The real question here is why do we need an ambassador to Belgium in the first place? I can understand maintaining diplomatic ties with the European Union, but there are far too many "embassies" and "missions" that serve as nothing more but a drain on the Bahamian taxpayer.

The Bahamas is a diplomatic nobody and that is not going to change any time soon; keep a few consulates in key cities like New York, Miami, Toronto, London where there are a decent amount of Bahamians in close proximity, but there are too many money pits disguised as diplomatic missions that are draining money for no return.

This is one thing that I agree with Minnis on, we have to operate under the presumption of innocence no matter what charges are brought against a person. Let the judicial process play out.

I must remark that this is the start of a rather horrifying trend in this country; expect political prosecutions every time the government changes from this point forward. We are in the late stages of becoming a bush republic nation.

VAT was implemented to bring down the national debt, the national debt has only increased since then (even before Dorian and COVID). Adding new taxes will do nothing but fuel the insatiable appetite of these governments for wasteful spending. New taxes will be brought in and 5 years later we will start seeing trial balloons in the local media about introducing new taxes to "reduce the national debt".

That would actually go a long way towards fixing our problem and mean that they wouldn't be able to give their sweethearts overpriced no bid contracts, so they aren't really interested in hearing all of that.

Why doesn't the government offer a temporary VAT holiday, or reduce tax on gasoline, if the VAT revenue is as high as they are projecting? Having such an import based economy limits what the government can do to a large degree, but they definitely can do more to assist if they wanted to.

Also, backyard farming. The Bahamas will never grow enough food to be self sufficient, but encouraging the growth of simple backyard crops would be a help in making the country a little bit less dependent on imported food. Not a game changer, but it would be a help.

The real question is why does anyone expect any better?

Wow! Someone who actually makes Moultrie look competent!

This government is an utter disgrace.

> literally in the case of Senator Ted Cruz, who walked away from a British interviewer asking why is it that these mass shootings only happen in America.

Except that it doesn't only happen in America. As I have pointed out before, there have been multiple in Canada. Cartels massacre entire villages in Mexico, and most of Latin America is just as lawless and prone to violence. How many beheadings has France had? How many grenade attacks in Sweden. There was literally a massive shootout between "refugees" in Germany a couple weeks ago. For all the things worth criticizing about America, violence is not something unique to them.

Nobody has forgotten the "summer of love" two years back where people had their homes and businesses burnt to the ground while the police did nothing to protect them. You can rest assured that nobody, and I mean nobody, in America will ever give up their firearms. They are all aware of the real goal : disarm lawful gun owners and force them to live with Chicago crime rates while having no protection.

I find it really interesting that nobody is talking about the troubled background this guy had. No parents, no stable home, bullied in school, and so on. Funny how America has had the 2nd Amendment for hundreds of years but mass shootings are a modern invention. Almost like broken families produce broken people. Yes, personal responsibility is present, but broken societies produce broken results. Nobody wants a real solution to that problem though.

The PLP deserve to lose the next election solely for giving this jackass a job in the government. The only problem is that the FNM will surely find some other buffoon to one up them with.

60k a year to do nothing but talk foolishness, government is always complaining about it needs more taxes though. Nothing but parasites.

This should have been done decades ago, but better late than never.