Q Toon: A Gentleman in Moscow

Gay Republican operative Richard Grenell is reportedly interested in snagging a prominent foreign policy position in the Absolutely Corrupt Trump Regime™, including the post of U.S. Ambassador to Russia, vacant since last June.

"He had an interest in the job – or at least he floated the idea to select colleagues," one anonymous source close to Grenell told the Daily Mail of London, while acknowledging that "Putin's regime is extremely anti–LGBTQ."

Thirty years ago, Republicans' objections to President Clinton's nomination of James Hormel to be U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg included the claim that the fact of Hormel being openly gay would be an insult to Catholic Luxembourgers. If the citizens or government of Luxembourg were truly upset, however, I don't remember hearing anything about it, and I'm certain that the U.S. Senators who raised such a stink about Hormel's nomination would have been sure to point out any complaints.

Two decades later, during the First, Almost As Corrupt Trump Administration, Ric Grenell raised his hosts' hackles as U.S. Ambassador to Germany; but it was because he insisted on meddling in domestic German politics. It had nothing to do with his sexual orientation. 

Trump's State Department is apparently in no hurry whatsoever to put anybody in charge of our embassy in Russia. Trump crony Michael Witkoff and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner have been Trump's de facto conduit to the Kremlin (when he isn't getting his instructions directly from Putin), operating without the nuisance of having to get confirmed by the Senate. The two are likely to play a more important role in U.S.-Russian relations than whoever eventually becomes the next official ambassador, anyway.

As for the former Acting Director of the Donald J. Trump John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, Mr. Grenell just wants to get any foreign service appointment at all. He appeared most recently in my cartoons in March, when he was reportedly angling for a position with Kristi Noem's "Shield of the Americas."

By the way, if anyone has heard from Kristi Noem's "Shield of the Americas," please contact the Bureau of Missing Persons.

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Q Toon: Bryon's Been Busted

Mercurial U.S. President Donald Commodus Trump has put his genocidal threats against Iran on hold for the next twelve days, so we cartoonists can all go back to all the other distractions from the Epstein files that have been piling up in our in-boxes.

By now, even the Trump l'oeilists in their Fox Noisemax echo chamber have heard about Cosplay Kristi Noem's husband, Bryon, getting caught in some cosplay of his own.

I confess that I was unaware of this "bimbofication" fetish scene among heterosexual males, who stuff inflated party balloons under a crop top and swipe their wives' hot pants to chat on line. It must be more popular than I would have expected, given that this is apparently what Republicans and J.K. Rowling think transgender women are all about.

So, while the temptation to make fun of this guy is way too irresistible (I drew the cartoon and you've read this far: QED), there is something to be said against kink-shaming a guy who is not himself a public figure, merely married to a Cabinet official who had a bed installed in her Air Force jet to share with her erstwhile underling Corey Levandowski where Bryon got to read about it all over the internets.

As Washington Post columnist Monica Hesse put it, “When I looked at those photographs, the first word that came to mind ... was 'lonely.' These were seemingly lonely, isolated photographs of a middle-aged man who had not sought a public life — and who now would not be allowed much of a private one. I almost see something vulnerable in those photographs, now exposed to the internet and all of our group chats.”

Sex therapists (and kink pridesters) counsel that kink shaming is wrong. 

Kink shaming is a problem because it prevents people from being able to live an authentic life.

It’s especially problematic that having niche sexual interests could land you on the front of a newspaper, losing your job or unable to retain custody of your children – all of which is totally legal as it ‘brings a company in to disrepute’.  

Or, as two upstanding citizens of the Noems' hometown put it,

“Y’all should be sympathetic, he’s a father,” a surly staff member at a Watertown strip club told The [New York] Post when the topic veered toward the scandal. A bartender at the jiggle-joint chimed in, “We don’t think of them as politicians, we think of them as parents.”

Of course, not everyone agrees, because America has a well-established Puritan culture. An argument can certainly be made, moreover, against the objectification of women and girls, out of which which Mr. Noem's kink very definitely grows.

But in case the next time you hear from Bryon Noem is when he organizes Bimbofied Story Hour at the Hamlin Elementary School Library, please keep one thing in mind. 

Y'all should be sympathetic. He's a father.

Q Toon: Ric Rolls with the Punches

Since I had introduced Max's mother Karen during my vacation as someone working at the Donald J. Trump John Fitzgerald Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts (hereinafter referred to as the DJTJFKMC4PA), who better to interact with newly former President of the DJTJFKMC4PA, Ric Grenell?

Gay Republican Grenell has a track record of stirring up opposition wherever he goes. Republican Theocrats were up in arms when presidential candidate Mitt Romney took him on as a foreign policy surrogate; he later repeatedly offended his hosts as Ambassador to Germany in Donald Trump's First Corrupt Presidency.

With the recrudescence of Trump, Grenell came on board to oversee the bastardization of the JFK Center, sending artists and audiences streaming toward the exits. He and a new board of Trump lickspittles and right-wing ideologues rubber stamped Trump’s impetuous response to shut the DJTJFKMC4PA down for so-called renovations for the next two years.

Now, we don't know whether Grenell quit or was fired. Nor do we know what his plans for the future are; New York Times reporter Elizabeth Williamson attempted to ask him that quite reasonable question, only for him to throw a hissy fit back at her, huffing that she is a "left wing hack” manipulating the news.

Not the response of someone who left of her own accord, girl!

I drew my cartoon before Williamson and Grenell’s exchange became public. I suppose I would have had to draw a completely different cartoon otherwise, but Karen is not a New York Times reporter or a left wing hack. I wrote her as a rock-solid Republican. Whether she's a lickspittle or an ideologue — well, you'll have to wait and see.

At any rate, to have Grenell snap at Karen would require him to be even more of an unhinged sissy than I think he is.

But what do I know? I'm just a left-wing hack interested in attacking Republicans and manipulating the news for my own far left agenda.

Q Toon: Besmirching Her Good Name

Watching Homeland Security Secretary Cosplay Kristi Noem's press announcement defending her ICE agent killing a woman in Minneapolis as she attempted to drive away from him — and her and Border Czar Tom Homan's appearances on the Sunday morning news programs — I couldn't get over the cognitive dissonance between their talking point that people need to cool their "overheated rhetoric," and all the overheated rhetoric making up the rest of their talking points.

We've all seen the videos of what really happened, but Noem, Homan, and the rest of the Lawless Trump Regime continue to push a fantasy narrative in which the shooting victim, Renee Macklin Good, was a radical left-wing domestic terrorist who charged her minivan directly at ICE agent Jonathan Ross with intent to kill.

Vice President J.D. Vance has argued that Ross shot Good because he had been struck once before by a vehicle driven by a suspect. But that only demonstrates that Ross uses the foolhardy but common border patrol tactic of getting in front of a moving vehicle in order to justify shooting at its driver.

You may wonder why I have drawn for the LGBTQ+ press a cartoon about this story, or why I inserted "with her lesbian co-conspirator" in the first panel.

Initial reporting stated that the youngest of Renee Macklin Good's children, a six-year-old boy, has been left without parents (his father having died in 2023). Most media and other editorial cartoonists have accepted that as fact, but Advocate and other LGBTQ+ publications, followed by local newsmedia and NPR, have reported that the woman with Renee Good when she was shot was her wife, Becca Good.

I certainly feel terrible for the boy, but at least he still has a step-mother. I hope that she and the boy's grandparents (who, I gather, are not Minnesotans) can remain on amicable terms while working out custody and visitation rights, so as not to make his tragedy even worse than it already is.

Out-of-state politicians and the mainstream media had been glossing over Renee and Becca's relationship, even though Becca was right there when Ross murdered her wife. Trump called Becca Good her wife’s “friend"; even John Stewart called Renee “a single woman” on Monday night’s Daily Show.

On the other hand, the Lawless Trump Regime's ironically-called Department of Justice has reportedly launched a criminal investigation of Renee Good's widow, which has prompted six federal prosecutors in Minnesota to resign in protest. (They include the lead prosecutor in that Minnesota day care fraud case Republicans would much rather talk about.)

Matt Sepic, Minnesota Public Radio: "In a statement, Assistant Attorney General Todd Blanche says, quote, 'There is currently no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation.' The DOJ says ICE has its own internal investigation underway that runs parallel to, quote, 'any FBI investigation.' But the same source we mentioned earlier, who's not authorized to speak on the record, tells me that this is untrue and that there is no internal ICE investigation of the shooting."

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey posted on social media that, "The people pushing to prosecute Renee's widow are monsters"; Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) added, "The family and loved ones of Renee Good deserve justice, not political attacks."

Sadly, justice is not a priority of the Lawless Trump Regime, and political attacks are.

This Week's Sneak Peek

There's an LGBTQ+ angle to last week's big story (no, not the Golden Globes), so I get to be the last editorial cartoonist to publish Kosplay Kristi Noem and her Big Stetson Hat.

I'll have more on this later this week. In the meantime, Happy Tjugondag Knut Eve!

Q Toon: Where in the World

I introduced Max and Leo as a way of commenting on the deep political divide between the Trump cultists and the rest of us: an odd couple in a relationship who stay together in spite of their profound disagreements.

Had Republicans lost the 2024 election, Max and Leo would still be bickering over fiscal policy or, I dunno, white males being shut out of Kamala Harris's cabinet. But instead, we have been forced to endure the Criminal Trump Regime. It hasn't even been 100 days yet, and there are black vans of Trump's Gestapo disappearing civilians on suspicion of having unauthorized tattoos and opinions.

I figured I could comment on that by having Leo mistakenly caught up in an anti-immigrant sweep. Eventually, I'd have the courts step in, or someone in charge would realize ICE's mistake, and Leo and Max would be reunited, once I had figured out how to make a point with it.

Yet now it turns out that the Criminal Trump Regime doesn't care what the courts rule, or who gets swept up because of whatever mistake made by his minions. They've discovered a fellow tyrant down in El Salvador who's got a tropical gulag where they can ship their victims en masse, where nobody is afforded due process whatsoever. Instead, they are stripped naked, shaved, and put on display crammed together like sardines for Kristi Noem's Zoom background.

One of the real people trapped in this dystopian nightmare from hell is a man named Kilmar Albrego García. He had come here years ago from El Salvador to flee from the MS-13 gang there; a judge here had ruled that if the U.S. government wanted to deport him, it was forbidden to send him to El Salvador. 

ICE knew this, and decided it didn't care about the rule of law. Up and down the chain of command, they decided to just follow orders. The Department of Homeland Security acknowledges that García was the victim of an "administrative error." The Supreme Court has told the Criminal Trump Regime to "facilitate" García's return.

The Criminal Trump Regime's response is to pretend that it can't do a damn thing to rectify its administrative error. They invited El Salvador's self-described "coolest dictator" Nayib Bukele to the White House to claim that he's helpless to bring an innocent man home to his wife and children. After all, if he freed one innocent man, he'd have to free every innocent man, wouldn't he?

LGBTQ+ media have taken interest in Andry Hernandez Romero, a Salvadoran hairdresser and make-up stylist seeking asylum in the U.S. because he is gay and was facing persecution in Venezuela who was deported to the Salvadoran Sağmalcılar. Chicago media have been reporting on the case of Yeison Rodrigo Jaimes-Rincon, whose partner only found out he had been kidnapped to CECOT when she saw him behind bars there on television. 

And there are dozens, if not hundreds of others in their predicament whom you have never heard of.

There is a reason why we all know the tragic story of Anne Frank; only if you pass through a Holocaust museum will you learn of any other individuals among the six million others slaughtered by the Nazis' extermination machine. Nor was Alexei Navalny alone. 

There are photographs of a fraction of the victims of the Khmer Rouge at the Tuol Sleng genocide museum in Phnom Penh, yet they all remain anonymous to most of us. Ditto the victims of Stalin's purges, the Rwandan massacres, the deliberate slaughter of Palestinians...

It can be easy to resign oneself to the idea that it's too hard to care about what happens to uncounted foreigners. 

Until it happens to somebody you know.

In that disgusting Oval Office performance by Trump and Bukele, the tyrant occupying our White House promised that it certainly will. Trump wants to abduct enough U.S. citizens off to El Salvador that Bukele will need to build "about five more" CECOTs to hold them all.

Oh, sure: our Felon-in-chief said that he only wants to suspend the Constitution when it comes to the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights of worst of the worst.

You'll just have to overlook the occasional administrative error.

Q Toon: Mar-a-Lago Face

One of the many targets during Prince of Lies Donald Trump's two-hour screed to a joint session of Congress last week was, of course, the transgender community. Much of the commentary since then has mocked his lie that federal funds were being wasted on creating "transgender mice," which was funny, ha, ha. (No wonder he despises our transatlantic alliances!).

Trump was not misreading his teleprompter, however, when he counseled youth suffering from gender dysphoria, “Our message to every child in America is that you are perfect exactly the way God made you,” to which end he called upon Congress to make dissatisfaction with one's own body illegal.

He was apparently oblivious to the people around him who have taken it upon themselves to tamper with their divinely bodily perfection.

The phenomenon, deemed “Mar-a-Lago” face, has seemingly swept the political world overnight, with its trademark fillers and razor-sharp cheekbones already making their way to the corridors of Capitol Hill ahead of Trump’s inauguration in January.

And with Trump recruiting nearly half of his Cabinet from Fox News’ camera-ready roster of contributors and anchors, who are quite comfortable in the makeup chair, the American people are bound to see more “Mar-A-Lago” face broadcasting live from the West Wing.

But what looks good on camera doesn’t always translate well in photos and regular video, and social media users are definitely starting to notice by making memes out of the Mar-A-Lago makeover.

Though the Daily Beast has been unable to confirm whether any members of Trump’s circle have turned to enhancements, Lara Trump, Matt Gaetz and Laura Loomer are among those who have been called out for their beauty journeys.

“Laura Loomer’s evolution from an average-looking human to Jigsaw has to be one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen,” wrote one social media commentator about Loomer’s seemingly changed look.

Laura Loomer didn't make it into my cartoon; instead, I've included Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Don Jr. girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle. I'll confess that my caricature of Guilfoyle is heavily influenced by Ann Telnaes's; you will find none better. You may remember Guilfoyle as the homunculus screeching to the Republican National Convention that THE BEAST IS YET TO COME! 

(I'm pretty sure that's what she said. I couldn't hear her over the chattering cacophony of hellspawn demons fluttering around the auditorium, but you could read her lips from ten blocks away.)

Matt Gaetz didn't make it into this cartoon either; but fortunately, there's Elon Musk to keep this from being a sexist slam against the Real Housewives of Mar-a-Lago.

Photos of Elon Musk before and after plastic surgery pop up on social media all the time these days. The formerly balding broligarch, who has publicly disowned his transgender daughter, has reconfigured himself, experts tell us, with multiple cosmetic surgery procedures. In addition to hair plugs, his transformation has included nose jobs, eyelid surgery, brow lifts, and chin augmentation.

Lip injections can't be far behind.

Musk and Trump, and Reichpublicans from Congress to Village Clerk share an inordinate fear and loathing of transgender persons. There is a possibility, however remote, that Trump is merely taking advantage of right-wingers' transphobia to feed his own lust for power; but I take him literally and seriously on this issue.

If I were a betting man, I'd lay odds that his obsession stems from his having once upon a time grabbed some pussy, as he famously put it, only to have a handful of something extra.

And it wasn't thanks to lip injections.

Toon: Town Hall Do-Si-Don't

We interrupt today's regularly scheduled cartoon for this important breaking cartoon:

In case you missed it, Donald Disco Trump had a Town Hall rally in Philadelphia the other night, fielding pre-screened questions from the pre-screened audience, when, a couple of questions in, two members of the audience fainted.

Trump stopped taking questions, which is perfectly reasonable, and asked the backstage staff to play some music.

As a church organist, I've had to wing some music because somebody in the back pews has collapsed. I fainted in church once myself a very long time ago (fortunately, not as the organist). I've been in the congregation when a woman suffered a heart attack.

On those occasions, the worship service was interrupted, but not for long. In the case of the woman having a heart attack, the EMTs arrived soon and got her to the hospital as quickly as possible.

For reasons that defy logic, Trump had the backstage crew DJ an impromptu concert for 39 minutes, starting with not one, but two renditions of Franz Schubert's Ave Maria — two, because the DJ played an instrumental version and Trump wanted Luciano Pavarotti's performance.

Followed by several songs by artists such as Rufus Wainwright who have demanded that he cease and desist playing recordings of their performances at his rallies.

According to video from the evening, Trump played Rufus Wainwright’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” as well as Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond,” Guns N’ Roses’ “November Rain,” James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” Elvis’ “An American Trilogy,” the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” and Andrea Bocelli’s “Time to Say Goodbye.”

All the while, South Dakota Governor Kristi "Shoot the Pooch" Noem (the moderator for the evening) and a mute Greek chorus of special guests were trapped on stage. You could see them distractedly swaying and shuffling and clapping along with the Donald, clearly wondering how to get the hell out of there without being noticed.

In the end, Trump answered only four people's questions, and left town happy and pleased with his performance.

Q Toon: For Your Consideration

The Prime Minister of Iraq, Mohamed Shia al-Sudani, was at the White House last month, which was made slightly awkward because the Iraqi parliament was all set to make homosexuality or being transgender a capital offense.

The provision was included in "The Law on Combating Prostitution and Homosexuality," an update to a 1988 anti-prostitution statute. The parliament delayed passage of the bill during al-Sudani's visit, then, in response to U.S. and European diplomatic protests, amended the bill to reduce the penalty for homosexuality from death to ten to fifteen years in prison. The punishment under the bill for undergoing or performing gender-affirming surgery was set at one to three years.

The bill also bans any organization that promotes “sexual deviancy,” imposing a sentence of at least seven years and a fine of no less than 10 million dinars (about $7,600). The parliament passed the bill into law on Saturday.

Even without the capital punishment provision, the U.S., Great Britain and Human Rights Watch voiced our objections to the new law. In response, some Iraqi lawmakers want to expel U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Alina Romanowski.

So, naturally, I referenced South Dakota Governor and puppy-killer Kristi Noem in this week's cartoon. As one does.

I mean, really. It ain't easy coming up with cartoon ideas about most foreign countries. You didn't know who the Prime Minister of Iraq is when you woke up this morning. Most of you wouldn't know if I tried to caricature him or if I just drew Mr. Generic Middle Eastern Guy. There's no quick and easy go-to gag about him liking ice cream cones or wearing his tie too long. He doesn't star in any viral memes. We're not fixing to invade his country again or anything.

Nope, he just happens to be the Prime Minister of yet another country that decided it would be cool to punish its LGBTQ+ citizens. Just like most of its neighbors do.

But at least they took the death penalty off the table.

Grudgingly.

Q Toon: Tedious

It seems like eons ago that we coined the term "Obama Derangement Syndrome" to describe Republicans' irrational, virulent response to anything and everything about Barack Obama: from their embrace of birtherism even in the face of overwhelming evidence that our 44th President was indeed born in Hawaii, to their revulsion against his wife planting a vegetable garden, to their howls of shock and horror that time he wore a tan suit.

When the electoral college elected as president Donald Berzelius Trump, the most prominent flogger of birtherism's dead horse, right-wingers quickly purloined the idea of "Trump Derangement Syndrome" — as if there were something pathological about Americans being upset over having our country run by a solipsistic, self-serving, lying, cheating, boorish grifter who was using the presidency as a Keep Out Of Jail Free card while billing taxpayers to put up the Secret Service in his own personal hotel chain.

So, now that the party that was just fine and dandy with all that is now falling all over itself proclaiming transgender folks to be the biggest danger to the republic since affordable health care, I'm stealing "Derangement Syndrome" back.

Q Toon: School Safety Drill

Faced with a fourth surge of the coronavirus sweeping the nation, Republican governors and legislators have been falling over each other to see which of them can do the best job of channeling Amity Island Mayor Larry Vaughn.

A number of them have acted to forbid school districts and state universities from taking the simplest measures to ensure the health and safety of students and staff. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has threatened to cut funding to any school district that requires students to wear masks in the classroom. Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued his own executive order to the same effect. Republicans running the Wisconsin state legislature want the University of Wisconsin to beg for the politicians' permission before making any COVID-19-related decisions whatsoever.

Even Alabama Governor Kay "Start Blaming the Unvaccinated Folks" Ivey says there's no reason why a couple dozen children too young to be vaccinated should be required to mask up just because they are cooped up in a classroom together for hours at a time five days a week for months on end. It's Alabama. They can open a window.

I suppose Tennessee teachers and students should be grateful that Governor Bill Lee is willing to leave responding to the COVID-19 crisis up to individual school systems. Tennessee Republicans have their hands full trying to keep transgender students out of school bathrooms and locker rooms, and are too busy to play Doctor like the other legislatures.

And South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem is probably preoccupied making sure that the Sturgis Bike Week Superspreader Rally goes off without a hitch. And maybe running for president, or at least to fill Sarah Palin's shoes. She's kind of tired of all this coronavirus stuff, and she thinks you are, too.

So let's all go swimming! Statistically, your chances of being attacked by a shark are actually very small. And most people who are attacked by sharks survive, don't they?