Nobel Peace Prize shames United States

Do even 1% of Americans know an organization, not a person, won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for actions vigorously opposed by the United States and all other nuclear powers? The winner was the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a coalition of non-government organizations in one hundred countries advocating for a strong and effective nuclear weapon ban treaty. ICAN won for leading the campaign that resulted, last summer, in the United Nations treaty prohibiting the use, development and stockpiling of nuclear weapons. It passed 122-1, but the debate was boycotted by the nine nuclear-armed nations (Britain, China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia and the United States), along with Australia, Japan, South Korea and every member of NATO except the Netherlands, which cast the single no vote. While having no tangible means of forcing nuclear disarmament, it does have symbolic and moral force to inspire all of us facing nuclear annihilation to lobby our government to honor it. Meanwhile, Uncle Sam, always on the wrong side of nuclear debate, prepares to spend a trillion dollars over the next decade to upgrade our nuclear arsenal that already possesses nearly half of the 15,000 nukes at the ready to destroy the planet.  

DuPage should put 'reeferendum' on March 20 Primary Ballot

The DuPage County Board should follow the wise and prescient lead of their Cook counterparts and vote to include an advisory referendum allowing DuPage voters to express support for legalized recreational marijuana in Illinois. The legislative effort to do that is already underway. A strong vote of support by the 48% of Illinois residents in Cook and DuPage, the two largest counties, may help push pot over the long overdue legislative finish line. States across America are getting wise to the inevitable. The many thousands of adult DuPage vipers are giving all their dope dough to the bad guys. Not only isn't a nickel going to Uncle Bruce to rebuild Illinois, he's wasting millions enforcing silly, historically racist pot laws that lump grass with heroin and cocaine, clogging our courts already burdened with serious evildoers. Putting pot on the ballot will likely goose the turnout as well. In fact...it might get the highest ever.

Is Jeanne Ives the Roy Moore of Illinois?

Judge Roy Moore on homosexuality:

"Homosexual conduct should be illegal, yes."

IL State Rep. Jeanne Ives on homosexuality:

"Same sex marriages are completely disordered. Gays,are trying to weasel their way into acceptability so that they can then start to push their agenda down into the schools, because this gives them some sort of legitimacy... And we can't allow that to happen."

Rep. Ives is unfit to represent Illinois' 42nd District, much less run for governor. She never, to my knowledge, adequately repudiated or apologized for those remarks, spoken on a Christian radio station, likely assuming they would never reach the general public. They did.

Ives should follow Moore into political oblivion.

North Korea's nukes: A US self fulfilling prophesy

Stopping North Korea's nuclear program is not the top US priority for the North. No.1 on the list is regime change leading to re-unification of Korea under the South. That has been our aim ever since Russia declared war on Japan, August 8, 1945, and rushed down the Korean Peninsula to free the unified nation of Korea from 35 years of Japanese oppression. The neocons of 1945 coerced Truman to stop the inevitable reunification under the Soviets by setting up a puppet government in the South under fanatical anti communist and brutal dictator Syngman Rhee. Future JFK Secretary of State Dean Rusk was dispatched to create South Korea and he arbitrarily picked the 38th parallel which gave Rhee 16 of the 25 million Koreans. Rhee slaughtered many thousands in consolidating his anti communist regime and the Korean civil war was born. Rhee tried to goad the US into supporting his reunification invasion of the North, but Truman balked, preferring to let the North light the fireworks, which they did June 25, 1950. Truman upended 163 years of requiring a Congressional declaration of war, initiating perpetual war at the whim of the president and his masters in the war party.

Three years and a couple of million dead people later, including 36,500 Americans, the US was humiliated into a truce that has festered for 64 years. This, and not North Korea's sensible rush to put up a nuclear shield between themselves and the US, is what prevents America from refusing to pledge not to invade North Korea or even recognize their legitimacy as a separate nation pending the two Koreas themselves exploring re-unification. In 1994, North Korea put all issues on the table in return for ending nuclear development. Clinton made the first on only effort to date to negotiate fairly for detente. Years dragged on till Bush The Younger caved to the neocons and ended any hopes of a stable peace by lumping North Korea into his Axis of Evil mantra along with Iraq and Iran in 2002. By 2003, detente with North Korea was dead. Obama had enough brains and character to keep the war sabers still. Now, an utterly unfit and unstable pretender in the White House is making his North Korean counterpart appear a genius. America's first and only option to deter North Korea is a war of regime change. The option of negotiation involves an end to threatening military exercises with South Korea, a pledge not to invade and substantive economic aid; all in return or a verifiable pullback in nuclear and missile development.

Listen to US Masters of War and realize only the first option is on the table. And until sensible, peace loving adults are in charge, directed by a tide of peace seeking voters, it always will be.

Walt Zlotow

Glen Ellyn

Minor omission on Roskam's Weekly Roundup on healthcare

In his Weekly Roundup email my congressman Peter Roskam (IL-6) touted these health care highlights he's championing:

1. Met with American Society for Nutrition (ASN) to discuss funding for nutrition research.
2.Met with the Cardiovascular Coalition to discuss peripheral artery disease (PAD) and strategies to eliminate non-traumatic amputation.
3. Met with 3M Health to discuss the Healthcare Outcomes Act.

Let' see, that's 'met, met, met, to discuss, discuss, discuss.'

Somehow Roskam missed touting this fourth highlight.:

4. Succeeded in passing tax cut bill which will toss over 4 million of of 40 million covered under Obamacare off the health care rolls.

I'm sure the congressman will appreciate my completing his constituent communication.