Every morning, I’m up early to work on preparing online content for this website. And every morning, I’m treated to another of Clay Jones’ cartoons, and often an unhealthy does of liberal propaganda.
I think Jones is a great cartoonist. I’m definitely not going to criticize his talent. He knows how to take a concept and put it into images, and he certainly has a way with words. He’s also a workhorse — to be able to consistently produce at that level is admirable — and he’s broken away from traditional employment to become a successful independent syndicated cartoonist. The dude is no slouch.
But it’s galling to see someone refer to himself as a “history buff” and then turn around and parrot liberal propaganda as history. And it’s annoying to see him criticize Donald Trump while often giving Hillary Clinton carte blanche for doing the exact same things or making excuses for her.
It discredits him as a political commentator when he does these things.
I don’t identify as a liberal, but I think I probably lean slightly left of center. In Utah, I feel like a bra-burning hippie because of how conservative this state is. However, just because I might favor a liberal approach in some situations doesn’t mean that I tolerate any propagandizing from either side. I have no political loyalties whatsoever. I only want facts and truth — two things that are increasingly hard to come by in the media or from government.
I realize that cartoons are opinion, which gives the writer free rein to say whatever is on his or her mind. There’s no obligation to be unbiased in opinion writing, and I respect the need for a kaleidoscope of viewpoints in a healthy discussion.
But after hearing the same tendentious spiel over and over again, these cartoons begin to take on the appearance of liberal propaganda, and after so much of that, one can only roll the eyes.
Allow me to illustrate with six recent examples. To see the quotes in context, click the quotes, which are hyperlinked to the source text.
“It’s puzzling how anyone can perpetuate the narrative that Clinton is dishonest while ignoring the fact that Trump isn’t honest on anything.”
This is a theme in Jones’ writing: minimizing and then making a counter-accusation.
Hillary Clinton is a professional liar. Her performance at the Benghazi hearing, which is only one of many examples of her prowess in lying with a straight face, was both impressive and terrifying. She truly has no regard for anyone but herself, and her calculating methods are indicative of decades of practice.
Make no mistake: Donald Trump is a liar as well, but he’s more of an off-the-cuff liar. He doesn’t weave a web of lies so much as he just swings them around like nunchucks. I don’t think he has the IQ to be as calculating as Hillary Clinton is.
Why can’t Jones just admit that Clinton is a liar? The rest of us have. Who is convinced by this kind of empty, retaliatory rhetoric? The stench of desperation from both Jones and the mainstream media is overwhelming.
“Hillary Clinton has actual experience as part of a government fighting terrorism. She was in on the decision to take out Bin Laden.”
Ugh. Wrong and wrong.
First, Clinton has actual experience as part of a government spreading terrorism. The United States government is the largest, most effective terrorist organization since the beginning of recorded history. Ever read John Perkins’ “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”? How about Howard Zinn’s “The People’s History of the United States”? Or like anything Noam Chomsky has written about history, politics, or foreign policy? Hey Clay! The Koch brothers called. They want their denialist high-school history textbooks back.
And speaking of history, The United States government most certainly did not kill Osama Bin Laden. News flash — he had already quietly died of medical complications at that point. What Clinton was “in on” was the theater that was presented to the American public in order to make the Obama administration appear heroic, not the decision to “take him out.” This was all thoroughly documented online long ago.
Former U.S. foreign intelligence officer Angelo M. Codevilla and professor of international relations at Boston University said it best in 2009, two years before Bin Laden’s “assassination”: “All the evidence suggests Elvis Presley is more alive today than Osama Bin Laden.”
“George W. Bush choked in 2001 when he got a report that terrorists were about to strike the United States.”
Wrong.
George W. Bush was well aware of the pending attack on Sept. 11, 2001. That’s been established quite conclusively, unless you think that the BBC knew it was going to happen but the White House didn’t.
I’m not going to get into a thorough rebuttal of the government’s fictionalized version of the events related to the 9/11 attacks because it’s already been done quite decisively. The point is that this information is out there in volumes. We’ve had five years to dissect the mythology and point out the voluminous flaws in the propagandized version of history. This stuff is common knowledge in 2016 to everyone but those who sit in front of televisions and/or social media all day believing whatever the corporate media barfs up for them.
But what would I know? I’m not a history buff.
“Anyone who criticizes the Clinton Foundation should stop unless they also include the Trump Foundation in their faux outrage.”
Wrong.
Anyone who criticizes the Clinton Foundation should continue to criticize it because it’s a goddamned national outrage. The Clintons have been funneling money into their “charity” in exchange for giving foreign entities special treatment. That’s an abuse of Hillary’s position as Secretary of State and in a single blow disqualifies her for the presidency. She is a treasonous miser and should be imprisoned, not elected president.
Is the Trump Foundation worth scrutinizing and criticizing at the same level? Oh, hell yes. But to say that a person should criticize both or neither is just stupid.
And speaking of stupid:
“For months we’ve heard about the corruptness of The Clinton Foundation. The foundation is a charity. It focuses on global health, climate change, improving opportunities for girls and women, and a variety of other activities. You know. Good stuff.”
Wrong.
For years we’ve heard about the corruptness of the Clinton Foundation, not months.
This one gets the “Epic Facepalm of the Day” award. This award is given to the comment that is so delusional that a Level 10 facepalm, audible from 100 feet, actually distracts from the pain already caused in the cerebral cortex from having to process the idiocy of the comment. Ow.
There is no transparency in the Clinton Foundation, and it is criminally mismanaged in ways that make it the perfect money-laundering device.
Charles Ortel is a Wall Street financial expert and managing partner of Newport Value Partners.
He calls the Clinton Foundation one of the biggest charity frauds in history.
“The Clintons are out there holding themselves out as if they are charitable philanthropists, and in reality… . I argue they are really Robin Hood in reverse. They are stealing from the poor to reward the rich.”
Ortel says it’s a “$100 billion criminal conspiracy.”
“I think it is a disgrace. To put that number into perspective, depending on how you look at the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, that was either $40 billion to $60 billion. This is $100 billion, and maybe more.”
Estimating how much Clinton Foundation money actually makes it to charities, Ortel says, “It’s impossible to tell from the filings. You are supposed to tell from the filings, and it’s impossible to tell. One of the biggest expenses in the recent period in the Clinton Foundation is for Pharmaceuticals for supposedly fighting HIV Aids. If this were a well-run charity, you would provide a detailed breakdown of what pharmaceuticals by type and at what price. There is none of that disclosure. You don’t know if that pharmaceutical number is completely made up or not. You have no way of telling, and the auditors have never done their work. This is why I say this is a text book case study in global charity fraud. It needs to be exposed as such.”
Good stuff, indeed.
“Trump bragged about the polls that showed him winning the debate. Of course these polls were online polls where the voters can vote, refresh, vote, refresh, vote, refresh, etc.”
Ha! Here, we see our fearless propagandist donning the tinfoil hat himself (although I like to picture him dressed as Don Quixote) and accusing Trump supporters — but not Clinton supporters, who are all clones of Lancelot and Mother Teresa — of cheating at online polls. If his accusation were correct, it would mean that only Trump supporters cheat at online polls, which is the same kind of deplorable character smearing as Hillary’s now infamous “deplorable” comment.
The Daily Mail did the work for me in debunking this juvenile allegation and compiled a list of online polls. Sure, the Daily Mail is a conservative paper along the lines of USA Today, except British. However, the polls compiled are not all in favor of Trump, nor does the Daily Mail really have a vested interest in the outcome of the election. If it did, why would it include polls that favored Clinton?
Take a moment to check out that list.
In light of this, Jones’ accusation doesn’t hold water. After the bizarre debate in which moderator Lester Holt went after Trump several times but largely left Hillary unchallenged, people on both sides screamed “Victory!” despite the fact that it was a debate, not a contest.
Look, those were just six statements Jones has made over the past few weeks. It’s not like I had to go searching through the archives to dig up these absurd statements. I think I could continue indefinitely, but we could be here all day if I did, and I’m getting hungry.
Opinion is one thing. Liberal propaganda is another. Yes, he has poked fun at Hillary Clinton in cartoons, but his uninformed bias and tendency to turn a blind eye to information dissonant with his narrative are evident in the text. Even when I disagree with his message, I love his cartoons and respect the hell out of him as both an artist and a writer. And since it’s his opinion, I can even live with the liberal bias. But the thoughtless regurgitation of state-issued fairy tales, the outright denial, the double standards, the cherry-picking … yeah, I don’t respect any of that at all.
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