Weekend Digest: The Political Game Show Edition

TV PREVIEW: WHAT’S NEXT IN THE HEALTH CARE DEBATE?

On this week’s edition of Talk Business & Politics:

Gov. Asa Hutchinson delivers a major health care speech. What did he say? Did it satisfy potential critics? What questions remain unanswered? KATV’s Janelle Lilley analyzes legislative reaction.

State Senate President Jonathan Dismang weighs in on the Governor’s plan. Did it swing votes in the Senate? What can the Governor negotiate with? Plus, he’ll talk tax cuts and more.

Our political roundtable includes Freshman caucus leader Rep. Laurie Rushing, R-Hot Springs, Qualchoice CEO Michael Stock, and Bo Ryall, CEO of the Arkansas Hospital Association. How do they view the Governor’s health care proposals? What do they hope to see in the short-term and the long-run?

Plus, LobbyUp’s Bradley Phillips joins us for a new series to look at some of the hot button legislation of the week. This week, we examine the Right to Try Act, social media in the workplace, and the Robert E. Lee holiday.

Tune in to Talk Business & Politics Sunday morning at 9 a.m. on KATV Ch. 7.

For our weekend business and political readers:

WHAT COUNTRY HAS THE MOST FEMALE RUN BUSINESSES?
We’ll tell you right up front, it’s not the U.S.

While it should come as no surprise that the number of women in senior and middle management positions has increased significantly over the past 20 years, a new study claims that female leaders are thriving in unlikely regions across the globe.

Sadly, the U.S. actually falls far down the list.

Which country is No. 1, and what are the top 10? Where does America rank and what country has “the highest global proportion of companies featuring women as the chair of the board?” Go to this link from Entrepreneur for the rankings.

WHAT IS THE RICHEST MAN IN THE WORLD ABOUT TO UNVEIL?
He is worth $76 billion, but Bill Gates is about to spread riches of a different kind.

Since Bill Gates started writing his annual letter in 2009, he’s pretty much stuck with the accomplishments and plans of the Gates Foundation. Not this year: tacked at the end of an ambitious outline for the next 15 years, to be made public today, Gates will announce an initiative with the potential to immediately supercharge the way social activists create change.

Specifically, Gates and his wife Melinda, who co-wrote this year’s letter, will commit to fund the creation of a massive self-registered database of “global citizens,” who will detail the causes and topics that interest them.

Who will have access to this huge database, and what does Gates hope will happen next? Click here to find out from Forbes.

BIG DATA, BIG CHALLENGES
Inc. posts, “You know there’s a lot of good stuff in big data, but how can you sort out what’s relevant to you from all that white noise? Plus, who has time for all that?”

The reality is that “big data” is nothing new, although it is a new-ish buzzword. It’s simply information that’s useless when it’s not used – and a goldmine when you analyze it correctly.

However, you’re not going to get very far using an Excel spreadsheet. Data needs to be curated, organized, managed, and then put into actionable use. If you miss even one of these steps, you’re wasting your time. Fortunately, there are a few businesses out there making this process much easier. Leave the big data to the experts, so you can sit back and reap the benefits.

So who is “revolutionizing” big data? Learn who the players are and what they are doing at this link.

A HIDDEN CHALLENGE FACING INNOVATORS TODAY
Harvard Business Review says, “The simplicity and affordability of innovation has led to too much action without thought.”

Imagine starting a computer hardware business today. An entrepreneur can rent computing capacity from Amazon Web Services, find skilled designers via eLance, accelerate software development with GitHub, place targeted advertisements on Google or Facebook, and tap into a legion of contract manufacturers.

That would seem to be good news for innovation, and in many ways it is. But it has also created the ever-strengthening impression that the only way to learn is by action. Paralysis by analysis, the bane of many a large organization, should certainly be avoided. But so too should doing without thinking. In fact, doing without thinking is arguably even more dangerous because you can squander time and money by tripping over traps that could easily have been identified if only you’d done the right work beforehand.

What are those traps? HBR has the answers at this link.

GOP PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES TO MEET
Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush planned to meet in Utah this past week reports The Washington Post, but why?

The meeting was planned before Mr. Romney’s surprise announcement two weeks ago to donors in New York that he was considering a third run for the White House.

Mr. Bush proposed the meeting, according to one of the party members familiar with the planning, who did not want to be quoted by name in discussing a secret meeting.

So what do the two potential Republican candidates hope to accomplish so early? Click here for the full story. And here is Jeb Bush’s account of the meet-up.

IS THE STATE OF THE UNION MESSAGE COMPLETELY USELESS?
Politico magazine says in fact, that is not the case.

Think of the State of the Union address not as the preemptor of your favorite Tuesday night network programs but as the occasion for the president’s annual performance review.

When Congress stands opposed to the president, as is Obama’s current misfortune, he must decide how many words of persuasion to spend on his political enemies and how many to spend on his loyal constituents.

“The addresses sketch, word by word, an administration’s highest legislative priorities, as scholar Paul C. Light explains in his book The President’s Agenda: Domestic Policy Choice from Kennedy to Clinton.”

“State of the Union addresses matter because however few people tune in, they still serve as a reflecting mirror for the executive branch, signaling to all the president’s bureaucrats who has clout and who has none.”

Take an inside look at the administrative battles to perfect and slant the speech accordingly and why “brawls over the length of sentences and punctuation are common,” at this link.

ANONYMOUS CLINTON TALKERS
The Washington Post reports, “With people just itching to reveal every detail about a campaign still in its wispy stages, one can’t help but imagine that the already-teeming number of faceless sources are bound to grow exponentially if/when things get official.”

Put simply that means leaks. And the candidate The Post is referring to is Hillary Clinton even though she is not a candidate yet, or is she?

And you can be sure if Clinton does happen to run in and win an election, she won’t improve upon previous administrations’ reliance on background or off-the-record sourcing. If you can’t even go on the record to acknowledge that Hillary Clinton is thinking about running for president – this is not a secret – what will anyone go on the record to talk about?

The 2016 election might not be a campaign season of leaks, it may instead become a season of especially un-insightful quotes contributed by unknown people we don’t even get the privilege of making fun of.

Want proof? Click on this link for compilation from The Post of anonymous Clinton talkers.

THE DISTANCE GAME
To win, Hillary Clinton must distance herself from Barack Obama says National Journal, but how will she do it?

Friends and associates of the former secretary of State, including some who are preparing her for a likely presidential bid, say Clinton obviously will embrace Obama’s progressive economic agenda. Middle-class tax cuts, judicial reform, paid sick leave, and free community-college tuition are the sort of policies that Clinton has previously supported—and would certainly push in the future.

Clinton is not worried about being associated with Obama’s policies, associates say. Her challenge is to convince voters that, unlike Obama, she can deliver on her promises.

He can blame Republicans and all sort of structural problems — and get sympathy from a lot of us,” said one associate who spoke on condition of anonymity so that she could channel Clinton’s thinking. “But voters don’t want to hear that. They want sh*t done. He hasn’t gotten sh*t done.”

So how do you “draw a contrast between Obama’s leadership skills and hers — without overtly insulting the president?” Go to this link for the complete story.

CNN TO PRODUCE POLITICAL GAME SHOW
Word is that CNN is testing a potential political game show with Anderson Cooper serving as host. The program, which reportedly has pilots in the can, would be a “Political Jeopardy” quiz show.

Beyond that, not much more is known. To learn a little more, try this link from AdWeek’s TVNewser.

DEFLATEGATE
So who did it? Who let the air out of the New England Patriots’ footballs during the NFL’s AFC championship game this past Sunday?

QB Tom Brady says he didn’t. Coach Bill Belichick, already a heavily fined cheater, says it wasn’t him, yet somebody on the Patriots’ sideline let air out of the balls after they were inspected pre-game by the officials.

It’s a scandal that’s getting more attention than the upcoming Super Bowl between New England and Seattle.

“Everyone is trying to figure out what happened,” Brady said at a televised news conference. “That’s the main thing over the last couple days. I was as surprised as anyone when I found out Monday morning what was happening.”

Patriots coach Bill Belichick said earlier that he was “shocked” to learn that a National Football League investigation found 11 of the 12 balls supplied by the team last week weren’t inflated properly and that he didn’t have an explanation.

What’s the advantage of having an under-inflated ball especially in rainy conditions as that game was and what is the next chapter in this NFL cheating mystery?

Bloomberg News takes a look at the whole mess here.

TRUTH IN NUMBERS FOR THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IN 2014
The Grammy’s are around the corner but this story from Forbes is not about trophies, but rather: ‘Six Music Industry Takeaways From Year-End Data.’

In recent days, a handful of important year-end music reports have been published – from varied outlets including Nielsen SoundScan, Next Next Big Sound, Morgan Stanley, TechNavio and Concave Brand Tracking – and, as usual, the numbers contained in them reveal valuable insights about the state of the industry.

Are they positive or negative? What is happening to digital downloads and what about vinyl? Will it live on? All answered, plus more at this link.

FORMER CANADIAN DEFENSE MINISTER DEFENDS ALIEN’S PRESENCE
They are here claims former Canadian Minister of National Defense, Paul Hellyer. Lots of them he says, and all kinds. And Hellyer says they’ve been here for a long, long time.

Upon retirement, Hellyer began to blow the whistle on UFOs and extraterrestrials. His testimony is backed up by hundreds of other high ranking military and political personnel all over the world, including official documents released by dozens of governments worldwide that have officially acknowledged the presence of UFOs.

But Hellyer just doesn’t blow the whistle on UFOs. He claims aliens are actually walking among us.

“Many are benign and benevolent, and a few are not. They come from various places, for a long while I only knew about ones that came from different star systems, the Pleadies. There are extraterrestrials that come from Andromeda, and ones that live on one of Saturn’s moon’s. There is a federation of these people, and they have rules, one of them is that they don’t interfere with our affairs unless they are invited. They have accepted the fact that this is our planet, and we have the right to run it but they are very concerned, they don’t think that we are good stewards of our planet. We are ruining our planet, we’re doing all sorts of things that we shouldn’t be doing, and they don’t like that. They’ve made it clear, and they have given us a warning.”

Uh, okay. Want more? Warp to this link from Earth We Are One for the whole creepy story from a guy, who is obviously not your average conspiracy theorist, plus a video.

 

quotes
“We’re proud of our heritage here. We look forward to the regeneration of downtown Springdale, and the positive impact it will have on this great city’s economy and its future.” – John Tyson on Tyson Foods $1 million gift to help revitalize downtown Springdale.

“It was to be a 5-year plan and I am here to say we accomplished our goals in four years because of the strong cooperation among city, county and business leadership.” – Mike Malone, Northwest Arkansas Council CEO in an advance of next week’s vision for expansion plans in the region.

“As companies continue to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., we are committed to making Arkansas a leader in job creation and manufacturing.” – Gov. Asa Hutchinson at his first jobs announcement, HanesBrand’s expansion, since taking office.

“I am pleased with today’s decision from the Ethics Commission. From day one, my campaign proactively sought guidance from the commission. This matter can now be put to rest.” – Attorney General Leslie Rutledge after the state Ethics Commission dismissed a complaint that she coordinated with a political action committee in her campaign.