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.
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
One of Japan’s biggest pop stars and best-known TV hosts, Masahiro Nakai, yesterday announced his retirement over sexual misconduct allegations, reports said, in the latest scandal to rock Japan’s entertainment industry. Nakai’s announcement came after now-defunct boy band empire Johnny & Associates admitted in 2023 that its late founder, Johnny Kitagawa, for decades sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men. Nakai was a member of the now-disbanded SMAP — part of Johnny & Associates’s lucrative stable — that swept the charts in Japan and across Asia during the band’s nearly 30 years of fame. Reports emerged last month that Nakai, 52, who since
EYEING A SOLUTION: In unusually critical remarks about Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump said he was ‘destroying Russia by not making a deal’ US President Donald Trump on Wednesday stepped up the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to make a peace deal with Ukraine, threatening tougher economic measures if Moscow does not agree to end the war. Trump’s warning in a social media post came as the Republican seeks a quick solution to a grinding conflict that he had promised to end before even starting his second term. “If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
RSS