Diggapedia

Myth: Obama threw Israel under the bus.   Fact: President Obama pledged $70million to Israel to expand its anti-rocket Iron Dome system.   Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said “I can hardly remember a better period of American support and backing, and Israeli cooperation and similar strategic understanding of events around us than we have right now.”   Further, President Obama has blocked every Palestinian attempt to gain statehood through the UN while also blocking all attempts to condemn Israel in the security council. Myth: If we drill more oil we can lower the price of gasoline.   Fact: We will never drill enough oil and refine it to satisfy our domestic consumption needs as long we rely on the stuff as much as we do.   Secondly, oil is a commodity and is sold globally meaning it will be subject to supply and demand pressure points and with demand in China and India increasing, prices will continue to go up.   Thirdly, the oil is not ‘ours’.   It belongs to the companies

Skaneateles, New York-based medical device manufacturer Welch-Allyn Inc. says it is cutting its workforce by 10%.   According to the Plastics News, the 100 year old company that currently employs 2,750 people will “close its manufacturing plant in Beaverton, Ore., and consolidate its North American manufacturing at its plant in Tijuana, Mexico, which opened seven years ago, and at its corporate headquarters plant in Skaneateles Falls, N.Y.”   In a news release the company stated “These actions will proactively prepare the company to address the onerous U.S. medical-device tax scheduled to begin in 2013 as mandated in the Affordable Care Act, as well as significant changes driven by health-care reform and market dynamics.” The company is expanding in Singapore and Tijuana but it claims the medical device tax is what is causing the layoffs.   If that is the case, why expand offshore where the products will still be subject to the tax?   Clearly the company, which lobbied hard to p

  Preview of the 2012 Television Season: ·          The Last Resort: The GOP swaps Romney Ryan ticket with Limbaugh Honey Boo Boo. ·          Vegas: Sheldon Adelson gives away $1million every day to some lost cause ·          Elementary: Sarah Palin and Michele Bachman return to the 5 th grade to learn American history ·          Animal Practice: Inside look at Fox and Friends ·          Chicago Fire: How President Obama started the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.   Narrated by Lou Dobbs. ·          666 Park Avenue: Donald Trump loses his fortune and moves in with the devil ·          Once Upon a Time: Each week another member of the GOP laments about their favorite Ronald Reagan memory ·          The Walking Dead: Republican voters go to the polls ·          Fringe: The rise of the Tea Party and the death of the GOP ·          Two and Half Men:   The Chris Christie Story ·          Call the Midwife: The GOP healthcare plan    

Today marks the 2 nd anniversary of Diggapedia and to be honest I wasn’t sure it would last this long.   , I have slowed down the frequency of my postings due to several reasons including significant increases in Twitter activity, travel, and reading.   But the biggest change has been subject matter.   While previously my blog postings were far more diverse including sports, current events, and pop culture, over the last year I have become more focused on politics.   Further, my postings have become more research centric and thus require longer to prepare; after all I do have a day job.   So yes, I have evolved from simply opinion writing, to research, analyze, and opine.   And yes that takes time to put together. But this post isn’t about excuses; it’s about the Diggapedia journey.   I have many more readers, thank you Twitter followers, and as far as the blog isn’t it really about quality and not quantity?   Honestly, there are days when I find nothing interesting to write an

What’s bugging Diggaduh?   How about dumb-ass statements such as: ·          “I want my country back.”   Really?   Back from whom?   Where did it go?   When did you lose it?   ·          “Obamacare is a job killer.”   Name one job that has been eliminated as a result of the Affordable Care Act? ·          “The 1% are job creators.”   When 70% of your GDP comes from consumer spending does anyone believe that it is only the 1% doing the spending? ·          “Why do people vote against their economic best interests?”   Well, I do so.   And I do it because I believe we are only as strong as our weakest link. ·          “He’s going through a sophomore slump.” It’s called regressing to the mean.   How do you know the 1 st season wasn’t beyond the normal and the end (sophomore season) is more indicative of long term performance? ·          “President Obama is waging war on religion.”   Really last time I checked it was fundamentalists that were challenging Islamic communi

Let me start by saying that I do agree with some conservative principles.   I also agree with many progressive principles.   Alas I am still in the middle. ·          I do NOT believe government should mandate social behavior that infringes on our individual rights, but I believe that government should wrong social injustice ·          I believe in the long term we need to address our debt and fiscal responsibility, but in the short term we need to be promoting growth. ·          I believe our armed forces need to be the best equipped, best armed, best trained, and best led, but I do not believe we need to outspend the next 17 countries combined. ·          I do not believe in government takeover of private enterprise, but I do believe government should facilitate and nurture emerging technology. ·          I do believe that shale gas and oil can enable a manufacturing renaissance in America, but I also believe we need to do it safely and effectively. ·          I d

  New Year’s Mishegas to go with your apples and honey 1)       The Bush leftover neocons now serving Romney are completely tone deaf as the American people have spoken and more jobs, less war is the rallying cry. 2)       Not even three weeks after the RNC Convention that was singularly focused on reintroducing Mitt Romney to America as a nice considerate guy, the campaign hits reset again this week to now promote Romney’s plan with the previously omitted details.   He doesn’t need an Etch-a-Sketch, he needs a time machine. 3)       Do you love those BP ads that talk about how much they have cleaned up the gulf coast and how tourism is back and bigger than ever in the gulf states?   Last week miles of coastline had to be closed from commercial fishing due to a sudden arrival of tar balls; remnants from the BP Macondo well spill. I don’t think you will find many people who think tar balls = ‘robust recovery’. 4)       When Romney loses decisively this November I expe

  I have to admire the brass on Republicans for simultaneously calling out failed Obama policies while displaying incredible memory loss of their own failures.   1)       Republicans criticized Fed Chairman Bernanke for initiating QEIII or Quantitative Easing Round three.   Romney said he would replace the current chairman especially in light of what he called political activism that took fiscal policy into the area of monetary policy.   Perhaps the fed would not need to be activist if the Congress had actually done something like pass the President’s job bills. 2)       In early 2008 when the country desperately needed stimulus as a recession (and soon to be the Great Recession) started to take hold, house Democrats worked with their Republican counterparts and eventually the Senate put in front of President Bush a plan of tax cuts and spending increases to try to kick start the economy again.   Fast forward to 2009 and ever since and we have witnessed a Republican party

Here are Mitt Romney’s Nation Security Team Heavy Hitters: ·          John Bolton:   A man so far to the right his appointment to be Bush’s UN ambassador had to be done as a recess appointment.   The ironic thing is the man hates everything about the international body. Infamously said   “So we’re at a very unhappy point — a very unhappy point — where unless Israel is prepared to use nuclear weapons against Iran’s program , Iran will have nuclear weapons in the very near future.”   Sounds like a guy advocating nuclear war. ·          Elliot Cohen: The ultra neocon who said in a Wall Street Journal piece in December 2001 "After Afghanistan, what? Iraq is the big prize."   Hired by Condi Rice in 2007. ·          Cofer Black: former vice chairman of Blackwater and the father of waterboarding while working in the Bush CIA.   The man who   vowed to bring Osama bin Laden’s head to George W. Bush on a pike and did not make good on that promise.   ·          Walid P

While the GOP and it’s one dimensional presidential candidate Mitt Romney attack President Obama over the awful loss of life of members of our diplomatic corps in Libya, I want to share something.   While the blood lust on the right calls for immediate retaliation and cutting off of funds to the fledgling Libyan transition government, I remind them of their hero Ronald Reagan’s complete failures in Lebanon: ·          On April 18, 1983 a delivery van pulled up to the front door of the U.S. embassy in Beirut and detonated, collapsing the building and killing 46 people (including 16 Americans) and wounding over a hundred others. ·          On April 23, 1983, Reagan announced: "The tragic and brutal attack on our embassy in Beirut has shocked us all and filled us with grief. Yet, because of this latest crime we are more resolved than ever to help achieve the urgent and total withdrawal of all American forces from Lebanon, or I should say, all foreign forces. I’m sorry. Mistak

One year ago I wrote about September 10 th on my way to Israel.   Now I am in Israel, again, and I take notice of America today, eleven years later. America is a funny strange place filled with some very serious and brilliant men and women, but many fools and charlatans.   Our blood lust following the attacks of September 11th was insatiable and our leaders at the time, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice et al, decided to fight two wars; wars that were undermanned, underfunded, and simply put on the credit card.   Today we have had enough and have no desire for the next front whether it be Syria or Iran.   The party in opposition has reassembled many of the same Bush era national security team members and are ratcheting up the rhetoric.   They fashion themselves as the protectors of America, I call them the most dangerous men and women in America. An ugliness has also bubbled back to the surface in America also; an ugliness that is always there but really comes out in a full bloom

While everyone was focusing on Governor Jan Brewer’s foot in mouth performance at the RNC Convention when she said she hoped for a President Obama victory, her administration was pulling some questionable and potentially unethical business dealings. As reported in the Arizona Republic, it seems t he Arizona state Department of Corrections awarded a multimillion-dollar private-prison contract to Corrections Corporation of America.   The private prison firm with questionable ties to the Brewer administration employed Chuck Coughlin, an influential lobbyist who is a close friend and an adviser to Brewer.   Also, Paul Senseman, Brewer's former spokesman, according to   state lobbying records show CCA also employs Policy Development Group, a lobbying firm that employs Senseman. But wait, there’s more.   The CCA contract calls for CCA to be paid a per diem rate of $65.43 per bed. The most recent information available shows the average daily cost per inmate in a state-run medium-cu

Increasing public debt is not as important a metric as debt/GDP. The key is making sure economic growth (GDP) outpaces debt accumulation. It is also important to make sure that during economic boon times, government doesn't waste money and frivolously spend because when the downturn comes, and it will come, it will need to ramp up spending to offset declines in consumer and business spending. When looking at this chart please note: 1)     The rapid growth in debt/GDP during the Roosevelt administration was due to the ramp up to fight WWII. 2)     For the 36 years following the peak in 1945 each administration, Republican and Democrat alike, managed to reduce the debt/GDP ratio. 3)     However, for the next 12 years encompassing the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, debt/GDP went from the mid 35% to 65%.   The GOP loves to tell us about the Reagan Recovery, Reaganomics, and the Reagan boon times.   But they never talk about the explosion of debt/GDP. 4)