I ❤️ Madame Tussauds

 Wherever I go, I always visit the Madam Tussauds Museum to see which of my favorites have been added.

My only disappointment in Orlando was that there was no Chad Boseman😡, although there was a Narvel section.

Anyway there were some nice replicas of some of the people I admire.

The Rock 😍

It's the car I love😁

They even got his eyes😊

My boy dis

Naturally the new US president was there. But I wouldn't be seen dead with him.😡

There was an aquarium next door and although it didn't have much. I learned a lot. Especially about the octopus which is so intelligent that one was even said to know how to do the rubix cube!

There was one in England too that predicted elections, but I believe it died 

Octopi like shadows, so as this trainer moves out of the light it follows!

This turtle and stingray are friends

A strange looking shark

As Ripley's Believe it or not was nearby at Icon Park, we took it in too.

Always strange things to take in there too.

Icon park and it's surroundings in Orlando is really a great place to hang out.

Democrats have it wrong

The late Jamaican reggae singer known as Prince Buster, certainly did not have Donald Trump in mind when he wrote," Hard man Fi Dead," some 60 years ago. 

              The Prince Buster classic.

 But this reggae classic fits Trump perfectly!

Many people throughout the world are really mystified how someone like Trump,  a man with the reputation for: cheating  small contactors and other persons including applicants to his university, misappropriation of foundation funds for his own use, sexually harassing and even raping women, and who was convicted of a felony by his peers,  and on an on, could get such an overwhelming mandate from the richest and most powerful country in the world.

And this mandate is such that those who warned that he could be a Hitler could be prophetic, for with him sweeping the presidency both in terms of popular vote and electoral college votes, sweeping the Senate and most likely the Congress and controlling the Supreme Court and lower courts ad infinitum, there is nothing to stop him doing anything he wants during the next four years.😡

What is sad, is that the Democrats could also be out of power for decades, unless of course, they wake from their stupor and stop blaming everyone but themselves.

Short-sighted Democrats who claim that they lost because Americans will never elect a woman, are overlooking the fact that Hilary beat him by three million votes in 2016 and only lost because of the weird electoral college system. And when they hold up the race  card, how do they explain how Obama, a black man, won in the USA, not once but twice?

There is even more stark information that they are misreading the facts when you look at voter turnout in the critical states; For example, Trump won Wisconsin by 23,000 votes but in Milwaukee, 93,000 black people did not vote!

He won Florida by 113,000 votes where 379,000 black people did not bother to vote. And that pattern is repeated all over.

So, are they really saying that those blacks who did not vote for Harris are racists?

The Democratic leadership needs to wake up and take full responsibility for their shortcomings.

For they are the root of all the evil.

Kamala ran a good campaign, considering the short time she had and the fact that as Vice President, she had to accept responsibility for all that went wrong under Biden.

But it was the powerful Leadership of the Democratic Party that kept others out of a primary to replace Biden when he broke his promise to serve only one term.

 Even I, a mere neophyte could see that Biden was fading fast, and I said just that in April 2023, in Joan, my views: He is just too old!.

But the leadership kept lying to the people until it was too late and they had to choose Kamala who had not even been a front-runner when Biden got the nomination in August 2020.

The Democrats have it all wrong for the exit polls show that the immortal words  uttered by James Carville;  “It’s the economy stupid,” is as true today as when he first uttered it.

The powerful and wealthy Democratic leadership can continue to drag down the Party by disregarding reality, although over 70% said they voted for change because they were finding it difficult to cope economically. And don't forget, Trump the master marketer, never failed to ask the question at his well publicised rallies: are you worse off today than you were four years ago?

In other areas, the democratic leadership is totally out of step with the majority, for most immigrants who became citizens after going through the long, tedious legal process to be able to vote, were turned off by the immigration policy which allowed people to simply climb a wall and get accepted in to the USA!

In places such as New York and Chicago, black Americans were also expressing disgust at how wall climbers were being given free housing, and debit cards, when their homelessness and dire economic situation was being disregarded by the Democratic elites.

Also, because the Democrats neglected its base made up of workers, unions such as the Teamsters, refused to endorse them for the first time in decades.

Then there was their strange stance on transgenderism which endorsed underperforming male athletes getting sex changes and destroying the hopes of hard working female athletes in just about every genre.

Sure, there is racism and misogyny in the USA, and small groups will always vote in line with their petty biases, but by ignoring the real issues, the Democrats will fade into oblivion and may even cause the fascism they shouted so loudly about, to become a reality.

In light of these realities, we can only hope that Trump’s promise during his acceptance speech on election night 'to help our country heal and to be the president every citizen' is not just words.

It’s difficult to see how it can be otherwise though, as these words are so much out of step with his character. Also the possibility of a 78 year old man really being able to change seems so impossible!

But as it stands today, we can only live in hope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trump suffering from dementia!

 If ever there was a ‘Teflon don,’ it’s Donald Trump himself.

You know, a lot of us laughed when he declared in the 2016 campaign for president that he could kill a man on 5th Avenue and get away with it, but history has demonstrated that Trump knows his people. 

For while he has not actually killed anyone (that we know of), he has done just about everything else and gets away with it. 

He has used money that he collected for his foundation for his own use, refused to pay workmen and robbed those who enrolled in his Trump University, been an extreme racist, compromised the country's foreign policy with China after Ivanka received numerous copyrights from that country, used his expensive hotels to house secret service people guarding him at taxpayer's expense, is a super predator who had grabbed random women by their p*****, instigated an insurrection after trying to steal an election, tried to withhold funds from Ukraine unless they assisted him in dirty tricks for the 2020 elections and on and on. 

Name it and Trump has done it, but he retains unshakable support from most Christians and majority whites. 

I am watching this civil rape case brought by E. Jean Carrol with great interest.

Most likely she will not succeed but what has amazed me is how the media has virtually ignored his creeping dementia as revealed in this trial.  

As I said, he is covered in teflon, so while we all recognize that Biden is too old to run again, (Joan, my views: He is just too old! (joan-myviews.blogspot.com)  we often fail to point out that this also applies to Trump, as he is only four years younger than Biden and is far less mentally competent!

Where Trump's dementia surfaced dramatically again for the world to see, was in his deposition for this case. For, after claiming he didn't know his accuser, when he was shown a photo in which both she and he were quite clear, he misidentified his rape victim as his ex-wife Marla. 😅😅😅

In my book, this is clear evidence that his dementia is galloping!

KSAC a cesspool of corruption

I believe it was former US speaker, Tip O’Neil, who first publicly made the observation, “All politics is local.” That is certainly true and recently it appears that our PM Andrew Holness got the drift. For I heard in a newscast for 2022, where he said that, no matter how well the government is doing, what affects people most is that pothole at the front gate.

Well, I have literally and metaphorically had that pothole at my gate for decades and it’s is there because of the entrenched corruption at the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation (KSAC).

While I could write a book about the potholes, I will bypass that today to deal with the rabid corruption which prevents the KSAC from enforcing the appropriate and severe laws concerning the building breaches in our city.

I was only reminded of our own years of frustration, on reading the comments by the judge involved in the case at 10 Roseberry Drive, where the development company, in full view of all, constructed 32 bedrooms on a property approved for just 12.

This exposure followed closely on similar breaches exposed at 17 Birdsucker Drive. These cases only came to public attention as a result of court action taken by private citizens.

In the Birdsucker case, the judge described the local government authority as a ‘sleeping watchdog’ and in the case of Roseberry, the judge intimated that she thought corruption was involved.

I certainly don’t consider the KSAC a sleeping watchdog, for I know that it is a cesspool of corruption, spanning many administrations and decades.

You will note that from the two addresses cited above, some degree of affluence by residents there can be assumed, which has enabled them to take these matters to the courts.

But that was not the case in places like Richmond Park, Eastwood Park and Bedford Park, where this so-called sleeping watchdog, allowed residential areas to be completely destroyed, despite the pleas of the citizens.

I can speak directly about Bedford Park, where one of the operators who illegally operated commercial businesses in the residential area, told members of the citizens association many years ago, “Mi hab money so oono caan move mi.”

Time has proven him perfectly correct, for despite the regular reports to the KSAC regarding the breaches, the number of illegal operators in the area simply increased and the roads destroyed, as they were not built to withstand commercial activity.

Every administration (PNP and JLP) at the KSAC received complaints from residents at Bedford Park over the decades, but as the problem only escalated, as the political operatives at this corrupt institution, just got richer before our very eyes.

In the latest case of the watchdog ‘sleeping’ while obvious building and operating breaches continued in full view, two employees have been sent on leave.

That will not solve the problem of corruption at the KSAC as that’s not the level where the problem is and certainly not where the buck stops.

The problem there is one of the inherent corruption and only the arrest and imprisonment of political operatives who are in charge, but who regard this institution as a private money tree, can deal with it.

 I wouldn’t hold my breath though, since politicians from both parties have demonstrated over the year what their only interest is, when they get elected to that lucrative institution.

Yes, it’s a new year, but very little will change in local governance in Kingston and probably around the entire island. As people become more disgusted with local governance, you will see even lower voter turnouts than the 37% in the last election for people have lost faith in the ability of politicians to play by the rules and serve the public interest, not only theirs.

Despite the recent court findings, that situation will never change and only bodes well only for those who support anarchy, badmanism and corruption.  

And no, I am no longer the eternal optimist.