Local Police are arms of state governments, like the (FBI) is an arm of the Federal Government, so too is the Secret Service responsible to protect whomever the President is at the time. At the State level, the State Police has responsibility for protecting the Governor. State Police also has the responsibility to protect Legislators whenever they are convened in state Capitols doing the people’s business. Police do not get to make the determination that they are stepping back from protecting members of legislatures when they are in session, based on their political beliefs. Neither do Police get to make the determination that they are going to withdraw and allow heavily armed militia-members to invade a Legislature without taking any steps to stop it.
White rightwing Militia invade state capitol Police stood down. Legislatures are not in charge, the police determine the politics.That happens when lawmakers give police the impression they can do as they please. They did as they pleased.
Which brings us to the events that occurred in Michigan recently. Heavily armed Militia members with nooses and confederate flags literally invaded the Legislature and demanded to be let onto the floor. One Legislator, African-American Sarah Anthony, said of the event; she wanted to highlight what she saw as the failure of the Michigan capitol police to provide legislators with adequate security during the protest, which saw demonstrators with rifles standing in the legislative chamber above lawmakers. “When traditional systems, whether it’s law enforcement or whatever, fail us, we also have the ability to take care of ourselves.” “If I don’t vote the way that these people want me to vote, are they going to rush in and start shooting us?” she said. “You could feel the floor rumbling. You could hear them yelling and screaming.”Anthony said.
Across the country, people pointed to the shocking display of arrogance by the heavily armed thugs. But they lambasted the police for failing to act appropriately. In the African-American community, the display of cowardice & was only another example of the two Americas that has always be manifested by gross police misconduct. Police deciding to stand down against heavily armed militias was nothing new. “Anthony said, she felt law enforcement had simply left them to their own devices during last week’s protest.“ They sure did, they abdicated their oaths in support of their political beliefs and that’s all there is to it. As a former law enforcement officer, I cannot envisage a scenario in which I would abdicate my sworn duty based on political leanings, nevertheless, this is exactly what happened here.
The Michigan state police reportedly hosted a call with legislators on 4 May to brief them on available security services, including security escorts, after learning that some representatives were fearful for their safety.[According to the Guardian] Well isn’t that just great? “Oh wait, we are just learning that you are fearful for your safety, so here let me tell you about some options you have”. What total bullshit? “Oh by the way we are s concerned after the fact, never mind that the horse is long out the gate”. Anthony said it had been meaningful to receive a personal offer from constituents to help ensure her safety. A few of whom turned up to escort her to work. The shame of American failure, continues to be openly manifested in its police every single day. Ironically it is these very same legislators who continue to vote to allow them to treat citizens with utter contempt. The chickens are coming home to roost, the police are running the show and it may be too late to take back the power and give it back to the people.
PLEASESHARETHISARTICLE
Mike Beckles is a former Jamaican police Detective corporal, businessman, researcher, and blogger. He is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
Terrence Williams continues to degrade what if anything is left of his already severely damaged character by having his lawyers write to the Police Federation Chairman with threats of legal actions over what he characterized as defamatory language issued by the Federation after INDECOM’s loss in the UK Privy Council. Williams lost his bid to have the decision of the Jamaica Court Of Appeals quashed. The court held that neither INDECOM, Williams nor his subordinates had the power to arrest or prosecute police officers, members of the JDF, nor the Corrections Department. Terrence Willams have over the years used some of the most caustic languages to describe the police department, and even the rulings of the court. As a public figure, Terrence Williams seems to expect that he is beyond criticism.
Patronage, & politics, guided this appointment and it was a total disaster from the get go.
Terence Williams has now demonstrated that he is far worse than I have characterized him over the years. Egomaniacal, narcissistic, megalomaniac, power-hungry- Napeolonic, insecure, stupid, dumb, he has never come after me. Of course, he continues to pursue the police with threats of court actions, under the guise of defamation. No one could ever defame Terrence Williams more than he has already defamed himself. He is now a sorry shell of a little man who was not satisfied with the power he was given spent his entire tenure fighting with everyone rather than doing the job he was paid to do. In the end, he will demit that office a pathetic little failure who wasted billions of Jamaican dollars under the guise of oversight. The Jamaican people are left holding the bag and for what? This insecure, pathetic little man was so obsessed with power that he will have an extremely difficult time being taken seriously by anyone.
LETTERFROMWILLIAMS’ ATTORNEYS
We appreciate your response to the podcast we did after the decision of the UK Privy Council affirming the decision of the Jamaica Court Of Appeals ruling that denied INDECOM the power to arrest & prosecute members of the JCF, JDF,& the Department of Corrections.
It really wasn’t just about who has powers to arrest who, for an outsider like myself it seemed rather strange that the head of an oversight agency would sit down with groups calling themselves human rights groups, yet they never seemed to care about the right law-abiding citizens have to life. Terrence Williams started with an agenda that was obvious from the start. This humble writer wrote dozens of articles calling for William’s firing, calling for the repeal of the Act, not because police and other agencies don’t need oversight but because Terrence Williams was a toxic and insidious force that would cause more harm than good. He has.
In the end, Terrence William’s tenure has been characterized by court action between INDECOM& the JCF. Court action between INDECOM& the JDF. Court action between INDECOM& the Director of Public Prosecution. Terrence Williams was a force unto himself and it was bad for Jamaica. There is no question that police need oversight. Terrence Williams was the anthesis of what is needed. Because of what Terrence Williams and INDECOM represent, the nation is experiencing a rapidly negative cultural shift. Every arrest had to be done by force because everyone now wants to fight the police. Williams will be remembered as a glory hound who spent his time like a leech to the tax-payers and gave them nothing but grief in return. INDECOM and Williams became the criminal underworld greatest friend, not because Williams or his agency are committing crimes, but because it’s mission has been twisted and convoluted to the extent it only aided the nation’s worst actors. That is an even greater crime .….…. We have learned that the little Napoleon has stated that he will leave the agency by July, this is a clear indication that it was all about himself. As long as he couldn’t have his way he wanted no part of it. I would like to know the day he will be demitting office I would like to beat some old pans behind him as he leaves and then throw a really big party. He never was any good and we saw straight through him. Bye Felicia.…
Mike Beckles is a former Jamaican police Detective corporal, businessman, researcher, and blogger. He is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
I think it was former President George W Bush years ago who referred to the People’s Republic of China as a world power comparable to the United States. The Chinese leader coyly downplayed the president’s characterization with faux humility, “China is still a poor developing country mister president we are still struggling to find ways to feed our 1.3 billion people”[pharaprased] Anyone fooled by that faux humility must not have been paying attention. Since Richard Nixon added some warmth to the dormant relationship that existed between the United States and China with a visit in 1972, China has emerged as a powerhouse on the world stage, transforming its economy into a powerhouse as a result of its massive manufacturing infrastructure. Today China stands as probably the greatest example of Capitalism’s potential to shape and improve people’s lives. China’s emergence from poverty to the second-largest economy in the world happened the fastest of any economy in recorded history.
In 2002 speaking at Tsinghua University President George W Bush said; Thirty years ago this week, an American President arrived in China on a trip designed to end decades of estrangement and confront centuries of suspicion. President Richard Nixon showed the world that two vastly different governments could meet on the grounds of common interest, in the spirit of mutual respect.Some of the erroneous pictures of America are painted by others.
My friend, the Ambassador to China, tells me some Chinese textbooks talk of Americans of “bullying the weak and repressing the poor.” Another Chinese textbook, published just last year, teaches that special agents of the FBI are used to “repress the working people.” Now, neither of these is true — and while the words may be leftovers from a previous era, they are misleading and they’re harmful. I disagreed mightily with the way Bush ascended to the presidency, I also disagreed with almost every policy Bush stood for and the second paragraph of his statements above was no exception. But that is hardly the intent of this article. (See link to full speech from President George W Bush in china in 2002;https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/02/20020222.html)
In the years since that speech, China has emerged on the world stage fully flushed with cash. They have aggressively invested in upgrading their military, and have advanced soft power across the globe through loans and infrastructural projects that should cause raised eyebrows to everyone concerned. But China’s approach has not always been one of soft power, for example in parts of Africa.….. yea Africa, China’s actions have been tantamount to that of a loan shark engaging in Usury tactics. That has drawn condemnation from some quarters as well as strongly-worded statements of caution to other nations to be wary of china’s monetary entreatments. Full disclosure, this writer has criticized two such warnings toward Jamaica my home country, one coming from the secretary of state Mike Pompeo& the other from the US Ambassador to Jamaica Donald Tapia. My desire to see 20st-century infrastructure in my homeland may have inspired my chagrin at the Americans, for daring to issue warnings to Jamaica about China. I also feel strongly that if the Americans cared enough they could have helped countries like Jamaica that have been friendly to the United States with low-interest loans, something which would have been in the best interest of the United States as it relates to Immigration.
There are thousands of articles detailing the pitfalls of navigating the minefield of accepting Chinese money. Sufficing to say this ought to have been common knowledge to everyone including your humble servant who is like everyone else, prone to making decisions based on emotions. I beg your forgiveness. Beijing “encourages dependency using opaque contracts, predatory loan practices, and corrupt deals that mire nations in debt and undercut their sovereignty, denying them their long-term, self-sustaining growth,” said US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on March 6. 2018. ”Chinese investment does have the potential to address Africa’s infrastructure gap, but its approach has led to mounting debt and few, if any, jobs in most countries,” he added. In January 2018 when a Le Monde investigation exposed that the Chinese-financed and constructed African Union building in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia had been bugged by Beijing, the outcry was muted. Microphones were found hidden in desks and walls, and data from the AU computer network was transferred back to Shanghai servers nightly for over five years, since the building’s opening in 2012.
China has long surpassed the United States as the largest trading partner with Africa. The African continent with it’s 1.216 billion people presented a wealth of opportunities for the United States as it relates to trade. Racism and other nefarious considerations on the part of the Americans enabled China to enter the space and cement itself on a continent rife with opportunities but desperately in need of help. Although Kenya and Ethiopia were the only two African nations among the 30 countries signing economic and trade agreements at the Belt and Road Forum (Barf) in Beijing in May of 2017, China has been busy on the continent. The flagship Belt and Road project is Kenya’s 290-mile railway from the capital, Nairobi, to the port city of Mombasa, which opened to the public last year. As African nations take advantage of China’s entreaties monetarily, it is important that African leaders ensure that corruption and graft do not once again plunge the continent into another dark period of colonization. African people all across the globe simply cannot afford to jump from the frying pan into the fire. The last time the enemy arrived on the continent they came with guns, it literally took five hundred years of slavery and the worst kind of inhumanity for Africans to emerge from those dark days. African people can ill-afford to allow another enemy to come in this time with cash in hand, building highways and ports that they will never be able to afford. It is another form of enslavement & this enemy has demonstrated that like the last it has no heart. Negotiate .….……
Mike Beckles is a former Jamaican police Detective corporal, businessman, researcher, and blogger. He is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
It is not easy to look at the street events in our country and not walk away having thrown your hands in the air saying, “I give up, I just give up”. It is hard not to become disillusioned at the level of deep-seated ignorance and unadulterated lawlessness, for no reason other than to be total imbeciles. But we still have to harbor hope that somehow, there is a silent majority that does not show up at those street events, scantily clad, if at all, bodies gyrating to the ear-busting crescendo of what now passes for music, the lyrics of which helped to shape the degeneracy we are experiencing today. The insipid crassness should never be construed to be a product of the ghetto only, or to be confined geographically to the underserved areas below crossroads. In fact, much of the Bhutto behavior that crept into the broader national discourse, and has now become mainstream, was introduced by the old dirty dish towels that were turned into table cloths overnight.
My grand aunt who raised me (Mamma) [God rest her wonderful soul] always told me that if you dress up a pig and put the best clothes on that pig and put it in a church it does not make the pig a Christian it makes the church a pigpen. You could dress up a pig all you want and put lipstick on it, but a pig is still a pig. Given a chance, it defaults right back to rolling around in the mud. That is why it makes no sense to give pearls to swine. Okay, Mike really?, Enough with the pig metaphors, you are a pork eater, you cannot be on cow’s back and still a cuss cow, man. I know right, but you see the Bhutto behavior in the parliament,& that in and of itself gives license to hoodlums in the ghettos uptown and downtown to act with the sense of rabid lawlessness we are witnessing.
The desire to be liked, the desire to be popular, the desire to be seen as a man of the people has literally shaped the way the news gets reported, it shapes how topical issues are discussed, and it even influences some of the same dishrags turned tablecloths to bring the nastiness into the highest seats of decision-making and academia. Gangstas who glorify misogyny, murder & mutilation are revered, celebrated, and exalted, made into earthly gods, they are now thought-shapers and influencers. Faith and family are replaced with nihilism & a total disregard for traditional norms that previously served as guardrails to keep anarchy and chaos at bay.
Look we Jamaicans are cut from a different cloth, we are a rebellious people who do not take kindly to being told what we can and cannot do. Our people are largely from the Ibo, Ashanti & Cormmantie tribes. Some history books now reveal that the enslaved people who ended up in Jamaica were the enslaved Africans who did not succumb or adapt to being enslaved. The history of the so-called Maroons and the battles they waged to force the British from Jamaica bears testament to our fearless free & indomitable spirits. Nevertheless, just being rebellious and ungovernable in 2020 is a prescription for disaster. The consequences of making dancehall artistes role models, instead of elevating our doctors, nurses, teachers, police officers have borne bitter fruits and the country is now reaping those bitter fruits. It is never a good thing when the tail wags the dog.
Mike Beckles is a former Jamaican police Detective corporal, businessman, researcher, and blogger. He is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
I saw this post on Facebook and I could not pass this one up. I am going to break a cardinal rule I have, which is to limit my comments on party politics and only to speak on topical issues as I see them. Look, the corona virus has disrupted all of our lives, and I know and share in the pain of those who are having a hard time finding the basics like food and clean drinking water. In fact, it has been for that reason that I wrote an article just today speaking to those issues. But when people talk about the poor and needy from the tip of their tongues as a means to gain political mileage or traction, it infuriates me to no end. When they demand that Government do the impossible without the requisite resources, they are asking for the mythical equivalent of spinning straw into gold, an impossibility. Please listen to Imani Duncan the daughter of Donald Keith Duncan, who was born to privilege and we will discuss afterwards.
I am at a loss as to where Government is supposed to get the resources to do these things when the PNP was in office for 221⁄2 years and did not move to regularize the economy. Twenty-two and one-half years and many of those informal earners could have been brought under some type of tax compliance umbrella which would have provided some degree of solvency or fallback reserve funds for the government to resort to in times like these. If you do not pay any taxes, where is the money to come from to do the handing out? I am just as concerned as anyone else about the people who are living from one meal to the next, and let me hasten to say, but for the grace of God, we would all be so living. Nevertheless, the administration has been in office under four years, what more could this administration have done in the time it has been in office?
Imani & har puppa
The hypocrisy of these pseudo-communists is not only galling, it is incomprehensibly ironic. For the twenty-two and one-half years that the PNP had total control of the country, Jamaica underwent a transformational negative metamorphosis from which it is still reeling. Add that change to the period between 1972 to 1980 and a more transparent picture emerges as to why Jamaica is where it is today, mired in poverty, crime and perpetual begging. If the People’s National Party was a business, it would have been defunct, gone belly-up from the 1970s. The combined administrations of Michael Manley, Percival Patterson and Portia Simpson Miller of which Imani Duncan’s daddy Donald Keith Duncan was an integral part, plundered the nation’s coffers, destroyed the productive sector, destroyed tourism and the mining sector, oversaw the deterioration of the Island’s colonial infrastructure and watched and cheered the destruction of our valued Jamaican culture, and the expansion of transnational criminality, to the point many living in the diaspora have unfortunately sworn off returning to their Island home.
The shredding of our traditional and cultural norms, the destruction of the Island’s business sector, including the destruction of the national airline through the padding of the staff with PNP cronies who never did a days work. The destruction of the national Bus service through the same racket of padding the workforce with political hacks who received payment for no work done. Awarding contracts to political hacks who never did a day’s work in their lives. After twenty-two & one-half years the PNP left Jamaica far worse than when they took over the country from Edward Seaga in 1988. How dare these little misinformed, miseducated neophytes dare come to social media about poor people when they grew up fat from the slop at the feeding trough of hard-working Jamaicans?
As a member of the PNP from as far back as Michael Manley’s days, what has DK Duncan done to alleviate the suffering of the Island’s poor? How dare his little entitled daughter come to the people pretending that she knows or understands their pain? Caring is all about showing me what you have done, it has nothing to do with talking when you are sitting on the sidelines. Hopefully, the Jamaican people will be smart enough to discard your faux concern and see it for what it truly is pandering to the fears and emotional pain in order to gain leverage politically. Shame on you, but you are seeking political office, you lot are shameless narcissists.
Mike Beckles is a former Jamaican police Detective corporal, businessman, researcher, and blogger. He is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
I totally get the notion of not being a sheep, being able to think for one’s self, not follow every instruction dutifully without questioning whether it is in one’s best interest. On the other hand, not following instructions simply because of a rebellious attitude, is a net negative that can have grave consequences individually & collectively. The stay at home directives by the Jamaican Government and the ensuing acts of defiance in some communities, has roots in a culture that has been left to fester for way too long. It is one of total defiance, and living outside the boundaries of the law.
As for the stay at home orders themselves, the government has been measured in its leadership, not acting in a draconian way, but steadily balancing the economic needs of the country against the need to ensure there is no massive spread of the COVID-19 virus among the 2.8 million citizens. In articulating that point, Prime Minister Andrew Holness said: “We cannot shut down the economy; this would create another type of crisis where people cannot access the goods and services they need.” I totally agree with the Prime Minister’s assessment, additionally, we are a country with an exponentially large percentage of the population that is not living from paycheck to paycheck, they are living from one meal to the next. For these poorer folks, staying at home is a luxury they simply cannot afford. [Like the woman in the Bible who told the prophet that all she had was some flour in a barrel and some oil to make one meal for her and her son, after which they would die from hunger], those folks have to make a decision whether to stay home and die from hunger, or risk getting infected by going out and hustling for their next meal.
The Prime Minister is also correct when he said: “We are not placing a dollar value on life; every life is important, but for the Government to be effective in protecting your life we still need to have revenues. Cutting off economic activity lessens the ability of the Government to spend on increasing the capacity of the health care system. The government, therefore, has to balance carefully.” Remarkably, the opposition PNP was silent as the administration embarked on this measured approach, balancing saving lives and ensuring that there remained some economic activity. All while dealing with the ignorance of some in certain communities who blatantly flouted the stay at home orders, not because they needed to get out to work and purchase food, but because they wanted to party and demonstrate that they could openly, brazenly and defiantly, disobey rules and regulations. The Opposition party could have decided to set aside politics just this once and acted in the interest of the nation’s greater good, rather than in the interest of scoring cheap political mileage. That, however, would have been too much to ask of the PNP, to stand with the government and demand that people obey the stay at home orders as best they could. That did not happen.
It is for those reasons that the recent statements of the former chief medical officer, PNP caretaker for St Catherine East Central Winston De La Haye, calling for a full lockdown of the country seems spurious at best. Speaking to the media De La Haye argued:
“We need to move from chasing the virus to preventing infection. There is one way of doing that, and I’ll hasten to say as a public health official, it is clear to me that at this point we need to ensure, in an appropriate way, that we shut the country down”. “What’s going to happen is that we’ve started with St Catherine; next is likely to be Kingston and St Andrew, then another parish, and another moving around the mulberry bush. As obtained in Italy, the experience has been there… let’s not repeat those mistakes. Now is the time to make plans, adequate plans, not in the manner in the experiment of Tuesday night with St Catherine, adequate plans to shut the country down.” De La Haye a psychiatrist, seems to need to have his head examined.
A total lockdown of the country cannot happen without the economy suffering serious contraction. Already the country is forced to look at going back to the International Monetary Fund to secure funding. As my readers know quite well, I am at odds with the government on that issue as I believe that the country’s financial health can be remedied if the Government took certain steps to remediate the intransigent and burgeoning violent crime epidemic currently plaguing the country. Nevertheless, those are concerns for another time. For the reasons I stated about the poverty levels in the country, it is also an impossible task of asking the entire country to stay at home when they have no food to eat, and in many cases, they don’t even have drinking water. Forcing people to stay inside under those conditions is a prescription for open revolt. Could that be what the opposition party wants to see for its own political viability?
Mike Beckles is a former Jamaican police Detective corporal, businessman, researcher, and blogger. He is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
It’s great that the Prime Minister is giving credit to the frontline workers who are out in the filed putting their lives at risk to ensure the safety and security of people they have never met. That is what first responders do, they brave the challenges and step to the fore when others step to the rear. It is unfortunate that as he celebrated our nurses and Doctors who are so very dedicated to ensuring the safety of the health of their fellow Jamaicans, the Prime Minister once again conveniently found a way around the premier protective agency in the country, the (Jamaica Constabulary Force), but never misses an opportunity to mention the soldiers.
After a while, those who apologize for this guy, including some of you police officers, past officers & present, who place political affiliations ahead of the slights and disrespect that is meted out by this guy to the larger police department, should hang your collective heads in shame. In no other country could a politician, so disrespect law-enforcement officers, including those running behind him to protect his pathetic ass and that of his family while he heaps slights and disrespect on them overtly and covertly.
Mike Beckles is a former Jamaican police Detective corporal, businessman, researcher, and blogger. He is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
Getting lost in the twenty-four-hour COVID-19 conversation on cable television, and the incessant mind-numbing chatter on social media, is the fact that an American Presidential election is due in November. Democratic Socialist, & Vermont’s US Senator, two-time presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders just two days ago dropped out of the race for president. Despite not having sewn up the nomination, Joe Biden, the presumptive nominee for the Democrats, is almost silent, even as the Republican incumbent is in front of the television cameras literally every day. The conventional wisdom that seems to be guiding the Biden campaign is that the incumbent is doing such a bad job, and there is so much anti-Trump sentiment out there, that they can simply while away the days to the elections. And thereafter, Joe Biden will be installed the 46th president of the United States. If that is their mindset they should talk to president Hillary Clinton about how that strategy worked out for her. In 2016 as Hillary Clinton rested on her laurels, and for the entire month of August she did not do a single campaign rally. In the meantime Donald trump was on the campaign trail with his name boldly emblozned on his old plane in every airport hanger he could find.
These were the scenes across America while Hillary Clinton met with private groups.
There is the general rule that there is no such thing as bad publicity, true or not, Donald Trump understands this more than most. And so this is the time that the Democratic National Committee under the hapless leadership of Tom Perez should be stepping up its game to consolidate resources with the Biden Campaign to seriously mount a credible offensive against the Trump machinery. This election will literally be the most consequential in our lifetime. But Joe Biden could hardly be seen as either a competent or inspiring presidential candidate. As the Root’s Damon Young writes. “Joe Biden has been, in order, a dangerous young politician, a disappointing older politician, a laughable Democratic presidential candidate, a middling vice president, an uninspired Democratic presidential candidate, and now an uninspiring Democratic nominee.” I thought Damon Young’s characterization of Biden may be a bit harsh, nevertheless, if there is a milder version to those adjectives I would gladly sign on to those.
At best Joe Biden is a gaffe-prone, uninspiring mediocre candidate who just happens to be the last person standing of the large and diverse field of candidates who started on the journey to defeat Donald Trump. In a way, Biden has survived because of two or three key issues (1) Democratic primary voters want someone they believe will have the best chance to defeat Donald Trump in the fall. (2) Biden has name recognition and arguable the bona fides necessary to win back rust-belt states that did not turn out for Hillary Clinton. (3) He is a two-term vice ‑president to Barack Obama the last Democratic president, who may still be the most popular man in the party, and I daresay the entire country. Joe Biden may be the presumptive nominee at the moment for the very same reason that Obama picked him to be vice president, his potential appeal to rust-belt voters in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania & Ohio.
We are less than eight months away from the presidential elections and if Joe Biden has a plan or a strategy to win the presidency it is yet to be seen. For its part the DNC has not demonstrated the kind of aggressive leadership that voters expect, that would harness and channel the resentment that has characterized Donald Trump’s entry into the White House. If Joe Biden does not get it together real fast, almost 60% of Americans who did not support Donald Trump should prepare for another four years of a ruthless dictatorship that will make the first four years seem like a bad comedy act. The America that existed before Trump entered the White House will certainly not exist anymore. Donald Trump, Mitch McConnel, and the Roberts supreme court will forever transform America into a dystopian nightmare.
The Tuesday night arrest of former PNP turned JLP councilor, Kari Douglas, of the Trafalgar Division in the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation by the police, should not have raised any eyebrows. You break the law you get arrested you go to court and take your medicine. If you did not break the law you submit to being arrested you go to court you win you sue the police. At least that is what civilized societies do, because, no one is above the laws and when you are wrong .…. you are just wrong. Not so in Jamaica, there is a history of filthy-mouthed people, some in politics and some affiliated with the politicians, some from political families who believe that laws don’t apply to them, and so they can ignore the laws because of who they are or who they know. A Portmore pastor is facing fines of up to a million dollars (M$1000,000.00) for having a group of worshipers at her house. Kari Douglas is arrested for (a) allegedly failing to provide proof that she is a councillor, & therefore exempt under the Disaster Risk Management Act& (b) hurling curse words and abusive language at the officers, gets special treatment. An SSP sent to find out why the arrestee was in fact arrested?
And so it is not surprising that this non-issue arrest for a fly-by-night parish councilor who thinks she is more important than she is, would berate the police when stopped and asked to provide identification to substantiate the claims she made that she was a parish councilor, & therefore exempt under the Disaster Risk Management Act. According to a text circulating on social media purporting to be from a deputy superintendent of the police, this is what occurred. At about 9:28 pm, a police traffic stop was initiated, Kari Douglas (address withed) was eventually arrested and charged.
She was stopped along Meadowbrook Avenue and failed to identify herself as a member of the essential service as laid down by the law. She became boisterous and started hurling abusive language stating that the police were idiots and dunce to the annoyance and disturbance of the public. She was bailed at the sum of $20,000 to appear in the HWTRM court on May 6, 2020. Cons. R. Deans is investigating.
At about 10:30 pm SSP Steve McGregor attended this police station stating that he was sent by the Commissioner of Police to intervene in the matter. He questioned the police as to why he was charging the councilor and that was to hurry up and advised her that the entire completion of the CR form was not relevant.[ He went on to ridicule the team and stated that she could call the police anything she wanted even if she wanted to tell them bad words.]
At this juncture, I told the SSP that she was wrong in her behavior and I would not tolerate her brusque behavior especially as a prospective leader in this country. All was expected of her is a little respect and dignity shown to the men and women who put there lives on the line for there country. I told the mayor and deputy mayor who were also present that it doesn’t matter who you are that the law is the law and respect must be shown.
First of all, I must say that I strongly support the sentiment: I told the SSP that she was wrong in her behavior and I would not tolerate her brusque behavior especially as a prospective leader in this country. All was expected of her is a little respect and dignity shown to the men and women who put there lives on the line for there country. I told the mayor and deputy mayor who were also present that it doesn’t matter who you are that the law is the law and respect must be shown.
I find it curious that SSP Steve McGregor was there quite conveniently at the same time as the mayor & deputy mayor. Did they all arrive together? Did they coördinate their arrival to embarrass and intimidate the junior officer who made the arrest? We have contacted the Police communications network to get their version of events before we published this article, we have not received a response. In the meantime, we have information that Steve McGregor insisted he was only sent by Antony Anderson (the stand-in for a real commissioner of police) because he was working last night. We will leave that as it is, for now, trust me I will be doing some real digging to ferret out the facts, to determine whether or not Steve McGregor was sent there to force the release of Kari Douglas. Or to determine whether he was even sent at all?
McGregor
If the so-called commissioner of police wanted the facts, & if he wanted to use McGregor to gain the minutia surrounding the arrest, all McGregor had to do was to pick up the phone to glean those facts. The habit of senior officers trying to use their rank to bully younger officers to make arrests go away, is not lost on anyone, certainly not this writer. I do not know what occurred but I have a hunch that Steve McGregor far overstepped his bounds to impress the little local government politicians and that he fundamentally believed that the police arrested her wrongfully. These are the words of Steve Mcgregor in response to questions about his involvement. Quote: (This is the weakness of some of our inexperienced officers, when they are supposedly dissed”, they let emotions dictate actions.“ They could have called control, use the lady ID and ask for guidance if she is, in fact, a councillor, but because she “Diss” the rest is history” .closed quote. This is the same Steve McGregor Senior Superintendent of Police, who embarrassed the young man for [dissing] the Prime Minister, he has now made a full 180-degree turn and is supporting a little inconsequential law-breaking non-entity who did the very same thing to police officers. For the edification of the Senior Superintendent and indeed the Jamaican public, even if one is exempt under the Disaster Risk Management Act, it does not give the party carte blanche to be out in public, unless on official business relating to his or her office.
The Jamaica Observer did an extensive article on the arrest, but duplicitously and transparently failed to include the police version of events. Not just that, the JLP-leaning Observer, went overboard to include comprehensively, the story that Kari Douglas told them of her version of events. And so I want to ask the following questions in this medium. (1) If Kari Douglas failed to prove that she is a councilor why should she not be arrested?
There was no problem when the young man was sought out and arrested with the very same SSP Steve McGregor standing there crowing that he was arrested while hiding under a bed. What is the difference between that young man and Kari Douglas? If Kari Douglas used expletives against the officers, which is an arrestable offense under Jamaican law, why should she be exempt from arrest, particularly when she has a history of abusive, abrasive, and disorderly behavior, and have been previously arrested, but was never held accountable for her actions?
(2) If true, why did the Commissioner of Police send Steve McGregor as alleged, to find out why the councilor was arrested, when a simple phone call to the Area or Divisional officer could have sufficed? Is a parish councilor, member of parliament, minister of government, the prime minister, a high court judge or the Governor-General above the laws? If so, Jamaicans who are asked to respect the laws must be told that there is a caste system alive and well in JAMAICA, and it should be made abundantly clear as to who exactly is above the laws of the country.
(3) If Kari Douglas was still a member of the PNP would Antony Anderson send Steve McGregor to intervene in the arrest as alleged? (4) Why is a commissioner of police intervening in an arrest anyway? There is information in the public space that indicates that Douglas is linked to the Mayor of the council, we are unable to verify those claims & so we will not elaborate on them. In the meantime, I stand squarely behind the arresting officers, until more facts become available. It is disgusting to me that police officers past and present would allow their political affiliations to cloud their vision and shape their view of how the laws ought to be applied. Those of you who do so are despicable, unworthy ever to have donned the uniform of a police officer. You are a disgrace.
Mike Beckles is a former Jamaican police Detective corporal, businessman, researcher, and blogger. He is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
Hours after this country’s prime minister on Wednesday insisted a visit last weekend by Venezuela’s Vice President had nothing to do with the US indicting Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro for narco-terrorism, came word that US President Donald Trump was going to double the presence of US warships in the Southern Caribbean. “Today, the United States is launching enhanced counter-narcotics operations in the Western Hemisphere to protect the American people from the deadly scourge of illegal narcotics,” Trump told a news conference in Washington on Wednesday.
Saying the US was cooperating with 22 partner nations, to interdict illicit drug shipments, he said, “We’re deploying additional Navy destroyers, combat ships, aircraft and helicopters, Coast Guard cutters and Air Force surveillance aircraft, doubling our capabilities in the region,” Venezuela’s economy has been hit by low-oil prices plus US sanctions over alleged election-rigging, all this, sending thousands fleeing abroad including to TT, even as covid19 now adds more uncertainty.
Read the full article here: https://newsday.co.tt/2020/04/03/trump-to-send-more-warships/
You be the judge, are the authorities telling you the truth about what is really killing people across the Globe, or are we going to listen to these experts?
Pandemics are states of disease that sharply increase in populations around the world with infections taking place more or less simultaneously. While it usually refers to infectious diseases, such as plague or influenza, it is often used to refer to other health conditions including cancer, obesity, and even addiction. Pathogen transmission through a population is typically covered by five general descriptions. An endemic infection is one that remains relatively stable over time, infecting an expected number of hosts in ways that are usually fairly well understood. The parasite schistosomiasis, for example, can cause serious infections, but is usually contained within tropical regions in numbers that don’t vary much from year to year.
An outbreak describes a sudden spike in transmissions in a localized region. For example, in 2019 the Democratic Republic of the Congo saw a steep rise in people contracting the Ebola virus in the nation’s east. While the World Health Organisation (WHO) viewed it as a public health emergency, its containment meant it wasn’t an epidemic. Widespread outbreaks across wider regions tend to be regarded as epidemics. The spread of Ebola across Western Africa between 2013 and 2016 is often described using the word epidemic. Once the epidemic has proven to be capable of moving around the world in a way that sustains widespread, ongoing infections, it can be regarded as a pandemic.
When does an epidemic officially become a pandemic?
In 2009, a new kind of influenza A virus known as H1N1 emerged in an outbreak in the United States. It quickly spread, and was defined by the WHO as a pandemic based on a formal process that took into account the precise nature of the countries where an infection was diagnosed. As infections from the 2019-coV coronavirus continued to spread in early 2020, the WHO declared that they no longer use a formal classification to designate when an epidemic becomes a pandemic. Concerned premature use of the term could cause panic, officials instead described the global epidemic as having “pandemic potential”, while claiming that they weren’t yet observing the “uncontained global spread” of the virus. From (sciencealert.com)
New York, NY — In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Elmhurst Hospital in New York City is reportedly at a breaking point after 13 people died there within a 24-hour period.
“Elmhurst is at the center of this crisis,” said Christopher Miller, a spokesman for the city public hospital systems said in a statement, according to New York Post. “It’s the number one priority of our public hospital system right now.”
“Staff are doing everything in our power to save every person who contracts COVID-19. But unfortunately, this virus continues to take an especially terrible toll on the elderly and people with preexisting conditions,” he added.
According to hospital officials, the 545-bed hospital is currently functioning at over 125% capacity, compared to its usual 80% capacity rate. The hospital has been in desperate need of protective equipment and supplies as well.
An ER nurse described the situation at the hospital as a “war zone,” saying that people have lined up outside the hospital, mostly to get tested for COVID-19. Some patients died inside the ER without having been able to be treated.
At least 25 staffers from other hospitals were added to Elmhurst in a 24-hour span. Ventilators and 10,000 face masks were recently provided to the hospital, but a lot more is needed to continuously provide the overwhelming increase of people infected with the coronavirus.
Recent reports confirmed there are a total of 20,011 positive cases of coronavirus in New York City and 280 people have died.
Elmhurst staffers on the front lines are “doing a tremendous job with limited resources they have,” said City Councilman Francisco Moya. But because the hospital is “at a critical stage,” he said that “the relief has to be there for the doctors and nurses. And quickly.”
Scoring political points is to be expected from political parties, it is how they gain traction, it is how they forge ahead. There must however be some things that are above being politicized, national crises like the continued escalation of violent crimes and pandemics like the COVID ‑19 virus. I understand the need to find issues on which to disagree with the government if you are in the opposition party, but opposing for the sake of political traction is bad for our country.
Gone are the days when media houses reported the truth and were places that the population looked to for credible information. Nowadays, media entities are merely organs of special interest, tools of the wealthy and powerful. Their pronouncements are [their truths], not the truth. Once upon a time, entire media empires were state organs of propaganda but that was only in totalitarian states. Today entire radio and television networks have become untrustworthy places to look to, if you seek the truth. In The United States FOX and Sinclair Broadcasting are two of the worst offenders. In our Island home, it would be unfair to suggest that at least editorially, all of the media outlets do not have political slants. Nevertheless, the Gleaner Company and others have over the years become less and less credible and seem to be more, mere organs of the People’s National Party.
As much as we loathe that people would publish things that are demonstrably false. We should not be so incensed that we react in ways that may be more harmful to the freedoms we so stridently cherish and defend. We must not over-react by demanding that they are shut down, or as I have seen in some hysterical social media posts, that they are taken out and shot. These kinds of incendiary outbursts serve no useful purpose other than to satisfy our uncontrolled anger impulses. When we find ourselves at this level of anger, we need to imagine that the Government in power is not of our political party. Imagine that power to shut down free thought, and to take people into the streets and shoot them. I understand that your response is going to be that you are not promulgating false information. If you believe that unscrupulous leaders with that much power will be judicious with the use of that arbitrary power you give them, then I have a bridge to sell you. The way to fight fire is not with fire, it is to find what works to put it out and use it. Water, foam, sand, whatever it takes. It all depends on what kind of accelerant is fuelling it. The way to fight lies is the use of truth to counter it. Truth like light, will always chase away the darkness of lies..
Mike Beckles is a former Jamaican police Detective corporal, businessman, researcher, and blogger. He is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
THE PNP’s CONTINUEDPROPENSITYTOBE A STUMBLINGBLOCKTOPROGRESSISCOSTINGJAMAICADEARLY.
Crises can be tremendously harmful, but despite the fallout from them, they offer great opportunities for rebirth and the creation of new and innovative opportunities for the future. If we are to become a first world country we must have an idea who our citizens are. The last debate about a national database of our citizens was defeated because one political party demonized the measure, resulting in uninformed conspiracy theories and hysteria surrounding the issue. It is not the first time that the PNP had done harm to our country in ways that are deeply consequential and long-lasting.
The 22-years of absolutely failed PNP leadership has set Jamaica back in ways that are incalculable. We could go further back and examine the Manley régime’s damage to the country from 1972 to 1980 and if we are honest with ourselves we will agree that this political party has been more harm than it is worth. The anti-NIDS’ demagoguery by the PNP will now have consequences as the government battle this COVID-19 pandemic. We simply do not know who our citizens are, and so even if tested we will have no real idea whether we are treating the same people over and over as many people do not have proper identification. But that is hardly the issue, you cannot account for what you do not know. In addition to that, the leader of the opposition Peter Phillips’s revelation that he approached the Cubans and tried to source a drug to fight the virus should give Jamaicans another window into the soul of Peter Phillips.
Jasmine Deen
It is not the first time that Peter Phillips has betrayed the Government & people of Jamaica. He even betrayed the government of his own party, of which he was a cabinet minister, when he went behind Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller and her cabinet’s back, and signed a secret MOU as minister of national security with the United States Government. Anyone with the most basic understanding of the workings of the American Government knows that nothing like that could have occurred in the United States. Testifying before a Commission, Phillips argued that he did not need Cabinet’s approval to sign the secret memoranda that only came to the public’s attention during the Tivoli commission of inquiry. In response to claims that his actions placed the constitutional rights of Jamaicans in deep jeopardy, Phillips said the agreements only targeted the communication of Jamaicans where there is a threat to national security and under prescribed conditions. My personal feelings on whether his signing of the memoranda helped or hurt Jamaicans are rather agnostic. Where I had a problem with Peter Phillips’s actions, was the secret ways in which he did it without the approval of the cabinet, not whether it was done at all. It is exactly Phillip’s Modus operandi, and we saw that in the way in which he confessed to having approached the Cubans outside the protocols of government and was rightly rebuffed.
Actions have consequences, Opposition parties are not supposed to torpedo the positive things the governing party does out of rapacious desires to gain power. But that is exactly what Peter Phillips & the PNP are doing, even at a time when the nation needs a total coalescing around the common good. The Peter Phillips led PNP just scuttled a deal that would have seen a substantial investment project in Ocho Rios, by Palace Resorts a Mexican investment company. The police have a person of interest in the disappearance of UWI student Jasmine Deen, if the country had a national database of its citizens there would hardly be a need for them to be begging for citizens to step forward to help in identifying the suspect. These are critical things that can be a matter of life and death. It is time for the People’s National Party to stop playing cheap political games with our country in order to gain power. Subverting the efforts of the government as it struggles to keep the country safe is not patriotic, it is treasonous.
Mike Beckles is a former Jamaican police Detective corporal, businessman, researcher, and blogger. He is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
At a time when nations are looking to find ways to claw their way out of poverty and create better opportunities for their people, it is critical that those with whom we have given the power to act on our behalf, do so responsibly. Jamaica has no oil like Guyana now discovers it has, neither do we have hi-tech companies bringing in tens of thousands of new jobs. What we do have is tourism, which is a highly competitive industry that is beholden to worldwide eventualities. Aluminia is a raw material that is plentiful around the world and therefore insufficient for us to depend on. We all understand the vulnerability of local agriculture, our food may be more wholesome but we cannot compete when it comes to price. So what we are left with, is our proximity to the Panama Canal and the possibilities inherent in that proximity.
Jamaica is geographically ideal for becoming a massive trans-shipment hub as a result of its proximity. Whether we find ways to exploit those possibilities is totally up to Jamaicans. We have the 7th largest natural harbor in the entire world. As a transshipment hub, Jamaica will see a whole industry of possibilities spring up around that infrastructure, potentially creating tens of thousands of high paying jobs and improving the lives of our population, as well as injecting valuable foreign exchange into the national economy. Drug dealers and other transnational criminals have always understood the importance of this geographical proximity. Fortunately for Jamaica, we now have a political administration that is conversant and attuned to these logistical possibilities. The present administration has been forward-leaning and has begun to cultivate and nurture relationships and investment opportunities. If allowed to develop, those relationships will present immense economic opportunities for the nation and the Jamaican people.
Lambert brown
Unfortunately for Jamaica, we have a political opposition that has mastered the art of subversion, a tactic it learned from the ’70s and has stuck to it as a means of gaining and holding political power. The People’s National Pary has demonstrated that the sole reason for its existence in Jamaica is to be in power to enrich its functionaries. It is for this reason that Jamaicans must understand the damage the PNP has recklessly done to the Palace Resorts deal negotiated by the Palace subsidiary, Puerto Caribe Properties Limited with the UDC, without one scintilla of evidence of wrongdoing or corruption. Palace Resorts is a Mexican hotel chain that has the vision to see the future need for infrastructure in a rapidly changing world. And so they entered into a deal to build hotel infrastructure. The deal with the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) was to build in the town of Ocho Rios, a multi-billion-dollar hotel property. As a result of wild and unsubstantiated aspersions of corruption by the leader of the PNP Peter Phillips calling for a forensic audit, and other PNP functionaries including Lambert Brown, Palace Resorts has scrapped the deal and is demanding that the UDC now buy back the land sold to Palace Resorts.
Dirk Harrison
It is absolutely shocking that a political party could be so inherently irresponsible and downright reckless. It is perfectly logical and proper for an opposition party to be vigilant on behalf of the people. To ensure transparency in Government. To ensure that there is fidelity in the process. It is not the duty of the political party to look to create chaos in the public sector to better its chances at the polls. It shouldn’t be that the political opposition gets to cry fire in a crowded theater and walk away from the bodies left trampled in the resultant stampede. I call on the leader of the opposition Peter Phillips to present to the nation the evidence he has of corruption in the deal that was negotiated. I call on Lambert Brown, present to the nation the evidence you have of corruption that has resulted in this deal being scuttled. I call on former Contractor General Dirk Harrison, to explain how he arrived at the conclusion that the sum that the property was sold for was below market value. Not just that it was below market value, but that if verified to be below market value, it was so done for corrupt reasons. In the interest of common sense and clarity, sometimes a deal may be done on the front end for lesser value in order to secure the deal. This is easy to understand because securing the deal will potentially yield incalculable windfalls on the back end. I have no information whether or not my theory is applicable to this case, much less whether the property was sold below market value, to begin with, as property value is usually both subjective and subject to myriad issues. I urge the government to take this issue to the people and let it be known what this reckless action by Phillips and his bunch of regressive idiots have cost the country.
Mike Beckles is a former Jamaican police Detective corporal, businessman, researcher, and blogger. He is a black achiever honoree, and publisher of the blog chatt-a-box.com. He’s also a contributor to several websites. You may subscribe to his blogs free of charge, or subscribe to his Youtube channel @chatt-a-box, for the latest podcast all free to you of course.
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