Roskam playing with full deck in lust to destroy affordable health care

It's a sad commentary on my Congressman Peter Roskam (IL-6) that just nine days before the fourth anniversary of enactment of the Affordable Care Act, he cast his 52nd vote to prohibit, abolish or gut it. The 52nd one is stunningly cruel to the tens of millions of Roskam's uninsured fellow citizens. The ACA is already providing a glimmer of hope that they will not suffer financial ruin, diminished heal...th or even death from a health care system Roskam venerates. Of course, Roskam's 52nd vote is an exercise in futility since the Senate won't consider this despicable bill. H.B. 4015, which passed with all 225 other House Republicans Roskam serves as a leader for, would, according to the Congressional Budget Office, delay the individual mandate by 5 years, causing 43 million Americans to be uninsured in 2019, and increase premiums for folks with individual plans by up to 20 percent. Roskam knows full well that the ACA is working as it just reached the five million milestone of folks who have signed up under it. He knows America will never go back to the days when greedy health insurance companies made fortunes by not insuring folks with pre-existing conditions, not paying for preventative procedures, charging women for necessary reproductive services, and having no obstacles for endless rate increases. The Congressman is simply playing to the anti-government Tea Party crowd that cheers on every move Roskam makes to deny services to the needy. Instead of trumpeting its benefits and actually serving his 700,000 constituents, Roskam uses his website www.roskam.house.gov to fear monger against the ACA, in addition to wasting Congress' time considering mean spirited but unpassable bills to demolish it.

But at least one cannot say, that when it comes to trying to destroy the most critical legislation of our generation, an initiative first championed by Republican Teddy Roosevelt in 1901, Roskam, with his 52nd vote against, is not legislating with a full deck.

Rice talk on Iraq war 11th anniversary disgraces Judson University

Leave it to Evangelical Judson University to schedule Condoleezza Rice's keynote speech at their fourth World Leader's Forum on March 19, the eleventh anniversary of America's criminal war against Iraq which Rice enabled as President Bush's National Security Advisor. If press reports are accurate, Rice made no mention of her role ...in the mass murder and mayhem she helped engineer in Iraq precisely eleven years earlier. Playing to the Evangelical faithful at Elgin, IL based Judson, who overwhelmingly supported her Iraq war criminality because it furthers their agenda of Armageddon in the Middle East which will raise them up to Heaven, Rice told the six hundred awed guests that "God gave us a brain and he expects us to use it". If there is a God who had Rice honor him by needlessly facilitating millions of deaths, injuries and displaced refugees at a cost exceeding three trillion dollars, He sure has some 'splainin' to do.

Six weeks ago I called Judson University's President Gene Crume requesting he rescind Rice's invitation to speak as she was utterly contrary to the aims of both a civilized society and an educational institution purporting to do God's work. I commented that certified war criminals like Rice should be shunned as the plague on our world they are rather than held up as role models of public service. I also pointed out that Rice makes three Iraq war criminals as keynote speakers in the four year history of Judson's World Leaders Forum. President Bush in 2011 kicked off the series, and Bush's poodle, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, spoke last year. Crume declined my request but did graciously offer me to make a suggestion for next year's World Leaders Forum keynote speaker.

Here are three Dr. Crume: Leaker of our Iraq war criminality Chelsea Manning; Wikileaks founder Julien Assange; and NSA spying whistleblower Ed Snowden. Oh, I forgot. Because they dedicated their lives to actually serving the higher purpose of promoting peace or defending the Fourth Amendment, they are either in prison, under house arrest at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, or safely protected from American prosecution under Russian asylum. Whatever you do, Dr. Crume, don't select former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Four Iraqi war criminals in five years would simply be too much to fathom.

Rauner's sixth million edges out pauper Dillard

To paraphrase novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The very rich are different from you and me...they can buy elections". Billionaire Bruce Rauner proved that last night when the sixth million of his personal wealth spent on his GOP gubernatorial campaign edged cash strapped State Senator Kirk Dillard by just two percentage points. While the margin was co...mfortable, its a far cry from the twenty percentage point lead that Rauner's first few million generated before the GOP electorate woke up to the way Rauner has gamed the system from his fabulous wealth to benefit Billionaire Bruce himself. Rauner, who wears an $18 watch but has more mansions than Snow White has Dwarfs, doesn't suffer folks of ordinary means easily. Take his daughter's educational career. Back in 2008 a politically unknown Rauner wanted to get his daughter in the prestigious Walter Payton College Preparatory School even though she already lived in the prestigious New Trier School District. When you're a billionaire even New Trier is not good enough for your kid. There was one problem. Daughter of Bruce didn't have the attendance qualification to go along with the top grades and test scores, so she was disqualified. What to do? The politically as well as financially connected Rauner called Chicago School System CEO Arnie Duncan and voila, Ms. Rauner bumped some deserving student who didn't have the wealth or clout of Billionaire Bruce. Eighteen months later Rauner dropped a cool $250,000 donation on Walter Payton Prep. I'd like to hear Rauner try to explain his outsider status and white knight political image to one of the 6,617 families of a more deserving student trumped by a daughter of fabulous wealth and privilege.

This incident is telling. Rauner is completely out of touch with everyday folks struggling to make ends meet instead of gaming the system for family glory. Rauner totally avoided social issues during the campaign saying they distract from righting Illinois' financial problems. He wouldn't even commit to opposing a legislative initiative to overturn Illinois' gay marriage law. He's in favor of reinstating the death penalty. In Rauner's worldview, financial reform does not mean raising minimum starvation wages; it means cutting those hard workers further into poverty. Financial reform is promising more tax breaks for the wealthy which he claims will rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, raise up education and create a wealth of new jobs. If voters believe that then they also believe Rauner doesn't chuck that $18 watch he wares on the campaign trail to strap on his Rolex when hobnobbing with the rich and famous

Americans never gets complete story from Mainstream Media

When my parents took us to the movies in the 1950's, they never checked movie times. We simply showed up hoping we'd enter during the second feature of a double bill so we'd see the intended movie from the beginning. Half the time we came in during the main flick which spoiled the enjoyment. I'm reminded about that when I hear mainstre...am media's false, self-serving reporting on the fake Ukraine crisis. They start the narrative with Russia's intent to sever Crimea from the US and EU sponsored neo-Nazi takeover of the democratically elected Ukrainian government, without ever mentioning the US and EU shenanigans which precipitated the crisis in the first place. Russia should nor more allow the US and EU to interfere with their national interests in Ukraine than we would allow Russia to interfere with our national interests in Cuba. Oh, I forgot. When the Soviet Union did that in 1960, we launched a proxy invasion which failed and then spent the next several years trying to assassinate the Cuban leader being romanced by the Soviet Union.

Sadly and tragically, Mainstream Media is in the tank for Uncle Sam and toes the self destructive US line as surely as Pravda toed the Soviet line. Eleven years ago tomorrow Mainstream Media helped the Bush administration launch its criminal war against Iraq by ignoring the lies, fear tactics, threats and propaganda served up by the administration as justification. Last August the Mainstream Media came within a few hours of facilitating a criminal bombing of Syria based on false reports portraying the anti government rebels as white knights when they included many anti-American terrorists. The bombing was only prevented by a massive outpouring of public opposition. And here we are seven months later with a hysterical Mainstream Media again shilling a false and partial narrative on the American people, claiming that Russian President Putin simply woke up one day and decided to kick start a new Russian empire at the expense of the hapless Crimeans.

We've seen this movie before....except for the first half which is the most important part.

A gem in DuPage County

Are you one of thousands of DuPage and neighboring county residents who enjoy the Illinois Prairie Path? Are you aware this splendid 62 mile recreational facility running throughout DuPage County even exists?

Beginning in Maywood on the east, the Path winds westward into Wheaton before branching both north to Elgin and south to Aurora, following the former rail line of the Chicago, Aurora and Elgin (The Roarin’ Elgin) interurban railway, which carried millions of passengers between Chicago and the western suburbs from 1902 to 1957.

In 1966, May Theilgaard Watts, a retired Morton Arboretum naturalist, almost singlehandedly willed the transformation of the abandoned rail bed into the magnificent Illinois Prairie Path.
The Roarin’ Elgin locomotives may be long gone but today all the motive power on their former haunts is human – walking, running or peddling – making DuPage residents healthier and happier. Check it out.

11 year later, Bush's war crime legacy continues Iraqi bloodbath

A majority of Americans, like President Obama, want to look forward rather than backward from the monstrous criminal war George W. Bush unleased on Iraq eleven years ago Wednesday. However, every decent American should pause for just a moment to recognize the legacy of the nine year war President Obama mercifully ended December 31, 2011, in monumental failure. How so? It was a failure for the 4,488 US soldiers who died in a war that never should have been fought. It was a failure for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, US contractors and coalition soldiers who also died. It was a failure for the entire country of Iraq which is now a failed state hopelessly bogged down in the Sunni-Shite sectarian war Bush's criminality unleashed. While affluent Americans fret about what new toy to buy and poor Americans fret about where their next meal is coming from, here is what happened in Iraq yesterday:

In Qaim, one policeman was killed and two others were wounded in a roadside bombing.

Four militants were killed in Falluja.

Clashes continue in Ramadi, where six policemen were shot dead. Four militants were killed.

A suicide bomber was killed in Haditha, but the number of victims was not reported.

In Baghdad, a blast on a commercial street in Amin killed four and wounded 13 more. In Qahira, a bomb killed three people and wounded six more at a falafel restaurant.

Four people were killed and 14 more were wounded on a commercial street in Amil.

Four people were killed and 10 were wounded in a Shoala/Hurriya area blast. Security forces also killed a militant. Two snipers were killed

In Sadr City, a bombing left one dead and six wounded.

A car bombing in downtown Tikrit left seven dead and 5 wounded.

President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rich have not only been given a "Stay Out of Jail Card" from President Obama, they have made millions from their self-serving memoirs, speaking engagements, and fat government pensions. But just as some 95 year old ex Nazi war criminal still awaits the knock at the door, the Statute of Limitations for Iraq war crimes will never run out on this criminal foursome. None of them can travel outside the US for fear of arrest by countries who take the Geneva Conventions infinitely more seriously than America.

On the eleventh anniversary of the Iraq war, these four need to be moved up from the back burner of forgotten justice up to the criminal war crime frying pan.