Clay Jones for March 27, 2019

He’s as correct and honest as ever!

No exoneration, and lots of other charges waiting in the wings.

The DSM-5 tells us that persons with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) usually display some or all of the following symptoms:

1. Grandiosity with expectations of superior treatment from other people

2. Fixation on fantasies of power, success, intelligence, attractiveness, etc.

3. Self-perception of being unique, superior, and associated with high-status people and institutions

4. Need for continual admiration from others

5. Sense of entitlement to special treatment and to obedience from others

6. Exploitation of others to achieve personal gain

7. Unwillingness to empathize with the feelings, wishes, and needs of other people

8. Intense envy of others, and the belief that others are equally envious of them

9. Pompous and arrogant demeanor

Perfect cartoon to summarize the situation. He has not been exonerated of everything. Just the collusion. There are many other things he has done before, during and after the election that mean he should not be president. That is what we need to focus on as we approach the 2020 election.

This is a top 5 strip for the day? Editor’s choice certainly, but give the guy a break for a day or two.

And of course even the Barr “report” could not say he was “totally exonerated,” because he wasn’t. Barr would not have failed to include a quotation like that, though he managed to avoid giving a single complete sentence. Suggestive, no? It’s entirely possible that the reason he didn’t issue an indictment of #45 is because of the bizarre precedent that you can’t indict a sitting president.

So, we are ALL supposed to totally believe a 4 page summary done in less then a week of a 2 YEAR investigation into his crimes? A Summary written, by the way, by a HAND PICKED FLUNKY of the guy under investigation!

Release the full report if it exonerates the orange dictator.

Tiny wants revenge and with Barr to direct the FBI is now free for him to use – Beware.

Barr’s silly little letter purporting to summarize the extremely lengthy Mueller Report reminded me of the old Woody Allen joke: “I’ve learned to speed read, and I just finished ‘War and Peace.’ It involves Russia.” (An unintended bonus joke in this instance!)

Barr puts out his opinion of the report of a 2+ year investigation given to him less than 48hrs earlier and everyone believes him. The republicans start processes to block the release of the report. Let the report become public and then make a decision on what is in it. At the moment I see more obstruction than revelation.

Exoneration is such a bigly word for Trump to learn in such a short time. Someone must have told him it means he’s cleared of all wrongdoing, past, present and future. It’s going to be tuff to fit on a 2020 hat.

Let’s be careful to no equate the Barr edited summary with the actual report. Okay, speaking as an INDEPENDENT:

Given the bases of several convictions and confessions there were attempts at collusion (which is itself a crime) by multiple members of the campaign, and at least one (Manafort) was in a situation in which his laundered money and tax scam could be held over him by the Russians and Russian allies who helped him do it (which is why the trial about his finances was held first).

Now some might say that despite multiple attempts at collusion that the campaign would not have done it if the opportunity arose. To that my response is “Huh? Then why so many people spending time trying?”.

The current interesting questions are these:

Is an employer responsible for the actions of his employees that were taken for his campaign, business, mob, drug cartel, whichever-type-of-entity when they were employees with whom he met?

If an employer (or mob boss if someone then uses it as a precedent) is not responsible for the actions of those he employs then is it collusion if he attempts to obstruct them talking about their own crimes, or is it obstruction only if he himself is charged with the crimes that were related to the obstruction attempts no matter how public those attempts were?

We might soon get courts creating some strange precedents which might be expanded in defenses by drug lords, CEOs of companies which endanger employees or pollute badly, and heads of mobs.

I guess you can’t win. Trump lies about everything (including, prominently, his own lies), such that the winning strategy is to assume that the truth is likely to be the exact opposite of what he says. So, if he says “No Collusion” a dozen times a day, minimum, that can only mean one thing. Well, perhaps not, but then, remember that we don’t actually know what’s in the Mueller report, beyond the assertion that it doesn’t exonerate Trump.

Clay, you and other political cartoonists are going to run out of room drawing all of Prez. Thugga-slug’s investigations and peccadillos pretty soon.

I know that Trump’s reading skills are at a very low grade level, indeed, but here is something to consider: According to Barr, on the obstruction of justice front, the Special Counsel wrote that “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” Barr wrote that this decision by Mueller left it to Barr’s office to determine whether the president committed criminal obstruction of justice.

In other words, whereas Mueller did NOT exonerate Trump, his new and improved fixer Barr at least TRIED to……..so far.

This is what 19% of the country, the Russians and the empty land masses wanted for us, who are we to demand competent leadership?

And 40% of the country supports this grifter. Take out the trash in 2020!

Hey Clay, thanks for all the bonus ‘toons on your web site. They’re a hoot! (And you are one hard-working ’toonist!)