Back from the brink; back to banging war drums

My Senator Mark Kirk completed a remarkable and inspirational recovery from a near fatal stroke last February when he cautiously walked up the Capitol Steps January 3rd to resume his Senate career. It is a tad ironic that Kirk's comeback was courtesy of the best health care and rehabilitation that his lavish Congresscare medical insurance, paid by we taxpayers, could provide Kirk, who worked assiduously as a Republican ideologue to deny even a pittance of its benefits to the 40 million uninsured. But that is another story.

The concern here is that Kirk, back from the brink, is back to banging the war drums against Iran in furtherance of his lockstep support of the Likud wing of he Israel Lobby and the US war party. Kirk has been a zealous proponent of our failed wars of choice in Afghanistan and Iraq from Day One. Now, right out of the gate in the 113th Congress, Kirk has taken a leadership position in the smear campaign to deny Chuck Hagel's bid to become President Obama's Defense Secretary. Why? Because Hagel turned against their Iraq and Afghanistan wars as begin utterly self destructive and contrary America's self interest. He is equally opposed to pre-emptive war with Iran that Kirk signed onto long ago at the bidding of his masters in the aforementioned parties. They know Hagel will  be no patsy who will grease their rush to war with Iran and put the interests of Israel ahead to Uncle Sam's. Kirk signaled his opposition to Hagel by saying, "I am concerned about his past record and statements, particularly with regard to Iran and the US-Israel relationship". He's followed this up with daily emails opposing Hagel to fellow congressman and media friends.

We all wish Senator Kirk a long and productive life. It would be a lot more productive if he could live it as a peacenik who puts America's interests first instead of a warmonger who puts Uncle Sam a distant second.

The trouble with Hagel - response to Chicago Tribune editorial

The Trib's January 15 editorial "The trouble with Hagel" tries, with misinformation and sophistry, to paint Chuck Hagel, President Obama's pick for Defense Secretary, as a far left fringe nominee opposed by Democrats and Republicans alike, who will likely weaken our national defense. Nothing could be further from the truth. What is true is that Hagel has been pre-emptively and viciously attacked as a homophobe and an anti-Semite even before his rumored nomination was made precisely because he offers the first glimmer of hope that we may have a Defense Secretary not under the thumb of the neocon war party and the Lukid wing of the Israel Lobby. While the Trib's editorial doesn't dredge up all these scurrilous charges, it falsely frames Hagel as dangerous by pretending we haven't had the eight year reign of neocon rule under Bush, slavishly supported by the Trib editorial board, that gave us two murderous and failed and bankrupting pre-emptive wars of choice. These trillion dollar descents into madness that claimed hundreds of thousands of innocents, including 6,663 GI's, are anything but mainstream policies that should be continued by the likes of those who should be sitting in prison rather than befouling our landscape seeking new wars. Hagel's only real sin, one the Trib never fesses up to, is that he completely sees through the insanity that the Trib posits as being "mainstream".

Some of the editorial's statements are so preposterous they parody legitimate editorial content. "Democrats are puzzled that Obama has selected a Republican". Bunk. Choosing close advisors from the opposition party is a time honored tenant of good governance. "Republicans don't think he is a Republican". Preposterous. Republicans, most of whom are neocons or opportunistic paid off members of the war party, may despise Hagel because he can't be conned and can't be bought, but know he is a better Republican than they could ever be. After the neocons practically bankrupted America with criminal wars and worthless weapons systems, the Trib agonizes that Hagel will not warn the President "when the zeal for proposed spending cuts puts national security at risk". Hah! Where was the Trib when President Bush's pre-emptive wars on the Muslim world were what has really put our national security at risk. 

But the corker is the ludicrous statement that Hagel's positions on defense spending and Iran, being far left and near the fringe of the Senate, are not some neoconservative assessment but "the assessment of the Washington Post editorial page". Poppycock! The Washington Post editorial page is significantly more neoconservative than the neoconservative Tribune. They consistently put the national interests of Israel and the monetary interests of the Military-Industrial Complex, far, far ahead of us poor blokes who must navigate through their endless warmongering.

Guys and gals, its time to own up to your historic role of propping up our failed policies of Israel first and war always. You can expiate some of the guilt you bear for these atrocities by getting on board the Chuck Hagel peace train. He nearly died fighting in our criminal Vietnam War and will work to prevent one more soldier from being served up as canon fodder for cowards who would never, ever get near harms way.

Having read Trib editorials since 1952 when Col. McCormick was still railing against foreign entanglements, I only wish he could come back for one day and give you folks a lesson in editorial writing. After reading this nonsense he'd send you to the woodshed to brush up on two novel concepts: putting America's interests ahead of all other nations, and doing everything possible to prevent the next senseless war.

US justice drives internet advocate to suicide, lets bankters abscound with billions‏

I regret I never heard of Aaron Swartz till an acquaintance posted a tribute to Swartz on Facebook about his suicide at age 26 on January 11. Only later did I get the full story of this remarkable computer genius and political progressive who dedicated his short life to expanding the dissemination of knowledge via remarkable creativity and activism that brought him both fame and the prosecutorial wrath of Uncle Sam.

Swartz was a prodigy who, at age 14, co-wrote the specification for RSS, a Web-publishing technology for delivering syndicated content from frequently updated sites, such as blogs or news websites. RSS allows Web consumers to receive the latest stories on a feed without having to constantly revisit their favorite pages. Swartz was the teenager behind the automatic updates you receive from podcast subscriptions or general news sites. After dropping out of college he created Infogami, which was later merged with Reddit, the freewheeling social-news site where users vote their favorite stories onto the main page.

But two years ago Swartz ran afoul of federal prosecutors and faced up to 35 years in prison for downloading too many articles from JSTOR, an online service providing access to academic articles. By downloading more articles than JSTOR's terms of service allowed, he was in technical violation of their terms of service which the feds used to ensnare him under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. JSTOR not only declined to press charges, they passed on a civil suit as well. Swartz stole nothing and gained nothing from his computer shenanigans, other than to cement his computer cult hero status as the most prominent proponent of expanding the infinite knowledge of the Internet. The millions of articles he downloaded are not confidential, are now available to everyone and there is no evidence that his actions were other than strictly for the public good. Yet the prosecutors prevented Swartz from copping a misdemeanor plea and set an April trial date and the prospect of being a 60 year old man before he could resume his life. Almost everyone from his family to his friends to his legions of admirers and legal defenders are certain that prosecutorial overreach led to his tragic early death.

Meanwhile the gluttonous banksters and financial crooks who absconded with fabulous wealth while America nearly collapsed in 2007-08, have somehow slid by the same feds who relentlessly demonized Swartz. They simply have too much money and too much power and too much status to mess with. The scales of justice are supposed to be blind; not deaf and dumb.

Bachmann belongs on Dummies, not Intelligence Committee

Now that hot headed, mean spirited Illinois Congressman Joe Walsh has been mercifully retired by 8th District voters, we can turn our attention to another foolish, destructive representative, Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota.

Bachmann has garnered even more publicity than the publicity craving Walsh due to her high profile as a 2012 GOP Presidential contender. Her public statements during three terms in Congress are so preposterous and hateful that a national petition is being circulated to remove her from the House Intelligence Committee. Here is just a sampling of Bachmannisms that make us who seek truth and wisdom from our legislators cringe:

She claimed that the HPV vaccine to prevent sexually transmitted disease causes mental retardation

She claimed that Nobel Prize winning scientists believe in Creationism

She claimed that health care reforms would lead to schools offering abortions to students

She claimed that Planned Parenthood was the "Lenscrafters" of big abortions.

She claimed that the Obama Administration is a "gangster" government turning Americans into a nation of slaves

She compared post economic crash financial reform to fascist rule under Mussolini

She charged the President, First Lady and Democratic members of Congress with holding anti American views

She charged that Huma Abedin, the highly respected aide to Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, was tied to the extremist Muslim Brotherhood which is trying to infiltrate the US government

Endless utterings like these surely disqualify Bachmann from serving on the House Intelligence Committee. Since they don't constitute grounds for removing her from Congress, maybe we can celebrate her contributions to the national discourse by appointing her to head up a new committee: the House Dummies Committee.