The Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CaPRI) has esti­mat­ed that Jamaica is los­ing US$12.8 bil­lion annu­al­ly in unex­ploit­ed rev­enue from the dias­po­ra, the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) hopes to dou­ble the num­ber of Jamaicans invest­ing on the stock mar­ket by 2019.

“You have a choice as to where you put your mon­ey — Wall Street or Harbour Street.” attor­ney-at-law Marlon Hill told mem­bers of the dias­po­ra who gath­ered at the JSE for a clos­ing bell ring­ing cer­e­mo­ny on Wednesday. The event formed part of the week-long Jamaica 55 Diaspora Conference held at the Jamaica Conference Centre, which focused on issues affect­ing Jamaicans liv­ing over­seas while explor­ing how the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor could cre­ate a more effi­cient sys­tem to cap­i­tal­ize on untapped rev­enues from the diaspora.
“If you love GraceKennedy prod­ucts, why not invest in the com­pa­ny? The bread, bis­cuits, logis­tics — all of them are list­ed on the Jamaica Stock Exchange and its only US$100 to open an account with the JSE. (JamaicaObserver)

Isn’t it remark­able just how much Jamaicans at home val­ue the dias­po­ra when the issue of mon­ey comes up?
Don’t get me wrong invest­ing in our home­land is noble, invest­ing for the future a no-brain­er. Where much of the Jamaican com­mu­ni­ty los­es me is in their staunch pos­tur­ing by link­ing the fact that they live on the Island with patriotism.
I mean lis­ten­ing to some of them I some­times have to pinch myself and rehearse my Jamaica accent in the mir­ror, just to con­vince myself that I am still Jamaican.
Never mind my ser­vice to my coun­try or the fact that I took a bul­let in the process.
It appears the sin­gle defin­ing char­ac­ter­is­tic for being a worth­while red-blood­ed gen­uine Jamaican is hav­ing nev­er left or hav­ing left and was uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly returned on a one-way flight.

That said, the call to invest in the local stock exchange will not gar­ner the result it should when the coun­try is viewed in the dim cor­rup­tion light in which many Jamaicans abroad view the Island.
The cor­rup­tion and malfea­sance which flows from the top of the stream are cer­tain­ly not lost on any­one, cer­tain­ly not mem­bers of the diaspora.
In fact, it was the cor­rup­tion and lack of oppor­tu­ni­ties which cre­at­ed a dias­po­ra com­mu­ni­ty which is now larg­er than the 2.7 mil­lion peo­ple liv­ing on the Island.

I wish to make it clear that no dias­po­ra group speaks on my behalf and I know a bunch of peo­ple for whom they do not speak either.
Generally, these groups are the same bunch of elit­ist who runs the Island they just don’t live there anymore.
If this gov­ern­ment and busi­ness sec­tor would like to get our mon­ey what it, must do is stop cod­dling criminals.
I speak for myself and a lot of real Jamaicans when we say hell no, we will con­tin­ue to invest in places where we are assured that crim­i­nals will not over­throw the state or that our invest­ments won’t sim­ply disappear.
At the moment we don’t have that assurance.
The Jamaican dias­po­ra has suf­fered immense­ly at the hands of Patriots back home whose sole func­tion is to fig­ure out ways to bilk them of the pro­ceeds of their hard work.
Much the same way the grudge-full­ness and envy are caus­ing the killings on the Island.

Think whats hap­pen­ing in Jamaica is a joke?
Think again!
The small Island of 4411 square miles is just a hop skip and a jump from Morant Point to Negril. With new­ly built Highways it’s now only a breeze to skip from one point to the other.
I mean that not as an encour­age­ment to the dan­ger­ous and reck­less lunatics who dri­ve on the roads at break­neck speeds.
Neither do I want to make it seem like it’s okay to over­take long lines of vehi­cles going in the same direc­tion on dual car­riage­ways forc­ing traf­fic going in the oppo­site direc­tion to take eva­sive action or end up in a head on collision.

Now we all know how Jamaicans are focused on whats impor­tant we nev­er miss an oppor­tu­ni­ty to be extra or to show just how dif­fer­ent we are.
In fact, we are so intent on being dif­fer­ent we sel­dom rec­og­nize that we offend the hell out of others.
And why not, if you don’t agree with us putting our phone on speak­er as we walk into the bank or office while we chat at the top of our voic­es as every­one looks on in hor­ror, then that’s your fault, who cares that you are offended?

Why should we care about any­thing any­one says, we are the peo­ple who place John in front of Crow then change it to Jankru. We are the peo­ple who make a moun­tain of diss­ing a live and beau­ti­ful Ishawna over a harm­less com­ment as we res­ur­rect an icon­ic yet long deceased Louise Bennett-Coverly, lav­ish praise on her, all because we con­clude Ishawna dissed the clothes she wore decades ago. Never mind that the idi­ot­ic argu­ments are cen­tered around ban­dana a type of fab­ric miss Lou wore as a cos­tume. Ishawna dress­es skimpi­ly, it’s a cos­tume, Miss Lou dressed in ban­dana, it was a costume.
Cultural diss, what baloney?
What stupidity!
Truly miss Lou would have won­dered whether we have lost our damn minds.

There is no won­der we always seem to place the cart before the horse. We nev­er lis­ten to rea­son because we whole­heart­ed­ly con­vince our­selves that the deviances inher­ent in our behav­iors are worth­while pros rather than cringe-wor­thy cons.

We need a fresh new start, if we do not make a turn, it won’t be long before the stu­pid­i­ty we allow to per­sist will be our ulti­mate demise.
Shielding a cow­ard­ly punk who have just gunned down three peo­ple while blam­ing the police for exter­mi­nat­ing the piece of excre­ment is not call­ing for justice.
It demon­strates beyond a shad­ow of a doubt that every jack one of you on that demon­stra­tion line is no dif­fer­ent than the scum lying dead on the sidewalk.

What I will nev­er do under any con­di­tion is to pre­tend that the ridicu­lous­ly neg­a­tive things we do are some­how praise-wor­thy things to be emu­lat­ed or be proud of.
If your son shoots some­one and is in turn shot by the police or any­one else that does not make the police or any­one else wor­thy of your ire it makes you com­plic­it if you blame the process of his demise rather than his actions which caused his demise in the first instance.

The coun­try is awash in guns, guns are every­where AK47’s M16’s and all kinds of assault weapons which were designed to exact mass casualties.
The secu­ri­ty forces are strug­gling might­i­ly to remove some of the weapons and ammu­ni­tion from the streets.
Something tells me though that the weapons and ammu­ni­tion are com­ing in a torrent.Meanwhile, the secu­ri­ty forces are tak­ing some back in a trickle.

The bond­ing togeth­er of JLPNP gang­sters in 2010 in com­mon uni­ty to defend Tivoli Gardens and Christopher Duddus Coke from extra­di­tion would have awak­ened smart peo­ple that this mon­ster must be stamped out once and for all.
Instead, the par­ty in pow­er the JLP took all kinds of actions, includ­ing using tax­pay­ers funds to pay a lob­by­ing firm to defend a com­mon thug they had cre­at­ed and nurtured.

Not to be out­done, as soon as they took office instead of secur­ing the nation the PNP decid­ed to play pol­i­tics by shoring up their gar­risons while rev­el­ing in the destruc­tion of Tivoli Gardens as the quin­tes­sen­tial polit­i­cal stronghold.
But that was­n’t all, in an effort to score polit­i­cal points the PNP went ahead with a Kangaroo pan­el which decid­ed that the valiant secu­ri­ty forces who went to that war were to be chas­tised and admon­ished for risk­ing their lives to annex Tivoli to Jamaica.”
Truth be told the PNP admin­is­tra­tion which was nev­er a law and order par­ty, real­ly want­ed mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty forces jailed for doing exact­ly what they were sworn and asked to do.
Not only were the secu­ri­ty forces demo­nized by the pros­ti­tutes who made up the pan­el they also rec­om­mend­ed that a for­mal apol­o­gy is made to the community.
You sim­ply can­not make this up.

You can rest assured that if you sow the wind you will reap the whirlwind.
The com­ing togeth­er of dozens pos­si­bly hun­dreds of heav­i­ly armed thugs for a com­mon cause is now not out of the realm of possibility.
They have demon­strat­ed that mon­ey or the lure of it trumps pret­ty much all else.
In 2010 thugs loy­al to both par­ties came togeth­er, set­ting pol­i­tics and oth­er con­sid­er­a­tions aside to lend their mus­cle to Coke, all for the almighty dollar.

Mark my words this bull­shit pussy­foot­ing by this admin­is­tra­tion as it was the one before it is play­ing with fire.
You fight fire with fire sup­pres­sant. Some fires are fought with water oth­ers sand and oth­ers foam, it all depends on the accel­er­ant fuel­ing the fire.

I’m actu­al­ly smil­ing because I know as sure as night fol­lows the day that the day will come when they will rise up and take out ele­ments of the pow­er struc­ture in the coun­try and every­one will be left with mouths agape, won­der­ing how in the hell did this happen.
Don’t look at me you pre­ten­tious bas­tards want to pre­tend that these ter­ror­ists should be treat­ed as choir boys?
Deal with the consequences!

There is one solu­tion to what is hap­pen­ing, unleash the full pow­er of the law on these scum and let the chips fall where they may.
Then rebuild.

There is a cer­tain strain of some­thing which binds the polar oppo­site eco­nom­ic and social class­es in Jamaica.
That some­thing is the protes­ta­tions of love Jamaicans claim to have for their coun­try. Love of coun­try which caus­es many to say they would nev­er leave Jamaica to live else­where in the world.

Love of coun­try is not some­thing Jamaicans invent­ed. Across the Globe, peo­ple are inex­orably tied to their places of birth. People lay down their lives for their country.
God, fam­i­ly, Country, you chose your order.
So it’s not out of the ordi­nary that Jamaicans would be in love with the lit­tle bit of rock we affec­tion­al­ly refer to as “Yaad”.

Interestingly, it is a known fact that despite the protes­ta­tions of the north­ern tier of the Jamaican social caste you may find only a small per­cent­age who aren’t dual nation­als between Jamaica and the United States, Canada, or the UK. Others pos­sess Green cards or visas which allow them to fly out at a momen­t’s notice.
On the Southern Tier of the spec­trum, it is the same for those blessed with the abil­i­ty to trav­el. In fact, in 2015 a Gleaner-com­mis­sioned Bill Johnson poll con­clud­ed that more than four out of every 10 Jamaicans har­bor a burn­ing desire to get out of Jamaica.
Forty-three per cent of Jamaicans inter­viewed in the poll con­duct­ed by Johnson said that either they or person/​s in their imme­di­ate fam­i­lies hoped to migrate to anoth­er coun­try with­in the next five years or so.

It’s fair to con­clude from that poll that the major­i­ty if not all of those polled were peo­ple who did not have green cards or visas.
Those with the abil­i­ty to leave when­ev­er they want to are either gone trav­els abroad fre­quent­ly or are between trips.
Having the abil­i­ty to leave if they chose to is a safe­ty net many will not relin­quish freely.

People migrate in search of bet­ter eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties and for secu­ri­ty reasons.
Between crime and the hor­ri­ble eco­nom­ic con­di­tions, peo­ple are inclined to look else­where for their safe­ty and for oppor­tu­ni­ties to feed their families.
It is the most basic sur­vival instincts of all species. Not con­vinced, turn your tele­vi­sion to the NATGO channel.

Why then are Jamaicans who decide to live at home, whether by choice or lack there­of make it seem that peo­ple who live in the dias­po­ra are unpatriotic?
Oh, wait before we delve into the ques­tion I must ask how about that bar­rel which just arrived with the for­eign goods?
Hope you got the full amount in Jamaican cur­ren­cy that Uncle John sent from America.
And oh, the com­put­ers and things the great group of Patriots sent back for the school, they will be send­ing more as soon as they can.

Look you are no more a patri­ot than any­one else because you nev­er left. If any­thing you may be more parochial, myopic than patri­ot­ic, so save us the bull.
Many of you nev­er had a chance to leave, if you did you would have been gone.
Long ago!
Many of you nev­er joined the Police Department or the Military. You com­plain about police cor­rup­tion yet you are the one offer­ing the young cop on the beat a bribe after you broke the law.
The Elitists on the north­ern tier of the spec­trum who are above every­one else please do not give that enve­lope to that senior offi­cer to have his men pass by your busi­ness place every 1/.2 hour.

You want to stop cor­rup­tion vol­un­teer for some­thing. You wan­na pro­file as a patri­ot stop lit­ter­ing the streets, vote, stop brib­ing pub­lic offi­cials, report crime and give infor­ma­tion to the police.
Join the line at the rear, stop at the stop sign/​light, not only when there is a cop there.
How about obey­ing law­ful orders giv­en by agents of the state?
Offer a help­ing hand to some­one less for­tu­nate, pre­serve your com­mu­ni­ties and infrastructure.
That’s patriotism!

Lawrence W Reid President of the Foundation for Economic Education and the author of the book Real Heroes: Inspiring True Stories of Courage, Character and Conviction apt­ly said ask one cit­i­zen after anoth­er what patri­o­tism means and with few excep­tions, you’ll get a pas­sel of the most self-right­eous but super­fi­cial and often dead-wrong answers.
I sub­scribe to a patri­o­tism root­ed in ideas that in turn gave birth to a coun­try, but it’s the ideas that I think of when I’m feel­ing patri­ot­ic. I’m a patri­ot­ic American because I revere the ideas that moti­vat­ed the Founders and com­pelled them, in many instances, to put their lives, for­tunes, and sacred hon­or on the line.

People in every coun­try and in all times have expressed feel­ings of some­thing we flip­pant­ly call “patri­o­tism,” but that just begs the ques­tion. What is this thing, any­way? Can it be so cheap and mean­ing­less that a few ges­tures and feel­ings make you patriotic?

Do what you do, wave your flag, be proud, vote but don’t ever con­fuse the fact that because you live in Jamaica for what­ev­er rea­son, it means you are a patriot.
Give me a man/​woman who moved away and work to help make life bet­ter for all who stayed over some loud mouthed pompous fool who believe patri­o­tism is defined by where they live.

Does any­one see the cyn­i­cal ploy Andrew Holness is per­pe­trat­ing on the Police depart­ment and the coun­try or is it just me?

Jamaica is expe­ri­enc­ing close to 7 homi­cides each day which places the annu­al mur­der sta­tis­tics clos­er to 2500 mur­ders each year.
Those num­bers do not account for those who are shot or stabbed but does not die right away but does nonethe­less and are not count­ed in the mur­der statistics.
The police should be train­ing for an all out assault on the killers yet what the Prime Minister is doing is send­ing them in, to place their bod­ies between war­ring fac­tions so that he can have a glossy result on paper.

If the ploy was­n’t so cyn­i­cal and out­right insult­ing I would be pre­pared to give it a chance to work.
Like a bus head­ing toward a cliff, I do not need to wait for it to fall off the cliff to know it is head­ing in the wrong direction.

In 2010 under pres­sure from the United States of America to extra­dite Christopher (dud­dus) Coke to stand tri­al for trans-nation­al crimes, the Bruce Golding led JLP Administration was forced to acqui­esce to the demands of the mam­moth neigh­bor to our north and begin the process of extra­dit­ing Coke.

After much wheel­ing and deal­ing, pos­tur­ing and grand­stand­ing Golding was forced to send Duddus to the Americans so he could face jus­tice for his crimes.
The sequence of events which led to the mil­i­tary and police’s entry into Tivoli Gardens are well known and doc­u­ment­ed in this medi­um as a mat­ter of his­tor­i­cal fact.

Nevertheless, after annex­ing the com­mu­ni­ty which exist­ed out­side of the Island’s laws for decades, the admin­is­tra­tion of Portia Simpson Miller for polit­i­cal pur­pos­es con­vened a kan­ga­roo court to con­demn the secu­ri­ty forces.
Golding was long gone by then, Miller the parochial pop­ulist now in Jamaica House was not about to allow a good scan­dal to go unexploited.
The Kangaroo court led by David Simmons a retired Bajan Jurist com­menced with a demon­stra­bly pal­pa­ble dis­dain for the secu­ri­ty forces.

In the end, the report sub­mit­ted by Simmons and the oth­er two jurists was a cringe-wor­thy shame­ful and dis­gust­ing piece of garbage unwor­thy of the paper on which it was written.
The pan­elist’s lack of a basic under­stand­ing or empa­thy for the secu­ri­ty forces, the risks they take and the sac­ri­fices they make was a seri­ous indict­ment of their lack of knowl­edge and depth than it was ever about any­thing unto­ward they may have done.
It’s lack of objec­tiv­i­ty and it’s obvi­ous and bla­tant bias­es reduced all three pan­elists to mere hus­tlers and pimps of the legal profession.

The back sto­ry that does not get men­tioned, the sto­ry which every­one took for grant­ed despite the dead cops and burned out police sta­tions was the lit­tle fact that peo­ple could walk through Tivoli gar­dens again.
It was­n’s the secu­ri­ty forces who fell down on the job it was the lying thiev­ing bas­tards who dou­ble as politi­cians who did. Members of the secu­ri­ty forces laid down their lives so that Jamaica could hon­or its inter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions and a dan­ger­ous crim­i­nal could meet justice.
It was the incom­pe­tent politi­cians which allowed that com­mu­ni­ty to become a vac­u­um over which gangs are now fight­ing for control.

2.0

The clue­less Portia is now gone, thank you God.
Unfortunately, what we have now is Bruce Golding 2.0.
I had high hopes for this guy, ini­tial­ly, it seemed he at least had the basic under­stand­ing of what it takes to win.
I must admit I was so intent on see­ing the back of Portia, Phillips, the Burkes, and oth­ers that I may have over­looked the imper­fec­tions of his pol­i­cy positions.

He said the right things of course. Oh, he wants to build prosperity.
Noble indeed, but no one both­ered to press him on how he would accom­plish that feat with the crime rate and lack of dis­ci­pline in the country.

I was hope­ful, hav­ing lis­tened to his wife Juliet, I heard a smart woman who under­stood the con­cerns of the police and gen­uine­ly cared about their concerns.Unfortunately, Juliet Holness was­n’t run­ning to be the Prime Minister she was mere­ly run­ning for a seat in rur­al Saint Andrew.

Andrew Holness is no Hugh Shearer he is no Edward Seaga (even with Seaga’s neg­a­tives) Andrew Holness is Bruce Golding 2.0 (baby Bruce).
Holness promised crime would come down under his lead­er­ship. In fact, he promised Jamaicans would be able to sleep with their win­dows open if only they elect­ed him to Jamaica house.
Now we all know Politicians embell­ish and just plain lie. So we all took that promise with a grain of salt.

You see Andrew Holness nev­er had a real anti-crime plan which would tack­le crime at its root and yank it up so it with­ers and dies.
In fact, Holness’ choice of Security Minister is a stark reminder that he did not care about the secu­ri­ty forces.
He was con­vinced that he would gen­er­ate jobs for every­one and gang­sters would put down their guns.
Now the Botanist Robert Montague may not know a damn thing about crime and secu­ri­ty but his rhetoric has been sup­port­ive of the secu­ri­ty forces.

Andrew Holness’ world­view is shaped by his school­ing and affil­i­a­tions. He hon­est­ly believes he could tell the police “fuck you” I got this and crime would sim­ply with­er away sim­ply because he was Prime Minister.
Then he woke up from his stu­por, there are dead bod­ies every­where and he can­not blame the oth­er party.
He is the head hon­cho in charge.

So he devised a plan which would paper over the gap­ing hole in the wall. He decid­ed on the cre­ation of an illu­sion which would appease the mass­es, fool oth­ers while he was left to be Prime Minister.
Remember he has been run­ning around telling every­one who would lis­ten that police would not be kick­ing in doors like back in the day under his watch.
So this guy def­i­nite­ly has a prob­lem with police offi­cers. Time after time after time he has prof­fered the nar­ra­tive that police have killed peo­ple and plant­ed guns on them.
This from the Prime min­is­ter and Minister of National Defense.
He loves the con­fer­ences Terrence Williams con­vene, he does­n’t miss those. He par­rots the lying nar­ra­tive of the eat-a-food crowd which lives on the car­cass­es of dead cops, you know them. INDECOM, JFJ, PMI, FAST, IACHR, et al.

The plan was to cre­ate an illu­sion which gives the appear­ance of suc­cess but will do absolute­ly noth­ing about the actu­al mur­der statistics.
The Special Zones Act was born. here’s how it works.
The Prime Minister(Andrew Holness) retains the right to des­ig­nate an area, a zone which needs spe­cial atten­tion from the secu­ri­ty forces.
That area is flood­ed with secu­ri­ty per­son­nel. But God for­bid that mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty forces should have to rough up a shot­ta who gets caught up in the drag­net. God for­bid the secu­ri­ty forces are forced to shoot a fuck­ing mur­der­er point­ing a high pow­ered weapon at them.
So he devised a plan to cre­ate a human rights course, which is noth­ing more than a façade to appease the crit­ics who live from con­demn­ing the police.
Does Holness think we are stupid?

The idea is to have mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty forces place their bod­ies between war­ring fac­tions, armed with high pow­ered auto­mat­ic weapons.
There is only one lit­tle prob­lem, they must­n’t make any sound and they must­n’t upset anyone.
Just fuck­ing stay there.
Does any­one believe the killers are going to stay in an area sat­u­rat­ed with police?
What then will hap­pen if an area is sat­u­rat­ed, does­n’t crime invari­ably trend down there?
The killers will sim­ply move to oth­er areas as they did in 2010.

So you do see that the new spe­cial zones law is not designed to affect crime it is mere­ly designed to pla­cate the human rights lob­by while plac­ing a mir­ror in front of the rest of the coun­try as it plays smoke and mir­rors tricks.

HERE ARE SOME FACTS AND SOLUTIONS

♦To the apol­o­gists and those bound and con­strained by pol­i­tics, do me a favor, think.
Any approach geared to address­ing Jamaica’s vio­lent gangs and mili­tias must have cer­tain crit­i­cal components.
The polit­i­cal lead­er­ship of the coun­try must be res­olute­ly behind the men and women who place their lives on the line in defense of others>
Government and Opposition must divest them­selves of the rela­tion­ships with crim­i­nal gangs.
Government and Opposition must issue unequiv­o­cal full-throat­ed sup­port for law enforcement.
Policies must be designed with the con­cerns of the secu­ri­ty forces at the tip of the spear.
The gov­ern­ment can­not con­tin­ue to use the secu­ri­ty forces to cur­ry favor with spe­cial inter­est as Andrew Holness is clear­ly doing.

Craft leg­is­la­tion which makes prin­ci­pals and sec­on­daries all com­plic­it as a crim­i­nal enterprise.(See American RICO Law here)
Prosecute and pun­ish with 25 to life in prison for vio­lent assaults in which a gun or knife was used.
Obtain war­rants to lis­ten to the tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion of gang leaders.
Identify through intel­li­gence, the lead­ers of gangs, tar­get them using var­i­ous coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence tech­niques which can be learned from oth­er law enforce­ment agencies.

TARGETED SOLUTIONS

(1)These meth­ods should be geared at top­pling the gangs by cut­ting off the head of the snake destroy­ing the tail as well.
(2)Enhance the plea bar­gain laws.
(3)Exponentially improve the intel­li­gence gath­er­ing capa­bil­i­ties of the police.
(4)Train and equip more detec­tives, diver­si­fy the meth­ods detec­tives use to gath­er intelligence.
(5)Bring the nation’s laws up to date mak­ing the com­mis­sion of crimes a cost­ly affair.
(6)Make all mur­ders in which a gun was used pun­ish­able with life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole.
(7)Have truth in sen­tenc­ing the law of the land.
(8)Pass manda­to­ry min­i­mum laws for cer­tain cat­e­gories of vio­lent crimes.
(9)Treat Rapes and sex­u­al assaults of minors with the seri­ous­ness mur­ders are treat­ed under these proposals.
(10)Use JDF assets to police the Island’s ports against the gun and dope trade which is destroy­ing the Island.
(11) Remove Terrence Williams from INDECOM, or bet­ter yet repeal the law.
(12)Demand greater account­abil­i­ty from police com­man­ders through the imple­men­ta­tion of the COMPSTAT sys­tem. This method demands com­man­ders and osten­si­bly the inves­ti­ga­tors, pro­vide specifics on how they have han­dled each and every report made to them.
Commands and advance­ments should be based on the COMPSTAT sys­tem of account­abil­i­ty. Conversely, the same sys­tem should be used to iden­ti­fy non-per­form­ers and take the appro­pri­ate steps to retrain those offices or part com­pa­ny with them.

This writer will be the first to cheer the Prime Minister the minute he demon­strates sup­port for some or all of these pol­i­cy solutions.
Failing which I have to point out that this ini­tia­tive under con­sid­er­a­tion is noth­ing more than a three card trick.

Nationalism is great we swell up with pride when we hear the nation­al anthem (some of us do), we proud until we wan­na buss, (col­lo­qui­al slang)when Usain and Shell-Ann, and Elaine and Asafa and oth­ers burn up the tracks leav­ing every­one in the dust.
We will not be told that Reggae music is not the best music ever.
Never mind that some of us nev­er lis­tened to reg­gae until all of Europe, Africa, and Asia fell in love with the music and the musicians.

In fact, many of us did not want Bob any­where near our pre­cious uptown enclave of Hope road, we claim him now though, we even refer to him as “Bob”, we are on a first name basis.
The boogy-yag­ga reg­gae music was­n’t even played on the radio except late on Saturday nights on JBC FM, (a dread at the con­trols). The pul­sat­ing rhythms of the reg­gae beat we fell in love with we heard on the sound sys­tems, not on fame FM or RJR.

We Jamaicans are a fierce­ly nation­al­is­tic peo­ple, in fact, “nu weh nu bet­ta dan yard” is not just a slang, it is not only memo­ri­al­ized in our music a‑la Tinga Stewart, it is part of our pop culture.“Never mind that many of us are singing nu weh nu bet­ta dan yard from farin or singing from yaad after wi get deport.

Never mind that though we are here.
Wouldn’t it be nice though if we attached that nation­al­is­tic fer­vor to whats hap­pen­ing with crime?
Wouldn’t it be nice if we took pride in our coun­try by not killing each oth­er? How about not dump­ing trash and the non-bio degrad­able garbage into gul­lies and streams?
Hum?
How about we show our love for coun­try by hold­ing thiev­ing politi­cians accountable?

How in hell does a mere state­ment by Ishawna who ref­er­enced Miss Lou become a pari­ah sim­ply by say­ing “mi nu wear table claat like miss Lou.”
Give me a damn break, save me the faux out­rage okay, she was not diss­ing Miss Lou she mere­ly used miss Lou’s name because miss Lou pop­u­lar­ized bandana.
How many of the faux nation­al­ists ever wore ban­dana? None, nada zilch.
Get off your high hors­es already.
I am so sick of the fake nation­al­ists who talk about nev­er leav­ing yaad, then find out they nev­er left because they nev­er got a visa.

Since we are so patri­ot­ic why can’t we love every­one, why is it that we can only love one at a time?

Why can’t we love both women who demon­stra­bly come from two dif­fer­ent eras and go take sev­er­al seats with the ad hominin attacks on Ishawna?
Does she have to be a dev­il because you may not agree with what she said.
Save the out­rage you hyp­ocrites and par­a­sites, “sor­ry Bob”.

I loved the icon­ic miss Lou and guess what I also like Ishawna, in fact just to piss off the Pharisees who crit­i­cize and attack every­one whose views does not line up with theirs, I also love me some Tanya Stephens, so there.
She is a ter­rif­ic artist and lyricist.

Look, Jamaica is a very sweet, place beau­ti­ful and all.
Lord knows I wish we had good lead­er­ship I would­n’t live any­where else.
But let’s not get car­ried away many of you are bit­ter, bad mind­ed and grudge­ful peo­ple who can only hate.
So stop with the damn fake Nationalistic bullshit.Patriotism is not defined by geog­ra­phy, or what one says about a piece of cloth or even some­one you revere. Get over yourselves.
Glad I got that out, I feel much bet­ter now.

The Wall Street Journal has had it with Trump and suggests he releases everything, from phone calls to taxes

TAYLOR LINK

The Wall Street Journal’s edi­to­r­i­al board, a cham­pi­on of American con­ser­vatism, is fed up with their Republican pres­i­dent. The Journal pub­lished a scathing edi­to­r­i­al Tuesday crit­i­ciz­ing the way in which President Donald Trump has han­dled Russia’s elec­tion inter­fer­ence and the sub­se­quent inves­ti­ga­tions that have followed.

“Even Donald Trump might agree that a major rea­son he won the 2016 elec­tion is that vot­ers couldn’t abide Hillary Clinton’s lega­cy of scan­dal, decep­tion and stonewalling,” the piece start­ed. “Yet on the sto­ry of Russia’s med­dling in the 2016 elec­tion, Mr. Trump and his fam­i­ly are repeat­ing the mis­takes that doomed Mrs. Clinton.”

From “fake news” to “noth­ing-burg­er,” the Trump White House has dis­missed the Russia scan­dal as mere fan­ta­sy. But in the eyes of the Wall Street Journal, the Trump fam­i­ly can­not claim inno­cence when news report after news report con­tin­ues to refute lie after lie.

The Journal focused on the lat­est sto­ry involv­ing Donald Trump Jr. and the meet­ing he held with a Russian attor­ney dur­ing the cam­paign. The con­ser­v­a­tive paper laid out all the mis­takes the president’s son made while try­ing to man­age the crisis.

“First Don Jr. let news of the meet­ing leak with­out get­ting ahead of it. Then the White House tried to explain it away as a “noth­ing-burg­er” that focused on adop­tions from Russia,” the edi­to­r­i­al board wrote. “When that was exposed as incom­plete, Don Jr. released his emails that showed the Russian lure about Mrs. Clinton and Don Jr. all excit­ed — ‘I love it.’”

“Even if the ulti­mate truth of this tale is mere­ly that Don Jr. is a polit­i­cal dunce who took a meet­ing that went nowhere — the best case — the Trumps made it appear as if they have some­thing to hide,” the arti­cled added. “They have cre­at­ed the appear­ance of a con­spir­a­cy that on the evi­dence Don Jr. lacks the wit to con­coct. And they hand­ed their oppo­nents anoth­er of the swords that by now could arm a Roman legion.”

The paper not­ed that the pres­i­dent can­not just excul­pate him­self in the court of pub­lic opin­ion. Congressional com­mit­tees and a spe­cial coun­sel have been con­duct­ing their own investigations.

“Everything that is poten­tial­ly dam­ag­ing to the Trumps will come out, one way or anoth­er. Everything,” the board wrote. “Denouncing leaks as ‘fake news’ won’t wash as a counter-strat­e­gy beyond the President’s base, as Mr. Trump’s lat­est 36% approval rat­ing shows.”

The Journal then offered a sug­ges­tion that pres­i­dent could only laugh at in response.

“Release every­thing to the pub­lic ahead of the inevitable leaks,” the board wrote. “Disclose every detail that might be rel­e­vant to the Russian inves­ti­ga­tions. That means every meet­ing with any Russian or any American with Russian busi­ness ties. Every phone call or email. And every Trump busi­ness rela­tion­ship with Russians going back years. This should include every rel­e­vant part of Mr. Trump’s tax returns, which the President will resist but Mr. Mueller is sure to seek anyway.”

The edi­to­r­i­al board argued that full, imme­di­ate dis­clo­sure would cause less dam­age than the slow drip of reports com­ing from the media.

“If there real­ly is noth­ing to the Russia col­lu­sion alle­ga­tions, trans­paren­cy will prove it. Americans will give Mr. Trump cred­it for trust­ing their abil­i­ty to make a fair judg­ment. Pre-emp­tive dis­clo­sure is the only chance to con­tain the polit­i­cal harm from future rev­e­la­tions,” the arti­cle said.

The Journal warned that if Trump’s approval rat­ing stays below 40 per­cent, then all Republicans will suf­fer the con­se­quences, like­ly lead­ing to a win for Democrats in the House, which would only lead to more intense investigations.

“Impeachment will be a con­stant under­cur­rent if not an active threat. His sup­port­ers will become demor­al­ized,” the board predicted.

“Mr. Trump some­how seems to believe that his out­size per­son­al­i­ty and social-media fol­low­ing make him larg­er than the Presidency. He’s wrong. He and his fam­i­ly seem obliv­i­ous to the bru­tal real­i­ties of Washington pol­i­tics. Those real­i­ties will destroy Mr. Trump, his fam­i­ly and their busi­ness rep­u­ta­tion unless they change their strat­e­gy toward the Russia probe. They don’t have much more time to do it,” the Journal concluded.
http://​www​.salon​.com/​2​0​1​7​/​0​7​/​1​8​/​w​a​l​l​-​s​t​r​e​e​t​-​j​o​u​r​n​a​l​-​h​i​t​s​-​t​r​u​m​p​-​f​o​r​-​b​u​m​b​l​i​n​g​-​t​h​e​-​r​u​s​s​i​a​-​s​c​a​n​d​a​l​-​c​a​l​l​s​-​o​n​-​h​i​m​-​t​o​-​d​i​s​c​l​o​s​e​-​e​v​e​r​y​t​h​i​ng/

In a war, you are des­tined to lose if you are queasy about killing the ene­my who has no com­punc­tion about killing you.
You are already a vic­tim when you show weak­ness, bul­lies thrive on your fear, they can smell it, they hear that you don’t want to use com­men­su­rate or over­whelm­ing force to squash them.

So their next killing is more brazen, more bru­tal, more I don’t give a f**k.
How does gov­ern­ment counter that?
By using over­whelm­ing force to send a mes­sage that their behav­ior will not be tolerated.
That ought to be a mes­sage to the naysay­ers who argue all folks like me want to see is more blood.

I have nev­er seen any­one win a war by beg­ging the ene­my not to wage war on them.
Make no mis­take about it what is hap­pen­ing in Jamaica is not mere­ly crime as the lying faux nation­al­ists would have you believe.
We are active­ly engaged in a state of unde­clared civ­il war. The guys with the heavy auto­mat­ic guns doing the killings cer­tain­ly think so.
The aver­age of 4 dead bod­ies per day cer­tain­ly indi­cates that we are indeed in a state of unde­clared civ­il war.

We can accept those facts, or we can con­tin­ue the non­sen­si­cal cha­rade that every­thing is fine and dandy.
In fact, we can do as Ed Bartlett the Island’s Tourism Minister wants, hide the mur­der sta­tis­tics from the front page of local pub­li­ca­tions, hide the blood splat­ter on our clothes, as we stand grin­ning, hand extend­ed in greet­ing to the tourists dis­em­bark­ing the mam­moth cruise ships.
Why would a coun­try fight a war by plac­ing restraints on itself, when the ene­my fol­lows no rules and are con­strained by no values?
That’s a ques­tion for the Jamaican gov­ern­ment and peo­ple, two enti­ties which cre­ates all kinds of obsta­cles to their own abil­i­ty to deal effec­tive­ly with this monster.

“Never engage in a war you can poten­tial­ly lose.”
If you have to fight, take all of your weapons to the bat­tle­field, use them, win the war and go home”.
(Colin Powell)

To those who say we can­not use war to get peace I say this.
The world was thrust into the first world war in the year 1914, in that war, over 16 mil­lion died, includ­ing Jamaicans who fought on the side of their oppres­sors the British Empire.
The war last­ed from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918.

By 1939 the world was once again engulfed in anoth­er glob­al con­flict, world war two had bro­ken out.
World War II was the dead­liest mil­i­tary con­flict in his­to­ry, over 60 mil­lion lost their lives.

Before the war end­ed the United States det­o­nat­ed two atom­ic devices. One in the Japanese city of Hiroshima and the oth­er in Nagasaki.
An esti­mat­ed 226. 000 peo­ple per­ished as a result of those two events, with esti­mates of over half of that num­ber per­ish­ing on the first day of the bombings.
The end of Sino-German world ambi­tions result­ed in the for­ma­tion of the North Atlantic Treat Organization (NATO), a west­ern alliance which says you mess with one you mess with all of us.
Under the new alliance, no new Hitler could take it unto him­self to march into Poland or France with­out incur­ring seri­ous blow­back from mem­ber states.

Since 1945 the world has not had a con­flict which engulfed the entire plan­et as both world wars one and two had.
There was only a lapse of 21 years between the end of WW1 in 1918 and the begin­ning of WW11 in 1939.
There have been no oth­er world wars since the end of WW11 and present day 2017, a stun­ning 72 years of rel­a­tive peace through strength and determination.

Sure the counter argu­ments about the mas­sive loss of Japanese lives are not with­out merit.
To the United States and the pow­ers bat­tling Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito how­ev­er, using the bomb saved the lives of count­less peo­ple who did not start the war.
America could have kept the bomb and send count­less young American GIs to their deaths.
President Truman decid­ed he could not in good con­science tell their par­ents they died for a good cause when he had the means to end the war.
He took the deci­sion many would have abdi­cat­ed and since then we have not had anoth­er world­wide conflagration.

Jamaica has the means to deal deci­sive­ly with the lit­tle mur­der­ing ter­ror­ists run­ning around gun­ning down inno­cent people.
What it lacks is the will and courage to do what must be done so that the coun­try may live in rel­a­tive peace and begin the task of build­ing prosperity.

Conservatives demonize the press for being unpatriotic, while worshipping a man who is destroying the presidency

BOB CESCA

It seems like a year ago, giv­en the tsuna­mi of tweets and gib­ber­ish that came from President Donald Trump over the week­end, but it was only Friday when Kellyanne Conway appeared on “Good Morning America” to crit­i­cize the news media’s cov­er­age of her boss as “nei­ther pro­duc­tive nor patri­ot­ic.” Ah yes, the patri­o­tism trope again. You might be old enough to recall how, through­out the com­par­a­tive­ly bucol­ic pres­i­den­cy of George W. Bush, we were repeat­ed­ly told in no uncer­tain terms that crit­i­ciz­ing the pres­i­dent while American troops were in harm’s way was unpa­tri­ot­ic and under­mined the troops. Let’s review:

“You don’t crit­i­cize the com­man­der-in-chief in the mid­dle of a fire­fight. That could be con­strued as putting U.S. forces in jeop­ardy and under­min­ing morale.” — Bill O’Reilly, April 2004

“I’ve held this in long enough. I real­ly sus­pect that these lib­er­al tac­tics are dam­ag­ing, maybe even killing the morale of our troops.” — Rush Limbaugh, June 2007

“The only ideas that they espouse are ways to under­mine the troops in harm’s way and under­mine their com­man­der in chief while they’re at war. Your can­di­dates have no idea how to keep this econ­o­my strong.” — Sean Hannity, October 2006

“He’s the com­man­der in chief. And what I find frankly repug­nant about you and some of your fel­low Democrats — you have under­mined our pres­i­dent …” —Sean Hannity, March 2006

“You know, Norman, those com­ments while we are at war, while troops are in harm’s way, while he is the com­man­der in chief, do you not see the out­rage in that?” — Sean Hannity, November 2007

“I have had it with mem­bers [of the Democratic] par­ty under­min­ing our troops, under­min­ing a com­man­der in chief while we are at war …” — Sean Hannity, November 2005

Present the flow­ers , pop the cham­pagne and march out the band, Portia Simpson Miller is final­ly retir­ing from rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al pol­i­tics after 43 long years.

Now her par­ty, and even the oth­er par­ty are mag­nan­i­mous , effer­ves­cent in praise of Miller.
The Intellectual ghet­to is ready to bestow a hon­orary dis­tin­guished fel­low  award on her ‚and there will cer­tain­ly be nation­al hon­ors in the future.
By the way, what are those nation­al hon­ors worth now , I mean every­one has one of those these days?

Portia Simpson Miller has done well for.….…. , well Portia Simpson Miller. There is no deny­ing that.
She rose from hum­ble begin­nings in rur­al St, Catherine to the pin­na­cle of polit­i­cal pow­er on the Island with­out the ben­e­fit of much for­mal education.
Given Jamaica’s racial caste sys­tem her mete­oric rise is noth­ing to be sneered at.
Her ascen­dan­cy to the top polit­i­cal office is tes­ta­ment to her grit and deter­mi­na­tion if not her abil­i­ty to get things done.

As the acco­lades pour in and the revi­sion­ist his­to­ri­ans begin the unright­eous task of san­i­tiz­ing her record for pos­ter­i­ty, it is impor­tant that those be viewed against the facts.
Portia Simpson Miller, like most Jamaican politi­cians, went into pol­i­tics for self , not out of some undy­ing ded­i­ca­tion to serve others.
The best way to judge a per­son is to look at what they have done in the past.
Remove the cult-like ide­o­log­i­cal fer­vor from her died-in-the wool sup­port­ers and there is not much left which would speak to 43 years as a leader who has served in var­i­ous capacities.

Is Portia Simpson Miller unique in this respect?
Of course not !
Without delv­ing into 43 years of polit­i­cal his­to­ry which are book-end­ed by a seat on the parish Council and two stints as Prime Minister , Mrs Miller has missed mul­ti­ple oppor­tu­ni­ties to be great.

Her refusal to join with Andrew Holness in a sym­bol­ic march through zones of polit­i­cal exclu­sions( gar­risons) , her sys­tem­at­ic refusal to eschew polit­i­cal gar­risons, refus­ing to vote to extend the lim­it­ed state of emer­gency in 2010, are only a few of the times in which Simpson Miller myopi­cal­ly chose parochial polit­i­cal pos­tur­ing over the nation’s greater good.

As Simpson Miller ride off into the sun­set the tor­ren­tial out­pour­ing of putrid praise will flow nau­se­at­ing a few .
I will be among those who will not shed a tear to see the back of her.
Portia Simpson Miller accom­plished much more for her­self as a black woman ‚than many men more accom­plished could ever have .
There is no deny­ing her that.
In terms of accom­plish­ment for our nation I am yet to see the results.

The ques­tion for our nation and more specif­i­cal­ly , res­i­dents of St. Andrew South Western is this .
How well has Portia’s 43 years of rep­re­sen­ta­tion turned out for you?

Adiós Portia .……No tears here !

In 2010 the Jamaican secu­ri­ty forces went into Tivoli Gardens to retrieve Christopher (duddus)Coke who was want­ed on an extra­di­tion war­rant to the United States.

The Security forces despite their obvi­ous short­com­ings , went over and above the call of whats required, by con­form­ing to the crim­i­nal cod­dling bureau­cra­cy in Kingston.
They offered entreat­ments to mem­bers of that com­mu­ni­ty to leave as they intend­ed to enter that enclave to retrieve the gang­land overlord ..

They pro­vid­ed bus­es and cre­at­ed tem­po­rary shel­ters for res­i­dents should they decide to leave.
Residents decid­ed to remain in their com­mu­ni­ty. Hundreds came out onto the streets clad in white T‑shirts extolling their undy­ing love for their Don.

The Police showed incred­i­ble restraint despite the lev­el of hos­til­i­ty and crim­i­nal­i­ty which was brew­ing at the time .
♦ Police offi­cers shot.
♦ Police sta­tion torched.
♦ Police sta­tion strafed with auto­mat­ic gun fire.
♦ Mercenaries from across the Island con­verg­ing on the com­mu­ni­ty of Tivoli Gardens to lend their guns, trea­so­nous sup­port and alle­giance to the Don of all dons, Christopher Coke.

SEQUENCE OF EVENTS.…

At the time the JLP Administration of Orett Bruce Golding did every­thing in it’s pow­er to pre­vent the extra­di­tion of Coke who has since been extra­dit­ed and is serv­ing an extend­ed sen­tence in a Federal Correctional Facility.
Those actions includ­ed but were not con­fined to ♦ hir­ing Washington Law Firm Manhatt Phelps and Phillips to Lobby the US State Department to squash the extra­di­tion request.
♦ Purportedly leak­ing to Christopher Coke specifics of the con­fi­den­tial and sen­si­tive Extradition Order imme­di­ate­ly after the then police Commissioner Hardley Lewin briefed the then Minister of National Security Dwight Nelson.

Lewin said at the time it was fright­en­ing that min­utes after he met with the nation­al secu­ri­ty min­is­ter to brief him about the pend­ing extra­di­tion request, Christopher Coke was informed.
Lewin said he was also trou­bled by the response of the Prime Minister when he sat with Golding at Vale Royal to brief him about the pend­ing extra­di­tion request for Coke.

Since the Security forces annexed Tivoli Gardens to the Jamaican state, a PNP Administration out of polit­i­cal expe­di­en­cy, has set up a Kangaroo com­mis­sion of Inquiry head­ed by a for­eign­er Bajan David Simmons, which con­clud­ed that the secu­ri­ty forces act­ed unlaw­ful­ly in their actions.
This despite the dead police and sol­diers , burned police sta­tions and the recov­ery of just under a hun­dred guns and untold rounds of ammunition.

A new JLP Administration head­ed by Andrew Holness has since apol­o­gized to the com­mu­ni­ty of Tivoli Gardens.
An apol­o­gy to a com­mu­ni­ty which took up weapons against the Jamaican state and har­bored a want­ed inter­na­tion­al fugitive.
I have not heard a sin­gle word of thanks uttered to the secu­ri­ty forces.

PNP’s INTRANSIGENT SUPPORT FOR CRIMINALS FOR POLITICAL EXPEDIENCY 

The People’s National Party (PNP) has more than twice the amount of enclaves like Tivoli gar­dens ‚than the JLP does.

So it is under­stand­able that the PNP would object to any anti-crime ini­tia­tive being con­tem­plat­ed to deal with the crime monster.
IN 2010 after the secu­ri­ty forces breached and cleared Tivoli and had root­ed out the ter­ror­ists, the secu­ri­ty forces sought an exten­sion to the lim­it­ed state of emer­gency which was grant­ed them to deal with the exis­ten­tial crisis.
To a sin­gle per­son mem­bers of the PNP object­ed , using the flim­sy excuse the secu­ri­ty forces may vio­late the rights of retreat­ing criminals.

In the first instance , what was up with the incre­men­tal and hes­i­tant grant­i­ng of author­i­ty to the secu­ri­ty forces as if the Government was doing the secu­ri­ty forces a favor ?
The PNP by that course of action allowed hun­dreds of heav­i­ly armed ter­ror­ists to slith­er away and embed them­selves into the fab­ric of many rur­al communities.
Those killers are respon­si­ble for the crime wave across Jamaica’s rur­al parish­es today.
So too is the PNP cul­pa­ble, as a result of it’s neg­li­gent and overt­ly polit­i­cal actions.

RESULT.

As a result of the PNP’s trea­so­nous actions once sleepy parish­es like Portland, Hanover, and Trelawny are now expe­ri­enc­ing mas­sive increas­es in mur­der and oth­er vio­lent felonies and oth­ers like Clarendon St James , and St Catherine are now reg­is­ter­ing homi­cide num­bers nev­er before seen in our country.
The PNP is again in oppo­si­tion, and as it does whether in Government or Opposition, it is oppos­ing tak­ing action against criminals .
It is now engaged in fight­ing new anti-crime leg­is­la­tion put for­ward by the Andrew Holness Administration .
Again the PNP is advanc­ing the same tired worn out argu­ments of rights and con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty as a means to stand­ing on the side­lines as crime explode, for polit­i­cal purposes.

CONCLUSION.

The argu­ments being prof­fered by Peter Phillips and Peter Bunting on crime should be dis­card­ed as the PNP is dis­card­ed on the dump-heap of history.
After 22 years of lead­er­ship out of the past 40 years pri­or to the elec­tions over a year ago , the PNP has been a dis­mal and colos­sal failure .

This is evi­denced by ♦ Their sup­port of crim­i­nal Dons♦ Expanding crime syn­di­cates through the grant­i­ng of con­tracts and give­aways ♦ Shielding and shel­ter­ing of crim­i­nals in zones of polit­i­cal exclu­sions♦ The starv­ing of the secu­ri­ty forces of train­ing , equip­ment and remu­ner­a­tions♦ The degen­er­a­tion of our pop­u­lar cul­ture ♦ The advance­ment of lies and innu­en­dos as part of a smear cam­paign to defame the secu­ri­ty forces which could only come from the play­book of JFJ and Jamaica’s crim­i­nal elites.

On that basis Peter Phillips and Peter Bunting should be ignored as they try to con­vince you they some­how mirac­u­lous­ly now have the answers to crime.

It was­n’t too long ago that as min­is­ter of nation­al secu­ri­ty Peter Bunting threw up his hands in exas­per­a­tion claim­ing that he need­ed divine inter­ven­tion to fight crime.
The PNP has no prac­ti­cal crime reduc­tion plan they nev­er did and they cer­tain­ly don’t today.

God will not fight crime for us , it is with­in our pow­er to do for ourselves.
Standing in the way of prac­ti­cal solu­tions then call­ing for divine inter­ven­tion is a func­tion of intel­lec­tu­al bank­rupt­cy, at least on the issue of crime.

The PNP has posi­tioned itself as a pop­ulist par­ty from as far back as it’s inception.
Because of that it has been unable and unwill­ing to lift a fin­ger to address the burn­ing issue of crime , lead­ing to our present sit­u­a­tion today.
The PNP has been com­fort­able gov­ern­ing and steal­ing from the pub­lic in the chaos of mur­der and mayhem.

There is a very long way to go as far as the JLP is con­cerned on crime.
Nevertheless , despite it’s fail­ings the JLP should nev­er be con­fused with the pathet­ic People’s National Party as it relates to crime and security.
This JLP Administration is timid to act on crime as a polit­i­cal mat­ter exact­ly because the PNP has tra­di­tion­al­ly lined up on the side of crim­i­nals and there­in lies the problem.

The fol­low­ing is a state­ment released a short while ago by for­mer President Barack Obama on the occa­sion of the release of the Senate’s health care repeal bill.

about an hour ago

Our pol­i­tics are divid­ed. They have been for a long time. And while I know that divi­sion makes it dif­fi­cult to lis­ten to Americans with whom we dis­agree, that’s what we need to do today.

I rec­og­nize that repeal­ing and replac­ing the Affordable Care Act has become a core tenet of the Republican Party. Still, I hope that our Senators, many of whom I know well, step back and mea­sure what’s real­ly at stake, and con­sid­er that the ratio­nale for action, on health care or any oth­er issue, must be some­thing more than sim­ply undo­ing some­thing that Democrats did.

We didn’t fight for the Affordable Care Act for more than a year in the pub­lic square for any per­son­al or polit­i­cal gain – we fought for it because we knew it would save lives, pre­vent finan­cial mis­ery, and ulti­mate­ly set this coun­try we love on a bet­ter, health­i­er course.

Nor did we fight for it alone. Thousands upon thou­sands of Americans, includ­ing Republicans, threw them­selves into that col­lec­tive effort, not for polit­i­cal rea­sons, but for intense­ly per­son­al ones – a sick child, a par­ent lost to can­cer, the mem­o­ry of med­ical bills that threat­ened to derail their dreams.

And you made a dif­fer­ence. For the first time, more than nine­ty per­cent of Americans know the secu­ri­ty of health insur­ance. Health care costs, while still ris­ing, have been ris­ing at the slow­est pace in fifty years. Women can’t be charged more for their insur­ance, young adults can stay on their par­ents’ plan until they turn 26, con­tra­cep­tive care and pre­ven­tive care are now free. Paying more, or being denied insur­ance alto­geth­er due to a pre­ex­ist­ing con­di­tion – we made that a thing of the past.

We did these things togeth­er. So many of you made that change possible.

At the same time, I was care­ful to say again and again that while the Affordable Care Act rep­re­sent­ed a sig­nif­i­cant step for­ward for America, it was not per­fect, nor could it be the end of our efforts – and that if Republicans could put togeth­er a plan that is demon­stra­bly bet­ter than the improve­ments we made to our health care sys­tem, that cov­ers as many peo­ple at less cost, I would glad­ly and pub­licly sup­port it.

That remains true. So I still hope that there are enough Republicans in Congress who remem­ber that pub­lic ser­vice is not about sport or notch­ing a polit­i­cal win, that there’s a rea­son we all chose to serve in the first place, and that hope­ful­ly, it’s to make people’s lives bet­ter, not worse.

But right now, after eight years, the leg­is­la­tion rushed through the House and the Senate with­out pub­lic hear­ings or debate would do the oppo­site. It would raise costs, reduce cov­er­age, roll back pro­tec­tions, and ruin Medicaid as we know it. That’s not my opin­ion, but rather the con­clu­sion of all objec­tive analy­ses, from the non­par­ti­san Congressional Budget Office, which found that 23 mil­lion Americans would lose insur­ance, to America’s doc­tors, nurs­es, and hos­pi­tals on the front lines of our health care system.

The Senate bill, unveiled today, is not a health care bill. It’s a mas­sive trans­fer of wealth from mid­dle-class and poor fam­i­lies to the rich­est peo­ple in America. It hands enor­mous tax cuts to the rich and to the drug and insur­ance indus­tries, paid for by cut­ting health care for every­body else. Those with pri­vate insur­ance will expe­ri­ence high­er pre­mi­ums and high­er deductibles, with low­er tax cred­its to help work­ing fam­i­lies cov­er the costs, even as their plans might no longer cov­er preg­nan­cy, men­tal health care, or expen­sive pre­scrip­tions. Discrimination based on pre-exist­ing con­di­tions could become the norm again. Millions of fam­i­lies will lose cov­er­age entirely.

Simply put, if there’s a chance you might get sick, get old, or start a fam­i­ly – this bill will do you harm. And small tweaks over the course of the next cou­ple weeks, under the guise of mak­ing these bills eas­i­er to stom­ach, can­not change the fun­da­men­tal mean­ness at the core of this legislation.

I hope our Senators ask them­selves – what will hap­pen to the Americans grap­pling with opi­oid addic­tion who sud­den­ly lose their cov­er­age? What will hap­pen to preg­nant moth­ers, chil­dren with dis­abil­i­ties, poor adults and seniors who need long-term care once they can no longer count on Medicaid? What will hap­pen if you have a med­ical emer­gency when insur­ance com­pa­nies are once again allowed to exclude the ben­e­fits you need, send you unlim­it­ed bills, or set unaf­ford­able deductibles? What impos­si­ble choic­es will work­ing par­ents be forced to make if their child’s can­cer treat­ment costs them more than their life savings?

To put the American peo­ple through that pain – while giv­ing bil­lion­aires and cor­po­ra­tions a mas­sive tax cut in return – that’s tough to fath­om. But it’s what’s at stake right now. So it remains my fer­vent hope that we step back and try to deliv­er on what the American peo­ple need.

That might take some time and com­pro­mise between Democrats and Republicans. But I believe that’s what peo­ple want to see. I believe it would demon­strate the kind of lead­er­ship that appeals to Americans across par­ty lines. And I believe that it’s pos­si­ble – if you are will­ing to make a dif­fer­ence again. If you’re will­ing to call your mem­bers of Congress. If you are will­ing to vis­it their offices. If you are will­ing to speak out, let them and the coun­try know, in very real terms, what this means for you and your family.

After all, this debate has always been about some­thing big­ger than pol­i­tics. It’s about the char­ac­ter of our coun­try – who we are, and who we aspire to be. And that’s always worth fight­ing for.

THE TALE OF TWO PETERS.……

Listening to Peter Bunting and Jamaica’s would be Prime Minister Peter Phillips, I was con­vinced that the seri­ous and nev­er end­ing state of mur­der on the Island is not about to get bet­ter any­time soon.

The Island’s Prime Minister Andrew Holness has ques­tions to answer on the gal­lop­ing mur­der rate .
Despite this, he has been omi­nous­ly silent on the con­tin­ued blood letting.
Holness, in cam­paign mode, did promise that Jamaicans would be able to sleep with their doors open if his par­ty was elect­ed to replace the PNP.
In fair­ness to him ‚the for­mer Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller nev­er seemed to care about the mur­der sta­tis­tics either , she nev­er both­ered to speak about them.

Peter Bunting is a man I am not opposed to.
Of the bunch of sil­ly lit­tle ide­o­log­i­cal dem­a­gogues run­ning around with clenched fists dressed in orange cloth­ing ‚and played out beret’s , he seem to be one of the more sane practitioners.

However lis­ten­ing to Peter Bunting it would be hard to imag­ine that just over a year ago he had the port­fo­lio for nation­al security.
I recall it was­n’t too long ago that then min­is­ter Bunting , in utter exas­per­a­tion was call­ing for divine inter­ven­tion to the nation’s mur­der and ter­ror­ism statistics.

In the first instance Minister Bunting said his Party had sta­bi­lized the mur­der num­bers around the 1100 mark, give or take 10 %.
In the strange press con­fer­ence , in which Peter Phillips kept butting in as Bunting addressed the issue, Phillips went on to make an even greater ass of him­self by remark­ing that what is need­ed is not a leg­isla­tive agen­da which is designed to divert atten­tion from the fact that there is no plan.

The fact of the mat­ter is that there needs to be a vig­or­ous leg­isla­tive agen­da with laws ema­nat­ing which puts mur­der­ers in prison and keep them there for the rest of their lives.

The fol­low­ing is a press con­fer­ence giv­en by the PNP shad­ow min­is­ter of nation­al secu­ri­ty Peter Bunting of the oppo­si­tion People’s National Party,(PNP) along with leader of the PNP Dr Peter Phillips .

Bunting rat­tled off sta­tis­tics which he said indi­cat­ed that the num­ber of mur­ders, 137 in the month of May was not seen after the entry of the secu­ri­ty forces in the Garrison of Tivoli Gardens.
This is crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant infor­ma­tion which needs to be expound­ed upon with clarity .
Peter Phillips , and the PNP and I dare­say the Jamaican Labor Party Government still believe that the way to deal with crime is to soft ped­al on crime.

The idea as far as they are con­cerned, is to beg, cajole, and throw mon­ey at crime .
Phillips stat­ed that the idea is to elic­it opin­ions from the UWI, PMI, PSOJ, and others .
The fact of the mat­ter is that it was actors from these very same insti­tu­tions that has got­ten the coun­try into this mess to begin with.
It was these very far left lib­er­al voic­es which told the coun­try that the coun­try must con­cen­trate on human rights of criminals.
INDECOM was born out of advo­ca­cy from JFJ, FAST, the Bar Ass, The Inter American Commission on Human Rights and the pletho­ra of so called advo­ca­cy groups which mil­i­tates on behalf of crim­i­nals while ordi­nary law abid­ing Jamaicans are left to fend for themselves.

Murders and oth­er vio­lent crimes did not go down because of some­one wav­ing a mag­ic wand.
They went down because the secu­ri­ty forces put their boots on the necks of crim­i­nals, Period.
Not because of a non­sen­si­cal strat­e­gy cooked up in the intel­lec­tu­al ghet­to , not because of any­thing the crim­i­nal lawyers came up with , not because of the noise from the eat a food crim­i­nal rights crowd that Phillips is sub­scrib­ing to.
Murders went down because crim­i­nals caught a case of the shakes.
When mur­der­ous gang­sters know that cer­tain police offi­cers are com­ing after them they law low , real low.

That’s what is miss­ing from the equa­tion in Jamaica today .
Jamaica got way too bourgeoisie , .
No one gave a rats ass about what law enforce­ment felt , they lis­tened to the peo­ple up at the University of the West Indies and their oth­er cliques on how crime should be addressed ‚.
They con­verged in their sil­ly lit­tle cir­cles where they con­vinced them­selves that their idio­cy were actu­al­ly good policy.
Peter Phillips wants to dou­ble down on stupid.

The shit has now hit the fan and it’s only going to get much worse .
They had tough , hard work­ing cops and they sab­o­taged them . many walked away , the oth­ers retired early.
The JCF is a huge paper tiger with no teeth.
Hold onto your seats …

”That is not my quote.” Sorry, Ben Sasse, but it is.

When Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse was seek­ing to dis­tin­guish him­self in a crowd­ed Republican pri­ma­ry field three years ago, he took aim at a famil­iar punch­ing bag: the Affordable Care Act. In a mem­o­rable intro­duc­to­ry cam­paign ad (in which he also pro­posed mov­ing the Capitol to Nebraska), Sasse said, “Look, Obamacare is arguably the worst law in our history.”

So on Monday, as Senate Republicans delib­er­at­ed on a secret bill that would repeal the Affordable Care Act, I was sur­prised to hear Sasse deny he ever said that. Sasse, who I pro­filed in the mag­a­zine last sum­mer, was speak­ing to KQEDradio host Michael Krasny as part of the press tour for his new book, The Vanishing American Adult, a sur­prise bestseller.

A Republican Senator Was Confronted With His Old Comments on Obamacare. It Didn’t Go Well