Scott's odd solution to end senseless killing

“I am outraged and sickened by this loss of life and many families’ lives have been forever changed because of these senseless murders." 

- FL Gov. Rick Scott

Scott sure has a bizarre fix for the endless and senseless murders that plague our blood soaked American culture. He wants to commit his own senseless state sponsored murder on Markeith Lloyd, himself a murderer of two human beings, one of which a female police officer.

Scott presides over the second biggest practitioner of state sponsored murder, just behind Texas, with 338 hapless souls awaiting the hangman. Now he wants Lloyd to join the procession, so much so he just yanked Aramis Ayala, the prosecutor in charge of the Lloyd prosecution, off the case. Her transgression? Lloyd broke the mold of bloodthirsty prosecutors nationwide by stating she will no longer seek state sponsored murder in any cases going forward.

Ayala's reasoning is unassailable. She points out that the decade or more wait, with the possibility of judicial nullification of carrying out the execution, makes a shame of death as a deterrent; actually exacerbating victim family members grief.

Ayala should be recognized for the sane, humane approach to justice not practiced by a single prosecutor I'm aware of. She should be honored; indeed placed on a pedestal as a beacon for prosecutors nationwide. It should be Scott who should be yanked from the case; just another pandering, bloodthirsty governor who somehow can sleep soundly after sending a fellow human being to eternity.

A sad addition

To the wise aphorism 'All things pass...only art endures' we must now add, 'except in the Trump administration.'

Roskam continues Big Lie on Affordable Health Care Act

My congressman Peter Roskam (IL-6) never ignores a little lie when the truth demolishes his Big Lie that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) must be repealed and replaced to improve health care for the 40,000,000 shut out till the ACA passed in 2009. His Big Lie ignores the 14 million to be tossed from insurance rolls in year one, and 10 million more is successive years. It ignores the massive tax cuts for Roskam's wealthy base those formerly insured will be funding. It ignores the untold thousands that will suffer degraded health, go bankrupt coping with that reality, and yes, die.

His little lie, not so small actually, is the one being spread by the entire GOP that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which revealed its devastating indictment of the Roskamcare fix, cannot be trusted. Neither Roskam nor his GOP cohorts will definitively call the CBO report false. No, that lie would be too obvious. But alluding to its falseness is still a lie that must be called out for the infinite harm it inflicts upon America's most vulnerable citizens. We must also call for Roskam to resign from Congress. Promoting a lifetime sinecure in Congress with endless lies at the expense of the powerless is disgraceful, revealing of bad character, and makes Roskam unfit to se

Roskam's blink on TrumpCare no solace for 14 million in jeopardy

My Congressman Peter Roskam (IL-6) continues to speak in code when it comes to the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Never once showing compassion for the 40,000,000 without health care and the tens of thousands who died annually before the ACA, Roskam went full monty in support of the TrumpCare replacement that would strip 14 million from health insurance the first year, and an additional 10 million over time. Not a word of concern for those that will go bankrupt, suffer degraded health and yes, die from TrumpCare.

But intense pressure from district constituents has caused Roskam to blink, according to Crain's Chicago Business. But if Roskam's obtuse statement "I want to learn more about the Medicaid piece, particularly in Illinois" is a blink, everyone but Crain's missed it. They even had to ask twice if he's open to changes in the atrocious Medicaid cuts TrumpCare promises, Roskam finally uttered the 'YES' word, fretting how much that will alienate his extreme right wing base.

Crain's might consider that a blink, but to the 14 million who'll lose health coverage under TrumpCare, it was a heartless slap in the face.

Now's their chance to let them die

I posed the following charge to my Congressman Peter Roskam as one of three constituents meeting with him yesterday. "In the last 8 years 20 million have gained health care; 50,000 are still alive because of that. Never once in 8 years have you acknowledged those benefits; voting instead 60 times to prevent, defund, derail those benefits. That is unconscionable." In response, Roskam offered that many in the district have complained their rates and deductibles have increased under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Roskam is bully on the TrumpCare replacement which we now know from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office will toss 14 million from being insured the first year and 24 million over time. It will also drastically increase premiums on lower income elderly. Thousands of those losing health care under Roskam's cure will surely suffer impaired health, go bankrupt trying to cope, and yes, die.



When he voted sixty times to prevent, defund, derail the ACA Roskam couldn't prevent the increase of 20 million newly insured with 50,000 plus lives saved. Now that Roskam and his Republican majority actually are empowered to destroy the primary benefits of the ACA, my question to Peter Roskam and company is: "Are you really going to let them die?"

Bloodthirsty promise kept

On November 15, 2015, presidential candidate Trump uttered possibly the most disgusting campaign promise is history when he said "I will bomb the shit out of them", referring to ISIS, without offering a shred of justification for committing mass murder on people neither at war with the US nor posing a credible existential threat.

Among many others, including a Muslim ban, eroding environmental controls, deregulating business practices keeping Americans safe, defunding Planned Parenthood, privatizing public schools, kicking out the productive undocumented and destroying the benefits of the Affordable Health Care Act, Trump kept this one, resulting in dozens, if not hundreds of innocents killed. In his first 45 days Trump approved 36 drone strikes, an average of one every 1.25 per days, a four and a half fold increase over the Obama administration. Besides the extra killing, Trump's bragging about senseless killing like an immature teenager is troubling for future peace with 1,415 days left for more murder and mayhem.

It's a sad day in the American Story when we can measure our safety, our freedom, our health, indeed the peace of the world, by the campaign promises the Pretender In Chief breaks.