Twitter’s top attor­ney and a key voice in deci­sions such as bar­ring President Donald Trump from the plat­form became emo­tion­al and cried in a meet­ing with employ­ees dis­cussing Elon Musk’s acqui­si­tion of the plat­form on Monday, Politico reported.

Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s head of legal, pol­i­cy and trust, is said to have played a large role in con­tent mod­er­a­tion at Twitter. She also advised for­mer CEO Jack Dorsey and helped nego­ti­ate the deal between Musk and Twitter.

On Monday, Gadde met vir­tu­al­ly with employ­ees she super­vis­es in legal and pol­i­cy to dis­cuss the buy, Politico reported.

She “acknowl­edged that there are sig­nif­i­cant uncer­tain­ties about what the com­pa­ny will look like under Musk’s lead­er­ship,” the out­let wrote, cit­ing three peo­ple famil­iar with the meeting.

The peo­ple told Politico that Gadde cried while relay­ing con­cerns about changes to Twitter.

They also told the out­let that she said she was proud of the employ­ees, and that they should con­tin­ue to try to make a pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tion to the company.

Former employ­ees have said that they don’t feel Musk’s ethos match­es the com­pa­ny’s val­ues (though Dorsey has embraced the buy).

“Any sense that an exo­dus is build­ing is cor­rect,” a for­mer Twitter employ­ee told Insider on Tuesday.

Employees asked about every­thing from poten­tial lay­offs to the reac­ti­va­tion of Trump’s Twitter account in an all-hands meet­ing on Monday, where CEO Parag Agrawal acknowl­edged that there was­n’t a ton of cer­tain­ty about the plat­for­m’s future.

Musk has remained bull­ish on free speech, tweet­ing on Tuesday that the plat­form should­n’t mod­er­ate any­thing that isn’t against the law.

Twitter’s poli­cies extend far beyond that, penal­iz­ing cer­tain con­tent that spreads coro­n­avirus-relat­ed mis­in­for­ma­tion, as well as var­i­ous types of hate speech.

The “free speech” con­cern is often cit­ed by con­ser­v­a­tives, who have cel­e­brat­edMusk’s buy and have long felt that Twitter dis­crim­i­nates against right-wing views, espe­cial­ly after it deplat­formed Trump.

Gadde was a dri­ver behind that deci­sion, CNN Business report­ed in 2021, as did oth­ers at the time it occurred.

The attor­ney’s job involves decid­ing when con­tent can be tak­en down, and she’s been referred to as Twitter’s “moral author­i­ty,” Politico reported.

“Vijaya is at the cross­roads of some of the most impor­tant pol­i­cy deci­sions the com­pa­ny is mak­ing and how it inter­acts with gov­ern­ments around the world,” Adam Bain, Twitter’s for­mer COO who worked with Gadde before he left in 2016, told CNN Business.

Gadde also posed the idea to Dorsey of ban­ning polit­i­cal adver­tis­ing on Twitter alto­geth­er, which hap­pened in 2019, Politico Magazine reported.

The out­let pro­filed her at length in 2020, dis­cussing how she became a light­ning rod for con­ser­v­a­tive crit­i­cism and dis­cussed her child­hood as an immi­grant from India in Beaumont, Texas. There, her father was once advised to seek the per­mis­sion of the local Ku Klux Klan to sell insur­ance door-to-door, Gadde said.

Experiences like this and oth­ers inspired her to become a lawyer, she added.

After her meet­ing on Monday, Gadde appeared to have cheered up employ­ees, some of whom tweet­ed about her after­ward, Politico reported.

“If you look up the word ‘inspir­ing’ in the dic­tio­nary you find a pic­ture of @vijaya,” tweet­ed Kennedy O’Brien, a pub­lic pol­i­cy asso­ciate at Twitter.

Twitter did not respond imme­di­ate­ly to a request for comment.

Read the orig­i­nal arti­cle on Business Insider

Three events caught my atten­tion in the Jamaican press this week­end that I thought I would offer an opin­ion on, if I may.

FOUR MURDERED WITHIN HOURS IN WESTMORELAND

(1) The con­tin­ued gun vio­lence that claimed the lives of four (4) peo­ple in the Parish of Westmoreland alone, includ­ing the life of 47-year-old police Constable Richard Barrett. Random vio­lence can hap­pen to any­one at any time in any place.
As a for­mer offi­cer who has seen more than my share of vio­lence, I talk to my friends and fam­i­ly mem­bers about sim­ple tips to observe when in pub­lic or at home.
From time to time, we hear the com­mon phrase, ‘I nev­er thought it could hap­pen here.’ Sorry you feel that way, but crime can hap­pen anywhere.
For exam­ple, leav­ing a pock­et­book, cell­phone, or oth­er valu­ables in an auto­mo­bile is an open invi­ta­tion for thieves to break into your car. A car with exposed valu­ables will be bro­ken into every time, as opposed to one with noth­ing exposed; it is that simple.
Usually, ran­dom crim­i­nal events occur when we fail to take pre­cau­tions or observe sim­ple safe­ty measures.
We must oper­ate under the assump­tion that there are peo­ple around us who will do us harm. We should devel­op coun­ter­mea­sures on how to react if and when dan­ger strikes, like dri­ving and assum­ing that the next dri­ver will do some­thing stu­pid and prepar­ing our reac­tion ahead of time(defensive driving).
As we grieve the loss of lives, I call on our police offi­cers to do more to under­stand their sur­round­ings, be more proac­tive, adopt some­thing I did dur­ing my ser­vice, and build a wall of aura around yourselves.

CHURCH LEADERS DEMAND APOLOGY FROM POLICE

(2) Mahatma Gandhi once famous­ly said, “If it weren’t for Christians, I’d be a Christian.” Many Christians crit­i­cized Gandhi for mak­ing that state­ment, argu­ing that Gandhi turned his back on Christianity and Christ because of the actions of Christians, with­out real­iz­ing that by con­demn­ing Gandhi for his state­ment, they exem­pli­fy why he made the state­ment in the first place.
Christians are, in essence, judge­men­tal, holi­er than thou, and lofty. As a Christain myself, I am forced to self-exam­ine to see if I live the life of sim­plic­i­ty and lack of self-impor­tance Yeshua lived.
That memo seemed not to have reached some reli­gious lead­ers this Easter as they took on the role of mod­ern-day Pharisees.
Wagging their tongues about things they have no idea about as they preach pie-in-the-sky fables, ignor­ing the car­nage hap­pen­ing in their communities.
According to a local pub­li­ca­tion, Anglican priest Reverend Father Sean Major-Campbell is demand­ing an apol­o­gy from the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) for what he described as a “dis­grace­ful” use of the sacred crucifix.
The JCF post­ed a graph­ic on social media, which includ­ed a pic­ture of the cru­ci­fix and the words: “Happy Easter… Criminals liv­ing beside you? Call Crime Stop at 311.

Rev Dr. Alvin Bailey also blast­ed the JCF for using the cru­ci­fix in its call to turn in crim­i­nals. I am putting the faces of these char­la­tans up so that they may be seen for what they are, ‘Pharisees“.
I am appalled at the JCF’s use of the sacred cru­ci­fix to offen­sive­ly con­vey a much-need­ed reminder in the fight against crime. It is unfor­tu­nate and inap­pro­pri­ate in a coun­try where many cit­i­zens claim the sym­bol for its mes­sage of tri­umph over injus­tice and shame­ful death. The Easter mes­sage is also about an emp­ty cross.”(Sean Major-Campbell)
“It is a sign of des­per­a­tion out of their failed crime-fight­ing strate­gies and the fact that crime is out of con­trol and all their efforts so far have shown their incom­pe­tence. For me, it is appalling, it is shock­ing, it is unfor­tu­nate, and it is a des­per­ate measure.”
“This triv­i­al­izes a sacred mes­sage re Christ, who was unjust­ly exe­cut­ed. I call on the JCF to issue a pub­lic apol­o­gy and to desist from offend­ing the sacred tra­di­tions still held dear by many of our fel­low cit­i­zens.”Bailey told one publication.
The unfor­giv­able sin the police com­mit­ted was to post a graph­ic on social media as part of its east­er cam­paign, which includ­ed a pic­ture of the cru­ci­fix and the words: “Happy Easter… Criminals liv­ing beside you? Call Crime Stop at 311.”

It was the Scribes & Pharisees who cru­ci­fied Yeshua the Christ. In fact, Yeshua him­self warned his dis­ci­ples about the church lead­ers, Scribes & Pharisees who walk about the mar­ket­place in their long robes in the book of Luke, chap­ter 20, verse 46;“Beware of the teach­ers of the law they like to walk around in flow­ing robes and love to be greet­ed with respect in the mar­ket­places and have the most impor­tant seats in the syn­a­gogues and the places of hon­or at banquets.
Oh, Hallelujah!!!
The Police are out there try­ing to save lives, and here on Ressurection Sunday, we have mod­ern-day Scribes and Pharisees, using this joy­ous occa­sion to bring atten­tion to them­selves instead of to our risen Lord.
If a thing is not of God, it is of the dev­il, there is no mid­dle ground. There can be no greater use of the cross of Yeshua the Christ than to save lives and even­tu­al­ly the souls of those who have not accept­ed him.
Many Church lead­ers in Jamaica have a sor­did his­to­ry of engag­ing in shield­ing, har­bor­ing, pro­tect­ing, and even aid­ing crim­i­nals in their activ­i­ties, mak­ing them acces­sories to crime.
Should we inter­pret these mis­guid­ed and inter­pret out­bursts to mean these Scribes and Pharisees are offend­ed by the suc­cess­es of the police?
Clearly, their igno­rant out­bursts have noth­ing to do with God; Christ would not have been sup­port­ive of those who arbi­trar­i­ly take the lives of the inno­cent. Or maybe the 5^th com­mand­ment is unim­por­tant to these Pharisees?
The Church lead­ers in our coun­try are so cor­rupt­ed by pol­i­tics and the love of fame and mon­ey that no one takes them seri­ous­ly any­more; is there any won­der that intel­li­gent peo­ple are turn­ing away from the body of Christ because of char­la­tans like these?
I sug­gest these two get down on their knees and ask God for for­give­ness for bring­ing his Church into dis­re­pute; he still for­gives sin. Who should the police apol­o­gize to?
Asking to receive an apol­o­gy is by default set­ting them­selves up to receive said apol­o­gy; are they gods? Who do these Scribes and Pharisees think they are?

MAROONS FINALLY COP TO WRONGS
As a stu­dent tak­ing his­to­ry class­es decades ago, I won­dered why we were lion­iz­ing a group of run­away enslaved peo­ple who signed a treaty with the slavers to hunt down and return run­away enslaved peo­ple to them?
Like many oth­er aspects of Jamaican his­to­ry, I real­ized that a cer­tain degree of san­i­tiz­ing and white­wash­ing was done, as is the case where the vic­tor tells the story.
The death of Tacki and Paul Bogle in two sep­a­rate slave rebel­lions must be con­sid­ered against the role the Maroons played in their demise. It should also be under­stood how their help in cap­tur­ing and return­ing run­away enslaved peo­ple and to squash slave rebel­lions enabled the igno­ble prac­tice of slav­ery to con­tin­ue for longer than it should.
As a con­se­quence, I have always said that the Maroons deserve no def­er­ence or spe­cial auton­o­my in our coun­try out­side the rights and priv­i­leges of oth­er Jamaicans.
It is com­mend­able that almost three hun­dred years lat­er the Maroons through one of its lead­ers, final­ly apol­o­gized for what they did.

“We regret the hurt and suf­fer­ings caused from such actions. We take total respon­si­bil­i­ty on behalf of our ances­tors,” said para­mount chief­tai­ness and Queen of the Maroons Gaamang Gloria “Mama G” Simms, the woman now occu­py­ing the seat once held by Queen Nanny of the Maroons, the only female among the sev­en nation­al heroes.
Better late than never!!!

.

.

.

.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, a free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

Virginia Ginni Lamp-Thomas has always been a right-wing activist, so lib­er­als have always com­plained that her activism was too close to the nation’s high­est court. Her hus­band, Clarence TomAss Thomas, is a mem­ber of that nine-mem­ber panel.
And now that the con­gres­sion­al com­mit­tee inves­ti­gat­ing the events of January 6^th, 2021, at the Nation’s capi­tol has said Ginni Thomas was send­ing text mes­sages to Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, demand­ing he do some­thing to keep Trump in pow­er, lib­er­als are livid, and they are demand­ing that Clarence Thomas resign.
Clarence Thomas was the only jus­tice on the nine-mem­ber pan­el to side with Donald Trump’s failed legal attempt to pre­vent House inves­ti­ga­tors from get­ting their hands on a vast trove of his pres­i­den­tial records. That ought to tell you how com­pro­mised, cor­rupt, and dam­aged this guy is. 

As Trump’s nean­derthal horde descend­ed on the cap­i­tal, break­ing glass, break­ing down doors, beat­ing cops, defe­cat­ing in offices, erect­ing gal­lows, and shout­ing hang Mike Pence, Ginni Thomas was busy egging on Mark Meadows to do some­thing to ensure that Trump stays in power.
“Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!”
“The major­i­ty knows Biden and the Left is attempt­ing the great­est Heist of our History.”
Some media hous­es report­ed that not only was Ginni Thomas tex­ting Mark Meadows to over­throw the gov­ern­ment; she was actu­al­ly at the cap­i­tal with the crowd of oth­er insurrectionists.
Democratic New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez tweet­ed on March 29^th; “Clarence Thomas should resign, if not, his fail­ure to dis­close income from right-wing orga­ni­za­tions, recuse him­self from mat­ters involv­ing his wife and his vote to block the Jan 6^th com­mis­sion from key infor­ma­tion must be inves­ti­gat­ed and could serve as grounds for impeach­ment.” 

Over the four years he occu­pied the White House, Donald Trump did noth­ing that any ratio­nal per­son could asso­ciate with great­ness. He start­ed with a dis­crim­i­na­to­ry Muslim ban, lock­ing immi­grant chil­dren in cages. He con­tin­ued by giv­ing him­self and peo­ple he admired, rich peo­ple, a mas­sive tril­lion-dol­lar tax cut. He broke sev­er­al laws and broached every protocol.
So even though we under­stand that Ginni Thomas and oth­ers who sup­port Donald Trump may be stuck in a dystopi­an sphere of cog­ni­tive dis­so­nance, it is impos­si­ble to asso­ciate Trump with any­thing great rationally.
If, how­ev­er, Ginni Thomas seri­ous­ly believed Trump to be a great pres­i­dent, it makes sense to con­clude that she is excit­ed and enthused by his racism.
The ques­tion then becomes, how does she view the black-skinned man she mar­ried? This is not about how Clarence Thomas feels about him­self but how his wife sees him.

It is safe to say that Clarence Thomas has an excep­tion­al­ly low impres­sion of him­self as a black-skinned man, and I will not malign him for that psy­cho­log­i­cal con­di­tion of self-hatred. He is cer­tain­ly not alone in that regard; over four hun­dred years of psy­cho­log­i­cal bom­bard­ment that Black is wack and white is right was sure to affect some more than others.
I am per­son­al­ly no longer angry at the likes of Clarence Thomas, Candace Owens, Larry Elder, and oth­ers; I feel pity and, yes, some shame for them. You deserve empa­thy when you become so far gone that you love your abuser more than you love yourself.
If Ginni Thomas sub­scribes to Trump’s racism and con­sid­ers him great, she [must] har­bor racist views as well.-How does those views square with hav­ing a black-skinned husband?
Is there any won­der that Clarence Thomas votes against Black peo­ple 100% of the time that a racial mat­ter reach­es the high court?
Clarence Thomas was appoint­ed to the court by Herbert Walker Bush, the 41^st pres­i­dent of the United States; Thomas faced a gru­el­ing con­fir­ma­tion process result­ing from sex­u­al harass­ment alle­ga­tions prof­fered against him by Anita Hill, a Black woman.
Some have argued that Thomas’ anti-black votes on the high­est court may have been influ­enced by what he char­ac­ter­ized at the time as a high-tech lynching.
That point of view is hard to rec­on­cile, at least with this writer; I find it hard to believe that he would for­ev­er be upset with a black woman who told the truth about him, yet cozies up to a race that abused him and his ances­tors for hun­dreds of years.
Again cog­ni­tive dissonance!
In the end, Clarence Thomas will not resign; he was nev­er a man that showed that kind of eth­ic or char­ac­ter. Clarence Thomas was always a house n****r, and that is what he will remain until he dies. As for Ginni Thomas, noth­ing will come of her con­spir­a­to­r­i­al actions; Biden has no one at Justice.

.

.

.

.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ‑Democratic Senator Joe Manchin on Friday said he would vote to con­firm U.S. Supreme Court nom­i­nee Ketanji Brown Jackson, with the sup­port from the influ­en­tial mod­er­ate sig­nal­ing that she will have the votes to over­come wide­spread Republican opposition.
Manchin’s announce­ment is fur­ther evi­dence that Democrats are unit­ed in sup­port­ing President Joe Biden’s nom­i­nee to be the first Black woman on the Supreme Court. With a sim­ple major­i­ty need­ed for con­fir­ma­tion and the Senate divid­ed 50 – 50 between the par­ties, Jackson would get the job even if no Republicans vote for her.
“After meet­ing with her, con­sid­er­ing her record, and close­ly mon­i­tor­ing her tes­ti­mo­ny and ques­tion­ing before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week, I have deter­mined I intend to vote for her nom­i­na­tion to serve on the Supreme Court,” Manchin said in a statement.

“Her wide array of expe­ri­ences in vary­ing sec­tors of our judi­cial sys­tem has pro­vid­ed Judge Jackson a unique per­spec­tive that will serve her well on our nation’s high­est court,” he added.
Biden in February nom­i­nat­ed Jackson to replace lib­er­al Justice Stephen Breyer, who intends to retire at the end of June. The com­mit­tee is like­ly to vote on April 4 on send­ing her nom­i­na­tion to the full Senate for a final con­fir­ma­tion vote. Jackson faced two days of hos­tile ques­tion­ing from Republicans dur­ing her con­fir­ma­tion hear­ing ear­li­er this week, with sev­er­al accus­ing her of being lenient in her pre­vi­ous role as a fed­er­al tri­al court judge in sen­tenc­ing child pornog­ra­phy offend­ers. Sentencing experts said her approach was sim­i­lar to most fed­er­al judges. (Story orig­i­nat­ed @Yahoonews)

You can’t win with liars and thieves; liars and thieves are exact­ly what the rightwing racist, fas­cist, xeno­phobes you call the Republicans real­ly are.
The very essence of demo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nance is that each par­ty must play by the game’s rules regard­less of how many there are. As in sports, the rules are set, com­peti­tors com­pete, win­ners win, losers try again next time.
It is a sys­tem in sports that brings out the best in humans, the strug­gle to com­pete, the thrill of the game, and when we lose, we pick our­selves up and get right back in the game next time.
Politics is like a game; the play­ers are sup­posed to observe the rules, col­or with­in the lines- win or lose.

The Republican Party, which became a fas­cist right-wing polit­i­cal par­ty after the 1964 sign­ing of the Civil Rights Act, is now ful­ly a par­ty of dis­af­fect­ed whites who see their spe­cial priv­i­leges slip­ping away. And so they have tak­en up their ball and left the game.
They have com­plete­ly giv­en up on the con­cept of demo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nance, just as well; the par­ty was always a par­ty of blovi­at­ing pompous white men who carved out set-asides for them­selves and erect­ed bar­ri­cades so that no one else got to play in the game in which they com­pete against them­selves and declare them­selves win­ners and the greatest.
They pre­tend­ed to be the tough­est on crime but showed no capac­i­ty for mercy.
They claimed to be about law and order, but they lacked the capac­i­ty to ensure jus­tice was pre­served in the process.
They claim to be fis­cal con­ser­v­a­tives, hawk­ish over pub­lic spend­ing. Yet they oppose tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey feed­ing hun­gry babies but spend tril­lions on arma­ments of war, some the mil­i­tary will nev­er use and nev­er ask for.
They tout fam­i­ly val­ues but only val­ues white fam­i­lies. They claim to be Christians but are defi­cient in the sin­gle great­est build­ing block of the faith, ‘love,’ except for those who look like themselves.

There is now a pal­pa­ble fear tak­ing hold of the Right-wing par­ty; it caused them to embrace and sup­port a lying Charlatan for pres­i­dent. The par­ty is now an open­ly white suprema­cist move­ment head­ed by the same lying char­la­tan and pop­u­lat­ed with Qanon con­spir­acists and Russian sup­port­ing traitors.
The par­ty has blocked an American pres­i­dent from appoint­ing a supreme court jus­tice as he was con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly empow­ered to do and lat­er appoint­ed three lack­eys of their own even as they scream how unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic it is to con­sid­er adding more jus­tices to the court to rec­ti­fy the imbal­ance their dis­hon­esty created.
All of this because the nation was once total­ly run and con­trolled by white men, elect­ed a black man to the pres­i­den­cy, and Blacks now occu­py var­i­ous pow­er­ful roles, men and women.
As shock­ing as that has been, the idea that white women are not pro­duc­ing enough babies to counter the surge in Black and brown births scares them even more.
They have giv­en up total­ly on gov­ern­ing by con­sen­sus. They have embarked on unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic process­es- a‑la vot­er sup­pres­sion laws, aid­ed by their func­tionar­ies on the high­est court who evis­cer­at­ed the 1965 vot­ing rights act, restric­tions on who gets to vote, and even crim­i­nal­ized hand­ing a poten­tial vot­er stand­ing in line to vote a drink of water.
These laws come from the twist­ed minds of ‘human-like’ degenerates.

The fight is now total­ly about stop­ping peo­ple of col­or from enter­ing the coun­try and end­ing the well-estab­lished law Roe Vs. Wade, which gives women auton­o­my over their own bodies.
In 2012 the Pew Research cen­ter report­ed that the nation’s racial and eth­nic minor­i­ty groups — espe­cial­ly Hispanics — are grow­ing more rapid­ly than the non-Hispanic white pop­u­la­tion, fueled by immi­gra­tion and births. This trend has been tak­ing place for decades, and one result is the Census Bureau’s announce­ment that non-Hispanic whites now account for a minor­i­ty of births in the U.S. for the first time.
Consequently, their ratio­nale is to force white women to have more babies, even the off­spring of rapists; they want all white babies hence the assault on Roe V Wade.
On the oth­er end of the spec­trum, they are total­ly against America con­tin­u­ing to be what it has been for over two hun­dred years- a place where refugees and immi­grants are wel­come. However, the pal­pa­ble hatred they har­bor against immi­grants is con­fined to black and brown peo­ple; all whites are welcome.

The moron they elect­ed pres­i­dent once referred to non-European coun­tries as shit-hole coun­tries. He asked why weren’t more peo­ple from Norway com­ing to the United States — ask that moron to show you Norway on the map, and he would have no clue. But he is only a part of the prob­lem; in times of seri­ous tumult, Black and brown peo­ple are turned away, but tens of thou­sands of white Europeans are now wel­come, no ques­tions asked. Yet, they dared to ask Ketanji Brown-Jackson if America is a racist country?
The American demo­c­ra­t­ic process is in grave dan­ger. At its core, it is chal­leng­ing for democ­ra­cy to sur­vive in a nation of 330 mil­lion peo­ple, yet with only two major polit­i­cal parties.
Additionally, the Democratic par­ty lacks the strength and for­ti­tude of the Republicans. The Democrats are a loose throw-togeth­er of lib­er­al whites, Blacks, Some Hispanics, native peo­ple, gays, union work­ers, etc. The lat­ter was once a strong force in demo­c­ra­t­ic pol­i­tics, not so any­more; Republicans at the state lev­el have com­plete­ly defanged blue-col­lar unions.

Politics is a con­tact sport, and the Democrats are los­ing and los­ing bad­ly. They are mak­ing nice with a par­ty that has no inten­tion of com­pet­ing on a lev­el play­ing field. But the racism with­in the Republican Party is not con­fined to them alone.
Not a sin­gle white Democratic sen­a­tor stood up and defend­ed Ketanji Brown-Jackson like Will smith defend­ed Jada.
Ok, that may have been a bridge too far, but you get what I mean, right ?.….save for Booker and Padilla, two men of col­or, absent were all of the white men.
It seems, there­fore, when the rub­ber meets the road, all white males are the same inse­cure, self­ish, and petu­lant lit­tle b******s.
The out-of-con­trol ele­phant is not just mak­ing a mock­ery of the Jackass; he is try­ing to make fools of us all.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective; he’s a busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

If there was ever any doubt that Canadian-born Cuban by her­itage Raphael Cruz pon­tif­i­cat­ing and blovi­at­ing was about any­thing but about self-aggran­dize­ment here is proof it is.
He hates his Hispanic her­itage so he calls him­self ‘Ted’, to pass as a white euro­cen­tric male, but we won’t allow pathet­ic lit­tle Raphael to get away with run­ning from his her­itage. So this writer nev­er writes about him using the name ‘Ted’, no bor your name is Raphael, take that up with your momma.

So imme­di­ate­ly after cre­at­ing a tiff with Chairman Dick Durbin about his line of ques­tion­ing, even­tu­al­ly going over his allot­ted time In ques­tion­ing judge Ketanji Brown-Jackson Cruze went to Twitter and began search­ing his name.
It goes to show that all those jack­ass­es are con­cerned about are social media fame and being called on to FOX mis­in­for­ma­tion to offer up Russian propaganda.
The way to get on FOX is to slan­der the immi­nent­ly qual­i­fied Black woman one Twitter user responded.
Twitter users let him have it.

Kent Nishimura
Can con­firm this. He was search­ing Twitter for his name, this was right after his exchange with Chairman Durbin.

Nolan McCaskill
Ted Cruz looks like he’s check­ing his men­tions after his back and forths with KBJ and Durbin. He’s had his head down dur­ing all of Coons’ tes­ti­mo­ny, even as Sasse and Tillis are clear­ly lis­ten­ing to their Democratic col­league and the nom­i­nee before them.

Images of throngs of black bod­ies, gleam­ing white teeth (some not-so-white), arms wav­ing in greet­ing to Lilly-white for­eign­ers still set my teeth on edge, still man­age to get me nauseous.
And so it is in 2022 Trench Town Jamaica as William and Kate decid­ed it was in their inter­est to min­gle with the com­mon folk in the slums to show that they are cool and not liv­ing in a bubble.
Jamaica, a for­mer colony of the old British Empire, has always been a play­ground for the British Royals when­ev­er they need­ed to cool their heels, soak up some sun, or escape a scandal.
If it means being adored and held up as deities, free food, and the best accom­mo­da­tions, why would those free­load­ers not take advan­tage of the stu­pid colonists who con­tin­ue to idol­ize them?

It is impos­si­ble to sum­ma­rize or explain what Britain did to our ances­tors; no arti­cle or book can do that. It requires a life­time of study and research even to begin to under­stand the rav­ages of slav­ery on our ances­tors and the ensu­ing con­se­quences to us their descen­dants today.
Over four hun­dred years of geno­cide from which they prof­it­ed and grew fat. Demonic mur­ders, lust­ful rapes, bar­bar­ic sodomy, griev­ous assaults, venge­ful gen­i­tal muti­la­tions, sadis­tic feed­ing of black babies to alli­ga­tors are only a small part of the genocide.
From a psy­cho­log­i­cal per­spec­tive, they robbed us of our free­doms, dig­ni­ty, his­to­ry, wealth, auton­o­my, agency, and every­thing else they could take. They tram­pled us, poi­soned us, chopped off our heads, and did every­thing in their pow­er to ren­der us extinct.
But as queen Maya Angelo said so elo­quent­ly,’ we sur­vived, and still, we rise”.
Tell me again why I should line up teeth gleam­ing arms wav­ing to greet you? Who are you that I should be mind­ful of you?

A bat­tered and broke Great Britain jet­ti­soned Jamaica in 1962; pre­vi­ous colonies were dumped before and oth­ers after us under the guise of inde­pen­dence. From as far back as grade school, this hum­ble writer thought it odd that we had gained inde­pen­dence, yet we con­tin­ued to pledge alle­giance to a for­eign power.
After high school, I took the oath of a police offi­cer. I was again humil­i­at­ed that as I recit­ed that oath, I was pledg­ing my alle­giance to a for­eign hussy who sits around in a gild­ed cage in sin­ful opu­lence from the blood and tears of my ancestors.
I looked around my coun­try and saw pover­ty and des­per­a­tion; I say hope­less­ness, and that was only on the peo­ple’s faces.
There were no real roads across the coun­try; most peo­ple lived in abject pover­ty as I did. Hospitals were lit­tle more than clin­ics; schools were tiny cramped build­ings in which up to 12 class­es crammed into a sin­gle open space, where stu­dents com­pet­ed to learn amidst the din with­in that space.
Police sta­tions were rick­ety old roach and rat-infest­ed build­ings, from which offi­cers were expect­ed to offer secu­ri­ty and pro­tec­tion to an impov­er­ished nation.
I looked around fur­ther, and I saw noth­ing pos­i­tive that I could take away from our asso­ci­a­tion with England so tell me again, why should my peo­ple stand in line to greet you?

England has nev­er hon­ored any real agree­ment com­mit­ment with Jamaica. Just as the United States has bro­ken every treaty, it entered into with Native and African-American peo­ple. Jamaicans went to England to help rebuild their coun­try after Hitler dec­i­mat­ed it with his blitzkrieg bomb­ing cam­paigns after the sec­ond world war. As so-called sub­jects of the crown, those Jamaicans had every right to believe the liars when they told them they were free to stay in that damp god-for­sak­en hole as cit­i­zens. As soon as the work was done and the num­ber of blacks start­ed to seem too high, we saw their inher­ent evil. They devised new laws and poli­cies that pulled the rug out from those hard-work­ing peo­ple and their descendants.
‘You are not a British cit­i­zen, and nei­ther are your chil­dren and grand­chil­dren born here.’
They emp­tied their jails and sent young black men back to Jamaica, a place they had nev­er seen before, a place they did not know. Old and young were put on a one-way flight back to Jamaica; get out; we have no use for you here.” Tell me again why I should wel­come you?

As for me, I have long called for our coun­try to untan­gle itself from the skirt tails of the British monar­chy. We were nev­er peo­ple they cared about except for exploita­tion pur­pos­es. I nev­er under­stood the Stockholm syn­drome; that kept black peo­ple lov­ing and ador­ing white peo­ple who con­tin­ue to cause them pain.
But for my con­cerns which are well known about los­ing access to the privy coun­cil in London, we are much bet­ter off going our own way.
Ending our annex­a­tion to Britain is long over­due; we have seen no ben­e­fits, and they refuse to pay repa­ra­tion to us, let them go their way, and we will go our own way.
We don’t want you here; if you wish to vis­it, do so as pay­ing tourists.
So says all of us.

.

.

.

.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

It prob­a­bly isn’t true from the brief video clip cir­cu­lat­ing on social media, which would appear to show PNP politi­cian Lisa Hanna turn­ing away from Kate Middleton, who seem­ing­ly want­ed to say some­thing to her.

If true, I would like to buy Ms. Hanna a Red stripe beer and shake her hand. If true, it is the clos­est I will have ever come to agree with a mem­ber of the People’s National Party.
Frankly, I do not under­stand why the gov­ern­ment of Jamaica is allow­ing those free­load­ers to vis­it our coun­try as dig­ni­taries instead of reg­u­lar pay­ing tourists?
We need to be com­plete­ly divorced from these sons and daugh­ters of mur­der­ous slave­hold­ers; we need repa­ra­tion for their sins and a com­plete de-annex­a­tion from every­thing British.
Way to go Lisa Hanna.

.

.

.

.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, a free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

We are unsure what the back sto­ry to this sud­den move is but you will be updat­ed as soon as more becomes available.
Does this have some­thing to do with the recent alle­ga­tions against Montague and Peter Bunting, your guess is as good as mine.

Sens. Marco Rubio (R‑Fla.) and Steve Daines (R‑Mont did not think twice about jeop­ar­diz­ing the secu­ri­ty of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last Saturday while on a Zoom call with the president.
Though asked by the Ukrainian Ambassador not to share the con­ver­sa­tion because of con­cerns for Zelensky’s safe­ty, the two Republicans tweet­ed out pic­tures of the Ukrainian pres­i­dent. They talked about being on ZOOM with Zelensky.
Democratic Reps. Dean Phillips of Minnesota and Jason Crow of Colorado crit­i­cized the sen­a­tors on Twitter.
Phillips said that the “Ukrainian ambas­sador very inten­tion­al­ly asked each of us on the Zoom NOT to share any­thing on social media dur­ing the meet­ing to pro­tect the secu­ri­ty of President Zelenskyy.”
“The lack of dis­ci­pline in Congress is tru­ly astound­ing,” Crow wrote. “If an embat­tled wartime leader asks you to keep qui­et about a meet­ing, you bet­ter keep qui­et about the meet­ing. I’m not say­ing a damn thing. Lives are at stake.”

We may nev­er know whether or not these two clowns inten­tion­al­ly want­ed to place the Ukrainian pres­i­dent in grave dan­ger. Still, Rubio is report­ed to have received mil­lions of dol­lars in so-called cam­paign con­tri­bu­tions from a Russian Oligarch.
I nev­er trust­ed nor liked the lit­tle weasel, but that’s nei­ther here nor there.
Rubio knows bet­ter; he han­dles sen­si­tive intel­li­gence as vice-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which makes his actions even more disturbing.
To add insult to injury, he dou­bled down in true trumpian fash­ion, insist­ing that his actions did not jeop­ar­dize the secu­ri­ty of the embat­tled Ukrainian leader. 

.

.

.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com

Biden signs order on cryptocurrency as its use explodes

President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed an exec­u­tive order on gov­ern­ment over­sight of cryp­tocur­ren­cy that urges the Federal Reserve to explore whether the cen­tral bank should jump in and cre­ate its own dig­i­tal currency.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the effort would “pro­mote a fair­er, more inclu­sive, and more effi­cient finan­cial sys­tem” while coun­ter­ing illic­it finance and pre­vent­ing risks to finan­cial sta­bil­i­ty and nation­al security.

The Biden admin­is­tra­tion views the explo­sive pop­u­lar­i­ty of cryp­tocur­ren­cy as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to exam­ine the risks and ben­e­fits of dig­i­tal assets, said a senior admin­is­tra­tion offi­cial who pre­viewed the order Tuesday on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, terms set by the White House.
Under the exec­u­tive order, Biden also direct­ed the Treasury Department and oth­er fed­er­al agen­cies to study the impact of cryp­tocur­ren­cy on finan­cial sta­bil­i­ty and nation­al security.
Brian Deese and Jake Sullivan, Biden’s top eco­nom­ic and nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­ers, respec­tive­ly, said the order estab­lish­es the first com­pre­hen­sive fed­er­al dig­i­tal assets strat­e­gy for the United States.

Read more here.…https://​news​.yahoo​.com/​b​i​d​e​n​-​s​i​g​n​i​n​g​-​o​r​d​e​r​-​c​r​y​p​t​o​c​u​r​r​e​n​c​y​-​e​x​p​l​o​d​e​s​-​1​1​0​0​2​1​4​5​9​.​h​tml

Jamaicans ( like myself), who con­tin­ue to call for cut­ting the colo­nial ties we main­tain with Britain, must also avail them­selves ful­ly of what we are ask­ing for.
Fully jet­ti­son­ing the Queen of England also means get­ting rid of the privy coun­cil. Aggrieved Jamaicans who can man­age to get their cas­es heard by the UK privy coun­cil can at least get a fair hear­ing one way or the other.
Let us imag­ine for a moment hav­ing to trust the Caribbean Court of Justice, or worse, plac­ing your last bet on Bryan Sykes and his cohorts to be the final arbiters of your grievances?
Now come back to real­i­ty. Yes, that will actu­al­ly be the fate of Jamaicans if peo­ple like myself get our way and we final­ly dump the queen of England.
Now I know that this may be a bit unrea­son­able, but I got­ta ask any­way, will lit­tle showoffs like K D Knight be allowed to keep the des­ig­na­tion of “Queen’s Counsel”?
Imagine a sys­tem in which we have judges turn­ing loose vio­lent crim­i­nals as if it is their God-giv­en right to do so and com­mon thugs like K D Knight pos­tur­ing and show­boat­ing in our court­rooms-what kind of jus­tice sys­tem will Jamaica even­tu­al­ly have?

Sure, I would hire KD Knight to defend me if I ever got myself into trou­ble. First of all, Knight believes some peo­ple are above the law. He is also a bul­ly that goes into court­rooms to intim­i­date judges. (I wish he was prac­tic­ing law in the United States and tried that with a judge ) but I digress.
Foot on the bench-seat K D Knight address­es judges with scant respect. Judges go out of their way to be respect­ful and def­er­en­tial to him; they treat him in the way offi­cers of the court should treat the court.
K D Knight gets what KG Knight wants, when he is in the court­room it becomes his court, not the judge’s.
It came as no sur­prise that Knight is get­ting his way in the Trafugira Beheer hear­ings in Kingston. Knight, rep­re­sent­ing for­mer Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, described the hear­ings occur­ring at the supreme court as quote “rub­bish hearings.”
For those of you who do not know what this hear­ing is about, the Trafigura Affair came to pub­lic atten­tion in October 2006 by then Opposition Leader Bruce Golding, who revealed that the firm, which trad­ed oil for Jamaica on the inter­na­tion­al mar­ket, had donat­ed $31 mil­lion to an account oper­at­ed by Campbell just before the PNP’s annu­al con­fer­ence that year.
It is impor­tant to note that it is ille­gal for com­pa­nies to make dona­tions to polit­i­cal par­ties under Dutch law.
Trafigura Beheer could not legal­ly donate mon­ey to the PNP as it vio­lat­ed sec­tion 14 of its code of conduct.
Trafigura Beheer rep­re­sen­ta­tives at the time lied that the mon­ey was part of a com­mer­cial agree­ment; the PNP, for its part, said the mon­ey was a dona­tion to the par­ty. The truth is that some arm twist­ing & extor­tion occurred, and now every PNP mem­ber has amnesia.
Either way, the whole fish head stunk to high heav­ens with the Dutch com­pa­ny break­ing its coun­try’s laws and the bunch of crooks in the PNP lying to the pub­lic about the true rea­son the mon­ey was giv­en to them.

Paragraph #1 sec­tion #14

I do not know Ketanji Brown Jackson’s pol­i­tics, nor do I know her judi­cial phi­los­o­phy; as a result, I do not care that she is black and a woman nom­i­nat­ed for the Highest court.
If the dis­grace­ful self-hat­ing Uncle TomAss is any­thing to go by, I would rather they stack the court with rad­i­cal right-wing zealots as they have been doing since Trump took office, than elect anoth­er oreo cook­ie to the court…
After all, Ketanji Brown Jackson is mar­ried to a white man, like Uncle TomAss is mar­ried to a white woman. She is a woman right?.

Black does­n’t mean right, as we have seen with Clarence TomAss and even the hir­ing of Black police offi­cers to police black neigh­bor­hoods, police abuse does­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly decrease.
Today, my inten­tion is not to ques­tion Ketanji Brown-Jackson’s judi­cial phi­los­o­phy, but the fact that American democ­ra­cy is in deep per­il because what many peo­ple thought was a sys­tem of laws turned out not to be so.
A cop can pull a motorist over after fol­low­ing that motorist for a city block or two no mat­ter how well that per­son dri­ves, and the cop would have a pseu­do legit­i­mate rea­son for the stop as a result of the thou­sands of ordi­nances and laws that gov­ern the sim­ple act of oper­at­ing a motor vehicle.
But there is no hard and fast rule as to when the United States Senate [must] advice and con­sent to Judicial nom­i­nees-or not.

Mitch McConnell refused to meet with Merrick Garland even though Obama nom­i­nat­ed Garland for eight months before the 2016 Elections. Not that Merrick Garland would have amount­ed to much of any­thing had he been allowed onto the court.
If his per­for­mance at Justice is a barom­e­ter of how he would have per­formed on the high­est court, I’ll pass…
Nevertheless, how can McConnell’s actions be pos­si­ble in a demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­ety where a gov­ern­ment body plays pol­i­tics and mock the process? 
To add insult to injury, Neil Gorsuch was quick­ly foist­ed onto the high­est court as soon as the most cor­rupt per­son ever to hold the office took over the exec­u­tive branch.
Mitch McConnell was­n’t done; he reversed his own rule and insert­ed Amey coney Barrett onto the court a mere 27 days before the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tions because they knew Trump was going to lose. A Democratic pres­i­dent would have appoint­ed Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s replacement.
A sin­gle per­son decid­ing on his own that he would not allow a vote so that a vacan­cy may be filled in over eight months then revers­es him­self and replaces a judge of his par­ty in 27 days.

The weak Democrats allowed Republicans to get away with it and did noth­ing. Today Republicans want the Democrats to go slow with Ketanji Brown-Jackson’s nom­i­na­tion for no oth­er rea­son than hop­ing to win the midterms and then jet­ti­son Brown-Jackson from the process.
Why would the Democrats play that game with them? The Republican Party is a polit­i­cal par­ty that does not believe in free and fair elec­tions, it does not believe in one man, one vote, and it no longer sub­scribes to the idea of con­sti­tu­tion­al democ­ra­cy, as we saw on January 6^th, 2021. Why play by the rules if your com­peti­tor isn’t?
I believe in fight­ing fire with more fire. Joe Biden did not need a month or more to decide who he would nom­i­nate to the court. He was oblig­at­ed to nom­i­nate a Black woman to the court. Yes, I said it; black women made him president.
He also did not need time to vet Judge Ketanji Brown-Jackson; she had only a year ear­li­er moved up to the Appellate divi­sion of the fed­er­al judi­cia­ry, she need­ed no vetting.
Charles Schumer has the gav­el in the Senate, or at least I hope so; Mitch McConnell still seems to be run­ning the show. There is no rea­son that the President’s nom­i­nee is not already con­firmed to the high­est court.
He made a cam­paign promise, his par­ty nom­i­nat­ed him based on that promise and the American peo­ple over­whelm­ing­ly elect­ed him pres­i­dent based on that promise. It is time to stop play­ing around with the fas­cist right-wing par­ty and put judge Ketanji Brown-Jackson on the court forthwith.

.

.

.

.

.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

Former U.S. Attorney General William Barr said then-President Donald Trump became furi­ous after Barr told him there was no evi­dence that the 2020 elec­tion was fraud­u­lent.

“I told him that all this stuff was bulls — … about elec­tion fraud. And, you know, it was wrong to be shov­el­ing it out the way his team was,” Barr said in an inter­view with NBC News’s Lester Holt that’s sched­uled to air Sunday night. First high­lights of the inter­view aired Thursday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports.”

The sit-down with Holt is Barr’s first tele­vised inter­view since he stepped down as attor­ney gen­er­al in late Dec. 2020. Barr is pub­lish­ing a new book about his time in the Trump admin­is­tra­tion, which has prompt­ed crit­i­cism from some that he remained silent about the for­mer pres­i­dent until he could prof­it from book sales.

Holt’s inter­view will air tonight on NBC Nightly News at 6:30 p.m. ET, with the prime­time spe­cial air­ing this Sunday at 9 pm ET on NBC. 
Read more here… https://​news​.yahoo​.com/​f​o​r​m​e​r​-​a​g​-​b​a​r​r​-​s​a​i​d​-​t​r​u​m​p​-​1​7​3​5​5​7​2​1​4​.​h​tml

It is com­mon knowl­edge that togeth­er we are stronger, no doubt; there­fore, humans align them­selves to groups, orga­ni­za­tions, gangs, and all dif­fer­ent types of col­lab­o­rat­ing entities.
And there are ben­e­fits to oper­at­ing in groups that may not be derived from going solo. For exam­ple, buy­ing in bulk is a good idea; it usu­al­ly results in low­er prices and ben­e­fits such as free deliv­ery and oth­er goodies.
Operating as a com­bined enti­ty instead of a sin­gle indi­vid­ual is gen­er­al­ly more ben­e­fi­cial on mul­ti­ple fronts than oper­at­ing on one’s own.

Even the con­tentious Africans are com­ing around to rec­og­niz­ing the val­ue of togeth­er­ness in a world that has become increas­ing­ly inter­de­pen­dent; there­fore, we now have an African Union. 
The Europeans also fig­ured it out, and after world war two, west­ern nations decid­ed on NATO as a force-mul­ti­pli­er for their own pro­tec­tion. Later they also formed the European Union.
Before the sec­ond world war, pow­er­ful nations sought to coa­lesce with oth­er nations to be stronger and bet­ter able to achieve their goals. The mighty Germans at the time aligned them­selves with Italy and Japan, both pow­ers in their own rights.

And so that mes­sage has start­ed to slow­ly reach every­one, includ­ing the Caribbean, world events dic­tate they are bet­ter off align­ing them­selves with each oth­er. And so they did .… they formed CARICOM.
Now, as Russia invad­ed Ukraine, I cer­tain­ly do not believe that indi­vid­ual mem­ber states nor CARICOM should have a dog in that fight.
(CARICOM) has left the pos­si­bil­i­ty of impos­ing sanc­tions on Russia to indi­vid­ual mem­ber states fol­low­ing hours of intense delib­er­a­tion on the sec­ond day of the 33^rd Inter-Sessional Meeting of Heads of Government in Belize.
CARICOM was formed exact­ly for these moments, and there­fore, if CARICOM is not get­ting involved, mem­ber states should also stay out of a fight that has noth­ing to do with it.
The peo­ple in Ukraine will cer­tain­ly have dif­fi­cul­ty locat­ing the Caribbean on a map, much less indi­vid­ual mem­ber states.CARICOM has already issued a state­ment con­demn­ing Russia’s inva­sion of Ukraine, argu­ing the hos­til­i­ties ran counter to the prin­ci­ples of respect for sovereignty.
That is where CARICOM and its mem­ber states should leave the issue. 
Cockroach nu bizniz Inna fowl fite.

.

.

.

.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

Well there you have it, folks, we here at this medi­um have been say­ing if it walks, quacks, and acts like a duck, guess what? It is a duck!

Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, opt­ed to sit on the Republicans’ side of the House cham­ber dur­ing President Biden’s first State of the Union address.

Why it mat­ters: Manchin has been out­spo­ken in recent days against what he has brand­ed “hyp­o­crit­i­cal” poli­cies on ener­gy imports pur­sued by the Biden admin­is­tra­tion. N0netheless, he stood repeat­ed­ly with his fel­low Democrats to applaud poli­cies out­lined by the president.

Get mar­ket news wor­thy of your time with Axios Markets. Subscribe for free.

• “While Americans decry what is hap­pen­ing in Ukraine, the United States con­tin­ues to allow the import of more than half a mil­lion bar­rels per day of crude oil and oth­er petro­le­um prod­ucts from Russia dur­ing this time of war,” Manchin said this week.
• Manchin also report­ed­ly did not stand with his fel­low Democrats when the pres­i­dent spoke about an expand­ed child tax cred­it, a pol­i­cy over which the sen­a­tor has expressed seri­ous qualms. read the full arti­cle at the link below.
  https://​news​.yahoo​.com/​m​a​n​c​h​i​n​-​s​i​t​s​-​r​e​p​u​b​l​i​c​a​n​s​-​d​u​r​i​n​g​-​s​t​a​t​e​-​0​3​1​7​2​1​4​4​9​.​h​tml

Donald Trump’s asser­tion that Vladimir Putin is a genius is cor­rect; after all, Putin turned a total clown, an igno­ra­mus, into an American pres­i­dent. I’d say that’s genius. But even more astound­ing than putting a car­ni­val clown into the high­est exec­u­tive office in America, he had the vision to imag­ine an American pres­i­dent that obeyed his every com­mand with slav­ish obedience.
A long game that includ­ed an American President opposed to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), an alliance the United States and oth­ers formed that has basi­cal­ly kept the world from anoth­er world war since 1945, a full 77 years.
Between the end of the first world war and the begin­ning of the sec­ond was 21 years. It is dif­fi­cult to argue against the insti­tu­tions set up after World War II to help main­tain world peace when the results are this stark.

Vladimir Putin’s strat­e­gy to put Donald Trump into the White House may have been even more suc­cess­ful than even the genius fer­al-eyed lit­tle man envis­aged. After all, it would require a deep sense of inge­nu­ity to imag­ine that over forty per­cent of the American pub­lic could become wide-eyed admir­ers of the Russian Federation and its auto­crat­ic leader.
Vladimir Putin under­stood America’s Achilles heel-Racism.
He inge­nious­ly under­stood that if he were able to install his own Manchurian can­di­date into the pres­i­den­cy, one that has broad appeal and can gal­va­nize the base racist ele­ments that lurk beneath the sur­face of American life, he would be able to split the coun­try down the mid­dle; he accom­plished that feat with inge­nious precision.

Whether the world real­izes it or not, we are on the brink of anoth­er world war. That is not to say that this par­tic­u­lar con­flict between Putin and Ukrain will inex­orably lead to armaged­don, but there are no guar­an­tees that it won’t either.
The stark real­i­ty is that no mad­man in his­to­ry who sought to use mil­i­tary pow­er to accom­plish his aims ever backed down in the face of oppo­si­tion. Adolph Hitler cer­tain­ly did not, even in the face of insur­mount­able odds fac­ing him with the awak­en­ing of the mighty American indus­tri­al machine that would even­tu­al­ly over­pow­er his armies with new­er and bet­ter and a lot of armaments.
President Joe Biden is set to deliv­er his first state of the Union address to the American peo­ple on March 1^st. His first year has been fraught with a world­wide pan­dem­ic, an econ­o­my sig­nif­i­cant­ly affect­ed by it, and the poten­tial for a third world war.
Despite that, the President has risen to the task res­cued the econ­o­my with no Republican sup­port even as he bat­tles with Republican forces in his own par­ty that cares more about main­tain­ing white pow­er than the advance­ment and well­be­ing of the nation.

The par­ty that once lion­ized a failed actor (Ronald Reagan) for famous­ly telling Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down that wall on June 12, 1987, has now become the par­ty of Vladimir Putin. The par­ty that lion­ized and gave Reagan cred­it for send­ing the American debt through the stratos­phere by out­spend­ing the Soviets on weapons of war now open­ly sup­ports a tyrant from that same coun­try 35-years lat­er over its own country.
As President Biden redies to give his first state of the Union, what has the Russian-sup­port­ing Republican cau­cus in the United States Congress done-it con­venes a press con­fer­ence to denounce the American President and give suc­cor to the mon­ster in Moscow.
A weak­ened America means a strength­ened Russia; American racism has been the great­est threat to its own advance­ment and strength. Racism result­ed in a civ­il war result­ing in a mil­lion-plus dead between 1861 to 1865.
Ignorance now dwells where knowl­edge should abound; at its most recent CPAC, one fas­cist clown sought to ridicule the con­cept that America’s strength was its diversity.
The speak­er point­ed to both China and Russia as ful­ly homoge­nous soci­eties as great soci­eties- the [Kkkrowd] roared with delight. The sad irony is that despite its ills, America, a diverse nation is still head and shoul­ders above both China and Russia.
But in this dystopi­an real­i­ty, facts take a back seat to charged racist rhetoric…

.

.

.

.

.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

The world’s sym­pa­thies are stead­fast­ly focused on the nation of Ukraine in its exis­ten­tial strug­gle against the mighty Russian Federation. However, it was heart­break­ing to see images of Black stu­dents alleged­ly being pre­vent­ed from board­ing trains out of the besieged country.
Ever cau­tious about get­ting the facts before speak­ing out, I won­dered whether the decree by the Ukrainian Government that men should not be allowed to leave the coun­try may have played a part in the inci­dents that I have seen.
However, on Monday, the Nigerian gov­ern­ment called out the “unfor­tu­nate reports” of Ukrainian police “refus­ing to allow Nigerians to board bus­es and trains” head­ed toward Ukraine’s bor­der with Poland.

It seems almost safe to safe to say that wher­ev­er white peo­ple are, evil lurks in their hearts. Imagine that they are destroy­ing them­selves, it is not us who are hurt­ing them, but they still find room for big­otry and hatred.
Blacks, whites, brown and yel­low peo­ple all across the globe looked on in hor­ror at Russian artillery shelling homes and high-rise hous­ing com­plex­es in Kyiv in hor­ror. We all felt a sense of empa­thy for the peo­ple in Ukraine, but it seems like hatred, big­otry, and igno­rance are curs­es assigned to Edomite peo­ple, and they sim­ply can­not help themselves.
As Black peo­ple, we are empa­thet­ic and sym­pa­thet­ic to all peo­ple in their strug­gles regard­less of race, col­or, reli­gion, creed, or sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion. It seems, how­ev­er, that there is a world­wide hatred for the Black race that is palpable.
Maybe it is time that, as a race, we stop car­ing about peo­ple who do not care about us. In this war between Russia and Ukraine, we should have no favorite.

This Article has been updat­ed with addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion from the Nigerian Embassy.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.