Rauner's cruelty to needy hits new low

If Governor Bruce Rauner entered a limbo contest, he'd slither under a limbo pole an ant would have trouble traversing. The governor displayed his penchant for going low against people in need beyond any sense of compassion or decency in his statement threatening veto of Rep. Sara Feigenholtz's bill HB40, designed to allow women to use Medicaid or state employee health insurance to pay for abortions. Rauner's history on reproductive rights is in direct conflict with this heartless threat, in that he and his foundation have given hundreds of thousands of dollars supporting both Planned Parenthood and the ACLU's Roger Baldwin Foundation, which aims to protect abortion rights laws. Why the switch? No doubt Rauner looked at the votes he needs from the pro life crowd to get re-elected; then decided supporting humane reproductive rights for women in need wouldn't be prudent. That is political pandering at its worst. Even Rauner's two Republican predecessors, Jim Edgar and George Ryan called withholding such relief to those without Rauner's deep pockets 'unconscionable'. Getting back to that limbo contest, no matter what new record low Rauner achieves, each new day brings opportunity to go even lower.

Direct outrage at perpetual war and other critical issues

I'm disappointed but not surprised at the avalanche of outrage over the poor bloke dragged of the United airliner. If he were a lout causing a disturbance or threatening the captive passengers and crew, his ouster would have been cheered and his injuries celebrated. Obviously, procedures went terribly wrong in this case. But anyone observing the tension, pressure and chaos gate agents are under to please dozens, hundreds, even thousands of passengers affected by their split second decisions should have some empathy that the actors in this drama are not evil; and that overall, these folks do an extraordinarily high quality job under extremely challenging circumstances. I'm disappointed because the outrage could be much better spent protesting against perpetual war, the destruction of our environment and the lust to take away health insurance from the needy by the new administration. Where's that outrage, indeed.   

Time for Cutler to cut and run

Former Denver and Bears quarterback Jay Cutler amassed some pretty impressive stats in 11 seasons –hoisting 208 touchdowns among the 2,782 completions in 4,491 tries (62 percent), garnering 32,467 yards. But one stat not listed is the times an even bigger hulk tossed the 6-foot-3, 225-pound Cutler to the hard turf like a rag doll. I winced watching every sack, not because of the damage it did to the Bears victory chances, but to the fragile brain banging around in Cutler's cranium.

Cutler turns 34 in a month, has a lovely wife and three little kiddies at home to go along with a fortune north of $50 million earned throwing a pigskin and getting smashed into the sod. Cutler should consider the closing chapter in the long and now sad life of Kansas Comet and Bears great Gale Sayers and quietly hang it up. Maybe Jay should grab a Starbucks to discuss the matter (no pun intended) with fellow Bears QB Jim McMahon. Then again, not a good idea. The punky QB will likely stare blankly at Jay and wonder why he's even there. 

My congressman Peter Roskam (IL-6) should issue a profound apology to his 750,000 constituents for his nine years of lies about the Affordable Health Care Act (ACA). From Day One in the 2009 debate over the ACA passed March 27, 2010, Roskam was all in on the GOP's Big Lie that the ACA was a 'job killer'. Roskam fully supported GOP response legislation with the lying title 'Repealing the Job Killing Health Care Act.' In the ensuing nine years Roskam hurled the job killing whopper loudly and often.

Though still a fierce opponent of the ACA which has given 20,000,000 of America's needy first time health insurance and arguably saved 50,000 lives, Roskam has gone silent on his ACA job killing lie. It certainly isn't guilt over a lie that caused his nose to stretch from one end of his gerrymandered district to the other. No, it's likely the report of the non-profit health care think tank Altarum, that the ACA was a huge JOB CREATOR, adding 240,000 health care jobs during the first three years of the ACA's full implementation. And the jobs were good ones including doctors, nurses, and other skilled health care professionals. No burger flippers among that quarter million increase. It's not hard for us Average Joe's to figure out the ACA as a job creation engine. Add 20,000,000 customers to any industry and you'll stimulate an avalanche of new jobs. That truth wasn't lost on Roskam who chose to spew lies instead to curry favor with his anti Obama, anti government base. Exploiting the tens of millions of vulnerable Americans seeking health care with lies to play politics is not leadership. It is unconscionable.

Roskam's ACA lies are not unforgivable. A genuine apology and promise to make amends seeking to insure the balance of 40,000,000 uninsured will be celebrated. The road to redemption begins with the truth.

The promise Trump should have kept

Many supporters are lauding Trump for following through on campaign promises to dump regulations, cut taxes, end health insurance for the needy, appoint corporatist judges, lay off criticizing urban police forces, promote voter restriction laws, defund Planned Parenthood for starters. But the promise that peeked us peaceniks, scaling back the US footprint overseas, has been sorrowfully discarded for going full monty on rampant militarism. Let us count the ways far beyond the murderous, criminal bombing of Syria April 6:

• Trump had quietly expanded war zones for US operations  in Somalia and Yemen
• Making it easier to launch counter terrorism strikes anywhere in the world
• Accelerating drone strikes from one every 5.5 days under Obama to 1.8 days
• Loosening Obama administration guidelines designed to limit civilian casualties from illegal bombings
• Considering military requests for more canon fodder for America's never ending Afghan war
• Sending ships near North Korea to rattle sabers as well as considering putting nukes in South Korea; even assassinating North Korea's Kim Jong-un. 
• Ended the Obama administration policy of announcing new troop deployments in the Middle East and Africa. 
• Scuttled Defense Secretary 'Mad Dog' Mattis plan to board Iranian ships in international waters only when the story was leaked prematurely. 
• Promised the military a 10% budget raise of a cool $54 billion to ensure their allegiance for this madness. 

This is just the new warmongering we're aware of. Be very afraid for your children and grandchildren's future. With Trump it's every bad promise kept; the one decent promise dumped. 

Walt Zlotow

Glen Ellyn

How we can obey the law against war

April 9, 2017

Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL)

Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL)

How Can We Obey The Law Against War

With the bombing of Syria last week Americans were again confronted with our leaders taking the United States to war in violation all international laws and norms forbidding unjust war. These laws and norms go back further than the War Powers Act of 1973, which forbids the president from engaging in military action without a declaration of war by Congress, unless that action results solely from an actual or imminent threat of attack against the United States. It goes back further than prohibitions against illegal wars incorporated in the United Nations Charter of 1945. We must go all the way back to the General Treaty for Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy, better known as the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928. The treaty, authored by US Secretary of State Frank Kellogg and French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand, was ratified 85 – 1 by your 1928 predecessors, going into effect July 24, 1929. Kellogg-Briand is still in effect with a total of 62 signatories.

Yet, the United States, with support nearly every member of Congress including yourselves, continues illegal perpetual warfare in seven countries, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and the aforementioned Syria, in complete violation of Kellogg-Briand. Since the September 11, 2001 attack against the United States, three presidents have used that isolated event to engage in perpetual warfare against any persons in any countries deemed to even possibly harbor ill will toward America. This blank check to violate Kellogg-Briand with impunity, causing untold thousands of deaths, injuries and refugees, makes a mockery of our commitment to peace and stability throughout the world.

As my senators, I implore you to live up to your membership in the US Senate, known as ‘the world’s most deliberative body’, and return America to its once held adherence to Kellogg-Briand. The following steps might be helpful in fulfilling that long discarded commitment:

1.     Request that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) convene a bi-partisan Senate Conference to review Kellogg-Briand.

2.     Include historians versed in its origins and history to educate the 100 senators, the oldest of which was born four years after Kellogg-Briand was ratified, likely not even aware of both its existence and prohibitions on their conduct.

3.     Include constitutional and international law experts capable of identifying how current US policy of perpetual warfare against millions of defenseless citizens violates all norms of law, morality and decency, including those covered by Kellogg-Briand.   

4.     Invite representatives of the administration involved in foreign policy, including the President, Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor, to explain precisely why they ignore the War Powers Act of 1973, the UN Charter of 1945, as well as Kellogg-Briand.

5.     Request the Joint Chiefs of Staff, consisting of all four services chiefs, to explain how their actions in conducting perpetual military operations against civilian populations furthers America’s obligation to avoid unjust war, as well as serving its national self-interests.

6.     Televise this conference in cable and network outlets to educate our citizens and inspire them on the need to promote peace in the honored tradition of Kellogg-Briand.

But please, do not wait for such a conference occurring to comply with Kellogg-Briand. Speak up in the Senate, on your Senate website, at news conferences and Town Halls, on the need to end the perpetual wars we’ve been mired in for the past sixteen years. In so doing you will be honoring your role as citizen and senator. You will be returning America to its cherished place as the world’s beacon of peace and democracy. But most of all you will be finally engaged in preventing untold thousands of needless deaths and ruined lives. Those are the people Kellogg-Briand was designed to protect.

Please consider and respond to this plea. But do not delay. Time is critical. Every day brings new misery, suffering, even death to the innocents trapped beneath our bombs.

Respectfully,

Walt Zlotow

Glen Ellyn, IL