Category: USA and Canada

By Ernest Corea*
IDN –InDepth NewsAnalysis

WASHINGTON (IDN) – “Stop it.” That was Ann Romney’s peremptory order to her husband’s Republican Party critics, when she was recently interviewed by Radio Iowa. The wife of presidential candidate Mitt Romney came across like a highly strung nanny ticking off a rumbustious bunch of rich kids at a summer picnic.

In fairness to Mrs. Romney, however, her lack of experience has obviously moved her towards breaking point as she surveys the fallout from the bombshell that current affairs magazine Mother Jones dropped on the Romney campaign.

By Erich Walberg*
IDN-InDepth NewsReport

The ’empire’ requires a nice juicy enemy to keep people’s minds off its own sins. This year’s Toronto International Film Festival highlights the new direction in filmmaking: Iran is the enemy du jour, but at the same time it is no longer kosher to praise everything Israel does.

By Ernest Corea*
IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

WASHINGTON (IDN) – They are done. Democrats and Republicans have completed their conventions, and President Barack Obama has secured the anticipated post-convention bounce.

The latest Gallup poll puts Obama at 49 percent among registered voters, compared with 45 percent for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. The Reuters/Ipsos poll also gives Obama a four-percentage-point lead over Romney, 47:43. Obama’s personal favourability rating has increased as well and his favourability:unfavourability score is up to 52:43. That’s a seven percentage point bounce.

By Ernest Corea*
IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

WASHINGTON DC (IDN) – Behold! Another stirrer-upper. As an evangelical stream of consciousness moves through the Republican Party, this could well be how some activists reacted to the news that on Saturday, September 24 Herman Cain, would-be presidential candidate and former chief executive officer (CEO) of the Godfather brand of pizza won the party’s straw poll in Florida. He is the only African-American seeking the Republican nomination.

By Ernest Corea*
IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

WASHINGTON DC (IDN) – Reports of stocks plummeting and investor confidence diminishing dominated news cycles even as President Barack Obama attempted to reassure fellow-Americans – and the world – that their confidence in the country’s continuing strength would endure.

Speaking directly to the White House press corps and projecting his remarks to broader publics, Obama asserted that “markets will rise and fall, but this is the United States of America, and no matter what some agency may say, we always have been and always will be a triple-A country.”

By Jutta Wolf
IDN-InDepth NewsReport

BERLIN (IDN) – While the world held its breath in the long drawn political tug-of-war between the White House and Republican Party leaders until beginning of August 2011, Senator Bernie Sanders posted on his website startling findings of a top-to-bottom audit of the Federal Reserve (Fed): The central bank of the United States had dished out a whopping $16 trillion between December 2007 and June 2010 in interest free secret loans to “bail out” American and foreign banks and businesses.