Diggapedia

If a debate is held and no one shows up, do the trees know or care?   The first Republican presidential debate is scheduled for this Thursday on Faux News and none of the major candidates are planning on attending.   Hmmm two hours of silence on Faux News, now THAT’s worth tuning in for. In a related story, at this rate the potential GOP presidential debaters may include Joe ‘The Plumber’, Bristol Palin, Strom Thurmond’s corpse, and Ted Nugent. In a little covered news story yesterday, the Treasury Department has granted exemptions to foreign exchange derivatives traded via over-the counter (OTC) swaps.   This loophole in the Dodd-Frank financial reform law was lauded by the banking industry.   Why do I have the sinking suspicion that investment banks JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, et al are already figuring out how to take advantage of this loophole for their own proprietary businesses?   Start the clock on the next financial crisis, I am betting 2018. Watching Rocky II, di

Can someone explain how Donald Trump, a man who inherited a fortune and a business, and had to seek multiple bankruptcy protections during the 90’s is considered a business wizard and genius?   The man filed multiple bankruptcies in the 90’s…the 90’s…the decade when EVERYBODY made money? Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) and TEA Party Caucus Heroine who must be on heroin tweeted this week “Tax Day may be over, but the deduction from your paycheck is a constant reminder of how much Uncle Sam takes.”   Really now?   The facts don’t back up Batshit’s anti-tax position.   According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the US ranks near the bottom in the developed world with respect to taxes as a percentage of GDP. I love Apple’s response to the recent iPhone tracking controversy.   “ Apple is not tracking the location of your iPhone. Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so.”   Oh it must have been another user error like the iPhone 4 antenna?   I wish

Courtesy of PolitiFact, I give you these whoppers from our elected officials and big mouths: RNC Chairman Reince Priebus "We’ve lost 26 million jobs … since (Obama’s) been president." Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell New financial regulation "actually guarantees future bailouts of Wall Street banks." Texas Republican Congressman Leo Berman: Says the hospital listed on Barack Obama’s just-publicized long-form birth certificate denies the president was born there. Douche Nozzle Donald Trump: "CNN did a poll recently where Obama and I are statistically tied." Minnesota Republican Congresswoman and Tea Party Heroine Michelle Bachmann: The government will "go out and buy my breast pump for my babies." Ohio Congress woman Jean Schmidt: "For every 33 pregnant women that walk into a Planned Parenthood clinic, 32 receive an abortion." Arizona Republican Senator Jon Kyl: Abortion services are "well over 90 percent of what P

-         Katie Couric leaving CBS Evening News.   I didn’t know CBS still had an evening news show. -         If you watch Celebrity Apprentice or anything else to do with Trump you may be an idiot. -         Why do I think Trump will have Joe The Plumber on next season of Celebrity Apprentice? -         Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour will not run for President.   The Good Ole Boy couldn’t shake the Bubba Crackuh label. -         As social conservatives continue their attacks on Planned Parenthood, I grow even more convinced that the government should INCREASE its funding of this crucial public healthcare service provider. -         Gabby Giffords travelling to her husband’s shuttle launch this week is storybook stuff.   I know she has a long road ahead, but if this doesn’t touch you, check your pulse. -         The increasingly deteriorating situation in Syria could hit super crises point in less than a week.   Will NATO, the Arab League, and the UN stand up?   Unlike Libya, Syri

In lieu of our Monday Mishegas, I found it necessary to call out the Reverend Franklin Graham.   The son of the globally popular and reverend to the Presidents, the Evangelical Reverend Billy Graham, Franklin Graham has never been afraid of saying what is on his mind.   This time, however, he has gone too far.   Yesterday on This Week with Christiane Amanpour, Graham hit the daily double and not in a good way. Exhibit One: "He (Obama) can solve this whole birth certificate issue pretty quickly," Graham said. "I was born in a hospital in Asheville, North Carolina. And I know that my records are there, you can probably go and find out what room my mother was in when I was born. I don’t know why he can’t produce that. It's an issue it looks like he can answer pretty quickly." Exhibit Two: "I look at the world in which we live today, and the secularism is anti-Christ, It's every bit anti-Christ. We can't talk about Jesus in our schools. God has been ki

Do you think warmongers like Senators Graham, McCain, and Lieberman, and neocons like Bolton, Wolfowitz, and Kristol keep pushing for increased action in Libya as a way of defending bloated defense budgets?   Create artificial demand to maintain or increase funding. NHL playoff hockey is 10 times more exciting than NBA playoff basketball.   No deficit reduction plan can be taken seriously that does not include some level element of tax increases.   The Ryan plan is a joke.   More tax cuts and history shows that more tax cuts don’t create jobs.   If you don’t believe me, look at this century. Oil is a global commodity traded in dollars.   If the US was to produce more, it would not change the price significantly.   Just because we pull more out of our lands does not mean the price will drop back to 2009 levels.   After all, oil companies are sitting on granted leases and not exploring.   Why?   Bad business.   Oil goes up because more traders believe the price will go up and that is wha

Do as I say not as I do.   GOP and its Tea Party Caucus say they will vote against raising the debt ceiling.   Yet these same fiscal conservatives voted along party lines (235-189) to approve fellow Republican and wunderkind Paul Ryan’s budget; the same budget that will take our $14Trillion debt to $21Trillion in 10 short years and repeated votes to increase the debt ceiling again and again.   Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you’re not a Tea Party loving douche. The GOP backed plan is a farce and its budget cuts AND tax cuts for the wealthy is an insult to economists and the authors of Simpson-Bowles and Domenici-Rivlin.   Any plan to address debt and budget deficits without raising taxes is simply unrealistic. Republicans are bad for this country. I love how some Republicans like to call themselves Libertarians because it can distance themselves from Bush years.   They are all for small government and low taxes and then when they talk you realize their only source of informa

Mississippi annually is declared the most religious state in the country and yet a majority of its Republican Party members believe interracial marriage should be illegal.   Dichotomy: Christian God Loving Bigots. Republican Senator John Ensign called for Bill Clinton to resign during the Lewinsky scandal, “He has no credibility left.”   The same John Ensign announced his resignation today.     The resignation comes nearly two years after Ensign acknowledged having had an extramarital affair with a former staffer. He was accused of helping the woman's husband - a top former Ensign staffer - obtain lobbying work.   Irony: Those that preach the loudest should probably shut the heck up. Kentucky’s Creation Museum follows the Young Earth Creationists belief that the earth is only 10,000 years old and man cohabitated the earth with dinosaurs.   Now if dinosaurs were wiped out by a great flood, as preached by creationists, wouldn’t our Environmentalist ancestors have fought to save the d

On November 29, 1947 the UN General Assembly voted 33 to 13, with 10 abstentions, in favor of the Partition Plan, ending the British Mandate in Palestine and establishing a Jewish state and an Arab state in the territory known as Palestine.   This two state solution was to go in effect on May 14, 1948, the date of British withdrawal.   Immediately the Arabs refused to accept the Plan as did militant Jewish organizations such as the Irgun and its leader and future Prime Minister Menachem Begin.   Next month will mark the 63 rd anniversary of the creation of the flourishing Democratic State of Israel and 63 years of foreign policy and political dealings unmatched in any other region of the world. Did you know that the first country to recognize Israel’s statehood was the Soviet Union?   Did you also know that during the Civil War of 1947/48 and the 1948 War of Independence, it was the Soviet Union, through its satellite Czechoslovakia that armed the fledgling Jewish Agency in its war w

·         Donald Trump to CNN’s Candy Crowley “Either I’d go in and take the oil or I don’t go in at all…in the old days, when you have a war and you win, that nation is yours.”   Old days?   Like in the Middle Ages.   I am not shocked by this statement; one would expect a man who treats the business world like a game of Monopoly would view warfare like a game of Risk. ·         This just in : Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vetoed the Arizona Birther Bill that would have required candidates for President to present proof of birth in order to get on the ballot in Arizona.   "I never imagined being presented with a bill that could require candidates for President of the greatest and most powerful nation on earth to submit their 'early baptismal or circumcision certificates'… this is a bridge too far. This measure creates significant new problems while failing to do anything constructive for Arizona."  Diggapedia is still stunned. ·         The United States Armed Forces ha

Sorry Donald, once you are subject of a celebrity roast on Comedy Central, you can no longer be considered viable to become President. Donald, we all know you do not want to be President.   You are scared shitless of having to complete the financial disclosure statements. Poor Sarah Palin.   First she gets eclipsed by the rising full moon crazy Michelle Bachmann and now she must jump on the birther bandwagon to keep up with Trump.   Sarah: Plain and Irrelevant, an afterschool special. Saddens me to see that all weekend the talking heads and pundits were too busy arguing who won and who lost with respect to the government shutdown.   Welcome to Meet The Press and your host Charlie Sheen. Check out Discovery Channel’s Human Planet: great stories and superb photography.   Four years of filming to produce this series and it is worth it.   Even Mrs. Diggapedia watched. It is time to privatize TSA, Amtrak, Post Office, and all other government agencies and enterprises that are hopelessly mis

While Paul Ryan, (R-WI) deserves credit for at least getting the balanced budget and debt eradication debate off the ground, calling him courageous is a bit of a stretch.   His plan contains these highlights and lowlights: ·         Cuts are attained off the backs of the elderly and poor. ·         No tax increases.   Even Bowles/Simpson and Domenici/Rivlin agree that tax increases are necessary ·         No increase in capital gains taxes.   Once again, you need to spread the pain to the rich. ·         Reduction in corporate tax rates via the elimination of loopholes…good luck with that ·         Vouchers for seniors to buy health insurance from the private sector.   That assumes there will be choices that create competition.   ·         Medicare reform will go into effect for those under 55 is a good idea to transition.   ·         Where are the defense cuts? He is only specifying what Gates has already proposed.   Not good enough. ·         Where are the cuts to farmer subsidies an

Disney has begun construction on the $15Billion theme park in Shanghai, China.   We can’t make anything in this country, but we can export a man-sized mouse and his entourage.   Hope someone told the Chinese that Pluto is not food. The heinous attack by Los Angeles Dodgers’ fans on Giants’ fan Bryan Stow is unforgiveable.   Congratulations Dodger Fan, you have now made baseball look like European Soccer. Europe’s inability to maintain any semblance of an air campaign against Gaddafi’s forces without American assistance demonstrates that both NATO and the European Union are ineffective.   Many Europeans bitch about America’s often heavy-handed approach to global crises, and then cry when we back off.   Can’t have it both ways. Memo to those same Europeans who love to criticize Israel: when Hamas fires a rocket at an easily identifiable school bus, you should condemn them immediately and order for complete disarmament in Gaza.   Israel’s response was both appropriate and justified.   Eur

So Glenn Beck finally wore out his welcome at Fox.   I will miss his crazy rants, and because I don’t want him to disappear totally, I have a few suggestions: 1)       Take Charlie Sheen’s place on Two and Half Men, change the title to Two and a Half Mormon. 2)       Get a part in Book of Mormon on Broadway.   He can dance with his chalkboard. 3)       Move into the Jersey Shore house.   Can you see Beck asking Snookie if she is DTF? 4)       WWE.   He will be the coolest heal manager since Classy Freddie Blassie.   His evil empire would be called the God Squad. 5)       30 Rock as the new fanatical head of NBC and Jack Donaghy’s (Alec Baldwin) new boss.   Show needs a fresh crazy factor. 6)       Appear as a doom saying preacher on AMC’s apocalyptic zombie hit Walking Dead.   Not a stretch role for him. 7)       Play the role of Phineas J. Whoopee in the live action production of Tennessee Tuxedo…he already has the chalkboard and glasses. 8)       Celebrity Apprentice where he can arg

Things that make you say WTF: Donald Trumpisms: ·         "(Obama’s) grandmother in Kenya said he was born in Kenya and she was there and witnessed the birth." ·         "The people that went to school with (Barack Obama), they never saw him, they don't know who he is." ·         "How come his own family doesn't know which hospital he was born in? How come-- forget about birth certificates. Let's say there's no birth certificate. How come in the hospital itself, okay? This is one of the...in the hospital itself, there's no records of his birth. In other words, it doesn't say how much they paid, where is the doctor, here's your room bill." Mississippi ·         Ratified the 13 th Amendment that banished and prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude on March 16, 1995; 130 years after the country ratified it.   Mississippi rejected it originally on December 5, 1865. ·         46% of Mississippi Republicans believe interracial m

Why is Conservative Mike Pence (R-IN) misogynistic?   Why can’t Michelle Bachmann answer a question? Why did the media fail to mention that Paul Ryan’s 2012 budget included $5Trillion in tax cuts for corporations and the richest 1% of Americans? Why do Democrats have no shame when they blame the GOP for not ending the funding debate, when it was the Democratic majority who failed to pass a budget in 2010? Do you think Wisconsin voters are having voter remorse? Is it me or does Scott Brown (R-MA) actually represent America; socially progressive, fiscally conservative? Should anyone care what Alan Greenspan has to say? If Glenn Beck disappears, will he be missed?   Will anyone care? What ails Ailes?   Glenn Beck apparently. How big would Bill Clinton’s margin of victory be today if he could run for President? Is Sarah Palin jealous of Michelle Bachmann? What happened to championship boxing?   Why are airplane maintenance issues only discovered right before departure? Why do I cringe ever