I'll stick with Wile E. Coyote

Watching Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu deliver his UN speech September 27, brought back memories of watching US Secretary of State Colin Powell's similar UN speech of February 3, 2003. This occurred when Netanyahu reached down under the podium and pulled up a cartoon drawing of the A Bomb he claims Iran is building to justify his call for war against Iran. Nearly ten years earlier Powell unveiled his cartoon drawings of imagined Iraqi WMD being hidden from WMD inspectors on trucks trailers and rail cars, to justify his criminal war against Iraq. Netanyahu one-upped Powell's visual presentation by whipping out a marker to draw the metaphorical red line across the top of the bomb to signify the point of no return toward his imagined Iranian nuclear strike.

Netanyahu's performance brought to mind another cartoon character, Wile E. Coyote, who frequently showed his TV audience a drawing of the mighty bomb with which he was preparing to blow up his Bete Noir, the Roadrunner. Among those three cartoon characters, I'll stick to watching Wile E. Coyote. He's a lot funnier....and a lot less dangerous.

Also published in the Daily Herald, October 5, 2012

Sinking Romney grasps fragile reed - corrupt hypocrite Ralph

One sign desperation is stalking Mitt Romney's Presidential bid is his latching onto one of the most corrupt, hypocritical members of the Evangelical right to garner votes from evangelicals, a group who looks with great suspicion on the Mormon Romney. Ralph Reed is 51, yet still exudes the choir boy charm that made him a mega star in the 1980's evangelical movement. The lifelong political activist and lobbyist, Reed was "born again" in 1983 and led Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition from 1989 to 1997 when he resigned amid financial scandals plaguing the Coalition. Reed got into even deeper trouble through his associations with corrupt lobbyist "Casino" Jack Abramoff; though, unlike Abramoff, Reed escaped both prosecution and prison.

After several years of laying low, Reed has resurfaced with a new gig, the Faith and Freedom Coalition, which is pouring $12 million into a scurrilous campaign to get evangelicals to support Romney's election. How scurrilous? A flyer Reed is sending to millions of evangelicals asks them if President Obama's policies are more dangerous to American liberty than previous threats from Nazi Germany and the Japanese during WWII, Soviet Russia during the Cold War, and for good measure, the Civil War. Romney welcomed such political pornography with the comment, "Ralph Reed is doing a great job here with the Faith & Freedom Coalition. This group is going to make a big impact across America and I appreciate the work you are doing here".

Regardless of all the phony faith Ralph Reed professes, Romney's newfound friendship with him looks more like a pact with the devil.

Look for the union label

When Presidential contender Mitt Romney, Vice Presidential contender Paul Ryan and union busting Governor extraordinaire Scott Walker all come out in favor of striking workers, their billionaire buddies take note. It just took a pro union sound bite from each to get the big money boys back to the table, end their lockout of NFL referees and give them a fair contract for the fabulous game calling they do.

Our Three Amigos don't mind dumbing down education, fire, police, manufacturing, and postal delivery, but God forbid if scabs mess up their Sunday afternoon football fest.

I guess their new motto is: "Look for the union label...but only on Sunday Zebra shirts".

Pay attention to the Congressman behind the curtain

Pay attention to Congressman Peter Roskam hiding behind the curtain. It's not a real curtain, its a curtain of disdain for the voters of Ilinois' Sixth Congressional District whom Congressman Roskam has still neither provided a debate with his challenger Leslie Coolidge, he hasn't even committed to one yet. When he never responded to her personal August 14th request for a series of town hall style debates, the League of Women Voters weighed in. There are apparently, discussions between the League and Roskam's campaign staff for a single debate on October 11. Challenger Coolidge has already agreed to show up October 11. Congressman Roskam has not.

Back in 2010, College of DuPage radio station WDCB interviewed Congressman Roskam about his re-election race against challenger Ben Lowe. Roskam said that anytime someone is on the ballot for election, you have to take them seriously. In that race the Congressman's serious response to Ben Lowe was to never utter his name and never debate him.

Maybe the $1,650,000 in Roskam's campaign coffers compared to just $25,000 available to Coolidge, is telling the Congressman he doesn't need to debate. If so, it dramatizes the pernicious effect that money has in demeaning and dumbing down our electoral process. Maybe the astute career politician Roskam has grasped that his margin of victory in three Congressional elections has been inversely proportional to the number of debates he engages in, so that avoiding debates is simply good politics. Either way, Roskam's artful dodging against giving his constituents debates early and often so they can make a valid comparison about the candidates' positions face to face, is not good governance.

Also published in the Glen Ellyn News, September 26, 2012

Cong. Roskam: Don't wait for constituent's needless death to turn you against failed Afghan war‏

Cong. Peter Roskam
US House of Representatives
Washington DC

Dear Cong.Roskam:

As a 100% supporter of the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex, you vote every dollar to fund our senseless, murderous and failed Afghan war. Long ago you apparently decided that endless war is good for your presumed lifetime career in Congress as there is much to gain and little to lose personally from your support. But that support is not good for the 2,121 Gi's killed and thousands more maimed in body and mind in a war marking its eleventh year in two weeks.

I'd like to remind you about one of those 2,121 dead GI's, Staff Sgt. Matt Sitton of Largo, FL. Sitton, 26, was killed August 2, by a IED (improvised explosive device), one of the leading causes of those 2,121 US war deaths. What makes Sitton's death so haunting is that he predicted his death by IED in a letter to his Congressman, C.W. Bill Young, a fellow church member of the Sitton family in Florida's 10th Congressional District. In it, Sitton expressed his outrage that he and his men were forced to trudge through fields laden with improvised explosive devices. Rep. Young was so moved by Sitton's predicted death that he has changed his mind about lockstep support for the Afghan war and now calls for prompt, safe return of our forces before the tentative December 31, 2013, timeline. Young states Sitton's death was the catalyst that caused him to change his mind.

Congressman, some of the 68,000 brave soldiers still forced to fight this futile war at your behest come from our IL 6th District. Let's hope you, unlike your colleague Bill Young, don't have to read the haunting voice of one of them begging you for an end to this madness before he or she becomes one of its unnecessary victims. Before that happens, Congressman, listen to the only voice you need to in order to work for endless peace instead of endless war - your conscience.

Respectfully yours,

Walt Zlotow
IL 6th District resident