Vocal team mem­bers of the People’s National Party’s (PNP) Council of Spokespersons yes­ter­day cho­rused con­cerns about the “infor­ma­tion gap” mar­ring governance.

“It is clear that we are going to have a lot of work to do,” declared Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller as she addressed jour­nal­ists at the PNP’s Old Hope Road, St Andrew, head­quar­ters after the coun­cil’s first meet­ing yes­ter­day. “We will be keep­ing the Government on its toes,” assert­ed Simpson Miller as Opposition Spokesman on Finance Dr Peter Phillips rapped the Government for keep­ing qui­et on crit­i­cal mat­ters since tak­ing office a lit­tle over a month ago. Phillips sug­gest­ed yes­ter­day that lack of trans­paren­cy on the part of the Government was hav­ing a crip­pling effect on pub­lic con­fi­dence. Simpson Miller and Phillips were accom­pa­nied by sev­er­al mem­bers of the 22-strong coun­cil. The oppo­si­tion leader said mem­bers assigned to port­fo­lios have been man­dat­ed to estab­lish task forces in each area. But the focus was cen­tred on claims the Holness admin­is­tra­tion had already fall­en down on the job.

Focus On Drought

Simpson Miller urged the Government to imme­di­ate­ly focus on drought-strick­en areas, a sen­ti­ment that was echoed by Ian Hayles, the new spokesman on water.

Phillips zoomed in on what he described as mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions from Finance Minister Audley Shaw. He high­light­ed con­cerns a per­cep­tion that the Government was ill-pre­pared to car­ry out its man­date. He stressed that Shaw, as a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter, must be cir­cum­spect in lan­guage and trans­par­ent and accu­rate in action. “The uncer­tain­ty and fail­ure to com­mu­ni­cate will not be good for pub­lic con­fi­dence,” he warned. Phillips stressed that the coun­cil was deter­mined that the gains made under the PNP’s watch would not be sac­ri­ficed. He said there were signs of a slow­down of eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty, evi­dent in a slight upward move­ment in inter­est rates, reflect­ing some uncer­tain­ty and rip­ples in the retail sec­tor. Peter Bunting, the for­mer nation­al secu­ri­ty min­is­ter, returned to his pet peeve — con­cerns about a spike in mur­ders that he said, appeared to have bro­ken a four-month trend.

He said he expect­ed the Government to pro­vide addi­tion­al resources for crime-fight­ing and urged care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion about its plans to pur­chase sec­ond-hand vehi­cles for the police. “Proceed very care­ful­ly, as this may be short-term val­ue, as police vehi­cles are used exten­sive­ly,” stressed Bunting. He also called for National Security Minister Robert Montague, his suc­ces­sor in the post, to dis­cour­age the politi­ciz­ing of crime-fight­ing. Story orig­i­nat­ed here: PNP Raps Gov’t For Failure To Communicate

The United States is a country of 308 million people, Blacks are reported to be around 12% of the general population, That’s somewhere between 36 and 37 million people. Black Americans were projected to spend approximately 1.1 and 1.5 trillion dollars on goods and services for the year 2015 . Yet estimates projected the bulk of that money would be spent in businesses not owned or operated by other Blacks. In fact the dollar circulates numerous times in the white community. In the Hispanic community the group nearest to Blacks in terms of the dollar circulation the dollar circulates eight (8) times and improving.
In the Black community it circulates less than one time (0). That is a direct sign that we do not own business and we do not support the few black businesses which do exist.

There is a gen­er­al feel­ing in some quar­ters that many of our peo­ple are not inter­est­ed in their own lives. Other crit­ics sug­gest too many of us are com­fort­able in our medi­oc­rity , and to some degree our con­di­tions of depen­dence and a sense of com­fort­a­bil­i­ty may tran­scend Geography as it relates to our people.
There is a cer­tain sense that some of us have no desire to increase our cir­cum­stances beyond the point where we are per­pet­u­al­ly scratch­ing in the dust to main­tain our survival.

After unprece­dent­ed turns at the helm of gov­ern­ment in Jamaica the People’s National Party (PNP) was final­ly vot­ed out of office on the 25^th of February, replaced with the Jamaica labor Party(JLP).
The Island reg­is­tered dra­mat­ic changes in the stan­dard of liv­ing since the 1960’s, Unfortunately for the peo­ple their stan­dard of liv­ing has­n’t changed for the bet­ter . The great­est peri­od of pros­per­i­ty was record­ed under the (JLP’s) Leadership of Donald Sangster who died after a brief stint in office and was suc­ceed­ed by High Lawson Shearer.
In 1972 under a bom­bard­ment of hype which con­vinced the Jamaican peo­ple their lives were in bad shape and they need­ed to change course, the Socialist (PNP) was elect­ed in a land­slide and Michael Manley became prime Minister. That 1972 vote effec­tive­ly changed Jamaica in a way that it has not recov­ered from. By 1980 the vot­ers were so dis­il­lu­sioned with Manley and the state of our coun­try that the PNP was boot­ed from office in a 51 – 9 route in the then 60 seat legislature.
The JLP Edward Seaga took the reins and skill­ful­ly turned the econ­o­my around . Many Jamaicans now talk about the 80’s with glazed eyes , hop­ing there could be a return to those days of low crime , low food prices and jobs. Under Edward Seaga a sense of eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty returned and once again Jamaicans were comfortable.
By 1988 they were once again in a flir­ta­tious mood , utter­ly, com­plete­ly and reck­less­ly dis­re­gard­ing the tragedy of the 70’s they returned Manley to power.

Manley did not serve out that term , ill-health forced him to turn over pow­er to his deputy Percival James Patterson. Patterson was to become the longest serv­ing Prime Minister in our young Nation’s his­to­ry. The PNP would remain in office for an unprece­dent­ed ¹⁴¹⁄₂ years between Patterson and Portia Simpson Miller.
Patterson’s long tenure was not made pos­si­ble by his good han­dling of the econ­o­my, low crime sta­tis­tics or any oth­er indi­ca­tor, . Conversely peo­ple just gave up on Jamaica , a sense of apa­thy set in. Poverty, decay , and a sense of malaise became the new normal.
It can rea­son­ably be argued that it was under Patterson that Jamaica took a final turn for the worse and has nev­er recovered.

In 2007 Bruce Golding of the JLP won a slim major­i­ty over the PNP’s Portia Simpson Miller. Golding steered the econ­o­my skill­ful away from the brink. He did it with­out an agree­ment with the International Monetary Fund. A series of seem­ing­ly periph­er­al issues eject­ed Bruce Golding from pow­er and by December 29^th 2011 the PNP was back in pow­er. The United States demand­ed that under­world fig­ure Christopher (dud­dus) Coke be extra­dit­ed to the United States to stand tri­al and a British inter­view of Golding in which he said no gays would ever be in his cab­i­net result­ed in Golding’s res­ig­na­tion from office.

It did not take long for the PNP led admin­is­tra­tion to be back on it’s knees beg­ging the IMF for an agree­ment . The admin­is­tra­tion secured an IMF deal yes, but meet­ing IMF tar­gets became the new met­ric of the Government’s suc­cess. There was no met­ric which involved growth and devel­op­ment. Passing IMF tests was the high water mark> This had dis­as­trous con­se­quences for work­ers who had to live through wage freezes for the much of the PNP’s term while con­tend­ing with mas­sive price increas­es and high infla­tion. This forced much of the small mid­dle class fur­ther and fur­ther into poverty.
The wage freezes were con­ve­nient­ly lift­ed as soon as it start­ed get­ting close to elec­tion time in 2016.
No one ques­tioned why the very Fund which insist­ed on wage freezes for years was sud­den­ly on board with free­ing the freeze on work­ers salaries.

The PNP admin­is­tra­tion became an IMF dar­ling , why not , whats not to like? The International Monetary Fund is in fact in busi­ness to make mon­ey, the fund does so by extract­ing mas­sive inter­ests on it’s loans from small debtor nations while forc­ing debtor states to adhere to crip­pling poli­cies which brings much pain to their pop­u­la­tions. In the end this is under­stand­able they are in the busi­ness of mak­ing mon­ey I am cool with that .
What may have elud­ed much of the Jamaican peo­ple are the con­di­tions under which Golding was forced from office and how soon after the PNP won the elec­tions of 2011 the new Administration was back beg­ging for a deal.

The Labor par­ty was the par­ty of eco­nom­ic growth, the par­ty of the pri­vate sec­tor, the par­ty of education.….…if these prin­ci­ples are adhered to in small­er debtor nations who would the IMF loan mon­ey to?
If that does­n’t get you think­ing noth­ing will.
Having spent so much time in charge of the coun­try’s affairs the PNP has changed the entire eco­nom­ic, struc­tur­al and moral par­a­digm of the Island and its not for the bet­ter. People no longer aspire to self employ­ment and own­ing their own busi­ness­es as much. Being sup­port­ed by Government and ben­e­fit­ing from some regres­sive gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy are what Jamaicans aspire to nowa­days and these are they who want to walk the straight and narrow.
The once vibrant pri­vate sec­tor which ruled in the 60’s has long been replaced by a small cadre of lack­eys loy­al to the PNP but which is not pro­vid­ing any real jobs for Jamaicans.

Most of the nation’s fac­to­ries and its man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor has long moved to Trinidad and oth­er CARICOM states, many sim­ply closed their doors . Years and years of back­ward social­ist based poli­cies have made it impos­si­ble for com­pa­nies to oper­ate in Jamaica’s cor­rupt, and hos­tile busi­ness envi­ron­ment. Jamaican gov­ern­ment bureau­cra­cy changes on whims, pol­i­cy posi­tions are not laws they change on the whim of min­is­ters of Government rather that be root­ed in law.
In that envi­ron­ment it is no won­der there is a whole gen­er­a­tion which has no real con­cept how a mar­ket econ­o­my works out­side the con­fus­ing, con­vo­lut­ed sys­tem they see play out each day.
The old dinosaurs are quite com­fort­able being decep­tive, after all many of them have grown fat on false indoc­tri­na­tion and manip­u­la­tion of the youth .
In that envi­ron­ment it will be dif­fi­cult to con­vince them that this new path of account­abil­i­ty and tax cuts is the cor­rect path.
For too long they have sucked the sour milk they can­not appre­ci­ate the taste of fresh milk and to some degree it may give many of them the runs. Look for those who grew fat suck­ing the teats for the sour milk to keep com­ing out claim­ing that fresh milk is bad for you.
It’s your call , you vot­ed for fresh milk , now sup­port your gov­ern­ment. Yes hold the Government account­able but do not allow them to con­vince you to go back.

The 200,000-strong Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) Alliance says Finance Minister Audley Shaw should “come clean” and apol­o­gise for giv­ing the coun­try the impres­sion he was not aware the mon­ey col­lect­ed from a spe­cial tax on fuel was placed in the Consolidated Fund instead of being set aside in a spe­cial fund.

Yesterday’s Sunday Gleaner report­ed from Hansard — the offi­cial ver­ba­tim records of Parliament — that Shaw was last year giv­en infor­ma­tion on what was being done with the mon­ey the Andrew Holness admin­is­tra­tion sub­se­quent­ly promised would be used to help finance an income tax break for Jamaicans earn­ing $1.5 mil­lion or less. Donovan Wignal, pres­i­dent of the alliance, said he would not go as far as to say Shaw was mis­lead­ing the coun­try last week when he made the rev­e­la­tions that the mon­ey had been spent or oth­er­wise bud­get­ed. He agreed, how­ev­er, that Shaw should not have been sur­prised giv­en the update he received in Parliament last September. “There is some amount of dam­age con­trol that needs to be done now,” Wignal toldThe Gleaner. “What the peo­ple are look­ing for is hon­esty. Do not come with any excus­es. (But) I would­n’t come out and say the coun­try was being misled.”

He added: “At the end of the day, they (JLP) con­sult­ed with their con­sul­tants. They (were) not in pow­er, but of course they would have been privy to a lot of the dis­cus­sions that would have tak­en place. He (Shaw) should come clean. Shaw should come and pro­vide a ful­some expla­na­tion as to what he meant when he said what he said based on the fact Hansard has proven that he knew some­thing con­trary to what he announced.”

GARNER RESPECT

The MSME Alliance head said Shaw’s com­ing pub­lic to speak to the issue would “gar­ner some amount of respect”. “Do the big man thing. Do the ‘Man a Yard’ (thing) and say ‘I mis­spoke’.” Confronted with Shaw’s claims, for­mer Finance Minister Dr Peter Phillips had rub­bished them as “red her­rings”, argu­ing that the sit­u­a­tion high­light­ed the “imprac­ti­cal­i­ty” of the tax plan. Phillips told The Gleaner that, up to when he left office last month, leg­is­la­tion was not com­plet­ed for the estab­lish­ment of the spe­cial fund, the Energy Stabilisation Fund. He also said approx­i­mate­ly $3 bil­lion from the spe­cial con­sump­tion tax col­lect­ed on fuel was used to finance an insur­ance pro­gramme for oil last July. The Holness admin­is­tra­tion had hoped to get $9.5 bil­lion from the gas tax to fund the income tax pol­i­cy. The Office of the Prime Minister has indi­cat­ed that the issue will be “addressed in the pre­sen­ta­tion of the Budget” lat­er this month.  http://​jamaica​glean​er​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​l​e​a​d​-​s​t​o​r​i​e​s​/​2​0​1​6​0​4​0​4​/​2​0​0​0​0​0​-​s​t​r​o​n​g​-​b​u​s​i​n​e​s​s​-​g​r​o​u​p​-​w​a​n​t​s​-​s​h​a​w​-​c​o​m​e​-​c​l​ean200,000-Strong Business Group Wants Shaw To ‘Come Clean’

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) – The Trinidad and Tobago Government says it had pre­vent­ed 12 Jamaicans from enter­ing the island late last month because they were “deemed like­ly to become charges on pub­lic funds”. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a state­ment said that Foreign and Caricom Affairs Minister Dennis Moses met with Jamaica’s High Commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago, David Prendergast on Tuesday to dis­cuss the issue.
“All relat­ed issues were dis­cussed in an open, frank and cour­te­ous fash­ion befit­ting the strong rela­tion­ship between both coun­tries,” the state­ment noted.

Recently the Minister of Justice Delroy Chuck immediately upon taking office suggested rather stridently that cases on the Circuit court docket not decided after five years be tossed from the docket.

As a for­mer law-enforce­ment offi­cer who under­stand some of the cir­cum­stances which some­times con­tribute to these delays, includ­ing defense maneu­ver­ing, I was shocked that the Minister would ven­ture to sug­gest this. To sug­gest dis­card­ing cas­es on the cri­te­ria of time opens up the process to more manip­u­la­tion and abuse by defense attor­neys while fur­ther vic­tim­iz­ing the fam­i­lies and vic­tims of crime.
Clearly the min­is­ter did not think through the con­se­quences of his suggestion/​order before he opened his mouth or he sim­ply does not care about vic­tims of heinous crimes.

IS DELROY CHUCK KING?

I was moved to respond to the min­is­ter’s posi­tion in an arti­cle I wrote on the sub­ject. It is inter­est­ing also that the Director of Public Prosecution is now push­ing back on this sug­ges­tion as well.
Now there needs to be sig­nif­i­cant changes in the way seri­ous cas­es are approached, least among which is expe­di­en­cy of dis­po­si­tion. However it can­not be approached by way of a fiat on the part of a sin­gle minister.
The crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem in Jamaica is in seri­ous cri­sis that has to be con­sid­ered when we con­sid­er how we approach the dis­po­si­tion of seri­ous cases.
It must be the last option , if at all that we con­sid­er allow­ing mur­der­ers and oth­er seri­ous felons to walk free sim­ply because the sys­tem is inca­pable of dis­pens­ing jus­tice or worse, because a crim­i­nal cod­dling politi­cian say so.

Nearly a quar­ter of the more than 500 cas­es before the Home Circuit Court could be tossed out if a call by Justice Minister Delroy Chuck for judges to dis­miss crim­i­nal cas­es that have been in the sys­tem for a min­i­mum of five years is heed­ed. There were 522 cas­es on the court list at the start of the Hilary term in January, and, accord­ing to Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewellyn, 127 of them are five years or old­er — all mur­der cases.

Llewellyn, who was speak­ing at the start of the Easter term yes­ter­day, said 96 of these cas­es are down for tri­al dur­ing this term and that her office is ready to pro­ceed with 51. Her dis­clo­sure comes days after Chuck called for judges to dis­miss cas­es that have been before the courts for five years or more by the end of this year.

The min­is­ter argued that the cas­es should be dis­missed unless there are rea­son­able grounds to con­tin­ue with the pros­e­cu­tion, sug­gest­ing that it was unfair for an accused per­son to go to court for five years hop­ing to prove his inno­cence. It was one of sev­er­al mea­sures that are aimed at reduc­ing the huge back­log of cas­es that have swamped the judi­cial system.

ABSOLUTE RULE

According to Llewellyn, 526 cas­es are on the Circuit Court list for this Easter term. That num­ber includes the 504 cas­es that were rolled over from the pre­vi­ous term, 328 of which were for mur­der. However, while acknowl­edg­ing the need to clear the back­log sti­fling the judi­cial sys­tem, Llewellyn warned of the dan­gers of imple­ment­ing an “absolute rule” that cas­es be dis­missed after a min­i­mum of five years before the court. “If you are going to have a five-year lim­it, the sys­tem would be open to abuse, manoeu­vring, and con­trivance, where one side could seek to play musi­cal chairs with the sys­tem,” she warned.

Citing as an exam­ple an accused per­son who has been charged with mur­der and released on bail, she ques­tioned: “He is held after three years [on the run]. Let’s say it takes anoth­er two years to round up the wit­ness­es, are you say­ing he should not be tried again?” Noting that the cir­cum­stances of a pet­ty ses­sion case are dif­fer­ent from those of a mur­der case, the DPP cau­tioned that each case must be assessed on its own mer­it. Tread Cautiously With Five-Year Cases, Warns DPP

After being in bondage for centuries Ramesses the Pharaoh released the children of Israel into the hands of the Prophet Moses. Biblical accounts of the event said that the Lord God intended for the former slaves a life of prosperity in the Land of Canaan. The children of Israel were not deserving of this act of kindness from God they had not earned it. But through God’s abounding grace and love they were liberated.

Nevertheless it did not take long for them to start show­ing just how ungrate­ful they could be. Despite the cen­turies of back-break­ing servi­tude to which they were sub­ject­ed they still lament­ed that at least they had meat. This after the Lord pro­vid­ed heav­en­ly man­ner to sus­tain them for the trip to their new home.
The dis­tance from Egypt to the land of Canaan was a mere eleven days journey.
Despite this the ungrate­ful Israelites rebelled against Moses com­plain­ing about the lack of meat , com­plain­ing about the lack of water, com­plain­ing about the lack of crea­ture comforts.
The Bible accounts that in exas­per­a­tion and human anger Moses struck the rock and said “drink ye hea­thens” water gushed from the rock and they drank to their hearts con­tent after which they resumed com­plain­ing. They were told not to store up the man­ner because the same God who pro­vid­ed for them today is faith­ful and mind­ful to pro­vide for them tomorrow .
They did not trust God to be faith­ful so they stored up the man­na and God ren­dered it ined­i­ble , the man­na became mag­got infested.
The chil­dren of Israel wan­dered around in the desert for 40 years with­out set­ting foot in the land of Canaan. According to scrip­ture not a sin­gle per­son who left Egypt set foot into the promise land.
A jour­ney which ought to have tak­en a mere eleven days end­ed up in a 40 year night­mare like a dog chas­ing it’s own tail.
Such are the con­se­quences of dis­obe­di­ence and rebellion.

A STRIKING PARALLEL

Over the last 44 years the People’s National Party (PNP) has held office for a record 32 to the Jamaica Labor Party’s (12) twelve. The JLP was final­ly returned to office in a record tight elec­tion on February 25^th .
The new admin­is­tra­tion cam­paigned on a slo­gan of ” from pover­ty to pros­per­i­ty” , on that slo­gan it won a one seat major­i­ty in the 63 seat leg­is­la­ture which gives it the con­sti­tu­tion­al right to form the Government which it did.
The one seat major­i­ty is the slimmest ever in Jamaica’s polit­i­cal his­to­ry. According to the Electoral office the vot­er turnout was the low­est it has ever been .
The low vot­er turnout may be attrib­uted to vot­er apa­thy , but vot­er apa­thy is a wide umbrel­la which may not ful­ly explain why huge chunks of the elec­torate sat on their hands.
The many scan­dals and cor­rup­tions asso­ci­at­ed with the PNP , the refusal to account or even speak to the media and final­ly refus­ing to engage in a pre-elec­tion debate with the oppo­si­tion is a more real­is­tic rea­son for the par­ty’s loss.

The one seat major­i­ty of the JLP should nev­er be con­fused with any sug­ges­tion of a lack of enthu­si­asm for the labor party.
The Party won a deci­sive 11 seats with­out los­ing a sin­gle seat it pre­vi­ous­ly held. That is no easy feat in a Jamaica which has prob­a­bly twelve seats for the PNP which are nev­er in play. Those seats are called gar­ri­son seats. This is the process where polit­i­cal patron­age cre­ate mono­lith­ic vot­ing. The JLP also has a cou­ple but noth­ing close to what the PNP possesses.

The PNP cam­paigned on the slo­gan “turn up the progress” it lost, and it lost big. The JLP’s one seat major­i­ty is best viewed from where the par­ty climbed to gain the one seat majority.
Voters had a chance to turn up the progress or opt to move from pover­ty to pros­per­i­ty , they chose the latter.
The new admin­is­tra­tion has been in office less than a month yet the Israelites who sup­port the PNP are com­plain­ing that the Government is not ful­fill­ing it’s promise of remov­ing income tax for peo­ple earn­ing a annu­al salary of under 1.5 mil­lion dollars.
The min­is­ter of finance Audley Shaw announced that the monies ear­marked by his par­ty to pay for the tax elim­i­na­tion was non-existent.
Billions of dol­lars is report­ed to have sim­ply dis­s­a­peared. The then min­is­ter of Finance Peter Phillips is report­ed to have said the bil­lions was spent on something.

How can a min­is­ter whose respon­si­bil­i­ty it is to account for every pen­ny of tax­pay­ers mon­ey say mon­eys were spent with­out say­ing how bil­lions of dol­lars could have dis­s­a­peared in the few days between when his par­ty lost the elec­tions and the new admin­is­tra­tion took office?
Why is there no top lev­el audit and Phillips made to account ?
Strikingly with all of the theft , cor­rup­tion and scan­dals asso­ci­at­ed with the cor­rupt PNP admin­is­tra­tion the hyp­ocrite Israelites have now tak­en to social media talk­ing about watch­ing the new administration.

Where were these hea­thens dur­ing FINSAC, Cuban light bulb scan­dal, OUTAMENI, the Clarendon mar­ket scan­dal , the litany of oth­er thefts and dis­ap­pear­ance of pub­lic funds?
Now these hea­thens want to ques­tion the truth the min­is­ter tells about the dis­ap­pear­ance of bil­lions but have no con­dem­na­tion for those who are respon­si­ble for it’s disappearance.
Even if the monies were used on projects which I do not believe they were, the admin­is­tra­tion just vot­ed out of office had no busi­ness spend­ing those sums after being defeat­ed at the polls.
People who sup­port the PNP does not give a rat’s ass about the direc­tion or sol­ven­cy of the coun­try as long as they can indi­vid­u­al­ly ben­e­fit when their par­ty con­trols things.
These hea­thens mil­i­tate and bet against our coun­try for par­ty sake.
I some­times wish we could split the coun­try into two parts and build a wall , yes I said it , let them them have the kind of coun­try they want and oth­ers have the coun­try we want. In a mat­ter of time they would be bor­row­ing under the wall and try­ing to scale it to flee the disaster.
We are not going to roll over any more and allow anoth­er 32 years of destruc­tion, so all Israelites bet­ter get used to a JLP admin­is­tra­tion in Jamaica house.
Our coun­try deserves a shot, tired failed poli­cies and thiev­ery has come to an end.

At the start of the Republican primary campaign to select a nominee to wrest back the executive branch for their party I told my wife that this would be a rather unusual campaign .
I told her that in a normal situation Ohio’s Governor John Kasich would probably be the last candidate standing. In fact American voters has shown a preference to electing Governors over Senators. But I got the feeling this 2016 season would be anything but a normal cycle.
This does not mean that John Kasich is a good candidate he is just the least vile of a bunch of rotten bunch.
I was mindful of the fact that after seven plus years of FOX and talk radio anti-Obama invective there was a toxic environment out in the heartland which was ready to explode.
President Obama correctly characterized it by saying Republicans parched the earth Trump simply struck the match.

I began hand­i­cap­ping the field this way.
(1) Scott Walker the Republican Governor of Wisconsin was pret­ty good at win­ning elec­tions at home despite wag­ing open war­fare on Unions in favor of the KOCH brothers.

However after being tricked into believ­ing he was speak­ing to one of the Kock broth­ers by two radio pranksters after he won the Governorship , it appeared this guy may have had too much stuff on him to be elect­ed President.
He was the first to drop out of the race.

(2) Former ® Arkansas Governor and Baptist preach­er Mike Huckabee who ran for the nom­i­na­tion before become becom­ing a FOX com­men­ta­tor is only inter­est­ed in keep­ing his name in the husking.

(3) Bobby Jindal Louisiana Governor’s response to President Obama’s state of the Union was wide­ly panned by all . In fact USA Today list­ed Jindal’s appear­ance as one of the five poor­est State of the Union respons­es seen in recent years.
Jindal was seen as not ready for prime-time. Additionally, the Governor’s poor poll num­bers at home make him a less than attrac­tive candidate.

(4) Rick Santorum Former Republican PA US Senator and peren­ni­al jour­ney­man pres­i­den­tial can­di­date did not have any­thing that would have made a dif­fer­ence from the oth­er times he was a can­di­date. Santorum the sweater-vest can­di­date can­di­date seem to rel­ish the process of run­ning to keep his name in the spot­light as well.

(5) Rick Perry Former ® Texas Governor did not bring any­thing new which would have negat­ed the giant “Oops” which char­ac­ter­ized his pre­vi­ous pres­i­den­tial bid.
It appeared top Republican donors were not going to throw much good mon­ey at a bad can­di­date . Rick’s pres­i­den­tial ambi­tions evap­o­rat­ed rather quick­ly as well.
Perry like sev­er­al oth­er can­di­dates may have been embold­ened to run again know­ing they would not have to face Obama.

(6) Carly Fiorina for­mer tech­nol­o­gy busi­ness exec­u­tive, nev­er had a chance as far as I’m con­cerned . Fiorina a for­mer Hewlett Packard CEO was ulti­mate­ly forced to resign from the com­pa­ny amidst a ques­tion­able merg­er she under­took between HP and Compaq. Fiorina lat­er ran a ill-fat­ed Senate bid in her home state of California against Democratic pow­er­house Dianne Fienstien which she lost.

(7) Jeb Bush the Former ®Florida Governor was run­ning against a name head-wind , there was a gen­er­al sense that the nation had had it’s fill of the Bushes. In fact Jeb’s own moth­er said the nation should look to anoth­er fam­i­ly for peo­ple to run for President or some­thing to that effect. Jeb raised tons of mon­ey and launched his cam­paign using his first name and stat­ing he was his own man.
In the end no amount of mon­ey or run­ning from his fam­i­ly name could save Jeb Bush . Primary vot­ers were clear­ly in no mood for anoth­er Bush and Donald Trump did the rest by defin­ing Jeb as low energy.
Jeb would lat­er embrace his fam­i­ly name by bring­ing his broth­er , for­mer President George W Bush to stump for him , as well as his moth­er the matron­ly Barbara Bush. Trump again ridiculed Jeb laugh­ing that he brought out his mom­my to defend him. Jeb even­tu­al­ly dropped out.

(8) George Pataki the for­mer new York Republican Governor may have decid­ed to take a long-shot grab at the rung . For all intents and pur­pos­es Pataki’s polit­i­cal ship had long sailed , in fact hard­ly any­one remem­bered who George Pataki includ­ing in his home state of New York. But with Barack Obama dis­qual­i­fied by term lim­its , oh why the hell not?
With a fiz­zle pop, pop Pataki’s cam­paign end­ed before it began.

(9) Ben Carson the renowned pedi­atric brain sur­geon’s cam­paign was based on the ridicu­lous things he said about President Barack Obama the nations first black pres­i­dent. Carson likened the President’s sig­na­ture Affordable Care Act to slav­ery. He con­tin­ued to make out­landish state­ments about the pres­i­dent which endeared him to the most vile ele­ments of the polit­i­cal right .
In the end Carson suc­ceed­ed in estab­lish­ing that though a brain sur­geon he was not very smart , he’s out and now he may have all the time he needs to sleep and pon­der the idio­cy of his state­ments about the president.

(10) Chris Christie the ram­bunc­tious New Jersey Governor said in 2012 he was not ready to run for pres­i­dent . At the time there was much hype sur­round­ing his sup­posed ris­ing star in the GOP. I was nev­er one who thought that Christie’s style of lead­er­ship was going to fly on the nation­al lev­el. He was far too loud , abra­sive, dis­mis­sive, and dis­re­spect­ful to be President. Embracing President Obama after the President vis­it­ed his state after the hur­ri­cane in 2012 may have been the death-knell for his chances.

With the bridge gate scan­dal and the loud obnox­ious Donald Trump in the pack this cycle it was clear that Christie was not going to out Trump Trump.
before long Christie was a Trump cheer-leader.

(11) Like his father Ron Paul the for­mer Texas con­gress­man ‚Kentucky Senator Rand Paul decid­ed to throw his hat into the crowd­ed GOP ring . But in a year when the loud mouth brava­do of the likes of Cruz, Christie, and Trump are dri­ving the debate about who can kill more peo­ple by car­pet-bomb­ing or tor­tur­ing them the mild man­nered Kentucky US Senator’s mes­sage of non-inter­ven­tion had no res­o­nance and he too was out.

(12) South Carolina ® Senator Lindsay Graham anoth­er also ran also seem to lose sleep at night think­ing about how to be pres­i­dent of the United States . They say nev­er say nev­er but the Senator with the deep south­ern drawl would prob­a­bly be bet­ter served if he enjoy being one of a very spe­cial club , the US Senate.
I hard­ly believe Lindsay Graham is going to be President of the United States and nei­ther does Republican Primary voters .

(13) Former Virginia ® Governor Jim Gilmore not a bad Governor but no one knew who he was and with a crack and a fiz­zle out went the Governor’s chance of becom­ing President.

(14) Marco Rubio ® Florida of all of the can­di­dates for President I abhorred him the most. The son of Cuban immi­grants he turned his backs on immi­grants plac­ing repub­li­can far right xeno­pho­bic rhetoric over peo­ple. Rubio once said “Barack Obama has no class” in ref­er­ence to the pres­i­dent of the United States. President Obama was twice elect­ed and has had a scan­dal free admin­is­tra­tion. The first fam­i­ly has been an exer­cise in class and grace.
Additionally Rubio was dis­re­spect­ful, arro­gant, and cocky to say the least. He referred to the pres­i­dent by his name only with­out men­tion­ing that he is the pres­i­dent of the United States. This I though was a clear attempt to de-legit­imize the duly twice elect­ed pres­i­dent of the United States of America.
I could tol­er­ate that from a white Anglo-Saxon, they start­ed that , I expect noth­ing less from them, but I would not tol­er­ate it from a Cuban who want­ed to pass him­self as a white Anglo-Saxon.
In the end the peo­ple of the great state of Florida agreed with me Rubio could­n’t even win Florida.

(15) John Kasich ® Governor of Ohio vet­er­an GOP politi­cian a sit­ting Governor of a major indus­tri­al state , a swing state. In a year when vot­ers are not con­sumed with Trumps fas­cism Kasich would be a good bet for nom­i­nee of his par­ty. He is not a ide­o­logue hes is prob­a­bly the best of the sor­ry lot.
John Kasich has no viable path to secur­ing the req­ui­site del­e­gates to win the repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion , but he sol­diers on nonethe­less, hop­ing that through some stroke of mir­a­cle he will pre­vail in a bro­kered convention.
That is as like­ly to hap­pen as I am like­ly to win the lot­to (I nev­er buy a tick­et) Of the three remain­ing GOP can­di­dates Kasich has the least num­ber of delegates.

(16) Ted Cruz ® Texas , is a first term sen­a­tor born in Canada to a Cuban father and he claims a Welsh moth­er, Cruz was a Canadian cit­i­zen util two yeras ago when he real­ized he want­ed to run for pres­i­dent and he could­n’t do so while being a Canadian cit­i­zen. Then and only then did Cruz denounce his Canadian citizenship.
Does any­one recall the stink sur­round­ing Barack Obama’s cit­i­zen­ship? Obama was born in Hawaii which is the United States. The Cuban Canadian Ted Cruz who pass­es him­self as a white south­ern neo­con does not men­tion that he should not be run­ning for pres­i­dent, and nei­ther does the oth­er lying republicans.
In the sen­ate where Ted Cruz is one of one hun­dred peo­ple he is hat­ed by his peers, even though this guy is still in the race it’s dif­fi­cult to envis­age enough peo­ple hold­ing their noses and vot­ing for this pre­ten­tious self absorbed twit.

(17) Donald Trump the self described New York bil­lion­aire devel­op­er and real­i­ty Television star has been the lead­ing GOP can­di­date from the start of the 2016 cycle , recent events seemed to have slowed the jug­ger­naut known as the Trump Campaign a bit .
The Candidate is run­ning to make America great again a poor­ly dis­guised dog-whis­tle which real­ly means, make America white again.
His cam­paign has been xeno­pho­bic, Islama-pho­bic- nar­cis­sis­tic, misog­y­nis­tic, racist, and every­thing in between .
Nevertheless he has found favor with a seg­ment of the GOP which find com­mon cause with his mes­sage of divi­sive­ness and enmity.
It is yet to be deter­mined how this spec­ta­cle will turn out , nev­er­the­less I am hav­ing loads of fun at what is occur­ring in the par­ty which has side­lined Colin Powell , Michael Steele and oth­er black con­ser­v­a­tives for rabid racist crea­tures like Trump and fakes and frauds like Rubio and Cruz.

On March 17^th I wrote that the new Administration in Kingston should have a comprehensive Audit of each ministry and release it’s findings as quickly as possible. It’s important that the true state of the Jamaican economy be made known as quickly as possible , because the longer it takes to do so the less credible it’s report will be and the administration will invariable own the PNP’s foul-ups.

NEW GOVERNMENT BETTER TELL THE JAMAICAN PEOPLE THE TRUE STATE OF AFFAIRS AND QUICK…

At the time I wrote the Article it was a full 20 – 21 days after the Elections of February 25^th. Today more than a full month after the elec­tions the Jamaica Observer reports that the Administration is now say­ing that the out­go­ing PNP admin­is­tra­tion used up funds ear­marked to finance $1.5‑m tax break promised by the JLP dur­ing the campaign.
In that arti­cle I cau­tioned the new admin­is­tra­tion to quick­ly tell the nation whether alle­ga­tions that out­go­ing mem­bers of gov­ern­ment had gone on a spend­ing spree was cor­rect. I also asked that the new admin­is­tra­tion tell the nation whether any laws were broken.

Minister of Finance and Public Service, Audley Shaw, a short while ago dis­closed that funds that should have been set aside from the exist­ing gas tax have already been used up in the con­sol­i­dat­ed funds under the pre­vi­ous People’s National Party (PNP) admin­is­tra­tion. The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), in mak­ing its elec­tion promise to imple­ment a thresh­old of $1.5 mil­lion for Pay as You Earn (PAYE) con­trib­u­tors planned on using an esti­mat­ed $9.5 bil­lion from the gas tax to assist in fund­ing the expect­ed $12.5 bil­lion that the tax plan would cost the coun­try. The dis­clo­sure means that the Government has to insti­tute oth­er plans to fund the loss from the real­lo­ca­tion of rev­enue from the exist­ing gas tax. Shaw is how­ev­er reas­sur­ing the coun­try of the Government’s com­mit­ment to pro­vid­ing the pro­posed tax break to employ­ees. He was speak­ing at the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) President’s Forum this morn­ing. Shaw said the Government will present new plans to address the issue in the upcom­ing bud­get debate.PNP used up funds ear­marked to finance $1.5‑m tax break – Shaw

Did it take a full month for the new Government to find this infor­ma­tion out?
Does the Administration believe this will be an expla­na­tion which will hold off the tide of expec­ta­tions it cre­at­ed with this cam­paign promise?
I hope for the par­ty’s sake that the min­is­ter do have a bet­ter plan to fund this promise over and beyond that state­ment that it will present a plan in the upcom­ing budget.
Even if those funds were ear­marked men­tal­ly by the JLP while in oppo­si­tion and the monies were spent by the los­ing admin­is­tra­tion it cer­tain­ly could not have been a one-off fund­ing source. Secondly there is no laws which makes it a crime to spend monies on allo­ca­tions and projects dur­ing lame-duck status.

With that in mind the admin­is­tra­tion and the min­is­ter would be best advised to find the mon­ey forth­with to off­set those sav­ings for the peo­ple who qual­i­fy for them.
Explanations no mat­ter how cred­i­ble will not cut it. The peo­ple will have none of it.
This one promise is one the gov­ern­ment can­not renege on. If it does on this par­tic­u­lar promise the time spent in obliv­ion will be a cake-walk when com­pared to where it will find itself in the future. It will be gen­er­a­tions before it gets a chance to enter Jamaica house, if ever again.