Rauner checks the Xenophobe box on his governing report card

First newbie Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner checked the 'union busting box' on Day One of his rookie year as Illinois governor. Then he checked the 'end prevailing wage box', in his effort, failed so far, to diminish middle class wages in Illinois. Then he checked the 'no budget box' which allowed him to check the 'reduce help for the needy box'. Not satisfied with checking off every possible box of bad governance, Rauner is using the Paris tragedy to check the 'Xenophobe box', joining 24 other GOP and one Democratic governors in calling for a halt to the reasonable and verified acceptance of Syrian refugees into the US. This opportunity is one box even Rauner didn't foresee having the pleasure of checking off in his urge to cover all the boxes of bad gubernatorial governance.

By checking those boxes, Governor Rauner has boxed himself in to the untenable position of a Freshman Governor scoring a hundred percent in failing to do the right thing.

Governor Rauner reminds me of he fabulously wealthy but harmful character Tom Buchanan in F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby'. Paraphrasing Fitzgerald, "He was a careless person, Bruce Rauner -- he smashed up Illinois then retreated back into his money or that vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept him together, and let other people clean up the mess he had made"

Hollande's 'pitiless' war simply pitiful

French President Francois Hollande reacted as anticipated by the Paris attackers, calling for a 'pitiless' war against ISIS. Immediately sending jets on a massive bombing campaign that will do nothing to defeat ISIS but much to inspire many thousands of foreign Sunni extremist supporters flocking to the emerging Islamic State. Alas, Hollande is falling into the same trap as President George W. Bush, wildly overreacting to a violent attack to save face at home, squandering endless treasure and blood in the process. In Hollande's case the endless blood will be many innocents in Syria because French boots on the ground, like American boots, are not an option. The French public knows France can't win this war; there's no real war to win. They just want a lot of Muslim blood to flow in revenge.

Neither Hollande nor President Obama will tell the terrible truths that ISIS is both funded and supported by our Middle East allies including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and Israel. Even NATO compatriot Turkey is using our war on ISIS to smash their real and only enemy, the Kurds. Years ago American and its allies, both Western and Middle Eastern, decided to back the Sunni's in the massive civil war ignited by our failed Iraq war. The region has become ungovernable due to this war-inspired instability, but we mindlessly funnel weapons to imaginary Sunni moderates seeking to overthrow the Shi'ite Assad who then uses them and our training to fight for the Islamic State. If that sounds insane...it is.

Not everyone is depressed by this sorrowful turn of events. US defense stocks are on the rise at Northrup, Raytheon, General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin. France's biggest weapons manufacturer Thales is up, up, while the French index is down, down.

Hollande's bombing campaign isn't pitiless; it's pitiful.

It happened on Veterans Day

Checking out at the grocery, the nice cashier asked me if I were a veteran.  Forgetting it was November 11, I inquired "Why do you ask?"
"We're giving discounts to veterans on their Day", she answered.
 "I'm a veteran of the Peace Movement, working to end, endless war. Does that earn a discount?" 
"No, just military veterans."
"Oh well, maybe next year", I said, ending the conversation. 
 

I revere and respect vets so I choose to use their special day as well as the other 364, promoting peace. The war party uses Veterans Day, and the other 364 as well, to glorify everlasting war around the world. 
 

Not just Paris, entire West burning from senseless war

The Paris massacre is likely more blowback from endless, senseless warfare of Western powers in the Middle East. Most honest observers of the madness we've perpetrated on Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and now Syria are correct in identifying the US and its allies' role in creating ISIS, expanding al Qaeda and destabilizing the entire region. While we spend trillions to bomb innocents , the monsters we've created spend a pittan...ce for a few Kalashnikovs and grenades to demonstrate the age old proverb that 'violence begets violence.' We kill hundreds of thousands and the nation just yawns and offers "Let's not look back, let's look forward." That files in the face of the Nuremburg Trial edict that criminal war must be punished; no exceptions.

Watch the war party exploit the Paris atrocity to ramp up our utterly futile, doomed effort to control who governs in a currently ungovernable land. After failing in Afghanistan, failing in Iraq, failing in Libya, we assumed we could use the Syrian civil war to remove Syrian leader Assad whom we couldn't control. By so doing we armed thousands who used our weaponry to spread the Islamic Caliphate to Syria, prevent a land sharing agreement, and doomed tens of thousands more to needless death, including now the 150 innocents in Paris.

Instead of using the Paris massacre to promote more warfare, let's use it to engage in an honest discussion of our 15 year, multi trillion dollar failure that brought us this latest tragedy which pales in comparison to the carnage we've unleashed upon four Middle East countries. You will likely not find that suggestion in mainstream media. They are in the tank for the war party, American exceptionalism, and the white hat, black hat narrative. Forget 50 shades of grey. In US foreign policy, there is not a single one.

Speedy Alka-Seltzer never killed anyone

Speedy Alka-Seltzer never killed anyone

One of my favorite advertising characters from the 1950's was Speedy Alka-Seltzer. He was an antacid tablet come to life, promising 'speedy' relief from indigestion. Speedy, and his cohorts pitching OTC (Over The Counter) medicines were both engaging and harmless creatures; never once needing a sound over voice warning of heart attacks, strokes, internal bleeding and suicide, rattled off by the winner of a fast talking contest. Nor did Speedy extol us to demand a prescription for him from ol' Doc Jones since we simply plunked down our twenty-five cents for Speedy at Friendly Pharmacy.

Then in 1997, Speedy was relegated to the TV advertising back shelf when the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) authorized Direct To Consumer Advertising (DTCA). This was a brilliant and pernicious scheme in which Big Pharma pitched their dangerous and colossally costly prescription drugs directly to consumers, who could only get them by demanding 'ol Doc Jones write them a prescription. It only takes a few hours to boob tube watching to endure a dozen or more such disgusting ads.

It has been a money geyser for America's leading drug pushers, worth many times the $7 billion spent annually enticing gullible couch potatoes to self-medicate.

On DTCA, America is an outlier. All but New Zealand in the industrialized world wisely prohibit DTCA.

Research shows doctors meet two thirds of patient requests for a specific drug; and nearly half of all patients make such requests. Doctors are businessmen too; why risk losing a paying customer simply because he's determined to get his TV ad induced drug of choice.

Getting back to long gone Speedy. He never killed anyone. And unlike many of the Cadillac priced prescription drugs being hawked on TV by Big Doc Pharma, Speedy didn’t need a barely discernable speed reader rattling off the debilitating side effects including possible death at the end of his hilarious pitch.

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