I had to laugh at The Tribune's disabling of comments on Neil Hartnell's article in today's newspaper about concerns expressed by Therese Turner-Jones, a former senior Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) executive.

The article was captioned *"Nation must brace for likely global depression"* and had a distinct anti-US, anti-Trump, tone to it. With the help of Hartnell, Turner-Jones's Chicken Little chorus that the Sky is Falling made for interesting reading. Just as interesting was the following AP news story today:

**Dominican Republic to crack down harder on migrants as Haitians flee violence
11:42 AM ET, 04/07/2025 - Associated Press**
santo domingo, Dominican Republic (AP) — Dominican President Luis Abinader has announced more than a dozen measures to crack down on migrants who have entered the Dominican Republic illegally as people in neighboring Haiti flee a surge in gang violence.The measures that Abinader qualified as “painful but necessary” in a speech Sunday include charging patients for hospital services and sanctioning those who rent homes or commercial businesses to migrants who lack proper documentation.“The rights of Dominicans will not be displaced. Our identity will not be diluted. Our generosity will not be exploited. Here, solidarity has limits,” Abinader said.

Abinader also said that starting on April 21, hospital staff will be required to ask patients for their identification, work permit and proof of residence. If a patient is unable to present any of those documents, they will receive medical attention and then be deported immediately. He added that a migration agent will be stationed at every hospital to ensure compliance.The government also will deploy an additional 1,500 soldiers to the border that the Dominican Republic shares with Haiti on the island of Hispaniola, boosting the total number of personnel stationed there to 11,000.

He also announced he would speed up construction of a border wall to add another eight miles (13 kilometers) to the 34 miles (54 kilometers) already built. “I recognize that many are concerned about the threat Haiti poses. Concerned about the irregular migration it causes. Concerned about the burden this places on our hospitals, our schools, the risks to our security, and the strain on our economy,” Abinader said. So far, his administration has deported more than 180,000 suspected undocumented migrants since it announced in October that it would deport 10,000 of them a week. Human rights activists and dozens of those who have been deported have accused the government of abuse, including breaking into homes without a warrant to arrest people.

***Story cont'd as "Reply" immediately below.***

Not to worry......history is replete with shining examples of what happens to the unconscionably wealthy and rapacious few in every nation or empire when the tipping point is reached. In our hemisphere you need only look at what the poor enslaved Haitians did to their wealthy French masters.

Only if what's left over doesn't somehow first get pocketed by the rapacious Tony Ferguson using one of the corrupt PPPs he financially engineers for the purpose of fleecing the Bahamian people of their national assets for mere pennies on the dollar of true value in order to unjustly enrich himself and his gluttonous cabal of marauders which includes the likes of Snake, Sebas, Fitzgerald, Davis, Cooper, and the Greek.

Yup, and the pirates of European descent were on the scene long before those Bay Street Boys you speak of.

You really need to start focusing your concerns and anger towards the more corrupt current and past politicians whom we elected and their insatiably greedy cronies and wealthy financial backers. These are the ones who are still fleecing The Bahamas and the vast majority of Bahamians and have created what is now a gargantuan 'wealth divide' between the 'few haves' and the 'many have nots' in our society today.

Trump has never had and likely will never have an interest in fleecing our small nation. But he certainly does not want the ChiComs threatening the US on its Southeastern door step as a result of the stupidity of the likes of Fwreddy Boy Mitchell. And then of course, there's the problem of certain of our more corrupt government officials partnering for profit with organized crime syndicates and gangs that are engaged in human trafficking, arms dealing, drug trafficking, etc., with others in our region of the world that have a harmful impact on the US.

All of the Private-Public-Partnerships (PPPs) entered into with our government by corrupt foreign investors and/or corrupt Bahamian investors, who have committed acts tantamount to outright bribery for either the direct or indirect benefit of one or more of our senior government officials or well-connected political elite will need to undergo some kind of a special review by a commission of independent and suitably qualified forensic investigators with the help of information already gathered by foreign intelligence agencies and foreign regulators.

You need to focus your concerns and anger towards those who truly warrant it, specifically the corrupt politicians whom we elect and their insatiably greedy cronies and financial backers, all of whom have been fleecing The Bahamas and the vast majority of Bahamians for decades, leaving our nation and its people extremely vulnerable to economic shocks of every kind. I bet you blamed Trump for the COVID pandemic too. Time to stop blaming others abroad for the mess we find ourselves in today and our inability to much more easily ride out serious global economic shocks.

I remember Trump remarking to guests attending a cocktail function hosted by the 2009 Miss Universe Pageant at Atlantis that he could not understand why the average Bahamian was not very wealthy by global standards given our nation's relatively small population, our abundance of resources usually highly sought after by wealthier tourists, and our proximity to North America.

> ".....the Davis administration has over an 18 month period employed a net $278.3m, representing 73.5 percent or almost three-quarters of ‘sinking fund’ assets at end-June 2023, to cover its fiscal deficits and meet current - rather than future - debt obligations. In effect, it has been using assets held for future benefit to meet current needs, and not necessarily for the purpose for which they were accumulated."

OMG. Our corrupt Davis led PLP government has quite possibly committed an illegal act here that significantly increases the credit risk for existing and future holders of foreign currency denominated debt issue by our nation. This has serious implications for our nation's ability to access international lending markets going forward.

This egregious depletion of the foreign currency denominated reserves that had been set aside for the purpose of repaying our nation's foreign currency debt on maturity, has the most odious stench of Michael Halkitis, Tony Ferguson and PM Davis all over it.

These are the horrific scars left on our society by decades of corrupt and incompetent politicians, together with their insatiably greedy cronies and wealthy financial-backers whether they be Bahamian or foreign.

And to think this dumbo not too long ago was also quoted by a Tribune reporter as having said our nation has absolutely nothing to fear from Trump's new tariffs because our nation exports so little to the US.

This most foolish dolt, who should have nothing at all to do with our country's finances, just cannot appreciate that the US instigating a global tariff war portends disastrous inflationary consequences for our nation because we import so much of our non-US made goods via the US, and these same goods will not be exempt from US tariffs when they enter the US for eventual export to our nation.

Yup, both Dumbo Halkitis and Always Angry Wilson have time and time again proven just how ignorant and incompetent they are when it comes to our nation's financial affairs.

Sadly, Pintard's own incompetence and other inherent weaknesses as a politician have allowed Minnis to be perceived by some, especially Sands and Pintard, as a threat to the leadership of the FNM.

I do believe though that many eligible voters in the Killarney constituency, like the vast majority of eligible voters in the country, whether they be supporters of the PLP or FNM, have come to recognise Minnis for being the arrogant, nasty, wicked, tyrannical and incompetent politician he truly is.