A per­son­al tweet I sent out this week said: “Let’s be clear — and Christian: A vote for Donald Trump is a vote for racism.”

In one of the many post­mortem dis­cus­sions on Tuesday’s pri­ma­ry results, Cokie Roberts on Morning Joe said we were leav­ing race out of the ques­tions we’re ask­ing. She’s right. Donald Trump’s suc­cess isn’t just because of his enter­tain­ing flam­boy­ance, his mar­ket­ing brand, his expe­ri­enced self-pro­mo­tion, his busi­ness boast­ing, and his oth­er fab­ri­cat­ed “out­sider” iden­ti­ties that appeal to peo­ple who gen­uine­ly feel out­side of American pol­i­tics and life. At its core, Donald Trump’s cam­paign is about race — which is why this is about far more than pol­i­tics and par­ti­san­ship for many of us reli­gious lead­ers. When Roberts asked Trump if he was proud of the grow­ing reports about white school­child­ren ver­bal­ly attack­ing stu­dents of col­or and telling them they will soon have a wall built against them to keep them out of America, Trump react­ed by say­ing it was a “nasty” ques­tion. No, it was one of the few good ques­tions from jour­nal­ists that morning.

Donald Trump is the race can­di­date, pro­ject­ing white nation­al­ism and xeno­pho­bia, appeal­ing to fear and resent­ment, and always blam­ing peo­ple of oth­er races for the prob­lems of low-income white peo­ple. There is a long his­to­ry of that in the United States, recent­ly exem­pli­fied again by the KKK and oth­er white suprema­cists com­ing into the elec­toral con­ver­sa­tion and Trump’s unwill­ing­ness to be quick and clear about his rejec­tion of racial politics.

The pun­dits say work­ing class Republicans are in revolt against the Republican estab­lish­ment, which makes sense as those elites are ones who have sup­port­ed and ben­e­fit­ted from rigged mar­ket forces and glob­al­iza­tion that have turned all our eco­nom­ic rewards to the top 1 per­cent while aban­don­ing work­ing and mid­dle class peo­ple. Bernie Sanders is get­ting many of those angry white votes, too, in the Democratic pri­maries. But Sanders does­n’t blame “the oth­ers” as Trump does; he instead focus­es on the rich­est insti­tu­tions and peo­ple in America who have man­aged all this — the same ones Trump loves to brag about being part of with his osten­ta­tious lifestyle. (How many press con­fer­ences have you seen with the can­di­date’s expen­sive wines and steaks on dis­play while he proud­ly lists all of his prop­er­ties? Is this real­ly hap­pen­ing in America?) There is also a long his­to­ry of unit­ing work­ing peo­ple from all races against the forces that would both ignore and divide them. One kind of pop­ulism tries to divide those who have been mar­gin­al­ized; the oth­er kind tries to bring them together.

Donald Trump is clear­ly appeal­ing to our worst instincts, as many have said, but let’s be more clear: Donald Trump is appeal­ing to the worst instincts of white peo­ple, and American his­to­ry has shown how ugly and vio­lent those white instincts can be. He is right when he claims to be bring­ing out peo­ple that have nev­er vot­ed before — but he leaves out that those new vot­ers are angry white people.

At the same time we’re adding them to our vot­ing rolls, there are active polit­i­cal forces direct­ly engaged in try­ing to block and dimin­ish the turnout of black, Hispanic, Asian, and Muslim vot­ers. They’re doing so in four ways.

First, as Michelle Alexander explains in The New Jim Crow, polit­i­cal strate­gies now con­nect the delib­er­ate mass incar­cer­a­tion of black and brown men and women with the sub­se­quent and pur­pose­ful polit­i­cal dis­en­fran­chise­ment of those mil­lions of peo­ple of col­or when they return to society.

Second, delib­er­ate ger­ry­man­der­ing and mis­shap­ing of vot­ing dis­tricts cre­ates and pro­tects white vot­ing blocs and puts minori­ties togeth­er so as to not chal­lenge those white major­i­ty blocs. After sweep­ing vic­to­ries in 2010, new­ly elect­ed Republicans in state leg­is­la­tures and gov­er­nors’ man­sions across the coun­try took full advan­tage of Census-based redis­trict­ing to ger­ry­man­der in favor of white conservatives.

Third, the pas­sage of a slew of new vot­ing rules and reg­u­la­tions enact­ed since 2010 are again delib­er­ate attempts to reduce the votes of minori­ties and young peo­ple in what Rev. William Barber calls “the sec­ond career of ‘James Crow, Esq.’ ” In oth­er words, after the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of the 1960s dis­man­tled the overt Jim Crow laws that enforced seg­re­ga­tion and denied African Americans many basic rights, Jim Crow went to law school, became the more respectable “James Crow, Esq.,” and devised more sophis­ti­cat­ed and insid­i­ous ways to dis­en­fran­chise peo­ple of col­or. The his­toric elec­tion of 2008 brought an unprece­dent­ed num­ber of young peo­ple and peo­ple of col­or to the polls. The white con­ser­v­a­tive back­lash came in the 2010 mid-term elec­tions. As Myrna Pérezexplains in Sojourners magazine:

Since the 2010 elec­tion, 21 states have insti­tut­ed new vot­ing restric­tions – the biggest roll­back of the right to vote since the Jim Crow era. This year will be the first pres­i­den­tial elec­tion with many of these new bar­ri­ers in place, from requir­ing pho­to iden­ti­fi­ca­tion (which mil­lions of Americans do not have) to cur­tail­ing ear­ly vot­ing (which many cit­i­zens depend on to cast their bal­lots). On top of this, vot­ers will go to the polls in November with the fewest fed­er­al pro­tec­tions against racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in half a cen­tu­ry, due to a 2013 Supreme Court deci­sion gut­ting a key pro­vi­sion of the Voting Rights Act.

Fourth, there are efforts to bring new white vot­ers to the polls who are angry and resent­ful of America’s grow­ing racial diver­si­ty — basi­cal­ly, Trump’s constituency.

Sojourners has just released an impor­tant new video detail­ing some of these efforts at vot­er sup­pres­sion across the coun­try, and also lifts up some pos­i­tive efforts to expand access to vot­ing in some states. I encour­age you to watch this video to get an even bet­ter sense of what is at stake for our democ­ra­cy this year. Then share it with oth­ers. So here is an elec­tion strat­e­gy for peo­ple of faith from all races, for peo­ple of moral con­science in both par­ties who are against racist poli­cies and prac­tices, for every­one who believes that every American should have the right and great­est oppor­tu­ni­ty to vote, and for those who believe that access is absolute­ly essen­tial to the future of our democ­ra­cy. This should be a moral issue, not a par­ti­san one.

It is time for a new and pow­er­ful alliance between the faith com­mu­ni­ty, white vot­ers against racism, and democ­ra­cy advo­cates of all polit­i­cal stripes to unite togeth­er to reg­is­ter as many racial minori­ties and young peo­ple as pos­si­ble to vote — with the best efforts being led by lead­ers and orga­ni­za­tions of col­or — and then to mobi­lize the best pos­si­ble access to vot­ing on Election Day for every­one. Perhaps it’s time for cler­gy to show up on Election Day in polling places to help sup­port and secure the votes of those minor­i­ty vot­ers who are under attack. These are some moral march­ing orders for elec­tion 2016. We have about 8 months to do them.
Jim Wallis is pres­i­dent of Sojourners. His book, America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America, is avail­able now.
4 Ways White Political Forces Steal Elections and How We Can Stop It

Parliament resumed the business of the Jamaican people on Thursday . In the house of representatives the two parties switched sides with the Labor party assuming the role of the Government while the People’s National Party assumed the role of the opposition.

I am par­tic­u­lar­ly thrilled at the state­ments com­ing out of both sides of the polit­i­cal divide.
On the elec­tion of Barack Obama to the Presidency in 2008 MSNBC ‘s Political anchor Chris Matthews said on air that he felt a thrill up his legs at the elec­tion of the first African-American President.
I can­not lie about feel­ing a thrill up my leg. I actu­al­ly don’t, but I’m damn proud of the two polit­i­cal lead­ers right now , if only for now..

For his part the new­ly elect­ed Prime Minister Andrew Holness struck the cor­rect tone when he pre­sent­ed him­self as a hum­ble ser­vant of the people.
Prime Minister Andrew Holness called on mem­bers of Parliament to recom­mit them­selves to uphold­ing the high­est stan­dards of con­duct in the House.
.“Mr Speaker, some­times we for­get that we are on con­stant dis­play,” Holness said. “Accept it or not, we are looked upon and expect­ed to be role mod­els and exam­ples of good pub­lic con­duct. “Every mem­ber of this Parliament must recom­mit them­selves to uphold the high­est stan­dards of con­duct in the House,” he con­tin­ued. “We can be force­ful with­out being offen­sive, we can be inci­sive, with­out being insulting.”.

When was the last time we heard this refresh­ing rhetoric com­ing from Jamaican politi­cians? In the inter­est of trans­paren­cy this medi­um and this writer lob­bied hard for a Labor gov­ern­ment in Jamaica, not because I loathe the PNP but because I want whats best for our country.
I believe the PNP has a tremen­dous role to play in our Nation’s devel­op­ment . It has made tremen­dous con­tri­bu­tions yet it has made huge mis­takes as well.
At this time I fun­da­men­tal­ly believe the PNP need to re-tool in the inter­est of our country.
However not to be out­done the Leader of the Opposition PNP Portia Simpson Miller struck an equal­ly pos­i­tive tone. In her address to the Parliament Mrs Simpson Miller said ” “As the Opposition, we have a con­sti­tu­tion­al duty to scru­ti­nize the Government on behalf of the peo­ple,” Simpson Miller said dur­ing her address in Parliament. “We will not fail in per­form­ing that duty. We will be strong; we will be vig­i­lant; we will be firm.”

“We com­mit to being a vibrant Opposition, hold­ing the Government account­able at all times,” she said. “However, we will do so in a man­ner that con­tributes to the build­ing of Jamaica.”
She explained that Jamaica can­not be built by the Government alone, or by the Opposition alone. Instead, “Jamaica must be built by us work­ing togeth­er”. “We all have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to oper­ate at the high­est stan­dards of decen­cy, deco­rum and integri­ty, that is the com­mit­ment of the Opposition.”

In the inter­est of our coun­try I am thrilled at the state­ments of the two leaders,the boor­ish and class-less behav­ior of some par­ty faith­fuls out­side the pre­scient of the house should in no way damp­en our spir­its or make us cyn­i­cal . Instead we should be heart­ened that at least for now the heads of both polit­i­cal par­ties have struck the right chord in the inter­est of our country.
We can only hope that this kind of bi-par­ti­san good­will will con­tin­ue and not mere­ly be a 9‑day wonder.
If our lead­ers lead the peo­ple have no choice but to follow.
I still believe our coun­try’s best days are ahead of her.

KINGSTON, Jamaica — While pre­sent­ing him­self as a “hum­ble ser­vant” of the peo­ple, Prime Minister Andrew Holness called on mem­bers of Parliament to recom­mit them­selves to uphold the high­est stan­dards of con­duct in the House. Prime Minister Holness was address­ing Parliament as it recon­vened today with the swear­ing in of sen­a­tors and mem­bers of the Parliament.“Mr Speaker, some­times we for­get that we are on con­stant dis­play,” Holness said. “Accept it or not, we are looked upon and expect­ed to be role mod­els and exam­ples of good pub­lic con­duct. “Every mem­ber of this Parliament must recom­mit them­selves to uphold the high­est stan­dards of con­duct in the House,” he con­tin­ued. “We can be force­ful with­out being offen­sive, we can be inci­sive, with­out being insulting.”
Over the years, rep­re­sen­ta­tives on both sides of the aisle have clashed and dis­played less than appro­pri­ate behav­iour. Prime Minister Holness also remind­ed the Parliamentarians that they are to serve the peo­ple of Jamaica. “The 63 of us elect­ed to this Parliament on 25^th (of) February offered our­selves to our respec­tive con­stituents on Nomination Day. We pre­sent­ed our­selves to them and pledged to serve them,” Holness said. He said the fact that they were being sworn in today is a sig­nal of the people’s con­fi­dence in them as well as the “awe­some respon­si­bil­i­ties” they have entrust­ed them with. “In cam­paign­ing, we crossed bridges, nego­ti­at­ed pud­dles of water, tra­versed steep inclines, and nav­i­gat­ed hilly and rocky ter­rain to meet them and solic­it their sup­port,” he charged. “We are here to serve them, and not the oth­er way around. “We are their ser­vants, not their boss­es,” he con­tin­ued. “We must not let them down.” Holness remind­ed the Parliamentarians that they are account­able to the peo­ple and they must endeav­or to be acces­si­ble to them. “Good rep­re­sen­ta­tion makes bet­ter com­mu­ni­ties. Better com­mu­ni­ties make bet­ter con­stituen­cies. And bet­ter con­stituen­cies make a bet­ter Jamaica,” the prime min­is­ter said.

Simpson Miller promises ‘vibrant’ Opposition.

KINGSTON, Jamaica — Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller today pledged to work with the Government to build Jamaica. “As the Opposition, we have a con­sti­tu­tion­al duty to scru­ti­nise the Government on behalf of the peo­ple,” Simpson Miller said dur­ing her address in Parliament. “We will not fail in per­form­ing that duty. We will be strong; we will be vig­i­lant; we will be firm.” The Opposition leader also said her team will pro­vide “con­struc­tive crit­i­cisms”. “We com­mit to being a vibrant Opposition, hold­ing the Government accon­table at all times,” she said. “However, we will do so in a man­ner that con­tributes to the build­ing of Jamaica.”
She explained that Jamaica can­not be built by the Government alone, or by the Opposition alone. Instead, Jamaica “must be built by us work­ing togeth­er”. “We all have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to oper­ate at the high­est stan­dards of decen­cy, deco­rum and integri­ty, that is the com­mit­ment of the Opposition.” In her address, Simpson Miller jok­ing­ly warned the Government not to get com­fort­able on the side of the aisle that they now sit. After con­grat­u­lat­ing Prime Minister Andrew Holness and his team on their vic­to­ry in the February 25 General Election, Simpson Miller said: “… Let me advise my friend, and all the mem­bers over there, do not get very com­fort­able on that side. “I know that they are usu­al­ly more com­fort­able on this side.” Members of Parliament and sen­a­tors were today sworn in at Gordon House as Parliament recon­vened. http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​S​i​m​p​s​o​n​-​M​i​l​l​e​r​-​p​r​o​m​i​ses – vibrant – Opposition

He would have been the most radical nominee in GOP history.

or the past few months, the fate of the repub­lic, or at least of the Republican Party, has seemed to hang on Marco Rubio. Even now, despite all the evi­dence to the con­trary, that remains the des­per­ate view of a swath of the party’s emi­nences gris­es and bil­lion­aire bene­fac­tors. They still imag­ine them­selves, and their can­di­date, as the noble pro­tag­o­nists in a twi­light strug­gle against the forces of pro­to-fas­cism and yoke­lism. Only by spend­ing wild­ly and forc­ing the nom­i­nat­ing process into the back­rooms of a bro­kered con­ven­tion can they save their par­ty from a descent into unprocessed insanity.

Marco Rubio’s whole career had been build­ing to this moment. He was long viewed as the party’s sal­va­tion — or as the cliché goes, he’s the Republican Obama. On paper, he made for a com­pelling mes­si­ah: demo­graph­i­cal­ly use­ful, sal­able to the ultras yet charis­mat­ic enough for a gen­er­al, and, on top of every­thing else, intel­lec­tu­al­ly adept. Of course, that élite faith in Rubio now seems com­i­cal­ly mis­guid­ed. He looked both puerile and inef­fec­tu­al — like Little Marco, actu­al­ly — in his flail­ing efforts to take down the bully.

Despite his sheen, there’s noth­ing remote­ly mod­er­ate about Rubio.
Donald Trump’s hos­tile takeover of the par­ty is a pret­ty fair sum­ma­tion of the recent his­to­ry of the Republicans, the vol­canic explo­sion of all the nasty sen­ti­ments that the par­ty nur­tured over the decades. But it’s also telling that Marco Rubio came to rep­re­sent the establishment’s idea of san­i­ty. Despite his sheen, there’s noth­ing remote­ly mod­er­ate about Rubio. It would be a mis­take to think of him as a denizen of the cen­ter-right. His agen­da, both domes­tic and for­eign, is at least as right wing as Ted Cruz’s pro­gram, if not more. His vision lacks much of Donald Trump’s overt cru­el­ty, but in its own way it would ter­ri­fy­ing­ly remake American gov­ern­ment. As the estab­lish­ment mounts a final, doomed effort to prop up the Rubio cam­paign, it’s worth exam­in­ing the object of their devo­tion and what he reveals about his back­ers. Rubio would have eas­i­ly been the most rad­i­cal nom­i­nee in Republican Party his­to­ry. Where John McCain and Mitt Romney faked some of their severe­ly con­ser­v­a­tive cam­paign for­ays, Marco Rubio is a true believ­er. He became the face of an estab­lish­ment that has drift­ed so far to the right that it might nev­er return.

“No one’s going to force me to stop talk­ing about God.”

Marco Rubio felt like he had caved to the forces of polit­i­cal cor­rect­ness. During his long tenure as speak­er of the Florida House, he bit his tongue and betrayed his heart. But on his way out the door, he was deter­mined to speak out. “It had tak­en me too long,” he lat­er wrote in his mem­oir, An American Son. For his vale­dic­to­ry address in the fall of 2008, he would turn the daïs into a pul­pit and deliv­er the ser­mon he regret­ted nev­er preach­ing. “God is real,” he declared, “God is real. I don’t care what courts across this coun­try say, I don’t care what laws we pass — God is real.”

The address cul­mi­nat­ed in a rous­ing per­ora­tion about the nec­es­sary pres­ence of reli­gion in the pub­lic sphere. “God doesn’t care about the Supreme Court of Florida,” he said. “He cares about them. But he doesn’t care about their rul­ings. And he doesn’t care about the Supreme Court of the United States. You can’t keep him out.”

The speech wasn’t a stray mus­ing. Earlier that year, Rubio went to work on behalf of Mike Huckabee’s pres­i­den­tial cam­paign — hard­ly the expe­di­ent choice for a career-mind­ed politi­cian from South Florida. (Jeb Bush, by con­trast, had endorsed Mitt Romney.) Huckabee was an evan­gel­i­cal preach­er who tout­ed him­self as a “Christian Leader” with a “bib­li­cal world­view.” A YouTube clip shows a boy­ish Rubio lead­ing a group of plac­ard wav­ing vol­un­teers on a New Hampshire street cor­ner. “Quite frankly this has become more like a move­ment,” he tells the cam­era. Two years lat­er, the very same home-school­ers who formed the back­bone of the Huckabee cam­paign pro­vid­ed the ear­li­est foot sol­diers for Rubio’s 2010 Senate bid.

Rubio’s reli­gious life has been unfair­ly tagged as evi­dence of his desire to please every­one. It’s true that he’s hard­ly chart­ed a lin­ear path to church. As a child in Las Vegas, he enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly immersed him­self in Mormonism — read­ing canon­i­cal texts, vis­it­ing the holy sites in neigh­bor­ing Utah, and becom­ing a fan­boy of the Osmonds. Back in Florida, he urged his fam­i­ly to return to Catholicism with the same con­vic­tion. “Football and reli­gion. Those were his things,” his cousin Michelle told Rubio’s biog­ra­ph­er, Manuel Roig-Franzia.

In recent years, he’s dialed up his devo­tion, while still leav­ing his doubters with the impres­sion he’s hedg­ing his bets. “I have come home to Rome,” he has said. “One of the great trea­sures of the Catholic faith is the abil­i­ty to go to Mass every­day.” Its a rit­u­al he has per­formed with that pre­cise reg­u­lar­i­ty for long stretch­es of his adult life. He sub­scribes to Magnificat, a mag­a­zine that sup­plies him with dai­ly med­i­ta­tion. And he has boast­ed about his use of con­tra­cep­tion, or lack there­of: “I can tell you that none of my chil­dren were planned.”

But while Rome is home, he’s main­tained a week­end cot­tage in the Southern Baptist Church. On Saturdays he takes com­mu­nion; on Sunday he attends Christ Fellowship, his wife Jeanette’s church of choice. The deci­sion might be the­o­log­i­cal­ly tricky to jus­ti­fy, but Rubio explains it like this: “I don’t think you can go to church too often or spend too much time in fel­low­ship with oth­er Christians, what­ev­er denom­i­na­tion they confess.”

In his telling, Rubio is a par­tic­u­lar­ly recep­tive pil­grim. He seems to be always receiv­ing mes­sages from the Lord — they appear reg­u­lar­ly in his self-effac­ing mem­oir. A job offer comes his way, just as he’s on his knees pray­ing for God’s help. In the ear­ly flail­ing days of his Senate cam­paign, he dis­cerns signs from God that urge him for­ward. “I felt as if God were send­ing me a mes­sage.” He hears that mes­sage in the singing of 3‑year-olds and sees it on a key­chain he serendip­i­tous­ly finds on a table. It con­tains a lam­i­nat­ed verse from the book of Joshua: “I’ve com­mand­ed you to be brave and strong, haven’t I? Don’t be alarmed or ter­ri­fied, because the Lord your God is with you wher­ev­er you go.”

We’re accus­tomed to Republican nom­i­nees mouthing the slo­gans of the cul­ture war, with­out ful­ly believ­ing them or soft-ped­al­ing them with an eye toward the November elec­torate. When George W. Bush ran his evan­gel­i­cal friend­ly cam­paign, he told his sto­ry of spir­i­tu­al con­ver­sion and spoke in the rhetoric of uplift, rather than dwell on the prospects of social apoc­a­lypse. Rubio, by con­trast, is a hap­py cul­ture war­rior, or per­haps a glum one. “Without faith at the core of our soci­ety, you fall into an era of moral rel­a­tivism,” he told the Center for Arizona Policy, a group that sup­ports con­ver­sion ther­a­py for gay kids. When asked about the Obergefell deci­sion enshrin­ing gay mar­riage, he told the Christian Broadcasting Network: “We are clear­ly called in the Bible to adhere to our civ­il author­i­ties. But that con­flicts with also our require­ment to adhere to God’s rules. So when those two come in con­flict, God’s rules always win.” Read more here :The Not-Sad Demise of Marco Rubio

Sen. Marco Rubio (R‑Fla.), who was once called “THE REPUBLICAN SAVIOR” on the cov­er of Time mag­a­zine, lost big Tuesday night.

Rubio’s been los­ing for a while. Even before Tuesday’s results, Rubio had less than half of the del­e­gates that the num­ber-crunch­ers at FiveThirtyEight said he would need to be “on track” for the Republican nom­i­na­tion. But Tuesday night, when he lost bad­ly in Michigan, Mississippi, Idaho and Hawaii, made clear that he’s a dead man walk­ing. Rubio fin­ished fourth in both Michigan and Mississippi, behind Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz (R‑Texas) and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. He was third in Idaho and Hawaii but did­n’t secure any del­e­gates from those states either.

After Tuesday, Trump has more than a third of the del­e­gates he needs to secure the nom­i­na­tion. Unless Trump or Cruz ascends direct­ly into heav­en in the next week or so, Rubio, who received more endorse­ments from more impor­tant par­ty lead­ers than any­one remain­ing in the GOP pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry, has no real­is­tic path to win­ning a major­i­ty of the del­e­gates before the Republican nation­al con­ven­tion in July. At this point, his best hope for the pres­i­den­cy is a bro­kered con­ven­tion, in which he and anoth­er los­er — prob­a­bly Cruz — have enough del­e­gates com­bined to sur­pass Trump. Even then, Rubio would like­ly have few­er del­e­gates than who­ev­er he made the deal with, and would prob­a­bly have to accept the vice-pres­i­den­tial spot on the ticket.

Rubio’s defeat was total in Tuesday’s Republican con­tests in Mississippi, Michigan, Idaho and Hawaii. Donald Trump won Mississippi ear­ly in the night, fin­ish­ing ahead of Rubio for the 19^th time in 21 tries this pri­ma­ry sea­son. Trump also won Michigan and Hawaii. Cruz won Idaho. But it was the nature of Tuesday night’s loss­es that real­ly hurt Rubio. He won less than 10 per­cent of the vote in both Mississippi and Michigan, sig­nif­i­cant­ly less than he was show­ing in pub­lic polls just a few weeks ago. That sug­gests a col­lapse in his sup­port. And in the cru­cial con­test for del­e­gates, he got shut out in the two biggest states: He end­ed up with zero of Mississippi’s 40 del­e­gates and Michigan’s 59. Rubio has long been count­ing on a win in his home state pri­ma­ry in Florida next Tuesday. But even if he wins Florida, which awards all of its del­e­gates to the win­ner in the state, he’ll only pick up as many del­e­gates as he was shut out of in Mississippi and Michigan: 99. “I believe with all my heart that the win­ner of the Florida pri­ma­ry next Tuesday will be the nom­i­nee of the Republican Party,” Rubio said Tuesday night.

He may think it’ll be him. But Rubio’s not lead­ing in polls of the Sunshine State. Trump is. Read more here: Rubio Lost Big. He Has No Realistic Path To Winning Before The GOP Convention.

“So Jamaica save $2 million Ja Dollars a month due to smaller cabinet ‚impact zilch”.

I thought that the new gen­er­a­tion of PNP sup­port­ers were smarter than the old crus­taceans which have dom­i­nat­ed that polit­i­cal par­ty for decades.

I even liked Damion Crawford’s insis­tence that he was opposed to “cur­ry goat pol­i­tics” when he argued he was more inter­est­ed in edu­ca­tion and upward mobil­i­ty of the youth.
Notwithstanding the People’s National Party del­e­gates removed Crawford as a can­di­date for the con­stituen­cy of Saint Andrew East Rural. At the time many includ­ing this writer opined that the PNP del­e­gates were out of step with real­i­ty in remov­ing Crawford as their rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Gordon House.

I take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to apol­o­gize to those del­e­gates for sid­ing with Damion Crawford on that occa­sion. Even if Crawford was removed as the rep­re­sen­ta­tive because he would not play cur­ry goat pol­i­tics, Crawford has since demon­strat­ed that he is unwor­thy of my sym­pa­thy or support.
“Coack-roach nu bizniz inna fowl fite”.

I assume the kum­reds in Saint Andrew East Rural know more about their one time Member of Parliament than I do. In all fair­ness this was not the only dumb thing Crawford has done , he once referred to mem­bers of the Opposition par­ty as “dut­ty laborites” . I for­gave Crawford for that bit of indis­cre­tion also, it was nor­mal thing for Kumreds to do , in fact Peter Bunting called laborites “Jankro”, and Bobby Pickersgill asked a mem­ber of a Portmore com­mu­ni­ty whether he was see­ing his peri­od why him chat su? So the young Damion had plen­ty of PNP role mod­els to emulate.

Any Economic Recovery Must Begin With Suffocating The Crime Monster…

Two mil­lion in sav­ings per month from a small­er cab­i­net trans­late into 24 mil­lion per year. At that rate the peo­ple of Jamaica will have real­ized a sav­ings of J$120 mil­lion over a five year term. One hun­dred a twen­ty mil­lion dol­lars from tight­en­ing the reins of Government spend­ing on the cab­i­net alone.

Imagine the sav­ings which can be real­ized when each min­is­ter goes through his/​her min­istry with a scalpel and do an audit to see where waste, dupli­ca­tion , over-runs and oth­er dol­lar-loss are occur­ring as this medi­um has suggested.
Unfortunately Damion Crawford’s tweet though incon­se­quen­tial in the greater scheme of things , reveal a mind­set which has plagued the People’s National Party’s abil­i­ty to be good stew­ards of the pub­lic trust.
Whether the excess stem from huge cab­i­nets, expen­sive SUV’s , lav­ish spend­ing spree in for­eign trav­els by the Prime Minister, or it is in cost-over-runs in the con­tracts process , or as small as a junior par­lia­men­tar­i­an abuse of a gov­ern­ment cell­phone, the mind­set is the same.
Their atti­tude when it comes to the pub­lic’s mon­ey is, lets spend as much of it as possible.

The prob­lem for Crawford and the PNP is that they nev­er grasped the con­cept of fru­gal Governance, .Government has always been a pri­vate kit­ty to be tak­en advan­tage of.
Being in pow­er was a means of lord­ing not lead­ing. Power meant being served not serving.
It will take a suc­cess­ful Holness led term for the nation on a whole to rec­og­nize that Government is there to serve them but not by hand­ing out freebies.
Now lets hope the new Administration can find mil­lions more which may be used to pro­vide health-care, edu­ca­tion and secur­ing the nation.

Donald Trump labeled Marco Rubio a light­weight tech­ni­call, Marco Rubio is worse than a light­weight . Marco Rubio is a polit­i­cal oppor­tunist who should nev­er be elect­ed President of a stu­dent body much less the United States of America.
Maco Rubio com­mit­ted the unfor­giv­able sin for this writer when he said “Barack Obama has no class”. One can dis­agree with the oth­er’s pol­i­tics but to defame and demean some­one who has demon­strat­ed impec­ca­ble class in the face of mas­sive intran­si­gence and obstruc­tion is reprehensible.

Speaking to Fox and friends hate ped­dlers in July of 2015 the lit­tle Cuban said “I mean, we have a pres­i­dent now that you know, does self­ie stick videos, that invites YouTube stars there, peo­ple that, you know, eat cere­al out of a bath­tub,” . “You just saw the inter­view he did right now, where he goes on com­e­dy shows to talk about some­thing as seri­ous as Iran. The list goes on and on.”

Barack Obama thus far is the only President to have a scan­dal-free Administration since Jimmy Carter. Marco Rubio the son of ille­gal Cuban Immigrants has turned out to be like a rabid mon­grel against immi­grants. Here’s to kick­ing away the lad­der after you have climbed up lit­tle Marco, as per Donald Trump.
I mean at least with Donald Trump you know you are get­ting a mon­u­men­tal jerk. Trump makes no bones about the fact that he is a major league moron, Rubio on the oth­er hand is a bel­liger­ent lit­tle Obama wannabe who will do and say any­thing to get to where he wants to. That include throw­ing his par­en­t’s peers under the bus.

On Thursday March 3^rd, in the Republican debates Marco Rubio once again showed that he is real­ly less than a low-life he is a com­mon punk. Responding to ques­tions sur­round­ing the death and ill­ness of Flint Residents as a result of Lead taint­ed water Rubio did not place the blame where the blame belonged.
Instead Rubio dis­re­spect­ed those res­i­dents on top of the hurt they are still suffering.

“I give the gov­er­nor cred­it, “He took respon­si­bil­i­ty for what hap­pened and he’s talked about being held respon­si­ble for it.” 
“This should not be a par­ti­san issue,” Rubio said. “The way the Democrats have tried to turn this into a par­ti­san issue – that some­how Republicans woke up in the morn­ing and decid­ed oh, it’s a good time to poi­son some kids with lead. It’s absurd. It’s outrageous. “

No one should be sur­prised by any­thing Little Marco Rubio has to say. Rubio the off­spring of ille­gal immi­grants turned his back on immi­gra­tion the fuel behind America’s pow­er and growth. He is not just a an ene­my of immi­grants he is an immense­ly dis­re­spect­ful lit­tle guy who has no regard for whom he dis­re­spects in his quest for power.
The nar­ra­tive is that Trump is Crass. Cruz is Narrow, and Rubio is shallow.
There is noth­ing about Rubio ‚he is a shal­low emp­ty suit.

The post election post-mortem has begun in earnest after the shocking loss of the People’s National Party on February 25^th 2016.
Please allow me to qualify my statement here, shocking for PNP supporters and others who have a sense that Jamaica belong to the PNP, not the Jamaican people.
Without the benefit of credible non-deceptive polls and not being on the ground in Jamaica I ventured into suggesting that the PNP would lose the election based on a series of mis-steps the Administration and Party took, not the least of which is it’s arrogance in not participating in debates and Mrs Simpson Miller’s refusal to speak to the press.

Paul Burke,the People’s National Party (PNP) gen­er­al sec­re­tary urged Comrades to blame him if they are des­per­ate to point fin­gers at any­one for the par­ty’s loss in the recent gen­er­al elec­tion. “As I accept final respon­si­bil­i­ty for the organ­i­sa­tion of the PNP … if it makes some hap­py, I am also will­ing to take full and com­plete respon­si­bil­i­ty,”.
As he should.
It’s com­mend­able that Burke is will­ing to accept blame but he is not sole­ly to blame for the Party’s loss. There is no sin­gle thing which caused the loss in my opin­ion, it was a drip, drip, drip which may be summed up with one word Arrogance!

Former Prime Minister Bruce Golding com­ment­ed this was the worst run PNP cam­paign he had ever seen.
“I have watched PNP cam­paigns since 1972 when I ran my first elec­tion,” Golding told Observer reporters and edi­tors. “As a polit­i­cal prac­ti­tion­er I always found the PNP to be effec­tive, some­times awe­some in exe­cut­ing a cam­paign. This one was the worst one I’ve ever seen.”

Former prime Minister Golding should know he and his par­ty has seen the effec­tive­ness of the PNP’s mobi­liz­ing machine. He has been on the wrong end of that machin­ery. So any exhuma­tion and poten­tial autop­sy must be geared at fig­ur­ing out how such an effi­cient mobi­liz­ing machine could have got­ten it so wrong?
I will leave the dis­sect­ing of the polit­i­cal corpse to those who fan­cy them­selves experts. I have spent a life­time read­ing and lis­ten­ing to their grandiose prog­nos­ti­ca­tion and grand­stand­ing which has no appeal to any­one out­side their mar­gin­al self cre­at­ed bubble.
Having spent my life close to the streets I trust what I see and hear from the peo­ple over the pen­ny mil­lion­aires above Cross-Roads.
WHAT IS THE JLP’S PATH TO VICTORY ?

Someone com­ment­ed in anoth­er medi­um that the JLP’s vic­to­ry was a mar­gin­al one con­sid­er­ing that thus far there is only a one seat major­i­ty favor­ing the JLP.
These are they who have shaped per­cep­tions and the direc­tion of the debate before the rise of social media and pri­vate blogs. Now more peo­ple get their infor­ma­tion from Blogs and social media plat­forms than they do tra­di­tion­al media sources.
No

longer does the self appoint­ed elites shape the total­i­ty of the nar­ra­tive. The peo­ple decide what the nar­ra­tive should be and this the People’s National Party failed to rec­og­nize. This was the par­ty’s down­fall, the par­ty failed to appre­ci­ate the pow­er of peo­ple to peo­ple inter­ac­tions on per­son­al lev­els via social mediums.

The truth is that both polit­i­cal par­ties have zones of polit­i­cal exclusions,(garrisons). Garrisons were cre­at­ed when the par­ty in pow­er used pub­lic funds to pur­chase large blocks of vot­ers whom they placed into spe­cif­ic con­stituen­cies. These vot­ers become mono­lith­ic vot­ers, or slaves to the par­ty which placed then there.
The PNP has been bet­ter at win­ning elec­tions so it has the larg­er amount of garrisons.
From all indi­ca­tion the PNP has a net 20 seats (gar­risons) which are not in play come elec­tion time, esti­mates for the JLP range some­where between 6 – 9 gar­ri­son constituencies.
It is against that back­ground that the JLP’s win must be con­sid­ered. Moving from 21 seats to a 32 seat plu­ral­i­ty is remark­able in the 63 seat leg­is­la­ture, con­sid­er­ing the fact that the gar­risons are nev­er in play.Winning 11 or poten­tial­ly 12 seats with­out los­ing a sin­gle seat in that cli­mate is a mon­u­men­tal swing of vot­er sentiment.
HOW DOES THE JLP OVERCOME THE DEFICIT

(1) Hopefully the PNP will use this loss as a peri­od of intro­spec­tion and humil­i­ty even as the JLP use it’s turn at the tiller judi­cious­ly and devoid of arrogance.
When Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller insist­ed she would not talk her way out of office in rela­tion­ship to Bruce Golding’s Jamaica House call in radio show, she dis­played a style of arro­gance the peo­ple were not pre­pared to forgive.
(2) When the Prime Minister refused to speak to the coun­try regard­ing the TRAFIGURA débâ­cle telling reporters “go ask the PNP”, it was arro­gance beyond rea­son, she is the PNP.
(3) When the Prime Minister refused to com­plete and release the FINSAC report she indi­cat­ed her and the PNP was above the laws.
(4) When the Prime Minister com­mit­ted tens of mil­lions of tax-pay­ers funds to a nev­er end­ing Tivoli inquiry it was base pol­i­tics and peo­ple took notice.
(5) When the Prime Minister spent a great deal of time on for­eign jun­kets with large con­tin­gent of advis­ers and min­is­ters while peo­ple can­not afford food the peo­ple noticed.

HOLNESS’S HOUSE A PRODUCT OF ENVY MANLEY SOWED…..
(6) When the Prime Minister crit­i­cized Bruce Golding’s cab­i­net then in turn appoint­ed a larg­er one it was hypocrisy.
(7) When the Prime Minister appoint­ed legions of advis­ers and hang­ers on to her office and the offices of the entire exec­u­tive to the tune of hun­dreds of mil­lion while pub­lic sec­tor work­ers suf­fered through wage freeze and infla­tion it was monarchistic.
(8)When the Prime Minister was seen as miss­ing in office that did not bode well for her and her party.
(9) When the entire PNP oppo­si­tion refused to take pay cuts as sug­gest­ed by Bruce Golding , Portia and the PNP’s argu­ments about “lov­ing the poor” was hol­low and Patronizing.

MANLEY’S SON JOSEPH :”HOLNESS HOUSE VULGAR AND OVER-SIZED”: CONFIRMS ENVY….
(10) When the PNP decid­ed to make Andrew Holness’s house the cen­ter­piece of it’s 2016 elec­tion cam­paign the peo­ple real­ized the PNP had noth­ing to offer and it was time for them to go.
(11) When the PNP and Mrs Miller refused to debate the then leader of the Opposition that was the nail in the PNP’s coffin.
Drip..
Drip.…
Drip…
Ended up in a mighty flood…
PNP’S REFUSAL TO PARTICIPATE IN DEBATES A MASSIVE CON-JOB…

Independent Jamaica must remove the cul­ture of depen­den­cy from our midst. We must teach our chil­dren that there is no wealth with­out work, and no suc­cess with­out sac­ri­fice. We must remove the belief from the psy­che of our chil­dren that the only way they can step up in life is not by how hard they work, but by who they know.(Andrew Michael Holness).
THE DAWN OF A NEW DAY IN JAMAICA…

Going for­ward, Jamaica’s devel­op­ment must rest on its abil­i­ty to cre­ate propo­si­tions of val­ue and attract invest­ments to con­vert the val­ue into wealth. In this mod­el, Government is not the main investor, it is the Private Sector whether they be large enter­pris­es or small busi­ness. In the eco­nom­ic part­ner­ship with the Private Sector, Government’s role, among oth­ers, is: To ensure the rule of law Create a safe, secure, and fair envi­ron­ment for busi­ness .Make mar­kets where none exist .Ensure trans­paren­cy and access to infor­ma­tion ‑and cre­ate an effi­cient and sup­port­ive pub­lic sec­tor bureau­cra­cy. (Andrew Michael Holness)

Any Economic Recovery Must Begin With Suffocating The Crime Monster…

This medi­um is proud that at least one aspect of our con­tin­ued drum­beat is includ­ed in the address of the new Prime Minister.
This writer has said con­sis­tent­ly that this is the only way to change the eco­nom­ic par­a­digm of our country.

Your Excellencies, the Governor General, the Most Honourable Sir Patrick Allen and Lady Allen

Leader of the Opposition the Most Honorable Portia Simpson Miller

Former Prime Ministers:

The Most Honorable Edward Seaga and Mrs Seaga

The Most Honorable PJ Patterson

The Honorable Bruce Golding and Mrs Golding

My fel­low Jamaicans

Good after­noon.

I rec­og­nize that I stand here today only by the Grace of God. It has not been an easy jour­ney to this podi­um, but earnest labour and fer­vent prayers con­quer all. To God be the glory.

It is with a deep sense of grat­i­tude, hon­our and humil­i­ty that I took the Oath of Office moments ago, ful­ly con­scious of the mag­ni­tude of expec­ta­tions and respon­si­bil­i­ty I have assumed, but equal­ly ener­gized and opti­mistic about a pros­per­ous future for Jamaica. I pledge to serve the peo­ple of Jamaica faith­ful­ly, with all of my ener­gies, all of my heart, mind and soul.

I stand here today hap­py to be rep­re­sent­ing the voice, vision, vote and vic­to­ry of Jamaica.

We may have dif­fer­ent voic­es and dif­fer­ent votes on a sim­i­lar vision, regard­less of our dif­fer­ences, Jamaica was vic­to­ri­ous at the General Elections. It is not per­fect, but we can all be proud of the peo­ple, sys­tems and insti­tu­tions that make up our democracy.

Meaning of the Mandate

On the day of Election, I wit­nessed a young man car­ry­ing, cra­dled in his arm, an obvi­ous­ly bed-rid­den elder­ly man from a polling sta­tion. I was touched by the sight. In the bus­tle of the busy school yard, as they passed, the elder­ly man point­ed his ink stained fin­ger at me and said, “Andrew, do the right thing!”

I stand here hum­bled by the awe­some pow­er of you, the peo­ple, and I com­mit to doing right by you. The peo­ple are sov­er­eign and their views and votes must nev­er be tak­en for granted.

The peo­ple of Jamaica did not vote in vain. They expect a gov­ern­ment that works for them and by the same expec­ta­tion, an Opposition that is con­struc­tive. This his­toric elec­tion deliv­ered the small­est major­i­ty but also the clear­est man­date: Fix Government!

With this mandate:

There is no major­i­ty for arrogance

There is no space for selfishness

There is no place for pettiness

There is no room for com­pla­cen­cy and

There is no mar­gin for error

I am under no illu­sion as to the mean­ing of this man­date. We have not won a prize. Instead, the peo­ple are giv­ing us a test.

There is no absolute agency of pow­er. This means that the win­ner can­not take all, or believe we can do it alone.

Leading Partnerships for Prosperity

To achieve the vision of shared pros­per­i­ty through inclu­sive eco­nom­ic growth and mean­ing­ful job cre­ation, now more than ever, Government must lead, acti­vate, empow­er and build real part­ner­ships. I intend to lead a Government of part­ner­ship. The solu­tions to our prob­lems do not rest with Government alone. The sum total of our poten­tial exceeds our prob­lems; our col­lec­tive capa­bil­i­ties are greater than our chal­lenges, but it is only through part­ner­ship that these capa­bil­i­ties and this poten­tial can be seized, har­nessed and real­ized for the good of Jamaica.

Partnerships require trust, clear assign­ment of respon­si­bil­i­ty and an ele­vat­ed sense of duty.

There is only so much trust that pledges and state­ments of com­mit­ment can buy. I under­stand that the Jamaican peo­ple now want to see action in build­ing trust. This is part of fix­ing gov­ern­ment. Everyone who will form the next gov­ern­ment must be seized of this expec­ta­tion. From the politi­cian mak­ing pol­i­cy to the civ­il ser­vant pro­cess­ing an appli­ca­tion, we must act duti­ful­ly to ful­fill our respon­si­bil­i­ties. Trust requires the actu­al­iza­tion of our com­mit­ments. We will ful­fill our commitments.

Our actions can achieve so much more if they are coör­di­nat­ed. We will bring greater coör­di­na­tion, ratio­nal­i­ty and focus to the role of gov­ern­ment so that the objec­tives of part­ner­ship can be clear.

There is no doubt that sig­nif­i­cant num­bers of Jamaicans have lost hope in our sys­tem, but I am encour­aged that a far larg­er num­ber main­tains faith, keeps hope and con­tin­ues to pray that Jamaica will grow and prosper.

I am ener­gized by the expres­sions of will­ing­ness to work with our new Government in the inter­est of Jamaica. The sense of duty is alive and well. There is more hope than despair and this cre­ates a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to form part­ner­ships for prosperity.

Partnership with Families

You know, I am now joined in Parliament by my life part­ner Juliet. Family is the ulti­mate part­ner­ship. And that is why my Government will focus resources on sup­port­ing families.

By increas­ing the income tax thresh­old we will restore the eco­nom­ic pow­er of house­holds to par­tic­i­pate in not only grow­ing our GDP but more impor­tant­ly grow­ing the gen­er­al well­be­ing of the society.

Here’s how the part­ner­ship with fam­i­lies, and the work­ing heads of house­holds will work.

Our gov­ern­ment will ease your tax bur­den, but you must spend and invest wise­ly, use the addi­tion­al mon­ey to acquire a house for your fam­i­ly or improve the house you already have, or buy Jamaican-made goods. This how we will increase local effec­tive demand in hous­ing, man­u­fac­tur­ing, and agri­cul­ture. This is how you can play a part in cre­at­ing in jobs while sat­is­fy­ing your wellbeing.

We will con­tin­ue our pol­i­cy of tuition-free edu­ca­tion and no user fee access to health care. However, will enable you to save in an edu­ca­tion bond for your chil­dren’s edu­ca­tion and in a nation­al health insur­ance scheme your healthcare.

We will enhance our social safe­ty net for vul­ner­a­ble fam­i­lies, and will pro­vide sup­port for par­ents in cri­sis, but you must be respon­si­ble and send your chil­dren to school. Our men must take care of their chil­dren, and cou­ples must be respon­si­ble in hav­ing the chil­dren they can afford.

Our gov­ern­ment com­mits to cre­at­ing the envi­ron­ment in which fam­i­lies can flour­ish and form com­mu­ni­ties of social mobil­i­ty from which every ghet­to youth can be star. However, every fam­i­ly mem­ber must do his or her part by being per­son­al­ly, social­ly and eco­nom­i­cal­ly responsible.

I am sure Juliet will under­stand if I seek to build anoth­er part­ner­ship in Parliament. Leader of the Opposition, Portia Simpson Miller has giv­en long and ded­i­cat­ed ser­vice to the coun­try and I believe the man­date is say­ing, we may not be on the same side of the road, but as much as pos­si­ble we should hold hands in coöper­a­tion to over­come obsta­cles for the good of the coun­try. We have evolved with­out for­mal struc­ture a very good part­ner­ship in edu­ca­tion and we intend to con­tin­ue our infor­mal col­lab­o­ra­tions in this area and pur­sue oth­er such areas of coöper­a­tion between Government and Opposition members.

I still believe it is a use­ful sym­bol of nation­al uni­ty for the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition to appear togeth­er in zones of polit­i­cal exclu­sions. I again extend the invitation.

Partnership for Growth with Private Sector

The pri­or­i­ty of this Government is to grow the econ­o­my and cre­ate mean­ing­ful jobs. In so doing, we will more rapid­ly and sus­tain­ably reduce debt. I am sure we all agree that much of Jamaica’s devel­op­ment has been achieved with­out growth, which has left us with much debt. This is unsustainable.

Going for­ward, Jamaica’s devel­op­ment must rest on its abil­i­ty to cre­ate propo­si­tions of val­ue and attract invest­ments to con­vert the val­ue into wealth. In this mod­el, Government is not the main investor, it is the Private Sector whether they be large enter­pris­es or small busi­ness. In the eco­nom­ic part­ner­ship with the Private Sector, Government’s role, among oth­ers, is:

To ensure the rule of law

Create a safe, secure, and fair envi­ron­ment for business

Make mar­kets where none exist

Ensure trans­paren­cy and access to infor­ma­tion ‑and cre­ate an effi­cient and sup­port­ive pub­lic sec­tor bureaucracy

In exchange, we want the Private Sector to unleash invest­ments in the local econ­o­my. We want to see the return of the pio­neer­ing dri­ve to cre­ate new indus­tries, the entre­pre­neur­ial will­ing­ness to take risk, and the inno­v­a­tive insight to do things bet­ter. I am heart­ened by the sig­nals com­ing from the Private Sector. I believe they have got the mes­sage about the part­ner­ship for growth and job cre­ation. Now is the time for growth.

Partnership with inter­na­tion­al partners

We are not naïve about the chal­lenges we face regard­ing our debt and the need to main­tain fis­cal dis­ci­pline. This is why we will con­tin­ue with the prin­ci­ple of joint over­sight of our Economic Programme and performance.

We rec­og­nize the impor­tance of, and val­ue our rela­tion­ship with our bilat­er­al and mul­ti­lat­er­al friends. These rela­tion­ships have been crit­i­cal in secur­ing sta­bil­i­ty. We believe in pre­serv­ing sta­bil­i­ty, but we must now build up on this in a pro­duc­tive part­ner­ships with them to achieve inclu­sive growth and job creation.

There are many more areas of part­ner­ships that we must for­mal­ly pur­sue for nation­al devel­op­ment and as our gov­ern­ment is installed over the com­ing days these will become evident.

The Role of the Prime Minister

In all these part­ner­ships for pros­per­i­ty, there must be coör­di­nat­ed effort. That is my role. I will ensure that:

Government is coör­di­nat­ed and strate­gi­cal­ly directed

Decisions are tak­en quickly

Targets are set

The nation is informed and that

Everyone under my appoint­ment is held to account for their action or lack thereof.

Institutional Reform

There is a sense of expec­ta­tion of change. It is not lost on me that I am the first of the Post-Independence gen­er­a­tion to lead Jamaica. More than any­thing else we want to see Jamaica take its true place as a devel­oped coun­try in the next 50 years. The strug­gle is not so much polit­i­cal inde­pen­dence as it is eco­nom­ic inde­pen­dence. It is through our eco­nom­ic inde­pen­dence that we secure real polit­i­cal independence.

However, after 53 years of inde­pen­dence, there is need for insti­tu­tion­al review of the Jamaican State both in terms of mod­ern­iza­tion of the insti­tu­tions of the State, and the struc­ture of the State. Government has to improve its busi­ness process­es and become more effi­cient as a reg­u­la­tor and a ser­vice provider.

There is need for us to have a say in the fun­da­men­tal insti­tu­tions that define Jamaica, the rights we secure for our cit­i­zens and how we want Jamaica to be. We will give form to that voice in a ref­er­en­dum to decide on the con­sti­tu­tion­al mat­ters and social matters.

Independent Jamaica must remove the cul­ture of depen­den­cy from our midst. We must teach our chil­dren that there is no wealth with­out work, and no suc­cess with­out sac­ri­fice. We must remove the belief from the psy­che of our chil­dren that the only way they can step up in life is not by how hard they work, but by who they know.

As Prime Minister I have a duty to align our incen­tives and reward sys­tems for those who work and fol­low rules. We must cre­ate a Jamaica where the man who plays by the rules is rewarded!

It is impor­tant that the cit­i­zens of Independent Jamaica have a sense of enti­tle­ment to good ser­vice from their coun­try. However, increas­ing­ly this is not being bal­anced with a duty of ‘giv­ing back’. Jamaica has ben­e­fit­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly from the civic pride and sense of nation­hood that drove so many to give gen­er­ous­ly of their tal­ent and trea­sures to build our great nation.

The spir­it still exists, to a great extent, local­ly and in our Diaspora. However, we have to be more active in pro­mot­ing civic respon­si­bil­i­ty, vol­un­teerism and ‘giv­ing back’, par­tic­u­lar­ly among our youth. And we have to inte­grate the incred­i­ble tal­ents and assets of the Jamaican Diaspora in local devel­op­ment. Too often I hear com­plaints from the Diaspora that they expe­ri­ence dif­fi­cul­ty in giv­ing to Jamaica. Giving should be easy, as part of our Partnership for Prosperity which includes the Diaspora, we will make it eas­i­er for you to con­tribute to the devel­op­ment of your homeland.

Jamaica is too rich in peo­ple and tal­ent to be a poor coun­try. With good gov­er­nance and a prospec­tive out­look, Jamaica, with­in a decade or less, could emerge as a boom­ing econ­o­my and a pros­per­ous society.

Jamaica is geo­graph­i­cal­ly cen­tral in the Caribbean. My vision is to turn Jamaica into the cen­tre of the Caribbean. A cen­tre of finance, trade and com­merce, tech­nol­o­gy and inno­va­tion, and the cen­tre of arts, cul­ture, and lifestyle region­al­ly. This is all pos­si­ble with­in our life­time. Despite any neg­a­tives, Jamaica still has a pow­er­ful and allur­ing brand ampli­fy­ing our voice and influ­ence in the world.

We can­not be sat­is­fied with things as they are. My dream is to ful­fill your dream. We must cre­ate a Jamaica where there is hope and oppor­tu­ni­ty. Where we can encour­age our chil­dren to dream big and be opti­mistic about their life chances. We must cre­ate a Jamaica where our young peo­ple can find mean­ing­ful work. A Jamaica where you feel safe to live, work and raise your chil­dren. A Jamaica that is boom­ing and investors and entre­pre­neurs can have a con­fi­dent out­look on the econ­o­my. A place where we can retire and tru­ly enjoy as paradise.

All of this is pos­si­ble. We must start now. Time for a part­ner­ship. Time for action!

Attorneys for the two main polit­i­cal par­ties have sig­nalled that the mag­is­te­r­i­al recount for the St Mary South Eastern con­stituen­cy could go into next week.

At the end of the first day of count­ing inside the Sutton Street Resident Magistrate’s Court in down­town Kingston yes­ter­day, attor­neys revealed that only 16 of the 108 bal­lot box­es had been tal­lied. Both sides also agreed that there was a net gain of one vote for Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) can­di­date Dr Norman Dunn, reduc­ing the mar­gin of vic­to­ry for his People’s National Party (PNP) chal­lenger, Dr Winston Green, to eight. “It takes a long time to go through each one [bal­lot box] because there are objec­tions tak­en as to whether a par­tic­u­lar bal­lot con­sti­tutes a prop­er vote,” said Hugh Wildman, one of the attor­neys rep­re­sent­ing Dunn as he sought to explain the snail’s pace at which the count­ing was pro­ceed­ing. “So that [bal­lot] had to be exam­ined and sub­mis­sions made by both sides and the mag­is­trate has to rule. So it’s an exer­cise that takes time,” he con­tin­ued. Despite this, both can­di­dates expressed con­fi­dence that they would emerge victorious.
Story orig­i­nat­ed here.: St Mary South Eastern Recount Could Go ‘Til Next Week