There are unsavoury characters around, grabbing headlines the world over. Duterte, Putin, Trump, Erdogan, Le Pen, Farage, etc.
But last week one took the cake. A Labour MP, who appears to take advantage of his position in life, was alleged to have illicitly used disabled badges for his high-heeled spouse’s vehicle.
Anyone caught taking advantage of a vulnerable section of society, especially if they are meant to be servants of that said society, should be dismissed and placed under stockade for all the public to see.
If found guilty of abuse of power, Prime Minister J.M. must expel the swine, but I doubt either will happen.
It is 2025, Luciano Busuttil will be appointed Minister for Alternate Facts by Our Dear J.M.
Can you begin to imagine the state of the world in 2025? One thing is certain, the transport situation on this island will not have been resolved.
It has barely been two weeks since The Donald got behind the wheel of the ‘free world’. It feels like he is driving a Dodge Charger at top speed, down the Kappara junction, with no seat belts and a crate of nitroglycerin in the boot, just for kicks.
Every day, every hour, a Trumped news alert. Dishing out executive orders/actions like hotdogs at American Dream Kiosk at the San Gejtanu festa.
Cutting business regulations, “One-in, Two-out”, using the growth of small businesses as an excuse, although they are not mentioned in the order, making it an order for businesses of all sizes.
Gag orders on the Environmental Protection Agency, declaring that any information and studies be reviewed by political appointees before being communicated to the public.
Pushing forward the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, the latter of which will cut through Native American sacred land, Standing Rock, into where, once upon a time, we checked in.
The Mexican wall, that according to The Donald will be “big, beautiful and powerful”; paid for by Mexico through a 20 per cent tax hike on all Mexican imports.
A Muslim and immigrant travel ban, in the name of keeping the country safe from terrorists. A suspension of refugee programmes for 120 days, an indefinite ban on Syrian refugees, and a ban on Muslims coming from seven Muslim majority countries, except for the ones in which The Donald has business interests.
Acting Attorney General Sally Yates challenged this order. The Donald quickly proclaimed “You’re fired!” and replaced her. According to the office of the White House’s press secretary, Yates “betrayed the Justice Department by refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect the citizens of the United States… Ms Yates is an Obama administration appointee who is weak on borders and very weak on illegal immigration… It is time to get serious about protecting our country.”
The language used by The Donald administration is straight out of a Nazi-fetish graphic novel; as are the characters in the inner circle, and around. His far-right hand man Stephen Bannon, a man who has previously called for holy war, and ran the cesspit Breitbart, now has a permanent seat on the National Security Council.
It has barely been two weeks since The Donald got behind the wheel of the ‘free world’. It feels like he is driving at top speed with a crate of nitroglycerin in the boot, just for kicks
Kellyanne Conway enlightened us to the truth behind post-truth, the alternative fact. All the while, press secretary Sean Spicer vomits them daily over the media. And this is only the 10th day in The Donald’s presidency.
“That’s why we slow it down and make sure that if they are a five-year-old that maybe they’re with their parents and they don’t pose a threat… To assume that just because of someone’s age or gender or whatever that they don’t pose a threat would be wrong” – Press Secretary Spicer.
Let me not even begin with his Cabinet nominations. By the time you read this article on Sunday… I fear the worse.
While all of this is going on in the land of the free, European suits continue scrambling to keep the Union from disbanding. The other Donald (Tusk) released a letter to European leaders before last Friday’s informal (?) summit held in Malta, saying that Trump’s “worrying declarations” are equal to the geopolitical threats from, in his words, an assertive China, an aggressive Russia and radical Islam. This is what the Middle East and Africa pose to Europe – threats, threats everywhere, and no parking in Valletta.
At the top of the agenda of this informal summit is migration, its mitigation.
“We are determined to take additional action to stem migratory flows along the central Mediterranean route and break the business model of smugglers… we will step up our work with Libya as the main country of departure, as well as with its North African and Sub-Saharan neighbours. Our actions will be carried out in full respect of human rights and international law.”
To translate: the setting up of detention camps or, as they are called, “capacity buildings”, within the near failed State of Libya and other countries Europe can ride roughshod over. It is one (dodgy) thing to get Erdogan’s Turkey to do this, but to coerce a country constantly on the brink of civil war is as stupid as making a blancmange in the desert.
Stemming the migrant flow seems to be the only thing that the 28/27 European leaders seem to agree on, speaking volumes about their attempts to pander to the rise of nationalism within their own countries.
While The Donald loudly proclaims the erection of his “big, beautiful and powerful” Mexican wall, Europe has been quietly constructing dams, outside its borders, in a country were journalists and academics are being silenced and jailed, and is now attempting to do the same in a country rife with warring factions. It does not sound like the best of plans. What could possibly go wrong?
In the background of all this hubbub, one lonely lady was jetting around the world, trying desperately to get to the few Tinder matches who swiped right on her.
Dressed as a corrupted Dorothy in Oz, she held hands with the jumbo-tanned bigot in the White House – her hands looked freakishly big in the press photos. She sat under white stars with Strongman Erdogan, displaying her entire arsenal.
This weekend she flies to a Mediterranean island ruled by the young and fiery J.M; talking Commonwealth, Brexit and migration, attempting to unearth their long colonial history.
Toto, she ain’t in Europe no more.
Chillingly, come March, May will pull that trigger on Article 50, 60 years to the month of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, the founding charter upon which the European Union is based.
The French presidential election is still to come. The young rebel socialist Benoît Hamon is facing mutiny within his ranks, the comparisons with Corbyn plentiful. The Republican François Filetmignon’s campaign has been marred by scandal, and not of the sexual kind, which is acceptable in France. Le Pen is looking to emulate her foreign buddies.
And Italy, well Italy may be on the brink of resigning and reverting to its City-State form. They are a people waiting for the return of Renzi.
Oh, I’ve forgotten to mention that Antonio Tajani, former Berlusconi consigliere, is now the president of the European Parliament. I mean, WTF.
With all of this going on, not to mention ongoing struggles of global-poverty-famine-inequality-warming-cooling, China, Russia, everywhere else, Nationalist MP Tonio ‘Rajt il-Madonna’ Fenech decided to chime in and compare abortion to the Holocaust. To compare the mass extermination of minorities in the name of a twisted ideology to the extremely personal choice of having an abortion is sickening.
I couldn’t care less if a minister was spotted having a threesome with Che Guevara, and a stripper, in a sauna, in Acapulco, Germany. But scum mongers like Tonio Fenech and Luciano Muchallef should be inhumanely dismissed, politically dismembered and socially disemboweled.
Incidentally, it is 50 years since the death of Che, and the rumblings are growing.