Cartoons: the truth is out there -- somewhere

During this week--Wikileaks news just keeps comin'; it's beginning to look like conspiracy theorists rule the day; an informal poll recognizes that we all, that's 100%, want this election to be over; and MetLife fired Charlie Brown.

Between Russians trying to hack our confidence in the election process, Wikileaks trying to discredit Clinton; and undercover video stings (see The hacking, leaking, undercover election), what's a voter to do?

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Glenn McCoy, The Week

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The Washington Post Magazine reports that this is The Conspiracy Theorists’ Election. On the 40th anniversary of the Moon Landing (July 16,1969), Time Magazine looked at 10 of the most enduring conspiracy theories.

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Drew Sheneman, The Week

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I'm guessing we all agree on one thing:

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Tom Toles, The Week

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And MetLife fired Charlie Brown...

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Steve Breen, The Week

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A-a-nd I've been wondering: if Trump doesn't accept that he lost the election, what 's he gonna do? Show up at the White House with a moving van? Take the podium at the Inaugural? Crash a Joint Chiefs of Staff national security meeting? Just sayin'.

-- Marge

Cartoons: in the belly of the beast

To say that we're living in the belly of the beast sounds overly dramatic, but think about it. There's an election reasonable people can do little about; a tyrant decimating his own population; and school systems so underfunded that the teachers have to supply some necessities out of their own pockets. Then there's the U.S. Congress, so ineffectual that when a cartoonist refers to them as creepy clowns, many of us nod in agreement. Sadly, those elected representatives who make an effort to get something worthwhile accomplished are undermined by those that are there for the perks and/or power.

Here are the visuals for today's comments.

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David Fitzsimmons, The Week

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Steve Breen, The Week

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Nate Beeler, The Week

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Joe Heller, The Week

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-- Marge

Cartoons: cots, bathrooms, and beer

This week's cartoons talk about the TSA (US Transportation Security Administration); "perverts" in public bathrooms; and Budweiser's new name.

According to the Business Insider, The TSA is in a full-blown crisis. More than 450 American Airlines passengers stranded in the terminal overnight due to long lines is not good. And what does the TSA have against mother's milk?

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John Darkow, The Week

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So who are the "perverts"--the transgenders or those pretending to be transgender in your local bathroom? Time Magazine discusses the issues in Everything You Need to Know About the Debate Over Transgender People and Bathrooms.

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Drew Sheneman, The Week

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And for frothier news, how about the fact that Budweiser Will Call Its Beer 'America' Through the Election.

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Steve Breen, The Week

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--Marge

Cartoons: please like me

Life in America is a curiouser and curiouser. Take for example the topics of these cartoons: Sarah P. endorses Donald T.; oil brings the stock market down, then back up; 67% of the voters are angry; and business in the like-me era.

Sarah P. + Donald T.

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Steve Sack, The Week

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Oil + US stock market.
News today--Crude oil has finally stopped crashing -- and that's excellent news for the stock market.

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Steve Breen, The Week

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Voters | Republicans
Pollster Rasmussen Reports reports Most Voters Are Still Angry.

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Gary Varvel, The Week

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Then there's business as it's practiced today...

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Andy Singer, The Week

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-- Marge

Cartoons: walls real and conceptual

Today's cartoons are about walls, ones intended to separate people physically and ones that appear to separate. Wall Street is its own phenomenon.

China's economic woes (see The Great Fall of China) are causing quite a stir on Wall Street.

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Gary Varvel, The Week

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D. Trump wants to wall out Mexicans any way he can. Click this link for more of Trump's views on the issues this election.

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Steve Breen, The Week

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Many feel the NRA's stance (and lobby) on gun rights contributes to gun violence.

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Mike Luckovich, The Week

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-- Marge

Cartoons: a fine line

Today's cartoons look at the Iran nuclear deal, the Pluto flyby, U.S. cybersecurity, Operation Jade Helm 15, and Jeb vs. Trump.

For some opinions voiced by regular folks on the Iran nuclear deal, check out these letters to the editor at the New York Times. As for Republicans, their opinions don't change.

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Pat Bagley, The Week

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NASA does some fine work.

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Pat Bagley, The Week

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U.S. cybersecurity may take another hit, this time by some regulations proposed by the Commerce Department. A Coalition for Responsible Cybersecurity has been formed to prevent it. Time for us to speak out--again.

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Steve Breen, The Week

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Jade Helm 15 has generated some wild conspiracy theories. And, BTW, here are some of the U.S. military's opinions about Obama, as expressed by ArmyTimes.

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Steve Sack, The Week

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Here's a little exploration of why the Jeb isn't saying more about Trump's trumped-up charges.

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David Horsey, The Week

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-- Marge

Cartoons: cyber doomsday

If you're one of the estimated 14 million current or former civilian U.S. government employees, the hackers who recently broke into the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) now know all about you (and me). But don't feel alone--security firm Kaspersky Labs got hacked too.

And don't expect any of the security holes to be plugged soon, because Congress is at war on the issue of cyber security. Here's a blow-by-blow description of the most recent battle.

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Nate Beeler, The Week

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U.S. cyber security is handled by the Department of Homeland Security, the same agency that manages the TSA.

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John Darkow, The Week

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Drew Sheneman, The Week

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All in all, the front has definitely changed.

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Steve Breen, The Week

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-- Marge

Cartoons: smoke and mirrors

Under the Patriot Act the NSA gathers too much data, much of it using phone company and social media records. This week Congress partially renewed the Patriot Act with passage of the Freedom Act. As a side note, China hacked the federal Office of Personnel Management. Looks to me like privacy is an illusion.

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Drew Sheneman, The Week

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Meanwhile, Edward Snowden spoke out in the Washington Post.

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Pat Bagley, The Week

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The TSA has been found to be 95% ineffective. According to the Washington Post,

This week, the acting head of the Transportation Security Administration got bounced from his job because in 95 percent of test cases, real guns or fake bombs made it past the TSA.

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Steve Sack, The Week

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Because of the extended drought in California, the largest desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere is being brought online. Hopefully this cartoon will prove to be a false prediction.

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Steve Breen, The Week

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-- Marge

Cartoons: sellouts and those clueless

Sometimes we sellout to gain money or security or even love; sometimes we don't know we're selling out 'til it's over. Here are some examples.

Picasso didn't sellout, but the art world has. The latest price is $179 million dollars.

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Steve Breen, The Week

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It's beginning to look like the Democratic Party is putting all of it's eggs in one basket--Hillary. Is this a sellout or are they just clueless?

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Michael Ramirez, The Week

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At the risk of offending my religious readers, my view of religion is that it has for centuries sold out our spirituality. There I said it.

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Mike Luckovich, The Week

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Drone warfare is still war. Has war been declared? No, but the U.S. Congress approves of the drone strikes.

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Bill Day, The Week

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-- Marge

Cartoons: looking for sunshine

This was Sunshine Week (surprise to me).  As usual news and the media decry the lack of it; but one article, "Government undermining 'right to know' laws," by Gary Pruitt, CEO of Associated Press, is very revealing. One of his revelations:

To its credit, the U.S. government does not routinely overcharge for copies of public records, but price-gouging intended to discourage public records requests is a serious problem in many states.

Officials in Ferguson, Missouri, billed the AP $135 an hour for nearly a day's work merely to retrieve emails from a handful of accounts about the fatal shooting of Michael Brown. That was roughly 10 times the cost of an entry-level Ferguson clerk’s salary.

Other organizations, including BuzzFeed, were told they would have to pay unspecified thousands of dollars for emails and memos about Ferguson's traffic citation policies and changes to local elections. 

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Mike Keefe, The Week

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This cartoon sums up the current state of GOP candidacy for the presidential election pretty well, in my view.

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Gary Varvel, The Week

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While the Secret Service has taken fire for a number of lapses in the last year or so, consider what it's like to protect the first 'black' president. A president that the House Republicans hate so much they've set themselves up as a barricade to any action he accomplished or attempts.  Think about the 56 times they voted to repeal or undermine some or all of the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare). Here's an article, "Inside the world of Obama's secret-service bodyguards," written in 2010, that talks about protecting him and his family.

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Steve Sack, The Week

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Bibi Netanyahu may have won the election in Israel, but he doesn't have all Jews' hearts, primarily because of his stance against Palestinians.  Here is some history of the Palestine-Israel Conflict written by the Jews for Justice in the Middle East.

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Steve Breen, The Week

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-- Marge

Cartoons: Putin and the ice bucket, ISIS

At this point, I think it's safe to ask who has not heard of the Ice Bucket Challenge. This cartoon struck my funny bone hard. The New Yorker published an interesting read titled "A Quest to Understand What Makes Things Funny." (Note that it was published on April 1st.) In my view this cartoon is funny because it's a stress reliever (and somewhat slapstick).

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Marian Kamensky, The Week

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Talk about a situation that needs stress relief, how about ISIS?  They're demanding ransoms, then beheading their captives.

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Steve Breen, The Week

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This cartoon relates ISIS and crime in the US--a double whammy.

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Mike Luckovich, The Week

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Sometimes I wanna be an ostrich.

-- Marge

Cartoons: a tidal wave of children

To me this quote from the Worldcrunch article "At U.S.-Mexico Border, Children's Lives On The Line" tells a lot about how Mexican and Central American migrants view America and the current state of immigration.

Rina Guaimaca doesn't have time to wait for political reform. "In Honduras, the gangs were extorting us. We didn’t earn much in the first place, but we had to give half of that to them. I have a 7-year-old son, Fernando, and I didn’t want him to grow up like that. So, I decided to escape and join my mother who works in Oregon."

This article is part of a series called "Migrant Lives."  To know more about the publication Worldcrunch, take a look at this review at tinypass.

Here are some insights from the cartoonists--

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Steve Breen, The Week

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Mike Ramirez, The Week

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David Horsey, The Week

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Mike Luckovich, The Week

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Follow these links for more views on why this influx is occurring, "Why are so many kids crossing the US-Mexico border and what should Obama do?," and what happens to the children once they enter the US, "Q&A Explaining the crisis on the Southwest border as children seek refuge."

-- Marge

Cartoons: snapshot of America on this 4th

While, as Steve Breen asserts in the cartoon below, many of us still value life, liberty, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness, some in America don't value these rights so much.  This is especially true when the self-evident rights of others are concerned.  Here are some dos and don'ts for today's America.

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Steve Breen, US News

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If you pray, pray for a tolerant employer.

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Jack Ohman, US News

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Forget what you love to do, learn what will bring home the bacon.

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Michael Ramirez, US News

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When faced with an anti-Obama Congress, use executive actions to get things done.

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Dana Summers, US News

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Watch out for underhanded play in the marketplace.

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Drew Sheneman, US News

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-- Marge