THE POPE HAD A GIRLFRIEND, A SAUL ALSO AMONG THE PROPHETS?

Icheoku says recalls a story told by mother about one Irish missionary catholic priest back in the day. According to the narrative, the priest was preaching the gospel in the community church one Sunday way back in 1955 and told the congregation that on the last day they might be surprised to enter heaven to find the chief priest of the local deity seated in heaven and looking over in hell find the pope, the bishop and even himself languishing in hellfire. The moral of story, provided you stay upright and do what is right, you will make heaven if one exists. The bible also tells us that those who do nefarious things in secret or who use the cover of darkness to perpetrate evil deeds, that the good Lord in heaven who created night and who also sees in darkness sees them. That if you deceive your fellow man, you cannot deceive God Almighty. 

Giving the fast developing story that the late Pope John Paul II, who was even canonized a saint, had a girlfriend whom no one ever knew about, Icheoku says why continue this life of deceit? They too, men in cassock, are human beings and have same desires of flesh as we mere mortals; so why not just burst open all these pretensions of celibacy and come to terms with their humanity. Why hide it and act as if they are superhuman and surreptitiously go around satisfying their urge behind closed doors. Icheoku calls on the Catholic church to use this epiphany and reconsider their celibacy law and lift the ban on their priests from exercising or fulfilling their fleshly calling. If 1 Timothy 3:1-4 and Leviticus 21:7 & 13 stipulate that men in cassock should be husbands and fathers and in that way will know better how to manage their flock, why must the church be different. Icheoku nearly forgot the story of Mary Magdalene and Jesus, so the pope might actually be in order here,  for crying out loud. 

According to the developing story, Pope John Paul II had an "emotionally intimate affair” with a married Polish-American philosopher, New Hampshire academic, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka lasting over 32 long years and pictures and correspondences abound to prove it. The rest of the story below:- 

"The future pope, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, and Tymieniecka met in 1973 when he was a teacher at Lublin University in Poland. Tymieniecka’s loved ones sold her letters to the Polish archivists in a seven-digit deal following her death in 2014, the BBC reported. But instead of celebrating the incredible score, Polish archivists kept the fascinating papers under wraps until the BBC finally got a look at them recently, the British broadcasters said. 

The archive includes pictures of the future pope in shorts, on a lakeside camping trip with Tymieniecka, and in full ski gear on the slopes with her. Nothing in the letters shows a forbidden love affair that would break John Paul’s vow of celibacy. But the pair appeared to share a deep emotional intimacy, with John Paul once telling her she was a gift to him from God. He said in that missive: “If I did not have this conviction, some moral certainty of Grace, and of acting in obedience to it, I would not dare act like this.” 

Tymieniecka stayed in close touch with John Paul after she moved to the United States and even during his reign as pope. She visited him the day before he died in 2005. The relationship between John Paul and Tymieniecka wasn’t a secret — and was first disclosed in Carl Bernstein’s 1997 book, “His Holiness.” But Bernstein said these papers shed remarkable new light on John Paul. “We are talking about Saint John Paul. This is an extraordinary relationship,” Bernstein said. “It’s not illicit. Nonetheless, it’s fascinating. It changes our perception of him.”

JEB CALLS GW TO THE RESCUE, WILL HIS DADDY BE NEXT?

Icheoku says first he sauntered on the terrain all by himself, alone, only to discover that playing in the big league requires more than just a family name. He found it too tough to handle and so scurried back home to call on mom who-knows-best, to come and bail him out. His mother unsuccessfully tried to market him to the American people who call New Hampshire home, as they rejected him and with thundering outcry screamed ENOUGH OF THE BUSHES. Not fazed and like every mama's boy who is exhibiting Frat-tendency of 'why not me' entitlement, he has once again ran back to his family for another round of bailout. This time, it is his big brother, a former president, whose presidency left so much sour taste in so many Americans mouth that he has dragged to the campaign trail. 

A presidency which many right thinking Americans wished never happened and at best, is better forgotten; but which in eyes of the mama's boy, was the best thing to happen to America and a very successful  presidency to brag about. Icheoku says if George Walker Bush's presidency was good enough for JEB, so much as to want and wish an encore, a repeat, a reincarnation of it, then his aspiring presidency is one American people would be better off without and therefore should not be embraced. American people will be better of with it aborted right now than to relive the presidency whose havoc the world is still reaping till today. GW, whose presidency did not and could not "MISSION ACCOMPLISH" anything, is who JEB is banking on now to come and MISSION ACCOMPLISH his presidential aspiration, by helping him secure the nomination of the Republican Party. 

Now GW is telling American people in South Carolina that Jeb Bush has the right judgment to be president and one wonders if George Bush is the most qualified person to make a call on anyone's judgment; not after his own judgment that marched troops into the quagmire that is the unnecessary egotistic Iraqi war. Anyway, American people know better and they know that George Bush's presidency left so much to be desired and they will have none of it, not anymore. What GW is trying to sell this time, his baby brother, as presidential candidate and possible president of America is not kosher. Icheoku says what JEB's more beloved mother Barbara could not do for him in New Hampshire, he wants his loathed brother George to do in South Carolina? 

But serving as a devil's advocate, who is JEB going to summon again, next time to his campaign trail, should South Carolinas also reject his brother's plea for mercy as New Hampshire rejected his mother's plea? May be it will be time to pull the kitchen sink by bringing his 94 year old wheel chair bound and dementia afflicted daddy Herbert to the campaign? But hey, desperate times calls for desperate measures; except that JEB is getting it all wrong thinking or believing that the problem is in his message and its delivery. Icheoku says nope, it is not a case of the message, rather it is the messenger.  

JEB's rejection is not because of what his message says or is not saying; no his rejection is a reaction of the American peoples fatigue with an impending political dynasty which they are not prepared to institutionalize. JEB's rejection is because of what he represents and American people are tired of same Bush same Bush all the time. It is the Bush/Clinton fatigue and so it does not matter if he resurrects Ronald Reagan to come and pound the trail for him, he will not be elected. But even if he   miraculously wins, will he be calling on his family to the rescue each time governing becomes  tough? If he cannot campaign and win his own election by himself, how can he then govern by himself? Anyway Donald Trump called it right that JEB is a LOW ENERGY mama's boy who cannot man-o-man-o tie his own shoe lace.  GO TRUMP, Trump all the way.

THE BED WHERE SCALIA DIED.

Icheoku says what is in a bed afterall? It looks like any other Joe bed anywhere, except that this is the bed on which United States Supreme Court Justice Antonio Scalia died. Icheoku's bed might even be in contention as to a better looking bed but this is the presidential bed in a presidential suite, El Presidente, in Cibolo Creek private Ranch in Shafter Texas where Supreme Court Justice Antonio Scalia gave up the ghost. 

Icheoku says who knows whether the Republican Party, especially their ultra conservative right wing, will convert it into another Lincoln Bedroom and sort of make it into a Mecca for conservative faithfuls to go earn their bragging right of having slept on the bed on which Justice Scalia breathed his last. What a money spinner it will be for their cause since the late justice identified mightily with their causes to somewhat become their light of beacon. But hey it is life and it is an empty air - here (today) this evening, gone (tomorrow) in the morning. Icheoku says may his conservative soul now rest. 

PUTIN'S RUSSIA ON THE CUFF - CROWLEY

Russia is facing economic disarray — and with that has come a spike in protests by workers and others. The Kremlin has reason to be worried.

What’s causing this Russian economic crisis? International economic sanctions because of the occupation of the Crimea; a decline in the ruble; and above all the collapse in oil prices are all to blame. With the pinch, the government will be forced to continue to raise taxes and cut benefits, which will almost invariably lead to more protest.

Russian workers — a group often seen as supportive of Putin and his regime — are already protesting wages that are shrinking and sometimes not being paid at all. Most recently, a nationwide protest by thousands of truck drivers caused panic when they descended on Moscow to protest a new tax. Russia’s liberal opposition hopes — and the Kremlin fears — that Russian workers from the heartland might join with middle class protesters from Moscow and St. Petersburg. In 2011-12, tens of thousands of those urban  liberals took to the streets in Russia’s two main cities, donning white ribbons to protest what they alleged were fraudulent elections that led to Putin’s return to the presidency.

Such a combination, across class and region, might lead to a “colored revolution” of the kind that drove corrupt leaders from power in post-Soviet countries like Ukraine and Georgia. Putin has sought to inoculate himself from such an event, in part by championing workers who denounced the Moscow protesters, and portraying himself as real Russian muzhik — a regular guy who hangs out with biker gangs.

But is a “colored revolution” on the horizon in Russia? Despite some commentators‘ suggestions, that’s quite unlikely. But Putin is no doubt concerned. The economic crisis and the prospect of growing protests pose substantial challenges to his leadership. 

As global oil and gas prices plummet, the Russian government is in crisis. As recently as 2013, revenues from that sector accounted for 50 percent of the federal budget. The loss of that revenue not only puts a crimp in Russia’s economy; it changes the very relations between the Russian state and society.

When oil prices were high the Russian government could afford to use oil industry “rents” to help maintain the legitimacy of the regime. That’s what Nikolay Petrov, Maria Lipman and Henry E. Hale (among others) have termed a “non-intrusion pact”: The government offers economic growth and a certain level of social benefits and subsidies and otherwise leaves citizens alone, so long as they stay out of politics.

With oil income dropping, however, the Russian government can’t keep up its end of the bargain. Now it needs citizens to accept fewer benefits and to pay higher taxes just as their incomes are dwindling.

And Russians aren’t happy, turning out for a surge in economic protests throughout the country. Petr Bizyukov at the Center for Social and Labor Rights in Russia found 409 labor protests in Russia last year, the highest since the center began keeping records in 2008. That’s a 40 percent increase from 2014 and 76 percent higher than the average from 2008-2013 (which included Russia’s economic crisis of 2008-09).

Data: Petr Bizyukov, the Center for Social and Labor Rights. Figure: Petr Bizyukov and Stephen Crowley

Other databases are reporting a similar increase in labor protests. Many workers clearly weren’t going to follow the traditional Russian pattern of quietly supplementing lower wages with larger potato gardens and vodka binges, as Andrei Kolesnikov of Carnegie Moscow had suggested they might.

Then, last November, came a nationwide protest by Russia’s long-haul truck drivers, when the government moved to implement a new road tax on load-bearing tractor-trailers. The fee charged might seem small — four rubles per kilometer for trucks weighing over 12 tons —  but many truckers argued that they were barely breaking even before the new tax.

Drivers in 43 of Russia’s 85 regions and more than 70 cities took to the streets in various forms of protest. In some cases, they drove in “snail” convoys at less than 10 miles per hour. In other cases they blockaded highways altogether. The protests persisted through December, with truckers in some regions refusing to drive in January. Trade with neighboring countries was temporarily disrupted.

The truckers were especially furious that the fees would be collected by a private company owned by the son of Arkady Rotenberg, one of Putin’s longtime cronies. Last December, as truckers drove to Moscow with a threat to blockade the city’s ring road, some carried signs saying “Rotenberg is worse than ISIS.” Another proclaimed, referring to the earlier middle-class protesters in Moscow, “We are not like those white-ribboned dreamers in 2011. We have crowbars, and we won’t hesitate to use them when we are pushed to the wall.”

Although the protests were largely ignored by state-run media, opinion polls showed that almost two-thirds of the population supported the truckers.

But the truckers’ revolt did not portend a coming colored revolution. The authorities prevented most truckers from reaching central Moscow, intercepting several convoys along the way. Their protests have largely died out, even though the government offered only limited concessions, such as a reduction in the fine for noncompliance.

But what’s more significant is that, despite some angry slogans, the truckers mainly demanded changes in the tax system, not the political system. Rather than denouncing Putin, most truckers appealed to him. “President, help us!” was one of the most prominent slogans. Some of the opposition groups that had been behind the 2011/2012 protests — both on the left and the right — tried to unite with the truckers, in order to combine economic with political demands to bring about substantial change in Russia. But the truckers would have none of it.

There is still a wide gap in Russia between the growing economic concerns of many, on the one hand, and the strong levels of support for Putin as a leader, on the other. That suggests that most Russians are a long way from calling for regime change. Many still credit Putin with “raising Russia from its knees” after the disastrous 1990s. They remain convinced by state media that colored revolutions like the 2014 Maidan revolution in Ukraine lead to anarchy.

There is also the question of whether the truckers’ revolt counts as a labor protest. As owner-operators, most Russian truckers are small businessmen, surviving on very small margins. As Russian analyst Dmitrii Oreshkin has argued, the truckers protest can best be seen as a taxpayers’ revolt.

Labor hasn’t been especially powerful in Russia. Most of those hundreds of labor protests cataloged by the Center for Social and Labor Rights have been small and isolated, only affecting a particular city or company. Russian unions are generally weak, and in the past most strikes were spontaneous events in private firms in far-flung regions or in “monotowns” — one-industry towns left struggling after the Soviet collapse.

When wider protests do happen, it’s because government actions hurt disparate workers as a single category, as happened with the truckers. Coordinated, cross-regional labor protests are indeed increasing, led not by industrial workers but most often by “budget sector” employees such as teachers and medical workers who are being hit by money-saving reform plans, cuts in state budgets, or sometimes the nonpayment of their wages.

Citizens protest, too, when the Kremlin tries to cut benefits and raise revenue. In 2005 the government attempted to replace Soviet-era benefits like free public transportation and energy subsidies for the elderly with cash handouts that many felt didn’t make up for the loss.

After spontaneous protests among the elderly in several Russian regions, the government quickly backed down, in the end spending more than the reforms would have saved.

Similarly, in 2008, a government attempt to tax imported cars brought protesters out in the streets in dozens of cities. The protests were eventually dispersed, and the tax remained, but costly compensation was provided to the cities with the greatest protest.

As with the truckers, the Putin regime survived these protests with some combination of concessions and repression. But the protests revealed that the state can only demand so much from the population.

And now labor protests in Russia’s industrial regions are on the rise, becoming less isolated, as protesters from one firm clump together with strikers from another.

These new protestors come from Putin’s base of support

When Putin survived the protests in 2011 and won the March 2012 presidential election, some speculated that he did so by pitting “rural and Rust Belt Russia against urban and modernizing Russia.”

Yet the very presence of worker protests challenges Putin’s claim to be the guarantor of stability. Russia’s working class is said to be Putin’s electoral base, and parliamentary elections loom in September. While workers may not be ready to join anti-Putin protests, economic discontent will certainly impact support for United Russia, the Kremlin-backed party long dominating parliament.

So what can the Russian government do? The government has been subsidizing many factory towns that are teetering on bankruptcy — but that money is going away. With the steep drop in oil revenues, the Russian government will be compelled to raise taxes and cut spending. And that will almost inevitably lead to more protests.

In short, barring a sudden jump in oil prices, the Putin regime must renegotiate its relationship with Russian society, and the results may not be pretty.

A VALENTINE MESSAGE YOU CAN USE.

Icheoku says February 14th is today. The day the world of romantics celebrate Saint Valentine, the priest who one folklore said defrocked in order to marry his sweetheart. Another tradition has it that a priest facing execution, as a last act, wrote a 'Goodbye my love" letter to a girl he was smitten by, signing it off as "Your Valentine?" But  however you interpret it and possibly if you are among the many of the world who see it as a day for lovers to recommit themselves to one another, just be minded that love is a two way traffic lane. It goes both ways. 

You should never accept a situation of being merely tolerated and not fully accepted in any relationship as that is not love. Loving relationships should be on equal footing of desires, regardless. Therefore the only way to optimally, truly live a life of love and in love, is to be wanted and desired; but never to be merely accommodated or tolerated as a disposable means to achieving an end or objective. Like MKO Abiola once said, you cannot shave one's head in his absence; so before Cupid strikes, be mindful that it takes a haired head and a barbing hand to achieve a haircut. Happy Valentine's fellas and may you live to love and love to live.

ANGER IS PAIN MASKED, GET IT RESOLVED.

Pain is usually the underneath of anger issues. People, while reacting to bottled up pain, always come across as angry and ready to tip over at the slightest provocation. Anger is a reaction and not necessary an action; it is simply a reaction to an already festering pain which has refused to go away. It is akin to an angry dog, which is reacting to abuse and torture or even hunger by barking and trying to bite anyone who comes its way. Such dog sees every person as an extension and continuation of the human-being who abused it and is ready to protect and defend itself from any further abuse. 

An angry person is a protective person, who made a conscience decision not to ever take any chances again by giving allowance to any possible relive of the horrible past experience of hurt which was suffered in the past. The solution, try to speak to the underlying pain and have it resolved; and then draw out the real person hiding and taking a protective shield behind the defensive anger. Such angry person does not want to be hurt again and reminded what he or she went through in the past or forced to live it all over again. In doing this, you will successfully bring out the compassion in the person and peradventure bring back the person; failing which he or she will continue to manifest an imbedded pain as anger and will be loathed by many as that angry bitch or dog.

HILLARY CLINTON, UNDESERVING OF BLACK VOTES - MICHELLE ALEXANDER

Hillary Clinton loves black people. And black people love Hillary—or so it seems. Black politicians have lined up in droves to endorse her, eager to prove their loyalty to the Clintons in the hopes that their faithfulness will be remembered and rewarded. Black pastors are opening their church doors, and the Clintons are making themselves comfortably at home once again, engaging effortlessly in all the usual rituals associated with “courting the black vote,” a pursuit that typically begins and ends with Democratic politicians making black people feel liked and taken seriously. Doing something concrete to improve the conditions under which most black people live is generally not required. 

Hillary is looking to gain momentum on the campaign trail as the primaries move out of Iowa and New Hampshire and into states like South Carolina, where large pockets of black voters can be found. According to some polls, she leads Bernie Sanders by as much as 60 percent among African Americans. It seems that we—black people—are her winning card, one that Hillary is eager to play.

And it seems we’re eager to get played. Again.

The love affair between black folks and the Clintons has been going on for a long time. It began back in 1992, when Bill Clinton was running for president. He threw on some shades and played the saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show. It seems silly in retrospect, but many of us fell for that. At a time when a popular slogan was “It’s a black thing, you wouldn’t understand,” Bill Clinton seemed to get us. When Toni Morrison dubbed him our first black president, we nodded our heads. We had our boy in the White House. Or at least we thought we did.

Black voters have been remarkably loyal to the Clintons for more than 25 years. It’s true that we eventually lined up behind Barack Obama in 2008, but it’s a measure of the Clinton allure that Hillary led Obama among black voters until he started winning caucuses and primaries. Now Hillary is running again. This time she’s facing a democratic socialist who promises a political revolution that will bring universal healthcare, a living wage, an end to rampant Wall Street greed, and the dismantling of the vast prison state—many of the same goals that Martin Luther King Jr. championed at the end of his life. Even so, black folks are sticking with the Clinton brand.

What have the Clintons done to earn such devotion? Did they take extreme political risks to defend the rights of African Americans? Did they courageously stand up to right-wing demagoguery about black communities? Did they help usher in a new era of hope and prosperity for neighborhoods devastated by deindustrialization, globalization, and the disappearance of work? 

When Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992, urban black communities across America were suffering from economic collapse. Hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs had vanished as factories moved overseas in search of cheaper labor, a new plantation. Globalization and deindustrialization affected workers of all colors but hit African Americans particularly hard. Unemployment rates among young black men had quadrupled as the rate of industrial employment plummeted. Crime rates spiked in inner-city communities that had been dependent on factory jobs, while hopelessness, despair, and crack addiction swept neighborhoods that had once been solidly working-class. Millions of black folks—many of whom had fled Jim Crow segregation in the South with the hope of obtaining decent work in Northern factories—were suddenly trapped in racially segregated, jobless ghettos.

On the campaign trail, Bill Clinton made the economy his top priority and argued persuasively that conservatives were using race to divide the nation and divert attention from the failed economy. In practice, however, he capitulated entirely to the right-wing backlash against the civil-rights movement and embraced former president Ronald Reagan’s agenda on race, crime, welfare, and taxes—ultimately doing more harm to black communities than Reagan ever did.

We should have seen it coming. Back then, Clinton was the standard-bearer for the New Democrats, a group that firmly believed the only way to win back the millions of white voters in the South who had defected to the Republican Party was to adopt the right-wing narrative that black communities ought to be disciplined with harsh punishment rather than coddled with welfare. Reagan had won the presidency by dog-whistling to poor and working-class whites with coded racial appeals: railing against “welfare queens” and criminal “predators” and condemning “big government.” Clinton aimed to win them back, vowing that he would never permit any Republican to be perceived as tougher on crime than he.

Just weeks before the critical New Hampshire primary, Clinton proved his toughness by flying back to Arkansas to oversee the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a mentally impaired black man who had so little conception of what was about to happen to him that he asked for the dessert from his last meal to be saved for him for later. After the execution, Clinton remarked, “I can be nicked a lot, but no one can say I’m soft on crime.”

Clinton mastered the art of sending mixed cultural messages, appealing to African Americans by belting out “Lift Every Voice and Sing” in black churches, while at the same time signaling to poor and working-class whites that he was willing to be tougher on black communities than Republicans had been.

Clinton was praised for his no-nonsense, pragmatic approach to racial politics. He won the election and appointed a racially diverse cabinet that “looked like America.” He won re-election four years later, and the American economy rebounded. Democrats cheered. The Democratic Party had been saved. The Clintons won. Guess who lost?

Bill Clinton presided over the largest increase in federal and state prison inmates of any president in American history. Clinton did not declare the War on Crime or the War on Drugs—those wars were declared before Reagan was elected and long before crack hit the streets—but he escalated it beyond what many conservatives had imagined possible. He supported the 100-to-1 sentencing disparity for crack versus powder cocaine, which produced staggering racial injustice in sentencing and boosted funding for drug-law enforcement.

Clinton championed the idea of a federal “three strikes” law in his 1994 State of the Union address and, months later, signed a $30 billion crime bill that created dozens of new federal capital crimes, mandated life sentences for some three-time offenders, and authorized more than $16 billion for state prison grants and the expansion of police forces. The legislation was hailed by mainstream-media outlets as a victory for the Democrats, who “were able to wrest the crime issue from the Republicans and make it their own.”

When Clinton left office in 2001, the United States had the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Human Rights Watch reported that in seven states, African Americans constituted 80 to 90 percent of all drug offenders sent to prison, even though they were no more likely than whites to use or sell illegal drugs. Prison admissions for drug offenses reached a level in 2000 for African Americans more than 26 times the level in 1983. All of the presidents since 1980 have contributed to mass incarceration, but as Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson recently observed, “President Clinton’s tenure was the worst.” 

Some might argue that it’s unfair to judge Hillary Clinton for the policies her husband championed years ago. But Hillary wasn’t picking out china while she was first lady. She bravely broke the mold and redefined that job in ways no woman ever had before. She not only campaigned for Bill; she also wielded power and significant influence once he was elected, lobbying for legislation and other measures. That record, and her statements from that era, should be scrutinized. In her support for the 1994 crime bill, for example, she used racially coded rhetoric to cast black children as animals. “They are not just gangs of kids anymore,” she said. “They are often the kinds of kids that are called ‘super-predators.’ No conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first we have to bring them to heel.”

Both Clintons now express regret over the crime bill, and Hillary says she supports criminal-justice reforms to undo some of the damage that was done by her husband’s administration. But on the campaign trail, she continues to invoke the economy and country that Bill Clinton left behind as a legacy she would continue. So what exactly did the Clinton economy look like for black Americans? Taking a hard look at this recent past is about more than just a choice between two candidates. It’s about whether the Democratic Party can finally reckon with what its policies have done to African-American communities, and whether it can redeem itself and rightly earn the loyalty of black voters.

An oft-repeated myth about the Clinton administration is that although it was overly tough on crime back in the 1990s, at least its policies were good for the economy and for black unemployment rates. The truth is more troubling. As unemployment rates sank to historically low levels for white Americans in the 1990s, the jobless rate among black men in their 20s who didn’t have a college degree rose to its highest level ever. This increase in joblessness was propelled by the skyrocketing incarceration rate.

Why is this not common knowledge? Because government statistics like poverty and unemployment rates do not include incarcerated people. As Harvard sociologist Bruce Western explains: “Much of the optimism about declines in racial inequality and the power of the US model of economic growth is misplaced once we account for the invisible poor, behind the walls of America’s prisons and jails.” When Clinton left office in 2001, the true jobless rate for young, non-college-educated black men (including those behind bars) was 42 percent. This figure was never reported. Instead, the media claimed that unemployment rates for African Americans had fallen to record lows, neglecting to mention that this miracle was possible only because incarceration rates were now at record highs. Young black men weren’t looking for work at high rates during the Clinton era because they were now behind bars—out of sight, out of mind, and no longer counted in poverty and unemployment statistics.

To make matters worse, the federal safety net for poor families was torn to shreds by the Clinton administration in its effort to “end welfare as we know it.” In his 1996 State of the Union address, given during his re-election campaign, Clinton declared that “the era of big government is over” and immediately sought to prove it by dismantling the federal welfare system known as Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC). The welfare-reform legislation that he signed—which Hillary Clinton ardently supported then and characterized as a success as recently as 2008—replaced the federal safety net with a block grant to the states, imposed a five-year lifetime limit on welfare assistance, added work requirements, barred undocumented immigrants from licensed professions, and slashed overall public welfare funding by $54 billion (some was later restored).

Experts and pundits disagree about the true impact of welfare reform, but one thing seems clear: Extreme poverty doubled to 1.5 million in the decade and a half after the law was passed. What is extreme poverty? US households are considered to be in extreme poverty if they are surviving on cash incomes of no more than $2 per person per day in any given month. We tend to think of extreme poverty existing in Third World countries, but here in the United States, shocking numbers of people are struggling to survive on less money per month than many families spend in one evening dining out. Currently, the United States, the richest nation on the planet, has one of the highest child-poverty rates in the developed world.

Despite claims that radical changes in crime and welfare policy were driven by a desire to end big government and save taxpayer dollars, the reality is that the Clinton administration didn’t reduce the amount of money devoted to the management of the urban poor; it changed what the funds would be used for. Billions of dollars were slashed from public-housing and child-welfare budgets and transferred to the mass-incarceration machine. By 1996, the penal budget was twice the amount that had been allocated to food stamps. During Clinton’s tenure, funding for public housing was slashed by $17 billion (a reduction of 61 percent), while funding for corrections was boosted by $19 billion (an increase of 171 percent), according to sociologist Loïc Wacquant “effectively making the construction of prisons the nation’s main housing program for the urban poor.”

Bill Clinton championed discriminatory laws against formerly incarcerated people that have kept millions of Americans locked in a cycle of poverty and desperation. The Clinton administration eliminated Pell grants for prisoners seeking higher education to prepare for their release, supported laws denying federal financial aid to students with drug convictions, and signed legislation imposing a lifetime ban on welfare and food stamps for anyone convicted of a felony drug offense—an exceptionally harsh provision given the racially biased drug war that was raging in inner cities.

Perhaps most alarming, Clinton also made it easier for public-housing agencies to deny shelter to anyone with any sort of criminal history (even an arrest without conviction) and championed the “one strike and you’re out” initiative, which meant that families could be evicted from public housing because one member (or a guest) had committed even a minor offense. People released from prison with no money, no job, and nowhere to go could no longer return home to their loved ones living in federally assisted housing without placing the entire family at risk of eviction. Purging “the criminal element” from public housing played well on the evening news, but no provisions were made for people and families as they were forced out on the street. By the end of Clinton’s presidency, more than half of working-age African-American men in many large urban areas were saddled with criminal records and subject to legalized discrimination in employment, housing, access to education, and basic public benefits—relegated to a permanent second-class status eerily reminiscent of Jim Crow.

It is difficult to overstate the damage that’s been done. Generations have been lost to the prison system; countless families have been torn apart or rendered homeless; and a school-to-prison pipeline has been born that shuttles young people from their decrepit, underfunded schools to brand-new high-tech prisons.

It didn’t have to be like this. As a nation, we had a choice. Rather than spending billions of dollars constructing a vast new penal system, those billions could have been spent putting young people to work in inner-city communities and investing in their schools so they might have some hope of making the transition from an industrial to a service-based economy. Constructive interventions would have been good not only for African Americans trapped in ghettos, but for blue-collar workers of all colors. At the very least, Democrats could have fought to prevent the further destruction of black communities rather than ratcheting up the wars declared on them.

Of course, it can be said that it’s unfair to criticize the Clintons for punishing black people so harshly, given that many black people were on board with the “get tough” movement too. It is absolutely true that black communities back then were in a state of crisis, and that many black activists and politicians were desperate to get violent offenders off the streets. What is often missed, however, is that most of those black activists and politicians weren’t asking only for toughness. They were also demanding investment in their schools, better housing, jobs programs for young people, economic-stimulus packages, drug treatment on demand, and better access to healthcare. In the end, they wound up with police and prisons. To say that this was what black people wanted is misleading at best.

To be fair, the Clintons now feel bad about how their politics and policies have worked out for black people. Bill says that he “overshot the mark” with his crime policies; and Hillary has put forth a plan to ban racial profiling, eliminate the sentencing disparities between crack and cocaine, and abolish private prisons, among other measures. 

But what about a larger agenda that would not just reverse some of the policies adopted during the Clinton era, but would rebuild the communities decimated by them? If you listen closely here, you’ll notice that Hillary Clinton is still singing the same old tune in a slightly different key. She is arguing that we ought not be seduced by Bernie’s rhetoric because we must be “pragmatic,” “face political realities,” and not get tempted to believe that we can fight for economic justice and win. When politicians start telling you that it is “unrealistic” to support candidates who want to build a movement for greater equality, fair wages, universal healthcare, and an end to corporate control of our political system, it’s probably best to leave the room.

This is not an endorsement for Bernie Sanders, who after all voted for the 1994 crime bill. I also tend to agree with Ta-Nehisi Coates that the way the Sanders campaign handled the question of reparations is one of many signs that Bernie doesn’t quite get what’s at stake in serious dialogues about racial justice. He was wrong to dismiss reparations as “divisive,” as though centuries of slavery, segregation, discrimination, ghettoization, and stigmatization aren’t worthy of any specific acknowledgement or remedy.

But recognizing that Bernie, like Hillary, has blurred vision when it comes to race is not the same thing as saying their views are equally problematic. Sanders opposed the 1996 welfare-reform law. He also opposed bank deregulation and the Iraq War, both of which Hillary supported, and both of which have proved disastrous. In short, there is such a thing as a lesser evil, and Hillary is not it.

The biggest problem with Bernie, in the end, is that he’s running as a Democrat—as a member of a political party that not only capitulated to right-wing demagoguery but is now owned and controlled by a relatively small number of millionaires and billionaires. Yes, Sanders has raised millions from small donors, but should he become president, he would also become part of what he has otherwise derided as “the establishment.” Even if Bernie’s racial-justice views evolve, I hold little hope that a political revolution will occur within the Democratic Party without a sustained outside movement forcing truly transformational change. I am inclined to believe that it would be easier to build a new party than to save the Democratic Party from itself.

Of course, the idea of building a new political party terrifies most progressives, who understandably fear that it would open the door for a right-wing extremist to get elected. So we play the game of lesser evils. This game has gone on for decades. W.E.B. Du Bois, the eminent scholar and co-founder of the NAACP, shocked many when he refused to play along with this game in the 1956 election, defending his refusal to vote on the grounds that “there is but one evil party with two names, and it will be elected despite all I do or say.” While the true losers and winners of this game are highly predictable, the game of lesser evils makes for great entertainment and can now be viewed 24 hours a day on cable-news networks. Hillary believes that she can win this game in 2016 because this time she’s got us, the black vote, in her back pocket—her lucky card.

She may be surprised to discover that the younger generation no longer wants to play her game. Or maybe not. Maybe we’ll all continue to play along and pretend that we don’t know how it will turn out in the end. Hopefully, one day, we’ll muster the courage to join together in a revolutionary movement with people of all colors who believe that basic human rights and economic, racial, and gender justice are not unreasonable, pie-in-the-sky goals. After decades of getting played, the sleeping giant just might wake up, stretch its limbs, and tell both parties: Game over. Move aside. It’s time to reshuffle this deck.

ALL IN THE FAMILY, IT IS NOW MY TURN - JEB

Icheoku says wait a minute JEB, as American presidency is not only the Bush family for keeps. It cannot be a baton passed from father to son and to yet another son; and in a country of over 300 million people. Enough of the Bushes, ditto the Clintons; say no to another Bush in the White House.

ENOUGH OF THE CLINTONS AND THE BUSHES.

Icheoku agrees that America is not a 'Family-dom' and in a country of over three hundred million, two families after holding forte in the White House for twenty years should make way for other Americans. Icheoku joins babies of America in saying NO TO HILLARY CLINTON; ditto JEB.

NSOBUNDU, NIGERIAN COUPLE IN AMERICA WHO ENSLAVED A NANNY?

Icheoku says less than five days after Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari berated Nigerians in Diaspora as "criminals", in American State of Texas, two Nigerians, a couple, Chudy and Sandra Nsobundu, have given impetus to the president's outburst. The couple were arrested for holding a woman they smuggled  from Nigeria captive for two long years. According to the story, the couple converted the woman to an indentured servant, forcing her to take care of the couple's five children and for two long years without ever paying her for her forced labor services. 

Chudy 56 and Sandra 50 are being detained and awaiting trial for offenses ranging from forced labor, withholding documents (passport), conspiracy to harbor illegal immigrant and visa fraud. If convicted on all the charges, they could receive sentences ranging up to 55 years in Federal prison each. They are also looking at a possible fine of about $250,000 including restitution for services rendered but not paid for. They equally abused their captive physically and verbally, forced her to do all manner of domestic chore including cooking and cleaning, in addition to caring for the couple's five kids; and was forced to work from 5:30am t0 1:00am - literally round the clock with little to no food, rest or sleep. They also refused her access to television and denied her hot water bath and will not allow her to sleep on a bed but on the floor. 

Also "she was not allowed to eat fresh food but leftover scraps from previously prepared meals. She was not allowed to drink milk except she cleverly stole some from the children's cereal. She was also forced to remain indoors under a form of house arrest and to make matters worse, the paltry $100 per month they agreed was to be her salary and paid directly into her bank in Nigeria, was similarly withheld and never made due on. Sources also confirm that none of the five children is the couple's biological child as they adopted or are fostering them. So it is possible that the couple are receiving state benefits and support for those children and wanted to keep all the money to themselves. Icheoku says regrettable; but unfortunately, some Nigerians, in their drive to play a fast one, are giving the general populace a bad name. Peradventure, validating President Muhammadu Buhari's assertion that Nigerians, especially those in Diaspora are criminals. 

BERNIE OR DONALD, GOOD FOR AMERICA

Icheoku says is the New Hampshire primaries a sign of things to come down the pike? Congratulations to both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump for showing their fellow contestants how elections are won; unlike the "WIN IS A WIN" shrill Americans heard the other time from Iowa. What a trouncing. Icheoku opines that either of them in the White House will be good for America and okay by Icheoku. In short any candidate and every candidate will suffice provided they do not share the Clinton and Bush family last name, period. Americans are ready to move on to new territories and not stuck up in the past.

WOMEN NOT VOTING HILLARY ARE GOING TO HELL - MADELIENE ALBRIGHT

Icheoku says they will gladly go to HELL smiling, rather than vote or support a woman who is not good enough for the office, simply because she is female gendered. According to these women, they will like to see a woman in the White House but regrettably not this very particular woman Hillary Clinton. So Madeleine Albright, be prepared to secure so many shipping documents to Lucifer's hell because so many American women have vowed not to be intimidated by your threat.

OBAMA IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON OF TRUMP

Icheoku says Americans deal with it because without President Barack Obama there will be no agitation for a President Donald Trump. One begot the other and on November, America will have a president-elect named Donald J. Trump.

AMERICAN WOMEN DAMNS HILLARY, TELLS HER TO SPEED-DIAL LUCIFER.

Icheoku says their message to her was simple, tell Satan to add more charcoal to the oven in the pit of hell.  If Lucifer  likes, he can add more sulphur and everything and anything that will make their stay very discomforting and uncomfortable; because according to these insulted American women, they would rather go in droves to hell than support or vote Hillary Clinton. Icheoku says me too; as Icheoku will in protest join the women of America headed to hell, in our joint renouncement of Hillary Clinton as not that woman America wants as their first female president. 

Imagine a candidate running for the highest office in the land, instead of campaigning on what makes her eminently qualified for the office, is playing the gender card as if pussy-power is still in vogue. Icheoku says please give me a break as the presidency of America is gender-neutral and admits of no such consideration, as it is not a battle of the sexes. Therefore no such subtle sissy-collective sympathy will ever make American women to opt for a fellow woman who is not befitting of the office, simply to appease her female characteristics.  Good enough American women in New Hampshire have forcefully responded with their votes to tell her to take a hike and to FaceTime Lucifer ASAP, to accordingly increase the temperature of hell. According to them,   they would rather exercise the option of a longer sojourn in hell than support and vote for Hillary. 

In a campaign stump speech that sounded so bizarre and condescendingly very inappropriate, one member of the "Team Never Yield Power,' a woman who looks and grins like Hell's own very ambassador on earth, Madeleine Albright, President Bill Clinton's Secretary of States, attacked and threatened American women. She threatened American women with the hottest spot placement in hell in the event they do not fall in line behind the Hillary project. In her own very exact words, she said, “We can tell our story of how we climbed the ladder, and a lot of you younger women think it’s done. It’s not done. There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other!” Icheoku admonishes Hillary Clinton's campaign organization as well as the candidate herself for not, like Donald Trump did with the Cruz-is-a-pussy-comment, retract this statement as unfittingly inappropriate. 

Icheoku condemns any statement suggesting that women should just line up behind another woman seeking the office of the presidency or any other one for that matter, simply because they share similar biology, instead of because she is supposedly qualified for the office, is indeed too demeaning of women. But true to type, Hillary Clinton, notorious for playing the p-power, instead of condemning and denouncing the offensive disparaging statement, pretended as if she did not hear it or that it was a harmless comment. Icheoku decries it as both sexist and thoughtless, crude and patronizing; and should make every woman of America irate enough to abandon that campaign, particularly those leaning or already engaged thereto. What a bunkum of a statement and you ask yourself should all the men in America now veer towards Bernie Sanders simply because he has a phallus and not because what he is espousing is resonating with majority of Americans, especially the youths of America. 

As if American women have not been insulted enough already by this or intimidated or denigrated enough by this Hillary Clinton's campaign backer, later that same Friday, another surrogate of Hillary Clinton and one of her campaigns' wild eyed feminist activist, Gloria Steinem, piled more insult on American women. On behalf of Hillary Clinton's campaign, she posited that those women surging to Bernie Sanders campaign are simply attracted by the opportunity of being laid by the many boys and men in that campaign? In her own very words while  speaking at Real Time with Bill Maher, she said “When you’re young, you’re thinking, ‘Where are the boys? The boys are with Bernie.” Icheoku empathically condemns this as very demeaning and that it is very inappropriate to infer that all those women folk enmeshed in operation elect Bernie Sanders are merely dick-hungry and driven? Hookers of some sort, who could not otherwise get laid or find some penis elsewhere, except they go to the Bernie Sanders campaign organization, pants in hand? 

What an inarticulate statement to make; yet the Hillary Campaign organization did not condemn nor retract any of the abusive statements as not theirs or out of character. Icheoku queries what does such statement telegraph to American women or is it a coded message, that like Bernie said, the kitchen sink would now come out and every and any of his campaign staffer, enthusiast as well as himself will not be spared from either a broken rib or a cracked skull. Icheoku says to Hillary Clinton, for not retracting or condemning and apologizing for this two women-antagonizing statements, borrowing from her own words against Obama, SHAME ON YOU HILLARY CLINTON, SHAME ON YOU. 

On behalf of American women, Icheoku hereby register our protest accordingly:- that women should not just line up behind Hillary simply because she is a fellow woman; that the women who are attracted to and supporting Bernie Sanders' campaign are happily paired up and are not looking for loose penile appendages as motivation for joining the campaign. However, if Hillary Clinton has a red-phone direct-dial to Hell, let her do her worse, call Lucifer and inform him that American women have rejected her; that they have decided to rendezvous in hell rather than support her campaign.  According to them, Hillary Clinton is not that type of female who American women want to see in the White House as their very first. Icheoku agrees with American women that an apology and retraction is appropriate and needed; and that 'women are free to have independent thoughts and political views.' Further that they do not need anybody telling them how to think or what is best for America or the struggles of the women of America. Lastly, that their support for Bernie is not hormone-driven or a lusting attraction for the opposite sex. Also, women of America condemn in no unmistakable terms, the threat of being dispatched to the hottest place in hell, which somehow is special to Madeleine Albright.