Former US president Bill Clinton told Virginia Democrats on Saturday that the party has won the US’ long-running culture war, but has to make sure not to squander it with partisanship.
Clinton told more than 3,000 people at a party fund raiser that the nation’s natural political base shifted back to Democrats for the first time since 1968, thanks to protracted Republican mistakes and the belief that US President Barack Obama represented the solution.
He said Obama’s election shows Americans at last are welcoming diversity and accepting differences, the opposite of the political dynamic he said former president Richard Nixon first used in 1968 to lock in a white, conservative voting bloc that kept Virginia and the South reliably Republican for two generations.
“We have won the great culture war that has divided America for 40 years,” Clinton said at Virginia’s annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner. “But before we celebrate too much, we have to realize that people hired us to lead.”
He warned the state’s party activists not to become so blinded by ideology that they abandon prudent governance. He also counseled caution among Democrats, particularly as the economic stimulus package heads toward a Senate vote today, urging the party to focus more on how to solve the problem rather than asking only how much it costs.
His message brought the partisan crowd — still reveling in the first Democratic presidential victory in Virginia since 1964 — to its feet.
Party activists, lobbyists and corporations paid at least US$175 per seat at the annual gala, generating what state party spokesman Jared Leopold estimated was US$700,000.
Crowds in Bangladesh are flocking to snap photographs with an unlikely social media star — an albino buffalo with flowing blond hair nicknamed “Donald Trump” that is due to be sacrificed within days. Owner Zia Uddin Mridha, 38, said his brother named the 700kg bull over its flowing helmet of hair resembling the signature look of the US president. “My younger brother picked this name because of the buffalo’s extraordinary hair,” he said at his farm in Narayanganj, just outside the capital, Dhaka. Mridha said that a constant stream of curious visitors — social media fans, onlookers and children — have come throughout
It began as a satirical online project. Now millions of young people in India are flocking to it as an outlet for their frustration. A parody political party called the Cockroach Janta Party, with the insect as its symbol, has exploded across India’s social media by turning absurdist humor into protest. Memes and short videos mocking corruption, joblessness and political dysfunction have flooded social media sites, where millions of users are embracing the cockroach — known for its ability to survive harsh conditions — as a tongue-in-cheek symbol of endurance. The online movement’s rise has been unusually rapid. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)
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