Could The Panama Papers Leak Ignite “Class Warfare”?

Even though it merely reiterates the sentiment harbored by the rest of us since Occupy Wall Street a few years ago, but could the “Panama Papers Leak” ignite full-blown global class warfare?

By: Ringo Bones 

Ever since the Occupy Wall Street Movement went global a few years ago, it revealed in the most unflattering way on how most of the world’s richest 1-percent don’t give a “proverbial rat’s ass” to the rest of us. While the recent 11.5 million document file leak from the world’s fourth largest offshore law firm – the Panama based Mossack Fonseca – only reiterates the self-evident truths revealed since then. But given the damning revelations of the 11.5 million leaked files from Mossack Fonseca a few days ago – more damning than that of the Edward Snowden revelations – could the “Panama Papers leak” be the tipping point in igniting so-called global class warfare? 

The records were first obtained from an anonymous source by the German newspaper Sϋddeutsche Zeitung, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The ICIJ then shared them with a large network of international partners – including the Guardian and the BBC. The documents show the myriad ways in which the rich can exploit secretive offshore tax regimes. Twelve national leaders are among the 143 politicians, their families and close associates from around the world known to have been using offshore tax havens. Ever since the news about the Panama Papers Leak went global, Baidu – The People’s Republic of China’s equivalent of Google and the only search engine authorized by the monolithic communist party to operate in Mainland China – had been blocking the story for frat that it may be just a “Western Plot” against the Beijing Communist Party.

A 2-billion US dollar trail leads all the way to Russian strongman Vladimir Putin via the Russian president’s best friend – a cellist named Sergei Roldugin – is at the center of a scheme in which money from the Russian state banks is hidden offshore. Some of it ends up in a ski resort where in 2013 Putin’s daughter Katerina got married. And despite the legality of the leaked documents, Russia’s official news agency had dismissed the revelations as a “Western plot” against Vladimir Putin. 

Among the other national leaders revealed by the Panama Papers Leak to have offshore wealth are Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, ex-interim prime minister and former vice-president of Iraq Ayad Alawi, president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, Alaa Mubarak – son of Egypt’s former president and the Prime Minister of Iceland, Sigmundur Davíỗ Gunnlsughsson. And what irked the international community most is on how Mossack Fonseca helped governments that are under imposed economic sanctions by the UN Security Council to still do business with impunity – like North Korea and Russia since the unlawful Donetsk Region annexation by the Putin regime.    

Mossack Fonseca is a Panama-based law firm whose services include incorporating companies in offshore jurisdictions such as the British Virgin Islands. It administers offshore firms for a yearly fee. Other services include wealth management. The firm is Panamanian but runs a worldwide operation. Its website boasts of a global network with 600 people working in 42 countries. It has franchises around the world, where separately owned affiliates sign up new customers and have exclusive rights to use its brand. Mossack Fonseca operates in tax havens including Switzerland, Cyprus and British Virgin Islands and in the British crown dependencies of Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man. 

Nancy Reagan: Redefining The Role Of The First Lady?

As President Obama stated that she redefined the role of the first lady but did the late former US First Lady Nancy Reagan really redefined that role?

By: Ringo Bones 

On March 6, 2016, it was announced that the former US First Lady Nancy Reagan passed away aged 94 of congestive heart failure. Well known for her fierce support of her husband and former US President Ronald Reagan even back when he was still the governor of California. As stated by US President Barack Obama that former US First Lady Nancy Reagan redefined the role of the first lady, I wondered if she just advanced what former First lady Betty Ford when she established the Betty Ford Clinic by tackling the then endemic substance abuse problem of America. Nancy Reagan eventually launched her “Just Say No” anti-drugs program back in 1986 which, according to former US President Jimmy Carter, managed to keep millions of Americans away from drug addiction during the latter half of the 1980s. 

A former actress who met Ronald Reagan back in the 1950s, Nancy Reagan advocated for worthy causes that previous first ladies have previously shied away from. During the first half of the 1990s, Nancy Reagan advocated for stem-cell research for the cure for Alzheimer’s which her husband was affected before passing away back in 2004. Her advocacy for stem-cell research seems to ran counter with the hard-line pro-life anti-abortion stance of the US Republican Party which her husband former US President Ronald Reagan was affiliated to.  

After her husband Ronald Reagan passed away back in 2004, she largely withdrew from public life although she recently spoke out against the current GOP frontrunner Donald J. Trump and said that she was glad her husband Ronnie is no longer alive to witness this fiasco. Nancy Reagan will be laid to rest beside her husband Ronald Reagan in the Ronald Reagan Memorial Library in Santa Barbara, California. 

Is The Church of England Trolling Prof. Richard Dawkins?

Even though the Anglican Church says that its concerns over Prof. Dawkins’ stroke was genuine, does a prayer tweet by the Church proof of a thinly veiled trolling attempt? 

By; Ringo Bones 

The issue reached a critical mass to become newsworthy enough after thousands of Twitter users accuse the Anglican Church of trolling the famous atheist via a prayer tweet, but the Church insists it was wholly genuine in its concern for Prof. Dawkins’ health. The Church of England has said in a tweet it posted sending prayers for secularist Prof. Richard Dawkins after he had a stroke was genuine. On Friday – February 12, 2016 – the Anglican Church Tweeted: “prayers for Prof Dawkins and his family” in response to a post by The Independent newspaper reporting on his health. 

The Anglican Church’s Dawkins prayer tweet post was eventually retweeted more than 1,000 times that led to many people speculating that the concern was less than sincere. Some commenters on Twitter accused the Anglican Church of “trolling” Prof. Dawkins and suggested that praying for someone who was not religious was disrespectful. The Church of England’s communications director issued a statement following what it called the “Twitterstorm” surrounding the post. “Many recognized the tweet for what it was, a genuine tweet offering prayer for a public person who was unwell” Rev. Arun Arora wrote. But why did the prayer tweet by the Anglican Church with regards to Prof. Dawkins’ health become so controversial in the first place? 

The Kulturkampf between religion and science had widened over time given the advances in science has since provided a better explanation on how the natural world works – while the world’s various religious organizations seems to have trouble “praying the world’s troubles away”. I mean when was the last time that a religious cleric has stopped a high-speed projectile aimed at him or her or their charitable organization working in a conflict zone through sheer prayer alone? The Anglican Church’s “prayer tweet” for evolutionary biologist Prof. Richard Dawkins probably make about the same sense as the top brass of the Church of Satan tweeting Pope Francis praising his climate change advocacy or registered paedophiles tweeting that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg be chosen as this year’s People magazine’s sexiest. 

Should U.S. Supreme Court Justice Scalia’s Vacancy Be Filled As Soon As Possible?

With the U.S. Republican Party’s camp already criticizing Pres. Obama’s plan to fill the vacancy left by Justice Scalia as soon as possible – will Pres. Obama’s decision truly constitutional? 

By: Ringo Bones 

For all intents and purposes, it is indeed constitutionally valid for U.S. President Barrack Obama to find a replacement and fill in the vacancy left by the passing of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia at the age of 79. Despite the howls of derision from the talking heads of the U.S. Republican Party that Obama should wait after the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election to replace Scalia and the replacement should harbor the same conservative politics as the late Supreme Court Judge’s. Despite President Obama referring Scalia as “a towering legal figure”, most people on the liberal side of America’s political aisle blame Justice Scalia as the reason why America is currently the mess it is in geopolitically. 

Antonin Gregory Scalia became the Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States after being appointed into that position by the then U.S. President Ronald Reagan back in September 26, 1986. Since then, Americans of the liberal persuasion had blamed Scalia for virtually all of the problems America is currently in. From repressing women’s reproductive rights to choose, to his “scary” support of the death penalty / capital punishment, Scalia is indeed a thorn in the side of liberal America’s quest for social justice. One of the “scariest Scalia quotes” pertaining to the death penalty / capital punishment goes: “Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.” Many blame Scalia as on of the reasons why the September 11, 2001 Terror Attacks was a relative success because the Federal Bureau of Investigation was too busy wasting their resources and manpower chasing “Christian Terrorists” - i.e. domestic terrorists – mollycoddled by the Evangelical right wing in power which the then Supreme Court Justice Scalia and his ilk has a close kinship. 

Scalia died in his sleep during a visit to Texas. A government official said Scalia went to bed Friday night - February 12, 2016 – and told friends he wasn’t feeling well. He didn’t get up for breakfast on Saturday morning – February 13, 2016 – and the group he was with for a hunting trip left without him. Scalia’s death during a presidential election year sets up a titanic confirmation tussle over his successor on the U.S. Supreme Court bench. The already challenging task of getting a Democratic president’s nominee through a Republican-controlled Senate will be made more difficult as the fight over Scalia’s replacement will likely to emerge as a dominant theme of the already contentious 2016 U.S. Presidential Race. 

Did Some Joker Just Nominated Donald J. Trump For The Nobel Peace Prize?

As if his bid for the U.S. Republican Party wasn’t yet enough of a joke, did you know that some joker just nominated Donald J. Trump for the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize?

By: Ringo Bones 

When the new year began, the roster for the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize included residents of the Greek island of Lesbos - as in the Lesbians - who aided the Syrian refugees washed up on their shores, an escaped sex slave of the so-called Islamic State turned women’s rights activist, the negotiators who ended five decades of civil war in Colombia, National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden and them some joker just nominated the U.S. Republican Party’s presidential joke candidate Donald J. Trump. The social media is indeed alight of comments of “W.T.F.?!!!” indeed. But is Donald J. Trump a valid nominee for the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize? 

A respected Nobel watcher and director of the Peace Research Institute of Oslo named Kristian Berg Harpviken told CNN back in February 3, 2016 that a “mystery patron” nominated Donald J. Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. Even though Harpviken made a promise / deal not to reveal the nominator’s name, Harpviken did reveal the reasons on why the mystery patron nominated Donald J. Trump for the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize as the mystery patron cited Donald J. Trump’s Ronald Reagan influenced “Peace Through Strength” ideology and using the U.S. Armed Forces as a threat weapon of deterrence against radical Islam, the so-called Islamic State, Iran’s iffy nuclear deal and Mainland China’s undermining of the United States’ economic well-being. More famous as a brash reality show host and as a billionaire with a somewhat cavalier attitude towards women’s issues back in the 1980s and the 1990s, Donald J. Trump is indeed an odd nominee for the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize given the current political outlook of the new generation of so-called millennials.  

The Nobel Committee, which does not reveal the details of its decision-making process, typically offers thousands of people opportunity to nominate notable organizations and individuals for the award, which counts among its notable recipients Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Red Cross and in 2009, U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama. Donald J. Trump, however, is not on Harpviken’s shortlist, which is currently topped by Edward Snowden and two U.S. and Iranian nuclear negotiators. Others that were nominated in the past but did not receive their Nobel Peace Prize include Mahatma Gandhi, Pope Francis, Adolf Hitler and Russian strongman Vladimir Putin. Given his disparaging comments on Mexicans and Muslims on U.S. soil – many cite Donald J. Trump is more akin to the reasons why Adolf Hitler was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.