Diggapedia

  Have the Republicans given up or are they simply trying to destroy the country?   I get the role of the opposition is to challenge the party in power and make sure you extract something during legislative debates, but for the last five years, and I imagine for the next three years, they will be willing to induce significant harm to this nation.   I accept there will be some instances when the opposition will take a firm ‘no’ position and I get that.   But this is completely different, and what’s worse about it now is it is no longer about ideology, but politics.   Not the good kind of political bargaining and gamesmanship, but the nasty personal, damaging, and selfish kind.   Our government is dysfunctional and I just had to break out my copy of Patrick Lencioni Five Dysfunctions of a Team to analyze further. Lencioni’s leadership fable has been read by millions and it is simple and effective lesson in rooting out the sources of a team’s inability...

24 hours after most Congressional Republicans came to their senses we have effectively kicked the can into early 2014.   The president is feeling a little cocky, Boehner is holding on, the GOP is ruing the day it hooked up with the Tea Party, and many in the Tea Party are upping their Thorazine dosages. But what is in store for America?   The economic recovery is sputtering, labor markets are anemic, political will is absent, fiscal policy is missing, and too many of our representatives are preoccupied with re-election.   So how do we get this ship righted? For starters, fix immigration now.   It is the single biggest reason why we have few start-ups today than before 2001.   Start-ups become small businesses and small businesses are the labor engine of America.   According to The Economist , start-ups created 2.7m new jobs in the 2012 financial year compared with 4.7m in 1999 .   The Republicans need to accept that they have no one to blame but t...

  Been awhile so it’s time to clear the inbox: ·          I could take challenges to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act more seriously if Mississippi hadn’t just got around to approving the 13 th Amendment banning slavery or the recent increase in voter suppression tactics by Republican politicians targeting Democratic districts. ·          The sequester only proves that Congress is willing to take itself hostage, and then shoot the hostage ·          I am limiting my Sunday Talk Show viewing to Fareed Zakaria’s GPS.   It is educational, global, and free of political talking point bullshit which already dominates news coverage. ·          Dennis Rodman meets with Kim Jong-Un.   Dennis Rodman is on Celebrity Apprentice 2013.   What’s the bad hair equivalent for being a chubby chaser? · ...

This is by no means an expansive review of the 2012 political year.   Nor is it a top ten list, as every cable news station and talk radio show has created their lists and checked them twice.   Instead, here are my thoughts on what was the political year. Let me start by saying that political tricks and shenanigans are like most movies and television shows: there is very little original material or innovation.   Pick any time in American History   and you will find the same wheeling and dealing, the same attack pieces, the same gamesmanship, the same special interests, and the same political manipulations.   In 2012 we were worried that the Citizens United decision would cause such an influx of special interests’ money that and that government of the people, by the people, for the people would no longer exist.   Irrespective of Citizens United, our government is unduly influenced by special interests and their lobbyists.   Every industry spends ...

1)       Will lactose intolerant people be as indifferent to the milk cliff as nonsmokers are to increased tobacco taxes? 2)       Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his Likud party are seeing its January 22 nd election popularity waning at the expense of his former aide Naftali Bennett and the rightist Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) party.   The 40 year old son of American immigrants, Bennett has called for unconstrained settlement expansion while opposing the creation of a Palestinian state.   Since Netanyahu will not have a majority, he will have to choose between a hard right wing coalition or the mish mash of center left parties to form a government.   The stakes are high and could set the peace process back 20 years.   Sadly, I see Netanyahu choosing his former aide, putting the Israeli government at odds with its patron in Washington.   What is even more disappointing is the clear shift in the Israeli ...

  How will a second Obama term go?   Is it too soon to make a prediction considering the 2012 election outcome is still unknown?   Will congressional gridlock be the same, not as bad, or sadly worse?   Will Iran develop a nuclear weapon?   What will the cabinet look like?   How about the supreme court?   Will we go over   the fiscal cliff or just hang dangerously close to the edge? I believe President Obama will champion deficit cutting and attack the building debt.   Contrary to the pundits on the right, the president is not a tax and spend liberal (as opposed to a borrow and spend Republican).   He believes in fiscal responsibility, but also realizes that during deep recessions where the credit markets have seized, that it is up to the government to provide necessary stimulus.   However, unlike FDR, President Obama has fought the pressure to turn to austerity too soon, and as the economy continues to heal in 2013, expect...