There had to be consequences for inciting the deadly attack on the Capitol that left five people, including a police officer, dead.

Sweeping up the mob is far more serious that the abuse of power that got Trump impeached last year.

He learned nothing from that.

He is using the same vocabulary to defend his actions both times. “Totally appropriate.”

A strong indication that he was away with the fairies then and he is even more dangerously so now.

At least a dozen, possibly two, Republicans agree with this although not all had the courage to support impeachment. 

They recognize that Trump is unhinged and dangerous and realize that his political base they once held in ane actually poses an existential danger to the constitution and democracy they are sworn to defend.

The FBI has assured us they will track down the thugs who trashed the legislature. 

We hope they can use their self-declared long memory and long reach to good effect and that the the courts will make examples of these people who trashed the home of American democracy because they did not like the ruling of the Supreme Court, loaded with Trump appointees, that the election of Joe Biden as President was not rigged.

And, most significantly, because Trump egged them on.

He is, as the third highest ranking Republican in Congress Liz Cheney, at the very centre of the outrage.

Who else is to blame?

Clearly those Republican congressmen and women who perpetuated Trump’s lie about the rigged election, knowing full well that doing so is worse than disingenuous, it is dangerous.

We would like to see them and officials like Rudi Giuliani who urged the angry mod to conduct “ trial by combat” pursued to the full extent of the law.

Leaving their fates to the tender mercies of the electorate seems risky to me given the electorate’s proven ability to make terrible choices.

After five decades in this business, I am accustomed  to blame being heaped on the media.

That is now an entirely new arena. Where once there were tens of thousands of journalists to hold accountable, social media, which gave the Trump scorpion wings,  has turned millions of people into reporters.

Reporters able freely to give vent to their ill-formed opinions and  to megaphone known calumnies So not journalists.

This does not exonerate the media.

We find ourselves with feet firmly planted in  mid air between two stools.

The removal of the principle of fairness in the United States more than three decades ago allowed the establishment of avowedly partisan news outlets that are not required to provide either balance or fairness.

They are unashamedly propaganda outlets.

Those newspapers that clung to their old values – like the New York Times – ended up providing the whole picture which required reporting Trump’s lies.

For their pains they were insulted and discredited by the narcissist they provided with a constant supply of the oxygen of publicity.

The best way of dealing with a shameless and pathological bullying liar like Trump is either to laugh at him or ignore him.

The conventional media believes it would be doing a disservice to its readers/viewers/listeners by taking such a cavalier approach.

The result is every piece of Trump craziness or dishonesty was accurately covered by the conventional media while being treated as gospel by the fawning Trump media.

He could not have dreamed for more.

Trump is much diminished by his disappearance from so-called big tech.

Being denied access to Twitter, Facebook and You Tube has meant he cannot fulminate to millions without the push back that occurs at press conferences.

Trumpublicans and the Orange Man himself complain of censorship.

It is nothing of the sort.

The social media outlets that block him have made a commercial decision rather than an editorial call.

They have decided that dealing with Trump is bad for business – rather like having a noisy drunk man come into a restaurant and spoil dinner for other patrons.

The best thing is to get rid of him.

Happily more and more legislators are seeing this too.

Ironically it is in the Republicans interest to take punitive action that would prevent Trump from standing for office.

If he were to run again, it would certainly not be as candidate of the GOP.

So it would have to be in a new guise that would split the right of centre vote and guarantee another win for the Democrats.

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I was also deeply irritated to have a U.S. official point out that the result has been  accepted without any last-minute deals to keep the peace.

He was referring to seats given to the Inkatha Freedom Party to prevent bloodshed in KwaZulu/Natal 14 years earlier and to other post-election deals in Africa.

How the didactic have fallen!

A dozen years since the official’s irksome lecture we have the incumbent of the White House behaving exactly like a brazen African dictator.

Donald Trump has prematurely claimed victory and urged electoral officials to stop counting votes in states he  believes he is winning and to keep counting ballots where he fears he is losing.

Trump has gathered lawyers to keep the election results tied up in the courts.

He is hoping to be heard in the pinnacle tribunal to which he has appointed conservative justices hoping to get a sympathetic hearing.

He has taken a leaf from the African dictators’ handbook and deliberately left his compatriots wondering whether he will accept the election result.

Legal experts point out that in the unlikely event of  his case coming before the Supreme Court, the justices are painfully  aware that their credibility is at stake and  will make a decision on its merits.

They will not be swayed by loyalty to the man who put them there.

Trump’s single-minded pursuit of his self interest blinds him to long term damage he might be doing to American democracy.

A happier African example will come into play here if the Supreme Court behaves like the judiciary did in apartheid South Africa and saves the country from its cynical, selfish and misguided politicians.

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This will allow 74-year-old President Yoweri Museveni to stand in elections scheduled for 2021.

Uganda’s opposition fiercely resisted the so-called age-restriction act passed in December 2017.

By scrapping the presidential age limit 75, they argued, it was giving Yoweri Museveni a virtual life presidency.

Museveni came to power in a 1986 coup overthrowing Idi Amin and promising to restore democracy in Uganda.

He has repeated changed the law enabling him to become Africa’s fourth longest-serving president.

Opponents took the matter to Uganda’s Constitutional Court and lost.

The decision by four votes to three in the Supreme Court upholds the ruling of the Constitutional Court

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The report documents how Israel’s forced many asylum seekers ate choose between deportation to a third country, return to their countries of origin or indefinite detention.

Israel’s Supreme Court has suspended all deportations of Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers.

The Amnesty International report finds that Israel’s been deporting asylum seekers to Uganda these past five years.

Israel authorities scythe deportees will be given residence and work permits by Uganda and won’t be forced to return to their countries where they feel threatened.

The Kampala authorities deny the existence of any agreement with Israel.

Interviews with deportees from Israel reveal they are living in legal limbo in Uganda. 

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The legal institution is going a step further than it did against South Africa for failing to meet its obligations under the Rome Treaty establishing it.

Sudanese President Omar al Bashir visited Jordan last March for an Arab League summit.

The ICC reminded King Abdullah II that al Bashir is wanted on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

Jordan made no attempt to detain the Sudanese leader…

… just as the South African authorities fell foul of the ICC and its own Supreme Court for failing to detain al Bashir when  he was in South Africa for the AU summit in 2015.

In the latter case the ICC rapped South Africa over the knuckles but did not refer the matter to the UN powerhouse.

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The opposition which boycotted the poll maintains the elected government is illegitimate.

The Supreme Court’ stamp of approval on the election re-run  clears the way for 55-year-old Uhuru Kenyatta to be sworn in for a second and final term next week.

After hearing two days of arguments, a six-judge bench said two petitions demanding the cancellation of the polls were without merit.

The ruling is unlikely to end the worst political crisis in a decade in east Africa’s richest and most developed economy, which has seen more than 60 people killed in political violence in three months.

Two people were shot dead on Monday during confrontations between police and opposition supporters.

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The country’s Supreme Court, that anulled the August poll, also won by Kenyatta, has until next Tuesday to rule.

Kura Yangu Sauti Yangu, which is Swahili for My Vote My Voice, is a coalition of rights groups and civil society activists that  filed the petition to challenge the election.

Earlier, former politician politician Harun Mwau also filed a petition.

Kenyatta’s August re-election was nullified by the Supreme Court on September 1 after the main opposition leader Raila Odinga petitioned the court saying the election was fraudulent.

The Court found irregularities committed the electoral commission.

Odinga boycotted the repeat election ordered by the court.

The post Petitions filed against Kenya’s re-run election appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

Continental and regional partners have been called in to mediate.

Football star George Weah won Liberia’s presidential election to fill the seat vacated by Africa’s first elected woman President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

But he does not have an outright majority, so today’s run-off was scheduled with Joseph Boakai.

Boakai has supported third-placed Charles Brumskine’s allegations of electoral fraud.

The Supreme Court has ordered the electoral commission urgently and expeditiously to investigate these claims.

Meanwhile the country remains in limbo until a new run-off date can be determined.

The post No new date for Liberia’s delayed run-off election appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

It’s investigating allegations of irregularities by Charles Brumskine who ended up in third place after the October 10 poll.

Liberia’s first independently run election since the end of its civil war 14 years ago left football star George Weah and Vice President Joseph Boakai in first and second place.

Neither has attracted an outright majority, necessitating a run off.

Third-placed Charles Brumskine, who’s out of the running,  alleges there was fraud.

The supreme court’s ordered an  investigation of these and other  charges and maintains there won’t be enough time to complete this by next week.

Electoral commission officials have been ordered to appear in court today

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The run-off poll scheduled for next Tuesday has been delayed by the Supreme Court while allegations of electoral fraud are investigated.

Attempting to head off the political crisis, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf hosted Guinean President Alpha Conde and Togolese leader Faure Gnassingbe .

Conde is currently serving as Chairman of the African Union, while Gnassingbe chairs the Economic Community of West African States.

They met with George Weah and Joseph Boakai , who are in the run-off contest to succeed Johnson Sirleaf as president.

It turns out that Boakai has also backed the claims of electoral fraud in the October 10 poll where he was beaten by Weah.

The Supreme Court has summoned Liberia’s electoral commission to explain any irregularities

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