Editorial cartoons December 18, 2022: Crypto crimes, merger breakthrough, Sinemas switcheroo

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During a congressional hearing Tuesday into the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, current CEO John J. Ray said there was nothing out of the ordinary about the scheme that placed the founder Sam Bankman-Fried in US custody on a series of securities fraud charges.

This is really just old-fashioned embezzlement. It’s just about taking customers’ money and using it for your own purposes. Not sophisticated at all, Ray told the House Financial Services Committee.

Scott Stantis leads the editorial cartoon gallery this week with his commentary on crypto as a digital version of a wooden nickel. Bill Bramhall draws financial instruments regulators just as disheveled and disorganized as Bankman-Fried, who ran his multibillion-dollar company using standard accounting software Quickbooks, Ray told lawmakers. Steve Breen sees crypto as a shell game.

The other big story last week was a breakthrough in nuclear fusion research that could one day lead to an infinite source of energy. Breen compares swapping fossil fuels for fusion to Indiana Jones’ attempt to slip an artifact out of a cave without triggering the release of a giant boulder.

Editorial cartoonists also commented on Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinemas’ announcement that she would quit the Democratic Party and become an independent; the many investigations planned by the new majority of the Republican House, in particular on the laptop of Hunter Bidens; President Joe Bidens’ efforts to deal with a surge of asylum seekers at the US border; the 10th anniversary of the Sandy Hook school shooting; and the so-called tripledemic of Covid, influenza and RSV.

The cartoons were drawn by Nick Anderson, Bill Bramhall, Dana Summers, Drew Sheneman, Scott Stantis, Walt Handelsman, David Horsey, Phil Hands, Joel Pett, and Joey Weatherford of Tribune Content Agency; and Steve Breen, Mike Luckovich and Michael Ramirez of Creators Syndicate.

See more editorial cartoon galleries.

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