Presidential – mackaycartoons

Friday May 17, 2019

May 24, 2019 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday May 17, 2019

Conrad Black says he won’t answer to criticism of his pardon because it’s not ‘worthy of response’

‘On anything like this you’re going to get people saying it’s a back-scratching job and he’s just rewarding me for writing nice things about him, but so what?’

Conrad Black Cartoon Gallery

Media mogul and former rival Rupert Murdoch was among the well-wishers who called Conrad Black after he received a pardon Wednesday from U.S. President Donald Trump that wiped away convictions for fraud and obstruction of justice dating back to 2007.

“I had a very nice phone call from Rupert Murdoch. I hadn’t spoken with him for many years. Most thoughtful of him to call,” Black said in an interview Thursday in the living room of his home in Toronto.

“He congratulated me and he said he’d congratulated the President for doing it.”

Calls have been coming in “from all over the place, from people I knew when I was a guest of the American people (in prison) and from people I went to Grade 2 with, and all stages since then,” said Black.

“And all but one or two were really very gracious, quite affecting many of them.”

Asked how he would respond to people who say he received the pardon because of Trump’s tendency to view only facts that suit him, or due to the past business dealings the two men had, or the flattering articles and book Black has written about Trump, Black said he wouldn’t respond directly to such critics because he doesn’t find their position “worthy of response.”

“Look, on anything like this you’re going to get people saying it’s a back-scratching job and he’s just rewarding me for writing nice things about him, but so what? Some people criticize Santa Claus, some people find fault with everything,” he said.

“The President and the very gracious message the White House issued last night was very clear in saying what the motives were, and that they were an analysis by his legal counsel and their legal team of the facts of the case, analyzing the particular materials submitted on my behalf by (lawyer) Alan Dershowitz and others.”

Black views the pardon as a total exoneration. “It’s a complete final decision of not guilty. That is finally a fully just verdict,” Black told The Canadian Press on Thursday. (Source: National Post)

Thursday March 3, 2016

March 2, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday March 3, 2016

US election 2016: US Republicans express Donald Trump fears

Mr Trump has declared himself a “unifier”, but he’s strongly opposed by most of the Republican establishment.

Senator Lindsey Graham warned on Wednesday that Mr Trump would lose in November’s election.

And former nominee Mitt Romney is to make a speech on Thursday in which he is expected to challenge Mr Trump.

He has been fiercely critical of the businessman, whose hardline stance on issues like immigration put him at odds with Republican orthodoxy.

His victories on so-called Super Tuesday consolidated his position as the most likely Republican candidate to vie for the White House against the Democratic nomination.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz walked away with three states, bringing his total to four, while Florida Senator Marco Rubio won his first state (Minnesota) in the primary race to date.

Mr Trump will be joined by Mr Cruz, Mr Rubio and Ohio governor John Kasich at a Fox News Republican debate on Thursday, but retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who has failed to win any states, said he would not be attending.

In a statement on Wednesday, he said he saw “no path forward” for his presidential campaign, though he has stopped short of ending his race completely.

Several party leaders, including House Speaker Paul Ryan and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, have spoken out against Donald Trump’s controversial policies and positions in recent days.

His latest controversy centres on his failure to disavow David Duke, a leader of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan, who endorsed him. He later said he had on several occasions in the past disavowed Mr Duke.

Mr Ryan forcefully denounced the real estate mogul on Tuesday, saying: “They must reject any group or cause that is built on bigotry. This party does not prey on people’s prejudices.”

“Let me make it perfectly clear, Senate Republicans condemn David Duke and the KKK, and his racism,” Senator and majority leader Mitch McConnell commented.

Influential congressman Peter King joked he would leave politics if Mr Trump became the nominee.

And Marco Rubio indicated in his speech on Tuesday that the Republican establishment was unlikely to back the former reality TV star.

“If this was anybody else as a front-runner, there’d be people right now saying ‘Let’s all rally around the front-runner,'” he said, adding, “that will never happen with Donald Trump”.

According to the New York Times, some party donors are already trying to raise funds for an anti-Trump effort.

Meanwhile, The Center for Public Integrity reports that Republican super PACs ran as many as 8,500 adverts in the run up to Super Tuesday to try to discredit Donald Trump’s election campaign.

Mr Graham warned that Republicans would “lose to Hillary Clinton” with Mr Trump as their party nomination.

Mrs Clinton also won seven states on Tuesday, consolidating her lead in the Democratic race over rival Bernie Sanders. (Source: BBC News)

Wednesday February 10, 2016

February 9, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday February 10, 2016

Poll: Trump, Sanders lead ahead of New Hampshire’s vote

Donald Trump continues to lead the Republican race in New Hampshire on the eve of the vote, the final CNN/WMUR tracking poll finds.

On the Democratic side of the race, it remains Bernie Sanders’ primary to lose, with the Vermont senator holding a 26-point lead over Hillary Clinton.

The field of candidates vying for a second place finish behind him is finally beginning to separate, according to the survey.

Trump holds 31%, down two points from the February 3-6 release, but within the poll’s margin of sampling error.

READ: The full CNN/WMUR tracking poll results

Behind him, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio earned 17% support — within the margin of sampling error of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz at 14%, but significantly ahead of the fourth and fifth place candidates in the poll, Ohio Gov. John Kasich at 10% and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at 7%.

Behind Bush, Carly Fiorina stands at 5%, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at 4% and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson at 3%.

Donald Trump http://www.redbubble.com/people/mackaycartoons/works/21379830-donald-trump Pen & Ink illustration/caricature by Graeme MacKay (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada). For sale at Redbubble.com via the mackaycartoons boutique

Available on Redouble.com

Aside from Trump, none of the Republican candidates moved more than 1 point in either direction compared with the previous CNN/WMUR tracking poll.

About three-quarters of the interviews conducted for this poll were completed before the Republican candidates debated Saturday night, their final such match-up before Tuesday’s election.

Although the post-debate sample size is too small to produce a separate estimate of the vote, interviews conducted Sunday and Monday found no drop in support for Rubio, and actually showed a slimmer margin between Trump and Rubio.

There has been little movement in the last two days in the other metrics tested in the survey, with about two-thirds still saying they expect to see Trump win on Tuesday (64%), and about a third saying they would never vote for Trump (32%). (Source: CNN)

Wednesday January 20, 2016

January 19, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday January 20, 2016

Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton remain overwhelming front-runners in races for 2016 nomination

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton remain the overwhelming national front-runners to win the 2016 nominations for each of their parties, a new poll released Tuesday showed.

According to the latest NBC News / Survey Monkey survey, Trump got the support of 38% of Republican and Republican-leaning voters nationally.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was his next closest competitor, with 21%, while Florida Sen. Marco Rubio came in third with 11% support.

No other candidate got more than 8%.

On the Democratic side, Clinton remained the leader, with 52% support nationally among Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters, compared with 36% for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley got 1% support.

The results for both parties are unchanged from the poll NBC News and Survey Monkey released last week. (Source: NY Daily News)

Tuesday March 24, 2015

March 23, 2015 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday March 24, 2015

What the Supreme Court Could Say About Ted Cruz’s Canadian Past

When Sen. Ted Cruz launched his presidential campaign Monday at Liberty University, he began by telling his parents’ stories of immigration from Cuba, on his father’s part, and overcoming the odds at home, on his mother’s part. One much-discussed element of Cruz’s personal story, however, got only a brief nod: “When I was three, my father decided to leave my mother and me,” Cruz told the audience. “We were living in Calgary at the time.”

Calgary, though part of Cruz’s American story, is not in the United States; it’s in Alberta, Canada. Though Cruz was born in Alberta, he only learned as an adult that his birthplace gave him Canadian citizenship, which he officially renounced last summer.

Though it’s a common misconception, being born in Canada does not necessarily exclude Cruz, the child of an American citizen, from the White House. In fact, he’s one of many potential presidents over the years who have been born abroad.

When Sen. Ted Cruz launched his presidential campaign Monday at Liberty University, he began by telling his parents’ stories of immigration from Cuba, on his father’s part, and overcoming the odds at home, on his mother’s part. One much-discussed element of Cruz’s personal story, however, got only a brief nod: “When I was three, my father decided to leave my mother and me,” Cruz told the audience. “We were living in Calgary at the time.”

Calgary, though part of Cruz’s American story, is not in the United States; it’s in Alberta, Canada. Though Cruz was born in Alberta, he only learned as an adult that his birthplace gave him Canadian citizenship, which he officially renounced last summer.

Though it’s a common misconception, being born in Canada does not necessarily exclude Cruz, the child of an American citizen, from the White House. In fact, he’s one of many potential presidents over the years who have been born abroad. (Continued: TIME magazine)