A reasoned endorsement of Foxx

The critics of the Sun-Times endorsement of Kim Foxx to be re-elected Cook County State’s Attorney exhibit a case of not seeing the forest for the trees. Her ground-breaking criminal justice accomplishments are many and significant. They vastly outweigh her mishandling of the Jussie Smollett case.

Clearly, her critics either have no idea of the progress Foxx has made fixing the county’s dysfunctional criminal justice system, or they don’t care. They are entitled to criticize her over the Smollett case and vote for a challenger if they reside in Cook County. But blasting the Sun-Times for a fact-based, reasoned endorsement does not reflect well on them being interested, knowledgeable voters.

Obama to Trump transition

From class to crass

Lowly West Virginia acts to halt perpetual war.

The Mountain State of West Virginia gets no respect. It’s oft mentioned as the poorest, least educated and backward of the US Fifty. Jokes about West Virginia are legend. No more for me. The West Virginia legislature is first in the nation trying to legislative prevention of state National Guard troops being sent to one of America’s perpetual war zones. State Delegate Pat McGeehan sponsored HB 2732 to do just that, saying “It’s been clear to me that over the last two decades we’ve had this status quo where it is somehow acceptable for unilateral action to be taken not by just the executive, but also the Pentagon to send our men and women in the Armed Forces overseas into undeclared wars and unending wars.” McGeehan is getting close, losing by a single vote to get HR 2732 out of committee. West Virginia citizens support the bill 2 to 1 which may prompt legislators to bring the bill up and pass it.

My progressive, highly educated, wealthy state of Illinois, unlike West Virginia, used its largest deployment of National Guard soldiers to Afghanistan in ten years last July to pitch a commercial for a war party. Gov. Pritzker, who serves as commander of the Illinois National Guard, cheered on the 400 saying, "The service you and your families give every day to the people of Illinois, that service to defend this nation, will always be a source of inspiration and respect." Nonsense. Instead of enabling future deployments that perpetuate endless war, Gov. Pritzker should have his legislative leaders visit the pro peace state of West Virginia to learn how to craft a similar law preventing the next senseless deployment of Illinois’ best to harm's way on fool’s errand.

It's the guns and poverty, stupid

Every time there’s a dip in the shooting gallery on Chicago’s South and West Sides, as there was last year, the mayor and the police chief trumpet the news that Chicago has turned the corner on the daily citizen fusillade against each other. At the stroke of midnight on New Year’s, gunfire began erupting anew with a huge spike in murders culminating with nine killed last weekend, the worst such February weekend violence in 18 years. An alarmed Mayor Lightfoot huddled at City Hall with Acting Police Chief Beck and 41 police commanders to strategize. Beck had to fend off questions that Lightfoot’s edict to curtail skyrocketing and bankrupting police overtime contributed to the uptick. Needless to say the violence uptick powwow wasn’t trumpeted to the media.

What every Chicagoan needs to understand is there will be no sustained drop in Chicago gun violence till we address the twin evils of gun availability and life crushing poverty that fuel the daily bloodshed on Chicago streets. Gun availability is American capitalism at its worst. America’s inner cities have been shut out from the eleven yearlong American economic miracle making the haves have more and the left out left behind in squalor. Everything else represents band aids trying to close the gaping holes in our citizenry as well as our local body politic.

Impeachment over, time to end Cold War II against Russia

Of course the president deserved impeachment on both charges, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. He's already refuted hopes of senatorial enablers such as Susan Collins that he's learned his lesson and will behave. More likely he's been emboldened to continue his unprecedented assault on every constitutional imperative of the presidency, degrading the presidency like none of his 43 predecessors. That includes his impeachment forebears Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.

One unintended benefit of the process was the spotlight it placed on America’s new Cold War against Russia, largely being a proxy fight over the corrupt, broken country of Ukraine; a country having has no connection whatsoever with America’s national security interests. Born in 1945, the year America kicked off the first Cold War to keep WWII gravy train flowing, I lament that 75 years on I haven’t spent a single day of life when Russia was not considered our enemy.

It didn’t have to be this way. When the USSR imploded in 1990, I was one of millions heralding the promised peace dividend so desperately needed by our investment starved nation. It never happened. President George H.W. Bush promised not to move NATO one inch toward the new Russia in return for Russia's acquiescing in a united Germany. Then he and his successors Clinton, Bush Jr. and Obama did just that, irresponsibly ratcheting up tensions with our only true nuclear rival, a rival newly remade in America. Is it any wonder Russia would try to throw the 2016 election to the candidate less likely to continue, indeed expand Cold War II against them like Hillary Clinton and the bi-partisan Cold War II congressional coalition?

Impeaching Trump and ending Cold War II are not mutually exclusive. The former was critical in salvaging the honor of the presidency. The latter is critical in insuring our survival from an unintended misstep into World War III.

Time for a new GOP Party name?

My choice: The ReTrumplican Party

Insider Afghan attacks should make US an outsider in Afghanistan

Two US soldiers were killed and 6 wounded yesterday in Afghanistan. The US is now on pace for about 40 deaths this year, up from 22 last year, which was the most since 2014. Yesterday’s deaths, like many previously, were not caused by our Taliban enemy. They died by Afghan soldiers who turn their guns on their US partners they increasingly see as their enemy. These attacks are euphemistically called ‘insider attacks’ by the US military. Over 3,500 US and allied soldiers have been killed since our illegal, immoral and senseless invasion of Afghanistan eighteen years and four months ago. We lost the war the day we invaded on October 7, 2001. No country, not England, not Soviet Russia, nor the world’s largest military United States can conquer and control Afghanistan. The Taliban and its insider allies within the Afghan military are inexorably pushing the US out.

Rather than acquiesce to the inevitable, the US desperately seeks a face saving exit. We’ve ramped up our slaughter of Afghans, mostly civilians, to give a veneer of victory to our inevitable exit. There is none. It’s called losing and rightly so as we never should have invaded two decades ago.

Some day a yet unidentified soldier will be the last to die in that utterly needless war. But before that day arrives, a lot of others who will not get his or her dubious recognition, wait in line to die for nothing.