Harvey Irma North Korea-DACA-Back In A News Rich Environment-Podcast 661

Back to the grindstone in Harvey Irma North Korea-DACA-Back In A News Rich Environment-Podcast 661. As Texas struggles with the aftermath of one major storm, another is on the way. North Korea’s Hydrogen Bomb and a full congressional schedule means we’re suddenly we’re back in a news rich environment.

President Trump Is Santa Claus

Especially relevant is the question of whether the US Federal Government is actually Santa Claus. Make your list, check it twice. While Republicans talk about individual responsibility when it comes to disaster, concerns about debt and overspending go out the window. Another hurricane, another opportunity for presidents to wear the jacket and the hat and show up to help. It’s all about public relations. We’ll talk about it in Harvey Irma North Korea-DACA-Back In A News Rich Environment-Podcast 661.

Hug Some Babies Phase Out DACA

President Trump made the obligatory trip to the hurricane zone over the weekend, then signed an order to phase out DACA at the beginning of the week. A campaign promise fulfilled, or kicking a problem to congress? Is it wrong to suggest a complete immigration reform package passed before phasing out the program with an executive order might be a better path?

It’s a Business, right?

We expect presidents to rule through fiat. “Run It Like A Business!” Problem is Santa Claus can’t do much with executive orders. Real reform requires congressional action. Getting that done requires real political acumen of the president. Businesses can’t print money to pay off their debt. In Harvey Irma North Korea-DACA-Back In A News Rich Environment-Podcast 661.

Tax Reform Means Raising Taxes

Tax Reform now looms as the next legislative failure for a GOP majority. ‘Cutting Taxes’ might mean raising taxes in places people who voted Republican might not expect. Requiring ‘revenue neutral‘ proposals means ‘tax cuts’ rather than spending cuts. With debt over 100 percent of the GDP maybe Santa Claus should stay home. Not a chance. Find out why I say this in Harvey Irma North Korea-DACA-Back In A News Rich Environment-Podcast 661.

Bombs Away

Then there’s North Korea. They’ve got a bomb and a missile. Trump has a saber to rattle. Maybe it will work. Then again maybe the Doom Merchants on You Tube are right about September 23rd, 2017.

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Harvey Irma North Korea-DACA-Back In A News Rich Environment-Podcast 661

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Hollywood Brings Back 1970’s-Nostalgia-End Of Summer-Podcast 660

There is a sudden nostalgia for the 1970’s. New TV Shows. Fashion. Summer’s end is a time of nostalgia. Something about the drier air and State Fair time in Minnesota. We’ll talk about it in Hollywood Brings Back 1970’s-Nostalgia-End Of Summer-Podcast 660.

Where Were You in ’72?

Back in the day, the week before Labor Day we went to Sears. New Jeans as hard as concrete. Some collared shirts. Heavy t-shirts. New tennis shoes. New Hard shoes. By the end of the next summer those jeans would be tattered and worn. The shoes unrecognizable. T-Shirts worn out.

Summer’s Long Goodbye

End of Summer also meant new school supplies. Pencils. Notebooks. Things like protractors. Cartridge Pens. Fresh paper. The first day’s of school were hot and uncomfortable. They were also filled with hope and the promise of new romance. In Hollywood Brings Back 1970’s-Nostalgia-End Of Summer-Podcast 660.

Midwesterners All Share

As summer winds down you can hear it. Feel it. Humidity goes out of the air. Trees start to change. Temperatures cool off. Doesn’t matter which decade you grew up in. This longing for more summer mixing with expectations and excitement for fall is something everyone of every age in the Midwest shares.

Hip Huggers and The Road Runner

As far as nostalgia is concerned. Steve Jobs once remarked that the 1960’s actually happened in the 1970’s. There were two parts of the 1970’s. The early part was good. Kind of like a continuation of the best parts of the 60’s. Muscle Cars and Bell Bottoms. Hip Huggers. In Hollywood Brings Back 1970’s-Nostalgia-End Of Summer-Podcast 660.

1970’s Weren’t So Great, right?

The second half of the 1970’s wasn’t so good. Vietnam. Nixon. Violence and Protests. AM Radio and Black and White TV was fading. Things started to go bad. Inflation. Gas Lines. Watergate. Urban Decay. Racial Strife. Drugs. Why is the 1970’s suddenly imbued with all this power?

Nostalgia For A Strange Time

New shows about New York City in the 1970’s. Times Square a cess pool. Garbage in the streets. Bankruptcy. Perfect for the all seeing eye of dramatic television. The newest fashions these days are all throw backs to the 1970’s. How did the people who came of age in that time feel about it? In Hollywood Brings Back 1970’s-Nostalgia-End Of Summer-Podcast 660.

Spinning Out Of Control

There was a sense, in that time, that things were spinning out of control. The 1970’s were not a fun time economically, especially the second half. Yet there was a sense of innocence. If you were born just after the 1970’s perhaps the decade holds a little more sway in the imagination.

Winter IS Coming

Something to think about listening to the sounds of summer, mourning the passing of the heat and intensity, welcoming the coolness and color of fall but not thinking too hard of the inevitable winter to follow. Hollywood Brings Back 1970’s-Nostalgia-End Of Summer-Podcast 660.

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Hollywood Brings Back 1970’s-Nostalgia-End Of Summer-Podcast 660

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Back To School 2017-Culling The Social Media Herd-Podcast 659

State Fair Time in Minnesota. A change in the weather. Time for Back to School. Back in the studio after summer traveling. An afternoon with FaceBook convinces me it’s time to start culling the social media herd. In Back To School 2017-Culling The Social Media Herd-Podcast 659.

Back In The Studio

These days all of my travel is on America’s back roads. Summer 2017 saw thousands of miles of travel for The Bob Davis Podcasts. All of it on two lane state and US highways. You see a different United States from the two lane highways. Whether it was Joliet, Illinois or Rapid City, South Dakota or traveling through rural Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, West Virginia or mining towns in Ohio. I did not see Americans consumed with politics.

Backroads Education

When you travel the backroads you see people doing what they do every day. Getting up and going to work. Running their businesses. Taking kids to baseball, football soccer and hockey games. This is not a country of feral political beasts. It is not a country of angry supporters of either political fringe. Looks pretty much the same as it did when my family toured the country by the same highways, back when I was a kid.

Social Media Cesspool

On social media though, it is a different world. In Back To School 2017-Culling The Social Media Herd-Podcast 659 it’s time to cull the social media herd. Unfollowing those dear friends who post links to articles and demand your support or comment on the latest political and usually nonsensical missive from someone who exhorts you to think and act a certain way.

Where’s The Vision?

Back to School also means reengaging in a political process gone mad. Vision? Concrete plans for the future? Political organization? Those are relics of the past. What’s left are screaming matches, memes, reposts and going ‘live’ on FaceBook to grind your political axe. How does a podcaster add to this cacophony of ignorance and advance the story at the same time? In Back To School 2017-Culling The Social Media Herd-Podcast 659.

No Good Citizens

Neither mainline political party serves the interests of its adherents anymore. Part of the reason is demographic. Much of the reason is people seem to think negatively commenting on a congressman’s FB Live post or protesting is the same as involvement. There are no political movements to convince legislators to take a course of action because no one wants to do that work anymore. Maybe the reason people have turned away from politics are the loud mouths and those who fill their social media feeds with partisan posts, and demand reaction.

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Back To School 2017-Culling The Social Media Herd-Podcast 659

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