America steels for major fall­out as it offi­cial­ly launch­es its trade war with China on Friday.

It’s a whole lot eas­i­er not to wreck the car in the first place than it is to think about what a repair might look like.American Soybean Association

As an avid ani­mal lover, I tried my best to let be a trend­ing sto­ry about a Kentucky wom­an’s slaugh­ter of a South African Giraffe and the sub­se­quent fall­out. Of course, I couldn’t.
But I could­n’t because in the sto­ry are oth­er sto­ries which still per­sist on the African con­ti­nent which are hard­ly any dif­fer­ent than that which exist­ed when our peo­ple were stripped away and sent to the west­ern world as human chattel.

The sto­ry involves a Kentucky woman Tess Thompson Talley a big game hunter who post­ed to her social media account, her cel­e­bra­tion of her ]kill] of a ful­ly grown Giraffe.
On her Facebook page, Thompson-Talley wrote,“Prayers for my once in a life­time dream hunt came true today! Spotted this rare black giraffe bull and stalked him for quite a while. I knew it was the one. He was over 18 years old, 4000 lbs. and was blessed to be able to get 2000 lbs. of meat from him.”\

Many peo­ple includ­ing celebri­ties have come out strong­ly against Talley. One celebri­ty wrote on Twitter quote,“What’s 16 feet tall and has a c**t on the back of its neck?” Actress Debra Messing wrote: “Tess Thompson Talley from Nippa, Kentucky is a dis­gust­ing, vile, amoral, heart­less, self­ish murderer.”

Look, every human-being is vest­ed with the abil­i­ty to dif­fer­en­ti­ate between wrong and right and so I am con­strained from dis­agree­ing with those who shoot ver­bal darts at Thompson-Talley. After all, there is a cer­tain majesty and awe in all of these won­der­ful crea­tures, it takes a spe­cial kind of retar­da­tion to kill one of these majes­tic crea­tures just to ful­fill a bloodlust.

THE REAL ISSUE

Those who would destroy our eco-sys­tem, and by exten­sion our plan­et deserve every bit of con­dem­na­tion that they receive. Nevertheless, the larg­er ques­tion ought to be, why is Trophy hunt­ing legal in South Africa, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe?
In 2015 there was anoth­er uproar when Walter Palmer, a Minnesota den­tist was raked over the coals for slaugh­ter­ing Cecil the Lion. On this occa­sion as well, Palmer was well with­in what Zimbabwe’s laws allowed.

Eric and Donald Trump Jr the two sons of US President Donald Trump have also caught flack in 2015 when pho­tos sur­faced of them pos­ing with a dead ele­phant and oth­er ani­mals sev­er­al years earlier.
In as much as ani­mal lovers are jus­ti­fied in their wrath against the mind­less slaugh­ter of these inno­cent ani­mals, the real anger must and should be direct­ed at these African Nations.

The fun­da­men­tal issues which exist­ed in the 15^th cen­tu­ry which allowed the enslave­ment of peo­ple and their ulti­mate debase­ment which reduced them to chat­tel are clear­ly still exis­tent on the African con­ti­nent today.
Set aside any protes­ta­tions about the need to thin out cer­tain species of ani­mals on the con­ti­nent. The fact that for­eign­ers are allowed to vis­it any African nation and be allowed to degrade its nat­ur­al resources should be cause for con­dem­na­tion of the cor­rupt lead­er­ship which exist in these countries.

Over the last four hun­dred years, Europeans have plun­dered, raped and pil­laged the rich and var­ied resources which were abun­dant and in many cas­es unique to the African con­ti­nent. Not only have Europeans pil­laged the nat­ur­al resources they have also destroyed and laid des­ti­tute the human resources. As a con­se­quence, the entire con­ti­nent of Africa is now exposed to ram­pant famines, drought, mas­sive out­breaks of dis­ease and is essen­tial­ly a bas­ket case when con­sid­ered against most of the oth­er continents.

In many parts of the con­ti­nent, includ­ing South Africa, and more so in Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe the only thing left oth­er than the impov­er­ished peo­ple, are the pre­cious ani­mals which have man­aged to sur­vive the mur­der­ous onslaught of Europeans and Americans.
Conventional wis­dom would sug­gest that these pre­cious ani­mals would be pro­tect­ed at all cost and a tourism prod­uct devel­oped which includes the show­cas­ing of these majes­tic ani­mals in their nat­ur­al habits where possible.

Shockingly, this crop of African lead­ers is no bet­ter than what obtained four hun­dred years ago when Africans aid­ed and abet­ted the sale and enslave­ment, mur­der and oth­er abuse of their fel­low men and the resul­tant geno­cide which has been waged on the con­ti­nent for over four centuries.

As a fol­low-up to my Article writ­ten for (Chatt​-​a​-box​.com) and (Medium​.com) yesterday,

How Democrats Got Completely Steamrolled By The Right

I want to add this lit­tle bit of addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion in sup­port of my the­o­ry that Democratic vot­ers want stronger more clear­ly defined poli­cies from their par­ty as opposed to the luke­warm Republican-lite approach which has clear­ly alien­at­ed many vot­ers the least of which is the mil­i­tant left.

According to ( pol​i​tics​.mya​jc​.com) Turnout among black vot­ers soared in last month’s Georgia pri­ma­ry, a show of strength that could bode well for Democrats in this year’s con­tests for gov­er­nor and oth­er statewide offices.
The data show the broad major­i­ty of African-American vot­ers pulled Democratic bal­lots, which could bol­ster the hope of Stacey Abrams, who is rac­ing to be the nation’s first black female gov­er­nor. Her Republican oppo­nent will be decid­ed in a July 24 runoff between Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and Secretary of State Brian Kemp.

Abrams built her elec­toral strat­e­gy around ener­giz­ing left-lean­ing vot­ers, includ­ing minori­ties, with lib­er­al stances on gun con­trol, crim­i­nal jus­tice ini­tia­tives, and tax pol­i­cy. Her approach was vin­di­cat­ed with a whop­ping vic­to­ry over her oppo­nent, who aimed for a more cen­trist appeal.

A strong case to be made for the Democratic par­ty to stop being a door­mat for the Republican par­ty which has now become a right-wing Fascist par­ty of white men.
Sure vot­ers who leave the Republican par­ty or more appro­pri­ate­ly whom the Republican par­ty has left need a par­ty which reflects their val­ues. Nevertheless, the idea that so-called mod­er­ate Republicans will not sup­port a stri­dent­ly left-lean­ing Democratic Party which sup­ports work­ers rights, uni­ver­sal health­care for all, among oth­er work­ing class issues is patent­ly wrong.

Never lose sight of the fact that many of those vot­ers were actu­al­ly called Reagan Democrats, and many of them vot­ed for Barack Obama twice.
Voters want polit­i­cal par­ties which reflect their values.

Both the Democratic and Republican par­ties have wedge issues in which they believe, On which they cam­paign and gen­er­al­ly gov­ern. For the Republicans, it was[is] small gov­ern­ment. Gun own­er­ship. States Rights. Against abor­tion. Strong mil­i­tary and reli­gion, to name a few. Except that Republicans are only fis­cal­ly con­ser­v­a­tive when there is a Democrat in the white house.
Democrats believed in social pro­grams. And expand­ed role of Government in help­ing to take care of those unable to take care of them­selves. Over the last few elec­tion cycles, Democrats have become cham­pi­ons for abor­tion rights. Gay rights, as a [civ­il right] and, have signed on to illic­it wars even though their vot­ers are gen­er­al­ly opposed to America’s mil­i­taris­tic for­ays into oth­er countries.

Republicans have had an uncan­ny abil­i­ty to for­mu­late poli­cies and stick to their talk­ing points. They exer­cise dis­ci­pline as they push those poli­cies even when they are proven to be destruc­tive. (See the Iraq war).
Republicans slav­ish­ly stick to the script when it comes to the tenets of the poli­cies which they believe in.
One exam­ple of that has been how they purged the par­ty of mod­er­ates as it lurched to the far right, through the process of pri­ma­ry chal­lenges to estab­lish­ment mod­er­ate. The right labeled mod­er­ate repub­li­cans (repub­li­cans in name only )[RINOS].

That process forced from its ranks mod­er­ates like the late Pennsylvania US Senator Arlen Specter, for­mer Secretary of state Colin Powell, for­mer Indiana US Senator Richard Lugar to name a few. In fact, the par­ty’s plat­form has been so rad­i­cal­ized that the hero of the for­mer right, Ronald Reagan, would poten­tial­ly be excom­mu­ni­cat­ed from what now obtains as the Republican Party.
Others like John McCain have either been side­lined or forced to adopt the tox­ic rabid­i­ty of the right, or risk expul­sion from the party.
Gone is the par­ty of George H W Bush or even George W Bush who was arguably more con­ser­v­a­tive than his dad, but who was a man who pro­posed Immigration reform, and talked about com­pas­sion­ate conservativism.

The Democratic par­ty in my esti­ma­tion nev­er seemed to have a polit­i­cal iden­ti­ty, except that it isn’t the Republican par­ty. Democrats are split into dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories, mod­er­ates, con­ser­v­a­tive, blue dogs, and of course progressives.
The Democratic par­ty has been out-hus­tled by the right which has cul­ti­vat­ed a web of grass-roots orga­ni­za­tions which act as fac­to­ries for their brand of conservatism.
The gazil­lion dif­fer­ent orga­ni­za­tions, think-tanks, and inter­est groups which drill home the con­ser­v­a­tive agen­da to the faith­ful are well fund­ed by wealthy Industrialist and Billionaires like Charles and David Koch, Sheldon Alderson, Foster Friess, Robert Mercer, The [JETS] Woody Johnson, to name a few.

The Democratic Party has no cred­i­ble grass-roots orga­ni­za­tion which press­es home at the local lev­el the val­ues of the par­ty. The Democrats which seem­ing­ly only care about Presidential elec­tions have com­plete­ly lost the war at the local level.
Even in deep blue states like New York, Connecticut, Massachutes and oth­ers local coun­ties and town pol­i­tics are dom­i­nat­ed by Republicans.
The lack of grass-roots orga­ni­za­tions and orga­niz­ing makes it hard­er for Democratic pres­i­dents to enact their agen­das because Republicans con­trol the foun­da­tions and can sim­ply say no.

Trade Unions which were once a bul­wark of sup­port for the demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty have seen their influ­ence erod­ed through strate­gic assaults against them like that which was waged by Wisconsin’s Republican Governor Scott Walker who has evis­cer­at­ed unions in his state. Other states have enact­ed right to work laws which have gut­ted the pow­er and strength of pub­lic sec­tor unions, knee-cap­ping an inte­gral sup­port struc­ture of the demo­c­ra­t­ic party.
The Supreme court’s most recent deci­sion which now pre­vents unions from col­lect­ing dues from non-mem­bers all but removes that slush of funds unions once had to donate to Democratic can­di­dates. Thanks to Anthony Kennedy’s part­ing gifts to his pal Donald Trump.

Additionally, the group which usu­al­ly made up the bulk of union membership[white males] have large­ly moved on to the Republican Party as a mat­ter of course.
Not that the unions have not been serv­ing their inter­ests but with the chang­ing face of America along racial lines, white men are wont to sup­port any oth­er par­ty oth­er than one whose pur­pose is the pro­tec­tion of white supremacy.

On the oth­er hand, the Democrats are old, out of ideas and con­fused about who they are and what the par­ty stands for.
The rise of Barack Obama out of nowhere to win their nom­i­na­tion 10 years ago against the estab­lish­ment nean­derthals, ought to have been a warn­ing to the par­ty that the pro­gres­sive vot­ers who are forced to sup­port the par­ty wants more focused leadership.
The les­son was star­ing the Dems in the face yet they failed to rec­og­nize that there was a fac­tion of the par­ty which was unhap­py with the Republican-lite approach the par­ty was invest­ed in.

That dis­qui­et among younger pro­gres­sive vot­ers was squan­dered by the Democrats, and so Ralph Nader was able to split the vote twice, even­tu­al­ly cost­ing them a President Al Gore.
Still not rec­og­niz­ing the sys­temic pro­gres­sive shift of it’s younger sup­port­ers the par­ty missed the mes­sage and so Bernie Sanders the Vermont Socialist was able to launch his left­ist-pop­ulist move­ment which ulti­mate­ly split the 2016 vote on the one hand and kept enough pro­gres­sive vot­ers at home to give rise to Trump.

For years Democrats fol­lowed the main­stream medi­a’s nar­ra­tive that younger vot­ers were not depend­able vot­ers. I have always believed that young peo­ple are far more focused than the left gave them cred­it for.
Younger vot­ers and lead­ers on the right are some of the most focused and ded­i­cat­ed to their cause, as a con­se­quence, I believed that Democratic lead­er­ship was woe­ful­ly myopic in adopt­ing the medi­a’s talk­ing points about apa­thy on the part of young voters.

Then came a young, bright, focused, and con­vinc­ing mes­sen­ger,“Yes we can” and to the dis­be­lief of the brack­ish Democratic estab­lish­ment Barack Obama was elect­ed with a large plu­ral­i­ty of younger vot­ers and an impres­sive coali­tion of inter­est groups, not once but twice.
The Republicans rec­og­nized the threat Obama posed through his mes­sage-deliv­er, coali­tion-build­ing and his stat­ed goal of trans­form­ing America into a coun­try where all peo­ple could com­pete equal­ly and live their best lives and so the embarked on a plan to obstruct what­ev­er he pro­posed even poli­cies they them­selves once supported.

Though many in the house and sen­ate owed their respec­tive wins to Obama’s coat-tails, rather than stand stead­fast with Obama they fought amongst them­selves about who were blue-dog democ­rats as against who was not.
By 2010 Republicans recap­tured con­trol of the House, increased their num­ber of seats in the Senate and gained a major­i­ty of gov­er­nor­ships to boot.
In 2012 Republicans lost 7 seats in the house but retained con­trol. By the 2014 midterms, Republicans took con­trol of the Senate, gain­ing 9 seats.
With a final total of 247 seats in the House and 54 seats in the Senate, Republicans accom­plished their largest major­i­ty in the Congress since1929.

In an opin­ion piece for the New York Times Thomas B. Edsall wrote Democratic loss­es among work­ing-class vot­ers were not lim­it­ed to whites; that cru­cial con­stituen­cies with­in the par­ty see its lead­ers as alien;A con­sis­tent theme is that the focus on white defec­tions from the Democratic Party masks an even more threat­en­ing trend: declin­ing turnout among key ele­ments of the so-called Rising American Electorate— minor­i­ty, young and sin­gle vot­ers. Turnout among African-Americans, for exam­ple, fell by 7 points, from 66.6 per­cent in 2012 to 59.6 per­cent in 2016.

Even as many Trump-fatigued Americans talk of a November blue wave Donald Trump is pre­dict­ing a red wave of his own.
Arguably he knows some­thing the rest of us does­n’t. After the débâ­cle of the polling in 2016, I dare not chal­lenge any­thing Trump predict.
The Democratic par­ty con­tin­ues to be out of touch direc­tion­al­ly as well as how it treats black women, it’s most loy­al base of support.
As part of the resis­tance against the Trump agen­da, many young females have stepped for­ward to mount chal­lenges to the old guard of demo­c­ra­t­ic wishy-washy repub­li­can-lite democ­rats. Many are African-American women, who like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have received zero fund­ing or sup­port from the nation­al Democratic party.
Say what you want about the Republican Party or Donald Trump for that mat­ter, they nev­er ever for­get that their most hard­core base of sup­port comes from white males.

In the mean­time, the (NewRepublic)reports that Democrats are los­ing their most loy­al vot­ers: black women. At a moment when so much atten­tion is focused on how Democrats can win white work­ing-class vot­ers who backed Donald Trump, new data shows sup­port for the par­ty is slip­ping among its most reli­able vot­ers—African-American women.
I am absolute­ly not mad that there is a lull in sup­port by black women for the Democratic par­ty, despite their loy­al sup­port and fideli­ty to the par­ty there is no Black-Women in the par­ty’s lead­er­ship or what pass­es for leadership.
Most impor­tant­ly, the par­ty is duplic­i­tous­ly silent when their sons are abused and mur­dered by police.

It was rather offen­sive to hear Nancy Pelosi chas­tize Senior Congresswoman Maxine Walters for telling sup­port­ers to push back against Administration offi­cials. It did not take long for Charles Schumer to jump on the anti-Maxine Walters train, after all, why not berate the black woman and cry tears about civil­i­ty to Republicans while nei­ther dinosaur had a sin­gle word of chas­tise­ment for the thin­ly veiled threat Trump made against Ms. Walters.

I don’t pre­tend to know what is going to hap­pen in November save to say that as far as we are told the Russians are still work­ing to med­dle in America’s elec­tions and the view of many of the nation’s intel­li­gence chiefs is that noth­ing is being done to stop them.
The Supreme court has all but gut­ted the vot­ing rights act for no rea­son except that the court had the pow­er to do it as so it did.
Trump is pack­ing the courts at all lev­els with white men, many of whom are white suprema­cists and the Democratic par­ty does­n’t even have a leader.
Though imper­fect, the Media is the only line of defense which stands between the American peo­ple and the right’s attempt at turn­ing this coun­try into a full-fledged white eth­nos­tate. Trump did say the media is the oppo­si­tion. His push-back against the fourth estate is emblem­at­ic of how one responds to an oppo­si­tion par­ty. Many Republicans are begin­ning to attack the media as well, Litt;e Marco Rubio being chief among them.
There is real­ly no Democratic par­ty of con­se­quence to speak of, Trump and his cult of fol­low­ers knows it quite well.

“Individuals threat­ened to shoot, lynch, or cause me seri­ous bod­i­ly harm,” she said, explain­ing why she’d can­celed Alabama and Texas events.

blob:https://www.huffingtonpost.com/29e80718-d618-4b09-a2a6-1cb1ab09ab52

While you African-Americans were watch­ing Jamie Fox on BET tele­vi­sion, out buy­ing the lat­est fake hair at the Korean store, or hav­ing the tra­di­tion­al chick­en din­ner at your church in cel­e­bra­tion of your pas­tor’s 6^th Anniversary some rather inter­est­ing things were happening.
In New York, there were pri­ma­ry elec­tions for those seek­ing to rep­re­sent their par­ties in the US Congress.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old Latina activist sur­prised New York Rep. Joseph Crowley, a 10-term incum­bent once seen as a like­ly replace­ment for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

But that is not what should be con­cern­ing to African-Americans, Ms. Cortez’s pri­ma­ry win is a wel­come sign that maybe final­ly younger votes who took the time to lis­ten to her have decid­ed that they want­ed a fight­er, not a mod­er­ate Republic-lite can­di­date sim­ply to go along to get along.
The shock­ing real­i­ty is that despite the seri­ous­ness of the cri­sis at hand and the fact that Trump’s poli­cies are like­ly to hit Blacks the hard­est the turnout in District (5) Meeks’ dis­trict, only 4% of vot­ers turned out to vote. In Clarke’s dis­trict (9) turnout was only 9%, In dis­trict 11, Staten Island Democratic turnout was 9%, the Republican turnout in the same 11^th though not phe­nom­e­nal dou­bled Democratic turnout even though the dis­trict has far more reg­is­tered Democrats than Republicans..

The turnout in dis­tricts 12,14 and 16 was hard­ly any bet­ter„ aver­ag­ing just a tad over 12%. Citywide turnout was only 10%
Which begs the ques­tion, what are black vot­ers doing which is more impor­tant than voting?
Every elec­tion cycle we hear the cliché about how this elec­tion will be the most con­se­quen­tial. News flash, these midterm elec­tions the lan­guage is cliché, as usu­al, only this time it is actu­al­ly true.

Associate jus­tice of the Supreme Court Anthony Kennedy has decid­ed that of all the men who have occu­pied the white house, Donald Trump is the per­son he wants to choose his successor.
This after Mitch McConnell hijacked the process in 2016 thwart­ing President Obama’s con­sti­tu­tion­al respon­si­bil­i­ty and pow­er to place Merrick Garland on the high court.

Republicans were allowed to make up the rules as they went along and even though there was almost a full year left in Obama’s term McConnell refused to even meet with judge Garland, effec­tive­ly fil­i­bus­ter­ing the President’s pick to fill the seat vacat­ed by Antonin Scalia a hard right oper­a­tive who died in the spring of 2016.
The end result of Democrats lethar­gy and apa­thy McConnell and the law­less Republicans were allowed to get away with hijack­ing the process until Donald Trump was installed into the pres­i­den­cy. Despite the fact that there is an active crim­i­nal and coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence inves­ti­ga­tions under­way by spe­cial coun­sel Robert Muller, Donald Trump was allowed to install anoth­er hard right func­tionary in the per­son of Neil Gorsuch onto the Supreme Court.

Since then the court has decid­ed in what is now a pre­dictable 5 – 4 split that Ohio can purge vot­ers from its voter’s list if they choose not to vote reg­u­lar­ly. The court in a 5 – 4 split also vot­ed to uphold Trump’s Muslim ban, com­plet­ing ignor­ing the moun­tain of evi­dence of Trump say­ing that he want­ed to ban Muslims from America.
Yesterday the court also vot­ed to evis­cer­ate pub­lic trade unions. The rul­ing put a stop to Unions right to col­lect fees from work­ers who ben­e­fit from union rep­re­sen­ta­tion even though they chose not to be mem­bers of the union. Makes sense since what­ev­er the unions fight for and accom­plish all of the work­ers in that work pool benefits.
Unions say they have to col­lect the dues oth­er­wise every­one would get free rep­re­sen­ta­tion. The court vot­ed against the unions, upend­ing a long-held tradition.

USING UTTER HYPOCRISY AND ABUSE OF POWER REPUBLICANS STEAMROLLED THE PATHETIC DEMOCRATS

The Mitch McConnell rule of 2016 said that he would not be hold­ing any hear­ing on Judge Garland in an elec­tion year. This was not a law or rule ever prac­ticed in the US Senate, it was a Mitch McConnell’s rule.
And so it was President Obama’s pick nev­er even got a meet­ing with mem­bers of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Neil Gorsuch a right-wing mem­ber cho­sen by the Federalist soci­ety is now sit­ting in the Supreme Court seat which ought to have been occu­pied by Judge Merrick Garland.

Now Anthony Kennedy decid­ed he wants to have Donald Trump chose his suc­ces­sor, these things do not hap­pen a vac­u­um. These things hap­pen because they are well coör­di­nat­ed. Regardless of what Anthony Kennedy may have done in his career, vot­ing to allow Trump to dis­crim­i­nate against Muslims and oth­ers, then decid­ing to leave in July giv­ing Trump the pow­er to stack the high­est court with anoth­er ide­o­logue in the vein of Alito Thomas, and Gorsuch will be his legacy.

Now the rights of women to make their own deci­sion with their bod­ies is all up in the air. Voting rights, Immigrants rights, and the fun­da­men­tal rights of all aver­age Americans are under assault.
Since Blacks find it too much of a both­er to get up and vote as they clear­ly did not do in the pri­maries two days ago in New York, they should be pre­pared to find them­selves back on the cot­ton fields.
Justice Anthony Kennedy would seek to san­i­tize him­self of the stench of his capit­u­la­tion to Donald Trump, writ­ing. “An anx­ious world must know that our Government remains com­mit­ted always to the lib­er­ties the con­sti­tu­tion seeks to pre­serve and pro­tects, so that free­dom extends out­ward, and lasts”.
Then he vot­ed to give Donald Trump the pow­er to dis­crim­i­nate against Muslims on the basis of their religion.

African-Americans should find no com­fort in the fact that Donald Trump’s vit­ri­ol is direct­ed at Muslims and Hispanics com­ing in through the south­ern bor­der. He has already decid­ed that the Haitians giv­en tem­po­rary stay years ago after the earth­quake, must leave the coun­try by 2019.
It was the German Lutheran pas­tor Martin Niemöller who said the fol­low­ing In his response to the cow­ardice of German intel­lec­tu­als fol­low­ing the Nazis’ rise to pow­er and sub­se­quent purg­ing of their cho­sen tar­gets, group after group.

First, they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.

After the death of Associate supreme court jus­tice Antonin Scalia on February 13, 2016, it was up to President Barack Obama to choose a suc­ces­sor to replace the hard right, Scalia.
President Obama had almost a full year left in the white house.
It was the pre­rog­a­tive of Presidents before the 44^th pres­i­dent Barack Obama to appoint can­di­dates to fill vacan­cies on the nine-mem­ber court. Obama had filled two pre­vi­ous slots with the court’s first Latino American, Sonia Sotomeyer and anoth­er woman, Elena Kagan.

It is the pre­rog­a­tive of the Senate to advise and give it’s con­sent to the choic­es a pres­i­dent puts up for con­fir­ma­tion. Through the process of open hear­ings and per­son­al meet­ings, the Senate gets to vote yea or nay on the pres­i­den­t’s pick to fill the court’s vacancies.
President Obama chose Merrick Garland a cen­trist jurist who should gen­er­al­ly sweep through the process to sit on the nations high­est court.
Judge Garland was appoint­ed to the United States Court of Appeals in April 1997 and became Chief Judge on February 12, 2013. He grad­u­at­ed sum­ma cum laude from Harvard College in 1974 and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1977.

Following grad­u­a­tion, he served as law clerk to Judge Henry J. Friendly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and to U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. From 1979 to 1981, he was Special Assistant to the Attorney General of the United States. He then joined the law firm of Arnold & Porter, where he was a part­ner from 1985 to 1989 and from 1992 to 1993. He served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia from 1989 to 1992, and as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice from 1993 to 1994. From 1994 until his appoint­ment as U.S. Circuit Judge, he served as Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, where his respon­si­bil­i­ties includ­ed super­vis­ing the Oklahoma City bomb­ing and UNABOM prosecutions. 

Chief Judge Garland has pub­lished in the Harvard Law Review and Yale Law Journal taught at Harvard Law School and served as President of the Board of Overseers of Harvard University.source(https://​www​.cadc​.uscourts​.gov/​i​n​t​e​r​n​e​t​/​h​o​m​e​.​n​s​f​/​C​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​V​L​+​-​+​J​u​d​g​e​s​+​-​+​MBG)
Judge Merrick Garland is cur­rent­ly the chief judge of the DC Circuit.

The Republican Majority leader in the US Senate had oth­er ideas. Mitch McConnell decid­ed against all norms, that despite the fact that there was almost a full year left in President Obama’s term he would sub­vert the author­i­ty of the pres­i­dent by refus­ing to even give judge Garland a hearing.
This McConnell did using the spu­ri­ous argu­ment that with a pres­i­den­tial elec­tion immi­nent it makes sense to have the peo­ple decide which pres­i­dent should select a replace­ment for Scalia.

Precedent was out the door and a new prece­dent estab­lished by the hyper-par­ti­san Kentucky Republican. McConnell was reward­ed for his ghast­ly behav­ior with the ele­va­tion of Neil Gorsuch, a right-wing jurist appoint­ed by Trump.
Donald Trump, con­ver­sant of the role the courts can play in advanc­ing the poli­cies of the fun­da­men­tal­ist right, has been on a tear pack­ing the courts with right wing fun­da­men­tal­ist actors, many of whom have open­ly expressed racist views.
Many of the can­di­dates Trump placed on the fed­er­al bench have been deemed to be bla­tant­ly unqual­i­fied by the nation’s bar association.
Mitch McConnell has crowed that the pres­i­den­cy of Donald J Trump has been the great­est peri­od for Conservatism since he has been involved in politics.

Yesterday the US Supreme upheld Donald Trump’s Muslim ban, in a 5 – 4 deci­sion the court agreed that Donald Trump may dis­crim­i­nate against immi­grants based on their reli­gious belief.
Feeling the heat from the scathing dis­sent of Associate jus­tice Sonia Sotomayor Chief Justice John Roberts wiped away the igno­ble supreme court deci­sion which legit­imized the intern­ment of Japanese Americans dur­ing the sec­ond world war.
See Article explain­ing the berth of what hap­pened dur­ing world war11.(https://​www​.nps​.gov/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​s​/​h​i​s​t​o​r​y​i​n​t​e​r​n​m​e​n​t​.​htm)
After the supreme court’s deci­sion uphold­ing the trav­el ban, the Senate major­i­ty leader Mitch McConnell trolled the nation by post­ing a pic­ture of his meet­ing with judge Neil Gorsuch.

The pub­li­ca­tion the [Hill​.com] a con­ser­v­a­tive pub­li­ca­tion, gush­es, quote [ Justice Neil Gorsuch’s gen­uine con­ser­vatism, his faith­ful­ness to the orig­i­nal pub­lic mean­ing of the Constitution and legal texts, is also demon­strat­ed by his join­ing with Justice Clarence Thomas in all but three of the cas­es decid­ed by the Court. That should be good news for any con­ser­v­a­tive court watch­er”.] That assess­ment ought to give every pro­gres­sive a chill down the spine.
Writing for the [dai­ly­beast] Michael Tomasky ask this per­ti­nent question.

Back in 1974, Watergate spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor Leon Jaworski issued a sub­poe­na order­ing Richard Nixon to turn over some papers and tapes rel­e­vant to the inves­ti­ga­tion. Nixon turned over some mate­r­i­al, but not all, hop­ing that would sat­is­fy Jaworski. It did not. Nixon’s lawyer, James St. Clair, went to the DC Circuit, and specif­i­cal­ly to Chief Judge John J. Sirica, who became a house­hold name in that year of 1974, to quash the sub­poe­na. Sirica refused.
Would today’s Supreme Court rule sim­i­lar­ly? We must start think­ing about this now.

Thus far the Media has held against Donald Trump’s onslaught, the courts have held to some degree, the Congress has not. During the sec­ond world war, Japanese Americans were sum­mar­i­ly round­ed up and placed in camps.
The anti-Japanese move­ment became wide­spread around 1905, due both to increas­ing immi­gra­tion and the Japanese vic­to­ry over Russia, the first defeat of a west­ern nation by an Asian nation in mod­ern times. Both the Issei and Japan began to be per­ceived as threats. Discrimination includ­ed the for­ma­tion of anti-Japanese orga­ni­za­tions, such as the Asiatic Exclusion League, attempts at school seg­re­ga­tion (which even­tu­al­ly affect­ed Nisei under the doc­trine of “sep­a­rate but equal”), and a grow­ing num­ber of vio­lent attacks upon indi­vid­u­als and busi­ness­es.source[https://​www​.nps​.gov/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​s​/​h​i​s​t​o​r​y​i​n​t​e​r​n​m​e​n​t​.​htm]

One of the key play­ers in the con­fu­sion fol­low­ing Pearl Harbor was Lt. General John L. DeWitt, the com­man­der of the Western Defense Command and the U.S. 4^th Army. DeWitt had a his­to­ry of prej­u­dice against non-Caucasian Americans, even those already in the Army, and he was eas­i­ly swayed by any rumor of sab­o­tage or immi­nent Japanese inva­sion.

The site named above, gives any­one wish­ing to have a bet­ter idea of what hap­pened in America to Japanese Americans based on big­otry, racial ani­mus, and plain ignorance.
These events are dis­gust­ing­ly shame­ful events which still haunts America today.
Chief Justice Roberts sought to wipe away the supreme court’s deci­sion which legit­imized these atroc­i­ties, even as he vot­ed to give a racist dem­a­gog­ic pres­i­dent carte blanche to do the exact same thing as laid out in jus­tice Sotomayor’s scathing dissent.
Imagine how much harm can be done by a pres­i­dent with wide unchecked pow­er, then learn just how it has hap­pened time and time again right here in America.

Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu was on Television on Monday with charts and a pow­er­point try­ing to con­vince the world that Iran did in fact, have the inten­tion to make nuclear weapons.
This, while the American President Donald Trump is threat­en­ing to back out of the Iran nuclear deal even as he wants to strike an agree­ment for peace with the North Koreans.

The irony of all this is remark­able, con­sid­er­at­ing that while Israel is one of the small­est nations on earth with a pop­u­la­tion of 8.547 mil­lion as of (2016), Israel is one of the most mil­i­taris­tic coun­tries and is armed with nuclear weapons.
Netanyahu who has loads of nuclear weapons wants Iran pun­ished even though Iran does not have nuclear weapons. This is the kind of men­tal Jiu Jitsu that those of us who actu­al­ly are pay­ing atten­tion are forced to nav­i­gate in order to make sense of this Orwellian type logic.

At the same time, Netanyahu is try­ing to con-vince[sic] the world into believ­ing that Iran which is under a rigid inspec­tion régime is not stick­ing to the spir­it of the agree­ment, Israeli army sol­diers are slaugh­ter­ing dozens and dozens of unarmed Palestinian pro­test­ers and seri­ous­ly maim­ing hun­dreds of oth­ers and the world is eeri­ly silent.

So essen­tial­ly what Netanyahu wants the Americans to do is to wage war on Iran, using the resources of the American peo­ple to dec­i­mate Iran so he and Israel may have hege­mo­ny in the mid­dle east.
The take­away is that Benjamin Netanyahu wants the world to con­demn Iran for lying about its inten­tions before it agreed to a deal struck between itself the United States and oth­er nation states though from all the expert report­ing there is no evi­dence that Iran has not adhered to the terms of the dealt it signed.

There has hard­ly been any report­ing in the main­stream media about the slaugh­ter of unarmed Palestinians as we speak. It is as if some lives are more impor­tant than oth­ers. Or are they?
Ever since Netanyahu rose to pow­er he has thumbed his nose at the con­cerns of the International com­mu­ni­ty even as he and the Israeli defense force, the (IDF) com­mits what are clear and unequiv­o­cal instances of war crimes and the world has stood by mute.

Rather than con­fine itself to observ­ing inter­na­tion­al law Netanyahu has embarked on a sys­temic cam­paign to dele­git­imize the United Nations on the rare occa­sion that the world body decides to grow some balls and speak out against the Zionist apartheid state.

We can hate pol­i­tics all we want but we need peo­ple to take care of the coun­tries in which we live and yes I know just how moron­ic they can be, but by virtue of what they do we are forced to live with them.
I guess what I am real­ly say­ing is that regard­less of what peo­ple do we are well.… peo­ple and so it real­ly makes lit­tle sense to broad­brush every­one when we per­cieve that they did some­thing wrong.
I say this to say that not all politi­cians are bad but some­times the actions of some makes it dif­fi­cult to not just hate all of their asses.

Take for instance that moron­ic Angella Brown-Burke Member of par­lia­ment for (St Andrew South West), the gar­ri­son com­mu­ni­ty once held by long­time par­lia­men­tar­i­an and PM Portia Simpson Miller.
In address­ing the Parliament this idi­ot­ic woman had the nerve to tell the house that she would take to the streets if the Government did not extend the ZOSO to her con­stituen­cy so that the killings can stop and peo­ple can have peace and security.
At the very same tine she is threat­en­ing that she will take to the streets with her sup­port­ers to demon­strate and poten­tial­ly upend the econ­o­my if a state of pub­lic emer­gency is called in her constituency.

The con­stituen­cy of St ndrew South West is not Angella Brown-Burke’s it is a tiny bit of Jamaica which ahs been juiced for all it’s worth by the PNP and Portia Simpson Miller for approx­i­mate­ly forty years and has been passed on for fur­ther exploita­tion by anoth­er abnox­ious vira­go to con­tin­ue the pat­tern of abuse under the guise of fem­i­nist love.

There is no log­i­cal argu­ment to be made after the entire career of Portia Simpson Miller was spent right there. During this time the nation wit­nessed her ris­ing from local gov­ern­ment to rep­re­sent­ing the con­stituen­cy at the nation­al lev­el, to Prime Minister, with the con­stituen­cy retain­ing the rat­ings as the worst in the country.

If these are the qual­i­ty of peo­ple that con­stituen­cy choses to rep­re­sent them (loud, abra­sive, abnox­ious, uncouth, crass,arrogant,) then maybe the peo­ple who live there deserve the lives they lead.

Now, there is noth­ing wrong with the state­ment, per-se, politi­cians vicif­er­ous­ly and pas­sion­ate­ly petion­ing for their con­stituents is admirable. What is prob­lem­at­ic is the mes­sen­ger, and the con­stituen­cy in ques­tion. As I said this Angella Brown Burke is now the mem­ber of par­lia­ment for the con­stituen­cy, If you know Portia and Brown Burke you can­not but feel sor­ry for the peo­ple in that constituency.

It’s tough to think that after almost forty years (40) of Portia Simpson Miller that they could not get some­one oth­er than anoth­er loud­mouth uncul­tured vira­go advo­cat­ing on their behalf.
Look, its trag­ic that peo­ple are dying on any lev­el but peo­ple have been dying across Jamaica for many years now. The nerve of Angella Brown-Burke to be mak­ing demands of this two year old gov­ern­ment under threats of civ­il unrest. It is ludi­crous, con­sid­er­ing that Portia Simpson Miller would­n’t even walk through the gar­risons with Andrew Holness at the time he had his first go around as prime Minister after Bruce Golding was forced to step aside.

The sim­ple mind­ed Portia Simpson Miller at the time said there are no walls in her con­stituen­cy, allud­ing to the most sim­plis­tic under­stand­ing of what a gar­ri­son is.
Imagine the nerve of demand­ing peace and quite in her gar­ri­son con­stituen­cy when they are the ones who were in pow­er for so much more than the oth­er par­ty and they are the ones who have aways had con­trol of the costituency?
On what basis does she make demands now where is their sense of shame?

But between Peter Phillips the old tun back Rasta now parad­ing as polit­i­cal leader, Angella Brown Burke mak­ing threats, Dayton Campbell’s lies about the Cornwall region­al hos­pi­tal and of course the über moron Densise Daley who does­n’t want any­thing green in her con­stituen­cy it seem there is a seri­ous attempt to take Jamaica back to the old sytle pol­i­tics that Jamaicans have com­mend­ably walked away from.

The strate­gies unfold­ing from the PNP and their affil­i­ates out­side the lead­er­ship of their par­ty can­not be ignored. Whether it’s Horace Levy the gri­zled old self serv­ing Manley advi­sor or its Arlene Harrison Henry anoth­er [kum­red] in the Public Defender’s office it is clear that there are enough of these holdovers with­in the pub­lic sec­tor which makes change extreme­ly difficult.

Why on earth would Arlene Harrison-Henry, Peter Phillips and Horace Levy be call­ing for an end to the state of emer­gency in St James except to see mur­der sky­rock­et again so they can make polit­i­cal hay of it?
Logical que­tion, but this 70’s style cam­paign of desta­bi­liza­tion is text­book PNP old style com­mu­nist tac­tic. Why else would Mark Golding the mem­ber of par­lia­ment for the Arnett Gardens area dri­ve up to the Prime Minister’s res­i­dence under the guise of point­ing out dif­fer­ences in the acce­sories on the road­way if not to stir up rebel­lion of worse.

I mean the Prime Minister has to be dri­ven there each and every day in a coun­try which is extreme­ly vio­lent. Isn’t it time that the home of Mark Golding become the focus of nation­al atten­tion com­men­su­rate with what he has start­ed then?
I mean seri­ous­ly, what is the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for doing these things?

The peo­ple liv­ing in the St James com­mu­ni­ties love the fact that the secu­ri­ty forces are in their com­mu­ni­ties, so the call for it to end is about the PNP lust for blood and noth­ing else. Now I am sure that the JLP will be hap­py with me up to this point but I tell the truth regard­less of who is hurt or upset by it.
The JLP is pret­ty com­fort­able with these spe­cial inter­est peo­ple like Levy and oth­ers, in fact lob­by­ists have been inte­gral in some of the chal­lenges we are fac­ing with our crime prob­lem. INDECOM came about because Bruce Golding legit­imized Carolyn Gomes’ bull­shit and now the coun­try is stuck with INDECOM which does not take direc­tion from the gov­ern­ment, and is in fact act­ing as an inde­pen­dent gov­ern­ment but that is a dis­cus­sion for a dif­fer­ent time.

The abhorent shout­ing match in the Parliament on Tuesday which result­ed in a pre­ma­ture end to the sit­ting is sig­nif­i­cant and must be seen as fun­da­men­tal­ly teth­ered to the present state of law­less­ness occur­ring across the coun­try. Students attend­ing the sit­ting in the gallery report­ed­ly walked out in dis­gust at the igno­rant dis­play by the two men.
In the rather crude dis­play, it became clear that being edu­cat­ed does not always equate with smarts or class.

The shout­ing match between the PNP’s Dayton Campbell a Medical doc­tor and the JLP’s Christopher Tufton the Minister of Health who holds a Doctorate in Business Administration was cen­tered on alle­ga­tions that Tufton ordered the clo­sure of the trou­bled Cornwall Regional Hospital in Montego Bay.

Campbell argued rather pathet­i­cal­ly that the min­is­ter made the order while Tufton insist­ed that he had no such author­i­ty and could not have made the order. In fact, Tufton pulled out a cell phone from which he read a mes­sage indi­cat­ing that the Chief Medical Officer was the one who had the author­i­ty of such a clos­ing was to be contemplated.

What I found par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­turb­ing is that if the Minister had infor­ma­tion which backs up his claim as he said why did­n’t Dayton Campbell sim­ply ask him to for­ward the excul­pa­to­ry mes­sage for his edification?
Shouldn’t the doc­u­ment then become part of the record of events of the day in the Parliament for pos­ter­i­ty, I mean if we aren’t run­ning a banana repub­lic that is?

What is it about the PNP whether in pow­er or out of pow­er which makes them so pow­er hun­gry, reck­less, igno­rant and degenerative?
Between Peter Phillips giv­ing mem­bers of the Government what appears to be the fin­ger, talk about lead­er­ship, Dayton Campbell’s arro­gant and con­tin­ued inter­rup­tion in the House and prob­a­bly among the most shock­ing of all in recent days, the com­ments of Member of Parliament for St Catherine East Denise Daley who declared that peo­ple ‘in green’ are either sen­tenced or chased out of her constituency.

When did the mem­ber of par­lia­ment become the own­er of the con­stituen­cy is the first ques­tion which comes to mind. However, the more press­ing issue with this über igno­ra­mus’ state­ment is the fact that it was just a few years ago when Jamaicans made the turn col­lec­tive­ly to eschew vio­lence as a polit­i­cal strategy.
Shockingly, the PNP through the col­lec­tive actions and inac­tions of its mem­ber­ship over the years, have inti­mat­ed that they still see polit­i­cal vio­lence as a means of acquir­ing and hold­ing polit­i­cal power.

It was only in 2015 that anoth­er igno­rant imbe­cile MP, Dwayne Vaz told sup­port­ers to quote: “load up di gundem,” dur­ing a ral­ly in St. James. Not to be out­done, Portia Simpson Miller the Former PM and mem­ber of par­lia­ment in 2016 told PNP dis­senters in St Ann quote: I will come back here for anoth­er meet­ing and I know who I will bring.”
A clear threat of vio­lence to par­ty sup­port­ers who weren’t falling in line behind a then-candidate.

It has become increas­ing­ly clear that the PNP, through its own actions, has made a con­scious deci­sion that it has no inten­tion of mov­ing away from the old style pol­i­tics of the past which has had his­tor­i­cal dis­as­trous con­se­quences for our country.

The cul­mi­na­tion of the day’s events in which Campbell and Daryl Vaz end­ed up in a shout­ing match only added to the dark­ness and lack of lead­er­ship the type of which nei­ther PNP nor JLP sup­port­ers should take comfort.
Sure, in oth­er nations par­lia­ments there are shout­ing match­es and in some cas­es even fisticuffs, re those the types of behav­iors we should be look­ing at emu­lat­ing, or should we be seek­ing a calmer more respect­ful type of delib­er­a­tive body in which deco­rum and respect is the norm?

If mem­bers of the two polit­i­cal par­ties do not have the com­mon decen­cy and deco­rum to con­duct them­selves appro­pri­ate­ly in the peo­ple’s house, where there are oth­er cit­i­zens, chil­dren amongst them, watch­ing how their busi­ness is being con­duct­ed, what hope does this coun­try have for a bet­ter future?
As some­one who talks ad nau­se­am about the state of crime and cor­rup­tion in our coun­try, I am dis­heart­ened at the lev­el of rot which still exists with­in the body politic.

For those of you fatigued and dis­heart­ened about the events hap­pen­ing in our world, you will agree that we are dis­tressed and stressed, and in some cas­es, feel­ing over­whelmed and help­less to do any­thing about events out­side our indi­vid­ual scope of control.
Psychiatrists have said that gen­er­al­ly, peo­ple are demon­strat­ing more symp­toms of stress and anx­i­ety these days.

Somehow it just does­n’t seem as easy to watch a bas­ket­ball game or watch a movie with the degree of aban­don and peace we once did with­out won­der­ing whether, with­out warn­ing, we will be vapor­ised in a ther­mo-nuclear blast.

It is easy in this envi­ron­ment to sim­ply throw up our arms about events which seem too parochial, too unwor­thy of atten­tion in light of what could rea­son­ably be con­strued to be larg­er, more con­se­quen­tial issues.
Despite the larg­er issues we face, how­ev­er, we can­not lose focus on what’s impor­tant as we devise new paths for­ward to remove us from the con­strain­ing ten­ta­cles of sep­a­ratism, par­ti­san­ship and ulti­mate­ly poverty.

One of the defin­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics of gar­risons in Jamaica is the evil of pover­ty. We can have a healthy debate on whether pover­ty pre­ced­ed gar­risons or the reverse, and I would wel­come that. I am of the view that, like every oth­er com­mu­ni­ty, except the wealth­i­er upper Saint Andrew com­mu­ni­ties, pover­ty was a constant.
Despite the many polit­i­cal fail­ings of the past, many open com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try have ben­e­fit­ed from invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties, while new dynam­ic ones have sprung up in places where none existed.
It is my hum­ble sug­ges­tion that on that basis it is imper­a­tive that we move expe­di­tious­ly to dis­man­tle the exist­ing gar­risons in our coun­try, as that is the only way that the peace, edu­ca­tion and pros­per­i­ty that res­i­dents of these com­mu­ni­ties crave will be realised.

In recent times, two of the most endur­ing gar­ri­son com­mu­ni­ties have seen new polit­i­cal lead­er­ship in the per­sons of Mark Golding in the com­mu­ni­ty of St. Andrew South) which includes the infa­mous gar­ri­son of Arnett Gardens(Concrete Jungle), once held by Omar Davies.
And the oth­er Angella Brown-Burke in the (St Andrew South West), the gar­ri­son com­mu­ni­ty once held by long­time par­lia­men­tar­i­an and PM Portia Simpson Miller.

It is impor­tant that while we recog­nise the stub­born char­ac­ter­is­tics which iden­ti­fy these com­mu­ni­ties for what they are, we do not lose sight of the blight which is cre­at­ed on the sole basis of what these com­mu­ni­ties are.
It is also very impor­tant that we under­stand that crime, one of the most tox­ic blights which emanate from these gar­ri­son com­mu­ni­ties, will not go away because we wish it away.

Most impor­tant­ly, we must be adamant to those who would lead these com­mu­ni­ties, à la Mark Golding, Angella Brown-Burke and oth­ers in both polit­i­cal par­ties, that they do not for a moment see these com­mu­ni­ties as their own Kingdoms, as has been the prac­tice in the past.
Residents of these com­mu­ni­ties, like the South West St. Andrew con­stituen­cy once held by Portia Simpson-Miller, must be edu­cat­ed also that their lives will not change regard­less of the office their rep­re­sen­ta­tive holds unless the under­pin­nings of these com­mu­ni­ties are dismantled.

Poverty, mis­ery, crime, dis­eases, lack of edu­ca­tion, lack of oppor­tu­ni­ty, lack of invest­ment, lack of ade­quate infra­struc­ture, are only of few of the blithe which are endem­ic in these com­mu­ni­ties and it is on that basis that we should nev­er allow the likes of Mr’s Brown-Burke and Mark Golding to get com­fort­able in the assump­tion that these incu­ba­tors of crime are their own per­son­al fiefdoms.

Listen to audio commentary.

OLD SCHOOL STYLE POLITICS

Over the last cou­ple of weeks, there have been voic­es with­in the PNP in the per­sons of KD Knight and Angella Brown- Burke threat­en­ing street protests to get what they want. Street Protests have a place in our demo­c­ra­t­ic cul­ture; it is a way for cit­i­zens to reg­is­ter their dis­sent with poli­cies they do not support.
Street protests should nev­er be a tool used by a polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion to dis­rupt soci­ety when dia­logue and con­ver­sa­tion would suffice.

It is on this basis that I found Senator Knight’s threats to rouse up Jamaicans against Government pol­i­cy offensive.
It is on that basis that I find Angella Brown-Burke’s recent state­ments regres­sive, Monacharistic and troubling.
Brown-Burke said she would protest in the streets if a state of pub­lic emer­gency is declared in her vio­lence-torn con­stituen­cy, adding that she needs a push-back that entails social inter­ven­tion – not only boots on the ground.

The con­stituen­cy of St Andrew South West) It is a small part of Jamaica, but a part of Jamaica. It is not up to a con­stituen­cy rep­re­sen­ta­tive to dic­tate what nation­al pol­i­cy may or may not be applied in that or any con­stituen­cy by the Government.
That applies regard­less of the par­ty which holds the keys to the offices at Jamaica House.

Said Brown-Burke:

“I am not one of the tech­ni­cal experts, but, if a state of emer­gency comes for South West St Andrew, I am going on the road and I am going on the road to protest because we want invest­ment; we want inter­ven­tion too,” she trum­pet­ed dur­ing her con­tri­bu­tion to a debate on res­o­lu­tions suc­cess­ful­ly moved for a 60-day exten­sion to the ZOSO in the Denham Town area of Kingston and Mount Salem, St James.

Brown-Burke fur­ther said: “I want to see a holis­tic crime plan; I want to know that the indi­vid­u­als who live in South West St Andrew can boast of the free­dom of which oth­ers speak; can boast of the devel­op­ment of which oth­ers speak.”

The People’s National Party, of which Brown Burke is a mem­ber and a mem­ber of Parliament, was in pow­er for ¹⁴¹⁄₂ con­tin­u­ous years. The con­stituen­cy of St.Andrew Southwestern has been rep­re­sent­ed by for­mer Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller.
That con­stituen­cy has been a safe seat for the PNP since 1976; it has not been rep­re­sent­ed by the JLP except for the brief peri­od of 1983, when the PNP decid­ed not to con­test the elec­tion, and the seat was occu­pied by the JLP’s Christopher Rose.
The con­stituen­cy went back to the PNP in 1989 and has since then not been worth con­test­ing by the JLP. That con­sti­tutes 29 unbro­ken years of PNP rule in the constituency.

With those facts in mind, I am con­fused at the temer­i­ty of the new mem­ber of par­lia­ment, Mrs Brown-Burke in demand­ing imme­di­ate solu­tions for her fief­dom, con­sid­er­ing that the present admin­is­tra­tion has been in office for only two years.
Both polit­i­cal par­ties main­tain gar­risons; the PNP main­tains more. Nevertheless, I recall Andrew Holness, the present Prime Minister, invit­ing Portia Simpson Miller to walk through the gar­risons as a sign of good­will and togeth­er­ness in his first go-around as Prime Minister.
She refused, main­tain­ing that she did not see any walls in her con­stituen­cy. The take­away from her asser­tion was con­spic­u­ous­ly con­fined to the tra­di­tion­al and most nar­row inter­pre­ta­tion of the word “gar­ri­son”.

In mak­ing her demands for the ben­e­fits of ZOSO, Brown-Burke assert­ed that by the time the ZOSO is applied, there may not be any­one left in her constituency.
A mem­ber of the Government side remind­ed Brown-Burke that the con­stituen­cy has been in PNP hands for a long time, to which she respond­ed: “I have not been there [as mem­ber of par­lia­ment] for 40 years; I have been there for six months, and I don’t care who was there before me.”

The lack of real­ism in Brown-Burke’s state­ment is pal­pa­ble, even as we under­stand what could be the frus­tra­tion at the 55 mur­ders that have been report­ed in the con­stituen­cy since the begin­ning of the year.
Nevertheless, the sit­u­a­tion in her con­stituen­cy is not new, they were not cre­at­ed in the last two years. Brown Burke should con­fine her­self to seek­ing dia­logue in a respect­ful way with the admin­is­tra­tion to see what may be achieved for the peo­ple of St Andrew Southwest.
Making out­ra­geous demands under the threat of social unrest harkens to a time which ought to be behind us. The con­tin­u­a­tion of vira­go rep­re­sen­ta­tion should be dis­card­ed in the dust­bin of history.

Brown-Burke must be made to under­stand that the type of rep­re­sen­ta­tion offered by Portia Simpson Miller did noth­ing to improve the lives of the peo­ple of Saint Andrew Southwest. Continuing in the ways of Simpson Miller will only extend the mis­ery and depri­va­tion for decades more to come.

Good job, Zuck! One of my Facebook friends took that garbage quiz. Does Steve Bannon know my birthday now?

ERIN KEANE
Today I learned via a mes­sage in my Facebook feed that at least one of my 1,300 friends was among the 270,000 who played along with the now-infa­mous per­son­al­i­ty quiz app “This Is Your Digital Life” in 2014. Designed by psy­chol­o­gy pro­fes­sor Aleksandr Kogan, the app scraped pri­vate infor­ma­tion from par­tic­i­pants’ pro­files, which poten­tial­ly includes infor­ma­tion from their Facebook friends — to the tune of an esti­mat­ed 87 mil­lion users — and “improp­er­ly shared” it with Cambridge Analytica, a polit­i­cal data firm found­ed by con­ser­v­a­tive mega-donor Robert Mercer and Steve Bannon, who went on to head up Donald Trump’s pres­i­den­tial cam­paign. Whistleblower Christopher Wylie now says Bannon want­ed the Facebook data to sup­port Republican and alt-right can­di­dates for U.S. office.

Because friend­ship appar­ent­ly means nev­er bar­ring your for­mer neigh­bor, your 11^th grade study bud­dy or a guy you once worked with four jobs ago from hand­ing over a record of all the ran­dom things you’ve approved of on Mark Zuckerberg’s plat­form, Cambridge Analytica prob­a­bly knows where I live, how old I am, and that I am a total fan­girl for the J. Peterman Company. (My caf­tan game is strong.)

Thanks, Zuck! All that juicy info hand­ed over with­out a fight and Steve Bannon didn’t even send an Edible Arrangement for my birth­day, which he can’t say now he doesn’t know.

“We under­stand the impor­tance of keep­ing your data safe,” Facebook tells me with, I assume, a straight face, before detail­ing what Cambridge Analytica could have had on me for the last few years because a friend used their app. “There is more work to do, but we are com­mit­ted to con­fronting abuse and to putting you in con­trol of your privacy.”

In a post-Snowden land­scape where memes about being spied on by your own per­son­al FBI agent flour­ish, the idea that I could be in con­trol of my own dig­i­tal pri­va­cy is down­right quaint. But this hand-off of my per­son­al infor­ma­tion is as shady as it sounds. While back in 2014, the data-scrap­ing itself didn’t vio­late the platform’s pri­va­cy rules for third-par­ty appli­ca­tions, snitch­ing it out to Steve Bannon did, accord­ing to Facebook.

It’s true that I have no idea how my infor­ma­tion was used, if at all. It’s unclear what psy­cho­graph­ic pro­file can be con­struct­ed from my affin­i­ty for the Jim Henson hol­i­day clas­sic “Emmett Otter’s Jug Band Christmas”; and on the scale of adver­tis­ing-per­suad­able 2016 vot­ers I’m prob­a­bly a “Huma Abedin,” so who knows if the infor­ma­tion Facebook allowed my friend’s app to scrape from my pro­file was ever used for any­thing nefar­i­ous. But that’s not real­ly the point.

Look, I’m not an inno­cent. I know that on a free plat­form like Facebook, I am the prod­uct being pitched to adver­tis­ers. This is an agree­ment I entered into will­ing­ly, and I am actu­al­ly not com­plain­ing about that. According to my records, Facebook already had me pegged as “very lib­er­al,” a fre­quent trav­el­er and an engaged shop­per for its own adver­tis­ing pur­pos­es, which are quite effec­tive as the pairs of shoes I have pur­chased off in-feed ads demon­strate. Take my one-sen­tence rave review of “Black Panther” or my vaca­tion pho­tos from Bogotá and try to sell me more of the same — fine.

I know that every key­stroke and click I make on the inter­net is stored some­where and used by some­one to try to get me to buy some­thing. I grew up fol­low­ing the sto­ry­lines of fic­tion­al car­toon char­ac­ters cre­at­ed by toy com­pa­nies with the sole objec­tive of sell­ing me their plas­tic fig­urine like­ness­es. I have a dis­tinct preschool mem­o­ry of con­scious­ly read­ing the word “McDonald’s” on the sign, after I learned my ABCs and what the big gold­en arched M stands for. I’m an American. Someone’s been try­ing to sell me some­thing since the day I was born.

But allow­ing some­one else to to dig around in our pock­ets with­out our knowl­edge and give what­ev­er they fish out to peo­ple asso­ci­at­ed close­ly with a pres­i­den­tial cam­paign with­out ask­ing first is some­thing entire­ly dif­fer­ent. Facebook’s fail­ure to ensure such loop­holes were not avail­able for exploita­tion is a breach of trust — how­ev­er thin that trust was in the first place — and car­ries with it a cer­tain amount of moral cul­pa­bil­i­ty at the very least. After all, it was Facebook that con­vinced so many peo­ple to be extreme­ly them­selves online — to become the will­ing prod­uct — in the first place.

Back in the day, before Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and Snapchat, if you used social plat­forms like mes­sage boards or blog ser­vices or chat rooms, you prob­a­bly used a pseu­do­nym of some sort. Real names were for pro­fes­sion­al lives; if you had an online social life, you used a han­dle, prefer­ably untrace­able to your actu­al iden­ti­ty, to keep your anonymi­ty and to ensure some mea­sure of pri­va­cy when talk­ing to peo­ple you had­n’t ever met face to face. Posting under your full name was the sign of a naïf, hence the endur­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty of the 1993 New Yorker car­toon cap­tioned, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”

Early net­works like Friendster and MySpace, where users could cre­ate per­son­al pro­files, chis­eled away some pri­va­cy para­noia. But one the­o­ry of why Friendster with­ered on the vine is that it lacked exact­ly what made Facebook so suc­cess­ful. Friendster didn’t under­stand that what makes a social net­work strong is its empha­sis on social. As PC’s Peter Pachal writes in this insight­ful autop­sy, Friendster died for a lack of what Facebook end­ed up pio­neer­ing: the news feed.

I remem­ber first log­ging on to [Friendster], and see­ing a big emp­ty pro­file to fill in with pho­tos, per­son­al details, inter­ests, and the like. But once I had a meaty pro­file (right down to my time­ly lament­ing of the end of Buffy the Vampire Slayer), the next thing to do was… what, exact­ly? Sure, there were tes­ti­mo­ni­als for friends, but after writ­ing the half-dozen or so I actu­al­ly want­ed to write, it seemed that the only thing to do on Friendster was pol­ish my profile.

When Zuckerberg launched Facebook’s news feed in 2006, it changed the game.

While the site was still attract­ing new peo­ple, he revamped it to ele­vate the news feed’s impor­tance, push­ing apps and box­es to the rear and putting friends’ updates, shares, and dis­cus­sions front and cen­ter. Even the pop­u­lar Facebook sta­tus update became more like a Twitter mes­sage, drop­ping the “so-and-so is eat­ing bacon” for­mat and los­ing its spe­cial promi­nence on pro­file pages.

Naturally, users freaked. But Zuckerberg stuck with his gut, and a fun­ny thing hap­pened. People got used to the new design. They start­ed to miss their apps less and less. They start­ed com­ment­ing on every­thing. And (most) stopped car­ing about how many friends they had. Along the way, Facebook got big­ger than ever.

Facebook’s pop­u­lar­i­ty, then, made an account a stan­dard tool for stay­ing con­nect­ed, and its real-name man­date made attach­ing your first and last name to your online social life the new stan­dard. It’s way more dif­fi­cult to pre­tend to be some­one or some­thing you’re not when your mom, your third grade best friend and the co-work­er from two cubi­cles over are watch­ing, so we became more and more com­fort­able being our full selves on Facebook. We gave up anonymi­ty for the con­ve­nience of hav­ing pret­ty much every­one we knew, or ever did know, avail­able to us on one social plat­form and find­able by name, and now every day it seems we’re find­ing out a new con­se­quence for assum­ing that every­one involved plays by the same trans­paren­cy rules.

In today’s Senate hear­ing, Dick Durbin (D‑IL) asked Zuckerberg if he’d be com­fort­able shar­ing which hotel he stayed in last night. “Um, no, I would not,” said Zuck.

Durbin pressed on. “If you mes­saged any­one this week, would you share with us the names of the peo­ple you messaged?”

“Senator, no, I would­n’t choose to do that pub­licly here.”

You and me both, Zuck. So where do we go from here?

Cybersecurity expert Bruce Schneier, a fel­low with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School, told the Harvard Gazette last August that indi­vid­ual actions we can take to safe­guard our dig­i­tal pri­va­cy have a rel­a­tive­ly minor impact. “The best rec­om­men­da­tion I have for peo­ple is to get involved in the polit­i­cal process. The best thing we can do as con­sumers and cit­i­zens is to make this a polit­i­cal issue. Force our leg­is­la­tors to change the rules,” he said, because opt­ing out of using dig­i­tal tools entire­ly isn’t an option:

And “buy­er beware” is putting too much onus on the indi­vid­ual. People don’t test their food for pathogens or their air­lines for safe­ty. The gov­ern­ment does it. But the gov­ern­ment has failed in pro­tect­ing con­sumers from inter­net com­pa­nies and social media giants. But this will come around. The only effec­tive way to con­trol big cor­po­ra­tions is through big government.

Zuckerberg has indi­cat­ed that he’d be open to U.S. cus­tomers hav­ing access to European-style pri­va­cy tools, which could be a start. But it could be too lit­tle too late for many of his prod­ucts — aka peo­ple — who are now reeval­u­at­ing their Facebook use.

Zuckerberg deserves all of the back­lash he’s receiv­ing of late, but it’s not like his is the only site that knows our secrets. For all that Facebook remem­bers about my shop­ping and social habits — to say noth­ing of what my per­son­al FBI agent, to whom I just waved, has seen — Google, the keep­er of my search his­to­ry and my per­son­al email accounts, has the real goods. The thought of it is too great to bear some days, but what’s the alter­na­tive? I’m pret­ty sure I can’t just nuke 20 years of online life and start over as a dog.

Would you delete your Facebook?

Facebook is fac­ing intense scruti­ny for mis­han­dling user data. While Salon’s D. Watkins isn’t call­ing on users to delete the app, in today’s Salon 5, he gives five rea­sons why he’s con­cerned with his pri­va­cy online.

https://www.salon.com/2018/04/10/i‑got-zucked-cambridge-analytica-has-my-facebook-data/

There are many things which need improv­ing in Jamaica, the stub­born refusal of the two polit­i­cal par­ties to deal col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly and deci­sive­ly toward end­ing vio­lent crimes being chief among them.
On the oth­er hand, there are things which are going right, for the very first time, to the best of my rec­ol­lec­tion a bud­get was passed with­out any new tax­es announced to finance it.

The lat­est growth of 1.1 per­cent in the econ­o­my is a step in the right direc­tion, though the growth rate was bet­ter in 2015, cul­mi­nat­ing in a spike in 2016 in which there was 2.1 per­cent growth rate.
The People’s National Party have main­tained that the path the coun­try is on was a func­tion of the steps it had tak­en to sta­bi­lize the economy.
In actu­al­i­ty, after an unprece­dent­ed 14 ¹⁄₂ years in office, the PNP had all but wrecked the econ­o­my and brought the coun­try to its finan­cial knees.

The ane­mic growth rates which emanat­ed out of the IMF’s restruc­tur­ing plan giv­en to the Portia Simpson Miller gov­ern­ment did in fact set the coun­try on the right and sus­tain­able path to recov­ery. It just isn’t enough for the PNP to crow about its part in this frag­ile recov­ery when it had the lux­u­ry of freez­ing pub­lic sec­tor wages for years, apply­ing mas­sive tax increas­es and mak­ing cuts in ser­vices as hall­marks of its tenure.
It is a bit rich to set fire to a man’s house and then demand recog­ni­tion for call­ing the fire department.

After Percival Patterson took over the reins of gov­ern­ment crime sky­rock­et­ed out of con­trol. Rather than take steps to improve law enforce­ment capa­bil­i­ties, Patterson watched crime sky­rock­et while the police depart­ment dete­ri­o­rat­ed into an inef­fec­tu­al depart­ment which lacked the most basic inves­tiga­tive capabilities.

Patterson demand­ed that police offi­cers return to wear­ing uni­forms effec­tive­ly mak­ing the JCF a pure­ly reac­tive force which could only respond effec­tive­ly to crimes com­mit­ted in the view of officers.
To add insult to injury Patterson did not make any mon­ey avail­able to train a sin­gle detec­tive for a full decade. The result of those poli­cies is still being reflect­ed in the crime sta­tis­tics today.

During that same peri­od, there was no clear indi­ca­tion that there was any will or inten­tion to curb the nation’s bur­geon­ing crime wave. Even worse there was no crime plan to be implemented.
It was dur­ing that peri­od of time that KD Knight was the Minister of National Security & Justice.

It is with the for­gone in mind that I find KD Knight’s threat to “rouse up” Jamaicans if the Andrew Holness-led Government does not present a com­pre­hen­sive crime plan to the coun­try by April galling and cheeky.
KD Knight is a great lawyer, a lawyer I would seek out if I need­ed legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion in a court of law, nev­er­the­less, Knight had his turn at the tiller and he was no dif­fer­ent than oth­ers who had pre­ced­ed him, nei­ther was he bet­ter than any who suc­ceed­ed him.

There is no need for any more crime plans, what is need­ed is a com­pre­hen­sive realign­ment across the legal, polit­i­cal and civic spec­trums. A realign­ment of under­stand­ing that the present approach­es to crime are not work­ing because they favor those who break our laws.
Crime plans do not change the tra­jec­to­ry of crime, res­olute actions do.
There is a stub­born mind­set across the soci­ety that we can trans­form vio­lent crim­i­nals into pro­duc­tive mem­bers of society.

The real­i­ty of that mind­set is that we can­not change peo­ple who do not want to be changed. For years I have per­son­al­ly writ­ten that we can­not beg peo­ple not to com­mit crimes, we have to make it so that they are dis­suad­ed from com­mit­ting crimes.
The nation’s laws and gen­er­al mind­set are as such that in many instances it lit­er­al­ly pays to be engaged in crim­i­nal conduct.

Listen to the audio clip below.

It is imper­a­tive that there is bipar­ti­san con­sen­sus on crime, a way for­ward which empow­ers law enforce­ment while hold­ing them account­able. There is a fix avail­able which requires set­ting parochial pol­i­tics and pop­ulism aside for the greater good of our country.

That greater good is not enhanced by pos­tur­ing, mak­ing threats, or show­ing off.
KD Knight is an intel­lec­tu­al, there is no deny­ing that, and so we must con­clude that the rea­son he makes these threats of dis­rup­tion is pure­ly political.

Knight must know what needs to be done, it is not that dif­fi­cult to under­stand that in order to fix crime there are laws and law enforce­ment which are geared toward crime eradication.
KD Knight has led an accom­plished life of achieve­ments, it is time for him to think about his lega­cy, about what kind of coun­try he would like to leave when he is gone.
It is time he puts pol­i­tics aside and uses his influ­ence to carve out bipar­ti­san solu­tions to the nation’s problems.
Threats and grand­stand­ing are so 1970’s, it is beneath our coun­try’s dig­ni­ty, I would like to think it is beneath the dig­ni­ty of KD Knight as well.

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The United Nations was estab­lished on the 24^th of October 1945 after the sec­ond world war end­ed, the orga­ni­za­tion was launched with the inten­tion of pro­mot­ing inter­na­tion­al coöper­a­tion and to cre­ate and main­tain inter­na­tion­al order. United Nations was estab­lished on the 24^th of October 1945 after the sec­ond world war end­ed, the orga­ni­za­tion was launched with the inten­tion of pro­mot­ing inter­na­tion­al coöper­a­tion and to cre­ate and main­tain inter­na­tion­al order.
The United Nation replaced the inef­fec­tu­al League of Nations which was found­ed on 10^th of January 1920 as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that end­ed the First World War.
The UN’s stat­ed goal was to ensure that there would nev­er be anoth­er world­wide con­fla­gra­tion like the war which had just end­ed in the very same year 1945.

According to its Charter, the UN aims to, save suc­ceed­ing gen­er­a­tions from the scourge of war, to reaf­firm faith in fun­da­men­tal human rights,…to estab­lish con­di­tions under which jus­tice and respect for the oblig­a­tions aris­ing from treaties and oth­er sources of inter­na­tion­al law can be main­tained, and to pro­mote social progress and bet­ter stan­dards of life in larg­er freedom.

Ironically the United Nations, using the very same char­ter was instru­men­tal in the for­ma­tion of the State of Israel on dis­put­ed land. Though the UN can­not rea­son­ably be judged sole­ly by its fail­ure and egre­gious lack of char­ac­ter on what has emanat­ed out of the state of Israel it val­i­dat­ed, the Organization must assume respon­si­bil­i­ty for the con­se­quences of its actions not just in Israel’s cre­ation but for the con­duct of that state.

If the Organization is com­mit­ted to the fun­da­men­tal rights of all peo­ple, as is estab­lished in its char­ter, it is clear that those rights are not extend­ed to the Palestinian peo­ple or African-American peo­ple in America who have con­sis­tent­ly been under the boot-heel of occu­pa­tion and dom­i­na­tion and Jim crow racism and dis­crim­i­na­tion respectively.

Since it’s cre­ation the Zionist state of Israel has seen mas­sive bor­der expan­sions as a result of war, but most sig­nif­i­cant­ly as a result of the rapa­cious grab­bing of Palestinian land and the build­ing of ille­gal set­tle­ments with no jus­ti­fi­able rea­son com­ing from Israel for its actions.
The only con­clu­sion is that Israel con­tin­ues with these ille­gal activ­i­ties because it’s largest and most pow­er­ful backer the United States, ensures that Israel is able to flaunt International law with impunity.

Israel out­right­ly steals lands which clear­ly do not belong to the state of Israel. This process aids and enhances the ille­gal expan­sion of Israel’s bor­ders. A move which evis­cer­ates any hope the Palestinians have of hav­ing a state of their own.
Despite con­dem­na­tion and protes­ta­tions from con­sci­en­tious ele­ments of the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, Israel ignores the out­cry and arro­gant­ly con­tin­ue with its ille­gal activ­i­ties.
This guar­an­tees the shrink­ing of any­thing which could look remote­ly like a Palestinian state, and for all intents and pur­pos­es now makes the prospect of a Palestinian state a fan­tas­tic idea whose time has come and gone.

As atro­cious as those truths are, they do not begin to tell the sto­ry of how Israel is allowed to oper­ate out­side the bound­aries of International law and the pro­to­cols which con­strain oth­er states not so pro­tect­ed.
According to experts, Israel is in pos­ses­sion of scores of nuclear weapons while its pro­tec­tors tell oth­er sov­er­eign nations they are not allowed to acquire the same weapons.

In a 2013 Washington Post Article titled “Why is the U.S. okay with Israel hav­ing nuclear weapons but not Iran”? Columnist Max Fisher asks, “Is there some­thing hyp­o­crit­i­cal about the world tol­er­at­ing Israel’s nuclear arse­nal, which the coun­try does not offi­cial­ly acknowl­edge but has been pub­licly known for decades, and yet pun­ish­ing Iran with severe eco­nom­ic sanc­tions just for its sus­pect­ed steps toward a weapons pro­gram? Even Saudi Arabia, which sees Iran as its implaca­ble ene­my and made its accom­mo­da­tions with Israel long ago, often joins Tehran’s calls for a “nuclear-free region.” And any­one not close­ly versed in Middle East issues might nat­u­ral­ly won­der why the United States would accept Israeli war­heads but not an Iranian pro­gram.

According to the same Article Robert Satloff, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, sum­ma­riz­ized the American posi­tion thus.
“Israel has nev­er bran­dished its capa­bil­i­ties to exert region­al influ­ence, cow its adver­saries or threat­en its neigh­bors.“
No, it does­n’t, it just uses them in pas­sive-aggres­sive ways, while it kills untold num­bers of Palestinians already under its occu­pa­tion, steals their lands and dri­ves out asy­lum seek­ing Africans it deems and labels “infil­tra­tors”.

People do not mind adher­ing to rules as long as the rules apply fair­ly, equi­tably, and just­ly across the board.
There can­not be two sets of rules, one for Israel and anoth­er for the rest of the world. In the Interest of world peace, Israel should dis­man­tle its nuclear weapons, remove the ille­gal set­tle­ments from Palestinian lands and take down the check­points which pre­vent Palestinians farm­ers from going to their properties.

Israel’s con­tin­ued con­struc­tion of high­ways through Palestinian lands is uncon­scionable. Farmers can­not have access to their farms, fam­i­lies cut off from their farms while Israeli set­tlers con­tin­ue to con­fis­cate and build ille­gal set­tle­ments is beyond unacceptable.

How the world remains silent in the face of such injus­tice is a ques­tion not just for all con­sci­en­tious peo­ple but for the United Nations as well.

The Government we have is the Government we have, that’s a func­tion of how we vote. That’s also a func­tion of the peo­ple who step for­ward to lead polit­i­cal­ly and so as vot­ers we are some­times left with sit­u­a­tions in which the choice of select­ing a gov­ern­ment of peo­ple to lead us is basi­cal­ly swap­ping a dog for a monkey.
When con­sci­en­tious moral peo­ple stay away from the process, the void is filled with immoral intel­lec­tu­al­ly bank­rupt indi­vid­u­als who are out to sat­is­fy their own interests.
Nowadays, vot­ers gen­er­al­ly do not get to chose their polit­i­cal lead­ers, their polit­i­cal lead­ers chose them. Political par­ties prof­fer can­di­dates of their choice and the vot­ers get to chose either or. Imagine a sce­nario in which peo­ple actu­al­ly chose their own rep­re­sen­ta­tives answer­able to them? This is not a phe­nom­e­non unique to our beloved Jamaica, it is far more entrenched world­wide, includ­ing the USA the world’s old­est democracy.

The recent cab­i­net shuf­fle in Jamaica which saw Finance Minister Shaw and Robert Montague min­is­ter of National Security re-assigned has many peo­ple offer­ing up myr­i­ad assump­tions as to the rea­sons for the shuffle.
Both Shaw and Montague are pop­u­lar front­line min­is­ters of the JLP Administration both for­mer­ly occu­py­ing crit­i­cal areas of the government.

No respon­si­bil­i­ty of the gov­ern­ment is as crit­i­cal as nation­al secu­ri­ty. It is the Government’s first and most impor­tant respon­si­bil­i­ty to the peo­ple. It is unclear whether admin­is­tra­tions com­prised of the mem­bers of Jamaica’s two polit­i­cal par­ties are aware of this humungous responsibility.

The recent changes in Finance and nation­al secu­ri­ty have gar­nered much debate, much of what I have seen has been crit­i­cal of Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ deci­sion to move these two min­is­ters. In fact, the con­sen­sus seems to be that the Prime Minister may have had ulte­ri­or motives for doing so.

There is a gen­er­al belief in our coun­try that what­ev­er you hear in the streets if it’s not the truth, it is not too far from the truth. I have no way of know­ing whether or not the Prime Minister’s motives were right­eous in his deci­sion to move the two ministers.
Audley Shaw was rec­og­nized as Caribbean Finance Minister of the year 2017. Minister Shaw recent­ly passed a bud­get with­out impos­ing any new tax­a­tion on the already over­taxed cit­i­zens for the very first time, at least to my mem­o­ry, or in my lifetime.

Minster Montague’s appoint­ment drew disdain(none loud­er than mine)at the time he was cho­sen to lead the Ministry of National Security, I thought he was gross­ly unpre­pared and ill-equipped to han­dle such a crit­i­cal min­istry with­out any legal or pro­fes­sion­al expertise.
Despite not hav­ing moved any moun­tains or made any earth-shat­ter­ing pro­pos­als which have reshaped the nation­al secu­ri­ty land­scape, Montague at least seemed to have cul­ti­vat­ed a good work­ing rela­tion­ship with mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty forces.
His approach has been a depar­ture from some past min­is­ters whose goals were clear­ly con­fronta­tion­al with the police.

The appoint­ment of Dr. Nigel Clarke to head Finance has tongues wag­ging, his new­ness to the process seems to give greater valid­i­ty to the claims that these changes are designed to pun­ish, (at least Minister Shaw), who has since declared that wher­ev­er he is assigned he will perform.
Shaw’s mag­na­nim­i­ty is com­mend­able, all facets of the gov­ern­ment need to work in uni­son for the bet­ter­ment of the Jamaican people.
The fact that Dr. Clarke was just recent­ly added to the JLP’s num­bers in the House after win­ning the St. Andrew Western seat recent­ly held by Derrick Smith, and was giv­en a cab­i­net posi­tion is enough to raise eyebrows.

That is not to say that there are ulte­ri­or motives behind Clarke’s appoint­ment to that key role. There may even be a legit­i­mate case to be made for the appoint­ment of Hoarce Chang whose con­stituen­cy is an active gar­ri­son to head nation­al secu­ri­ty. We just haven’t heard that argu­ment yet. Before you cry foul, how­ev­er, don’t for­get that Peter Phillips also hailed from con­crete Jungle the father of all garrisons.
There is a legit­i­mate argu­ment to be made that Montague and Shaw have per­formed so well that it was impor­tant to move them to oth­er min­istries with a view to improv­ing those ministries.
We just haven’t heard that argu­ment from the Prime Minister yet. Since that argu­ment has­n’t been made tongues con­tin­ue to wag and the rumor mills con­tin­ue to churn.