When the Gipper was a gasser

Having followed history now for over 60 years, I never cease to be amazed how folks not only erase unpleasant history but actually turn it upside down to advance their political agenda. Consider US House representative Illeana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL-27th). She told Fox News last week regarding the war party rush to war against Syria, "We have said as a responsible nation that the use of chemical weapons is prohibited.  It is against the norms of international standards and to let something like this go unanswered, I think will weaken our resolve. I know that President Reagan would have never let this happen.”
 
Really, Rep. Ros-Lehtinen? It turns out Reagan not only let that dastardly conduct happen, he sold the stuff to Saddam Hussein and enabled him to use it on Iranian soldiers when we were backing Iraq against Iran in their grisly 1980's war. An un-refuted 2002 Washington Post report found  “the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous items that had both military and civilian applications, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague.” Newly released CIA documents reveal that in 1988, the Reagan administration used satellite imagery to locate advancing Iranian troops for Iraqi forces knowing that Saddam's military was likely to attack with chemical weapons, some of which we had supplied. They did attack with them killing thousands. Reagan's rationale was that it was better to let Iraq continue chemical attacks rather than allow our feared enemy Iran win the Iraq-Iran war.

 

There have been 9 Republican presidents in the last hundred years: Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. For extremist Republican partisans all but Ronald Wilson Reagan have been erased from the Republican story. Only Reagan remains with a false and twisted history concocted about a grandfatherly patriot who never raised taxes and never besmirched the American Story. Come election time Reagan is trotted out like the Old Ranger he portrayed on Death Valley Days to appeal to the aging and declining block of affluent white voters who constitute the Republican base and relate to the Reagan imagery. Republican strategists like to say, "Let's win one for the Gipper". If Saddam Hussein could come back to comment, he'd say, "I gassed thousands for the Gipper".

Congressman Roskam's attack on IRS, Obamacare false and irresponsible

Illinois 6th District Congressman Peter Roskam’s September 6 email to constituents falsely attacking Obamacare and the IRS simply follows the Tea Party line he champions in Congress to delegitimize Obama administration efforts to help the 40 million Americans shut out of our health care system. His attack on the IRS failed to mention that the Tea Party IRS scandal has been debunked. The IRS, as required by law, closely scrutinized tax exempt requests of both conservative and progressive political organizations, was authorized under a Bush appointee, and surprise, no organization lost its tax exempt status. 

 

But Roskam aimed his heaviest salvos at his real "bête noir", Obamacare. Since its passage he’s voted to repeal it 40 times, once for every million folks it was passed to bring into our health care system, and in so doing, lower the gargantuan cost of the most inefficient health care system in the industrialized world. Disgracefully, Roskam never mentions any of its numerous benefits which include: 

 

1  No annual limits on healthcare benefits

2  Insurance companies can't drop you when you are sick

3  You can't be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions

4  Obamacare focuses on preventive services

5  Women's health services are greatly improved

6  Reforms reduce wasteful spending

7  Better care and protections for seniors

8  Children can stay on parents health care policies till age 26

9  Starting January 1, 2014, insurance plans must include:

·        Emergency services

·        Hospitalizations

·        Lab services

·        Mental health

·        Substance abuse treatment

·        Outpatient  care

·        Pediatric care

·        Prescription drugs

·        Preventative care

·        Rehabilitative services

·        Vision & dental care for children 

 

Obamacare represents "Obama cares". It’s the law of the land, has been upheld by the Supreme Court, and is becoming as embedded in our culture as surely as Social Security and Medicare.  Congressman Roskam can vote against it 40 or even 400 more times but it will still be around to deliver vitally needed health care services to the 40 million folks he heartlessly ignores. His use of sophistry instead of reason, falsehoods instead of facts when discussing Obamacare does not serve the public interest. 

People, not Prez, pull US back from Syrian brink

Yesterday was a rare victory for the people over the war mongers in government and the media in their Hell bent rush to criminal war in Syria.  First the British Parliament, bowing to British public pressure, opted out of their usual lapdog following of America into senseless war. Faced with a firestorm of public criticism at home, the President put the matter before Congress, fully expecting support by both houses. The firestorm turned into a national conflagration against war as first the House, then the Senate, pushed back. Painted into a corner of his own making, the President grasped the face saving diplomatic way out brokered by Russia. Hopefully, that development will hold and American cruise missiles will  kill no innocents.

Two things are clear. The people of Britain and America are most responsible for preventing new violence by non-combatants. That is monumental and must be continued. Secondly, and possibly even more important, the people have set the precedent that the President must put pre-emptive war plans before Congress. While he can still ignore that new requirement, he does so at his political peril.

Congresswoman Duckworth should stop "leaning" and lead charge against criminal Syrian bombing‏

The news report yesterday listed IL-8th District Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth as a "leaning NO" vote to the President's proposed criminal bombing of Syria. While that is encouraging, it is not good enough. Duckworth served in President George W. Bush's criminal Iraq war that killed hundreds of thousands, including 4,422 of her fellow GI's, and she is still reticent about Bush's criminality and still reticent about demanding no more murderous military ventures. Her last website statement on Syria is 12 days old and lists this as her priority: "While the United States cannot stand by as innocent civilians are being massacred, it's my responsibility as a Member of Congress to make sure we don't commit resources, the most precious of which are our men and women in uniform, with no comprehensive plan for our involvement."

What Duckworth doesn't get is that her responsibility, as well as that of her 434 colleagues, is to ensure that an Imperial President never again sentences thousands of innocents in a foreign land to being blown to bits to save face, or to pretend that the US matters in the Middle East, which it doesn't when you've piled up enough corpses to reach the moon. Her statement implies murderous intervention is fine if we have a comprehensive plan. That is bunk.

A more disturbing line in her August 30th statement reads: "While I support the President's authority to initiate action since he was elected by this nation and in light of the divisiveness in Congress today, I will have tough questions for the Administration should they intervene prior to Congressional approval". Since when does being elected give the President the power to initiate criminal war, or any war for that matter, without Congressional approval? If her response is to simply ask "tough questions", than she is surely shirking her Congressional, Constitutional and moral duty.

It's good to have vets in Congress to wisely demand US pullback from our rampant, murderous militarism. But we need ones who truly comprehend the heinous activities that have left Middle East countries in ruins and a neglected America heading for the scrapheap failed empires. My first choice would not be Tammy Duckworth who still appears conflicted about really doing the right thing. My pick is former Iraq war vet Chelsea Manning, who was tortured by Uncle Sam for a year for daring to "out" the criminality we peaceniks suspected all along. Oh, I forget. She has to serve about nine more years of unjust imprisonment before being eligible to run.

OK, Congresswoman Duckworth. It's up to you.

Congressman Roskam: Dump war party; vote NO to criminal Syrian bombing

 

If you call Illinois 6th District Congressman Peter Roskam's Chicago or Washington office, asking whether he'll vote Yes or No to our impending criminal bombing of Syria, you'll get this response: "He hasn't made his mind up, yet". However, based on his seven year congressional record of funding much of the trillion dollars used to finance our senseless military adventurism in the Middle East and Africa, don't bet against him voting Yes. Roskam is one of the most loyal congressmen to the war party which has decided that another war is just what's needed to show we still matter in Middle East politics. They need the money and the power and the "rush" that comes from firing our weaponry upon defenseless innocents in complete violation of international and US law. They got away with it in Iraq for eight years without a single consequence or punishment, even though they were responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, including 4,422 GI's. And with them on Iraq from his inauguration in 2007 till it was mercifully ended in 2011, without a peep of protest, was our Congressman Peter J. Roskam.

Back in the 2006 College of DuPage congressional debate, when asked what his strategy was for winning in Iraq, Roskam answered he didn't have a strategy to win, just a goal that it "end well so we don't have to go back". We've reduced Iraq to a pitiful hulk of a once proud land with thousands still killed or wounded monthly from the civil war we ignited and not a word from the congressman about  going back.  Go to Roskam's website, www.roskam.house.gov and try to find a reference about our failed militarism in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen and soon to be targeted Syria. Roskam keeps wise council with the war party and has scrubbed his website clean of any references to the criminality he helps enable.

I will continue to call his office daily asking for his decision and pleading for him to vote down this insanity. If thousands more call demanding the same, there is still hope that Roskam will choose political expediency over war party loyalty. It is said that hope dies last. In this important matter it should neither be hope...nor the Syrians being targeted by our cruise missiles.