There is a gen­er­al con­sen­sus that as a nation we have han­dled our affairs bad­ly since Independence, there is no deny­ing that.
However there is no longer a viable argu­ment to be made for stay­ing under the Crown out­side of what­ev­er val­ue the Island derive from hav­ing the UK Privy Council as it’s final court of appeals.
Jamaicans can’t hop on a plane and enter England like Puerto Ricans can the US.
Simply put there is real­ly no upside for Jamaica keep­ing the British Monarch as a head of state out­side the val­ue of the Privy Council.
Sorry Governor General I real­ly like you but you’ll be okay.
It is impor­tant that we rec­og­nize how­ev­er that if Jamaica remove the Queen as head of state we have by default signed on to a Caribbean court of Justice as our high­est court, or worse trust­ing our failed bro­ken down sys­tem which has been a colos­sal flop.
Not a thought I rel­ish in light of the record of the Island’s crim­i­nal Justice system.
If we decide to get rid of the queen maybe we should also get a new Constitution , why not?

The pos­si­bil­i­ty of a Caribbean court of appeals, or worse the final court of appeals being in Jamaica should give Jamaicans much pause.
Set aside the chest thump­ing and the patri­ot­ic gob­bledy­gook about our own abil­i­ties the record sim­ply has not matched the darn rhetoric.
So lets quit the non­sense and face real­i­ty , we have made a mess of things.
There is more than enough evi­dence that the judi­cial process have failed the Jamaican peo­ple and have through it’s inept­ness and lib­er­al stance sig­nif­i­cant­ly added to the Island’s crime situation.
When cit­i­zens believe they will get no jus­tice in the courts they exact their own brand of jus­tice which is nev­er jus­tice but vengeance.
When an alleged goat thief gets hacked to death its not jus­tice. Yes it may give future goat-thieves pause but it places the lives of all Jamaicans at risk . Merely pass­ing through a com­mu­ni­ty where you are not known makes you sus­pi­cious and a tar­get for those would kill you just for the hell of it.
Given the fail­ings of the Judicial process I am stunned that some peo­ple still believe in it’s fideli­ty. Though not the best enti­ty to point this out , even the US Government has point­ed to the Jamaican jus­tice sys­tem and it’s myr­i­ad prob­lems, which the very Jamaican gov­ern­ment agrees with.
That ought to be a dis-qual­i­fi­er as it per­tains to giv­ing it more responsibility.

The aver­age man on the street does not believe the Justice sys­tem works in his inter­est, no one is immune. The police which is the most vis­i­ble part of the jus­tice sys­tem gets all the blame when the police is prob­a­bly least to blame for the woes of the system.
The Judges are prob­a­bly the least con­spic­u­ous of all the play­ers in the process but they arguably have the most impact.
They are less vis­i­ble but the crim­i­nals they turn loose on tech­ni­cal­i­ty and with slaps on the wrist aren’t.
People have no con­fi­dence that the sys­tem will pro­tect them when mur­der­ers are sum­mar­i­ly returned to the streets time and time after being charged with homicides.
There is no rea­son for peo­ple to jeop­ar­dize their lives by coop­er­at­ing with a sys­tem which bends over back­wards to appease crim­i­nals at their expense.
Only in Jamaica are accused mur­der­ers grant­ed bail to go out and kill over and over and over again.
To hell with the argu­ment that the bail act is not sup­posed to be puni­tive. If some­one is arrest­ed for a mur­der a judge can gloss over the evi­dence and see whether the charge has mer­it before con­sid­er­ing bail, if at all.
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Most of the lead­ing Caribbean Islands are not a part of the CCJ. The new admin­is­tra­tion should think this through thor­ough­ly, . Bustamante worked hard to pull Jamaica from the West Indian Federation sup­port­ed by the PNP , soon after the West Indian Federation collapsed.
On Bustamante’s vision Jamaica’s sov­er­eign­ty and Independence was born.
It would be iron­ic if the labor par­ty now become the par­ty which guide Jamaica into a CCJ alliance .
Getting rid of the Monarchy also means get­ting rid of the UK Privy Council as well.

THE Government has sig­nalled that it intends to make good on its promise to sev­er colo­nial ties with Britain by bring­ing a Constitution amend­ment bill to Parliament to have the Queen of England Elizabeth ll, replaced with a non-exec­u­tive pres­i­dent as head of state.

This would do away with the gov­er­nor gen­er­al as the Queen’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive here, and make Jamaica a repub­lic. A non-exec­u­tive pres­i­dent, like the gov­er­nor gen­er­al, would still be a sym­bol­ic leader and per­form a rep­re­sen­ta­tive and civic role but with no pow­ers to make pol­i­cy. But he or she could use dis­cre­tionary pow­ers for extra­or­di­nary polit­i­cal inter­ven­tion, based on the Constitution.

Governor General Sir Patrick Allen, in the 2016/​2017 Throne Speech to mark the open­ing of the new ses­sion of Parliament, announced the plan to move to repub­li­can sta­tus, while out­lin­ing a raft of oth­er mea­sures that are now on the leg­isla­tive agenda.

The new Administration appears set on doing what for­mer Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller in her inau­gu­ra­tion speech fol­low­ing her party’s vic­to­ry in the 2011 gen­er­al elec­tion, had pro­posed to do. Simpson Miller said then that as Jamaica cel­e­brat­ed its 50^th anniver­sary of inde­pen­dence, the Government would “ini­ti­ate the process for our detach­ment from the Monarchy to become a repub­lic with our own indige­nous pres­i­dent as head of state”. Read more here : Removal of Queen as head of State, fixed elec­tion date and term lim­it for PM

In civilized societies out of necessity governments must engage in a challenging balancing act between ensuring citizens civil rights and ensuring the rule of law.. Representatives of the people enact laws in line with the demands of those they represent . The enforcement of those laws and the commensurate stability of said societies are a consent decree between the Governed and those who govern. This marriage works only when both parties show fidelity to the stated goals as is the case in any marriage.
No society can claim to want security, human and civil rights yet refuse to obey laws and show respect and give support to those who enforce said laws.

The chal­lenge inher­ent in strik­ing that bal­ance is not a job which will ever be com­plet­ed, it con­tin­ues to be a work in progress even in the most sophis­ti­cat­ed and advanced societies.
Nations which have accom­plished some of the best results in terms of less incar­cer­a­tion of their peo­ple are gen­er­al­ly soci­eties which are large­ly racial­ly homo­ge­neous soci­eties ie, the Scandinavian region of Europe. The seem­ing­ly more har­mo­nious nature of their soci­eties are gen­er­al­ly ones in which social and eco­nom­ic con­di­tions are attend­ed to with strict focus. On the oth­er hand there are soci­eties where laws are strict­ly enforced with stun­ning bru­tal­i­ty . The end result is that cit­i­zens are cowed into sub­mis­sion, they avoid run­ning afoul of laws , ie China , Suadi Arabia Iran etal.
Simply put the con­se­quences of get­ting caught does not jus­ti­fy the means.
It is rea­son­able to con­clude that many of us are not exact­ly lin­ing up to enter the lat­ter societies,

This leaves us with the oth­er soci­eties where there is an alpha­bet stew of dif­fer­ent types of peo­ple with dif­fer­ing views, tem­pera­ments and attitudes.
Such is the Jamaican soci­ety, a mass of opin­ions and a cor­nu­copia of atti­tudes not con­strained by total­i­tar­i­an edict.
How do we run such a soci­ety in which every­one is stri­dent­ly opin­ion­at­ed and vehe­ment­ly opposed to hear­ing the oth­er per­son out ? Yet every­one clam­or for the trap­pings of oth­er soci­eties , soci­eties which sub­ject them­selves to the con­sent decree between those who gov­ern and those they govern?

THE GOVERNED

That arrange­ment requires a dis­ci­plined approach by the gov­erned which eschew crim­i­nal activ­i­ties and a deci­sion to respect laws, under­stand­ing that laws are there for their pro­tec­tion. Citizens have a right and indeed a respon­si­bil­i­ty to lob­by, agi­tate and even peace­ably mil­i­tate to have laws deemed inju­ri­ous to their well-being removed and replaced with more appro­pri­ate ones.
The lat­ter is par­tic­u­lar­ly true for a nation like Jamaica in which many of the present laws were designed to keep the mass­es in check by pow­ers anti­thet­i­cal to their interest.
The same is true for soci­eties like the United States where eth­nic minori­ties are not always best pro­tect­ed by some laws which were designed to empow­er one race over another.
Citizens who demand secu­ri­ty must rec­og­nize and buy into the idea that the secu­ri­ty they crave is their secu­ri­ty not that of anoth­er. On that basis it is impor­tant that they become equal part­ners in the imple­men­ta­tion of what­ev­er strate­gies are employed toward ensur­ing that security.
Security of their per­sons, homes , com­mu­ni­ties, and coun­try is not an abstract con­cept to be ensured with­out indi­vid­ual participation.

A per­son whose life is seri­ous­ly threat­ened will report that threat to author­i­ties , he/​she will do what­ev­er it takes for agents of the state to pro­tect him/​her.
The same prin­ci­ple applies to homes and oth­er per­son­al properties.
Why then is that lev­el of coöper­a­tion removed or absent when the same coöper­a­tion is required to pro­tect the com­mu­ni­ty and by exten­sion the nation?
It reeks of utter self­ish­ness and myopia that once the threat is removed from the prop­er­ties we deem ours, we remove our coöper­a­tion with those whose task it is to pro­vide said security.
It is prob­a­bly one of the best barom­e­ter to mea­sure whether we speak with forked tongues when we utter the false words about love for Country when our com­mit­ment goes no far­ther than our own lives and our per­son­al properties.

THOSE WHO GOVERN

Those giv­en the priv­i­leged to serve in Government must divest them­selves of the notion they are rulers.
That priv­i­lege is fleet­ing, fick­le and can be tak­en away at a momen­t’s notice.
Government too must keep it’s end of the bar­gain if the rela­tion­ship is to have a chance to work. The pro­tec­tion of the cit­i­zen­ry is para­mount, after all gov­ern­ment is com­prised of rep­re­sen­ta­tives whom the peo­ple elect to car­ry out their wishes.
Government is sim­i­lar to a human body, each part of that body is equal­ly as impor­tant as the next.
Sure the eye can argue about it’s impor­tance but the blad­der though hid­den away holds uri­nal waste for dis­po­si­tion .This func­tion pre­vents lethal poi­son­ing of the entire body.
The moral of that anal­o­gy is that every part must work in tan­dem for the health of the body, a dead body also includes dead eyes.
So too should every arm of Government work togeth­er for the com­mon good. A house divid­ed among itself will not stand.

It does Government no good, and the peo­ple a tremen­dous dis-ser­vice when one part of Government seek to play both sides of the fence which ulti­mate­ly results in ani­mos­i­ty and enmi­ty. Each arm has a duty , each arm should do it’s duty with­out bring­ing undue ridicule, con­dem­na­tion and stress to the other.
The job of gov­ern­ing is dif­fi­cult enough with­out the hand stick­ing the eye to appear relevant .
In the end chop­ping off the nose to spite the face hurts the body and makes for a ugly picture.
We accom­plish much when we work togeth­er, not when we seek to set our­selves apart for cheap pop­u­lar­i­ty and self aggrandizement.

In what amounted to a shameless and gratuitous attempt at grandstanding, newly appointed Jamaican Attorney General Marlene Malahoo Forte speaking in St James told members of the security forces that she will be paying close attention to ensure that they do not abuse the rights of civilians. Forte was speaking in Montego Bay Cultural Center in Sam Sharpe Square, Montego Bay, during the third in a series of island-wide town-hall meetings put on by Security Minister Robert Montague.

QUOTE.  “I assure you sir (secu­ri­ty min­is­ter) that in my role as mem­ber of Parliament I will ensure that all coöper­a­tion is pro­vid­ed to the secu­ri­ty forces. But I say to the secu­ri­ty forces also, in my role as mem­ber of Parliament and as attor­ney gen­er­al, I will be watch­ing vig­i­lant­ly how the secu­ri­ty forces car­ry out their work in this chal­leng­ing envi­ron­ment. “I know SSP (Steve) McGregor under­stands my own view that the police — and com­mis­sion­er, you may be hear­ing it for the first time – are not enti­tled to break the law in their efforts to uphold the law, not enti­tled to abuse the rights of our cit­i­zens, how­ev­er chal­leng­ing the cir­cum­stances will be,”

Well I’ll be damned !

It was just a cou­ple of months ago ‚that while Andrew Holness ‚the very Malahoo Forte and oth­ers were at a mass meet­ing in Sam Sharpe Square that in that very meet­ing vio­lence reared it’s ugly head and a life was snuffed out. Not only was a life snuffed out , inno­cent bystanders became vic­tims of that violence.
On the occa­sion of that shoot­ing Malahoo Forte had no words of con­dem­na­tion for the crim­i­nal ele­ments who brazen­ly killed and wound at will . She could have spo­ken up then as one of the Jamaica labor Party’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives for the parish.
She didn’t !

Now all of a sud­den as soon as she tast­ed pow­er she becomes a grand­stand­ing caped cru­sad­er for the rights of the peo­ple in her constituency.
There are more than enough over­sight of police, much of which is act­ing as an accel­er­ant to crime on the Island.
Malahoo Forte would be best served by denounc­ing crim­i­nals in her con­stituen­cy and pro­vid­ing their names to police and quit bloviating.

As the coun­try grap­ples with crime every well mean­ing Jamaican has a part to play in work­ing toward find­ing solu­tions to this problem.
Many peo­ple have worked assid­u­ous­ly for a change in Jamaica because every­one wants a bet­ter Jamaica .
What we do not want are self-serv­ing show-offs adding to the problem.
Everyone knows what the Minister of Justice’s role is .
Malahoo Forte is best advised to accli­mate her­self to the job she hold, seek to see how best she can go about doing it and leave oth­ers to do theirs.
The coun­try does not need any more anti-police cru­saders who grand­stand against police while inno­cent blood con­tin­ue to flow .
Just shut up already.

No matter how much we deny or apologize for the things we say it does not change the fact that the words we utter are probably the best indicators of how we truly feel at the moment we utter them. Sure we can walk them back ‚we can apologize for saying them , we may even apologize for the intemperate ways in which we say them. Like circumstantial evidence however they paint a picture of our true character.
Following in that theme it is kinda difficult to keep having to explain that the words we spoke freely were not intended they way we say them but were meant to convey a different meaning in a different context.

In 1992 Bill Clinton won the Presidency of the United States beat­ing Herbert Walker Bush the 41^st President after he had served a sin­gle term.
Clinton’s rise to the Presidency may have been pos­si­ble because the nation was fatigued after three terms of repub­li­cans con­trol of the executive.
Clinton’s Presidency was book-end­ed by Herbert Walker Bush’s Presidency and that of his son George W Bush the 43^rd pres­i­dent of the United States. I can­not deny that I too thought that Bill Clinton play­ing the Saxophone on the Arsenio Hall show was cool, a wel­come depar­ture from the stiff and script­ed per­sona of past pres­i­den­tial candidates.
I still have the for­mer President’s auto­graph from a chance encounter we had in Westchester coun­ty sev­er­al years ago. Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary Clinton still have a lock on the African-American vote which is yet to be ratio­nal­ly explained out­side the con­text of the wider demo­c­ra­t­ic party.

Blacks generally cannot rationally explain a vote for the Republican Party. Simply put the party has been more than hostile to Black values and openly supportive of policies which discriminates against and places Blacks at a disadvantage. The Civil-Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law by Democratic president Lyndon Johnson .The law outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
The passage of the civil-rights act resulted in a massive exodus of white men and women from the democratic party to the republican party.
There are all kinds of nuanced reasons surrounding why white men ran from the Democratic party after the civil rights act was signed into law. The unmitigated truth is that those whites had no intention of seeing Black Americans given full citizenship.
A quick look at American history has more than enough evidence of this. Whites have been systematically opposed to blacks having the dignity of of their God given rights since before slavery was conceived. I watched a part of the Ken Burns film on the life of Jackie Robinson just last night, it shone a light on the ignorance and sense of entitlement of white society as it regards the rights of people of color.
It’s 2016, over 50 years after the signing of the civil rights act and there are still considerable amounts of white Americans who believe slavery wasn’t a bad idea. On that basis blacks may be voting Democratic for awhile yet, as the Republicans have shown no intention of wooing or even wanting the black vote.

Bill Clinton’s played heart-break hotel on the sax­o­phone on the Arsenio Hall show in June of 1992 , at the time Hall joked it was great to see a Democrat blow some­thing oth­er than the election..
That moment may have been the defin­ing moment for Clinton’s cam­paign as it relates to secur­ing the black vote.
It could also have been an attempt to smooth ten­sions he helped to per­pet­u­ate when he dived into the imbroglio sur­round­ing rap­per Sister Souljah’s com­ment mere­ly a month ear­li­er. The Rapper alleged­ly said quote, “If black peo­ple kill black peo­ple every day, why not have a week and kill white people”?
The rap­per’s com­ments came after the hip-hop com­mu­ni­ty became more mil­i­tant fol­low­ing the LA riots and Ice‑T body count cop killer lyrics. The white Media was up in arms against hip-hop and Clinton saw an oppor­tu­ni­ty to appease white anger at the expense of the black community.
Clinton com­pared the rap­per’s com­ments then to that of white suprema­cists. Many in the black com­mu­ni­ty saw his com­ments as a way of nod­ding to whites that he was on their side while hold­ing onto the black vote.

In 1992 the now president Bill Clinton signed a massive and sweeping crime bill to build federal prisons based on the three strikes law . This resulted in the mass incarceration of Americans, largely minorities. Today as a result of that law more than two million Americans are locked up in prisons with nearly another million in some way under the supervision of federal and state corrections.
Breitbart reports that as a result of the crime bill, America now has 25 percent of the world’s prison population, but only 5 percent of its overall population. An African-American male born today has a 1‑in‑3 chance of spending time in prison during their lifetime. At the historic signing ceremony, Clinton said, “Gangs and drugs have taken over our streets and undermined our schools. Every day, we read about somebody else who has literally gotten away with murder.”
The crime bill caused an immediate and steep increase in incarcerations during Clinton’s tenure. At the beginning of his first term in 1992, there were 847,000 people in prison. By the end of Clinton’s second term in 2000, there were 1,334,000 Americans behind bars.

In 1996 then first lady Hillary Clinton speak­ing at Keene State College in New Hampshire said quote ‚“They are often the kinds of kids that are called ‘super-preda­tors,’” . “No con­science, no empa­thy, we can talk about why they end­ed up that way, but first we have to bring them to heel.”
It’s now 2016 and then first lady Hillary Clinton has gone through much trans­for­ma­tion ‚from United States sen­a­tor from the state of New York, Secretary of state of the United States and now one of two remain­ing can­di­dates remain­ing in the race for the demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion for pres­i­dent of the United States. Hillary Clinton has nev­er been bag­gage free, even though there may be a legit­i­mate case made that she has been held to dif­fer­ent stan­dards through­out her career.

I was par­tic­u­lar­ly unnerved at the seem­ing lack of care in the way she spoke about bring­ing to heel the young peo­ple she char­ac­ter­ized as super-preda­tors while con­ve­nient­ly brush­ing aside any atten­dant cir­cum­stances which may have con­tributed to their state of anti-social behavior.
As a pres­i­den­tial can­di­date she has been con­front­ed with her hus­bands crime bill which became a drag­net for young black men and women fill­ing America’s pris­ons and jails.
Her super-preda­tor com­ment has also caused her much headache on the cam­paign trail. To her cred­it she has stat­ed that she regrets say­ing those words back in 1996 and giv­en the same sit­u­a­tion she would not have used those words.
Cynics and those who do not trust the Clintons will say her remorse is vin­tage Clinton, say what­ev­er is expe­di­ent to sat­is­fy a situation.
Bill Clinton has been more defen­sive when con­front­ed on the trail by young black activists who chal­lenge him on the out­come of the law they argue was tai­lored to incar­cer­ate blacks. He has also said the law end­ed up caus­ing some unin­tend­ed con­se­quences he did not envisage.
However he has not been shy in defend­ing the Law as nec­es­sary to what was hap­pen­ing at the time and insist­ing that the black com­mu­ni­ty asked him to take action.

“I don’t know how you would characterize the gang leaders who got 13-year-old kids hopped up on crack and sent them out into the street to murder other African-American children,” he began. “You are defending the people who kill the people whose lives you say matter.”
In Clinton’s defense several members of the congressional black caucus did vote for the crime bill. I might be a bit of a tough sell to blame Clinton for a bill which put people in jail at a time when crime seemed to be out of control.
Republicans in the House of representatives simply may have done their homework on the effects the crime bill would have on minority communities, Clinton and the democrats simply went along not wanting to be branded soft on crime.

So listening to Bill Clinton’s reasoned speech regarding the comments made by rapper Sister Souljah it is difficult to reconcile which is the real Bill Clinton when one considers this Bill Clinton.
Bill Clinton told Ted Kennedy that Obama ‘would be getting us coffee’ a few years ago”.
The New York Daily News reported that Bill Clinton helped sink his wife’s chances for an endorsement from Ted Kennedy by belittling Barack Obama as nothing but a race-based candidate. “A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee,” the former president told the liberal lion from Massachusetts, according to the gossipy new campaign book, “Game Change.” The book says Kennedy was deeply offended and recounted the conversation to friends with fury. After Kennedy sided with Obama, Clinton reportedly griped, “the only reason you are endorsing him is because he’s black. Let’s just be clear.“Laden with potent pass-the-torch symbolism, the January 2008 endorsement of Obama by Kennedy and his niece, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg was a pivotal campaign moment that allowed the Democratic establishment to abandon the Clintons according to the Daily News.

Fairy tale campaign.……”

In the 2008 Bill Clinton speak­ing at a town hall man­aged to refer to then Senator Obama’s can­di­da­cy as a fairy tale, though the com­ment was quite care­ful­ly hid­den in a lengthy response to a ques­tion. A mael­strom of crit­i­cisms erupt­ed as a result of those com­ments . It was­n’t exact­ly clear whether Clinton was being dis­mis­sive of the Obama can­di­da­cy in the broad­er sense as against the nar­row­er con­text of Obama’s posi­tion on the Iraq war. For many African-Americans if it walked like a duck, talked like a duck, it was a duck. Bill Clinton was able to weasel his way out of the fairy tale com­ment, he nev­er got around to explain­ing his despi­ca­ble com­ments to Senator Ted Kennedy that just a few years ear­li­er Obama would be serv­ing them coffee.
Bill Clinton called into Al Sharpton’s nation­al­ly syn­di­cat­ed talk radio show to say that his “fairy tale” com­ment about then Senator Barack Obama’s posi­tion­ing on the war was being mis­con­strued and that he was talk­ing only about the war, not Mr. Obama’s over­ar­ch­ing mes­sage or his dri­ve to be the first black president.“There’s noth­ing fairy tale about his cam­paign,” Clinton said. “It’s real, strong and he might win.”
Barack Obama did go one to win the Presidency and hire Clinton’s wife to be the sec­re­tary of state the sec­ond woman to hold that office.

It’s difficult for me to be critical of Former President Clinton on the Crime Bill when I am one who has zero tolerance for drug dealing , gang activity and the murders and other crimes which result from those activities. The incarceration of Blacks was a long designed plan which far predated Bill Clinton’s presidency. After slavery in America Blacks ended up right back on the plantations as a result of state laws which criminalized them for the color of their skins.
States designed and passed draconian laws which made it a crime for people to simply stand around on street corners. Many of the newly released blacks flocked to cities after emancipation they were criminalized simply because they had no place to go.
The chain gang and the prison industrial complex was born. Many of the imprisoned blacks ended up back on the very same plantations they were supposedly freed from. only this time the plantation owners had no duty to protect their lives anymore , they were less than property.
They no longer owned them and they were exceedingly mad that the slavery had ended and they had lost their properties.
Killing the now penal workers was no big deal the prisons would simply replaced murdered workers the next day.
It was not a crime for blacks to be killed, they were not humans, they had no right a white man had to respect.
Some estimates says less that 3% of the people who ended up on the chain gangs ever returned home.

THE ARGUMENTS ON BOTH SIDE OF THE ISSUE..
Hillary Clinton apologized for her super predator remarks I am not sure whether she should have but when you are running to be president of the United States you are required to soothe ruffled feathers and kiss snotty babies.
Bill Clinton is defensive of the Crime Bill he should not be , he should own it. There was a strong demand for it and though many people went to Prison and are still tied up in the system it is difficult to argue many who did had to part in their own demise.
What is absolutely sure is that many lives have been saved with many of the super predators off the streets.

The issue of what caus­es peo­ple to engage in seri­ous crim­i­nal­i­ty has been researched and debat­ed ad nau­se­um by many above my pay grade.
Poverty, aban­don­ment, bro­ken fam­i­lies what­ev­er the caus­es , no one thing explain why peo­ple kill oth­ers, none sin­gu­lar­ly explain why they prey on others.
Despite all of the sit­u­a­tions which may play a part in some peo­ple’s neg­a­tive behav­ior oth­er peo­ple have risen from those very sit­u­a­tions and soared to great heights.
It is naïve to believe if we could wave a wand and fix all of those con­di­tions which sup­pos­ed­ly cause peo­ple to com­mit crimes, peo­ple would stop com­mit­ting crimes.
Some of the most intri­cate crime syn­di­cates are com­mand­ed and direct­ed by peo­ple with lots of mon­ey ‚pow­er, and influence.
Crime is a human con­di­tion and yes some­times crim­i­nals have to be brought to heel before we deal with the social conditions.
Sounds like I’m defend­ing Hillary, nah I’m just stat­ing a fact.

Everything Bill Clinton said Thursday to defend his 1996 wel­fare reform law was false.

Clinton claimed that he left the pro­gram with plen­ty of mon­ey for poor peo­ple, sug­gest­ed that it helped reduce black pover­ty and that it was only the mean, nasty Republicans from the George W. Bush era who gut­ted it and hurt the poor. Clinton’s dis­tor­tions of eco­nom­ic his­to­ry and his own record are so out­ra­geous that — you will be shocked — it is dif­fi­cult to believe he was being honest.

Here’s what he told pro­test­ers at a cam­paign ral­ly for Hillary Clinton in Philadelphia:

“They say the wel­fare reform bill increased pover­ty. Then why did we have the largest drop in African American pover­ty in his­to­ry when I was pres­i­dent? The largest in his­to­ry. What hap­pened was, all these Republicans got into — the Supreme Court elect­ed President Bush 5 to 4, then all these Republicans took over state leg­is­la­tures. We left ‘em with enough mon­ey to take care of all the poor peo­ple who couldn’t go to work on wel­fare. We left ‘em with the mon­ey they had before the wel­fare rolls went down 60 per­cent. The Republicans took it away, and [these pro­test­ers are] blam­ing me.”

This is not true. Poverty dropped dur­ing the Clinton years not because of wel­fare reform, but because the entire American econ­o­my was being juiced by a mas­sive stock mar­ket bub­ble. No cred­i­ble econ­o­mist even dis­putes this. The Clinton bub­ble was fueled by the aggres­sive finan­cial dereg­u­la­to­ry poli­cies of Clinton and his Federal Reserve chair­man, Alan Greenspan. When the stock mar­ket bub­ble burst, mil­lions of peo­ple who pre­vi­ous­ly would have received wel­fare fell into poverty.

Welfare reform was an inten­tion­al effort to curb finan­cial assis­tance to poor peo­ple, on the grounds that many were sim­ply too lazy to get a job. Clinton turned over a fed­er­al pro­gram to states, which were effec­tive­ly allowed to slash wel­fare fund­ing and impose new work require­ments on peo­ple who received assis­tance. Even Republican co-archi­tects of wel­fare reform con­cede that the pro­gram end­ed up hurt­ing the poor.

“In a reces­sion, it doesn’t work,” for­mer GOP staffer Ron Haskins told The Huffington Post in 2012 about the wel­fare reform bill, which he helped shape. “Even in 2001, which was a rel­a­tive­ly mild reces­sion, we saw a lot of these sin­gle moth­ers leav­ing the work­force because they just couldn’t find a job and being forced off the wel­fare rolls.”

Let’s be clear about the time­line here. The econ­o­my went into reces­sion in March 2001, two months after Clinton left office. This was not because George W. Bush had just moved into the White House. It was because Clinton had left the coun­try with a fun­da­men­tal­ly unsta­ble econ­o­my and a social safe­ty net that had been weak­ened by his own bill.

This wasn’t an acci­dent or an unin­tend­ed con­se­quence. The whole point of wel­fare reform was to kick peo­ple off the wel­fare rolls. Clinton had cam­paigned on it in 1992. “When I ran for pres­i­dent four years ago, I pledged to end wel­fare as we know it,” he said on the day the bill passed. “I have worked for four years to do just that.”

In 1996, the year Clinton signed the law, the pover­ty rate was 13.7 per­cent. At the close of 2014 — the most recent avail­able annu­al cen­sus data — it was 14.8 per­cent. But wel­fare rolls have declined rough­ly 70 per­cent, from a peak of 14.2 mil­lion in 1994 to 4.2 mil­lion today.

Maybe that’s because 70 per­cent of the peo­ple on wel­fare were all lazy moochers.Republicans who con­tin­ue to applaud Clinton’s actions sug­gest just that. But even Clinton him­self didn’t make that (ridicu­lous) argu­ment on Thursday. He instead insist­ed that the GOP was to blame for unnec­es­sar­i­ly cut­ting off aid to needy peo­ple, not he.

That’s an aston­ish­ing claim for a bill that — again — was lit­er­al­ly designed to kick peo­ple off wel­fare rolls. Clinton turned over the fed­er­al government’s bud­get­ing author­i­ty for wel­fare to the states and now has the audac­i­ty to argue that he couldn’t have expect­ed them to slash fund­ing. What, then, was the pur­pose of hand­ing them bud­getary power?

Clinton’s sign­ing-day rhetoric about “depen­den­cy” and “respon­si­bil­i­ty” is eeri­ly sim­i­lar to Paul Ryan’s 2012 pover­ty-sham­ing lan­guage about the social safe­ty net becom­ing “a ham­mock.” People who receive gov­ern­ment assis­tance are lazy, the argu­ment goes. It has noth­ing to do with a soci­ety that sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly denies them eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties and finan­cial secu­ri­ty. At least Paul Ryan has apologized.

But hey, it was the ‘90s, right? Everyone was doing it? Nope! Poverty advo­cates had plead­ed with Clinton, urg­ing him to veto the bill. Peter Edelman, an assis­tant sec­re­tary at the Department of Health and Human Services, even resigned in protest. His 1997 essay for The Atlantic titled “The Worst Thing Bill Clinton Has Done” is a classic.

Clinton is fab­ri­cat­ing polit­i­cal his­to­ry for a rea­son. His wife, then-first lady Hillary Clinton, was an aggres­sive cham­pi­on of his wel­fare reform agen­da. She is now run­ning for pres­i­dent at a time when the Democratic Party is under­go­ing a mass re-eval­u­a­tion of his pres­i­den­cy. Many of those vot­ers are con­clud­ing that Bill Clinton’s time in office was an eight-year dis­as­ter for pro­gres­sive ideas. And they want to know whether Hillary Clinton still backs the poli­cies that she and Bill Clinton advanced dur­ing the 1990s.

When she sends Bill out on the cam­paign trail and he bla­tant­ly mis­leads his audi­ence to defend his record, it’s hard to con­clude that Hillary Clinton doesn’t still believe in that agen­da. Nothing Bill Clinton Said To Defend His Welfare Reform Is True

Never one to trust only in my own ideas without hearing that of others I did a search to see what was the best way to explain what a political Party is, at least which would fit into what I wanted to convey.
This is what I came away with. In a Democracy (particularly in the Westminster system) a government is formed by the person or party who can show that they have the majority of votes in the House of Representatives and can create a Government. It is much easier and practical for a group of people who have very similar outlook on policy to combine to gain power so those policies can be implemented by a majority vote in the House.

I par­tic­u­lar­ly want­ed to look to this type of def­i­n­i­tion in light of what has been hap­pen­ing to a young politi­cian who has shown some tal­ent, made some mis­takes , but have also exer­cised tremen­dous vision, matu­ri­ty and intelligence.
I refer to for­mer People’s National Party Member of par­lia­ment Damion Crawford.
Damion Crawford has cer­tain­ly placed his foot in his mouth in the past but as Jesus once said “whomev­er hath no sin let him cast the first stone”. We Jamaicans are know for doing just that , speak­ing off the cuff and some­times hav­ing to retract some of the things we said when we take the time to exam­ine our­selves , or when oth­ers chas­tise us.
Lord knows I have had more intem­per­ate out­bursts which I had to retract than what should have been allowed ten persons.
So when Crawford referred to sup­port­ers of the JLP as “dut­ty laborites” I was nat­u­ral­ly dis­s­a­point­ed in him because he had pre­vi­ous­ly demon­strat­ed some qual­i­ties I thought nec­es­sary if the Cultist nature of his par­ty was to change in the inter­est of our country.
I was not sur­prised when Damion Crawford walked those unfor­tu­nate com­ments back.

Facts On The Side Of Those Opposed To (inde­com)

Damion Crawford has shown Independence which is a rare qual­i­ty in Jamaican pol­i­tics. The trib­al nature of our pol­i­tics does not allow for Bi-Partisanship. The oth­er par­ty is the ene­my, not only are we repulsed by their poli­cies and ideas we hate them too.
This type of cor­ro­sive pol­i­tics cre­ates gridlock,it seeps out into the body politic cre­at­ing enmi­ty between neigh­bors and fam­i­lies alike.
In the United States over the last ⁷¹⁄₂ years the same type of pol­i­tics caused a total log-jam in the con­gresss to the detri­ment of the nation. It result­ed in the rise of a far right ide­o­log­i­cal lunatic and a clown­ish fas­cist as the stan­dard bear­ers for the Republican party.
Jamaicans know all too well the count­less loss of lives which occurred based on that style of pol­i­tics since we began our jour­ney of self-governance.

Damion Crawford Continues Anti-INDECOM Campaign

On more than one occa­sion I have found com­mon cause with Damion Crawford , not because we agree on some issues but because he has shown the capac­i­ty to un-teth­er him­self from the talk­ing points of par­ty and allowed him­self to think as an intel­li­gent human-being.
True to form as a result of his inde­pen­dent spir­it Damion Crawford fell out of favor with his par­ty. Like the American Republican Party , Jamaica’s People’s National Party insists on strict adher­ence to par­ty talk­ing-points. Any devi­a­tion is seen as wor­thy of expulsion .
In the United States Republicans who dared to work with President Obama or even as much as agree with a com­ment the pres­i­dent made were sum­mar­i­ly pri­maried and replaced with more hard right ideologues.
The stat­ed goal of repub­li­cans was to stri­dent­ly and blind­ly obstruct Obama’s agen­da which ulti­mate­ly would cause him to fail.
This after the new President was just elect­ed with a plu­ral­i­ty of the votes by the American peo­ple to exe­cute the agen­da he placed before them.
In the case of Jamaica an inde­pen­dent thinker like Crawford who dared depart from par­ty ortho­doxy it was career suicide.
Crawford was not allowed to con­test the St Andrew East Rural seat he had won for his par­ty the pre­vi­ous elec­tion cycle. Many peo­ple on the ground said Crawford was dumped because he refused to play the old cur­ry-goat style pol­i­tics and was more focused on edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties for young peo­ple in his constituency.
Crawford was replaced in East rur­al St Andrew by Imani Duncan Pryce the Daughter of 70’s hyper par­ti­san ide­o­logue and com­mu­nist sym­pa­thiz­er DK Duncan.
On February 25^th 2016 the seat went to Juilet Holness the 43 year-old wife of Jamaica’s new Prime Minister Andrew Holness.
I have no way of know­ing whether Damion Crawford would have retained the seat for his par­ty had he not been removed. However it has to at least be a sub­ject of thought for the par­ty big-wigs in light of the Labor Party’s sin­gle seat major­i­ty in the 63 seat Legislature.
That is of course if they allow them­selves the right to think.

Recently Damion Crawford tweet­ed out his thoughts on the denial of a job by the NSWMA to the son of Desmond McKenzie under whose min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lio the agency falls.

See also : WHEN GOING OVER AND BEYOND TO DO RIGHT BECOME A FUTURISTIC PATH TO WRONGDOING ….

“So are we say­ing a politi­cian son should not be able to work with gov­ern­ment even if he is qual­i­fied for the Job? #Rubbish,” Crawford began his series of tweets all accom­pa­nied by the hash­tag #FreelittleMckenzie. 
Naturally this kind of ratio­nal think­ing would nev­er go down well with sup­port­ers of his par­ty > Crawford has been brand­ed a trai­tor and worse as far as his par­ty is con­cerned ‚he has been labeled a clos­et Laborite.
The noise has got­ten so loud Crawford felt oblig­ed to respond to his detrac­tors using social media.
Here’s how Crawford respond­ed to his detractors.

Over the last 48 hrs I have observed with concern an effort by some comrades to “manufacture a beef” with me. It seem the new form of attack to those that refuse to participate in political opportunism is to label that individual a labourite. It is my opinion that Desmond Mckenzie’s son should not be disqualified from working at the NSWMA simply because he is the minister’s son. Indeed it is also my opinion that he should not be appointed to a position simply because he is the minister’s son either.

I have no problem with anyone disagreeing with my opinions it is their right to do so but understand that simply because you disagree does not suggest that my opinion would change. If however you have new information deemed by you to be necessary for consideration you may provide that information and I will gladly consider it and if necessary change my mind. However to this point i have no information that nepotism was involved so as far as i am concerned none was. Further i disagree with the position that ethics have anything to do with how something looks that’s optics instead in my opinion ethics only consideration is what is.

I see on a particular in a group titled Jamaicans for Truth some “social media warriors” claiming I should not be doing interviews with Emily Crooks, Cliff hughes nor Abka Fitz Henly as in their opinions these as “labourite journalist” I have and will continue to do interviews with any journalist that ask as long as i feel comfortable that the topic is not outside of my of capacity to comprehend and thus comment. I have no reservation in saying Abka is a friend of mine and a great KC alumnus, nor do I have any reservation in stating that I have had a good relationship with Emily crooks since Taylor Hall when we were both students at the University. I have no intention to malice journalist nor anyone for that matter on the simple basis that that are or are perceived to be JLP leaning. In fact my uncle in whom I am well pleased is a JLP senator and I am definitely not malicing him for his political leaning.

I have always advised political participants not to be a tool to be used by political parties but instead to be a builder that used politics as a tool to build your communities and your country. I pass that advice to the vocal few who seek to bully others who don’t share their opinions from the safety of their keyboards.

In closing for those insistent on labeling me a labourite ask yourself one simple question who is leaking all these things from PNP meetings to the media? It could not be me, because as they have often repeated and in some cases lamented I go to no meetings. Who is it that leaked PNP polls to Daryl Vaz, not me up to todays date I have not seen those polls. Who has engineered a transformation of the PNP into something Micheal Manley would not recognize,not me I have been a constant voice in the wilderness. So maybe just maybe those are the ppl you should be targeting for public ridicule.

If it walks like a duck , quacks like duck, maybe it is a duck. Remember part of the def­i­n­i­tion for polit­i­cal par­ty ?  It is much eas­i­er and prac­ti­cal for a group of peo­ple who have very sim­i­lar out­look on pol­i­cy to com­bine to gain pow­er so those poli­cies can be imple­ment­ed by a major­i­ty vote in the House, hmmm.
Since it has become clear even to sup­port­ers of his own polit­i­cal par­ty that com­mon sense and the abil­i­ty to be ratio­nal is syn­ony­mous with being a Laborite Damion Crawford must now eval­u­ate his posi­tion and deter­mine whether he wants to go down with a sink­ing ship out of blind loyalty.
Crawford’s com­mon-sense approach­es have been anti­thet­i­cal to his par­ty’s ide­o­log­i­cal stubbornness.
Maybe the time has come for Crawford to unshack­le him­self from ide­ol­o­gy and join oth­ers with whom he shares sim­i­lar ideas and a com­mon purpose.

In what amount to an extreme case of juvenile Editorial lunacy the Jamaica Gleaner’s Editorial page made a total mockery of rational thinking as it seeks to play politics where frankly it should be heaping praise.
The issue involve the Minister of local government Desmond McKenzie’s son applying for a job at the National Solid Waste Management Agency(NSWMA).

♦The edi­to­r­i­al stat­ed quote: It has emerged that Desmond McKenzie’s 35-year-old son, some­time in the recent past, and at his own voli­tion, applied for a vacant posi­tion at the NSWMA, was inter­viewed, and deter­mined suit­able for the post. “His expe­ri­ence would also do well for the posi­tion, so we offered him the job,” said Colonel Pryce.

Colonel Daniel Pryce, is the act­ing CEO of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA).
♦From all appear­ances the junior McKenzie applied for the post while the pre­vi­ous admin­is­tra­tion was in power.
♦The NSWMA con­clud­ed that the appli­cant, mis­ter McKenzie , based on his expe­ri­ence would do well in the posi­tion and as a result the posi­tion was offered to him.
♦Out of an abun­dance of cau­tion so as not to engage in any action which could be con­strued to be Nepotism, the Chief Executive offi­cer of NSAWA Colonel David Pryce sought approval from the Minister under whose port­fo­lio the NSWMA falls and who hap­pen to just be the father of the applicant.
♦Correctly and most refresh­ing­ly min­is­ter Desmond McKenzie gave instruc­tions that his son not be hired by the Agency.

The Gleaner argues that the NSWMA has a board appoint­ed by the min­is­ter, to which the exec­u­tive direc­tor reports. The min­is­ter estab­lish­es broad pol­i­cy, which is left to the board to refine and trans­mit to the man­age­ment and staff for imple­men­ta­tion. In day-to-day oper­a­tions, the buck ought to stop with the CEO.

That is exact­ly what the CEO David Pryce did.

Yet in a shock­ing turn­about the Editorial unwit­ting­ly went on quote: Colonel Pryce, out of what he believed to be “an abun­dance of cau­tion”, but which was tan­ta­mount to a weak abro­ga­tion of respon­si­bil­i­ty, advised nei­ther his chair­man nor the board about the prospec­tive hire, but the port­fo­lio min­is­ter. He sought approval three rungs up the chain of com­mand. But worse, Desmond McKenzie assumed that his role includ­ed involve­ment in mid-lev­el human-resource employ­ment mat­ters. “I gave imme­di­ate instruc­tions that the trans­ac­tion should be dis­con­tin­ued immediately,”.
It went on :“But what­ev­er his moti­va­tion, Mr McKenzie only suc­ceed­ed in impos­ing him­self in an area of gov­ern­ment in which he has no place, there­by set­ting a dan­ger­ous prece­dent from which, we hope, he is will­ing to retreat. At the same time, the mat­ter to which we refer demon­strat­ed both poor judge­ment and a lack of appre­ci­a­tion of func­tion­al author­i­ty on the part of Colonel Daniel Pryce, the act­ing CEO of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA), for which he deserves a severe rep­ri­mand from his board of gov­er­nors” .Editorial: Mr McKenzie, The HR Man

In an effort to appear less ridicu­lous­ly juve­nile the Editorial argues that Quote:  We believe that the deprived job seek­er, depend­ing on the state of the trans­ac­tion, may be enti­tled to legal relief for breach of con­tract, which he should pur­sue against the min­is­ter as well as Colonel Pryce and the board of the NSWMA.

This has got to be the most extreme exam­ple of Orwellian log­ic ever. The Minister in keep­ing with the theme of the new admin­is­tra­tion stat­ed inten­tions to eschew cor­rup­tion and have max­i­mum trans­paren­cy , went over and above to ensure there was no nepo­tism, not in actu­al­i­ty , Not in perception.
Not only should the Minister be com­mend­ed, the CEO of the NSWMA should be com­mend­ed for his vig­i­lance and lead­er­ship in inform­ing the Minister or any­one above him of the neg­a­tive optics of a poten­tial hire of the younger McKenzie could con­vey. Jamaica is a small coun­try it is almost assured that the CEO of the NSWMA knew McKenzie before he took over respon­si­bil­i­ty for the NSWMA. The CEO may have known the Minister before the min­is­ter was the Minister,
Whats wrong with the CEO of the Agency inform­ing the Minister that this may not look good?
What would be the reac­tion of the Editorial board had this hire materialized?
Is the Gleaner mad that cor­rec­tive steps were tak­en to ward off appear­ances of Nepotism which it would most assured­ly use to exco­ri­ate the new Administration?
The Gleaner Editorial went on “We hope that this is not the start of a pat­tern of oper­a­tional inter­ven­tion by Minister McKenzie into agen­cies with­in his port­fo­lio. Such behav­ior tends to go ter­ri­bly wrong. Discrimination, then, may be of a more sin­is­ter kind.”

Not only have the Editorial made the Author seem sil­ly and pathet­ic it made him/​her out to be a sooth­say­er who can see into the future. Forecasting future and poten­tial bad behavior.
The Gleaner sim­ply can­not wait for bad behav­ior it is mak­ing good behav­ior bad.
In the bib­li­cal book of Luke begin­ning in verse 37 a woman broke an alabaster box of pre­cious oint­ment and washed Jesus’ feet she also used her tears to wash his feet while using her hair to dry them.
The Pharisees in atten­dance were beside them­selves in anger at what they thought was a waste of a box of pre­cious oint­ment. Jesus chas­tised them and their nar­row argu­ments that the oint­ment could have been sold and the pro­ceeds giv­en to the poor. In response Jesus told them the poor would be here for all time but he would be gone soon.
I use this metaphor because as the Pharisees failed to see the wom­an’s sin­cer­i­ty and love for Christ so does the Gleaner’s Editorial fail to see the good of the actions of the CEO of the NSWMA and the Minister.
The Editorial con­firm my belief that in our quest to effect change we will some­time have to ignore the noise of even the peo­ple we aim to help.
Jamaica is no dif­fer­ent , entrenched polit­i­cal patri­o­tism and nepo­tism is a large part of every­day life. It has been a part of the land­scape for so long that many peo­ple are shocked that it is some­thing good.

Unfortunately for the Gleaner’s Editorial it too has lost it’s moral com­pass. Wrong is now right,attempts to avoid those wrongs are por­trayed as wrong, or in the Gleaner’s case, a poten­tial­ly futur­is­tic path to wrong. Yea I know it’s convoluted.….
You know we have lost our way when we are chastis­ing seri­ous attempts to do what’s right. As was in the Bible not much has changed with mankind despite the pass­ing of Millenniums humans remain hypocrites.

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz dou­bled down on his New York val­ues insult Wednesday, attack­ing Donald Trump and a string of “lib­er­al Democrats” for poli­cies and posi­tions that have been “ham­mer­ing” the state. Cruz had harsh words for Mayor de Blasio, Gov. Cuomo, Rep. Charles Rangel and even dis­graced pols Eliot Spitzer and Anthony Weiner in his solil­o­quy about all that is wrong with New York. Asked what he meant by “New York val­ues,” a phrase he coined months ago in an attack on Donald Trump, Cruz defined the term as val­ues held by lib­er­al politi­cians who reject char­ter schools, school choice and sup­port for fear­less police officers.

“Those are the val­ues, the val­ues of the New York lib­er­al politi­cians that have been ham­mer­ing the peo­ple of this great state,” Cruz said after a cam­paign event in the Bronx. Cruz sin­gled out de Blasio as the worst offend­er. “Every time there is a con­fronta­tion between crim­i­nals and cops he sides with the crim­i­nals, loot­ers and riot­ers instead of the police officers.”

Cruz said he was proud of cops who turned their backs on de Blasio at a police officer’s funer­al last year. “I cheered for those New York cops and peo­ple across America did,” Cruz said. Cruz also blast­ed de Blasio for try­ing to close char­ter schools in Harlem. “He is cap­tive to the union boss­es that con­trol him,” Cruz said. Cruz said Trump has sup­port­ed a num­ber of the lib­er­al politi­cians on his list, and shares the blame for their failed policies.

If you want to know what lib­er­al demo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues are fol­low Donald Trump’s check­book,” Cruz said. “Donald Trump has been fund­ing those lib­er­al demo­c­ra­t­ic politicians.”Earlier Cruz got the Bronx cheer Wednesday dur­ing a cam­paign stop from pro­test­ers upset about his con­tro­ver­sial immi­gra­tion pol­i­cy. The Cruz pres­i­den­tial cam­paign even took a page out of rival Trump’s book, remov­ing one demon­stra­tor from the Bronx event when the crit­i­cism got too loud. The heck­ler got the heave ho from Sabrosura restau­rant on Westchester Avenue after shout­ing that Cruz had no busi­ness in the Bronx. “You’re run­ning on an anti-immi­grant plat­form, and you’re speak­ing in the Bronx,” the demon­stra­tor said. “You should not be here.”

The demon­stra­tor was cheered like a Yankee out­field­er by fel­low pro­test­ers after Republican par­ty staffers removed him from the restau­rant. Cruz was in the Bronx cam­paign­ing ahead of New York’s April 19 pri­ma­ry. Cruz insult­ed the city when he derid­ed “New York val­ues” in an attack on Trump.

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. slammed Cruz Wednesday as a hyp­ocrite — just hours before Cruz was set to meet with the bor­ough president’s father in the Bronx. “Ted Cruz is a hyp­ocrite. He not only offend­ed New Yorkers, he offend­ed Bronxites, and now he’s here today in New York and in the Bronx look­ing for mon­ey and votes,” Diaz said.“We in the Bronx know how offen­sive he’s been. We know the truth about our bor­ough.” Cruz, a Texas Republican, drew the ire of New York Democrats after bash­ing the Bronx at an event in 2014. “I under­stand that Manhattan is very con­cerned with their secu­ri­ty with the Bronx,” Cruz said “But it’s a lit­tle bit dif­fer­ent on 2,000 miles of the Rio Grande.” Diaz said Cruz is out of line.

“Everything good we’ve done, we’ve done it with New York val­ues. Our val­ues are strong in New York and for him to come here look­ing for votes and com­ing for mon­ey is at the high­est lev­els of hypocrisy,” Diaz said dur­ing a press con­fer­ence of Latino law­mak­ers from the Bronx in sup­port of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-run­ner. “Hopefully he’ll learn a les­son about how wrong his words are.” Cruz is count­ing on sup­port from New York evan­gel­i­cals, which is why he met with the bor­ough president’s father, Ruben Diaz Sr., a state sen­a­tor who is also a con­ser­v­a­tive min­is­ter. Ted Cruz stands by ‘New York val­ues’ insult as he slams lib­er­al Democrats includ­ing Mayor de Blasio after Bronx cam­paign stop