. That’s a lie. He was escorted into the building and into the room where Noem was having her press conference. He was escorted into the room by an FBI agent and a member of the California National Guard. It was a federal building, which means nobody is getting in there without going through security first. There’s no way she could think Padilla was an angry “illegal” there to steal her purse.
Padilla, who has a reputation in Washington of being extremely nice and kinda nerdy, was no threat to Noem in this federal building. She didn’t seem concerned at all about a guy “lunging” toward her, as she barely paused her yammering while he was being dragged away by her goons.
Noem and her security detail claim they didn’t recognize Padilla, but I call bullshit on this one. It seems before going to California, Noem would familiarize herself with some of the players, like the mayor of Los Angeles, the governor of California, House reps of the area, and the state’s two senators. I’m sure she would have recognized Adam Schiff and Gavin Newsom, so why didn’t she recognize Senior Senator Alex Padilla? Why didn’t her security? If nothing else, he was identifying himself and wearing a shirt with the Senate logo.
She’s also the director of Homeland Security, which deals with immigration. So, shouldn’t be somewhat familiar with the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, and Border Safety.
The only somewhat acceptable reason that Kristi Noem didn’t recognize Senator Alex Padilla is that she’s fucking stupid. I can believe that she’s a moron, but I don’t buy that she nor her security could recognize United States Senator Alex Padilla. Plus, you can’t trust the word of anyone who would shoot a puppy.
And because Republicans are vile evil scum, Speaker Mike Johnson, even without looking this, wants to censure Padilla for his actions. What actions? Being brown? Being a child of Mexican immigrants? This is like the cop who pulls people over for being Black.
Padilla’s crime here is that he cares about the people ICE is going after, that he does his job, he’s a Democrat, and he’s non-White. I would love to see that in the empty censure Johnson is dreaming up.
Padilla’s biggest crime might be that he dared to question Kristi Noem.
The goons are using the military to shut down protests. They don’t want to be questioned. For the love of god, they literally handcuffed a United States Senator for challenging them.
Noem admitted it. The military is in Los Angeles to replace its elected leadership.
Republicans want to punish Padilla, but for what? Interrupting? After saying she was there to use the military to replace elected leadership, she should be interrupted. She needs to be questioned after proposing replacing California’s leadership with a military junta.
Every American needs to question Noem about this. Every Republican should question her. And for the love of god, every journalist needs to question, so long as the LAPD doesn’t shoot them in the process.
Alex Padilla stood up and questioned her, just like he should have. Alex Padilla didn’t just do his job, but did his duty as a patriotic American, which is more than can be said for every Republican who has folded to Donald Trump.
Every single one of us needs to be more like Alex Padilla. Today, Alex Padilla is my hero.
What would Alex Padilla do? He would do the right thing, and he did. (snip-MORE)
I still don’t understand why people can’t just come here from other countries & stay. Personally, the fraud, & waste is all the money spent adjudicating citizenship. Think of all the money we’d save & tax revenue that would generate. It’s like private health insurance companies. Like, whyyyy?
Just in: David Hogg is leaving his position as DNC vice chair after the party voted to redo the role's election.This follows intense infighting, and as Hogg told us, anger with his plan to oust what he called "asleep at the wheel" incumbents in primaries around the US.🎧 Listen to the ep here.
#GVerse #EnoughIsEnough – ICE seems to have kidnapped 6 roofers in South Florida who were here legally. ICE just left their truck on the side of the road and told no one. Even this #Taco47 supporter in the below video is angry about what #TyranicalShit47 did to these men. youtu.be/uEIlQuH6OCc
No one from the LGBTQIA+ community has ever knocked on my door and offered me pamphlets or invitations to come be gay with them. But religious people are always in my comments or at my door wanting me to pray to their god. So who’s shoving their agenda down whose throats?
Goldman: "These are people doing in the right way, who are nonviolent, noncriminal, and they're getting arrested. So what message does that send? Obviously it sends the message, 'Go further underground. Don't appear in court. Don't pay your taxes' … that's just going to make the public less safe."
MSNBC reports there are Black Hawk helicopters flying over STRAWBERRY FIELDS in Ventura Country CA. Helicopters that are used in war. I guess strawberries are the new national security threat.
It took THREE WEEKS to get this indictment. I have to ask; how many grand juries did they shop before getting the indictment? http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/con…
i am not being pollyannish when i insist that the people who sign up do not sign up to advance a president’s domestic political agenda http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025…
Bears constant repeating: Fear is the goal. That goal is unconscionable and abhorrent. "Trump will want to make the public believe they can remove anyone and everyone. That terror will have real consequences."
On June 14—Flag Day—Donald Trump wants tanks in the street and a made-for-TV display of dominance for his birthday. A spectacle meant to look like strength. But real power isn’t staged in Washington. It rises up everywhere else.
Instead of allowing this birthday parade to be the center of gravity, we will make action everywhere else the story of America that day: people coming together in communities across the country to reject strongman politics and corruption.
For that reason, NO KINGS is not hosting an event in Washington, D.C. We will instead have a major flagship march and rally in Philadelphia to draw a clear contrast between our people-powered movement and the costly, wasteful, and un-American birthday parade in Washington. You can RSVP for the Philadelphia event here.
For participants in the D.C. area, we encourage you to join us in Philadelphia, find a local NO KINGS mobilization in Virginia or Maryland, or join our partners at Free D.C. for DC Joy Day, a community-led event in the District.
ICE is abducting US citizens out in the open to provoke a response. They're doing this on purpose to escalate and then play the victim when people protest.
: blah blah blah disingenuous disingenuous disingenuous. Bryn McDonnell: $134M for the deployment to LA. (That may cover just the Guard.)
Dan Przygoda
@dprzygoda
It’s going to cost $134 MILLION for National Guard troops to be here in LA for the next 60 days. That’s a lot of $$$ spent for them to sleep on concrete floors & stand outside Federal buildings (which LAPD could do on its own) while the GOP wants to gut Medicaid and VA benefits
Here in America, Journalists have never had to worry so much for their physical safety. That’s one reason why political cartoonist, Cameron Cardow, pissed me off so much when he started working as “Rivers,” an anonymous cartoonist pretending his life was in danger for supporting Donald Trump with lies and conspiracy theories while being a Canadian pretending to be an American.
If anything, Cam working anonymously, with the aid of syndicate boss Daryl Cagle, was threatening journalism by telling editors that it wouldn’t violate their ethics policies because political cartoonists are not journalists. Rivers has since quit, but Cagle is still doing his best to undermine political cartoonists as journalists.
Just in case they’re reading this, Daryl, you’re a huge disappointment who fails to exercise responsibility or even quality control when distributing misinformation powered by racism. Next time we meet, we’re gonna have a talk. Cam, you’re just a lying piece of shit, but I’m thankful for your career change and hope you’re doing well, at least well enough not to come back to cartooning.
There are other places outside the United States where being a journalist can be very dangerous. Mexico can be a very bad place for journalists, not so much from the government but from drug cartels. Murderers of journalists in Haiti are likely to go unpunished. Pakistan is considered extremely dangerous for a reporter. The wars in Myanmar and Sudan are also killing journalists.
No deaths of journalists from White Genocide in South Africa have been reported, maybe because there’s no White Genocide in South Africa.
Since 2014, at least 17 journalists have been killed in the Russo-Ukrainian War. Since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, at least 184 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza.
12 people were killed in Paris, which is not a war zone, in 2015 at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, by terrorists angered by cartoons of Muhammad in 2012. Five of the 12 killed were cartoonists.
Here in the United States, despite Rivers’ cowardice, a political cartoonist has never been assassinated. The biggest threat to our press freedom here comes from the owners of news outlets, as they all bow in fear before Tiny TACO. But that might be changing. (snip-MORE)
The one who should be going to prison by Ann Telnaes
Trump calls for jailing people who burn the U.S. flag Read on Substack
More proof Trump doesn’t respect the First Amendment and isn’t familiar with the Supreme Court decision protecting flag-burning.
Later today I will post three updates. Kamyk is doing much better, Ron leaves for NH today, and I am facing the eye doctor not being able to clear up my sight. Possible cataract surgery time. More details later. Hugs
I don’t think people should engage in violence and vandalism and I don’t think federal agents should provoke people to engage in violence and vandalism. Too many law enforcement officers sworn to protect and serve now look and act like they are in Fallujah.
And now Trump is deploying the Marines. There is no need for this, and it’s illegal.
The situation in Los Angeles doesn’t require military assistance. There are already 2,100 guard troops in the area with another 2,000 on the way, and now 700 Marines will join the party at a cost of around $134 million to taxpayers, which is five Trump golf trips, or three Trump birthday parades.
The military is deploying 9,000 troops for the parade.
Back to LA, these are protests, not riots. But Trump’s trying to create a riot.
Trump posted on Monday, “IF THEY SPIT, WE WILL HIT, and I promise you they will be hit harder than they have ever been hit before. Such disrespect will not be tolerated!” Remember, this is the guy who pardoned White nationalists MAGAt terrorists who attacked cops on January 6, 2021. They did a lot more than spitting.
Trump is also praising himself, saying that Los Angeles would have “burned to the ground” if he hadn’t called in the National Guard. The protests are in a small area in the city of 4 million people. There were only around 400 protesters when Trump decided he should call in the military.
Trump wants a riot because it’ll give him more excuses to expand his power and extend his authoritarianism. Calling in more soldiers and Marines creates a much more hostile atmosphere, and creates more protests in other cities, which Trump will use to deploy more of the military to fight civilians. Trump is fanning the flames. In another post, he said we will “Liberate Los Angeles from the Migrant Invasion, and put an end to these Migrant riots. Order will be restored, the Illegals will be expelled, and Los Angeles will be set free.”
That post is designed to create riots. (snip-MORE, and it’s on point)
Since I blogged about this issue yesterday, and I just finished my second cartoon of the day (for the FXBG Advance, which you’ll see tomorrow), we’re going to talk about some of the fallout of the Elon/Trump War.
Trump is thinking of selling the cherry red Tesla S he bought from Elon to throw some public support and propaganda his way after Tesla’s stock took a huge hit. Since Elon started gutting the government, a lot of Tesla owners have buyer’s remorse and have been selling their cars. Now, Trump has buyer’s remorse.
Presidents can’t drive on public roads, and Trump can’t drive at all. Trump buying a car would be like me buying a helicopter. I can’t fly a helicopter. If anything, Trump should buy Jeffrey Epstein’s plane. That would be more accurate symbolism, especially if what Elon said about the Epstein Files is true.
I’m sure there’s a MAGAt out there with too much money who would overpay for Trump’s Tesla, other wise, the value has dropped about 28 percent, even if it’s slightly used and fart-free (though Trump did sit in it for a minute which is probably long enough for him to blast a few dozen and christen the car. (snip-MORE)
I thought I’d be up super late last night, and planned to watch news coverage of the L.A. protests until the wee hours of the morning. But I felt out of sorts all day yesterday, which infected my cartooning, and sleepiness hit me heavy at 11 p.m. after a dinner of runny egg salad sandwiches (I had to do something with a dozen recently-expired eggs before leaving town Saturday, and I used too much mayo), so I went to bed.
I woke up at 5 a.m. this morning, and I was ready to go. But I dreaded turning on my TV. I was afraid I’d find nothing but coverage of deaths and a city burning. But no, I didn’t find any of that. The most disturbing thing I learned was that Lauren Tomasi, a reporter from Australia’s Channel 9 News, was struck by a rubber bullet while she was doing her job. (snip-MORE)
The Advance included a note with my cartoons this morning as it often does, and today’s said:
Mail delivery in our area — indeed, in the Commonwealth — is a problem. Don’t take our word for it. Take former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger’s word for it. Her work uncovered delays galore, and the state consistently rates as one of the worst in the country for mail delivery. So when the downtown post office recently shutdown for, well, whatever reason it was closed for, there was mumbling, but not much of an uproar. Clay certainly noticed, however.
This cartoon was inspired by my own grievances, and it’s the second time the local post office has pissed me off enough to draw a cartoon. Louis DeJoy has inspired others.
The first time was back in December, when they raised the rates to my mailbox and then shut down the branch containing that mailbox. (snip-MORE)
Donald Trump is deploying the National Guard, not to stop riots or for safety, but to start a fight. And he’s doing it illegally.
ICE is conducting raids in the Los Angeles area. They’re not going after criminals, but average citizens who may just so happen to be undocumented. I don’t use the word “illegal” to describe humans unless it’s in the context of someone else using it. Humans are not illegal.
When the National Guard is deployed, it’s usually at the request of a governor or other officials. Yet, neither the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, nor Governor Gavin Newsom has requested military aid, like what happened during the Rodney King riots in 1992.
There has been some violence, such as cars being set on fire and other property damage, but to a small extent. The L.A.P.D. can handle these protests, which are legal.
Governor Newsom said Trump’s decision to call in the National Guard is “purposefully inflammatory.” He’s right.
Trump wants everyone to sit back and allow him to do whatever he wants. Not getting that, he wants a fight. He wants protesters to get violent. He wants L.A. to burn. He wants blood. He wants to point at the city and blame a Democratic mayor and a Democratic governor. He wants to blame liberals and Democrats. He wants to portray himself as the law-and-order president (sic), while he’s the president (sic) who pardoned the white nationalist J6 terrorists who attacked law enforcement. (snip-MORE)
The President can call National Guard soldiers up for active duty but once they do that they CANNOT be used for domestic police functions. If the President seeks use the National Guard for police enforcement, the Governors have to agree to allow it and the guard must remain under their control
ICE are a clear and present danger to every person in the United States. They're a fascist gestapo operating without any accountability. Abolishing ICE is the compromise.
Scottie's Playtime 