Clay Jones & Open Windows

The immorality of Mike Johnson by Ann Telnaes

The Speaker of the House seems to have forgotten the First Commandment Read on Substack

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MAGA Bucket by Clay Jones

Big Bird meets Big Turd Read on Substack

While asshole billionaires are enjoying the continuation of huge tax cuts, Donald Trump and Republicans realized, maybe, that this will actually increase our national debt. Why didn’t somebody say something? So in order to slow down the bleeding, the goons looked for where they could make some cuts and save. No, they did not cut the budgets for ICE, defense, bombs for Israel to drop on the kids in Gaza, Trump golf trips, or Trump birthday parades. Maybe they could sell the plane Qatar bribed Trump with, if anyone else actually wanted it.

Trump and Republicans passed a bill that will cut $1.1 billion in federal funding for PBS and NPR. Trump is all giddy about this and posted to ShitSocial…

Of course, this impacts Sesame Street. What kind of asshole hates Sesame Street? Donald Trump is that kind of asshole. Donald Trump was an asshole millionaire by the time he was 8 years old. His allowance at 3 years old was around $200,000 a year. That explains why he doesn’t have any appreciation for Sesame Street. If nothing else, Sesame Street could have taught him how to count his money and maybe realize that if you spend more than you bring in, you will increase debt. Cookie Monster knows this. You can’t eat more cookies than you have. Maybe if Trump watched Sesame Street, he wouldn’t speak like a drugged-out crackhead and could talk the king’s English as well as the president of Liberia.

Sesame Street might have saved Trump from being the kind of asshole who sexually assaults and rapes women. It could have saved him from being a grifter and a thief. It could have saved him from growing up into a racist liar. Sesame Street could have saved Trump from turning into Trump.

As Matt Hooper said in Jaws while describing a Great White Shark as a machine, “All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks, and that’s all.” Trump is also a machine, and all that asshole machine does is grift, sexually assault women, and make little assholes.

By the way, have you seen a photo of Barron Trump lately? He’s cultivating the asshole look. He may be taking grooming tips from older brother, Don Jr. Fortunately, Barron hasn’t developed the coke-up dazed expression yet, so for now, he only has the Christian Bale serial killer look from American Psycho.

Anyhoosies, we’re supposed to be talking about Big Bird and not Big Turd, the serial killer of democracy. I wanted to avoid drawing Big Bird for a cartoon on this subject, as so many other cartoonists did this week. But after I got the bucket idea, how could I not?

That’s the blog for today, Peezeheads. One of my clients asked for a local cartoon this morning, and he asked about an hour ago if he could have it by 11 a.m. tomorrow. I haven’t even read the article yet, so I should do that. You’re also going to get a blog about Ozzy. Stay tooned. And no talking about Ozzy in the comments until the Ozzy blog. Pretend you’re a Republican and Ozzy is the Epstein Client List. (snip-MORE)

Listen To Clay!

(Well, not literally, but do read it.)

Last Friday, Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence (sic), released a report she claims showed a “treasonous conspiracy in 2016” by top Obama administration officials to harm Donald Trump.

This is bizarre because over the past eight years, the entire Intelligence network agreed that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to undermine our elections and to help Donald Trump win the presidency.

Also, it could be treasonous for an American president to manipulate an election, but it’s not treasonous to oppose Donald Trump, which is how the administration is framing this. When Trump lied that Obama “wiretapped” Trump Tower, he called it “treasonous.” It could be illegal without a warrant, but it wouldn’t be treasonous. However, it was a huge lie. Maybe lying to the American people repeatedly should be considered treasonous.

President Barack Obama never broke the law. Trump has broken the law repeatedly. He’s breaking the law now.

Trump likes to call what happened in 2016 the “Russia hoax.” Robert Mueller was never able to assert that Trump colluded with Russia, but only because the investigation ended early after then-Attorney General William Barr basically pulled the rug out from under Mueller. But Trump did collude with Russia. The Trump Campaign shared polling data with Russia. Isn’t that colluding? They invited Russians into their campaign HQ to provide “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. Trump even asked Russia to find Hillary Clinton’s “missing emails.” Does anyone remember, “Russia, if you’re listening”? Does anyone remember that Russia started hacking the Democratic National Committee on that very same day? Asking for Russia’s help, and receiving it on the same day, sure sounds like colluding.

Intelligence agencies and Senate investigators spent years reviewing the investigations and concluded that during the 2016 election, Russia conducted probing operations of election systems to see if they could change vote outcomes. While Russia extracted voter registration data in Illinois and Arizona, and probed in other states, there was no evidence that they attempted to actually change votes.

The Obama administration never claimed that Russian hackers manipulated votes, just that they meddled, as in conducting influence operations to change public opinion, using fake social media posts from the Russian Troll Farm to sow division among voters, and leaking documents stolen from the DNC to hurt Clinton. These are not opinions, they’re facts. Even a Republican-led Senate report said this was true. One of those Republicans today is Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.

Obama ordered intelligence officials to review the material they had collected and report what they had learned before he left office. Obama was worried that the incoming Trump regime would bury all reports and facts about Russia’s meddling, and Obama was right to be concerned.

Later in Helsinki, Donald Trump stood next to Vladimir Putin and took his side over that of America, and defended Putin from accusations of meddling in our election.

Garbage, I mean Gabbard is upset by an email from an assistant to then-Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, that said Obama was seeking a new assessment of the “tools Moscow used and actions it took to influence the 2016 election.” Gabbard believes that’s treasonous, but then again, she’s always been a useful idiot for Putin.

How exactly is it treasonous or even A-ha, to ask, “How did Russia do it?”

Now, the CIA is referring James Brennan, the former CIA Director, to the FBI, run by conspiracy theorist Kash Patel, for a criminal investigation. How is conducting an investigation, not on Trump but on Russia, criminal?

Gabbard’s report highlighted that there was “no indication of a Russian threat to directly manipulate the actual vote count,” then contrasted that with the spy agencies’ ultimate conclusion in December 2016 that Putin “aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances.”

The report is saying that our election system (pay attention, MAGAts) wasn’t manipulated, just that Putin tried to manipulate the results of the election.

The report focused on a decision intelligence officials made at the time against producing an article for the president’s daily intelligence briefing that would have said that the Russians “did not impact recent U.S. election results by conducting malicious cyber activities against election infrastructure.” That report was not added to President Obama’s daily briefing because they didn’t know if it was true. It wasn’t.

While Russia did not impact the vote count, it did affect the results. How is Obama having these investigations done, which were to protect our nation, treasonous? A better question might be: Is it treasonous for a president to engage in real estate deals and accept free jets from monarchies?

If an American president (sic) acted treasonously, it’s Donald Trump for trying to steal the 2020 election he lost.

One of my senators, Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said Gabbard’s report compared two different things: Russian attempts to hack into voting systems and Russian influence operations meant to sway public opinion. If Gabbard can’t understand that difference, and we know Trump can’t, then she’s not qualified to be the Director of National Intelligence.

Good luck explaining the difference between hacking into a voting system and swaying public opinion, as Gabbard’s comprehension skills are on the same level as your attic-dwelling MAGA uncle.

The Director of National Intelligence should have some intelligence. She’s as qualified for her position as Pete Hegseth, Kristi Noem, and Pam Bondi are for theirs.

Warner said, “This is one more example of the director of national intelligence trying to cook the books. We’re talking about apples and oranges. The Russians were not successful at manipulating our election infrastructure, nor did we say they were.”

Warner pointed out that as recently as March, the intelligence community reported that Russia is still using influence campaigns to sow dissent in the West. Duh. They never stopped. And why would they when it works? They’ve hacked into other Western nations, but they had their greatest success with our elections, probably because American voters are more gullible. And not just conservatives. Raise your hand if you believed Rachel Maddow and Stephen Colbert are going to do a show together because you saw it on Facebook.

The report found that “Moscow probably believes information operations efforts to influence U.S. elections are advantageous,” and that undermining the integrity of American elections was a key goal.

Warner said, “They acknowledged that Russia’s effort to meddle goes on. That was an assessment under her watch,” he said, referring to Gabbard. See? She’s stupid.

Warner said his committee found no attempt by Obama or senior officials to manipulate the findings.

William Barr appointed a special counsel shortly before Trump left office in 2021 to investigate the investigators, and none of this came up.

You know what Harry would say? This is some bullshit.

Trump and his goons, like Tulsi Gabbard, have weaponized National Intelligence, which we used to trust, against democracy.

I hope this MAGA conspiracy theory works out even better for them than the Epstein Client List theory.

Creative note: I wanted to hit this subject after seeing that nearly every MAGA cartoonist went after it with Trump’s talking points and without any context. All their cartoons said is that President Obama committed treason. They don’t even understand the issue. These MAGAt cartoonists have a better chance of explaining quantum physics in Greek than they do of understanding this issue.

Here’s one cartoon on this, and here’s another one, and here’s one more (it wasn’t a DOJ investigation, dum-dum), and hey…I found another one, and another one (by our favorite racist duo)and here’s one by another of our favorite racists, and an idiot to boot. Nice label, dumbass. There’s not one bit of context in any of these six cartoons.

Context is hard for MAGAts, but talking points are easy.

Also, my cartoon was hard to write.

Drawn in 30 seconds: (snip-go watch!)

While The Specific Has Never Occurred To Me,

I get this.

https://www.gocomics.com/broomhilda/2025/07/21

Open Windows, Clay Jones

Happy Birthday, Pedo by Clay Jones

Donald Trump’s birthday card to Jeffrey Epstein Read on Substack

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Donald Trump wrote a “racy” birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein way back in 2003. I’m shocked too. Who knew he could write?

This letter is part of the Epstein Files from the investigation by the Department of Justice. One of the MAGA talking points is that if there were anything in those files with Trump’s name on it, then the Biden administration would have released it to help the Democrats with the 2024 election. Take note that the Biden administration did NOT release it.

The question, “Why didn’t Biden release it?” is based on the presumption that Joe Biden is as corrupt as Donald Trump and would politicize the DOJ. Despite the MAGA narrative, Biden never politicized or weaponized the DOJ.

And there is something to this, because Trump is upset, and threatening to sue the WSJ, its owner, News Corp, and Rupert Murdoch. WSJ reported that the letter was part of a book of messages organized by Ghislaine Maxwell for Epstein’s 50th birthday. Maxwell was convicted 16 years later in 2019 for aiding Epstein’s sexual abuse of minors.

The letter, signed by Trump, wishes Epstein a happy birthday and tells him, “may every day be another wonderful secret.” The letter featured lines of typewritten text framed by a drawing of a naked woman, with Trump’s name signed below the woman’s waist.

Hmmmm. Whatever could that secret be, and has anyone checked the age of the woman in the naked drawing?

Trump issued a denial, saying, “I never wrote a picture in my life. I don’t draw pictures of women. It’s not my language. It’s not my words.” It’s true, you don’t write a picture. Unfortunately for Trump, the letter was written in crayon. (snip-MORE. Also, the card was written in 2003, when POTUS had a few more words in his vocab.)

Killing satire by Ann Telnaes

CBS cancels The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, claiming it was “purely a financial decision” Read on Substack

The timing of the cancellation is suspect since Colbert publicly criticized the network’s parent company, Paramount, just a few days ago for settling a $16 million lawsuit with Trump while also looking to get approval from the FCC for a merger worth $8.4 billion. As Colbert described during his monologue, a “big, fat bribe”.

Paramount is just another media company looking to keep on Trump’s good side in order to benefit their bottom line. As any other autocrat, Trump has a very thin skin and doesn’t like getting ridiculed so expect more of this. Not a good sign for satirists or editorial cartoonists…or free speech in general.

A few months ago I was interviewed by Jeffrey Brown of the PBS Newshour and talked about how important it is for a democracy to protect the rights of editorial cartoonists and satirists (at end of the segment). (snip)

Margolis & Cox, Take Two by Clay Jones

A long song for MargoCox Read on Substack

Ya’ll already knew I was a stinker. This cartoon is from December 2023on the death of Norman Lear. I’m repurposing it with a few changes for Margolis & Cox, the racist cartooning duo I had a little spat with a couple of days ago, which I wrote about.

I sent this to my clients, but it’s not a regular syndication cartoon. They will get another cartoon today.

Nothing new with those racists, I just want to ask them a question. Cox is the artist and Margolis is the writer, right? So why does Cox need Margolis if he’s only going to write tropes that have already been done a million times? Look at this cartoon and remember, they said I can’t draw. Again, it doesn’t matter how well you draw (and they don’t draw well) if your ideas are shit.

Creative note: I had a few qualms about doing this, not about pissing off Margolis, Cox, or Cagle. I couldn’t care less about what mood this puts them in. I was concerned about repurposing an old cartoon. I’m no Dave Granlund. I don’t care about his mood either. But I decided this is special, and what better way to call them out than with a cartoon?

I have discovered over the years that many people who criticize others for a living can’t take criticism, especially if they’re MAGAts.

Music note: I listened to Verbena.

Drawn in 30 seconds: (snip-go see it-)

Open Windows, Clay Jones

Protecting the right to offend by Ann Telnaes

Violence is never an acceptable response Read on Substack

In my recent post about participating in a French journalism festival, I mentioned that the publisher of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo appeared on one of the cartoonists’ panel discussions. Due to the high security around him, his participation wasn’t advertised and had, at least to my count, five armed bodyguards who followed him around constantly. Those murders at the offices of Charlie Hebdo were 10 years ago and this man still has to have around the clock protection.

I drew and wrote quite a bit about the issue of free speech during that time and it still infuriates me that some people feel they have the right to threaten (and even kill) cartoonists just because they feel offended. While most of the world were in solidarity after the massacre, the discussion in the U.S. turned to questions about limiting speech…coming even from the so-called liberals in the media.

And now we have another editorial cartoonist receiving death threats because of a cartoon he drew about the Texas floods. Right wing commentators and even several news outlets are describing the cartoon by Adam Zyglis as “mocking” the flood survivors, which of course it is not. It is a legitimate comment about the Republican hypocrisy of attacking government programs except when natural disasters affect them.

Margaret Sullivan has a good piece about how social media, the “right-wing outrage machine” (although I’d argue the left also engages in this), and ignorance of an editorial cartoon’s purpose all figure into these potentially dangerous situations.

(my graphic essay after the 2015 Charlie Hebdo massacre)

(snip-go see it on Substack; just click through. The comic turns quite small with a copy/paste, and enlarging it makes it blurry. -A.)

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Fed TACO by Clay Jones

If Fed Chair Jerome Powell gets a hankering for Tacos today, we know why Read on Substack

Donald Trump hates Jerome Powell, which puts Powell in a non-exclusive club. Donald Trump hates a lot of people. Am I on that list?

Jerome Powell, of course, is the Chair of the Federal Reserve. Last night, TACO met with about a dozen House Republicans and asked their opinions on whether or not he should fire Powell. Trump even showed them a letter he wrote firing Powell. He just hasn’t sent it yet.

Asked today by the press in the Oval Office about this letter and the imminent firing of Powell, Trump said it’s very unlikely.

Did Trump just TACO Jerome Powell? Trump earned the nickname TACO from his tariff threats, where he threatens to place tariffs on nations, then backs off, and threatens again, then backs off. Wall Street has started to ignore Trump’s tariff threats, which created “Trump Always Chickens Out.” It’s the acronym for TACO.

Calling Trump TACO upsets him greatly, but he’s still chickening out with the tariffs.

Speaking of tariffs, in June, our nation had its first surplus in nine years. Wow! The surplus is $27 billion, though the national debt is still over $36 trillion (year to date is over $1 trillion). MAGAts are celebrating this, praising Trump, and calling him a genius for this surplus they think was paid by other nations, forgetting that tariffs are taxes. Trump raised taxes on Americans, and it’s the American taxpayer from where this $27 billion surplus came from.

Republicans, do not ever play a shell game because you will lose. On the other hand, I just created a new game, Republican. Come play with me. (snip-MORE)

Margolis & Cox by Clay Jones

(Note from A.-this one’s long, but I left it whole so we can check our comics sources. The names are interesting, though I’ve seen some of the work, and wondered about it. -A.)

I’m gonna get in trouble again, but it’s good trouble Read on Substack

There’s a duo who create cartoons together, which is my first issue with these guys.

Though there’s no set rule for it, political cartooning is supposed to be a solo craft. I don’t even take ideas from readers. Here, we have a writer feeding ideas to an artist, and they’re terrible ideas. The cartoons are worse than the vitriolic bigotry shit out by Gary VarvelSteve Kelley, and Mike Lester (if you think I just pissed some cartoonists off, I’m just getting warmed up, baby). At least those dudes can suck on their own. But the MargoCox goons work for Townhall, a very racist right-wing propaganda outlet. Based on that alone, no legitimate news publication should be publishing their cartoons/propaganda, and no syndicate should be distributing them. Unfortunately, Politico publishes them as they’re syndicated by Cagle Cartoons, owned by Daryl Cagle.

In the past, Cagle was also the syndicate for the “anonymous” cartoonist, who was Canadian Cameron Cardow, a racist conspiracy theorist pretending to be an American in fear for his life from liberals, wokeness, and trans people. Politico published his work, too, no matter that it violated every journalism ethics policy in existence. Instead of the racist Cameron, why couldn’t Canada just send us more black squirrels?

I’m pretty sure the first syndicate that will distribute AI-created “cartoons” will be Cagle, and Politico will be waiting to publish them. I’m shocked Cagle isn’t selling lying racist antisemitic conspiracy theorist MAGAt Ben Garrison’s cartoons. He draws Trump with muscles. Take note, MargoCox.

But MargoCox has been producing horrible cartoons, many typical of other conservative cartoons with bigotry and lies, but also boring and bad writing for the most part. They’re a two-man trope machine. Last week, they produced something extremely racist.

If Margo wrote it, then Cox should have refused to draw it. I don’t know these guys, but I’m going to have to assume they’re both equally racist bags of dicks (and after a brand new encounter with them today, I’m not assuming anymore). As for Cagle Cartoons, the syndicate should have said no. Daryl Cagle should have refused to have his name on it.

I took issue with this, so I tweeted and posted this to Facebook (which at this time has 156 comments) on Sunday.

I hate posting the cartoon here, but you have to see it to understand the extent of the racism. It’s like old-timey minstrel shit. I got a reply from Margocox, but it was just a nonsensical GIF.

To me, it comes off as “neener neener, I owned you by being racist. Tee-hee.” If I’m wrong, feel free to inform me what this shit is. I think the guys are proud to be racist. Later, they posted another gif, but this time to my Facebook page.

I did not hear from Daryl Cagle…or did I?

I got a message from a friend late Sunday night who works for Cagle. He said he had to call “bullshit” on my post about Cagle and MargoCox. He said that the cartoon duo worked for Townhall and not Cagle, which I thought I had been clear about. I know how a syndicate works. I own a syndicate.

He said that this specific cartoon hadn’t been sent to Cagle for syndication yet and was not in their database, and that he couldn’t even find it. He demanded to know where I found the cartoon. I told him…

How could I find the cartoon, and he couldn’t?

He explained that it was on Cagle’s website, but NOT on the syndicate website. Yeah, I’m confused. It’s sitting right there, on Cagle’s site with Cagle’s name on it. What up with that? But then he did a whatabout (which should be only a MAGAt technique, but it’s what he did) and said I never go after another syndicate for this kind of stuff, but I do, and I have called out other racist, gaslighting, conspiracy theorist cartoonists in the past. He’s known me for decades, so this can’t be the first time he’s seen me call out cartoonists. In fact, he’s secretly messaged me in the past to feed me dirt on other cartoonists, hoping I would publish it (other cartoonists do this too).

But as for the cartoon NOT being on the syndication site, it is, and presented here with the pricing list.

Cagle is definitely selling this racist cartoon.

I asked my friend, who may not be my friend anymore, if Cagle had sent him to talk to me. It took him a while to reply. Are you familiar with messenger services where you can see that the other person is replying, or trying to…and you see the dots while they’re typing, then they stop, start again, stop, start again, all because the person is trying to formulate how he wants to say something. There was a lot of that.

But he finally got his denial through, saying he hadn’t talked to Cagle about it. I replied, “He’s talking to you right now, isn’t he?” I never got another reply to the conversation he initiated. That was two days ago.

Today, Margolis & Cox came after me, not by defending themselves from accusations of racism, but by attacking my art skills, as if that has anything to do with their racism.

May be an image of ‎8 people and ‎text that says '‎Margolis & Cox @MargolisandCox 38m It's always the wacko cartoonists who can't draw for shit who hate our work the most. … Clay Jones @claytoonz Jul 13 Hey @dcagle, do these two idiots, @MargolisandCox (I can't believe this is plural as most cartoonists are capable of doing this job alone), ever send you anything so racist that you refuse to distribute to newspapers and have your name on them? Why are you selling racism? MARGOLI @TOWNHALL.COM COM CHGLE.COMMWCOLIS-AX t72 اا 33 ب‎'‎‎

Only right-wing MAGAt trolls attack my drawing ability because it changes the subject and tries to put the onus on me. It’s also stupid criticism when it takes two of them to produce the rancid, bigoted tropes they crap out. I replied, saying that it doesn’t matter how well you draw if the ideas are shit. And their racist ideas are shit.

Of course, I was accused of trying to cancel them, and they’re right. I’m trying to cancel racism. They, with Daryl Cagle’s help, are advancing racism. In addition to racism, you should see all the homophobic crap they’re selling. Homophobic cartoons like this, and this, and this. Also, fellas…don’t talk about my art until you figure out how doors work.

I don’t know which one was coming at me, Margo or Cox, but it demanded that I defend myself from their attacks on my art (roll your eyes) and said there was nothing racist about drawing a black woman as a clown, except these art critics didn’t draw her as a clown. All they did was give her giant lips.

They said I was a “mediocre” cartoonist, jealous of them, and that being “printed” means they don’t “suck.” It’s like talking to very racist and stupid children. I really don’t like to boast about my success, and I don’t think I am that successful, but guys…I’m published more than the two of you put together, and I have more awards at this time than you will ever see, unless the Daily Stormer gives out cartoon awards.

And you can’t brag about being syndicated when your cartoons are sold by the same guy who sells Gary McCoy and the “Anonymous” cartoonist.

This went on for a while with them, and I quickly learned it was pointless to talk to the moron twins because they’re like insecure and immature little boys… little stupid racist boys. If someone were able to make them listen to why their cartoon is racist, they wouldn’t have the intellectual bandwidth combined to comprehend. They’re too stupid to be drawing political cartoons, and much too stupid to be syndicated. But I’ve also learned over the years that Cagle will syndicate anyone if it’ll get him a nickel. He exercises zero civic responsibility.

Syndicates need to be responsible for the stuff they put out. If they can’t, then they shouldn’t sell it. When I asked Cagle a couple of years ago on Twitter to justify syndicating the anonymous cartoonist, his answer was, “I don’t see a problem with it,” which is not an answer.

Now, he’s not replying to this. Why not? Because he can’t justify it. His only reason for carrying this shit is that it might sell. But he needs to explain why he sells racist cartoons. This is beyond a different viewpoint or a counterpoint. He can’t argue it’s not racist, because it is, and the comments from his employee indicate that they know it’s racist. Why was he so upset in the first place? Because I “accused” Cagle of selling a racist cartoon, which I have proven they are doing.

One of Cagle’s cartoonists, Gary McCoy, has had multiple newspapers apologize to their readers for his racist cartoons, with one paper even pulling cartoons altogether over it. This happens with Gary’s work TIME after TIME after TIME after TIME, and Cagle continues to sell his racist cartoons. I don’t understand why Cagle continues to carry McCoy despite his racism, because McCoy’s cartoons suck. They can’t be bringing in that much revenue, can they?

What I propose, since Daryl Cagle refuses responsibility for selling racism, is that all of his cartoonists, the ones whose work he syndicates, need to tell him he needs to stop.

A few cartoonists commented on my initial post about MargoCox, outraged over their racism. A few of those are Lalo Alcaraz, Chris Britt, Marc Murphy, John Kovalic, Kevin Necessary, Bob Krieger, Phil Hands, Gary Huck, and Steve Brodner. Other cartoonists need to step up, even those syndicated by Cagle, and denounce racism in political cartooning.

Guys, you are in the business of publishing your opinions…publish your opinion on this. Speak up, or at least speak to Daryl. Tell him to cut out the bullshit. This should go double for the good cartoonists who are in Cagle’s stable. I’m looking at you, some of whom are my friends who I respect greatly, Pat Bagley, Adam Zyglis, Ed Wexler, Michael de Adder, Rick McKee, Bill Day, Jeff Koterba, John Cole, and Alexandra Bowman. For the love of god, for the love of this industry, say something.

I’m asking my colleagues to stand up against racism in our industry, because we know Daryl never will.

A friend of mine, who is a Black woman, said about this, “It’s sad but the good thing as Black women is that we are used to this type of hate to the point where we expect it, and since we have so much experience with it, we are able to rise above it because that’s the only other choice that we have.”

One last note: MargoCox told me that calling them out “will not end well for me.”

The comments will be open for everyone on this blog, because the accused and the ones I’ve called out deserve the opportunity to reply.

Note: Yes, I wrote this blog while sober. (snip)

Clay Jones, Open Windows

SCOTUS flunks Separation of Powers again by Ann Telnaes

Supposedly only Congress has the power to abolish the Department of Education Read on Substack

This is the result by the majority Supreme Court’s expansion of presidential power and a Congress who long ago failed to uphold its constitutional oath of office.

Steve Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University, is quoted in the Economist that there is “no rhyme or reason” in these rulings other than “enabling lawless behaviour by the Trump administration”. Vladeck has a substack about the U.S. Supreme Court I recommend following.

==================

Tanks For Nothing by Clay Jones

SCOTUS says Trump can dismantle the Education Department and Grok goes to war Read on Substack

It’s frustrating to watch Trump get everything he wants, from media outlets settling bogus lawsuits, to social media caving into his demands, to FIFA giving him a trophy while making the winners celebrate with a duplicate (he was even caught stealing a medal), to FIFA (again) renting office space in Trump Tower to kiss his ass, to the Supreme Court of the United States allowing him to deport whoever he wants and destroy any federal agency he wants.

Congress created the Department of Education by law, and Trump acted to destroy it. He was sued, and a lower federal court paused it. Now, SCOTUS ruled, 6-3 as usual, that Trump can continue to destroy it as the case makes its way through the lower courts. Even if SCOTUS says Trump can’t destroy the department by the time the case returns from the lower courts, it will probably be too late.

It will be like reversing the death penalty after the execution.

These rulings are partisan. When the Biden administration asked SCOTUS to unpause a lower court’s freeze on forgiving student loans, SCOTUS refused. But for Trump, they’re bending over backward. SCOTUS is officially saying, “It’s OK if a Republican does it.”

I thought SCOTUS was on a break. They are, but they figured it was an emergency, so they came back to help Trump destroy education. This shit doesn’t make America great again. They wouldn’t have done this for Biden, nor would they have ruled that Biden is immune from prosecution.

Hmmmm, what else happened yesterday? Oh, yeah. Grok, Elon’s AI product, has been given a $200 million contract with the Defense Department. This came one day after Grok went on an antisemitic rant on Twitter/X. Of course, only Elon could teach a robot to be a Nazi.

It’s bad enough we got Drunky Hegseth leading the department while spilling classified information and pausing arms shipments to Ukraine, and now we’re going to trust Artificial Intelligence.

The Pentagon also gave contracts to Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI. The federal government is hiring robots while the Education people are being dumped.

Did none of these bozos watch The Terminator? At what time does Skynet become self-aware? We’re all doomed. Doooooomed, I tell you. (snip-MORE)

Jen Sorenson Has An Idea-

I got a “The Nib” newsletter with cool toons yesterday; here’s one:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/7/9/2332362/-Cartoon-Terms-for-our-times

Clay Jones Says

Stop Talking About Epstein by Clay Jones

Donald Trump is clearly getting frustrated Read on Substack

Donald Trump wants you to stop talking about Jeffrey Epstein.

First, what’s with that “boys and girls” crap? Does he still envision himself as the nation’s “daddy?” Second, a perfect administration? Sorry, TACO, but we’ve seen Pete Hegseth, Kristi Noem, Kash Patel, Pam Bondi, JD Vance, and others of your team in action. You have clearly stocked your pond with the least qualified and dumbest fish of all time.

But I get it. Trump wants people to stop talking about Epstein, when previously, he encouraged his cult to talk about Epstein. Look at this tweet from his number one idiot offshoot from 2023.

Is Trump protecting “those scum bags” or is he one of those scumbags? Hmmm? Trump and Jeffers used to party together. Trump told us they were very similar, as they both liked women, with Epstein liking them on the younger side. Was Trump talking about young women, or did he make that statement because he knew about the pedophilia? What did Trump witness, or take part in, when he flew on Epstein’s plane?

Trump talked about his administration being “perfect,” while it was his stupid and unqualified Attorney General who went on Fox News and claimed the Epstein Client List was on her desk, and then later said it never existed. How is that perfect?

But ya know, I don’t think there ever was an Epstein Client List. When did we first hear of this supposed client list?

I believe it was MAGAts who first claimed that there’s an Epstein Client List, because they used it against Biden. But it’s been said so much, “clientlistclientlistclientlistclientlistclientlist,” that it has even gaslighted liberals.

I’m seeing memes from some of my liberal friends asking why Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell is in prison if there’s not a client list. If the only evidence against her is a client list, then she wouldn’t be in prison. How would a client list convict her? There’s a whole hell of a lot more evidence against Epstein than a supposed client list.

And what would the client list be for? He wasn’t in the business of pedophilia, right? It was an activity, a hobby. It was terrible and messed up, but that’s not how Epstein made his millions. I’m sure there is a list of his clients for his finance business.

Now, Trump is being yelled at by MAGAts. How sweet is that? They really want the client list released, which probably doesn’t even exist. It’s not the first time Trump claimed something that’s not true. Trump never did prove that Obama was born in Kenya. He never proved he won the 2020 election. He still hasn’t proven White Genocide in South Africa. We haven’t even seen all the fraud DOGE supposedly found.

But to MAGAts, not releasing the Epstein Client List, or the Epstein Files, makes Trump as bad as the Deep State, which, by the way, also hasn’t been proven to exist.

There are files on Epstein, and Bondi has said she’s not releasing those either. Fuck the client list, let’s see those files. While I don’t believe there is a client list, and feel free to disagree with me, there are Epstein files. Neither Trump nor Bondi has explained to us why those aren’t being released.

The best way to distract a MAGAt is with another conspiracy theory or bigotry. Remember, MAGAts love Trump because they hate the same people. So over the weekend, Trump threatened to revoke Rosie O’Donnell’s citizenship, even though a president doesn’t have that power. Did it work to distract the MAGAts. No, it just gave them something else to rave about while still howling for the Epstein Client List.

Good luck getting your base, Donald, to stop talking about the thing you wouldn’t shut up about. Usually, MAGAts do whatever you say. Maybe you need to remind them that they’re in a cult.

Squirrels: If you’ve ever visited the White House, you probably noticed the squirrels. There are a lot of squirrels at the White House. The fences that keep me and you out are ineffective against squirrel penetration. They go wherever they want. Ronald Reagan used to collect acorns from Camp David to feed the squirrels at the White House. Ike hated them because they would bury acorns in his golf green. But, there aren’t just grey squirrels at the White House, but also black squirrels. To be more specific, black Canadian squirrels.

Things like this fascinate me. I noticed them in Central Park too, but I haven’t researched that yet.

During the Theodore Roosevelt administration, the guy in charge of the National Zoo or the Smithsonian asked Canada for some black squirrels. They’re not native to the United States, though they’re the same squirrels as our grey ones except for the black coats, which might be thicker. It’s cold in Canada, yo.

So, we traded some grey squirrels for their black squirrels, and some either escaped from the zoo, or a few were released. One version explains that they were released at the zoo, with expectations that they would stay on the zoo grounds, but again….fences. Squirrels ignore them.

Today, Washington, DC has black squirrels, and they’re not going anywhere. It’s estimated that half of the squirrels in the city are descendants of the Canadian squirrels, even though the zoo originally only got a few of them. Squirrels are rodents, and rodents screw a LOT.

Not everyone feels the way Ike did, and there’s some civic pride in the black squirrels. There was even a bar in Adams Morgan named the Black Squirrel.

And that’s why there is a black squirrel in today’s cartoon.

What I hope is that Donald Trump notices all the Black immigrants all over his lawn that he can’t do anything about. (snip-MORE)

LOLing-

This is something my son says:

https://www.gocomics.com/lockhorns/2025/07/11

Open Windows, Ann Telnaes