By way of apology, and in my defense, this isn’t my job. Fran said I’d do the toons on Friday, so I’ll do them. But this week I’ve seen a notable dearth of political cartoons in my usual feeds, so in order to fully populate this posting with the requisite number, memes will have to do.

It looks like Ol’ Joe Biden still has a few tricks up his sleeve. Remember how TFG, in his grandiosity, claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin would release Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich to him after he was elected?

At the time, it was considered a callous claim that practically guaranteed Gershkovich’s continued incarceration. Indeed, his claim was all but assured to scotch any progress made in diplomatic efforts to get his release.

Not so. In fact, it almost seems like a message from Moscow has been sent that they now believe TFG’s chances at a win this November are in doubt.

At least The Kremlin is catching on.

Childless cat ladies aside for the time being, I have a question about catamarans. As in Catamaran Consulting, LLC.

Why have they no website?

Catamaran Consulting, LLC is a political consulting group based in Los Angeles. If you Google the name, you get a couple of hits from Open Secrets, a political campaign tracking group, and a bunch of catamaran sailboat sales agencies.

The Open Secrets hits are the only web presence I could find for the consulting group that otherwise seems to be well-known by the Rafael “Ted” Cruz Campaign.

Well-known to the tune of $712,994.20.

Catamaran Consulting, LLC is where Ted Cruz spends his iHeartMedia podcast lucre. It’s also where lots of Republican campaigns have gone for help. Mostly to oppose Big Orange, you know, TGF, The Grifting Felon.

That business dried up when they got their respective a-double-scribbles handed to them by the former president back in ’23.

But it’s good to see they are still being kept afloat by Cruzlucre. It’s a tax-paying California company that needs a lot of out-of-state work.

Is this ever a “dog bites man” story. Just imagine this: Industrialist billionaires seeking tax breaks and de-regulation have traditionally supported the Republican candidate for President of the US. How many times since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution has that not been the case?

It’s just one of our Truths.

Now look at traditionally liberal Silicon Valley. The valley of youthful inspiration. The valley of Woz and Jobs in their garage innovating a miniature computer. Look there, and you see a microcosm of the schism that has spread out from coast to coast.

They all started out together. Young and idealistic. They went to the same schools. They knew each other. Later on, they formed business alliances and joined the same clubs.

Now they’re at each others’ throats…figuratively, that is.

All because of ‘heads versus hearts’, the classic schism that still challenges humanity. Or in the modern case: “those who are supporting Trump to protect their company’s bottom line versus those backing the Democrats over social issues, such as abortion.”

The divide between us couldn’t be clearer or more raw than what we see in San Jose. In this corner, Elon Musk and Peter Thiel (and others of their greed-soaked ilk). Arrayed against them: Melinda Gates and Mark Zuckerberg (and other heroes of “small D” democracy and what is right and good in America).

Before we had the robber barons: Chase, Getty, Huntington, Carnegie, ad nauseum. Now we have new ones to fill their money grubbing shoes. As the song goes, “Everything old is new again.”

Today, TFG gave a new meaning to the term “Political Campaign Staff” when he blew up his interview at the NABJ24 Convention.

Starting late, as usual, The Orange One, managed to alienate the entire room with every racist remark. So much so that his staff ended the interview suddenly and early.

Someone finally gave one of his staffers a staff, also known as “the hook,” and got the bilious babbling blowhard off the stage.

He isn’t even trying anymore.

We all know the truth about TFG and his enablers – cruel, hateful, criminal, liars, threat to democracy, and more.  But no real descriptor has stuck, at least until now.  The term that stuck?  Weird. That’s right, weird and it’s derivative, weirdo, is sticking like glue and it’s pissing them off.  Tim Walz, governor of Minnesota, got the party kicked off last week on MSNBC calling TFG and Fauxbilly “weird people.”  Hillary picked it up on Twitter X with this little jewel: 

Let’s go through the weird list: People without children restricted from voting; people with children get an extra vote per child; government control of women’s menstrual cycle information; a nationwide abortion ban; short of a nationwide ban, pregnant women’s out of state travel should be monitored; jail sentences for doctors who provide reproductive care; jail sentences for women who get abortions; privatize schools; ban and burn “unacceptable books”; end marriage equality; ban medical treatment of transexual individuals; repeal Obamacare; impose Christianity on all Americans; ban Muslims from the country; mass deportations of immigrants; organize a private militia for the president; fire half of the federal employees, put loyalists in charge of all departments; politicize and weaponize the DOJ.  It goes on and on, but this is a representative sample.

Republicans have weaponized language for decades, from “you hate the troops” to “death panels”, “death tax”, “pro life”, and many others.  It’s nice that Dems have finally been able to turn at least a little of that back on them.  The great thing about calling them weird?  It’s because they are.