There is talk that despite directives given by Prime Minister elect Andrew Holness that vehicles assigned to outgoing Ministers not be sold to them, that some vehicles were indeed sold .

After the new PNP Administration took office in 2011 ‚Jamaica House respond­ed to queries sur­round­ing the pur­chase of new Sport Utility Vehicles for Ministers of Government to the tune of US$694.000 or J$60 mil­lion. According to pub­lished reports the vehi­cles pur­chased were a shade below or at the lev­el of the max­i­mum allow­able spend on gov­ern­ment vehi­cles. The max­i­mum amount allowed is US$35,000 per vehi­cle. The cheap­est vehi­cle pur­chased for new gov­ern­ment min­is­ters was a 2012 Audi for Finance Minister Dr Peter Phillips. The car cost US$32,327.96. The oth­er vehi­cles, all SUVs, were a shade under from the US$35,000 upper limit.

I am not in a posi­tion to say one way or the oth­er whether the sell-off was good pol­i­cy or whether the new admin­is­tra­tion over spent on pur­chas­ing new vehicles.

LEAVE THE KEYS ON YOUR WAY OUT AND DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU WHERE …

On the face of it there does­n’t seem to be any­thing wrong with the deci­sion to pur­chase new vehi­cles for min­is­ters of Government. Practically speak­ing the prices quot­ed seemed con­ser­v­a­tive inso­far as the cost of vehi­cles go in today’s mar­ket. Neither would I chal­lenge the deci­sion of the then Government to pur­chase Sport Utility Vehicles when the qual­i­ty of the Island’s roads and ter­rain is considered.
It would be spec­u­la­tive and prob­a­bly disin­gen­u­ous to lit­i­gate those expen­di­tures then and could eas­i­ly be brushed aside as partisan.
Government Minister should have vehi­cles as one of the tools in their tool-box­es in order to do the jobs they are asked to do.

In the same breadth it is also with­in the purview and right of the new­ly elect­ed Administration to say even though we have ben­e­fit­ed from this prac­tice in the past we are going to dis­con­tin­ue this prac­tice. In light of this it is impor­tant that if true the Jamaican peo­ple are made aware of what for­mer Ministers was allowed to pur­chase the vehi­cles, and on whose author­i­ty the sales were car­ried out?
The JLP cam­paigned on it’s core prin­ci­ples of fis­cal con­ser­vatism, good stew­ard­ship of the pub­lic’s trust under the slo­gan “from pover­ty to pros­per­i­ty”. On that basis the Prime Minister elect was with­in his right to ask that no vehi­cle be sold as was cus­tom­ary. This was par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant when the crit­i­cal state of the Island’s econ­o­my is considered.
One of the fail­ures of the pre­vi­ous Administration was it’s refusal/​inability to com­mu­ni­cate with the Jamaican people.
It is crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant that Prime Minister Holness acquit him­self and his admin­is­tra­tion of that bag­gage before it becomes his and his admin­is­tra­tion’s crit­i­cism as well.

The People’s National Party is mas­ter­ful at cre­at­ing illu­sions and smear using lies and innu­en­dos. It is impor­tant that the new Administration speak with max­i­mum clar­i­ty and due dis­patch on the true state of the Jamaican economy>
With each pass­ing day the chance that the new admin­is­tra­tion can lay blame for prob­lems left by the PNP at the feet of the PNP becomes less doable, less credible.
That is why this medi­um sug­gest­ed a quick audit of each min­istry and a a full dis­clo­sure to the peo­ple as soon as the new admin­is­tra­tion takes office.
The new Government must have an open line of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the Jamaican peo­ple, fail­ing which it must pre­pare itself to be del­uged with lies and claims that all of the fail­ures of the past admin­is­tra­tion are it’s own.
It’s not good enough to have good inten­tions and be work­ing for the com­mon good alone. It’s impor­tant that the peo­ple be made aware of the true sit­u­a­tion the new admin­is­tra­tion inherited.

There are rum­blings as well that monies avail­able to Ministries were deplet­ed rapid­ly as soon as it became clear that there would be a change in Government. We have heard no word from the new admin­is­tra­tion on whether there is any truth to these sto­ries or whether there was any­thing crim­i­nal or uneth­i­cal about this.
The JLP did a great job of com­mu­ni­cat­ing with Jamaicans at home and abroad while it was in cam­paign mode. It makes a crit­i­cal error if it fail to con­tin­ue to apprise the peo­ple of the facts now that it is in Government.
The peo­ple must feel this new admin­is­tra­tion is their admin­is­tra­tion or it won’t be long before it finds itself on the out­side look­ing in again.
The PNP is mas­ter­ful at reas­sign­ing blame for it’s incom­pe­tence and corruption.

The Constitution of the United States places into the hand of the President of the United States the responsibility to pick Supreme Court nominees . It also places the same responsibility in the Senate to advise and consent on the President’s pick. This means senators on the Judiciary committee meet with nominees have a chance to personally interview them and form an opinion on individual appointees.
The Judiciary committee is required to hold public hearings on nominees then vote in committee on said nominees . If the Nominee survives the Judiciary committee vote the full Senate then vote on that nominee.

A President of the United States is elect­ed to a four year term . His/​her duties are for the full four years, after which there is a han­dover of pow­er when a new President is inau­gu­rat­ed. The President of the United States has a respon­si­bil­i­ty to do the job and to exe­cute the man­date on which he campaigned.,
The sen­ate has a respon­si­bil­i­ty to do it’s job as well.
Much of the nar­ra­tive around Republican polit­i­cal phi­los­o­phy is it’s lip ser­vice to the Constitution.
Republican com­mit­ment to the Constitution is con­di­tion­al. Their com­mit­ment is con­tin­gent on what serves their nar­row polit­i­cal inter­ests. They lie inces­sant­ly and unashamed­ly. Republicans oper­ate as a mono­lith­ic enti­ty in their oppo­si­tion and obstruc­tion of President Obama agen­da. They also speak with the same mono­lith­ic lying tongue when it suits their interest.

It was no sur­prise that when the high­ly par­ti­san Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia died that Republicans would imme­di­ate­ly indi­cate that Senators would­n’t even meet with any replace­ment of the President, regard­less of the nom­i­nee’s qualification.
Republican par­ty offi­cials across the board imme­di­ate­ly con­coct­ed a nar­ra­tive which sug­gest­ed that the deci­sion of who replaces the big­ot­ed Scalia should be left up to voters.
The Constitution has absolute­ly no require­ment for the peo­ple to appoint Supreme Court Justices through the process of elec­tions or otherwise.
That func­tion is reserved sole­ly for the President and the Senate to advise and consent.

Ted Cruz one of the Republican Candidates run­ning for pres­i­dent was among the first to sug­gest that the peo­ple should decide who the next jus­tice is.
Cruz argues some­one an icon­ic right-wing lumi­nary as Scalia should be decid­ed on by vot­ers. Cruz who fan­cies him­self the ulti­mate author­i­ty on con­sti­tu­tion­al law knows the peo­ple does not decide on Supreme Court nom­i­nees. What he is hop­ing for is a Republican President who will pick a right-wing ide­o­logue to replace Scalia.

Ted Cruz inci­den­tal­ly men­tions the American Constitution more than any liv­ing breath­ing human being. Yet when it comes to nar­row par­ti­san pol­i­tics Cruz indis­crim­i­nate­ly and expe­di­tious­ly ditch­es the con­sti­tu­tion in favor of rad­i­cal right-wing par­ti­san ideology.
So too has Marco Rubio, Chuck Grassley who heads the Judiciary Committee, Orrin Hatch, and even Donald Trump the cir­cus clown who now seem like­ly to head that party.

On Wednesday March 16^th President Barack Obama announced in the rose Garden his deci­sion to nom­i­nate Judge Merrick Garland to be the next Justice to serve on the Supreme Court.

Garland, a grad­u­ate of Harvard Law School, is the chief judge of the D.C. cir­cuit court. He was appoint­ed by President Bill Clinton. Garland was pre­vi­ous­ly con­sid­ered for the Supreme Court seat that Justice Sonia Sotomayor was select­ed for in 2010. At the time, Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah told Reuters that Garland was “a con­sen­sus nom­i­nee” who would win Senate con­fir­ma­tion with bipar­ti­san sup­port with­out a problem.“He would be very well sup­port­ed by all sides” as a Supreme Court nom­i­nee, Hatch said in 2010, accord­ing to Reuters, “and the pres­i­dent knows that.”.

Republicans argue that a fig­ure as con­se­quen­tial (my char­ac­ter­i­za­tion) as Antonin Scalia should be replaced by a deci­sion of the vot­ers. This is a most absurd the­o­ry , to begin with Antonin Scalia was con­se­quen­tial to the right only.
Scalia rep­re­sent­ed nar­row right-wing inter­est. He val­ued cor­po­ra­tions over peo­ple, the pow­er­ful over the pow­er­less and the Oligarchical struc­ture over the rights of individuals.
What they are say­ing is that the are unwill­ing to con­sid­er the President’s pick for the court because they want to play out their hand hop­ing for a Republican Presidential win in the fall, upon which they can place anoth­er rad­i­cal right-wing ide­o­logue on the court. This kind of bla­tant politi­ciz­ing of the process cre­ates a sit­u­a­tion in which judges do leg­is­late from the bench.

What makes this stance most hyp­o­crit­i­cal is that Republicans con­sis­tent­ly squeal about judges over­step­ping their con­sti­tu­tion­al respon­si­bil­i­ty by leg­is­lat­ing from the bench. Ironically this is exact­ly what they espouse by adopt­ing this intran­si­gent obstruc­tion­ism . They are hop­ing for a Republican win in November so they can stack the Court with right-wing ide­o­logues like Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas.

They argue that Democrats have advo­cat­ed for exact­ly the same thing, con­ve­nient­ly cit­ing the abstract Biden rule. The sup­posed Biden rule emanat­ed in 1992 when then Delaware Senator Joe Biden said .…

“Were there a vacan­cy, Biden argued, Bush should “not name a nom­i­nee until after the November elec­tion is com­plet­ed,” and if he did, “the Senate Judiciary Committee should seri­ous­ly con­sid­er not sched­ul­ing con­fir­ma­tion hear­ings on the nom­i­na­tion until after the polit­i­cal cam­paign sea­son is over.” “Senate con­sid­er­a­tion of a nom­i­nee under these cir­cum­stances is not fair to the pres­i­dent, to the nom­i­nee, or to the Senate itself,” he con­tin­ued. “Where the nation should be treat­ed to a con­sid­er­a­tion of con­sti­tu­tion­al phi­los­o­phy, all it will get in such cir­cum­stances is par­ti­san bick­er­ing and polit­i­cal pos­tur­ing from both par­ties and from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.”

According to the Washington post Biden defend­ed his com­ments by say­ing he was speak­ing about a hypo­thet­i­cal (there was no court vacan­cy at the time). He was also speak­ing in June of an elec­tion year — not February — which is around the time some­thing called the Thurmond Rule has tra­di­tion­al­ly kicked in. (Though con­gres­sion­al experts say the Thurmond Rule is less an actu­al rule and more of a guide­line that both par­ties call on when polit­i­cal­ly expe­di­ent on when the Senate can shut down the judi­cial con­fir­ma­tion process.)

Whatever hap­pens vot­ers with the abil­i­ty to sift through hyper­bole and bull should hold Republicans account­able come November . Many Republican Senators , Governors and Congressional Representatives are up for re-elec­tion in November .
There are far more vot­ers who iden­ti­fy as Democrats than there are vot­ers who iden­ti­fy as Republicans. The Republican par­ty should be penal­ized for this bla­tant obstruc­tion­ism for polit­i­cal expediency.
Voters elect a President to do a job , the sen­ate is also elect­ed to it’s job, the job of the sen­ate is not to obstruct a pop­u­lar twice elect­ed president.
Insisting that the peo­ple should be allowed to deter­mine which nom­i­nee is placed on the supreme court is right in one sense.
The peo­ple spoke deci­sive­ly and unequiv­o­cal­ly when they elect­ed Barack Obama to the Presidency of the United States, not once but twice.
The peo­ple have already spoken.
Decisively !!!

Marco Rubio the son of Cuban Immigrants could have used his tal­ents and edu­ca­tion to be a cham­pi­on for dis­ad­van­taged peo­ple across America and across the Globe even.
He could have used his perch to stand for the val­ues of a coun­try which took his par­ents in and made them a suc­cess so that he could become speak­er of the Florida State House , a US Senator and Presidential candidate.
Rubio did not do that, he chose instead to take the most hawk­ish path toward the pres­i­den­cy. He advo­cat­ed for wars across the globe and a build-up of the mil­i­tary which is already vast­ly supe­ri­or to all of the oth­er top Milatary combined.
According to (Politifact​.com) In 2014, the most recent year avail­able, the United States led the world in mil­i­tary spend­ing at $610 bil­lion, mark­ing 34 per­cent of the world total, SIPRI found. U.S. expen­di­tures were near­ly three times high­er than China, the sec­ond-high­est nation with an esti­mat­ed $216 bil­lion in mil­i­tary spend­ing. Russia was in third place at $84.5 bil­lion. But count­ing togeth­er mil­i­tary spend­ing from the eight coun­tries after the United States comes out to $646.4 bil­lion, sur­pass­ing the United States’ $610. Omitting No. 9 on the list, Japan, the cal­cu­la­tion comes out to about $601 billion.

Marco Rubio nev­er missed an oppor­tu­ni­ty to tell those would lis­ten that his moth­er was a maid and his father a bartender.Yet Rubio’s every action seemed

to sug­gest he has a dis­dain for immi­grants who come to this coun­try in search of a bet­ter life for their fam­i­lies the way his par­ents did. He nev­er advo­cat­ed for immi­grants, the poor, nor the oppressed.
Marco Rubio instead paid lip-ser­vice to the work­ing class while main­tain­ing a hell-bent rapa­cious desire to attain the high­est elect­ed office tear­ing down all in his quest to do so.
In a rapa­cious pur­suit for ulti­mate pow­er Rubio nev­er both­ered to do the job he was elect­ed to do, he nev­er both­ered show­ing up to cast votes in the senate.
He was too busy seek­ing the oth­er office.
That may have been his mis­take , he had no record to run on , . Rick Santorum a peren­ni­al Presidential con­tender who dropped out of the Republican pres­i­den­tial con­test and endorsed Rubio could not name a sin­gle leg­isla­tive accom­plish­ment of Rubio .
This despite the fact that Rubio served in the Florida state house and is a sit­ting mem­ber of the United States Senate.
Marco Rubio is still a US Senator a pow­er­ful and envi­able job , he may yet have a bright future , how­ev­er as soon as Rubio got to Washington DC he start­ed run­ning for President.
Many argue that Barack Obama did the very same thing . The fact is that Barack Obama is a twice elect­ed suc­cess­ful pres­i­dent. Marco Rubio is no Barack Obama , nev­er was , nev­er will be. 

He dis­re­spect­ed the hold­er of the offi­cer he craved the most , say­ing he has no class. Marco Rubio has no idea who he is and the par­ty he chose to rep­re­sent chewed him up and spat him out ., . Now Marco Rubio invokes God after los­ing his home state of Florida. I have nev­er been more thrilled to see some­one fail as I am tonight at see­ing Marco Rubio exit the repub­li­can race.Disrespect, self­ish­ness, and arro­gance are not Godly virtues Marco Rubio they are vices.
God is always look­ing down , bye bye, Marco Rubio. Barack Obama has a lot of class.

In less than twen­ty four hours Republican pri­ma­ry vot­ers will go to the polls in sev­er­al states in a crit­i­cal Super Tuesdayshowdown: 

This is the first day that states may begin to award del­e­gates on a win­ner-take-all basis. It is also a crit­i­cal day of reck­on­ing in Florida for Marco Rubio one of that state’s US Senator and John Kasich the sit­ting Governor of Ohio. It’s also the date at which a major­i­ty (56%) of del­e­gates will have been already bound — an impor­tant mile­stone that was reached near­ly a month lat­er in 2012.

• Florida Primary (99) — Winner take all
• Illinois Primary (69) — Statewide del­e­gates are win­ner take all, con­gres­sion­al dis­trict del­e­gates elect­ed direct­ly on bal­lot and bound as they declare
• Missouri Primary (52÷49) – Winner take all above 50%, oth­er­wise win­ter take all by con­gres­sion­al district
• North Carolina Primary (72÷69) – Proportional
• Northern Mariana Islands Caucuses (9) – Winner take all
• Ohio Primary (66) –Winner take all.

John Kasich said if he los­es Ohio he would be hard pressed to con­tin­ue his long-shot cam­paign for the pres­i­den­cy. Thus far today Kasich brought out Mitt Romney the last repub­li­can to lose to pres­i­dent Barack Obama to cam­paign on his behalf. Marco Rubio won rough­ly four states and my have accu­mu­lat­ed just over a hun­dred del­e­gates still con­tin­ue to cam­paign on some myth­i­cal notion that he still has a shot at win­ning his par­ty’s nomination.
It has become clear that Tuesday March 15^th will be Marco Rubio’s Waterloo. I am par­tic­u­lar­ly pleased that Marco Rubio’s cam­paign for the pres­i­den­cy may have floun­dered and ran aground. Rubio the polit­i­cal can­di­date is a far right tool of the most stri­dent forces in this country.
Normal peo­ple should shed no tear to see the dis­in­te­gra­tion of the Rubio campaign .
If for noth­ing else this writer will be par­tic­u­lar­ly thrilled to see Marco Rabio beat­en in his home state of Florida.
This should give lit­tle Marco a real­i­ty-check and a dose of respect.
Here’s my take regard­ing lit­tle Marco . Before you assume pow­er you must learn to sub­ject your­self to power.
Before you lead you must sub­ject your­self to be led. You dis­re­spect­ed the sit­ting pres­i­dent in the most despi­ca­ble and dis-respectable man­ner and by doing so you dimin­ished the office you yearn to occupy.
On that basis you are unwor­thy to occu­py that office.

I fun­da­men­tal­ly believe the far right wing zealotry of Ted Cruz and the dis­re­spect­ful Marco Rubio are just as destruc­tive as Donald Trump’s out­right Fascism.
I have a per­son­al stake in see­ing Donald Trump con­tin­ue on as the lead­ing can­di­date for the repub­li­can party.
It opens up to the world the true nature of what that par­ty has always rep­re­sent­ed and what it rep­re­sents after almost two terms of Barack Obama’s presidency.
The Republican Party is total­ly respon­si­ble for the lev­el of hatred and uncer­tain­ty in the coun­try today.
The Republican par­ty cre­at­ed Donald Trump and it cer­tain­ly must take respon­si­bil­i­ty for the lev­el of Fascist rhetoric com­ing out of Trump’s campaign>
As pres­i­dent Obama stat­ed recent­ly , why are they shocked ?
For the entire­ty of the Obama pres­i­den­cy AM-talk radio and the FOX Television Network has been ver­i­ta­ble twen­ty-four-hour organs of the far right belt­ing out hatred against Barack Obama.

Rush Limbaugh, Ted Nugent , Laura Ingram, Glen Beck, and a pletho­ra of oth­ers get out of bed each day and use the pub­lic’s air­waves to do pre­cious lit­tle but spread hate and white suprema­cy . No one should be sur­prised that these Trump sup­port­ers, many of whose lives have nev­er been bet­ter are con­vinced their lives are in sham­bles because of Barack Obama.
Trump is the hate which hate produces.

A per­son­al tweet I sent out this week said: “Let’s be clear — and Christian: A vote for Donald Trump is a vote for racism.”

In one of the many post­mortem dis­cus­sions on Tuesday’s pri­ma­ry results, Cokie Roberts on Morning Joe said we were leav­ing race out of the ques­tions we’re ask­ing. She’s right. Donald Trump’s suc­cess isn’t just because of his enter­tain­ing flam­boy­ance, his mar­ket­ing brand, his expe­ri­enced self-pro­mo­tion, his busi­ness boast­ing, and his oth­er fab­ri­cat­ed “out­sider” iden­ti­ties that appeal to peo­ple who gen­uine­ly feel out­side of American pol­i­tics and life. At its core, Donald Trump’s cam­paign is about race — which is why this is about far more than pol­i­tics and par­ti­san­ship for many of us reli­gious lead­ers. When Roberts asked Trump if he was proud of the grow­ing reports about white school­child­ren ver­bal­ly attack­ing stu­dents of col­or and telling them they will soon have a wall built against them to keep them out of America, Trump react­ed by say­ing it was a “nasty” ques­tion. No, it was one of the few good ques­tions from jour­nal­ists that morning.

Donald Trump is the race can­di­date, pro­ject­ing white nation­al­ism and xeno­pho­bia, appeal­ing to fear and resent­ment, and always blam­ing peo­ple of oth­er races for the prob­lems of low-income white peo­ple. There is a long his­to­ry of that in the United States, recent­ly exem­pli­fied again by the KKK and oth­er white suprema­cists com­ing into the elec­toral con­ver­sa­tion and Trump’s unwill­ing­ness to be quick and clear about his rejec­tion of racial politics.

The pun­dits say work­ing class Republicans are in revolt against the Republican estab­lish­ment, which makes sense as those elites are ones who have sup­port­ed and ben­e­fit­ted from rigged mar­ket forces and glob­al­iza­tion that have turned all our eco­nom­ic rewards to the top 1 per­cent while aban­don­ing work­ing and mid­dle class peo­ple. Bernie Sanders is get­ting many of those angry white votes, too, in the Democratic pri­maries. But Sanders does­n’t blame “the oth­ers” as Trump does; he instead focus­es on the rich­est insti­tu­tions and peo­ple in America who have man­aged all this — the same ones Trump loves to brag about being part of with his osten­ta­tious lifestyle. (How many press con­fer­ences have you seen with the can­di­date’s expen­sive wines and steaks on dis­play while he proud­ly lists all of his prop­er­ties? Is this real­ly hap­pen­ing in America?) There is also a long his­to­ry of unit­ing work­ing peo­ple from all races against the forces that would both ignore and divide them. One kind of pop­ulism tries to divide those who have been mar­gin­al­ized; the oth­er kind tries to bring them together.

Donald Trump is clear­ly appeal­ing to our worst instincts, as many have said, but let’s be more clear: Donald Trump is appeal­ing to the worst instincts of white peo­ple, and American his­to­ry has shown how ugly and vio­lent those white instincts can be. He is right when he claims to be bring­ing out peo­ple that have nev­er vot­ed before — but he leaves out that those new vot­ers are angry white people.

At the same time we’re adding them to our vot­ing rolls, there are active polit­i­cal forces direct­ly engaged in try­ing to block and dimin­ish the turnout of black, Hispanic, Asian, and Muslim vot­ers. They’re doing so in four ways.

First, as Michelle Alexander explains in The New Jim Crow, polit­i­cal strate­gies now con­nect the delib­er­ate mass incar­cer­a­tion of black and brown men and women with the sub­se­quent and pur­pose­ful polit­i­cal dis­en­fran­chise­ment of those mil­lions of peo­ple of col­or when they return to society.

Second, delib­er­ate ger­ry­man­der­ing and mis­shap­ing of vot­ing dis­tricts cre­ates and pro­tects white vot­ing blocs and puts minori­ties togeth­er so as to not chal­lenge those white major­i­ty blocs. After sweep­ing vic­to­ries in 2010, new­ly elect­ed Republicans in state leg­is­la­tures and gov­er­nors’ man­sions across the coun­try took full advan­tage of Census-based redis­trict­ing to ger­ry­man­der in favor of white conservatives.

Third, the pas­sage of a slew of new vot­ing rules and reg­u­la­tions enact­ed since 2010 are again delib­er­ate attempts to reduce the votes of minori­ties and young peo­ple in what Rev. William Barber calls “the sec­ond career of ‘James Crow, Esq.’ ” In oth­er words, after the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of the 1960s dis­man­tled the overt Jim Crow laws that enforced seg­re­ga­tion and denied African Americans many basic rights, Jim Crow went to law school, became the more respectable “James Crow, Esq.,” and devised more sophis­ti­cat­ed and insid­i­ous ways to dis­en­fran­chise peo­ple of col­or. The his­toric elec­tion of 2008 brought an unprece­dent­ed num­ber of young peo­ple and peo­ple of col­or to the polls. The white con­ser­v­a­tive back­lash came in the 2010 mid-term elec­tions. As Myrna Pérezexplains in Sojourners magazine:

Since the 2010 elec­tion, 21 states have insti­tut­ed new vot­ing restric­tions – the biggest roll­back of the right to vote since the Jim Crow era. This year will be the first pres­i­den­tial elec­tion with many of these new bar­ri­ers in place, from requir­ing pho­to iden­ti­fi­ca­tion (which mil­lions of Americans do not have) to cur­tail­ing ear­ly vot­ing (which many cit­i­zens depend on to cast their bal­lots). On top of this, vot­ers will go to the polls in November with the fewest fed­er­al pro­tec­tions against racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in half a cen­tu­ry, due to a 2013 Supreme Court deci­sion gut­ting a key pro­vi­sion of the Voting Rights Act.

Fourth, there are efforts to bring new white vot­ers to the polls who are angry and resent­ful of America’s grow­ing racial diver­si­ty — basi­cal­ly, Trump’s constituency.

Sojourners has just released an impor­tant new video detail­ing some of these efforts at vot­er sup­pres­sion across the coun­try, and also lifts up some pos­i­tive efforts to expand access to vot­ing in some states. I encour­age you to watch this video to get an even bet­ter sense of what is at stake for our democ­ra­cy this year. Then share it with oth­ers. So here is an elec­tion strat­e­gy for peo­ple of faith from all races, for peo­ple of moral con­science in both par­ties who are against racist poli­cies and prac­tices, for every­one who believes that every American should have the right and great­est oppor­tu­ni­ty to vote, and for those who believe that access is absolute­ly essen­tial to the future of our democ­ra­cy. This should be a moral issue, not a par­ti­san one.

It is time for a new and pow­er­ful alliance between the faith com­mu­ni­ty, white vot­ers against racism, and democ­ra­cy advo­cates of all polit­i­cal stripes to unite togeth­er to reg­is­ter as many racial minori­ties and young peo­ple as pos­si­ble to vote — with the best efforts being led by lead­ers and orga­ni­za­tions of col­or — and then to mobi­lize the best pos­si­ble access to vot­ing on Election Day for every­one. Perhaps it’s time for cler­gy to show up on Election Day in polling places to help sup­port and secure the votes of those minor­i­ty vot­ers who are under attack. These are some moral march­ing orders for elec­tion 2016. We have about 8 months to do them.
Jim Wallis is pres­i­dent of Sojourners. His book, America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America, is avail­able now.
4 Ways White Political Forces Steal Elections and How We Can Stop It

Parliament resumed the business of the Jamaican people on Thursday . In the house of representatives the two parties switched sides with the Labor party assuming the role of the Government while the People’s National Party assumed the role of the opposition.

I am par­tic­u­lar­ly thrilled at the state­ments com­ing out of both sides of the polit­i­cal divide.
On the elec­tion of Barack Obama to the Presidency in 2008 MSNBC ‘s Political anchor Chris Matthews said on air that he felt a thrill up his legs at the elec­tion of the first African-American President.
I can­not lie about feel­ing a thrill up my leg. I actu­al­ly don’t, but I’m damn proud of the two polit­i­cal lead­ers right now , if only for now..

For his part the new­ly elect­ed Prime Minister Andrew Holness struck the cor­rect tone when he pre­sent­ed him­self as a hum­ble ser­vant of the people.
Prime Minister Andrew Holness called on mem­bers of Parliament to recom­mit them­selves to uphold­ing the high­est stan­dards of con­duct in the House.
.“Mr Speaker, some­times we for­get that we are on con­stant dis­play,” Holness said. “Accept it or not, we are looked upon and expect­ed to be role mod­els and exam­ples of good pub­lic con­duct. “Every mem­ber of this Parliament must recom­mit them­selves to uphold the high­est stan­dards of con­duct in the House,” he con­tin­ued. “We can be force­ful with­out being offen­sive, we can be inci­sive, with­out being insulting.”.

When was the last time we heard this refresh­ing rhetoric com­ing from Jamaican politi­cians? In the inter­est of trans­paren­cy this medi­um and this writer lob­bied hard for a Labor gov­ern­ment in Jamaica, not because I loathe the PNP but because I want whats best for our country.
I believe the PNP has a tremen­dous role to play in our Nation’s devel­op­ment . It has made tremen­dous con­tri­bu­tions yet it has made huge mis­takes as well.
At this time I fun­da­men­tal­ly believe the PNP need to re-tool in the inter­est of our country.
However not to be out­done the Leader of the Opposition PNP Portia Simpson Miller struck an equal­ly pos­i­tive tone. In her address to the Parliament Mrs Simpson Miller said ” “As the Opposition, we have a con­sti­tu­tion­al duty to scru­ti­nize the Government on behalf of the peo­ple,” Simpson Miller said dur­ing her address in Parliament. “We will not fail in per­form­ing that duty. We will be strong; we will be vig­i­lant; we will be firm.”

“We com­mit to being a vibrant Opposition, hold­ing the Government account­able at all times,” she said. “However, we will do so in a man­ner that con­tributes to the build­ing of Jamaica.”
She explained that Jamaica can­not be built by the Government alone, or by the Opposition alone. Instead, “Jamaica must be built by us work­ing togeth­er”. “We all have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to oper­ate at the high­est stan­dards of decen­cy, deco­rum and integri­ty, that is the com­mit­ment of the Opposition.”

In the inter­est of our coun­try I am thrilled at the state­ments of the two leaders,the boor­ish and class-less behav­ior of some par­ty faith­fuls out­side the pre­scient of the house should in no way damp­en our spir­its or make us cyn­i­cal . Instead we should be heart­ened that at least for now the heads of both polit­i­cal par­ties have struck the right chord in the inter­est of our country.
We can only hope that this kind of bi-par­ti­san good­will will con­tin­ue and not mere­ly be a 9‑day wonder.
If our lead­ers lead the peo­ple have no choice but to follow.
I still believe our coun­try’s best days are ahead of her.

KINGSTON, Jamaica — While pre­sent­ing him­self as a “hum­ble ser­vant” of the peo­ple, Prime Minister Andrew Holness called on mem­bers of Parliament to recom­mit them­selves to uphold the high­est stan­dards of con­duct in the House. Prime Minister Holness was address­ing Parliament as it recon­vened today with the swear­ing in of sen­a­tors and mem­bers of the Parliament.“Mr Speaker, some­times we for­get that we are on con­stant dis­play,” Holness said. “Accept it or not, we are looked upon and expect­ed to be role mod­els and exam­ples of good pub­lic con­duct. “Every mem­ber of this Parliament must recom­mit them­selves to uphold the high­est stan­dards of con­duct in the House,” he con­tin­ued. “We can be force­ful with­out being offen­sive, we can be inci­sive, with­out being insulting.”
Over the years, rep­re­sen­ta­tives on both sides of the aisle have clashed and dis­played less than appro­pri­ate behav­iour. Prime Minister Holness also remind­ed the Parliamentarians that they are to serve the peo­ple of Jamaica. “The 63 of us elect­ed to this Parliament on 25^th (of) February offered our­selves to our respec­tive con­stituents on Nomination Day. We pre­sent­ed our­selves to them and pledged to serve them,” Holness said. He said the fact that they were being sworn in today is a sig­nal of the people’s con­fi­dence in them as well as the “awe­some respon­si­bil­i­ties” they have entrust­ed them with. “In cam­paign­ing, we crossed bridges, nego­ti­at­ed pud­dles of water, tra­versed steep inclines, and nav­i­gat­ed hilly and rocky ter­rain to meet them and solic­it their sup­port,” he charged. “We are here to serve them, and not the oth­er way around. “We are their ser­vants, not their boss­es,” he con­tin­ued. “We must not let them down.” Holness remind­ed the Parliamentarians that they are account­able to the peo­ple and they must endeav­or to be acces­si­ble to them. “Good rep­re­sen­ta­tion makes bet­ter com­mu­ni­ties. Better com­mu­ni­ties make bet­ter con­stituen­cies. And bet­ter con­stituen­cies make a bet­ter Jamaica,” the prime min­is­ter said.

Simpson Miller promises ‘vibrant’ Opposition.

KINGSTON, Jamaica — Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller today pledged to work with the Government to build Jamaica. “As the Opposition, we have a con­sti­tu­tion­al duty to scru­ti­nise the Government on behalf of the peo­ple,” Simpson Miller said dur­ing her address in Parliament. “We will not fail in per­form­ing that duty. We will be strong; we will be vig­i­lant; we will be firm.” The Opposition leader also said her team will pro­vide “con­struc­tive crit­i­cisms”. “We com­mit to being a vibrant Opposition, hold­ing the Government accon­table at all times,” she said. “However, we will do so in a man­ner that con­tributes to the build­ing of Jamaica.”
She explained that Jamaica can­not be built by the Government alone, or by the Opposition alone. Instead, Jamaica “must be built by us work­ing togeth­er”. “We all have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to oper­ate at the high­est stan­dards of decen­cy, deco­rum and integri­ty, that is the com­mit­ment of the Opposition.” In her address, Simpson Miller jok­ing­ly warned the Government not to get com­fort­able on the side of the aisle that they now sit. After con­grat­u­lat­ing Prime Minister Andrew Holness and his team on their vic­to­ry in the February 25 General Election, Simpson Miller said: “… Let me advise my friend, and all the mem­bers over there, do not get very com­fort­able on that side. “I know that they are usu­al­ly more com­fort­able on this side.” Members of Parliament and sen­a­tors were today sworn in at Gordon House as Parliament recon­vened. http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​S​i​m​p​s​o​n​-​M​i​l​l​e​r​-​p​r​o​m​i​ses – vibrant – Opposition

He would have been the most radical nominee in GOP history.

or the past few months, the fate of the repub­lic, or at least of the Republican Party, has seemed to hang on Marco Rubio. Even now, despite all the evi­dence to the con­trary, that remains the des­per­ate view of a swath of the party’s emi­nences gris­es and bil­lion­aire bene­fac­tors. They still imag­ine them­selves, and their can­di­date, as the noble pro­tag­o­nists in a twi­light strug­gle against the forces of pro­to-fas­cism and yoke­lism. Only by spend­ing wild­ly and forc­ing the nom­i­nat­ing process into the back­rooms of a bro­kered con­ven­tion can they save their par­ty from a descent into unprocessed insanity.

Marco Rubio’s whole career had been build­ing to this moment. He was long viewed as the party’s sal­va­tion — or as the cliché goes, he’s the Republican Obama. On paper, he made for a com­pelling mes­si­ah: demo­graph­i­cal­ly use­ful, sal­able to the ultras yet charis­mat­ic enough for a gen­er­al, and, on top of every­thing else, intel­lec­tu­al­ly adept. Of course, that élite faith in Rubio now seems com­i­cal­ly mis­guid­ed. He looked both puerile and inef­fec­tu­al — like Little Marco, actu­al­ly — in his flail­ing efforts to take down the bully.

Despite his sheen, there’s noth­ing remote­ly mod­er­ate about Rubio.
Donald Trump’s hos­tile takeover of the par­ty is a pret­ty fair sum­ma­tion of the recent his­to­ry of the Republicans, the vol­canic explo­sion of all the nasty sen­ti­ments that the par­ty nur­tured over the decades. But it’s also telling that Marco Rubio came to rep­re­sent the establishment’s idea of san­i­ty. Despite his sheen, there’s noth­ing remote­ly mod­er­ate about Rubio. It would be a mis­take to think of him as a denizen of the cen­ter-right. His agen­da, both domes­tic and for­eign, is at least as right wing as Ted Cruz’s pro­gram, if not more. His vision lacks much of Donald Trump’s overt cru­el­ty, but in its own way it would ter­ri­fy­ing­ly remake American gov­ern­ment. As the estab­lish­ment mounts a final, doomed effort to prop up the Rubio cam­paign, it’s worth exam­in­ing the object of their devo­tion and what he reveals about his back­ers. Rubio would have eas­i­ly been the most rad­i­cal nom­i­nee in Republican Party his­to­ry. Where John McCain and Mitt Romney faked some of their severe­ly con­ser­v­a­tive cam­paign for­ays, Marco Rubio is a true believ­er. He became the face of an estab­lish­ment that has drift­ed so far to the right that it might nev­er return.

“No one’s going to force me to stop talk­ing about God.”

Marco Rubio felt like he had caved to the forces of polit­i­cal cor­rect­ness. During his long tenure as speak­er of the Florida House, he bit his tongue and betrayed his heart. But on his way out the door, he was deter­mined to speak out. “It had tak­en me too long,” he lat­er wrote in his mem­oir, An American Son. For his vale­dic­to­ry address in the fall of 2008, he would turn the daïs into a pul­pit and deliv­er the ser­mon he regret­ted nev­er preach­ing. “God is real,” he declared, “God is real. I don’t care what courts across this coun­try say, I don’t care what laws we pass — God is real.”

The address cul­mi­nat­ed in a rous­ing per­ora­tion about the nec­es­sary pres­ence of reli­gion in the pub­lic sphere. “God doesn’t care about the Supreme Court of Florida,” he said. “He cares about them. But he doesn’t care about their rul­ings. And he doesn’t care about the Supreme Court of the United States. You can’t keep him out.”

The speech wasn’t a stray mus­ing. Earlier that year, Rubio went to work on behalf of Mike Huckabee’s pres­i­den­tial cam­paign — hard­ly the expe­di­ent choice for a career-mind­ed politi­cian from South Florida. (Jeb Bush, by con­trast, had endorsed Mitt Romney.) Huckabee was an evan­gel­i­cal preach­er who tout­ed him­self as a “Christian Leader” with a “bib­li­cal world­view.” A YouTube clip shows a boy­ish Rubio lead­ing a group of plac­ard wav­ing vol­un­teers on a New Hampshire street cor­ner. “Quite frankly this has become more like a move­ment,” he tells the cam­era. Two years lat­er, the very same home-school­ers who formed the back­bone of the Huckabee cam­paign pro­vid­ed the ear­li­est foot sol­diers for Rubio’s 2010 Senate bid.

Rubio’s reli­gious life has been unfair­ly tagged as evi­dence of his desire to please every­one. It’s true that he’s hard­ly chart­ed a lin­ear path to church. As a child in Las Vegas, he enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly immersed him­self in Mormonism — read­ing canon­i­cal texts, vis­it­ing the holy sites in neigh­bor­ing Utah, and becom­ing a fan­boy of the Osmonds. Back in Florida, he urged his fam­i­ly to return to Catholicism with the same con­vic­tion. “Football and reli­gion. Those were his things,” his cousin Michelle told Rubio’s biog­ra­ph­er, Manuel Roig-Franzia.

In recent years, he’s dialed up his devo­tion, while still leav­ing his doubters with the impres­sion he’s hedg­ing his bets. “I have come home to Rome,” he has said. “One of the great trea­sures of the Catholic faith is the abil­i­ty to go to Mass every­day.” Its a rit­u­al he has per­formed with that pre­cise reg­u­lar­i­ty for long stretch­es of his adult life. He sub­scribes to Magnificat, a mag­a­zine that sup­plies him with dai­ly med­i­ta­tion. And he has boast­ed about his use of con­tra­cep­tion, or lack there­of: “I can tell you that none of my chil­dren were planned.”

But while Rome is home, he’s main­tained a week­end cot­tage in the Southern Baptist Church. On Saturdays he takes com­mu­nion; on Sunday he attends Christ Fellowship, his wife Jeanette’s church of choice. The deci­sion might be the­o­log­i­cal­ly tricky to jus­ti­fy, but Rubio explains it like this: “I don’t think you can go to church too often or spend too much time in fel­low­ship with oth­er Christians, what­ev­er denom­i­na­tion they confess.”

In his telling, Rubio is a par­tic­u­lar­ly recep­tive pil­grim. He seems to be always receiv­ing mes­sages from the Lord — they appear reg­u­lar­ly in his self-effac­ing mem­oir. A job offer comes his way, just as he’s on his knees pray­ing for God’s help. In the ear­ly flail­ing days of his Senate cam­paign, he dis­cerns signs from God that urge him for­ward. “I felt as if God were send­ing me a mes­sage.” He hears that mes­sage in the singing of 3‑year-olds and sees it on a key­chain he serendip­i­tous­ly finds on a table. It con­tains a lam­i­nat­ed verse from the book of Joshua: “I’ve com­mand­ed you to be brave and strong, haven’t I? Don’t be alarmed or ter­ri­fied, because the Lord your God is with you wher­ev­er you go.”

We’re accus­tomed to Republican nom­i­nees mouthing the slo­gans of the cul­ture war, with­out ful­ly believ­ing them or soft-ped­al­ing them with an eye toward the November elec­torate. When George W. Bush ran his evan­gel­i­cal friend­ly cam­paign, he told his sto­ry of spir­i­tu­al con­ver­sion and spoke in the rhetoric of uplift, rather than dwell on the prospects of social apoc­a­lypse. Rubio, by con­trast, is a hap­py cul­ture war­rior, or per­haps a glum one. “Without faith at the core of our soci­ety, you fall into an era of moral rel­a­tivism,” he told the Center for Arizona Policy, a group that sup­ports con­ver­sion ther­a­py for gay kids. When asked about the Obergefell deci­sion enshrin­ing gay mar­riage, he told the Christian Broadcasting Network: “We are clear­ly called in the Bible to adhere to our civ­il author­i­ties. But that con­flicts with also our require­ment to adhere to God’s rules. So when those two come in con­flict, God’s rules always win.” Read more here :The Not-Sad Demise of Marco Rubio

Sen. Marco Rubio (R‑Fla.), who was once called “THE REPUBLICAN SAVIOR” on the cov­er of Time mag­a­zine, lost big Tuesday night.

Rubio’s been los­ing for a while. Even before Tuesday’s results, Rubio had less than half of the del­e­gates that the num­ber-crunch­ers at FiveThirtyEight said he would need to be “on track” for the Republican nom­i­na­tion. But Tuesday night, when he lost bad­ly in Michigan, Mississippi, Idaho and Hawaii, made clear that he’s a dead man walk­ing. Rubio fin­ished fourth in both Michigan and Mississippi, behind Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz (R‑Texas) and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. He was third in Idaho and Hawaii but did­n’t secure any del­e­gates from those states either.

After Tuesday, Trump has more than a third of the del­e­gates he needs to secure the nom­i­na­tion. Unless Trump or Cruz ascends direct­ly into heav­en in the next week or so, Rubio, who received more endorse­ments from more impor­tant par­ty lead­ers than any­one remain­ing in the GOP pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry, has no real­is­tic path to win­ning a major­i­ty of the del­e­gates before the Republican nation­al con­ven­tion in July. At this point, his best hope for the pres­i­den­cy is a bro­kered con­ven­tion, in which he and anoth­er los­er — prob­a­bly Cruz — have enough del­e­gates com­bined to sur­pass Trump. Even then, Rubio would like­ly have few­er del­e­gates than who­ev­er he made the deal with, and would prob­a­bly have to accept the vice-pres­i­den­tial spot on the ticket.

Rubio’s defeat was total in Tuesday’s Republican con­tests in Mississippi, Michigan, Idaho and Hawaii. Donald Trump won Mississippi ear­ly in the night, fin­ish­ing ahead of Rubio for the 19^th time in 21 tries this pri­ma­ry sea­son. Trump also won Michigan and Hawaii. Cruz won Idaho. But it was the nature of Tuesday night’s loss­es that real­ly hurt Rubio. He won less than 10 per­cent of the vote in both Mississippi and Michigan, sig­nif­i­cant­ly less than he was show­ing in pub­lic polls just a few weeks ago. That sug­gests a col­lapse in his sup­port. And in the cru­cial con­test for del­e­gates, he got shut out in the two biggest states: He end­ed up with zero of Mississippi’s 40 del­e­gates and Michigan’s 59. Rubio has long been count­ing on a win in his home state pri­ma­ry in Florida next Tuesday. But even if he wins Florida, which awards all of its del­e­gates to the win­ner in the state, he’ll only pick up as many del­e­gates as he was shut out of in Mississippi and Michigan: 99. “I believe with all my heart that the win­ner of the Florida pri­ma­ry next Tuesday will be the nom­i­nee of the Republican Party,” Rubio said Tuesday night.

He may think it’ll be him. But Rubio’s not lead­ing in polls of the Sunshine State. Trump is. Read more here: Rubio Lost Big. He Has No Realistic Path To Winning Before The GOP Convention.

“So Jamaica save $2 million Ja Dollars a month due to smaller cabinet ‚impact zilch”.

I thought that the new gen­er­a­tion of PNP sup­port­ers were smarter than the old crus­taceans which have dom­i­nat­ed that polit­i­cal par­ty for decades.

I even liked Damion Crawford’s insis­tence that he was opposed to “cur­ry goat pol­i­tics” when he argued he was more inter­est­ed in edu­ca­tion and upward mobil­i­ty of the youth.
Notwithstanding the People’s National Party del­e­gates removed Crawford as a can­di­date for the con­stituen­cy of Saint Andrew East Rural. At the time many includ­ing this writer opined that the PNP del­e­gates were out of step with real­i­ty in remov­ing Crawford as their rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Gordon House.

I take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to apol­o­gize to those del­e­gates for sid­ing with Damion Crawford on that occa­sion. Even if Crawford was removed as the rep­re­sen­ta­tive because he would not play cur­ry goat pol­i­tics, Crawford has since demon­strat­ed that he is unwor­thy of my sym­pa­thy or support.
“Coack-roach nu bizniz inna fowl fite”.

I assume the kum­reds in Saint Andrew East Rural know more about their one time Member of Parliament than I do. In all fair­ness this was not the only dumb thing Crawford has done , he once referred to mem­bers of the Opposition par­ty as “dut­ty laborites” . I for­gave Crawford for that bit of indis­cre­tion also, it was nor­mal thing for Kumreds to do , in fact Peter Bunting called laborites “Jankro”, and Bobby Pickersgill asked a mem­ber of a Portmore com­mu­ni­ty whether he was see­ing his peri­od why him chat su? So the young Damion had plen­ty of PNP role mod­els to emulate.

Any Economic Recovery Must Begin With Suffocating The Crime Monster…

Two mil­lion in sav­ings per month from a small­er cab­i­net trans­late into 24 mil­lion per year. At that rate the peo­ple of Jamaica will have real­ized a sav­ings of J$120 mil­lion over a five year term. One hun­dred a twen­ty mil­lion dol­lars from tight­en­ing the reins of Government spend­ing on the cab­i­net alone.

Imagine the sav­ings which can be real­ized when each min­is­ter goes through his/​her min­istry with a scalpel and do an audit to see where waste, dupli­ca­tion , over-runs and oth­er dol­lar-loss are occur­ring as this medi­um has suggested.
Unfortunately Damion Crawford’s tweet though incon­se­quen­tial in the greater scheme of things , reveal a mind­set which has plagued the People’s National Party’s abil­i­ty to be good stew­ards of the pub­lic trust.
Whether the excess stem from huge cab­i­nets, expen­sive SUV’s , lav­ish spend­ing spree in for­eign trav­els by the Prime Minister, or it is in cost-over-runs in the con­tracts process , or as small as a junior par­lia­men­tar­i­an abuse of a gov­ern­ment cell­phone, the mind­set is the same.
Their atti­tude when it comes to the pub­lic’s mon­ey is, lets spend as much of it as possible.

The prob­lem for Crawford and the PNP is that they nev­er grasped the con­cept of fru­gal Governance, .Government has always been a pri­vate kit­ty to be tak­en advan­tage of.
Being in pow­er was a means of lord­ing not lead­ing. Power meant being served not serving.
It will take a suc­cess­ful Holness led term for the nation on a whole to rec­og­nize that Government is there to serve them but not by hand­ing out freebies.
Now lets hope the new Administration can find mil­lions more which may be used to pro­vide health-care, edu­ca­tion and secur­ing the nation.

Donald Trump labeled Marco Rubio a light­weight tech­ni­call, Marco Rubio is worse than a light­weight . Marco Rubio is a polit­i­cal oppor­tunist who should nev­er be elect­ed President of a stu­dent body much less the United States of America.
Maco Rubio com­mit­ted the unfor­giv­able sin for this writer when he said “Barack Obama has no class”. One can dis­agree with the oth­er’s pol­i­tics but to defame and demean some­one who has demon­strat­ed impec­ca­ble class in the face of mas­sive intran­si­gence and obstruc­tion is reprehensible.

Speaking to Fox and friends hate ped­dlers in July of 2015 the lit­tle Cuban said “I mean, we have a pres­i­dent now that you know, does self­ie stick videos, that invites YouTube stars there, peo­ple that, you know, eat cere­al out of a bath­tub,” . “You just saw the inter­view he did right now, where he goes on com­e­dy shows to talk about some­thing as seri­ous as Iran. The list goes on and on.”

Barack Obama thus far is the only President to have a scan­dal-free Administration since Jimmy Carter. Marco Rubio the son of ille­gal Cuban Immigrants has turned out to be like a rabid mon­grel against immi­grants. Here’s to kick­ing away the lad­der after you have climbed up lit­tle Marco, as per Donald Trump.
I mean at least with Donald Trump you know you are get­ting a mon­u­men­tal jerk. Trump makes no bones about the fact that he is a major league moron, Rubio on the oth­er hand is a bel­liger­ent lit­tle Obama wannabe who will do and say any­thing to get to where he wants to. That include throw­ing his par­en­t’s peers under the bus.

On Thursday March 3^rd, in the Republican debates Marco Rubio once again showed that he is real­ly less than a low-life he is a com­mon punk. Responding to ques­tions sur­round­ing the death and ill­ness of Flint Residents as a result of Lead taint­ed water Rubio did not place the blame where the blame belonged.
Instead Rubio dis­re­spect­ed those res­i­dents on top of the hurt they are still suffering.

“I give the gov­er­nor cred­it, “He took respon­si­bil­i­ty for what hap­pened and he’s talked about being held respon­si­ble for it.” 
“This should not be a par­ti­san issue,” Rubio said. “The way the Democrats have tried to turn this into a par­ti­san issue – that some­how Republicans woke up in the morn­ing and decid­ed oh, it’s a good time to poi­son some kids with lead. It’s absurd. It’s outrageous. “

No one should be sur­prised by any­thing Little Marco Rubio has to say. Rubio the off­spring of ille­gal immi­grants turned his back on immi­gra­tion the fuel behind America’s pow­er and growth. He is not just a an ene­my of immi­grants he is an immense­ly dis­re­spect­ful lit­tle guy who has no regard for whom he dis­re­spects in his quest for power.
The nar­ra­tive is that Trump is Crass. Cruz is Narrow, and Rubio is shallow.
There is noth­ing about Rubio ‚he is a shal­low emp­ty suit.

The post election post-mortem has begun in earnest after the shocking loss of the People’s National Party on February 25^th 2016.
Please allow me to qualify my statement here, shocking for PNP supporters and others who have a sense that Jamaica belong to the PNP, not the Jamaican people.
Without the benefit of credible non-deceptive polls and not being on the ground in Jamaica I ventured into suggesting that the PNP would lose the election based on a series of mis-steps the Administration and Party took, not the least of which is it’s arrogance in not participating in debates and Mrs Simpson Miller’s refusal to speak to the press.

Paul Burke,the People’s National Party (PNP) gen­er­al sec­re­tary urged Comrades to blame him if they are des­per­ate to point fin­gers at any­one for the par­ty’s loss in the recent gen­er­al elec­tion. “As I accept final respon­si­bil­i­ty for the organ­i­sa­tion of the PNP … if it makes some hap­py, I am also will­ing to take full and com­plete respon­si­bil­i­ty,”.
As he should.
It’s com­mend­able that Burke is will­ing to accept blame but he is not sole­ly to blame for the Party’s loss. There is no sin­gle thing which caused the loss in my opin­ion, it was a drip, drip, drip which may be summed up with one word Arrogance!

Former Prime Minister Bruce Golding com­ment­ed this was the worst run PNP cam­paign he had ever seen.
“I have watched PNP cam­paigns since 1972 when I ran my first elec­tion,” Golding told Observer reporters and edi­tors. “As a polit­i­cal prac­ti­tion­er I always found the PNP to be effec­tive, some­times awe­some in exe­cut­ing a cam­paign. This one was the worst one I’ve ever seen.”

Former prime Minister Golding should know he and his par­ty has seen the effec­tive­ness of the PNP’s mobi­liz­ing machine. He has been on the wrong end of that machin­ery. So any exhuma­tion and poten­tial autop­sy must be geared at fig­ur­ing out how such an effi­cient mobi­liz­ing machine could have got­ten it so wrong?
I will leave the dis­sect­ing of the polit­i­cal corpse to those who fan­cy them­selves experts. I have spent a life­time read­ing and lis­ten­ing to their grandiose prog­nos­ti­ca­tion and grand­stand­ing which has no appeal to any­one out­side their mar­gin­al self cre­at­ed bubble.
Having spent my life close to the streets I trust what I see and hear from the peo­ple over the pen­ny mil­lion­aires above Cross-Roads.
WHAT IS THE JLP’S PATH TO VICTORY ?

Someone com­ment­ed in anoth­er medi­um that the JLP’s vic­to­ry was a mar­gin­al one con­sid­er­ing that thus far there is only a one seat major­i­ty favor­ing the JLP.
These are they who have shaped per­cep­tions and the direc­tion of the debate before the rise of social media and pri­vate blogs. Now more peo­ple get their infor­ma­tion from Blogs and social media plat­forms than they do tra­di­tion­al media sources.
No

longer does the self appoint­ed elites shape the total­i­ty of the nar­ra­tive. The peo­ple decide what the nar­ra­tive should be and this the People’s National Party failed to rec­og­nize. This was the par­ty’s down­fall, the par­ty failed to appre­ci­ate the pow­er of peo­ple to peo­ple inter­ac­tions on per­son­al lev­els via social mediums.

The truth is that both polit­i­cal par­ties have zones of polit­i­cal exclusions,(garrisons). Garrisons were cre­at­ed when the par­ty in pow­er used pub­lic funds to pur­chase large blocks of vot­ers whom they placed into spe­cif­ic con­stituen­cies. These vot­ers become mono­lith­ic vot­ers, or slaves to the par­ty which placed then there.
The PNP has been bet­ter at win­ning elec­tions so it has the larg­er amount of garrisons.
From all indi­ca­tion the PNP has a net 20 seats (gar­risons) which are not in play come elec­tion time, esti­mates for the JLP range some­where between 6 – 9 gar­ri­son constituencies.
It is against that back­ground that the JLP’s win must be con­sid­ered. Moving from 21 seats to a 32 seat plu­ral­i­ty is remark­able in the 63 seat leg­is­la­ture, con­sid­er­ing the fact that the gar­risons are nev­er in play.Winning 11 or poten­tial­ly 12 seats with­out los­ing a sin­gle seat in that cli­mate is a mon­u­men­tal swing of vot­er sentiment.
HOW DOES THE JLP OVERCOME THE DEFICIT

(1) Hopefully the PNP will use this loss as a peri­od of intro­spec­tion and humil­i­ty even as the JLP use it’s turn at the tiller judi­cious­ly and devoid of arrogance.
When Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller insist­ed she would not talk her way out of office in rela­tion­ship to Bruce Golding’s Jamaica House call in radio show, she dis­played a style of arro­gance the peo­ple were not pre­pared to forgive.
(2) When the Prime Minister refused to speak to the coun­try regard­ing the TRAFIGURA débâ­cle telling reporters “go ask the PNP”, it was arro­gance beyond rea­son, she is the PNP.
(3) When the Prime Minister refused to com­plete and release the FINSAC report she indi­cat­ed her and the PNP was above the laws.
(4) When the Prime Minister com­mit­ted tens of mil­lions of tax-pay­ers funds to a nev­er end­ing Tivoli inquiry it was base pol­i­tics and peo­ple took notice.
(5) When the Prime Minister spent a great deal of time on for­eign jun­kets with large con­tin­gent of advis­ers and min­is­ters while peo­ple can­not afford food the peo­ple noticed.

HOLNESS’S HOUSE A PRODUCT OF ENVY MANLEY SOWED…..
(6) When the Prime Minister crit­i­cized Bruce Golding’s cab­i­net then in turn appoint­ed a larg­er one it was hypocrisy.
(7) When the Prime Minister appoint­ed legions of advis­ers and hang­ers on to her office and the offices of the entire exec­u­tive to the tune of hun­dreds of mil­lion while pub­lic sec­tor work­ers suf­fered through wage freeze and infla­tion it was monarchistic.
(8)When the Prime Minister was seen as miss­ing in office that did not bode well for her and her party.
(9) When the entire PNP oppo­si­tion refused to take pay cuts as sug­gest­ed by Bruce Golding , Portia and the PNP’s argu­ments about “lov­ing the poor” was hol­low and Patronizing.

MANLEY’S SON JOSEPH :”HOLNESS HOUSE VULGAR AND OVER-SIZED”: CONFIRMS ENVY….
(10) When the PNP decid­ed to make Andrew Holness’s house the cen­ter­piece of it’s 2016 elec­tion cam­paign the peo­ple real­ized the PNP had noth­ing to offer and it was time for them to go.
(11) When the PNP and Mrs Miller refused to debate the then leader of the Opposition that was the nail in the PNP’s coffin.
Drip..
Drip.…
Drip…
Ended up in a mighty flood…
PNP’S REFUSAL TO PARTICIPATE IN DEBATES A MASSIVE CON-JOB…

Independent Jamaica must remove the cul­ture of depen­den­cy from our midst. We must teach our chil­dren that there is no wealth with­out work, and no suc­cess with­out sac­ri­fice. We must remove the belief from the psy­che of our chil­dren that the only way they can step up in life is not by how hard they work, but by who they know.(Andrew Michael Holness).
THE DAWN OF A NEW DAY IN JAMAICA…

Going for­ward, Jamaica’s devel­op­ment must rest on its abil­i­ty to cre­ate propo­si­tions of val­ue and attract invest­ments to con­vert the val­ue into wealth. In this mod­el, Government is not the main investor, it is the Private Sector whether they be large enter­pris­es or small busi­ness. In the eco­nom­ic part­ner­ship with the Private Sector, Government’s role, among oth­ers, is: To ensure the rule of law Create a safe, secure, and fair envi­ron­ment for busi­ness .Make mar­kets where none exist .Ensure trans­paren­cy and access to infor­ma­tion ‑and cre­ate an effi­cient and sup­port­ive pub­lic sec­tor bureau­cra­cy. (Andrew Michael Holness)

Any Economic Recovery Must Begin With Suffocating The Crime Monster…

This medi­um is proud that at least one aspect of our con­tin­ued drum­beat is includ­ed in the address of the new Prime Minister.
This writer has said con­sis­tent­ly that this is the only way to change the eco­nom­ic par­a­digm of our country.

Your Excellencies, the Governor General, the Most Honourable Sir Patrick Allen and Lady Allen

Leader of the Opposition the Most Honorable Portia Simpson Miller

Former Prime Ministers:

The Most Honorable Edward Seaga and Mrs Seaga

The Most Honorable PJ Patterson

The Honorable Bruce Golding and Mrs Golding

My fel­low Jamaicans

Good after­noon.

I rec­og­nize that I stand here today only by the Grace of God. It has not been an easy jour­ney to this podi­um, but earnest labour and fer­vent prayers con­quer all. To God be the glory.

It is with a deep sense of grat­i­tude, hon­our and humil­i­ty that I took the Oath of Office moments ago, ful­ly con­scious of the mag­ni­tude of expec­ta­tions and respon­si­bil­i­ty I have assumed, but equal­ly ener­gized and opti­mistic about a pros­per­ous future for Jamaica. I pledge to serve the peo­ple of Jamaica faith­ful­ly, with all of my ener­gies, all of my heart, mind and soul.

I stand here today hap­py to be rep­re­sent­ing the voice, vision, vote and vic­to­ry of Jamaica.

We may have dif­fer­ent voic­es and dif­fer­ent votes on a sim­i­lar vision, regard­less of our dif­fer­ences, Jamaica was vic­to­ri­ous at the General Elections. It is not per­fect, but we can all be proud of the peo­ple, sys­tems and insti­tu­tions that make up our democracy.

Meaning of the Mandate

On the day of Election, I wit­nessed a young man car­ry­ing, cra­dled in his arm, an obvi­ous­ly bed-rid­den elder­ly man from a polling sta­tion. I was touched by the sight. In the bus­tle of the busy school yard, as they passed, the elder­ly man point­ed his ink stained fin­ger at me and said, “Andrew, do the right thing!”

I stand here hum­bled by the awe­some pow­er of you, the peo­ple, and I com­mit to doing right by you. The peo­ple are sov­er­eign and their views and votes must nev­er be tak­en for granted.

The peo­ple of Jamaica did not vote in vain. They expect a gov­ern­ment that works for them and by the same expec­ta­tion, an Opposition that is con­struc­tive. This his­toric elec­tion deliv­ered the small­est major­i­ty but also the clear­est man­date: Fix Government!

With this mandate:

There is no major­i­ty for arrogance

There is no space for selfishness

There is no place for pettiness

There is no room for com­pla­cen­cy and

There is no mar­gin for error

I am under no illu­sion as to the mean­ing of this man­date. We have not won a prize. Instead, the peo­ple are giv­ing us a test.

There is no absolute agency of pow­er. This means that the win­ner can­not take all, or believe we can do it alone.

Leading Partnerships for Prosperity

To achieve the vision of shared pros­per­i­ty through inclu­sive eco­nom­ic growth and mean­ing­ful job cre­ation, now more than ever, Government must lead, acti­vate, empow­er and build real part­ner­ships. I intend to lead a Government of part­ner­ship. The solu­tions to our prob­lems do not rest with Government alone. The sum total of our poten­tial exceeds our prob­lems; our col­lec­tive capa­bil­i­ties are greater than our chal­lenges, but it is only through part­ner­ship that these capa­bil­i­ties and this poten­tial can be seized, har­nessed and real­ized for the good of Jamaica.

Partnerships require trust, clear assign­ment of respon­si­bil­i­ty and an ele­vat­ed sense of duty.

There is only so much trust that pledges and state­ments of com­mit­ment can buy. I under­stand that the Jamaican peo­ple now want to see action in build­ing trust. This is part of fix­ing gov­ern­ment. Everyone who will form the next gov­ern­ment must be seized of this expec­ta­tion. From the politi­cian mak­ing pol­i­cy to the civ­il ser­vant pro­cess­ing an appli­ca­tion, we must act duti­ful­ly to ful­fill our respon­si­bil­i­ties. Trust requires the actu­al­iza­tion of our com­mit­ments. We will ful­fill our commitments.

Our actions can achieve so much more if they are coör­di­nat­ed. We will bring greater coör­di­na­tion, ratio­nal­i­ty and focus to the role of gov­ern­ment so that the objec­tives of part­ner­ship can be clear.

There is no doubt that sig­nif­i­cant num­bers of Jamaicans have lost hope in our sys­tem, but I am encour­aged that a far larg­er num­ber main­tains faith, keeps hope and con­tin­ues to pray that Jamaica will grow and prosper.

I am ener­gized by the expres­sions of will­ing­ness to work with our new Government in the inter­est of Jamaica. The sense of duty is alive and well. There is more hope than despair and this cre­ates a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to form part­ner­ships for prosperity.

Partnership with Families

You know, I am now joined in Parliament by my life part­ner Juliet. Family is the ulti­mate part­ner­ship. And that is why my Government will focus resources on sup­port­ing families.

By increas­ing the income tax thresh­old we will restore the eco­nom­ic pow­er of house­holds to par­tic­i­pate in not only grow­ing our GDP but more impor­tant­ly grow­ing the gen­er­al well­be­ing of the society.

Here’s how the part­ner­ship with fam­i­lies, and the work­ing heads of house­holds will work.

Our gov­ern­ment will ease your tax bur­den, but you must spend and invest wise­ly, use the addi­tion­al mon­ey to acquire a house for your fam­i­ly or improve the house you already have, or buy Jamaican-made goods. This how we will increase local effec­tive demand in hous­ing, man­u­fac­tur­ing, and agri­cul­ture. This is how you can play a part in cre­at­ing in jobs while sat­is­fy­ing your wellbeing.

We will con­tin­ue our pol­i­cy of tuition-free edu­ca­tion and no user fee access to health care. However, will enable you to save in an edu­ca­tion bond for your chil­dren’s edu­ca­tion and in a nation­al health insur­ance scheme your healthcare.

We will enhance our social safe­ty net for vul­ner­a­ble fam­i­lies, and will pro­vide sup­port for par­ents in cri­sis, but you must be respon­si­ble and send your chil­dren to school. Our men must take care of their chil­dren, and cou­ples must be respon­si­ble in hav­ing the chil­dren they can afford.

Our gov­ern­ment com­mits to cre­at­ing the envi­ron­ment in which fam­i­lies can flour­ish and form com­mu­ni­ties of social mobil­i­ty from which every ghet­to youth can be star. However, every fam­i­ly mem­ber must do his or her part by being per­son­al­ly, social­ly and eco­nom­i­cal­ly responsible.

I am sure Juliet will under­stand if I seek to build anoth­er part­ner­ship in Parliament. Leader of the Opposition, Portia Simpson Miller has giv­en long and ded­i­cat­ed ser­vice to the coun­try and I believe the man­date is say­ing, we may not be on the same side of the road, but as much as pos­si­ble we should hold hands in coöper­a­tion to over­come obsta­cles for the good of the coun­try. We have evolved with­out for­mal struc­ture a very good part­ner­ship in edu­ca­tion and we intend to con­tin­ue our infor­mal col­lab­o­ra­tions in this area and pur­sue oth­er such areas of coöper­a­tion between Government and Opposition members.

I still believe it is a use­ful sym­bol of nation­al uni­ty for the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition to appear togeth­er in zones of polit­i­cal exclu­sions. I again extend the invitation.

Partnership for Growth with Private Sector

The pri­or­i­ty of this Government is to grow the econ­o­my and cre­ate mean­ing­ful jobs. In so doing, we will more rapid­ly and sus­tain­ably reduce debt. I am sure we all agree that much of Jamaica’s devel­op­ment has been achieved with­out growth, which has left us with much debt. This is unsustainable.

Going for­ward, Jamaica’s devel­op­ment must rest on its abil­i­ty to cre­ate propo­si­tions of val­ue and attract invest­ments to con­vert the val­ue into wealth. In this mod­el, Government is not the main investor, it is the Private Sector whether they be large enter­pris­es or small busi­ness. In the eco­nom­ic part­ner­ship with the Private Sector, Government’s role, among oth­ers, is:

To ensure the rule of law

Create a safe, secure, and fair envi­ron­ment for business

Make mar­kets where none exist

Ensure trans­paren­cy and access to infor­ma­tion ‑and cre­ate an effi­cient and sup­port­ive pub­lic sec­tor bureaucracy

In exchange, we want the Private Sector to unleash invest­ments in the local econ­o­my. We want to see the return of the pio­neer­ing dri­ve to cre­ate new indus­tries, the entre­pre­neur­ial will­ing­ness to take risk, and the inno­v­a­tive insight to do things bet­ter. I am heart­ened by the sig­nals com­ing from the Private Sector. I believe they have got the mes­sage about the part­ner­ship for growth and job cre­ation. Now is the time for growth.

Partnership with inter­na­tion­al partners

We are not naïve about the chal­lenges we face regard­ing our debt and the need to main­tain fis­cal dis­ci­pline. This is why we will con­tin­ue with the prin­ci­ple of joint over­sight of our Economic Programme and performance.

We rec­og­nize the impor­tance of, and val­ue our rela­tion­ship with our bilat­er­al and mul­ti­lat­er­al friends. These rela­tion­ships have been crit­i­cal in secur­ing sta­bil­i­ty. We believe in pre­serv­ing sta­bil­i­ty, but we must now build up on this in a pro­duc­tive part­ner­ships with them to achieve inclu­sive growth and job creation.

There are many more areas of part­ner­ships that we must for­mal­ly pur­sue for nation­al devel­op­ment and as our gov­ern­ment is installed over the com­ing days these will become evident.

The Role of the Prime Minister

In all these part­ner­ships for pros­per­i­ty, there must be coör­di­nat­ed effort. That is my role. I will ensure that:

Government is coör­di­nat­ed and strate­gi­cal­ly directed

Decisions are tak­en quickly

Targets are set

The nation is informed and that

Everyone under my appoint­ment is held to account for their action or lack thereof.

Institutional Reform

There is a sense of expec­ta­tion of change. It is not lost on me that I am the first of the Post-Independence gen­er­a­tion to lead Jamaica. More than any­thing else we want to see Jamaica take its true place as a devel­oped coun­try in the next 50 years. The strug­gle is not so much polit­i­cal inde­pen­dence as it is eco­nom­ic inde­pen­dence. It is through our eco­nom­ic inde­pen­dence that we secure real polit­i­cal independence.

However, after 53 years of inde­pen­dence, there is need for insti­tu­tion­al review of the Jamaican State both in terms of mod­ern­iza­tion of the insti­tu­tions of the State, and the struc­ture of the State. Government has to improve its busi­ness process­es and become more effi­cient as a reg­u­la­tor and a ser­vice provider.

There is need for us to have a say in the fun­da­men­tal insti­tu­tions that define Jamaica, the rights we secure for our cit­i­zens and how we want Jamaica to be. We will give form to that voice in a ref­er­en­dum to decide on the con­sti­tu­tion­al mat­ters and social matters.

Independent Jamaica must remove the cul­ture of depen­den­cy from our midst. We must teach our chil­dren that there is no wealth with­out work, and no suc­cess with­out sac­ri­fice. We must remove the belief from the psy­che of our chil­dren that the only way they can step up in life is not by how hard they work, but by who they know.

As Prime Minister I have a duty to align our incen­tives and reward sys­tems for those who work and fol­low rules. We must cre­ate a Jamaica where the man who plays by the rules is rewarded!

It is impor­tant that the cit­i­zens of Independent Jamaica have a sense of enti­tle­ment to good ser­vice from their coun­try. However, increas­ing­ly this is not being bal­anced with a duty of ‘giv­ing back’. Jamaica has ben­e­fit­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly from the civic pride and sense of nation­hood that drove so many to give gen­er­ous­ly of their tal­ent and trea­sures to build our great nation.

The spir­it still exists, to a great extent, local­ly and in our Diaspora. However, we have to be more active in pro­mot­ing civic respon­si­bil­i­ty, vol­un­teerism and ‘giv­ing back’, par­tic­u­lar­ly among our youth. And we have to inte­grate the incred­i­ble tal­ents and assets of the Jamaican Diaspora in local devel­op­ment. Too often I hear com­plaints from the Diaspora that they expe­ri­ence dif­fi­cul­ty in giv­ing to Jamaica. Giving should be easy, as part of our Partnership for Prosperity which includes the Diaspora, we will make it eas­i­er for you to con­tribute to the devel­op­ment of your homeland.

Jamaica is too rich in peo­ple and tal­ent to be a poor coun­try. With good gov­er­nance and a prospec­tive out­look, Jamaica, with­in a decade or less, could emerge as a boom­ing econ­o­my and a pros­per­ous society.

Jamaica is geo­graph­i­cal­ly cen­tral in the Caribbean. My vision is to turn Jamaica into the cen­tre of the Caribbean. A cen­tre of finance, trade and com­merce, tech­nol­o­gy and inno­va­tion, and the cen­tre of arts, cul­ture, and lifestyle region­al­ly. This is all pos­si­ble with­in our life­time. Despite any neg­a­tives, Jamaica still has a pow­er­ful and allur­ing brand ampli­fy­ing our voice and influ­ence in the world.

We can­not be sat­is­fied with things as they are. My dream is to ful­fill your dream. We must cre­ate a Jamaica where there is hope and oppor­tu­ni­ty. Where we can encour­age our chil­dren to dream big and be opti­mistic about their life chances. We must cre­ate a Jamaica where our young peo­ple can find mean­ing­ful work. A Jamaica where you feel safe to live, work and raise your chil­dren. A Jamaica that is boom­ing and investors and entre­pre­neurs can have a con­fi­dent out­look on the econ­o­my. A place where we can retire and tru­ly enjoy as paradise.

All of this is pos­si­ble. We must start now. Time for a part­ner­ship. Time for action!

Attorneys for the two main polit­i­cal par­ties have sig­nalled that the mag­is­te­r­i­al recount for the St Mary South Eastern con­stituen­cy could go into next week.

At the end of the first day of count­ing inside the Sutton Street Resident Magistrate’s Court in down­town Kingston yes­ter­day, attor­neys revealed that only 16 of the 108 bal­lot box­es had been tal­lied. Both sides also agreed that there was a net gain of one vote for Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) can­di­date Dr Norman Dunn, reduc­ing the mar­gin of vic­to­ry for his People’s National Party (PNP) chal­lenger, Dr Winston Green, to eight. “It takes a long time to go through each one [bal­lot box] because there are objec­tions tak­en as to whether a par­tic­u­lar bal­lot con­sti­tutes a prop­er vote,” said Hugh Wildman, one of the attor­neys rep­re­sent­ing Dunn as he sought to explain the snail’s pace at which the count­ing was pro­ceed­ing. “So that [bal­lot] had to be exam­ined and sub­mis­sions made by both sides and the mag­is­trate has to rule. So it’s an exer­cise that takes time,” he con­tin­ued. Despite this, both can­di­dates expressed con­fi­dence that they would emerge victorious.
Story orig­i­nat­ed here.: St Mary South Eastern Recount Could Go ‘Til Next Week

LEAVE THE KEYS ON YOUR WAY OUT AND DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU WHERE …

The new­ly elect­ed JLP Administration is not yet sworn in yet there are two devel­op­ments wor­thy of note from the Prime Minister des­ig­nate and the Labor Party which seem to sug­gest that the par­ty and it’s leader intend to lead by example.
(1) Prime Minister des­ig­nate Andrew Holness issued direc­tives that the tra­di­tion of sell­ing Government vehi­cles to out­go­ing Ministers would not be happening .
Simply put accord­ing to mis­ter Holness , leave the damn keys.
This is a sig­nif­i­cant indi­ca­tor which I hope the Prime Minister and his new Administration will stick to with strict fidelity.

Shockingly but not out of char­ac­ter for the People’s National Party, out­go­ing Justice Minister Mark Golding’s claimed that the Prime Minister elect is being hyp­o­crit­i­cal and vin­dic­tive in bar­ring the sale of motor vehi­cles to out­go­ing PNP min­is­ters that were being used dur­ing their tenure.
This goes direct­ly to the sense of enti­tle­ment that the lead­er­ship of the PNP and the loads of polit­i­cal hacks and hang­ers on have regard­ing the pub­lic charge over which that admin­is­tra­tion was giv­en stewardship.
Even if Mark Golding is pissed about this, should­n’t he show some class and keep his damn mouth shut?
Truthfully speak­ing there has been a tra­di­tion of sell­ing off these vehi­cles to the Ministers who pre­vi­ous­ly had them assigned to them . However it is the right of the new Administration to change that pol­i­cy par­tic­u­lar­ly when the par­ty cam­paigned on tighter fis­cal responsibility.
What is it with these peo­ple that they do not under­stand that nei­ther tax-pay­ers prop­er­ty nor Jamaica belong to them?
Read also : PM DESIGNATE AND CABINET SHOULD BE GUIDED BY HUMILITY…

In respond­ing to Mark Golding’s infan­tile com­ments Member of Parliament elect for west­ern Portland Daryl Vaz said “The break­ing of this ‘cus­tom­ary prac­tice’ that even for­mer mem­bers of the last JLP Administration ben­e­fit­ed from in the past, is a direct sign of change, and that the new Andrew Holness-led Administration will not sub­scribe to cher­ished prac­tices that are not in the best inter­est of the econ­o­my and the peo­ple of Jamaica,”.
ThatThe par­ty of Mark Golding and Portia Simpson Miller, stacked with mas­sive amounts of polit­i­cal hacks dis­guised as Consultants and Advisers would miss the sig­nif­i­cance of this sub­stan­tive­ly and opti­cal­ly is no surprise.
As I wrote in a pre­vi­ous arti­cle the new Administration must do a com­pre­hen­sive audit of all the min­istries start­ing with the Prime Minister’s office to see where the pub­lic’s mon­ey was being leaked away to par­ty loyalists.

PARTY SUPPORTERS WILL PAY PART OF COST OF SWEARING IN CEREMONY

(2) Prime Minister des­ig­nate Andrew Holness is sched­uled to be sworn in on Thursday in a cer­e­mo­ny at King’s house .
General Secretary for The Jamaica Labour Party, Dr Horace Chang, says a sig­nif­i­cant amount of the expense, relat­ing to its leader, Andrew Holness Being sworn-in as Prime Minister, is being fund­ed by its sup­port­ers. “The par­ty is of the view, that the coun­try is still in an eco­nom­ic cri­sis, and as such, mon­ey can­not be spent unnec­es­sar­i­ly”, said Chang..

This medi­um wish­es to acknowl­edge these two events which serves as indi­ca­tors that the new Administration rec­og­nizes the need for a new direc­tion in fis­cal pol­i­cy and account­abil­i­ty. Hopefully this is the begin­ning of what will be a trend in the way the new Administration han­dles it’s pub­lic trust as it relates to stew­ard­ship of the nation’s scarce resources.
Furthermore I hope this will become a new tem­plate of account­abil­i­ty for future Administrations, not just vol­un­tar­i­ly but that this new direc­tion will ush­er in new laws which brings strict account­abil­i­ty to the dis­pen­sa­tion of pub­lic funds.
If polit­i­cal cor­rup­tion and patron­age is to be min­i­mized and erad­i­cat­ed the loop-holes with­in the sys­tem must be plugged. This will remove slush funds from the hands of politi­cians. This is one of the ways the dis­man­tling of Garrisons will become a reality.

This medi­um will be keep­ing a hawk-eye to ensure that this will not be just a ruse until the new Administration set­tles into office after which it will con­tin­ue busi­ness as usu­al. Something tells me Andrew Holness intends to be different.
Time will tell.

On Monday, 30 black students attending a Donald Trump rally at Valdosta State University in rural Georgia were forcefully ejected — simply for being black.

On Tuesday, in Louisville, Ky., what hap­pened to young black pro­test­ers at anoth­er Trump ral­ly wasn’t just racist — it appears to be out­right criminal.

While we have already wide­ly report­ed that white suprema­cists are open­ly pro­claim­ing that they are ful­ly embold­ened and ener­gized by Trump, the nat­ur­al pro­gres­sion of their romance with Trump is now on full display.

While Trump was giv­ing his typ­i­cal cam­paign speech about mak­ing America great again, sev­er­al dif­fer­ent pre­dom­i­nant­ly black groups of pro­test­ers, who were sim­ply there to hold up signs, began hav­ing those signs snatched and get­ting cursed by the white Trump sup­port­ers sur­round­ing them. We now know that those Trump sup­port­ers are open big­ots, Neo-Nazis, and white suprema­cists belong­ing to many dif­fer­ent groups includ­ing the Traditionalist Worker Party — a well-doc­u­ment­ed hate group. Their social media pro­files are full of Nazi pho­tos, KKK and white suprema­cist ref­er­ences, and some of the most insult­ing, despi­ca­ble hate speech you’ll ever see. KING: As vio­lence erupts at Super Tuesday Trump ral­ly, it’s only a mat­ter of time before some­one gets killed at future events 

The Law empowers Resident Magistrates to convene court on days which the court would not normally convene. That would be on weekends and public holidays, depending on the seriousness of the issues at hand. We have seen Resident Magistrate court convened to facilitate alleged drug dealers.
Will someone speak to my ignorance on this issue.

In a sit­u­a­tion in which the results of the elec­tions were so ambigu­ous that the Military had to place the National Reserve on readi­ness why could a Magistrate not be installed imme­di­ate­ly to over­sea the results of the seats in question ?
Why could sev­er­al state paid Resident Magistrates not be acti­vat­ed to attend to such a crit­i­cal issue regard­less of day or time ?
Why is the Saint Mary South East seat set to be count­ed today?
Why are the bal­lots in the Saint James Southern Magisterial recount set for next Monday?

Why are these mat­ters of National import treat­ed as periph­er­al issues when they are crit­i­cal to the integri­ty of the process and National security?
Lets hope that the new Administration under­stand the enor­mi­ty of the task it faces in the process of trans­form­ing the Psyche of the nation from a wannabe first world aspi­rant to one set on a decid­ed path toward that end.
There is absolute­ly no rea­son that two or three tax­pay­er paid Resident Magistrates could not be acti­vat­ed to get up off their back­sides to attend to this sim­ple task.
That one recount is sched­uled for next Monday defies all log­ic and can only serve to add to the neg­a­tive impact rumors have as a result of undue delays.
Lets get on with the damn task at hand and stop with the pussy-footing.

The task of Nation build­ing is far too impor­tant to be left up to the mind­set of the past which oper­ates on the stan­dards that we can take care of this tomor­row. Every minute is impor­tant .It is impor­tant that Jamaican lead­ers start think­ing with a 21^st cen­tu­ry mindset.