Goldmember

Quick! Someone call a pigeon!

The Barack Obama Presidential Center opened last week in Chicago to much acclaim.

The presidential library includes a museum, an athletic center, a garden, a playground, and a branch of the Chicago Public Library, while also housing the nonprofit Obama Foundation. The center is located on a 19.3-acre campus in Jackson Park on the South Side of Chicago, adjacent to the University of Chicago campus.^[ The center's main entry point is located at John Lewis Plaza. It is expected to receive over 700,000 visitors a year.

Republican reaction, of course, is critical. And not just because it includes a garden and a library. Republicans are screaming about unpaid contractors who built the library, with one of them being a minority owned company. But contractors going unpaid are not the fault of the Obamas, as they are subcontractors. This is the fault of the contractors the Obama organization hired, not the fault of Barack or Michelle Obama.

It’s rich that Republicans and defenders of Donald Trump would scream about anyone not paying a bill to contractors. This is like when a republican pretends to care about the deficit, or about a woman being sexually assaulted, or a victim of pedophilia. Spare me the faux outrage.

Donald Trump has never built anything without refusing to pay the people he contracted to do the job. It's well-known that he will let them take him to court, and he will drag the proceedings out to the point that many of them give up their cases because they can't afford to litigate them. Others get pennies on the dollar for what Trump originally agreed to pay them. And talk about gall, Trump is also known for refusing to pay the lawyers who litigated these cases for him. This is why today, a lot of lawyers will not take Donald Trump on as a client. It's why a lot of the lawyers he hires are considered jokes in the legal profession. They are about as qualified as the people he has staffed his regime with. Todd Blanche should not be our Attorney General and should be off somewhere chasing an ambulance.

Trump still owes Rudy Giuliani $2 million for unpaid legal fees. We discovered this through bankruptcy proceedings, and it explains why Rudy can't buy quality hair dye and has to wear generic dentures.

Back to the library, many don't like the main tower of the center, which is 220 feet high and made of New Hampshire granite. A lot of people believe it is majestic and monumental, and are impressed that on the tower's south and west sides, in concrete letters 5 feet high, are excerpts from Obama's 2015 speech commemorating the 50th anniversary of the civil rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

But Republicans are calling it ugly, with many saying it looks like an outhouse, which I'm sure is something they heard on Fox News, where the goons lack imagination with their insults.

But I don't think Donald Trump supporters have grounds to criticize the looks of anything. Have they not seen what Donald Trump has done to the Oval Office? Have they not seen how ugly and tacky it appears as it is covered in gold? Have they not seen photos from inside Trump's penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue? Not only is it covered in gold, including the toilet, but there is also a stuffed lion.

The plans for Trump's ballroom and the arch that is a monument to him in Arlington National Cemetery are horrific. The ballroom looks like a disaster from MAGA-Lardo, and the arch has gold eagles on top of it. If all goes to plan, the nation is stuck with this ugly shit for the next century.

At Donald Trump's Doral National Golf Course in Miami, there is a 22-foot golden statue of him dubbed "Don Colossus."

The man has a 22-foot golden statue of himself on his property. No group or organization made this decision. This is coming straight from Donald Trump himself. Who does that? Wanna be dictators do that, that's who. There is a cryptocurrency group as a part of this, but this is like the Kennedy Center board appointed by Donald Trump, choosing to add Trump's name to it.

Trump says the ugly statue was installed by patriots, has described the artwork as “the real deal,” and says that in time it will become a landmark. Trump said, “Those playing the Blue Monster at Doral are absolutely in love with it.” Sure, they are.

As for Donald Trump's planned presidential library, which will be in Miami, there won’t be just one golden statue of Trump, but two. There will be a giant gold statue of Trump overlooking an auditorium and another gold statue of Trump overlooking a conference room. No word yet on whether Donald Trump's presidential library will actually contain a library.

My friend Danny Gali said the Trump Library will probably have coloring books, but no crayons, because the visitors would probably eat them.

The lucky ones are the pigeons in Miami, as they will have at least three options for shitting on Donald Trump.

More visitors:

I took a break from today's cartoon to hang out with some visitors. Editorial cartoonist Jonathan Brown and his wife, Kelly, were in the area, so they asked if they could have lunch with me. Jonathan used to work for the Deseret News in Salt Lake City, where he and Kelly live. It's not every day that I get to talk shop so close to home. I had a great time hanging out with them. We ate at Sammy T's, which is a Fredericksburg downtown institution. I had a chicken curry salad sandwich, sweet potato fries, and a nonalcoholic Guinness.

When you work at home and rarely get out, it's nice to take a break and hang out with good people. As you remember, my friends, Christian and Pattie, took me to lunch yesterday. It's funny because I usually go weeks without seeing anybody, but when it rains, it pours.

Drawn in 30 seconds:

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