Editor’s Note: This has been a huge week for gay rights. Vermont and Iowa gave the green-light, joining Massachusetts and Connecticut — with more states seemingly on the way and conservative GOPers’ once-potent power not quite as potent. Both sides are digging in their heels for a long — accelerating battle. In this Guest Voice post, Dalitso Njolinjo gives his perspective from England...

Don’t Blame The Republicans For Having Principles by Dalitso Njolinjo I’ve just been debating with my friends about the big evil in American politics, the Republican Party. To simplify the two hour debate, the argument against the Republicans boils down to this: they are sour losers. They can’t take it that they lost the last election that badly and now they are obstructing the Democratic agenda....

Obama is a Fascist? by Dalitso Njolinjo Watching Glen Beck emotionally tell his Fox News audience that he believes Obama is leading America on the road to fascism quite frankly baffles me. No, really it does. I don’t understand where he is coming from. Maybe it because I do not live in America and the news I get here in the UK is restricted to CNN and Fox on satellite cable, and MSNBC and CBS online. I...

66 for 44 by Dalitso Njolinjo I am going to start of by stating that Barack Obama is the smartest American politician since Ronald Reagan. Democrats searched years to find their own Gipper, the go to guy for pressing home their liberal message, Obama is it. Since his inauguration you have seen the Republican machine try their very best to undermine and smear the President. Whether it was producing no votes...

RIP General Motors By Martha Randolph Carr Rick Wagoner has been laid off. The newly-former CEO of General Motors was forced out by the Obama administration after failing to present a workable strategy in exchange for a request of $16.6 billion in additional taxpayer dollars on top of the $14.4 billion the company already received. The unemployed CEO was tasked with reducing the debt over the past three months...

Grand Old Contradictions: Obama and the GOP by Dalitso Njolinjo I have always been fascinated with American popular culture from an early age. The mythical promise of the American dream found me at an early age, while I still roamed my birth place of Blantyre, Malawi. Whether it was the dream of drinking an ice cold bottle of Coca Cola while watching Jordon fly to dunk a basket, or the thought of replacing my...

That’s No Angry Mob, It’s a Movement by Michael Winship A college friend of mine, after much quaffing from the keg, so to speak, would start singing a faux hymn that began, “We are sliding into sin – whee!” I’ve thought of his bleary tune from time to time as we all watched our financial institutions slide from thoughtless, wretched excess into calamity, aided and abetted by deregulation and bailouts,...

Obama’s Enforcer By Floyd and Mary Beth Brown In Obama’s entire circle of advisers, one man rises above the pack, gaining the reputation as the most ruthless political figure in America today. This man is Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s chief of staff. Instead of being an impassioned ideologue, he instead enjoys utilizing Machiavellian tactics to achieve more traditional political ends. A classic Chicago-style machine...

Gordon Brown: A Lack Of British Leadership by Dalitso Njolinjo Rarely does a politician display his disdain for the people his serves quiet like Mr Gordon Brown. If you want to know what is wrong with British politics and why Britain is the country that is worst placed to deal with this financial crisis, look no further then our unelected Prime Minister. The man believes that every single British citizen...

Beware of Flawed Polling by Dheeraj Chand The contrast in quality between the news and opinion divisions of The Wall St. Journal never ceases to amaze me. While the news reporting has won award after award, and has become the definitive source of news for the American business and financial communities, the opinion pages are characterized by what some would consider mendacity and methodological sloppiness...

Defending Bush by Dalitso Njolinjo How do you defend the indefensible? How do you defend the modern day villain? How do you defend someone that is seen in the mind of the public (UK) as a caricature of evil itself? Is he a diabolical evil mastermind? Well no, he is just a man who was thrown into an impossibly difficult position. America seems to mythologize the occupant of the Oval office so much that they...

The Real Significance of The CBS Poll About Obama And AIG by Dheeraj Chand A CBS News poll fielded over the weekend shows a surprising finding: while a majority of Americans disapprove of AIG handing out bonuses, believe that the government should do more to recover them and specifically give Obama low marks for handling this issue, there is no appreciable change in his overall job performance and there is...

By SHAUN MULLEN GUEST VOICE The inevitable piling on the Barack Obama presidency is well underway — and well too prematurely. Consider that Obama has been in office for not even two thirds of the mythic 100 days by which new presidents are prejudged. Consider that we had been sabotaged by domestic terrorists in the form of the Bush administration and that the damage it wrought will take years to undo....

Remembering The Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher by Dalitso Njolinjo As Americans rightly feel proud of their collective ‘achievement’ in electing their first non-white-male president, I am left wondering why hasn’t there been any mention of the greatest ground breaker of modern times – a leader who not only produced cracks on the “highest glass ceiling” as the suit pants lady put it, but a leader who...

by Walter Brasch Barack Obama was determined that the only way anyone was going to take away his BlackBerry was if they pried it from his cold dead hands. Or, something to that effect. The President justifiably relies upon his BlackBerry, but many rely upon electronic communications as a status symbol or as a crutch so they...

by Rosemary and Walter Brasch There have now been more than 4,000 deaths and 30,000 casualties of American military in the war in Iraq. More than 100,000 Iraqis and others, most of them civilian, have also been killed in what is now known to be an unnecessary war. But, we as a nation are not outraged. We have recently learned that former President Bush and former Vice-President Cheney...

The Pharisee Preserve by Doug Bursch In recent years, the North American Pharisee population has increased to dangerous, epidemic levels. If present trends persist, Pharisees may someday outnumber the individuals they are trying to judge. In other words, there will soon be a two to one Pharisee to nice person ratio throughout much of the western hemisphere. That means you and I will have at least two...

Economists, politicians, columnists and most people have not yet fully figured out what has happened in the U.S. and the rest of the world. Very few even saw such a complete mess coming and many people are still being surprised by current events. Overall, everything began to unravel last year and suddenly picked up steam a few months before our November elections. We won’t know for awhile whether we’re...

By SHAUN MULLEN GUEST VOICE The long-building wave of “populist outrage” over craven capitalist elites with a suffocating sense of privilege has broken on the shore with the AIG bonus scandal. Having spent the last few days on the road, I come late to the story of the moment. Nevertheless, the more complicated it becomes the simpler it is: The U.S.’s largest insurance company tanked in part...

So it’s final – a Portuguese water dog is coming to the White House sometime in April. That’s what you get when you have to please 3 women. Originally President Obama suggested going to the local dog pound and adopting a stray mixed breed. First Lady Michelle Obama nixed that idea immediately. She had heard talk show host Conan O’Brien point out that the last President who brought a stray dog to...

by Walter Brasch Legislatures in Pennsylvania and Illinois are considering bills that would reduce or eliminate what animal welfare advocates call mutilations, and what breeders and American Kennel Club (AKC) call “breed standards.” Because dogs are considered by state laws to be property, individual owners may currently cut and shape dogs’ ears (cropping) or amputate part or all of their tails (docking),...

Learn About Stem Cell Research Before Rejecting It by Jim Bell There has been much in the blogosphere during the last week concerning stem cell research, all of which seemingly triggered by Obama’s reversal of Bush’s policy to deny government funding for stem cell research. Arguments from the right consistently state that stem cell research is morally wrong because the cells being used come from...

Happy St. Patrick’s Day By Martha Randolph Carr Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone. Today all of America gets to be an honorary Irishman, wear green and attempt lame brogues. It’s a wonderful, quirky little holiday that inspires city officials to turn the Chicago River that runs through the metropolitan’s business section a lovely emerald green. Parades will be held in cities and towns as people march...

LEGAL FICTIONS AND THE SANCTITY OF CONTRACTS – A LOT OF NICE BULL Corporations, limited liability companies, banks, financial entities, non-profit organizations, governmental entities, and all private enterprises in the world are essentially legal fictions. What is a legal fiction? It is a fictitious “person” created by law that has certain legal rights and obligations. It exists on paper, in public...

Editor’s Note: These are bittersweet times for those of us who trained for careers in an industry we all loved so much, the newspaper business. Some (like me) moved on to other careers in other industries before what can only be called the 2008-2009 industry-wide meltdown — but we cherish our newspaper days. Today, others are moving on not by choice, because they’re being laid off or they’re...