Archive for the ‘American current affairs’ Category
If I understand history correctly …
May 31st, 2015 by Roger Darlington
“If I understand the history correctly, in the late 1990s, the President was impeached for lying about a sexual affair by a House of Representatives led by a man who was also then hiding a sexual affair, who was supposed to be replaced by another Congressman who stepped down when forced to reveal that he […]
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The sad death of “A Beautiful Mind”
May 25th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
I was really saddened by the news of the death in a road accident of the mathematics genius John Nash (86) and his wife Alicia (82). It is tragic that two people who lived so long and, in their different ways suffered so much, should die in circumstances where it appears that simply usng seat […]
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10 shocking truths about gun violence
May 19th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
In a special feature in today’s “Guardian” newspaper, it is suggested that there are almost one billions guns around the world and that over a million around the globe are injured by guns each year. The most shocking situation is that in the United States: “The US has more guns per person than any other […]
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British general election (17): how did all the polls get it so wrong?
May 9th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
The failure of all the polls to predict the actual outcome of the General Election has rightly caused many questions to be asked. There is to be an inquiry commissioned by the British Polling Council into what went wrong. But this is a wider problem than Britain, In other countries, like the USA and Israel, […]
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So what happened about all those dire forecasts of disaster as a result of Obamacare?
April 29th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
The official name for Barack Obama’s reform of the American healthcare system is the Affordable Care Act but it has been dubbed – usually by his opponents – as Obamacare. At first, media reports on the implementation of the legislation concentrated – at least outside the US – on the initial IT problems and on […]
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U.S. presidential election (6): the man behind Hillary Clinton’s campaign
April 12th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
Later today, Hillary Clinton will announce her long-expected bid to become the next US President. She was a good Secretary of State and I have reviewed here her account of that time in her memoirs “Hard Choices”. I think that she would make a fine President, but she has to win the Democratic nomination first […]
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U.S. presidential election (5): how many will actually seek their party’s nomination?
April 8th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
This week, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky officially declared himself a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. Paul becomes the second Republican to enter the 2016 campaign, following his colleague in the Senate, Ted Cruz of Texas. But, as an article in the “New York Times” puts it: “It will not remain a small field […]
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U.S. presidential election (4): the first Republican to declare
March 24th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
So the first Republican to formally declare his bid to become the party’s candidate in next year’s US presidential election is Ted Cruz, a hard-line conservative. As this piece in the “New York Times” puts it: “Those who have known him for years say Mr. Cruz always seemed both driven to advance and savvy in […]
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U.S. presidential election (3): who will be the Republican opponent to Hillary Clinton?
March 8th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
“On the Republican side there are already more than a dozen potential candidates jockeying for position. So 10 months before a single voter will cast a ballot – and 20 months before the 2016 presidential election – the race to succeed Barack Obama has begun. At the outset of the race the position of the […]
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Why almost half of American children live in or near poverty
January 20th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
“Fifty years ago, when Lyndon Johnson declared a “war on poverty,” most of the poor didn’t work. They were too old or infirm, or they couldn’t find jobs. Today, most of America’s poor do work – “welfare reforms” starting in the 1990s have required them to work as a condition of receiving any benefits. But […]
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