Open Windows and Clay Jones

Bribe Bros by Clay Jones

Trump pardons a fellow briber Read on Substack

This cartoon was drawn for the FXBG Advance.

Last December, a Culpeper Jury (Trump country) found former Sheriff Scott Jenkins guilty of one count of conspiracy, four counts of honest services fraud, and seven counts of bribery. Fortunately for the corrupt sheriff, he’s a MAGAt.

In fact, Shurf Jenkins is a minor MAGAt celebrity, as he has pro-MAGA views that got him featured on Breitbart multiple times, was a guest on the Daily Signal podcast, and even got him an appearance on Fox & Friends after vowing to “deputize thousands of our law-abiding citizens to protect their constitutional right to own firearms.” This is kinda what got him into trouble.

By the way, nobody’s gun rights are in danger. Republicans use it as a fear tactic to win public office.

Jenkins accepted $75,000 worth of bribes. He took cash and campaign contributions from eight people, including two undercover FBI agents. In return, he gave them badges and made them auxiliary deputy sheriffs, despite not having any training for the position (it’s kind of an honorary position, but it gives them a lot of cop powers). He also pushed officials to restore one bribe-payer’s right to possess a gun as a convicted felon. He was also able to give some of his bribers the right to carry concealed weapons without permits.

What’s fucked up about that last part is it’s extremely easy to get a concealed-carry permit in Virginia. About the only thing that could stop a person from getting a concealed-carry permit in Virginia would be if they were a convicted felon or something. For example, Donald Trump would NOT be allowed to carry a concealed weapon in Virginia. (snip-click through to read on, it’s quite good!)

Elon Musk, drugged up by Ann Telnaes

The New York Times has an extensive piece on his drug use while campaigning for Trump Read on Substack

Trump, in his brilliant ability to read people (like Putin) gave Musk the power to indiscriminately cut federal programs and workers, destroying careers and affecting millions of Americans’ lives. Read the NYT article by investigative reporter Kirsten Grind and Megan Twohey, who was part of the team that broke the Harvey Weinstein story in 2017.

Let’s talk about Republican Freudian slips…

More political cartoons / memes /and news I want to share.

Town Square Cartoons

Dave Granlund PoliticalCartoons.com

Dave Whamond PoliticalCartoons.com

Dave Granlund PoliticalCartoons.com

Dave Whamond PoliticalCartoons.com

Wow. Avelo airlines has covered up their logo to hide the fact that they're helping with mass deportation. Avelo's customer service number is (346) 616-9500. Feel free to give them a call and tell them how you feel about them.

— Mueller, She Wrote (@muellershewrote.com) 2025-05-29T21:07:08.134Z

If they are actually going to enforce deportations in FL at job sites then the construction industry in FL will grind to a halt.Until they can replace those employees with US-born workers willing to work outside in the summer in 100 degree heat & humidity. Should be no problem.

— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) 2025-05-29T17:40:29.161Z

Would be good if reporters ask the administration why they let a man they knew was constantly using psychoactive drugs to take a hatchet to the federal government and cause uncountable death and immiseration

— Ed (@notdred.bsky.social) 2025-05-30T11:42:39.560Z

Karoline Leavitt is clearly making this stuff up as she goes.

— George Takei (@georgetakei.bsky.social) 2025-05-29T17:48:05.533Z

Harvard president receives standing ovation during commencement.

— NBC News (@nbcnews.com) 2025-05-29T23:40:02.834Z

Shot. Chaser.(So many examples like this from the GOP!)

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan.bsky.social) 2025-05-29T19:52:17.961Z

One might have thought that last November, when Missourians voted to enshrine “reproductive freedom" in the state constitution, that would have been the end of the conversation.Alas, the Missouri Supreme Court doesn’t seem to be inclined to listen. This week, the court halted abortions.

— Mother Jones (@motherjones.com) 2025-05-29T15:13:56.742Z

In plain sight:

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan.bsky.social) 2025-05-29T16:24:51.408Z

Some recent clips from The Majority Report. Watch / listen to those that interest you.

And Another Young Candidate

Presuming we have elections, we’re gonna be rich in good people to elect. Here’s another one I’ve been watching and donating to for a couple of months. I may have posted about her here before, but I’m not certain.

McMorrow for Michigan

Another Young Person Running For Office

I’m skipping down to the part about the candidate. We’ve all seen the clip of Sen. Ernst. But I remember the statements of Zach Wahls; I bet we all do! -A.

Well, We Are All Going to Die by Charlotte Clymer

An all-timer cruel remark. Read on Substack

Snippet:

Anyway, while Sen. Ernst may not care if your loved ones don’t have the lifesaving health care they need, I do bring good news: there’s a leader in Iowa who does.

You may remember Zach Wahls; he’s the young man who went viral many years ago when he delivered a deeply moving testimony to the Iowa Legislature about growing up with two mothers, as lawmakers were considering support for marriage equality.

Well, Mr. Wahls has been serving in the Iowa State Senate since 2019—including a few years in tenure as the Minority Leader—and he’s public exploring a run against Sen. Ernst in next year’s election.

I have rarely been as impressed with an elected official as I am with Mr. Wahls. He’s exactly the kind of leader you’d hope would be dedicated to fighting the good fight and having the kind of good sense necessary to bring folks together for common sense solutions.

Sen. Ernst was already looking at a competitive fight before her “we are all going to die” honesty this morning, and I have to imagine the math ain’t looking great for her against Mr. Wahls moving forward.

If you’d like to throw a donation to Mr. Wahls in what I believe would be a successful campaign, I’d be grateful.

I’ll end this on a note of reason and empathy. When word of Sen. Ernst’s comment reached the great Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota, her response couldn’t have summed it up better:

“I thought my job as Senator was to try to keep my constituents alive.”

A few news articles I wanted to share. Crazy, hateful, and mean.

Trump Admin “Effectively Legalizes” Machine Guns

DOJ Wants To Make It Easier To Indict Congress Reps

AP: How Trump Is Scrubbing His Admin’s Records

FDA Approves New COVID Vax With Strict Conditions

Federal Judge Rules That DHS Must Keep Custody Of Migrants Shipped To South Sudan Pending His Ruling

Inside The Christianist Plot To Quash Gaza Protests

Wow. A group that initially included no Jews hatched a plan to make support for Palestine a crime. The US is following their playbook and supporting the mass killing & removal of Palestinians.Group Behind Project 2025 Has a Plan to Crush the Pro-Palestinian Movement http://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/18/u…

— David Schatsky (@dschatsky.bsky.social) 2025-05-18T10:24:52.522Z

MSNBC’s Ali Velshi: “America Is Sliding Into Autocracy”

Rule Change Would Let Trump Fire Federal Statisticians

Cooking the books? Fears Trump could target statisticians if data disappointsProposed rule change could pave way for president to fire economists whose figures prove politically inconvenientwww.theguardian.com/us-news/2025…

— Lauren Ashley Davis (@laurenmeidasa.bsky.social) 2025-05-18T17:03:59.368Z

Major Corporate Sponsors Withdraw From NYC Pride

Here’s the list:

Anheuser-Busch
Booz Allen Hamilton
Citi
Comcast
Deloitte
Diageo
Garnier
Nissan
PepsiCo
PricewaterhouseCoopers
Skyy Vodka
Target
Mastercard

US Army To Alter Birth Records Of Transgender Troops

Exclusive: US Army to change transgender soldiers' records to birth sex reut.rs/4dvNxhZ

— Reuters (@reuters.com) 2025-05-21T15:40:15.551Z

Hegseth Leads Pentagon Prayer For “Divine” Trump

FDA Orders New Warning Labels On COVID Vaccines

Felon Explodes At “Idiot, Jerk, Fake News” Reporter For Asking About Qatari Jet: “You Are Not Smart Enough”

Responding to Charlie Kirk on homosexuality & the Bible

OK I admit this guy is a scholar so he uses words and phrases that are sometimes hard for me to follow with my limited education. But I do understand enough to follow what he is saying. Charley Kirk is full of shit on what he thinks they bible says because he is letting his own bigotry and prejudices create what the passages mean for him rather than research it with people more knowledgeable. Jesus and the bible were not against homosexuality as we understand it because they did not see sexuality and sex acts the same way we do. The sin of Sodom was lack of hospitality and men wanting to take a higher sexual role than angels. The people of the time of the bible were like young macho men types today, worried about what looked manly enough, and putting your penis in someone regardless of sex was manly. But the person who took another person in them was not, they were lessor. Women were viewed as lessor, inferior, and so were men that took another male’s penis inside them. It was not about pleasure or love, it was all about status. One thing I like about this guy is he freely admits the bible is context driven and doesn’t know what we know and understand today, that in some areas the morals we have today are superior to that of the bibles for example slavery. Hugs.

Brown v. BOE, and more, in Peace & Justice History for 5/31

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymay.htm#may31

Montana Judge Enjoins Bathroom Ban: “No Evidence” The Ban Prevents Violence

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/montana-judge-enjoins-bathroom-ban

Montana Judge Enjoins Bathroom Ban: “No Evidence” The Ban Prevents Violence

The state claims its anti-trans attacks “protect women.” The judiciary isn’t buying it.

s. baum

May 21, 2025

Photo by Steven Cordes on Unsplash

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Inch by inch, day by day, and legal battle after legal battle, trans Montanans are dismantling the unconstitutional laws proposed by Republicans meant to destroy trans lives, and indeed, trans life itself.

Last week, they were able to let out a sigh of relief—for now. A Montana judge issued a preliminary injunction on HB 121, which would ban trans and intersex people from using gender-separated public facilities, such as bathrooms or changing rooms, that differ from their sex assigned at birth.

This decision follows a temporary restraining order (TRO) on the law from earlier this year, instituted after legal rights groups like the ACLU challenged it in court for violating Montanans’ right to privacy under the state constitution. A preliminary injunction is a more steadfast barrier—it means the law won’t take effect until after legal proceedings conclude, if ever.

The Attorney General for the State of Montana, like many anti-trans actors, is defending HB 121 using the thinly-veiled premise of “protecting women” from sexual violence. But the injunction filings indicate that the judiciary isn’t buying it.

“The State has not shown even a rational basis for the Act,” wrote Judge Shane A. Vannatta, who oversees a Montana District Court. “The State does not provide evidence of trans female offenses against [cis] women or evidence of offenses being committed in covered entities to support the necessity of immediate implementation of the Act.”

Instead, the court found that anti-trans bathroom bans do not protect women from harm. It only serves to stoke violence against trans women and cis women alike—everyone’s gender and sex becomes subject to public debate when these laws are put in place.

“Each individual observed walking into a restroom of a covered entity does directly and indirectly disclose that individual’s transgender or intersex identity, anatomy, and genetics,” the filing said. “All Montanans regardless of gender […] will not be subject to the prying eyes of others or to governmental snooping or regulation.”

Vannatta further notes that it is already illegal for people of any gender or sex to commit a sex crime, and that there is “no evidence” to support the notion that trans or intersex people “have a predisposition toward such offenses.”

He added that the state’s purported concerns were “disingenuous” and purely “conjecture.”

In reality, trans women—especially those of color—are more likely than any other demographic to be the victims of violent crime. And by using the law to force trans people to out themselves every time they use a public restroom, or to embolden self-deputized gender police, so-called “trans bathroom bans” create a greater risk of violence for everyone. There are countless stories of cis and trans people alike being accosted in bathrooms precisely because of the anti-trans panic these policies create.

The filing further concluded that trans women have been relentlessly targeted by the state government and are in dire need of protection. “Transgender Montanans have been subjected to such a history of purposeful unequal treatment and have been relegated to such a position of political powerlessness as to command extraordinary protection from the majoritarian political process,” Vannatta noted.

The fight against HB 121 is not over, but State Representative Zooey Zephyr—who would be legally forced into the men’s room under the bill her colleagues passed—says she is hopeful.

“The Montana Supreme Court has been clear: every law that targets the trans community is a clear invasion by the government into the privacy of transgender people,” she told Erin in the Morning. “These laws are driven by animus against the community. I expect this law—like all laws driven by the anti-trans fervor—to be struck down by Montana’s courts.”

(Editor’s Note: For transparency, Erin in the Morning founder Erin Reed is the loving wife to the aforementioned Rep. Zooey Zephyr.)

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