The Bob Davis Podcast

Podcast 365

Protecting Your Rights. One example of how the government protects your rights (which is what it is supposed to do) and one example of how government tramples your rights. Ok, maybe more than one example of government trampling your rights. In Garland, Texas, extra security and police at a ‘Draw Muhammed’ contest protected the rights of Americans to think and express what they feel so well, two knuckleheads who called themselves ‘terrorists’  and warriors’ are dead. The mother of one of the dead ‘terrorists’ said, “He wasn’t violent” and, “He wasn’t a terrorist”. Unfortunately mom, he was. Good riddance. God’s work. The officer who took on the two ‘terrorists’ with rifles, with his pistol has not been identified. The Islamic State has ‘claimed’ the bungled attempt at a mass shooting. Beware though, these kinds of attacks may become common. IS claims to have 71 ‘warriors’ ready to go in the US. All the more reason businesses in Minnesota should remove those stupid, so and so “bans guns in these premises” signs. They should say, “Carry Permit holders welcome”. In the case of Garland, Texas … the government protected our rights. The Trans Pacific Fast Track Trade authority republicans want to grant the President is another thing entirely. It is reported that only members of Congress can read the trade agreement, and at that a page or two at a time, in the basement of the Capitol and that it is being considered in secret. No republican or democrat should support anything congress is asked to pass without the American people being able to see and read what it is beforehand. Mitch McConnell should be ashamed. No one likes the IRS these days, but we can all stop beating this dead horse, or so the alternatively whiny and arrogant IRS Head John Koskinen says. Nothing to see here, people. New measures have been put in place to see to it that the agency will not be used as a political cudgel against groups, um, someone we will not name, doesn’t like. This is not an admission we did such things before, you understand. Or is it? Is it a coincidence they found a bunch more emails from Lois Lerner? Why weren’t these kinds of controls put in place decades ago? The answer is, the IRS has been used as a kind of political praetorian guard for the White House since God was a boy. It’s time for a simple, flat tax with no loopholes for individuals and corporations, so simple that John Koskinen and a coffee maker can collect taxes and that’s all they do. Finally, do you like Christmas? Apparently the federal government is very concerned that your crazy uncle, who puts Santa and the Reindeer up on the roof of the house in Saint Louis Park every December could hurt himself and we wouldn’t want that would we? Well, now Christmas decorations will be regulated by the Consumer Protection Agency, since there have been two hundred some deaths from such things since 1980. What about Roller Coasters and Power Drills, or for that matter, treadmills? Yet another example of how the government does not protect our rights. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul. 

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Podcast 324

Winter and The Donner Party. Updates on the big stories for your weekend. Yeah, it’s cold people, but can we at least use the real temperature rather than wind chills? Was it really -41 in Bemidji, Minnesota the other day, or did just feel like -41? What does -41 feel like? Now of course comes the cavalcade of idiotic financial media stories about the ‘deep cold’ of 2015, and the ‘economic effects’ of people not being able to get to their jobs. In New England? Vermont? Massachusetts? Minnesota? These people, of course, have no experience with such economy killing cold, right? Another economic fairy tale that has died a horrible death is the idea that cheap gas ‘acts like a tax cut’. In reality it appears that the cheaper price of oil isn’t just due to increasing production, but to slackening demand, which ought to cause some concern. A new economic fairy tale is the idea that increasing minimum wages at Wal-Mart (announced as a Public Relations gimmick) will somehow create ‘wage inflation’ which will be good for the economy. Doesn’t seem to be any decrease of wages at federal agencies like the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS currently boasts over eighty thousand employees, and wants to add ten thousand more, ostensibly to do work related to Obama Care taxation enforcement, except only some 400 new employees will be doing that work. What will the others do? Order out for lunch. Buy new chairs. Go to expensive conferences during the winter in Las Vegas. Whatever. Everyone agrees that green and yellow smoke spewing smokestacks, and rivers that explode into flame are bad; We used to call things like that ‘pollution’. These days apparently there is so little pollution that amateur astronomers are complaining that there’s too much ‘light pollution’, they can’t see the little dipper, even with a telescope. Go ahead, tell me to turn off my front porch light. Demand the IDS turn out the lights at night. Hell, go ahead and turn out the street lights. Just don’t call it ‘Light Pollution’. Because when you do that, we call it ‘Mouth Pollution’ as in, SHUT IT! All the talk is that the new iWatch isn’t enough, Apple is going to build a car. The story has been all over the financial media that last few days. Finally someone has debunked it. Find out why in this podcast. So, it’s cold. We know it’s cold. Just imagine you are a pioneer taking the road less traveled in 1847. You come to a wonderful spot high in the Sierra Nevada’s. You say, “This is good. It’s late fall. It’s nice here. Let’s stay and rest up before we head down into the place that will someday be known as the Golden State”. 4 months later half your party is dead, you’re eating Dad for dinner and you realize … You’re the Donner Party! It’s one of the enduring stories of conquering the west, and it should make all of us happy we have hot coffee, steaks in the freezer and ‘Game of Thrones’ to watch. Sponsored by Baklund R&D. 

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Podcast 318

Your Dog Understands You. Updates just ahead of the weekend. The bloated and unresponsive Internal Revenue Service and its arrogant bureaucrat in chief have apologized to small businesses that have had their assets seized after running afoul of byzantine regulation. It seems if you deposit over ten thousand dollars in a bank account, the IRS thinks you’re a drug dealer. If you deposit less than ten thousand dollars, guess what? You’re a drug dealer too. Or something. Anyway, that means they can seize your assets and ruin your business. Especially if your business is selling guns, as one gun dealer and Iraq War Vet discovered last year. Today John Koskinen, IRS head apologized. Meanwhile, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson says his investigators have uncovered thousands of emails between Tea Party hater and former IRS manager Lois Lerner and the White House. Hmmm. Aside from the VA, this is the one agency that is the poster child for incompetence, bloat and poor management. The US needs a twenty first century tax system that doesn’t require thousands of government employees – earning twice what the average private citizen earns while they go to conferences in luxury hotels on the tax payer’s dime. Don’t try to pass it while President Obama is in office. Make it an election issue. Two Civil Rights leaders were recently invited to participate in a police training simulation of high pressure situations which might require deadly force. In both situations the civil rights leaders fired their weapons. One said he just kept pulling the trigger. Did the suspect have a gun? “I didn’t even look”. It was an eye opening moment for both of these gentlemen who discovered its easy to criticize what cops do, from the outside. This is a program which should be put in place across the country. In Minnesota, the Southwest Light Rail project is stalled amid fighting between the Minneapolis Park Board, an unelected Met Council and a governor who is worried the project will lose federal favor and funding. At issue is whether the LRT will pass over a bucolic foot and bike bridge by Cedar Lake, or pass through a tunnel. Rich people in Kenwood and around Cedar Lake are opposed. Everyone else who doesn’t live there, and the fat cats who’ve bought up the land along the corridor in Saint Louis Park and Hopkins are all for it. Its wonderful when the left beats itself up. The latest political story line? If the Republicans win the presidency in 2016 (far from a lock) the United States will be a  ‘one-party-state’. What about democrats now serving in legislatures, as governors and in the House and Senate? They don’t count? And yes, your dog can read your emotions and understands your words. Sponsored by Baklund R&D. 

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