A Republic, If You Can Keep It

On our political radar this week… Demagogue Senator Joe McCarthy’s Red Scare tactics of the 1950s are back. The GOP game plan for the 2026 campaign is clear: branding Democrats as soft-on-crime and communists who want to destroy America. Using Hollywood terms, it’s a sequel to what was, for a while, a highly successful 1950’s crusade led by Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy. The candid...

Subscribe to our YouTube channel On our political radar this week… Trump’s heavily hyped Great American State Fair has been labeled the All-American Fyre Festival. Crowds are non-existent. It’s even so bad that Vanilla Ice pulled out at the last minute. Jeff notes that he’s had larger crowds in his shower than at Trump’s latest shitastical narcissistic failed attempt at performative ji...

Subscribe to our YouTube channel On our political radar this week… AI created satire (in case you couldn’t figure that out!) There are dead ducks everywhere. In Switzerland, it could well be J.D. Vance’s presidential ambitions as the 60-day pause in Trump’s War is looking shakier by the day. In Lansing, it’s the almost invisible but now dead campaign of state Senate GOP Leader Aric Nes...

Subscribe to our YouTube channel On our political radar this week… In the first days of Donald Trump’s Middle East War, he proclaimed that the only acceptable end was “unconditional surrender.” He didn’t specify WHO needed to surrender. This week, we got the answer. Iran wins permanent control of the straits of Hormuz, keeps its nuclear program, and gets around a half-trillion-dollars in dir...

Subscribe to our YouTube channel On our political radar this week… A summer snowflake sighting in Wisconsin: Donald Trump stalked out of an NBC interview when his lies about election fraud were challenged by NBC’s Kristen Welker. While Trump was attacking mainstream media as “crooked”, his allies at CBS were proving they fit that description by firing 60 Minutes anchor Scott Pelley for calli...

Subscribe to our YouTube channel On our political radar this week… Donald Trump says he’s getting bored with his war, doesn’t care about the mid-terms … but is laser focused on what matters: his reflecting pond renovation, diverting money from national parks for his D.C. cleanup, the Arc ‘d Trump, taking over DC golf courses, the UFC version of the ancient gladiator battles to the death, and...

Subscribe to our YouTube channel On our political radar this week… Former Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan adds to decades of proof that an independent candidate for statewide office is doomed, pulling the plug on what had become a fading Quixotic quest. He was supposed to be the star of the annual Greater Detroit Chamber of Commerce policy conference on Mackinac Island which was wrapping up as we...

Subscribe to our YouTube channel On our political radar this week… Donald Trump, who has had a lifetime personal wealth-building obsession, set a new standard for corruption this week with three outrageously grubby grifts: The $1.8 billion slush fund, under his total control, that he can use to pay off his political crime family, even the January 6th rioters  An agreement signed by his oneti...

On our political radar this week… In between Oval Office naps, his costly, tacky fixations on the Reflecting Pool on the National mall and his $1-billion NOW TAXPAYER FUNDED ballroom, misogyny toward female reporters, rage posting on Truth Social, his bizarre, constant bragging about his regularly scheduled dementia tests, and stuffing his pockets full of payola from domestic and foreign tyc...

© Clay Jones – https://claytoonz.substack.com On our political radar this week… The $200-million, privately funded Trump desecration of the White House has morphed into a $1-billion project … with taxpayers picking up the tab. While the White House focused on the ballroom, taking over DC Golf Courses, repainting the reflecting pool, details of the White House UFC fight on July 4,  and signag...

© Clay Jones – https://claytoonz.substack.com On our political radar this week… The Trump Retribution Parade continues as his Department of Payback indicts James Comey for posting a picture of sea shells on social media. If that doesn’t work, they could try claiming the 6-foot-8 Comey’s height poses an imminent threat to the safety of the President. New polling from the Detroit Chamber...

© Clay Jones – https://claytoonz.substack.com On our political radar this week… Donald Trump, possessor of the self-proclaimed “Big Brain,” seems to have fully embraced a bunker mentality: his ever-shifting Iran strategy manages neither to sway Tehran nor steady the global economy, but it does keep everyone guessing. Meanwhile, he’s tied up in court trying to build an actual bunk...

The Trump Economy On our political radar this week… J.D. Vance went 0-for-2 on his European trip. Victor Orban, campaigning with Vance at his side, got dumped as President of Hungary…despite ringing endorsements from Donald Trump and his BFF Vladimir Putin. Then Vance led negotiations with Iran over ending Trump’s Middle East War and struck out, calling it quits after all of one day of talks...

On our political radar this week… Pam Bondi joins Meat Loaf, Joan Rivers, Dennis Rodman, Sinbad, Dionne Warwick, Andrew Dice Clay, Omarosa … and Kristi Noem: “You’re fired!” VIDEO: Bye Bye Bondi (A Tribute) Senator Elissa Slotkin – speaking in Iowa – confirms what we’ve been saying for weeks: she’s open to running for President. Two more special elections this week, two mor...

On our political radar this week… Michigan Republicans have turned their backs on the craziest of the MAGA crazies with hopes of at least one upset in November. But the leader in their race for Governor had a bad weekend. John James had some of the delegates booing him as he was introduced for his speech … much to the delight of septuagenarian perpetual candidate Perry Johnson. Volunteers ma...

i On our political radar this week… As Donald Trump’s polling numbers continue to plummet to record-setting lows, he’s constantly shifting positions on Iran, NATO, DHS funding and ICE messaging on a daily basis. About the only constants: his efforts to shift the blame for everything bad to Biden and Obama, and his preoccupation with his $400-million ballroom, and figuring out ways to add mor...

i It’s not just college basketball Madness – the bracket busters extend into the halls of Congress where two of Donald Trump’s legion of incompetents got busted over the administration’s war on Iran … and on the American people.  Michigan’s two Senators took part in the Homeland Security Committee’s grilling of onetime MMA fighter and plumber Markwayne Mullin who is set to inherit Kristi Noe...

i On our radar this week… © Clay Jones – claytoonz.substack.com In the last week, the list of Donald Trump’s broken campaign promises was seemingly endless: beginning with starting a Middle East War and increasing gas prices to go up 60-cents-a-gallon (with the prospect of Four Dollar per gallons looming … maybe even more). The “I will end inflation” guy is now looking at inflation hea...

i On our radar this week… Trump’s “Wag the Dog” tactic has started a war that’s quickly engulfing the entire Middle East, is costing taxpayers tens-of-billions of dollars. It has been an expensive and largely unsuccessful diversion tactic, made even worse with the combative testimony of the Clintons in a House Oversight hearing into the Epstein story. If anything, the two days of testimony f...

Reps. David Scott (D-GA) and Tom Suozzi (D-NY) appeared to “doze off” during Donald Trump’s SOTU address. On our radar this week… “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”  – George Orwell, “1984” We opened last week’s podcast with those words from Orwell’s prescient dystopian novel. On Tuesday, Donald Tru...

On our radar this week… “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” George Orwell wrote those words 76 years ago in “1984” – seemingly the operating manual for Donald Trump’s administration. In fact, Trump used those exact words in a campaign speech and has lived by them ever since.  George Orwell also wrote: “Every record ha...

On our radar this week… A World Without Exploitation – Release the Epstein Files The 2017 Donald Trump lavished praise on the multi-billion-dollar plan crafted by Michigan and Canada to build the much-needed connector for our two economies. The 2026 Donald Trump sees the bridge as nothing more than a bargaining chip. We’ll get into the details of the potential economic disaster with fo...

This week’s episode is inspired by Homeland Security immigration attorney Julie Li who let it all hang out at a Minneapolis immigration hearing, telling the judge “The system sucks. This job sucks. I wish you could hold me in contempt so that I could get 24 hours of sleep.” On our radar this week… This week in Trump includes: Claims that the latest partial release of the Epstein files...

On our radar this week… The first-ever recipient of a previously owned Nobel Peace Prize apparently wants to be the Genghis Khan of the 21st Century. In the last week, Trump has  Threatened to invade Venezuela if his hand-picked government doesn’t do his bidding;  Stationed an armada near Iran in preparations for an aerial war;  Hinted at an imminent effort at regime change in Cuba;  Doubled...

Adobe Images On our radar this week… Taco Trump went to Davos intent on taking over Greenland or Iceland (depending on the moment) … calls our allies stupid and worthless … and comes home with the “concept of a framework for a future agreement” that amounts to little more than total surrender to a united Europe. That, after a one-hour rambling, disjointed speech to the assembled world leader...