Gov. Christie is last man in America to be President

While it will take weeks or months to sort out the persons and reasons behind the now infamous George Washington Bridge tie up scandal engulfing New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, one thing is clear: Christie will never be President. The first time I saw him bully and belittle reporters and ordinary citizens when he first achieved national promin...ence, I realized he was temperamentally unfit for the Presidency. Its now possible to see a lowlight tape of Christie's numerous outbursts which are unbecoming a governor, much less a president. Christie prevaricated when he feigned innocence he is a bully at his damage control press conference Thursday. Bullying, according to Christie, "is not the rule of what's happened over the last four years in the administration". Former New Jersey Governor Rich Coday would disagree. After Coday once publically disagreed with Christie, his state trooper protection mysteriously disappeared, his cousin was quickly canned from the Port Authority involved in the bridge closing scandal and his former aide was fired from a state job. State Senator Sean Kean would disagree. After he pointed out a Christie mistake to a reporter, Christie banned Kean from attending a Christie news conference held in Kean's district. Kean "got what he deserved" a Christie aide told the press. Rutgers Professor Alan Rosenthal would disagree. After he backed a redistricting remap more favorable to Democrats last year, his school state funding was slashed. State Senator Kip Bateman would disagree. After he voted against Christie's reorganization of the public medical education system, Bateman's judicial candidate recommendation suddenly stalled.

The current president may be the King of Cool, a.k.a. "no drama Obama", but a President Christie would be "Mt Vesuvius", ready to spew molten lava without warning. Christie will never make President, but with the passing of James Gandolfini, he'd make a great Tony Soprano on a Soprano's reunion show. He wouldn't even have to leave New Jersey.

The Tribune Editorial Board and Middle East chaos

The Tribune January 8, editorial "An arch of chaos", once again displays the Trib's 13 year long support of criminal US wars of conquest in the Middle East that are largely responsible for the current chaos it laments. Before the Trib Editorial Board joined with fellow media giants like the New York Times and Washington Post to enable the criminal... Bush administration to engage in unlawful regime change, al-Qaida was confined to a narrow, inhospitable area of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Now they're spreading like a massive infection in Iraq, Syria and other areas from the boil of senseless war you enabled the Bush administration to lance. To dismiss getting hundreds of thousands killed, millions injured or homeless, and trillions squandered with this triviality: "More than a decade and two American wars in the Middle East have taught U.S. leaders about the potency — and limits — of our options," is unconscionable. You make this catastrophe sound like some simple, benign policy failure. To make your first priority there to "defend Israel, a close ally in a troubled neighborhood" ignores their massive humanitarian crimes against the Palestinian people, their hundred or so nukes, gained, in part, from stealing our nuclear secrets, and their relentless efforts to ensnare us into their plans to take out their rival for hegemony, Iran, with pre-emptive war if necessary. As we learned a hundred years ago from the Great War, close allies don't goad close allies into needless war. When you trumpet that "We back the efforts of a bipartisan group of U.S. senators, led by Illinois Republican Mark Kirk and New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez, for new, more impactful sanctions on Tehran," you fail to mention that Kirk's bill essentially ties US to support Israel should they unilaterally decide to pull the trigger against Iran. To editorialize support for the junior Senator from Illinois, who's replaced the duo of John McCain (GOP, AZ) and Lindsey Graham (GOP, SC) as the Senate's biggest warmonger, is irresponsible.

The Trib Editorial Board loves to pontificate about punishing miscreants in Chicago and Illinois who betray the public trust. But when it comes to the monstrous criminality of our Middle East wars, not a word, not a peep, about bringing the evildoers to justice or firing the media enablers who continue to ignore past transgressions and advocate new ones.

$25,480.80 / hr. Rauner seeks minimum wage cut

Last month GOP gubernatorial candidate, billionaire Bruce Rauner, advocated rolling back Illinois' $8.25 minimum wage to the federal minimum of $7.25. He spoke these words at a Quad Cities business group candidate forum:

   "I will advocate moving the Illinois minimum wage back to the national minimum".

Since the national minimum is just $7.25 per hour, Rauner officially went on record advocating a rollback of one dollar per hour. In the 25 days since that very specific policy position, Rauner never qualified or rescinded his stance. But when faced with a firestorm of criticism over the heartlessness of further impoverishing Illinois' many thousands of minimum wage workers just trying to survive on what are rightly called starvation wages, Rauner skirted the truth.  Instead of being forthright, he said he really wants to raise the Illinois minimum wage to $10 per hour. I'm not going to describe how Rauner twisted himself into a mammoth pretzel getting from "moving the Illinois minimum wage BACK to the national minimum" of  $7.25 / hr,   to raising the Illinois wage to $10 / hr. Let's just say his explanation doesn't pass the political smell test.

Last year Rauner earned a cool 53 mill. Based an a normal work year of 2,080 hours, that amounts to $25,480.80 an hour. Billionaire Bruce may have enough 'walkin around' money to purchase nine  luxury homes and have a financial interest in three professional sports teams (Bulls, Red Sox, Steelers). He's now spending millions of his financial empire to acquire the only toy that has so far eluded him: the governorship. Unfortunately for BB, this is one toy the workin' folk of Illinois ain't selling.

Utah homophobes: find yourself another country to be hateful in

The Utah state government sure knows how to treat its gay citizens with extreme mental cruelty. When 1,000 gay couples, discriminated against their entire lives in one of the most homophobic states, suddenly married after a federal appeals court tossed their homophobic voters' ban on gay marriage, state officials enticed the Supreme Court to halt further gay marriages pending state appeal of the lower court decision.  Now these 2,000 newlyweds have been tossed into "married limbo" as Utah officials ponder how to treat the thousand gay marriages.

 

Consider Randi White, seven months pregnant, and newly married partner Laura. Will their utterly natural and human desire to be their child's legal parents be quashed? While the 1,000 gay marriages remain legal, what will happen to their plans to be listed jointly on their health insurance, adopt existing children as their official parents, or have their names enshrined on their birth certificates.  No one knows if Utah officials will decide to continue honoring these marriages or move to invalidate them.            

Utah officials who have appealed the federal court decision striking down Utah's insidious gay marriage ban or are considering invalidating the 1,000 marriages that have made 2,000 newlyweds full Utah citizens for the first time, should consider relocating to a homophobe friendly land. A few candidates come to mind: North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia.

Cong. Roskam cries wolf, dodges falling sky over Affordable Care Act

My Congressman Peter Roskam's Community Voice "Real chance for fraud in health care law" (Suburban Life, January 2), reminds me of "The boy who cried wolf", sending out false alarms as a prank, or possibly even "Chicken Little" mistakenly chirping that the sky is falling. Having voted and failed 43 times to prevent the Affordable Healthcare Act from being passed and funded, Roskam, as a House Tea Party leader, has adopted their last remaining talking point - possible fraud - while ignoring the ACA's enormous benefits to the 40 million uninsured; folks doomed to bankruptcy, diminished health, even death from the health care system Roskam adores with every political fiber of his being.  His title gives it away when he uses the term "real chance" which is pure conjecture, since no systematic compromise of private health information has occurred and none will. Those promoting the ACA who are working successfully to correct any deficiencies, without resorting to scare stories to destroy it, because their agenda is to expand delivering the wonderful improvements already achieved. Roskam relishes the media opportunity to present an utterly false and hurtful portrayal to destroy the first real lifeline those 40 million uninsured folks have secured in their lifetime. His real agenda is to undermine support for the Obama administration which is making progress in health care, the economy, and ending senseless wars in spite of Roskam's  efforts of sabotage. Go to his website www.roskam.house.gov, search NSA spying scandal, and find nothing. So much for Roskam's feigned concern for our privacy.

If Congressman Roskam thinks the ACA is going to go away, he should consider this:

• 2 million folks visited www.healthcare.gov on December 23 alone
• 8 million folks have obtained health care coverage under federal and state ACA provisions
• 3.9 million folks became eligible for Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program in October and November from ACA Medicaid provisions

While Roskam is warning about phantom wolfs and scurrying away from falling sky, the many millions being helped are saying simply: "Thank you, Mr. President."