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Lymph node transplant diary

I’ve been a bit depressed to write too much about politics lately, but I do have some good news, if you don’t mind me sharing.

My wife, award-winning dryer lint artist Heidi Hooper (you may have seen her on ABC’s “To Tell the Truth” with Mel Brooks or on “Access Hollywood” or in Ripley’s Believe it or Not books and museums) had a major cancer operation around the turn of the century which took away much of the use of her right arm. She developed lymphedema which got worse over the years, and for the past 10 years or so was forced to get into a massaging machine for her arm three times a day for an hour each time. If she did not, the arm would expand, she’d be in terrible pain, and have to go to the hospital (and she did, too, from time to time when it didn’t work).

Just take a second and imagine if you had to do that, every single day, no holidays, no weekends, for ten years.

So when her doctor told her about a new procedure where they could transplant lymph nodes from her stomach to her arm and thus, if successful, prevent her from having to spend three hours a day in a machine, she decided to take the chance.

She made a video diary of the experience so that other possible patients would see what it was like.

And here it is.

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Know your ICE agent

Ruben Bolling

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Republicans don’t care about democracy

Poll after poll shows that the majority of Americans disagree with Trump and his policies. His approval rating is terrible and people hate his “Big, Beautiful Bill.”

But Republicans don’t care. They control all three branches of government, and given what the Supreme Court allowed Trump to do last week, apparently plan on changing the rules as much as possible to make sure no Democrat ever gets elected again.

It’s kind of hard to call this kind of government a “democracy.”

cartoon by Bill Bramhall
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Patriotism vs. Nationalism

Jen Sorensen

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Dealing with “illegals”

“We can’t tolerate illegals! We have laws in this country!” — said by people who voted for a convicted felon

Calling immigrants “illegals” it’s an easy way for people to not say “I’m a racist.” (Hey, you notice that ICE never heads to Boston to round up all the illegal Irish immigrants that are there?) The “illegal” part is a misdemeanor at most (unlike President Felon) and we could change the law tomorrow and they’d be legal.

My ancestors on my father’s side came here legally in the early 1900s, because back then, there was no immigration law. You came here, you registered, and then you could apply for citizenship. There was no limit on how many could come here.

If you’re in America, your heritage is either native, immigrant, refugee, or slave — and it’s evilly ironic when you claim that “America is for Americans” when you’re standing on land stolen from natives. So unless you are a native American, you shouldn’t be screaming about how immigrants are going to ruin the country — chances are, someone said the same thing about your ancestors when they came here.

Besides, have you noticed that some of the people ICE rounds up are being caught at their immigration hearings — meaning the immigrants are DOING IT LEGALLY.

It’s pure racism, from an administration that yesterday refused to acknowledge or celebrate the national holiday Juneteenth.

In a related story, Trump now has a new policy to encourage women to have more babies, because we need to increase our population. Obviously, he means white babies (otherwise, if we want to increase our population, we should be bringing in more immigrants). It’s because these racists are really scared that white people will eventually be the minority in America and they’re convinced that once whites are the minority, that the non-white majority will treat whites as badly as whites are currently treating them.

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Running on Empty

Clay Bennett
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This is not normal

Republicans are doing everything they can to try to make this normal — like it’s normal to ignore court rulings and politicize the justice department and call anyone who disagrees with them enemies of the state and spit on the Constitution and use the military against civilians…

I am not sure our democracy will endure now that the white supremacists have taken over. Even if we take over the White House and Congress again, there’s no reason to believe they won’t still have the same disgust for democracy as they are showing now.

Politics used to be liberals vs. conservatives, but now it’s good guys vs. bad guys.

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Faithfully Executed

Robert Ariail

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Can Trump legally do what he is doing?

No.

The President does not have the power to make laws or set tariffs. Executive Actions are not in the Constitution at all, but courts have allowed the President to use them for things under his control, such as with the bureaucracy. (A good example is when Truman gave an Executive Order integrating the military.)

Executive Orders have expanded over the years, but never to the abusive degree that Trump exercises, with orders that have nothing at all to do with his powers but instead are in essence laws that he is decreeing like some emperor.

So can he do this under the Constitution (you know, that document that he admits he doesn’t know anything about and doesn’t think he has to obey)? No. No again.

But none of that matters if no one stops him. Congress could overrule and ignore 90% of his Executive Actions, and the courts could rule them unconstitutional — but unless they act, he’s going to get away with it all.

Fortunately, some courts have ruled that he isn’t a dictator able to unilaterally issue decrees, but so far, not one Republican has decided that their oaths to defend the Constitution are meaningful compared to their loyalty to Trump. They are as unpatriotic as you can be and are the reason we are in this mess.

Election season is coming up in many states. Be sure to vote against every Republican, no matter what the position, because if they’re still a member of that party after all this, they clearly have no problem with Dictator Trump and every Republican elected just helps to strengthen the party’s power.

cartoon by Clay Jones

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Super Genius

Clay Bennett