December 31 – A Government Exempt From Having to do Their Job; Obama’s Pyrrhic PR Victory; Is President Chavez on His Death Bed?

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Part 1	We begin with the latest news on the cliffhanger over the so-called fiscal cliff that has America’s elected representatives entangled in a drama of their own making while they haggle at the last minute over doing their job which apparently, unlike the rest of us, they are exempt from having to perform or be fired. Paul Glastris, the editor of The Washington Monthly, joins us to try and make sense of what is happening, or not, on Capitol Hill.
Part 2	Then we hear from Harvard economist Richard Parker the co-founder of Mother Jones who serves on the editorial board of The Nation. We discuss how President Obama has skillfully played the public relations game against bone-headed Republican ideologues, but at the same time, while trying to avert a self-inflicted wound on the American economy, the overall damage to the already tattered image of government sinks from dismay to disgust.
Part 3	Then finally we examine the secrecy surrounding the deteriorating health of the Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez with Caracas-based journalist Virginia Lopez who covers Latin America and Venezuela for Britain’s Guardian newspaper and Sky TV. We discuss the very real possibility that President Chavez has days or weeks to live and whether his anointed Vice-President Nicholas Maduro will be able to win a new six year term if the popular and charismatic leader is not inaugurated as planned on January the tenth.