News From Clay Jones

Stroke Updates by Clay Jones

I recently transferred to the rehab center, which is just across the street from the hospital. Today I took a cognitive test, I took a speech pattern test, and I took a physical test. Every day from here on out, I will be taking a physical test, which we call PT. They usually wanna work people till they wanna quit, but they haven’t had that problem with me yet, not because I’m super amazing or awesome, but because I really want to beat this shit as quickly as I can.

My friend Melissa Colombo came by and brought me some clothes. Nobody can go on Facebook and ask people to bring them shorts, T-shirts, and underwear while they’re in a rehab center, but I can. Hell, I once got people to send me self-addressed stamped envelopes for messed-up business cards. But I sent out a request on Facebook for someone to bring me some shorts and T-shirts to the rehab center. All I had this morning was just a road in the hospital, and my ass was hanging out.

A few people offered to ship me stuff, but that wasn’t the issue. I have money. I could easily order something. But I need something now because, let me put that again, my ass was hanging out. So my friend Melissa brought me some clothes. Funny thing is, someone else went ahead and quickly ordered me some stuff, and that was Leslie Elliott.

I want to thank Melissa and Leslie for literally saving my ass.

The next 10 days are going to be more PT. I am expected to be in this place for at least 10 days. After that, I’m expected to go home. The thing is, I live in a second-level apartment, and I want to be able to walk into my apartment and take care of myself again. Unfortunately, I’m nowhere close to that yet. Walking, taking steps, things are extremely difficult right now, and even grabbing things is impossible, but I am further today than I was yesterday.

If you have donated to me either by becoming a paid subscriber to my Substack, or donated through PayPal, or donated through Venmo, or donated through Zelle, and I have not sent you a message, please accept my apologies. I want to thank everybody who has supported me through this. The outpouring of support has blown me away. In fact, it’s blown away the entire cartooning community. We are all very impressed and overwhelmed by your support, especially me. I just wanna say thank you. I’m never going to stop saying thank you.

And on that note, I was just visited by a former photographer from the Free Lance-Star, Suzanne Carr Rossi. She brought me pants.

And now the Facebook updates from the past few days.

Today, October 16, 2025

Remember when Donald Trump took that cognitive test and bragged about it? Remember that he had to repeat “person, woman, man, camera, TV”. Trump said. “They said nobody gets it in order, it’s actually not that easy. But for me it was easy. And that’s not an easy question.” He is right.

It’s not an easy question when you have to answer five minutes later.

It’s not easy when the question is “bridge, Sarah, justice, banana.” It’s not easy when you have to remember photos that include car keys, a comb, and a helicopter five minutes later.

It’s not easy when you have to remember letters and numbers in the sequence of 1, A, 2, B, 3, C, 4, D, etc, to ten.

It’s not easy to count backwards from 20.

It’s not easy to have to draw a clock and other shapes with your left hand when you’re handed and your right hand is kind of dead from a stroke.

It’s not easy to do any of the stuff after having a stroke, but I did it. The thing is, nobody told me I was great or amazing for it. Sicophants didn’t fawn over me for it. Nobody threw a parade for me because I remembered five words. Idiots didn’t go until late-night TV to tell me I was a genius for it.

Donald Trump wants you to treat him like a baby for remembering five words.

Donald Trump never suffered from a stroke.

So why was Donald Trump given this cognitive test?

Who knew that my stroke would become part of my research?

October 16, 2025

Ok, Peezeheads!!! Who wants to volunteer to help out a stroke victim, and possibly an opportunity to see my ass?

I am at Encompass in Fredericksburg. I need someone to bring me a few button-up shirts. I can’t use a T-shirt because my shoulder is messed up from the stroke. I also need a pair of shorts. I just need athletic shorts, nothing with buttons or belts, or zippers.

I could also use some underwear.

At this time, I am still wearing the gown from the hospital, and my ass is hanging out. Fortunately, the entire nursing staff has told me that my butt is not too hairy, but maybe they’re just being nice.

Update: I am only asking local people to help. I need this stuff today, not delivered by Amazon. Thank you.

Update update: Melissa Colombo to the rescue, and then Leslie Elliott, and my friend Suzanne.

October 15, 2025

So many people have touched me this week, and I’ll never be able to you how much it means to me.

As I was being rolled out on a gurney to be taken to the rehab center, an old friend I hadn’t seen in nearly a decade was waiting outside my hospital room to see me.

I want to cry. I love you, Rhonda.

October 15, 2025

I had an MRI this morning after the procedure scan my heart. They were looking to see if there was a hole or any other abnormalities in my heart that may have caused the stroke. As it turns out, there’s nothing wrong with it.

But the MRI was brutal. You can’t move, your back hurts, you don’t know when it’s going to end, you are continuously being asked to hold your breath, and they’re playing 90s music made by other people. Instead of Pearl Jam, you’re getting Pearl lame.

It’s time to go. They want more blood.

October 15, 2025

I am being moved tonight to a rehab facility. I think this is good news.

October 15, 2025

One of my nurses was training another nurse this morning. Just as the trainee was applying alcohol to my skin, in order for me to inject myself with insulin (yes they are making me inject myself), I decided let out a little scream. AAAAAGH! The trainee jumped, and the other nurse laughed her ass off, and said that was great.

They both said that they’re going to remember me.

Damn straight.

This is the GoFundMe set up by Kevin Necessary and Jack Ohman

This is a cartoon drawn by John Buss.

May be an illustration of text that says 'JohnBuss John Buss SS repeat1968- ထ်မ CLAYTONZCOMY CLAY OONZ.COM SORRY MR. JONES, SAYS HERE YOU'RÉ NOT DONE FUCKING WITH FASCISTS.'

How to draw Peezy by Dave Whammond, and he’s trying to get more cartoonists to join in. I hope it happens because I would love to see more of my colleagues’ renditions of our favorite pizza.

May be a doodle of rat, pizza and text that says 'PIZZA RAT WHAM-N'

Pertinent Info, Good Advice

as the temperature is way high these days.

Free Advice For This Weekend

Let’s talk about Trump & the GOP preparing an ACA menu….

What Moderates Get Wrong About Growing The Democratic Party

The video below talks about the shut down and how the democratic party base has changed and is moving in one direction, while the party leadership has moved or stayed where they have been for decades. They talk about the money in politics and the consulting / strategy class who still want to run campaigns designed for getting the 1990s suburban populations along with the mythical older center voters. They also discuss the AIPAC / Israeli lobby who try to get their hooks into every candidate or congressional members. Hugs

Former U.S. Representative for New York’s 16th Congressional District, Jamaal Bowman joins the program.

Israel’s Next Move: Create ‘Six Little Gazas’ In West Bank | Jasper Nathaniel | TMR

The video below is how Israel illegally plans to steal more land in the West Bank from the Palestinians to make a Palestinian state impossible. Israel is already breaking every thing they were required to do for the ceasefire. Also Israel has taken 1,500 Palestinian men and boys as hostages and are holding them illegally with no charges. So where is the world outrage over these hostages? Hugs

Publisher of the Infinite Jaz Substack, Jasper Nathaniel joins us to discuss Israel’s ongoing annexation of the West Bank. Live-streamed on September 10, 2025

PEOPLE ARE F*CKING FED UP WITH ICE

The video below is about ICE and their illegal detention of people. In this one ICE rushes out of their compound to snatch a protestor off the PUBLIC sidewalk and drag him back into their compound to then charge him with trespass. It is pure harassment of a member of the public exercising their right to protest peacefully. Now he has to find a lawyer and pay for a defense, he was booked with an arrest record now. When he did not commit a crime other than insult the NAZI thugs breaking the laws in the US. Also another part of the video shows a woman leaving a court stands up to ICE thugs and cusses them out. They order her to leave and tell her if she doesn’t leave a public space they will arrest her. They threaten to beat her. One last point, in that big Chicago building raid they found only one person who may be a gang member but even that is in doubt. Hugs

Open Windows

(snork!! -A.)

Johnson announces campaign to get Trump a Nobel Peace prize by Ann Telnaes

The Speaker continues to display his fealty Read on Substack

The Speaker of the House will lead the effort to convince international parliaments and presidents to nominate Trump.

U.N. World Food Day

is today in Peace & Justice History. Feeding people is my main “thing,” so I’m featuring it today. There is so very much that has happened on October 16, and it can all be seen on this page.

October 16th every year

United Nations’ World Food Day is recognized every year.

About the annual day of hunger awareness , also, the Home Page.

IHIP Rips Cory Booker’s BS To Shreds

The video below is Cory Booker’s horrible answers to taking AIPAC money and then doing Israel’s bidding. Hugs.

Robin Abcarian: Should therapists be allowed to tell gay kids God wants them to be straight?

https://www.arcamax.com/politics/opeds/s-3886919

Robin Abcarian, Los Angeles Times on Oct 15, 2025Published in Op Eds

I had a difficult time reading the gut-wrenching accounts from the parents of gay children who are part of the Supreme Court case about conversion therapy bans and freedom of speech.

All claim their family relationships were seriously damaged by the widely discredited practice, and that their children were permanently scarred or even driven to suicide.

The case, Chiles vs. Salazar, arose from a 2019 Colorado law that outlaws conversion therapy, whose practitioners say they can change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity to align with heterosexual and cisgender norms. The therapy is considered harmful and ineffective by mainstream medical and mental health organizations.

At least two dozen other states have similar laws on the books, all of them good-faith attempts to prevent the lasting harm that can result when a young person is told not just that they can change who they are, but that they should change because God wants them to. The laws were inspired by the horrific experiences of gay and transgender youths whose families and churches tried to change them.

The case was brought by Kayley Chiles, a licensed counselor and practicing Christian who believes, according to her attorneys, that “people flourish when they live consistently with God’s design, including their biological sex.”

Colorado, incidentally, has never charged Chiles or anyone else in connection with the 2019 law.

Chiles is represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian law firm known for its challenges to gay and transgender rights, including one brought to the Supreme Court in 2023 by Christian web designer Lorie Smith, who did not want to be forced to create a site for a gay wedding, even though no gay couple had ever approached her to do so. The Court’s conservative majority ruled in Smith’s favor. All three liberals dissented.

As for conversion therapy, counselors often encourage clients to blame their LGBTQ+ identities on trauma, abuse or their dysfunctional families. (If it can be changed, it can’t possibly be innate, right?)

In oral arguments, it appeared the conservative justices were inclined to accept Chiles’ claim that Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy amounts to viewpoint discrimination, a violation of the 1st Amendment’s free speech guarantees. The liberal minority was more skeptical.

But proponents of the bans say there is a big difference between speech and conduct. They argue that a therapist’s attempt to change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity amounts to conduct, and can rightfully be regulated by states, which, after all, lawfully impose conditions on all sorts of licensed professionals. (The bans, by the way, do not apply to ministers or unlicensed practitioners, and are generally not applicable to adults.)

Each competing brief whipsawed my emotions. The 1st Amendment is sacred in so many ways, and yet states have a critical interest in protecting the health and welfare of children. How to find a balance?

After reading the brief submitted by a group of 1st Amendment scholars, I was convinced the Colorado law should be ruled unconstitutional. As they wrote of Chiles, she doesn’t hook her clients to electrodes or give them hormones, as some practitioners of conversion therapy have done in the past. “The only thing she does is talk, and listen.”

Then I turned to the parents’ briefs.

Linda Robertson, an evangelical Christian mother of four, wrote that she was terrified when her 12-year-old son Ryan confided to her in 2001 that he was gay. “Crippling fear consumed me — it stole both my appetite and my sleep. My beautiful boy was in danger and I had to do everything possible to save him.”

Robertson’s search led her to “therapists, authors and entire organizations dedicated to helping kids like Ryan resist temptation and instead become who God intended them to be.”

Ryan was angry at first, then realized, his mother wrote, that “he didn’t want to end up in hell, or be disapproved of by his parents and his church family.” Their quest to make Ryan straight led them to “fervent prayer, scripture memorization, adjustments in our parenting strategies, conversion therapy based books, audio and video recordings and live conferences with titles like, ‘You Don’t Have to be Gay’ and ‘How to Prevent Homosexuality.’ ”

They also attended a conference put on by Exodus International, the “ex-gay” group that folded in 2013 after its former founder repudiated the group’s mission and proclaimed that gay people are loved by God.

After six years, Ryan was in despair. “He still didn’t feel attracted to girls; all he felt was completely alone, abandoned and needed the pain to stop,” his mother wrote. Worse, he felt that God would never accept him or love him. Ryan died at age 20 of a drug overdose after multiple suicide attempts.

As anyone with an ounce of common sense or compassion knows, such “therapy” is a recipe for shame, anguish and failure.

Yes, there are kids who question their sexuality, their gender identity or both, and they deserve to discuss their internal conflicts with competent mental health professionals. I can easily imagine a scenario where a teenager tells a therapist they think they’re gay or trans but don’t want to be.

The job of a therapist is to guide them through their confusion to self-acceptance, not tell them what the Bible says they should be.

If recent rulings are any guide, the Supreme Court is likely to overturn the Colorado conversion therapy ban.

This would mean, in essence, that a therapist has the right to inflict harm on a struggling child in the name of free speech.

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