Cartoon Libel

Donald Trump is trying to destroy the First Amendment

Donald Trump has been calling legitimate news outlets “fake news” for years. Right-wingers have adopted that term to use as a response to facts they don’t like. It’s even been used by goosestepping candidates in other nations. He’s also called journalists the “enemy of the American people,” and it’s not just him being bombastic.

Trump does not like democracy because you can’t have one without a free press.

Trump is keeping his promise to go after the free press. ABC News didn’t do the media justice by caving when Trump sued them after George Stephanopoulos quoted a judge who said Donald Trump is liable for rape. It was a case ABC News most likely would have won.

ABC News didn’t just settle by donating $15 million for Trump’s future library (which he will grift the money from), but they also agreed to issue an apology. I’ll issue one too. I’m sorry Donald Trump is a rapist.

ABC News knew they would have won, but the settlement was Disney, the owner of ABC News, kissing Trump’s ring.

When the news outlet settled, they gave Trump confidence to go after other news outlets.

Trump is seeking $10 billion in a lawsuit filed against CBS and 60 Minutes, claiming they “deceptively” edited an interview with Kamala Harris to “tip the scales in favor of the Democratic Party” in the 2024 presidential election. Thank god Fox News never does that.

Trump claims the interview violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices-Consumer Protection Act, which makes it illegal to use false, misleading, or deceptive acts in commerce. The lawsuit says, “Millions of Americans, including residents of Texas and this district, were confused and misled by the two doctored Interview versions.” Does this mean Trump can be sued every time he lies on TV or in an advertisement? His lawsuit is based on lies.

Trump filed the lawsuit in Texas despite living in Florida and CBS being based in New York City. He filed the lawsuit in a single-judge federal district that’s become a favorite for court-shopping conservatives. The judge is a Trump appointee and a religious zealot.

Last January, Trump filed a lawsuit against Simon & Schuster in a federal court in Florida. He’s accusing the book publisher and author Bob Woodward of violating copyright laws through “systematic usurpation, manipulation, and exploitation” of audio recordings of Trump that the veteran journalist gathered during interviews.

I don’t see how this is a copyright violation since Trump doesn’t own recordings of interviews he gives but then again, he also thought he owned classified documents he stole.

Trump accuses the defendants of illegally profiting from the recordings by distributing them without his permission and taking them out of context to cast him in a poor light. He seeks unspecified damages.

Trump is literally suing the book publisher and Woodward for using his own statements. It’s funny he’s suing people for “taking his words out of context” when he takes everything out of context.

Last July, A federal judge dismissed a $475 million defamation lawsuit Trump brought against CNN over the network’s use of the term “the big lie” to describe his big lie that he won the 2020 election and for comparing him to Adolf Hitler after he quotes and acts like Adolph Hitler. This was an important one for Trump to lose because he sued them for having an opinion but it should be pointed out that his claims of winning the 2020 presidential election are in fact, a big lie. Maybe he should sue his vice president, JD Vance, for comparing him to Hitler.

Last Monday, Trump filed a suit against the Des Moines Register, its corporate owner, Gannett, and its former pollster J. Ann Selzer in Iowa state court over an opinion poll published ahead of the 2024 presidential election showing Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump by three percentage points in Iowa. But polls are opinions, no matter how wrong they are. Trump won Iowa and nearly everybody thought the poll was wrong before the election.

Trump is accusing the defendants of engaging in “brazen election interference” by manipulating the poll and leaking it to the Democratic Party before publication. Trump has zero proof of this. And for all we know, the poll was accurate on the day it was taken.

In 1988, Larry Flynt won a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court when they ruled that the First Amendment protects parodies. The ruling was unanimous, despite the fact the parody was a fake ad of televangelist Jerry Falwell losing his virginity to his mother in an outhouse. If Hustler Magazine’s satire of public figures banging their moms is protected, then so is everything else that’s satire. But you can expect this issue to be resurrected by Trump in the Supreme Court that now has three Trump appointees, a corrupt judge married to one of his insurrectionist plotters, and another corrupt judge whose wife flies pro-Trump flags outside their homes.

This means I am protected by the First Amendment if I draw a cartoon of Donald Trump banging his mom in an outhouse but it wouldn’t be accurate because the relative he’d rather do some outhouse diddling with is his daughter Ivanka.

Kids and fellow colleagues, we’re in trouble. But I can promise you this, if Trump comes after me for the flies, sippy cup, Russian lapel pin, whatever the fuck I want to put on his ear bandage, and for writing he wants to boing his daughter in an outhouse, he’s gonna have a fight.

Details: Why is the bird black in the cartoon and not his/her usual white? Because that’s the actual view outside the window in front of my table where I draw. I have crows…lots and lots of crows and see a murder every day. So today’s bird is black. I love the crows.

Other details that are accurate, and some that are not, include: my self-caricature. My belly isn’t that large anymore and I’m unsure how to draw my hair. There is a hook on my door so I don’t forget my keys because I’ve locked myself out of my apartment at least four times over the past five years, once after I started leaving my keys on the hook. There is a pole with a street light right outside my window directly across from where I sit though there aren’t any shoes hanging from the lines, but there should be. I do draw on an iPad. There is a Mr. Potatohead on the window ledge. There is a cam for when I have to do an interview or podcast on Zoom along with a light to brighten my face a bit. There is a black paper blind I use to block the sun as my window faces west. There is an outlet beneath my desk but there’s a surge protector with four devices plugged into that. There’s usually a coffee cup on my table while drawing but there’s not a fish on it (it’s my CNN mug). There have been spiders in my apartment who enjoy biting me while I’m sleeping. Despite Pizza Rat being the star of every cartoon he’s in, my apartment is rat-free.

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Signed prints: The signed prints are just $40.00 each. Every cartoon at Claytoonz is available. You can pay through PayPal. If you don’t like PayPal, you can snail mail it to Clay Jones, P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402. I can also take Venmo and my account there is clay-jones-87.

Tales From The Trumpster Fire: There are currently eight copies and you can order yours signed by me, for $45.00. You can pay through PayPal to clayjonz@gmail.com. You can also snail it to P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402.

Knee-Deep In Mississippi: There are only eight copies left of my first book, published in 1997. These can be purchased for $40.00

Tip Jar: If you want to support the cartoonist, please donate through PayPal to clayjonz@gmail.com, Venmo to clay-jones-87, or snail it to Clay Jones, P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402