KAMLA LOSES IT
The rumour is that the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago Kamla Persad Bissessar has a drinking problem and that it is manifesting itself into the public policy of Trinidad and Tobago. The drink of choice is said to be Gray Goose vodka with a touch of Vat 19 every day. She visibly shakes. This is the explanation some of her political opponents in Trinidad and Tobago have given for the wild and wooly statements being made by the Prime Minister about Trinidad and Tobago’s largest market that of CARICOM countries.
In a series of statements since she came to office in the summer time, she has attacked her CARICOM partners. She has issued gratuitous insults, and statement after statement about the political and economic union of CARICOM. In her latest statement she has accused the body of being an unreliable partner and badly managed. The latter was an unwarranted attack on the staff of the CARICOM secretariat who as international civil servants cannot defend themselves.
Some have suggested that there is a racial element to it with her Indian ethnicity coming out against a largely African based organization. But then Suriname and Guyana that have similar Indian based populations and their presidents have not ventured down the bitter and vituperative road that she has.
What she has said is improper. There is no doubt about it. Her explanation privately to some is that she is cozying up to the Secretary of State of the US in order to get him to approve the right to process gas and oil, in a shared field that Trinidad has with Venezuela. But she has now made a bitter enemy of the Venezuelan government, so it is hard to see how that works either.
One hopes that calmer heads prevail as the Heads of Government of CARICOM meet in convocation in February in St Kitts.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 27 December 2025 up to midnight: 1,203,135;
Number of hits for the month of December up to Saturday 27 December 2025 up to midnight: 3,705,255;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 27 December 2025 up to midnight: 39,235,284;
THE CARICOM REGION IN DISARRAY AND FEAR
The United States government without warning and without any thought about arguments about kith and kin announced unilaterally that it is banning the citizens of Dominica and Antigua and Barbuda from coming into the United States.
The reasons they gave were in a tortuously worded so called proclamation in which they accused the governments of those countries of not providing a secure enough vetting system for citizens of the country, particularly those who became citizens by investment
The Caribbean countries immediately responded by saying that the concerns of the United States were not warranted. They went further and indicated that the US Embassies accredited to their countries had assured them that the concerns that the country had about the programme were satisfied and then minutes later the unilateral proclamation.
Only two countries seem to have agreed that the present posture of the United States is correct: Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana. We can understand Guyana because they have the threat of Venezuela on their border. Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister has defended her policy on the basis of not wanting Trinidad’s citizens to be blocked from entering the United States. That would seem to be a legitimate fear.
CARICOM issued a statement calling for the United States to resume talks with the injured countries to resolve the situation.
Bottom line is the United States has the entire region in fear. Fear of a war and fear that if you speak up to disagree, that the United States will ban the citizens of that country from entering the United States.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 20 December 2025 up to midnight: 868,971;
Number of hits for the month of December up to Saturday 20 December 2025 up to midnight: 2,502,118;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 20 December 2025 up to midnight: 38,032,147;
AN EMPIRE INTENT ON WAR
The Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holeness had on full display a photo of a visit by American officials from the Department of Defence in the United States, now named the Department of War visiting Jamaica. The caption said that the officials were in Jamaica to discuss security cooperation with the region. The rumour is they are visiting other capitals. No word on whether The Bahamas is included.
This is interesting given the fact that the United States has unilaterally decided to engage a country in war that does not harm to it and that has no ability to harm it. That country is Venezuela. There is an ideological problem between them and this has now come from push to shove or so it appears.
The U S has enlisted Guyana, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago and Suriname to join the fight against drug trafficking by blowing up extra judicially people out of the water and it appears in a recent case even after people survive summarily killing them as they float helplessly in the water.
The United Nations Human Rights Commissioner has called this extra judicial killing.
Even in the United States there are protests against these actions and legislators have described them as extra judicial killing.
The question that must be asked is what does security cooperation mean across the region. What are the countries being asked to sign up to?
The region has been declared a zone of peace. In other words there should be no hostilities within the zone. The unfortunate thing in this case is the Caribbean has only moral suasion to stop the peace from being disrupted. They have no way of enforcing, if the major actor in the theatre is intent of making war instead as they should be studying war no more.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 13 December 2025 up to midnight:
Number of hits for the month of December up to Saturday 13 June 2025 up to midnight:
Number of hits for the year up to Saturday 13 December 2o25 up to midnight:
THERE’S A SCREW LOSE UPSTAIRS IN THE FNM
For the past two months and largely during the unsuccessful campaign of the Free National Movement to win the Golden Isles seat, the FNM’s leader Michael Pintard has been on the tack of making specious allegations about public policy and public expenditure. During the campaign, he made the allegation that there was a bag of passports found on Bahamasair and that someone was fired as result of it. When challenged to produce the evidence, following denials by Bahamasair and other authorities, he could produce no evidence.
Then he and his colleagues switched tack and started saying that the passports themselves were insecure. They could again produce no evidence of that fact. They merely made a bald assertion.
Last week in the House of Assembly on Thursday 4 December 2025, he made the assertion that the government was spending unauthorized money on a housing project to the tune of 20 million dollars. Again he could produce no evidence that the expenditure was unauthorized or unaccounted for.
We repeat these stories because whenever Mr. Pintard is challenged on the facts and evidence, he is unable to substantiate his claims. The modus operandi of the FNM and Mr. Pintard is to throw mud and hope that it sticks.
When he is challenged face to face, he then starts with attacking the soundness of the other persons understanding. In fact he is the one who doesn’t seem to understand, and he is the one who seems to have an unsoundness of mind.
The constitution does say that when you run for office, you must be of sound mind. But we have to tell you that when you examine the public record of the some of the leaders the FNM, upstairs there is plenty parking space and a crew seems a little loose up there.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 6 December 2025 up to midnight: 837,483;
Number of hits for the month of December up to Saturday 6 December 2025 up to midnight: 730,612;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 6 December 2025 up to midnight: 36,260,641;
THE GOLDEN ISLES BY ELECTION
Hubert Ingraham was quite sober when he spoke at the closing out rally of the Free National Movement for the Golden Isles Bye-election on Friday21 November 2025. He called the Prime Minister “my friend Brave”. He told the FNM crowd that he had advised their candidate Brian Brown not to run, to save his time and money for the general election. He told them that they should stop worrying about who the presiding officer was and concentrate on getting the vote out. He gave the extraordinary stab into the heart of Michael Pintard’s campaign by saying: you cannot tief an election in The Bahamas.
The FNM went on to lose the election. It was predictable. It turns out that less than fifty per cent of the electorate in Golden Isles showed up to vote. 41.7 per cent voted for Brian Brown (FNM); .41 per cent for Karen Butler (independent); 47.73 per cent for Darron Pickstock (PLP) and 8.9 per cent for Brian Rolle (COI).
The PLP won on plurality, the total number of opposition votes was 2005 and the total for the PLP 1873. That means that 132 more people were opposed to the PLP than for the PLP. The point here is that more people voted for the PLP than the FNM.
So the Opposition forces are making a meal out of that. Hubert Ingraham claimed that Michael Pintard did well. How did he do well? He lost the election.
The chief of the COI Lincoln Bain told his troops do not be discouraged because we will fight another day. The fact is his candidate lost the election.
The internal analysis of what has to be done by the PLP, what it all means is another thing, but in the system we have the PLP won the election.
That is the truth and that is all there is.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 29 November 2025 up to midnight: 4,111,888;
Number of hits for the month of November up to Saturday 29 November 2025 up to midnight: 4,111,888;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 29 November 2025 up to midnight: 35,423,159;
NASTY PINTARD STARTS A FIGHT WITH THE POLICE
The expression has been used many times over the last week, to describe the Leader of the Opposition and his band of merry men and women: “unhinged”. That seems apt in the circumstances of a person who is a real motor mouth. He cannot stop talking and what he talks is rot and lies.
He started off his campaign in Golden Isles for the bye-election by alleging that a bag of passports was found on a Bahamasair plane and that an employee of the company was fired as result of it.
The fact is there was no bag of passports found.
He was asked to produce the evidence. He could not do so.
He doubled down and then tried to change the subject.
He was followed on the public platform by other FNM members who told one lie after the next, He conducted himself in a violent manner at the polls and engaged in mud throwing throughout the campaign.
The most disgraceful scene, however, was the Leader of the Opposition leading the blockade of the departure of the ballot boxes for safekeeping in police headquarters. The FNM agreed on a set of procedures and then decided that they would not follow those procedures. He then led a mob to try to stop the ballot boxes from leaving.
We call shame on this and say this is not an example for a leader of the opposition to set. It is a nasty race to the bottom.
We urge the people of Golden Isles to look past this and vote for Darron Pickstock and the PLP on Monday 24 November 2025, election. Day.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 22 November 2025 up to midnight: 549,247;
Number of hits for the month of November up to Saturday 22 November 2025 up to midnight: 3,289,536;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 25 November 2025 up to midnight: 34,600,807;
A NASTY FECKLESS LEADER OF THE FNM
There are these qualifications to be a Member of Parliament or senator in the Commonwealth of The Bahamas: you must be over the age of 21 in the case of an MP, 30 in the case of a Senator; you must be a Bahamian citizen alone; you must not be a bankrupt; you must be resident in The Bahamas; you must not have any contracts with the government unless you have declared them; you must be of sound mind.
We have two leaders of opposition parties in The Bahamas. One is Michael Pintard who leads the Free National Movement and is the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Assembly. The other is a man called Lincoln Bain who is leader of a group called COI and we call them Coalition of Idiots. We ask you to consider today whether or not these two men qualify under the last provision that we mentioned. In other words: have they passed the test of being of sound mind?
We have enough evidence of Lincoln Bain to know that something ain’t exactly right upstairs. One was him with a picture of a semi-automatic weapon being brandished as he was trying to frighten Haitians out of The Bahamas as part of his policy on immigration.
As for Mr. Pintard, he has been acting so strangely of late that certainly the question must be asked. He stood there and allowed the other misleader Mr. Bain call him a crack head. That’s because he himself admitted to using illegal drugs when he was young man.
But on the public stage he did two things over the past week that suggests he is losing it but if not is certainly feckless and out in space, just short of mentally incompetent. One is his running on about Rick Fox, the basketball player, who has been dipping his toe in political waters. Mr. Pintard has been talking confidentially it appears to Mr. Fox about joining the FNM. Mr. Pintard put all Mr. Fox’s business out in the public and just didn’t know when to shut up talking.
During that same public rant on talk radio, he then had to drag the name Fred Mitchell in it and said that Mr. Mitchell is under so much pressure in Fox Hill, by the FNM’s candidate that Mr. Mitchell is “confuddled” up.
This is a figment of Mr. Pintard’s imagination. We think he ought to go get himself checked out. Both he and Mr. Bain ought to go see Nelson Clarke, the psychiatrist and ask for help.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 15 November 2025 up to midnight: 1,396,729;
Number of hits for the month of November up to Saturday 15 November 2025 up to midnight: 2,740,288;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 15 November 2025 up to midnight: 34,051,559;
THE SENSELESSNESS OF MURDER IN THE BAHAMAS
During the past week, there was a homicide on the hill atop Balliou Hill Road in a club that used to be a hangout for the Elks. We don’t know what happened inside but the video being shot showed a gun being pulled on someone. Some women appearing to try to stop a fight. Then there was a body on the ground. There was desperate CPR and next the report was three people shot and one dead. The dead man turned out to be a prison officer. Another life ended in a senseless fashion.
The week before that there was a video of an affray on Arawak Cay, the popular place for fish fry. There were scores of young men kicking and punching and stabbing. The result one man dead. From the video it appears that no one thought to call the authorities to stop the fight and no one intervened to bring order. Another senseless death.
What we find hard to understand in most of these cases is the profile of social situations where young men and women appear not to be able to go out to a watering hole or restaurant and simply have a good time. There are too many examples of things descending into fights and death and mayhem ensuing.
What are they fighting for? Inevitably it is over nonsense. Their lives are ruined forever. The dead person’s family is in a mess and the perpetrator ends up in long periods of jail time.
One suggestion is that the police ought to examine all these videos and find the persons involved in the fights and charge them before the courts and make them all subject to a protective detention order subject their good behaviour after a course of behaviour therapy. The pictures and the conduct sully the reputation of our country for peace and stability. Those taking the videos should be brought in as well.
This is the problem with the FNM’s attacks on the PLP’s policies on crime. How do you stop these individual acts of irrationality? This seems to be driving the murder stats in the country.
There is a whole lot of behavior therapy that is needed to change so much about anger management in this country.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 8 November 2025 up to midnight:
Number of hits for the month of November up to Saturday 8 November 2025 up to midnight:
Number of hits for the year up to Saturday 8 November 2025 up to midnight:
PINTARD CAN’T HELP HIS NASTINESS
Photo by Steve Taylor
29 October 2025
Last week, the House of Assembly and our country was treated to another bout and dose of Michael Pintard induced nastiness and untruths. The date was Wednesday 29 October 2025. The debate was about amending a law to ensure the automatic exchange of financial information. It is one of these bills that is forced on us by our European overlords. The man spoke not one word about the bill. He spoke about everything except the bill.
Enough reached enough though when he asserted that the Government of The Bahamas had engaged in a massive proliferation of citizenships for citizens of the Dominican Republic since the PLP had come to power. He said that this was the complaint of the Spanish Wells fishermen with whom he had met.
He was asked to withdraw it and he would not. Fred Mitchell speaking on a point of order told him and the House that there is no evidence that the Government has engaged in any mass proliferation of citizenships to people of the Dominican Republic He said that the allegation was entirely false. He asked Mr. Pintard to produce the evidence that this was so. He could not do so and he would not withdraw it.
Then in his usual sneering tones he started with this stupid expression to Mr. Mitchell saying that he ought to relax and tried to introduce the tiktok lies of his candidate for Fox Hill into the debate. Mr. Mitchell again stopped him from doing so.
Across the country, this is what we face with Michael Pintard. It is a campaign of nastiness and lies. Not policy but mud and nastiness and lies. The PLP ought to brace for this as it faces him in a bye-election in Golden Gates. There will be nothing about policy but nastiness and lies.
Michael Pintard cannot help himself. The saying is that a leopard cannot change its spots.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 1 November 2025 up to midnight: 717,406;
Number of hits for the month of October up to Friday 31 October 2025 up to midnight: 109,608;
Number of hits for the year up to Saturday 1 November 2025 up to midnight: 31,420,879;
VOTE FOR DARRON PICKSTOCK
On the date after the writ of election was issued Wednesday 22 October 2025 Chairman Fred Mitchell, Minister JoBeth Coleby Davis, Prime Minister Philip Davis and the candidate Senator Darron Pickstock at the Golden Isles Headquarters.
The bye-election is now called for Golden Isles. The date is 24th November, the last week in the month. The candidate is Darron Pickstock. He serves in the senate and will soon resign to run in the seat. Vaughn Miller, late of Golden Isles, is now safely in the ground. The campaign starts in earnest to make sure that Darron Pickstock and the PLP retain the seat. Teams went fanning out on Saturday 25 October 2025 to begin the march toward victory.
One man from polling division 14 in Golden Isles safely predicts that the party will retain the seat. He said that he is confident that people will remember the cruelty of the Minnis administration, the last iteration of the FNM government in the minds of the population. It will not be a pleasant memory, said our informant. People will remember how they were locked up and abused during the FNM’s last time and they will vote for the PLP.
For our sake, we hope so but we also hope that we the PLP forces get on the ground and make sure that they remember how bad it was and how good it now is.
Darron Pickstock is the right man for the job. He came up through the PLP’s farm system, a former Chair of the Progressive Young Liberals. He is a lawyer. He has a wife and two children. He is from North Andros so he knows what it is to be a family island citizen. This bodes well for the spirit of helping people. He therefore has all the right stuff for becoming a Member of Parliament.
We urge the voters of Golden Isles then to consider Senator Darron Pickstock as the man who will best represent your interests. He will do a good job. He has the experience. He is the right age for a long future in politics and he has the right disposition for the job. Let’s all commit to him for the job.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 25 October 2025 up to midnight: 795,195;
Number of hits for the month of October up Saturday 25 October 2025 up to midnight: 3,158,212;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 25 October 2025 up to midnight: 30,703,473;
MARCHING TO HELL FOR NOTHING
Prime Minister Philip Davis invited the heads of the Bahamas Union of Teachers (BUT) Belinda Wilson and the Bahamas Public Service Union (BPSU) Kemsley Ferguson to his office for a meeting. The meeting from all accounts was conducted like a bar room. Belinda Wilson her usual self and the puppy dog like action of the head of the BPSU. It was disgraceful from all accounts.
The meeting ended with a promise to meet the next day at 1 p.m. following the adjournment of the Cabinet, scheduled to end on Tuesday 14 October 2025. The meeting never happened because Belinda Wilson, irrepressible as she is could not keep her big mouth shut. She went outside and even knowing that the Prime Minister had promised to deliver certain items, she called for a national and unlawful strike.
The Prime Minister indicated that in the circumstances of that threat, the meeting was cancelled.
This was not the usual Brave Davis. He had obviously had enough.
On Wednesday the 15 October 2025, Belinda Wilson again had the classrooms of the country disrupted with teachers staying home and disrupting classes. These are the same people who would then complain when the children turn out to be unruly and disruptive and turn to criminal behaviour that the Government must do something about crime.
The Prime Minister was correct to cancel the meeting and it is our hope that his direct discussions with other union leaders during the course of the week will bring some understanding to this false crisis. The fact is it will take until December for the pay packet to reflect the government’s promise to pay the salaries. There is nothing that can really be done about that. It is simply not physically possible but if possible they will do so but until then we simply counsel patience.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 18 October 2025 up to midnight: 744,918;
Number of hits for the month of October up to Saturday 18 October 2025 up to midnight: 2,363,016;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 18 October 2025 up to midnight: 29,908,277;
ROWDY BELINDA GETS SHUT DOWN
You have never met a more disputatious, rowdy and disgusting individual in her public persona than the President of the Bahamas Union of Teachers Belinda Wilson. We assume that she has good intentions but you always ask yourself why is she rowing all the time and rowing for what? Rowing when there is nothing to row about.
So last week she and the President of the Bahamas Public Service Union her partner in unionism Kemsley Ferguson brought out hundreds of teachers and other public servants to the streets to protest the fact that they were about to get a raise that would be reflected in their pay packet in December of this year, a raise that they did not ask for and for which the Union has not negotiated. So why the heck were they out in the streets? They couldn’t tell you even if you asked them.
This seemed to be a convenient time to take the day off. However, who was and is damaged by this constant hectoring of the public officials of the country by demonstrations by teachers. The children of the country. They were left abandoned in their classrooms without supervision. When the country now descends into chaos because post adolescent boys are acting out in robberies and murder, who then is to blame?
Female teachers are in the main the people in the classrooms. The people committing the crimes are men, young men fresh out of school. The victims of crimes against the person are mainly females. Who then is responsible when irresponsible female teachers leave the classroom because their irresponsible leader leads them on to Bay Street for nothing?
The Prime Minister Philip Davis is Prime Minister for a reason. That he has the patience of Job. Way back in the 1980s, the late Sir Lynden Pindling had had enough of this same kind of hectoring and abandoning of the classroom. He told them if you don’t get back to work, hand in the keys.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 11 October 2025 up to midnight: 1,090,597;
Number of hits for the month of October up to Saturday 11 October 2025 up to midnight: 1,618,097;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 11 October 2025 up to midnight: 29,163,358;
ANOTHER SOLDIER GONE TO GLORY
Here is what Fred Mitchell had to say about Vaughn Miller, the Member of Parliament for Golden Isles and Minister of the Environment who suffered a sudden death in the wee hours of Sunday 28 September 2025. Rest in peace:
Barbara Cartwright, our Secretary General, gave me an early morning call,
it’s midnight. I’m in New York, and she says: “you wouldn’t believe this but Vaughn Miller has passed away…
Then the formal things have to click in, because you have
to make sure that next of kin are notified before the news gets out publicly. So it was the Secretary General’s sad duty and responsibility to call Mrs. Miller at 1 o’clock in the morning and explain what had happened to the best of our knowledge information and belief.
It is difficult in this current environment to contain news, and people are insensitive to the feelings of family and friends. The news had to be managed and an announcement had to be made. The Prime Minister had to be called. All of those things had to happen within the short space of time before the country woke up at 6 o’clock or so.
That’s one of the roles you get as chair of the party… I appreciate the opportunity that you and all the other people have given to me that allows me this privilege to be here to speak on behalf of the Progressive Liberal Party. I welcome you all here this evening, at this wonderful service for our friend and brother, whose name was reverend Vaughan Miller MP.
I say to people that if you do the math, the 39 people who end up in Parliament are something like 0.0975% of the population. When you get that job, you are in a very special group. It is a thankless job… but it is a job that people do where they contribute their life’s work and time to make this country the successful country that we have.
There is a writer whose name is John Steinbeck. He wrote a book called Of Mice And Men. It is taken from a line in a poem by Robert Burns, and the line says that the best laid plans often go awry. You can plan, however you like, we don’t know the day or the hour.
Shakespeare reminds us that all the world’s a stage and every man has many parts in his life, and we have our exits and our entrances and the question is, what do we do in the time that we have on the stage? And Vaughn Miller, as you heard today, when it was his time on the stage stepped up and did what was right, and proper.
He stood up on the national stage and said, no, it’s not gonna happen that way. He refused to support the increase in VAT proposed by the government of which he was a part.
When Vaughan Miller did what he did, I think that signaled to the country, we can do this, we can do this. The PLP can win the government despite how all the odds looked.
Jackie Kennedy said after her husband died in 1963, that for one brief shining moment, there was a place called Camelot. In our own history, this one brief, shining moment was that of a man standing up in Parliament, saying “I may lose my salary. I’m gonna lose my job, but I must do what is right for the Bahamian public. ”
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 4 October 2025 up to midnight: 1,453,414;
Number of hits for the month of October up to Saturday 4 October 2025 up to midnight: 527,496;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 4 October 2025 up to midnight: 28,072,757;
U S OFFICIALS SHOULD BE EMBARRASSED
Things are going from bad to worse in terms of the public pronouncements and the public policy of the United States. The country that once prided itself as the example of democracy and probity, is now reduced to a laughing stock in the forums of the world. The latest example of this was the speech of the U S President Donald Trump at the United Nations on Tuesday 23 September 2025. The U S President spoke for 56 minutes at the world’s most important forum the United Nations General Assembly and he spoke nothing that was comprehensible.
He claimed that he stopped 7 wars. That was not true. He complained that the escalator was deliberately sabotaged as he and his wife walked on it. That was not true. He claimed that the teleprompter was sabotaged. That was not true. He claimed that the sound system did not work. That was not true.
He claimed that the speech was most popular around the world. That was not true. The Daily Mirror in London described him as deranged.
He said that climate change was a con job and a hoax. That is not true.
It was simply embarrassing.
There is a story told long ago of the children who called out an emperor who was naked while walking in the streets but everyone else had been convinced that he was wearing shiny new robes. This is what we face today.
One asks oneself how can seemingly intelligent people continue to support what was played out on Tuesday past without at least being embarrassed. Instead they all doubled down, defending what was obviously substandard and unacceptable for a world leader.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 27 September 2025 up to midnight: 2,233,355;
Number of hits for the month of September up to Saturday 27 September 2025 up to midnight: 8,958,853;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 27 September 2025 up to midnight: 26,619,343;
SO MUCH FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH
Jimmy Kimmel cancelled on U S TV for making fun
Jimmy Kimmel is one of the most talented comics in the United States. In a country where the litmus test of freedom was supposed to be the much vaunted First Amendment of their constitution that protects freedom of the press, he was an outlier. He scorched the U S President Donald Trump with his humour and rhetoric every night on television and he boasted that he had 20 million viewers on his social media platform.
All of that came to a screeching halt last week, when the American Broadcasting Corporation who pays him to run the show decided that as a result of a protest by their local affiliate stations about a joke he made, they would suspend the show indefinitely.
This comes on the heels of the cancellation of another comic’s show, a man named Steven Colbert. He too was an outlier in criticism of the present president of the United States. That will no longer be the case on nationwide American TV as of next year. Cancelled.
The irony of this is that these folks who are now in power in the US all came to power railing against what they said was a cancel culture. They claimed that the people in power in the US before them were throttling the ability of their right wing messages to get heard. Now that they are in charge, it appears that what they preached against they have adopted.
In so many cases, this is a disappointment to a world that looked at that country for solace with the doctrine of free speech and freedom of opinion. The US was supposed to be the freest country in the world.
For us small countries who voiced their opinions in the past about US policies, this is chilling and emblematic of future relations.
Well we say no more. Res ipsa loquitor
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 20 September 2025 up to midnight: 2,796,082;
Number of hits for the month of September up to Saturday 20 September 2025 up to midnight: 6,725,497;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 20 September 2025 up to midnight: 24,385,987;
THE U. S. EXPLAINS ITS BEHAVIOUR
Increasingly, there is a gap between what the truth is that grounds international public policy and the actual policies. There is now a relentless campaign against immigrants in the United States. Even as it damages their economy, the war goes on apace. Why should we be concerned in The Bahamas? What damages U. S. economy damages us.
There is also another knock on effect on us. The present anti-immigrant campaign in the United States also causes anti-immigrant fervour in The Bahamas. The facts do not support the wild conclusions that people are sprouting but the wicked and the empty are coming out of the wood work in order to support their discriminatory actions.
Then there is the question of the killings in Gaza. Last year on 7 October 2025, the Hamas group attacked Israel. Remember Israel as a state has refused to give independence to millions of people that were displaced by the creation of their state. Israel has been in continuous occupation since 1967 and are in fact running a colonial regime against the Palestinian people. The Americans know from their own history that people have a right resist occupation, a right to self-determination. That rule does not apply in fact to the Palestinian people.
They will not be able to send their representatives to the United Nations. The U S that hosts the organization has not granted visas to their reps and will not recognize their passports. The reality is that the majority of the nations in the world support the statehood of Palestine but the nos have it, because the ones who hold the levers of world power, i.e., the United States and Israel say they will not support it.
Last week, Israel bombed without provocation an independent state. The state of Qatar was a peacemaker in the Middle East and was a great supporter of providing food to the Palestinian people. For that their country was bombed.
Curiously, there was no condemnation of this breach of international law. The explanation from the United States was that they were not really involved in it and did not find the bombing helpful to the peace process.
Where do we go from here?
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 13 September 2025 up to midnight: 2,478,778;
Number of hits for the month of September 2025 up to Saturday 13 September 2025 up to midnight: 3,929,411;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 13 September 2025 up to midnight: 21,589,901;
PANIC STATIONS IN NASSAU OVER A FALSE U.S. POST
For some reason, the United States State Department posted a note on their official website saying that as of 1 November 2025, Nassau’s U S Embassy would be the designated spot for Haitians to apply for visas to enter the US. This was picked up by the Bahamian press, and unthinking and non-discerning as they generally are, they all went without any critical thinking at full panic stations.
By day’s end on Thursday 4 September 2025, the social media was ablaze with idle and ignorant commentary about Haitians flooding The Bahamas with the complicity of the government of The Bahamas. Late that same day, the government of The Bahamas issued a statement saying that there is a ban on Haitians entering the US altogether put in place by their President, so there would be no uptick of Haitians coming into The Bahamas.
Never let the facts get in the way of good story.
The stupidity of some Bahamians, fired up by dishonest FNM and COI politicians over this Haitian issue is beyond doubt. How The Bahamas government gets the blame for US policy over which it has no control, just shows how blind and unthinking people are when driven by prejudice.
Now the most extreme measures are being contemplated: banning Haitians from coming to The Bahamas, stopping Bahamasair on its most profitable route from flying to Haiti. All sorts of nonsense that will in the end cause the economic collapse of this country, at a time when we have no skilled labour to serve an expanding economy.
The United States does not care one wit about The Bahamas. Their policy is their policy. The government of The Bahamas wisely does not confront the US about much of the nonsense that they parade as policy because they know they do not have the support of their Bahamian countrymen on this issue.
Whatever happens, it’s always the fault of the Haitians. It will never be the fault of the Americans. God bless them!
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 6 September 2026 up to midnight: 2;
Number of hits for the month of September up to Saturday 6th September 2025 up to midnight: 1,450,613;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 6th September 2025 up to midnight: 19,111,103;
AMERICA LET’S LOOSE THE DOGS OF WAR
(Miami Herald Image)
CNN, the American news operation, reported last week that 6 American warships that of the United States Navy are steaming toward or are already in the seas around Venezuela. The U S later said through their spokespersons that this was an attempt to stop drugs from getting into the United States from Venezuela.
The United States claims without any supporting evidence that the President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro is a drug trafficker and is facilitating the entry of drugs into the United States. Those who have been around long enough and especially after the lies told as a pretext for the Iraq invasion, do not believe a word of it.
The United States has set a 50 million dollars bounty on the head of the President of Venezuela. Those who were around when George Bush invaded Panama and kidnapped its leader to take him to trial in the United States can see it coming.
Entering the debate was a hurried statement by Kamla Persad-Bissessar who is the Prime Minister of Trinidad. According to her, Trinidad was told about the exercise and it’s not in Trinidad’s waters but they support what the US is doing to get rid of drug trafficking. Oh by the way, they are still friends with Venezuela, she said.
Then she added that she was not going to engage CARICOM. Never mind the treaty obligations. Each country can speak from themselves she said. That was worse than her last time in office when she said that Trinidad was not going to be the ATM for the CARICOM region.
Trinidad and Tobago as a nation is in deep trouble economically. The US is in part the cause of it. How her statement is going help them, God knows. But there it is.
The region is really troubled by this injudicious statement. The actions of the United States is shades of Grenada 1983 and as we said Panama and Iraq. The US makes up a likely story, then they fulfill the prophecy of the story. But you can be sure that the facts don’t add up, it is simply ideological.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 30 August 2025 up to midnight: 978,428;
Number of hits for the month of August up to Saturday 30 August 2025 up to midnight: 5,000,097;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 30 August 2025 up to midnight: 17,511,431;
HUSH HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE OF THE COI
In in his voice note to the PLP supporters on Monday 18 August 2025, Fred Mitchell, Chair of the Progressive Liberal Party, went straight at the Leader of the Coalition of Independents. His name is Lincoln Bain, the original flimflam man of The Bahamas. Mr. Bain has been found liable by the courts of The Bahamas at the highest level to owe a woman sixty four thousand dollars and change. He has thus far refused to pay. Mr. Mitchell told Mr. Bain: pay the woman. No long talk.
Instead of paying, Mr. Bain sent his party Chair, a woman named Charlotte to attack Mr. Mitchell personally. Yet, this is the man who wishes to be Prime Minister and who promised to pay every Bahamian voter 100, 000 dollars.
His promises are empty. He is unreliable and dishonest. Yet, there are as many as ten per cent of the voters in some cases of the voters in the last election who voted for him and his party and they plan to do so again. The PLP has to be careful that he does not steal voters from them. In this case, we consider him an invention of the Free National Movement. He must be stopped.
Here is a transcript of Mr. Mitchell’s statement:
I intend to have a bit of fun today because a woman named Charlotte, whose last name, I can’t remember, but claims to be the chair of the Coalition of Idiots party, calling itself COI. Two times ago, I made one simple demand of the chief of the idiots, and that was to pay the woman whose money he robbed, it’s $64000 and counting. Instead of paying the woman the money, the chief of the idiots sent a woman named Charlotte to do a man’s job to attack me. Silly runt! I wish I could use another letter in the alphabet to start that word to describe her, but in deference, to my late mother I won’t. Yes sir, the big brave chief of the idiots is hiding behind that woman Charlotte’s gown tail.
A poet once said, “Hell hath no fury, like a woman scorned”. Could it be that at a time in the past the one she attacks (that’s me) turned down her favour because I said that there’s something rotten down there in the state of Denmark. Just asking for a friend. The song says, “Hush, hush, sweet Charlotte, Charlotte, don’t you cry. Hush, hush, sweet Charlotte. He’ll love you ‘til he dies,”
I say this. You may be a master debater, but I’m a cunning linguist.
Charlotte, stay out of big people’s business and tell the chief of the idiots don’t hide behind your gown tail. Just pay the fricken money to the woman. A thief is not qualified to be Prime Minister and calling me names don’t mean a damn thing to me, just pay the damn money. No long talk, pay the money Lincoln Bain.
We agree.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 23 August 2025 up to midnight: 765,858;
Number of hits for the month of August up to Saturday 23 August 2025 up to midnight: 4,021,668;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 23 August 2025 up to midnight: 16,533,002;
A NASTY FNM CAMPAIGN IN FOX HILL AND BEYOND
The FNM’s campaign in Fox Hill is in full flight with one year and some before a general election. The candidate is a Fox and his reputation lives up to that name. He is a doctor and he boasts that he has the money of a rich cousin to fight the campaign. In his campaign, he calls himself a true born Fox Hillian. Except on his first foray into Fox Hill he didn’t know the difference between the Fox Hill Parade for which he had a permit and Freedom Park for which he did not.
That is just the beginning of the faux pas
In giving out his cheque on Tuesday 12 August 2025, Fox Hill day, he brought the Leader of the Opposition with him. The Leader claimed that the PLP was following his example by having the Congo Town Festival. Well whether he had one or not, what Fred Mitchell is doing had nothing to do with what he was doing.
The candidate claims that he is going to put a clinic in his private FNM office except that clinic services are already free in Fox Hill at the public clinic.
You are known by the company you keep. He has a group called by the PLP Chair the four musketeers. Their jobs are to disrupt and lie and cause problems for anything civil in Fox Hill. One of them, is campaigning in the government car. The others are experts in lying and cheating and foul language and lies. The police should be called and send them up all for Sandilands.
Yes sirree, it’s going to be a nasty campaign. Get ready for it PLPs. But in Fox Hill, we can assure the public that nasty will meet nasty. Can you believe that this: a campaign being run by the son of the late Revie Fox who was PLP to the core?
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 15 August 2025 up to midnight: 968,774;
Number of hits for the month of August up to Saturday 15 August 2025 up to midnight: 3,255,810;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 15 August 2025 up to midnight: 15,767,144;
JUNKANOO THUGGERY
Emancipation Day is one of the most, if not the most important cultural holiday in the annual holiday calendar of The Bahamas. It marks the freedom of black people in The Bahamas. It is supposed to be beyond politics. Not so to the people who run the Junkanoo Corporation of New Providence (JCNP). They outright tried to sabotage what happened in Fox Hill on Emancipation Day.
They told the groups, the major groups and the minor groups, that if they showed up in Fox Hill, they would be penalized and fined. Not one group defied them, even though the JCNP has no power to do any such thing.
So there was a rush out but the Fox Hill Festival Committee told the public that as a result of the boycott on 4 August 2025, there was a 75 per cent drop in sales in Fox Hill for vendors that night.
This is Junkanoo thuggery by a group of selfish people. It is all the more reason why the government should move quickly to pass the bill that will revoke the entirety of their authority over Junkanoo.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 9 August 2025 up to midnight: 2,066,358;
Number of hits for the month of August up to Saturday 9 August 2025 up to midnight: 2,287,036;
Number of hits for the year 2025 ending Saturday 9 August 2025 up to midnight: 14,798,370;
THINGS GET WORSE FOR HAITIANS IN THE BAHAMAS
Prejudice is very difficult to fight. Someone gets a notion fixed in their heads and it is difficult to overcome that notion. Such is the view in The Bahamas of too many Bahamians that there is something intrinsically wrong about being Haitian or being of Haitian ancestry.
It is part of a larger prejudice. That larger prejudice is that there is something intrinsically wrong with black people. It is deeply ingrained in the society. Through all the civil rights era, the cries of being black and proud era, it still remains.
It remains when you see black women wearing wigs that make them look like white women. It remains when you see black people using chemicals to bleach their faces even at the risk of serious and permanent harm to their skins. These prejudices are dangerous.
There is a serious shortage of labour in The Bahamas. Contractors complain all the time. They have largely been able to supplement entry level labour with people from Haiti. This has brought howls of protest from Bahamians. Yet contactors complain that they cannot find reliable workers of Bahamian citizenship to come to work.
The problem is acute in a country where the economy is busting at the seams.
The Haitian people cannot generally get a break from prejudice. The US President Donald Trump is responsible in part for promoting nonsense about Haitians. It is simply regrettable that Haiti and its people cannot get a break. It is sad that the prejudice exists in The Bahamas where we have lived side by side with Haitians for years but as we said prejudice is hard to fight. But fight we must.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 2 August 2025 up to midnight: 1;
Number of hits for the month of August up to Saturday 2 August 2025 up to midnight: 220,675;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 2 August 2025 up to midnight: 12,732,009;
THE DEATH OF HARVEY TYNES A BLOW FOR JUSTICE
File photo from a presentation of a plaque by the Acklins Islanders Association to Harvey Tynes by Fred Mitchell
The MPs all knew something had gone drastically wrong on Wednesday 23 July 2025 when Iram Lewis MP was about to speak and he left the chamber instead and hurried down the stairs. Later it turned out that his father-in-law Harvey Tynes KC with whom he and family members had travelled to Nassau that morning was found unresponsive at Doctors Hospital. He could not be revived. His daughter, the former senator Tanisha Tynes Cambridge was with him at the time. They had just left his beloved Odle Corner of East Street where he grew up hunting for guineps.
Such is the fragility of life.
The tributes started to flow.
Mr. Tynes was a son of Acklins. He was part of the famous family group of Hannas, Heasties and Tyneses. He was an advocate extraordinaire, in its truest sense. He could hold on to an idea and not let it go. If you got him for your lawyer, you knew you were on the winning side even if the court disagreed with his arguments.
He was also a pioneer in the sense that he and his wife and four daughters repaired to Freeport, the second city when it was in its relative infancy and he set up household and a generous and ample living there.
He was a good and outstanding churchman. He was a pillar first of Christ the King and then of the newly built Ascension.
Fred Mitchell, Chair of the PLP, spoke of the long relationship they had together in the cause of justice, starting out with lectures on the constitution in Freeport in 1988 at the Christ the King Hall in the face of resistance from the Grand Bahama Port Authority. They distributed 1200 copies of the constitution during that week of lectures.
When the story of Grand Bahama and The Bahamas is properly told, we think that Harvey Tynes should factor in it prominently. He should go down in the book as a great Bahamian, a man who loved his country, cared for his family and fought for peace, justice and equity.
May he rest in peace. We have lost a champion.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 26 July 2025 up to midnight: 542,043;
Number of hits for the month of July up to Saturday 26 July 225 up to midnight: 3,427,557;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 26 July 2025 up to midnight: 12,060,983;
WHAT IS TRUTH AND WHAT IS FICTION?
The Free National Movement and what we call the Coalition of Idiots (COI) are busy every week spinning one lie after the next, then disassociating themselves from it or staying silent as their wicked AI works its magic on the population. Every day PLP leaders are being bombarded with things that are obviously fake and the question: is it true?
It is not true? It should be obvious to discerning minds that it is not true?
What it is, is a cleverly designed fake news that is meant to peel away PLP supporters and people of goodwill into a fog of uncertainty.
One such fake was a video that suggested that the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister had somehow attacked the president of the United States and the United States. Not true. The Bahamas is not in that business.
The idea of the video was to cause a man who operates on a mental razor’s edge to think that The Bahamas is against him and hope that both the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister are in the cross hairs and that harm will come to them and thereby the PLP as a result. This stuff if it happened would cause harm to our nation, and the FNM and COI would do that just to win a general election.
We understand that that the fuss in and around the fake immigration crisis and the fake news about the sale of BPL to foreigners are other examples of newly generated propaganda to cause instability and harm to the PLP and therefore benefit the FNM and the COI.
We condemn this as wicked and deceitful. We again ask PLPS and people of goodwill to stop passing it around. We say again have a discerning mind. We say again delete and move on.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 19 June 2025 up to midnight:
Number of hits for the month of June up to Saturday 19 June 2025 up to midnight:
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 19 June 2025 up to midnight:
INDEPENDENCE AFTER 52 YEARS WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
Down in Exuma, the southern island in The Bahamas, the Bahamian flag fluttered in the breeze at Regatta Park as it rose just before midnight on 10 July 2025. This was the date 52 years ago that Lynden Pindling and his colleagues chose to lead the new nation the Commonwealth of The Bahamas into independence. The ceremony in Georgetown, Exuma was replicated around the country, even though the rain threatened to spoil it in Nassau.
It is an emotional moment for most Bahamian citizens. On that morning and during the day, flags were flying throughout the country. Bahamian music was being played exclusively on the radio stations. People gathered in their homes dressed in national colours and everyone spoke Bahamian.
It was like time out from the divisions of other parochial matters.
On 11 July though, we get back to realty pretty quickly. The fact is that our neighbours to the north are acting in ways that we find quite odd and contrary. We are a majority black nation and as we watch things unfold, we are not quite sure that we as black people or even white Bahamians are welcomed into a land called America that we helped to build. Today many of our citizens and their descendants of our citizens have lent their intellectual talent to the building up of that country. But it appears they have now descended into the madness of anti-immigrant fervour that catches both legal and illegal.
To show the tenor of the times: white farmers who helped to maintain the racist state of apartheid South Africa are being welcomed into the US as victims while Haitians whose society has descended into chaos, largely because of American made weapons, and are legitimate refugees, are being sent back home.
Independence is an emotional step. It is also a legal step. We have the right legally to decide what we want but the practical reality is that most of our choices are dictated by the real politic. We depend on the neighbour next door for our food, for our medicine, for our psychological well-being. So we are in a strange positon practically speaking. What does keep us alive though is that emotional legacy bequeathed to us by our founders that we are a free an independent people and we will use what we have to maintain that freedom.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 12 July 2025 up to midnight: 1,378,286;
Number of hits for the month of July up to Saturday 12 Julye 2025 up to midnight: 2,133,841;
Number of hits for the year 2o25 up to Saturday 12 July 2025 up to midnight: 10,767,267;
THE AVALANCHE OF DISINFORMATION BY AI
We agree with Fred Mitchell, Chair of the PLP. AI is a tool that needs to be harnessed for good and not for evil. It cannot be stopped but it must be harnessed and people in the country have to be more discerning to strain out truth from nonsense.
For the past week, the PLP has been engaged and batting away one set of lies after the next The party was forced to respond not because it believed them or that they felt that there was wide currency about them, but its own PLPS were calling up asking whether one thing or the next was true or not. The fact is those people should have been discerning enough to figure out when something is nonsense.
For example, the claim that there are 300,000 applications for citizenship pending that the PLP will process to make citizens before the next general election. It is stupid on the face of it.
But it took the Chairman of the PLP to go public and denounce the damn fool who calls himself a preacher for spreading the lies around.
In 2002, there was the battle of the talk shows and the callers of that era. Then in 2012, it moved to the rallies on cable television. In 2021 it was the WhatsApp chats and Facebook. Now we add to that, AI. It’s just another tool.
The PLPs ought to get used to it being around and seek to harness it rather than be passive players in the face of an expert disinformation campaign by the FNM and COI and other non-state actors.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 5 July 2025 up to midnight: 915,120;
Number of hits for the month of July to to Saturday 5 July 2025 up to midnight: 755,554;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 5 July 2025 up to midnight: 9,388,980;
THE US THREATENS TO WTIHDRAW FROM OAS AND THE UN
The United States had a candidate in the race for a seat on the Inter American Commission on Human Rights. The candidate is a close friend of Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State. She is reviled by the Cuban government for her trenchant anti Cuban views, even though she herself is an emigre. She leads the right wing fight against the government of Cuba. She got elected on Friday 27 June 2025 at the meeting of the OAS in St John, Antigua.
How she got elected was another story.
The US pulled out all the stops, including sending its Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau to threaten the delegates with withdrawal from the OAS if their candidate did not win the election. It worked. She won with the highest number of votes.
That’s fine. She was going to win anyway.
What most countries do not understand these days is why in US foreign policy with countries that are their friends it always comes to threats for them to get a result that they want, when they get the result anyway. It just leaves a sour taste in everyone’s mouth.
These are the times, however.
The United States continues to be the biggest player in the hemisphere and in the world and with that role comes criticism of what they do. It comes with the territory. The response should not be petulance but rather constructive engagement.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 28 June 2025 up to midnight: 461,497;
Number of hits for the month of June up to Saturday 28 June 2025 up to midnight: 2,319,755;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 28 June 225 up to midnight: 8,411,503;
BELINDA LIKES TO HEAR HERSELF TALK
Last week for a full three minutes one morning the public of The Bahamas was entertained by the bellicose, biggity and disputatious tones of Belinda Wilson, the head of the Bahamas Union of Teachers. Ms. Wilson believes because she won a large majority over a no name opponent in the last BUT elections that she is now mistress of all she surveys. But she is simply mistaken and she talks too damn much.
The Bible says in Proverbs, there is a time for every purpose under the heavens. There is a time to be silent. Belinda Wilson does not know when to shut her damn silly mouth. She cannot pass a microphone without having something to say. She thinks that when she speaks she is speaking ex cathedra. The problem is she is the only one who believes that. She does not move the government and she certainly has nothing to show for her bellicose rhetoric.
By the time she goes rushing in with her rowdy mouth, the problem is usually solved.
The teachers in Grand Bahamas had enough of her silliness and unnecessary arguments without results that they broke away from her union.
In Nassau during the last round of negotiations with the public sector unions, the government outwitted her and had to rescue her when she made a practical mistake by not accepting what the other public servants had accepted. The teachers were looking at her and asking why and she had to come slinking through the back door in order to get a deal.
The latest problem is that she claims that she had to hear about the suspension of the Cuban teacher recruitment programme from the Minister of Health and not the Minister of Education. She says that she had to hear that that the recruitment from Cuba has stopped from the House of Assembly and she wanted to know how the vacancies were to be solved because the Cuban teachers were going home.
All of this she can find out by simply going to the Ministry of Education and ask but no she has to go shouting through a microphone and no radio as if there is some national crisis.
Belinda: shut up and march.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 21 June 2025 up to midnight: 733,331;
Number of hits for the month of June up to Saturday 21 June 2025 up to midnight: 1,858,258;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 21 June 2025 up to midnight: 7,950,006;
THE UNITED STATES FAILING IDEALS
Confrontation in Los Angeles last week
The United States has borne the label the greatest country in the world, albeit self-proclaimed. There are plenty of other countries in the world that are better places to live but the US has claimed the title since the second world war because of their wealth and their overwhelming military. That power was balanced in some senses by a morality that everyone understood and even though they failed many times, there was a certain logic behind their governance and international relations that gave the world pause and a kind of respect and if not respect fear.
It is regrettable that their reputation appears headed toward the rocks as the world watches what is happening internally. What is happening internally is not a grand battle of one half against the next over the question of African slavery. This time, a nation built on immigration is tearing itself apart because the people who now govern it appear to want to tear up the rule book and deny that they are a nation of immigrants.
Jeffery Sachs, the Columbia Professor of Economics, claimed in an interview with Al Jazeera on the programme Up Front that the problem the US faces is that the country is turning into a black and brown country, and the base that controls the country politically is fundamentally racist and will not allow those changes to take place. That what we see before our eyes is the attempt to hold back the tide.
Carlton Francis, our former Finance Minister, used to say “You can stand on the beachhead of history but you cannot hold back the tide.”
The U S was founded by Europeans who disposed by violence and death the native populations, and then created what they said was a free and democratic republic. With checks and balances.
The constitution designed by 18th century farmers has worked so far but seems now to be straining at the bit by a cynical group that acts in many ways like the government that their founders broke away from all those many centuries ago.
For countries like The Bahamas, we simply eat the popcorn and watch. We are the brunt of every decision and we have no influence over it. We pray for the best but really expect the worst. But in terms of our policies in response, whatever they do is well done.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 14 June 2025 up to midnight: 540,709;
Number of hits for the month of June up to Saturday 22025 up to midnight: 1,124,925;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 2025 up to midnight: 7,216,673
BELINDA IS JUST COCAMAMIE BUT NO ONE’S AFRAID OF HER
The President of the Bahamas Union of Teachers Belinda Wilson is just s strange individual. You would be forgiven if you thought that something isn’t quite right up there. You have never met a more publicly quarrelsome, disputatious individual, in public life than this lady. Is there ever an occasion when she can simply say that all is well and that she is satisfied that progress is being made in the country?
She is an FNM supporter. She does her best every time that a PLP regime is in place to try and wreck what the government does. Even now you probably have the best Minister of Education in the history of our country in Glenys Hanna Martin but you guessed it Belinda can’t even try to get along with her. Every day it’s something wrong and blah and blah and blah.
She broke away from all the other union umbrella groups in the country and formed her own. Let’s see how long that is going to last. Well that will probably last as long as she is the head of it. That’s the point, she must run things.
She took that attitude to Hubert Minnis, when he was Prime Minister under the FNM. She thought because she was an FNM she was a shoo-in for being Director of Education. But even Dr. Minnis could not stomach the thought. She ended up not getting the job and was not a happy camper.
So she brings all these grievances to public life. She strikes you as a very unhappy person. And because her rhetoric is so bellicose, people are intimidated and afraid of her.
Last week, she was shouting and demanding that her image be taken off a flier that she said was released by the PLP, only it wasn’t. The Chairman of the party asked her who the heck she was talking too. She came back with her rowdy self and said, that she was talking to the chairman and the Leader of the PLP.
The Chairman replied to Belinda: shut up and march.
A prime example of this lady who just doesn’t know when to leave well enough alone. Anything to row and cause problems.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 7 July 2025 up to midnight: 584,216;
Number of hits for the month of July up to Saturday 7 July 2025 up to midnight: 584,216;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 7 July 2025 up to midnight: 6,675,964;
LABOUR LEADER TO BOYCOTT HIS OWN MARCH
26 August 2021 following the signing of the MOU between the TUC and the PLP
Every year it appears that Labour leaders become more and more quarrelsome. They are worse than the women in the straw market or the people in the Junkanoo groups. They just like to row about something. No one is a greater example of that than Obie Ferguson. He is the man whom Shane Gibson when he was Labour Minister, said he would not believe a word he says. That is turned out to be prescient. Mr. Ferguson who heads the Trade Union Congress of The Bahamas sat down in the months before the last general election in 2021 and negotiated a set of points called a Memorandum of Understanding between the PLP and the TUC. While it is not in the memo itself, the first thing he and his colleagues asked for was the conferral of the designation of King’s Counsel on Mr. Ferguson. It was agreed and before anything else from the MOU was executed, Mr. Ferguson was given the designation. Now Mr. Ferguson has announced with Labour Day, less than a week to go, that he is not going to show up to his own march. He claims that the PLP has made the matter political by saying that its members are going to show up on the march. But political parties showing up on the Labour Day march, that is nothing new. From the time that Randal Fawkes started the Labour Day parades, the PLP has been marching with labour. This year will be no different. Missing in action though will be Obie Ferguson. What a sad fate. The pretext is that the MOU was not fulfilled, even though the main beneficiary of the MOU was Mr. Ferguson himself who is now KC. He has a convenient memory on the matter now. He claims that isn’t the case. Well, loose the donkeys and tie us.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 30 May 2025 up to midnight: 596,568;
Number of hits for the month of May up to Saturday 30 May 2025 up to midnight: 3,002,272;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 30 May 2025 up to midnight: 6,091,748;
PINTARD AND SANDS ARE SCRAMBLING
The Free National Movement, despite the obvious evidence to the contrary, worked themselves up into a froth about a general election that was or is to be called early. The general election is not due by law until 10 October 2026. Nevertheless, Michael Pintard, the intrepid leader of the FNM, determined that there will be an election come September of this year.
So he promised that by 1 May 2025 the first 20 candidates for office to be nominated by the FNM would be announced. It hasn’t happened yet. What he did instead though was to create an enemy in the camp by announcing first and foremost that neither Iram Lewis, a former Minister and incumbent, or the former Prime Minister Hubert Minnis would be offered a nomination for office.
Then he went on a wild spree begging the donors of the FNM for money for this imaginary general election that is to take place in September of this year. It is not.
We think that the Leader of the FNM got the best advice from the party Chairman of the PLP: go ahead continue, carry on smartly. We just hope that he has a wad of cash to sit on because 15 months is a long time to go spending liquid cash for an imaginary general election.
That is the problem with both Dr. Sands, his Chairman and himself is that they cannot read the tea leaves. Dr. Sands had to finally admit to the press that well they weren’t quite ready but they are working on it. Some of the snipers of the FNM circulated their own fake list with Renward Wells on it so we knew that was a fake list.
The point is that the FNM’s leadership lacks the ability to pivot. They get set in a mode, and despite the evidence they keep hurtling along at a pace which can only lead to destruction.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 24 May up to midnight: 650,170;
Number of hits for the month of May up to Saturday 24 May 2025 up to midnight: 2,405,704;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 24 May 2025 up to midnight: 5,495,180;
DAVIS GETS THE PROJECT ACROSS THE FINISH LINE
We want to extend the most fulsome congratulations to the Prime Minister of The Bahamas and his colleagues on getting this deal done in Grand Bahama for the development of the hotel at Lucaya. This is no small deal. It is a big deal. We have the community of Grand Bahama and The Bahamas excited, almost like the construction of Atlantis 3 in 1998 or Bahamar in 2017.
The figures announced on Thursday 15 May 2025 at the signing of the Heads of
Agreement are astounding in a good way.
The Government’s statement said: “Under the terms of the agreement, the Government of The Bahamas has agreed to sell the Grand Lucayan property including the 56-acre beachfront resort and the adjacent 160-acre Reef Golf Course for $120 million to Ancient Waters Bahamas Limited, a wholly owned Bahamian subsidiary of Concord Wilshire Capital (CWC).”
Ancient Waters Bahamas Limited has committed to invest over $827 million in the full redevelopment of the resort.
“The project will be rolled out in phases, with construction scheduled to begin within 90 days of obtaining all necessary permits and approvals,” the government’s statement continued.
“From this point forward, all expenses associated with the property will be assumed by the developer. This is a significant shift in fiscal responsibility, as the government had been paying approximately $1.5 million per month over the past three years—amounting to an estimated $63 million in holding costs.
“The agreement also includes a retention framework to support oversight, collaboration, and timely execution throughout the life of the project. In addition, the developer will enter into a retention arrangement with employees to ensure continuity and institutional knowledge during the transition.
“Under this arrangement, eligible individuals will receive a portion of their compensation in exchange for remaining available to be called back for specific duties as needed. They will be permitted to seek and accept other employment during the retention period.
“However, if they are no longer available for recall when required, the retention payment will cease. This approach ensures operational flexibility while respecting the right of individuals to pursue other opportunities. The Grand Lucayan redevelopment will deliver a wide range of flexibility while respecting the right of individuals to pursue other opportunities.”
Prime Minister Philip Davis said the $827 million investment will create 1,300 construction jobs and more than 1,700 permanent jobs.
The government added that construction-related employment will include 450 jobs for the hotel, 300 for the timeshare development, 350 for the cruise ship resort, 75 for the casino, 60 for the marina, and 85 for the golf course.
There is no need to comment on this except to say, let us pray that this comes to fruition. Grand Bahama deserves a break and kudos to Brave Davis and his colleagues for getting this to the finish line.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 17 May 2025 up to midnight: 630,561;
Number of hits for the month of May up to Saturday 17 May 2025 up to midnight: 1,755,534;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 17 May 2025 up to midnight: 4,845,010;
PINTARD’S DELUSIONS ABOUT AN EARLY ELECTION
Michael Pintard, the Leader of the Opposition, obviously has nothing better to do with his time. He told the press that he believes that there will be an early election and that the Prime Minister intends to call the election in September of this year. That would be one full year and a month before the elections are constitutionally required.
Mr. Pintard is convinced and he is like a mad man up and down the country trying to get his candidates in place. He is holding rallies. He looks like he has gotten some funding because he is up and down the country with fancy ads and powder puff pieces in video about what a great man he is.
The only problem for Mr. Pintard is that he has no basis for what he is predicting.
The PLP is still at work fixing the mess that the FNM left. It has until October 2026 to call the general election. What is there that is going in the country that suggests the need for a general election? That is Minnis’ folly, called the general election eight months before it was due.
No we don’t think so. There will be no early election. However, we encourage Mr. Pintard in his own folly, spend your money now and when the election is actually called you will have none.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 10 May 2025 up to midnight: 797,328;
Number of hits for the month of May up to Saturday 10 May 2025 up to midnight: 1,124,973;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 10 May 2025 up to midnight: 4,214,449;
PINTARD CANNOT HELP HIMSELF
We have posted in this week’s column the exchange between Michael Pintard and Fred Mitchell in the House of Assembly on Wednesday 30 April 2025. The exchange points to how this campaign is going to get as we get closer to the General Election next year.
The FNM has no programmes and no policies. What they have is an English firm that is a specialist in nastiness. They have great allies in Michael Pintard himself whose modus operandi is to make nasty remarks then apologize and say that we were all taking it the wrong way.
This time in the midst of an argument between the two about Mr. Pintard claiming that Fred Mitchell was making fun of people’s suffering, Mr. Mitchell said that this was not so. In fact. Mr. Pintard was the object of fun, a comedian at work. Mr. Pintard fired back that he would never engage in the kind of fun that Mr. Mitchell liked.
It was a nasty set of words. It was a cheap shot. Mr. Mitchell was furious and told Mr. Pintard that if he were in the school yard, he would pork him in his head.
That’s what we have come to in this time. We have the Leader of the Opposition and his colleagues who can only resort to lowness. They denied that with Mr. Mitchell but why then did their partisans start with all memes and AI generated attacks using the expression that Mr. Pintard used. We know exactly what he said and what he meant.
Mr. Pintard cannot help the nastiness of his attacks.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 3 May 2025 up to midnight: 785,777;
Number of hits for the month of April up to Wednesday 30 April 2025 up to midnight: 327,645;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to 3rd May 2025 up to midnight: 3,417,121;
THE EXCHANGE BETWEEN MITCHELL AND PINTARD
Fred Mitchell tells Pintard don’t bring your filth in here. House of Assembly 30 April 2025
MORE THREATS FROM AMERICA ON LITTLE BAHAMAS
There was a time in the history of this country and its relations with the United States of America that you got the impression that it was a really good relationship, in fact an exception to the rule that in international policies and relations there were no friendships but merely interests. That exception is no more today.
The last time there was this feeling was when Hurricane Dorian took place and wrecked Abaco and Grand Bahama. During the time after the period of the storm’s passage, Americans took to the skies without waiting, to help rescue their friends and family who were hurt, displaced and damaged during that storm and its aftermath.
Today that has all been forgotten. There has been a change in the capital of regimes and a change in the attitude.
The Bahamas is now the object of a worldwide and concerted attack on Cuba, one of our closest neighbours. The offence is that Cuba does not have the system of government that they have in the United States and is considered a security threat to the United States, even though there is no evidence of such a threat. Even though it’s clear that Cuba could never pose such a threat.
The change in regimes in Washington now has The Bahamas accused of trafficking in persons because in the raid by American institutions of Bahamian health care professionals, the country is stripped of health care workers and one source for replacement workers was Cuba. Because some Cuban doctors in The Bahamas are reportedly not paid (the US says) their full wages here but monies are sent back to the agency in Cuba that recruits the doctors and that money The Bahamas is assured by the Cuban government goes to the families back home, the US says The Bahamas and its public officials should be denied the right to enter the United States.
They assert this even though the United States has an obligation to allow officials of The Bahamas to enter their country to represent their countries in New York at the United Nations and at the Organization of American States in Washington D C.
These are interesting times. We have been called a partner and a friend but here we are: our ministers are now under threat of sanctions, the equivalent of when South Africa banned Africans to faraway places in their country for offences that were not really offences at all except that they are written in misguided and prejudicial policies.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 26 April 2025 up to midnight: 713,521;
Number of hits for the month of April up to Saturday 26 April 2025 up to midnight: 2,631,342;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 26 April 2025 up to midnight: 2,631,342;
GOING TO AMERICA IS A RIGHT NOT JUST A PRIVILEGE
The United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio who is the son of immigrants to the United States, who exercised their right to leave Cuba and come to the US to raise their family including him, now says that there is no entitlement to get a visa to visit the US. It is a privilege extended to others who respect their US laws.
On one level that sounds fine, assuming that the laws are applied in an objective fashion, and without prejudice and discrimination. The problem is that U S laws are not rational and therefore are in conflict with the universal declaration of human rights that gives the right of anyone to leave their country and while not saying so explicitly, the corollary is that you have the right to enter another country provided you respect the process of entry.
The United States is a powerful military behemoth and economic hegemon. The Bible says that the U S (and these day they say they follow the Bible): to whom much is given, much is expected. The problem is that the US is now is failing that test as well.
The hostility toward immigrants is not a good thing. It betrays the greatness of the country that was founded on the invasion of another people’s land, herded and killed those people and created a new state with high ideals.
Today does that new country actually live up to those high ideals when it appears to be acting in an irrational and arbitrary and prejudiced fashion?
The Secretary ought to think on these things.
Number of hits for the week ending on Saturday 19 April 2025 up to midnight: 724,973;
Number of hits for the month of April 2025 up to Saturday 19 April 2025 up to midnight: 1,917,817;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 19 April 2025 up to midnight: 1,917,817;
FNM IN FULL MELTDOWN MODE
They are trying to put their best face forward. The troika and their Secretary General called a press conference last Sunday around this time. We wondered what it could be about. Would it be another useless, pointless attack on the PLP? No the pressure had gotten to them and they had to open the valve and admit that they were going to dump Hubert Minnis as their nominee for Killarney, where he is the incumbent.
Their explanation was simply that they had decided that they needed to go in another direction. They said that he had a role to play but that role was not as a Member of Parliament and so he had to go.
Dr. Minnis, who gave Michael Pintard, a failed FNM candidate twice over, his opportunity to run and then to serve as a Minister, got kicked in the behind from a man who knows nothing about good faith, loyalty and trust.
Friends of Desmond Bannister, the former FNM Deputy Leader, confirmed that Mr. Bannister is not be re-nominated either. In fact, Mr. Bannister went to ZNS and told them that he did not even apply because he knew that he would not get the nomination and he did not want to put himself in the positon where he would be turned down by what he called “the likes of Mr. Pintard”. This is tough stuff.
The reports say that the Deputy Leader of the FNM Shannendon Cartwright has lost confidence in his ability to win St Barnabas where he is the incumbent and plans to flee to Killarney, so Dr. Minnis had to be gotten out of the way. All one neat little package.
Of course it won’t be a smooth as all that. The FNM has a history of fighting in public, back in the day when Cecil Wallace Whitfield was leader and some preferred Kendal Isaacs and Henry Bostwick. This is not a surprise then that they are at each other’s throats in public again.
It’s a full-fledged meltdown.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 12 April 2025 up to midnight: 4;
Number of hits for the month of April up to Saturday12 April 2025 up to midnight: 1,445,615;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 12 April 2025 up to midnight: 10,129,739;
MICHAEL BREAKS UP THE FNM DOLL HOUSE
One of the marks of leadership is to be able to keep the troops together, well fed, clothed and if not happy, satisfied. If that is the test, then Michael Pintard, the Leader of the Free National Movement, has failed that test.
This week after months of rumours and whispers behind closed doors, the dispute broke out in the open when Iram Lewis, the FNM MP for Central Grand Bahama, announced on Wednesday 2 April 2025 that he had had enough. He was withdrawing from the FNM caucus in the House and would sit as a Member of the Coalition of Indicts.
That is a curious dead end choice but that is for another time and story.
Then, the next day there was a startling headline in The Tribune of Thursday 3 April 2025. It said that there was no room in the FNM for Dr. Hubert Minnis. Dr. Minnis is the former leader and former Prime Minister. Having led them to victory on 2017, he is now no good to be nominated for the House.
The FNM has a history of this kind of fighting and inside tension. It has sometimes worked to their benefit. You look at the fight for Hubert Ingraham to displace Tommy Turnquest in 2006. That worked. Mr. Ingraham won the government. Then there was the fight between Loretta Butler Truner and Dr. Hubert Minnis. Dr. Minnis prevailed even after being displaced as Leader of the Opposition. There was a disastrous split in 1977 when Cecil Wallace Whitfield refused to bend to the will of the rump of the UBP that controlled the money and the seats in Parliament. Lynden Pindling won hands down.
The point here is there is no necessary joy for the PLP in the now discomfort of the FNM. Some are already suggesting that Mr. Pintard comes off as a strong man for taking decisive action that will save his party ala Pindling in 1977
We beg to differ. We agree with Iram Lewis. There is something wrong there and it is that you have to be able to trust the man you work with. That is why Mr. Pintard is now Leader of the FNM because he did not enjoy the trust and confidence of Dr. Minnis who treated Mr. Pintard badly while he was in the Minnis cabinet. Dr. Minnis had to take the fall because his bad attitude reflected on the whole party. Mr. Pintard being a victim of that should take that as an example and go gently forward.
That is not his personality though. He likes the zero sum game. It’s my way or the highway.
It could not have happened to a finer bunch.
Number of his for the week ending Saturday 5 April 2025 up to midnight: 927,098;
Number of hits for the month of April up to Saturday 5 April 2025 up to midnight: 633,243;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 5 April 2025 up to midnight: 9,317,367;
ADRIAN WHITE NOT A SANE PERFORMANCE
There is a unique Bahamian expression that bears repeating this week. It goes something like this: “his head is bad”. This is apt to describe Adrian White, the man with assumed privilege of birth, who represents the FNM in St Ann’s in New Providence. He is rude, offensive in his language and obdurate in his assaults on decorum.
Last week out of the blue he stunned the House of Assembly on Wednesday 26 March 2025, by saying that there were two fires in the country. One example he said was the fire of the torch. That’s the symbol of his party. The other said was the fire between himself and the Speaker. The Speaker asked him if he had been drinking.
No one knew what the heck he was talking about.
But that is Adrian White. He specializes in sarcasm and snide comments usually from his seat. This time, he said it standing fully upright.
This is the man who opened the window for the Deputy Leader of his party to throw the mace out of the window.
This is the man who finds every excuse to throw dog whistles at the PLP.
It is strange indeed.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 29 March 2025 up to midnight: 418,790;
Number of hits for the month of March up to Saturday 29 March 2025 up to midnight: 2,416,493;
Number of hits for the year 2025 up to Saturday 29 March 2025 up to midnight: 8,193,454;