Podcast 323

Obama Checks Out. After the President’s White House summit on ‘extremist violence’, a firestorm of controversy erupted when he refused to characterize the ‘extremists’ – the subject of the summit – in language that would actually describe them. Our current problem is, after all, referred to as THE ISLAMIC STATE! The President reminds us lowly peasants we are not to refer to the Islamic State as Islamic Terrorists, or even ‘Islamic’. This is apparently so that the President will still be invited to cocktail parties with the nuanced and beautiful. Obama also took care this week to describe the ‘root’ of the problem in the Middle East as a ‘lack of jobs and democracy’. This is a statement which is patently false, since almost all top Islamists hail from upper middle class families, and are well educated. Critics say the President is never going to be able to defeat the Islamist Threat if he can’t name it. The bottom line? Whether President Obama knows it or not, he has telegraphed to the American people and the world he has checked out. Its clear he just wants to make it to January 2017 with his ‘legacy’ intact. For this, we are grateful. We do not want this president conducting a major war, as long as we can get through the next 22 months or so without being blown to smithereens, burned in a cage or beheaded by ‘extremely violent people’. If you’re upset about the possible threat, channel the angst into the 2016 presidential race, because the next guy in is going to have a lot of work to do. It will fall on the next President and Congress to figure out how to clean up this mess, because the current President isn’t going to do a damn thing about ISIS, Putin, or anything else. Do we really want him to? It seems all the world’s leaders are at a loss to figure out what to do about anything. The EU is on the verge of a financial crisis and is probably in a recession, while its leaders burn the midnight oil feverishly negotiating cease fires that are apparently meaningless to people like Putin. As fighting between Ukrainian government troops and ‘separatists’ in eastern Ukraine intensified, ending in a rout for the Ukrainian troops, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said of the short lived cease fire negotiated just last weekend in Minsk, “It’s not Munich’. Is there anyone in charge these days? Or are they all waiting for their people to tell them what to do? Do they know what to do? (Wait! Don’t answer that.) The real question is what the US role in the world should be, and how this country should handle itself. This is a question that is clearly being left up to the people. Some final updates and conclusions on the foreign policy front to end the week. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing. 

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Podcast 317

Scary Scott Walker. A year away from the first 2016 presidential primary and more than a year from the start of the 2016 presidential campaign, the so called mainstream media – which really doesn’t reflect mainstream America – is terrified of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. This week, the Washington Post conducted an ‘investigation’ of Walker’s college years. The paper discovered the future governor didn’t like French class, campaigned for class president, wore a suit on campus and was kinda geeky. The big mystery? Why did Scott Walker leave college in his senior year? Was it because he did not have enough credits to graduate anyway? Did something happen? Funny, do you remember any big investigation of why Apple’s founder and muse Steve Jobs dropped out of Stanford? What about Bill Gates. What deep dark secret drove these men? Will we ever know? How can any man or woman without a college degree become president of the United States of America? Let’s see, William McKinley withdrew, William Henry Harrison withdrew, Harry Truman withdrew, and gosh so did Scott Walker! Should the president have a college degree? While the smartest man ever to hold the office – Barack Obama – has a degree and spent a fair amount of his formative years enfolded in the warm embrace of academia, some might submit he has not been helped by those smarts on the policy front, since his presidency is pretty much a disaster, even with all those degrees on the wall. Oddly enough, Governor Walker is in good company. Abe Lincoln dropped out after a year and taught himself well enough to get a law degree, Andrew Jackson was homeschooled and became an attorney with no formal education, Coco Chanel never went to college, advertising maestro David Olgilvy was kicked out of Oxford, Henry Ford did not attend college, nor did John D. Rockefeller. Michael Dell, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were all drop outs. Is college a good thing? Absolutely. It refines, teaches people to write well, exposes them to other cultures and ideas they might not have experienced otherwise, and gives them training to become officers, teachers, managers, scientists. That these are good things is not argued. That such an experience is necessary to be the President of the US is. Scott Walker terrifies the democrat AND moderate republican because he has won 2 elections, one recall election, and a bruising fight with the most potent force in American politics; Unions. Specifically, unions representing public workers. The mighty left wing Wurlitzer is just getting warmed up as it ‘investigates’ Walker, asks whether someone who does not have a college degree can actually be president, and lionizes the ‘legendary’ capabilities of union sponsored political pressure groups that opposed Walker (and lost … 3 times.) Will the Governor surprise everyone in 2016? We Shall See. Sponsored by Complete Basement Systems. 

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The Bob Davis Podcast

Podcast 261

Giving Thanks? Is it Thanksgiving or Halloween? Because sometimes it’s hard to tell. In keeping with the snark of the times, some of the things that are the most irritating about the nearly four day “Thanksgiving” “Holiday”. First, the Pilgrims don’t have much to do with it. You can thank that dictator Lincoln for the ‘holiday’, and that dictator Franklin Roosevelt for moving “Thanksgiving” so we could celebrate an orgy of consumption. For God’s sake, don’t blame the Pilgrims. What about the down market behavior? If you watch TV 24/7 you wouldn’t be worrying about beheadings or the plummeting price of commodities, you’d be worried about downmarket behavior that would make Judge Judy happy. Fighting over wide screen TV’s, Barbies, panties and stealing stuff from other people’s carts so you can get the deal. Staying with relatives? The relentless blare of the TV and endless commercials for ED medication, back pain mitigators, cures for baldness, vitamin drinks, charities, car dealers, is slightly more informative than local TV news, featuring 40 minutes of round robin coverage from — you guessed it — the local Wal Mart! Our solemn attitude of gratitude gives way to buying, you know, stuff. Thanksgiving also signals the quickening; The vaunted ‘Holiday Season’ where reality rarely meets expectations and expectations are very, very high. In Podcast 261, a list of ways to mitigate the disaster, especially if you’re a man. (Editors Note: I’m thinking about a cruise next year, that starts the week before Thanksgiving and ends about January 1oth. You know you’re in trouble when you start envying the people on ‘Survivor’.) Sponsored by Depotstar.

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