After four years of Union cam­paign­ing, Richmond fell in April 1865, and short­ly after­ward, Confederate General Robert E. Lee sur­ren­dered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant—with that the Confederacy effec­tive­ly col­lapsed. President Davis was cap­tured on May 10, 1865, at Irwinville, Georgia.^[4] Four years lat­er, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Texas v. White that seces­sion was ille­gal and that the Confederacy had nev­er legal­ly exist­ed.^[5]
A decade after the Civil war end­ed the Congress engaged in a process called Reconstruction. Some believe this peri­od was an exten­sion of the Civil war. The Confederacy was estab­lished in the Montgomery Convention in February 1861 by state del­e­ga­tions sent from sev­en of the seces­sion­ist states of the United States. Following Lincoln’s inau­gu­ra­tion, four addi­tion­al bor­der states were rep­re­sent­ed, and sub­se­quent­ly two states and two ter­ri­to­ries gained seats in the Confederate Congress in accor­dance with their Secessionist resolves. The gov­ern­ment exist­ed from Spring 1861 to Spring 1865 dur­ing a Civil War ini­ti­at­ed by Confederate fir­ing on U.S. Fort Sumter.

Many south­ern whites had con­sid­ered them­selves more Southern than American and would fight for their state and their region to be inde­pen­dent of the larg­er nation. That region­al­ism became a Southern nation­al­ism, or the “Cause”. For the dura­tion of its exis­tence, the Confederacy under­went tri­al by war.^[7]The “Southern Cause” tran­scend­ed the ide­ol­o­gy of “states’ rights”, tar­iff pol­i­cy or inter­nal improve­ments. It was based on lifestyle, val­ues and belief sys­tem. Its “way of life” became sacred to its adher­ents. Everything of the South became a moral ques­tion, com­min­gling love of things Southern and hatred of things Yankee (the North). Not only did nation­al polit­i­cal par­ties split, but nation­al church­es and inter­state fam­i­lies as well divid­ed along sec­tion­al lines as the war approached.^{[8]Wikipedia.}

Republican Congressmen sit at a table per­pet­u­at­ing the lie that they are ready to nego­ti­ate, while Democrats are unwill­ing to Conference with them. This lie was borne out in a tweet by House Majority leader Eric Cantor, ® Virginia. The truth is Democratic Budget com­mit­tee chair-per­son Senator Patty Murray request­ed that Republicans come to the table on 18 sep­a­rate occa­sions, on every occa­sion Republicans have refused to do so.
I lift­ed that bit of his­tor­i­cal per­spec­tive above from the pages of Wikipedia to give you some con­text for what’s hap­pen­ing in America at this time and to offer some con­text for why they are hap­pen­ing. This for­gone nar­ra­tive explains in brief where America was before the Civil war and where she is now. At the cen­ter of this nar­ra­tive are two young Lawyers from the state of Illinois, Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama. The fight being waged in Washington between com­mon sense and the Conservative move­ment is not hap­pen­ing in a vac­u­um, there is prece­dent for this. For many Americans the Civil war was not decid­ed, they expect the South to rise again. Many argue that the Republican Party hijacked the South, I sub­mit that the South hijacked the Republican Party. The Tea-Party move­ment is not a grass roots oper­a­tion which is con­cerned about Government spend­ing. It is a cyn­i­cal and con­niv­ing Separatist, Fundamentalist move­ment aimed at the destruc­tion at every­thing Obama does and if pos­si­ble putting an end to the Federal Government. The Tea-Party is well fund­ed by wealthy and pow­er­ful peo­ple who hate Obama yes, but would ulti­mate­ly like to see a return to the norms of pre-civ­il war America.

It’s easy to shrug and say con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry,.….….…… not so. Take a deep­er look at what they say at their ral­lies, lis­ten to the rhetoric, look at the para­pher­na­lia sup­port­ers show up with. They have a dis­dain for Government as it is con­sti­tut­ed now. Southern seces­sion­ists dis­agreed with the Federal Government then, they do so now. Actions mat­ter not words. The path of the Republican Party has been clear with it’s actions. Opposed to com­pre­hen­sive Immigration. Opposed to com­pet­ing for Africa-American votes. Voter suppression.Radically ger­ry­man­dered homo­ge­neous Congressional Districts. In fact the Republican Party objec­tive is to have an America which looks exact­ly like the peo­ple at the table. The Republican Party is not a par­ty of mod­er­a­tion, it is now a par­ty which rep­re­sents the South and it’s val­ues, the South wants an eth­ni­cal­ly homo­ge­neous Nation. Candidates run­ning for office as Republicans are forced far­ther and far­ther to the right, the result is the stale­mate which present­ly exists. In many Congressional dis­tricts in most south­ern states Democrats don’t even both­er to field cred­i­ble can­di­dates. It’s only going to get worse.

Looming shut-down of the American Federal Government. Where else in the world would a minor­i­ty of the minor­i­ty par­ty be able to shut down the oper­a­tions of the Government? Anyway you don’t need to answer that.

My last Article asked just how much wealth is enough. Well clear­ly the peo­ple behind the Tea-Party move­ment have decid­ed that it can nev­er be enough. Tea Party Republican House mem­bers sup­port­ed by Jim Demint’s Heritage Foundation and Dick Armey’s Freedom Works and a pletho­ra of Right-wing groups have decid­ed to do seri­ous dam­age to the still strug­gling American econ­o­my, and by exten­sion the World’s economy.

Mark Meadows.

Newly ger­ry­man­dered Congressional dis­tricts makes this kind of hostage pol­i­tics pos­si­ble. Mark Meadows, is a new­ly elect­ed con­gres­sion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive and one of the most stri­dent Tea-Party plants in the US House of Representatives. Meadows rep­re­sents the 11 th District in the west­ern part of North Carolina.

Most of the far right ide­o­log­i­cal zealots in the US House of Representatives are white men. Many of them are from the South. These guys are all about States rights, why you ask ? At the state lev­el they are able to manip­u­late and mis­treat racial minori­ties. They nev­er liked the Federal Government which came out of the Civil war. Jefferson Davis the Confederate leader is hailed by them despite his trai­tor­ous war against his own country.

These peo­ple who make up the Tea-Party and those who back them do not want a Federal Government which func­tions effec­tive­ly, they are there to ensure it does exact­ly the oppo­site. In all of this there is none more pathet­ic than the Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner. Boehner is not from the South, he is from hum­ble begin­nings. John Boehner could end this non­sense if he was a man. Boehner could end this utter­ly counter-pro­duc­tive exer­cise by going over to the Leader of the Minority in the House Nancy Pelosi and strike a deal. Those Republicans who want to dis­rupt the econ­o­my could vote no. There would be enough Democratic votes to pass a clean Bill which funds the Government with­out none of the non­sense to defund the afford­able Care Act.

This exer­cise is about tak­ing down Obama and his sig­na­ture domes­tic accom­plish­ment. No mat­ter how many times House Republicans send this spend­ing Bill back to the Senate with lan­guage to defund the Affordable Care act it can­not become law. There sim­ply isn’t 67 votes in the Senate to allow pas­sage. Even if it did the President of the United States would veto it. It is there­fore about dis­rupt­ing the econ­o­my, irre­spec­tive of the dam­age they cause, so they may win the Senate in 2014. A Florida Congress man acknowl­edged this recently.

There was always an under­stand­ing between the two polit­i­cal par­ties in the United States. When there is a National Security cri­sis both par­ties speak with one voice, they coa­lesce around the President. Democrats did it after the September 11^th attacks. Also when the President is on a for­eign trip, crit­i­cism of him ceas­es until he returns. This was so even if the oppo­si­tion par­ty dis­agreed with the trip or the details of said trip. Of course this degree of deco­rum, respect and decen­cy was all before Barack Obama became President.

It is now clear that the Republican Party wants noth­ing to do with Black and Brown peo­ple in this coun­try. This is evi­dent from the seques­tra­tion. Their refusal to pass com­pre­hen­sive Immigration Reform. Their assault on the poor, through demo­niza­tion of food-stamp ben­e­fits . Persistently wast­ing time with over 40 attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, (Obama care). An all out assault on the vot­ing Rights Act. Mass incar­cer­a­tion of men of col­or. The pas­sage of dan­ger­ous laws which dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly allows gun owners(usually white) to kill minori­ties with­out con­se­quence. Blanket Obstructionists tac­tics against the Nation’s first Black President, coun­try be damned.

Ted Cruz:

Now one of the so-called ris­ing stars of the Republican Party Ted Cruz, believes that for­mer North Carolina Racist Jesse Helms, was a man to be admired. In fact Cruz wish­es there were a hun­dred Jesse Helms in the United States Senate. Ted Cruz told a group of con­ser­v­a­tives Wednesday that the Senate needs more peo­ple will­ing to say the “crazy things” that the late-Sen. Jesse Helms used to say. “We need 100 more like Jesse Helms in the U.S. Senate.”

Helms won his 1990 reelec­tion cam­paign with one of the most racist polit­i­cal ads in recent mem­o­ry — accus­ing his African-American chal­lenger, then-Charlotte may­or Harvey Gantt, of tak­ing jobs from whites to give to blacks — and devot­ed his time to insti­tu­tion­al­iz­ing homo­pho­bia, with attacks on gays and assaults on AIDS fund­ing. To Helms, LGBT Americans were “weak, moral­ly sick wretch­es,” and AIDS edu­ca­tion was “obscene” and “revolt­ing.“http://​www​.thedai​ly​beast​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​s​/​2​0​1​3​/​0​9​/​1​2​/​t​h​e​-​c​r​a​z​y​-​t​e​d​-​c​r​u​z​-​j​e​s​s​e​-​h​e​l​m​s​-​c​o​n​n​e​c​t​i​o​n​.​h​tml.

With stan­dard bear­ers like Ted Cruz, how does the Republican Party intend to have broad appeal going for­ward. Are we to believe that like their denial of cli­mate change and every­thing sci­en­tif­ic, they are also clos­ing their eyes to their shrink­ing white-male base? Or is the Republican Party con­tent to rel­e­gate itself to the side­lines of his­to­ry like those still await­ing the rise of the South.

Russian President Vladimir Putin:

We knew they all hat­ed Obama , but what make me want to vom­it is that Republicans would active­ly side with Russian President Vladimir Putin who wrote an Op-Ed in the New York Times warn­ing against an American attack on Syria.

Putin begins: Recent events sur­round­ing Syria have prompt­ed me to speak direct­ly to the American peo­ple and their polit­i­cal lead­ers. It is impor­tant to do so at a time of insuf­fi­cient com­mu­ni­ca­tion between our soci­eties. Relations between us have passed through dif­fer­ent stages. We stood against each oth­er dur­ing the cold war. But we were also allies once, and defeat­ed the Nazis togeth­er. The uni­ver­sal inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tion — the United Nations — was then estab­lished to pre­vent such dev­as­ta­tion from ever hap­pen­ing again.http://​www​.wash​ing​ton​post​.com/​b​l​o​g​s​/​w​o​r​l​d​v​i​e​w​s​/​w​p​/​2​0​1​3​/​0​9​/​1​2​/​v​l​a​d​i​m​i​r​-​p​u​t​i​n​s​-​n​e​w​-​y​o​r​k​-​t​i​m​e​s​-​o​p​-​e​d​-​a​n​n​o​t​a​t​e​d​-​a​n​d​-​f​a​c​t​-​c​h​e​c​k​ed/

Putin went on: It is alarm­ing that mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion in inter­nal con­flicts in for­eign coun­tries has become com­mon­place for the United States. Is it in America’s long-term inter­est? I doubt it. Millions around the world increas­ing­ly see America not as a mod­el of democ­ra­cy but as rely­ing sole­ly on brute force, cob­bling coali­tions togeth­er under the slo­gan “you’re either with us or against us.” But force has proved inef­fec­tive and point­less. Afghanistan is reel­ing, and no one can say what will hap­pen after inter­na­tion­al forces with­draw. Libya is divid­ed into tribes and clans. In Iraq the civ­il war con­tin­ues, with dozens killed each day. In the United States, many draw an anal­o­gy between Iraq and Syria, and ask why their gov­ern­ment would want to repeat recent mis­takes. No mat­ter how tar­get­ed the strikes or how sophis­ti­cat­ed the weapons, civil­ian casu­al­ties are inevitable, includ­ing the elder­ly and chil­dren, whom the strikes are meant to pro­tect.

Suffice to say Putin was direct­ly refer­ring to the last Republican President, George W Bush in the above para­graph. What is nau­se­at­ing is that Republicans are falling over them­selves to agree with Vladimir Putin over their own President. This is the most dis­gust­ing­ly unpa­tri­ot­ic dis­play of racial ani­mus imag­in­able. Even as the Op-Ed direct­ly crit­i­cizes the cow-boy atti­tude of Bush,they sided with him than their own President. That in my mind is dan­ger­ous, and counter pro­duc­tive. America’s ene­mies will exploit dif­fer­ences and weak­ness­es. America is strong not because of racist white men, it is so because of the great cor­nu­copia of cul­tures rep­re­sent­ed in this fab­u­lous mosa­ic. The hatred some whites have for Blacks is rep­re­sen­ta­tive of their own short-com­ings. They should get used to the fact that blacks and Native Americans were here long before Christopher Columbus ever set foot on these shores. There is no sham­ing these racists with­in the Republican Party. In fact the entire par­ty is now a safe haven for the most vile despi­ca­ble human life forms. Whether they are from Alaska to Alabama , from Alabama to Texas these cretins have sure­ly show them­selves over the last four years. Their smell has become a real nui­sance now.

As the rhetoric sur­round­ing what the United States should do about Syria inten­si­fies, I won­der what the President of the United States real­ly thinks? Some have argued the President’s red-line com­ment awhile back is the rea­son the United States is now embroiled in this debate about war and peace. The fact is that as the President said, it was nev­er his red line to begin with. The use of Chemical weapons have long been banned by the International community.

The mod­ern use of chem­i­cal weapons began with World War I, when both sides to the con­flict used poi­so­nous gas to inflict ago­niz­ing suf­fer­ing and to cause sig­nif­i­cant bat­tle­field casu­al­ties. Such weapons basi­cal­ly con­sist­ed of well-known com­mer­cial chem­i­cals put into stan­dard muni­tions such as grenades and artillery shells. Chlorine, phos­gene (a chok­ing agent) and mus­tard gas (which inflicts painful burns on the skin) were among the chem­i­cals used. The results were indis­crim­i­nate and often dev­as­tat­ing. Nearly 100,000 deaths result­ed. Since World War I, chem­i­cal weapons have caused more than one mil­lion casu­al­ties globally.

As a result of pub­lic out­rage, the Geneva Protocol, which pro­hib­it­ed the use of chem­i­cal weapons in war­fare, was signed in 1925. While a wel­come step, the Protocol had a num­ber of sig­nif­i­cant short­com­ings, includ­ing the fact that it did not pro­hib­it the devel­op­ment, pro­duc­tion or stock­pil­ing of chem­i­cal weapons. Also prob­lem­at­ic was the fact that many States that rat­i­fied the Protocol reserved the right to use pro­hib­it­ed weapons against States that were not par­ty to the Protocol or as retal­i­a­tion in kind if chem­i­cal weapons were used against them. Poison gasses were used dur­ing World War II in Nazi con­cen­tra­tion camps and in Asia, although chem­i­cal weapons were not used on European bat­tle­fields.http://​www​.un​.org/​d​i​s​a​r​m​a​m​e​n​t​/​W​M​D​/​C​h​e​m​i​c​al/

Syria has nev­er signed a glob­al treaty ban­ning the stor­age of chem­i­cal weapons and is believed to have large stocks of sarin, mus­tard gas and VX nerve agents. VX nerve agents. http://​www​.jpost​.com/​M​i​d​d​l​e​-​E​a​s​t​/​D​i​s​m​a​n​t​l​i​n​g​-​S​y​r​i​a​-​c​h​e​m​i​c​a​l​-​w​e​a​p​o​n​s​-​a​r​s​e​n​a​l​-​w​o​u​l​d​-​b​e​-​t​o​u​g​h​-​t​a​s​k​-​3​2​5​692.

This President is nobody’s fool, he is a smart deep think­ing man. Like many pres­i­dents before him this pres­i­dent does not want to cede an inch of pow­er to the Congress. Some would argue this is true because they like the pow­er. I tend to lean toward the fact that Congress usu­al­ly stand in the way of a President’s agen­da. One of the many crit­i­cisms of President Obama is that he is not deeply engaged with Congress. I fail to grasp why he would, in light of the blan­ket obstruc­tion­ist tac­tics of this Republican caucus.

Why then would President Obama punt the issue of Syria’s alleged use of Chemical weapons to this no-pro­duc­tive con­gress? I pre­sume this President wants to make sure that there can be no legit­i­mate argu­ment made that he did noth­ing. At the same time he wants the brain-dead right-wing nut jobs to duke it out and share in the con­se­quences of inac­tion. Already there are more than enough rea­sons to believe that the reg­u­lar obstruc­tion­ists are not going to sup­port any mil­i­tary action by this President against Syria. Remember these are the very same idiots who gave George Bush a blank check to wage war in Iraq on fraud­u­lent, trumped-up alle­ga­tions of weapons pos­ses­sion , not clear usage of banned Chemical weapons, what hypocrites!

Obama was elect­ed because he was opposed to war. That oppo­si­tion sep­a­rat­ed him from Hillary Clinton who was far more hawk­ish in her rhetoric and with her vote as a mem­ber of the Senate. Since then Obama as end­ed the Iraq war and sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced America’s foot-prints in Afghanistan. Is it log­i­cal to believe Obama does not want war? Is it out of the realm of pos­si­bil­i­ties he does­n’t want to be the guy who watched and did noth­ing as Syria used chem­i­cal weapons on its own pop­u­la­tion? Is it log­i­cal to assume no America President want to cede any author­i­ty to the leg­isla­tive branch?

If the above is true , can we then con­clude that Obama bril­liant­ly punt­ed the Syria hot pota­to to the do noth­ing Congress? Can we assume Obama want­ed to expose the dys­func­tion­al Congress , while he wages a par­al­lel cam­paign for action, using Kerry and Hagel? I don’t know about you but I say bril­liant and inge­nious, once again the moron­ic Republicans are left look­ing as stu­pid as they have always been. Whether you sup­port America’s mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion into yet anoth­er Middle east­ern nation is impor­tant to debate. What is bla­tant­ly obvi­ous is the hypocrisy of the Right in this coun­try when it comes to America’s vital inter­est. Politics and race trumps everything.

President Barack Obama.

President Barack Obama has decid­ed to place the ball square­ly the Court of the Congress on whether to strike Syria for alleged use of chem­i­cal weapons on his own peo­ple. Cable TV is abuzz with talk­ing heads com­ing to their own con­clu­sions on how that is per­ceived not just in America but all over the World. Experts are mak­ing the case that the President cer­tain­ly has the pow­er to strike at Syria with­out Congressional approval . In fact the President as Commander-in-Chief does have Authority to approve Drone strikes and oth­er Military action with­out Congressional approval. They argue he has the pow­er to autho­rize a strike on Syria with­out con­fer­ring with Congress.

I am will­ing to bet that the President, a Constitutional Lawyer, and Nobel Peace Prize recip­i­ent knows exact­ly what his author­i­ty is . Congress for it’s part is urg­ing the President to con­fer with them before tak­ing action. But is the House of Representative of the United States ask­ing the President to con­sult with them for the right rea­son? Is the Congress and the Republican House in Particular ask­ing the President to con­sult as a way to neuter the pres­i­dent? Why is the Congress with approval num­bers bare­ly out of the sin­gle dig­its, now wants in on deci­sions of Foreign Policy?

House Speaker Re. John Boehner:

Is Obama doing the right thing by essen­tial­ly abdi­cat­ing his respon­si­bil­i­ty as far as NY Republican Peter King is con­cerned? Is the President set­ting a bad President for future Presidents? Will future Presidents have the same racial con­straints of Barack Obama. Have the deci­sion of the British Parliament played a part in the deci­sion of mis­ter Obama? Retired General Barry Mcaffery of the first Iraq war, said on MSNBC, he is pleased with the President’s deci­sion to go to the Congress , yet it will be inter­est­ing to see how Democrats in that body vote to autho­rize war, and Republicans vote for any­thing Obama.

We will have to see how these ques­tions gets answered in the days and weeks ahead. I am will­ing to bet that the mem­bers of the Republican Congress can­not be trust­ed to put pol­i­tics aside ever, for a demo­c­ra­t­ic President and cer­tain­ly not for this one this one. Whatever the deci­sion of the Congress, I am sure Obama has thought through the pos­si­bil­i­ties, he was sur­prised by the vote in the British Parliament, it is dif­fi­cult for an American President to go to war when it’s staunchest ally say we don’t want any part of it. Obama saves some face in his red-line threat to Syria . Now he gets to say the Congress tied my hands. Republicans in Congress wants to gov­ern, now they have a chance to.

The peri­od begin­ning 1989 to 2011 saw the Jamaica Labor Party (JLP) win­ning One National Election to the People’s National Party’s five.

Winning per­cent­age.

♦1989 PNP wins 45 seats to the JLP’s 15 — 75%— —-25% .

♦1993 PNP wins 52 seats to the JLP’s 8 — - ‑86.7% — 13.3%.

♦1997 PNP wins 50 seats to the JLP’s 10 — – 83.3%— 16.7 %.

♦2002 PNP wins 34 seats to the JLP’s 26 — – 51.6% —46.9%.

♦2007 JLP wins 32 seats to the PNP’s 28 — - 49.98% — - 49.35% .

♦2011 PNP wins 42 seats to the JLP’s 21 — –53.28%– 46.61%.

A com­pa­ny doing this bad­ly would have fold­ed a long time ago. It may also be fair to say if the JLP do not know how to win Elections , maybe they won’t know how to Govern. After they lost the last nation­al elec­tions in 2011, I wrote this about the JLP.

JLP MUST SNATCH VICTORY FROM THE ASHES OF DEFEAThttps://​mike​beck​les​.com/​m​y​w​p​b​l​o​g​/​?​p​=​2​196.

This was a chal­lenge to Andrew Holness. It was a chance for him to solid­i­fy him­self as the true leader of the Party with strong grass roots sup­port. I have no evi­dence whether Holness ever saw that piece of advice. Whether he saw it or not, that should have been Holness’ strat­e­gy any­way. Andrew Holness was hur­ried­ly annoint­ed to take over the reigns of the Party after the implo­sion and sub­se­quent res­ig­na­tion of Orett Bruce Golding. At the time it appeared that Holness the 39 year-old Minister with Education port­fo­lio, rep­re­sent­ed a new direc­tion and the best foot for­ward for the Labor Party. Had Holness stepped into the vac­u­um cre­at­ed by Golding’s exit with a plan it is fair to assume those with ideas of lead­er­ship would have fall­en in line like the PNP fell in line behind Portia. Whatever the short-com­ings of Jamaica’s Prime Minister ‚no one can rea­son­ably accuse her of not con­nect­ing with peo­ple at the grass roots.

Recent talk, and what now seem to be an inevitable chal­lenge to Holness by Audley Shaw for the lead­er­ship of the Party may well have been avert­ed, had Holness pressed some flesh him­self. Many now argue that this chal­lenge is good for the Party . They argue it is good to sort out these dif­fer­ences now, so the par­ty may solid­i­fy and be ready for the next National poll con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due by December 29^th 2016, I dis­agree. As the Party which offers the best way for­ward for the coun­try , what bet­ter way to solid­i­fy your lead­er­ship cre­den­tials that to be affirmed by the peo­ple themselves?

Part of being a polit­i­cal leader is being able to ana­lyze and see poten­tial prob­lems before they mate­ri­al­ize. That includes being able to shore up your own base of sup­port with your col­leagues. It includes being able to sway oth­ers to your side. Maybe the forces arrayed against Holness smelled blood in the water. Just maybe they real­ize that Holness was anoint­ed by Golding who does not have that much sway in the Party any­more. Maybe, just maybe, Holness is vul­ner­a­ble and wound­ed. Time will tell if his blus­ter is enough. I sin­cere­ly hope they do not destroy the par­ty in the process.

The United States Constitution states in Article II, Section 4: “The President, Vice President and all civ­il Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or oth­er high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

The framers incor­po­rat­ed this safe­guard into the US Constitution to make sure that the coun­try’s lead­ers were hon­est peo­ple. Is there a dan­ger that this very safe­guard could cor­rupt­ly be turned around and be an instru­ment by cer­tain mem­bers of the Congress to get a sit­ting President at all cost?

Thus far in the his­to­ry of the United States there been three Presidential impeach­ment pro­ceed­ings — in 1868 against President Andrew Johnson for his removal of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton in vio­la­tion of the Tenure of Office Act — 1974 against President Richard Nixon for the Watergate cov­er-up (106 years after Johnson) — 1998 – 99 against President Bill Clinton for con­ceal­ing an extra­mar­i­tal affair (24 years after Nixon).

Why have ele­ments with­in the Republican Party been call­ing for the impeach­ment of President Obama? So far they have said they have no evi­dence of any crimes or mis­de­meanor , how then is the call justified?

At a town hall in Oklahoma, Sen. Tom Coburn (R‑OK) called the Obama admin­is­tra­tion law­less and warned that the pres­i­dent is get­ting, “per­ilous­ly close to impeach­ment.”http://​www​.politi​cususa​.com/​2​0​1​3​/​0​8​/​2​2​/​r​e​p​u​b​l​i​c​a​n​-​s​e​n​a​t​o​r​-​o​b​a​m​a​-​p​e​r​i​l​o​u​s​l​y​-​c​l​o​s​e​-​i​m​p​e​a​c​h​m​e​n​t​.​h​tml.

It is not unusu­al to hear this kind of kook-talk from the racial ele­ments on AM talk radio, or on Fox. That’s under­stand­able that those kooks need to release steam at the per­il of implo­sion. After all there is a black man in the White House. But why would a United States Senator who calls the pres­i­dent a friend debase him­self and the office he holds by giv­ing cred­i­bil­i­ty to this kind of non­sense. Should Tom Coburn be impeached?

The elec­toral process did not pro­duce the result Republicans want­ed over the last two elec­toral cycles. Since then there has been a sys­tem­at­ic attempt to dimin­ish and nul­li­fy the Black and Latino vote almost nation-wide. Systematic attempts to cast the President as not from the United States(which would dis­qual­i­fy him from hold­ing the office of pres­i­dent). There has been numer­ous attempts in the Republican con­trolled House of Representatives to repeal the President’s sig­na­ture Affordable Care Act (Obama care). There has been sus­tained and blan­ket obstruc­tion­ists tac­tics employed against the President’s agen­da. That Obstructionism includes whole­sale oppo­si­tion to pol­i­cy sug­ges­tions, they and affil­i­ate groups pre­vi­ous­ly supported.

So we ask, when the total­i­ty of the evi­dence is con­sid­ered ‚is there a case made, that Republicans want to nul­li­fy Barack Obama’s Presidency? If the answer is in the affir­ma­tive, what is the rea­son for it? Is this just anoth­er attempt to antag­o­nize a Democratic President, or is this about Race?

In the ensu­ing years since September 11^th, 2001 the changes to our lives have been dra­mat­ic, in terms of what we per­ceived our rights to be. There has been dra­mat­ic changes in how we board or trav­el on air­planes what we take on a flight, or even what we say whilst on a plane. Unfortunately since then we have also seen the Patriot Act draft­ed and passed under the Bush Administration. There are now secret courts set up to rub­ber stamp any actions the gov­ern­ment see fit. This my friends is not Democracy, People are actu­al­ly now afraid of the Government. The left laugh at those on the right who make this argu­ment, even as the gov­ern­ment take more and more of our rights daily.

There are rev­e­la­tions of the (NSA) National Security Council , farm­ing emails and lis­ten­ing to the con­ver­sa­tions of Americans. There are even dis­cus­sions about the gov­ern­men­t’s right to kill Americans sus­pect­ed of ter­ror­ism, on American soil , using unmanned aer­i­al vehicles(drones). We are required to pro­duce ID’s to pur­chase reg­u­lar over- the-counter-med­i­cines, as well as sim­ply to enter cer­tain buildings.

Police Departments are now Para-mil­i­tary Agencies. At every turn there is evi­dence that life as we knew it is no more. So who won this so-called war on ter­ror? Was the Killing Of Osama Bin Laden a vic­to­ry? Or was it just an accel­er­ant to con­tin­ue this war that can have no end? How will the com­bat­ants know when they have won. Where will cit­i­zens of America be 5 or 10 years down the road if they con­tin­ue to nod and smile as the Government takes more and more lib­er­ty away from them under the guise of pro­tect­ing them?

Retired Marine Col. Pete Martino: “Is Everybody Blind?” The US “Is Building a Domestic Army!”

Retired Marine Col. Pete Martino voiced his con­cerns about the United States “build­ing a domes­tic Army” dur­ing a local city coun­cil meet­ing in Concord, New Hampshire. Col. Marino believes that the cur­rent mil­i­ta­riza­tion of police forces is a real threat to Americans.http://​dcclothes​line​.com/​2​0​1​3​/​0​8​/​1​8​/​r​e​t​i​r​e​d​-​m​a​r​i​n​e​-​c​o​l​-​p​e​t​e​-​m​a​r​t​i​n​o​-​i​s​-​e​v​e​r​y​b​o​d​y​-​b​l​i​n​d​-​t​h​e​-​u​s​-​i​s​-​b​u​i​l​d​i​n​g​-​a​-​d​o​m​e​s​t​i​c​-​a​r​my/

An entire gen­er­a­tion has come of age since September 11^th 2001, this gen­er­a­tion have no con­cept of what a free soci­ety looked like. As such it appears that this gen­er­a­tion is much more like­ly to smile and shrug as more and more of their rights are abro­gat­ed. The old­er peo­ple are more inclined to buy into the argu­ment that Government needs to take more rights to pro­tect them.

Not to be out­done many com­pa­nies are get­ting in on this mass hys­te­ria prop­a­gat­ed and pro­mul­gat­ed by those with an axe to grind. They are Capitalizing on the notion that there is an Existential threat to America from peo­ple who want to take their way of life away. Of course when it comes down to it these com­pa­nies are in it sole­ly for the money.

The National Football League (NFL) has just decid­ed to take away a lit­tle more of their fans rights by man­dat­ing the size of pock­et books and bags which are allowed into their sta­di­ums, start­ing this upcom­ing sea­son. This new rule will obvi­ous­ly affect women more than it does men. They have how­ev­er offered clear plas­tic totes to women of course for a price? What woman wants the con­tents of her pock­et-book to be vis­i­ble to every­one? My wife car­ries a mid-sized pock­et-book. I can depend on her for some lotions when my elbows and knuck­les are ashy. She oblig­es me with a handy pain reliev­er if I need one. There have been instances when I was able to source some well need­ed nuts and even drink­ing water from her pocket-book.

The NFL now report­ed­ly has a fan base which is 44% female, so they decid­ed to sock it to the women in the name of Security. How about hir­ing com­pe­tent peo­ple to ensure prop­er secu­ri­ty? The NFL is a very rich Organization, how about putting in prop­er screen­ing appa­ra­tus which would pre­vent ter­ror­ists bring­ing explo­sives and weapons into stadiums?

That would actu­al­ly make sense, , just not dol­lars and cents. Women and the men who love them, should send the NFL a very strong mes­sage by stay­ing away from their games. The NFL would receive the mes­sage loud and clear when it’s Teams play to emp­ty sta­di­ums. However if cur­rents trends are a barom­e­ter of peo­ple’s behav­ior, Stadiums will be over­flow­ing with vocif­er­ous yet obliv­i­ous fans. Women will be there with small­er clear bags sold to them by the very National Football League. So the long march con­tin­ues toward total Government dom­i­na­tion and con­trol of every­thing we do yet there is no out­cry. The gov­ern­ment at every lev­el is aware of this and there are active prepa­ra­tions at very lev­el to mil­i­ta­rize every police depart­ment so that by the time the pop­u­la­tion opens it’s eyes to whats hap­pen­ing to it, it will be pow­er­less to stop it.

This can­not be all we are capa­ble of , we are bet­ter than this>

Jamaica’s great­est asset is not to be found in the earth, it is not Bauxite,or Alumina, it cer­tain­ly isn’t oil as some believe. Jamaica’s future is in it’s peo­ple, it’s human resource. In order to tap into that resource the coun­try needs lead­er­ship. Visionary lead­er­ship free from cor­rup­tion and vice. Ask your­selves does the coun­try have that lead­er­ship present­ly? The Nation of 2.8 mil­lion peo­ple needs to be reori­ent­ed toward nation build­ing, the peo­ple must eschew vio­lence, embrace God, fam­i­ly and coun­try over self. Jamaicans are bright cre­ative peo­ple who only want a chance.

Opposition leader Andrew Holness.

The coun­try trains peo­ple in many dis­ci­plines, as soon as train­ing ends these young peo­ple, armed with degrees and cer­tifi­cates are look­ing for a way out. They look for a way out, not because they are ungrate­ful or unpa­tri­ot­ic they do so because they need jobs. It is impos­si­ble for the best and bright­est of our peo­ple to emi­grate and our coun­try remain viable.

Jamaica los­es two-fold, it los­es the tax dol­lars invest­ed in train­ing stu­dents and it los­es the indi­vid­u­als who take their skills to oth­er shores. How will we become a devel­oped coun­try this way? build­ing bridges and high­ways is good, they do not make a coun­try a first world coun­try. We must start devel­op­ing and keep­ing our young people.

The high lev­els of crim­i­nal­i­ty and the com­plex­i­ty of some crim­i­nal acts, are tes­ta­ment to the inge­nu­ity of the peo­ple, these actions are an indict­ment on the present lead­er­ship which has been woe­ful­ly inept at every­thing except sub­ject­ing the coun­try to greater poverty.The future of the coun­try can­not be one which embraces hand-outs.

Vale Royal the Prime Minister’s residence.

No coun­try may progress which encour­ages it’s peo­ple to depend on Government for hand­outs. In fact Government should not be in the busi­ness of cre­at­ing depen­den­cy. The Jamaican peo­ple were nev­er a peo­ple who depend­ed on oth­ers. This Government has cre­at­ed a nation of beg­gars. Building a coun­try on depen­den­cy and free­ness is tak­ing from one and giv­ing to anoth­er. Soon no one will have any­thing, our coun­try is very close to that point.

.

Peter Bunting

But in a sub­mis­sion dis­trib­uted dur­ing the com­mit­tee meet­ing, human rights group Jamaicans For Justice (JFJ) sug­gest­ed that Parliament should go even fur­ther and intro­duce a “three strikes you are out of the force” pol­i­cy for bel­liger­ent mem­bers of the police force.The pro­pos­als includ­ed the intro­duc­tion of a Police Reform Act that would reform police dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ce­dure, includ­ing a ‘three strikes you are out of the force’ pol­i­cy; the fail­ure of police offi­cers to par­tic­i­pate in INDECOM inves­ti­ga­tions to be deemed a breach of their employ­ment con­tract with the Government; removal of the need for INDECOM to prove “mis­con­duct” before get­ting the author­i­ty to inves­ti­gate “inci­dents” and to include “pos­si­ble abuse of pow­ers” in the issues; and to give INDECOM a statu­to­ry duty to play a role in dis­ci­plin­ing errant police, as well as in observ­ing and par­tic­i­pat­ing in inter­nal dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ce­dures for secu­ri­ty offi­cers who abuse cit­i­zens’ human rights or whose actions/​omissions lead to loss to the State or cit­i­zens.Read more: http://​www​.jamaicaob​serv​er​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​B​u​n​t​i​n​g​-​w​e​l​c​o​m​e​s​-​I​N​D​E​C​O​M​-​j​u​d​g​e​m​ent – JFJ-wants-more_14795775#ixzz2ajIPPUIZ.

Here’s what’s impor­tant, Peter Bunting just days ago, thought that INDECOM had too much pow­er, in fact his exact words were “this agency is too pow­er­ful”. We com­ment­ed on that in Blog post titled >Revamp,re-do, re-autho­rize INDECOM !

Bunting’s premise for the posi­tion he took regard­ing INDECOM was that the Act, as con­sti­tut­ed had “huge con­se­quences for nation­al secu­ri­ty and pub­lic inter­est”. At time the Minister made those ratio­nal state­ments, we agreed with him that the police force need­ed over­sight, but putting anoth­er agency over the police and mil­i­tary, staffed with peo­ple who have no train­ing or expe­ri­ence in Military of Police pro­ce­dures was gross­ly mis­guid­ed. When that is jux­ta­posed with the nar­cis­sis­tic behav­ior of the head of INDECOM Terrence Williams, it leads ratio­nal thinkers to be very wor­ried for Jamaica.

We would like to know what pres­sure was brought to bear on the min­is­ter of National Security, between the time he thought INDECOM had too much pow­er and yes­ter­day, and by whom? Our coun­try’s National Security pol­i­cy can­not be dic­tat­ed by a too-bit crim­i­nal lob­by with an agenda!

No one denies the need for police reform, in fact police offi­cers makes it nec­es­sary that there is over­sight of their actions. The hier­ar­chy of the police force has failed mis­er­ably to effec­tive­ly recruit, train and super­vise prop­er can­di­dates to the Jamaica Constabulary force, the result of that is ‚woe­ful­ly flawed can­di­dates which has brought the once proud agency to its knees. However a strong dis­ci­plined com­pe­tent police force is in every­one’s inter­est, unless of course you are a crim­i­nal or a group which ben­e­fits from tear­ing down the police force for per­son­al gains. Like vul­tures, smelling blood, this crim­i­nal lob­by JFJ is not con­tent with the rul­ings of the courts in the inter­est of the peo­ple. Through the lead­er­ship of Carolyn Gomes, the incom­pe­tent Government has allowed her to sin­gle-hand­ed­ly dis­man­tle and the demor­al­ize the police agency, to sat­is­fy her per­son­al prejudices.

Carolyn Gomes has got­ten over­ly pow­er­ful in Jamaica, it has become clear that she feels she can have the Government do what­ev­er she wants. She has pow­er­ful back­ers in International cir­cles with mon­ey to burn. Many of these monied inter­est wants Jamaica mired in pover­ty and crime. That’s how small nations are kept sub­servient. It is time to put an end to this mad­ness. This woman is a plant, none of the back­ers of Carolyn Gomes can influ­ence the rule of law, the admin­is­tra­tion of rights and jus­tice, nor the leg­is­la­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of law enforce­ment pol­i­cy in their respec­tive countries.

Police offi­cers must have lat­i­tude to do their job, it can­not be that those we ask to pro­tect us are afraid to act, even when their own lives are in jeop­ardy. I sug­gest Jamaican cops show up to work, do the min­i­mum, col­lect their pay­checks and go home to their fam­i­lies. Allow the Government, Gomes and those on the Constitutional Court to fig­ure it out. Follow this sug­ges­tion and many will be tak­ing one of the many flights out, the exo­dus has already started.

Majority of the peo­ple liv­ing in the Caribbean region sup­port the death penal­ty, yet many states lead­er­ship have decid­ed that they are smarter that the peo­ple who elect­ed them to office, so they have decid­ed not to hang murderers.

The Jamaica Labour Party resisted the full powers of the CCJ on the basis that it was a hanging court.^{[citation needed]} In February, 2005, the Privy Council declared that the CCJ-related companion bills passed by the Jamaican Parliamentin 2004 were unconstitutional and therefore void. The bills would have established the CCJ as the final court of appeal in Jamaica.^{[citation needed]} The Privy Council sided with the appellant, including the Jamaican Council for Human Rights, the Jamaica Labour Party and others, ruling that to establish the CCJ as the country’s final appeal court, without it being entrenched in the constitution would undermine the protection given to the Jamaican people by Chapter Seven of the Jamaican constitution. The court concluded that the procedure appropriate for an amendment of an entrenched provision — a referendum — should have been followed. In January 2012, the new People’s National Party government of Jamaica stated that it would be moving to have the CCJ serving in both the original and appellate jurisdictions for Jamaica in time for the 50^th anniversary of Jamaica’s independence in August.^[14] The Jamaica Labor Party, now in opposition, stated it has no issue with the government’s plan and seems set to support the move despite strident objections in the past.^[15] In February, the foreign affairs minister of Jamaica has also called on Trinidad & Tobago to sign on to the court’s appellate jurisdiction to mark that country’s 50^th anniversary of independence.http://​en​.wikipedia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​C​a​r​i​b​b​e​a​n​_​C​o​u​r​t​_​o​f​_​J​u​s​t​ice

The Jamaica Labor Party ini­tial­ly object­ed to the Caribbean court, on the basis that it was a hang­ing court. Even though the par­ty lat­er seemed to side with the People’s National Party’s plan to have the Caribbean court as the final arbiter in orig­i­nal and appel­late juris­dic­tion for Jamaica’s 50^th anniver­sary of it’s independence.

Attorney General Patrick Atkinson has reit­er­at­ed that there is no need for a nation­al ref­er­en­dum on whether Jamaica should adopt the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as its final court of appeal.  Legislation has already been tabled to amend the con­sti­tu­tion to replace the Privy Council with the Caribbean Court of Justice as the final appel­late court. http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​l​a​t​e​s​t​/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​.​p​h​p​?​i​d​=​4​5​305

I dis­agree with Atkinson, the mat­ter should be put to a vote, yes the peo­ple elect­ed the gov­ern­ment to make deci­sions for them, but on a mat­ter of this sig­nif­i­cance it is impor­tant for pos­ter­i­ty that the peo­ple get their say.

The peo­ple in Barbados Belize and Guyana have already ful­ly adopt­ed the CCJ as their final court.

The Labor Party nev­er stat­ed what issues it had with hang­ing , out­side of its claim that the CCJ was a hang­ing court. The par­ty obvi­ous­ly had it’s come to Jesus moment and saw the light. However there are still lin­ger­ing trep­i­da­tion on the part of the Jamaican gov­ern­ment to car­ry out the will of the peo­ple and put vio­lent crim­i­nals who have exhaust­ed their appeals to death.

Putting these crim­i­nals to death is not a panacea that will fix the coun­try’s crime prob­lem but it is one more way the gov­ern­ment, act­ing on the wish­es of the peo­ple can sig­nal to crim­i­nals, that it is seri­ous about deal­ing with crime and ter­ror in the coun­try of 2.8 mil­lion people.

The long over­due police sta­tion in Falmouth Trelawny is a wel­come change for the men and women who were forced to work in the dilap­i­dat­ed dump they pre­vi­ous­ly had. But build­ing police sta­tions are just a tiny part of what needs to be done to fix our coun­try’s bur­geon­ing crime problem.

The issues that some raise about human rights in Jamaica are legit­i­mate issues, what dis­qual­i­fies lob­bies like Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) from legit­i­ma­cy is their sin­gle-mind­ed focus on what they per­ceive human rights abus­es to be. In the case of the group JFJ their under­stand­ing of human rights abuse is con­fined to alleged abuse com­mit­ted by agents of the state.

I believe that the issue of human rights are not con­fined to pro­tec­tion from excess of state agents, but are uni­ver­sal. I par­tic­u­lar­ly believe the rights of vic­tims of crime far out­weigh the rights of those who have con­scious­ly decid­ed to break the coun­try’s laws, then turn around and demand respect for their rights.

People like Carolyn Gomes and Susan Goffe of JFJ and oth­ers who believe that fight­ing for the rights of the most despi­ca­ble crim­i­nals is a wor­thy endeav­or are well with­in their rights, we dis­agree. What we will be doing here is to tell the Jamaican peo­ple what they real­ly stand for , even as we ask them to obey the coun­try’s laws, which is one way of reduc­ing the risk of vio­lent con­fronta­tions with agents of the state.

Let me be clear, I spent lit­er­al­ly 10 years as a front line cop, serv­ing both on the high-inten­si­ty for­mer Ranger squad, and as a mem­ber of the CIB in the lat­ter part of my ser­vice. I have removed many weapons from the streets and put scores of crim­i­nals in jail where they belong, to include cops who decid­ed to be crim­i­nals. I have been shot in the line of duty, yet I have nev­er had the need to pull the trig­ger on any­one in the capac­i­ty of judge and jury.

Killing crim­i­nals regard­less of their crimes, extra-judi­cial­ly is crim­i­nal and serves no one. There are those who say they were police offi­cers who are now jump­ing on the band-wag­gon against police offi­cers, I will with­hold my com­ments on those.

Police offi­cers should have no com­punc­tion about tak­ing out crim­i­nals who try to kill them or has killed some­one and refus­es to sur­ren­der. Neither Carolyn Gomes, Horace Levy, Susan Goffe, Earl Witter, or Terrence Williams have the right to make that call for you. They are grand-stand­ing Elitist, do your jobs.

The crim­i­nals lob­by called JFJ is the mouth­piece of Amnesty International and the Inter American Commission of Human Rights, these agen­cies do good work in their base coun­tries , Britain and the United States respec­tive­ly, yet nei­ther agen­cies can alter or pro­pose leg­is­la­tion which will inter­fere with the rule of law or the actions of police offi­cers doing their law­ful duties.

In fact, despite con­tro­ver­sial killings of minor­i­ty men all over America and in Britain by police, both these groups are nev­er heard from. These mat­ters are left up to duly autho­rized inves­tiga­tive bod­ies, at either the local, state or fed­er­al lev­els to do what they are trained to do, then the courts do what they are sup­posed to do.

The gov­ern­ment may crow about the build­ing of the new police sta­tion in Falmoth Trelawny, but unless there are con­crete mea­sures in place to deal with crim­i­nals these facil­i­ties are noth­ing more than win­dow dress­ing , band-aid on gun-shot wounds.

Put the mat­ter to the peo­ple let them decide, they will decide to move ful­ly to the CCJ. There is no rea­son we should be ask­ing England to decide our cas­es for us. It is a silent but embar­rass­ing acqui­es­cence to the argu­ments that we are not smart enough to gov­ern ourselves.

Moving to the CCJ will allow the peo­ple’s wish­es to be car­ried out and mur­der­ing crim­i­nals can get their just deserts, right labor party?

I find it instruc­tive that when Transparency International labels Jamaica 84% cor­rupt no one gets angry. When the Chicago Tribune bears out the stark fact that Jamaica’s debt bur­den is worse that of Greece no one gets angry. You know what ?We should all be angry, not at the mes­sen­gers who show these truths, we should be pissed at the peo­ple who got us there.

The same peo­ple who have been in elect­ed office(elected used liberally)have been in pol­i­tics since I was a child , they still hold polit­i­cal pow­er today, not because the peo­ple are stu­pid, but because they have bor­rowed tremen­dous sums of mon­ey from over­seas lenders,and have through the decades cre­at­ed zones of polit­i­cal exclusions.

What that means is that both polit­i­cal par­ties have cement­ed their pow­er in cer­tain geo­graph­i­cal areas of the coun­try, mak­ing it impos­si­ble for them to be vot­ed out of office. One par­ty has been expo­nen­tial­ly bet­ter at it than the oth­er, nation­al elec­tion results have borne this out .

It is called ger­ry­man­der­ing here in the US. It isn’t ille­gal but it’s immoral and dis­hon­est. What we end up with is over one tril­lion Dollars US dol­lar of debt, well over half of the coun­try’s gross domes­tic prod­uct is spent on debt ser­vic­ing. Meaning pay­ing on inter­est on these loans , not on the principal.

The down-side to doing this is that in order to fill bud­getary short­fall they have to bor­row more mon­ey to run the coun­try which sends the amount need­ed for inter­est pay­ments sky­rock­et­ing through the roof .

At that rate pret­ty soon the entire gross domes­tic prod­uct will be required and then some, to ser­vice inter­est pay­ments. And did I men­tion that the prin­ci­pal loans will still be there?

That will leave noth­ing to run the coun­try. That my dear friends is called eco­nom­ic col­lapse. As we have seen lenders like the IMF are very reluc­tant to board a sink­ing ship, this last time around they were very reluc­tant to free up any more loans to Jamaica.

When lender Agencies do free up loans , they come with mul­ti­ple strings attached. Those mea­sures fur­ther com­pli­cates the prob­lem by adding pain to an already over-bur­dened peo­ple and con­stricts the econ­o­my through lay­offs and spend­ing cuts.

When the econ­o­my gets small­er the gov­ern­ment rais­es tax­es to fill short-falls which in turn gives them a tem­po­rary quick-fix of cash but that is like cot­ton-can­dy it invari­ably leads to much less cash in the econ­o­my as peo­ple have less mon­ey to spend , there­by tight­en­ing the econ­o­my even fur­ther. The prob­lem is syn­ony­mous to a snow-ball careen­ing down-hill, get­ting big­ger with each rev­o­lu­tion, it will crash and when it does it will be cataclysmic.

The Jamaican peo­ple must stop berat­ing each oth­er while those they elect­ed to lead them build mam­moth man­sions as soon as they enter office and dri­ve around in import­ed lux­u­ry vehicles.

The time has come to hold their feet to the fire and demand to know where the mon­ey comes from to fur­nish the lifestyle they are liv­ing. We must stop giv­ing them a pass while Rome burns.

Our pol­i­tics , like Race and Religion help to shape who we are, how we view the world, how we relate to each oth­er. There is no one way which is right , no one way which is absolute. As such when I take the lib­er­ty to be a social com­men­ta­tor, I am very mind­ful that I am lim­it­ed in what I know, as such I am par­tic­u­lar­ly care­ful in under­stand­ing and appre­ci­at­ing the views of oth­ers. I am not offend­ed by oppos­ing views I look to learn from those who dis­agree with me, tak­ing into con­sid­er­a­tion that I have nev­er walked in their shoes. Though we are shaped by our expe­ri­ences, we are not pre­clud­ed from un-shack­ling our­selves from the mores of tra­di­tion­al or parochial thought. Essentially we have the abil­i­ty to learn some­thing new always. I too have been guilty of being a par­ty to the con­fin­ing ten­ta­cles of Jamaican polit­i­cal label­ing, I have sought over time to extri­cate myself from those men­tal chains which has since allowed me to be a Jamaican, and not a PNP or a JLP, I am Jamaican. People asked me what “P” was I dur­ing the heights of polit­i­cal fer­vor years ago, I respond­ed ‚“Police” ! To this day I could­n’t care less about either polit­i­cal par­ty, I refused to allow myself to be defined by those labels. Today as we look back at what hap­pened in Tivoli Gardens, we must look back to ensur­ing that what Tivoli Gardens metas­ta­sized into, is nev­er again allowed to hap­pen. I have writ­ten at length about this, no com­mu­ni­ty should ever be off-lim­its to law enforce­ment. No Politician should ask “what was Adams doing in Tivoli”? As Edward Seaga did. The infer­ence being that law-enforce­ment is pre­clud­ed from enter­ing his per­son­al enclave. The oth­er par­ty is no bet­ter they argue Jamaica is PNP country.

Really?

Jamaica is not PNP coun­try, but they have used tax­pay­ers mon­ey to cre­ate these zones of polit­i­cal exclu­sions, which allows them to have the temer­i­ty to say so pub­licly. In fact they have eleven times the Garrisons the JLP does. They have bragged that they are guar­an­teed to keep win­ning as a result of this type of ger­ry­man­der­ing. As rep­re­hen­si­ble as this prac­tice is both polit­i­cal par­ties in the United States indulge in this un-demo­c­ra­t­ic prac­tice when they con­trol the major­i­ty, absolute pow­er cor­rupts absolute­ly. The University of the West Indies have been a huge con­trib­u­tor to this kind of men­tal­i­ty, for decades it has prop­a­gat­ed and pro­mul­gat­ed a far left ide­ol­o­gy not just through its Curriculum but the Professors it hired. The Communist par­ty owed it’s gen­e­sis to that Institution. Years ago as a young offi­cer assigned to the Ranger Squad out of the Mobile Reserve, I infa­mous­ly Graced the cov­er of the then (WP[J)Communist Party Newspaper the “Struggle”, brand­ed a ter­ror­ist cop. My crime was that I stood my ground, did my job. We were sent to make sure that a band of WPJ demon­stra­tors did not get to invade the grounds of Jamaica House the Offices of the Prime Minister who was in office at the time. Edward Seaga was the then Prime Minister, what irony. Years lat­er I went to a Restaurant on Dunrobin Avenue to have lunch, with me was Detective Sargent Gerald Wallace, the lady who owned the estab­lish­ment was very cor­dial , she knew mis­ter Wallace who did the intro­duc­tions. I was sur­prised that she knew my fam­i­ly, as well as to learn she was friends with my dad while they were in school. She went on to tell me about her father, famed Lawyer Huntley Monroe and her broth­er Trevor Monroe, President of the WPJ. The sto­ry had come full cir­cle, I told her of the inci­dent in which I was labeled a Terrorist cop, she was livid and shocked, she promised me she would fix it. Sometime lat­er she called to tell me that she had gone ahead and arranged a meet­ing between her broth­er Dr, Trevor Monroe and myself,we were to meet for lunch at her place, I agreed. As usu­al it was Seargant Wallace and I. That day we had lunch with Dr. Monroe and her, he was very engag­ing, we had a very good con­ver­sa­tion cul­mi­nat­ing in him giv­ing me a full-throat-ed apol­o­gy for the “Struggle’s” head­line, we made up and went our seaper­ate ways.

… Oh by the way we paid for our lunch.

I under­stood the Paper’s need for sen­sa­tion­al­ism, after all they need­ed trac­tion and who bet­ter to give them trac­tion than the evil police[sic]. They nev­er both­ered to think of what could have hap­pened if we had allowed peo­ple to invade the Prime Minister’s office and do him harm( irre­spec­tive of who is in that office). The sto­ry of that day his­tor­i­cal­ly would have been much dif­fer­ent going into pos­ter­i­ty. The beau­ty of our meet­ing was that peo­ple with dia­met­ri­cal­ly dif­fer­ent objec­tives were able to sit, break bread and dis­cuss those objectives,it was won­der­ful and enlightening.

Thanks to Mrs White, a won­der­ful woman.

♦The headlines blare the stories, day in day out.

♦Gunmen invade community, fire-bomb five houses.

♦Gunman kills hotel work­er try­ing to res­cue neighbor.

♦Massive MoBay Raid — Drugs, Cash Seized In 11-Hour Operation; Canadian Held

The coun­try’s nation­al secu­ri­ty Minister indi­cat­ed unwit­ting­ly that the gov­ern­ment was out of ideas, in a speech he said the coun­try need­ed divine inter­ven­tion to solve the crime prob­lem. I con­tend­ed then to much oppo­si­tion, that though I believe in God, I do not believe God is going to inter­vene to stop crim­i­nals and ter­ror­ists from killing , maim­ing and rap­ing in Jamaica, Jamaicans will have to do it with his help.

Carolyn Gomes Jamaicans for Justice:

Throughout the Bible Jesus and the Prophets showed that if you need­ed a mir­a­cle you bet­ter get up and help in secur­ing it. Go show your­self to the Priest! Go wash in the riv­er! Pick up thy bed and walk ! Go home thy ser­vant is alive! Go thy way and sin no more lest a greater thing befall they! Fill the jars with water! On and on we saw that we had to do for our­selves the things we must and those things we can­not do, the lord will handle.

I say once again the prob­lems fac­ing Jamaica are not insur­mount­able, they require bold lead­er­ship. The first order of busi­ness is that Jamaicans must stop see­ing every­thing with­in the nar­row lens of PNP, JLP. Once we are able to extri­cate our­selves from the shack­les of that parochial­ism, we will have a bet­ter appre­ci­a­tion for lib­er­at­ed views aimed at build­ing our coun­try. I for one have no com­punc­tion about speak­ing my mind. Jamaica belongs to me as much as it does the oth­er guy, so don’t believe for one moment I will be scared of say­ing my piece and doing my part. The sec­ond order of busi­ness is that we stop being pre­ten­tious. That means lets face facts, Jamaica is not a devel­oped coun­try, as such, lets stop act­ing as if we live in the Colorado Rockies, or the Swiss Alps with beau­ti­ful pris­tine moun­tains and we can leave our doors open if we chose to.We have a coun­try that is undaunt­ed with crime and it’s get­ting worse by the day.

We sim­ply have to stop pre­tend­ing and if it means telling Carolyn Gomes and all out­siders to shut the fuck up, then that’s what needs to be done. The Blind, incom­pe­tent polit­i­cal lead­er­ship is not going to change whats hap­pen­ing, they exist because of it. The Commissioner of Police is clue­less as a crime fight­er, Ellington has no clue strate­gi­cal­ly how to fight crime, he was an office clerk, the peo­ple he sur­round him­self with are lack­eys, and ass-kissers, they do not know what they are doing. Ellington and oth­ers before him has forced good offi­cers to leave the police depart­ment even as they use the police depart­ment to pro­vide jobs for their friends and fam­i­ly. It is a shame what Jamaica has become under these peo­ple’s leadership.Where else would a Police Chief be able to keep his job with a 7% clear-up of major crimes, even when crimes are com­mit­ted in view of the police they are unable to secure con­vic­tions based on inep­ti­tude and incom­pe­tence. So the depart­ment is clear­ing up 7% of major crimes and the con­vic­tion rate is even more abysmal, it is clos­er to 1%. This is not just the fault of Ellington, but he is the Police Chief.

The PNP while in Government dur­ing the decade of the 90’s did not train a sin­gle detec­tive, when you fac­tor depor­tees return­ing to the Island with advanced meth­ods of crim­i­nal­i­ty, it’s no won­der crime is at such alarm­ing lev­els. Ellington makes the Force Orders pub­lic for no rea­son, this is atro­cious, he makes Detectives wear vests announc­ing that they are police offi­cers and dri­ve in marked squad cars. Ellington’s lead­er­ship does not serve the inter­est of the peo­ple of Jamaica , he serves the crim­i­nals and the pow­er­ful bour­geois who lives in upper Saint Andrew.

Everyday we read the hor­ror sto­ries where bands of heav­i­ly armed men mur­der rape and com­mit arson at will. Young women forced into pros­ti­tu­tion because a broth­er lost a gun. The only thing the inept Police can do is stay out of their way. As if what hap­pened in 2010 was not warn­ing enough the Prime Minister is mute, she has no idea what the hell she is sup­posed to do and as such she remains silent. Arguably hop­ing things will change if she keeps qui­et. Our coun­try needs action, we need ded­i­cat­ed lead­er­ship that is unafraid to bring jus­tice to these mur­der­ing scums. Miller Bunting and Ellington is not that lead­er­ship, they are car­ry­ing out the dic­tates of elit­ist Carolyn Gomes.

We will be ask­ing the Inter American Commission on Human Rights and oth­er agen­cies which are ded­i­cat­ed to human rights, to tell us in the dias­po­ra, how much mon­ey they give to JFJ, and explain to what end those monies are being used. The fact is, even as Police con­tin­ue to abuse and kill peo­ple in state after state in the most bru­tal ways pos­si­ble in the United State these agen­cies are silent, yet they pro­vide fund­ing for the per­se­cu­tion of Jamaican Police Officers.

Have you ever won­dered how your tax dol­lars are spent in on your behalf in America? Are you some­one who do not depend on Government for hand-outs?

Here’s one way !

Last Friday evening my wife called me late in the evening I was close to going home from work , which I always do at 8.pm when pos­si­ble. She said ” Babe I just want you to know Bud dis­ap­peared and the police has him we won’t get him back until tomorrow”.

I was stunned, Bud is a black Lab we acquired, he is still young, not yet a year old, even though his size belies his age. This lit­tle pup­py had wormed his way into our hearts from day one. On the day we went to pick up a pup­py from the lit­ter, he latched onto me, tug­ging at my sneak­er laces, he did­n’t stop until the entire lit­ter joined in, they had me encir­cled while they all tugged at my laces and the legs of my sweat pants. My wife had her heart set on anoth­er pup­py with brown mark­ings but Bud’s tenac­i­ty forced her to change her mind, Bud decid­ed he was going to be a part of our fam­i­ly. My wife was duti­ful with every require­ment to own­ing a dog in the Town of Poughkeepsie, stuff I was­n’t even con­ver­sant with, she did and she made sure she dot­ted all the “I’ ”s and crossed all the “T“ ‘s .

On my arrival home she told me Bud went out­side with our sons and dis­ap­peared, she called but he did not respond, she drove around the neigh­bor­hood but there was no sign of him. So she decid­ed to call the Town of Poughkeepsie Police. They con­firmed that some­one had called that there was a strange dog in their back-yard, and an offi­cer had respond­ed and retrieved our dog, but we would not be able to pick him up until the next day which was Saturday April 27^th.

This is what res­i­dents pay for !

We were dis­traught we fig­ured he must be ter­ri­fied , he had nev­er been away from us in his short life, we were par­tic­u­lar­ly wor­ried for him espe­cial­ly in light of how he was removed by the cops. We set­tled into Friday night with res­ig­na­tion that it was out of our hands. They said we could pick up our dog on Saturday, pay what­ev­er fees we were required to pay and so we pre­pared for that.

We did not sleep much Friday night, per­son­al­ly I did not know that I could care so much about a dog. Lets face it we Jamaicans are not nec­es­sar­i­ly all love-dovey with dogs.

We were told by the Police that the ani­mal war­den would be in at sev­en on Saturday, so duti­ful­ly Saturday morn­ing my wife called to say we would be head­ing down to the precinct to col­lect our dog, or so we thought.

Well not so fast Sargent Wagner told her that was­n’t going to hap­pen, the war­den would not be com­ing in until Monday April 29^th, so Bud would have to stay in their cus­tody for the week­end. You thought that was hor­rif­ic for that young dog? Well it gets worse we would have to pay for the days that the dog was held by them, despite it is their war­den who decid­ed she would­n’t come in on the weekend.

That pret­ty much decid­ed the qual­i­ty of my week-end, Monday morn­ing we gath­ered up every­thing, leash and all of Bud’s paper­work and went to the Town of Poughkeepsie Police to col­lect our dog, of course Sargent Wagner was on duty again, yup ! a Sargent mans the front desk, I will have to research how much they receive from us the bilked tax­pay­ers. Wagner told us we would­n’t be get­ting our dog because the war­den had called in sick, so it was now Tuesday before we get our dog. Normally I am volatile and my wife is calm, I real­ized that my wife a nice sweet woman was on the verge, so I secret­ly begged her not to give them the sat­is­fac­tion. I decid­ed we were not going to be treat­ed the way Police in America treats black peo­ple, and nei­ther would we do what they expect us to do.

So Wagner brought out anoth­er Sargent to tell us pret­ty much what he had just told us, so now it’s two Sargents just to release our dog to us. This Jicha fel­low was pret­ty much the schmuck that Wagner was, just a lit­tle more rep­re­hen­si­ble. We had heard enough, I called a Lawyer friend of mine, but we decid­ed to make one more stop before head­ing to his office. We wait­ed at the offices of the Town Supervisor for a lit­tle until he arrived for work. Supervisor Tancredi invit­ed us into his office , he was very cor­dial, respon­sive and under­stand­ing, we wait­ed as he tried to call the Police Chief, no answer. He tried get­ting one of the Captains , none answered their phones. So he was left with Wagner at the front desk. Supervisor Tancredi seemed vis­i­bly embar­rassed that at min­utes to 9 :am there was no way of reach­ing the top tier of law enforce­ment in the Town, I whis­pered to my wife “what if there is a seri­ous emer­gency which requires their pres­ence and direc­tion”? Mister Tancredi took my wife’s num­ber and promised to get back to us, I went to work. Wagner called and told my wife that Bud could be picked up at an ani­mal Hospital, Todd Tancredi had done his job. Wagner told my wife we would be required to pay over $270.00 in fees in order to retrieve our dog. My wife went to the Town Clerk’s office to pay the fees, the clerk had no paper-work from nei­ther Wagner or Jicha, she cal­cu­lat­ed the fees which amount­ed to $254.oo.

Wagner and Jicha could­n’t even com­pute the fees correctly.

♦ Board $72.00.

♦ Shots $107.oo (dog has all it’s shots none was needed).

♦ Seizure $75.00 (despite the salary we pay the cops we have to pay again for them to actu­al­ly do what we already paid for).

♦ Total $254.00.

Our prop­er­ty and school tax­es for the Town of Poughkeepsie is a cou­ple hun­dred dol­lars less than $10’000 annu­al­ly, the only ser­vice the Police Department in our Town offers to res­i­dents oth­er than hid­ing in bush­es to write tick­ets is bad attitude.

So we took our dog home , thank God he seem ok , prob­lem solved right? Well not so fast, of course Tuesday morn­ing the war­den showed up for work and of course she called my wife , it is auto­mat­ic that despite being extort­ed and fleeced of $254 , the Town was not fin­ished, we would be issued with two tick­ets, I mean why not more Money right? She explained the tick­ets were manda­to­ry when a dog was impounded.

On her arrival at our home I asked her how much more we would be fleeced with these two tick­ets? She explained ‚at least anoth­er cou­ple of hun­dred dol­lars, and of course court costs. Welcome to Government gone amok. If you ever believed Government worked for you, if you ever believed any­thing was about your inter­est when politi­cians tell you they want to hire more cops and oth­er gov­ern­ment work­ers, get your head examined.

I had long held that Government did not work for peo­ple, peo­ple worked for gov­ern­ment, an unnat­ur­al phe­nom­e­non to begin with. As bad as these pub­lic ser­vice work­ers are the police in these lit­tle towns are the worse. The only bright spot in all of this was Town Supervisor Todd Tancredi who called Tuesday and spoke to my wife, he want­ed to know whether Bud was adjust­ing well to being back home where he belong. It’s not often that I have any­thing pos­i­tive to say about Government or those who work in Government, many could not func­tion in the pri­vate sec­tor or on their own. Todd Tancredi is not one of them. Our thanks to mis­ter Tancredi for serv­ing the inter­est of the peo­ple who put him in office.

Town of Poughkeepsie cops all dri­ve around in brand new cruis­ers, with full trap­pings, they are paid very well, crime in the town are rel­e­gat­ed to a few shop-lift­ing in the malls along the route 9 cor­ri­dor. You will get tick­et­ed for dri­ving 20 miles per hour on some roads, I kid you not, the speed lim­it is 15 miles per hour in places. No there are no schools in these zones, it is designed to tax you more.

As if that was­n’t overkill, the Sheriff’s depart­ment and State Police all over­lap in the tick­et writ­ing bonan­za. Just don’t expect much if you have a real prob­lem which requires their help.

Continue read­ing →

The following is the full text of a speech given by Jamaica’s National Security Minister Peter Bunting, at an awards ceremony on the Campuses of Northern Carribean University in Mandeville Manchester.

“This is, I think, per­haps the fifth time I have had the oppor­tu­ni­ty, first­ly as oppo­si­tion spokesman and last year as min­is­ter of nation­al secu­ri­ty, to par­tic­i­pate in this ser­vice of thanks­giv­ing for the secu­ri­ty forces of Jamaica and, in par­tic­u­lar, for the men and women who serve in Area Three. I want to com­mend NCU for this ini­tia­tive in its 13^th year, and I always say not just because the NCU main cam­pus is in my con­stituen­cy (Central Manchester) but the NCU does not only oper­ate from the com­mu­ni­ty but they are a part of the communuity.

“And this year’s ser­vice, of course, is espe­cial­ly poignant for me to par­tic­i­pate, hav­ing lost my own moth­er this week and also hav­ing been at KPH as we wait­ed hope­ful­ly while Sgt (Courtney Anthony) Simpson was oper­at­ed on. Unfortunately, he did­n’t make it. He, of course, as part of the Protective Services, worked very close­ly with us in the admin­is­tra­tion of gov­ern­ment and, in fact, worked two years on the gov­er­nor gen­er­al’s, King’s House pro­tec­tive secu­ri­ty detail. “For the last 15 months, I have been work­ing close­ly with mem­bers of the secu­ri­ty forces and one of the pleas­ant sur­pris­es that I have had is just how pro­fes­sion­al, how high a cal­i­bre of offi­cers and men, rank and file, that we have in the main serv­ing this coun­try. I have been impressed by their tremen­dous courage, com­mit­ment and dedication.“However, I think that after 15 months I am con­vinced that the best efforts of the secu­ri­ty forces, by itself, will not solve the crime prob­lem in Jamaica. But it is going to take divine inter­ven­tion, touch­ing the hearts of a wide cross sec­tion of the soci­ety and using as the instru­ments of divine inter­ven­tion the Ministers’ Fraternals, the aca­d­e­mics, the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, those per­sons who work in the NGO (non-gov­ern­men­tal organ­i­sa­tion) com­mu­ni­ty, those of us who are in polit­i­cal ser­vice — all to try to make an impact, to touch the hearts and minds of our fel­low Jamaicans.

“This week has not been a good week in terms of vio­lence in Jamaica. And when I look at many of the reports, because I get the reports every morn­ing, and I see how many of the fatal­i­ties are caused by per­sons known to each oth­er and some­times in the same fam­i­ly, when I read yes­ter­day of the 17-year-old who hit his own father in the head, in Clarendon, fatal­ly; when I learned of the prowler, the bur­glar who was caught and killed by a mob in St James; when I read of the two hig­glers — friends, asso­ciates — who got in a dis­pute, one stabbed the oth­er, and I could go on and on — sit­u­a­tions which it would be vir­tu­al­ly impos­si­ble for the secu­ri­ty forces, unless we had 100 times the num­bers, to have pre­vent­ed, I realise how crit­i­cal it is going to be to get the entire soci­ety engaged.

“And…(pause) Am not embar­rassed to say because right now as min­is­ter of nation­al secu­ri­ty, I am going through a kind of a dark night of the soul because we are try­ing very heard at the min­istry, I see the men and women of the secu­ri­ty forces try­ing very hard, work­ing night and day, long hours. I see the lead­er­ship, capa­ble, com­pe­tent, pro­fes­sion­al, both of the police and the mil­i­tary. And so much effort is being made and yet so lit­tle head­way, such slow head­way is com­ing out in the statistics.

“And it real­ly takes a lot of faith to keep work­ing, keep going in the face of this. And of course, I am hap­py that I have so many per­sons of faith to encour­age and sup­port, not just myself, but all of the secu­ri­ty forces at this time.

“So I would just, in clos­ing, use this oppor­tu­ni­ty to once again appeal, to call on the Jamaican soci­ety to let us take back Jamaica from crim­i­nals and evil behav­iour. We have a num­ber of exam­ples of this. We have seen the pas­tors in Spanish Town make a real effort to con­front this prob­lem We have seen the Rotary Club, I think of New Kingston, who have tak­en on men­tor­ship of a lot of young men in the cor­rec­tion­al ser­vices, in the juve­nile cor­rec­tion­al sys­tem. And we have a great exam­ple right here in Manchester where the Manchester Dispute Resolution and Violence Prevention Association was formed last year.

“I don’t want to nec­es­sar­i­ly give it all the cred­it because I know Cowboy Knight and Supt Nesbeth and their teams have been work­ing very hard. But I do believe that the effort by Pastor Harvey, Dr Grace Kely, the Ministers’ Fraternal, the polit­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tives, the Custos, per­sons from the psy­chol­o­gy and social work depart­ment, per­sons who have giv­en their time freely to train I think almost 100 per­sons in our com­mu­ni­ties in Manchester to be first respon­ders, to inter­vene where domes­tic dis­putes occur and have the poten­tial to esca­late to injury or death. And this ini­tia­tive was formed last year because we recog­nised that unlike many oth­er police divi­sions, in Manchester most of our mur­ders came from domes­tic situations.

“When I say domes­tic I mean both the vic­tim and the per­pe­tra­tor were known to each oth­er, either as fam­i­ly mem­bers, as man and woman rela­tion­ship, as col­leagues who work side by side and had some falling out, dis­putes over fam­i­ly land — a recur­ring theme. And we, in doing this train­ing — and it’s short but quite a rig­or­ous train­ing — as first respon­ders, so far this year we have seen the num­bers of mur­ders in the parish cut in more than half. We are about 60 odd per cent less up to the last set of sta­tis­tics I saw, rel­a­tive to the cor­re­spond­ing peri­od last year.

“And I know that cor­re­la­tion is not nec­es­sar­i­ly cau­sa­tion. But I think we have no choice but to keep doing what­ev­er we can as indi­vid­u­als. Even if we are not cer­tain it is going to make a dif­fer­ence but at least let’s try some­thing. And that is what I would call on all Jamaica to do here today and going for­ward if we want to take back Jamaica.

“In clos­ing, let me thank NCU and all those who have come out to sup­port the secu­ri­ty forces today. And add my thanks to the brave men and women, espe­cial­ly those who have passed on in this last year, we acknowl­edge your ser­vice and contribution.”

We will respond to the Minister’s state­ment later.