Podcast 504

Choices. A companion to the ‘slipping into summer’ podcast for the political junkies. Choices. The Choices we make, politically, As the primary season draws to a close, Memorial Day Weekend is a good place to take stock of what has happened in this tumultuous and unpredictable 2016 Presidential Preference Primary and Caucus season. In Podcast 503 there was some discussion of an uneasy feeling seeing FB posts from politicos about the weekend’s conventions and promotions of party unity. This gets explored a lot more deeply in Podcast 504; Choices. Republican presidential preference primary and caucus voters have settled on Donald J. Trump as their choice for nominee of the republican party. While it remains to be seen whether Trump actually gets to the RNC with enough delegates to clinch the nomination, or whether some other fate befalls the New York Developer and Realty Television Star, it’s significant that republican and so called ‘conservative’ voters have settled on three major pools of thought. The ‘Trumpist’ pool which seems to be about winning the argument, the evangelist and self-described ‘constitutionalist’ pool represented by the Cruz supporters and the establishment pool, which is about the status quo. There’s one other pool, but it’s really a puddle; The Libertarian pool which is the only group that actually wants to reduce the size, scope and power of government. On the democrat side, is an establishment political operator who can only be described as a Statist (with a capital S) and a self described Democratic Socialist, really a socialist and also a STATIST. So, voters have settled on a political insider who is also a statist, a socialist and a populist statist, with second choices that include politicians who claim to be ‘conservative’ but are also going to make sure ‘The Government’ operates more efficiently. Sigh. What are the takeaways? These are the people the voters – who have been exhorted to get involved – have chosen. Of these three or four, one will be President of The United States. In November the voters will choose a president, a congress and a third of the US Senate, as well as a slew of statewide and state legislative and local officers across the country. What will it mean? What will happen? The media keeps trying to tell us, but we cannot know the future. We’re just going to have to wait and see. Takeaways for political junkies on Memorial Day Weekend. Sponsored by Brush Studio, in the West End, Saint Louis Park.

Podcast 502-The Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-27

The Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-27. This was a big week for the Bob Davis Podcasts, with the 500th podcast ‘retrospective’, and an interview with a small town Minnesota Mayor who is struggling with the overbearing power of unelected governance in the form of the Metropolitan Council; Minneapolis and Saint Paul’s panel of planning czars. The Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-27 includes one segment of original content not heard in the podcasts this week, as well as the Mark Korin interview in Podcast 501, edited for broadcast. The Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-27 kicks off with a bit of a rant about pundits suddenly trying to walk back their ‘predictions’ about what they thought was ‘supposed’ to happen in the Republican Presidential Primaries and Caucuses this spring, and the ‘presumptive’ nomination of Donald Trump by the Republican party. The latest mea culpa is 538 Blog’s Nate Silver, who says there need to be more internal ‘controls’ so that his predictions concerning Trump won’t happen again. It seems to me that the issue is ego, and the remedy isn’t internal controls, it’s realizing ‘the public’ doesn’t need tarot card reading from the media, it needs reporting. So many people in the media think the public is hanging on their every word and ‘trusts’ their predictions and endorsements, which amount to little more than campaigning for a candidate or cause and they’re making fools of themselves. Our country is experiencing a sea change of political thought, and ideas about how our society is managed. I want to have a completely different conversation about what is actually happening what it is like, once we get there. The last thing any of us need is some media person telling is what they think is going to happen, before whatever happens, happens! Meanwhile, important reporting is getting missed because all any of these magpies are talking about is Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Small town mayor Mark Korin joins the Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-27 to talk about his struggle with the Met Council, which is legally empowered to refuse to take no for an answer from elected officials. Korin says its because Minnesota State Law gives the Met Council the power. Korin is the Mayor of Oak Grove, a city which is represented in the state house by Speaker of the Minnesota House, Kurt Daudt, and powerful State Senator Micelle Benson. Isn’t interesting – and typical – that these two completely missed the opportunity to take the teeth out of the met council by amending or repealing the state statutes Korin talks about in The Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-27 and Podcast 501. Sponsored by Brush Studio and Hydrus Performance.

Podcast 498

In Digital Media It’s All News. A tour through YouTube videos that predict the end of the world, a collision with a massive planet on a 3200 year elliptical orbit through our solar system, a massive conspiracy that includes mind controlling top entertainers like Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Coldplay and Kei$ha, FEMA camps and Walmart, and much much more. More of us get our news from videos on FaceBook, Twitter and YouTube on their smart phones everyday. As our devices get more and more powerful and sophisticated, digital media grows in reach and importance. Conspiracy theory videos some might think are ridiculous get millions of views. As we act more and more like tribes, we derive our information from sources our tribe approves of, sharing facts with only those in our ‘newsfeed’, or our list of friends, our tribes. In Digital Media It’s All News. With so many people watching it all, can our subconscious minds tell the difference between media designed to manipulate and media designed to give us facts? Do we have the discernment necessary to understand facts and context? What is the difference between the ‘real’ news and a conspiracy video on YouTube. Sometimes the videos on YouTube are done just as well. What is the difference between CNN and Fox and RT? Or InfoWars? Or a blogger you like. What prevents the kind of political action that solves problems. What happens when you go against your tribe? Are fear and ignorance driving the country, politically. You can’t stop it. No law passed will turn it off. We’re going to have to go through it, and somehow maybe learn the art of discernment. Meanwhile, gotta get back to the video about this planet coming it on the outer edge of our solar system. It’s gonna wreck everything. Sponsored by Hydrus Performance and Brush Studio in the West End, Saint Louis Park, Minnesota.