Wednesday Toon Roundup 1- Party of Hate

Ben Carson doesn’t want to win: His campaign is all about cashing in

Ben Carson’s grand political experiment is just about over. He’s plummeting in the polls and he’s all but finished in the Republican presidential race. He had a good run, though. For a man with no political knowledge or experience or ideas, he fared remarkably well. At one point, Carson was considered a frontrunner, trailing only Donald Trump. Now he’s a distant fourth place, well behind Trump, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio.

Don’t feel sorry for the good doctor, however. His campaign is only a failure if you assume his goal was to become president of the United States. But if you’ve followed Carson’s career for more than a few months, you know he’s more of an entrepreneur than a politician. And so his campaign has to be judged in that context.

As an entrepreneur, Carson has succeeded wildly. According to a new AP report, the doctor has been cashing in on the campaign trail, promoting his brand and giving paid speeches wherever he can:

“All of this is part of a well-honed enterprise that promotes Ben Carson – presidential candidate, political commentator, paid speaker, author, neurosurgeon and champion of children, reading, and God. He has folded into Carson Enterprises his presidential campaign, which has excelled at fundraising, brining in almost $32 million through the end of September …That fundraising prowess continues, even as his poll numbers decline. His campaign manager, Barry Bennett, said Thursday they raised about $20 million since the beginning of October…Speaking fees over a nearly two-year period raked in $4.3 million. And his nonprofit continues to raise money.”

more

http://www.salon.com/2015/12/29/ben_carson_doesnt_want_to_win_his_campaign_is_all_about_cashing_in_and_thats_the_problem/

The Laws and Rules That Protect Police Who Kill

Although 2015 will go down as the year when the United States began grappling with the problem of police violence, it ended with a trio of defeats for reformers.

First, a jury in Baltimore was unable to come to a verdict in the trial of Officer William Porter, one of several officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray. Several days later, a grand jury in Waller County, Texas, decided that there had been no crime committed in the death of Sandra Bland in a jail cell there. Finally, and most gallingly to many observers, on Monday a grand jury in Cuyahoga County decided not to indict two officers in the shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice.

Taken together, these cases—and particularly the Baltimore and Cleveland cases—demonstrate yet again the difficulty involved in holding police accountable when civilians are killed. Even as there is greater awareness about the toll that police killings take, police are seldom prosecuted, and when they are, they are seldom convicted. That was the case before Michael Brown’s death in August 2014, and it remains true today. The reasons for that are various. Prosecutors are reluctant to bring charges against police, because they rely on officers to gather information and serve as witnesses in other cases. Juries tend to be deferential to officers.

There are also legal protections: In Graham v. Connor, the Supreme Court ruled that events “must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.” Finally, even when the facts seem clear-cut, the law grants police wide latitude. Although many people who watched dash-cam footage of Bland’s arrest were horrified by Trooper Brian Encinia’s conduct, police experts who reviewed the footage, including some who criticized Encinia’s judgment in no uncertain terms, generally felt he had acted within his legal authority. Many departments employ “use-of-force matrices,” which detail what steps an officer may take during an incident, in some cases giving them the right to use more aggressive action than might be necessary or seem justified to an outside observer.



more

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/tamir-rice-no-indictment-reform/422079/

U.S. Reeling From Violent Tornadoes, Epic Flooding, Winter Weather, and Weird Heat

By: Bob Henson and Jeff Masters , 10:54 PM GMT on December 28, 2015


Wild weather continued to plaster the nation’s midsection on Monday as a multi-barreled storm system shifted eastward. Thankfully, the severe weather threat has ramped down somewhat, with the highest risks now shifting to river and flash floods--from eastern Oklahoma to the Appalachians--and snow and ice, from Nebraska to New England. More than 40 weather-related deaths have been reported since Wednesday. The storminess is related to a gradual realignment of the large-scale pattern over North America, as described in detail by wunderblogger Steve Gregory in his Monday afternoon post. A stunningly warm, moist air mass across the eastern and southern U.S.--by some measures the most tropical on record for early winter--is in the process of being displaced by a strong upper-level storm moving into the central states, bringing much more seasonable cold.

North Texas cleans up from Saturday’s deadly tornadoes
Ahead of a strong cold front in west Texas, supercell thunderstorms that ripped across the sprawling eastern part of the Dallas area spawned several tornadoes that killed at least 11 people. One violent tornado that killed eight people in Garland was rated EF4, while “at least EF3” damage was found in Rowlett, just east of Garland, due to the same tornado or one that closely followed. Two people died in Copeland, about 15 miles to the northeast, where EF2 damage was documented. Several other weaker tornadoes struck North Texas. According to the Dallas Morning News, as many as 1000 structures were damaged across north Texas, many of them severely. The storms were fed by a very strong upper-level jet as well as unusually high instability for December (around 3000 joules per kilogram, which would be concerning in springtime, much less wintertime). Temperatures reached 80°F in Dallas just hours before the tornadic supercell arrived, with a summerlike dew point of 67°F.

The widespread persistence of warm, humid conditions over the last few days has led to an unusual U.S. stretch of severe weather for December, including tornadoes from Mississippi to Michigan on Wednesday. The EF1 tornado that touched down in Canton, Michigan on December 23 was Michigan's first December tornado on record. If tornadoes are confirmed on Monday, it will be the sixth calendar day in a row with at least one U.S. tornado reported, tying a monthly record set on December 22-27, 1982, during the “super El Niño” of 1982-83. (The streak would be even longer if we counted early-morning tornadoes on December 23 as part of the December 22 “tornado day”, per NOAA recordkeeping.) Another tragic milestone: 2015 is the first year in records going back to 1875 that has seen more confirmed tornado-related deaths in December than in the rest of the year combined. The only other year with December having more deaths than any other single month was 1931, according to statistics analyzed by Harold Brooks (NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory).



A historic flood is building on the Mississippi River
The updated flood forecasts for the Mississippi River issued Monday afternoon by NWS River Forecast Center are about two feet higher than the forecasts issued on Sunday. Nearly all of the Lower Mississippi is expected to enter major flood stage over the next few weeks, as are the lower portions of two main tributaries, the Ohio and Arkansas Rivers. The Mississippi River near St. Louis was already near flood stage late last week due to excessive rains of 2 - 4" (400 - 600% of average) that fell during the past two weeks farther upstream in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. A massive pulse of flood waters from the epic December 26 - 28 rains will pile into the Mississippi River over the next few days, bringing the river to flood levels that will be the highest on record outside of the usual spring to early summer flood season. The Mississippi River at St. Louis was at moderate flood stage on Monday afternoon, and is forecast to crest on Wednesday at the second highest level ever observed, just five feet below the all-time record set during the disastrous flood of 1993. Flood records at this location extend back to 1785. Downstream from St. Louis, the Mississippi River is forecast to crest late this week in Chester, Cape Girardeau, and Thebes at the highest levels ever recorded. NOAA warns that at the flood levels expected, the Degognia, Fountain Bluff, Stringtown, and Prairie DuRocher levees will be overtopped near Chester. NOAA projects that the massive flood crest will propagate downstream to the Gulf of Mexico during the first three weeks of January, bringing flood heights that are expected to be between the 2nd highest and 4th highest on record all the way to Louisiana.

more

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/us-reeling-from-violent-tornadoes-epic-flooding-winter-weather-an

‘Bond predators’ on Puerto Rican debt want their bailout

BY FROMA HARROP


Puerto Rico is sinking in $73 billion of debt. Mired in a long-running depression, the U.S. territory has already cut essential services to bare bones. Puerto Rico can’t fully pay its bondholders without setting off total economic collapse.

One of two things can happen, short of doing nothing and setting off a humanitarian crisis. One is to let Puerto Rico restructure its debt in a federal bankruptcy court. The U.S. Treasury recommends that route.

A Chapter 9 bankruptcy would cost American taxpayers about nothing. Losses would be borne by the speculators who made the risky investments. The Financial Times has called hedge funds wagering on distressed Puerto Rican debt “bond predators.”

The other option is to have U.S. taxpayers bail out the island with enormous transfers of aid.

Guess which path the hedge funds want to take? The taxpayer bailout, of course.

And guess which side Washington Republicans are on? The hedge funds’. Funny how fast these “fiscal conservatives” forget their distaste for bailouts when their Wall Street benefactors come knocking for theirs.

Puerto Rico’s government debt comes with various levels of government guarantees, but none of it is safe. That some tax-exempt Puerto Rican bonds have recently traded for an average yield of nearly 42 percent illustrates how little that guarantee means.


Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article51951890.html#storylink=cpy

Tuesday Toon Roundup

2016



GOP













Climate





Drones





Police







Rahm





The Issue




War




New Year





RIP

Yep

State Dept.: We Brought ‘Peace’ to Syria

The State Department believes it brought peace and security to Syria in 2015. A year-in-review blog post that details this year’s achievements in foreign policy (and uses the hashtag #2015in5words) summed up the United States’ involvement in Syria as: “Bringing Peace, Security to Syria.” John Kirby, spokesman for the State Department and the post’s author, touts the United States’ “humanitarian aid contributions” to the war-torn country and praises Secretary of State John Kerry for his role in the UN Security Council resolution that laid plans for upcoming peace talks. “From the humanitarian crisis endured by refugees fleeing violence, to the reprehensible human-rights violations and violence carried out by the Asad [sic] regime, the Syrian people have borne a heavy load,” Kirby writes. Indeed.

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2015/12/28/us-claims-it-s-brought-peace-to-syria.html

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/state-department-claims-peace-syria-2015-win-217168

Unintended result: Gacy probe clears 11 unrelated cold cases

Sharon Cohen
Associated Press

His task was to solve a cruel mystery decades after a serial killer's death.

Sgt. Jason Moran's work began in a graveyard, his first stop in his quest to identify the eight unknown victims of John Wayne Gacy. More than 30 years had passed since Gacy had murdered 33 young men and boys; most of their remains were found in his crawl space.

Investigators now had more sophisticated crime-solving tools, notably DNA, so the Cook County sheriff's detective was assigned to find out who was buried in eight anonymous graves.

Almost immediately, Moran had a breakthrough: He helped a family confirm what it had long suspected — Gacy killed their brother.

Since then, though, Moran's search has led him down a totally unexpected path: He's cleared 11 unrelated cold cases across America. After eliminating these young men as Gacy victims, he's pored over DNA results, autopsy reports and Social Security records, enlisted anthropologists, lab technicians, and police in Utah, Colorado, New Jersey and other states — and cracked missing person's cases that had been dormant for decades.

more

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-gacy-probe-cold-cases-20151226-story.html

Jane Sanders Knows Politics, and How to Soften Husband’s Image

Jane Sanders, the wife of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, marched with her husband this month through the Baltimore neighborhood of Freddie Gray, the man fatally injured in police custody, and took notes while they met with African-American pastors.

In Iowa, she schmoozed with supporters and reminded her husband to lighten his long, dark stump speeches. (“Doom and gloom!” she said she tells him. “Any hope at the end of the tunnel?”) She spent hours helping him prepare for this month’s debate, she reviews campaign ads, and come January, she will start venturing out alone as a surrogate for her husband in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Ms. Sanders may, with the exception of Bill Clinton, be the most politically active and experienced spouse in the 2016 presidential election.

When her husband was first elected to Congress in 1990, Ms. Sanders attended orientation not as a spouse, but as a chief of staff who vetted potential aides for congressional experience and ideological fervor. She went on to be a press attaché who smoothed things over with reporters irritated by her prickly husband and who, according to other members of Congress, kept the professorial Mr. Sanders down to earth. As a media consultant she worked on his re-election ads, and as a political fellow traveler she participated in the formation of the House’s progressive caucus.

more
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/29/us/politics/jane-sanders-knows-politics-and-how-to-soften-husbands-image.html?_r=0