Dead end

The last week altercation between Trump and the shithole countries narratives are getting narrower in perspectives, bigger in crescendo, catastrophic in effects and dynamic in proportion. Like I wrote in the earlier article that produced this sequel,that  “an indolect act of two sitting old Presidents who have seemingly lost touch with today's realities is capable of causing different catastrophe in both countries”, has finally come home to roost.

Negotiations between both aisles in the house is a customary thing, what is however not normal is a situation that allows emotions to seize the logic in argument and emboldened whatever is left to the realm of stupidity. On immigration, Trump wanted the wall built by tax payers money in exchange for DACA, While the Democrats prefer not to substitute the dreams of the dreamers with nightmares. So we end up with this:

The House and Senate had on midnight.Friday, January, 20th failed to pass a spending bill before the federal government ran out of money and closed its doors. Despite controlling every lever of government, Republicans are somehow in a quagmire that they can’t get the votes together to keep the government open. The USA government has therefore officially shut down.

The implications of a government shut down is simpler to understand here than in Nigeria. For example, Washington has become a ghost town and our room occupancy in the hotel has dropped below 40% as cancellation calls came in droves. The country’s governmental processes is divided into two- the essentials and non-essentials-the essentials will function and the other will be dormant. And if any country thinks it wants to attack USA at its weakest time, such country may be history even before the shutdown period elapses. My colleagues wondered how we handle government shut down at home?

I told them we have bipartisan and honourable representatives and senators who are selfless in their approach to national issues. And that we have brilliant 36 governors executing the affairs of all our virile states without fear or favour. And that our public infrastructures is set up in a way that its functionality does not depend on government. We equally run a true federalism that ensures total independence of all arms and tiers of government.

On the economic front, our natural resources are maximized by the intelligent manpower that is hired based on merit and not on any lopsided quota system. And for safety, our public servants keep all our money in international banks around the world in their names and manage them in trust for us.

They are still marvelling at how ingenious it is to have a police system that does not depend on the government for their remuneration. I assured them, self sustenance is our mainstay and that's why our government does not burden us with tax and still keep the government running.

And above all, our President runs an all inclusive government that ensures all 160 million of us participate in governance,especially when he's abroad receiving medical treatment. I told them we never had a government shut down. And that's the truth, I only hope they know I was joking!

Massacre

I honestly do not know which is more shocking? The Buhari middle belt massacre or the Trump immigration taunt that we can not return to our “shithole countries”? Either way, an indolect act of two sitting old Presidents who have seemingly lost touch with today's realities is capable of causing different catastrophe in both countries.


For now, we must leave both presidents out of the calculus  because their continued acknowledgement will certainly taint the canvas. Before Trump, there was Obama and he gave birth to a still born baby named DACA an acronym for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals,an American immigration policy that allowed some individuals who entered the country as minors, and had remained in the country illegally, to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and to be eligible for a work permit.


There are currently 800,000 people presently protected by this program - at least until March 2018- when Trump may sign it off, and render children who were hitherto protected by this draft to start paying for the sins of their parents for bringing them into United States. Deportation appears imminent.


The logical premise is that the United States can no longer afford the resources needed to fund the project and other basis shut it down. But the president declaration that he will rather have blue eyes, blond hair immigrants from Norway than blacks from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries defeated the first assumption. And that I can understand. Norway is the richest per capital income in the world and if you want to adopt a baby, you want to pick a healthy one. The problem however is that the rich do not abandon their babies for adoption! Norwegians are probably rolling their eyes and wondering what they want to go and do in “shithole America”.


In company of some top patriotic professionals under the aegies of Buhari Good Governance Initiative( BGGI),  we ran a selfless campaign that brought Buhari to victory years ago, and it is disconcerting to see a subdued racism being played as an x factor in the political equation of Nigeria politics.I have exhaustively wrote about the federal government evasiveness in dealing with the arrogant expansionism policy of the Fulanis herdsmen in the past and will not broach it again. Suffice to say that the words of Wole Soyinka,“How do we assess a mental state that cannot distinguish between a stolen cow – which is always recoverable – and human life, which is not” is enough to close this brewing insurgency.


My reaction to racism jibes here, is that there are functional federal institutions that cannot be compromised by dysfunctional individual(s), no matter highly placed. I was wrong. Right under the statue of liberty, we are beginning to see brittle institutions designed to protect the weak from the “shithole countries” crumbling under the forces of hatred and bigotry.


It is equally exhausting to see my consolation of the fact that I have a backup country full of huts also in smouldering flames, as tribalism ignites the very flammable fabric of our national unity. Mind you, racism and tribalism are not antonym-just like both presidents: They are synonymous. Leave them out!

Drugged

patrickadegbamigbe.blogspot.com

I stumbled across these facts while performing a very rigorous exercise- reading. And I felt I should quickly share it-- with other black folks like me who can hardly read beyond one paragraph per day and that includes their names.


American is heavily into drug. Don't be cynical, I meant medicine. Though, they are also into *drug*  too. In pharmacology, drug is defined as any substance (mostly extracted from plants) that can be used to positively alter the physiological state of the body. Mind you,the other “drug” is effective in altering the balance of state of the mind, and the combination of both when abused can be detrimental to both body and mind.


In the last five years in America, the construction industry has been so volatile that the industry has lost her position as the largest sector in the country to the health care industry. As a private sector, the industry has continued to grow exponentially as more people are employed in the industry than even the public sector.


Being the biggest debtor in the world, the American economy is sick, so also are majority of the people, and that is why in he 2016 iscal year, the federal government spent a paltry $3.9 trillion, amounting to 21 percent of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) on health care. Nigeria total budget in the same year was a massive N6.07 trillion, but there is no basis for comparison.


As in everything, the street drug cartel is managed by the whites who rely on the blacks to handle the downstream sector of the industry by doing the leg work and distribution chain within the black community. This way, destinies are timely destroyed,and those that escaped,soon find themselves in prisons for drug related offences.


However, the medical research and development sector is a money guzzling project that the whites perennially dominate at the expense of man for the benefit of mankind. But the list of mind boggling diseases keep growing with the same ferociousness the R & D churns out drugs. Teeming Americans are getting delusional and most have turn to alternative medicine- weed!


If Fela was alive, there are only 29 states out of the 50 states in America that he could have lived successfully. Those states include the D.C. where I work- and marijuana is legalized- meaning that you can buy them off the shelf either for medicinal or recreational purposes.


California, the biggest U.S. state and sixth-largest economy in the world, launched its legal marketplace for legalized marijuana on Jan. 1. Sales in California alone are expected to reach $3.7 billion in 2018, according to estimates from BDS Analytics. The up side is that new jobs are being created, brilliant opportunities are opening up for commerce and eventually, money made from weed will be used for public infrastructure like public schools. No wonder scores in schools is always below average and never high.


It is a huge weed market,demand is high   (no pun intended) and quite naturally, supply will similarly be insane. How this will finally play out in a country that already have one or two things to teach Sodom and Gomorrah, remains to be seen.