By Charlie Harper
Marco Rubio was unanimously confirmed on Tuesday as the new US Secretary of State. After taking the oath of office from Vice President JD Vance, Rubio made his way over to the main State Department building near the Washington National Mall and the Lincoln Memorial. His remarks covered a lot of ground, but two things stood out for us in The Bahamas.
First, Rubio hewed closely to Trump’s own view of the US role in and engagement with the world. “Every dollar we spend, every program we fund, and every policy we pursue must be justified with the answer to three simple questions,” he said.
“These questions are: Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America more prosperous?” Cynics and critics will attack this as America First thinking, jingoistic and dismissive of the world beyond American shores.
That interpretation is not necessarily true, and is in any case misleading, perhaps especially for us in The Bahamas. For instance, the assistance provided to our law enforcement and defense forces is clearly consistent with the goals of making the US safer, stronger and even more prosperous.
More specifically, Trump has for over a decade railed against illegal immigration. It’s been a solid issue for him politically, has maintained a durable appeal to millions of US voters, and, especially since the Biden administration badly fumbled the issue along the southern American border with Mexico, it’s often cited as one of the primary explanations for Trump’s triumphant reelection.
Rubio addressed this issue at the beginning of his remarks. “We must curb mass migration and secure our borders. The State Department will no longer undertake any activities that facilitate or encourage mass migration. Our diplomatic relations with other countries, particularly in the Western Hemisphere, will prioritise securing America’s borders, stopping illegal and destabilizing migration, and negotiating the repatriation of illegal immigrants.”
These remarks, all taken together, seem to argue very persuasively that the significant US contribution to our efforts to impede illegal migration through our waters should be maintained or perhaps even intensified. So long as this is done in a fashion that respects our national sovereignty, this is a good thing for our economy and security.
It’s hardly a stretch to further apply this reasoning to smuggling through Bahamian waters of various contraband including drugs, guns, cigarettes, etc.
It appears that we may be able to weather whatever cuts Trump & Rubio may decide to make in the area of foreign assistance.
In that sense, we should feel fortunate in the geographical coincidence of our proximity to the US.
Ruffin present at Trump inauguration
Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday had to be moved indoors to the US Capitol building, and was located in the capacious open area under the capitol’s massive dome. This is the same area where former president Jimmy Carter’s body lay in state earlier this month.
From pictures and accounts of the event, we learned who was privileged to attend. There were connections to The Bahamas among those in the select group – and not just because a few of them may have bought one of our cays.
Phil Ruffin was there, toward the back. 30 years ago, Ruffin bought the former Crystal Palace hotel and complex on Cable Beach. For a period of time, he was quite consequential locally. Ruffin, a successful entrepreneur and investor whose business dealings with Trump have led the men to what seems to remain a close, enduring and mutually satisfactory relationship, is clearly still relevant at age 89.
Ruffin made his big move in 1995, borrowing $20m on another multi-million-dollar property to acquire from Carnival Cruise Lines the 12-year-old Crystal Palace hotel and casino in Nassau. The property cost Ruffin $80m, including assumption of some $60m in debts. Looking back decades later, that was a small and prescient price to pay to acquire a significant piece of the local and regional tourism boom and resorts proliferation that followed.
In 1997, Ruffin then turned around and borrowed $50m on this Nassau property to buy a derelict hotel and casino property on the Strip in Las Vegas. Ruffin sold his Bahamas resort for $147m in 2005. The buildings were demolished in October 2015 to make way for Baha Mar.
College champs crowned as NFL moves on to AFC and NFC championship games
The NFL playoffs continued last weekend and the American pro football semifinal teams are now established. And the NCAA college football championship was settled. How did our betting predictions turn out?
After scoring at a nearly 90 percent success rate both straight up and against the point spread in the first big football playoff weekend, our success rate last weekend slipped, but only to 67 percent.
In the college title game, Ohio State won as was widely expected. They were clearly the most talented and deepest team in this year’s expanded playoffs. They even did many bettors a huge favour by kicking a last-minute field goal to cover the point spread against Notre Dame.
Sunday’s NFL 6.30pm semifinal game features two-time defending champion Kansas City favoured by two points as they host Buffalo, the only team that defeated the Chiefs’ regular starters this year. In the early game at 3pm, Philadelphia is favoured by six points as they host a Washington team that they have already played twice this year, splitting the two games.
There are a couple of patterns are significant in these games. The forecast here is that one will continue and the other will not.
The Washington Commanders’ rookie of the year quarterback Jayden Daniels has continually led his rebuilt team to exciting and often dramatic winning finishes this season, including a 3-point win over the Eagles just a month ago. Philadelphia had won at home by eight points just two weeks earlier.
Daniels, who confused and confounded the top-seeded Detroit Lions over the weekend, will probably make Sunday’s game exciting or even memorable. Washington has revived the careers of linebacker Bobby Wagner, tight end Zack Erzt and halfback Austin Ekeler, added good if anonymous wide receivers to the brilliant Terry McLaurin, and set a resilient defensive culture.
The Washington football team, which due to the intransigence of its long-time former owner was the last in the NFL to integrate its team, has had its moments as a big factor in NFL seasons. But none of those moments had come under the ownership of a young, secretive and paranoid owner whose reliance on cronies had hobbled the efforts of his team on the field for the entire 25 years he owned the team.
The team was renamed from Redskins to Commanders three years ago, and new ownership took over not long thereafter. The team has risen, seemingly miraculously, since that time. Daniels has come to epitomise the renaissance of this franchise, and the NFL and its leadership have openly embraced the new ownership, management and rookie sensation.
But in beating the Green Bay Packers and Los Angeles Rams to reach this game, the Eagles have won despite a healing but not fully healthy quarterback in Jalen Hurts and some particularly damaging defensive injuries. They still have accomplished wide receivers and this season’s most dangerous running back in Saquon Barkley.
The Eagles should end Daniels’ late game magic trend and win this game. But it says here that Washington will cover the 6-point spread.
Kansas City has won almost every game this season by underperforming their statistics from recent years and not resembling the dominant force their record shows them to be. And they didn’t look like world champions in dispatching the Houston Texans on the weekend.
But as they have done all season except in Buffalo, the Chiefs have won. (They lost their last regular season game by playing all reserves.) Now, the Chiefs face the Bills again, but this time in Kansas City. Both teams are accustomed to the inhospitable weather that is expected.
Buffalo defeated the Baltimore Ravens last weekend, by two points. Bills’ quarterback Josh Allen outplayed his counterpart Lamar Jackson, whose efforts were undone by two dropped passes by his normally reliable tight end. The Bills’ defence might be better than Kansas City’s defence on Sunday. Allen might be ready to outplay the Chiefs’ three-time Super Bowl winner Patrick Mahomes.
Maybe. Maybe not. The choice is Kansas City to win and cover the point spread.
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Publish date : 2025-01-23 09:39:00
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