Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for February 16, 2025

The krony klan kleptocracy, mortal enemy of democracy.

Great drawing of Big Ben, Garry.

I take it this strip is supposed to mirror the US government, where wise, experienced people have been replaced by Trumpian cronies? If so, it really doesn’t make much sense; Britain is a monarchy—there’s really no “democracy” to be destroyed.

They’re still saying leave (Brexit was nine years ago)

I hope you all read the crawl announcing the reformatting of this site in April, including a “modernized” comments board. I wonder what that means: the elimination of that d@mned “censor bot”? The ability to edit one’s post without the “cut & paste” BS? Or (best of all) the means of blocking trolls, like Disqus has? Flagging is useless!

I see someone doesn’t know that the British citizens elect Parliament, which makes the laws. Parliament chooses the Prime Minister, not the monarchy. The monarchy has not done much law making in the last couple of centuries. The monarchy may make comments, and rely on reaction from their subjects to have influence.

Like the message, but unfortunately that kind of confrontational politics only happens in the Other Place, the House of Commons. The House of Lords allows the speaker to give their speech free from interruption no matter how much rubbish they are saying. And then calmly rebutted.

Metres not Meters, if you are not from the US LOL

Wow, my take was Pelosi’s announcement of running again brought on this edition.

Nope. Typical US American, knows not a thing about Europe. The Unites Kingdom, of which Britain is a part, is a constitutional monarchy. Look it upon Wikipedia.

“You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.” —Zonker

How ill informed you are. Under the provisions of the House of Lords Act 1999, 92 ‘excepted’ hereditary peers can sit in the House of Lords. In its 2024 general election manifesto, the Labour Party said that it would remove the right of these excepted hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords as part of reforms to modernise the House.The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill would take forward this commitment by repealing section 2 of the House of Lords Act 1999 and removing the exemption under which hereditary peers currently have membership of the House. It would also abolish the jurisdiction of the House of Lords in hereditary peerage claims.

So, you see, nothing to do with the US government.

The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy in which the reigning monarch (that is, the king or queen who is the head of state at any given time) does not make any open political decisions. All political decisions are taken by the government and Parliament, thus, a unitary parliamentary democracy.

The US government, on the other hand, is a democracy in the process of being gutted and turned into an oligarchy. Too bad for you.

Meanwhile, V.P. Vance, and by extension, Trump, made a speech in Munich that praised the German AFD party. German intelligence agencies have classified the AFD as extremist. Members have been arrested in connection with multiple plots to overthrow the elected German government. The AFD tries to rewrite the history of Hitler and uses Nazi slogans.

Eighty years after some of my relatives fought and some died to defeat Hitler and the Nazis, the V.P. of my country is in Germany, praising the enemy. And too many of my fellow citizens are okay with this.

Oye! Oye! I, and King Trump, and his coregent, Musk disagree. Hear! Hear!

I love when trolls demonstrate their ignorance.

See [snsurone76]

Beefeaters are the Yeoman Warders and Yeoman Guard Extraordinary, based in the Tower of London, miles downstream of Westminster; they have no standing in the Houses of Parliament (HoP).

Armed and unarmed Metropolitan Police officers provide security around Parliament in partnership with the Parliamentary Security Department; the doorkeepers of the HoP keep the doors and “receive training in restraining and removing people” (according to WikiP).

If a noble lord had to be restrained or removed, the Lord Chancellor would, I think, instruct the lord’s ostler or sedan-chair carriers to reason with them. After that they’d get a jolly good talking-to from Nanny.

Don’t ask about Black Rod’s disciplinary role, puhleeeze!

Our current FOTUS, who believes he is a mandated monarch, while his banker is the real power behind the throne, is well on his way to reduction in neck size. As the money stops flowing to the universities and hospitals and farms and ranches in red states, as the tourists find their trip to national parks have been ruined, as survivors find that FEMA has been hobbled or non-existent, as our military is crippled, as they cut Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security AND THEN take those savings to divvy out to the Billionaire Bros like Musk, Bezos, Koch etc…ONLY THEN will the people begin to sing the song of angry men & women.

It seems we (the general public) must learn our lessons the hard way, by trusting people who can entertain, who can rile our anger, and channel our emotions to hate others and form up behind those who have no real integrity and honest intent so that only upon finding they have failed to deliver, do we (they) decide to vote for those who will defend our liberties.

That’s what happens when you shake hands with ghosts and talk to dead people

If Trump has his way, he’ll divide the world three ways: him, Russia and China (simply because he can’t take them both on).

Meanwhile, Utah is voting on a bill that will ban pride flags from any public property- but not Nazi or Confederate flags.

.

Celebrate our enemies, and ostracize your “enemies”.

Neither does Trump make any sense. He’s not even a mafia don. He’s just a thug.

The Dallas Morning News has on several recent occasions NOT printed Doonesbury, saying it doesn’t reflect their standards. Does that refer to calling-out politicians and people who are clearly overstepping their bounds?

I don’t get it.

This is just about UK. The new Labour government is making good on its promise to remove the last 92 seats reserved for hereditary peers in the House of Lords. Most hereditary peers were removed from the House of Lords in 1999, but they reserved the right to elect 92 from among themselves to continue to hold seats, around 10% of the total number of members. It was seen as a way to maintain ties with tradition without giving them too much influence.

I take my Beefeaters on the rocks with extra olives and a twist! ;-)

Pip pip.

Hereditary?? Zonker BOUGHT that title. Doofus.

“Garry Trudeau is the ‘sleazeball’ cartoonist who draws the ‘overrated’ comic strip Doonesbury which ‘very few people read.’ He lives in New York City with his wife Jane Pauley, who has ‘far more talent’ than he does.” [Donald Trump]

Some are fighting back and some are resigning very publicly. “If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion.

“But it was never going to be me.” — Hagen Scotten, Assistant US Attorney, Southern District of New York

“Danielle Sassoon, acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, quit instead and accused President Donald Trump’s appointees of acting for political, rather than legal, reasons. Nearly all of the supervisors within the Justice Department’s public integrity section followed suit.”Her resignation letter was 8 pages and it screams courage and integrity on every page. We must amplify and honor all of these people of courage, boost and share their words. Celebrate those who are standing up and saying “But it was never going to be me.”

“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” —H. L. Mencken (1880-1956), American journalist, essayist, editor, and critic

They’re a constitutional monarchy. There’s a hell of a lot more democracy there right now than there is here.

I’m pretty sure the political jab is aimed directly at Great Britain the Commonwealth.

A little tidbit, the whole nine yards [meters], come from Americans in WWII, referring to the length of a full belt of .50 Browning machinegun ammo…30 feet of pain.

Actually, the comic strip “Jesus and Mo” deals with the subject of clergy in the House of Lords this week:

jesusandmo.Net/Comic/Crimes/

It is a democracy, just not a republic.Get out your old civics textbook!

I keep hoping for a T**** busting or a M***sledging

I don’t get it. Usually Gary is so clear in his satire. Who here would be shouting, “Leave! Leave! Leave! Leave!”?

Zonker’s term in office “did no harm”,which is more than can be said for our current American government.

England elected “Boris trumP” and look what happened.Pity we didn’t learn from their mistake