Q Toon: Exit Stage Right

Far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos found himself the latest victim of the Leopards Eating Faces Party last month.

ICE arrested British-born Yiannopoulos at Louis Armstrong International Airport on Friday for overstayng his visa. Fellow fascist Laura Loomer is claiming credit for ratting Yiannopoulos out to the Feds; he was arriving in New Orleans for a concert by Kanye "Ye" West, with whom Yiannopoulos has been associated in recent years.

Identifying as gay in the '00's and ’10's, Yiannopoulos made a career out of being an offensive internet troll, insulting women and Muslims, and basically anyone to the left of Emperor Palpatine. As a columnist for Andrew Breitbart's website from 2014 to 2017, Yiannopoulos had been an early and vocal advocate for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, especially his anti-immigration plans. 

In February of 2017, he was forced out from Breitbart, cancelled at CPAC, and lost a book contract, after audio surfaced of him defending some sex between teens and adults as “perfectly consensual” and calling some teen-adult sexual interactions “coming-of-age relationships." Exactly the sort of "groomer" stuff conservatives have long used to vilify LGBTQ+ people.

Since then, he has decided that he is no longer gay, telling a Catholic anti-abortion website that he was "living as brothers" with his then husband. (To nobody's surprise, that marriage has not lasted.) In 2022, he signed up to be an intern for then Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene; he also got in on the ground floor of Kanye West/Yeezy/Ye's 2024 abortive presidential campaign.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, Yiannopoulos entered the U.S. legally in 2019 on a tourist visa, which he overstayed. A final order of removal was issued for him after he missed an immigration hearing in July. 

Yiannopoulos last summer tweeted of masturbating to videos of ICE raids, so it is impossible to muster any vestige of sympathy for the guy.

Besides, England agreed to take him back. It's not like ICE dumped him in South Shitholestan somewhere.

Deciding how to draw Mr. Yiannopoulos wasn't easy, by the way. The guy has changed his hairstyle more often than Cher, and has packed on the pounds and shed them back off. In most photos, he's wearing glasses or shades, which didn't seem appropriate for the setting of the cartoon. I opted for his signature 2017 look, but in what is either his passport or current mug shot, he appears to have quit bleaching or dying his hair, and sports a modest mustache with a modicum of jaw-line whiskers.

Has to be a mug shot. You have to can't have stuff in the background of a passport photo.

This Week's Sneak Peek

Last week's cartoon about radical right-winger Mark Robinson winning the Republican primary for governor in North Carolina overlooked the tandem victory of radical right-winger Michelle Morrow, who unseated incumbent Superintendent of Schools Catherine Truitt in the Tarheel State's Republican primary.

Michele Morrow, a conservative activist who last week upset the incumbent Superintendent of Public Instruction in North Carolina’s Republican primary, expressed support in 2020 for the televised execution of former President Barack Obama and suggested killing then-President-elect Joe Biden.

In other comments on social media between 2019 and 2021 reviewed by CNN’s KFile, Morrow made disturbing suggestions about executing prominent Democrats for treason, including Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Hillary Clinton, Sen. Chuck Schumer and other prominent people such as Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates.

“I prefer a Pay Per View of him in front of the firing squad,” she wrote in a tweet from May 2020, responding to a user sharing a conspiracy theory who suggested sending Obama to prison at Guantanamo Bay. “I do not want to waste another dime on supporting his life. We could make some money back from televising his death.”

In another post in May 2020, she responded to a fake Time Magazine cover that featured art of Obama in an electric chair asking if he should be executed.

“Death to ALL traitors!!” Morrow responded.

In yet another comment, Morrow suggested in December 2020 killing Biden, who at that time was president-elect, and has said he would ask Americans to wear a mask for 100 days.

“Never. We need to follow the Constitution’s advice and KILL all TRAITORS!!! #JusticeforAmerica,” she wrote.

CNN reached out to Morrow and her campaign multiple times but did not receive a response. Following publication of this story, Morrow defended her previous tweets, claiming Obama committed treason. 

When cartoonists who, like me, are alarmed by seeing the completely unhinged kooks who have taken over the Republican party, are asked why we don't draw more cartoons attacking Democrats, this is why. 

The Invisible Empire Strikes Back

Our Graphical History Tour returns today to Oklahoma in 1923, when Progressive Democrat Governor John C. Walton resorted to martial law to combat the Ku Klux Klan.

"The Outcast" by Sam Armstrong in Tacoma News-Tribune Oct. 3, 1923

When we left Oklahoma last month. Walton had put the military in charge of Tulsa and Okmulgee Counties to put an end to the Klan's reign of terror there. Walton then extended martial law to the rest of the state, censoring the press, and widening military authority to investigate and prosecute crimes of the Klan.

"The Zero Hour" by Grover Page in Louisville Courier-Journal, Oct. 2, 1023

Outraged by Walton's actions, the state legislature scheduled a popular referendum for Tuesday, October 2, asking voters to approve an amendment to the state constitution allowing the legislature to convene a special session — something up to then only the Governor could do — for the purpose of impeaching Walton.

"Which" by Loring in Daily Oklahoman, Oct. 2, 1923

In my post a fortnight ago, I commented that it's a shame there were no local editorial cartoonists in Oklahoma; but I have since found an apparently home-grown editorial cartoon. It ran on the front page of the Daily Oklahoman on election day, and appears to be the only Loring cartoon to appear in the Daily Oklahoman all October. (Their editorial page ran "Ding" Darling cartoons nearly every day.)

"When Night-hood Was in Flower" by Butler in Oklahoma Leader, Oct. 5, 1923

The Farmer-Labor weekly Oklahoma Leader appears to have taken on a cartoonist named Butler for a series of front-page cartoons titled "When Night-hood Was In Flower." (The klansman's wife in the above cartoon is saying "—My very best sheet, too!")

"When Night-hood Was in Flower" by Butler in Oklahoma Leader, Oct. 12, 1923

Butler's cartoons, at least those in October, were more focused on mocking the Klan than having anything at all to say about the governor or the legislature.

"Sitting on the Lid" by Roy James in St. Louis Star, October 2, 1923

Meanwhile: Walton threatened to send out 22,000 armed officers to prevent the election from being held, and there were brief confrontations in Tulsa the day before the election. Officials in Cimmaron, Bryan, and Harper Counties ignored the legislature's call to open polling places, voting was heavy, however, in Oklahoma's remaining 74 counties — in spite of heavy rains.

"I'm Still Governor" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, October 3, 1923

When the votes were counted, Walton lost decisively throughout the state, including in Red River Valley counties where he had found his strongest support in the previous year's election. The legislature proceeded to call its special session.

"The fight on the Invisible Empire has just started," Walton defiantly told reporters. "I am still Governor of Oklahoma." 

Walton then turned to the state Supreme Court, asking it to nullify the October 2 election on the grounds of being unconstitutional.

"It Doesn't Look So Bad Today" by Bill Sykes for Philadelphia Public Ledger, October (?), 1923

The Daily Oklahoman ran this cartoon on its front page on October 4; I don't have its original date of publication in Philadelphia, so there is a possibility that it predated the election. In that case, the caption may have been the creation of the Oklahoman's editors rather than the cartoonist.

This next Sykes cartoon was certainly drawn after the election results were known.

"Logical Results" by Bill Sykes in Philadelphia Public Ledger, by Oct. 11, 1923

If, other than the Louisville Courier-Journal's Grover Page, out-of-state cartoonists who had earlier praised Walton for standing up to the Klan were now silent, perhaps they saw his ends as admirable, but the means indefensible. Yet one could hardly criticize the governor without seeming to sympathize with the Klan, which was, of course, actively supporting impeachment proceedings. Editorial cartoons are not particularly well-suited to nuance.

The Klan's influence inside the Oklahoma legislature was a known fact. Some of the representatives in state government were not merely sympathetic to the Klan, but members of it. Oklahoma-based Harlow's Weekly editorialized on October 6: "[T]he responsibility of Klan members of the legislature to be certain that everything they do is absolutely justifiable by facts made clear to the people of the state and the rest of the nation, is multiplied many times. No impeachment of Governor Walton which is based merely upon the fact that he is attacking the Klan can be made to stand up in the public's mind."

"Job" by Dennis McCarthy in Fort Worth Record, Oct. 18, 1923

Interrupting Oklahoma's political upheaval, those heavy rains that dampened the October 2 election kept pounding the state over the next two weeks — unleashing a horrific flood on Oklahoma City in mid-October. Thousands were left homeless.

The Oklahoma House would, a week after the flooding, vote to impeach Governor Walton.

"All Set for the Big Show" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, Oct. 14, 1923

Lambada Rising

Congresscretin Lauren Boebert (R-CO) was on Fox's Sunday Talking Points program this week. She was in high dudgeon, as all her fellow Requblicans are, that President Joe Biden had the temerity at a Democratic Party fundraiser to criticize the "semi-fascists" who have dominated the Requblican Party under Donald Trump, plotted to kidnap the Governor of Michigan, and attacked the Capitol in an attempt to overthrow the government and hang the Vice President. An ideology that idolizes Hungary's dictator Viktor Orban. And as Requblican legislatures ban ideas they don't like and, by the way, have decided that if they don't like the election outcome of the people's votes, the Requblican legislatures can just declare Requblican candidates the winners no matter what.

Somehow, Boebert's word salad diatribe about Biden's remark included lambasting his student loan forgiveness program on the grounds that it will facilitate collegiate scholars majoring in "Lesbian Dance Theory."

It's a non sequitur, of course. But it's not as if Boebert can afford to disavow semi-fascism and offend her semi-fascist base.

To the best of my knowledge, no college, not even Barnard or Berkeley, offers a degree in Lesbian Dance Theory. I must note, however, that while I was an undergrad, my alma mater offered a "paracollege" program which allowed its students to fashion their own majors; so I suppose it's within the realm of possibility that someone between 1969 and 2000 developed a Lesbian Dance Theory major.

Although that really sounds more like a Ph.D. thesis to me, and St. Olaf offers only Bachelors degrees.

Now, originally, Boebert (who did in fact get her G.E.D. the same year she won election to Congress) said that hard-working Americans were being robbed so that "Karen's daughter" could get a B.A. in L.D.T. I'm not sure why Boebert chose to drag "Karens" into this.

"911? Some Black people are studying Lesbian Dance Theory in the park!"

I'm pretty sure that their demographic is solidly Requblican.

Q Toon: Driven to Distruction

 

So I've finally gotten a cartoon drawn about the arrest almost two weeks ago of the 31 white heterosexuosupremacists in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. With them in their van were plans to attack the LGBTQ+ Pride event underway there that weekend.

Eric Ward, executive director of the Western States Center, a community organizing group that advocates for inclusivity and democratic principles, said [the planned attack was] a far cry from an isolated incident.

“People should be paying attention to these arrests far beyond Coeur d’Alene,” Ward said via email. “Idaho is a bellwether state for where the rest of the country may be headed in terms of how anti-democracy groups try to build power and how effectively they’re blunted.” He noted that in 2020, Idaho was among the first states to “turn anti-transgender attacks into law” by banning trans women and girls from school sports and that the local Republican Party has supported candidates for the library board who ran on pulling LGBTQ books from shelves.

Republican politicians have been whipping up these amateur fascists with a constant drumbeat of anti-LGBTQ+, anti-immigrant, racist, pro-violence rhetoric and legislation. Their ranting seems especially heated this year, but it has been going on for decades now, amplified by their cheerleaders and coaches at Fox News, OAN, Newsmax, and social media echo chambers.

Perhaps I should have identified the politicians in the lower panel of this cartoon. I've drawn about some of them before; Idaho Governor Brad Little is a newcomer here, however. 

The Idaho House passed legislation in March that would criminalize gender-affirming medical treatment for minors, tacking it onto existing laws banning female genital mutilation. The state Senate refused to take up the bill, thus saving Gov. Little from having to sign or veto it.

As for the rest of the motley crew in my cartoon, we've already discussed Texas Governor Greg Abbott's executive order classifying transgender therapy as child abuse, the "Don't Say Gay" law signed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Congresstroll Lauren Boebert's malice against colleagues' transgender children, Ohio's pending bill, and Reprehensible Marjorie Taylor-Greene's anti-LGBTQ+ rantings and ravings. I just haven't gotten around to those same policies in Alabama, Arizona, and a host of other GQP-run states. 

That, along with their racist appeals to get "Critical Race Theory" — an academic topic on the level of multivariate calculus and quantum physics — out of public elementary schools is exactly what drives neoNazis like these "Patriot Front" lunatics to think they must save the White Cis Male Race from replacement by colored transgender wimminfolk.

Heck, I certainly understand the appeal of the LGBTQ+ experience.

Is it that attractive to everyone? Probably not.

But you can't tell that to the idiots in the U-Haul. They're listening to someone else.

[J]ust as police must contend with the growth of extremist groups, the public must pay attention to the elected officials and personalities in the mainstream who ignite the talking points that ultimately animate far-right groups.

When they see a mainstream politician pick up on something they agree with, they see that as validation,” [Kurt Braddock, a professor at American University] said of false claims some Republican lawmakers have made about trans people being “groomers” and “pedophiles.” “Just like the ‘great replacement theory,’ it trickles down to the far-right elements and they run with it.”

Q Toon: One Man In His Time

We now return you to our regular programming.

We don't have Showtime at our house, so I haven't seen Mr. Cohen's latest TV show; I've only read reports of how the shapeshifting chameleon has been able to con several right-wing and alt-right-wing politicians into saying and performing things that will be the wet dreams of the opposition research for their opponents in the next election.

Mr. Cohen's characters are way over the top, but are camouflaged among a cast of real-life characters who are way over the top themselves. From our Corrupt President to his venal minions, and the hordes of adoring, frenzied fans willing to accept any crackpot conspiracy theory as long as there isn't a whiff of truth in it, it's easy to see how Cohen's outrageous characters blend in virtually undetectably.

But as long as we're going to hell in a handbasket of deplorables, we might as well enjoy the ride.

You'll never guess whom Waldo is disguised as.

Q Toon: Loaded Response

I settled down in front of my drawing board last weekend after one of those weeks when LGBTQ issues just seemed insignificant relative to all the other news.

The week started with Donald Joffrey Trump responding to North Korean threats of nuclear attacks against the U.S. with overheated "fire and fury" rhetoric of his own. Nuclear war seemed so likely that even Wall Street suddenly snapped out of its giddy response to Trump's lazy faire economic policies.

Then fascists wielding semi-automatic rifles, swastikas, Ku Klux Klan banners and tiki torches marched on Charlottesville, Virginia, where one of their number ran over a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one and injuring 19. Trump blurted out that "many sides, many sides" were responsible, driving the Korea story right off the front page (to the relief of Wall Street).

After two days, Trump begrudgingly read a statement assigning blame to the Nazis and Klansmen, but then stunningly revoked that statement at an unhinged press conference the next day. Beggaring credulity, Trump insisted that some participants in the march organized by the website The Daily Stormer, the Neo-Confederate League of the South, the National Policy Institute, and the National Socialist Movement are actually "very fine people." Perhaps those people were only Nazi sympathizers.

Why would Trump leap to the defense of the indefensible?

With his approval ratings down to 33% of the electorate, Trump can't afford to piss off Nazis and the Klan. As the sane, reasonable portion of the minority of voters who elected him slowly develop buyer's remorse, Nazis, Klansmen and their ilk become an evermore significant part of Trump's remaining base.

He is losing support among previously sympathetic corporate and labor leaders. Led by Merck chief executive Ken Frazier,  eight members of Trump's Strategy & Policy Forum and his Manufacturing Council resigned from them over his inability to distinguish a moral difference between his fascist base and anti-fascist protesters; Trump then disbanded the councils before any more businessmen could defect.

At this point, however, not a single member of Trump's Evangelical Council has resigned. They have no problem associating themselves with a Nazi sympathizer sympathizer.

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As long as I've brought up Bathroom Bills, let's pause for a moment to celebrate one gleam in the sh¡tstorm: the Texas legislature adjourned its special session without passing Senate Bill 6. A legislative priority for Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and the theocratic right, the Texas Bathroom Bill was opposed by the Republican House Speaker Joe Straus, as well as by the Texas business community and the state's professional sports teams.

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On Monday, I invited you to guess who that was kibitzing over my shoulder in this week's cartoon. For the answer, look through the list of keywords at the end of this post.

And should you wish to share or link directly to this week's cartoon, throw some traffic to the news outlets which run my cartoon. Try here, here, or here.