According to NPR and pretty much everybody else, on August 26th Donald Trump visited Arlington National Cemetery because he wanted to take photos and record video and blame Joe Harris and Kamala Biden for some dead soldiers, but the Arlington National Cemetery rules prohibited political activity so an Arlington employee tried to stop him, but she was “pushed aside” by Trump campaign staffers.
Sensing that pushing around a female staffer who was trying to enforce cemetery rules was a bad look, the Trump campaign tried to get out in front of the story and a Trump spokesman said the cemetery staffer was “clearly suffering from a mental health episode” and promised to release footage of the encounter to back up their demeaning claim, but has so far declined to do so.
So put that on the list of broken promises along with building a border wall that Mexico paid for.
A Trump supporter and Bronze Medalist in the Ass-Kissing Olympics – Congressman Brian Mast – claimed Trump “conducted no politics at Arlington National Cemetery” which unfortunately for Brian the Ass Kisser came one day after Trump released a TikTok video of himself conducting politics at Arlington National Cemetery.
So combine this episode with Trump’s draft-dodging and calling dead soldiers “suckers” and “losers” and insulting John McCain for getting captured in a war Trump avoided and saying the civilian Presidential Medal of Freedom (which he gave to one of his campaign donors) is a better award than the military’s Medal of Honor and I thought I should point out just what was dead.
https://www.npr.org/2024/08/29/nx-s1-5092087/trump-arlington-cemetery-altercation-video
BTW because I did the research: Trump gave Miriam Adelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom because she and her husband Sheldon gave $133 million to Trump and the Republicans and here’s a story from NBC that calls Miriam’s award and Trump’s presidency “crassly transactional” and says this wasn’t exactly what John F. Kennedy had in mind when he established the award in 1963:
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-giving-miriam-adelson-medal-freedom-captures-transactional-nature-his-ncna937121
Just in case you didn’t read that last article, Trump personally lobbied Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to get Sheldon a casino license, so that $133 million might have been well spent. And if you want to know what the VFW thought about all this, here you go:
https://www.vfw.org/media-and-events/latest-releases/archives/2024/8/vfw-admonishes-former-president-for-medal-of-honor-remarks
(Those last two links failed to “link” so you’re going to have to copy and paste if you want to read them and good luck with that.)
Once again there was a school shooting, this time in Georgia, and once again Conservative Politicians proved they care more about the right to own way more guns than any sane person needs than the lives of schoolkids.
Possibly because schoolkids don’t vote or make political donations, so I’d advise them to form a PAC ASAP.
The 14-year-old school shooter, Colt Gray (and I’m assuming he was named “Colt” after his parents decided “Smith & Wesson” Gray was too pretentious) showed up at school with a “semiautomatic assault-style” rifle, killed four people and wounded nine more.
As usual we’re looking for people to blame and so far they’ve arrested his dad for allowing his son to have a weapon, which I’m under the impression the National Rifle Association strongly encourages.
According to the following article from the NRA Explore website, which has the unfortunate and poorly thought-out motto “DISCOVER THE POSSIBILITIES” (like going to school and shooting people) shooters under 18 years of age must be accompanied by their parent or legal guardian on their first visit to an NRA range, but once the minor has a Range ID card they can use the NRA shooting range under the supervision of anyone over 18 who also has a range card, but the shooter needs to be at least seven years old because as we all know 6-year-olds are just too trigger happy, but a year later totally have their shit together.
Jesus M. Christ, I know 67-year-olds who aren’t mature enough to have a gun and I’m probably on that list.
https://nrahqrange.nra.org/faqs/
Anyway: as Long As We’re Looking For Someone to Blame…
Republican Vice Presidential Candidate and Possible Maybelline Eyeliner Spokesmodel, JD Vance lamented another school shooting, but said they’re a “fact of life” and as usual the Gun Nut’s answer to gun violence is even more guns because according to them we still don’t have enough guns in American Society.
So according to JD, the gun violence problem is totally unfixable and we just need to live with it.
Meanwhile, it’s totally possible to build a giant-ass 1,954 mile wall along our southern border and get Mexico to pay for it and stop crime and illegal immigration and fix all our infrastructure and defeat ISIS and enact term limits on Congress and take down the drug cartels and fix the economy and build flying cars (surprisingly enough, I didn’t make that last one up) and whatever other unlikely campaign promises Donald Trump can pull directly out of his XXL-sized ass.
School shootings are only a fact of life because political weasels like JD Vance refuse to do anything about them.
Over the weekend Dick Cheney, former Vice President and Dark Lord of the Galactic Empire, said he would vote for Kamala Harris because:
“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our Republic than Donald Trump.”
Cheney cited Trump’s willingness to use “lies and violence” to stay in power and added, “he can never be trusted with power again.”
Aaaand…
“We have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution. That is why I’ll be casting my vote for Kamala Harris.”
Anytime you can get Dick “The Prince of Darkness” Cheney to decide you’re too extreme to be in power you’ve gone So Far Out To The Right you’re keeping company with people who thought the Horst Wessel Song was Top 40 material, had a good beat and was easy to dance to.
I’m hoping Darth Cheney’s announcement convinces more Reasonable Republicans – they do exist, but are no longer in control of their party – to vote for Kamala even though she’s nuthin’ to write home about.
O.J. Simpson Dies
Due to having my work schedule shot to shit by travel, I’m a cartoon or two short today, so here’s a sketch and story I never got around to drawing or posting so enjoy both assuming I haven’t already lost you with my anti-Trump rants.
O.J. Simpson died on Wednesday, April 10th but I didn’t hear about it until Thursday, April 11th and I’d already started a different cartoon and I didn’t have a really solid “O.J. kicks the bucket” cartoon idea, so I went ahead and finished the cartoon I was already working on.
Also…
The syndicate that distributes my cartoons wants them by 10 AM my time which would mean waking up at Way-Too-Fucking-Early AM, so I draw them the day before I send them in, which means I work Sunday through Thursday and my days off are Friday and Saturday, all of which is barely interesting to me so I can only guess how bored you must be by now.
Anyway…
If I didn’t draw about O.J. on Thursday and send it in on Friday (which I didn’t) it had to wait until Sunday and then I’d send it in Monday which is probably confusing, but bottom line: that’s way too long a delay so O.J.’s Wednesday death was almost as inconvenient for me as it was for him.
As I’ve said before, it would be much more efficient if celebrities and politicians would check with me and my cartooning schedule before dying, saying something enormously stupid or getting convicted of 34 felonies, but as we all know celebrities are rude and self-centered and die whenever the hell they feel like it even though it’s highly inconvenient for me personally.
All that being the case, normally I’d have this idea and nowhere to use it, but now, through the miracle of the internet which apparently has no discernable standards, here it is:
I also had some doubts about the cartoon because for it to make sense you had to know that one of the turning points in the O.J. Simpson trial was the prosecutors asking O.J. to try on the blood-soaked gloves and O.J. at least acting like he couldn’t get them on because they were too small.
I’ve seen O.J. in movies and that was definitely the best acting of his career and you gotta hand it to him for coming through in the clutch.
(Men, you can try the same “It’s Just Too Small” thing with a condom, but I’m guessing a jury of your peers would find it unconvincing and I’m pretty sure there’s a “hung jury” joke in there somewhere which will probably come to me three days from now.)
Today’s Lesson
Pretty simple…I don’t care if Austin Powers shows up at tonight’s debate and smoke starts coming out her ears and her head explodes: on Election Day, Vote for Kamala.
Kamala Harris has yet to prove how she will lead the country but there is no question, she's the one to bounce the Orange Menace out of our politics. Here is a reading recommendation from 2020 with a thinly disguised satire of DT that's still applicable: "Squeeze Me" by Carl Hiaasen.
I second your last line heartily.