NY Times, WOPO passed on Manning's revelations

After 7 years as a political prisoner for embarrassing the US war party, Chelsea Manning is a free woman. She originally sought out the NY Times and Washington Post to reveal US war crimes in Iraq but the two house shills for the war party passed. This prompted Manning to contact Wikileaks which did reveal them and changed the landscape of whistleblowing illegal and immoral government secrets forever. Manning's courageous actions made possible both Ed Snowden's revelations of government spying on innocent American's and John Doe's (he remained anonymous) Panama Papers which chronicled how the greedy rich hide their obscene wealth. Both Snowden and Doe learned from mistakes Manning made which got her a year of solitary confinement under conditions the UN termed torture, in addition to the six at Leavenworth. Neither Snowden nor Doe suffered Manning's fate, tho Snowden is cooped up in Russia, possibly forever, due to Uncle Sam no like of patriots who report government criminality. Forty-six years ago both the Times and Post had enough integrity and independence to publish Daniel's Ellsberg's explosive Pentagon Papers which outed US coverup of the catastrophic Vietnam War.

Alas, those days of a truly free press are gone, not forever, but till we Average Joe's rise up and resist the calamitous state of ignorance and oppression we allow our government to impose on us.

Is US military the worst in the world?

If our $600 billion dollar a year military is so great why can't it defeat one the poorest and most corrupt countries on Earth? Sixteen years, 2,350 soldiers dead and tens of thousands damaged in body and mind and its one unrelenting defeat after another in Afghanistan...the graveyard of empires. The Taliban controls more of that godforsaken land than anytime since 2001, even though we spend a billion a week to flail away like fools at a pretend enemy fighting with sticks and stones that will never be defeated. The generals who play the idiot Trump are demanding an additional 5,000 in canon fodder to stave off the inevitable defeat that can't come soon enough. When you're bleeding to death as the American empire is, Job One is to stop the bleeding. The war party is too invested in the power, glory and riches of perpetual war to apply the tourniquet. And the idiot Trump is still bursting with pride over dropping the 22 ton 'Mother of All Bombs' that obliterated a few dozen Afghans to get the message that criminal war doesn't pay.

In answer to the question posed in the title, no, the US military isn't the worst in the world. America's political leadership is.

2 Koreas, like 2 Vietnams, just another pair of Made In USA constructs

In 1945, just a day after America fried about 50,000 souls in Nagasaki, a couple of US diplomats, including JFK's future Secretary of State Dean Rusk, looked at the emerging make up of newly liberated Korea and said, 'Let's carve it up'. Their aim was to prevent Korea from Soviet influence led by 30,000 Korean guerrillas, who had been fighting for Korean independence from colonizer Japan since 1932. Possibly using a dart, and totally unconcerned with Korean interests, they chose the 38th parallel. Three days later 25,000 US troops poured into the newly created US protectorate in the South, beginning the 72 year artificial division of Korea that remains likely the greatest threat to a uclear confrontation today.

US history texts will never teach this story to a grossly uninformed electorate. Nor will they mention we bolstered our creation of South Korea with thousands of Koreans formerly loyal to Korea's Japanese masters and that several hundred thousand Koreans were whacked by the South, with US complicity, to keep South free from a unified Korea. How about the million North Koreans, over half of which were civilians, we killed preventing unification during the 1950-53 Korean War?

The US political class and media love to portray North Korea's leaders as delusional and crazy. But just like our decades long effort to prevent unification of Vietnam that killed millions, America's obsession with maintaining and controlling the two Koreas is the gold standard for delusional and crazy.

It's not about growth governor...it's about survival

For an upcoming feature on the Illinois budget crisis, WDCB radio featured this Rauner quote in its promo:

"Some people think this discussion is about passing a state budget. What this is really about is whether Illinois will become a growth state".

Really governor? Maybe for a billionaire who's spent his career re-arranging the deck chairs on company boards to grow his fabulous wealth, that statement makes sense. But for the students seeing their classes and educational resources cut, for state vendors waiting months for payment, for working stiffs being stiffed from receiving livable wages, this discussion is purely about surviving in a state without a responsible state budget...Item One in your job description. Your governing motto sounds like 'After moi, the deluge'.

Roskam goes Full Monty to degrade women' heath care

Ask my congressman Peter Roskam (IL-6) how his vote on TrumpCareLess hurts women's health care, and if honest, he'd answer, 'Let me count the ways'.

'First it defunds Planned Parenthood, even though 2.5 million women, 20% of childbearing age women, use it, many as their only means of decent reproductive health; In 105 counties its the only full reproductive health care service for the needy'.

'Second, it ends essential services mandated for insurance companies by the Affordable Care Act such as mammograms, birth control, prenatal/maternity care and mental health services'.

'Oh yes, my vote will help slash Medicaid by $880 billion over ten years which now cover 50% of all births and 75% of publicly funded family planning services'.

'Then there's those pesky pre-existing conditions I voted to allow states to op out of, many of which like Lupus, MS and depression affect women more than men. Sorry about that'.

'Don't forget the Big A: abortion. My vote will bar subsidies for desperate women seeking to buy insurance that covers abortion...and further prohibits small employers from using tax credits to pay for insurance plans that cover abortions. No problem if you're rich like me and my base'.

Roskam's 58% vote total last November, about a quarter all registered voters, no doubt included thousands of women. This Mother's Day, every one of them should consider what carnage their vote helps heap upon their sisterhood. Every Sixth District woman, and every man who supports and cherishes the women in his life, must connect to end the damage this pretend public servant is inflicting on women's health care. For them, for everyone of good will, Congressman Peter Roskam is a public health hazard.