It wasn’t too long ago that  posing with a mask of the President would be the end of a career.

A comedian holds up a mock severed head of President Trump, and the nation is outraged. She issues an apology, without her make-up on, and everything goes back to normal.

Not long ago Tuffy Gessling, a rodeo clown, performed a skit with a dummy in an Obama mask at the Missouri State Fair. Four years later, he still has a difficult time finding work.

“I even applied at McDonalds,” said Tuffy. “They told me I was too controversial to hire.” He used to get rodeo work every weekend, but can now only find gigs about once a month. He is still under a lifetime ban from the State Fair. He’s also not immune from the irony that’s playing out across the country: “She’ll probably make a million dollars off of her stunt, while I have pick up cans just to pay my electric bill.”

In August of 2013, Tuffy did a routine that he claims, “…has been done at rodeos as long as there have been rodeos.”  The gist of the skit, is dressing up another clown in a mask to look like a dummy. When the bull charges the dummy, it takes off running. “We tried to find a different President for the skit,” Tuffy says, “but all they had left was Obama. They had a whole box of them. They were half off, because nobody wanted them.”

Because of social media, the skit went viral, and people were outraged.

Back then, threats to the President were taken very seriously and could lead to arrests. Tuffy claims he was “cuffed and stuffed” three times over the incident. He was held overnight by the Secret Service, and interrogated thoroughly by the FBI. A year later, when an effigy of President Obama was hung on a highway overpass, he was brought in for questioning by the NSA.

Now that we know the previous Administration had a propensity to harass enemies with surveillance and IRS investigations, we can assume the order to investigate Tuffy, likely came from a high ranking authority. It would also appear that his ban from the State Fair came from the Governor’s office. This is censorship in its most literal sense.

Meanwhile, Tuffy is puzzled over the severed head photo, and feels it crosses a line he would never approach. “Who in their right mind, would hold up a head covered in blood?”; he asked. “That was not an accident, she did it on purpose — she thought it was funny. At least what we did was part of a comedy act.”

This Nation was founded though freedom of expression. Our guaranteed right to free speech is something that sets us apart from almost any nation in the world.  We grant Comedians wide latitude, as they should have, since they are often the most adept at finding irony and don’t mind speaking truth to power. However, if the woman who held up the severed head isn’t arrested and forced to pick up cans in order to feed herself, there is no justice left in the world.

And we probably already know the answer to that question.