Chicago Sun-Times

Government shutdown is political terrorism, not negotiation

Tue, 01 Oct 2013 20:16:06 -0500

Some of the right-wingnuts have tried disingenuously to misrepresent the Republican shutdown of the government as simply “negotiations,” where each side supposedly compromises. It is nothing of the sort. When a small faction essentially says, “Either you do what we say, or we will destroy the federal government,” that isn’t negotiation. That is political terrorism. Whether they are threatening to ruin the economy due to a procedural gimmick, or threatening to detonate a nuclear warhead in D.C., it is the same thing: a terrorist threat. And it should be treated as such. John Schauer, Evanston CTU hypocrisy The hypocrisy of …

Vanecko took cowardly way out

Tue, 01 Oct 2013 02:16:27 -0500

Carol Marin on Sunday was quick to say that Richard J. Vanecko is not the villain in the case of the alleged involuntary manslaughter of David Koschman. Instead, Marin blames a system that allowed this case to filter through the cracks with little or no investigation. Golf is the only sport where players who break the rules will call a penalty on themselves — ethics in play at its finest. Vanecko knew what he had done. He ran from the scene and undoubtedly relied on political clout to keep him from being charged. He could have called a penalty on …

Retirees shouldn’t be asked to bear full burden of pension problems

Mon, 30 Sep 2013 02:15:47 -0500

As the Illinois Legislature prepares for veto session, it’s important to review how unions have sought to stabilize the state’s retirement systems. Recall that Illinois public employees earn modest pensions — averaging $32,000 annually. Nearly 80 percent of individuals in state-funded retirement systems are not eligible for Social Security. Their pensions are often their primary sources of retirement income. Pensions represent employees’ life savings, which they’ve contributed toward from every paycheck. For decades, politicians didn’t pay the state’s fair share and instead shorted and skipped pension payments, yet some politicians expect public employees and retirees to bear the sole burden …

Facts prove that climate change is real and must be addressed

Sun, 29 Sep 2013 02:34:51 -0500

Thank you for Friday’s story reporting the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Climate change is real and a catastrophic threat to all life on Earth. This is the message that must be conveyed to every person on the planet and bring us all to every action we can possibly do to stop the build up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. I urge you to continue your coverage of climate change on a daily basis on the front page. We have all been watching the news of the ice at the poles melting and the almost weekly …

Insurance firms know what’s best

Fri, 27 Sep 2013 02:25:55 -0500

Elected officials, hear my plea. You must save me and other Americans from ourselves. Please make it legal again for insurance companies to drop me because of a pre-existing medical condition. Please let my insurance company raise my rates as much as it wants without having to justify the increase. I’m sure it has my best interests at heart. Please let my insurance company impose lifetime limits on how much they will cover. Finally, if elected representatives and the insurance companies say that the Obamacare reforms that end all these bad practices will cost billions of dollars more than President …

City could use State Police help

Thu, 26 Sep 2013 02:20:00 -0500

This is no time for Mayor Rahm Emanuel or the police chief to feel threatened by Gov. Pat Quinn’s offer of State Police. At this point, we need the help. I welcome the State Police if they can help make our communities safer. Stop the irrational competition. If you want our communites to work together, lead by example. The city is part of the state. Janette Lopez, Belmont/Cragin Tea Party’s bad priorities The American rebels destroyed tea in Boston Harbor to protest British taxes, but our new Tea Party seems intent on trashing our nation’s reputation for always paying its …

Violent gang war means mayor needs to call in the troops

Wed, 25 Sep 2013 02:23:59 -0500

Wake up, Mr. Mayor. You do need the National Guard because there is a war going on — a gang war. Please swallow your pride and get some help. People are dying on South and West Side battlefields. Jan Alex, Lake View East ‘Cure’ worse than the disease The radical fringe of the Republican Party argues that ObamaCare must be stopped to protect our economy and so it proposes to shut down the entire government and default on our debt payments, actions that most certainly will lower our nation’s credit rating and put people out of work, destroying our nation’s …

Causes, effects of deadly violence

Tue, 24 Sep 2013 02:16:51 -0500

We all learned the cause-and-effect theory as early as elementary school, so why is Chicago ignoring the theory when it comes to violence in the city? Failing schools, unemployment, poverty and lack political fortitude to deal with the root cause of Chicago’s violence continue to have a deadly effect on Chicago’s families. I appeal to Illinois’ governor and Chicago’s mayor to hear the loud ringing effects caused by the social and economic disparities that distinguish Chicago’s neighborhoods. Let’s join Pope Francis and fight poverty to end the deadly effects of violence in the city. La Shawn K. Ford, State representative, …

Big government gives us too many with security clearance

Mon, 23 Sep 2013 02:14:58 -0500

Aaron Alexis had documented psychological issues and an arrest for discharging a weapon, yet he passed background screening and walked into the Navy Yard to commit murder. Edward Snowden was a high school dropout who had to go back to get his GED, yet the government entrusted him with secrets. These are just two of an estimated 5 million people in this country who have security clearance. That’s almost as many people who are in the entire country of Norway. How do you control that? You don’t. It’s just more evidence that our government has grown too big and unaccountable, …

Hultgren should listen to voters

Sun, 22 Sep 2013 02:35:48 -0500

The next time U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren is in town, maybe he could find a way to talk to some of his constituents who do not have health-care insurance. Maybe they could explain to him what it feels like to have health problems without the means to pay a doctor or fill a prescription. They could tell him what it’s like to choose between saving your life and losing your home. Then maybe he could explain why it is so important to him to deny them access to health care — even if it means shutting down our government. Hopefully, …

Sheathe the political swords

Fri, 20 Sep 2013 02:24:44 -0500

Your recent editorial asking the Supreme Court to provide an outside judge and appoint a special commission was based on purported facts that are not true. While there are issues involving inadequate county funding to provide the necessary pretrial screening services for the effective setting of bond for criminal defendants, figures mentioned in your editorial are just plain wrong. Sheriff Tom Dart’s office informed my staff Thursday there are 56 defendants — not the “more than 300” as your editorial stated — who have spent five years without their cases concluded. It is surprising to me that your paper would …

Shame on right-wing resistance to ObamaCare

Thu, 19 Sep 2013 02:21:31 -0500

I continue to be outraged by the efforts to delay and defund ObamaCare. As someone who takes care of patients who are uninsured and underinsured, it is clear to me that the health-care system pre-ObamaCare was deeply flawed and morally unjust. It was yet another manifestation of an emerging American society in which equality-for-all has been cashed in for excess-for-few. Lack of access to health care was just another means by which the ladder to opportunity was being destroyed. To be clear, ObamaCare does not solve this problem entirely. A better system would have been a single-payer system in which …

Our gun laws must be changed

Wed, 18 Sep 2013 02:24:04 -0500

I read the Tuesday editorial [“Another massacre, another cry of despair] and couldn’t agree more. How many more of these shootings need to take place before people become outraged? I remember the Columbine shootings like it was yesterday and was completely horrified watching it unfold. My son was an infant at the time and all I kept thinking was what kind of a world did I bring him into? Now it seems like we are immune to these type of shootings, and this just can’t be the case. This needs to stop now! Call your representative. Call the White House. …

Spend, spend, spend

Tue, 17 Sep 2013 02:18:41 -0500

I am appalled at the amount of money being spent to update the Capitol in Springfield. If my husband and I conducted business like the state of Illinois is doing, we would be in the poorhouse. Carolyn McKinney, Montgomery ObamaCare woes The Sun-Times’ ill-conceived attacks on conservatives appeared in Friday’s editorial as it tried, without success, to defend the ObamaCare tax act. Claiming that its opponents spread misinformation without citing one example leads one to believe it is just liberal boilerplate unlinked to reality. If Democrats had any real desire to fix the problems associated with ObamaCare, they would have …

Nothing new in prejudicial mob film ‘The Family’

Mon, 16 Sep 2013 09:30:00 -0500

Richard Roeper needs a thesaurus. In his review of Robert De Niro in “The Family,” Roeper describes the film as “different.” Really? De Niro plays the same type of mob character he played in “Analyze This” and “Analyze That.” Michelle Pfeiffer plays the same mob wife she played in “Married to the Mob” in 1988. Vincent Pastore and Dominic Chianese play the same dumb thugs they played in “The Sopranos.” The fact that Hollywood released this film right now is particularly offensive, for two reasons: 1) A month ago, Boston mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger was convicted of crimes against …