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…
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…
“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.
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.
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.
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.
Blanche last appeared here when he sanctioned the American Bar Association because its lawyers have failed to show suitable obedience to Glorious Leader.
On Thursday, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk — a far-right federal judge in the Northern District of Texas with a record of aligning with the GOP’s most extreme legal positions — issued a ruling declaring that Title VII no longer protects LGBTQ+ people from workplace discrimination. The decision directly contradicts the Supreme Court’s landmark 2020 ruling inBostock v. Clayton County, which held that discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is, by definition, sex discrimination. Kacsmaryk’s ruling marks one of the most alarming judicial rollbacks of LGBTQ+ rights in recent memory — and sets up a direct legal challenge to one of the foundational civil rights protections for queer and trans people in the United States.
The case was brought against the EEOC by the state of Texas alongside the Heritage Foundation, a central force behindProject 2025 — an aggressive right-wing policy blueprint that explicitly calls for rolling back LGBTQ+ protections in federal law. In siding with the plaintiffs, Judge Kacsmaryk pointed to the Texas Department of Agriculture’s current employee policy, which requires “employees to comply with this dress code in a manner consistent with their biological gender,” specifying that “men may wear pants” and “women may wear dresses, skirts, or pants.” The ruling also upheld the department’s policy banning transgender employees from using restrooms that align with their gender identity.
The judge reached a verdict that Title VII only protects “firing someone simply for being homosexual or transgender,” but that it does not protect transgender or gay people from “harassment”:
Judge Kacsmaryk ruling that gay and trans people can be harassed without repercussion under Title VII.
“In sum, Title VII does not bar workplace employment policies that protect the inherent differences between men and women,” Kacsmaryk writes in his ruling.
Judge Kacsmaryk further argued that disparate treatment of transgender employees does not constitute unequal treatment, reasoning that “a male employee must use male facilities like other males” — a statement that erases transgender identity altogether. He extended that logic to dress codes and pronouns, claiming that requiring employees to adhere to clothing standards and pronoun use based on their assigned sex at birth is not discriminatory because it applies “equally” to everyone. The argument mirrors the discredited legal reasoning once used to uphold bans on same-sex marriage — that such laws didn’t discriminate against gay people because they, like straight people, were allowed to marry someone of the opposite sex. It’s a circular logic designed to mask exclusion as neutrality. It also flies in the face of the fact that Texas allows people assigned female at birth to wear gender “pants, skirts, and dresses” but denies that same right to people assigned male at birth.
Kacsmaryk, a former lawyer for an anti-LGBTQ hate group, was exposed in 2023 for failing to disclose millions in stock holdings.
Kacsmaryk was previously exposed for failing to disclose viciously anti-LGBTQ interviews and acting to hide his authorship of an anti-abortion article ahead of his Senate confirmation hearing.
Republican and Christian groups regularly filed their lawsuits in his district because they know they’ll get a friendly ear.
Following Trump’s ban on transgender people in the military, Jordan Klepper met with a panel of esteemed service members to discuss the president’s rejection of their qualifications, which stand in stark contrast to Trump’s own bone spur excuses
I apologize for the lateness of today’s blog, but I had three deadlines today. I’ll explain further in a future blog.
We have the first American pope, and to add to that, he’s from Chicago. How cool is that? I think Chicago all by itself spites Trump, but a pope who’s criticized the administration for its policies on immigration is a nice plus. Also, Pope Leo XIV is against the death penalty, racism (Trump is a racist), and understands that Climate Change is a real thing and not a “hoax” created by China.
One of the first things I was curious about with our Chicago pope was if he is a Cubs fan. The Chicago Cubs posted on their famous marquee above Addison Street at Wrigley Field that Pope Leo is a Cubs fan. They got it wrong. So did some cartoonists.
Henry Payne is already an idiot. That’s not new news. Randy Bish rushed to judgment.
But it didn’t matter to him because he just made a simple swap when he found out he was wrong.
Sorry, Randy, but this is generic cartooning. Plus, nobody should listen to you about Chicago. You’re from Pittsburgh.
What else is from Pittsburgh is this shit.
What is it? It’s ketchup. There’s nothing special about this ketchup. It’s just regular shitty Heinz ketchup, but the company was trying to trick Chicagoans to fuck up their hot dogs with it. It didn’t work, and Eater.com let them know it.
I’m sure the Pope would agree that it’s sacrilege to put ketchup on a hot dog, but since he’s the Pope, he would probably forgive you, but I won’t. How dare you put ketchup on a hot dog? What are you? Five?
I used to have a theory that people who love ketchup had mothers who couldn’t cook. I developed this theory because my ex-wife LOVED ketchup, and her mother could not cook. I hope she doesn’t read this because she’s very nice and my son’s grandmother. My father-in-law, may he rest in peace, made the best fried pork chops I’ve ever had.
I think there are only four acceptable reasons for using ketchup, and they are, for crinkle-cut fries, very bad fries, meatloaf, and if you’re five. I kid, I kid. I know some of you love your ketchup, and none of us is perfect. For example, Donald Trump LOVES ketchup. Let that sink in.
What I learned about Chicago pizza is that most Chicagoans eat more tavern-style than deep dish. Chicagoans like deep dish, but it’s more for special occasions and when they have visitors. Deep dish is more for tourists. I don’t really get deep dish, and I don’t even think it should be considered a pizza.
Do you remember Pizza Rat’s first trip to Chicago last year? He tried the deep dish.
Not a fan.
Today’s cartoon put me in the mood for tavern-style tonight, and Pizza Hut has it as a special. When I picked it up, the manager apologized because they had accidentally cut it into triangles instead of squares. A lot of Chicagoans would not stand for that, but I’m tolerant. I thought of Pope Leo, and I forgave them…this time.
Shout-out and dedication: I dedicate this cartoon to Greg Zaborniak, who introduced me to Old Style beer and tavern-style Chicago pizza last year during the Democratic convention. Thank you again, Greg.
Creative note: I didn’t know what I was going to draw today, and I also had a deadline for the Advance. And then, one of my clients contacted me wanting a cartoon on a local issue, and they wanted it today. So, I was facing three deadlines with zero ideas. But they came to me, one by one, and I knocked ‘em all down.
I deserved that pizza.
There’s a version of this cartoon without Pizza Rat. I didn’t include him because not everyone who will see this cartoon will be a regular reader of mine, and they might think the rat is an aspersion on Catholicism. So I sent it to my clients without Peezy. But then, a reader changed my mind because he thought it was a bigger sin to include a pizza without Pizza Rat. I figured I was going to hear more howls about missing Peezy than I’d hear from angry Catholics. The version at GoComics may not feature Peezy because sometimes a new file won’t override the existing file. I did resend the Peezy version to my clients, but they’ll use the one they want, and maybe not even care.
Pride events are very expensive to put on. Most of the cost is security and insurance. The more threats from haters, normally fundamentalist religious people, the more security needed and the more costly insurance is. It is another weapon the haters of the LGBTQ+ community have learned to use to shut down events for people they hate. So much for freedoms these people keep demanding for themselves but want to deny to others. Hugs
Kehlani ‘s planned concert in Central Park next month has been canceled after New York City’s mayor raised security concerns about the R&B star’s performance during Pride month, organizers announced Monday.
The “After Hours” singer had been set to headline a June 26 concert billed as “Pride with Kehlani” at the Manhattan park as part of SummerStage, an annual slate of free concerts at parks across the city.
But organizers, in their announcement, cited concerns from Mayor Eric Adams’ administration about the “controversy surrounding Cornell University’s decision to cancel Kehlani’s concert at the University, as well as security demands in Central Park and throughout the City for other Pride events during that same period.”
Following the April 10 announcement of Kehlani as the original Slope Day headliner, some students and parents criticized the artist’s anti-Israel rhetoric and social media presence. Cornellians for Israel also launched a petition against the selection of Kehlani as the Slope Day headliner that accumulated over 5,000 signatures.
Cornell revoked Kehlani’s invitation to headline Slope Day over what President Michael Kotlikoff labeled “antisemitic, anti-Israel sentiments.”
But the cancellation sparked criticism from student groups about freedom of speech and institutional neutrality. The Community Slope Day Instagram account urged students to “boycott Slope Day,” writing that Kehlani’s “opposition to the genocide in Palestine isn’t hateful” and that the decision was made “without representative input of the student body.”
It doesn’t appear that Kehlani has any affiliation with NYC Pride itself. The cult is celebrating the cancellation. The recent single below has 32 million views on YouTube.
Singer Kehlani was scheduled to perform at Cornell University, but their show was canceled because of their support for Palestine. The university framed their activism as antisemitic. This is their response: pic.twitter.com/K1iA207v89
Community Slope Day, organized in reaction to news of Kehlani’s cancelation, will feature local, underground and independent artists at Stone-Bend Farm, in an event that will run concurrent to the annual University music festival.https://t.co/olfbv9tyZF
Kehlani, a vocal critic of Israel, had been scheduled to perform in June as part of Pride festivities. Two weeks ago, Cornell dropped a plan to have her headline a concert. https://t.co/OCaNu9jtG4
— New York Times Music (@nytimesmusic) May 7, 2025
Zolnierek / iStock / Getty Images Plus
Scottie's Playtime 