Parkland Shooting: Vigilance Will, Hysteria Won't Do.

A couple of days before the Parkland shooting, 18 Nigerian students on excursion from the northern state of Bauchi died in a horrible road carnage in a neighboring state. The bus in which they were traveling, while trying to negotiate a bad stretch on the road, had a head on collision with an articulated vehicle that was trying to do the same maneuvers. A couple of dollars spent on road repairs could have saved the lives of these kids and three members of staff. In the same way a little attention on the part of the FBI and the police could have gone a long way in saving the lives of the Parkland kids. A nation can afford to toy with so many things, especially great and rich nations like the US, can even afford to toy with its future(there are almost limitless resources for resurgence) but it cannot afford to toy with the future of its young ones.
So Washington is the right place to march on now, Trump is the obvious person to blame and the National Rifle Association is the right body to take the hit. It is all part of the exigencies of the moment but the hysteria will die down, it would not be the first time, the huge puff of public outrage will expend itself very quickly, like all flashes, and the acrimonious debates about guns will go on forever. We pray and hope such a carnage will never repeat itself. We could all lend our hopes and prayers a helping hand.
Not by railing incessantly at the FBI. The way the organization is set up, it will not stop expending too much time and energy and resources on headline quests that end exactly nowhere: like investigations into Russian meddling in US polls, like inquiries into the Clinton e-mails or even the assassination of President Kennedy. It won't escape attention lapses altogether but despite the hot flak it is currently receiving, nobody is seriously suggesting putting it up for sale. The good it does far outweighs its failings
Not by marching to Washington, Seriously. It is nice calling Trump names but even if he has a change of heart and turns on his erstwhile allies in the NRA and wins ten terms, stopping the likes of Mr Cruz will not happen from the White House. Tougher legislation on federal checks will have an initial surge but eventually will not be enough. The Congress and Senate are peopled by lawmakers most of whom came from varied constituencies far removed from Florida. It is a national tragedy, sure, but selling anti-gun legislation to US voters is often a hard sell. The Democrats may be riding with the tide now but few have listened to President Trump query why anti-gun bills gained little traction while the Dems controlled both legislative houses. The FBI, Trump and both houses and the most stringent of all laws, if they manage to pass them, won't ever get guns off the streets. The gun culture is too entrenched. Besides America is vast. In population, in land mass and in the sheer number of possibilities available to folks: money and like resources, friends and relatives, cyberspace, rivers and forests and so on. Someone who is going to get a gun is always going to get a gun, even if all the guns in the US are confiscated.
So the right place to march to is our homes, our households. Our bedrooms and cyberspaces such as computers and mobile phones. We are a bit emboldened to make this suggestion because we have it on good authority that hundreds of mass-shooting plots are aborted in the US every year by acquaintances, grandmothers, grandfathers, parents, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, girlfriends and so on, even neighbors. Folks who take a healthy interest in what those close to them are thinking or doing. The relationship involved in the discoveries is what often prevents the public from hearing about them. Like terrorists, would-be mass murderers are not vipers that stay still for long periods and then rise and strike all of a sudden; they are more or less rattlesnakes rattling warnings and signs the size and brightness of comets streaming across heavens. It was what could have saved the Parkland kids, with a little more attention from the FBI, a remiss that isn't likely to repeat itself.
So to our bedrooms we must march. Vigilance. Bedrooms and You Tube, Google, Facebook, Twitter, all forms of cyberspace. Let's take a healthy interest in what others, especially our kids and those close to us, are doing. It isn't snooping or snitching. It is keeping our schools and streets safe. Privacy is great but in times of tragedy like this, few, very few remember privacy   

FBI and its Investigations: Limbo is the Destination.

The FBI investigation into alleged Russian meddling in US elections reminds one of another probe: the much-worried scrutiny of Hillary Clinton e-mails. Both have generated noise and hype for the theatrics-loving American public, and breakfast for newshounds: and very, very little returns on the huge taxpayers' money that has been liberally invested in them. And both seem destined for a fate that seems like a descent into limbo.
What's the point? No matter the outcome, it will be simply ridiculous to accuse Clinton of treason, or even a lesser official misdemeanor that is deliberate. Maybe lapses in her duty but the censure isn't ever going to be commensurate with the time and energy and resources that have been spent on the quest. In the same way, the Russian probes are not ever likely to be traced directly to Vladimir Putin and even though they have been described as a blockbuster, what they'd succeeded in doing is to thrust a little hammer into the hands of Mr Donald Trump. A weapon which he has wasted little time, trust him, in delving into the image of the FBI itself. With the Parkland shooting giving him a veritable handle. A very tiny fraction of the time and commitment spent on the Russian investigations would have certainly helped in preventing a very visible lunatic from wasting the lives of so many young, innocent souls. It is very difficult not agreeing with the president on that score.
Trump knew that although Americans knew his attentions are a bit on the scrappy side, they equally knew he was too self-conscious to collude with Russians to tweak elections in his favor. The US electorate don't like competitors gaining undue advantages. It instantly confers the tag of the underdog on the opponent and folks don't taste victories sweeter than the triumph that reeks of an upset. It may have little to do with why the Eagles won( a stunning that made the day for millions, minus Patriots' fans) but in an electoral contest where voters were the ones to make the throws and catches and touchdowns, it was going to be a huge determinant.
There is no doubt that Russians actively meddled in the US elections but it seems more reasonable to tie its provenance to Crimea instead of Mr Trump or the elections itself, after all the whole scheme started long before the president announced his intention to contest the polls. The Russians clearly knew they were in for real global censure with the annexation, a prospect even apparent at the planning stage, and it became necessary to work out scenarios that might engender sympathetic ears, no matter how tenuous that understanding might be. It would not be a surprise if Russians also meddled in other post-March 2014 elections in other countries and Trump might have fooled a couple of guys in Moscow with his impetuous profession of love for Putin and Russia during primaries and general electioneering. That the meddlers were also rooting for Bernie Sanders shows they thought another Obama in the White House would not be in the best interest of Russia.
So the so-called Internet Research Agency might be an euphemism for a group of cyber bandits not substantially different from Fancy Bears or the plethora of Russian hackers that make it a profession stealing industrial, sports or military secrets, or just plain cash-most of the heist from the US. A James Bond-style megalomaniac could have superintended over a project that excited his criminal mind and appealed to many other folks. Much noise had been made about the indictment of Yevgeny Prigozhin, popularly regarded as 'Putin's Chef'. It is no more than a hint that must be worked into the blockbuster appeal. It is not always that a master knew what his chef was cooking. It will not be an easy task linking the whole scheme to Putin and neither will it be less difficult tying it to President Trump. Mr Mueller's quest seems destined for limbo. It is hardly tiring repeating it again.
There is something faintly Dantean in the coincidence that Mr Mueller should head this investigation and the probe into the Clinton e-mails. Although he has said it expressly there was no evidence the meddling affected the outcome of the polls, he could turn to his protege, James Comey, to espy what might have affected the outcome. Reopening the e-mail controversy a couple of days to the elections was a recipe that was going to be fatal to the chances of Mrs Clinton.