Don't make Dylann Roof tenth murder victim

"I haven't shed a tear for the innocent people I killed." With those words and bizarre conduct in his sentencing hearing, 22 year old Dylann Roof appears determined to elicit a death sentence from the jury for slaughtering 9 blacks in a Charleston, SC church in June, 2015. Roof acted in his own defense, he claims, so his defense counsel couldn't enter evidence about his psychological condition Roof is determined to protect. "There's nothing wrong with me psychologically" Roof protested.

Psychology aside, Roof is clearly a defective human, acting out his violent fantasies the vast majority of us keep in check. But we expect better from our Uncle Sam who should be ennobling those of us living instead of callously degrading our political culture with calls for bloodlust. The US has become an outlier, one of only 53 countries of 193 that still practice state sponsored murder. Twenty-one of our fifty states have abolished it as well.

Murdering Roof won't bring back the victims. Executing him won't deter similarly disturbed creatures who haunt our life. Injecting him with lethal drugs is the wrong fix for what ails America. As the Bard wrote so well:

"The quality of mercy is not strain'd
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: It becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown"

Or in your case, Uncle, it's your funny hat.

Killing Obamacare sorta like killing polio vaccine

Any Republican who campaigned against the Affordable Care Act these past eight years is despicable.

Whatever defects the ACA has pail in comparison to the benefits they've provided the 20 million covered by it. They pail in comparison to the 50,000 lives the ACA has demonstrably saved. They pail in comparison the the 300 other million of us who feel gratitude our government provided some relief to the least fortunate, medically speaking, among us.

Whatever defects the ACA has are the result of these despicable lawmakers who devoted every penny of their political capital to prevent any health care coverage for the uninsured, or improve the coverage for the insured. They are the result of these despicable lawmakers who forced Democrats to enact less than what was required, single payer Medicare for all, then, despicably sought its repeal because of those despicably engineered defects.

It's not uncommon for an uninformed Republican voter to tell me "Obamacare is horrible and must be repealed." My answer? "If up to you, 50,000 of your fellow citizens would be dead. Shame on you."

Walt Zlotow

Glen Ellyn

Alex Warshawsky in good company seeking answers from Congressman Roskam

My fellow Illinois Sixth District constituent Alex Warshawsky, featured in today's Daily Herald over his frustration in getting a straight answer from our Congressman Peter Roskam's office on Roskam's position on gutting the independent Office of Congressional Ethics, is in good company. Dozens if not hundreds of Roskam's constituents had the same experience Tuesday. After several calls to both Roskam's DC and suburban offices failed to go through, Ed, a pleasant young man, finally answered from DC. He quickly became discombobulated by my request to for a straight answer to a straight question. When I asked to speak to his boss, he said nobody else was home. He did promise to have someone call me with an answer but rest assured I'm not holding my breath waiting. Even Houdini couldn't hold it 48 hours.

The Herald lamented in their editorial today on the tone deafness of Republicans trying to gut House ethics oversight, citing a Politico report Roskam spoke in favor of the gutting in Monday's closed door GOP session. Giving the independent panel caused Roskam major embarrassment over his $25,000 Taiwan paid for freebie vacation in 2011, before the House cleared him, his opposition is understandable, though inexcusable.

When penning a bill, such as gutting the Affordable Care Act, that plays well with his base, Roskam is front and center media savvy. But when playing the cynical, career politician whose conduct insults every Sixth District voter, Roskam turns into the Invisible Man.

Vote Clemons, Bonds into Hall

The NY Times reports younger sportswriters, with little direct experience of the baseball steroid era, are increasingly likely to vote super duper stars Jim Clemons and Barry Bonds into the Hall of Fame. The pitching wonder (354 wins) and home run king (762) have been blackballed by the blue noses who run baseball even tho they've awarded Hall lockers to Commissioner Bud Selig and manager Tony LaRussa, both of whom thrived with likely full knowledge of the player steroid shenanigans during their baseball tenure.

Even this old codger who followed their steroid fueled stats would vote them in if I could. To paraphrase Gertrude Stein, 'talent is talent...is talent.' No amount of junk could make a .250 hitter or a .500 pitcher into a Hall of Famer. Every inductee has skeletons, personal and professional, that could be used to deny entry should they come out. The Bambino was a boozing, skirt chasing lout for much of his career, while racist Ty Cobb would vault into the stands to beat up a black fan who annoyed him.    

How 'bout voting them in - time is running out on their getting the 75% vote total - and include a blip on their alleged drug use in their bronzed Hall bio. Let's not bury fabled reality. Let's celebrate unbelievably athletic wonders...warts and all. 

Full measure of man not reason to vote for Trump

I can understand how some uninformed, fearful, and yes, hateful voters could fall for narcissist lies and hate relentlessly served up by Donald Trump and still vote for him. Take for example, Daily Herald letter writer Charles Danyus, who excused Trump's utter debasement of our electoral process to galvanize voters, by saying it's not his prickly personality, but his courage and guts in truthtelling; likening Trump to the unfriendly guy they'd follow into combat. Danyus continues the war metaphor to claim our electorate was at war with the media, wealthy elite and political establishment; who he claims, caused their paychecks to shrink and their voices to be ignored. The solution according Danyus, was to vote for a wealthy elitist who shamelessly preached fear and loathing of the society to ensnare their vote. Elected on a fluke, losing the popular vote by 2.8 million, Trump immediately assembled a group of equally wealthy elitists determined to shrink Mr. Danyus' paycheck even further than he implies was reduced under Obama, those 14.3 million new jobs and a ceiling busting stock market notwithstanding. 

But what I can't understand is how Assistant Managing Editor Jim Slusher could read that nonsense and proclaim it one of the best letters of the year, calling it thoughtful. Two words that will never coincide except in the minds and the uninformed, the fearful, the haters, and yes, Daily Herald Assistant Managing Editor Jim Slusher, are Trump and thoughtful.