Government/Politics
Knowing Newt’s Name
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is scheduled to announce his candidacy for the 2012 presidential election sometime Wednesday. For the record, Gingrich will be 68 in June, and for the younger generation, Gingrich was the Speaker of the House during Bill Clinton’s presidency and Newt stepped down from the House of Representatives shortly [...]
Why was Tax Day not April 15th this year?
No, it wasn’t just the IRS being nice to you and giving you the extra weekend to file your taxes in 2011. There was a real, albeit somewhat absurd, reason that the deadline to file taxes in 2011 was yesterday and not April 15. Unless it’s a weekend or federal holiday, Tax Day will always [...]
Authoritarianism defined
If you have been keeping up with Dinner Topics and all of the world wide protests in the past couple months, you may have noticed that in the middle of reports from Egypt, Bahrain, and Libya, the word “authoritarianism” has been used often. While it’s fairly easy to figure out the meaning from the context [...]
Where is Libya?
Add Libya and Greece to the list of countries suffering from government protests, with Libya’s problems becoming violent and polarizing with leader Muammar Gaddafi1 vowing to fight against his protesters at all costs. Dinner Topics has included Gaddafi in several posts in the past, including one about the Lockerbie controversy and another when Gaddafi camped [...]
Obama’s Budget for 2012
The country’s budget has been announced for 2012 and, as expected, Republicans have problems with it and Democrats praise it. Such is the process of politics. According to a Wall Street Journal article, “Mr. Obama’s budget offers up more than $1 trillion in deficit reductions over a 10-year period.” 1 Depending on the voting preferences [...]
What’s going on in Egypt?
Protests, extreme 6pm curfews, and banned internet across Egypt is making headlines today, but you may not even know what all the hubbub is about. The protests began on Tuesday and haven’t eased, primarily “to demand 82-year-old Mubarak’s ouster and vent rage at years of government neglect of rampant poverty, unemployment and rising food prices.”1 [...]
Who is Hu?
Headlines today all read about Hu visiting the White House to meet with President Obama. If you are not up on your politics, you should know that Hu refers to President Hu Jintao of China1, and his arrival is an important one because of the constant tensions and differences in some of the most important [...]
2% tax increase = 67% increase in Illinois
Dinner Topics has been a little sluggish to start the new year, but you certainly didn’t need our site to hear about the homeless man with the “golden voice,” unexplained mass bird deaths, snowstorms battering the east coast again, and the tragic shooting spree in Arizona. The latest news brewing around the country is Illinois’ [...]
