Thursday, October 20, 2022



The mother of George Floyd’s daughter has launched a $250 million legal bid against Kanye West after his controversial comments about his death

Kanye is right. The conviction of officer Chauvin was a political necessity, not a reasonable conclusion

West claimed that Floyd, who was murdered by Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin in May 2020, died after taking fentanyl and the police officers knee ‘wasn’t even on his neck like that’.

Now Floyd’s family have issued a cease-and desist letter to West, 45, for the comments he made on the Drink Champs podcast, which has since been deleted.

Roxie Washington, the mother of Gianna Floyd, claims in the lawsuit that West made ‘false statements’ about George to ‘promote his brands’.

The lawsuit also claims that he made the comments to ‘increase marketing value and revenue for himself, his business partners, and associates.’

Civil rights activist and attorney Lee Merritt first hinted at a potential lawsuit on Sunday, despite conceding that it is impossibly to defame the dead.

Lawyers say that West used ‘malicious falsehoods’ about Floyd to profit from his death and the families trauma.

Nuru Witherspoon, a partner at The Witherspoon Law Group who is representing the family, said in a statement: ‘The interests of the child are priority.

‘George Floyd’s daughter is being traumatised by Kanye West’s comments and he’s creating an unsafe and unhealthy environment for her.’

The press release by the family’s legal team brand West’s comments as ‘repugnant’, adding: ‘Some words have consequences and Mr West will be made to understand that.’

West made the wild claims during an appearance on Revolt TV's Drink Champs podcast, and made several other controversial statements in the latest of his outbursts.

He made the claim about Floyd's death while giving a glowing review of the Candace Owens documentary The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd and the Rise of BLM.

The rapper said: 'They hit [Floyd] with the fentanyl. If you look, the guy's knee wasn't even on his neck like that.

'They said he screamed for his mama; mama was his girlfriend. It's in the documentary.'

Floyd died because Chauvin had pressed his knee to Floyd’s neck for nine-and-a-half minutes as he shouted ‘I can’t breathe.’

Hennepin County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Andrew Baker said that while Floyd’s heart disease and use of fentanyl were contributing factors to his death, they were not the direct cause.

The legal battle comes just a few years West joined the protest in 2020 following Floyd’s killing - making himself a public ally.

During the podcast he also implied that Kris Jenner, 66, had sex with Drake, 33, and say 'Jewish media' censored an interview of his.

In other parts of the chat, West said 'Jewish people control the black voice' and sarcastically stated the 'Jewish media' would cancel one of the hosts for saying: 'F**k Black Lives Matter.'

The father-of four has faced criticism in recent weeks for his bizarre behavior, including introducing a series of shirts branded with 'White Lives Matter.'

He has also made several eyebrow-raising comments that have been widely regarded as anti-Semitic.

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"Rainbow" South Africa today

It was referredto as a rainbow nation after the end of apartheid

Our message was that while South Africa brimmed with potential, and had the elements to underwrite a successful future, it was also confronting a number of dangers that threatened the country’s very existence as a constitutional democracy.

For much of this time, our warnings went unheeded, and were often dismissed as hyperbole or alarmism.

It’s unlikely that we’d find the same emphatic dismissal today.

It’s hard to argue that South Africa has not reached a point of crisis. We’re a society in which over half the country lives below the official income poverty line, and around a quarter has trouble in affording food. Unemployment stands at just under 34% on the official definition – and that excludes those who are jobless and would accept work but are not looking for it. Crime remains a bane on our daily existence: between March and June this year, 6 424 people were murdered, or over 70 a day in this period.

Infrastructure creaks after decades of neglect and the pillaging of the institutions that were meant to oversee them. The ports in Cape Town and Durban were ranked as among the least efficient on earth in a report by the World Bank and S&P Global Market Intelligence in June. Roads and rail are in disrepair. The Post Office is effectively bankrupt. As for electricity supply, we’ve lived with load-shedding for around 15 years, with little to suggest imminent improvement.

The country’s water supply, so critical for an environmentally stressed country, is failing, and many municipalities lack a piped flow of potable water. Many municipalities have been disastrously mismanaged long term, rendering some communities effectively ungoverned spaces.

Even the metros are not immune from this. The three cities in Gauteng are each now having to deal with both electricity and water cuts. Doctors in hospitals report being asked to ferry in water from home to allow toilets to be flushed. A headline in News24 the other day put it like this: Triple whammy hits Joburg: ‘No water, no electricity and no one steering the ship.’

Last year, the government literally lost control of parts of the country as rioting hit – particularly here in KwaZulu-Natal.

Put all those things together and it is unsurprising that investment stands at historic lows of 13% of GDP. This while the National Development Plan envisaged 30%.

If there was ever any dispute about the existence or severity of our national malaise, this should have been dispelled.

We mention this not only to underline the grave circumstances that bring us here today, but because there is an explanation that all who are concerned with South Africa’s future should understand: what has brought us to this point is not only corruption, greed or incompetence; South Africa has been brought to this point by deliberate policy choices.

This is about ideology. The ruling African National Congress does not and has for decades not considered itself a political party. It is a liberation movement, a political organisation endowed by history with the right and duty to lead a radical reordering of society. It does not see itself as representing a constituency with a conditional mandate to manage the state.

It is an embodiment of ‘the people’ – note that phrase. What it represents is the higher aspirations of society. ‘Struggle’ is a near permanent condition, for a liberation movement undertaking this momentous project must always be vigilant of the nefarious purposes of its ‘enemies’ – note that phrase too.

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In a world of toxic dating apps, I'm glad my daughter wants an arranged marriage like mine

RAJ GILL is a modern, professional woman whose daughter is at university. Here, she challenges preconceptions by suggesting tradition is the way forward

The first time I saw my husband I was 27. He was tall, dark and handsome — the truth, not just a cliché — and wearing tan trousers and a blazer. My first impression? He was hot!

image from https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/10/17/21/63568785-11325363-image-a-41_1666038719533.jpg

So, did our eyes lock across a restaurant table bathed in flickering candlelight, or was our first encounter perhaps for coffee and a country stroll, just the two of us?

No. You might be surprised that passion burned so brightly when you learn that Jugtar arrived at my parents' house in Glasgow with his whole family in tow, while all my family — including my Nana — were in attendance too.

We were allowed to escape to the dining room to chat privately, but only after we'd all — 12 of us in total — shared tea together.

You see, I had an arranged marriage. Jugtar having been chosen as a prospective suitor by my parents. In these days of dating apps, transient relationships and declining marriage statistics, to many, the concept of an arranged marriage seems like something from the Dark Ages, an antiquated convention that inevitably must be oppressive to women.

And straight away I should make the distinction between an arranged marriage and a forced one. Forced is, as it says, doing something against your will.

Admittedly, in previous generations there was little sense of choice, even with an arranged marriage. For my grandparents and parents, the first time husband met wife was on their wedding day.

But these days — as it was for me — it's more like a blind date. My family had chosen someone who they felt would be a good fit and brought us together, but they were clear that it was ultimately our decision whether it progressed to marriage.

'Intro-marriage' is the modern way to describe this scenario and it's certainly worked for us. While we have our ups and downs, like any other couple, Jugtar, a 49-year-old businessman, and I celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary last month, and we have two beautiful teenagers.

Recently, our 19-year-old daughter Karam, who is currently studying psychology at university, said that when the time is right she would consider an arranged marriage, too — something that's entirely her choice.

It's a decision many girls her age will instinctively recoil from. Certainly, shock is the initial reaction of the character played by Lily James in an upcoming film called What's Love Got To Do With It?

She plays a documentary filmmaker and dating app addict who has a disastrous romantic history. Yet when she decides to make a film about her friend Kaz's path to his arranged marriage in Pakistan, she realises that she has lessons to learn from a different way of finding a meaningful relationship.

It's bound to spark a debate about the best way to find lasting love, but I truly believe that the lessons you can learn from an arranged marriage go further than fluffy romcom fantasy. These relationships are built on the ideas of respect and compatibility — key qualities which seem very lacking in today's dating-app culture. Here, young people hook up — often just for sex — on the basis of a picture and perceived sexual attraction.

From listening to the woes of my friends, it's clear that dating apps can be a toxic place, especially if you are female; an environment where women are treated as sexual playthings, discarded when a man gets bored.

And while a survey by the Marriage Foundation revealed that online dating has become the most common way to meet a husband or wife, with a third of those marrying now having met online, it also found that such couples are six times more likely to divorce in the first three years of marriage than those who meet at university or via family and friends.

I'm not surprised. When I was introduced to Jugtar, while I found him undeniably attractive, the focus was on compatibility.

We not only had similar backgrounds, but shared interests — we're both avid readers, for example — and wanted the same things out of life, including children. Our different personalities complemented each other: I'm an extrovert and he is more introverted. I'm always on the go; Jugtar is much more laid-back.

My family are Punjabi Sikhs, as are Jugtar's, and our parents are first-generation immigrants from India.

To start with they worked for foundries and in mills, and I was eight when we — my parents, two brothers, sister and I — moved to Glasgow and they started their own business.

Like most young women today, I was brought up to be educated, financially independent and to embrace the opportunities I was given. While marriageable age in the culture in which I was raised is from 18 years old, I wasn't put under any pressure to do so until I was ready.

My parents' world was one of traditional Indian values — daughters who went straight from their father's home to a husband's — but they let me carve my own path, often against the advice of family members.

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Economy trumps feelings in the US inflationary climate

Fewer than three weeks out from midterm elections, which will determine whether Biden can have any legislative agenda in the last two years of this presidential term, feelings are indeed the Democrats’ best political weapon.

Their summer of hope, buoyed by a media maelstrom of criticism following the court’s decision to reverse a 49-year-old precedent, is fading into a gloomy autumn reality.

Bill Clinton’s aphorism about the primacy of economic matters in elections is having a renaissance as record inflation, rampant illegal immigration on the southern US border and rising crime loom larger in the minds of American voters than abortion, voting rights and climate change, let alone the ridiculous spectre of “fascism”.

Two national polls out in recent days make for grim reading for Democrats, putting Republicans easily ahead on what’s known as the generic ballot – will you vote Republican or Democrat this November?

The fine print was arguably worse reading, though. A new poll conducted by The New York Times, a publication not prone to any pro-Republican bias, and Siena College found only 5 per cent of voters thought abortion rights were the most important issue facing the nation.

Even women, that 51 per cent of the population often supposed to hold the same view on everything, had swung towards Republicans by an admittedly difficult to believe 18 percentage point margin. Memory of Dobbs appears to be fading, perhaps aided by the fact in practice abortion rights have changed for very few women, as the practice was already legal for the vast bulk of the US population and will remain so.

At the same time, 44 per cent said inflation, which has been at 40-year highs for more than six months, and the economy, widely believed to be on the cusp of a slump, were the most important issues.

To add insult to injury, Donald Trump, a man deemed the most deplorable in US history, 24/7, for more than five years, beat Biden in a hypothetical 2024 presidential matchup.

You can almost hear the teeth being pulled at the reporting desk at the Grey Lady (the NYT).

One aberrant poll might be dismissed, but the Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll of more than 5000 voters (a big sample for a political poll) released a day earlier was arguably worse for the ruling party.

When asked what issues they thought most concerned Democrats, respondents opted for the January 6 riots on Capitol Hill (an event that occurred more than 600 days ago), women’s rights and climate change.

Joe Biden has continued to see backlash for telling a reporter the US economy is “strong as hell” after a recent…
But the three top issues that respondents themselves most cared about were inflation, the economy and immigration – exactly the same three issues they said they thought Republicans were most concerned about.

Some other ominous nuggets: 55 per cent of voters doubted the President’s mentalfitness, 84 per cent believed the US was headed for recession next year and 73 per cent thought inflation – 8.2 per cent across the year to September, a 40-year high – would shortly get worse.

Absent a natural disaster or war, it’s hard to see how the next three weeks might shift US opinion.

Biden just announced a further 15 million barrels of oil to be released from the country’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, reducing it to about 400 million, the lowest level in its history.

Saudi Arabia’s orchestration of an OPEC supply cut has put, deliberately perhaps, upward pressure on US petrol prices, which have a powerful negative relationship with the President’s approval rating, at the worst possible time for Democrats.

The cynical move could backfire politically, though, given the petroleum reserve was set up for economic and security emergencies, not political emergencies.

A Republican win in congress next month won’t have much direct consequence for Australia, whose alliance with the US will remain rock solid, with our free trade deal set in stone.

And our biggest disagreement with the US, over the need to appoint appellate judges to the World Trade Organisation, won’t be resolved by a Republican victory, let alone one dominated by pro-tariff Trump supporters.

But the first election in an English-speaking country since inflation soared will offer some political lessons for the others. The fastest decline in living standards in 40 years, as inflation gallops ahead of wage growth and interest rates soar, isn’t only an American phenomenon.

Margaret Thatcher once said the facts of life were conservative, and after a long hiatus, they are about to become so again, as the massive costs of years of conducting policy by feelings manifest themselves.

The unhinged response to Covid-19, at least according to any pre-2020 pandemic plan published anywhere, has burdened the world with costs unrivalled in peacetime history, and which only now are starting to become apparent as broken supply chains and rampant inflation and rising interest rates exact their toll.

The widespread fervour to try to stop climate change whatever the cost may hit a political brick wall too, especially in Europe if thousands of people freeze to death this winter as a direct result of policies to switch off perfectly good coal and nuclear power stations.

Biden hasn’t spoken much about fighting climate change in the last months of the campaign, which is surprising only until reading the results of the Harris poll. A remarkable 80 per cent of respondents said having lower petrol prices and energy independence were more important than fighting climate change. Almost 60 per cent said climate change was a long-term threat or not one at all.

Unfortunately for Biden, not enough Americans will vote on feelings alone.

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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