Byrne said he preferred to let school boards decide if local curricula include topics on consent. “(Teaching about consent) can still happen. We’re just not going to require that in this bill,” he said. “This is a sensitive subject for many. I believe it may be different thoughts in different communities, and … this leaves, for the most part, local control on making those decisions.”
Where are these communities where they may have ‘different thoughts’ on consent?
Any community that has thoughts that consent to sex isn’t important are the communities were teaching consent (i.e. the fucking law!) is absolutely critical.
Ironic how the very same people bitching about the LGBTQ shoving our lifestyles down their throats specifically choose not to teach children about consent.
The religious right has been fighting against consent as a factor in sexual relations for at least 30 years now. They used to claim that it was because they only believed in sex between married (opposite sex) couples, but it’s become clear that they are against teaching about consent because most of their leaders are rapists.
Yes. These are the people who refuse to convict men accused of raping ten year old girls because “she was asking for it “ (tight jeans, walking alone, going to a party at another family’s house) (not said: poor or non-white or intellectually or physically handicapped – defending the high school football players who gang-raped a Down’s syndrome girl student).
Why teach consent when you can teach “slashing a tire to get someone to ride home with you so you can divorce your wife and get married to the younger model instead” like Jesse Watters did?
“We’re going to miss you, Pete,” is a phrase no one will be saying Read on Substack
Let it be known that just because you might look and sound good on TV, it doesn’t qualify you to be Defense Secretary (and you didn’t look or sound good on TV or anywhere else, Pete). Nobody wants Alan Alda to conduct surgery on them because he played a convincing Hawkeye on M.A.S.H. Though, I’m sure Alan Alda would make a better Secretary of Defense than Pete Hegseth.
For that matter, Michael Douglas, Martin Sheen, Morgan Freeman, Harrison Ford, Bill Pullman, Terry Crews, and Tommy Lister would all make a better president than our current one (sic).
Remember when a journalist was added to a Pete Hegseth-led government group chat containing classified information about an upcoming strike against Houthi rebels in Yemen? Pete did it twice.
Minutes before American fighter jets took off to begin strikes against the Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen last month, Army Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, who leads U.S. Central Command, used a secure U.S. government system to send detailed information about the operation to Hegseth.
The material Kurilla sent included details about when US fighters would take off and when they would hit their targets. These were the kind of details that if they fell into the wrong hands, could put the pilots’ lives at severe risk. But this is what the general was supposed to do, provide his superior (oh, dear god), with information he needed to know and using a system specifically designed to safely transmit sensitive and classified information. So what did Pete do with this information? He shared it with the wrong people. (snip-MORE)
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Trump’s tattoos by Ann Telnaes
Trump shows a doctored photo of Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s Read on Substack
It seems Stafford County has always been staunchly conservative, but Joe Biden won the county in 2020 and 2024, barely…but he won. Blue Northern Virginia stopped at Stafford, but maybe that’s changing.
Yet, the Board of Supervisors is majority Republican, but it wasn’t that long ago when they held all the seats. But despite the board being majority GOP, taxes are still going up.
Hell, taxes aren’t just going up in Stafford. Donald Trump is raising our taxes while trying to cute them for billionaire assholes, such as himself. Trump is raising taxes while denying they’re taxes. They’re called tariffs, and Trump claims other nations pay them, not US taxpayers. If you’re not an idiot, you know that’s true.
The Board of Supervisors voted to advertise a one percent increase to the meals tax and a two percent increase to the transient occupancy tax. The three percent tax increase isn’t a bad thing, though, as it’s going to public schools. At least Republicans in Stafford are trying to help public schools, while Trump is trying to destroy them. Well, most of them. Not every member voted for the tax increase.
This three percent increase is a lower hike than the recent hikes to my Cox WiFi service, Netflix, Disney Plus, Peacock, Prime, and the giant increase in YouTube TV.
The County Administrator requested a five percent increase, but he only got three. To keep the increase low, the Board is cutting other things like new cars for the sheriffs department, delaying raises, and cutting $5,000 from the Christmas lights budget. Governments shouldn’t have Christmas budgets. We need more separation of church and state.
Creative note: I usually draw my cartoons for the Advance on Friday evenings or Saturday afternoons. I drew this one Thursday night.
Drawn in 30 seconds (turn up your volume): (Go see and listen!)
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Bluto by Clay Jones
The regime wants to make Harvard more like Trump University Read on Substack
Trump has been pushing everyone around, from the courts to law offices to corporations to governors to media outlets to fellow Republicans to world leaders to universities. Many of those, like The Washington Post, CBS, and Facebook, obeyed before he even started pushing. But two that pushed back are Janet Mills, the Governor of Maine, and Harvard.
During a meeting with governors in the White House, Trump asked, “Is Maine here?” He probably forgot her name.
Trump’s memory for grievances was calling back to a moment during the pandemic in 2020 when he referred to Mills as a “dictator,” and she replied, “I have spent the better part of my career listening to loud men talk tough to disguise their weakness.” She’s got his number.
Back to the White House (sic) meeting, Trump bullied Mills to ignore an anti-discrimination law in her state that allows transgender athletes to participate in girls’ and women’s sports. Trump threatened to cut off funding for Maine at the White House event with governors if the law persisted. Mills replied, “See you in court.”
When you listen to Republicans, you would believe that men are intentionally cutting their nuts off to play women’s volleyball.
Later, Trump claimed her talking back to him was…wait for it…”illegal.” This is probably the “nastiest” a woman has talked to him since that time a woman wouldn’t sell him Greenland, or that other time a woman in Puerto Rico told him, “No, you’re doing a shitty job with hurricane recovery, you bloviating fartknocker,” or that time a female Speaker out-negotiated him, or that time a woman said his penis looked like a cartoon mushroom, or that time a woman dared to run against him, or that other time a woman dared to run against him.
Since then, the federal government has barraged the state with investigations, declared its education system to be in violation of federal law, and frozen some of its funding. Maine sued the Trump administration on April 7, doubling down on its defiance as it began the legal fight that Governor Mills promised at the White House.
Governor Janet Mills has bigger balls than every male governor in this nation combined, and she cracked Trump’s little nuts like it was a Maine Lobster.
Trump is also waging war with universities, especially Ivy League schools. He’s demanding that schools ban “woke,” and the regime is revoking student visas and has sent goons to kidnap foreign students without pressing criminal charges, and holding them in detention facilities in the Deep South.
The Trump regime is accusing Harvard of violating students’ civil rights (which is ironic, coming from the regime that violates students’ civil and constitutional rights). The regime is also accusing its leaders of breaching Title VI, the federal law that bars federal funding to any school found to violate civil rights.
The regime claims that Harvard was failing to keep Jewish and pro-Israel students safe by allowing antisemitism on campus.
Most of the claims of antisemitism during the protests from last year are not true. I’m sure hatred and harassment happened here and there, and from both sides, but it wasn’t widespread or condoned by any university. I don’t believe Muslim students were beating up Jewish students outside a dean’s window at any university, and he said, “Eh, kids will be kids.”
The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, an independent non-profit that tracks political violence and political protests around the world, found that 97 percent of campus demonstrations over the war in Gaza have been peaceful. It analyzed 553 US campus demonstrations nationwide and found that fewer than 20 resulted in any serious interpersonal violence or property damage.
Republicans lie about the Gaza protests like they lie about Black Lives Matter protests (who was that who brought a gun to a BLM protest and shot people? Oh, yeah. Kyle Fucking Rittenhouse).
The non-profit also documented at least 70 instances of forceful police intervention against students, including the arrest of demonstrators and the use of physical dispersal tactics, including the deployment of chemical agents, batons, and other kinds of physical force.
Last Monday, Harvard refused to submit to extensive government oversight while overhauling its governance, admissions, and hiring practices, calling the orders illegal and unconstitutional.
According to Harvard’s President, Alan Garber, those demands include requirements to ‘audit’ the viewpoints of the student body, faculty, staff, and to “reduce the power” of certain students, faculty, and administrators targeted because of their ideological views.”
The Trump regime retaliated by freezing $2.2 billion in federal funding to the university and threatened to revoke its tax-exempt status.
This is bullshit. The Trump regime doesn’t care about antisemitism on college campuses any more than they care about it coming from within the Trump regime. When Trump was elected in 2016 (sic), hate crimes increased substantially. We never heard Trump express outrage about that. Instead, he defended it. When tiki-torch Nazis chanted “Jews will not replace us” and “Blood and soil” shortly before they murdered Heather Heyer, an anti-racism protester in Charlottesville, Trump defended the Nazis (they had a permit!) Maybe he got a free tiki torch out of it. Who knows?
Trump doesn’t hate antisemites. Instead of condemning them, he invites them to lunch at MAGA-Lardo. Trump dined with racists and antisemites Ye and Nick Fuentas at one of his shitty golf resorts. That kinda sets a bad example for Harvard to follow, doesn’t it?
Republicans have always pushed the narrative that education is bad somehow, and people who went to college should be spited, condemned, spit on, and treated like polo-loving foie gras eaters. They push the narrative that people with higher education look down on the rest of America. They often talk about the “East Coast Elite,” or “elitists.”
Some people do act like that.
I was recently kinda seeing a woman who is as liberal as I am, and during a conversation about how members of both of our families are Trumpers, she mentioned that some of her family members, who live in the Midwest, considered her to be among the “East Coast Elite.” You know, a snob who looks down on people. When I told her I kinda get the same thing, she became quickly annoyed, and said I couldn’t be considered a member of the “East Coast Elite” because I didn’t have a PhD, which she has. I was just some bum who dropped out of college to go surfing and draw cartoons, and it wasn’t even a snooty college I dropped out of. She started off criticizing the notion that there is an “East Coast Elite,” and then started acting as if she were a bona fide member of it. Later, she took me to a party and was “called out,” as she put it, that it was only for “serious people,” and I haven’t seen her since. As you can tell, I still have a little attitude about that.
Maybe it is all my fault. Someone at the party told me they had season tickets to the orchestra, and I told them that was awesome and to let me know if they make the playoffs. See? I’m not a serious person.
While I don’t like stuck-up obnoxious boring assholes who look down on people as if they’re better than them, I also don’t like hypocrites. Who am I talking about?
The vice president (sic), JD CouchFucker Vance, is all in on this attack on Ivy League schools, but it should be noted that he’s a graduate of Yale, an Ivy League school. Another Yale man is Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth went to Princeton and Harvard. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum didn’t go to an Ivy League school, but he did go to Stanford, which is private and snooty enough. Howard Lutnick, Commerce Secretary, also went to a private school, Haverford College. RFK Jr, secretary of health and weird conspiracy theories, also went to Harvard and three other universities. The Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, went to MIT and Berkeley, which is a hippy school. Right? John Ratcliffe, head of the CIA, went to Notre Dame. Jamieson Greer, Trump’s trade rep, went to Brigham Young, which is another private school (and founded by a guy with 56 wives and 52 more kids than Donald Trump has).
Where did Donald Trump matriculate? Trump went to the Wharton School, which is not a daycare but the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, and the last time I checked, it is an Ivy League school.
Trump is like one of those people who travels the world and somehow fails to take any of it in, and returns home still a knuckle-dragging moron with an inability to comprehend simple thoughts. Donald Trump went to an Ivy League school and came out still behaving like Donald Trump. That gives me the impression he only “went” there. It’s like that guy who visits France and complains that the croissants aren’t croissandwiches.
Turning a croissant into a croissandwich would be like turning Harvard into Trump University.
Creative note: This cartoon is dedicated to John Belushi. I believe his work is an influence on my cartoons.
This was interesting: Last night, I ran into an ex (of sorts) who is involved in the local theater scene. She invited me to audition for a part in an upcoming play, saying she thinks I would be a good fit for it. I haven’t acted since the sixth grade, but I was the lead (there hasn’t been a better Pecos Bill since). I was intrigued and wanted to audition this morning, but not to get the part, but just to see if I could do it. I didn’t go because I had to draw this cartoon.
I just want you readers to know that I gave up being the next Brad Pitt for you.
If you look past the Matt Walsh crap Hasan gets to talking about people who are passing as the gender they identify as. And that is one reason why the red states are pushing so hard to trans block kids from using puberty blockers while allowing them for cis kids, they work and are safe but the trans kids won’t go through the wrong puberty giving them the wrong features we normally associate with genders. These people are terrified they won’t recognize who is trans because they pass so well. It shouldn’t be the issue I know as many wonderful trans people who had to go through the wrong puberty are still the gender they know and identify as. Sadly two things are at work. The two groups working together to stop trans positive or any positive LGBTQ+ inclusion / equality are the fundamentalist religious groups who think the entire world should run according to their faith … yet they have different faiths so … and the republican politicians who use it as a way to win votes and keep their base outraged. Both groups have their own agenda and they both ignore science and facts to create the narrative / outrage they desire rather than create a peaceful loving inclusive society. Oh I guess I forgot the white supremacist Nazi’s but they really fall under the Fundamentalist Christian banner right? Hugs.
This came in email a few days ago. The email has a few stories in it that are pertinent to our interests. This was going to be a snippet post of those, but as I read this, I realized everyone needs to read it all, because there’s not much opinionating in it, but/and the actual information does not stop.
Today, members of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) gutted the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS). As of this afternoon, all staff members have been placed on administrative leave. They received a letter from the Director of Human Resources that the leave would be paid for 90 days and that no one will be allowed on IMLS property during that time.
The union representing IMLS staff, AFGE Local 3403, indicated that the decision to fire staff came after a short meeting between DOGE and IMLS leadership. Everyone working at IMLS was required to return government property before exiting the workplace.
Email addresses for all IMLS staff were being disabled today. Those with questions or concerns over IMLS funding will no longer be able to reach the individual or individuals with whom they’d been working.
Further, all processing work on 2025 funding applications is over and there is no information about the status of awards that have already been granted for the year. The union believes most grants will simply be terminated.
IMLS makes up .0046% of the federal budget.
Two weeks ago, President Trump issued an Executive Order targeting funds allocated to libraries and museums nationwide. The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is a federal agency that distributes fund approved by Congress to state libraries, as well as library, museum, and archival grant programs. IMLS is the only federal agency that provides funds to libraries. The Executive Order states that the functions of the IMLS have to be reduced to “statutory functions” and that in places that are not statutory, expenses must be cut as much as possible.
One week later, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) entered the IMLS offices. Many at IMLS were prepared to see their jobs disappear, but that didn’t quite happen. Instead, DOGE installed a new Acting Director of the agency, Deputy Secretary of Labor Keith E. Sonderling.
It wasn’t just a new Acting Director, though. The IMLS took on a new direction thanks to the Executive Order and DOGE. It would now operate “in lockstep with this Administration to enhance efficiency and foster innovation. We will revitalize IMLS and restore focus on patriotism, ensuring we preserve our country’s core values, promote American exceptionalism and cultivate love of country in future generations.”
The new goal of the administration with the IMLS is for it to function as a propaganda machine. This wouldn’t be the first nor the last federal cultural institution to see its mission shift from serving the needs and interests of all of America. On March 28, the administration would issue another Executive Order, this time demanding that the Smithsonian, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and other federal museums stop the “revisionist movement” through displays and installations that showcase American history and culture as “racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.”
Such institutions are now to engage in “igniting the imagination of young minds, honoring the richness of American history and innovation, and instilling pride in the hearts of all Americans.” The Executive Order specifically notes that the Independence National History Park see time and energy poured into these pro-patriotic efforts in order to be prepared for the 250th American anniversary events in 2026.
The defunding and gutting of the IMLS did not happen without strong support shown for public library and museum resources across the country, both on the ground and in congress.
On March 24, the board of the Institution of Museum and Library Services drafted a letter that went to Sonderling as their new Acting Director. The letter outlines the essential functions of the agency, making it clear that any cuts to the IMLS would have a direct and long-lasting impact on public museums and libraries nationwide. It emphasized that an Executive Order alone is not enough to change the functions or services provided by the IMLS.
All such statutory obligations may not be discontinued or delayed under an Executive Order or other executive action. Sections 9133 and 9176 of the Act affirm IMLS’s duty to obligate and disburse funds to grantees, subject only to the availability of appropriations, not to executive discretion. Any failure to fulfill these legal obligations or to reduce staffing or program operations below the minimum required to meet statutory mandates would place the agency in noncompliance with Congressional intent.
Several members of Congress also pushed back against the Executive Order. On March 26, a bipartisan coalition consisting of Senators Jack Reed, Kirsten Gillibrand, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski sent a letter to Sonderling as well. The letter again defines the role of the IMLS and its obligation when it comes to funding institutions across the US.
Libraries and museums play a vital role in our communities. Libraries offer access for all to essential information and engagement on a wide range of topics, including skills and career training, broadband, and computing services. IMLS grants enable libraries to develop services in every community throughout the nation, including people of diverse geographic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds, individuals with disabilities, residents of rural and urban areas, Native Americans, military families, veterans, and caregivers. Museums serve not only as centers for education but also as drivers of local economic development. The IMLS Office of Museum Services is the largest dedicated source of investment in our nation’s museums, which typically support more than 700,000 jobs and contribute $50 billion annually to the U.S. economy. IMLS funding plays a significant role in this economic impact by helping museums reach more visitors and spur community development.
While that letter circulated, another was passed around the House of Representatives. Led by Representatives Dina Titus (NV-01) and Suzanne Bonamici (OR-01), the letter was shared among House members. It urged them to sign on in asking for the administration to reconsider its Executive Order related to IMLS funding and structure.
Public libraries and public library associations nationwide have spoken loudly about how potential cuts to IMLS could impact state and local level services. Among the services that could most quickly and directly impact library users would be the end of digital resource availability through apps like Libby.
It is worth noting that despite some viral claims made online in the wake over fears of IMLS funding cuts, OverDrive’s Libby app and other similar digital resource programs are not funded by IMLS directly. They are, however, sometimes made available in individual states via funding received via IMLS. This is a crucial distinction. Libby and other eresources are not creations of libraries themselves by third-party systems that license access to materials. Libraries pay for that access.
Ebook and digital audiobook services are not funded by IMLS money in every state, and because of how many different types of ebook and digital audiobooks are available–indicative of how many different audiences and needs are being met–essential services without the Libby name recognition are being overlooked. In states where such services are made available through IMLS money, many times the apps and resources are not explicitly named by state funding, making it difficult to determine where such impact would be felt immediately. For example, Indiana libraries use IMLS funding for the Indiana Digital Library, which among its many databases and services provides access to Libby.
Find below a roundup of state library associations, local-level libraries, social media library workers/advocates, and/or local/regional news sources who have identified where and how IMLS cuts would directly impact their state libraries. This isn’t a comprehensive list, but you’ll see within the states here, many rely on IMLS funds to help acquire, fund, and maintain essential digital resources:
The future of IMLS remains uncertain, and with ongoing efforts to rewrite the truth of America via Executive Orders and whitewashing cultural institutions funded and respected by American taxpayers, it’s essential to continue speaking up on behalf of your local library, as well as one of your local library’s most crucial federal agencies.
Those which stand to be most devastated by potential cuts are rural and small libraries, who are also most impacted by the administration’s dismantling of the Department of Education and the United States Postal Service.
Whether or not Trump and his DOGE team have the legal authority to shut down the IMLS completely remains to be seen. Eliminating all staff and pausing all funding certainly defies the administration’s own order that only activities outside of “statutory requirements” be touched. Expect a lawsuit to be filed in the courts, much as we’ve seen with the other slash-and-burn efforts taken by an executive branch overstepping its constitutional authority.
Over the past decade, there’s been a lot of talk about “ideological extremism” on both the left and right, and the government has often claimed that warped political beliefs are encouraging Americans to commit violent acts. However, under the new Trump administration, the government now seems prepared to go after people who don’t believe in anything at all.
Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein writes that the government has a new target in its war on extremism: nihilists—more specifically, Nihilist Violent Extremists, or NVEs. The government has reportedly come up with this designation as a kind of catchall for the culprits behind various violent incidents, and the term has shown up in several recent court cases.
Who is a true NVE? That’s a good question, and the answer is: anybody. Klippenstein aptly notes that the term has a conveniently loose definition that could be applied to all sorts of different groups that the government considers undesirable. He writes that the NVE term…
…has the beauty of being elastic enough to apply to individuals and groups who are the focus of the administration’s war on all kinds of Americans. Nihilism also avoids all of the rusty and problematic words of the past: subversive, dissident, insurrectionist, revolutionary, or even “anti-government” (the Biden term).
Klippenstein writes that the term was recently used in the legal proceedings of Nikita Casap, a teen from Wisconsin who was arrested in February and charged with murdering his parents. Law enforcement claims Casap also planned to assassinate President Trump to spur a civil war in the U.S. But there are plenty of people who have been accused of committing violent crimes for vaguely anarchistic reasons, be it people like Luigi Mangione, or the gaggle of people of who have recently been arrested for vandalizing and firebombing Teslas, or the Zizians.
The road to this new low in law enforcement terminology has been long. While “ideological extremism” has always existed in the U.S., it became a political (and, eventually, policy) issue in the modern era during the Clinton years, when incidents like Ruby Ridge and the Oklahoma City bombing brought fears of the rightwing militia movement into the mainstream. During the Bush years, 9/11 spurred a war on Islamist extremism—both in the U.S. and all over the world. Then, during the Biden years, the specter of January 6th encouraged the government to declare a war on “domestic terrorism.”
In short, the government has always found reasons to justify its federal police powers, though few of them have ever been as sloppily constructed as the current government’s newest fearmongering buzzword. (snip)
Let’s make one thing clear. The immigrants the Trump regime seized off the street and sent to a Salvadoran prison were NOT deported. To be deported, you have to go through due process. Immigrants who are deported usually have to face a judge. The people sent to the prison in El Salvador never faced a judge before being shipped off or received due process. They were not deported. They were kidnapped.
And this prison in El Salvador, where the president referred to himself as the “coolest” dictator, isn’t so much a prison as it is a concentration camp or a gulag.
Mona Charen wrote, “We are outsourcing torture and murder. What kind of president, what kind of political party, can look at that with satisfaction?” And what American can not at least wonder about their own security?”
Speaking to the “cool” dictator while he was visiting the White House yesterday (and you thought it got weird when Zelensky visited), Donald Trump told President Nayib Bukele (He deserves a “sic” too. Sic) that “home growns” should be next. He said, “The home growns. You gotta build about five more places. It’s not big enough.” By the way, the cool dictator didn’t wear a suit and tie either. See what you started, Elon?
But what does Trump mean by “home growns?” He’s referencing American citizens, even those born in the United States, that he deems to be criminals, and they should be sent to rot in a Salvadoran super-max prison where human rights are not a thing.
Then Trump told reporters, “I just asked the president — it’s this massive complex that he built, jail complex — I said, ‘Can you build some more of them please?’ As many as we can get out of our country.”
He added, “If they’re criminals, and if they hit people with baseball bats over the head that happen to be 90 years old, if they rape 87-year-old women in Coney Island, Brooklyn, yeah, yeah that includes them.” Or, if they testify against you, or do their jobs in the Justice Department in prosecuting people who start insurrections and steal classified documents, or they draw mean cartoons about you, yeah, yeah, that includes them.
The prison Trump is referring to and that he wants duplicated several times over is a so-called “terrorism confinement center” (CECOT). Prisoners are kept in their cells for at least 23-and-a-half hours a day. They are starved and beaten. There’s no fresh water. People are tortured. There have been 368 deaths in the prison, and it’s only been around since 2022.
Trump said, “They’re great facilities. Very strong facilities. They don’t play games.” You know, games like due process, civil rights, and human rights…”games” like that.
Trump claims all the bad people he sent there without due process are gang members. Still, there’s a new report that claims 90 percent are not gang members, including Abrego Garcia, 29, a Maryland father who was sent to El Salvador on March 15, despite a 2019 court order prohibiting the return to his home country for fear of persecution by a gang there.
The Supreme Court has ordered the Trump regime to bring Garcia back home. The regime has admitted Garcia was mistakenly sent to this gulag, but the regime doesn’t want to bring him back. The dictator, El Salvador’s dictator, not ours, refuses to send Garcia back to the US. The decision by SCOTUS was unanimous. In case you’re a Republican, “unanimous” means all of them. Do you know how rare it is for all nine members of the Supreme Court to agree on anything? They can’t agree on lunch. There was a near revolt the time it was Clarence’s turn to choose, and he picked Blimpies.
So, if the regime can snatch legal residents off the street, then why can’t they do the same to US citizens? You may believe the Constitution protects you, and yeah…it’s supposed to. But the Constitution didn’t protect Abrego Garcia, Rumeysa Ozturk, Mahmoud Khalil, or Mohsen Mahdawi, who was arrested yesterday during an interview as part of his application for US citizenship. Ozturk, Khalil, and Mahdawi were arrested and then detained in Louisiana for protesting Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.
If you do get snatched up and sent away, you won’t be able to argue for your constitutional rights from a concentration camp in Central America that doesn’t even have toilets. The people who would argue for your rights may not even know you’re missing until you’re swatting at flying buzzy stingy things in a gulag in a Salvadoran mangrove swamp. They have jungles, snakes, giant spiders, crocodiles, gang bangers, and Blimpies down there. You won’t like it. I have two friends from El Salvador, and neither wants to go back…ever. And they weren’t in a concentration camp.
You know how people look at Indiana and say, “I don’t wanna be stuck there.” It’s kinda the same with Latin America and El Salvador. It’s the Indiana of the Americas.
Douglas Dunn, a friend of mine, posted on this cartoon at Facebook, “You are only as legal — you are only as much a U.S. citizen — as the nearest ICE agent (or his boss) says you are, if they can take you WITHOUT DUE PROCESS so you never get the chance to prove you are a citizen.” Doug is a great writer. He writes gooder than I do.
Trump has made it clear that he won’t bring you back, even if a federal court orders it, even if that court is the Supreme Court voting 9-0. Even Clarence and Sammy ordered Trump to bring Garcia back…with some Blimpies.
They can’t really start deporting American citizens, can they?
Last Friday, Nicole Micheroni, an American immigration lawyer born in Massachusetts, received a letter from the Department of Homeland Security (dog-killer Kristi Noem’s agency), saying her parole status has been revoked and she must self-deport within seven days. The letter (which was snail-mailed with a legal stamp and everything, so you know they’re serious) also said if she doesn’t self deport, then the government will take action. The letter ended with, “Again, DHS is terminating your parole. Do not attempt to remain in the United States – the federal government will find you. Please depart the United States immediately.”
Micheroni made calls and found out the letter was legitimate but intended for someone else. Maybe DHS is practicing for when they do start kicking Americans out of America. But still, if I was Ms. Micheroni, I’d sleep with one eye open for the next seven days, or four years, give or take.
Creative note: I’m never comfortable drawing myself, so consider this kinda-sorta me. When I put myself in a cartoon, I’m afraid I’ll come off as having delusions of grandeur, as though I think I’m important enough that the regime is paying attention to me. I also don’t want to be too kind to myself or even make myself too ugly. I’m still not happy with the self-caricature GoComics is using now (and I never sent this to them. I sent it to Cartooning for Peace. But maybe I should leave it alone in case the regime uses it like a mugshot when they come looking to snatch me off the street and send me to El Salvador.
Music note: I listened to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Are you a Beatles or Stones person? Tell me in the comments. I’m more Beatles than Stones.
Drawn in 30 seconds (Sorry for the earworm): (snip-Go see)
Rep. Jack Kimble tweeted that “President Trump is now 6’3” 224 pounds with 4.8% body fat. We might lose him to the NFL draft.”
Captain Barbarella, the physician to the president (sic), failed to hide in his memorandum about Donald Trump’s physical that he’s a Trump sycophant. Or at least he failed to hide that he was controlled by a member of the cult.
His doctor’s name is actually Captain Sean Barbabella and NOT Barbarella, the title of the 1968 Jane Fonda space sex movie (I’ve never seen it). If congressman Kimble can accidentally refer to the El Salvadore President Nayib Bukele as President Bukake, I can use Barbarella. Also, I don’t know what “bukake” means because I’m a good boy.
While the report of the exam looks like it was written by a real doctor in most of the details, there are still little bits included to make it political and cultist.
For example, when the memorandum mentions his hearing, it mentions “scarring on the right ear from a gunshot wound,” reminding us that Trump was shot is a superhero to survive it (unlike that sucker standing behind him). The doc also wrote that Trump’s “active lifestyle continues to contribute significantly to his well-being,” with one of those activities being his “frequent victories in golf events,” which makes him “fully fit” to be president (sic).
So it’s not the golfing that makes him physically fit to be president, but the golf victories. See what he did there? It’s like the champion is a Greek Adonis, but all the losers are donut-eating hose beasts. Have you seen John Daly? He also claims he’s 215 pounds.
Just how physically active is golfing when you don’t walk the course? Trump doesn’t even like stairs. Yes, there are elevators in the White House, and fortunately for Trump, one of them is a freight elevator. That brings us to Trump’s weight.
Captain Barbarella reports that Captain Big Mac only weighs 224 pounds. He also reports that Trump is 75 inches tall, which is six feet and three inches. I call bullshit.
Here’s what the White House released:
Unless you care about the president’s (sic) health (and I do not), it doesn’t matter to you or me what he weighs or how tall he is. What is important is that they’re dishonest. What’s important is the depth into which this regime sinks the cult into the government.
Trump, who is 78, needs to appear as a Superman to his cult. I’m shocked the memo mentions he takes aspirin for cardiac prevention. As we’ve learned, they lie about everything.
Right now, the regime is lying to the Supreme Court by claiming they can’t have a man they illegally snatched off the street and sent to a prison in El Salvador brought back to this country.
When Trump was running for president in 2016, Dr. Harold Bornstein stated that Trump would be the “healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” A couple of years later, we learned that Trump had dictated that letter, which didn’t surprise anyone. A doctor should lose his medical license over that. And it wouldn’t surprise us to learn he dictated “224” and “75 inches” to Captain Barbarella and wouldn’t allow him to mention that Trump’s cholesterol is just Big Mac Secret Sauce. His first White House physician was a lying alcoholic lunatic, Dr. Ronny Jackson, who doesn’t practice medicine anymore and is now in a place where he can’t hurt anybody, Congress.
Ronny Jackson claimed that Trump could live to be 200, and judging from the way our luck works, that might be true.
The memo does show that despite spreading debunked lies about vaccines, like his Health Secretary does, Trump is up to date on vaccines.
The part we should care about, and is more absurd than claiming he weighs 224 pounds, is the claim he scored 30 out of 30 on a cognitive test. I checked to be sure the memo didn’t state that he also has hands that are not tiny.
Anyone who believes Trump, the shark boat battery guy, scored 30 out of 30 on a cognitive test needs to take a cognitive test. I don’t believe this doctor would let us know if Trump scored less than 30.
Trump’s last presidential physical had him at 244 pounds. His 2023 arrest in Georgia listed him at 215 (they don’t weigh the prisoners but take their word for how much they weigh), and this exam says he’s 224.
If Trump does weigh 224 pounds, then that’s 224 pounds of walking/talking bullshit.
The one number that’s accurate about Trump is 34, as in 34 felony convictions.
Creative note: I still have a few other ideas I wrote last week that I want to get to, but I knew last night that I needed to cover this today. This idea hit me shortly after I woke up.
Music Note: I listened to The Beatles.
Drawn in 30 Seconds (with music): Sorry for the earworm. (Snip-go see/listen!)
So what is the goal here, to save money, or ultimately to kill unhealthy Americans that Republicans think are a drag on their wallets? Inside U.S. health agencies, workers confront chaos and questions as operations come ungluedflip.it/3rz_Ee
In the time since the first European man stepped foot on the soil of these shores, we have done the cringeworthy all too often, but now and again we do that which allows us to still stand tall. My father’s Uncle Dutch went to fight in WW2 and brought back pictures of the horrors of the concentration camps. We stopped that! We stood against the Fascist Nazi. And we should be proud of that.
I am sure that there were people then who believed the Jews, Gypsy’s and Gays were criminals deserving of their internment in concentration camps. I’m sure there were some who believed that Jews had no right to live in Germany. I’m sure that there some who believed that Gypsy’s were inherently criminal, whether they had a criminal record or not. I’m sure that there were some who convinced themselves that anyone who was gay was deserving of all abuse. I’m sure there were some. And, unfortunately, too many others went along with it.
Just like these German men, we will one day be forced to come face to face with what we have done, what we have allowed, because some charismatic charlatan said we should.
Scottie's Playtime 