Thursday, October 17, 2024

Clip Of The Day

 

Here's real tough guy Dave Bautista with an ad on Jimmy Kimmel Live, forever puncturing the flimsy "Trump's a tough guy" balloon (amusing but NSFW language):

Today's Cartoons

 

(click on images to enlarge)

(David Rowe, Financial Review, Sydney)

(John Darkow, Columbia Missourian)

(Bill Bramhall, New York Daily News)

(Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press)

(Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)


(Jack Ohman, Tribune Content Agency)

(John Deering, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

(Rob Rogers, Counterpoint)

(Clay Jones, claytoonz.com)

(Tim Campbell, Counterpoint)

(Peter Kuper, @kuperart)

(Jason Adam Katzenstein, @j.a.k._)


Hush, Hush Sweet Stormy



Whether it's overturning an election or paying off porn stars, the felonious Malignant Loser never learns:

Former President Donald Trump this summer offered a financial incentive to adult film star Stormy Daniels if she agreed to keep quiet about Trump — including about the relationship that became the center of the hush money payments that ended up the subject of a New York criminal trial — ahead of this November’s election, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow reported on Wednesday.

Daniels delivered blockbuster testimony earlier this year about hush money payments she received from Trump ahead of the 2016 election, in which she was paid to remain silent about an affair between the two, a relationship he has denied. The jury convicted Trump of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to the payments.  

In a case separate from the hush money trial, Daniels was ordered to pay for Trump’s legal fees after she lost a defamation suit she filed against him. About two months after the hush money trial, Trump’s lawyer told Daniels’ representative that the former president would agree to a lower payment if she agreed not to make any disparaging comments about Trump.  [snip]

Daniels’ lawyer declined the proposal, Maddow reported. Daniels’ lawyer told MSNBC that they ultimately settled on $627,500 but she did not agree to remain silent.  [snip]

In May, Trump was found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush money paid to Daniels. The historic conviction marked the first time a former president has been found guilty of a crime.

Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen made payments to Daniels in the final stretch of the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump then reimbursed Cohen for the payments, listing them as legal expenses on business records. Trump is scheduled to be sentenced in the case next month.  (our emphasis)

That Ms. Daniels (Stephanie Clifford) refused to take the new de facto hush money deal and remain silent about the Malignant Loser's affair with her while his third wife Melon Melanie Melania was pregnant speaks to the fact that she has more courage and more honor than all the "leaders" in the MAGAt Republican Party/cult combined.  Who wants more of this for 4 years?  Time to turn the page.

(Photo:  Stephanie Clifford's MySpace.com)


Tweets Of The Day

 

VP Harris fires back on Trump-allied Fox --


 

 

 


There was nothing wrong with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and democracy: Trump --


 

 

"Psychotic, disqualifying" --

 


The Malignant Loser's medical records have to be bad -- 



Australia comes through for Ukraine. Slava Ukraini! -- 



A real pet-friendly airline -- 




Quotes Of The Day -- McConnell's Cowardice

 

Shriveled eunuch Senate Minority "Leader" Mitch McConnell (Coward-KY) shows what your typically unprincipled MAGAt Republican will do to put party over country.  He's endorsed the Malignant Loser in 2024 despite having said these things in a new biography, "The Price of Power," by Michael Tackett, to be released on October 29 (our emphasis):

On the Malignant Loser's defeat in 2020 --

"[it] only underscores the good judgment of the American people. They’ve had just enough of the misrepresentations, the outright lies almost on a daily basis, and they fired him. And for a narcissist like him, that’s been really hard to take, and so his behavior since the election has been even worse, by far, than it was before, because he has no filter now at all.”

On the Malignant Loser withholding the coronavirus relief package --

This despicable human being is sitting on this package of relief that the American people desperately need.”
On the Malignant Loser's press conferences --
"[I]t’s not hard to look more knowledgeable than Donald Trump at a press conference.”

On the Malignant Loser following the party's losses in the 2018 mid- terms --

”[Trump] has every characteristic you would not want a president to have,” McConnell said in an oral history at the time, and was “not very smart, irascible, nasty.”

On the Malignant Loser's criticisms of him and the Malignant Loser's racist remarks about his wife --

“I can’t think of anybody I’d rather be criticized by than this sleazeball.”

Well, all we can say is that, in putting party over country by cowardly endorsing the person you've spoken about in those words, McConnell will go down in history as just as "despicable" and every bit as much of a "sleazeball" as the Malignant Loser, because you are who you vote for.  In McConnell's case, as the book's title says, that's the price of power.


Trump Calls Jan. 6 A "Day Of Love"




The depraved, pathological liar the Malignant Loser said yesterday that the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol was a "day of love."  Appearing at a town hall on Univision, the sociopathic Malignant Loser downplayed the violent attack on the Capitol, in which over 140 police officers were injured, with two of them dying afterwards. One lie followed another, as NBC News reports:

"Donald Trump on Wednesday shrugged off the idea that his conduct on Jan. 6, 2021, should cost him the backing of Republican voters after a former supporter confronted him at a televised town hall and said he would not cast a ballot for the former president because of his actions that day.

In his response at the Univision event, Trump also distanced himself from the attack on the Capitol while minimizing the damage done by a mob of his supporters.

'Nothing done wrong at all,' Trump said in a lengthy response after a Republican voter from Florida said he had lost his vote because of his responses to the riot and the Covid pandemic. [snip]

He then argued that the thousands of supporters who went to Washington for Jan. 6 were not there because of him, even though he tweeted on Dec. 19, 2020: 'Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild.'

'They didn't come because of me,' Trump said Wednesday. 'They came because of the election. They thought the election was a rigged election, and that's why they came.'

In 2020, and in the years since then, Trump has falsely claimed that the election was stolen. Many of those charged in the Jan. 6 riot have cited his election lies. [snip]

At the town hall, Trump also called Jan. 6, when rioters who delayed the electoral vote count for hours injured over 140 police officers, as "a day of love."

'There were no guns down there. We didn’t have guns. The others had guns, but we didn’t have guns. And when I say we, these are people that walked down — this was a tiny percentage of the overall which nobody sees and nobody, nobody shows. But that was a day of love,' he said."  (our emphasis)

As he infamously lies about the 2020 election being stolen, the Malignant Loser wants everyone to disregard what their lying eyes saw, and believe him. He's under Federal indictment for his central role in orchestrating efforts to overturn the 2020 election, from directing the production of fake state electors, to urging State officials to "find" votes for him, to ultimately the MAGA mob action on January 6. He needs to be held accountable for that, and hopefully after the election, he will be.

(photo: Trump cultists breaking into Capitol. Reuters)

 

Today In Republican Dystopia

 

Just three items after a brief scan of this morning's news that demonstrate the cruelty of the Republican party/cult.

No family planning freedom for you!

Four months after the Supreme Court tossed out a high-profile challenge to the abortion drug mifepristone, and as abortion access is a major flashpoint in the presidential election, three conservative states are following through on a promise to bring the issue back to the forefront with a new lawsuit.

The states – Missouri, Kansas and Idaho – filed an amended suit in a federal court in Texas asking US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk to rollback efforts the Food and Drug Administration has taken over the past eight years to ease access to the drug, such as allowing it to be dispensed through the mail.

The suit may thrust the issue of mifepristone access back on track for Supreme Court review in the next presidential administration, once again threatening the widespread availability of the drug even in states where abortion is legal and at a time when roughly half of states have imposed severe restrictions on in-clinic abortions.

“These dangerous drugs are now flooding states like Missouri and Idaho and sending women in these states to the emergency room,” the states argued in the new lawsuit.

The claim that mifepristone is unsafe has been widely refuted by mainstream medical organizations. Medication abortions account for nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the US....

No health insurance for you!

Three Republican attorneys general argued in a federal courtroom in North Dakota on Tuesday that a federal rule allowing some undocumented immigrants to receive subsidized health insurance should be stopped – or at the very least, delayed.

The attorneys general for Kansas, North Dakota and South Dakota led the hearing on behalf of 19 states — including Nebraska — challenging the rule, which would allow undocumented immigrants protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to access health care plans under the Affordable Care Act.

The immigration program, also known as DACA, temporarily delays the deportation of people who immigrated to the United States without documentation when they were children.

Health benefits under the Affordable Care Act are limited to U.S. citizens, nationals or immigrants “lawfully present” in the country.

Previously, DACA recipients were not explicitly defined as meeting this definition in administrative regulations implementing the law.

The federal agency this year adopted a rule that clarifies, among other things, that “lawfully present” immigrants does include participants in DACA. The rule also extends the definition to include undocumented immigrants with certain employment authorization documents...

No school for you! Children need to work!

State governments across the US are taking steps to eliminate protections for minors as rates of child labor violations, injuries and chronic school absenteeism rise, according to a report released on Wednesday.

The report by Governing for Impact, the Economic Policy Institute, and Child Labor Coalition proposes actions the Biden-Harris administration can take in response to a recent surge in child labor violations around the country and a trend of some states passing legislation that rolls back state-level child labor protections.

Its authors also warn that moves to weaken child protections will probably escalate under a second Donald Trump presidency.

Injury rates among workers under the age of 18 nearly doubled from 2011 to 2020. All child labor violations almost increased by four times between 2015 and 2022, and hazard occupation violations more than doubled during the same period.

At the same time, legislators in more than 30 states have moved to weaken child labor protections since 2021, often citing claims of labor shortages and backed by industry groups in these pushes. The report noted these rollbacks at the state level have often either conflicted with federal law or sowed confusion among employers over which are applicable to them, leading to more child labor violations.

Project 2025, a conservative guide for a second Trump administration, which aligns closely with Trump’s policies and was authored and promoted by numerous former Trump officials and allies, advocates for rolling back child labor protections, the report cites... (our emphasis)

More of the same mindless punching- down of the kind expressed in "Wilhoit's law" -- "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."

These extremists (let's be more specific -- fascists) want to turn the clock back over 100 years to a dystopian America where the weak and powerless are preyed upon and the powerful and wealthy rule without guardrails.  That's all on the line next month, up and down the ballot.


Wednesday, October 16, 2024

Today's Cartoons

 

(click on images to enlarge)

(Jesse Duquette, @JRDuquette)

(Nick Anderson, Reform Austin News/ Tribune, TX)

(Dave Whamond, caglecartoons.com)


(Guy Parsons, politicalcartoons.com)

(Joe Heller, hellertoon.com)

(Clay Jones, claytoonz.com)

(Pedro Molina, Counterpoint)

(Drew Sheneman, The Star-Ledger, Newark,NJ)

(John Darkow, Columbia Missourian)

(Jen Sorensen, gocomics.com)

(Chris Britt, Creators.com)

(Zack Rhodes and Vaughan Tomlinson, @vaughantomlinson)


The Malignant Loser's Ground Game Disaster, Cont.




Rolling Stone has an article detailing the ongoing problems that the Malignant Loser's get-out-the vote operation is experiencing less than three weeks before the election. As we noted on October 7 and October 14, the Malignant Loser's decision to outsource his get-out-the vote effort to supportive political action committees like Turning Point, may be a fatal error, and the most significant player is none other than illegal immigrant, South African fascist and weirdo Elon Musk's America PAC. From the article:

"In recent weeks, several Republican operatives and other figures in the national party have bluntly and directly informed Trump they fear Musk’s organization is falling down on the job of mobilizing voters to cast their ballots for the Republican nominee. 

According to two sources familiar with the situation and another person briefed on it, these close Trump allies have told him that they are worried that America PAC, an outside group that Musk created to boost turnout for Trump, is failing in critical battleground states that are likely to be won by razor-thin margins, with only weeks left to go before Election Day. Some partly blame, including when they’ve spoken to Trump, the group’s lead strategists, who are linked to the failed 2024 primary run of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis." (our emphasis)

Ah, Ron "Bootsie" DeSantis eventually gets his revenge, if only tangentially. The article continues:

“'We were upfront about our concerns,' says a GOP operative close to the former president and 2024 Republican nominee, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations with Trump. Rolling Stone was shown a screenshot of written communications further corroborating that these sentiments were conveyed to Trump himself. 

This source adds that they relayed to Trump that they have been in touch 'constantly' with conservative activists and other top Republicans based in key swing states, and few of them have had any positive comments lately about the Musk-supported America PAC’s impact in their respective states. Some say they are seeing a relatively small GOTV presence on the ground, despite the Super PAC’s massive spending to boost Trump — $75 million since Joe Biden withdrew from the Democratic ticket in July."  (our emphasis)

The good news is they've run out of time to recover and they've blown through a lot of the money provided by the South African fascist. But it will come to nothing if Dems get-out-the-vote efforts don't get voters to the polls, either through mail voting or in-person voting, and if we don't show up and vote.

(photo illustration: Getty)

 

Tweets / Xeets Of The Day

 

Dementia Don wishes they could start playing music again --

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just say it! --

 

 

It's a cult --

 

 

 

Colin Allred reminds Texans who Cancun Ted Cruz is --

 

 

Wins in battleground Georgia --


 

 

What's that Musk-y smell?  Illegal immigrant makes a donation --

 

 

Don't try mounting it on a wall! --

 

 

 

Mid-Week Song

Coldplay is out with a new album, "Moon Music." Here in a live performance, accompanied by Elyanna, Little Sims, and Burna Boy at Croke Park, Dublin, of a song from that album, "WE PRAY". Enjoy.



Trump's Failing Scams

 

The Malignant Loser's cult has a quaint image of their leader as a highly successful businessman, despite his six bankruptcies, convictions in New York on business fraud, and the fact that he inherited his wealth from his daddy. Selling gold high tops, non-fungible tokens with comic book images of him, and $100,000 watches have some of his rubes eager to buy their demi-god's goods. However, his latest scam "businesses, " DJT Media and his crypto coin venture are showing signs of his fatal touch:

The Malignant Loser's crypto coin scam fell well short when yesterday's token sale was marred by continual crashes of the internet site:

"Donald Trump’s new crypto project is off to a rough start.

World Liberty Financial, which aspires to be a sort of crypto bank, launched its token sale on Tuesday, a day after project co-founder Zachary Folkman said “well over 100,000 people” are on the whitelist to invest.

But WLF’s website suffered regular and lengthy outages for much of the morning and early afternoon, contributing to a limited number of sales. Only about 4,300 unique wallet addresses hold the token as of Tuesday afternoon, according to blockchain data tracked by Etherscan, representing roughly 4% of the total number of people who registered."

Similarly, his "media" company has been nosediving in value for many months, and yesterday was another bad day:

"Former President Donald Trump’s social media company suffered a sudden nosedive in the stock market Tuesday that briefly halted trading and left traders scratching their heads.

Truth Social owner Trump Media & Technology Group was trading sharply higher during a volatile session at about $31 per share when it swiftly collapsed below $29 shortly after 2:40 p.m. ET on heavy trading volume.

Nasdaq paused trading for Trump Media at 2:42 p.m. ET for five minutes, a routine cooling-off period that exchanges are required to impose during times of heavy volatility.

When trading resumed, Trump Media initially bounced back before plunging below $27."

More and more people are seeing the Malignant Loser as a fading figure, despite his strength among the faithful cultists that will follow him into bankruptcy and worse. For his part, he's seeing his ventures failing and is freaking out, obsessed as he is with his wealth.  


Tim Walz On The Campaign Trail

 

While future President Kamala Harris has been doing a very effective media blitz, future Vice President Tim Walz has bee on the campaign trail in battleground States.  Here are some fresh clips of him on the campaign trail.

Talking about Dementia Don's cognitive issues and January 6:

Talking about jobs and manufacturing:

Talking about improving rural quality of life:

 

He's a salt- of- the- earth guy who really connects with people. What a great running mate and governing partner for future President Harris.


Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Today's Cartoons

 

(click on images to enlarge)

(Joe Heller, hellertoon.com)

(Monte Wolverton, caglecartoons.com)

(Chris Britt, Creators.com)

(Walt Handelsman, The Times-Picayune, New Orleans)

(Nick Anderson, Reform Austin News/ Tribune, TX)

(Matt Davies, Newsday)

(Rick McKee, caglecartoons.com)

(Randy Bish, @Bishtoons)

(Mike Smith, Las Vegas Sun)

(Evan Lian and Evan Allgood, The New Yorker)


Tweets Of The Day




The Malignant Loser's insane "town hall" in PA; few questions, just music / swaying --

 

 


 

 



The New York Effing Times sanewashes the Malignant Loser's "town hall" --


Note to MAGAts: Your senile leader says vote on January 5. Do it! -- 



Meanwhile the media ignores Gov. Walz's barnburner in Detroit --



Trump militia thugs threatening FEMA workers in NC. Throw the thugs in jail NOW -- 



Elect the Malignant Loser and you'll get economic decline -- 



CA firefighters union endorse Harris, breaking with intimidated national union -- 

 


On-the-job emotional support pet --