TRUMP V. LEWIS: CONGRESSMAN JOHN LEWIS IS THE PROVOCATEUR.

Icheoku says it is simply amazing the way people are piling up on President-Elect Donald John Trump, especially those far left loonies who have refused to accept the expressed will of majority of American people in the last November 8, 2016 presidential election who cast their votes as they wanted. Funny enough the same people who taunted Donald Trump severally before goading him into running for the presidency could not understand how he managed to pull the impossible off and today so full of it, they have gone into a tizzy and recovering from their shock is proving very problematic indeed. Donald Trump was minding his own business trying to form his cabinet when Congressman from Georgia John Lewis went on national television to decry President-Elect Donald Trump as illegitimate and in his own very own words stated "I don't see this president-elect as a legitimate president'; thus casting aspersion on the over 65 million Americans who voted for him. 

Icheoku says what exactly did John Lewis think Donald Trump was going to do following his unprovoked attack, aspersion and casting of doubt over his election? May be scamper away and hide in a dark tunnel, whimpering that the revered John Lewis has hit him below the belt and that he might not recover? No, not the Donald and not the fighter from the Borough of Queens New York, the only true blue color billionaire who is still walking the face of this earth. Now the whole liberal far left is crying blue murder that Donald attacked their civil rights icon but they forgot that Donald Trump is also an icon to the over 65 million American voters who voted for a change of direction as well as to drain the swamp in Washington DC in which John Lewis has stayed in for so long. These trouble makers also purposely forgot that it was John Lewis who provoked the fight and started it all when he publicly cast doubt and on national television and without any provocation on  Trump's presidency, stating that Trump's election was illegitimate because of the Russians. Icheoku says so did the Russians point .45 Magnum behind the ears of the over 65 million voters to either vote for Trump or have their brains on the table? The logicality of this pervasive claim is such that no reasonable rational person would sink their teeth in the bait. 

The other thing so nauseating about all this current righteous indignation of the liberal far left is that none of them cares a hoot about what those emails disclosed and revealed about the character of their irreparably damaged and irrecoverably flawed candidate Hillary Clinton. None of them too is prepared to see the tag team smackdown which Bernie Sanders got from the Democratic Party establishment including Dana Brazille leaking to Hillary Clinton CNN debate questions ahead of debates in order to give her undue advantage over Bernie Sanders. None of them also is questioning the criminal behavior of Hillary Clinton in using private servers and deleting over 33,000 emails. None of them is interested either in the lackluster campaign put up by the Hillary Clinton and see why she was rejected by the American people who wanted to move on from the Obama non working experiment of the past eight years and did in fact move on with the choice their made. But as far as they are concerned, it must be other peoples' fault but not the fault-personified herself. They have been gnashing their teeth and pulling their hair ever since last November 8, 2016 and instead of taking their chill pill or even checking into rehab to get over it, they are rather foaming in their mouths and looking for who to take down with them or at least blame for the shameful loss. 

The good news however is that these people are messing with the wrong guy as Donald Trump is not afraid to take on anyone ma-no a ma-no.  If these guys are not yet convinced that the man who took on and took down both the Clintons and the Bushes and dethroned them from the American political throne is not a man to mess with, then something is definitely wrong with their calculation. Possibly it is the senses overriding influence of prescription pills and the other readily available hallucinatory substances that is to blame. But regardless and irrespective of their petulance, indignation and provocation, come January 20, 2017, President-Elect Donald John Trump will be sworn in as the 45th President of the United States of America and there is nothing any of them can do about it or to change it. They should go and watch themselves during the period leading up to the last election to see how their boisterousness and unbridled arrogance turned off so many voters and how their unmarketable candidate could not put up a winning campaign. This might force them to come off their funk as it was a self brought about destruction and only a truthful soul-searching would help them begin to pick up the pieces. Until then, the choice is theirs to make, either to start now to learn how to live in a world and America with President Donald John Trump presidency or they will live a life of misery this next four years if not more. Icheoku is glad that President-Elect Donald John Trump as usual did not backdown in the smackdown but paid Congressman John Lewis exactly in kind. 

HOW WE FOOL OURSELVES ON RUSSIA - WILLIAM J. BURNS

In the quarter-century since the end of the Cold War, profound grievances, misperceptions and disappointments have often defined the relationship between the United States and Russia. I lived through this turbulence during my years as a diplomat in Moscow, navigating the curious mix of hope and humiliation that I remember so vividly in the Russia of Boris N. Yeltsin, and the pugnacity and raw ambition of Vladimir V. Putin’s Kremlin. And I lived through it in Washington, serving both Republican and Democratic administrations.

There have been more than enough illusions on both sides. The United States has oscillated between visions of an enduring partnership with Moscow and dismissing it as a sulking regional power in terminal decline. Russia has moved between notions of a strategic partnership with the United States and a later, deeper desire to upend the current international order, where a dominant United States consigns Russia to a subordinate role.

The reality is that our relationship with Russia will remain competitive, and often adversarial, for the foreseeable future. At its core is a fundamental disconnect in outlook and about each other’s role in the world.

It is tempting to think that personal rapport can bridge this disconnect and that the art of the deal can unlock a grand bargain. That is a foolish starting point for sensible policy. It would be especially foolish to think that Russia’s deeply troubling interference in our election can or should be played down, however inconvenient.

President Putin’s aggressive election meddling, like his broader foreign policy, has at least two motivating factors. The first is his conviction that the surest path to restoring Russia as a great power comes at the expense of an American-led order. He wants Russia unconstrained by Western values and institutions, free to pursue a sphere of influence.

The second motivating factor is closely connected to the first. The legitimacy of Mr. Putin’s system of repressive domestic control depends on the existence of external threats. Surfing on high oil prices, he used to be able to bolster his social contract with the Russian people through rising standards of living. That was clear in the boomtown Moscow I knew as the American ambassador a decade ago, full of the promise of a rising middle class and the consumption of an elite convinced that anything worth doing was worth overdoing. But Mr. Putin has lost that card in a world of lower energy prices and Western sanctions, and with a one-dimensional economy in which real reform is trumped by the imperative of political control and the corruption that lubricates it.

The ultimate realist, Mr. Putin understands Russia’s relative weakness, but regularly demonstrates that declining powers can be at least as disruptive as rising powers. He sees a target-rich environment all around him.

If he can’t easily build Russia up, he can take the United States down a few pegs, with his characteristic tactical agility and willingness to play rough and take risks. If he can’t have a deferential government in Kiev, he can grab Crimea and try to engineer the next best thing, a dysfunctional Ukraine. If he can’t abide the risk of regime upheaval in Syria, he can flex Russia’s military muscle, emasculate the West, and preserve Bashar al-Assad atop the rubble of Aleppo. If he can’t directly intimidate the European Union, he can accelerate its unraveling by supporting anti-Union nationalists and exploiting the wave of migration spawned in part by his own brutality. Wherever he can, he exposes the seeming hypocrisy and fecklessness of Western democracies, blurring the line between fact and fiction.

So what to do? Russia is still too big, proud and influential to ignore and still the only nuclear power comparable to the United States. It remains a major player on problems from the Arctic to Iran and North Korea. We need to focus on the critical before we test the desirable. The first step is to sustain, and if necessary amplify, the actions taken by the Obama administration in response to Russian hacking. Russia challenged the integrity of our democratic system, and Europe’s 2017 electoral landscape is the next battlefield.

A second step is to reassure our European allies of our absolute commitment to NATO. American politicians tell one another to “remember your base,” and that’s what should guide policy toward Russia. Our network of allies is not a millstone around America’s neck, but a powerful asset that sets us apart.

A third step is to stay sharply focused on Ukraine, a country whose fate will be critical to the future of Europe, and Russia, over the next generation. This is not about NATO or European Union membership, both distant aspirations. It is about helping Ukrainian leaders build the successful political system that Russia seeks to subvert.

Finally, we should be wary of superficially appealing notions like a common war on Islamic extremism or a common effort to “contain” China. Russia’s bloody role in Syria makes the terrorist threat far worse and despite long-term concerns about a rising China, Mr. Putin has little inclination to sacrifice a relationship with Beijing.

I’ve learned a few lessons during my diplomatic career, often the hard way. I learned to respect Russians and their history and vitality. I learned that it rarely pays to neglect or underestimate Russia, or display gratuitous disrespect. But I also learned that firmness and vigilance, and a healthy grasp of the limits of the possible, are the best way to deal with the combustible combination of grievance and insecurity that Vladimir Putin embodies. I’ve learned that we have a much better hand to play with Mr. Putin than he does with us. If we play it methodically, confident in our enduring strengths, and unapologetic about our values, we can eventually build a more stable relationship, without illusions.

THE DEEP STATES GOES TO WAR WITH TRUMP - GLENN GREENWALD.

....using unverifiable claims as the Democrats cheer.

iN JANUARY 1961, Dwight Eisenhower delivered his farewell address after serving two terms as U.S. president; the five-star general chose to warn Americans of this specific threat to democracy: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” That warning was issued prior to the decadelong escalation of the Vietnam War, three more decades of Cold War mania, and the post-9/11 era, all of which radically expanded that unelected faction’s power even further. 

This is the faction that is now engaged in open warfare against the duly elected and already widely disliked president-elect, Donald Trump. They are using classic Cold War dirty tactics and the defining ingredients of what has until recently been denounced as “Fake News.”

Their most valuable instrument is the U.S. media, much of which reflexively reveres, serves, believes, and sides with hidden intelligence officials. And Democrats, still reeling from their unexpected and traumatic election loss, as well as a systemic collapse of their party, seemingly divorced further and further from reason with each passing day, are willing — eager — to embrace any claim, cheer any tactic, align with any villain, regardless of how unsupported, tawdry, and damaging those behaviors might be.

The serious dangers posed by a Trump presidency are numerous and manifest. There is a wide array of legitimate and effective tactics for combating those threats: from bipartisan congressional coalitions and constitutional legal challenges to citizen uprisings and sustained and aggressive civil disobedience. All of those strategies have periodically proven themselves effective in times of political crisis or authoritarian overreach.

But cheering for the CIA and its shadowy allies to unilaterally subvert the U.S. election and impose its own policy dictates on the elected president is both warped and self-destructive. Empowering the very entities that have produced the most shameful atrocities and systemic deceit over the last six decades is desperation of the worst kind. Demanding that evidence-free, anonymous assertions be instantly venerated as Truth — despite emanating from the very precincts designed to propagandize and lie — is an assault on journalism, democracy, and basic human rationality. And casually branding domestic adversaries who refuse to go along as traitors and disloyal foreign operatives is morally bankrupt and certain to backfire on those doing it.

Beyond all that, there is no bigger favor that Trump opponents can do for him than attacking him with such lowly, shabby, obvious shams, recruiting large media outlets to lead the way. When it comes time to expose actual Trump corruption and criminality, who is going to believe the people and institutions who have demonstrated they are willing to endorse any assertions no matter how factually baseless, who deploy any journalistic tactic no matter how unreliable and removed from basic means of ensuring accuracy?

All of these toxic ingredients were on full display yesterday as the Deep State unleashed its tawdriest and most aggressive assault yet on Trump: vesting credibility in and then causing the public disclosure of a completely unvetted and unverified document, compiled by a paid, anonymous operative while he was working for both GOP and Democratic opponents of Trump, accusing Trump of a wide range of crimes, corrupt acts, and salacious private conduct. The reaction to all of this illustrates that while the Trump presidency poses grave dangers, so, too, do those who are increasingly unhinged in their flailing, slapdash, and destructive attempts to undermine it.

FOR MONTHS, THE CIA, with unprecedented clarity, overtly threw its weight behind Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and sought to defeat Donald Trump. In August, former acting CIA Director Michael Morell announced his endorsement of Clinton in the New York Times and claimed that “Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.” The CIA and NSA director under George W. Bush, Gen. Michael Hayden, also endorsed Clinton and went to the Washington Post to warn, in the week before the election, that “Donald Trump really does sound a lot like Vladimir Putin,” adding that Trump is “the useful fool, some naif, manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind support is happily accepted and exploited.”

It is not hard to understand why the CIA preferred Clinton over Trump. Clinton was critical of Obama for restraining the CIA’s proxy war in Syria and was eager to expand that war, while Trump denounced it. Clinton clearly wanted a harder line than Obama took against the CIA’s long-standing foes in Moscow, while Trump wanted improved relations and greater cooperation. In general, Clinton defended and intended to extend the decadeslong international military order on which the CIA and Pentagon’s preeminence depends, while Trump — through a still-uncertain mix of instability and extremist conviction — posed a threat to it.

Whatever one’s views are on those debates, it is the democratic framework — the presidential election, the confirmation process, congressional leaders, judicial proceedings, citizen activism and protest, civil disobedience — that should determine how they are resolved. All of those policy disputes were debated out in the open; the public heard them; and Trump won. Nobody should crave the rule of Deep State overlords.

Yet craving Deep State rule is exactly what prominent Democratic operatives and media figures are doing. Any doubt about that is now dispelled. Just last week, Chuck Schumer issued a warning to Trump, telling Rachel Maddow that Trump was being “really dumb” by challenging the unelected intelligence community because of all the ways they possess to destroy those who dare to stand up to them:

And last night, many Democrats openly embraced and celebrated what was, so plainly, an attempt by the Deep State to sabotage an elected official who had defied it: ironically, its own form of blackmail.

BACK IN OCTOBER, a political operative and former employee of the British intelligence agency MI6 was being paid by Democrats to dig up dirt on Trump (before that, he was paid by anti-Trump Republicans). He tried to convince countless media outlets to publish a long memo he had written filled with explosive accusations about Trump’s treason, business corruption, and sexual escapades, with the overarching theme that Trump was in servitude to Moscow because they were blackmailing and bribing him.

Despite how many had it, no media outlets published it. That was because these were anonymous claims unaccompanied by any evidence at all, and even in this more permissive new media environment, nobody was willing to be journalistically associated with it. As the New York Times’ Executive Editor Dean Baquet put it last night, he would not publish these “totally unsubstantiated” allegations because “we, like others, investigated the allegations and haven’t corroborated them, and we felt we’re not in the business of publishing things we can’t stand by.”

The closest this operative got to success was convincing Mother Jones’s David Corn to publish an October 31 article reporting that “a former senior intelligence officer for a Western country” claims that “he provided the [FBI] with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump.”

But because this was just an anonymous claim unaccompanied by any evidence or any specifics (which Corn withheld), it made very little impact. All of that changed yesterday. Why?

What changed was the intelligence community’s resolution to cause this all to become public and to be viewed as credible. In December, John McCain provided a copy of this report to the FBI and demanded they take it seriously.

At some point last week, the chiefs of the intelligence agencies decided to declare that this ex-British intelligence operative was “credible” enough that his allegations warranted briefing both Trump and Obama about them, thus stamping some sort of vague, indirect, and deniable official approval on these accusations. Someone — by all appearances, numerous officials — then went to CNN to tell the network they had done this, causing CNN to go on air and, in the gravest of tones, announce the “Breaking News” that “the nation’s top intelligence officials” briefed Obama and Trump that Russia had compiled information that “compromised President-elect Trump.”

CNN refused to specify what these allegations were on the ground that it could not “verify” them. But with this document in the hands of multiple media outlets, it was only a matter of time — a small amount of time — before someone would step up and publish the whole thing. BuzzFeed quickly obliged, airing all of the unvetted, anonymous claims about Trump.

Its editor-in-chief, Ben Smith, published a memo explaining that decision, saying that — although there was “serious reason to doubt the allegations” — BuzzFeed in general “errs on the side of publication” and “Americans can make up their own minds about the allegations.” Publishing this document predictably produced massive traffic (and thus profit) for the site, with millions of people viewing the article and presumably reading the “dossier.”

One can certainly object to BuzzFeed’s decision and, as the New York Times noted this morning, many journalists are doing so. It’s almost impossible to imagine a scenario where it’s justifiable for a news outlet to publish a totally anonymous, unverified, unvetted document filled with scurrilous and inflammatory allegations about which its own editor-in-chief says there “is serious reason to doubt the allegations,” on the ground that they want to leave it to the public to decide whether to believe it.

But even if one believes there is no such case where that is justified, yesterday’s circumstances presented the most compelling scenario possible for doing this. Once CNN strongly hinted at these allegations, it left it to the public imagination to conjure up the dirt Russia allegedly had to blackmail and control Trump. By publishing these accusations, BuzzFeed ended that speculation. More importantly, it allowed everyone to see how dubious this document is, one the CIA and CNN had elevated into some sort of grave national security threat.

ALMOST IMMEDIATELY AFTER it was published, the farcical nature of the “dossier” manifested. Not only was its author anonymous, but he was paid by Democrats (and, before that, by Trump’s GOP adversaries) to dig up dirt on Trump. Worse, he himself cited no evidence of any kind but instead relied on a string of other anonymous people in Russia he claims told him these things. Worse still, the document was filled with amateur errors.

While many of the claims are inherently unverified, some can be confirmed. One such claim — that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen secretly traveled to Prague in August to meet with Russian officials — was strongly denied by Cohen, who insisted he had never been to Prague in his life (Prague is the same place that foreign intelligence officials claimed, in 2001, was the site of a nonexistent meeting between Iraqi officials and 9/11 hijackers, which contributed to 70 percent of Americans believing, as late as the fall of 2003, that Saddam personally planned the 9/11 attack). This morning, the Wall Street Journal reported that “the FBI has found no evidence that [Cohen] traveled to the Czech Republic.”

None of this stopped Democratic operatives and prominent media figures from treating these totally unverified and unvetted allegations as grave revelations. From Vox’s Zack Beauchamp:

BuzzFeed’s Borzou Daragahi posted a long series of tweets discussing the profound consequences of these revelations, only occasionally remembering to insert the rather important journalistic caveat “if true” in his meditations:

Meanwhile, liberal commentator Rebecca Solnit declared this to be a “smoking gun” that proves Trump’s “treason,” while Daily Kos’s Markos Moulitsas sounded the same theme:

While some Democrats sounded notes of caution — party loyalist Josh Marshall commendably urged: “I would say in reviewing raw, extremely raw ‘intel,’ people shld retain their skepticism even if they rightly think Trump is the worst” — the overwhelming reaction was the same as all the other instances where the CIA and its allies released unverified claims about Trump and Russia: instant embrace of the evidence-free assertions as Truth, combined with proclamations that they demonstrated Trump’s status as a traitor (with anyone expressing skepticism designated a Kremlin agent or stooge). 

THERE IS A real danger here that this maneuver could harshly backfire, to the great benefit of Trump and to the great detriment of those who want to oppose him. If any of the significant claims in this “dossier” turn out to be provably false — such as Cohen’s trip to Prague — many people will conclude, with Trump’s encouragement, that large media outlets (CNN and BuzzFeed) and anti-Trump factions inside the government (CIA) are deploying “Fake News” to destroy him. In the eyes of many people, that will forever discredit — render impotent — future journalistic exposés that are based on actual, corroborated wrongdoing.

Beyond that, the threat posed by submitting ourselves to the CIA and empowering it to reign supreme outside of the democratic process is — as Eisenhower warned — an even more severe danger. The threat of being ruled by unaccountable and unelected entities is self-evident and grave. That’s especially true when the entity behind which so many are rallying is one with a long and deliberate history of lying, propaganda, war crimes, torture, and the worst atrocities imaginable.

All of the claims about Russia’s interference in U.S. elections and ties to Trump should be fully investigated by a credible body, and the evidence publicly disclosed to the fullest extent possible. As my colleague Sam Biddle argued last week after disclosure of the farcical intelligence community report on Russian hacking — one that even Putin’s foes mocked as a bad joke — the utter lack of evidence for these allegations means “we need an independent, resolute inquiry.” But until then, assertions that are unaccompanied by evidence and disseminated anonymously should be treated with the utmost skepticism — not lavished with convenience-driven gullibility.

Most important of all, the legitimate and effective tactics for opposing Trump are being utterly drowned by these irrational, desperate, ad hoc crusades that have no cogent strategy and make his opponents appear increasingly devoid of reason and gravity. Right now, Trump’s opponents are behaving as media critic Adam Johnson described: as ideological jellyfish, floating around aimlessly and lost, desperately latching on to whatever barge randomly passes by.

There are solutions to Trump. They involve reasoned strategizing and patient focus on issues people actually care about. Whatever those solutions are, venerating the intelligence community, begging for its intervention, and equating its dark and dirty assertions as Truth are most certainly not among them. Doing that cannot possibly achieve any good and is already doing much harm.


FYI: The original article is titled: "The Deep State Goes to War with President-Elect, Using Unverified Claims, as Democrats Cheer"; paraphrased to fit space.

CNN 'FAKE' NEWS NETWORK MONIKER, A KISS OF DEATH?

Icheoku says anyone who watched and followed the Cable News Network throughout the last American election knows that the Cable Network was heavily invested in a Hillary Clinton's presidency. From their election news coverage and reportage to their lack of interest in really reporting the Wikileaks leaked emails of Hillary Clinton and her campaign; to the type of people they invited on their network to give their paid ten cents opinions; everything was geared and tailored towards realizing only one objective - electing Hillary Clinton president. That much was obvious to even the uninvested casual observer or watcher of the network, who periodically tuned in and casually listened to the hogwash narrative which they pushed out. 

Icheoku says whether the Saudi oil billionaire Prince Alwaleed Ibn Talal who owns Time Warner the parent company of CNN used his influence to try and achieve the Saudi State objective in electing Hillary Clinton, there is no conclusive evidence known to Icheoku to so conclude. However, when the whole shebang of their election coverage leading up to the last November 8, 2016 presidential election is added up, it is a reasonable deduction to make that their skewed and one-sided heavily biased in favor of Hillary Clinton coverage was heavily motivated. The world saw what happened with the CNN during the last presidential election, from their coverage to commentaries to their refusal to wallpaper cover Julian Asange Wikileaks leaked Hillary Clinton's emails and the fact that one of their paid talking hack Dona Brasille leaked debate questions to Hillary Clinton and every other thing in between, CNN is guilty as hell in their objective to influence the election in favor of Hillary Clinton. Even on election night, they delayed calling the election even when it was obvious that their candidate has lost as they waited for Pennsylvania to somehow magically upturn the votes. 

Hillary Clinton did not hold a press conference for more than 235 days leading up to the election and walked away free. But in the eyes of CNN it was not a big deal as Hillary Clinton could do no wrong in their eyes and they never called her out on that nor forcefully demanded that she hold a press conference as is the normal etiquette of presidential candidates. Even some of the most damaging revelations of Wikileaks concerning Hillary Clinton did not germinate enough curiosity to want to follow up on the story to actually get to the root of the matter. It is obvious that CNN has been on the decline from their former Olympian heights during the days of Bernard Shaw and the first Iraqi Operation Freedom war when CNN was the holy grail of real breaking news. But a lot of waters have since passed under their bridge, including vapid political correctness, which literally appears that one has to be first an open homosexual to work for the network. That, Icheoku gets; but to skew their news in such a manner that the blatancy becomes completely repulsive is unacceptable. This is the reason why their ratings have tanked so much that even the rudderless MSNBC have surpassed them in ratings because so many people have since tuned out and many more are still changing channels. 

Icheoku has nothing against whatever direction the management of CNN want to take their network; but they should be man enough to own up and apologize when they are caught pants down with fake unsubstantiated news story, instead of mounting a rather  worthless defense thereof. They reported a fake news story about someone who is still alive and well; someone very well known to the network and who has appeared severally on the network's news programs  So if there was an unsubstantiated story concerning that person, why didn't a credible news network reach out to the person to confirm or at least hear his side of the story before going to town with it. From the gravity of the story, what if the wife of the accused person had broken his head upon hearing the story of how he traveled to Prague to cavort with prostitutes when he had told her earlier that he was going to Los Angeles? What if President Elect Donald John Trump has summarily and impulsively fired him before even investigating the alleged story that his lawyer traveled to Prague to engage with issues involving him, without first getting a clearance from him? What if the guy's international passport was lost and there was no other incontrovertible and credible means of verifying that he did not even travel outside the United States of America during the relevant time and period? 

But a network which wants its viewers to believe the stories they air disregarded every known rules of journalism by not first verifying the story or hearing from the other side and went on air with the story, that Michael Cohen was in Prague to negotiate issues involving Donald Trump with the Russians. Michael Cohen has never traveled to Czech nor to any of the territories formerly belonging to the old Soviet Union before and he produced his passport to show that there was no Czech immigration stamp on it. But the CNN are still holding their position and have refused to apologize, both to the wrongly defamed Michael Cohen and to President Elect Donald John Trump who was maligned by the story. Icheoku says it is not the way to go and CNN will not be the first news outlet to ever run a wrong story or retract a story and/or apologize for incorrect reportage. Icheoku says the correct thing to do and the only way CNN will repair its image is to issue an apology forthwith; and Icheoku hereby calls on CNN to tender unreserved apology to the two parties concerned, failing which they will cease to have any credibility left whatsoever. Viewers do not tune into CNN to hear "unsubstantiated" stories; nope, they tune in to hear the latest developing stories around the world including within the United States of America. CNN caused themselves a grievous harm by this caught-in-the-act fake story and it behooves on them to seek a revalidation of self and an apology is a good way to start. 

CELEBRITY APPRENTICE: HIRE OBAMA, TERMINATE THE TERMINATOR.

Icheoku says without a doubt, Arnold Schwarzenegger is definitely not Donald Trump and his "You're terminated" does not carry the same weight nor resonates as Donald's "You're fired" and the people have since tuned off even before it started. It would appear that his "You're Terminated" catch-phrase is not catchy enough and the solution would be to terminate the terminator. The best thing to do before the show becomes unwatchable and goes down the ratings drain is to honorably suspend or even cancel the show; or better still hire someone who could bring back viewers to the show. Icheoku says no other person will be most suited to host the show and be far would be the hottest host of the show than the soon to be former President Barack Obama or even Michelle Obama. 

Icheoku says President Barack Obama should have a go at the Celebrity Apprentice. With his freshness from the White House, many of his supporters will certainly tune in to have something to occupy their minds and keep them away from groaning because of the new occupant of the White House. That way, they can still tune in to television to watch their idol, Barack Obama. But Arnold Schwarzenegger is definitely not the it factor as he is not what the doctor ordered. A show which attracted over 11 million viewers when it debut with Donald Trump but has now plummeted to below 5 million viewers with Arnold Schwarzenegger shows a total rejection of the current host Mr Calu-foo-rnyna. Donald Trump is simply irreplaceable because there can only be one Donald Trump, the 'You're fired guy and now President-elect of the United States of America. If however the producers want to try, it is definitely not with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Donald Trump can be imitated but never duplicated; and if the producers of the show wants a ratings roof, they should hire the soon to be former President Barack Obama as only him currently have what it will take to revamp the show and take its ratings to the stratosphere. 

Icheoku says Arnold Schwarzenegger lost his appeal mojo after knocking up his house girl, leading up to his divorce from his wife Maria-Shriver Kennedy. The people have not forgiven him nor are they ready to warm up to him by tuning into whatever he has going on, either on television or elsewhere. Women who constitutes the majority of television show watching audience have not forgiven Arnold Schwarzenegger for what he did to one of their own favorite person; and until then, ratings of his hosted Celebrity Apprentice will remain where it is, in the cold doldrums and soon will descend further into the abyss. The only solution is to hire a freshman television face like Barack Obama and hope his fans will tune in to continue to see his face somewhere on television. Every other thing will not work and the producers of the show might as well as kill it rather than have the face of Arnold Schwarzenegger appear thereon, with his alien accent, which is now a turn-off to many Americans; especially in this new age of national pride and America First ideology. Icheoku says it is either to do away with Arnold Schwarzenegger or kill off The Celebrity Apprentice entirely. Nothing else will work or operate to save the show.

MERLY STREEP: ANOTHER HOLLYWOOD ELITE GONE OFF THE WAGON.

Icheoku says that the Hollywood elites who bankrolled Hillary Clinton's failed second bid for the White House have not recovered from the shellacking she received on November 8, 2016 once again manifested at the just held Golden Globe Awards 2016. This time the arrowhead was none other that the Devil who wears Prada herself, Mary Louise Streep aka Merly Streep. Still sore and mourning the botched feminist hostile takeover of the White House, the old lady went off on a tirade. She completely lost it and throwing every decorum and decency out the window, pilloried Donald Trump and denigrated millions of world wide Mixed Martial Arts enthusiasts. 

In the usual Hollywood 'am better than anyone else' character, Merly Streep, condemned Mixed Martial Arts as a no Art; holding up only those of them who actually do nothing other than lip through scripts and put up a make-brief facade on screens, as the only purveyors and professionals of the Art. In her very own words, Merly Streep said “Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners, if we kick them all out, you’ll have nothing to watch but football and Mixed Martial Arts – which are not the arts.” Icheoku says really and who made Merly Streep the sole authority on what constitutes Art and what does not. A tirade she began with taking a jab at President-Elect Donald John Trump, re-litigating an election which was since November 8, 2016 won by Trump and lost by her candidate Hillary Clinton; and rehashing a story of a supposed mocking of a disabled journalist which story has been since debunked. But she played it along and in her natural course of professional endeavor, injected acting into the story telling, inflecting her voices to reflect whatever pretentious pain she felt about it. 

This was a story that was severally and repeatedly presented to the American people during the campaign, which they evaluated and came to the conclusion that the country have to move on. Yet Merly Streep had nothing better to say in thanks and appreciation for the award she received but devoted her time slot disparaging President-Elect Donald John Trump and millions of Mixed Martial Arts loving world-wide audience. That she called into question the judgment and moral uprightness of the over 65 million Americans who voted for President-Elect Donald John Trump by regurgitating this tale of lack of compassion by the president-elect several months after the election tells a lot about her character. That she dismissed a sport engaged in by thousands of people worldwide and   millions of their fans and followers as no Art, says a lot too about her very condescending attitude. Why make so many millions of people mad and in so cavalier a manner that is beyond words or description. Is Merly Streep telling the world that she has is better than everyone else who voted for Trump or who is a lover or Mixed Martial Arts; or that she has never erred or ever did something below par and in other words, that she is infallible? 

This is exactly what is wrong with some of these elites who condescendingly look down on the rest of the people and think that they are very special simply because they can read and act scripted make-believe stories. Icheoku concedes that Merely Streep is a good actress and confesses too to having watched some of her movies including 'The Devil Wears Prada'; but does her acting ability make her wholesome in every aspect and facet of human life. If only Icheoku knows where to find her gardeners, cleaners, janitors, chauffeurs and other sundry staff of hers to find out from them how saintly in fact she is when they are left alone in the privacy of her fiefdom and utterly to her mercy. But no one actually needs to speak with any of her servants and attendants to know how mean spirited she really is after watching her broad condemnation of Mixed Martial Arts as no Art at all. Icheoku says what an uppity lady of entitlement, who would broad-brush Football and MMA as no arts. How dare she disparage millions of world citizens who participate in this two sports; yet this is the woman who some people listen to as an authority in morality. 

Icheoku is not beguiled by the emotive sentiment Merely Streep tried to whip up with the theater she put up. Every right thinking person knows the real source of the hurt inside her, that her candidate and the prospective first female president did not make it to the White House and peradventure with her advanced age, she might not ever witness the day when an electable female will eventually make it to the White House. Hurting for a lost cause or a departed dear one is an acceptable form of grieving; but Icheoku refuses to accept the subterfuge of holding advocacy for the disabled and illegals which she passed it off as reason for her unprovoked tirade. Nope, all the theatrics she put up on the podium will not be enough to hoodwink the vigilant as it is in their character to feel and see themselves as being all that matters and most important. These people did not have their way with winning the presidency, hence there will be no peace in America because against all odds, a candidate who no one gave the slightest chance of winning won and now the heavens have to be brought down on top of everyone's head. 

Icheoku says please let somebody tell Merly Streep that Americans and the world saw through her charade and that she did not sway any opinion nor got any sympathy from anyone other than the limited coolaid drinkers who were rejected alongside their Hillary Clinton on November 8, 2016. Icheoku did not buy into her rehearsed rendition and neither did millions of thinking Americans as well as the world audience who actually know the underlying reason which prompted her outburst. She was not truthful and she over-dramatized it and as a result lost more respect in the process. She is bitter; she is angry and she is heavily weighted down by the outcome of an election which did not go her way as she and her fellow Hollywood heavies had planned and arrogantly believed. Now what else could be more fiery than a psychologically traumatized old lady, grieving a lost opportunity which will never come again during her lifetime. What an aging old woman who just invited the disrespect of 33 million irredeemable deplorables and 30 million other Trump voters, whose judgment she called into question. She also will have to contend with the wrath and rage of millions of others who consider football and Mixed Martial Arts a germane Art. 

SIX QUESTIONS ABOUT THE RUSSIAN HACKING REPORT - BYRON YORK

Julia Ioffe, a writer for The Atlantic who watches Russia carefully, tweeted this about the intelligence community's unclassified report on Russian hacking released Friday: "It's hard to tell if the thinness of the #hacking report is because the proof is classified, or because the proof doesn't exist."* 

"Thin" is right. The report is brief — the heart of it is just five broadly-spaced pages. It is all conclusions and no evidence. In the introduction, the IC — the collective voice of the CIA, the FBI, and the NSA — explains that it cannot supply evidence to the public, because doing so "would reveal sensitive sources or methods and imperil the ability to collect critical foreign intelligence in the future." 

The problem is, without evidence, it's hard for the public to determine just what happened in the hacking affair. So here are six questions the IC might consider answering in the days ahead:

1) When did the Russian hacking campaign begin? The report says Vladimir Putin "ordered an influence campaign in 2016." It also says Russia's intelligence services gained access to the Democratic National Committee's computer system in July 2015 as part of an effort targeting both Democrats and Republicans, as well as individual campaigns, think tanks, and lobbyists. The IC also notes that some of Russia's "professional trolls…started to advocate for President-elect Trump as early as December 2015." This could be a simple writing problem, or it could be something more significant. Is the report saying Putin ordered the 2016 campaign in 2015? Is it saying Russian activities in 2015 were routine operations to mess with U.S. institutions and then became part of the Putin-ordered campaign in 2016? Is it saying something else? 

2) Was the Russian campaign intended more to help candidate Donald Trump or to undermine President Hillary Clinton? The report says Putin ordered the 2016 campaign "to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency." The report goes on to say that at some point Putin "developed a clear preference" for Trump. But it also says that, "Moscow's approach evolved over the course of the campaign based on Russia's understanding of the electoral prospects of the two main candidates. When it appeared to Moscow that Secretary Clinton was likely to win the election, the Russian influence campaign then focused on undermining her expected presidency." That suggests some sort of shift in the Russian campaign. But when? What does it mean when the report says, "When it appeared to Moscow that Secretary Clinton was likely to win…"? Because if the Russians were following U.S. coverage and commentary, it always appeared that Clinton was likely to win — from the primaries through the Democratic convention through the general election. In other words, during the entire campaign, the consensus of the American commentariat was that Clinton was likely to win. Did the Russians disagree, or did they have a degree of insight into the polls, or simple clairvoyance, that Nate Silver didn't? Or was the Russian campaign overwhelmingly devoted to "undermining [Clinton's] expected presidency"?

3) How much of the Russian campaign was garden-variety propaganda? The IC report says, "Russia's state-run propaganda machine — comprised of its domestic media apparatus, outlets targeting global audiences such as RT and Sputnik, and a network of quasi-government trolls — contributed to the influence campaign by serving as a platform for Kremlin messaging to Russian and international audiences." Indeed, the report devotes more space to analyzing RT, the Russian TV network, than it does to hacking. It's hard to know how much of the alleged Russian influence the IC attributes to hacking and how much to propaganda.

4) How and when did Russia transmit the hacked information to WikiLeaks? "We assess with high confidence that the GRU used the Guccifer 2.0 persona, DCLeaks.com, and WikiLeaks to release US victim data obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets," the IC report says. "We assess with high confidence that the GRU relayed material it acquired from the DNC and senior Democratic officials to WikiLeaks." But when did that happen? Was it during the period when Putin supposedly thought the U.S. presidential race was anyone's game? Or during the time he thought Clinton was likely to win? And if it was the latter, did Russia transmit the information to WikiLeaks as part of an effort to undermine Clinton's "expected presidency"?

5) Just what did the Russians do to target Republicans? The IC report has one sentence devoted to Russian cyber efforts against the GOP: "Russia collected on some Republican-affiliated targets but did not conduct a comparable disclosure campaign." There have been reports that the Russians attempted to hack the Republican National Committee, but that those efforts were unsuccessful. The word "collected" in the IC report suggests some effort against GOP-related targets might have been successful, but what happened is not clear. And the report does not elaborate on the IC assessment that there was a big disparity between efforts targeting Democrats and Republicans.

6) Why can't the IC release more? Intelligence officials have already leaked classified parts of the report. For example, the Washington Post recently reported that U.S. intelligence agencies "intercepted communications in the aftermath of the election in which Russian officials congratulated themselves on the outcome." The Post also reported the intercepted messages "revealed that top officials in Russia anticipated that Clinton would win." There will likely be many more leaks to come. Why not at least release the information that has already been leaked? 

To the degree that there are partisan differences in assessing the Russia hacking affair, it's important that Republicans with access to the classified IC report leak as much as Democrats. A confused public will be trying to get a picture of what the full report says. Better to get both views of what's in there.

MEGAN KELLY'S MOVE TO NBC, WILL FLOP NOT FLOURISH.

Icheoku says the one thing with some people, especially people in the limelight, is that sometimes they forget who made them; and being so full of it, begin to think that they are the reason for the season. Megan Kelly is now thinking in this way and sooner than later she will find out the hard way that she is not the big gun she thinks she is. Rather she is just a product of FoxNews watchers who adopted her as a female face of the Cable Network and accepted her as one of their own. Megan Kelly is not the it factor, admitted she somewhat contributed to it and was catapulted to the premier position because of her face off with then presidential nominee aspirant Donald Trump; when many people tuned in, including Icheoku, to see who exactly is this woman who is feuding with Donald Trump. 

FoxNews gave her the platform and FoxNews is the reason why Megan Kelly morphed into what she possibly is now. The unfortunate thing is that FoxNews viewers will not follow Megan Kelly to NBC and neither will the viewing audience of NBC triple because another blonde bimbo's face has suddenly appeared on the screen. Nope, it will not; as viewers are particularly attracted to a network because of the type of broadcast it carries and the viewpoint it expresses and not necessarily because of the face on television spouting what is on the teleprompter. 

Icheoku never heard of Megan Kelly until that debate of blood flowing from everywhere comment and the subsequent brouhaha that followed in its wake; and has periodically since then tuned in to see what beef she was having and who she was going up against, including her brief spat with Newt Gingrich. She is okay reading her teleprompter and she gets girlie sometimes with her facial expressions and funny girlie jokes; but short of that there is no originality about her which glues viewer to her that will make them want to follow her about to see what next she will say or do. She does not have the gravitas of someone like Rush Limbaugh whose followers and listeners will follow to the deepest sinkhole were he to migrate his broadcast there. Also she does not have the presence of someone like Bill O'Reilly whose audience would tag along assuming he decides to leave FoxNews to somewhere else. 

Megan Kelly is more or less ordinary, a feminine face on television and will not draw any FoxNews viewer over to NBC just because she went over there. She will probably bomb out like Greta Van Susteren whom nobody really knew her whereabout or whatever it was that she did afterwards following her departure from CNN a while ago. That she had a stint at FoxNews and is now rumored to be at MSNBC, notwithstanding, she lost her CNN audience and has never recovered nor grew another audience ever since that her plastic surgery. Whatever happens, FoxNews will survive and thrive and provided they retain their hard charging format and allow presenters to be themselves without much of minders, viewers will always tune in and whoever replaces Megan Kelly will still attract the audience which usually tunes in for her time slot. There is also rumor whirling around that she was fired for her drug addiction and that FoxNews was not going to renew her contract. But who would after her allegation of sexual harassment on the former executive of the Network, Roger Ailes. 

But whatever the true story, fans of the network will remain loyal to the Network and will tune in as always to watch whoever is filling the slot. Icheoku for instance stopped watching MSNBC when crazy Keith Olbermann left the station for Al Gore's Channel Television which later morphed into Al-Jazera which has also now gone defunct. Many FoxNews viewers will not follow Megan Kelly to NBC as she does not have the magnetic star-power to pull them over to her new gig at NBC. FoxNews viewers are loyal to FoxNews and the kind of broadcast it carries as well as viewpoint. NBC is not a like-item station and will have no boost whatsoever with the poaching of Megan Kelly over to their station. Possibly the networks took a gamble by offering Megan Kelly more than FoxNews or CNN was ready to pay her and being who she is she took the bait. Hopefully she will not later down the road claim another sexual harassment or forced attempt to kiss her by the NBC Network boss. Anyway, Icheoku wishes her all the best in her latest endeavor and says only time will tell whether NBC's gamble was worth it afterall. 

ESTEBAN SANTIAGO: FORT LAUDERDALE AIRPORT SHOOTER, WHY IS HE NOT DEAD?

Icheoku says is simply surrendering enough reason for the Fort Lauderdale gunman to live after shooting up a baggage collection carousel area, killing five and wounding eight people? Did he live because he does not fit the right template and narrative of a possible terror suspect? Were he Arab or even black, would the policeman who first accosted or encountered him, have let him live or allowed him to be taken alive? What exactly founded the decision not to summarily waste him as should every terrorist and save the people the cost of putting him through a lengthy and lingering justice system. He did it; he was captured in the act, done; why spare him, one would ask? 

Short of debriefing him and possibly unearth the extent of his possible ties to ISIS or any other terrorist group, there was no other real reason for actually sparing his sorry life. Why he surrendered and did not lodge one bullet inside his own brain is also beyond understanding or may be the coward he is was on the way and he could not find the courage to taste his own bitter pill which he unwittingly and freely dished out to others. Regardless, the question becomes how does anyone protect and guard against people like this Esteban Santiago, assuming he is a disciple or rather soldier of ISIS and acted out their script. Here is a man trained with the United States tax payer's money as a soldier. He does not fit the normal profile of a would be terrorist as he is not Arab; and he is neither the usual suspect, a black; but a Hispanic of Puerto Rico descent. He could have ordinarily in the course of his work as a member of the Alaskan National Guard have been dispatched with full military gear, weapons and ammo to patrol a facility or even an airport and then turn around and unleash a scaled-up terror from the carnage he committed at Fort Lauderdale airport in Florida. 

It is simply a very daunting task for security agents to juggle all these possible scenarios, including worrying about such people as this Esteban Santiago, an enemy within the house with nothing about him to tip off agents or increase suspicion about him. A matter which becomes more complicated because there is no one cap fits all indicator or way of identifying these enemies within our midst. It is quite unfortunate that innocent travelers were so summarily dispatched to the world beyond and it is not an airplane accident, but people who were simply waiting to collect up their luggage following a safe landing from a long Alaskan flight to Florida. That the gunman waited or rather flew all the way across country from Alaska to Florida to commit his heinous crime is also another issue worth investigating; afterall if he could do it in Fort Lauderdale, why not in Fairbanks or Juneau?   Why travel all the way to Fort Lauderdale to do what he could have also done at Alaska or did he think committing the crime in Florida would give him more publicity. Anyway, Icheoku hopes that his being captured alive would get to the root of the matter, otherwise killing him upon sight inside the airport would have been the most appropriate and efficient response as such people do not belong in a civilized society. Indeed very pitiful and painful. May the souls of the deceased rest in peace while speedy recovery to the wounded.

CHICAGO FOUR TORTURING THUGS, THROW THE BOOKS AT THEM.

Icheoku says nothing explains what they did as there is nothing there to try to explain other than that these four animals are wild beasts who do not belong in any civilized society. Short of walking on their fours, they are not better than those wild beasts of Serengeti National Wildlife because what they did to their fellow human being is simply put, despicable and inexplicable. Possibly too, these four animals did not even vote themselves and assuming they did, is America not a free democracy where people freely vote for who they prefer? 

So what if their victim voted for Donald Trump, did they not vote for Hillary Clinton and is anyone holding them hostage for voting for Hillary Clinton; or are they badder and meaner that the nearly 64 million Trump voters, half of which are those of us irredeemable deplorables. Icheoku watched the Facebook Live video and was particularly peeved as the young girl was smoking her weed and making her commentaries, so stupefied to understand the magnitude of her live broadcast and the gravity of the criminal conduct in which she was engaged in and laughingly broadcasting. Icheoku does not know whether she thought it was joke or something funny as she held her smart phone and was puffing her weed smoke, while her compatriots in crime were cutting off hair and scalp from the frightened victim; smacking him and threatening to do him bodily harm.  If anything ever qualifies as dumb criminals, this four thugs definitely are; televising their crime as they committed it. It is indeed pitiful that as young as they are they committed a heinous crime and will be starting their long sojourn in the prison system, so youthful. it reminded anyone who saw the Live Feed what the Deep South used to be back in the fifties with lynchings of black people; but not anymore and no reverse Jim Crow activities will be tolerated, not in this 2017.

Icheoku calls on the Illinois Justice System in Chicago to throw the full weight of the law at these domestic terrorists and send them away for a very very long time. Luckily their victim did not die and there is no death penalty for their offense, otherwise, the lethal injection might have been the most appropriate way to permanently remove these urchins from the society wherein they definitely do not belong. Icheoku says Jordan Hill 18 years old, Tesfaye Cooper 18 years old, Brittany Covington 18 yeas old and Tanisha Covington 24 years old, are all nothing short of four animals walking upright and wearing human faces. Imagine what they did to the victim - they tied him up for upwards of five hours, gagged him and beat him up. They also cut his scalp and forced him to drink toilet water. Definitely they crossed the lines of civilized behavior and deserves to be sent a strong message that such inhuman treatment of another does not belong in a civilized society. It reminds Icheoku of what Amadou Diallo similarly once went through in the hands of New York police detectives. Quite shameful indeed the deterioration of relationship between races in America as these four are but a manifestation of a society whose racial differences is gradually widening . Pitiful indeed.

PRINCE HARRY DATING A BLACK GIRL, WHAT SAYS THE PALACE?

Icheoku says it is no longer a secret or something spoken in hush hush tone that the free-spirited Prince of Wales, Harry, is dating Meghan Markle, a black model from Hollywood California USA. So the question that now remains is how far does he intend their relationship to go? As a prince of Britain and assuming he wants to go all the way, would the ever judgmental British media as well as the stoic Queen Elizabeth who is steeped in tradition ever permit it. Would they permit their prince and a grandson crossing the color lines to marry a black girl who would become a princess and possibly give birth to colored prince or princess? 

That Prince Harry is more of his mother Princess Di in having a streak that is unconventional and outside the expected norms of a British Royalty is obvious; but is he taking it too far by reaching outside the racial divide and color barriers to fall in love. Icheoku and so many other realistic critical thinkers are not as delusional in thinking that it is now Uhuru with regards to race relations in the world. Racism is still active, alive and well and impacts everything in the society including who we date and eventually marry. Being a royalty, the expectation gets even higher; and stories abound that Princess Di was murdered for trying to marry outside the stork to an Egyptian Dodi Fayed and the palace would not have any of that, that the mother of the future King of England would be married to an Arab African and possibly bear colored step children to their future King. Although no conclusive evidence of this has been established but strong suspicion abound that it was the sole reason she had to go, eliminated in a staged accident in a Paris tunnel. 

It is a fact that in things of the heart that the brain and reasoning sometimes go into sleep mode and no longer functioning; and such might be probably the case with Prince Harry's latest adventure into a crossover relationship. But how far he can have his way in this his latest adventure remains to be seen. Yes, it is true that Prince Harry likes mixing things up and is always the one breaking every known royal norms, but an interracial marriage or the ever possibility of introducing a biracial prince or princess within the monarchy will simply not be tolerated nor allowed by the palace; and even if they try, the British people will not condone it. The British media will so pillory them that they would become  pigeonholed into a more confining space than his mother Princess Di found herself before she was eventually killed. It is a hate or love relationship and the Brits will never love a colored woman princess within their monarchy. Put in another more blunt way, Prince Harry will never be allowed to marry a black girl as the British monarchy would neither  accept nor welcome or embrace a black princess into their fold. 

Even commoner Kate Middleton was resisted for not being a true blood, but being white made it easier for her to be eventually accepted. then imagine the vehement resistance a black colored person will face trying to breach the gates of the British monarchy. In other words, a black or other colored person will not be tolerated in the palace, not by the palace and not by the British people and their media. Although as one commentator said, it is about time for the ancient royal establishment to dust itself off and keep in step with its modern public; but as a society, we are not there just yet. Racism is alive and well and such interracial marriage or breeding will not be allowed by or in the British monarchy. The British monarchy will not and is not ready nor prepared to welcome a woman of color in their midst nor would they agree to have a colored prince or princess. One writer captured the racial ambivalence thus, "Until now. Never before has a royal dated a Black person in the public eye. Though Suits actress Meghan Markle may look ethnically ambiguous, she is proudly biracial, the daughter of a Black mother and white father. In an essay for Elle U.K. last year, she wrote about struggling with her identity growing up in Los Angeles' mostly white San Fernando Valley and how it feels when she sees unknowing Suits fans tweet their disappointment when they discover that she's actually Black." Icheoku says if she thinks she had it rough in San Fernando, she should wait until the British press descends on her to chase her out of their British monarchy or its inkling. 

Another writer espoused the racial chasm which will be utterly difficult for Meghan Markle to bridge thus: "The queen, her family, and her circle are completely, 100% white. It's a fact that is as true and old as time. And while they've welcomed the Obamas and dignitaries of many backgrounds into their home, the family itself pulses with pure, lily white British blood. The unspoken truth for me has always been that while I can love the royals from afar, someone who looks like me cannot be one of them — or even get close to them." Icheoku says the truth about the Harry meet Meghan experiment could not have been spoken any better; yes they may be in love, but yes, their love can only take them so far; but definitely not to make her a princess or to have her bring forth colored princes or princesses in the British monarchy. 

Icheoku say it is simply too optimistic for one writer to say, "Yes, not only do I believe that it is conceivable that Harry will marry a black girl but I shall also extend it to every other ethnicity under the sun. This is the 21st century after all and we all need to get a grip on reality, of course the British monarchy would accept it. Naturally, Harry is a well-travelled, modern young man and when that special lady, or even man, catches his eye, it won’t matter what ethnicity they are, as it shouldn’t matter for anyone else." Icheoku says please give me a break that Princess Diana was not killed simply because she was straying into a forbidden territory from the permissible relationship a mother of the future king of England could involve herself in. Hopefully Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are just having youthful fun, aware of their permissible limitation. The world of British monarchy is not just there, not yet and until then, let their fun be just fun and remain fun.