#its a game show but the contestants are like- serious criminals and if they lose they die in wacky scary ways like danganronpa executions

[doodlboy]

Demon El doodle dump!🩷✨️

[g-on-ef]

I'm having a bad day, can you write a DamiJon and TimKon fic where the supers are having an arm wrestling match and their Robin's are laughing and cheering them on from the sidelines? Pleasssseeeeeeee????? 😄

I hope you enjoy this sweetie and that the rest of your week is better and more enjoyable ^*^

Alfred was famous for making sweets; no matter what itwas his deserts where always the best so it was no surprise that there werehardly any leftovers since the batboys tend to finish them. Today however, wasan exception Alfred made his famous cinnamon crumb cake and there were only twoslices left.

Tim, Kon, Jon, and Damian looked at one another silentlychallenging the others for the slices of cake.

“We deserved the last two slices, we’ve solved a case andarrested four drug lords!” Tim said glaring at Damian.

“Arresting a criminal and solving a case is child’s playDrake both Jon and I were able to take down Luthor and his operations!”

“You had help from both Bruce and Clark and we didn’t!”

“You also had outside help, Grayson and Todd had a handin taking down the drug lord,”

“That’s different!”

“How?!”

Before either two could continue their argument, Jon and Connorstood between them and separated the two.

“Come on guys the slices are big enough for all four ofus to share,” Jon said trying to keep the peace, Connor looked at his littlebrother like he grew two heads.

“What?” the younger Kent asked.

“Are you serious? You really want a small slice of Alfred’scake, when you can have your own big piece?”

“Well yeah but,”

“But nothing Kent, it’s clear that neither Drake, the clone,nor I are going to let this matter go until we get what we want,”

“And how are we gonna settle this?” Jon had to ask,Connor smirk as he sat down at the table and stuck out his hand.

“Arm wrestling, you and me Jon winner takes both slicesof cake and the mantle of the second strongest member in the Kent family.”

Both Damian and Tim looked at each other before a slysmile spread across their faces.

“An arm wrestle contest would not only give us a victor,but it’ll finally determine which of our aliens is the far soupier one,” Damiansaid already liking this idea.

“I hate to agree with the brat but he’s right Kon, youbetter win this and not make me look someone who teams up with pansies,”

“Gee thanks Tim, your faith in me means a lot,”

Damian just rolled his eyes as he looked at Jon.

“I don’t need to give you no words of encouragement becauseyou can easily kick his ass, you are not only my partner but also my boyfriendyou could easily defeat him without even breaking a sweat,”

“Umm…thanks?” the young superhero said, a bit worriedthat he’ll let his Robin down.

Jon looked at his brother in fear, the two were alwaysrough housing and testing each other’s strength, sadly Connor always came outon top between their little games. Still beating Connor would be great for hisego also if he could slide in another deal maybe Jon can win both the cake andsomething else.

“Okay, but let’s add something else to the deal,”

“And that is?”

“If you win you’ll get both the slices of cake and Ma’s last slices of pie, also youand Tim have to do whatever me and Damian say for the rest of the weekend,”

Both Tim and Kon looked at one another before looking attheir younger brothers, Jon with a mischievous glint in his eyes and Damianwith a proud smile that was directed to Jon.

“Okay, but if I win we get both deserts and you andDamian have to do our chores for the rest of the weekend,” he said looking atTim who nodded his head in approval.

“Deal,” Jon said sitting down and grabbing his brother’sarm.

Both Connor and Jon smirked at one another before Damianstood on one side of the table and Tim stood on the opposite end.

“Okay you two, on the count of three,” Tim said lookingat both Superboys,

“One,”

“Two,” Damian said,

“THREE,” both Wayne brothers said simultaneously.

Jon and Connor tried to bring the other down as they usedall their strength to bring the other down.

“Come on Kon, show this little twerp who’s boss,” Timcheered,

“Twerp?” Jon asked, for a second he was distracted for awhile, enough time for Connor to bring his hand down a little.

“Jon focus!” Damian cried afraid of Jon losing, he didnot want to do Drake’s chores for the rest of the weekend but more importantlyhe wanted that cake! {And the pie}

Jon regain his focus as he pulled his arm back upbringing it back to the center, he glared at Kon who couldn’t help but smirk atalmost winning,

“That’s it Jon kick this wanna be Super-man reject’s ass!”

“What did you say?” Kon asked all traces of humor gone,like Kon who took advantage of his distraction Jon used his slip ofconcentration to his advantage and tried to bring down his arm he was halfwaythere before Kon regain focus more like Tim hit him in the back of the head andyell,

“Focus!”

Kon regain his focus as he brought his arm back to thetop, this time it was Jon who had a smirk on his face and a look of worried wason Connor’s.

The two kept trying to bring the other down, Tim and Damianlooked at the two with both excitement and anticipation as their supers triedto beat the other,

“Come on Connor don’t let this little boy beat you,”

“If Jon wins its not because Connor was defeated by a boyit was because he lost to a far supior being,” Damian said as he watched hisboyfriend winning this match.

“Come on Kent, don’t let this clone beat you you’re waybetter than him,”

“Of course, I’m gonna win Dami, after all I’m cuter andsince I am younger that means I’m a lot stronger I mean you’re getting old Kon,that means you’re losing your edge,”

Both Tim and Connor looked at him in shock while Damianlaughed at Jon’s trash talking. He was to cute when he tried to be tough.

Connor smirk as he tried to push his arm down,

“You maybe cute little brother but I’m hotter and I maybeold but I have more experience than you, and plus I at least don’t cry duringthe Lion King or the ending to Pokémon,”

“Ooohhh,” Tim said, he found three pairs of eyes lookingat him weirdly.

“What? Isn’t that what people do after they are donetrash talking them?”

No answered him before Damian said,

“Remember clone, you are marrying that,”

“Don’t remind me,”

“Hey!”

Jon just laughed as he kept trying to bring his brother’shand down.

“Come on Jon kick his ass!”

“Damian language,” Jon said acting scandalous.

“Yeah Dami, gosh darn it you are only six years old!” Timsaid unable to resist a jab at Damian’s age.

Damian just rolled his eyes as all three boys laughed atthe joke making Damian blush a bright red.

Jon and Connor smirk at one another as their boyfriendskept cheering them on.

“Connor you’re the strongest, bravest, sexiest, and bestman out there! Don’t let this little boy win!”

“Kent, I don’t need to boost your ego because you have meas your boyfriend and that’s enough to know you’re better than the clone so youbetter not lose,”

“Of course, I’m everything you said Tim, can’t let thelittle brats get the best of us and think they are better than us, now can I?”

For some reason this made everyone laugh as theirfriendly competition kept getting a little more heated with their trashtalking.

“Dude I know I’m better than you, and I got a hotterRobin who can kick your old ass without even trying,”

This made both Damian and Tim go,

“Ooooooohhhhhhh,”

“Tim, he just dissed you,”

“Yeah, but it was a great dissed I couldn’t resistcheering him,”

Connor turned to his little brother and couldn’t help butsmile as he said,

“You just said a bad word that means I’m telling mom,”

“Tattle tale,” both Damian and Jon said making both Timand Connor laugh.

“Then I’ll tell Tim about the time you dressed as aballerina and danced to swan lake!”

Both Tim and Damian started laughing as Connor turned abright red before he said,

“Say what you want but I look good in a tutu,”

This made all the boys laugh including Connor who couldn’tresist laughing along his friends.

“Ready to give up?”

“Nope, you?”

“Tch, you wish,”

“My superboy is gonna win Dami,”

“Not a chance Drake,”

“My money is on the clone,”

“No way man Jon is totally gonna win,”

“Wait what?” Connor asked distracted by the new voices, thedistraction was enough for Jon to bring down Connor’s hand making him thevictor.

“I did it! I won! I beat my…brother…” Jon watched in horrorat the scene before him,

Damian, Tim, and Connor turned to where Jon’s face wasstaring as their faces mirror Jon’s expression.

Sitting on the counter was Dick and Jason…eating…Alfred’scake.

“See told you little wing that Damian’s superboy wasgonna win,”

“Ah shit man, I owe you fifty bucks,” Jason said as heput his empty plate down next to him.

“Yeah you do,” Dick said as he took a final bite of thecake and placed his own plate down smiling at his brothers and theirboyfriends. He saw that all four of them were giving them a scandalous look.

“What?” Dick said.

All four continue to stare at them before Jon was thefirst to snap out of it and shouted,

“GET THEM!”

A few minutes later Alfred came in the Manor with a newtray of cinnamon crumble cake and two pies from Ms. Kent, he knew his grandsonsloved his sweets which is why he decided to make another batch as well as askMs. Kent for some of her pies which she kindly gave him.

As he passed the living room and headed for the kitchenhe had to stop and walk back to the living room to make sure that what he sawwas true and not some trick from his eyes.

Upon looking at the living room he saw Master Grayson andMaster Todd tied up hanging from the ceiling while the young Masters, MasterDrake, and Master Kent were sitting in a circle watching some show.

Master Connor was sitting on the couch while Master Drakewas resting his head on Master Connor’s lap who was running his fingers throughhis hair.

Jon and Damian were resting on the other couch in thesame position as their older brothers however, Master Damian was reading a bookto Master Kent and young Master Kent was smiling as he listen to Damian’s softvoice.

Master Todd and Master Grayson were shouting-or tryingwith the gags on their mouth-to be released. All in all it was a typical Fridaynight.

He wanted to ask but at the same time was afraid to,after all if he had to guess it involved his sweets and the boys not being ableto get some. Taking a deep breath, he shakes his head as he headed for thekitchen. He’ll wait until the boys are done watching TV and released MasterGrayson and Master Todd before announcing his surprise.

[bgsportandthemedia]

Week 9

Gambling is now synonymous with sport and it is having a range of effects.

(NOTE: Image above is of Ryan ‘Gamble’)

Not only is betting a casual way for sports consumers to interact with a game, but it has opened up doors of crime, typically through match fixing.

Match fixing occurs when the outcome of a sporting contest has been organised – meaning someone, typically a player, has taken extreme measures to fix the result of the match. This has been an issue for quite some time in sport, with many infamous cases revealed. However, it is scary to think of all the times match fixing has occurred yet hasn’t been made public.

Another element of this is spot fixing, which is deliberately determining the outcome of an individual moment within a sporting match. A prominent example of this is in cricket, with players bowling no balls or wides when planned. Spot fixing can be much easier to disguise than match fixing, as making a one-off moment look like an accident is subtler than losing a game on purpose.

But why does fixing in sport occur?

Well, for bookies and gamblers, manipulating the result of a sports contest guarantees an outcome, allowing them to place enormous amounts of money on the result and ensure they will win.

Due to the certainty of their victory, these criminals can then promise athletes – or any person that can effect the sporting outcome – enormous amounts of money to do them the favour or effectively cheating.

The money on offer is often too good to decline for some athletes, with Pakistan fast bowlers Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif accepting bribes to bowl massive front foot no balls in a test series against England.

As seen above, this fixing was clearly planned, and as a result, the Pakistan pair, along with Salman Butt, wound up in prison. This proves just how serious an issue fixing in sport is, as it can send athletes to jail.

Betting has clearly derailed sport in the past, but fixing isn’t the only negative impact of sports gambling.

The constant promotion of gambling, and ease of putting a bet on, has increased the level of gambling in Australia, with the country losing a combined $23 billion on sports betting between 2014-15.

This is a ridiculous figure, showing the effects betting can have on people, with it causing some individuals to lose control of their lives.

But while the negatives of sports gambling seem to be drastic, there are also some positives, keeping the industry alive.

Sports betting companies sponsor leagues, providing funds to help them grow.

In 2016, Sportsbet signed the most lucrative deal in Australian wagering sponsorship history – a $60 million contract with the NRL to be the official wagering partner.

This money Sportsbet is providing the NRL helps the league remain a strong, competitive organisation, and Channel Nine is obliged to promote Sportsbet with advertisements throughout its telecast in order to satisfy the agreement.

The constant promotion of different betting markets may effect some, but for many others, it provides an opportunity to spend a small amount of money and in return receive a night’s entertainment due to their newly formed investment in the match. 

As with anything in life, gambling can be OK in moderation, and it plays an important role in sport. However, when taken too far, it can lead to corruption and ultimately ruin lives.

[pardontheglueman]

Why Corbyn?

Over the next six weeks, as the general election draws ever closer, we can expect the Murdoch media empire to intensify its daily attacks on the Labour Leader. Those vicious attacks (Corbyn has been falsely vilified as a terrorist sympathiser, as someone who turned a blind eye to child abuse, and as a man who hates Britain), have been the order of the day, of course, since Corbyn was first elected to his post, and continued even after his re-election. Two landslide victories counted for nothing with his enemies, particularly those inside the Labour Party who, lest we forget, went to court to prevent Corbyn being able to stand in a contest for his own job! His unforgivable crime? He is a socialist leader (of a supposedly socialist party) who dares to posit old school socialist solutions to the inescapable crisis of neo-liberalism that threatens to drive western democracies into the arms of the racist right.

As someone who was never part of the Blair/Brown orthodoxy, the old Labour rebel has been on the wrong end of a scurrilous campaign to undermine him from the word go. Even past leaders of the party have seen Corbyn as fair game; who can forget the sickening sight of two-time General Election loser Lord Kinnock waving the party rule book about on The Andrew Marr Show, insisting that Corbyn had no automatic right to stand in the leadership re-run. One had to fear that the ex-left-wing firebrand was losing his grip on reality, a view that was reinforced by a cursory glance at a rule book which clearly states that an incumbent leader does not need to seek re-nomination! Either Lord Kinnock was in need of an urgent trip to Specsavers, or he was deliberately misquoting the Labour Party constitution. Of course, the courts ruled against Kinnock’s rambling “interpretation” of affairs. Furthermore, a ginger Welshman who fell, fully clothed, into the sea on his big press launch as leader having the gall to lecture Corbyn on electability is a classic case of terminal chutzpah!  

Rumour has it that Lord Kinnock still waits for the phone to ring with an invitation to join Strictly, unable to accept, even after all these years, that this moment ended more than his just his chance of becoming Prime Minister. Still, at least the ‘Welsh Astaire’ has the consolation of his seat in the Lords!  A terrific recognition of his quaint decision to hibernate throughout the Miners’ strike.

It is also impossible to erase from the memory banks the fulsome boast of the twice dismissed from office in disgrace Lord Mandelson (can you see a pattern of doing the establishment’s bidding emerging) ‘I am working every day to bring down Jeremy Corbyn’. A work ethic still shared by many of the 170 Labour MPs who launched a coup against Corbyn last summer, just as Labour had drawn level in the polls https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/03/new-yougov-poll-puts-labour-ahead/

This is an inconvenient truth that many (step forward the entire staff of The Guardian and The New Statesman and take a bow of betrayal) have tried to airbrush from history. Owen Smith, in his bizarrely incompetent leadership bid, consistently peddled the myth that as Labour was miles behind in the polls he had no option but to throw his hat into the ring of political opportunity. The context he always neglected to mention was, of course, that it was the stage managed coup that had brought about the collapse in the polls in the first place. The public doesn’t vote for a divided party, plain and simple. Ironically, many of the disloyal death eaters in the PLP (among them a great majority of Blair/Brown placemen and women from the good old day’s when constituencies weren’t allowed to choose their own MPs) are likely to lose their seats if the electoral bloodbath they’ve long predicted actually does come true.  

Corbyn has a mountain to climb simply to prevent a Tory landslide and remains cursed by a parliamentary party still trying to push him over the cliff edge, even at this late stage. The day that May broke her word and called for an early election, more than one Labour MP called on Corbyn to resign.

Corbyn on Whitchurch Common

I was proud, though, to be among the 1,000 strong crowd who turned up at Whitchurch Common last Friday (who knows what the crowd size might have been if the Welsh Labour website had bothered to inform members he was in town). Proud to be standing shoulder to shoulder with ex-classmates, ex-work colleagues, my 18 yr old daughter and her boyfriend, their school teachers, and the friends who stand on the terraces at Sardis Rd with me on a Saturday afternoon. A pretty fair cross-section of society, you might think, but apparently, we are all the brainwashed followers of JC (it must be the initials), who have been lured against our will into his fiendish personality cult (a strange occurrence, indeed, considering we are repeatedly told the bloke is utterly without charisma). Only Corbyn could be castigated for being deeply unpopular and deeply popular at one and the same time!

That’s the line, however, that some leading lights of the intelligentsia have been reduced to pushing in order to explain or denigrate the Corbyn phenomenon, and, at the same time, to discredit the dramatic surge in party membership (mostly made up of people inspired to join a political party for the very first time and those, like me, returning to embrace a Labour party we thought had been lost to us forever), that followed Corbyn’s sensational election triumph. Let’s remember, also, the response of the Blair/Brown cabal that still holds positions of great power in the party was to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of new members by artificially backdating the length of time they had to be a member in order to cast their vote. It was a dirty, deplorable anti-democratic trick which illustrated clearly the reactionary forces ranged against Corbyn. The truth is somewhat more straightforward - a great number of caring, compassionate people energised and enthused by a very basic concept - that the party is, at last, being led by a man who won’t sell out the labour movement for a seat in the House of Lords. It’s a fine thing, indeed, for a party to be led by an honest man, a leader who doesn’t want to slash the benefits of the disabled and the dying (May and Farron), who doesn’t reduce, like all penny ante patriots, political philosophy to a mere accident of birth (Wood, Nuttall and Sturgeon), and who won’t end his days as a pariah and a war criminal (Blair).

On that note, I watched George Galloway’s* The Killings of Tony Blair this morning, which covered Blair’s destruction of internal party democracy, his political corruption (Bernie Eccleston’s £1 million backhander to exclude Formula One from New Labour’s ban on tobacco advertising), the famously fraudulent dossier about weapons of mass destruction that conned the British people into initially supporting an illegal war that led to the rise of Islamic State, and the hundreds of millions in consultancy fees that Blair has trousered since leaving office by representing some of the world’s worst human rights abusers, such as Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Corbyn’s getting more appealing by the minute, isn’t he?

The Killings of Tony Blair

Corbyn’s Labour Party is often accused of lacking direction (partly true), and of allowing a policy vacuum to form at its heart (overegging it a bit). Labour’s 2017 manifesto will offer voters a real living wage; the nationalisation of the Railways; a massive programme of house building; a reversal of the privatisation of the NHS; genuine policies to tackle air pollution, climate change and tax evasion; a National Investment Bank and fair rent controls, just for starters. Focus groups continue to show these policies to be popular until they are pre-fixed with Corbyn’s name and then they are box-office poison!

It all comes back to the campaign of character assassination that the media and the PLP conspired to set in motion from the moment he assumed the position of Leader of the Opposition, with the sole aim of making him unelectable as P.M. It’s worth noting the despicable role of the BBC in that ongoing campaign and worth highlighting, in particular, the conduct of the station’s Chief political editor Laura Kuenssberg. Earlier this year the BBC Trust reprimanded their star reporter for a “failure of impartiality” in respect of an interview carried out with Corbyn in the aftermath of the Paris terror attacks. The Trust’s investigation concluded "There was a significant difference between what Mr Corbyn said and what the report inferred. This led to a failure of due accuracy”. Giving viewers a false impression of Corbyn’s attitude to defending the country against terrorist attack should have led to Kuenssberg’s suspension from duty, pending further investigation into her “reporting”.

On the subject of the BBC, it’s worth commenting that Andrew Neil, a one-time henchman of Rupert Murdoch and sworn enemy of organised labour, still chairs seven political discussion programmes a week on the Beeb  - The Daily Politics Monday through Friday, The Sunday Politics and This Weekon a Thursday night. Try imagining a scenario where Arthur Scargill hosts those programmes on behalf of the left!

Neil’s old chum Rupert has been right at the forefront of the campaign to destroy Corbyn. Two examples are particularly noteworthy. The first was a shameful attempt to suggest Corbyn was having a whale of a time dancing at a Remembrance Sunday service, an impression created by doctoring a photograph of the Labour leader which later appeared in The Sunday Sun

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jeremy-corbyn-dancing-remembrance-sunday_uk_58299981e4b09ac74c52d3be

The second was a serious accusation, in March this year, that Corbyn had failed to declare his proper annual earnings when voluntarily releasing his tax returns-  

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3017183/jeremy-corbyn-faces-claims-over-27000-of-income-on-his-tax-return/

The story was bogus, as might have been anticipated, yet a retraction or published apology is still outstanding.

I fully accept that Corbyn has some fundamental limitations; he has no real grasp of organisational leadership ( the disgraceful refusal of senior colleagues to serve in his cabinet has seriously undermined his efforts too), and the fact that he underperforms in his media appearances and at PMQ’s is apparent to viewers - all criticisms, though, that could have been aimed at many of his better-prepared predecessors!). However, any voter, even those dead set on using the election to re-state their support for Brexit should consider choosing as Prime Minister a man of principle over a man, or woman, motivated by naked opportunism (I’m practicing denial, here, over Donald Trump’s victory) , in such a vital election for the country. The odds are, though, that any red-blooded Labour revival will have to wait until a post-Brexit apocalypse has left the British economy in ruins with the ‘let’s make Britain great again’ mob rightfully shouldering all the blame. Corbyn will not be at the helm, of course, but if the Labour party is to challenge the neo-liberal agenda of endless austerity that has virtually wiped out state provision in Britain, then someone very much like him will have to have followed in his footsteps.

[redsoapbox]

Why Corbyn?

Jeremy Corbyn with The Gandhi Foundation International Peace Award 2013. His acceptance speech is well worth reading -

https://gandhifoundation.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/pagandhijcspeechnov26th2013.pdf

Over the next six weeks, as the general election draws ever closer, we can expect the Murdoch media empire to intensify its daily attacks on the Labour Leader. Those vicious attacks (Corbyn has been falsely vilified as a terrorist sympathiser, as someone who turned a blind eye to child abuse, and as a man who hates Britain), have been the order of the day, of course, since Corbyn was first elected to his post, and continued even after his re-election. Two landslide victories counted for nothing with his enemies, particularly those inside the Labour Party who, lest we forget, went to court to prevent Corbyn being able to stand in a contest for his own job! His unforgivable crime? He is a socialist leader (of a supposedly socialist party) who dares to posit old school socialist solutions to the inescapable crisis of neo-liberalism that threatens to drive western democracies into the arms of the racist right.

As someone who was never part of the Blair/Brown orthodoxy, the old Labour rebel has been on the wrong end of a scurrilous campaign to undermine him from the word go. Even past leaders of the party have seen Corbyn as fair game; who can forget the sickening sight of two-time General Election loser Lord Kinnock waving the party rule book about on The Andrew Marr Show, insisting that Corbyn had no automatic right to stand in the leadership re-run. One had to fear that the ex-left-wing firebrand was losing his grip on reality, a view that was reinforced by a cursory glance at a rule book which clearly states that an incumbent leader does not need to seek re-nomination! Either Lord Kinnock was in need of an urgent trip to Specsavers, or he was deliberately misquoting the Labour Party constitution. Of course, the courts ruled against Kinnock’s rambling “interpretation” of affairs. Furthermore, a ginger Welshman who fell, fully clothed, into the sea on his big press launch as leader having the gall to lecture Corbyn on electability is a classic case of terminal chutzpah!  

Rumour has it that Lord Kinnock still waits for the phone to ring with an invitation to join Strictly, unable to accept, even after all these years, that this moment ended more than his just his chance of becoming Prime Minister. Still, at least the ‘Welsh Astaire’ has the consolation of his seat in the Lords!  A terrific recognition of his quaint decision to hibernate throughout the Miners’ strike.

It is also impossible to erase from the memory banks the fulsome boast of the twice dismissed from office in disgrace Lord Mandelson (can you see a pattern of doing the establishment's bidding emerging) ‘I am working every day to bring down Jeremy Corbyn’. A work ethic still shared by many of the 170 Labour MPs who launched a coup against Corbyn last summer, just as Labour had drawn level in the polls https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/03/new-yougov-poll-puts-labour-ahead/

This is an inconvenient truth that many (step forward the entire staff of The Guardian and The New Statesman and take a bow of betrayal) have tried to airbrush from history. Owen Smith, in his bizarrely incompetent leadership bid, consistently peddled the myth that as Labour was miles behind in the polls he had no option but to throw his hat into the ring of political opportunity. The context he always neglected to mention was, of course, that it was the stage managed coup that had brought about the collapse in the polls in the first place. The public doesn’t vote for a divided party, plain and simple. Ironically, many of the disloyal death eaters in the PLP (among them a great majority of Blair/Brown placemen and women from the good old day’s when constituencies weren't allowed to choose their own MPs) are likely to lose their seats if the electoral bloodbath they’ve long predicted actually does come true.  

Corbyn has a mountain to climb simply to prevent a Tory landslide and remains cursed by a parliamentary party still trying to push him over the cliff edge, even at this late stage. The day that May broke her word and called for an early election, more than one Labour MP called on Corbyn to resign.

Corbyn on Whitchurch Common

I was proud, though, to be among the 1,000 strong crowd who turned up at Whitchurch Common last Friday (who knows what the crowd size might have been if the Welsh Labour website had bothered to inform members he was in town). Proud to be standing shoulder to shoulder with ex-classmates, ex-work colleagues, my 18 yr old daughter and her boyfriend, their school teachers, and the friends who stand on the terraces at Sardis Rd with me on a Saturday afternoon. A pretty fair cross-section of society, you might think, but apparently, we are all the brainwashed followers of JC (it must be the initials), who have been lured against our will into his fiendish personality cult (a strange occurrence, indeed, considering we are repeatedly told the bloke is utterly without charisma). Only Corbyn could be castigated for being deeply unpopular and deeply popular at one and the same time!

That’s the line, however, that some leading lights of the intelligentsia have been reduced to pushing in order to explain or denigrate the Corbyn phenomenon, and, at the same time, to discredit the dramatic surge in party membership (mostly made up of people inspired to join a political party for the very first time and those, like me, returning to embrace a Labour party we thought had been lost to us forever), that followed Corbyn’s sensational election triumph. Let’s remember, also, the response of the Blair/Brown cabal that still holds positions of great power in the party was to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of new members by artificially backdating the length of time they had to be a member in order to cast their vote. It was a dirty, deplorable anti-democratic trick which illustrated clearly the reactionary forces ranged against Corbyn. The truth is somewhat more straightforward - a great number of caring, compassionate people energised and enthused by a very basic concept - that the party is, at last, being led by a man who won’t sell out the labour movement for a seat in the House of Lords. It’s a fine thing, indeed, for a party to be led by an honest man, a leader who doesn’t want to slash the benefits of the disabled and the dying (May and Farron), who doesn’t reduce, like all penny ante patriots, political philosophy to a mere accident of birth (Wood, Nuttall and Sturgeon), and who won’t end his days as a pariah and a war criminal (Blair). 

On that note, I watched George Galloway’s* The Killings of Tony Blair this morning, which covered Blair’s destruction of internal party democracy, his political corruption (Bernie Eccleston’s £1 million backhander to exclude Formula One from New Labour’s ban on tobacco advertising), the famously fraudulent dossier about weapons of mass destruction that conned the British people into initially supporting an illegal war that led to the rise of Islamic State, and the hundreds of millions in consultancy fees that Blair has trousered since leaving office by representing some of the world’s worst human rights abusers, such as Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Corbyn’s getting more appealing by the minute, isn’t he?

The Killings of Tony Blair

Corbyn’s Labour Party is often accused of lacking direction (partly true), and of allowing a policy vacuum to form at its heart (overegging it a bit). Labour’s 2017 manifesto will offer voters a real living wage; the nationalisation of the Railways; a massive programme of house building; a reversal of the privatisation of the NHS; genuine policies to tackle air pollution, climate change and tax evasion; a National Investment Bank and fair rent controls, just for starters. Focus groups continue to show these policies to be popular until they are pre-fixed with Corbyn’s name and then they are box-office poison!

It all comes back to the campaign of character assassination that the media and the PLP conspired to set in motion from the moment he assumed the position of Leader of the Opposition, with the sole aim of making him unelectable as P.M. It’s worth noting the despicable role of the BBC in that ongoing campaign and worth highlighting, in particular, the conduct of the station’s Chief political editor Laura Kuenssberg. Earlier this year the BBC Trust reprimanded their star reporter for a “failure of impartiality” in respect of an interview carried out with Corbyn in the aftermath of the Paris terror attacks. The Trust’s investigation concluded "There was a significant difference between what Mr Corbyn said and what the report inferred. This led to a failure of due accuracy”. Giving viewers a false impression of Corbyn’s attitude to defending the country against terrorist attack should have led to Kuenssberg’s suspension from duty, pending further investigation into her “reporting”.

On the subject of the BBC, it’s worth commenting that Andrew Neil, a one-time henchman of Rupert Murdoch and sworn enemy of organised labour, still chairs seven political discussion programmes a week on the Beeb  - The Daily Politics Monday through Friday, The Sunday Politics and This Week on a Thursday night. Try imagining a scenario where Arthur Scargill hosts those programmes on behalf of the left!

Neil’s old chum Rupert has been right at the forefront of the campaign to destroy Corbyn. Two examples are particularly noteworthy. The first was a shameful attempt to suggest Corbyn was having a whale of a time dancing at a Remembrance Sunday service, an impression created by doctoring a photograph of the Labour leader which later appeared in The Sunday Sun

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jeremy-corbyn-dancing-remembrance-sunday_uk_58299981e4b09ac74c52d3be

The second was a serious accusation, in March this year, that Corbyn had failed to declare his proper annual earnings when voluntarily releasing his tax returns-  

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3017183/jeremy-corbyn-faces-claims-over-27000-of-income-on-his-tax-return/

The story was bogus, as might have been anticipated, yet a retraction or published apology is still outstanding. 

I fully accept that Corbyn has some fundamental limitations; he has no real grasp of organisational leadership ( the disgraceful refusal of senior colleagues to serve in his cabinet has seriously undermined his efforts too), and the fact that he underperforms in his media appearances and at PMQ’s is apparent to viewers - all criticisms, though, that could have been aimed at many of his better-prepared predecessors!). However, any voter, even those dead set on using the election to re-state their support for Brexit should consider choosing as Prime Minister a man of principle over a man, or woman, motivated by naked opportunism (I’m practicing denial, here, over Donald Trump’s victory) , in such a vital election for the country. The odds are, though, that any red-blooded Labour revival will have to wait until a post-Brexit apocalypse has left the British economy in ruins with the ‘let’s make Britain great again’ mob rightfully shouldering all the blame. Corbyn will not be at the helm, of course, but if the Labour party is to challenge the neo-liberal agenda of endless austerity that has virtually wiped out state provision in Britain, then someone very much like him will have to have followed in his footsteps.

I’m also giving Gorgeous George a plug by posting this video of the best piece of political theatre that I’ve ever seen. The hawks in Washington didn’t know what the hell hit them when they cross-examined the maverick socialist on his dealings with Iraq.

[stephaniefchase]

Bajan Newscap 4/16/2017

Good Morning #realdreamchasers! Here is your daily news cap for Sunday 16th 2017. Remember you can read full articles via Barbados Today (BT), or by purchasing a Sunday Sun Nation Newspaper (SS).

DLP “LATE” SHOW – Political scientists have questioned the “lateness” of the governing Democratic Labour Party (DLP) in finalising its slate of candidates for the next general election but differ on the impact. Last Thursday the DLP announced that it had replaced Patrick Todd in the City, Kenny Best in St Michael East, and St Michael South East’s Patrick Tannis with Nicholas Alleyne and Henderson Williams and Rodney Grant, respectively. Peter Wickham, the director of Caribbean Development Research Services (CADRES), said that the lateness of the selection exercise was an indication that the DLP believed that it would be victorious in the next election. “The manner in which the Democratic Labour Party went about making those changes, the timing and everything,” he said. (SS)

BWA SOUTH COAST PUMPS SOON READY – Those severe problems that plagued the South Coast Sewerage Project last year should be solved by month-end. The Barbados Water Authority (BWA) has almost completed the overhaul of its wastewater treatment and sewerage systems, as specially imported replacement pumps get set to go online at the South Coast Sewerage Treatment Plant at Graeme Hall, Christ Church. “Four new pumps are expected to replace the failing machines at the plant, the BWA’s Wastewater Division manager, Patricia Inniss, told the SUNDAY SUN. The special equipment was sourced and manufactured in Sweden, after numerous problems plagued the South Coast project late last year, leading to effluent flowing in the streets of Worthing, Christ Church, which led to water quality issues on the Worthing Beach, and its subsequent closure for four days. In addition, the tourism sector was also affected, with a number of visitors leaving their places of accommodation. (SS)

SACRIFICES TO FIX ECONOMI WOES – Barbadians need to look to their own resources inside the country for solutions to the country’s economic, social and financial woes. That bit of advice from Bishop Peter Fenty, the Barbadian who is the top black clergyman in Canada’s Anglican Church. His comments were made against a backdrop of Good Friday and Easter observances, the holiest period on the global Christian calendar. Bishop Fenty said the current economic situation required some tough decisions and there was no doubt the country had what was needed to return to a path of economic and social prosperity. “I do believe that in Barbados we have, right there on the island, the persons and the resources to turn around the economy, to make some difficult decisions. (SS)

MASSIAH TO LEAVE ST. JOSEPH RECTORY – Retired Anglican Priest Errington Massiah is making preparations to vacate the St Joseph Rectory after 32 years of residence there. The long-standing priest at St Joseph Anglican Church, who retired last year, told the SUNDAY SUN that he may be out of the rectory by the end of this week. However, he denied reports that the diocese had written him about vacating the Horse Hill, St Joseph rectory, which is a stone’s throw away from the parish church, which was closed and deconsecrated some years ago because of structural damage. “That ain’t true,” said Massiah, when informed about reports that the church had written him about his continued occupation of the residence, even though he had retired last year. (SS)

FREE VILLAGE LOSES APPEAL - The ancestral history of the first free village in Barbados has lost its value to some in the community. And after last night’s Apology concert, some residents are wondering what’s next? The story goes that the enslaved Blacks of Mount Wilton, who did not take part in the Bussa rebellion of 1816, were willed money from the plantation owner for their “good conduct”. It is said that after Emancipation in 1838, the ex-slaves used their inheritance to purchase fertile land in Rock Hall, St Thomas, which became the first free village in the island. With the ownership of land, these former slaves qualified for the right to adult suffrage. In 2005, a monument to represent the rich history of the area was unveiled by Member of Parliament for St Thomas, Cynthia Forde. The then Barbados Labour Party government was embarking on a tourism project which they hoped would bring needed recognition to the Freedom Village and empower residents. (SS)

THOUSANDS MARCH DEMANDING TRUMP RELEASE TAXES – Tens of thousands of people marched through midtown Manhattan and dozens of U.S. cities on Saturday to demand that President Donald Trump release his tax returns and to dispute his claim that the public does not care about the issue. Organisers of “Tax March” in more than 150 cities across the country and beyond wanted to call attention to Trump’s refusal to disclose his tax history, as his White House predecessors have done for more than 40 years. The marches coincide with the traditional April 15 deadline for U.S. federal tax returns, though the filing date was pushed backed two days this year. There were no reports of violence or arrests, in contrast to a clash between Trump supporters and opponents that erupted at a rally in Berkeley, California, where nine people were arrested. Two of the biggest tax marches took place in New York and Los Angeles, with each drawing about 5 000 people, according to estimates by Reuters reporters. No official estimates were immediately available. In Manhattan, a good-natured crowd rallied at Bryant Park before marching up Sixth Avenue to Central Park. Among the marchers was an oversized inflatable rooster, sporting an angry expression and a sweeping metallic orange hairdo meant to resemble Trump’s signature style. In Washington, more than 1 500 protesters gathered on the front lawn of the U.S. Capitol, where members of Congress addressed the crowd before it marched to the Lincoln Memorial. He described Trump’s refusal to release his taxes as being “like a teenager trying to hide a lousy report card”. As a candidate and as president, Trump has refused to release his tax returns, citing an ongoing audit by the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS has said that Trump can release his tax returns even while under audit. The White House could not be reached immediately for comment on the marches. (SS)

MUM: WHY DID MY SON DIE IN POLICE CELL: Angela Best closes her eyes and tries to talk, but has to pause for a moment to hold back the tears.  Then she becomes angry, refusing to believe that her first-born son would have done the unthinkable, and taken his own life. Best, 63, is calling on the authorities to explain the circumstances surrounding the death of Corey Best in police custody at the Oistins Police Station last Thursday. Police say the 34-year-old used his jeans to hang himself inside a holding cell. (SS)

SHARAZ OBRIAN PATEL WANTED BY THE POLICE – Police continue to seek the public’s assistance in locating 30-year-old Sharaz Obrian Patel, alias “Dappa”, who is wanted in connection with serious criminal matters. Patel’s last known address is Upper Wavell Avenue, Black Rock, St Michael. He is about five foot three inches in height, slim build and brown in complexion. He has an average nose and lips and brown eyes. He also has a tattoo on his left forearm with the words “Out Law”. The police say Patel is considered to be armed and dangerous and should not be approached by the public. Patel is advised that he can present himself to the Black Rock Police Station accompanied by an attorney-at-law of his choice. Anyone knowing his whereabouts is being asked to contact the nearest police station. The police are also reminding the public that it is a serious offence to harbour or assist wanted persons and anyone caught committing this offence can be prosecuted. (BT)

WANTED MAN SHAMAR WELCH CAPTURED - Wanted man Shamar Renaldo Welch has been captured. Welch, 28, who is also known as “Sammy”, of Rochester Road, Grazettes, St Michael, was apprehended by police today at Yearwood Land, Black Rock, St Micheal. The police say he is currently assisting them with investigations. Police Public Relations Officer acting Inspector Roland Cobbler has thanked the public and the media for their assistance.  (BT)

DOMINICAN HELD WITH 128 ROUNDS OF AMMUNITION - Police have arrested and charged 62-year-old Dominican national Pat Thomas with unlawful possession of 128 rounds of ammunition. On Thursday, April 13, Thomas, who is also a US citizen, arrived at the Grantley Adams International Airport on a flighted from the United States. During a search of his luggage, customs officers discovered the ammunition concealed in two pairs of socks. Thomas appeared before Magistrate Douglas Fredericks in the District ‘A’ Court today and was remanded to prison to reappear in the District ‘B’ Court on April 19. (BT)

ANOTHER TOUGH DAY EXPECTED AT CARIFTA GAMES - It will be a second tough day of track and field action for Barbados at the 46th Flow CARIFTA Games at the Ergilio Hato Stadium (SDK) in Willemstad on Sunday. The highlights will be in the 200 and 800 metres and 400 metres hurdles where Barbados will be aiming to add to their four medals on Saturday's opening day. Aaron Worrell will have four more events in the Octathlon, starting with the 110-metre hurdles, followed by the high jump, javelin throw and 1500 metres. In the field events, debutante Shanice Huston will compete in the Under-18 girls’ discus; Jonathan Miller in the Under-18 Boys’ triple jump; Shonita Brome and Akayla Morris in the Under-18 girls’ long jump and Enrique Babb in the Under-18 Boys’ shot put. On the track, Matthew Clarke and the United States-based Tai Brown will represent Barbados in the Under-Boys’ 200 metres while Jaquone Hoyte and Kentoine Browne will race in the Under-20 Boys’ 200 metres. Jonathan Jones and Rio Williams will contest the Under-20 Boys’ 800 metres with Roneldo Rock flying the Barbados’ flag in the Under-18 Boys’ 800 metres. Brome and Hannah Connell are entered for Barbados in the Under-18 Girls’ 400-metre hurdles while Tiana Bowen will be seeking a second medal in the Under-20 Girls’ 400-metre hurdles after her silver medal in the flat 400. Last year’s defending champion Rasheeme Griffith goes after a second consecutive gold medal in the Under-18 Boys’ 400-metre hurdles. Also representing Barbados in this event will be Nathan Fergusson, who took the silver medal last year behind Griffith. Rivaldo Leacock will also be hoping to bid farewell to the CARIFTA Games with a gold-medal run in the Under-20 Boys’ 400-metre hurdles. Barbados will be fielding only the Under-18 Boys’ 4x100-metre relay team with the quartet likely to be selected from Matthew Clarke, Darian Clarke, Tramaine Smith, Tai Brown and Fergusson. (SS)

GREAVES TON RESCUES PRIDE – An impressive unbeaten century by Justin Greaves orchestrated a remarkable recovery that lifted Barbados Pride to 297 for six yesterday on the opening day of the tenth-round Digicel Regional 4-Day Tournament match against the Jamaica Scorpions at Kensington Oval. Greaves recorded his maiden first-class century ten minutes before the close of play when he pulled a delivery from left-arm spinner Dennis Bulli to deep mid-wicket for a single. By stumps he was not out on 104 off 182 deliveries in 215 minutes with eight boundaries.  Greaves and fellow all-rounder Kenroy Williams (82) set the foundation for a productive opening day for the home side after they were forced to bat first. Their century stand lifted Barbados from an uncomfortable 65 for four prior to lunch and 98 for five less than half-hour into the afternoon session. (SS)

MARIJUANA CONCEALED AMONG BABY ITEMS - A 20-year-old man has been arrested and charged with possession of cannabis, possession with intent to supply cannabis and trafficking of cannabis. On April 13, Reshawn Shamar Best of Pilgrim Lane, Christ Church, visited the Seawell Air Services Bond to clear a shipment consigned to him. On inspection of the shipment by customs officers, five transparent packages containing cannabis were discovered concealed among baby items. The matter was reported to the police and Best was subsequently arrested and charged. He appeared before Magistrate Douglas Fredericks in the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court today and was granted bail in the sum of $5000 with one surety. He has been booked to reappear in the District ‘B’ Court on April 20. (BT)

STUART: DO MORE TO PUSH FESTIVAL – In the face of waning support for the FLOW Oistins Fish Festival, Prime Minister Freundel Stuart has called for greater involvement in the 40-year-old event. The Prime Minister made the plea yesterday during his feature address at the opening ceremony of the 40th Oistins Fish Festival, following remarks by MP for the area John Boyce in which he spoke to the noted challenges the festival faced in terms of sponsorship. Improvements are in line for the area, Stuart revealed. While praising the popular venue, he said there were many much-needed plans to better assist the physical development of the area. He explained that coming out of a recently held town hall meeting on the Physical Development Plan were plans to create a waterfront pedestrian route from Enterprise beach to Welches beach and create a transport terminal on the land side of Highway 7. (SS)

EASTER DELIGHTS – Easter eggs still attract children in droves. Businesses in Bridgetown were examples of that most of last week, as Barbadians started piling up on the colourful treats for their kids. (SS)

RESIDENTS GIVE BACK THROUGH KITE FLYING - The Dying arts of kite-making and kite-flying have prompted young St Philip residents to start a new annual tradition of making and helping to fly kites for community children. For the second year, old school friends John Jones and Akeem Mason will be coordinating the distribution of kites to children across the island. “When I brought the idea to John, I realised he was thinking the same thing,” Mason, 25, said. “We just want to bring back the excitement of making kites and flying them.” Tomorrow, Easter Monday, the Kite Flying Extravaganza and Giveback will be held in King George V Memorial Park. It is expected to host children of all ages. (SS)

That’s all for today folks. There are 259 days left in the year Shalom! #thechasefiles #dailynewscaps Follow us on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram for your daily news. #bajannewscaps #newscapsbystephaniefchase