Third Time’s A Charm
If at first you don't succeed...
Recently, Donald Trump said he didn’t know whether every person in America was entitled to due process and complained that having to follow the Constitution would limit what he wants to do; an answer that would be disappointing in a high school Freshman, much less the President of the United States.
Just in case you didn’t pay any attention in Civics Class either:
Due process is enshrined in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments and is a fundamental element of the American legal system that attempts to ensure fairness and says the government can’t deprive a person of life, liberty or property without a hearing in front of a neutral decision maker. The government also has to tell people what they’re charged with and provide legal counsel if needed and if you just thought, “Wait, hasn’t the Trump Administration been grabbing people and sending them off to foreign prisons without doing any of that?” the answer is yes and the Trump Administration would really like to keep right on doing that.
When Trump was asked if people were entitled to due process, he responded:
“I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know. I don’t know. It seems—it might say that, but if you’re talking about that, then we’d have to have a million or two million or three million trials.”
No shit, Sherlock.
It’s supposed to be hard to grab people and ship them off to foreign prisons and maybe you want to have a hearing to find out if you grabbed the right person and if they’re actually guilty of what you’ve accused them of, which the Trump Administration failed to do when they grabbed Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia and sent him to a prison in El Salvador and while they’ve admitted that was a mistake they also refuse to fix it.
Y’know…
A lot of people who claim to love America don’t seem to understand how it works or why people want to be here and if someone doesn’t stop them they’re going to fuck it up and turn it into one of those “shithole” countries they like to ridicule.
You don’t have to go to Harvard Law School to understand due process and I’ll explain all that to my fellow prisoners once they grab me and ship me off to Guantanamo Bay and if you’re enjoying what you’re currently reading I’ll save you space on the Guantanamo Bay Prison Softball Team because you might soon be joining me.
And speaking of prisons…
So Trump announces he’s going to reopen Alcatraz which has been closed for 60 years and they closed it because it was falling apart and expensive to operate – everything had to brought in by boat – but even though they’re firing people and cutting program and budgets, apparently money is no object when it comes to fulfilling one of Trump’s childish fantasies and just in case you haven’t heard this already, Trump wants to have a big military parade (just like his favorite dictators) on his birthday.
In what appears to be a somewhat garbled thought process (Trump’s Standard Operating Procedure) our Adolescent President says he thought of reopening Alcatraz in response to the courts and judges that are being Legal Party Poopers and insisting he follow the Constitution which can really slow things down when you want to be a tyrant.
Anyway…
Trump said he was directing the Bureau of Prisons, the Department of Justice, the FBI and Homeland Security to get right on reopening Alcatraz, but apparently didn’t bother to check who actually controls Alcatraz and the answer is the National Park Service.
This is like having a dim-witted and poorly-read fifth-grader as a Petulant Child King and before Trump’s through I expect all the rides at Disneyland to be free of charge and all the cute girls will have to give Trump a kiss on his birthday and he not only gets to throw out the First Pitch at the World Series, he gets at least one at-bat and the opposing pitcher has to throw the ball underhand and if President Trump gets the ball in play, Marco Rubio has to run the bases for him.
On the Glass Is Half-Full of Bullshit upside, Trump announces a lot of stuff he immediately loses interest in actually doing and we’ll have more about that before we’re through.
Next up; Donald Trump posts an AI-generated picture of himself as the pope and a whole bunch of Catholics found it sacrilegious and disrespectful which also describes about 92% of my cartoons so where do I get off calling Trump a horse’s ass?
Lucky for both of us I have an explanation:
I’M NOT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
I’m a political cartoonist and being sacrilegious and disrespectful is part of my job description (I believe “juvenile” and “sophomoric” are mentioned in the fine print) and Trump is – at least theoretically – supposed to show some dignity, but you probably shouldn’t hold your breath waiting.
Donald Trump loves attention and will do or say pretty much anything to get people focused on him, like posting pictures of himself as the New Pope.
And if announcing the reopening of Alcatraz or considering a 100% tariff on foreign movies or offering to pay $1,000 to anyone who self-deports or threatening to use military force to annex Greenland or saying he isn’t 100% sure if the Constitution applies to him isn’t enough to get people’s attention, I’m assuming the next step will be removing his Sansabelt slacks, painting his butt bright blue and walking backwards down Pennsylvania Avenue.
As you may have noticed Donald Trump loves announcing things, but often fails to follow through on those announcements (he didn’t build a wall and Mexico didn’t pay for one) and here’s an article from the Politifact website about things Trump said he was going to do in his first term, but didn’t actually do:
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/trumpometer/
Just in case you didn’t read the article and odds are you didn’t, Politifact tracked 102 promises Trump made during his 2016 campaign and 23% of those promises were kept, 22% resulted in some sort of compromise and 53% of those promises were broken, so do the math and whatever Trump says he’s going to do, odds are he won’t do it, which let’s face it, is good news.
The 23% of kept promises are the problem.
In one of those “I hope I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure I’m right” situations, the USA and Ukraine signed a minerals deal, but unfortunately for the Ukrainians the USA has a lengthy track record of not keeping its word (just ask the American Indian of your choice) and Donald Trump is even worse about breaking deals and promises and here’s a USA Today story from 2016 which tried to warn us that Trump had a habit of getting contractors to do work for him and then refusing to pay them.
Which is the kind of crap rich people can get away with; if the rest of us don’t pay our bills, we get a lien on our house or have our wages garnished or wind up spending quality time in the Graybar Hotel with our new boyfriend Bubba, the former bank robber.
At the time the article was written Trump had already been involved in over 3,500 lawsuits that involved refusing to pay his bills so you can’t trust Donald Trump as far as you can throw him, which, after a lifetime of Double Quarter Pounders, isn’t all that far.
Nevertheless, we’ve got a deal with Ukraine and according to the Associated Press, the deal gives us access to their minerals like titanium, uranium and green kryptonite and in return Ukraine gets…
Ukraine gets…
Ukraine gets…
OK, apparently Ukraine gets a promise that we’re eventually going to establish a reconstruction fund that they hope will be a vehicle for future military assistance and anytime you hear the word “hope” mentioned while describing a contract, you “hope” someone didn’t sign a vague deal that won’t give them what they “hope” to get.
According to the Associated Press, the Ukraine minerals deal does not mention any “explicit security guarantees to deter future Russian aggression” and I’m guessing the contractors who couldn’t get Trump to pay his bills would have advised the Ukrainians to hold one of Trump’s kids hostage until he pays up, but the difficulty there would be figuring out which kid Trump loves more than money.
If any.
Although, if I had to bet my house on it, I’d bet on Ivanka, because being a reprehensible human being, Trump once said: “If Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”
Which sounds really fucking creepy (only because it is).
The Snopes fact-checking site said the creepy quote is accurate and here’s a link to that article and the idiot said it on The View which I’ve never watched, but as I understand it, is hosted by a rotating group of disappointed women and I’m guessing Trump’s appearance confirmed every shitty thought they ever had about men:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-the-view-ivanka-date/
Today’s Lesson
Cheer up, Trump fails to keep his promises all the time, if we all wind up playing softball in Guantanamo Bay I’ve got dibs on right field and now that Cardinal Robert Provost has been chosen as the first American pope I expect Trump supporters to storm the Vatican.
Have a nice weekend.
Hey, Lee, that's a lifetime of Double Quarter Pounders WITH CHEESE, dude. 😁 That's why he needs the Sansabelts.
Have a great weekend! I'm the only one in my area of the fifth floor who doesn't work from home on Fridays, so I was able to give this piece the belly laughs it deserves. 😂
Having years ago read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (a masterpiece of reporting) disturbing echoes come to mind of Hitler's manic actions once he was given power.
Hey, Donald, I know your lackeys are reading and reporting this, so FYI I am not suggesting your massive ego will end up involving the world is a devastating war. Neither am I ruling it out.
Mr. J, FYI as you fill out your Guantanamo roster, I am a good-glove, light-stick CF, B/T: right.