GUN VIOLENCE IN AMERICA: FOR WHO THE BELL TOLLS NEXT.

Just five people shy of Sandy Hook elementary school mass shooting incident that claimed 26 lives, the Uvalde Texas Robb elementary school mass shooting at 21 victims, now ranks among the highest grossing gun carnage in America. It is sad that such frequent blood spilling has tragically become part of our culture as a society. May the souls of the killed now rest.

25th AMENDMENT: ITS NOW ALL CRICKET.

Madam Speaker Nancy Pelosi once questioned former President Donald John Trump's fitness to remain in office due to what she claimed was his declining mental capacity. Does anyone know what Madam Speaker presently thinks about the incontrovertible case which America is now saddled with? Just curious!

WHO WILL REBUILD UKRAINE?

The West should convert frozen Russian assets, both state's and oligarchs' owned, into a full seizure and set them aside for the future rebuilding of Ukraine. Like the Marshal Plan, call it the Putin Plan.

A HERO IS BORN.

I am staying put. I will not run away and abandon my people. The fight is here in Ukraine. What I need are weapons and ammunitions, not a ride out of town like former Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani - President Volodymyr Zelensky.

IT IS WHAT IT IS.

"There is too much hate in America because there is too much anger in America." - Trevor Noah.

WORD!

A life without challenges is not a life lived at all. A life lived is a life that has problems, confronts problems, solves problems and then learns from problems. - Tunde Fashola.

NOW, YOU KNOW.

When fishing for love, bait with your heart and not your brain, because you cannot rationalize love. - Mark Twain.

JUST THE FACT.

In our country, you can shoot and kill a nigger, but you better not hurt a gay person’s feelings - Dave Chappelle

DO YOU?.

“What you believe in can only be defined by what you’re willing to risk for it." - Stuart Scheller.

HEDGE YOUR CRISIS.

Never get in bed with a woman whose problems are worse than yours. - Chicago PD.

PROBLEM SOLVED.

'The best way to keep peace is to be ready to destroy evil. If you Pearl Harbor me, I Nagasaki you.' - Ted Nugent.

OUR SHARED HUMANITY.

Empathy is at the heart of who we are as human beings. - Cardinal Matthew Kukah.

WORDS ON MARBLE.

"Birth is agony. Life is hard. Death is cruel." - Japanese pithy.

REPENT OR PERISH - POPE.

Homosexuality is a sin. It is not ordained by God, therefore same sex marriage cannot be blessed by the church - Pope Francis.

CANCEL CULTURE IS CORROSIVE.


FOR SAKE OF COUNTRY.


MAGA LIVES ON: NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER!

TWITTER IS BORING WITHOUT HIS TWEETS. #RestorePresidentTrump'sTwitterHandle.


WORD.

"If you cannot speak the truth when it matters, then nothing else you says matters.” - Tucker Carlson.

#MeToo MOVEMENT: A BAD NEWS GONE CRAZY.

"To all the women who testified, we may have different truth, but I have a great remorse for all of you. I have great remorse for all of the men and women going through this crisis right now in our country. You know, the movement started basically with me, and I think what happened, you know, I was the first example, and now there are thousands of men who are being accused and a regeneration of things that I think none of us understood. I’m not going to say these aren’t great people. I had wonderful times with these people. I’m just genuinely confused. Men are confused about this issue. We are going through this #MeToo movement crisis right now in this country." - Harvey Weinstein.


RON DELLUMS: UNAPOLOGETICALLY RADICAL.

"If it’s radical to oppose the insanity and cruelty of the Vietnam War, if it’s radical to oppose racism and sexism and all other forms of oppression, if it’s radical to want to alleviate poverty, hunger, disease, homelessness, and other forms of human misery, then I’m proud to be called a radical.” - Ron Vernie Dellums.


WHAT REALLY MATTERS IN LIFE - STEVE JOBS

“I reached the pinnacle of success in the business world. In others’ eyes, my life is an epitome of success. However, aside from work, I have little joy. Non-stop pursuing of wealth will only turn a person into a twisted being, just like me. God gave us the senses to let us feel the love in everyone’s heart, not the illusions brought about by wealth. Memories precipitated by love is the only true riches which will follow you, accompany you, giving you strength and light to go on. The most expensive bed in the world is the sick bed. You can employ someone to drive the car for you, make money for you but you cannot have someone to bear sickness for you. Material things lost can be found. But there is one thing that can never be found when it is lost – Life. Treasure Love for your family, love for your spouse, love for your friends. Treat yourself well. Cherish others.” - SJ

EVIL CANNOT BE TRULY DESTROYED.

"The threat of evil is ever present. We can contain it as long as we stay vigilant, but it can never truly be destroyed. - Lorraine Warren (Annabelle, the movie)


ONLY THE POOR WISH THEY HAD STUFF?

“I’m not that interested in material things. As long as I find a good bed that I can sleep in, that’s enough.” - Nicolas Berggruem, the homeless billionaire.

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

US ELECTION: THE MAN HURTING HILLARY IN HER FIGHT WITH TRUMP - NICK BRYANT


Adding another unanticipated sidebar to this topsy-turvy election, Kenneth Starr has lavished praise on Bill Clinton, citing his "genuine empathy for human beings", calling him "the most gifted politician of the baby boomer generation" and commending his post-presidential philanthropy, which he noted was Carteresque in its benevolence. 

Starr, a former independent counsel, was the author of what's probably the most expensive piece of pornography ever published, the Starr Report which chronicled, in graphic sexual detail, Bill Clinton's affair with a 21-year-old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. The one-time character assassin has become a character witness. 

Bill Clinton, despite being impeached for lying under oath about that affair, left office with the highest approval rating - 66% - of any departing president. He was also credited with balancing the federal budget and reviving the American economy from its early-Nineties slump. Since then, as Starr noted, he has followed a redemptive path. So he should be a prime asset to his wife Hillary as she seeks to become the first ever first lady to move from the East Wing of the White House to the West. 

The irony of Starr's kind words is that they have come at a time when Hillary, among other woes, has a Bill problem. The man who could well become the "First Dude" - Hillary's words, not mine - is proving to be something of a liability. Part of it stems, of course, from what eventually became the focus of Kenneth Starr's inquiry, Bill Clinton's womanizing.  It blunts her attacks on Donald Trump's sexism and misogyny which, in a contest where more women will vote than men, should have been her ace card. 

The billionaire, in a jujutsu-like move, has already launched an attack ad featuring video of Kathleen Willey, who accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault, and Juanita Broaddrick, who accused him of rape. "DIRTY BILLS," read the front page of the New York Post the following day, conflating Trump's attack ad with the allegations against Bill Cosby. Nor is Trump relying on guilt by association. He has already called Hillary an "enabler" of her husband's fidelity. "She would go after these women and destroy their lives," he has claimed.  Like many of Trump's attacks, that may strike many voters as shrill and overstated, it also contains a kernel of truth. 

The White House did attempt to trash Monica Lewinsky when the scandal first erupted in 1998, and Hillary Clinton, during her husband's long phase of public denial, described it as being the product of a "vast right-wing conspiracy", absolving him of blame. Hillary as loyal "stand-by-your-man" wife does not marry that well with Hillary as feminist trailblazer, the image she is trying to project. My sense, having watched the Clintons fairly closely for over 20 years, is that they have a loving marriage and deep friendship. An animated conversation that started at Yale Law School in the early Seventies continues for both of them to fascinate and enthrall

But many critics of the Clintons believe it's a transactional partnership, a marriage of political convenience. To some, her loyalty during the most troubled phase of the Clinton presidency reinforces the sense that she's a cynical political operator, willing to do anything to accrue power. The Bernie problem, her difficulty in seeing off her Democratic rival, is also partly a Bill problem. The unexpected success of the Vermont Senator is explained not only by an aversion to Hillary but also a rejection of Bill. Sanders supporters are railing against his political and policy legacy. Bill Clinton's pursuit of a "Third Way" politics was designed to make the Democrats more electable and to end the party's losing streak in presidential politics. 

Up until his victory in 1992, they had only won one of the previous six elections. But this shift to the middle ground, and the centrist policies that accompanied it, alienated many on the Democrat left. Withholding support from Hillary Clinton and bestowing it instead upon Bernie Sanders is a form of revenge. Whether its financial deregulation, the welfare bill that Clinton passed with the Republican-controlled Congress, criminal justice reforms which have contributed to higher levels of black incarceration, the North American Free Trade Agreement, or Nafta for short, there's been an angry backlash against what Clinton once trumpeted as some of his greatest domestic accomplishments.  This has made her vulnerable to a challenge from the left, as Sanders has shown. But it also makes her vulnerable to a challenge from the right, because of Nafta.  

Blue-collar voters, who might ordinarily be expected to vote Democrat, stand to applaud when Donald Trump promises to renegotiate trade deals which have exported American jobs abroad. 

Hillary Clinton hinted recently that Bill would become her jobs tsar and focus his energies on reviving American manufacturing.  She clearly hopes that he can appeal again to blue-collar whites, who warmed to him as a candidate and president. But that bond has been severely eroded, if not severed completely, because he was the president who negotiated Nafta. Public perceptions about Bill Clinton have also changed, in a way which exposes the rupture between the Democratic establishment and the Democratic grassroots.  When he first appeared on the national scene, he could plausibly cast himself as the boy from Hope, his small-town Arkansas birthplace. 

Now, after all the millions he has earned on the international speaking circuit, he comes across not just as a limousine liberal but a Lear Jet liberal. Standing at the head of a metropolitan progressive elite, he does not have the same common touch of old. The Clintons, after all these years as the dominant power couple in the Democratic establishment, also project an imperious sense of entitlement. It explains why Hillary Clinton's email scandal cuts so deep. It reinforces the widespread view that the couple believe they are not bound by normal rules. Those of us who have watched him on the campaign trail have also been surprised at the 69-year-old's comparative lack of energy. The magnetism and charisma for which he is famed simply is not there. 

At a rally in New Hampshire, I happened to be stood next to Clinton's biographer David Maraniss, whose real-time Twitter feed made for fascinating reading. "When BC was introduced and stood on stage w/Chelsea, he showed nothing on his face, mouth agape, eyes seemingly blank... just frail, like he had to conserve every ounce of energy. No gleam in his eyes, no electricity, muted…. He lit up only when Chelsea talked about him. Then when it was his turn to talk a little bit of his old self came back, but not much." 

Once the most powerful energy force in any room, Bill Clinton is now only an ambient presence. The former president is not without his fans. There are thousands who still cheer this self-proclaimed architect of the bridge to the 21st Century. What's also been striking is how African-American voters have returned to the Clinton fold, after backing Barack Obama in 2008, despite protesters from the Black Lives Matters campaign targeting him on the stump.  

However, the former first couple's hopes that wistful memories of the Clinton administration would lead to a Clinton restoration have surely dwindled. Nostalgia is something that can give a departing president a warm glow, as Barack Obama is presently discovering, but hard for a presidential aspirant to harness, especially when so much of the country is angrily demanding change.

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