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As usual, I will post more editorial cartoons in the comments section and as updates to the diary. Scroll down a bit to see updates.
Here’s wishing all of you and your families Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and a Very Happy New Year!
Thanks for being supportive of this diary series.
True Believer
Updates Posted Here
I Am Above the Law
Look Over There!
He’s Enjoying It
Damn, She Also Likes It!
Bon Voyage
Just a Regular Suburbanite from Chevy Chase, MD
Isn’t It Obvious?
Buffoons, One and All
My Guy!
Soulmates
Just a Regular American Dude
Clarence Thomas Hard at Work
SCOTUS Corruption
Surely, It Can’t Happen Here!
A triple threat — corruption in the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of government.
Part 1 of this diary dealt with the oncoming threat of Fascism and corruption in the executive branch as exemplified by Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani during the Trump Regime. As sore losers, they are still unwilling to accept the legitimate results of the 2020 Election — one Trump lost to Joe Biden.
A primary ally of Trump and Giuliani — one who believed in the discredited “Stop the Steal” nonsense in 2020 — is Ginni Thomas, wife of the one of the most-corrupt members of the United States Supreme Court in recent memory, Clarence Thomas.
As 2023 draws to a close, it’s time to look at corrupt practices in the judicial and legislative branches of government as seen through the eyes of editorial cartoonists. Clarence Thomas features prominently in this diary as well as the new religious nut in the United States House of Representatives, Speaker Mike “Call Me Pure” Johnson.
Recuse, He Must!
In case you missed these recent diaries of mine, here are the links.
Ginni and Clarence Thomas having dinner with their patron, Harlan Crow. He is fond of collecting Hitler memorabilia and has donated gifts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to the couple. Attribution: Ward Sutton
The Gifts from Billionaire GOP Donor Harlan Crow Santa
Earlier this year, ProPublica exposed massive corruption surrounding Associate Justice Clarence Thomas. None of the gifts received from his benefactor Harlan Crow were disclosed in financial statements.
For more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them, documents and interviews show. A public servant who has a salary of $285,000, he has vacationed on Crow’s superyacht around the globe. He flies on Crow’s Bombardier Global 5000 jet. He has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat, and to Crow’s sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks.
The extent and frequency of Crow’s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court.
These trips appeared nowhere on Thomas’ financial disclosures.
Only yesterday, an article in The Lever took Thomas to task for not only flouting ethical standards, with the authors wondering if the gifts from Crow should be considered taxable income for Thomas.
Dahlia Litwick points out in Slate magazine that the Supreme Court’s refusal to clean its own house and not address its ethical lapses is hurting its legitimacy with the public and undermining confidence in an institution long considered an essential pillar of American democracy.
Celebrating Christmas Every Single Day
Attribution for the above cartoon: Ann Telnaes @AnnTelnaes
The Obligatory Call from Santa
The Reverend Mike Johnson Speaketh
The new Speaker of the US House of Representatives is quite a guy.
“In a keynote speech to a gathering of Christian nationalist lawmakers Tuesday night, House Speaker Mike Johnson compared himself to Moses, leading the GOP conference — and America — through the parted waters of the Red Sea,” Rolling Stone reports.
Said Johnson: “The Lord began to wake me up, through this three-week process, in the middle of night to speak to me.”
“The German news segment documented Johnson and his family preparing for and then attending a purity ball, a controversial formal dance event, popular among some conservative Christians, that gained notoriety in the early 2000s.
At a typical event, fathers and their teenage daughters dress in formal ball attire for a night that involves dinner and dancing and culminates with the daughter signing a pledge to her father to abstain from dating and to remain sexually abstinent until marriage.”
“The news segment examines purity balls and the general purity movement among conservative Christians through the lens of the Johnson family.”
The unedited version hot off the desk of Speaker Mike Johnson
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mike Johnson, and Jim Jordan drafted a classic that will be studied in major law schools for decades. Attribution: David Fitzsimmons, Arizona’s Progressive Voice
Articulls of Impeechmint aginst Presidint Joe Biden:
Joe Biden, Presidint of the United States did unlawfully, in violashun of the Constipation of the United States, commit the 8 following High Crimes and Miss Demeanors.
Article 1
Where ass Joseph Biden refuses to tell our Republicans investigators why we shud impeech him he stands accused of being an uncooperitive witness who is resisting our best effurts to make America Great Again.
Article 2
Where ass we suspeck Joe Biden of direct involvmint in the Benghazi Scandal, the Ukrainian Bursitis Scandal, the Chappaquiddick Scandal, the Teapot Dome Scandal of 1921, Hillary’s Emails Caper, the Watergate Scandal, the Afghanistan Bay of Pigs Fiasco, and addishunally we have compleetly deniabull proof that Joe Biden wuz seen by Abe Lincoln, a stone cold witniss, swimming in the Reflecting Pool with Gary Hart, John Edwards Wilbur Mills, Donna Rice and the Argentine Bombshell Fanny Foxe in 1974, and furthermore D.B. Cooper has testified he had seen old Joe skulking around Dealey Plaza on or about November 22, 1963, so clearly we got us sum questions we want answered pronto before the space aliens abduct anymore of us.
Signed,
Every last Republican in the U.S. House of Reprehensibles
Merry Christmas, America.
In Trump and Jesus’ name.
Amen.
The Moment of Truth
The US House of Representatives — Under New Management
Send In the Clowns
Santa Pays SCOTUS a Visit
No Recusal
The Elusive “SCOTUS Code of Ethics”
Finding the long-lost Ark of the Covenant was easier. Where is Indiana Jones when you badly need him?
Such a Mensch!
Regardless of the Facts, Never Give Up
God Commands Thee, Mike
It’s Just a Present from a Friend
Tax-Exempt Ego Trips
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
What Else Is the GOP Up To?
Impeachment “Inquiry”
Fighting a Non-Existent War
Back Asswards
Gun Nut Thomas Massie
He has represented Kentucky’s 4th District since 2012 in the United States House of Representatives.
Dr. Ron DeSantis Opines on Women’s Rights
Uh Oh!
