MESO-Rx
Anabolic Steroids
Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse
- Thread starter CdnGuy
- Start date
I would really love to be able to say when I heard about the attack on our cameraman Ron Skeans that I was surprised. Or shocked even. I wasn't.
Once I found out that he was OK, and that the rest of the team were OK, I thought this was a pretty unsurprising event. What is shocking is that my reaction should be like that - because surely it can never be right that a person going about doing their job, in a country which cherishes the First Amendment and the rights of a free press, is pushed to the ground. But it is an incident that's been coming for a long time.
...
I covered endless Trump rallies in the run-up to the election and since - and there is a pattern. The attacks on the media are hugely popular with his supporters. They are every bit as much a part of his "set" as Honky Tonk Woman and Satisfaction are part of a Rolling Stones concert. You just can't imagine it not happening.
If you've never been to a Trump rally let me describe what it's like.
At some rallies at the end of the election campaign there were police officers posted on the access points to each press riser (the platforms where our cameras are mounted towards the back of the venue); even if there were no police they were confined areas.
There was no security last night, and the attack on Ron was stopped by a Trump-supporting blogger. Law enforcement were slow to get involved.
At some point in the president's remarks he will point a finger to where we are filming and you know then the fun is about to begin. "Have you seen a group of more dishonest people? They are fake news; they are the enemies of the people."
And like at a Christmas pantomime the crowd would jeer and boo. Honestly, for the overwhelming majority it is good fun; a part of the ritual. Like being at a football match and saying disobliging things about the referee.
But for a few - and I should add, a growing few, it is more than that. The uncomfortable truth is that with each month that passes the attacks have become more vociferous, the violent atmosphere on these occasions more palpable.
Over the past two years, President Donald Trump and his team have offered changing accounts regarding key matters in the Russia investigation. Their denials have been debunked, Trump has contradicted his senior aides and sometimes his team has completely flipped its position.
Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election along with potential collusion between Trump’s campaign and the Russian government. So far, six Trump associates have been charged, but nobody has been implicated in collusion. Trump adamantly denies collusion.
Public contradictions, walkbacks and flip-flops have become a hallmark of how Trump’s team has responded to the Russia probe, which was launched in 2016 and is now in its third year.
Here are the most consequential examples of Team Trump changing its story.
Pierced
Member
Pierced
Member
MAGA TOLERANCE
https://claytoonz.com/2019/02/13/maga-tolerance/
Put on your thinking caps, kids, because it’s quiz day. Yay, quiz day!
For a change, this is going to make all the sense in the world to knuckle-dragging, non-book-reading, factually-challenged, science-denying, secretly fantasizing about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, troglodyte MAGA shitheads, but for the people who are higher educated, intellectual, and literate, ya’ll are going to say, “Huh?”
Which of these two statements, A or B, is antisemitic?
A. George Soros spends a lot of money buying Democrats.
B. The Israeli lobby spends a lot of money buying Republicans.
Why, it’s B, you silly goose. Duh. Why is it B and A is OK? Because, B was said by a black, female Muslim. A was said by a white, male Republican. Again, duh!
Now comes the rest of the column where the MAGA heads won’t understand. Plus, these are words and they probably didn’t make it this far. Just in case they’re still here, equation solving is a field of mathematics that is about finding the functions or values that will make an equation true. An equation says that two expressions are…yeah, they’re gone now.
When a Democrats says something nasty, sexists, racists, or antisemitic, other Democrats are required to hold them accountable. When a Republican does the same, other Republicans get to say, “what’s wrong with that?” Democrats have to live by a higher standard. It’s like you hate America if you won’t defend its greatness, but Republicans can literally wear a red hat that says America is not great. Literally. They have a hat.
Yesterday, a friend of mine on social media and a member of the Trump cult was confused by my Gucci sweater cartoon. She wondered how anyone could find the sweater racist. One of her friends stated that the rules of racism keep changing. No, they haven’t. It was always wrong to wear blackface. It’s just that now, you’re being held accountable. These are the people who believe the only racism in existence is against white people except for all that racism Obama perpetuated. Every time Trump says something racist, like “Pocahontas,” or defends Nazis, they’re the ones that say, “That’s racist?” Then, they’ll call you an overly-sensitive snowflake while whining about a war on Christmas. They’re the people who think BlackKklansmen is a story of an evil, interloping, meddling, uppity black guy taking advantage of trusting Ku Klux Klan members.
This brings us to the issue that inspired today’s cartoon. Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was asked who she thinks is paying American politicians to be pro-Israel, she named “Aipac!,” the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the United States’ most prominent pro-Israel lobby. Then, she tweeted, “It’s all about the Benjamins, baby.”
After being criticized by Republicans and even her fellow Democrats, she apologized. Where did she mess up? Was it the Puff Daddy quote or the mere fact she brought up money and Israel? Probably all of it. Two people who got very uptight over this was House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Donald Trump, which is rich.
McCarthy was threatening congressional action against Omar, despite the fact he tweeted last October, “We cannot allow Soros, Steyer and Bloomberg to buy this election!” This was right after a mailbomb was found in George Soros’ mailbox. Soros, Tom Steyer, and Michael Bloomberg are all Jewish.
Trump has called on Omar to resign or at least quit the committees she’s on. Trump, has had many instances of antisemitism, with the first coming to mind the time he tweeted a meme of Hillary with a pile of money and a Star of David, which his staff later deleted, and he defended the star as a “sheriffs” star. Seriously. He’s also a big fan of warning us about “globalists.”
In case you haven’t noticed, neither Trump or McCarthy has resigned from office and neither has ever apologized. Nobody from their party called for their resignations.
Omar has made some questionable comments about Israel in the past that can be accused of playing with stereotypes, which is too bad because she, being the victim of Islamophobic insults should understand the consequences. She’s also wrong about the money thing, because Republicans would still be pro-Israel without it…and every lobby spends money, whether it’s the NRA or Unions. But, criticizing Israel is not antisemitic.
Last year, I drew a cartoon criticizing Bibi Netanyahu and Ivanka Trump. A lot of right-wing readers lost their minds. They even mounted a trolling campaign on one of my client’s sites, which didn’t work. But, it’s no more antisemitic to disagree with an Israeli policy than it’s unpatriotic to criticize the president’s agenda.
Antisemitism is like racism to the parties. Racism is a serious issues liberals want confronted and dealt with. For Republicans, racism is a partisan tool to assault your enemies with and use to whip up your base by promising stuff like Muslim bans and walls to keep out Mexicans.
My cartoon is not entirely accurate unless the last character is lying. The MAGA bar does allow antisemitism. They just won’t let you get away with it.
https://claytoonz.com/2019/02/13/maga-tolerance/
Put on your thinking caps, kids, because it’s quiz day. Yay, quiz day!
For a change, this is going to make all the sense in the world to knuckle-dragging, non-book-reading, factually-challenged, science-denying, secretly fantasizing about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, troglodyte MAGA shitheads, but for the people who are higher educated, intellectual, and literate, ya’ll are going to say, “Huh?”
Which of these two statements, A or B, is antisemitic?
A. George Soros spends a lot of money buying Democrats.
B. The Israeli lobby spends a lot of money buying Republicans.
Why, it’s B, you silly goose. Duh. Why is it B and A is OK? Because, B was said by a black, female Muslim. A was said by a white, male Republican. Again, duh!
Now comes the rest of the column where the MAGA heads won’t understand. Plus, these are words and they probably didn’t make it this far. Just in case they’re still here, equation solving is a field of mathematics that is about finding the functions or values that will make an equation true. An equation says that two expressions are…yeah, they’re gone now.
When a Democrats says something nasty, sexists, racists, or antisemitic, other Democrats are required to hold them accountable. When a Republican does the same, other Republicans get to say, “what’s wrong with that?” Democrats have to live by a higher standard. It’s like you hate America if you won’t defend its greatness, but Republicans can literally wear a red hat that says America is not great. Literally. They have a hat.
Yesterday, a friend of mine on social media and a member of the Trump cult was confused by my Gucci sweater cartoon. She wondered how anyone could find the sweater racist. One of her friends stated that the rules of racism keep changing. No, they haven’t. It was always wrong to wear blackface. It’s just that now, you’re being held accountable. These are the people who believe the only racism in existence is against white people except for all that racism Obama perpetuated. Every time Trump says something racist, like “Pocahontas,” or defends Nazis, they’re the ones that say, “That’s racist?” Then, they’ll call you an overly-sensitive snowflake while whining about a war on Christmas. They’re the people who think BlackKklansmen is a story of an evil, interloping, meddling, uppity black guy taking advantage of trusting Ku Klux Klan members.
This brings us to the issue that inspired today’s cartoon. Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was asked who she thinks is paying American politicians to be pro-Israel, she named “Aipac!,” the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the United States’ most prominent pro-Israel lobby. Then, she tweeted, “It’s all about the Benjamins, baby.”
After being criticized by Republicans and even her fellow Democrats, she apologized. Where did she mess up? Was it the Puff Daddy quote or the mere fact she brought up money and Israel? Probably all of it. Two people who got very uptight over this was House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Donald Trump, which is rich.
McCarthy was threatening congressional action against Omar, despite the fact he tweeted last October, “We cannot allow Soros, Steyer and Bloomberg to buy this election!” This was right after a mailbomb was found in George Soros’ mailbox. Soros, Tom Steyer, and Michael Bloomberg are all Jewish.
Trump has called on Omar to resign or at least quit the committees she’s on. Trump, has had many instances of antisemitism, with the first coming to mind the time he tweeted a meme of Hillary with a pile of money and a Star of David, which his staff later deleted, and he defended the star as a “sheriffs” star. Seriously. He’s also a big fan of warning us about “globalists.”
In case you haven’t noticed, neither Trump or McCarthy has resigned from office and neither has ever apologized. Nobody from their party called for their resignations.
Omar has made some questionable comments about Israel in the past that can be accused of playing with stereotypes, which is too bad because she, being the victim of Islamophobic insults should understand the consequences. She’s also wrong about the money thing, because Republicans would still be pro-Israel without it…and every lobby spends money, whether it’s the NRA or Unions. But, criticizing Israel is not antisemitic.
Last year, I drew a cartoon criticizing Bibi Netanyahu and Ivanka Trump. A lot of right-wing readers lost their minds. They even mounted a trolling campaign on one of my client’s sites, which didn’t work. But, it’s no more antisemitic to disagree with an Israeli policy than it’s unpatriotic to criticize the president’s agenda.
Antisemitism is like racism to the parties. Racism is a serious issues liberals want confronted and dealt with. For Republicans, racism is a partisan tool to assault your enemies with and use to whip up your base by promising stuff like Muslim bans and walls to keep out Mexicans.
My cartoon is not entirely accurate unless the last character is lying. The MAGA bar does allow antisemitism. They just won’t let you get away with it.
Sometimes Barack Obama lied. Sometimes his aides dissembled and spun. They were imperfect and self-interested. Bush and Clinton too and presidents since time immemorial. But never has the White House dealt exclusively in lies and paranoid fantasies.
It has gotten so statements become lies upon lies upon lies upon lies upon lies (there is a caravan, we need a wall, we have part of it built, we will build more of it, it will help). It is not Orwellian. It is much much worse. We live in a dystopia.
It is made worse because leaders of venerable institutions support the lies to advance their self-interest. The president and his band of thugs have bullied the GOP into supporting their total war on truth. Alarms have been sounded and ignored.
But there is an antidote: a fact for every lie. But beyond fact-checking the president must be challenged every time he spins a crisis out of nothing, a success out of failure. That is not just the work of fact-checkers. It must be the work of people with public platforms.
In debates every time he lies a journalist or a candidate must challenge him. "That's not true, sir. Here is the fact. Look it up. I'll post it on my website." Every time. If we do not, the lie takes root. It Is validated. This is demanding. It is tedious.
But it is essential. Or we will continue the drift from our moorings, sink into the dark void of lies that is the only place this president's corruption is virtue, his betrayals are triumphs, his abuses are charity, his thefts are gifts, his failures are successes.
Thread by @djrothkopf: "Sometimes Barack Obama lied. Sometimes his aides dissembled and spun. They were imperfect and self-interested. Bush and Clinton too and pres […]"
It has gotten so statements become lies upon lies upon lies upon lies upon lies (there is a caravan, we need a wall, we have part of it built, we will build more of it, it will help). It is not Orwellian. It is much much worse. We live in a dystopia.
It is made worse because leaders of venerable institutions support the lies to advance their self-interest. The president and his band of thugs have bullied the GOP into supporting their total war on truth. Alarms have been sounded and ignored.
But there is an antidote: a fact for every lie. But beyond fact-checking the president must be challenged every time he spins a crisis out of nothing, a success out of failure. That is not just the work of fact-checkers. It must be the work of people with public platforms.
In debates every time he lies a journalist or a candidate must challenge him. "That's not true, sir. Here is the fact. Look it up. I'll post it on my website." Every time. If we do not, the lie takes root. It Is validated. This is demanding. It is tedious.
But it is essential. Or we will continue the drift from our moorings, sink into the dark void of lies that is the only place this president's corruption is virtue, his betrayals are triumphs, his abuses are charity, his thefts are gifts, his failures are successes.
Thread by @djrothkopf: "Sometimes Barack Obama lied. Sometimes his aides dissembled and spun. They were imperfect and self-interested. Bush and Clinton too and pres […]"
On Twitter and via a Media Matters video archive, Gertz flags when Trump’s posts seem tied directly to programming—on Fox & Friends, Hannity, and Lou Dobbs Tonight. “You can see him bringing in information from these particular programs and then sending out public communications into the world, making particular decisions based on that information.” Trump’s most valuable personnel, Gertz has observed, are the ones Trump sees on TV. “I think what we’re seeing,” he said, “is how the president can be influenced in real time—and the consequences that can have.”
