The week trundles on with nothing been really achieved, I sit and contemplate how we as people say we are compassionate, yet do little to show compassion to those who really need it. All I see is more and more selfishness where there is no equality or forgiveness in people’s hearts. It’s a world of ‘Thank [whatever your religion] that is not me’ instead of ‘what can I do to help’ mentality. So let’s take a look at what’s been happening overnight.
In America there has been a mixed bag of incidents rather than just one or two that have become news. The biggest of those was the Trump/Obama attacks at each other during rival rallies. Whilst campaigning for Democratic White House nominee Joe Biden in Pennsylvania, Obama likened Trump to a "crazy uncle" and said he emboldened racists, while in North Carolina Trump mocked Obama for being wrong about the 2016 election outcome. The political insults just keep coming and with only 13 days left there is likely to be more surprises like the Attorney General forcing the Justice Department to publicly investigate the Biden’s or attempts to rig an election by claiming voter irregularities like the latest announcement by the US national security officials stating Iran was responsible for sending threatening emails to Democratic voters ahead of next month's presidential election. The National Intelligence Director John Radcliffe yesterday stated that the emails appeared to come from a far-right pro-Trump group and were meant to "incite unrest” and that it had been discovered that Iran and Russia had obtained "some voter registration information". Even though the supposed Iranian email attack was against Democrats threatening them to vote for Trump, Radcliffe worded it as if it was an effort to ‘Damage Trump’. Will the people under Trump stop at nothing to spread false information to the American public which suppresses the fact from the fiction Trump wants people to believe?
On a separate note the way the rallies are been held says a lot about the characters of the candidates. While Trump holds these big cattle market style rallies where everyone is packed in like cattle at a slaughter house with no social distancing and are rarely seen wearing masks, Biden chooses to have drive-in style rallies where people are distanced from each other and if worried can sit in their vehicles to listen to Biden, Obama or Harris speak. What Biden’s style tells everyone is we want to see you, but let’s be safe while Trump’s style says ‘I don’t give a flying F*** about you’. That is my opinion and I couldn’t give a **** if you don’t like it.
Meanwhile in Michigan, questions are been asked over the conduct and ethical practices of local sheriffs and law enforcement officers who have been seen to condone the plot to kidnap the State governor. In an interview after the first men were charged, two of whom he knows personally, the sheriff of Barr County, Michigan Dar Leaf stated that “It’s just a charge, and they say, a ‘plot to kidnap,’ and you got to remember that. Are they trying to kidnap? Because a lot of people are angry with the governor, and they want her arrested,” Leaf explained. “So are they trying to arrest, or was it a kidnap attempt? Because you can still, in Michigan, if it’s a felony, make a felony arrest”. These words coming from a duly elected Sheriff are disgusting and incite vigilantism. What is more concerning from an outsiders point of view is the fact that it shows him as one who would join in an attack on a government he did not agree with. Sheriff Leaf also belongs to a group that calls themselves the ‘Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association’, who believe that county sheriffs retain ‘supreme authority within their jurisdictions to interpret the law’. Two significant issues the organization focuses on is protecting the Second Amendment and U.S. immigration policies. So you have a sheriff that refuses to condone the alleged kidnap plot, who is a member of a group of Law Enforcement that believe in the same values as Trump which is authoritarian dominance over others they deem inferior and is clearly willing to use his own version of justice rather than obey the laws of the land. This guy is the type of Law Enforcement official the country needs to remove because he is a fossil of the old west where the sheriff was in the pocket of the local land owners. What is been seen throughout America at the moment is groups in support of Trump who could form a national militia should Trump lose in 13 days and seek their own style of justice. Also should Trump lose with immediate effect the Attorney General, Post Master General and the Directors of FBI, CIA, DHS, ICE and Border patrol should be stripped of their jobs because they are complicit in everything Trump has done over the past four years. Speaking of law enforcement the recent revelations over Trump’s nomination to the Supreme Court is truly worrying. Barrett used to be a trustee at a school that bans LBGTQ+ students and faculty which is just outrageous in this day and age, How can this type of person be morally unbiased when it comes to decisions that affect the LBGTQ+ society when passing laws. She in my opinion is unsuitable as a person, a lawyer, a judge and especially as Supreme Court Justice, so should never be allowed to take a seat in such a bastion of law and order [again just my opinion, the Republicans have already decided she will get it, another travesty of civil rights].
Well I think I have said enough about America for today, so let’s take a look at dear old Blighty. So as we see more and more areas being placed in tier 3 lockdown the more authoritarian the present government is becoming. Yet the issues continue as people do not understand the rules properly within the specific tiers. For instance in the Greater Manchester area which is now in tier 3 there is confusion over gyms, whether they can stay open or must close and even the chief constables for the area isn’t really sure on that point of fact, which is rather dumbfounding because he is supposed to be one of the people who does know the rules. While in Nottingham area which is in tier 2, but is currently been considered for placement in tier 3, residents in a street where students held a party have been disgusted at the fact they have been fined. The four students who threw the party were fined a total of £40,000 for throwing a house party where 30 students attended. One neighbour stated they “just want to have fun” and shouldn't be fined while another stated “I don't think they should be fined, they've just left home, they want to have fun, they're teenagers, not kids, they think they're grown up they just made a mistake, imagine how their parents feel? It's dreadful, the fine should be cancelled, and their career hasn't even started”. So while people are suffering financially the government sees it necessary to fine the poorest of people for a first offence of the ‘Rule of six’ law while they sit pretty in their plush houses enjoying the extortionate salaries they get. How do they expect four students to find £40000? The cabinet is forcibly putting areas in to highest level of the tiering system while the financial packages for those areas decreases and the authoritarian style of fines and rules are increasing and are totally disgusting.
Speaking of financial travesties by the government, it can’t be forgot that as many struggle to not only survive in this present climate due to either been furloughed or are unemployed the present financial welfare scheme is really inadequate for purpose. Rents and mortgages aren’t been met unless people have savings they are using up up quickly. Yesterday another statement was released by the chancellor unveiling increased support for jobs and workers hit by COVID restrictions after growing clamour from firms in tier two areas. Rishi Sunak announced big changes to the Job Support Scheme (JSS) which is set to replace furlough in November. Under the revised scheme, employers will pay less and staff can work fewer hours before they qualify and taxpayer subsidy has been doubled. What is been noted is that businesses in tier two areas, particularly in the hospitality sector, have complained that they would be better off if they were under tier 3 restrictions because even though they would be forced to close, they would benefit from greater government support. What is seen is a government chopping and changing with no eye on the ball of how the people of the nation are affected. It is okay to deal with issues as they arise, but this government is playing defensively rather than offensively. They decide one thing then subsequently change their minds just weeks later. Since the pandemic hit our shores the cabinet has been off footed and chasing the curve daily.
The Chancellor himself has backtracked on major decisions, one of them been the furlough incentives which are set to be chopped from 80% to 66% under the new Job Support Scheme (JSS), but nothing is coming forth to help people who find themselves unemployed right now. I am 50+ year old man who was a fulltime carer for an elderly father for seven years. Prior to that I had three years of unemployment. Now since my father’s death which is just over a year ago, I have endeavoured to find work, but with such a long period of unemployment I am struggling to get back in to the workplace with very little assistance from the jobcentre. On top of that any inheritance I have from my father is slowly dwindling away as I pay over the odds for rent in a property we shared the cost for. I am currently searching for somewhere to move to, where I pay less rent, but another one of the government’s stupid taxes is preventing me from finding affordable accommodation. That tax is the aptly named ‘Bedroom Tax’ which taxes unemployed people living in property with more than one bedroom 14% off the housing benefit they are entitled to. This means if you’re rent is £400 per month and you live in two bedroom property, you are only entitled to £344 towards covering your rent, so to cover your rent you will have to reduce your living expenses from your job seekers allowance or income support by £56 per month. On top of that finding someone who rents to someone on Universal Credit is even harder, then add to that the amount of one bedroom properties available and things for single unemployed people with no family to help support them, you see a country in dire straits with a rising homelessness issue as well as a rising death toll problems. But so what the MP’s and local councillors are sitting pretty with their £6250 monthly salary. We the long term unemployed are the dregs of society with no hope of bettering ourselves especially with the current style of regime in power.
You know I never like to bring my personal circumstances in to my rants, but these days I am finding that I can’t stop as we watch the world turn in to a totalitarian and fascist controlled place. Not only in America and Britain, but elsewhere around the globe the governments take less and less notice of the underdogs they step over to get their fifteen minutes of fame while suppressing the will of the people through force and laws that benefit themselves before the electorate who stupidly placed them in power initiating an era of abusive dictatorship like oppression while trying to withhold facts of misdeeds. We need to take a real hard look at how the rights of humankind have been stripped away in the last twenty plus years by the illegal deeds of the politicians. On that I will call it a day,
Rant you tomorrow!
