Tag: Donald Trump

Cruelty Is The Point: Mr. Brunelle

Robert Waldo Brunelle Jr re FOTUS

When my daughter helped me clean my office, she found an unused $25 Amazon gift card. Rather than let it go to waste, I bought Cruelty Is The Point, a Collection of “Mr. Brunelle Explains It All” cartoons. (This is not to be confused with The Cruelty Is the Point: Why Trump’s America Endures by Adam Serwer (2022).) 

Robert Waldo Brunelle JR is “a painter, book illustrator, kinetic sculptor, retired art teacher, and political cartoonist.” Specifically, “I am a 7th-Generation Vermonter, born in Rutland in 1958. I am a descendant of William Brewster of the Mayflower and count among my ancestors a Great-Grandfather, Great-Great Grandfather, and Great-Grandmother who were all artists.
“My strip, Mr. Brunelle Explains It All, appears weekly in Seven Days VT, and monthly in Funny Times and on this site.” The strip began in 1997. When Mr. Brunelle posts his comics on Facebook, I repost north of 95% of them. It explains the current situation we find ourselves in quite cogently across four panels.

 

In his introduction to Cruelty, he writes correctly that the content is “‘ripped from the headlines,’ for your amusement.” Well, it’s not always amusing; sometimes it’s maddening. But it always has a heaping helping of truthfulness.

Relevant

He notes a particular felon, I mean fellow, “has kept all of us political cartoonists rather busy lately, and I churned hundreds of ’em in 2025. For this book, I selected 50 that I thought would remain relevant for a while (unlike other types of cartoons, political cartoons have a very short “shelf life,” alas.”

While this is generally true, the primary subject and his clown car of supporting characters – Stephen Miller, Pete Hegseth, and Jeffrey Epstein’s ghost, among them – are such cartoons that, months after their original appearance, their narratives are, unfortunately, not dated.

In case I haven’t sufficiently conveyed Mr. Brunelle’s political leanings, he writes: “We must laugh to keep from crying during these trying times, so hopefully this book will help you cope with the dystopian hellscape that is Trump’s America. Enjoy!”

Unfortunately, he indicates that the book is only available on Amazon, as are his previous works, including There Will Be Pain (2024) and Perpetual Panic  Attack (2023). This may be stronger because the target is so much a cartoon. (Someone should update his Wikipedia page.) 

Condolences

I was very sad to read that Mr. Brunelle’s beloved wife, Grace, who occasionally shared his cartoon pages with him, died on February 6. Here is her obituary and a link to the Facial Pain Association. “Facial pain can be a debilitating experience for many people, and there are numerous types of facial pain with a variety of possible causes. Precise diagnosis is crucial in determining an effective treatment. The journey to diagnosis and pain relief can be a long and winding road.”

“But he’d be gone!”

“arrogant,” “idiot,” “egotistical,” “ignorant”

A guy I vaguely know was complaining on Facebook that, according to reports, a number of Canadians would still not be coming to the United States, even if FOTUS left office.  He complained, “But he’d be gone!”

I totally understand the Canadians’ trepidation. If you had a best friend who betrayed and belittled you repeatedly – “Governor Carney, ” “51st state,” on and off tariffs – wouldn’t you be wary?

The current political debacle may have FOTUS’s name on it. But he’s had a boatload of enablers, from a feckless Congress to a complicit Supreme Court, not to mention state officials who have drunk the Kool-Aid.

It’s not just Canada. The “marauding bands of immigration goons have made the United States so unsafe” that Germany  has “issued a travel advisory to warn its citizens about coming here.” The Vances were booed at the 2026 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony.

A recent Pew poll indicated that his approval rating stands at 37%, down from 40% in the fall. “By more than two-to-one, Americans say the administration’s actions have been worse than they expected (50%) rather than better (21%). Only about a quarter of Americans today (27%) say they support all or most of his policies and plans, down from 35% when he returned to office last year. That change has come entirely among Republicans.”

Analyze this

An analysis of the poll suggests “Americans voted for Trump, but never supported Trumpism.” I SO disagree. In 2016, I could almost understand his appeal as an outsider, a “businessman!” “He starred in The Apprentice!” Oooo!

In that first term, if you recall, news reports kept saying, “Well, NOW he’s being Presidential,” more as wish fulfillment. And there were SOME breakers who kept him somewhat in check. 

By the time the 2018 Helsinki summit had concluded, I was convinced that he was Putin’s puppet, which the 2025 Alaska non-event seemed to amplify. 

But after January 6, 2021, insurrection, and his charitable characterization of the actors, one would think that, even if the Senate didn’t convict him after his second impeachment, a thinking American would conclude that he was not worthy of his office.

So when he was elected in 2024, those people voted for Trumpism. They voted for disinformation, if not outright lies, and vulgarity.

Nothing new

A 2017(!)  poll  indicated the ten most common words that respondents gave describing him were: “incompetent,” “arrogant,” “strong,” “idiot,” “egotistical,” “ignorant,” “great,” “racist,” “a——” and “narcissistic.”

When a racist video involving the Obamas recently appeared on his social media feed, and even Republicans balked, it was said that “a staffer erroneously made the post.” But later, on Air Force One, FOTUS said that he had posted it himself. When a reporter asked if he would apologize, he said, “No, I didn’t make a mistake.”

Oh, that Project 2025, which he SAID he didn’t know anything about, despite the creators being in his orbit – surprise, surprise – was implemented.

Given the fact that SCOTUS gave the Presidency nearly complete immunity in 2024, well BEFORE the election, people voted for Trumpism.

“Oh, I didn’t know he’d do THAT.”  Sure. Whatever. But this is why our once closest allies don’t trust us, and the next presidential election cycle will not resolve the stain.  

The man, even among his lies, showed his colors. 

Lazy racism

“welfare queens”

There is a lazy racism that takes place in the United States in periods of plenty, but especially in periods of difficulty. The poster above is from postbellum America, almost certainly during the term of President Andrew Johnson (1865-1869), at war with the so-called “Radical” Republicans in Congress. 

Redlining started in the 1930s or earlier and continued in post-World War II America, when many black veterans couldn’t take full advantage of the GI Bill.

A recent example, as laid out by Renée Graham in the Boston Globe (paywall likely) in early November 2025, about how FOTUS’s “government shutdown is fueling anti-Black propaganda.” 

The subhead: “Under the boot of an administration that would rather foment racism than end its manufactured crisis, the authoritarian president is willing to let millions of real people — regardless of race — starve.”

Early in the shutdown, “social media was suddenly inundated with AI slop, videos generated by artificial intelligence, depicting Black people complaining about the loss of federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits.

“Of course, the short clips on TikTok and Instagram evoked the ‘welfare queen’ stereotypes that Ronald Reagan first conjured nearly 50 years ago during his first race-baiting run for president in 1976.”

“A Fox News contributor… showed a slew of AI slop… introduced by saying that the clips would show ‘exactly why the welfare system needs to be completely overhauled because the entitlement in these videos … is certifiably insane.'”

The influencer “either didn’t know — or didn’t care — that some of the videos…  are phony… The clips served their intended purpose of villainizing Black people, particularly Black women, as lazy, greedy, duplicitous, and a burden to hard-working and honest (white) Americans.” The misogynoir is strong. 

“Them”

Then there’s this story from the same time period about “a viral chart [that] claimed to show the majority of the nation’s food stamp recipients are non-white and noncitizens.

“The chart, titled Food Stamps by Ethnicity, listed 36 groups of people and said it showed the “percentage of US households receiving SNAP benefits.”

However, according to “the most recent USDA data available, from 2023, white people are the largest racial group receiving SNAP benefits, at 35.4 percent. African Americans are next, making up 25.7 percent of recipients, then Hispanic people at 15.6 percent, Asian people at 3.9 percent, Native Americans at 1.3 percent, and multiracial people at 1 percent. The race of 17 percent of participants is unknown.” 

“The same report found that 89.4 percent of SNAP recipients were U.S.-born citizens, meaning less than 11 percent of SNAP participants were foreign-born. Of the latter figure, 6.2 percent were naturalised citizens, 1.1 percent were refugees, and 3.3 percent were other noncitizens, including lawful permanent residents and other eligible noncitizens.”

In periods of stress, blaming the “other” for the difficulties seems to be the fallback position.

Power

Read Black History Has the Power to Ignite Movements. That’s Why the Right Fears It. “In a perverse kind of trickle-down racism, his attack on Black Lives Matter became a permission structure for increased on-the-ground bigotry. White influencers proudly wore blackface for Halloween. Politico exposed a Young Republicans’ chat where they gleefully traded racist comments.

“Black comedian W. Kamau Bell has painted a portrait of a right-wing shift in standup performances in which anti-trans jokes and anti-Black slurs have become commonplace. This is not a series of isolated events: FBI statistics on anti-Black hate crime, consistently the most common form of hate crime, spiked during his two terms.” 

Fighting against Trumpism

uphold our civil rights and liberties

At the end of 2025, Public Citizen sent out a ridiculously long email detailing its efforts to fight Trumpism.

A subsequent post summarized their activities:

  • We filed 23 lawsuits against the administration’s illegal actions — on everything from the assault on the Treasury Department by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to the regime’s petty and heartless attempt to shut down the National Hunger Hotline. There will be more lawsuits to come.
  • We helped lead historic mass mobilizations against authoritarianism, including the largest day of protest in American history (so far).
  • We are leading a massive coalition of thousands of organizations to resist the regime’s efforts to clamp down on nonprofit groups.
  • We filed dozens of ethics complaints over administration conflicts of interest and wrongful behavior.
  • We issued numerous deep-dive investigative reports into matters ranging from the corporations sponsoring his “Billionaire Ballroom” monstrosity to the torrent of dropped investigations into flagrant lawbreaking by Big Business.

Here’s the thing: fighting is better than capitulation. When you give the schoolyard bully your lunch money, he doesn’t stop because he’s never satisfied. (See C BS, who was threatened with another lawsuit.)

Psalm 10

Someone online posted the entire Psalm 10 from the New International Version. 

In his arrogance, the wicked man hunts down the weak,
    who are caught in the schemes he devises.
3 He boasts about the cravings of his heart;
    He blesses the greedy and reviles the Lord.
4 In his pride, the wicked man does not seek him;
    In all his thoughts, there is no room for God.
5 His ways are always prosperous;
    Your laws are rejected by him.
    He sneers at all his enemies.
6 He says to himself, “Nothing will ever shake me.”
    He swears, “No one will ever do me harm.”

7 His mouth is full of lies and threats.

Push back

Here’s a list tracking the lawsuits against the FOTUS agenda.

I’m pleased that several musicians have refused to play at the Kennedy Center. Will they be sued, the usual FOTUS solution? Maybe. I hope they countersue, saying that the entity at which they had agreed to perform was illegally altered.  

The ACLU posted How to Push Back on Abuses of Power. Among the strategies: “It is the leadership of local and state leaders who uphold our civil rights and liberties. That’s why we have the mandate to meet this moment by standing with them and by partnering with them to pass responsive policies that protect all of our communities.” 

I was pleased to see that Democratic attorneys general are preparing for the return of court battles against FOTUS. Europeans are responding to his threat over Greenland.

But I’ve been most encouraged by the activities of the local Indivisible branch. It’s very much in the spirit of MLK Jr.

Understanding it

Gal Beckerman wrote in The Atlantic (Paywall likely) What Stephen Miller Gets Wrong About Human Nature. It’s an old poli sci lesson.

“The 17th-century philosophers John Locke and Thomas Hobbes each offered a picture of human nature in its rawest form, and they came to different conclusions. Locke, whose ideas were central to the birth of modern democracy, thought that people were capable of reason and moral judgment. Hobbes, on the other hand, believed that we were vicious creatures who needed to be protected from ourselves by a powerful king. Whether a leader is Lockean or Hobbesian really does set the table for the kind of government they want…

“Miller might have been Hobbes in a skinny tie as he confidently articulated what he understood to be the ‘iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.’ His monologue was like something out of the English philosopher’s 1651 political treatise, Leviathan: ‘We live in a world, in the real world,’ he said, ‘that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.'”

We are living in a Dual State. “It’s the continued existence of the normative state” which gives him a 41% positive rating, rather than a much lower score.  “Meanwhile, the prerogative state grows. Maybe it hasn’t arrived in your city yet. Maybe the friends you know who are affected by it did something to draw its attention. But your life goes on normally, until it doesn’t.”

DHS Used Neo-Nazi Anthem for Recruitment After Fatal Minneapolis ICE Shooting

It is important to understand the enemy. Only three more years of FOTUS? We can survive it. (I hope.)

Psalm 10

12 Arise, Lord! Lift up your hand, O God.
    Do not forget the helpless.
13 Why does the wicked man revile God?
    Why does he say to himself,
    “He won’t call me to account”?
14 But you, God, see the trouble of the afflicted;
    You consider their grief and take it in hand.
The victims commit themselves to you;
    You are the helper of the fatherless.
15 Break the arm of the wicked man;
    Call the evildoer to account for his wickedness
    that would not otherwise be found out.

January rambling: sneaky new strain

State TV

Doctors still recommend flu shot despite sneaky new strain

AI bubble

Writing versus AI and A World Without People

Older Americans Quit Weight-Loss Drugs in Droves — Side effects and cost continue to be significant obstacles

Just Before Publishing, a Reporter Receives a Crucial Tip. We were nearly finished with our narrative on a Cold War mystery. Then juicy new info suddenly emerged. Now what?
The U.S. Census Bureau is scheduled to hold a prerelease webinar about the 2020-2024 American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year estimates on Thursday, Jan. 22, at 1 p.m. ET. All datasets will be available to the public Thursday, Jan. 29, by 10 a.m. ET.

Frank S. Robinson’s blog suspension as a result of the comments on a 2017 blog post. BTW, I had replied to his post.

Starring Dick Van Dyke, streaming only until 1/31/2026

Claudette Colvin, who challenged Alabama’s segregation laws, dies at 86. As a 15-year-old, Colvin refused to give her seat to a white passenger. Her challenge presaged Rosa Parks’ and helped integrate Montgomery’s buses.

‘Dilbert’ Creator Scott Adams Dies at 68 After Cancer Battle. On one hand, his politics sucked. On the other hand, he died of the same thing my father died of, prostate cancer, a disease that “nobody” dies of except when they do

Frank Capra at Comic-Con 1974

Go, Bills!! Go, Bears! Go, 49ers. Go, Texans?

Wait, there’s an Australian version of Ghosts?

Capt. Billy’s Whiz Bang

FOTUS and fiends

Lies, and more lies

Abandonment of Global Treaties, Including Landmark Climate Deal, ‘Threatens All Life on Earth’

Renee Good and Our Epistemological Crisis, and Who was Renee Nicole Good, the woman killed by ICE? 

He asked Fulton County, GA, for a $6.2 million payout in attorneys’ fees and costs after the criminal charges against him were dismissed. He had been indicted for trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia by pressuring Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger to “find” 11,780 votes to give him a victory in the state of Georgia.

The Venezuela attack is a constitutional crisis for the United States, and the euphoria period and Imperialism  Is Very Expensive

EPA could limit its own ability to use new science to strengthen air pollution rules

CDC sharply narrows routine childhood vaccine guidance

What Morbidity Hath Secretary Kennedy Wrought? — A choice is not a choice when swamped with vaccine disinformation

Cuts Billions in Federal Childcare Funds for Democrat-Led States

Hegseth starts proceedings against Mark Kelly over video remarks; Kelly is not backing down

America’s third consecutive K-shaped recovery (an economic rally where the rich get richer and everyone else gets poorer)

Rogues’ gallery

Ambassador Kimberly Guilfoyle, the Talk of Athens

Jan. 6 never ended: ‘Filled With Lies’: WH Releases False History and All that the rioters want is everything, and GOP hides the memorial

Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, 1/5/2026

Jordan Klepper on djt’s Tylenol Tirade and Elon’s DOGE-baggery | The Daily Show

Imperial Aggression in Venezuela: Corporate Media Fall in Line

Tony Dokoupil’s ‘embarrassing’ first days at CBS Evening News savaged by staff: ‘It’s state TV.’

MUSIC

Battle Hymn of the Empire – Marsh Family adaptation of Battle Hymn of the Republic 

Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, first by Beethoven (op. 112) and then by Mendelssohn (op. 27).

Ameriican Requiem – Beyoncé

Dance to the music – Sly & The Family Stone –

The Sondheim Concert

Move On Up (Extended Version – Curtis Mayfield

Hang On Sloopy -The McCoys 

You’ll Be Back – Lesli Margherita

Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season) – Nina Simone

Your Friendly Liberal Neighborhood KKK – Mitchell Trio feat. John Denver (1966)

The River by John Williams

The Red Bucket Follies’ opening number, December 2025

An der schönen blauen Donau, Walzer, Op. 314

Year-end pop music mashups 2025

New Year’s Eve edition of The Dinah Shore Show, which aired 12/29/61, featuring  George Burns, Ginger Rogers, and my mom’s favorite, Nat King Cole

Ramblin' with Roger
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