But, perhaps despite the sadness on his face as he took his leave of the race, and despite his wife’s tears, and despite the fact that, by comparison, he is probably a less odious person than many of the men left in the race, there’s no need to feel pity. The Bush dynasty lost this once; given what it’s done for America in the past, that might ultimately be a good thing.

The Bush clan is a pack of jackals that has skittered among the tall grass of politics now for four generations. Granddad Prescott was a senator who made his cash at Brown Brothers Harriman, in part by investing in Germany’s financial rebuilding on the road to WWII. George HW Bush worked at Brown Brothers Harriman, too, before becoming an oil wildcatter, then a congressman, the head of the CIA (where he overlooked domestic anti-communist terrorism) and finally president, where he pardoned away the dregs of Iran-Contra and solidified the post-Watergate blueprint for America’s refusal to prosecute its greatest political criminals.

You know all about Jeb’s brother, George W “Endless War” Bush. Jeb’s son, George P Bush, once reportedly crashed a car into his ex-girlfriend’s yard after failing to gain entrance via a window (her family opted not to press charges) and is now Texas Land Commissioner – after raising over $3m dollars for the race before he even had a challenger and on the basis of his extensive experience as Bush family member. Maybe Jeb’s failure means his son won’t strive for even higher office. Or maybe not.

_____
But this is the small justice that people seek when they know the system will forever fail them. There is no glee here, just resignation. Besides, interpreting events like that again focuses on Trump, when the visceral truth of the Bush campaign was that we finally saw the rot of their dynasty move to the surface, like cheap composite plywood puncturing through a deep wood veneer.

Jeb Bush was one of the family, and he failed. And if there is one, stark emotional legacy of the Jeb 2016 experience, it is this: despite coming from all that power and money, Jeb Bush ran a campaign so wracked with failure and so thoroughly inept that he could move millions of Americans beyond their richly earned contempt for him and his family. By the end, Jeb Bush actually made people feel sorry for him.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/20/jeb-bush-family-legacy-dynasty-election-2016

MERIDEN, Conn. (WTNH) — Just after 7:30 p.m. on September 19, 2015, Meriden police officers John Slepski and John Slezak responded to report of an intoxicated man lying in the middle of the road on Arch Parkway. A dash camera from Slepski’s police cruiser captured the interaction between the officers and the man and prompted an investigation into their conduct that evening.

An internal affairs investigation into the incident concluded with Officer Slepski being suspended without pay for 60 days and Officer Slezak suspended without pay for five days.

On the video, Slepski can be heard using profanity numerous times and as he first approaches the subject he says to Slezak, “I think we should just pop him.”

Slezak can be heard saying, “He’s fine, he just wants a ride to the hospital.”

In other statements made on the video, Slezak tells the subject he should be ashamed, and Slepski calls him derogatory names and takes out his pepper spray saying he will spray him if he doesn’t move to the side of the road.
During the investigation, Slepski and Slezak said pepper spray was never deployed, and while it sounds as if it was on the video, Slepski said he imitated the sound himself in an effort to get the man to move. The chief said the simple action of taking the pepper spray out was an improper use of force since the man was not combative. The video also shows both men removing their batons, also an improper use of force according to the chief.

In a disciplinary letter to Slepski, Police Chief Jeffry Cossette said, “Your conduct while acting as a Meriden Police Officer is disgraceful. Your dehumanizing and demoralizing treatment of this citizen in need of medical attention sickens me. Your actions did not perpetuate the mission of the Meriden Police Department.”

In the letter to Slezak, Chief Cossette said, “Your conduct while acting as a Meriden Police Officer is unacceptable. If a fellow officer is behaving in a demeaning and demoralizing way toward a citizen, you have a Duty to Act.”
http://wtnh.com/2016/02/19/dash-cam-video-meriden-police-officers-suspended-for-disgraceful-behavior/

7% reporting Vote %
Trump (won)
33.9%
Cruz
22.1%
Rubio
20.9%
Bush
9.6%
Kasich
7.2%
Carson
6.2%

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/nevada-south-carolina-results/468114/?utm_source=SFTwitter

You couldn't make up a clearer double standard between the realities black men and white men often face when confronted by American police.

Cincinnati police on Tuesday were called to a home to investigate an assault. When they arrived in Mount Healthy to investigate they were met by 26-year-old Christopher Laugle, who pulled a gun out and pointed it at police, who have since openly admitted that they "felt threatened" and "did not know the gun was fake."

Police peacefully arrested Laugle after he resisted and in his mug shot, he doesn't appear to have a scratch. Simply charged with "menacing," his bond was set at the low, low price of $2,000.

Laugle is the white man in this story, and his fate was entirely different than that of Paul Gaston.

Gaston, a 37-year-old Cincinnati man, had just been in a serious car accident. Witnesses called 911 on Wednesday after witnessing Gaston "stumble" out of a pickup truck he had been driving before crashing into a telephone pole.

We have no idea if Gaston was injured or concussed from the accident, but when police found him 650 feet from the crash scene and ordered him to the ground, he followed their initial orders, but appeared to be confused.

Video taken by bystanders shows Gaston on his knees, surrounded by police with guns drawn, putting his hands in the air. After lying on the ground for a moment, he comes back to his knees and is immediately killed in a hail of gunfire from three different officers.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-cincinnati-cops-reveal-double-standards-black-men-face-article-1.2537271

Source: Nydaily

Detroit woman phoned 911 and got a not-so-smooth operator.

Angie Butler said she couldn't get a clueless 911 operator wouldn’t send a cop to her home while an armed man stood on her porch.

The Michigan mom got a knock on her door at 2:30 a.m. Thursday night by a man with a gun, claiming to be a cop.

“He’s out here saying he’s the police and he’s wearing an orange jumpsuit, like a prison jumpsuit,” Butler told local network ClickOn Detroit.

But, the plea for help fell on deaf ears.


“So I call 911 and say, ‘I’ve got a guy out here saying he’s a cop at my door with a gun, a big gun,’ and she’s like, ‘Do you want to make a report?’” Butler said.

“A report?” the stunned woman responded.

“I want someone to come out here.”

No cop ever came to the terrified mother’s home while the menacing man stood on her porch as she and her son looked out from an upstairs window.

Instead, she resorted to calling a friend who worked at the nearby Ecorse Police Department and got one of their squad cars to drive through her neighborhood.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/inept-detroit-911-operator-didn-send-woman-house-article-1.2538565

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/live-south-carolina-gop-primary-exit-poll-analysis/story?id=37077219


Preliminary exit poll results from the South Carolina GOP primary have been released.

Record turnout by conservatives and evangelicals is helping to shape the South Carolina Republican primary, along with vast support for Donald Trump’s stance on limiting the ability of Muslims to enter the country and substantial backing for deportation of undocumented immigrants.

Preliminary exit poll results indicate that three-quarters of the state’s primary voters support temporarily banning Muslims who are not U.S. citizens from entering the United States. That’s even more than the support for this proposal among GOP voters in New Hampshire, 65 percent – a core support group for Trump in that state.

Many fewer – but still more than four in 10 – favor deporting undocumented immigrants, another very strong group for Trump in New Hampshire. And, in another helpful result for Trump, four in 10 pick him among five top candidates as best able to handle the economy – twice as many as pick his nearest competitor on this issue, Ted Cruz.

Other results are potentially helpful to other candidates. Eight in 10 GOP voters in South Carolina identify themselves as conservative, and four in 10 as very conservative – both on pace to set records in exit poll data in the state back to 1992. (In 2012, for example, 68 percent were conservatives.)
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/live-south-carolina-gop-primary-exit-poll-analysis/story?id=37077219

(CNN)Does Will Ferrell not feel the Bern anymore?

Ferrell, who was previously on Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' list of celebrity endorsements on his campaign website, was recently campaigning for Hillary Clinton in Nevada.

The former secretary of state tweeted out a video Saturday morning that shows the comedian urging people to vote in the Democratic caucuses.

Clinton tweeted, "Will Ferrell has a message for you, Nevada: Caucus for Hillary today at 11AM. Your location: http://hillaryclinton.com/nevada"

http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/20/politics/will-ferrell-bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton/index.html

Source: Review journal

The Las Vegas Review-Journal on Friday reported a possible threat related to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton after a man tried to place an obituary notice for the former secretary of state.

The man, who identified himself as Don Schubert, was asked to leave the newspaper building's lobby after he filled out a standard obituary form identifying the deceased as Hillary Rodham Clinton, and listing her date of death as Feb. 20, 2016, the date of Saturday's Democratic Party presidential caucuses. Previously he had called the newsroom to complain about the coin flips that determined the outcome of some Iowa caucuses last month.

The man was seen leaving the RJ parking lot in a maroon Toyota Prius bearing several Bernie Sanders campaign stickers. A security guard said he was also wearing a Sanders sticker on his shirt. The official Sanders campaign website lists "Don Schubert's House" in Long Beach, Calif., as the site of a volunteer phone bank.

Newspaper security officials reported Schubert to the Secret Service.

When reached by phone Friday night, Schubert said he had been called by a Secret Service agent. He said he told the agent the obituary attempt was done in "political humor," a predictive reference to Clinton losing Saturday's Nevada caucuses.

Schubert said the agent told him that he could be arrested, but the agency wasn't planning on doing so.

Read more: http://www.reviewjournal.com/politics/caucuses-2016/attempt-place-review-journal-obituary-hillary-clinton-prompts-report-secret

Source: Abc news

Iraqi migrants in Norway have been reunited with their fluffy white tomcat, which disappeared in late October on the Greek island of Lesbos.

Rehab Al Alaf told the Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang on Saturday the nearly three-year-old cat named Kunkush is back with the family in Steinkjer, Norway — over 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) from where it ran away. She said volunteers found the cat on Lesbos, posted photos on social media and raised $1,640 to fund veterinarian and flight costs for it to be reunited with the family.

Rehab's mother, Suva Al Alaf, told Norway's Tronder-Avisa daily the family fled Mosul after threats by Islamic State militants. She and her five children trekked through Turkey with the cat in a basket, but it slipped away on Lesbos.



Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/norway-iraqi-migrants-reunited-runaway-cat-37076026

---

Watch the video! Reunion at the end 😭

Danny Fletcher waxed ecstatic last week about the temporary Interbay motor-home lot recently set up by the city of Seattle.

“I love it. This is beautiful,” said the 32-year-old Army veteran. “Every day I get to wake up, use the bathroom and feel human again.”
Danny Fletcher, 32, left, and Joshua Madrid, 23, talk inside Madrid’s school bus parked in a temporary RV lot in the Interbay... (Erika Schultz/The Seattle Times)






He was referring to the port-a-potties placed in the middle of a row of 17 motor homes, right next to the dumpsters — another welcome convenience for people who have long lacked a way to dispose of their trash.

Even then, Fletcher remained guarded about whether he would move to one of two permanent “safe lots” the city plans to open in Ballard and Delridge as early as Friday. “If my stomach says don’t do it, and my dogs are not happy with it, I’m not going to go through with it,” he said.
Cautiousness erupted into full-blown revolt this week, after social-service providers hired by the city came around the West Amory Way lot with a three-page document outlining rules for the new areas. No use of cooking stoves, propane heaters or power sources in the RVs, no unauthorized guests, no alcohol, drugs or smoking of any kind in vehicles. No exit or entry into the lots from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/theres-no-freedom-not-all-homeless-living-in-vehicles-welcome-citys-safe-lots/

SEATTLE -- A new safe parking lot opened in Ballard Friday for people living out of their RVs. The lot is located outside the former Yankee Diner.

The city paid to tow three RVs from a temporary lot a few blocks away and plans to move 20 to 25 vehicles over the next couple weeks.

"It was a blessing," said Wanda Williams, who was the first homeless person to move into the parking lot with her Winnebago. "I cried. I have a home for once."

The city provides 24/7 security, access to limited electricity, bathrooms, hand-washing stations and even a coffeemaker.

A detailed code of conduct was released Friday by the mayor's office, outlining a long list of requirements and rules for homeless families living in the lot.

The rules include:

No drugs or alcohol
No dumping trash
No open flames
Residents must also work with a case worker who will monitor their status in the parking lot and help them secure housing outside of the site.

http://www.king5.com/story/news/local/seattle/2016/02/19/first-safe-lot-homeless-living-vehicles-opens/80635638/



An RV is towed to a newly-opened safe lot in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood on Feb. 19, 2016.
(Photo: Dan Cassuto / KING 5)