Delay, detour not enough to fix Dakota Access Pipeline woes

The Obama Administration decision to delay further construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, with the possibility it may be relocated from Indian lands and water supply is welcome news. But it is not enough. The government was negligent in not fully vetting the environmental impact of the proposed oil conduit on the Standing Rock Sioux and all of humanity. The builders were arrogant and heartless in assuming they could steamroll the most marginal of American sub groups when they demanded the Standing Rock Sioux to stand down from their blocking the defilement of Mother Earth.

The Dakota Access Pipeline should not just be delayed. It should not just be detoured. It must be dismantled.

Roskam's Trump support epic moral failing

My congressman Peter Roskam (IL-6) brought his wife, two daughters and two sons into the controversy regarding moral reprobate Donald Trump's presidential bid. He called Trump's bragging about how he loves to sexually grope women, including married ones, "disgusting, corrosive" and that "it flies in the face of every lesson wife Elizabeth and I taught our daughters and sons about how men and women interact."

Those family values aside, Roskam plans to vote for moral reprobate Trump because this election is a "binary choice" in which he is "choosing to vote for a wild card over an unworthy candidate."

Roskam's use of 'binary',''unworthy' and 'wild card' are telling. They are meaningless words designed to soften his slinking away from confronting possibly the most important moral issue ever in a presidential campaign. Roskam knows Trump is morally and temperamentally unfit to be president. But he also knows that the majority of his Republican base in the Sixth District still support Trump and may send Roskam into retirement should Roskam disavow Trump over his rape culture character, not to mention his racism, xenophobia, and mocking of the disabled who cause him discomfort.

The lesson for the Sixth District is clear. Roskam will jettison the most basic precepts of decent behavior he's taught his children to stay in office. In addition, he'll use his family as a prop to confuse the electorate on his cynical road to a lifetime political career.

Roskam cripples IRS; then demonizes it

My congressman Peter Roskam (IL-6) has spent a cool quarter million or more this campaign cycle touting his signature achievement in his congressional decade: crippling, then demonizing the IRS. Seven glossy full color brochures clogged my mailbox, everyone touting this dubious achievement. Then the ubiquitous TV ads appeared, every one the same with Roskam telling me not to listen to the election 'noise' (read Roskam pick Trump's moral depravity) but focus on his successful war against the hated tax collector. Roskam claims to not only to have stopped the IRS from confiscating assets of a small business without a 'whiff' of evidence, he got them to apologize. Big smile...fadeout. 

That may take first prize for campaign sophistry, using false arguments to deceive people. Since gaining control of Congress in 2011, Roskam and his Republican obstructionists have decimated the IRS' ability to collect the tax money that keeps government working for us. Down 5,000 agents since  

then, the agency can barely live answer half the calls from folks needing tax information, struggle to keep IRS offices not closed with proper business supplies, much less efficiently stop tax cheating, becoming rampant thanks to Roskam led drowning in the proverbial Republican bathtub. Roskam may be proud of supporting the $346 million cut last year in IRS funding, apparently oblivious of the truth that every dollar cut, cuts $6 of valid tax from filling Treasure coffers. 

Roskam is fond of visiting 6th District schools to mentor impressionable students on the importance of government service and the daily life of a Congressman. In the next Q & A I'd like to see a precocious lad or lassie pose this query: "Mr. Congressman, having made millions in salary and benefits in your long political career, why must you be compelled to bite the hand that feeds you?"