So, did you watch it last night? Yeah, I know you didn’t, and I don’t blame you because I didn’t want to watch it either. But I did…well, a chunk of it.
I watched the first 20 minutes or so, and then that was all I could take. I figured I’d rely on the news coverage of it later, but I did catch Rep. Al Green getting tossed out. My main impression of that was three white guys looking down and having a Black man thrown out for disagreeing with them.
It’s not like the Republicans ever threw out Marjorie Taylor Greene or Lauren Boebert for any of the times they heckled and broke House decorum during a State of the Union, like the time they booed Biden’s dead son. Even with Trump up there, MTG broke decorum last night while wearing political paraphernalia on the House floor. That’s against the rules. Has she been punished for it in the past? Nope. Will she be punished for it this time? Nope.
What we saw last night technically wasn’t a State of the Union address. The State of the Union is the only constitutional requirement for a sitting president, to deliver an address to Congress “from time to time.” It’s the easiest job of a president as he could simply remain on his barcalounger and send a note to Congress simply stating, “Yo, the state of the union is okey-dokey. Later.” It’s the only thing a president HAS to do.
The State of the Union was mostly delivered in person until radio was invented, and Woodrow Wilson started the tradition of delivering it to Congress in person. It was Ronald Reagan, naturally, who started the tradition of delivering an address to Congress in the first year of a president’s term. What? There are cameras? Here comes Ronny.
Trump’s address, a little over 100 minutes, was the longest ever to Congress. It may have also set a record for most lies.
For example, we have not given Ukraine $350 billion since Putin’s invasion. We’ve given about $120 billion. We also haven’t given more than Europe has, as the European Union has given Ukraine nearly $138 billion, not counting what the United Kingdom, which is not a member of the EU (remember Brexit?), has given. By the way, when you travel from the UK to Ireland, you discover that the Euro is worth more than the Pound.
Trump did not stop $45 million going to Burma for DEI programs because the programs didn’t exist.
Social Security is not paying millions of dead people, and certainly none as old as 150, 200, and good god, not any who are 360.
A middle school in Florida did NOT socially transition a student.
Trump’s claim that a poll saying that most Americans believe our country is headed in the right direction rather than the wrong direction is cherry-picked. A more recent poll from the same pollster says most Americans say it’s going in the wrong direction.
Trump’s claim that Elon Musk’s DOGE has found “billions of dollars of fraud” is a lie. There’s no proof of these claims, and there is no transparency in DOGE. Republicans, who subpoenaed Hunter Biden, refuse to do the same for Musk. Even today, the luncheon Republicans had with Musk was private from the press.
Trump may have gotten Elon in trouble last night. In a court filing, the White House claimed Musk was not the head of DOGE. The filing said, “Like other senior White House advisors, Mr. Musk has no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself.”
The filing also said that Musk was not an employee of the U.S. DOGE Service or the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization and added: “Mr. Musk is not the U.S. DOGE Service Administrator.”
Last night, Trump gave Elon a shout-out (who actually wore a tie for once), saying, “I have created the brand-new Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE. Perhaps you've heard of it." And then he said DOGE is “headed” by Musk, “who’s in the gallery tonight.”
Shortly after praising Musk, Democrats laughed at Trump when he ranted against “unelected bureaucrats.”
“Thank you, Elon. He's working very hard. He didn't need this ... Thank you very much. We appreciate it.” Good going, Fucknuts.
Most of the speech was propaganda, hate, and Trump boasting about himself. He called President Biden the “worst” president in American history when, in fact, historians rank President Oompa-Loompa among the bottom four.
President Felon complained again about the prosecutions against him.
He whined that the Democrats have never applauded for him, as though that’s a concern for the union.
The scariest part may be when Trump admitted there will be a little “disturbance” from his trade war. Since Trump is a liar, his admittance that his tariffs will bring a little “disturbance” could mean we’ll have the worst recession of our nation’s history. That’s another thing he lied about.
Biden left Trump an amazing economy, one that’s the envy of the world. Trump left Biden shit. As usual, Democratic presidents have to clean up after Republican presidents.
Trump and Republicans don’t realize why Biden had a recession and whose fault it really was.
Trump also claimed that voters sent him to the White House on a mandate, but mandates are larger than two percent. In fact, Trump’s “mandate” is less than two percent of the popular vote. An example of a mandate was when Americans fired Trump and put Biden in office with a FOUR and a half point advantage in the popular vote.
Trump praised cops, though he pardoned J6 white nationalist terrorists who attacked cops. He praised a child cancer survivor, though he and DOGE are taking away cancer studies. He invited a female volleyball player who claims she received brain trauma from a trans athlete who spiked the ball in her face.
The hate on “men in women’s sports” is the national battle cry for Republicans, even though there are probably fewer than 100 trans athletes in the nation, and not all of them are playing in women’s sports.
Of course, he also ranted about immigrants.
Last night’s speech was more of a rant and a big fat narcissistic hate-fest conducted by a big fat Orange racist, homophobic, idiotic narcissist. It should have been billed as “100 minutes of a barking yam.”
Seriously, what makes me turn this shit off after awhile isn’t just because I get tired of his lies and boasting about himself, but the sound of his voice. It’s become nails on a chalkboard for me.
And we have three more of these to suffer through. Don’t worry, kids. I’ll watch each of those for you too…well, mostly.
Translation:
Something else that pisses me off: Last week, during the failed ambush in the Oval Office, JD Vance told Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, “Maybe try some diplomacy,” while not knowing the history of Ukraine’s past diplomany efforts with Russia, with promises and treaties that Russia broke, even during the first Trump administration.
And on Tuesday night, JD said a US stake in Ukraine's economy was a "better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn't fought a war in 30 or 40 years.” That pissed off The United Kingdom and France because they’ve both been in wars over the past couple of decades…fighting for the United States. JD lied and said he wasn’t referring to any specific nation, except the UK and France are the only two who’ve offered 20,000 troops to serve in a peacekeeping role.
JD doesn’t know history. He can’t even remember history that happened 40 minutes ago in the same room. And he doesn’t know how NATO works. I’m starting to think that JD might be dumber than Trump. Is that possible?
My note to JD is: There’s already one lying racist ignorant scumbag in the administration insulting our allies, we don’t need two. Sit down, know your role, and drink a tall glass of shut the fuck up, moron.
Creative notes: I gave a speech this morning for the local Rotarians. It was early because Rotarians get up early. They probably hold their meetings early because they accomplish so much for the other people with the rest of their days. Anyway, they fed me breakfast.
I think the speech went OK. I was told it was the longest they had ever received, which was still way less than 100 minutes. I was also informed that the guy who invited me might catch some hell for it later because I was my usual opinionated self. Did I use “barking yam?” I probably gave them about 30 minutes of speech with some cartoons on a PowerPoint-type thing. But that’s not why my cartoon and this blog are late today.
They’re late because we got a lot of rain today and a leak developed right at the window in front of my work desk. So, I was standing above it with a towel at the leak for about three hours. It sucked.
I wrote this cartoon right before I left my apartment for the speech, thinking like Kenny Banya, “That’s gold, Jerry! Gold!” But by the time I got to work on it, exhausted, frustrated, and exasperated, I had zero confidence in the cartoon. But my confidence was restored within minutes after posting it on social media when two of my colleagues, who are amongst the people in my field I respect the most, praised it on Twitter. Ah, thank you, guys. Just when a cartoonist needed it.
Drawn in 30 Seconds:
Timelapse:
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Excellent toon and blog today! Yeah, silly me - I watched (most of) it. Had to take a break occasionally just for my sanity. Yay for Rep. Al Green, boo for the rest of those wussy Dems with their little signs. I'm happy that they occasionally booed and that some walked out, but I want more mayhem and hell-raising. I'm not sure what good it will do, if any, but I think I'm just ready for a good, old-fashioned revolution of some kind. I'm not ready to go quietly into the night and I don't want to go it alone. I want to be joined by those I gave money to and voted for to join me! Trump and his sycophants all disgust me.
I’m impressed you lasted 20 minutes. Generally, I don’t watch SOTU or the “addressing of Congress” — by presidents of either party — simply because the standing ovations after every other sentence wear me out and just add more time to what is often an already long speech. Given how long The Felon’s speech was, I’m glad I skipped it. I did read the transcript on Wednesday and reading his words is almost as painful as listening to him try to speak (on occasion, I’ve searched for transcripts of his press conferences, so I didn’t have to watch them). I’m like you at this point, Clay, in that I can’t stand to listen to his voice anymore, or hear his gross exaggerations and lies, knowing that I’m going to be telling my friends who are Followers that he exaggerated and lied, and they’re going to insist he did not. What a time to be alive.
Thanks for your hard work, congrats on your speech, and I hope the leak is taken care of.