Was Daily Herald's Roskam endorsement written "under the influence?"

The Daily Herald’s endorsement of four term Illinois Sixth District Congressman Peter Roskam was so bizarre and divorced from the reality of Roskam’s eight year tenure as my Congressman I can only conclude it was written “under the influence”.

Where to begin? How about your claim Roskam is the best candidate to grow the economy? Were you folks at the South Pole from October 1 – 16, 2013, when House Chief Deputy Whip Roskam helped shut down the government, causing a $24 billion dent to aforesaid economy and needlessly inconveniencing most Americans? Did you forget that Roskam spent the last six years trying valiantly to prevent, overturn or defund the Affordable Care Act which has granted relief to 40 million folks shut out of our health care system and is finally reversing the previously ever upward rise in medical insurance and health care costs? Working endlessly to prevent a living minimum wage, heartlessly denying long term unemployed extended jobless insurance and voting against every infrastructure rebuilding jobs creation measure, all serve Roskam’s goal to hurt, rather than help the splendid Obama economic recovery.  You laud Roskam for wanting to re-write the tax code not mentioning that his goal in not tax fairness but less paperwork for the greedy rich to wade through in avoiding their fair share of taxes.

On foreign policy, Roskam is enthralled with the war party and has helped spend trillions on our failed, criminal wars to be fought by the children of he poor, not by Roskam’s wealthy base. Astoundingly, you compliment his new bi-partisanship by supporting the President’s latest failed war against ISIS. But war lover Roskam goes further, criticizing the President for reaching out to the Muslim world and blasting him for pulling out of Iraq, even though Obama was merely following Iraq’s admonition to get the Hell out. He’s cheered on Israel’s genocide in Gaza as a loyal member of the Israel Lobby, and always puts their Likud government’s interests above America’s.

On immigration reform Roskam’s agenda is build a gigantic fence and then rest.
Marriage equality never entered Roskam’s ‘to do’ list.

Strengthen the Violence Against Women act? Faggeddibout it. Roskam voted against last year’s overdue extension.

But the Daily Herald is ecstatic that Roskam co-sponsored a Medicare anti fraud bill when Roskam simply made this a signature plank in his unrelenting effort to discredit any government intervention to help folks under the Affordable Care Act.

Yes, the Daily Herald was surely ‘under the influence’ when they penned this hilarious endorsement. It was the pernicious influence of the war party, the Tea Party, the wealthy elite, the Xenophobes who are anti-women, anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti anyone not of the Chosen. That may not be the influence of hallucinatory substances….but it might as well be.

Walt Zlotow

Glen Ellyn

Rauner's money vault full; political vault empty

Bruce Rauner's business skills may have put a billion dollars in his bank account, but he's yet to add two cents of political capital to his governance account. That was abundantly clear in his debate performance last night against Governor Quinn. Rauner repeatedly failed to convince his interviewers that his budget numbers added up. They can't of course since his position is to grant huge tax breaks to his rich base, including himself, while piling on regressive sales tax increases on millions of Illinoisans struggling to get by. Near the end an exasperated questioner prefaced his budget question by challenging Rauner to try one more time to convince him that his budget numbers weren't determined on Fantasy Island. Rauner fumbled that question before he could even punt it away. Meanwhile, Governor Quinn displayed a mastery of state governance and his principled role in righting the ship of state after the Great Recession caused by Republican policies Rauner embraces. Rauner caught my attention early on in his quest for the GOP nomination when he blasted the entire legislature as a bunch of corrupt bums who needed to be term limited. Then he said he'd magically fix Illinois by inviting legislature leaders to the Executive Mansion for a Kumbaiya session where they would learn to do his bidding. If that ever occurs I'd sure like to be a fly on the wall as Rauner gets schooled in Governance 101. As Quinn displayed his enormous heart in his efforts to lift up all Illinoisans, I was reminded of Bill Bixby about to morph into the Incredible Hulk to right wrongs. And Rauner? He looks more and more like the Incredible Shrinking Billionaire. 

Diana Rauner, you are no Democrat

As a lifelong Democrat I was deeply offended by the slick, multi colored, campaign flyer put out displaying Diana Rauner, wife of Billionaire Bruce, touting her lifelong Democratic bonifides in her endorsement of husband Bruce for Illinois governor.

What kind of lifelong Democrat would champion a gubernatorial candidate for not having a "social agenda" when every aspect of state political governance is social, in that it determines the quality of life in our Illinois SOCIETY. What kind of lifelong Democrat would support a gubernatorial candidate who refused to back marriage equality, practically broke out in hives when reporters asked his position on gay marriage, and literally ran away from reporters when they wouldn't let him avoid the issue? What kind of lifelong Democrat would support a gubernatorial candidate who bragged to his greedy rich base he would cut the Illinois minimum wage back from the very poor $8.25 and hour to the poverty level $7.25 and hour and then lied about his minimum wage position when tape of his disgusting insensitivity to the poor surfaced? What kind of lifelong Democrat would support a gubernatorial candidate who opposed expanding Medicaid expansion to hundreds of thousands of Illinoisans previously shut out from our fabulous health care system. What kind of lifelong Democrat would champion massive billion dollar tax breaks for the rich while saddling the middle and lower classes with onerous sales tax increases?

The kind of lifelong Democrat who would support such a candidate is the fake Democrat Diana Rauner, willing to throw the little people of Illinois under Billionaire Bruce's electoral juggernaut funded by his personal fortune built on the backs of failed companies and laid off workers. If there were truth in political advertising Diana's expensive mailer would simply state: "I'm Diana Rauner, and though I'm a lifelong Democrat, I'm supporting Bruce for Governor because he's got all the material goodies a billion can buy except one thing: the Governorship."

For Turkey, ISIS is War No. 2

It's too bad President Obama was just 3 years old and can't remember 1964, when LBJ began the destruction of his presidency and his personage by trying to win a civil war in Vietnam that could not, and should not have been won. Obama's supposed good intentions of saving the folks threatened by ISIS suffered a major blow as Turkey, the most critical partner in our fake coalition of the 'maybe willing', has decided to let ISIS overrun and possibly wipe out the Kurds in the Syrian town of Kobani. Turkish president Endogen, no US sock puppet, has decided that the Kurdish Workers Party, PKK, has spilled too much Turkish blood over several decades to warrant joining the new US war against ISIS, designed in part to protect vulnerable Kurdish enclaves. While ISIS is doing Turkey's dirty work against the Kurds for them, Secretary Kerry is running around with his perfectly coiffed hair on fire trying to figure out how to corral the loose canon Turks. Meanwhile, our Sunni Gulf State partners are phantom allies as any real help they might give America in killing Muslims will cause blowback from their Muslim populations. And our trillion dollar Iraqi ally? They could qualify for Olympic track and field events with all the running practice they undergo.  This simply and quickly proves the inevitable: if the US wants to prevail in a civil war that defies prevailing, it will have put US canon fodder on the ground to bleed and die so Kerry and Obama can experience the catastrophe that befell LBJ. Even the stupidity of the Kardashians isn't as predictable as the stupidity of US militarism in the Middle East.  

Land of Homophobia in US shrinking fast

Yesterday's Supreme Court decision refusing to review Federal Circuit Court rulings nullifying gay marriage bans in 5 states, jumped from 19 to 30 the states (plus Washington DC) allowing marriage equality. America's homophobes and fearful anti-gay folks with lesser hatred in their hearts, have awakened to an American landscape that is rapidly diminishing for them to practice their discriminatory, hurtful and plain nutty concepts that gay marriage is a threat to children, 'opposite' marriage and society itself. If Pope Francis, already in hot water among the hateful, greedy rich for preaching economic fairness, would have the courage to end the Catholic Church's insane, delusional concept of homosexual sin, he may actually have a chance of making the Church relevant in the 21st century. And those folks holding up progress in the remaining 20 Neanderthal states not practicing American freedom and inclusiveness need to get out of the way of the excruciatingly slow, but inevitable sweep of history and human progress.

Kudos to Sweden

News item:
Sweden will become the first nation in Europe since the Cold War to recognize Palestine as a sovereign state. Prime Minister Stefan Lofven made the announcement during his inaugural address Friday. He leads a center-left coalition of Social Democrats and Greens. Although it seems like a rare victory for the Palestinians, the majority of U.N. member states, representing roughly 80 percent of the global population, also recognize the state of Palestine. China and Russia both recognize Palestine, while the United States and most of Western Europe do not. A U.S. State Department spokeswoman said the following: “We certainly support Palestinian statehood, but it can only come through a negotiated outcome, a resolution of final status issues and mutual recognitions by both parties.”
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If the US and the EU, representing the 20% of the world's population denying Palestinian state recognition, would follow suit, Israel would stop grabbing off Palestinian land and resources and negotiate in good faith for a true Palestinian state faster than you can say: "Mow the lawn".