Diggapedia

  ·          34% of Republicans think President Obama is a Muslim.   I am not surprised because 60% of Americans believe the Bible literally. ·          So far this year Congress has sent a whopping 54 bills to the President including 14 that rename post offices, 9 to approve real estate transactions, and 6 to renew existing laws making this Congress one of the least productive ever. ·          15% of Boy Scout membership are Mormons.   Do you think that explains it’s homophobic stance?   By the way the membership in the BSA has fallen from 4.8million to 2.7 million over the last 40 years. ·          According to the New York Times, at the same time a grand jury was hearing evidence in the Jerry Sandusky case, Joe Paterno negotiated a $5.5milllion contract. ·      ...

In Part III of the Digganalysis of Mitt Romney’s 59 point plan we will take a look at the former Salt Lake City Olympic Savior’s thoughts on trade policy.   In a nutshell: Free trade good, China bad.   Romney spends most of this section attacking President Obama’s record on dealing with China and the lack of free   trade agreements.   Unfortunately for Mr. Romney, the facts do not back up his assertions.   Once again, this document is written in the third person, quotes and italics are words taken directly from the Romney plan. ·          “President Obama has also singularly failed in handling commercial relations with China.”   Mr. Romney is either delusional   and/or lying.   The Obama administration has successfully argued and WON six rulings at the WTO in 3.5 years.   That’s twice as many as the Bush administration did in 8 years.   A seventh case has been submitted regarding auto tarif...

In part II of analyzing Mr. Romney’s 59 point plan, we will analyze and comment on his regulatory policy.   Short version: regulations bad, industry good.   The general theme is that anything that stops business from exploiting the public or ravaging the planet is onerous and must be eradicated.   Romney goes on to push for cost benefit analysis on every regulation before it is approved.   Sounds great, but how do you calculate the benefit of air quality 100 years from now?   What is the cost to healthcare when our drinking water is contaminated?    You get the picture.   The quotes and italics are the actual words from the Romney plan and the plan uses Romney in the third person (“Jimmy likes Elaine”). ·          “The Obama administration’s war on carbon dioxide – what Time magazine has called “the most far-reaching environmental regulatory scheme in American history”.   Fact is every industrial...

Having listened to Romney and his team of surrogates talk about his 59 point plan for turning around the economy, I decided I had to delve into it with an open mind, not really.   Before going into the details, let me share some general comments about the plan: ·          Neither the CBO nor the Joint Tax Committee could score the plan because it lacked sufficient detail. ·          The Tax Policy Center estimated the plan would give the richest 0.1% a $725,000 tax cut while forcing families making <$30,000 to pay more.   Most middle class families would get an $810 reduction in taxes.   It also would increase the deficit to 5% of GDP from the current 3.1% while adding $3Trillion to the debt over a decade. ·            Romney defended his “plan” by saying it couldn’t be scored because he intentionally left out the details.   That m...

How important is the November presidential election?   Justices Ginsburg, Scalia, and Kennedy all turn 80 during the next presidential administration.   Yeah it’s big! Is Germany trying to ban circumcision? A regional court in Cologne said it was illegal.   The twisted part is the court is trying to protect Jewish kids from heinous experimentation like that was performed by the Nazis; now it seems the German courts are trying to protect Jewish babies from their parents.   In another twist, Muslims are claiming this isn’t anti-Semitism, but an assault on the Islamic tradition as well.   With all the dickheads in the world, we need this debate now? According to the NY Times, the U.S. has spent $25Billion on the war on drugs and the price for a gram of cocaine has dropped 16% since 2001. John Boehner on the 31 st House vote to repeal Obamacare   “We want to show people we are resolved to get rid of this.”   Too bad you don’t have the same r...

The media made a lot of noise about Mitt Romney’s big June of campaign donations where his campaign was able to outraise the Obama campaign $106M to $71M.   What the U.S. media failed to do, after all they had to contend with the Tom/Katie break up,   was dig a little deeper into the numbers. Here is a quick breakdown: ·          98% of President Obama’s June donations were for $250 or less.   94% for Olympic organizer and government bail-out recipient Mitt Romney. ·          The average amount of a donation to President Obama’s campaign was $52.   The average for Swiss Mitt’s campaign was $190. ·          $84million (out of $106million)of Governor Etch-A-Sketch’s take came from donations averaging $2,400. ·          80% of the donations to the King of Bain’s campaign came from just 6% of the tot...

If I had to choose between Mitt on a jet ski or a great white?   I’ll take the great white. McDonalds: an official sponsor of the London Olympics Being for lower tax rates and debt reduction is like being for deep fried food and supporting the war on obesity. I need to submit two years of tax returns to get   a mortgage, why is it so outlandish to see Romney’s tax returns? I go swimming with a cigar.   Yes I am aware of the contradiction If you can’t understand how the confederate flag may offend someone you have less social awareness than an amoeba. I secretly (I guess not anymore) wish I could be on the air and say what Jeff Daniels said during the 1 st and 3 rd episodes of The Newsroom. What do Republicans hate more: jobs or abortion? On November 7 th will Mitch McConnell declare his goal is to limit Barack Obama to a two term President? I loved Moonrise Kingdom.   No explosions, time travel, aliens, super heroes, car chases, etc. ...

·          While watching the ABC Sunday Night News, I noted the following commercials:   Nexium, Advil (2x), Arriva (talking diabetes meter), Shingles, One A Day Women’s Vitamins, Enbrel for psoriatic arthritis, Citracal, Centrum, and AARP (2x).   Hmm I wonder to what demographic they are catering.    Who would have guessed that watching the news could make you a hypochondriac? ·          Sticking with pharmaceuticals and marketing, here is a short list of pharmaceutical companies and the Department of Justice fines they have faced (still think the market can self-regulate?): o    GSK – July 2012: $3billion o    Pfizer – Sep 2009: $2.3billion o    Abbott Laboratories – May 2012: $1.5billion o    Eli Lilly – Jan 2009: $1.4billion o    Merck – Nov 2011: $1.0billion o    AstraZeneca – Apr 2010: $0.5billion ...

On July 5 th , the brilliant Michele Bachmann tweeted Republicans introduced hundreds of bills that would reduce health care costs, unlike #Obamacare.   She included a link to a list of 219 Health Care Bills proposed by the Republican Study Committee.   The problem with Bachmann’s tweet is most of the bills on the list had nothing to do with reducing healthcare costs (shocking, right?). In fact while some called for government action on significant health and wellness issues, many were thinly veiled or overt evangelical-driven policy pronouncements.   The list included a handful of measures directing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish programs to study Down syndrome, autism, hypertension, and prostate cancer.   Noble and progressive ideas but hardly what I call healthcare costs reducing.    Dozens of bills address the needs of veterans and their families.   Once again very noble and progressive, but for every dollar spent on v...

On this Independence Day, 236 years after the Declaration of Independence was signed by some very brave men in steamy Philadelphia, I wonder what some of those men would think about the great American experiment today.   Setting aside the obvious impressions of the technological marvels, medical breakthroughs, skyscraping metropolises, ubiquitous fast food joints, and Snooki, I imagine they would have mixed emotions in what the country has become.   (Technology aside, I bet Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, and others such as Hamilton, Madison and Paine would be the most brilliant and best bloggers). I think our Founding Fathers would initially be shocked not so much but what we’ve become, but that the United States of America still exists.   These men were well aware of the fragility of the Republic as well as the fact that democracies were not known for long shell lives.   They clearly understood the extreme diametrically opposed factions were held together with a t...