Saturday, April 22, 2017

Roskam staring in own 'Groundhog's Day'

My congressman Peter Roskam (IL-6) makes the right call in refusing to host a Town Hall with 6th District constituents. While his rookie congressional neighbor next door in District 8, Raja Krishnamoorthi, held a highly productive, polite Town Hall right out of the congressional gate, Roskam claims these critical participatory venues are nasty, unproductive exercises he refuses to waste his time on. He's right of course, but not for the right reason. Newbie Raja functions as a real congressman, willing to address the critical concerns of every 8th District resident. He faced tough questions at his event but did so honestly and sensibly, earning the respect of all attendees.
After ten years in Congress the majority of 6 District residents finally figured out Roskam isn't a real congressman, simply a taxpayer paid lobbyist for the special interests having nothing to do with real resident concerns. Take health care. Roskam's spent a decade on behalf of the health insurance industry working to first prevent, then repeal life saving healthcare from the 20 million who got it from the Affordable Heath Care Act. Roskam uses blatant lies that it hasn't accomplished one benefit to offset the millions of jobs its destroyed, heartlessly oblivious to the 50,000 lives and counting its saved so far. Take the environment. Roskam remains in the delusional climate change denial wing of the Republican Party, no doubt paying dues to the fossil fuel industry he claims is the only way to energy self sufficiency. Take gun control. That A grade and campaign cash from the NRA weren't garnered from backing sensible gun control to reduce the annual bloodbath on our streets, schools and places of worship. Take women's reproductive health. Roskam makes exception for his mantra opposing big government every time it involves a woman and her gynecologist.
The ordinary folks hurt by these cruel policies want answers that Roskam is incapable of and unwilling to give.They're not waiting till November, 2018. They're going to vote with their presence, their persistence and their questions every time Roskam makes a public appearance in the 6th. Though he'll never set one up or accept an invite, Roskam will find that the entire district has been turned into a continuous Town Hall till he starts doing the job he's run from for the past decade. Roskam is finding out every day he awakes in the 6th...it'll be 6:00 AM on Groundhog's Day.

Thursday, April 20, 2017

Murdoch clan should fire themselves



Bill O'Reilly wasn't canned by Fox News because of any concern over maintaining a decent work environment for their employees or promoting public morality as a responsible media outlet. They fired him because the sponsors finally fled, the female staffers revolted and the public pressure became intolerable. Fox News has always be a disgusting enabler of atrocious behavior against women by powerful but ignorant, mean spirited men enabled by the owners, Lachlan, James and daddy Rupert. The Murdoch's are even trying to head off a British decision involving another one of their many enterprises, that rests on whether the family is 'fit and proper' to gain approval. First Fox had to fire long time president Roger Ailes for years of endless sexual harassment but tried mightily to cover up O'Reilly's years of the same dirty deeds because he brought in hundreds of millions in ad revenue. While paying off 5 complainers with $13 million to keep quiet, they were tossing a cool $20 million a year at O'Reilly to keep the cash dinosaur flowing. Once the plug was pulled on that spigot, the plug was pulled on the creep fronting the O'Reilly Factor. But they still come up three short to really clean up Fox News: Lachlan, James and Papa Rupert.

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Trump has steep hill to out bomb Obama

Trump hates being the biggest loser. But when it comes to bombing innocents, his predecessor set the benchmark last year - 26,200 bombs - that will be tough to match, even for one as competitive as The Donald. But if his first 90 of 1,461 presidential days are any indication (assuming no impeachment), Trump will surely prevail. He's upped the drone strike ratio of one every 5.4 days under Obama, to one every day and a half. That's in addition all those senseless plane strikes in Iraq, Syria and other countries that are killing women and babies with military precision. Within a week of getting his License To Kill, Trump ordered a senseless special ops action in Yemen that killed 30 innocents as well a hapless member of the canon fodder brigade, charging into senseless, criminal battle at the command of a sociopath. Not satisfied with small time slaughter, Trump unleashed MOAB (Mother of All Bombs) on some 36 Afghan souls in the path of our 22,000 lb people killer, that no doubt gave Trump extreme pleasure, as well as higher ratings from a bloodthirsty public. But wait, the Killer In Chief was not done yet. He's threatening to bomb North Korea, a peanut power posing no threat to Uncle Sam and who could easily be contained by South Korea if we'd simply remove our 30,000 occupiers and tell the South to use some of their fabulous wealth to defend themselves instead of being our puppet. 

We'd best not think we're immune to the carnage Trump is unleashing far from our shores. He's no doubt inspiring home grown lone wolf attacks in what is accurately described as 'blowback'. And Trumps virulent war mongering surely puts all of at risk to wider war, even nuclear confrontation with Russia over our belligerence in Ukraine and Syria. In the end Trump may surely be the biggest winner in killing innocents; but the whole world will be the biggest loser.


Tuesday, April 18, 2017

For governor, I'm backing the guy whose personal check I can match


Let's see, channeling Secretariat, Governor Rauner is runaway leader, having ponied up $50 million of his billionaire wealth for his upcoming campaign. Democrat Jay Pritzker places with a cool seven mil. Chris Kennedy barely shows up to grab show with a paltry $250,000 in Kennedy Kash. Still out of sight in last place, State Senator Dan Biss just contributed twenty-five bucks to his sensible peoples' campaign, resting on the wise fiscal solution to Illinois' woes of a progressive income tax. Ironically, that matches what I contributed to him on Day One after he saddled up his financially austere gubernatorial thoroughbred. .
Forget the deluge of money...I'm betting on the people to pick the winner in this high stakes race to save Illinois.

Sunday, April 16, 2017

America's worthless promise to Russia

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, the US and NATO promised to move NATO 'not one inch' closer to Russia in return for Russia allowing Germany into NATO. Since then NATO has engulfed Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, Albania and Croatia. Trump has agreed to absorb the tiny state of Montenegro as the unlucky (for Russia) thirteenth former member of the Soviet block into NATO. US troops and threatening NATO military exercises are routinely conducted in these lands to further provoke Russian security fears in ratcheting up Uncle Sam's new Cold War. Three years ago the US sponsored and supported a coup in Ukraine toppling the Russia leaning but duly elected Ukraine president. This unleashed anti Russian action in Russian populated Eastern Ukraine. Was it any wonder Russia moved to protect its naval base there in Crimea as well as the ethnic Russians under siege from neo Nazi Ukraine thugs? Any one of these new NATO members could serve as a trip wire for conflict between the two remaining nuclear powers.
Back in 2008, premier new Cold War impresario Sen. John McCain, injected himself into Georgia's border dispute with Russia over South Ossetia by proclaiming "I speak for every American when I say to him (Georgian president Saakashvili), 'Today we are all Georgians.'" Had Georgia been swallowed up by the insatiable NATO behemoth, that dispute could have easily drawn the US into war with Russia.
Just like being able to chew gum and tie our shoes at the same time, we should be able to investigate Trump's possible election treason with Russia without ramping up a new Cold War. We can start by keeping the promise we made in 1989 and giving the NATO boot to the old Soviet Bloc states it gobbled up.