In a departure from his 2008 campaign rhetoric of hope and change aimed at creating bipartisan consensus in Washington D.C., President Barack Obama plans to dedicate his post-presidency to helping Democrats win elections nationwide by tackling redistricting reform — and he’s hand-picked Eric Holder to lead the charge.
The new group, called the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, will be led by former Attorney General Eric Holder, Politico reported Monday. Holder helped oversee the administration’s redistricting litigation while he served under the president. With Republicans at the helm in statehouses nationwide, after the 2010 census, several traditionally Republican states got more House representatives, while blue states lost some. That is because Republicans controlled the process by which district maps are drawn, creating districts favorable to Republicans. This process, known as gerrymandering, is the secret to Republicans winning a majority in the House of Representatives. In 2014, Republicans got 52 percent of the votes but won 57 percent of the seats. Despite the president’s early ambitions to break the partisan stalemate in Congress, throughout his two terms in office lower Democratic turnout in midterm years has enabled Republicans to win governors’ races and statehouse races that consolidate power in state capitals. Between 2008 and 2015, Democrats lost 13 Senate seats, 69 House seats, 913 state legislative seats, 11 governorships and 32 state legislative chambers, according to data compiled by University of Virginia professor Larry J. Sabato.
So you are feeling really sick, horrible stomach cramps, you finally decide to take the advice of those who care about you and go see a medical Doctor. After a battery of tests the Doctor and his team explain that you have cancer, at this point it is not terminal but it could be real soon if a treatment regimen is not embarked on immediately. You are in shock , cancer how could you end up with cancer , sure you have been sick but cancer? How could you potentially be terminally ill , this kind of thing only happen to other people. So in a daze you sat there as the Doctor explained the steps which must be taken immediately if you are to have a chance of survival, but you hardly heard a thing he said . Still in a daze you leave the Doctor’s office without agreeing to anything the Doctor said or making appointments to return for professional treatment. Still in terrible pain you go to the neighborhood corner store, you purchase some over the counter pain killers you take a couple with a drink of white-rum, all the time telling the shopkeeper what you were just told and asking her advice as you scoff at your Doctor’s scientific findings.
She tells you to go get some cerasee tea and eventually gets you to purchase some she just conveniently has on hand. Doped up on the contents of the over the counter drugs and the potentially deadly alcohol combination you feel some relief so you leave the corner store and go to your neighbor’s house where you relate what you heard from your Doctor. He laughs and tells you the doctor is an idiot , they don’t know what they are talking about and he proceeded to tell you about something much better than anything the doctor could ever do for you. He brings out a green concoction he has hidden somewhere in his house. He brags that it contains Ganga , White Rum and a whole slew of other weeds and herbs. He pours you a small glass and you drink it down swiftly all the time wincing at the horrific taste. Pretty soon the calming effect of the drug and the additional alcohol tell your brain that it is working on whatever ails you. Unfortunately for you what is happening is that between the alcohol the cannabis and the over the counter drug your brain convinced your body that the pain has subsided. When in fact you are only being lulled into a false sense of relief as the dangerous combination is merely creating a calming effect, but it is actually still there.
You feel so great on the Ganga white Rum and pills that you ask your neighbor for the ingredients which he willingly and proudly gave to you . You went ahead and created your own witch’s brew which you continue to take to calm the stomach cramps. You do this for months and you feel somewhat better but the pain never really goes away. More or less it tends to subside when you take the concoction, however you find that you have to drink more and more each time to achieve the same result.
One morning you are unable to get out of bed the pain has become excruciatingly unbearable, you are unable to stand. Your family rushes you to the hospital where you are admitted in critical condition. Quick tests reveal that you do have cancer. You tell the Medical team you want them to operate , just do anything to rid you of the pain. The team looks at you with a strange look on their faces, you wonder why it is that no one is saying anything . You can almost hear your own heartbeat. After what seemed like an eternity the lead Doctor breaks his silence. There is no point in operating . The cancer has taken over your body. You have only weeks to live. He tells you he will have his team make you as comfortable as possible, they silently streamed out of the room… Unable to put your thoughts into a cohesive pattern you despair as you try to contemplate what you will fell like dead. If only you had acted when your family Doctor told you you had cancer.….….….….….….….….
ASYOUMAYHAVEIMAGINED.….
As you may have imagined ‚none of this happened I conjured it all up . Why? Because this hypothetical exactly describes Jamaica’s crime crisis. Sure Professionals have diagnosed the problem in a timely fashion. Sure Professionals have given their views on what needs to be done in order to save the country. But in typical Jamaican fashion they chose to get Law ‑enforcement advice from, butchers, barbers, farmers, village lawyers and everyone in between , instead of listening to the people who actually know what the hell they are talking about.
Andrew-HolnessJamaica’s Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller
The truth of the matter is that the people never truly respected or cared about law-enforcement or it’s officers. This is true from Jamaica House to grass-yard. The epidemic of crime , criminal tolerance and murder is a cultural one and not one which can be eradicated quickly. It may require generational change to fully remove the crime culture from the Island. They never respected the police so they do not listen to the police on policing they go to every talking head they find and ask how do you fix this crime problem, because God forbid they consult seriously with Police about policing. …
Well the cancer has settled in ‚no amount of bush doctor , jonkanoo, witchdakta or belief that Divine hands placed them in positions to fix crime will change a damn thing. The fact is that if you don’t know what the hell you are doing you simply don’t know. No amount of wannabe police is going to fix our crime situation,. Just days ago Doctors in the United States separated twin boys joined at the head . After over twenty hours of surgery they managed to separate the boys successfully . It wasn’t easy , it wasn’t quick but the parents damn sure did not ask the guys who worked in maintenance, important though they are, to perform the operation on their sons. They chose the real pros. No amount of white rum and ganja, or pontificating jokers with expansive and lengthy arguments is going to fix this problem. They are part of the problem, they have jobs because of crime . They have no interest in seeing the back of crime.
In 2010 heavily armed mercenaries who rule the streets demonstrated in no uncertain terms that they were prepared and capable of defending their turf. The burned Police stations and murdered members of the security forces. In the end the Government held hearings on the advice of the national security sewer workers, butchers, and farmers, higglers, doctors, journalists and all in all bullshitters [sic] on what the actual security experts did wrong as the fought valiantly to annex one community to the rest of the country. In the end they ruled that those who burned police stations , killed members of the security forces should be compensated monetarily and the country should apologize to them as well.
The idea that the political forces on the Island in both political parties want to see the end of crime is the biggest bullshit . Everyone has a stake in crime one way or the other.
Last Sunday an entire family of five were slaughtered and their home along March Pen Road in Spanish Town, burned to the ground. According to the Police for the last three consecutive weekends there have been acts of arson along March Pen Road.
According to the US, State Department’s Overseas Security Advisory Council [Crime throughout Jamaica maybe as a result of several factors: poverty, retribution, drugs, gangs and politics. Additionally, Organized crime and other criminal elements are prevalent and extremely active. Most criminal activity is gang-related. The police are only able to resolve (make arrests) in 45 percent of homicides annually, and they only convict perpetrators in seven percent of the homicide cases. This leads both the public and police to doubt the effectiveness of the criminal justice system leading to vigilantism, which only exacerbates the cycle of violence. Based on their past experiences, most civilians fear that at best, theauthorities cannot protect them from organized criminal elements, and at worst, are colluding with criminals, leading citizens to avoid giving evidence or witness testimonies.]
Having seen it first hand and fought it for a decade, I would say to the US State Department , “you hit the nail on the head but there is no maybe about the factors which have created this dangerous Serengeti of violence”. This assessment is a damning indictment, not on our country but on the Administrations which have handled the Island’s affairs since it was let go by Britain. When a team screws up you don’t fire the team. Sure you may make a change here and there ‚but the problem is always within the remit of the coaching staff.
This guy belongs in the hall of shame. Delroy Chuck the Island’s justice Minister wants cases over 5 years old to be tossed from the court dockets.(Including capital murder cases) This is the quality of the leadership which fertilizes crime on the Island.
Jamaica’s political leaders after Independence have been indistinguishable from little banana republic strongmen. The kind everyone points to in Latin America, Africa and parts of Asia. They have pretty much interpreted the power given to them to serve as authority to rule. Both political parties have placed guns into the hands of criminals and insulated themselves from criminal prosecution by effectively dismantling the rule of law.
There are several reasons why cases gets stalled in the system. Incomplete prosecution case files ◊Missing witnesses ◊ Overburdened Infrastructure ◊Defense counsels not being paid◊Accused criminals absconding the jurisdiction, among others. When we conflate the aforementioned and juxtapose them with the limited time that the high court sits in the abbreviated sessions, we have a better idea why there is such a huge backlog. One begins to get a better idea why such small numbers of cases gets heard much less decided. It gives us a better view of why even murder cases do not get heard as they should with the degree of dispatch they deserve. Did I also mention poor prioritization on the part of authorities given the existing challenges? Well that is also a part of the equation.
Nevertheless , none of the reasons which contribute to the backlog singularly or combined is enough to justify tossing a case as serious as murder from the roster. Look, I too believe that clearing the docket of all cases would give all concerned a fresh start . But as tempting as that prospect is , it would only offer the political directorate and those who got the system bogged down in the morass in the first place a second chance at lethargy ‚laziness, and corruption.
No amount of zeal and desire for a fresh start could ever justify tossing a murder case from the court docket simply because we crave a fresh start , or worse that some bureaucrat desires to overstep his bounds . There are several ways that court dockets can be cleared with greater alacrity without denying justice to those whom have had their loved ones taken away from them. First , get rid of the silly Michaelmas , Hillary and Easter sessions and have Judges sit in courts on weekdays in other countries. If necessary appoint more judges and suspend for a time the use of courtrooms used for resident magistrate matters . This can be done by effectively using the plea-bargain tool, giving low level offenders the opportunity to accept a plea , pay a fine and move on without clogging the system. Doing so would effectively free up courtroom space and release the bottleneck chocking off the dispensation of justice.
Andrew Holness
The idea of throwing out cases in order to gain a fresh start is exactly the opposite of what the country should be doing . It will encourage corruption. It will encourage criminal offenders to stall their cases knowing they will eventually be tossed. Shockingly that is what the Island justice Minister is advocating. Which leads me to ask , ?whose interest does Delroy Chuck represent. Delroy Chuck is not ignorant to these facts, therefore it must reasonably be construed that his push is to absolve dangerous murderers using the office of the Minister of Justice to do it will not stand. We cannot allow Delroy Chuck to use the people’s office to help Jamaica’s dangerous murderers to evade justice . Chuck belongs in the hall of shame, in a country of law this guy would be booted from office for daring to suggest what he has., This publication is calling on Prime Minister Andrew Holness to repudiate the position of Delroy Chuck. And replace him with a public servant who has the interest of Jamaica’s law abiding citizens at heart.
The country does not need a justice minister who advocates for criminals over decent law abiding citizens.
President Obama hit Republicans right between the eyes by explaining how birtherism and the GOP’s politics of hate created Donald Trump.
I’ve actually heard this argument a number of times. I have been blamed by Republicans for a lot of things, but being blamed for their primaries and who they’re selecting for their party is novel.
Look, I’ve said — I said it at the State of the Union that one of my regrets is the degree to which polarization and the nasty tone of our politics has accelerated rather than waned over the course of the last seven and a half years. And I do all kinds of soul-searching in terms of are there things I can do better to make sure that we’re unifying the country. But I also have to say, Margaret, that, objectively, it’s fair to say that the Republican political elites and many of the information outlets — social media, news outlets, talk radio, television stations — have been feeding the Republican base for the last seven years a notion that everything I do is to be opposed; that coöperation or compromise somehow is a betrayal; that maximalist, absolutist positions on issues are politically advantageous; that there is a “them” out there and an “us,” and “them” are the folks who are causing whatever problems you’re experiencing.
And the tone of that politics — which I certainly have not contributed to — I don’t think that I was the one to prompt questions about my birth certificate, for example. I don’t remember saying, hey, why don’t you ask me about that. Or why don’t you question whether I’m American, or whether I’m loyal, or whether I have America’s best interests at heart — those aren’t things that were prompted by any actions of mine.
And so what you’re seeing within the Republican Party is, to some degree, all those efforts over a course of time creating an environment where somebody like a Donald Trump can thrive. He’s just doing more of what has been done for the last seven and a half years.
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So I am more than happy to own the responsibility as President, as the only office holder who was elected by all the American people, to continue to make efforts to bridge divides and help us find common ground. As I’ve said before, I think that common ground exists all across the country. You see it every day in how people work together and live together and play together and raise their kids together. But what I’m not going to do is to validate some notion that the Republican crack-up that’s been taking place is a consequence of actions that I’ve taken.
President Obama pinned the rise of Donald Trump squarely on the Republican Party. Republicans decided that they were going to embrace birtherism, obstruction and hate as a political strategy. The soil that grew Donald Trump was fertilized by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and every single elected Republican who followed the lead of conservative media by embracing Obama hate.
The bill has come due for seven years of Republican racially divisive politics. Donald Trump is doing nothing more than running on all of the same positions that Republican politicians used to win House and Senate elections in 2010 and 2014. Donald Trump isn’t hijacking the Republican Party. He is a byproduct of the Republican Party.
Obama didn’t create Trump. The Republican reaction to the success of Obama’s presidency created Trump. Republicans blame Obama for everything, but they only have themselves to blame for the rise of Donald Trump.
That this man has been allowed to be a representative of a major political party for the Presidency of the United States is beyond shocking , not just to many Americans but to people across the Globe who look on in utter horror. That such a hateful narcissist, misogynistic, Racist could emerge as the standard bearer of the Republican Party should however come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention.
When the totality of Donald Trump’s character is summed up, by his own words and actions, it becomes clearer each day that Hillary Clinton’s deplorable characterization describes Trump quite appropriately,. Who would argue that bigoted Racists , and Misogynists are deplorable?
Who would argue against the fact that Donald Trump for President has been and always was a huge laughing matter for people all across the world. Elements within the British Parliament wants Trump banned from entering their country. Imagine that within the context that England is America’s closest ally.
Benjamin Netanyahu Israel’s Prime Minister asked Trump not to visit that Country, albeit it was at a critical time, when his presence may have inflamed passions and created violence. Consider however that a potential American president’s presence could been seen to be that potentially combustible has to account for something. Israel may very well be America’s second closest ally.
Consider that the people of America’s closest neighbor on it’s southern border totally hates Donald Trump . Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto invited Trump to his country and was immediately shocked by the visceral and angry response he received from the Mexican people. Enrique Peña Nieto did not have the character to resign,. Nevertheless finance Minister Luis Videgaray, who allegedly arranged the visit stepped down as a result of the uproar Trump’s visit elicited.
let’s look at Donald Trump’s racist 1989 campaign against the so-called Central Park five . Trump spent over a hundred thousand dollars on full page Ads in the city’s newspapers calling for the death penalty of the little boys who were wrongly arrested, and coerced into an unlawful and illegal confession without the benefit of lawyers or their parents present. The oldest boy at the time was a developmentally challenged 16 year old. The other four were 15 and 14 years respectively. Even after the boys had been convicted and served out their full sentences and were found to have been wrongly convicted he showed absolutely no compassion for his racist campaign against them . It should also be noted that Trump called for the death penalty/lynching of the boys even though the central Park victim had not died . To this day Donald Trump refuses to admit he was wrong.
With respect to continued police killings of unarmed Black men across America, Donald Trump called for tougher policing tactics, including the use of the unconstitutional stop and frisk policy. He labels Black People hopeless. Labels Mexicans Rapists and murderers. He wants to ban all Muslims from entering America, solely on the basis of their Muslim faith. He berates and ridicules a gold-star family who sacrificed their only son who lost his life serving in the nation’s armed forces./ He surrounds himself with people like Rudolph Giuliani, and Newt Gingrich., Between himself Giuliani and Gingrich they have nine marriages. That says something about their so-called Christian values or more appropriately their lack thereof.
Other major supporters of Trump includes New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie a major bully who is alleged to have know and maybe conspired to punish a Fort Lee New Jersey Democratic Mayor who did not endorse him for re-election, by closing lanes leading into the George Washington Bridge. The lane closures created major congestion at the bridge and resulted in much traffic problems for Fort Lee. One former Christie loyalist currently under indictment has testified that Christie absolutely knew about the lane closures . Steve Bannon Alt Right functionary and formerly of the far right website Breitbart now co-control Trump’s campaign. Former FOX head honcho Roger Ailes who allegedly sexually harassed multiple female employees of the misinformation network , costing the company tens of millions, now also reportedly advises Trump. At what point does voters start asking themselves whether this is the president they want.
Trump knows he has a solid block of core supporters who do not care about anything he ever says or does. He alluded to that saying “I could shoot someone in the middle of 5th avenue and I wouldn’t lose a single supporter” . These are the deplorables who absolutely hates everyone who does not look like them or believe what they believe. These are they who blame everyone but themselves for their lack of upward mobility. Ultimately every rational voter has to determine whether this vile creature is a potential America President.
There are a million ways one can be complimentary of something without saying outlandish things which may be construed as controversial. I have always believed that the best way to find out what people really think is to let them speak without interrupting them , by and large they will tell you who they are and what they really believe.
Former President Bill Clinton was once characterized as the Explainer in chief by no other than current President Barack Obama. Coming from President Barack Obama that is a glowing endorsement that Bill Clinton is incredibly capable of articulating a point , probably more so than many. Nobody believe Bill Clinton has a problem saying exactly what he wants to convey,hence that is the reason his comments regarding the Affordable Care Act legitimately raises eyebrows.
Here’s the Clinton Flint, Michigan, speech last Monday.
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Obama
[The current system works fine if you’re eligible for Medicaid, if you’re a lower-income working person, if you’re already on Medicare, or if you get enough subsidies on a modest income that you can afford your health care. But the people that are getting killed in this deal are small businesspeople and individuals who make just a little too much to get any of these subsidies. So you’ve got this crazy system where all of a sudden, 25 million more people have health care and then the people that are out there busting it ― sometimes 60 hours a week ― wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half. It’s the craziest thing in the world.
Now the next thing is, we got to figure out now what to do on health care. Her opponent said, ‘Oh, just repeal it all. The market will take care of it.’ That didn’t work out very well for us, did it? We wound up with the most expensive system in the world and we insured the smallest percentage of people. On the other hand, the current system works fine if you’re eligible for Medicaid, if you’re a lower income working person, if you’re already on Medicare, or if you get enough subsidies on a modest income that you can afford your health care.
But the people that are getting killed in this deal are small businesspeople and individuals who make just a little too much to get any of these subsidies. Why? Because they’re not organized, they don’t have any bargaining power with insurance companies, and they’re getting whacked. So you’ve got this crazy system where all of a sudden, 25 million more people have health care and then the people that are out there busting it ― sometimes 60 hours a week ― wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half. It’s the craziest thing in the world so here’s the simplest thing ― you raise your hands, you think about it ― here’s the simplest thing: figure out an affordable rate and let people use that ― something that won’t undermine your quality of life, won’t interfere with your ability to make expenses, won’t interfere with your ability to save money for your kid’s college education. And let people buy in to Medicare or Medicaid.
Here’s why: you can let people buy in for just a little bit because unlike where you are now, if you were on the other side of this, if you were an insurer, you’d say, ‘Gosh, I only got 2,000 people in this little pool. Eighty percent of insurance costs every year come from 20 percent of the people. If I get unlucky in the pool, I’ll lose money.’ So they overcharge you just to make sure, and on good years, they just make a whopping profit from the people who are least able to pay it.
It doesn’t make any sense. The insurance model doesn’t work here; it’s not like life insurance, it’s not like casualties, it’s not like predicting flooding. It doesn’t work. So Hillary believes we should simply let people who are above the line for getting these subsidies have access to affordable entry into the Medicare and Medicaid programs. They’ll all be covered, it will not hurt the program, we will not lose a lot of money. And we ought to do it.
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I think his health care bill has been a remarkable success for 25 million people, and for getting rid of pre-existing conditions, and the problems with it show why the president was right to recommend a public option in the first place because the only real problems I can see with it are small businesspeople and individual working people just above the subsidy line are having. Why is that? Because they’re small, they’re independent, they do have any market power vis a vis the insurance companies, and that’s why Hillary said, “The change we need is not to wreck this thing and repeal it. It’s done too much good. The change we need is to create an affordable option for the small business people and the working people who are not covered ― that’s what the public opinion is about.
Keep in mind, when the other side complains about that, if they just pay these people something they can afford, it will cover well over 90 percent of the costs of the expansion of Medicare or Medicaid or both. Why? Because there’s a huge pool. This is one place where his adjective works. This is really important ― there’s a ‘huge’ pool, and the economics of health care are as follows: in any given year, more than 80 percent of the costs are claimed by 20 percent of the people. It’s just a shifting 20 percent. That means if you have a small pool, it’s impossible to price right. It doesn’t work, it’s not like life or casualty or property or other insurance, which is why there should be a public opinion, and it will either be available to people, or the private insurance companies will figure out how to reorganize themselves and put people into huge pools to compete.]
Look Bill Clinton is nobody’s fool he badly wants his wife to be President . Bill Clinton will do anything including running as a blocker for his wife’s campaign . Fans of the Netflix series house of cards may find some similarities between the Clinton’s Political life and that of the fictional couple the Underwoods played by Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright.
Bill Clinton understands that the Affordable Care Act is less than perfect. Now this is partly because of the Intransigence of some Republican Governors. Bill Clinton I believe understands his wife owns this law as much as President Obama, she also struggles mightily with white male voters , who better to speak to those white men than Bill Clinton? I estimate that Bill Clinton wants to insulate his wife from whatever negatives that are out there against the ACA. There was absolutely no reason for him to say So you’ve got this crazy system where all of a sudden, 25 million more people have health care and then the people that are out there busting it ― sometimes 60 hours a week ― wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half. It’s the craziest thing in the world so here’s the simplest thing ―
His speech was fine without it and he knows it, it was totally unnecessary and most people understands that. Bill Clinton’s legacy is sometimes lost in the shuffle, Clinton see himself as a great President, yet the conversations on Presidents are generally centered between Ronald Reagan , George W Bush and Barack Obama. Somewhere in that shuffle Bill’s presidency gets lost.
It’s not the only time that Bill Clinton had to do clean up after delivering a speech . Speaking in Spokane Washington last March clinton said the following . [“Now, if you don’t believe we can all grow together again, if you don’t believe we’re ever going to grow again, if you believe it’s more important to re-litigate the past, there may be many reasons that you don’t want to support her. But if you believe we can all rise together, if you believe we’ve finally come to the point where we can put the awful legacy of the last eight years behind us and the seven years before that— when we were practicing trickle-down economics and no regulation in Washington which is what caused the crash — then you should vote for her because she’s the only person who basically has good ideas, will tell you how she’s going to pay for them, can be commander-in-chief and is a proven change-maker with Republicans and Democrats and independents alike.”]
File photo at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2009. (AP Photo/Jeff Christensen)
Many saw those comments as an attack on the stewardship of President Barack Obama. Clinton and his people were forced to clarify that he was speaking to Republicans unprecedented obstruction these last eight years is their legacy, and the American people should reject it by electing Hillary Clinton to build on President Obama’s success so we can all grow and succeed together.” The fact of the matter is Clinton did not say anything about Republican Obstruction but in fact said the awful legacy of the past eight years and the previous seven years. Even if by some stretch of logic one is able to accept that the last eight years comment could be assigned to Republican obstructionism, what do you do with the seven years before that . One would have to accept that Bill Clinton was saying that the Republican Congress was obstructing the Bush Presidency , which is not supported by neither fact nor logic. Like I said let people speak and they will tell you how they really feel.
My distrust of Bill Clinton may not square with many Democrats, truthfully many people see Bill as the first Black President or a sort of honorary black of sorts. I don’t. Bill and Hillary Clinton are two incredibly ambitious people who wants to win at all cost. I believe neither of them are necessarily bad people, they are just two people who will do what they must to win. If that include dissing the affordable care act, dissing Obama’s presidency, or ditching the TPP as Hillary now does then so be it. Bill Clinton, the first Black President[sic] had no problem dissing sister soulja in 92. He had no problem telling Senator Ted Kennedy in 2008 that the only reason he was supporting Barack Obama for President was because he was black. He had no problem telling Senator Kennedy that “A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee,” the former president told the liberal lion from Massachusetts, according to the campaign book, “Game Change.”
Yeah , I’m sorry but I view Bill Clinton’s comments with far more cynicism and skepticism than the average center left person does and I believe with proper justification. But then again I may be wrong.
Renowned for his decades-long quest for peace in the Middle East, Shimon Peres’s greatest triumph was his cunning and successful plan to bring nuclear weapons to Israel.
CHRISTOPHERDICKEY
09.28.16 4:12 AMET
PARIS —Shimon Peres is recognized as a great statesman and will be remembered after his death early Wednesday morning at age 93 as a passionate advocate of peace between Israel’s Jews and the Arabs of the Middle East.
With a longer view, historians will note that he managed to become prime minister twice and president of the State of Israel, but he never clearly won the powerful premiership in popular or parliamentary votes. He was always admirable, but in the end, proved almost unelectable, a brilliant rhetorician, but not nearly as successful a politician as, say, long-serving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Even as a peacemaker, or perhaps especially as a peacemaker, Peres could articulate brilliantly and beautifully the desires for peace, the reasons for peace, the benefits of peace, and indeed he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the PLO’s Yassir Arafat. But Peres could not bring home the goods, and the relative calm that exists in Israel and the occupied territories for the moment is far from the peace that Peres so often and so eloquently described.
So it is ironic that his greatest single accomplishment — the one that has protected his nation decade after decade in the savage landscape of the Middle East, is one the Israeli government still, as a matter of form, will not acknowledge. Because it was Peres who brought home to Israel the nuclear weapons and the ballistic missiles that were and, for better or worse, still are the ultimate guarantor of its survival.
One key to the Israeli nuclear-weapons program launched in the mid-1950s was France, where the young Peres — still in his thirties and serving as the director general of Israel’s defense ministry — cultivated a vast array of important political and scientific contacts.
The other key was the systematic deception of the United States, which at first opposed Israel’s development of a nuclear-weapons capability, then failed to connect the dots that showed that’s what it was doing, then tried to buy it off with a huge increase in conventional weapons shipments, and finally, in 1969 accepted tacitly what it had failed to prevent explicitly.
Avner Cohen’s book Israel and the Bomb, published in 1998,still offers some of the most detailed and thoughtful information about what he calls Israel’s “nuclear opacity,” the refusal to admit what the world knows and what is, in fact, a vital source of deterrence. To study that history of 60 years ago is also to understand why Israel is so suspicious of Iran’s nuclear deceptions. It’s been there, done that, and Peres led the way.
When Criminals break the law they ought to know they will be punished . They ought to know they will be caught, not may be caught . They ought to know it’s not a matter of if , but a matter of when.
That was the attitude I brought to law-enforcement back in my day , it ought to be the attitude of police today and going forward. When the Commissioner of Police said that no stones will be left unturned until Duppy Film is brought to justice for killing two police officers he ought to have meant it. He ought not only mean it but he should only say it if he has the means to deliver on his promise. Almost a year later the name Duppy Film is a distant memory . Neither the Commissioner of Police nor his band of overweight khaki wearing paper tigers bother to talk about this assassin who summarily executed two law-enforcement officers without consequence.
As for me I would not have promised what the Commissioner of Police promised. Not only because I understood from the get go that the Commissioner was speaking from the side of his mouth to appease the officer’s families . I would most certainly have prefered bringing justice to him period. Those who like to pontificate and pretend that Jamaica is a place in which Policing can be done as it is in Scandinavia are free to exist in that utopian bubble, I share no such belief.
I am going to hazard a guess that cop killers would certainly not be on the loose during the days of Anthony Hewitt , Isiah Laing , Cornwall (bigga) Ford, OC Hare, Altamoth (parra )Campbell and the long list of valiant crime fighters who kept the streets safe and criminals in their place. The self appointed moralists can argue all they want. It does not change the fact that crime was kept to a minimum and they benefitted from the lower murder numbers.
Jamaica has got to be the only place on Earth which looks for policing solutions and strategies from talking heads rather than those who are actually trained in the discipline and have lived the experience. It’s little wonder that they passed a law supposedly to catch criminal cops , throwing out concerns from good cops and having the law increase crime exponentially as a result.. If the political class wanted a lid on crime as they contemplated a second policing agency, they would certainly have empowered that agency to go after all criminals , like the FBI is empowered.
As many average Jamaicans have alluded, the laws are designed to oppress the poorer class while rendering the upper class untouchable. Today that upper class characterization has been reduced to any two-bit lawyer or political thug. If you know someone who know someone who know someone in power you are untouchable. Our country is no different than a sub-Saharan tin-pan dictatorship.
Horace Levy
Murder is the topic of discussion once again as was in 2010 when it reached a crescendo leading up to the Tivoli Gardens annexation to Jamaica . Front and center in the conversation are the same cheap hustlers who play both sides of the conversation.\ Hustlers like Horace Levy has long been seen as a relevant voice in the discussion as it relates to the Island’s impoverished neighborhoods , crime and gangs. Levy once headed a NGO called the Peace Management Initiative.
https://mikebeckles.com/jamaica-human-rights-gravy-train/ As head of that NGO Levy found a seat at the table on the national discourse on crime, it also gave him a powerful megaphone much like JFJ and other hustlers have been allowed to dominate the conversation to the detriment of the Island. As a consequence of having that megaphone Horace Levy joined the long line of anti-police antagonists who use their perch to demonize the police and elevate criminals. Levy has led a visceral campaign against the Jamaica Constabulary Force, burnishing his image as a savior of sorts for the downtrodden while simultaneously ensuring his relevance within the context of what exist on the Island. https://mikebeckles.com/looking-to-continue-eating-a-food‑2/
Horace Levy viscerally excoriated the Police’ assessment of what constituted Gangs in many of the Island’s depressed communities back in 2013. In a deliberative pushback Levy said much of what the police counted as active gangs were what he characterized as Corner Crews. In a letter to then Commissioner of Police Owen Ellington,Levy said the following.
Some questions for the police, the commissioner of police, the minister of national security, and the people of Jamaica: Does every police encounter with criminals have to involve a shoot-out? Must every police encounter with criminals require the use of lethal force? Are our criminals really so more vicious than criminals in other countries that they can only be dealt with by lethal force? How come our more vicious criminals manage to shoot so few police? How much longer will Commissioner of Police Owen Ellington go on supporting, even encouraging, the killings carried out by his men? How much longer will Minister of National Security Peter Bunting go on endorsing the behavior of Commissioner of Police Ellington? How much longer will our citizens go on tolerating this kind of wanton killing of fellow citizens? Is the blood of only a few of us boiling? If this can happen in the first two weeks of the year, what will the other 50 be like?
At the time Horace Levy berated the Jamaican Police for battling the Island’s urban killers in which he outright said not enough cops are being killed in their encounters with criminals. These were some of the crime numbers which existed between the years 2001 to 2008, 2001 – 2008. Reported Cases of Murder : 10, 836 Shootings : 11,229 Rape and Carnal Abuse: 9119
At the time Levy wrote that letter no one challenged Levy on the insanity that more police officers should be getting shot if the number of armed men they were eliminating were actually truly engaging them in shoot-outs. Without one scintilla of evidence this line of ghastly reasoning was allowed to prevail without the proper level of outrage which should have been attached to it. I cannot think of any other country in which this line of argument would have been allowed to continue , much less coming from agencies of Government which are taxpayer supported as the Public defender’s office is. No one except this humble writer bothered to challenge that notion because it was the prevailing belief of literally all who hated police, including the head of the taxpayer funded office of public defender at the time Earl Witter and the long list of people who gained relevance by saying they were for human rights.
Today crime is out of control, the Island is awash in guns, the Police is effectively hollowed out to a shell of its former effectiveness , and lord knows it was far from perfect. The Island’s killers don’t bother to hide their faces when they parade their weapons, or when they kill .Why should they ‚who is going to go get them? There are effective taxpayer funded safeguards against them being pursued , prosecuted much less taken out. The American Federal Bureau Of Investigations(FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Agency(DEA) will now be operating supposedly out of the American Embassy in Kingston. There has been next to no discussion on the Sovereignty issue inherent in this revelation . The muted whimpers I have heard all seem to suggest well we’ll take any help we can get.
In Tuesday’s Edition of the Jamaica Gleaner Horace Levy’s narrative has seemingly come full circle . In a rambling diatribe titled: Containment Not Good Enough. Levy said quote:
Minister Bobby Montague’s presentation in Parliament last week on the measures taken to stem the violence in western Jamaica was detailed and comprehensive. It seems to have satisfied most people that the minister, the police, the Government are on top of the problem. The really sad thing is that satisfaction. It is because the violence, grim as it is, 100 murders a month and climbing is treated as intractable. It has been with us for so long that it has become a fixture in our environment, a grin-and-bear-it unease. So the counter-violence prescriptions, which focus solely on repression and containment, are taken as sufficient. It is not even noticed that containing for a time is all they are doing. http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/commentary/20161004/horace-levy-containment-not-good-enough
In brief ‚Horace Levy demanded to know why wasn’t the slippery slide into anarchy prevented. Ha for the freedom to chat shit and not be held accountable .… Horace Levy simply believe that as always no one notices that he is playing both sides for his personal benefit. In the end Horace Levy’s comments not only showed his political stripes it reveals for the country the hypocrisy of these leeches who play the system for all it’s worth for their own use and benefit . Sorry Horace Levy not every Jamaican is ignorant or blind to what you are doing. You cannot have it both ways. I see you.….….….….…..
August 31st 2015 I wrote a lengthy Article titled TRUMP’S RISE A CONTINUATIONOFWHATPALINBROUGHTTOTHEPROCESS… In that article I spoke at length of the frightening rhetoric which had all of a sudden crept into the political discourse with a degree of anger we had not heard before.
I went on to say it was during the election period of 2008 and the introduction of Sarah Palin onto the American political scene that the filthy racist underbelly of America’s race problem came to the fore. For the first time a certain segment of the American population believed that the citadel of white supremacy they built was about to be taken over by a black man with a funny sounding name.
Whether McCain was pushed to select Palin a rabid divisive racist we may never know. Whether McCain knew just how rancid and corrosive her rhetoric would be toward the African-American Democratic candidate we may never know either. But note the time the Tea-Party rose to prominence and judge for yourself. I believe those old enough to remember the 2008 Elections doesn’t need a reminder of the Xenophobic, ignorant, Racist campaign Sarah Palin waged on behalf of John McCain’s candidacy. https://mikebeckles.com/trumps-rise-a-continuation-of-what-palin-brought-to-the-process/
John McCain’s decision to chose Sarah Palin unleashed a brand of racially polarized politics no one in my generation or younger had ever seen before . In a document titled Partisan Polarization and the Rise of the Tea Party Movement Professor Alan I. Abramowitz Department of Political Science Emory University wrote . The Tea Party movement has attracted enormous attention from journalists, candidates, and elected officials since it first appeared on the U.S. political scene in early 2009. However, there has been considerable disagreement among political observers about the numbers and motivations of those participating in Tea Party protests, the prevalence of racist sentiments among Tea Party activists, the role played by wealthy individuals, conservative groups and media figures in fomenting these protests, and the potential long-term impact of the movement (Judis 2010; Crabtree 2010; Parker 2010; Scarborough 2010).
President Barack Obama
In a rather revealing Article published in the New York Daily news Monday October 3rd, President Barack Obama spoke to exactly this truth. Said the President.
“I see a straight line from the announcement of Sarah Palin as the vice presidential nominee to what we see today in Donald Trump, the emergence of the Freedom Caucus, the tea party and the shift in the center of gravity for the Republican Party,”. “Whether that changes, I think, will depend in part on the outcome of this election, but it’s also going to depend on the degree of self-reflection inside the Republican Party,” “There have been at least a couple of other times that I’ve said confidently that the fever is going to have to break, but it just seems to get worse.” “It might not have been representative of Republicans across the country, but it meant that John Boehner or Mitch McConnell had to worry about that mood inside their party that felt that, ‘No, we shouldn’t coöperate with Obama, we shouldn’t coöperate with Democrats.’ That it represents compromise, weakness and that the broader character of America is at stake, regardless of whatever policy arguments might be made,”
The President is correct, we believed this to be true from the moment Senator McCain chose Palin. It’s as if someone had opened up a pandora box releasing an evil Genie emerging with it, a swarm of destructive Locusts none of which could be put back into the bottle. The President has consistently said he expect the fever to break sooner or later. Thus far the fever seem to be getting worse,even though Palin has demonstrated that she was by far a totally unfit person to be a heartbeat from the presidency. Even though Palin has proven her irrelevance the damage has been done. Whether or not Trump becomes President the toxicity Palin released into the political environment is here to stay. Just goes to show that one fool can make many. Or probably more appropriately awaken a lot more.
Unrest in Charlotte, NC, September 20, 2016. (Credit: Reuters/Adam Rhew)
As the 2016 campaign reaches fever pitch, the more heat there is and the less light is shed. Which is why evolutionary anthropologist Peter Turchin’s new book comes as such a breath of fresh air. “Ages of Discord: A Structural-Demographic Analysis of American History” is not about this year’s presidential election, per se, but it’s a quantum leap forward in illuminating the disintegrative trends that America has experienced over the last several decades that are currently driving our politics.
Everything from skyrocketing inequality and political gridlock to white working class angst and the rise of mass shootings and other troubling signs of our times — these are all interconnected reflections of where America is in a cyclic historical process: social integration followed by disintegration, discord and violence. Turchin and others have observed this pattern repeatedly in civilizations from ancient Rome and early Chinese dynasties up to the present day.
Here are two summary snapshots of these long-term cycles from the book, the first from Europe:
Donald Trump should skip the next two debates unless he gets special guarantees from the moderators, former New York mayor and top Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani told reporters after the debate. Lester Holt, the NBC News anchor who moderated the debate, should be “ashamed of himself,” Giuliani said after the debate. He said Holt was wrong to attempt to fact-check Trump on the constitutionality of stop-and-frisk and his claimed opposition to the Iraq War.Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/giuliani-trump-debates-228756#ixzz4LSvQpfgj
After decades of building up Donald Trump as a legitimate businessman who took his father’s construction business and made it an empire, and framing Hillary Clinton as one half of a pair of pathological disgusting untrustworthy liars the media gets it’s moment in the sun.
PRIZEFIGHT
For months the media has been selling the first presidential debate as a prize fight , they have gone as far as to tell viewers it will be the most watched event in the history of television. At the end of it all Neilsen will tell just how many households tuned in for the spectacle. Ironically the narrative is baked in. Hillary Clinton is a pathological liar who cannot be trusted because she used a private server . [sic] The narrative is that Clinton is viewed as someone who cannot be trusted. The politically neutral Politico has pointed out that Donald Trump tells a lie every three minutes and fifteen seconds , over a five hour period.
There have been so much about Donald Trump which has disqualified him from the presidency yet none of it seem to matter to voters according to the polls. Which causes us to wonder whether the requirements for the presidency hasn’t already changed this election cycle. MSNBC’s Craig Melvin this morning asked Jack Kingston a former Georgia Congressman and a Trump supporter, whether the Moderator has a responsibility to fact check candidates who lie during this debate? Not surprising Kingston said no, moderators should not be in the business of fact checking the candidates on the lies they tell. A female Clinton surrogate on the same program said absolutely yes , they should be . Why would anyone seeking the presidency want to lie about policy positions or about their opponent’s record? That I believe is the defining issue in this debate .
Hillary Clinton
Now here is what I find troubling . It was the job of the Press to guard our democracy unless that too has changed as well this cycle. Debate moderators are journalists, how is it that it is not the guardians of our democracy’s job to fact check lying politicians seeking the world’s most powerful office? Presidential debates are job interviews. Candidates seeking the presidency should be preparing and studying up on policy positions and that of their opponents with a view to being able to appropriately debate the issues. They should not be seeking to lie and get away with lying their way to the nuclear codes. Why would the media be asking lying politicians and their surrogates whether candidates caught lying should be called out as CNN’s Candy Crowley called Mitt Romney out in 2012? It is their job to do so why would the media cede that most critical of function to either political party? Is there any wonder that the system is this corrupt? In the last general elections Mitt Romney insisted that President Obama had not called the Benghazi attack an “act of terror” for 14 days. Crowley correctly fact checked Romney that Obama had indeed used the term “act of terror” during remarks at The White House the day after the attack. Candy Crowley was right , Mitt Romney was wrong end of story. However it did not stop the usual barrage of attacks on Ms Crowley from the political right for doing what her profession trained her to do , get to the truth.
There is no point in litigating the negatives of Donald Trump. They are far too many, they are far too distinct, they are far too disqualifying. A voter who claim that he or she is still undecided about who they are voting for at the top of the ticket is a lying Trump voter. There is a binary choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, barring some unforeseen event one of these two people will be the next president of the United States. Gary Johnson will not be neither will Jill Stein. There is a hidden vote out there for Donald Trump I believe, despite the work President Barack Obama has done to return this country to a sound footing there is an element out there that is prepared to register a protest vote against him. Hillary Clinton’s negatives also plays into that somehow. Sure Donald Trump’s negatives are as stink as a Skunk but they are prepared to destroy everything by voting for him because he is white and male. They will vote for him without admitting that they did. The equivalent of breaking skin while washing their hands of the blood . Being able to say I did not vote for him when s**t heads south. That is the challenge for Hillary Clinton.
Donald J Trump
In a nutshell this presidential campaign may be summed up within the context of Ted Cruz’s recent endorsement of Donald Trump . Cruz said he does not get mad easily but when someone messes with his wife and his family he pulls the gloves off. During the Republican primaries Donald Trump made negative statements about Heidi Cruz’s appearance. He also said that Cruz’s father may have been involved with Lee-Harvey Oswald in the killing of President John F Kennedy. This infuriated Cruz to the point that at the Republican Convention Cruz took to the stage and asked voters to vote their conscience rather than ask them to vote for Donald Trump.
Despite all of that, last week in a lengthy facebook post Ted Cruz said he would be voting for Trump. Cruz’s capitulation can only be seen for what it was, a craven ‚calculated attempt to position himself for another run at the presidency in either 2020 or 2024. Country be damned it’s all about personal ambitions.
The Police work for you . You pay their salaries. You provide the pension plans and health-care for them and their families. You pay for the precinct houses from which they operate. You pay for the cars they drive. You pay for the dashcam videos in cases where they are provided them. Yet even though you pay for all of it, you are not entitled to see what is on the video when the videos have information which will show police officers doing what they shouldn’t be doing to citizens like you if North Carolina Republican legislators and Governor Pat McCrory have their way.
The unlawful killing and abuse of black citizens by some police officers have been a sore issue forever . Despite the protestations of black and brown people, white people who control power have largely ignored their cries for justice or have simply remained silent. Some have argued that whites largely remain silent because of racist tendencies, also that they are served by the status quo. Others have argued that whites see police in a different light because they are policed differently and most cops are white,. The latter view tends to support the arguments of people of color, that there are two separate justice systems , one for whites and another for everyone else.
Taxpayers investment in body and dashcams were supposed to either hold police accountable or exonerate them when they act appropriately. What the police are now doing through their unions and politicians beholden to them, is to make a determination when or if the footage is released at all. That means the very unjust system which is under scrutiny gets to set the parameters for that scrutiny. For those of us who believed that equipping police cruisers with dashcams and officers with body cameras would go a long way in removing most of the ambiguity from cases where police version of events differ from that of the public, we may need to rethink those beliefs. What bothers me is why on earth would police department’s push for measures which invariably will lead to more conflict with the public they serve.
Republican governor Pat McCrory said the law will strike a balance between improving public trust in the police and respecting the rights of officers. Respecting the rights of officers? Officers operate in public spaces supposedly on behalf of the public. What conceivable right could police have abridged by the release of videos of their actions ? The answer is none ! It is a red herring designed to give police one more layer of cover to continue to brutalize and kill people of color without being held accountable. If this is allowed to stand the next step will be to make it a crime to film illegal behavior of police. More and more states will follow North Carolina’s lead in making it impossible for police crimes to be uncovered when police get to determine whether the public have a right to see whether they broke the law. This only makes sense in a parallel universe. The longer police agencies get to hold video footage , the more likely it is that the public trust what they eventually release. The more that happens the less trust and confidence large sawths of the public have in the police. The longer the police hold video footage the more likely it is that those footage will be tampered with and altered to support the police version of events. There is nothing democratic or transparent about this. It is a slow steady march toward a police state in which the public has no say.
As a former police officer I am not naïve to the claims that releasing videos to the public may compromise aspects of an investigation. I am also mindful that evidence in certain video recordings may inflame passions and lead to violence or more violence in cases where violent protest has already occurred. Nevertheless when the totality of the distrust of police is taken into consideration, the police make a critical tactical mistake in not appearing to be transparent. I have long maintained that demonstrating against police is counter productive. Cops do not make laws , going into the streets may have some emotional value but beyond that it yields precious little substantively. The fact is that a large section of the population care exponentially more about broken glass than it does bullet riddled bodies. On that basis marching and protesting has zero effect in changing attitudes. If marching and singing was going to change circumstances they would have changed in the over half a century since the beginning of the civil rights movement. The seminal issue affecting the African-American Community when Dr King lived was police abuse. Over the half a century since Dr King was murdered the seminal issue affecting African-Americans is not poverty , or lack of jobs as some so called black leaders would have you believe, it is police abuse.
There is a reason black and brown people do not trust the police , there are decades and decades of reasons for them not to. When police get to decide whether video footages are released to the public which pays them, and pay for the video it reveals an intrinsic sick system of the tail wagging the Dog. ♦Laquan Mcdonald was killed walking away from Chicago police, the police refused to release the footage until they were forced to. The eventual release of the video showed that Mcdonald was summarily executed as he walked away , nevertheless cops on the scene lied that he posed a threat which necessitated them using deadly force. It was basically an assassination. ♦Walter Scott was summarily executed In North Charleston, South Carolina as he ran away from a police officer, a civilian video revealed that the cop placed a taser beside the body of mister Scott with the intended value of arguing Scott attempted to use it on him. ♦ Samuel Dubose was murdered in Cincinnati Ohio . The police contended that mister Dubose attempted to run him over with his car. Video evidence however showed that the officer lied that Dubose posed a threat . Importantly as well , other officers on scene corroborated the lie of the cop who murdered mister Dubose, So much for only a few bad apples. ♦Donald Andrews who operated a smoke shop in Schenectady New York became a target of police in that city for no reason but that he was a black man operating a smoke shop. Police routinely staked out his store and would routinely enter the store as part of their surveillance. On one occasion one of the officers was captured on mister Andrews surveillance video, planting crack cocaine on the counter. Not only was that officer criminal he was stupid, it defies logic that anyone would believe that a person selling crack cocaine would have it on the counter like candy. According to experts mister Andrews could have received four years for that bit of crack cocaine.
Dr. Boyce Watkins, Syracuse University Professor and founder of the Your Black World Coalition at the time said that this case is reflective of the slippery slope that exists for black men when it comes to the criminal justice system.
“If this is the case where the officer got caught planting the drugs, what about all the thousands of other cases where the officer wasn’t stupid enough to do it in a room full of cameras,” says Dr. Watkins. “The truth is that these incidents are not anomalies, and are reflective of the corruption that exists in a system that has found black men to be lucrative commodities for the prison industrial complex. It has destroyed our families and must be confronted in its entirety.” If police testimony is always valued above and beyond the defendant’s, how often do you think this happens? With black men being arrested for drug distribution more than any other group of people, it probably happens more than you know.
For years people of color in city after city across America have complained about police framing them and falsifying reports sending innocent people away for years on end sometimes for life. The innocence project founded in 1992 by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, mission statement says it is a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice. Through Messers Scheck and Neufeld and their team’s effort to date 344 innocent individuals have been exonerated after serving lengthy periods of time in prison for crimes they did not commit. In some cases individuals have served over three decades in prison, as you may well imagine the bulk of those are people of color. The work of the innocence project is monumental when considered against the difficult and next to impossible prospect to get the system to say it was wrong or even to open up to a second look after convicting someone for a crime they did not commit.
The national Fraternal order of police which endorsed Donald Trump for President of the United States pushed back at Trump on Thursaday for suggesting that officer Betty Shelby who shot and killed an unarmed Terence Cutcher may have choked.
Speaking at the church of his supporter African-American Pastor Darrell Scott ‚Trump said this. “I must tell you I watched the shooting in particular in Tulsa and that man was hands up. That man went to the car, hands up, put his hands on the car, I mean to me it looked like he did everything he was supposed to do,” said Trump in remarks at a town hall style event addressing African-American issues in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.
However the police Union which represents over 300,00 cops nationwide pushed back at Trump saying quote: “He must be mindful of the due process rights and presumption of innocence accorded to all, including police officers.” Trump won the support of the Police Union as he would because of his masculine pro-police stance . No surprise there, the Republican party has long been supported by the Military and police. Seen largely as a kind of Daddy party, supposedly catering to safety and security of the nation. Democrats on the other hand conversely is seen as the Mommy party, catering to health and well-being , taking care of those unable to take care of themselves.
The statement of the police Union though correct struck me as a bit odd. Many people of color who complain about police excesses would be happy to see police apply those same principles when officers interact with them and others like themselves. They too , each and everyone of them , have a right to due process and the presumnption of innocence. Imagine if these same principles were applied to every police vehicular stop. Every time officers knock on the door to someone’s home, their castle. Imagine if every instance of interaction of officers with the communities they serve are characterized by due process and the presumption of innocence. Literally most of the problems which exist between police and citizens would simply cease to exist. https://mikebeckles.com/americas-policing-problem/
In essence Mike Pence wants to curtail the first amendment constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of speech to be abridged and abrogated. In a Trump-Pence America, people like this writer could face serious consequences for speaking out about implicit biases in police departments which inform behavior. This is what makes a Trump-Pence Presidency such a dangerous proposition for people of color all across America and across the rest of the world.
Jason Miller a spokesperson for Donald Trump released to the media late Thursday night a press release stating that Donald Trump believes that President Barack Obama was indeed born in the United States .
This revelation is at best curious, the Birther movement was a modern day equivalent of the slavery days “show me your papers ” which was initiated by Donald J Trump. It was the birther movement, created by the now Republican nominee which launched Trump’s political career .
WHATISTHEREASONFORTHISATTHISTIME?
Donald J Trump knows that this matter is going to come up at the first debate coming up on September 26th. Hillary Clinton will not allow Trump to get away with it and Trump knows it. This is a cynical attempt to take the issue off the table before the debates.
Donald J Trump told the country that he sent investigators to Hawaii to dig up evidence intimating that the nation will be surprised at what they found. Interestingly , Donald J Trump had nothing , it was a lie like all of the other lies he told about his wealth, his Russian connections, his fake companies and his fake Trump University. Even after the president released both his short and long form birth certificates Trump and his minions , including Orly Taitz continued with the racist attempt at de-legitimizing the nation’s first black president.
On the same day that Donald J trump disparaged a Flint Michigan female African American pastor who welcomed him into her church as a “nervous mess”, the disrespectful con-man wants to convince the nation and Black people across the globe that the contemptuous slander campaign he waged against the president should now be set aside on his say so.
This latest development comes as surrogates including Giuliani has consistently said Trump now believes the president was born in the United States. There is just one missing component . We have not heard it out of the mouth of Donald Trump . What we have heard is the Trump campaign saying that he did a service to the President for getting the president to release his birth certificate.
We we all knew Donald trump wasn’t really trying to court Black voters . As I said in a previous article “a Leopard does not change it’s spot”. A scorpion will still sting a Frog giving it a ride across the river simply because that’s what scorpions do, they sting.
I hate to say “I told you so” to the segment of Black Clergy which allowed itself to be used as human props for the immoral campaign of charlatan , con-man Donald Trump’s presidential ambitions, actually I don’t hate to at all , I told you so .
Merely a day after Pastor, the Rev. Faith Green Timmons of Bethel United Methodist Church opened her church to Donald Trump to speak to the church’s work in water distribution in the Flint area Trump went off script and began to attack rival Hillary Clinton. Pastor Timmons walked over to Trump and told him,“ ‘Mr. Trump, I invited you here to thank us for what we’ve done in Flint,’ Timmons said. ‘Not to give a political speech.”.
He he, he , Trump backed down . “ ‘Ok, ok that’s good I’m going to go back onto Flint“which he did respectfully. However in vintage style, Donald Trump the petty, insecure, little man could not allow that bit of scolding go without hitting back. In vintage incoherent Trump fashion Thursday, he referred to pastor Timmons as quote “a nervous mess.”
During an interview with “Fox and Friends” Thursday, Trump said that he was treated well while in Flint, but that Timmons seemed nervous — “like a nervous mess” — when introducing him. He later added that “everyone plays their games, it doesn’t bother me.” I absolutely agree, no one knows more about game-playing than the imposter, Donald J Trump > The only people who seem oblivious to his con-game are non-college educate whites and certain segment of the black clergy. Couldn’t agree more with Donnie boy.
Cesar Millan is a Dog trainer who does a terrific job demonstrating that generally when domesticated dogs act improperly , at least by domesticated standards , it is generally the human’s fault. Cesar artfully demonstrate just how simple it is to use common techniques like rewards for good behavior and a simple tap to remind dogs we are not pleased when they do things we don’t want them to do.
As instructive as Cesar Millan’s television show is on dog training , I sometimes think to myself this show is actually about human training. Nevertheless as Jamaicans most of us, particularly those among us who were blessed to have been born and raised in rural Jamaica, Cesar’s training were mom’s training . Only difference was that when we stepped out of line the taps were far more intense and voluminous.
In fairness to the few people who were born in the tiny strip of sea-side land which is actually Kingston they too were not alienated from the concept of actions versus consequences, or risk versus reward. In the tiny Island we call home, no one can truthfully claim they were not privy to those very methods which were used by Jamaican parents , grandparents and extended family members to instill values and discipline. n the British essentially unceremoniously ditched the Island in the little exercise we Jamaicans like to call our Independence thereafter emerged, communities which started to trend as homogeneous communities. They became communities which voted as monoliths. The conflagration of these communities have since spread throughout the country and with them organized and uncontrolled crime. Jamaicans aligned to one or the other of the two main political parties willingly attach themselves to these communities despite the noise to the contrary, because of the expectation they hold of receiving spoils for their vote. Despite protestations of poverty and need, no one has been forced to live in these communities.
So from the beginning people on either side of the political divide who opted to live in these communities we now refer to as Garrisons, did so of their own volition. They did so with the expectation that there would be material gain for themselves. Whether the Garrison is Concrete Jungle , or Tivoli Gardens, Dunkirk, or Drews Land, Kintyre, or Common, Flankers, or Rivoli my view is the same. I view them all in the same dim light.
As a former police officer I risked life and limb with my colleagues, got shot at and got shot. I have zero compassion for any of these communities. I do not give a rats ass about political affiliation. While I lived in Jamaica I voted once for the Labor party . The PNP was not a party I could begin to consider casting a vote for. I am also categorically repulsed by Jamaican politicians on either side of the political divide, some more than others. I held no allegiance to any political party then and I don’t now. This is the reason I am pissed at the notion that Andrew Holness will be apologizing to the Garrison community of Tivoli Gardens for events which occurred there in 2010.
I will not re-litigate events which occurred in that community a google search will yield a treasure trove of information on what transpired there. What is important to consider is that that community as does many others, thumbed it’s collective nose at the rule of law. Opting instead for jungle rule and the elevation of common thugs as their representatives. Now in fairness to Tivoli Gardens and others like it , residents may simply have calculated that the thugs who did not wear suits and banged on desks were more responsive to their everyday needs . On that score they would hear no complaints from me.
According to Jamaican Media the apology is being crafted for delivery by the Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness. It is important to note that the person spearheading this push is none other than Delroy Chuck the Island’s justice minister. No surprise there that Chuck would be the leading edge on this despicable gung-ho attempt, not just to apologize to Tivoli but to actually reward people for bad behavior. In Jamaica it is extremely difficult to differentiate criminals from non-criminals based on the positions they hold.
Chuck who chairs the committee, says the work of the body would bear in mind the objectives of the recommendations, namely, restoring and promoting trust and confidence in the State; compensating victims for property damage, wrongful death, and injuries; controlling the use of force of the Jamaica Defence Force and the Jamaica Constabulary Force; and dismantling garrisons and mitigating the conditions that give rise to them.(jamaicagleaner.com)
♦How fucking convenient that There is no mention of the history of criminality perpetrated on the Island by this errant community which decidedly ignored the nation’s laws. ♦ How convenient that this community which took on an entire family of criminal thugs as its savior at the expense of the Jamaican state, is now expecting law abiding Jamaicans like my friends and family members to foot the bill for it’s restoration. ♦ How convenient that the Government would chose to apologize to the community which told the nation they would die for Dudus and said “fuck you” to the buses which were provided to move them to safety. ♦How convenient that there is no monument, no recognition of the work of the Military and the Police who took the risks and braved the bullets so that dirt bags like Delroy Chuck can then spearhead the charge to compensate the very same people who defied the rest of the country.
No this is not justice for anyone . Jamaica is a paradise for criminals. It is a gang-land enclave run by two competing gangs of immoral sub-humans masquerading as leaders. This nation which has more Churches per square mile than any other nation on earth, should hang it’s collective head in shame. That it honors criminals, murderers, rapists , extortionists, and those who actively harbored, fed and gave aid and comfort to them without a single word of honor to the members of the security forces who battled and died, is despicable abhorrent and downright reprehensible .
This will be a stain on the history of the nation, not an absolution for wrongdoing as Chuck and his ilk would have us believe. Even dogs understand the concept that actions have consequence.
The Government is to offer an apology to residents of west Kingston over the operation by the security forces in the area in May 2010, which left dozens dead and injured and millions in damage to houses and other properties. Justice Minister Delroy Chuck yesterday told The Gleaner-Power 106 News that the apology was being crafted, adding that “in a matter of weeks, it is likely that it is to be presented to Parliament”. The apology is expected to be delivered by Prime Minister Andrew Holness. Making an apology is one of the 15 recommendations made to the Government by the commission of inquiry into the incursion. The 900-page report of the three-member panel, which was chaired by Barbadian jurist Sir David Simmons, was released to the public in June after being tabled in Parliament.
Promoting Restorative Justice
“With the deaths of 73 civilians and a soldier, the commission noted that a public apology is necessary in order to assuage the hurt feelings, bitterness, and resentment of the people of West Kingston, and, with a view to promoting restorative justice and bringing closure to this sorry chapter in Jamaica’s history,” the report stated. “We recommend that the Government of Jamaica apologise in Parliament to the people of West Kingston, and Jamaica as a whole, for the excesses of the security forces during the operation. The Government is, in the last resort, responsible for the conduct of its security forces,” the report further charged. Regarding redress, Chuck said a compensation committee is to be set up “soon” and that once that is done, he hopes that it will complete its work “in a matter of months”. A statement issued on Tuesday by the justice ministry indicated that the Cabinet committee reviewing the report of the May 2010 Commission of Inquiry is taking steps to come up with a system to implement the commission’s recommendations. Read more here :http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/lead-stories/20160915/tivoli-apology-holness-apologise-parliament-deadly-may-2010-operation
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