PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN SHOULD BE SMART ABOUT IT AND AVOID THE LOOMING WAR.

ICHEOKU says it is possible that the world is giving President Vladimir Putin too much credit for what he is really worth. Is it possible that the larger than life story weaved around him is somewhat misplaced, and overly exaggerated, that it could pass for a flattery gone too far. His admirers believe that he is smart, clever, a tactician and a survivor; and that he usually plays for the long haul. 

If all these attributes are true, why then is he  trying to crash and burn everything. Is President Vladimir Putin not aware that a full blown war in his neighborhood will not end well for him and his lording it over Russia. Why is he fixated on  recovering Ukraine, aware that any move made in that direction will be an open invitation for Western war profiteers to descend on the region, as vultures do on rotten carcasses. Why does he want to provide the West, particularly America, an opportunity to open up a new theater of war so very close to him. 

A war without timetable, which is capable of outlasting the Afghanistan war, and which will most likely, ultimately result in his own end. He is aware that any such war can only beget one assured outcome, a victory for the West; and with it, will come a very stiff price for him of loss of power, imprisonment as a convicted war criminal or even his summarily execution, which would be fed to the world as "he committed suicide" to avoid capture. They could also put him through a charade of a trial, like they did to Saddam Hussein, just for the heck of it appearing as if they gave him his human rights due process.

Where is Russian FIS and how good and efficient is their foreign intelligence gathering capabilities, for them not to appreciate that America's military industrial complex is frantically looking to open a new theater of conflict. The American military is not currently engaged in any major war and this has so impacted the bottomline of the MIC that they are prepared to exploit any loophole provided to them by Russia in Ukraine. They have to make a living from double dealing the American taxpayers by profiteering from weapons and ammunition sales, as well as milking other aspects of war.

Why would a thinking and strategy-savvy President Vladimir Putin want to fall into this trap and attract these merchants of war and harbingers of death, destruction and misery to his neck of the woods. Is he not aware that once he gives them a reason to move into Ukraine, that they will be there for a very long time, either as war advisers or under the ruse of training and helping Ukraine rebuild its military. Which reasonable person fetches ants infested firewoods, aware that lizards will come to feast on the ants. President Vladimir Putin must therefore think very fast about the repercussions of such an open season invitation and put a hard break on his misguided and irrational plan. He must do it now before the West mounts a false flag operation to manufacture a reason to invite themselves in. 

President Vladimir Putin does not look like a man on a suicide mission; and exudes the aura of a man who is still enjoying his power hold over Russians. He should not throw everything away just because his ego is at stake. He needs to beat it right away before he crosses a line of danger from where a retreat will not be possible. Also the toll on human lives from such a war, particularly on his soldiers, will be too catastrophic, that expending such many lives and in a war which he will not be allowed to win, will be foolhardy and stupid. Let's hope that his common sense and risk assessment quotient will eventually prevail and make him pull his troops back and away from a confrontation with the West. Enough of the brinkmanship.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN'S OWN BROWNIE MOMENT: KAMALA HARRIS IS DOING A GOOD JOB.

In his press conference on Thursday, the president praised his Vice President Kamala Harris and said that she is doing a good job. ICHEOKU says based on what, when all the indices say otherwise. It reminds ICHEOKU of former President George W. Bush and what he said to the then FEMA director Michael Brown during the Hurricane Katrina apocalypse, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job". When President Bush made that statement, ICHEOKU thought that the former president was just being sarcastic, only to be later proved otherwise and you ask yourself, to what extent would presidents go to defend their minions, even if it meant to speak untruths in their defense. 

That President Joe Biden should similarly reflect so glowingly on his Vice President despite her gross ineptitude and lackluster performance in her one year in office, shows an unearned, unmerited and undeserved cheerleading of a boss for his lieutenant. This is a vice president who has not delivered on her assigned task to put a leash on illegal immigration running amok in the Southern border. This is a Vice President who has not delivered on another assigned task to midwife voting rights legislation to fruition. This is a Vice President who has refused to visit the Southern border, the epicenter of the immigration lost its mind in America, for a first hand assessment of the dire situation. 

Continuing, this is a Vice President who has not delivered on the Build Back Better infrastructure legislation task assigned to her by the president to nurse through the Congress. This is a Vice President who bungled her first foreign trip to Latin America countries and who failed woefully to articulate the position of her administration on illegal immigration and deliver same succinctly to her host governments during her visit. This is a Vice President who has not helped the president become a better president nor helped burnish his image, such that the president's favorability rating with American people now hovers in the low 30s percentile. This is a Vice President who cannot even manage her East Wing office, such that her office is bleeding staff too rapidly as none other before her. 

The number of her staff who have resigned just within their administration's one year in office is almost competing with the number of staff whose fate were severally sealed with the former President Donald John Trump's famed "You're fired" sporadic tweets. This is the Vice President who the president said is doing a good job. Unless good and bad have switched places in their meaning or have integrated into one and like the gender dystopia, no longer distinguishes nor discriminates amongst each other, what American people have witnessed of the Vice President's performance this past one year in office does not look like a good job. If what she is doing is a good job, what then qualifies as a bad job? 

What then qualifies for doing a bad job and what does doing a bad job really looks like, if the inability to successfully deliver on every given assignment and/or the failure to accomplish a given task now meets President Joe Biden's assessment of doing a good job. Although the president has enjoyed the benefit of low expectation right through his campaign and continuing to this date, but his description of the job which Vice President Kamala Harris is doing or rather not doing, as a good job, is a new low. It definitely sank the  expectations from the president into a bottomless abyss from which the president cannot go any lower. What a benchmark to set! 

Little wonder the vice president has the inglorious habit of laughing every serious thing off, aware that her boss is either afraid to criticize or confront her on her performance, or has since gone off the deep end mentally, such that he does not even know what is going on and/or enough to appreciate that his Vice President is just biding her time and not doing jack to help his administration. The fact that the president continues to add more duties to the plate of assignments of the Vice President is equally evident of a president who is no longer fully cognitive, otherwise why assign more responsibilities to a proven incompetent vice president who is yet to deliver on those assignments earlier given to her. 

It is only President Joe Biden, who in his infinite wisdom, thinks that such continuous delegations of his duties to a subordinate, who has not delivered on her previously assigned tasks nor shown the propensity and capacity to deliver them, is a smart idea. It is no longer a case of wondering who, between the president and the Vice President, is in charge in the White House. The speed at which things are unraveling indicates that none of them is in fact, actually in charge of the affairs as the president delegates so many things he should be doing himself to a Vice President who lacks the capacity to deliver them.

Many presidential candidates normally choose running mates who will be an asset to them and who could help them wage a successful campaign and thereafter, in running the government. How great an asset the then candidate Joe Biden thought that his now Vice President Kamala Harris would be, has been forced into the debate arena due to prevailing circumstance of her shown gross incompetence. The tumbling poll numbers of the president is a clear indicator that the Vice President is more of a weighted drag on the president rather than the expected helium-filled balloon that would usually lift the president up at times like this. 

Their 2020 political marriage of convenience by her selection as his running mate is unfortunately proving to be a case of two invalids who cannot help each other. If the president had the capacity and ability to perform many of these assignments which he delegates to the Vice President, he would not have handed them over to the Vice President. As it has turned out, the Vice President, who is supposed to be the president's knight in shinning armor come to the rescue, has herself become a definition and poster-girl of incompetence. An unpopular president often gets some reprieve from the popularity of the Vice President, but with Kamala Harris, it appears that the supposed medicine is even worse than the disease as her own poll numbers are approaching single digit.    

It is increasingly giving credence to that school of thought which has it that she has always used what she has to get what she wants; and that she literally laughed her way through life and up to where she is today. Their administration's case is a sad analogy to the tale of the two knives in the kitchen of a poor widow: one of the knives is sharp but has no handle and the other knife which has a handle is blunt and not sharp. If their union was at least a case of a blind person and a lame person navigating a rugged terrain, there will be some chance at their safely making it through as the blind will carry the lame and the lame will direct and guide them safely through. 

But the case of two blind persons or two lame persons embarked on the same treacherous journey, which America is currently saddled with, will be quite challenging a task to pull off, if not utterly impossible. How the administration eventually finishes its term in office remains a very fluid assessment; but if the last one year of the administration is any barometer, then the history of presidential administrations in America will not be kind to them. Not in any department have they performed brilliantly well enough and all their signature promised items have become mired in a failure to launch.

Madam Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a tweet yesterday reminded American people that when  President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris came into office one year ago, that our nation faced a dark and difficult moment from pandemic and economic crisis. But Madam Speaker did not tell the nation whether the "dark and difficult" moment had changed into "light and easy" moment, following their being sworn into office one year ago. Instead, the nation is now mired in a darker and more arduous existence, with a pandemic that is killing over one thousand American people daily and economic malaise that have seen many small businesses gone out of business or still closed; and millions of people still without jobs. 

The fog of despondency brought about by the Biden/Harris administration came in the shape of acute inflation which has sent cost of living expenses through the roof, simply becoming unaffordable in many cases, such that many Americans are now rationing meals and foregoing so many other aspects of living. Is this sudden drastic sea-change in living conditions, what Madam Speaker wants to compare with the situation in America, preceding January 20, 2021? Millions of American people, if they could, would gladly opt for what was, and would speedily go back to the life which they had before January 20, 2021.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see how the administration eventually saunters through the remainder of their term. The next three years will surely be exciting, in the negative sense that is; unless some sort of miracle happens. A miracle of a shift in policy direction which will change the current trajectory of affair in the land and make it possible for Americans to find themselves in their Emerald City. Not by using the same means as Dorothy in Wizard of Oz, but through a less cataclysmic approach of a deft good policies formulations and implementations, which will help restore America to its pre January 20, 2021 greatness, and back to the glory which Make America Great Again brought. 

ICHEOKU says American people crave for a return to the 2020 America as we once knew it: an America without empty shelves at grocery stores and other shops; an America where cost of living expenses and purchasing vehicles is once again reasonably affordable; an America where people are not too angry and too divided; an America that will not be under a cloud of fear and uncertainty; an America which will make Russia's President Vladimir Putin to once again quake in his boots and an America which we all can once again be optimistic for its future, as an abiding and strong and safe place to call home, where there is security and safety, and where people can easily find what they need and want to buy, whenever they so desire.  

It does not matter how much signaling the president sends out, telegraphing that his Vice President is better than him and that she is literally in charge and firmly in control of situation, American people are not buying it. The Vice President's too many fumbles so far, has left many American people less confident and more despondent and frightened about what will become of their America. It is apparent that the supposed co-pilot who has taken over the yoke of the plane and pretends that she can safely land it, does not even know how to fly a plane. ICHEOKU wishes the administration well and prays for the best to come and that the dark cloud over America shall lift quickly, so that we can see some sun rays again. It is well, America.

UKRAINE BORDER FACE-OFF AND PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN'S STRAW MAN'S ARGUMENT.

ICHEOKU says Russian President Vladimir Putin can easily and quickly bring the crisis over Ukraine to a swift end right this very minute; if only he can just recognize and acknowledge the indisputable fact that Ukraine is a sovereign and independent nation. And that Ukraine has a full vested right to make its foreign affairs decisions, including which international organizations or blocs of influence to join and which countries to maintain diplomatic relations with. If Russia does not like any decision Ukraine makes, they can only appeal to regional sentiments and try to persuade Kiev or even lobby them for a change of mind. 

This is how international relationships work between countries, using the power of diplomacy and the purse to persuade preferred outcomes which are favorable to countries seeking to influence it. But the petite putative tsar of Russia does not seem to understand this and/or refuses to appreciate that Ukraine is a sovereign independent country with exclusive rights to conduct its foreign affairs matters. He apparently sees Ukraine as a Russian territory which must be reunified with mother Russia, just like China is smarting over Taiwan, the reason he has adopted the current use of force approach. 

The guy is obviously stuck in the stupidity of restoring a past glory of the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics, forgetting that he cannot turn back the hands of time, particularly the time that has lapsed since the 1989 collapse of the former Soviet Union. What President Vladimir Putin is demanding is akin to former Great Britain wishing in vain to restore its former empire by threatening the use of force to yank all its colonial territories back. It did not happen with other empires of yore either, including the Greek empire, Roman Empire, Ottoman empire, as well as West Africa's Songhai empire. Therefore, it will not happen with the former USSR, no matter how Putin desires and covets such outcome. 

The former Union of Soviet Socialists Republics is in the rearview mirror and history books of the world until hell freezes over. Daydreaming about it will not change what is and is simply delusional to even contemplate. The West will not let it happen and Ukrainians would rather all die, fighting to defend their independence and freedom from Russia, with or without the help of NATO, than yield to such a very retrogressive change of their fate as an independent sovereign country. 

How any self respecting President Vladimir Putin thinks that he can force an independent, sovereign country into a Russia-loving country by exacerbating hostilities inside the country's borders, defies every logic. Donbas, Crimea and all the other now occupied territorial space of Eastern Ukraine, by the proxy of some so called separatists, belong to Ukraine. They need to be returned back to Ukraine and a well meaning President Vladimir Putin should be seeking for ways to make amends by returning those territories to their Ukraine owner rather than embarking on the course which he is currently on. 

International friendship between countries is earned through mutuality of interests, respect for each other and diplomatic niceties; but is never imposed by force. Even conquered or occupied territories usually remain restive until their oppressors are forced to withdraw or eventually booted out. Ukraine will not be an exception regardless of whether the current crisis ends or is resolved. If Russia wants to see an improved relationship between them and Ukraine, first they have to start treating Ukraine as a respectable independent sovereign country and stop treating them as their vassal state. And giving back those occupied Ukrainian cities and territories will equally help.

Countries should be at liberty to choose who their friends are. If another country was doing the same thing to Russia as they are doing to Ukraine, would Vladimir Putin accept it? Why does the Russian air-force often scramble fighter jets to escort other countries' strayed air planes and fighter jets away from Russia airspace. The same happens when any Russia's maritime border is breached by vessels and ships, including the recent encounter they had with the British navy ship in the Black Sea when Russia fighter jets dropped some bombs so close to the front of the ship to force it to change course.

What Russia is demanding of Ukraine and also doing, by proxy of those separatists, in Donbas and Eastern Ukraine is raw intimidation, by a bully on a weaker and less strong neighbor. Russia must not be allowed to continue to get away with their actions on their neighboring countries. If it will take a war to stop Russian hostilities in that region, it is an undertaking which NATO should seriously consider taking. ICHEOKU strongly doubts that Russia will be able to prevail over such a war and in victory, the West should compel Russia to cough-up of Crimea, Donbas, South Ossetia and Abkhazia 

Why the world allowed Russia to get away with those its previous aggressions is unfathomable. Possibly the world did not want to provoke Russia and thought that if they allowed him to just take those places that they would be done with his imperialistic demons. But unfortunately, the West is now finding out that the only way to put a bully out of bullying, is to confront him. It is like with every other human want, it is insatiable; he got those territories and now simply wants more. His calculation is that the world did not try to stop him then and will probably not stop him now.  

So, the question now is whether the West is prepared to surprise President Vladimir Putin by proving him wrong by not allowing him to take another inch of Ukraine. But with the woke virus which has eaten Europe inside out, it is debatable whether there will be enough good and brave men and women, who, in the event of a Russian attack on Ukraine, will courageously shed the needed blood required to permanently put President Vladimir Putin in his place. 

It cannot just be only Ukraine that is in his sight and if he is allowed to take Ukraine, he will someday also make a move for other former Soviet Socialists countries. Even the fact that socialism has since been replaced by capitalism throughout these former Soviet territories, including Russia, still doesn't faze or seem to deter his quest to cobble back these countries. 

President Vladimir Putin spoke about existing agreements and understanding reached with the West following the collapse of the Soviet Union, but has largely, deliberately remained silent on  and refuses to mention the agreement reached with Ukraine, before their nuclear weapons stockpile were taken away from them. So, why is Vladimir Putin not honoring the denuclearization agreement the West and Russia reached with Kiev before they surrendered their nuclear weapons stockpile, so that Moscow will not be belligerent to Ukraine? 

President Vladimir has lost the world, including many people who used to defend him and some of his positions on issues, such as this writer; by his current deceit and attempt to manipulate the narrative over Ukraine. A man with so little credibility that his words of assurance really does not mean anything and he has a habit of invading countries and seizing their territories. He lied to the world when those balaclava-wearing and machine gun toting men were seen on the streets of Crimea before he forcibly seized the Ukrainian city, that they were not Russian special forces. 

So which foolish person would now believe his latest lame assurances that he is not planning to invade Ukraine; and that he is only moving his troops around within his country as he has the right to do. Why then move such a huge number of troops and military equipment at a go, and only to the border with Ukraine? 

Anyway, thanks to aerial satellite photographing capabilities, such maneuvers are now easily detectable, the reason the West is presently where it is, aware of what President Vladimir Putin is up to and at the cusp of fighting a war with Russia in defense of Ukraine's sovereignty. Those orbiting surveillance satellites will remain laser-focused on Russia's border with Ukraine and for however long it takes, until President Vladimir Putin makes up his mind, one way or the other. 

His only real choice in the matter is to either wake up from his delusion grandeur and call back his dogs of war to their barracks, or to stupidly order them into action in Ukraine. If he chooses the latter, the fireworks will begin and he cannot be allowed to accomplish what Adolf Hitler was unable to accomplish, a German speaking Europe. Europe will not fall under Russian jackboots and he needs to also be reminded that Turkey is still a member of NATO. Russia defeating the combined firepower of NATO will be an impossible task to accomplish, nuclear weapons or no nuclear weapons; and luckily enough Russia does not have exclusive access to the atom bomb.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN IS ONE YEAR IN OFFICE: HURRAY!

ICHEOKU says, must commend the president for standing up for nearly two hours and fielding questions from journalists who were gathered for his press conference to mark his year in office. At his nearly eighty years old age, it was remarkable that he went the full hog without sipping any water or taking a rest break or sitting down. It shows that all the cycling he does with First Lady Dr Jill Biden pays off and that the last medical checkup report was not fishy. Kudos Mr President.

The president also confirmed that he will run for reelection in 2024 and will retain Vice President Kamala Harris as his running mate. It shows that the president is not worried about his state of health affairs, despite what is glaringly obvious However, ICHEOKU will suggest that the president curb his enthusiasm about a 2024 rerun as it is rather too early to take such a firm position now, especially when his current term is still three years to go; and the majority of American people are not feeling the bun of his administration. If the ship of the state is not righted and steered to a correct direction, his own political party might even find the idea of fielding him in 2024 too absurd a position bordering on a political suicide to even contemplate that. 

But be that as it may, he has declared his intention to run for reelection, thereby putting  everyone on notice, including former President Donald John Trump, Hillary Clinton and other members of his party. By declaring now, he has also let members of the Democratic Party that he will be taking very unkindly to any attempt by any of them to challenge him for the party's presidential ticket come 2024. It was the primary reason they tag-teamed former Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo out of the way and out of relevance with all the sexual scandal. 

The former governor was about the only formidable person who would have successfully mounted a challenge and possibly wrestled the ticket out of President Joe Biden. But with him now gone and Vice President Kamala Harris now promised a second vice presidential ticket run, the coast is apparently clear for the president, provided he will be in a good enough state of health, particularly of his mental health.

Anyway, the president said that he did not overpromise Americans during his election campaign in 2020, but he sure was big on promises but very short on delivery, which has put his administration in a pickle and will haunt him through to 2024 unless things dramatically improve for the better. He promised to shut down the coronavirus but the dreadful killer virus is still raging on like Santa Anna wildfire of Southern California, such that today the death toll in America is fast creeping up to the one million number mark. So many unfulfilled promises are now his Achilles heel leading up to the 2022 midterm election and they may linger on to 2024. 

The president promised Build Back Better, but that too is practically gasping for breath. He promised to unify Americans, but Americans are today more divided than they were when he made the promise in 2020. Instead of shutting down the coronavirus as he promised, it is the economy that he is on the cusp of shutting down, such that millions of American people are still unemployed and so many things have also become out of reach for millions of households. Gasoline, groceries, automobiles and other basic essential necessities have almost become practically unaffordable and travel has also seen a rapid cost increase. 

He promised voting rights legislation, but that too has been admitted into an intensive care unit and placed on a life support machine. Nearly every big ticket promise the president made to the American people while campaigning for the office, are comatose and without accomplishing on any of them, he now feels that going to talk to the American people about the failure to deliver, will somehow magically make their problems go away or become accepted as the new normal. So, what exactly is the case which President Joe Biden is going on the road to make to the American people, when they are feeling the pinch themselves from the many failures and unfulfilled promises of his administration. 

Even things Congressman James Clyburn assured to black people in South Carolina that  President Joe Biden's administration was going to make "easy and accessible" have themselves completely disappeared; so, what is the use of a road map when the destination no longer exists. Instead of making things "easy and accessible", the president has completely wiped them off the map. So, what case is he going to make to American people when they are feeling the hole in their pockets, wallets and checkbooks; holes drilled there by inflation from hell, which have caused prices of living essentials to go through the roof of unaffordable. 

A wise person should know when to pull back from an endeavor which is not yielding a desired and anticipated result. But President Joe Biden would rather stay the course, doing the same things he is presently doing or trying to do, and still expecting a different result. Is this how a  school of thought defines insanity? He said that he will not pull back on his many big ticket items which are literally moribund. A matter which his nearly fifty years membership in the Washington swamp could not help give him a leg up or leeway. He thought that his former boss President Barack Obama received the opposition he got because he "ain't white" and believing that as a good ole boy he will be treated differently and that the Republicans will cut him some slack. 

His whispering voice in some responses was rather eerie; and he was sometimes hardly audible enough for people to make out what he was saying. He also said that because of military superiority over Ukraine that Russia will be able to prevail overtime in any resulting war with Ukraine. This begs the question, if hostilities break out, whether NATO will stand idly by and watch as Russia rumbles through into Kiev. What is the point then of all the recent heavy threatening statements if NATO will not man up and face down President Vladimir Putin's aggression on an independent sovereign country. 

Why was Saddam Hussein driven out of Kuwait and why was Adolf Hitler chased out of occupied Europe? What exactly did the president mean by "minor incursion" or does that mean that Russia can seize the entire swathe of Eastern Ukraine or every other land space in Ukraine short of Kiev?  It is definitely a part of the president's conference that needs an urgent clarification and hopefully the White House will send out a fill the gap statement immediately. 

Those 17 economics Nobel laureates who commended the president's economic policies and general direction of the country are only as good as those 250 retired military brass who asked the American people to vote for the president in 2020. It is definitely becoming a question of buyer's remorse for all of them now; and whatever report card the president said will be good for his reelection in 2024 is not going to be based on the current general situation in the country. Unless things turn around for the better, members of his Democratic Party will be soon mouthing "Joe please do not run for a reelection" and before the year runs out. 

The president also claimed that 5 republican senators approve of his administration policies and the trajectory in which the country. is presently in. ICHEOKU says it must be in his head, imagining things which are not there and like Sixth Sense Joel Osment, instead of dead people, the president is seeing five imaginary republican senators, phantoms,

He also claimed that he had the backs of black people throughout his life, the reason he said "you ain't black" if you think outside the box or vote outside the parameters. So, if he has been for blacks throughout his life, why did he wait for fifty years to make voting rights an issue so worthy of his endeavor that casting aspersion on people who disagree with his approach, is now acceptable behavior. He denied calling people who are not down with his agenda George Wallace while choosing to forget that when you say that somebody is on a person's side, it means that they share and support the position of the person. This is the reason MAGA nation proudly identifies with former President Donald John Trump because we agree and share his position on America First. So, how could the president deny calling people he accused of sharing the views of and supporting the position of George Wallace, racists?

The president also said that vice president Kamala Harris is doing a good job which reminds people of former President George W Bush extolling then FEMA director Mike Brown as doing "one heck of a good job" in his handling of Hurricane Katrina. This is a vice president who cannot deliver on immigration run amok; who cannot deliver on voters rights legislation and who cannot deliver on other major assignments given to her by the president, yet she is doing a good job. How exactly does doing a bad job look like, if her inability to deliver on so many assignments is now a definition and benchmark for doing a good job. 

It is also noteworthy that the president attacked the idea of having robust discussions on issues in America, saying that without reaching "consensus" that we cannot sustain our democracy. ICHEOKU says America has been that way for over 200 years of practicing democracy, as issues are not usually rubber-stamped by the American people. But now, President Joe Biden sees things differently and wants to get rid of senate filibuster rule as well as other democracy sustaining tools which were put in place by our founding fathers. The statement is an insight into democrats headstrong on destroying opposing views in America and they are going full throttle to achieve it. But thanks to West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, there is some hope left that President Joe Biden will not be allowed to kill democracy in America.

It is also laughable watching the president say that he will be campaigning with many democrats who will be running for reelection and other offices this year and continuing; and you wonder which democratic candidate will eagerly looking forward or even allow him to come near them, with such a record which he has set in his first year in office, and with an approval rating now hovering in the low 30 percentile. The president also mistakenly claimed that 48 democrat senators support his agenda, but chose to forget that Vermont's Senator Bernie Sanders is an independent and not a democrat. 

Overall, the press conference was not too bad; at least he stood unaided for the nearly two hours it lasted and he also attempted to answer all the questions that were asked of him. ICHEOKU is not a fan and never was; and campaigned to prevent his election but the deep state military industrial complex and their media minors had the upper hand. He is our president and we expect him to succeed by delivering on his promises to the American people during the campaign. 

ICHEOKU is not disappointed with his failures in office thus far because we did not expect much from his administration. But it shows that Washington DC is a deep swamp for a reason, it does not discriminate as swamp dwellers do not care whether or not you are a member; otherwise a dweller with over 50 years residency would have had a more forgiving acceptance and given a smooth sailing with his presidency. But it does not look like President Joe Biden is enjoying any benefit from his long sojourn in Washington DC and what he fought all his life to get, the presidency. Anyway, congratulations to President Joe Biden on his first full year in office. Let's hope that things will get better going forward, but let nobody bank on it. 

INVADING UKRAINE WILL BE DISASTROUS FOR RUSSIA: A RISK NOT WORTH ITS COST.

ICHEOKU  says Russia might be successful with the first wave of offensive, but what happens in the days, weeks and months following will be utterly different. Adolf Hitler's Germany successfully overran France, Poland, Italy and other countries which it invaded, leading up to the first world war; ditto Saddam Hussein with his invasion of Kuwait. 

But when both dictators' militaries were eventually challenged, allied forces and the coalition of the willing forces were able to drive both occupying armies out of the respective countries. The fallouts from both military misadventures led to the end of the two dictators. Whether a similar fate is now eerily staring Russia's President Vladimir Putin on the face, will be determined by the next step which he takes, ordering Russian troops into Ukraine. The clock is ticking.

Every indication now points to the likelihood that Vladimir Putin will pull the lever and dare NATO and the West to do their worst. If he orders his troops into Ukraine as expected, will the West and NATO be brave and courageous to mount a counter offensive against the invading Russian military and stay the course until they drive them out of Ukraine? Will the history of Germany and Iraq repeat themselves in Russia, and at what cost to both sides, in human and material resources. Will the West be ready to absorb the number of resulting casualties from such war and will the war be quickly over or will it linger on for some time. What will be the level of active participation of European countries or will they, as usual, cunningly shirk their responsibility and compel America to bear the burden of fighting Russia.

ICHEOKU says any resulting war in Ukraine to expel invading Russian forces must be borne largely by countries of Europe, at least 65% of it, with America taking up the remaining 35%. The European Union countries population is nearly 800 million people, which is far more than double the United States of America's 350 million population. Their combined GDP is also close to or even more than the United States of America's GDP, which means that their combined wealth is or could be even greater than America's. America therefore, must not accept to shoulder the burden of fighting Russia alone nor agree to take a huge chunk of it as would adversely impact America's taxpayers and their military. Such a war effort must be fairly distributed among the countries of Europe and their American partner under the auspices of NATO. 

Why President Vladimir Putin is pushing ahead with his plans to invade Ukraine, despite the consequences of any such military adventurism, is beyond ICHEOKU. It does not matter how he chose to calculate his odds in such a war, both in winning it and/or successfully achieving his military objective, corralling Ukraine back to Russia control; such a war will impact him and his country negatively and badly. It is unimaginable that President Vladimir Putin would think that America will allow him to win such a war, and/or permit him to reassert himself over Europe by  putting fear in other former Union of Soviet Socialists Republic countries, that what happened in Ukraine might also become their fate unless they prostrate before Kremlin. 

Invasion of Ukraine is a war which Russia will not win and will not be allowed to win. What happened in Ossetia and Abkhazia as well as in Crimea will not be allowed to repeat itself in Ukraine. It might be very bloody and very costly; but no matter what it takes and regardless of however long it may last, President Vladimir Putin will not be allowed to take a victory lap over Ukraine. Therefore he will be making a big miscalculation by starting a war in Ukraine now that the American military is not presently bogged down anywhere with an endless war. Since America pulled out of Afghanistan, the military industrial complex has been smarting for another conduit pipeline to be opened for them somewhere, where they can continue their trade in weapons and war profiteering business and Russia's invasion of Ukraine might be their answered prayer. 

If President Vladimir Putin takes the bait by invading Ukraine, he might find his military fighting a never ending war both in Ukraine and inside of Russia and which war might outlast the Afghanistan engagements, by both the former Soviet Union and most recently America. Will the Russian economy be able to sustain a twenty years running war and can the Russian military be able to defend all Russian borders from a ferocious NATO multiple counter thrusts. Such a war to repel Russian troops from Ukraine might even, at some point, find the Russian military also defending their Moscow and Saint Petersburg too. Are these costly trade-offs what President Vladimir Putin will be willing to make by invading Ukraine? 

It will be very foolish of President Vladimir Putin to jeopardize his power hold over Russia by risking it all, just for an egoistic invasion of Ukraine. But he is not too foolish to start a war which he cannot win and will not be allowed to win. He said that he is not planning to attack Ukraine, yet he is mobilizing his military forces to Russia's border with Ukraine. Only a foolish Ukraine defense force and their NATO partners will be goaded into a lull of unpreparedness by such a foolish Russian assurance. The same President Vladimir Putin once gave a similar assurance, when automatic rifles wielding and balaclava wearing men were seen in Crimea, that they were not Russian soldiers, and the world has since seen how that assurance panned out. 

This time, the Ukrainian forces must not allow themselves to be caught flat-footed by banking on such assurances, otherwise they will wake up one morning to find Russian troops occupying their presidential palace in Kiev. NATO should also start a counter mobilization of its forces into Ukraine and adjacent countries, ready to engage, as soon as the first Russian tank enters Ukraine. Let nobody be taken by surprise as such might give the invading Russian forces an undue advantage, during which time they would have caused a lot of damage inside Ukraine. It is not if, but when, Russian troops will be ordered to breach the borders of Ukraine and preparations to meet them head-on  should be in high gear right now. 

Saddam Hussein's military was expelled from Kuwait and so should NATO be ready to also expel Russian troops from Ukraine in the event they do the now seemingly inevitable and enter Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin should not and must not be allowed to have his way with Ukraine, because if he succeeds, he will make other demands in the future for other former Soviet Union countries to be handed over. It is about time his Bonaparte's enthusiasm is forcibly curbed and he needs to be reminded that his dictatorship can only be tolerated in Russia but not in any sovereign independent country. It is time to face him down squarely, eyeball to eyeball  and military to military. Russian soldiers are not made of steel and their weapons are not indestructible. Enough of tolerating his shenanigan; if he wants war let his desire be met.

VOTING RIGHTS EFFORT NEEDS A CHANGE OF STRATEGY: MAKE IT A BIPARTISAN ISSUE.

ICHEOKU says the struggle to pass voting rights legislation must be made a bipartisan effort in order to accomplish it.  It is an American question and needs an American solution to it. A more inclusive strategy, which embraces both political parties, is needed otherwise all the speeches, marching and celebration usually marking the birthday of Dr Martin Luther King Jr every January, will remain what they are, mere annual feely-good chattering and commemoration show. 

As Martin Luther King III rightly observed this year, what is needed is legislation and not celebrations; and this should be the cardinal objective and driving shaft of every voting and civil rights movement going forward. The time has come to abandon those flowery loose speeches and symbolic marching that merely pay lip-service to the struggle, as action is required now and no more speeches. This is the only imperative from this year's annual rehash of the now 53 years old effort to fix some loopholes in America's electoral system. Black people, the NAACP and other minority groups and voting and civil rights organizations in America must clutch this imperative and make it the pivoting orbit of the struggle henceforth. 

What worked in the past is no longer effective as a different breed of Americans are now on both sides of the debate. Therefore, it is about time to reinvent and re-strategize in order to add value to the struggle and make it relevant today as it was back in the days that typified the voting rights movement. Even the option of ending the annual ritual commemorating the birthday should be considered, because, refusing to march or sit through politicians' boring, generic speeches, about their "love and affection" for Martin Luther King Jr, might be a more effective weapon to be deployed in the effort to force the issue. A sort of silent sit at home protest, observed on the day, will definitely reverberate more than all the empty speeches and marching which take place. 

If these politicians love MLK, why then has the voting rights legislation not been passed since the 53 years following his assassination. It is akin to black people and the Democratic Party, which only needs them during voting, but never does anything for them nor ever fulfills campaign promises made to them. The zeal around voting rights, civil rights and even Martin Luther King Jr national holiday celebration is steadily waning as people are increasingly feeling despondent and asking themselves what is the point in still coming out to march for these issues, when nothing meaningful ever comes out from such time-wasting endeavors as they once did and should be expected. 

These voting and civil rights actions worked in the past, which helped to bring about some changes in the country, but seemingly not as effective as they once were. Those good old days are since gone and they were the glorious days of the movement, when a huge majority embraced it and usually came out in very large numbers to participate in their activities. They were able to put fear of God in white people due to their "threatening" numbers and it eventually forced out the notable changes recorded, which were primarily conceded out of fear of the consequences of doing nothing about the situation. 

Those were the days of respected and altruistic indefatigable civil rights movement leaders who commanded larger than life presence and were highly revered. Which present civil rights leader can mobilize one million people to the Mall of Washington or bring out a huge number of people on a bridge in Selma or anywhere else. To make matters worse for the movement, the present crop of leaderships no longer possess the gravitas and resolve as their counterparts of yore once did. A dying species, the last notable of which is the now weary and ailing Reverend Jesse Jackson and you wonder why they don't make them like them anymore. 

Even Reverend Al Sharpton is no longer as strong as he used to be, admitted he is a sort of straggler and hustler of the movement compared to the real activists of the past. Also, he has since gone too far to the left that his words no longer carry much weight as a civil rights leader whose words meant something and who can mobilize to push the voting rights legislation. He has since become a hack democrat partisan. The Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan belongs to that fiery and feared band of past activists, admitted that his fixated distaste of the Jews have sort of pigeonholed his activism into an anti-semitic, Israel hating radicalized bigot. He too is no longer young nor vibrant as before and is equally speeding on the fast lane of exit.

So the virus afflicting the voting rights and other civil rights movements in America have morphed into many variants: including lack of very energetic and charismatic leaders who the people can rally around. The movements have also lost their gravitational compass as a one-stop center for just civil and voting rights issues only. They have largely become glorified Democratic Party's institutions and the majority of American people, including politicians on the other aisle, now see them as just an extended arm of the Democratic Party. So, why should they listen to them or be interested in what they are talking about concerning voting or civil rights issues when they are seen as the biblical voice of Jacob and hand of Esau of the Democratic Party.

A matter not helped when some faces of the civil rights movement, including the son of late Martin Luther King Jr, continuously lambasts the Republican Party, their governors and Congressional delegates as demonic each time he talks about voting and civil rights legislation. How does such a man expect to achieve the desired voting rights legislation when he is antagonizing the Republican Party politicians, aware that Democratic Party politicians cannot legislate it alone. How can any reasonably sensible advocate for a cause be antagonizing the same people he needs in order to get something done. It smacks of foolishness and crass impetuous unthinking.

Civil rights issues including voting rights in America used to be a bipartisan issue because as the name states, it is the civil rights issue of the American people that is at stake, the nucleus of the existence of such organizations involved in it. They were never a partisan or a one political party issue requiring a specific affiliation to the party. But these later day woke-leaders have politicized the movements so much that it no longer appeals to non-partisan people and politicians on the other side, the reason it has become such a difficult knot to untie. There is no way in hell these later day civil rights leaders can claim that every person in America with civil rights concerns is a democrat. So, why did they make the struggle a Democratic Party issue and at the same time, expecting Republicans to support it.  

The 1965 Voting Rights Act was passed through a bipartisan effort and so have all the other legislations since then, including the recent John Lewis Act. Why then the demonization of Republicans as anti black people and against voting and civil rights in America when they know that they need their votes and support to pass the legislation. There is also no way all the 34 laws so far passed to fix noticed flaws in electoral laws in 19 states could have been made with just black people in mind; or to make it only harder for black people to vote. 

Also to call Georgia's electoral reform law "draconian" is rather offensive, as handing food and water to voters is akin to soliciting their vote and bribing them for it. Voters can and are allowed under the law to bring their own water and food if they want, just like we all bring our own lunch to our workplaces. Further, waiting in lines to vote on Election Day is not required of only black people; so, what is the fuss really about over the electoral law or are black people so debilitated and too weak to stand in lines to vote on Election Day just like their counterparts in other racial groups. 

One thing Martin Luther King III got right though is the fact that the forces which schemed to oppress black and brown Americans when his dad was around, leading up to his assassination, were all democrats. George Wallace who introduced the Jim Crow law was a democrat; and so also were all those batons wielding and dogs unleashing police officers of Selma bridge. It is also noteworthy that democrats controlled the good ole South which waged a civil war against the Yankees which consumed over 700,000 American lives, in their attempt to keep slavery alive and going. All appendages of slavery such as poll tax, literacy test and lynching were also the handwork of democrats. So, what exactly did the Republicans do to black people that should warrant all these venomous attacks on them by these present day civil rights leaders and their pretend-activist cohorts? 

It is wrong and condemnable and it cannot get them their desired voting rights legislation. Real justice and equality is conforming voting practices and making them apply uniformly across the board of every racial group in America. Black people are not disparately impacted by those reforms nor are they required to do something which other racial groups in America are not required to do before they can vote in elections. It is only when such occurs that a violation of their voting rights could be triggered. But as long as every American citizen is placed on the same footing during elections, all these cry-baby hogwash will not bring about any different outcome, because to do so will be to give blacks and other minorities undue advantage over other racial groups.

Democrats have used the filibuster to their own advantage on numerous occasions in the past; but if they now want to get rid of it just to score some cheap political brownie points, they should remember that they cannot and will not remain in power forever. The late democrat Senator Harry Reid deployed a filibuster busting tactic to get two Supreme Court Justices confirmed not knowing that someday Republicans would use the same unleashed tool to get three Supreme Court Justices confirmed. So, those democrats clamoring for a Senate rule change should be wary and very careful of what they wish because they might get it, only to someday regret that it came back to bite them. 

The states are by constitution quasi independent and retain every power which they did not expressly give up for the union. America is not a unitary federation, it is a union of the willing 50 states and they came together with expressly stated agreements. We cannot unify every aspect of our life as a nation including our election laws, otherwise staying together might become suffocating and to the extent that breakaway agitations might erupt. Instead of early voting which is even alien to America or needless over-spreading of voting stations, holding national elections on a Saturday or a declared national election holiday should be considered. And of course purging voters list of dead people and voters who have moved away and no longer reside in their previous voting districts should be made a routine task, to be carried out every four years.

 

Passing a voting rights legislation which will be geared towards encouraging respective states to fix noticeable lapses in their electoral laws is worthy of pursuing in the Congress. But this can only be achieved in an atmosphere of cordial respect to both aisles, but never on a crass partisan pillorying of one of the parties. The leadership of NAACP and other civil rights movements and groups pursuing the voting rights legislation, must change their strategy. They must reinvent themselves, re-tailor their talking points, divorce themselves from their acute partisanship and stop haranguing Republicans. They should instead lobby Republicans instead of putting them off  as the enemy or the Grinch who stole their voting rights. Voting rights is a national issue and it will need a united national front to get it passed. This is a fact of consequences in passing the legislation and the earlier these black civil rights leaders realize it, the sooner their chances of getting it passed. 

NOVAK DJOKOVIC IS THE ARCHITECT OF HIS DEPORTATION: DESERVES NO SYMPATHY.

ICHEOKU says the choice was his to make and he chose to be deported rather than conform to the laws of an independent, sovereign nation. He should have complied with the immigration laws of Australia by not lying on his visa application as required of any visiting foreign national. He should have also complied with a valid existing law on health and good order, which requires everyone entering Australia to get vaccinated against the coronavirus pandemic disease. But he held out and such obstinacy posed a health risk to Australian society and also had the potential of energizing anti vaccination protesters, especially among his fans and supporters alike.  

Novak Djokovic is just one individual, regardless of his fame and fortune, and therefore cannot be allowed to impose his selfish wishes on the government and people of Australia. Nobody asked him to come or not to come to Australia to participate in a tennis championship being held in the city of Melbourne. It was entirely his decision and he made it without regard to what is in the best health interest of Australians, who their government is trying to protect from the coronavirus pandemic with necessary vaccination requirement law. The law says if you must come to Australia, you must be vaccinated and he was not vaccinated and still refuses to be vaccinated 

Rules are rules; and the law on vaccination was not made specifically with him in mind or in anticipation that he will some day, after the law has come into force, decide to fly to Australia to participate in the Australian Open tennis tournament as a defending champion. He chose not to conform to existing laws and therefore deserves what he got, the removal. It is possible that the Serbian deliberately orchestrated the outcome; therefore nobody should feel pity for him or chest-beat that he was treated unfairly; or as some propagandists have since stretched it, that it was political. 

The Australian government only ensured that everybody entering into Australia conformed to their existing laws because nobody is above the law. If even a prime minister could be held to account, who then is a tennis player to demand or covet a differential treatment from the law. Good enough, he exhausted all available legal recourse in such a situation and was determined violative of existing laws by a court of competent jurisdiction before he was finally removed from the country. None of his rights as an illegal visitor to Australia were denied him and he was afforded due process by the justice system. 

He has now been deported and hopefully the dust which he tried to raise, with his ridiculous demand that he be treated differently, will now begin to settle; so that the Australian Open will begin. A new champion will definitely emerge and if Novak Djokovic feels like it, he can still challenge the new champion in a future Australian Open. But he is out of this 2022 championship for good and it was totally by his own making. It is possible too that he was not fully prepared to defend his championship and concocted the ruse to deflect from his real state of affair. ICHEOKU supports the Australian government's handling of the issue and says kudos to them for not yielding to the noisy pressure, mounted by a very few but very vocal apologists, to place Novak Djokovic above the law.

JANUARY 6TH INVESTIGATION: A GREAT WITCH HUNT AND DEMOCRATS POWER SHOW.

ICHEOKU says suddenly it is now ok in America for a political party in power to go after it's opponents. This is contrary to what they told us a few short years back, when the demand to "LOCK HER UP" was fever-pitch, that political opponents are not victimized in America. ICHEOKU says what changed as the count is beginning to mount. Steve Bannon is a political opponent; former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is a political opponent; minority leader of the House of Representative Kevin McCarthy is a political opponent; former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany is a political opponent and of course those rancorous Capitol building stormers of January 6th 2021 are all political opponents. 

Without a doubt, the coveted trophy of this ongoing political harpooning, the person they are plowing through all these soft targets to reach, is none other than the former president of the United States of America Donald John Trump. All these other persons are but preliminary  stumps which they must get out of the way prelude to eventually netting their prized target. They have assessed the political atmosphere in the country leading up to the midterm election and eventually to 2024, and understands that they do not stand a chance at retaining the White House, if not also losing the two Houses of Congress as well, with the former president in contention. So, they made a calculated decision to handicap him now and render him politically less viable rather than risk the consequences of his second coming to the White House. 

Although the former president is not a witch nor a wizard, but for the purposes of achieving their objective, they have branded him one and are using the subterfuge of a January 6th investigation to hunt him down, with fervor and every fiber of their congressional power and authority fully deployed. They are pulling every stop to accomplish this objective, of taking former president Donald John Trump down and out of the 2024 presidential calculation, just like they did to former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo with trumped up sexual crimes which they later refused to prosecute. They will stop at nothing as the alternative is a nightmare which they would rather contemplate than live through. They know what his second time in the White House will do to their woke destructive agenda and would rather it never came to that by preempting it.

So, yes, former President Donald John Trump is the reason for the investigation and not that some exuberant and rambunctious Americans, in their overheated moment of excitement, badged into the Capitol. Unless they are telegraphing the message that some animals are more equal than others and that members of Congress are better than other Americans, it really defiles every logic of fairness that those Black Lives Matter and ANTIFA collaborators walked away free from their own badging into American cities and homes, with its destructive consequences while those nut job Save America rally attendees who went on a frolic into the Capitol building are being punished for their own rascality. 

ICHEOKU is not by this piece holding brief for those January 6th "storm-troopers" nor in any way justifying what they did as imitable or holding up their uncontrolled misbehavior as worthy; but that fairness demanded that they were handled with the understanding that they were just some overzealous Americans who thought that they were doing the right thing for their version of democracy by taking back their peoples house that "democracy" will go on and not be hijacked by people who "stole" an election. Their intent was misguided as it was based on wrong suppositions including their conviction that their cause was right and that they are justified in doing something about it. 

But be that as it may, the course of the justice system has since been activated against them; many have been convicted, some have been sentenced to various prison terms and many more are still under the microscope of Lady Justice and many more might be convicted and sentenced. But how do we move forward as a united country when millions of people strongly believe that they are being victimized simply because of their political affiliation, particularly after watching rioters and vandals with opposite political affiliation go scot-free from their own disturbances of the American society. 

It is this failure or inability to reconcile the two "similar" situations that is keeping the wedge in America in place and will most likely remain affixed until a convincing revolution is reached. If not, a day shall come when the Republicans will take back the White House and possibly the two Houses of Congress and there will be a demand by party loyalists for a payback. It is finding ourselves in such an outcome as a society that needs to be prevented now when it is still possible in order to preempt a vicious circle of retribution and normalizing in America the practice of a political party in power leveraging the levers of justice to punish its opponents. 

It is a river which America as a society must not cross because it leads to a one way highway to hell. It will be sad the day Americans will start punishing each other because of their political beliefs and associations. Therefore, the ongoing wasteful January 6th investigations including the Congressional committee hearings should be rested and every "convicted" offender pardoned with a reprimand. It will go a long way in fostering unity among America's divided society; let bygones remain where they belong, in the rearview mirrors so that America can begin to honestly heal from the past overheated politics of prelude to the last election. 

ICHEOKU strongly believes that had those January 6th Capitol building stormers known that what they were doing was against the law, many of them would not have dared. Many of them sincerely and honestly believed that they had the right to "reclaim" their democracy which they were persuaded was being "stolen" from them. It was an honest mistake and it was political and America's party in power usually does not victimize their opponents and we must not start now by setting a precedent which is capable of hounding us all. If Queen Crooked Hillary Clinton was not LOCKED UP, why the current attempt to lock up former president Donald John Trump and at worst, destroy him politically. Enough of the witch hunt as MAGA nation will not allow their own "witch" to be hunted down. 

VOTING RIGHTS AND PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN'S SUDDEN EPIPHANY: SIMPLY LAUGHABLE.

ICHEOKU says anyone who listened to or heard President Joe Biden's speech last Tuesday at the Atlanta University Center Consortium, the oldest and largest association of historically Black colleges and universities, to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's birthday, would think that the struggling United States of America president just landed from Mars or became a politician a few moons ago. Suddenly there is now an urgency of time for him to "pass it now" and to have the courage to stand up to "protect the right to vote." He even went to the extent of threatening a change in the Senate rules to get rid of the filibuster just for "this".

This is a guy who has been in politics for fifty years, majority of which he spent in the Senate and had every opportunity to do right by and for "voting rights" in America, but did not. He was also Vice President to a black president Barack Obama for 8 years with a democrats controlled House of Representative and Senate, yet he did nothing. Suddenly, he woke up from his good ole boy's racially induced convenient coma, to the fact that voting rights in America has been abridged and needs to be urgently and speedily fixed now; and that centuries old Senate rules should be broken if that is what it will take to make his wish a fait accompli. 

Why did President Joe Biden not fix the voting rights problem when he was a Senator of the United States of America from Delaware? Why did he not fix the voting rights issue when he was the Vice President of the United States of America? Why did he not fix the voting rights question when his party had both houses of Congress with a black president Barack Obama in the White House? Whose voter in America is still being denied voting privileges during elections? Whose voter's right is it anyway that is still being infringed upon which Joe Biden wants to desperately fix such that he decided to throw caution to the wind by demanding that the Senate do away with its rules which have been in place for centuries in the interest of a stable union. 

If Joe Biden is suddenly tired of being quiet, how much ruckus did he raise about it when he was still a young and vibrant politician, when his energy would have possibly seen the bill through. But no, he did not do the needful then when it would have been fruitful, only to now be feeding some black folks gathered in Atlanta this bull-crap simply because he generally looks down on black people and sincerely doubts their intelligence quotient and capacity of cerebral recollection. ICHEOKU says which other ethnic or racial group in America would Joe Biden have had the shameless impetus to so barefaced to say what he said in Atlanta, after spending half a century in Washington DC and doing nothing about the issue of voting rights. 

But it was a black audience and he felt that soundbites will be sufficient to appease them just like the doses of it which they get each Sunday from their black pastors in their black churches. So he said "Pass it now" and you ask yourself why didn't he "Pass it then" when he could have easily done it? So, he said the Senate should have the courage to change Senate rules and you ask why didn't Joe Biden have the courage and changed the same Senate rules then when he could have easily done it? Who exactly is the president fooling with such vacuous speech when most people who listened to it or heard it knew that nothing will become or ever come out of it.  

New Georgia Project's CEO Nse` Ufot was right that giving dozens of speeches for Build Back Better did not get them Build Back Better and that it is not crazy nor unreasonable to ask how a speech on voting rights is going to get them voting rights. Georgia's elected but not serving governor Stacy Abrahams, who boycotted Joe Biden's speech event, followed suit by stating that it is just speeches and that Joe Biden is so full of it, all talks and no walking of his talk. NAACP president Derrick Johnson added his own frustration, saying that it is time Joe Biden's administration matched their words with actions. Martin Luther King Jr admitted that attending the speech event was a very difficult decision and that he shares the frustrations of black community over the all talks and no action of the Joe Biden administration.

Such reactions are a definite statement that the scales are beginning to fall off the eyes of many black people and they are realizing that they are only good and used for their votes every four years by the Democratic Party. Like Bob Nestor Marley said, you can fool some people some time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. So, President Joe Biden has been put on notice that his comical bag of tricks have been opened for all to see and there is nothing in it for black people. Therefore, whatever role he may think that he is playing in "protecting the right to vote" fades in comparison to the role he failed to play to protect the same when he could have, during the past fifty years of his extensive political sojourn in Washington DC. 

How much did he actually stand up for democracy then and when exactly did he finally switch sides from George Wallace to now Dr King; and when was the moment of truth that did it for him? CHEOKU says the only possible explanation for what black people do, listening to the likes of Joe Biden and following the Democratic Party, is that they are simply too forgiving. They cannot possibly be suffering from dyslexia and retentive memory deficiency, otherwise no black person will ever be listening to what President Joe Biden had to say about the exigency of voting rights reformation in America, his lengthy swampy dwelling in Washington DC considered.

 
ICHEOKU says enough of the pandering and always invoking some electoral reforms in some Republican controlled states as a testament that the voting rights of black people are being restricted. It is simply idiotic and simplistic to try to pigeonhole such a broad electoral legislations as targeted only against black people because they are not. They are broad laws meant to fix existing loopholes in the electoral process and they apply to everyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender and religion. So why try to pass it off as if they are only black people specific, targeted at them when they are not; or are white people and other races exempted from those laws?

There is no reason for black people to be parceled out by Democrats as invalids and handicaps who cannot do what other racial groups do in America, including voting. Black people can secure a driver's license and have identification cards. Black people can register to vote early enough too. Black people can also withstand the rigors of waiting in line, without being given food and water, to vote on Election Day. If other races in America can do these things before they vote, so can black people as well. So, enough of the condescending treatment of black people as if they are Americans with special needs, who must be assisted specifically in order to enable them to vote in elections. 

It is very demeaning and very insulting of President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party to be singly treating black people in this manner. It is about time they see and treat black people as very competent and very capable Americans, who are equal in every facet with their counterparts of other races. President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party should be ashamed of the psychological warfare which they waging on black Americans by continuously making them to feel and believe that they are incapacitated and not at par with other Americans. This has to stop and needs to stop now. They must stop making voting rights in America a black people's sole problem because it is not.