Who's threatening whom?

The US routinely threatens North Korea, sending planes and ships near their coast and above their skies. Every year 75,000 US and South Korean troops conduct two weeks of war games known as Ulchi-Freedom Guardian exercises which usually provoke a North Korean response. Last year the response was their fifth nuclear test. Those 10 nukes are the best war insurance policy North Korea could possess. The US is not interested in a peace treaty between the two Koreas. Nor is it interested in normalizing relations with North Korea. Its first three priorities with North Korea are regime change, regime change, regime change. Iraq gave up its nuclear weapons program and got its regime changed. Libya gave up its nuclear weapons program and got its regime changed. Both were accomplished not from within, but courtesy of Uncle Sam. Kim Jong Un may be crazy....but he's not stupid.

Bomber Obama already trumped by Trump

In his last year in office Obama drop 3 bombs per hour per day on at least 7 predominately Muslim countries. Those 26,000 plus bombs killed untold thousands, yet a pittance his predecessor, Bush The Deranged, inflicted on Iraq. Not satisfied in leaving office without also destroying a Muslim country, Obama turned Libya into a failed state, ripe for Jihadists from around the world, and unleashing a flood of refugees our Xenophobes demonize. Yet, he's already trumped by Trump who has ratcheted up the bombing in all 7 countries, including the 11 ton blockbuster on Afghanistan and a slew of Tomahawks cruisers on Syria. Is there something in the White House water pipes that turns its occupants into crazed killers, or is it simply they become captive to the war party which has the real power and simply follows their orders to wage perpetual war on innocents paid for by our tax dollars? As the Dooomsday Clock ticks to Midnight, inquiring minds would like to know.

Roskam continues to cowardly flee from health care debate

During the eight years of the Obama presidency my congressman Peter Roskam gave health care the attention it deserved. He featured it in blaring headlines on his website. He created photo ops on health care. He proposed health care solutions. Alas, every action was designed to prevent, defund, degrade and repeal the first successful effort to insure 20 million Americans without and prevent hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths. He did this by denying truths and promoting falsehoods. And he rode that disgraceful campaign to four more terms as congressman in the Illinois Sixth. Nobody lost heath care or died due to Roskam's mendacity because his disgraceful conduct was purely symbolic to appeal to his heartless, anti government base.

Then a curious development derailed Roskam's interest in health care: Republican congressional majority. On March 7 Roskam trumpeted this about the GOP placement bill: "Following through on our commitment to responsibly repeal and replace Obamacare, my colleagues and I are pleased to introduce the American Health Care Act. We’re presenting a plan to increase access to affordable, patient-focused health care for all." Tens of thousands of Sixth District residents recoiled in horror that Roskam was promoting the opposite: 22 million tossed off health care rolls and 200,000 unnecessary dead over a decade. And that wasn't symbolic; it was a grotesque possibility. The pushback as swift and relentless; Roskam could no longer appear in the Sixth without protest. Health care became the critical domestic issue that dare not speak its name in Roskamland. The website went dark; the photo ops ceased; the Trumpcare trumpet was muted.

The Illinois Sixth has gone from one of the safest Republican seats to 'in play.' Roskam's cowardice on healthcare reminds us that you can fool some of the people all of the time; all of the people some of the time; but you can't keep a majority when it's a matter of life or death.