Open Letter to Gen. Milley

 Hey, Gen. Milley

It wasn't righteous
It wasn't a tragic mistake
It was a war crime

DuPage Republicans to DuPage Clerk: 'No new voting machines for you.'

Who needs good government gridlock in DC. We've got our county version right here in wealthy DuPage.

All 7 GOP Board members voted against replacing the ancient machinery that will no longer receive technical support from vendor Dominion Voting January 1.

Had just one Republican joined all 11 Democrats on the Board, a supermajority would have approved purchasing state of the art equipment from Hart Intercivic.

'Too much money' chided all 7 Republicans in unison. That's odd. When it comes to overturning elections, unseating popular Democratic governors with an expensive recall, or demanding costly, frivolous recounts, the image of a drunken sailor comes to mind.

Trump’s covid death spiral pushing 700,000

CNN’s Jake Tapper questioned Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves about his state's dreadful covid death rate that would place Mississippi second worst in the world to Peru if it were a country. Peru’s deaths per million is 5,935; Mississippi’s is 3,115. U.S. deaths are at 695,000, far ahead of second place Brazil.

Reeves refused to answer the question, pivoting to say the Delta variant started in the Red states but would soon hit the blue states. Under withering pressure Reeves finally offered the Trump/GOP ‘freedom’ defense as to why he’s not offering a solution. He did, however, say Mississippians ‘should consult their doctor about the safety of covid vaccine.’ Wink, wink.

Reeves was simply parroting Trump covid ignorance and malfeasance governance 101. Neither Reeves, nor any Republican governor or congressman dares follow the science or the Democratic guidelines least they incur The Donald’s wrath and that of his delusional base.

Eight months out of office today and Trump is still getting his voters, who refuse to vaccinate, killed by 2 thousand per day. The Lancet Global Health Commission studied the medical resources and covid responses of the G7 countries U.S., UK, Germany, France, Italy, Canada and Japan. Their findings were that upwards of 40% of U.S. covid deaths could have been prevented had the U.S. properly utilized its world class medicine and preventative measures used thru out the other members. It was not only Trump’s response during the crisis, but his pre covid policies that took health insurance away from an additional 2.3 million Americas.

The demagogic charlatan Trump has persuaded tens of millions of supporters to simply ignore the scientists and the Democratic leaders using their guidance to end pandemic. The result has been to increase deaths per day, which had fallen from over 4,000 to under 100, back up north of 2.000. With that psychic control over his base, Trump will go on getting folks needlessly killed from covid long after his presidency mercifully ended.

Hypocrisy Statement of the Day

"Benet Academy respects the dignity of all human beings to follow their conscience and to live lives of their choosing."

- Benet Academy Spokesperson Jamie Moss

But when a top rated girls lacrosse coach, with 2 state titles on her resume, listed her wife as emergency contact, Benet Academy promptly withdrew their job offer to coach girls lacrosse at Benet. Apparently, for Benet Academy, the dignity of all human beings to follow their conscience ends at the bedroom door.

TPNW negotiator reviews the Treaty at Peace Coalition’s Educational Forum

Anthony Donovan, a lifelong anti-nuclear weapons activist, addressed the West Suburban Peace Coalition Tuesday night via Zoom on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Donovan participated in the UN negotiations which ratified TPNW, 122-1 on July 7, 2017.

The treaty prohibits the development, testing, production, stockpiling, stationing, transfer, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons, as well as assistance and encouragement to the prohibited activities. It is the first legally binding international agreement to comprehensively prohibit nuclear weapons with the ultimate goal being their total elimination.

Alas, the U.S., all other 8 nuclear powers and all the non-nuclear NATO nations boycotted the Treaty negotiations at the UN, and refused to sign onto or ratify it after its UN passage. TPNW became international law on January 22, 2021, with its ratification by 50 nations. Six others have ratified since. The U.S. and its nuclear compatriots are international outliers in the effort to prevent Nuclear Winter.

Donovan explained how the military, the nuclear weapons makers, and the congresspersons they’ve essentially purchased, have effectively kept America from joining the worldwide effort to abolish nuclear weapons.

Donovan has been working this critical issue for over 45 years. Check out his many contributions at his website www.anthonydonovan.com. In addition, contact your senators and House representative to request they join the tiny congressional faction which supports U.S. ratification of TPNW. Make the U.S. a leader in abolishing nuclear weapons, not a leader in nuclear proliferation.

What if it were firecrackers that killed 12 and injured 49 last weekend in Chicago?

Last weekend was a bloodbath on Chicago’s mean streets. Sixty-one were shot, 12 of whom died. While that number is staggering, it is not much higher than the weekend carnage week after week, year after year. It barely made a ripple in the news.

But imagine those 61 persons were all killed or injured by fireworks, both legal and illegal. There would probably be a massive public outcry. Political leaders would rush to regulate the sale and availability of fireworks causing such carnage. Safeguards would be implemented. There would be consensus on the urgent need to reduce the violence.

Yet, 52 weeks a year, the carnage from more lethal deadly instruments, guns, piles up with barely a whimper and without an iota of action by local, state and federal officials. The gun and ammo makers, supported by their millions of 2nd Amendments zealots, have bought up all 50 state legislatures and Congress with money and fear, ensuring nothing will be done.

The daily, weekly, annual death and injury toll is a testament to the power of inhumane capitalism and institutional racism to maintain the endless supply of millions of guns and billions of bullets flooding minority areas, anxious to be used.

But it was not firecrackers, it was guns that shredded the bodies of 61 Chicagoans last weekend, many if not most, poor, vulnerable minorities. As a result, the daily weekday shootings that kill and injure, will spike again beginning at 6:00 PM this Chicago Friday, incurring another horrific toll this weekend.

And like the previous hundreds, thousands of weekends….nothing will be done.

Biden’s biggest lie? Ending US support for criminal Saudi war in Yemen

Last February, President Biden said he’d end U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s criminal war in Yemen. Obama greenlighted the Saudi war there 6 years ago which has killed hundreds of thousands, mainly Yemeni civilians. Trump kept it going by vetoing a congressional mandate to stop. He was loathe to end the gravy train of billions in blood money the Saudis paid to secure U.S. weapons of death.

Biden gave hope to the beleaguered Yemenis and all people of peace with his February announcement. But when words lie….people die. He’s still supporting the inhumane Saudi blockade denying food and medicine to Yemen. According to the UN, 400,000 Yemeni kids are at risk of dying from hunger this year alone. Instead of denying weaponry to the Saudi’s, he’s just inked a half billion dollar contact with Saudi Arabia to maintain their helicopters used in the war.

Even with U.S. support the Saudis can never win. That is why the war has dragged on into its seventh year. Without U.S. support the Saudi war would collapse. Yemenis would live…but U.S. weapons makers would lose a bit of their fabulous wealth.

Once again Congress is taking action to end Biden’s support of criminal war in Yemen. Two amendments in the National Defense Authorization Act, if passed, will terminate U.S. military logistical support, transfer of spare parts and servicing of Saudi warplanes, and permanently end U.S. intelligence sharing that helps the Saudis’ murderous bombing campaign.

These amendments wouldn’t be necessary had Biden kept his word eight months ago and ended one of the worst U.S. made humanitarian crises ever. White lies cause no harm. Biden’s blood red lie about ending Yemen war is getting thousands killed.

Adlai III: An unappreciated gem

Adlai Stevenson III, former Illinois State Legislator, Treasurer, and Illinois U.S. Senator died yesterday at 90.

Most Americans, indeed most Illinoisans, have largely forgotten a political leader with little charisma but great intelligence and passion for good government. In a society where a huckster reality TV star with enormous charisma can con 75 million voters to follow him to the political abyss, we would be well served to ponder Stevenson’s career.

Born into Illinois’ Stevenson political dynasty, Adlai III was great grandson of Vice President Adlai E. Stevenson and son of Illinois governor and two time presidential candidate Adlai E. Stevenson II.

I still remember the 1964 Illinois Legislative election when all 177 House seats were elected at large due to a redistricting controversy. Each party ran 118 candidates but only 2 names stood out, garnering the most votes for their respective party’s slate: Republican Earl Eisenhower, Ike’s brother, and Democrat Adlai III, the former governor’s son. Eisenhower served a single term and faded from view with no political legacy.

Adlai III, however, was the real deal. In his first 2 years he sponsored 84 bills, including measures to control lobbying and conflicts of interest in government, a graduated state income tax and credit reforms. Those efforts got him voted the House’s ‘best legislator’ by the Independent Voters of IL. Not bad for a rookie.

Adlai III moved up to State Treasurer in 1967. He turned a routine political post as an incubator for good government. He eliminated patronage staff and snatched state funds away from banks practicing racial or religious discrimination. Those funds went to black owned banks to finance urban development, small businesses and urban development.

In 1970, Stevenson won a special election to fill out the U.S. Senate term of Everett Dirksen who died. He opposed the Viet Nam War, even introducing legislation to end all foreign aid to South Vietnam by June 30, 1975. He authored the International Banking Act, the Stevenson Wydler Technology Innovation Act and the Bayh Dole Act to foster cooperative research. Stevenson served as first Chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee and served as chairman of the Special Senate Committee that reorganized the Senate. As chairman of a Senate Subcommittee on Intelligence, he conducted the first in-depth study of terrorism. In it he warned of “spectacular acts of destruction and disruption."

After the Senate, Stevenson ran and lost twice for Illinois governor to Jim Thompson. In 1980 he toyed with running for president against unpopular incumbent Jimmy Carter. But he wouldn’t enter the primaries explaining, “It’s not the kind of contest I could win. The chemistry is all wrong, down to and including the cosmetics. It just doesn’t fit.”

In the age of Trump and his hollow sycophants running for and defiling public office, we need folks of substance like Adlai III more than ever.

911 anniversary good time to mourn millions destroyed by America’s revenge

I confess to not following any 911 memorials on its anniversary, this 20th included. Sure I was horrified when it occurred September 11, 2001, and I mourn all 2,996 dead and the 25,000 injured.

But I mourn even more for the millions killed, injured or displaced by America’s ghoulish response. Rather than strictly pursue the remaining perpetrators, including their links to Saudi Arabia, the Bush Administration embarked on a campaign of senseless regime change that has turned Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Somalia into failed states. I do that because I had no control over the 911 attackers. But my tax dollars contributed to my government’s reckless, criminal response, making me an accessory to the supreme international crime: unjust war.

President George W. Bush demanded and got permission from Congress and the American people to attack any sovereign country in the Middle East and Africa deemed to contain ‘terrorists’, a term so vague as to be meaningless. With hundreds of thousands dead, millions displaced and trillions squandered, Bush handed the presidency over to Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama who continued the slaughter; indeed ramping up one of its most egregious hallmarks: drone assassination for any person rising to the top of his weekly ‘Kill List’.

Obama handed off his power to Donald Trump who bragged about his senseless bombings of imagined bad guys, topped off by his despicable drone assassination of a top Iranian general, along with 9 other Iranians and Iraqis, at the Baghdad Airport. If another country did that to a top American general, that country would be quickly incinerated.

The single achievement of Trump’s 4 years was sidelining America’s worthless, corrupt puppet Afghan government to negotiate full U.S. withdrawal in 14 months with the clear winner, the Taliban. Ironically, the Taliban, a rag tag outfit of under 100,000, simply fought a hit n run war on their turf for 20 years, knowing a U.S. president would eventually have the sense to capitulate.

Trump didn’t get the chance to complete the withdrawal, losing to senseless war promoter Joe Biden. But, miracle of miracles, Biden didn’t cave to the war party seeking to extend the war indefinitely. He got out quickly, albeit 4 months after Trump’s promised May 1, 2021 exit date.

The Taliban’s response to their victory? Between signing the Doha Agreement with Trump, February 29, 2020, and the final U.S. soldier to exit Afghanistan August 15, 2021, they did, as promised, not kill a single U.S. soldier. Additionally, they cooperated with the frantic U.S. withdrawal, likely preventing further violence than the one-off attack by the Taliban’s arch rival ISIS-K. Finally, they appear to be allowing Americans left behind to leave in peace.

We’ve got plenty of memorials for the U.S. victims of 911. How bout a memorial for all the millions whose lives have been destroyed by America’s senseless response? If so, let’s call it: Never Again.

Biden’s last Afghan bombing demonstrates criminality of entire war

It took 19 days but the U.S. military finally admitted what everybody else knew on Day 1. The last U.S. drone bombing in Afghanistan, obliterated no terrorists, just Afghan aid worker Zemari Ahmadi and 9 family members, including 7 children.

For 20 years the U.S. has been killing innocents with bombs dropped from drones and planes. For 20 years the military always says the attacks only kill Taliban or ISIS. Most of those bombings occurred in rural areas with no reporters around, preventing any scrutiny of the endless civilian carnage. This last outrage occurred in Kabul during the evacuation so proof of the victims’ innocence was impossible for the military to cover up. But for 18 days they continued the standard refrain the bombing was ‘righteous.’

Government employees who rat out our murderous military face prosecution and prison. Daniel Hale, a National Security Agency intelligence officer just received a 45 month prison sentence for revealing that in a 5 month period in 2012-13, 90% of Afghans killed in U.S. strikes were innocent civilians. Hale doesn’t deserve prison, he should instead get a Presidential Medal of Freedom for his courageous action.

What happened to the Ahmadi clan on August 29th is why the 1945-46 Nuremberg War Crime Trials declared unjust war to be the supreme international crime. The reason is all the deaths, injuries, displaced civilians, destruction of a nation’s infrastructure emanate from that supreme crime.

The invasion and destruction of Afghanistan in America’s criminal Afghan war created millions of dead, injured, displaced for no justifiable reason whatsoever. It actually worsened U.S. national security on several levels including generating enormous recruitment for extremist groups seeking revenge, and not following up on the many connections of the 911 attacks to our best purchaser of military gear, Saudi Arabia.

Before you point out we’re gone from Afghanistan and no such further war crimes can occur, consider this. President Biden has bragged about obtaining ‘over the horizon capability’ to bomb anyone, anywhere, anytime in Afghanistan going forward from bases outside Afghanistan.

Even tho the military has fessed up this latest, grotesque American atrocity, don’t expect anyone to be held accountable. The U.S. embarked on unjust, unnecessary criminal war 20 years ago and answers to no one. But history will judge 21st century America harshly. In 1946, America led the world in prosecuting war crimes. Seventy-five years on, America leads the world in committing war crimes.

Trump’s covid death spiral pushing 700,000

CNN’s Jake Tapper questioned Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves about his state's dreadful covid death rate that would place Mississippi second worst in the world to Peru if it were a country. Peru’s deaths per million is 5,935; Mississippi’s is 3,115. U.S. deaths are at 695,000, far ahead of second place Brazil.

Reeves refused to answer the question, pivoting to say the Delta variant started in the Red states but would soon hit the blue states. Under withering pressure Reeves finally offered the Trump/GOP ‘freedom’ defense as to why he’s not offering a solution. He did, however, say Mississippians ‘should consult their doctor about the safety of covid vaccine.’ Wink, wink.

Reeves was simply parroting Trump covid ignorance and malfeasance governance 101. Neither Reeves, nor any Republican governor or congressman dares follow the science or the Democratic guidelines least they incur The Donald’s wrath and that of his delusional base.

Eight months out of office today and Trump is still getting his voters, who refuse to vaccinate, killed by 2 thousand per day. The Lancet Global Health Commission studied the medical resources and covid responses of the G7 countries U.S., UK, Germany, France, Italy, Canada and Japan. Their findings were that upwards of 40% of U.S. covid deaths could have been prevented had the U.S. properly utilized its world class medicine and preventative measures used thru out the other members. It was not only Trump’s response during the crisis, but his pre covid policies that took health insurance away from an additional 2.3 million Americas.

The demagogic charlatan Trump has persuaded tens of millions of supporters to simply ignore the scientists and the Democratic leaders using their guidance to end pandemic. The result has been to increase deaths per day, which had fallen from over 4,000 to under 100, back up north of 2.000. With that psychic control over his base, Trump will go on getting folks needlessly killed from covid long after his presidency mercifully ended.

DuPage Republicans to DuPage Clerk: 'No new voting machines for you.'

Who needs good government gridlock in DC. We've got our county version right here in wealthy DuPage.

All 7 GOP Board members voted against replacing the ancient machinery that will no longer receive technical support from vendor Dominion Voting January 1.

Had just one Republican joined all 11 Democrats on the Board, a supermajority would have approved purchasing state of the art equipment from Hart Intercivic.

'Too much money' chided all 7 Republicans in unison. That's odd. When it comes to overturning elections, unseating popular Democratic governors with an expensive recall, or demanding costly, frivolous recounts, the image of a drunken sailor comes to mind.