Bombs and Bounties

Will Trump collect the $50 million reward for Madero?

Before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell told President George W. Bush, “You break it, you bought it.” Fortunately for us, there isn't a history in South America of guerrilla warfare or a distaste for America choosing their government.

There is a lot to unpack from today's press conference, like the Defense Department truly is the Department of War now, Pete Hegseth is chock full of toxic masculinity, Donald Trump couldn't stay awake, he can't read, and you should not believe a word they're saying.

In the past, Trump claimed he was against the invasion of Iraq, even though there is no record of that before the war. He said that we should have taken the oil. Today, he talks about restoring Venezuela’s oil and that they are going to reimburse us for doing so from their oil sales. I don't believe him. If we start taking money from Venezuela's oil profits, we will never stop. And I am such a cynic that I don't believe this would happen without Donald Trump getting a cut of it.

If we govern Venezuela, we won't stop for at least 20 years. Trump is promising that his administration is going to “run” Venezuela, and that they won't let anyone else govern whom they don't approve of. Basically, he's saying Venezuela won't be able to choose its own leadership or government. Trump was very dismissive of María Corina Machado, who is the lawfully elected president of Venezuela.

Maduro successfully remained in office against the will of his people, something Donald Trump failed at in 2020.

Remember, everyone believed Iraq was a success as soon as Saddam Hussein was deposed. Remember the “Mission Accomplished” banner?

Trump and Marco Rubio also gave cryptic warnings to Cuba. Pete Hegseth used the term “F around and find out.” These guys are full of piss and vinegar right now, and they're feeling cocky, but remember… mission accomplished. It doesn't help my optimism when I remember that these people are idiots. We failed to learn from Vietnam, and now we're showing that we didn't learn from Iraq.

Donald Trump wants us to run Venezuela, but can't even run this country.

I will have more to write about this in the coming days, but for now, I will tell the Venezuelans that we can relate. Half of us in the United States didn't choose Donald Trump to be our leader either.

Stroke note: No one can raise your blood pressure like the health industry can.

I have a doctor’s appointment on Monday. Around 2 in the afternoon on Friday, I received a message from the doctor’s office that I needed to bring a card for my “new” insurance because the one they had on file was terminated. I thought, “How can that be? Don't they have to alert me if they terminate my policy?” No. They did not alert me.

I soon discovered that my plan was no longer being offered in Virginia after December 31.

I was just about to take my afternoon blood pressure reading before I got the email from the doctor’s office, and since I had the equipment out, I went ahead and took it. I felt like it would be high as I felt stressed. Sure enough, it was. My blood pressure was 140/82 BPM.

After a couple of hours on the phone with insurance professionals and getting on a new plan(pending), I felt better, I was calmer, and there was less panic in me, so I took my blood pressure again. This time it was 123/72 BPM.

What also brought up my blood pressure was my doctor, or at least the one on call. They viewed last Friday as a holiday, so no regular doctor was on duty, but they had staffers going through their files to check my insurance.

I was having trouble getting them to re-prescribe my insulin. Finally, after two days, they sent me a message telling me they were doing so. The doctor wanted to know how many units I was taking. I thought, “Why are they asking me?” You can't trust a patient. Take Donald Trump, for example, he's ignoring his doctor’s advice and taking more aspirin than he should. The units I am taking are in their files, so why would they think that the only source about a change in the prescription would be with me? So anyway, they re-prescribed my insulin. They also prescribed the needles for the insulin pens. The only problem is that they didn't prescribe insulin pens. They prescribed insulin vials. I have been using the pens, not the vials. Why would the doctor prescribe the needles for the pens when he's prescribing vials?

I mean, these doctors are smart, right? They're definitely more educated than I am. They have degrees that cost tens of thousands of dollars and took years of studying to achieve. They have diplomas in big, pretty frames hanging in expensive offices. They studied on beautiful campuses in big, beautiful buildings. They probably dated the girls in college who were too snooty to talk to me. They were probably all in frats with people with names like Biff, Brad, Chip. Wouldn't a smart doctor know that you need to prescribe pen needles for the insulin pens? I mean, I'm a college dropout, and I know that.

Creative notes: I did not draw a cartoon yesterday, but my mind would wander to it occasionally and think, “I have no idea what I'm going to do tomorrow.” I was seriously thinking I would end up doing something without Trump taking too much aspirin.

This was the first sketch, but I figured I should make it a little bit more interesting.

Drawn in 30 seconds

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