Guest Opinion

 Recently I was talking with a small business owner about the privately purchased health care policy that covered the owner and spouse. They pay about $12,000 a year for a policy with a $6,000 deductible each. Preventative health maintenance with a medical professional is something that they just can’t afford. Their insurance is only to […]

 Nationalism is returning to a world badly in need of internationalism. An increasing number of countries are moving sharply to the political right, endorsing nationalism, while the public and global goods of our world such as the fish in the ocean and our environment and climate have no international shepherds to watch over them. More […]

As a country, we make a habit of looking forward, not backward. But I’m going to ask you to turn your attention back a few weeks, to Barack Obama’s Jan. 10 farewell address to the American people. I’ve been reading presidential farewell speeches for many years. Most of them give good advice. This speech, however, […]

In Illinois, Lincoln’s essential premise of “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” has been corrupted into “government of the casinos, by the casinos, and for the casinos” – as exemplified by the new casino legislation in Senate Bill 7. In 2015, U.S. congressional hearings highlighted that much of the Illinois […]

While I often disagree with policy positions articulated by Gov. Bruce Rauner, I had to agree with him when he spoke out against the current effort to convert Medicaid into a Block Grant being pushed by Republicans in an attempt to derail the Affordable Care Act. One of the most important provisions of the ACA […]

 Pedasi, Panama — While Jan. 9 was just another Monday in the U.S., it was a major national holiday in Panama, marking perhaps the lowest point in the inextricably close relations between the two countries. Sparked by high school students, the incident the holiday commemorates is credited with leading to the eventual return of the […]

Recently Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a provocative and sobering speech touching on the viability of future Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, and again brought into question the nature of the U.S.-Israeli relationship under the Obama administration. The speech was preceded by a 14-0 vote by the U.N. Security Council (Resolution 2334) censuring ongoing Israeli settlement […]

 Life is full of “What if…?” questions. One of these questions preeminent in Illinois is, “What if Speaker Madigan was no longer speaker?”. One of my “What if” questions is: How would I have voted for speaker if I had won my race for state representative?” When I stated publicly last fall that I would […]

All Americans face the prospect that very shortly after Jan. 20, Congress will repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA). That means between 14 and 17 million people (depending on the report you want to use) will have their health care benefits in jeopardy. It is estimated that over one million of them are in Illinois. […]

As Mario Cuomo said, politicians campaign in poetry but have to govern in prose. Now we have a president-elect who campaigned in tweets…but still will have to govern in prose. Donald Trump showed great skill as a campaigner, steering his campaign past a slew of professional politicians who underestimated him at every turn. Now the […]

The Italians vote their leader out and this affects all of us. Prime Minister Renzi in Italy recently resigned as promised after losing a plebiscite on whether or not to amend the Constitution so Italy could move forward. His proposal was designed to shore up faltering banks and to start economic growth. The people said […]