Podcast 428 – Twila Brase

Twila Brase. A hybrid ‘double header’ podcast, from the road. First, a promised airing of the interview with Twila Brase, co founder of Citizens Council For Health Freedom. Twila talks about how Obamacare might or might not be repealed, the health of Minnesota’s ACA Exchange ‘Mnsure’, the future of health insurance, health care under the next presidency and the politics surrounding this issue. This weekend, Mobile Podcast Command headed to Chicago for a high school reunion of sorts. This podcaster is the product of a revolutionary ‘vocational training program’ at one of the Chicago Area’s biggest high schools. At the center of this program was a student run real radio station (and today a TV station and web presence as well). For us, it was the only reason we even bothered to show up everyday at a high school teeming with thousands of students (about a thousand for each year at the time). There was a lot of talk this weekend about how ‘the program’ brought together kids from all different parts of the high school social spectrum, but really, it was a bunch of outcasts from every high school ‘caste’. Oddly enough it was very much like John Hughes’ masterful portrayal of big city high school life “The Breakfast Club”, except this was a radio station, rather than a detention hall. As the podcast says, “I don’t go to reunions, I go to reunions for my high school radio station, because I didn’t graduate from high school, I graduated from the radio station.” So in the second half of this podcast some observations about life, living your life on the air, and how wonderful it is to hang out with people who know you so well from those formative years. Life is certainly no bowl of cherries, as the saying goes, but one wonders whether we really do change from the time we are 16 or 17, to when we go back home for that big reunion. It’s great to be able to celebrate others’ success, life, and remember those who have passed. It’s also really great to get back on the highway, Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul, Pride of Homes and Luke Team Real Estate. 

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PODCAST 423

Republican Crack Up. A Republican Majority struggles to nominate a successor to Speaker Boehner. Moderate leadership is losing its grip because 40 ‘insurgent’ ‘freedom caucus’ Republicans refused to support top candidate Kevin McCarthy. Amid controversy over McCarthy’s Benghazi Hearing comments, and allegations of an affair, the collapse of order in the election of a new speaker, the candidacy of Donald Trump and the terrible performance of moderate candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, Jeb Bush, one must wonder whether the moderate leadership is finally losing its grip. They have no one to blame but themselves. The moderate leadership of the Republican Party seems more and more out of touch with an increasingly frustrated and angry base. ‘Going along to get along’ seems to be the wrong course of action. What does the base want? Can the Freedom Caucus lead the house? Those are turning out to be much more complex questions. In a free wheeling stream-of-consciousness podcast, we discuss the underpinnings of Republican rank and file political philosophy and find … none. Senator Ted Cruz recently suggested what is needed to change America is a ‘grassroots’ movement, only without organization, there is no movement. Without philosophical underpinnings, there is no organization. Republicans, tea partiers and others on the right might suggest a ‘freedom caucus speaker’ might lead them out of the wilderness. Lead them where? To What? How? Uh….yeah. Thus, the best opportunity to elect a Republican President in years begins to fade, with a moderate leadership that can’t even run an election for speaker of a house it controls, and a rank and file that wouldn’t recognize, or vote for Ronald Reagan today. With this kind of comedy in progress, Democrats never had it so good. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and Pride of Homes.

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Podcast 405

China Syndrome. As the China Market Meltdown story goes mainstream, it’s pundit tug-o-war between ‘China Doom’ proponents and ‘Nothing To See Here Folks’ adherents. Fun for the media, not so fun if you’re trying to figure out where this might go … could go wrong. Hopefully this podcast will be of some help. We start from the proposition that no one really knows what’s going on in China. It’s possible even the highest people in the Chinese Communist Government don’t really know what’s going on in China. Despite what is being said, there will be winners and losers if China actually does melt down, and surprises along the way. Does an economic collapse in China mean an end to the People’s Republic of China? What might that look like if it does happen? Or, will this problem simply be one of those momentary pauses, fodder for a couple of days relief from political nonsense in the US, before we get back to arguing about Donald Trump’s latest missive, Jeb Bush’s black hand, or Hillary Clinton’s email. It certainly feels like we’re nearing one of those strange historic pivot points, but whether the market meltdown in China, and the angst in markets across the world from Europe and Asia to the United States are in fact, that black swan pivot point. Could be. Hard to tell. Pivot points and Black Swan events don’t fit perfectly into decades, and are hard to predict. Its fun to hear people saying, “I’ve been predicting this for years” after something happens that looks like it could be a black swan event. In fact, historic pivot points have to be something more than just a Black Swan, but something that happens, that afterward people can clearly point to that event as the beginning of ‘when things changed’. One thing is for sure; Hold onto your hats (if you wear one), there is a strong feeling out there that what passes for current events today, may be about to change … for good. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul. 

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