MINNEAPOLIS — The Minneapolis City Council unanimously approved a $27 million settlement with the family of George Floyd, whose death in police custody last year sparked a summer of unrest and a racial reckoning over law enforcement’s treatment of Black suspects. The settlement stems from a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by the family against the city and the four police officers charged with various counts of murder or aiding and abetting murder in the death of Mr. Floyd, who was under arrest for allegedly passing a forged $20 bill
Benjamin Crump and other attorneys representing Floyd’s family members are scheduled to hold a news conference Friday afternoon. Asked whether he would make an announcement about a settlement, Crump said, “all things are possible.”
“The city needs to exhibit responsible leadership in the face of the horrific tragedy that really was a watershed moment for America,” Crump said in an interview Friday
Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill, who is overseeing the trial, on Thursday granted prosecutors’ request to reinstate a third-degree murder charge. He had rejected the charge last fall on the grounds it was not warranted by the circumstances of Floyd’s death. But an appellate court ruling last month in an unrelated case established new grounds.
The Minnesota Court of Appeals ordered Cahill to reconsider whether to add the third-degree murder charge a week ago. Chauvin’s attorney, Eric Nelson, appealed that ruling, but the state Supreme Court said this week it would not intervene.
The three other officers involved — Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng — are charged with aiding and abetting both second-degree murder and manslaughter. They are expected to go to trial in August. All four officers were fired the day after Floyd’s death.
Events of note in our societies warrant at least a second look to see if we may learn from them. If they are not what we want them to be, we may see whether we can remediate them. The actions of 42-year-old Stephen Witter, a Stony Hill resident, when approached by Police on Hellshire Public beach is one such event that offers all stakeholders a teachable moment. The police, the Public, the Government& Opposition Legislators, and even our children. Stephen Witter was among a group of men approached by the police for alleged breaches of the Disaster Risk Management Act,(gathering close together, without social distancing or wearing masks).
Stephen Witter’s actions were so hostile; they resulted in the group of heavily armed police officers walking away, choosing, supposedly to de-escalate, out of fear of crowd intervention. The incident, from the mask, mandates, the police approach to enforcement, Witter and his cronies response, the police own response all bears a really closer look. Inherent in all of those events, we see the societal rot that continues to plague Jamaica, resulting in the voluminous violent crime statistics the Island continues to experience.
The Disaster Risk Management Act
The police are reported to have approached the group of men because they were not adhering to the Disaster Risk Management Act. I commend the officers for also paying attention to the small things. When the small things are attended to, it sends a message that big things will not be tolerated. From what we have learned, the Act is not as plain as it could be in giving the police clear and unequivocal sight on how the law is to be enforced. Credit the Jamaican Parliament for its inability to write a good piece of legislation that is unambiguous. Witter is from Stony Hills; we don’t know whether he or his cronies were on the beach legitimately or not; that is something it seemed that the police did not bother to investigate. It seems that a breach of the above-mentioned act, was the least of which Witter could legitimately be charged with.
The Police Approach One of the most absurd propositions I see being advanced today about policing in Jamaica, is that cops should retreat and come back later to arrest offenders, much like how they went back and arrested Stephen Witter. There are scenarios in which the police are forced to suspend actions to get better outcomes, for various reasons. What cannot become the norm is for the police to be forced to suspend making arrests for a future date, even in situations where several officers are present, as in the Witter case. At that rate, Jamaica will never be able to hire enough police officers to make arrests in a country that is already a high crime, volatile and lawless country. The alternative cannot become the norm; police must not step back from making arrests out of fear that bystanders will intervene. We need penalties that dissuade, and officers who are unafraid. We must ensure that those who would interfere in an arrest, justified or not, will think long and hard about the length of time they will spend in prison for their actions. The Police have demonstrated that they are not up to the task. People respond based on the actions of the police. If the police are hesitant and tentative, the crowd is emboldened. If the police are unified and methodical in carrying out their purpose, the voices in opposition become a lot less bellicose. We see the evidence of the police’s inability to make simple arrests, even when they have numbers; the training’s inadequacy is embarrassing in its glaring obviousness. The once treasured concept of esprit de corps that once guided how officers converged quickly to effectuate arrests have been replaced by fecklessness and hesitancy, giving rise to more lawlessness.
The public’s approach
Policing Jamaica’s streets has always been a challenge; people ganging up on cops they believe to be weak and feckless is nothing new. In fact, people go out of their way to test police officer’s mettle, we can question the legitimacy of their ways, but we may not deny that they do. They will get in a new officer’s face ad they will even assault officers to see what they are made of. The challenge for young cops in that Serengeti of chaos and criminality, is that they are expected to absorb the assaults to their persons, without any attendant punitive law to punish offenders. By that measure, officers are being asked to sacrifice their bodies and lives to maintain order in a hostile environment created and helped by politicians. The options open to the Jamaican police officer in Andrew Holness’s Jamaica are binary, (a) go hard against offenders backed up by their powers enshrined in the JCF Act, or (b) Ignore it all and go home to their families. The Andrew Holness, Horace Chang, Delroy Chuck, Antony Anderson, UWI idea of policing, has been a nightmare for law-abiding Jamaicans and their families. The murder rate continues to spiral out of control because the police cannot do their jobs. What we witnessed on that Hellshire beach must be laid squarely at the feet of Andrew Holness, a Spanish Town protégée’ who grew up resenting the police. We witness these events playing out across the country because of his continuing interference in policing and the policies he has been putting in place to hamstring the police’s efforts to do their jobs effectively.
The Legislators We know they are dumb, even to the point of being moronic. We know they cannot write a piece of Legislation that stipulates clear intent. We even know that some of them have conflicts of interest, and some are even mixed up in criminality. But the legislators, too, have a job to do here; if the laws aren’t working, change the damn laws. At what point will it dawn on those morons that the country is going to hell in a handbasket, because the laws are too criminal-friendly? The Jamaicans who stridently break laws do so because they know that they will not be punished in any meaningful way, even if they are caught. They also know that even when caught breaking the laws, they can fight or intimidate the police, a force that is so feckless, several officers will retreat because they are afraid of a few loudmouth punks. Even though this pattern has been a staple for decades, what passes for legislators in the people’s house have failed to enact legislation making it a felony to interfere in arrests, making it a felony to assault a police officer. That is the reason this writer has zero respect for that body of malcontents who are merely cheap hustlers looking to make a buck.
The Police
It is tough to watch them effectuate even the simplest arrest. I have no more energy to waste; these guys are what they are. They are themselves, victims of the environment they grew up in, and are now forced to police. If this is the new and improved policing that Andrew Holness unleashed on Jamaica in his grand restructuring plan, headed by a medical doctor, and executed by a soldier, God helps our country. The cartoonish idea of a police commissioner begging offenders not to resist arrest, is the personification of the Barney-Fyffe caricature the JCF has become under the assault of this bunch of losers.
.
.
Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.
The America Recovery Act, President Biden’s first $1.9 trillion USCOVID-19 stimulus package, will face much the same response President Barack Obama’s Recovery Act did by Republicans. Zero support. The Bill is scheduled to be voted out of the US House today, after which it will find its way to the President’s desk to become law. As has been the case for Democrats, Bill Clinton,& Barack Obama, Joe Biden was elected after Republican [Plutocrats] created a mess, leaving the country in a tailspin. The last one was far worse than the two previous Republicans to occupy the executive mansion. He left the economy in a tailspin, race-relations near civil-war stages, and an unattended and raging pandemic that took hundreds of thousands of lives on his watch.
It follows a similar pattern, Democrats generate positive economy-growth, using a bottom-up strategy that empowers everyone. Republicans take over; they pass laws giving tax-cuts to the richest one percent of Americans who have no use for the money. The tax cuts do not get plowed back into the economy, so it generates zero positive growth. In the end, the poorest Americans are left holding the bag to pay for their reckless retrograde policies. How can people see this and continue to vote against their own interests, when the results are so clear? I will address that but first, let us see what’s in the Biden Bill that we learned was just approved in the House and headed for the President’s signature on Friday, March 12th.
The bill provides direct payments to individual US citizens, tax credits for families with children, and hundreds of billions in bailouts for state and local governments, pension funds, small businesses, public schools, and healthcare providers.
The bill provides an estimated $225bn in one-time, direct payments of up to $1,400 for middle and lower-income Americans. Eligibility was narrowed for the cheques to limit individual taxpayers making $80,000 a year or less.
The bill includes $350bn for financial aid to states and cities, and tribal governments to cover extra costs and revenue shortfalls incurred during the pandemic. The revised Senate bill seeks to limit how the funds are used, prohibits bailouts of public pension funds, and assures smaller states will get their fair share of the funding.
The bill provides $130bn in funding for primary and secondary public schools across the next three years to begin to reopen and recover from shutdowns that have caused US students to lose up to a year of their education.
The bill seeks to reduce child poverty, which had worsened during the pandemic, by expanding the federal child tax credit. The credit is available for taxpayers earning up to $200,000 a year who have a child living in their household for at least half the year. The bill increases the child tax credit to $3,000 from $2,000 and allows it to be paid by the IRS in cash during the second half of the year.
The bill does not include an increase in the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour last set in 2009. The minimum wage varies from state to state but must at least equal the federal standard. The US House of Representatives had approved an increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. Still, the provision lacked sufficient support in the Senate to overcome procedural hurdles and was removed.
The bill includes subsidies for health insurance for people who have lost jobs. Under existing US law, those who lose their jobs can remain on their company’s health plan for up to 18 months. The COVID-19 relief bill would provide those people a 100-percent monthly subsidy through the end of September. It also expands the availability of health insurance plans on the government-mandated exchanges under the Affordable Care Act.*The legislation includes $14bn for distribution and supplies of vaccines as the Biden administration pushes to get every US adult vaccinated by the end of May. It also includes $8.5bn for rural healthcare providers, $45bn in rental and mortgage assistance and extends a federal moratorium on evictions through September, and $30bn for public transit agencies.*The legislation also provides continuing funding for the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program, which gives subsidies to small businesses that pledge to keep employees on their payroll.
One does not need to be an economist to see the benefits to the American people in this bit of legislation that is to become law without a single Republican vote in either the House or the Senate. Republicans in both chambers, will go back to their states and districts where their constituents are suffering from one, or several of the issues addressed in this recovery package, knowing that they did not lift a finger to help them receive a single benefit to offset their woes. How can they get away with voting against a package that has 61% approval with the American people, and is popular with their own voters, and is not concerned about their intransigence? When it comes time to vote, they undoubtedly will vote for them, as a block in state after state, even after receiving the benefits their representatives and senators voted against. In Red states, Republican supporters will vote for their whiteness instead of their interests. They will continue to support the Republican party that no longer believes in democracy, is willing to commit insurrection to overthrow the process, and set up a plutocracy that does not benefit them.
It is a mindset born out of the four-hundred-plus years of racial superiority that has been planted in their heads by rich planters. The rich and powerful planters and business interests separated them from Blacks based on race in order to maintain control of poor whites. Out of fear for the burgeoning numbers of enslaved Africans and poor whites, the need to create space between the two groups became paramount. Even though many were poor and destitute, and even though they resented the rich’s incredible opulence, whites liked the idea of having someone to feel superior to. Hundreds of years later, like a cowboy’s horse left untethered; they remain unhitched while the cowboy enjoys himself in the salon. They become useful again when the cowboy needs to ride like hell to get away from the trouble he started in the salon. Today they are needed when it becomes time to vote. Hundreds of generations later, many of them are no farther along economically, because they are still tethered to the sense that their whiteness is currency. Their Representatives and Senators fear no blowback from them. They know that their voters would rather have no relief for themselves, than relief for all Americans in need, regardless of race. Republicans in the House and Senate know that their voters would rather drain the pool than share it.
.
.
Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.
Yes, each person has a right to freedom of speech, and sure, people have a right to voice their displeasure at authority figures. My question is this; where exactly are the lines between sane and rational displeasure, and outright abusive and disrespectful behavior that has no place in a democratic society? Without having the facts of what occurred in this situation before the cameras started rolling, my question is, how can this kind of conduct be allowed to continue? Let us not be delusional about this, Andrew Holness has degraded the police, bad-mouthed them, and interfered in their work, and this is the result. The police have done more than enough to degrade their own authority, and they are not being trained in tactical maneuvers. One of the cockamamie stories I heard from their high command is that this offender will be arrested eventually. I must also disagree with some of my former colleagues who seem to have bought into this new-age paper police tactics that you go back to arrest later. They had several officers there, and there should have been an unspoken understanding that all of the officers present converge on this punk in two seconds, throw him to the ground, and cuff him. The next agitator who opens his mouth gets the same treatment. The idea that officers must always be mindful of escalation sends the wrong message that a single cop or two cannot effect an arrest.
At issue here seem to be three standout issues. (1) Government incompetence and corruption in allowing public lands, including public beach properties, to be occupied by criminals allowing for the construction of shanty structures. And as we can see in these videos, permanent structures generally without property ownership, permits, and or any approval. Jamaica’s number one foreign exchange earner is tourism, yet prime seaside properties are hangouts for thugs and badmen, whom the police seemed mighty afraid of.
(2) Lawless elements who believe they are above the laws, and that they can do as they please without consequence. This is not only horrendous for the present, but it is a ticking time-bomb with a younger generation emerging, that will have zero respect for the rule of law.
(3) An incompetent and poorly trained police force that does not know what laws they are enforcing, and is therefore unsure of themselves, resulting in situations like the some in the video. I talk about the demonstrably poor training of the Police Department members, and I am continually being told that they are being given the appropriate training levels. If what we are witnessing here is appropriate training, not just to quickly and effectively arrest a disrespectful loud-mouth piece of garbage, but knowing what laws or ordinances he violated that would necessitate his arrest, then obviously they are being trained to fail.
.
.
Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.
Former War-Hero and Arizona US Senator John McCain will forever be remembered for his valiant vote to keep health care for millions of Americans in need. The late Senator was a Republican, and so I did not share his political philosophy. Nevertheless, I respected the hell out of the man. He was a man who demonstrated character, and courage, not just as a POW in Vietnam, but as a Senator who stood on principle as a Presidential candidate who ran a clean campaign before Sarah Palin was brought in supposedly to save his campaign and brought with her the raw uncut Racism that is evident in the country today.
This is Arizona US Senator Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat, registering her ‘NO’ vote in a style reminiscent of John Mccain’s no vote against the skinny repeal of the Affordable Care Act. A US Senator makes about $174 000, in salary; they are servants of the people. A $15-per hour for the people at the bottom would essentially mean an annual salary of roughly $31,000 annually. Even if the $15 per hour were passed, it would be phased in over a four-year period, maxing out in 2024. By the time workers at that level receive the $15-per hour, inflation will have already eaten away the increase. The Federal minimum wage has not been increased since 2009. Yet, here is a public servant who is earning $174,000 at tax-payers expense, in tone-deaf Marie Antionette fashion, flippantly gives the thumbs down to an increase that over four years would give people struggling to pay rent and buy food a $31,000 annual salary. And she did so while decked out in the latest couture.
Former Massassachutes Democratic Senator, the late Ted Kennedy once asked Republicans in an impassioned outburst of anger, “what is it about poor people that you hate so much”? Sadly, if Senator Kennedy were here, he would have to ask Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, Jean Shaheen, Maggie Hassan, Jon Tester, Tom Carper, Chris Coons, (Angus King, independent ) the same question. With Democrats like these, where do progressives go to get parity in a country that long ceased being a Democracy, and has for all intents been a plutocracy?
The consensus for voting against raising the minimum wage is that businesses cannot pay the increased wages; there is no credible data that proves that businesses would suffer; in fact, there is evidence to the contrary. Like Republicans, the (DINO) Democrats threw their support to business, effectively telling tens of millions of Americans struggling to pay rent and feed their families, ‘go to hell’.
.
.
Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.
Just today, I wrote about the level of lawlessness in our country. Primarily because the Government has placed the lives of criminals over those of our law ‑enforcement officers. Only in a society where the country’s leadership encourages this kind of behavior by using various arms of the said government to militate against law-enforcement.
Criminals may pay INDECOM, The Justice Ministry, The Public Defenders office, and other arms of the Government; for all intents and purposes, their jobs are to antagonize the police. This officer was long within his rights to naturalize this direct threat to his life, why did he not. That assailant could at anytime have removed his weapon and use it to take his life, or use the baton to cut off his air circulation and killed him.
Why did he not use his weapon against his monster? Because he was afraid of being made out to be the bad guy, by the government by the press, and by the criminal-loving public.
Looking back at the past is one of the best metrics of measurement for how far we have come, what we have accomplished, what we can tweak or change, or whether we may even want to go back to some of the old strategies where the results may have been better than what we have at present. Or we could change to say we are agents of change, even when the change we seek has resulted in exponentially more negative consequences when compared to the past. With that said, I believe in changing tactics; standing still is stagnation; it may even be characterized as dormancy, particularly when we are dealing with continuing evolving situations like violent crimes.
Whereas we have a historical record of lower crimes, all things considered, it is foolish to disregard the data of that period simply because we want to make a point that we know better today, we want to set a different standard, even to the detriment of hundreds of people’s lives each year. As a former law enforcement officer, I have all but given up on the Jamaican crime situation, because it seems to me that those in power would rather showcase structural changes that they have instituted, rather than deal with the real-life consequence of the loss of human life. And so it seems that the Government’s insistence on what it terms ‘the modernization of the Constabulary,’ (executed by a soldier no less), is far more important than any cumulative loss of lives that may accrue during this supposed process.
It behooves all Jamaicans who would like a way out of the seemingly permanent mess of spiraling violent murders, to consider ways on their own to get out of the mess, since the Government is demonstrably not interested in doing anything about it. One way to do so is to look to the past at the lowest levels of violent crimes in our modern history, then evaluate the attendant issues that may have impacted the data and see how we can formulate strategies based on the positives from that era. How do we do that? Glad you asked; before we get to that, it is important to reconcile that the government of Jamaica has maintained a stubborn and arrogant stance on the issue of violent crime, refusing to accede to people with knowledge choosing to listen to talking heads from the University of the West Indies who read something in a book then regurgitate it. That is where the government formulates crime policy, aided by anti-police criminal-rights activists, and executed by a paper general who has never seen combat. This arrangement is one of the greatest acts of deception ever perpetrated on the Jamaican people.
Let us see where we were in our recent past and how we managed to accomplish the relatively lower numbers.
Let us begin with 1980, the period dotted with three red diamonds represented a critical mass as it relates to political killings. We see that, but for 1977 where 409 murders were reported to police, despite the turbulence, want, and shortages in the country, homicides were very low compared to where we are today. After the 1980 elections, murders dropped precipitously, cut by almost 50% but did not exactly go back to pre-1980 numbers. Still, the numbers remained consistently low for eight (8) straight years, after which there was a significant jump in 1990 by more than 25 percentage points. Of even greater note was the significance and alacrity with which the murder numbers took of after 1990 to the present day. This data is critical if we are to understand what exactly occurred at the point where we had the lowest numbers after the dramatic rise in killings during the year 1980, why they dropped precipitously and remained so for eight(8) years, then thereafter took off like a rocketship?
So what was the significant single characteristic at play in the 8‑years dotted with a green tick? Edward Seaga was elected Prime Minister in 1980, and his party remained in power for those 8‑years. Let me hasten to say that this analysis is not designed to make political points. Those who would read and analyze it with blinkered political lenses, one way or another, may do so; please remember your political deductions are not mine. Edward Seaga, the political leader, was far from perfect. His political career is paradoxical, depending on who is telling his story. Seaga loved Jamaica; he understood that there could be no real economic growth in an environment of criminality. Yet he cultivated one of the most historical garrisons in our country because his pride would not allow him to concede that the baby he created in transforming back-o-wall into what would later become the thriving modern community known as Tivoli gardens, in its structure of Donmanship was antithetical to the rule of law and therefore the effective governance of Jamaica.
Seaga’s supporters will argue that Tivoli gardens was a necessary evil to counter the PNP’s conflagration of garrisons; I would counter that all things considered, two wrongs do not make a right, but those are my personal views.“Edward Seaga nurtured Tivoli gardens as a parent his child, but he was not hesitant about giving to the police, the names of those he deemed to be out of [order] in the community. Tivoli Gardens is a tiny slice of Jamaica; I would do a disservice to the facts if I made the case, that by controlling crime in that enclave, you effectively control crime across the length and breadth of Jamaica. So we must examine the other factors that went into the massive reduction in murders relative to 1980 and when Seaga won the election and the period after the PNP’s Michael Manley beat him in the 1989 General elections.
During Seaga’s stewardship„ many Jamaican criminals fled to other countries, by utilizing unconventional means. Some went to Cuba; we later learned, then moved on to Canada. Michael Manley cultivated warm relations with Pierre Trudeau of Canada and Fidel Castro of Cuba; thus, there were channels open for them to exploit. Others found ways into Britain and the United States. The results of that period of exodus are well known; Jamaican criminals took with them a kind of ruthlessness that forced legislatures in those host countries to adopt [draconian] measures which ensnared and incarcerated thousands. After serving lengthy prison sentences due to those measures, the significant upward bound in homicides in the year, 2002 may very well reflect when those criminals were starting to be released from prisons and deported to Jamaica. That is not to say that deportees are directly responsible for the murderous onslaught. Still, it is fair to assert that they brought back with them a level of callousness and sophistication Jamaicans never knew before.
The Jamaica they returned to was not a Jamaica hostile to violence-producers. There was an administration in power that said quote; (‘anything a anything’).sic. That colloquial terminology was a wink and a nod to the criminals to do as they please. They also returned to a police department immersed from top to bottom in corruption, a society culturally socialized into corruption, and a justice system ineffectual to the requisite task. A change of Government in 2010 saw a dramatic reduction in murders from the preceding three years, and a further reduction for a few years thereafter, up to 2016 when the numbers went beserk again. The logical deduction from this thesis is that itis reasonable to say that crime has thrived in Jamaica when the country’s leadership has been most acquiescent with its growth. The country has not had the leadership of the type of Seaga on this issue under either political party, even though there has been a dip under the abbreviated Bruce Golding Administration.
The current leadership of Andrew Holness on [this] issue may be characterized as riddled with arrogance, ignorance, spite, and a willingness to enact structural changes in the Constabulary to the peril of hundreds of Jamaicans each year. In the end, Andrew Holness, Horace Chang, and Antony Anderson may get their wish to restructure the JCF, just so that they may have bragging rights for the sake of change. That changes will be a pyrrhic victory as (a) the changes are already proving to be at the expense of an effective police department & (b) by the time those changes take effect, there may not be anyone left alive. This Prime Minister has demonstrated that he is a disrespectful anti-police antagonist, one who has caused a massive attrition of competent people from the department. Some of the people who have left the department haven’t even left the country. That is a clear indication that they are fed up with him and what he has meant to the profession they love. After contributing to the continued destruction of the JCF, he engages in talking points in which he argues that the crime situation is outside the abilities of the JCF to handle. ‘No buster’, you hamstrung the police with your words and deeds, then complain that the crime situation is out of their abilities to control. It is the equivalent of setting the house on fire then complaining about the firemen’s inability to put out the blaze. The JCF has never been unable to cope; what the department needs are resolute leadership, something Andrew Holness should take a remedial class in understanding.
.
.
.
Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.
This is a rather interesting story. After the second world war, the new Germany needed a new Constitution. One that would prevent the return of Nazism. Guess who had a hand in writing that new Constitution? This makes me wonder, at a time like this when the Republican party is dead set on anti-democratic actions, including storming the Capitol to kill legislative members and install Trump king, why are the intelligence agencies precluded from stopping these actions?
»»>
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has put the country’s largest opposition party under surveillance as a potential threat to the country’s constitution, according to public broadcaster ARD and other media outlets. The move affects dozens of lawmakers who are in the right-wing Alternative for Germany, or AfD, party.
Members of the AfD say the investigation is politically motivated, aimed at weakening the party. In January, one party leader accused Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government of “trying to stigmatize us and to really put us in the Nazi corner.”
Some folk is too Christian, too Religious to acknowledge, much less deal with the events occurring in our world. “It is not my problem; I am a Christian, that fight is for the people who live in the world, me I will just wait to enjoy my pie in the sky.” That pie-in-the-sky — theology came directly from the slave [bible] created to keep our ancestors enslaved. Before Yeshua descended into the world, all of the great theologians, the most religious people, were, in fact, the most educated, and yes Yeshua sat among them and listened to them, even as he debated them when they were wrong. Now imagine the intelligent word of God being left up to people who are the least educated to disseminate, or people with ulterior motives?
Motives of self-aggrandizement and self-promotion? I do not claim to be the most formally educated; what I thank the lord for is his immeasurable grace in allowing me the ability to study and understand so that I do not fall into the clutches of the enemy. Sufficing to say, regardless of who you are, ‘theist, agnostic, or atheist,’ the world you live in and leave to your children is totally up to you. All of the great leaders that have gone on before us, from the great Jamaican Marcus Garvey to Martin King Snr, to Martin Luther King Jnr, et al., were all great educated men of God who gave their all in the fight to ensure a more just world. They fought and died so that we may have a better world than they did. You fool yourselves if you, for one moment, believe that this is someone else’s fight. I know most Christians would rather bury their head because the truth does not comport with the lies they have been fed and have become accustomed to. Nevertheless, I felt compelled to say this today.
A group heading to a Trump rally, are you starting to get the picture?
The Nurnberg Nazi Rallies were massive events held in 1923, 1927 & 1929; after that, annually, from 1933 through 1938. According to [Brittinaca], the rallies were propaganda events staged to reinforce party enthusiasm and showcase the power of National Socialism, not just to Germany but also to the rest of the world. The rallies were staged in locations that highlighted quaint medieval sites; they were replete with loud music, lots of banners, goose steps, human swastika formations, torchlight processions, bonfires, and magnificent fireworks. It is reported that Adolph Hitler and other leaders delivered lengthy orations, buildings were decorated with enormous flags and nazi insignia. The rallies’ climax was a solemn ceremony in which new flags were touched in the Blufahne (blood banner a tattered standard said to have been steeped in the blood of those killed in Hitler’s abortive Beer-Hall-Putsch of November 8 – 9, 1923. A Putsch is a German word meaning [push], used to mean, an attempt to overthrow a government by force.
CPAC stage was designed exactly like a Nazi othala rune, one of many ancient European symbols that Nazis adopted to “reconstruct a mythic ‘Aryan’ past,” ceiling decorations also depicted a nazi symbol.Judge for yourselves.
At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which concluded on Sunday, February 28th, 2021, it was difficult to tell the difference between CPAC and one of Hitler’s Nurenberg rallies. CPAC did not spare any expense in making its loyalties to Donald Trump known. At the Conference held at the Hyatt Regency in Orlando, it was a modern-day Nurenberg. In response to the firestorm on social media surrounding the nazi symbolism, Hyatt Hotels Corporation called the symbols of hate “abhorrent.” The website Themarysue.com exclaimed; CPAC attendees going all-in on white supremacy and Nazism, from their talking points, speakers, and actions down to the very design of their main stage at the Hyatt Regency. Hyatt said all aspects of conference logistics, including the stage design, were managed by the American Conservative Union, which organized the conference.
Matt Schlapp is chairman of CPAC, so we know the responsible parties are, for the full-blown Nazi extravaganza. In response to the outrage, Schlapp did not apologize or make changes to the stage-design, even though he had ample time to make changes before the conference got underway. Instead, Schlapp, lashed out arguing that what we observed with our own eyes was fake news, that CPAC has Jewish attendees and Speakers. By that definition, Jews are the only people offended by offensive Fascistic imagery. The comparisons were “outrageous and slanderous,” Matt Schlapp, American Conservative Union chair, said in a Twitter post on Saturday. He added the organization had a “long-standing commitment to the Jewish community” and that the conference featured several Jewish speakers.
A golden image of Donald Trump was also on display at the conference.
After the story became viral and several people called for a boycott of Hyatt, the company issued a statement that said,” With CPAC’s denial of any intentional connection to hate symbols and our concerns over the safety of guests and colleagues in what could have been a disruptive situation, we allowed the event to continue,” Hyatt said late on Sunday. Even so, the Hyatt lashed out at CPAC attendees for continued hostility to their workers, whom they refer to as “colleagues.” “Colleagues occasionally faced hostility from attendees” at the conference when attendees were reminded to wear masks and social distance. Hyatt also said it was “extremely disappointed by the disrespect many individuals involved in the event showed to our colleagues.” In its statement on Sunday, Hyatt said: “We take the concern raised about the prospect of symbols of hate being included in the stage design at CPAC 2021 very seriously as all such symbols are abhorrent and unequivocally counter to our values as a company.”
Trump s not known to be a reader of the written word; in fact, he has borne the brunt of late-night comedians’ attack as a man who cannot read. In an article in the Atlantic, dated January 5, 2018, Brendan Graham wrote, “Ironically, it was the publication of a book this week that crystallized the reality of how little Donald Trump reads. While, like many of the tendencies described in Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury, Trump’s indifference to the printed word has been apparent for some time, the depth and implications of Trump’s strong preference for oral communication over the written word demand closer examination. “He didn’t process information in any conventional sense,” Wolff writes. “He didn’t read. He didn’t really even skim. Some believed that for all practical purposes, he was no more than semi-literate.” So much for that business degree from that prestigious college in Pennsylvania. I guess, daddy paid for his name to be slapped onto one of those. Some of his detractors have argued that he has read the “Art Of the Deal,” a screed written about him, and not by him. Others have steadfastly insisted that Trump’s favorite book, (not sure if one can have a favorite out of a sum of one) is a book of Adolph Hitler’s speeches, ‘My New Order.’
According to a 1990 Vanity Fair interview, Ivana Trump once told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that Donald Trump, kept a book of Hitler’s speeches near his bed. This leads us to conclude that Donald Trump may not be a voracious or prolific reader, but he may actually read what he wants. There is little doubt that the policies that Trump espouses and the iconography he uses at his rallies are directly copied from Hitler’s rallies. Please make no mistake about the fact that the ironclad support that Trump enjoys from the people who support him is directly derived from realizing that Donald Trump is a white supremacist in words and deeds. From his Muslim ban, children in cages, immigration policy, deriding and disparaging of black women, disrespect of black athletes, racism toward China a‑la labeling the CODID-19 virus (the Chinese virus), disregard for the Palestinian people to the benefit of Israeli Jews, referring to African and Caribbean countries as shithole countries, the list goes on and on. Donald Trump has demonstrated that what he craves is a white ethnostate, or at the very least, whites holding all of the power, everyone else relegated to second-class,and not allowed to vote. Donald Trump made light of Joe Biden’s candidacy; he even went as far as to joke that if Joe Biden won the elections, he would leave the country; we are still awaiting that respite. However, his venom was reserved for the Woman on the ticket, not a white woman, but a woman of African-Jamaican and Indian descent. He told his Nuremberg-like crowds that he was not opposed to a woman President; he was making sure that ‘Kamala’ was not that woman. Surely Kamala Harris’s resume’ far exceeds anything that DonaldTrump could ever hope to accomplish, so what could be his issue with this imminently qualified woman.….….. .……of color?
The consolidation of the Republican party around Donald Trump, and the party’s eventual morphing into what has now become the Trump party, could only have happened because of white resentment and grievances at the power of the minority vote. According to some media reports, Republicans in states where they control the legislatures have written over a hundred voter-suppression bills and have already passed some. In Georgia, in which they lost two run-offs Senate elections, they are going all out to reverse black voter participation in the process. Of course, this is aided and abetted by the Republican majority on the Supreme Court, due to its own evisceration of sections of the 1965 voting rights act. The John Roberts court continues to whittle away at the voting rights act,making voting for some minority groups a near impossibility. No one should be surprised by John Roberts, as a young Reagan administration lawyer John Roberts was aggressively anti-voting rights, even to the political right of Ronald Reagan. Even so ‚John Roberts may very well be the most liberal of the Republican cabal on the highest court.
In a brilliant book titled “the sum of what Racism cost everyone and how we can prosper together,” Heather McGhee wrote; Near the beginning of the century, public pools could be found in many urban areas across the country, but that all changed as cities moved to desegregate those swimming areas. Cities closed their pools rather than commit to desegregation. Built in 1919, the Fairground Park pool in St. Louis, Missouri, was the largest in the country and probably the world, with a sandy beach, an elaborate diving board, and a reported capacity of ten thousand swimmers. When a new city administration changed the park’s policy in 1949 to allow Black swimmers, the first integrated swim ended in bloodshed. On June 21, two hundred white residents surrounded the pool with “bats, clubs, bricks, and knives” to menace the first thirty or so Black swimmers. Over the course of the day, a white mob that grew to five thousand attacked every Black person in sight around the Fairground Park. After the Fairground Park Riot, as it was known, the city returned to a segregation policy using public safety as a justification, but a successful NAACP lawsuit reopened the pool to all St. Louisans the following summer. On the first day of integrated swimming, July 19, 1950, only seven white swimmers attended, joining three brave Black swimmers under two hundred white protesters’ shouts. That first integrated summer, Fairground logged just 10,000 swims — down from 313,000 the previous summer. The city closed the pool for good six years later. Racial hatred led to St. Louis draining one of the most prized public pools in the world.
Even when they are not competing for jobs because they failed to earn the education or skills-sets required to have those jobs or opportunities, many would rather not see anyone but people who look like them having those jobs. Whether these positions are in Government, or the private sector, their reaction is the same. Even with an abundance that would ensure that all Americans have enough, they would rather starve along with those they do not like. That is what’s behind this Trumpmania, grievances, & resentment. It was grievances that propelled Adolph Hitler to power; it was his fascist tendencies that plunged the world into the second world war in 1939. America seems to be intent on a fascistic conflagration, one that is bound to engulf the nation at great peril to the rest of the world. And it’s all because a group of people would rather drain the pool than share it even though everyone paid to build it, some more than others. After all, they gave everything, they gave their blood, even their lives.
.
.
.
Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.
Jamaicans should find no comfort in the recent decision of the Office of the Services Commissions (OSC) to deny media request for the contract specifics of the Commissioner of Police Antony Anderson, Tax Commissioner Ainsley Powell, and senior members of the JCF from the rank of assistant commissioner upwards, and for permanent secretaries. Under the Access To Information Act and the subsequent denial, this request must be viewed ultimately as a failure of the Act itself to definitively set out in the clearest terms possible, under what circumstance such denials may be lawful under the Act.
In response to the request and explaining its decision, the (OSC) responded, “This office is restrained from providing the information you requested.” The (OCS) response cited Section 22 (1) of the ATI Act, which allows an authority to block access to an official document, if it involves “unreasonable disclosure” of a person’s private affairs. It is difficult to imagine how the Act could have been written to protect public employees’ salaries from public scrutiny, considering that the same taxpayers directly pay those salaries and other remunerations. Various individuals and interest groups have come out on either side of the issue, with former Commissioner of Police Owen Wellington coming out supporting the decision, arguing that the privacy issues should be considered legitimate reasons for the denial.
However, from a practical standpoint, it is inconceivable to see what privacy issues could outweigh the public’s right to have that information, again considering that the public pays their salaries. Under what circumstances would revealing their salaries jeopardize the public employee’s privacy? Have the (OSC) ever heard of redacting? The service commission is not a body elected by the Jamaican people, but is appointed by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the Prime minister, in consultation with the Leader of the political opposition. Two (2) of those members are nominated by the General Legal Council, none of whom should be actively practicing Law. Violent crime continues to increase despite the measures the Government has implemented. It is curious, to say the least, that the Minister responsible for National Security would announce that the Police Commissioner’s contract would be extended, yet, according to the (OSC), the people have no right to know how much they are paying him.
No one should be under any illusion that this decision is solely that of the (OSC), or that the Government’s fingerprints aren’t all over it. It is quite understandable that people with special skills are sometimes employed on a contractual basis. Based on those skills, they are sometimes specially compensated outside the norms of what otherwise would have been paid. However, it is difficult to see what those special skills could be as it relates to the blanket refusal by the (OSC). The media should not relinquish its pursuit to retrieve this information, even if there is no pressing need for it. Under no circumstances should public servants paid with tax dollars have any expectation of blanket privacy, much less privacy from the disclosure of how much they are paid. Giving in to these blatant abuses by Government is to continually see our rights abridged by the very people we elect and pay to serve us. Allowing an unelected entity to stand in the way of information that ought to be in the public domain in the first place, is atrocious and should not be allowed to stand.
.
.
Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.
People are entitled to their opinions, just not their own facts. I have great respect for people who hold beliefs contrary to mine, as long as they genuinely believe in the reasons they hold the beliefs they do. I also understand that as people, we come from different backgrounds and circumstances. Those circumstances help shape who we are as individuals. As such, I try to understand each person’s perspective and tread lightly before criticizing their views without first trying to see things their way.
I read Chief Justice Bryan Sykes’s comments regarding allegations that judges are giving light sentences to hardcore criminals, to the displeasure of police officers and the larger community. I knew Sykes as a young officer in the ’80s when he was a court(prosecutor) junior clerk at Half-way ‑Tree Resident Magistrate’s Courts. No one was under any illusion that Sykes was ever going to amount to an aggressive prosecutor, who had a penchant for going after bad guys. As per my own assessment, Bryan Sykes was an even-keeled dude who seemingly did not care one way or the other. As a former police officer who was gung-ho about removing criminals from the streets, Sykes would not have been my choice of a prosecutor, not by a long shot. Outside of that, I will not engage in ad hominem attacks on the Chief Justice. I left law enforcement eons ago, and I am sure that Justice Sykes busted his tail to get to where he is today, and that is not only admirable, it is commendable.
So let us ‘consider the Chief Justice’s statements! Remember, he responded to the idea that cops are mad that judges are issuing light sentences to violent offenders. We will henceforth refer to the Chief Justice as CJ. (CJ) “I have no problem with criticisms of judges, but we must have all the information before we criticize, and in any event, the solution to this is a simple one, which the ministry is addressing, namely right of appeal by the Crown. So all of these things will be addressed in due course.” I agree with the Chief Justice, on the need to have all of the facts; however, it cannot be that the CJ is tone-deaf to this issue that has been pervasive for decades. In any event, the prosecutor’s right to appeal the egregious cases of improper leniency by some judges cannot come soon enough.
Sykes responded in a specific case where the police are incensed at the sentence handed down to a known gangster. (CJ)“According to the news report, the police are reportedly upset because of the light sentence; the point is that there is no offense known as ‘alleged gangster.’ There is a statute called the Criminal Justice (Suppression of Organisations) Act. If the police believe that they have sufficient evidence to convince a court of the requisite standard that this person is indeed a criminal organization member, then that is the charge that ought to have been laid. Then the person would have been tried or placed before a judge of the Supreme Court, but the judge at the Parish Court can’t take account of unsubstantiated allegations.” Agreed wholeheartedly!
(CJ)“And in any event with Parish Court judges, there is a limit to the sentence that they can give, and the report does not indicate the remarks by the sentencing judge which the Court of Appeal has now obliged all judges at whatever level in the trial courts to indicate why a particular sentence was given. I am sure that the judge did this, but, of course, those things are not usually of interest. What is of interest now is the nine months it is said that he received.” Hmm, I wonder why the Court of Appeals has now mandated that judges at all levels in the trial courts indicate why a particular sentence is given? Could it be that the Appellate court recognizes that there are vast unexplained disparities in the sentences being handed down for the same offenses, and with no mitigating circumstances, in different courts by different judges? Is the CJ aware of these disparities occurring in the Saint James trial courts, for example? I’ll move on.
Speaking to the claims that the convicted man was believed to be a member of the feared Hollywood Gang, the chief justice said allegations were insufficient. (CJ)“Again, where is the evidence to support this? Furthermore, legislation indicates that where the person has entered a plea, discounts should be taken into account. Interestingly, the report does not indicate any long list of previous convictions of any kind, so it would appear, even on this report, that this is a gentleman [who] may very well have been, as far as the court is concerned, a first offender, no previous conviction and he is in a court that has a limit placed upon its sentencing. The gentleman has been in custody for some eight months, so all of these are factors that the judge would have to take into account.” I agree with the CJ’s assumptions; if they are assumptions. On the one hand, however, he seemed to want to create the impression that he knew pretty little about the case in question. Still, his specificity related to the offender’s criminal record and the court’s limitations, particularly the length of time the offender was in jail before trial, seem to tell a different story. Nevertheless, I will move on.
I wanted to give the chief Justice due deference, and as such, I laid out his comments and gave him credit when he spoke the truth. But for the Chief Justice to stand before reporters or wherever the hell he stood to make claims about limitations on the court, first-time offenders, and the time dangerous offenders spend in jail before trial, without acknowledging the elephant in the room is disingenuous, to say the least. To pretend that there is no problem with the sentences handed down by judges within the system, makes Bryan Sykes a hypocrite and, for all intents and purposes, a damn liar. He has been in the system long enough to know full well that this has been a sore subject for decades. Is he going to pretend also that the reason the court of appeals mandated that judges give reasons for the sentences they hand down is simply arbitrary and unrelated to this vexing question?
The instances in which Judges bring the justice system into disrepute through disparate sentencing, are far too many for anyone, least of all the Chief Justice, to pretend it isn’t happening. If Bryan Sykes were a leader, what he would do is schedule a sitdown with police officers and allow for a discussion to occur between himself, his contemporaries, Prosecutors, and defense Attorneys so that the views of all can be aired out and a better understanding of all the roles appreciated. Denying that judges are letting violent criminals off the hook with slight slaps on the wrist by stating the obvious, is at its heart disingenuous.
.
Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.
A Police Constable, Nicholas Brown of the St. Catherine ESM, was on his way to work at about 3:15 am this morning February 27th when a lone gunman attacked him. The officer was attacked after leaving the May Pen Toll Booth when he stopped in the Savannah Crossing vicinity to change his punctured tire. A lone assailant allegedly attacked him with a firearm; a struggle ensued; during the struggle, Constable Brown managed to disarm his attacker and hit him with the weapon though receiving 13 stab-wounds to his back. Constable Brown is being treated at the May Pen Hospital. His condition is considered stable at this time. The incident is being investigated.
The Police Officers Association (POA), the entity within the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) that represents gazetted officers of the Force, issued an exuberant statement in support of its former colleague, Former Senior Superintendent of Police James Forbes, who on Friday had his 2014 conviction for attempting to pervert the course of justice conviction overturned by the appellate court. The POA’s statements were issued under the signature of its chairman Senior Superintendent Wayne Cameron. SSP Forbes was convicted in a case that involved Portland Member of Parliament Douglas Vaz, and Tankweld boss, Bruce Bicknell. The case involved Bicknell receiving a speeding ticket and allegedly solicited SSP Forbes help through his friend Douglas Vaz to make the ticket go away. An investigation was triggered, and all three men were arrested and charged; Bicknell & Vaz was freed of all charges while Forbes was convicted and ordered to serve six months in prison or pay a fine of $800,000. Forbes paid the fine and filed an appeal. The appeal took almost seven years, which did not go unnoticed by the court, apologizing for the long delay before the verdict. On Friday, February 26, SSP James saw that conviction overturned and his good name restored.
THE POA’s RESPONSE
February 24, 2021
Mr. A. James Forbes
Senior Superintendent of Police
Dear Sir,
Re: Court of AppealDecision
The Executive of the Police Officer’s Association, on behalf of its members, wishes to convey our best wishes on your victorious outcome handed out by the Court of Appeal this morning. For many years during your tenure at the Jamaica Constabulary Force, you were the face recognized by Jamaica’s citizens, like that of Integrity, Safety, Reassurance and Standard Bearer for the institution.
It is with utmost respect and regard, that we acknowledge the fortitude which you displayed during the past six years to demonstrate your innocence and to display the integrity that you have been well-known for. We recognize the impact that the previous decision, had on your family and the diversion of your career path; however, we rest assured that justice has indeed been served although prolonged. In going forward, the POA celebrates this victory with you. and stands ready to offer not only our congratulations but also to extend assistance to you and your family as necessary, in the days ahead.
The POA encourages you to remain steadfast in your actions and to hold true to your principles.
Sincerely,
Wayne Cameron, Mr.
Chairman
S.S.P. Wayne CameronS.P. David WhiteS.P. Maldria Jones-WilliamsS.P. Christopher Phillips
Lawyers have a responsibility, as officers of the court, to ensure that whatever actions they take are not only legal but ethical, and do not bring disrepute to the system of Justice. Nevertheless, it appears that greed continues to plague the legal profession, resulting in Lawyers finding themselves running afoul of the very profession they are sworn to defend. This is not only true in Jamaica, where the stories are many and varied but in Trinidad & Tobago and other parts of the Caribbean. The pertinent question in light of these events is; why are lawyers held to a different standard? If a citizen receives money on behalf of another and converts it to his own use and benefit, he is guilty of fraudulent conversion. Paying the money back does not negate the offense, even though it may go to mitigation in the offender’s sentencing. Why are lawyers and politicians allowed to break the laws with impunity and get away with it simply by repaying the money? This must stop! For those reasons, I oppose a Caribbean court of justice because all across the Caribbean, justice has demonstrably meant different things to different people.
»»»»»»»»»»»»»»>
The Trinidad & Tobago High Court has issued an arrest warrant against attorney Kathy-Ann Mottley for refusing to repay a man more than $.2 million paid to her after convincing him he owed the money to one of her former clients. Upon her arrest, Justice Avason Quinlan-Williams ordered that Mottley be made to serve one-year imprisonment unless, while behind bars, she can facilitate the repayment. If that were to be done, then the attorney is to be immediately released from custody. The warrant was issued on Monday after Canute Antoine initiated legal proceedings against Mottley.
In 2016, Antoine also filed a complaint with the Disciplinary Committee of the Law Association against her. The Express understands that up to yesterday afternoon, Mottley had not yet been taken into custody. In all, she has to repay Antoine the sum of $209,142.02 plus interest. This is not the first time the attorney has found herself in such a dilemma before the court. In September last year, she was spared a jail term by Justice Frank Seepersad for refusing to pay a former client more than $.1 million in damages that she was initially withholding. That client’s son was killed in a vehicular accident. Mottley had represented the woman at trial, and after receiving compensation on the woman’s behalf, she failed to hand over the money.
Again, proceedings were brought against her before the disciplinary committee and later at the High Court. In his ruling, Justice Seepersad had ordered that if Mottley did not hand over the money within a certain time, she would be made to serve 30 days’ imprisonment. On two occasions, she made applications for extensions of time to pay the woman last September, the money was repaid in full and the committal warrants recalled by Seepersad.
For those of you who thought politics was anything but a zero-sum game, guess again. Try figuring out House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California standing in the house and laying blame on Donald Trump for instigating the house insurrection on January 6th, only to then turn around just over a day later and say Trump was not responsible then run to Florida to lick the dust from the de-platformed Trump’s shoes. How about b*∑**h, I mean Mitch McConnell refusing to say Joe Biden was the winner of the November 2020 elections, at the time he believed that Trump would find a way to hold onto power, then after he realized that Biden would be sworn into office he lit into Trump saying the following on the floor of the Senate.
“There’s no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.” “The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president,” he said, “and having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.“He did not do his job. He didn’t take steps so federal law could be faithfully executed and order restored.” The same Mitch McConnell, said Thursday that he would “absolutely” support the former president again if he secured the Republican nomination in 2024.
I won’t bother referencing Lindsay Graham much, sufficing to say that the South Carolina (water-boy), I meant Senator, has managed to make servility take on a new and even more degrading meaning. I would rather die than degrade myself the way Lindsay Graham debased himself in servitude to Donald Trump; it is nauseating. So exactly what’s at stake for these major players in the Republican Party that have caused them to contort themselves into better pretzels swirls to remain in Trump’s goof grace? As said without giving too much oxygen to Graham, the dude talked about going to Florida to talk to Trump like he is a little dog unable to wait to see his master. Dude, where is your self-respect? Where are your pride and dignity?
We always knew that the right-wing of the Republican party in the house consisted of Jim Jordon, Steve Scalise, Mo Brooks, and the other neanderthals like Marjorie Taylor Green, Bobert, Matt Gaetz, and others were straight-up white supremacists. If you are paying attention, you cannot miss that; those clowns aren’t even trying to hide it. We knew that in the Senate, Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson, Texas’s [Raphael] Cruz, Missouri’s Josh Hawley, that wisted face carnival clown, John Kennedy and the other Cuban, Florida’s little puppy-dog Marco were willing tools to be used by Trump, but what is McConnell and McCarthy’s story? You know the Republican party is a shit-show when Liz Chaney is the rational; voice.
Between the men and women who walked away from the Republican party and those who stayed and ca[itualted to Trumpism is a lesson to be learned on how totalitarianism takes root in once-thriving nations. The cowardice is palpable; the lack of spine and intestinal fortitude to stand up to an ignorant wannabe despot breaks down the guardrails and empowers the despot to push the envelope further. That the Republican party would completely cede its power to Donald Trump, who managed to lose the US House, the White House & Senate, all within a single presidential term, is remarkable. Not only is Trump a loser, but he is also a traitor who instigated a mass insurrection against the United States after he lost the elections. The results were certified by each state in the Union. That is the person the Republicans in the house and the Senate decided to turn the party over to, along with his children. It bears mentioning just how close America came to be just another banana republic in which insurrectionists acting on the dictates of a tin-pan moron overthrew the government. The whole country watched as Donald Trump decapitated the Justice, Defense, and other departments’ senior leadership, even after losing the elections. Those moves were designed to put in place lackeys who would do his bidding after his mob massacred the entire legislative branch along with his own vice president, whom he had soured on for not following his orders.
They did not act because they understand that the fight is no longer political. The fight is racial. As we watch more and more white men run toward the Republican party, and even those who win under the “D” banner, act like Republicans, speaking of West Virginia’s Joe Manchin. They understand that what’s ultimately at stake is the dissolution of some of the power that white men have held for hundreds of years. Demographic changes, already a black president, a black vice-president, their racist demagogue voted out of office on blacks’ strength and voting power in large urban centers, and the insurrection of January 6th, 2021 was unavoidably foreseeable. In the end, the Republican men and women who voted to retain Trump as the head of their party, (yes by not convicting him that’s what they did) are all white men and women except, of course, the two Cubans and the Ore Cookie that no one bothered to send a memo. The Biden appointees facing conformation obstacles from Joe Manchin and Republicans in the Senate are all people of color. Deb Haaland is native-American, Neera Tanden is Indian-American, Xavier Becerra, is Mexican-American, you get the picture? White men have never had to compete for anything on a level playing field. Having to contend with intelligent, educated people of color for the most powerful jobs, and to be beaten by them is gut-wrenching for them. This is what’s at the heart of the bad blood in American politics at the moment. The toxicity of it all will continue to play out in the years to come. How America deals with it will determine its demise or survival.
.
.
.
Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.
Former Senior Superintendent of Police James Forbes, who was charged with Portland MP Daryl Vaz and Tankweld boss Bruce Bicknell in 2014, had his conviction reversed by the appellate court this morning. Forbes was charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice in a case where Bicknell was issued a traffic ticket for speeding. SSP Forbes became embroiled in the affair after he was allegedly asked to intercede on Bicknell’s behalf by Vaz, a friend of Bicknell. In a convoluted twist, Forbes was convicted of the charge, while Vaz and Bicknell were freed. Forbes was fined $800,000 or six months in prison, the court of appeals ordered that the $800,000 be returned to Forbes immediately.
For the last five years, one word has dominated the national psyche, “TRUMP,” the guy’s actions literally dominate every news cycle, and finds their way into almost every conversation. Now he is gone from office, but is he really gone? On Thursday, February 25th, CNN reported that the Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance has in his possession the tax returns of the 45th president of the United States, something he fought tooth-and-nail to keep out of the hands of Vance and everyone else, until the Supreme Court was forced to rule on them just days ago. This is a matter that the court would have ruled on earlier, (speaking on whether they should’ve handed over the returns to Vance); the ruling delay by the high court caused raised eyebrows, and prompted questions from astute Journalists like Rachael Maddow, she bothered to ask the tough questions,” like what exactly is behind the long delay in handing down a ruling on this matter”? It almost appeared that the high court was waiting to see whether Donald Trump would somehow find a way to remain in office, before handing down a ruling, but that is a conversation for another day.
Despite the Biden win, America is indeed at a crossroads politically, racially, and probably existentially. At issue is the raw power that Donald Trump commands as the person who best speaks to America’s white population that views the rise of previously constrained minority groups as a threat to it’s survival. Juxtapose that fear with their old fear that Blacks, in particular, will reciprocate what they meted out to them for hundreds of years, and the palpability of those irrational fears is manifested cumulatively in what occurred on January 6th, 2021. In fairness, it does not mean that all of the people who follow Trump are despicable racists; at the very least, we must understand the fears many people harbor through their religious beliefs that taking the COVID vaccine, wearing masks and other Government directives leads inexorably to further government control of their lives, something they will not stand for. Those fears have not always been unfounded; the Government has mainly operated on the notion that no tragedy should go unexploited.
Americans saw their rights and freedoms seriously abridged after the Terror Attacks of September 11th, 2001, by the Bush Administration’s Patriot Act. Bush and his cronies knew exactly what they were doing when they named the law the “PATRIOT” Act; they marketed the law along the lines, ” either you are with us, or you are against us.” Democratic Senators who received the transcripts in the dead of night, mere hours before they were forced to vote on it, had no time to read what was in it. Without reading what was in it, and deathly afraid of being labeled, ‘unpatriotic,’ they voted for a bill they did not read. Some of these very citizens fear the government will immediately insist on a litmus test; if you have not taken the vaccine, you will not be able to enter a restaurant, not be able to board a flight, not be able to enter public buildings. People equate that with Biblical prophecy; it would be arrogant to insist that they are foolish when they hold these beliefs. The government has a history of engaging in such activities.
There is a legitimate conversation to be had on whether the trust they place in Donald Trump is misplaced. Those of us who stand in the middle looking at both sides, may be able to see that Trump ignored the virus as part of his own calculation on how it would impact his political fortunes. However, the saying ’ a drowning man grasps at straws’ may be appropriate in describing some of these voters; by refusing to do anything, as COVID raged, Trump was not forcing them into any government mandate; as a consequence, they see him as an ally to their cause. Understanding that not every crisis should result in a slew of government mandates, may well help Joe Biden to navigate the difficult political waters that lay ahead. Understanding these nuances may well impact whether Trump remains viable as a candidate for 2024, or becomes a footnote on history’s dust heap.
.
.
Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
