The Strange Case of Susan Rice and Other Mysteries-Podcast 619

Different Mysteries Left and Right

Susan Rice is the leaker. A political Flack. Running an operation to discredit the new president before he took office. Rice is at least guilty of a felony. At least that’s the story the right wing commentators are telling. In The Strange Case of Susan Rice and Other Mysteries-Podcast 619.

On the left it’s a different story. National security became a top concern after someone hacked the DNC computers. The Russians did it. The Russians did it because Trump did some kind of back room deal.

Opinion Is Not News

In America’s increasingly partisan media most people only want their beliefs confirmed. There’s no chance a political point of view different from my own can be right. Is there? A sea of information. Where opinion masquerades as fact and personalities beat the drums. We’re supposed to dance to their rhythm.

We Know Nothing…yet

Real Facts? In The Strange Case of Susan Rice and Other Mysteries-Podcast 619 we’ll see there are few facts. Russians hacking the DNC? Not so fast. Trump making deals behind the scenes with Putin? Obama ordering illegal surveillance of a president elect? Maybe. Maybe not.

Tin Foil Hats Anyone?

Evidence supporting claims of the right and left in this case is thin. All of it has the classic elements of conspiracy theory. So we’ll take a moment in The Strange Case of Susan Rice and Other Mysteries-Podcast 619 to detail the known facts. You can draw your own conclusions. Mystery lovers beware though. We’re along way from wrapping this one up in the final chapter.

Basic Framework

Is Susan Rice a political operative? What is the legal framework regarding National Security Agency intercepts. Why did the Trump administration leak NSA documents to a congressmen? What provoked the president to tweet he was ‘wiretapped’ in the first place? Is there a difference between a wiretap and an NSA intercept? Who gets to see intercepts? What are the significant legal justifications for executive orders in 2011 and 2017 allowing sharing in the first place. Lots of questions.

Where There’s Smoke

One thing is true. The dust kicked up by the Susan Rice story obscures real developments. North Korean Missiles. Syrian chemical weapons. Congressional action on the ACA, Tax Reform and Immigration. We’ll talk about it in The Strange Case of Susan Rice and Other Mysteries-Podcast 619.

Sponsored by Brush Studio and X Government Cars.

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Podcast 599-Advertising Your Business On Podcasts

Big Shift

Time to talk about advertising on podcasts. We’re in the middle of a big shift. People are changing how they use media. What about using podcasting to Advertise Your Business? Podcasting is a rapidly growing space. Businesses can use podcasts to connect with their customers. Podcast 599-Advertising Your Business On Podcasts tells you how.

Retooling Your Mind

Entrepreneurial efforts require retooling how we think. Why do small businesses fail? Your business may have developed a great product. You and your team may have discovered a large untapped market. Getting the word out about a product or service is increasingly complex. Not advertising or advertising ineffectively is one of the chief reasons small businesses fail.

Old Ways Don’t Work

Studies say about 30 percent of the public listen to podcasts. I think podcasting is growing at a much quicker pace than the research is picking up. In this environment, it’s easy to see why small businesses might assume the old ‘tried and true’ methods of advertising are best. Print or Direct Mail. Buying ads on radio and television. Hiring an ad agency. Flyers. These are ancient and expensive and increasingly ineffective methods.

New Ad Space

Digital Marketing and Search Engine Optimization are big topics these days at business conferences. Digital Marketing and SEO are necessary for generating awareness for your company’s website and social media platforms. These tools alone don’t help you form a bond with potential customers. Advertising your product or service on a podcast provides a personal connection with an audience you cannot get in traditional broadcast, print or direct mail, or even social media. Ads placed on podcasts live forever on the Internet. Podcasts can deliver a local, national or world-wide audience. Podcast 599-Advertising Your Business On Podcasts tells you how and why.

Pure Play Podcasting

Small businesses persist in spending thousands of dollars in old media. Pure Play Podcasters like The Bob Davis Podcasts weave the advertiser’s message into the content of our podcast. We talk about a product or service because we believe in it. The Bob Davis Podcasts and other Pure play podcasters are able to combine the best attributes of personal endorsements with digital marketing and SEO to help your business.

Are You Ready For Big Changes?

There is a big change going on. The new smart phone and pad devices are more powerful and run easier and faster applications for media. Podcasters are noticing increases in feeds and hits on our websites as more people come to digital media every day. From an advertising perspective managing your FaceBook or Twitter feed to bond with your customers isn’t enough. Businesses need a closer bond. Podcasting helps you bond with your potential customers.

Clarifying Moment

Big shifts in media usage begin long before the research companies driven by the big advertising agencies and media companies pick them up. AM Radio was overtaken by FM Radio slowly, then all at once. 24 Hour Cable News overwhelmed broadcast TV news in an avalanche. Remember when you listened to the radio to find your favorite music? Spotify, Pandora and podcasts took over that space. We used to watch our favorite TV shows once a week as part of a network schedule. Now we binge watch them on Netflix or HBO Now or other cable ‘Netflix Like’ services. When did that happen?

Tipping Point For Podcasts

Podcasts are replacing broadcast radio, especially talk radio, at a rapid pace. It isn’t being picked up by the research and ratings companies. We have not had what I call a ‘clarifying moment’ yet. A clarifying moment is that moment when it becomes obvious to everyone that things have changed permanently.

There are lots of different podcasts and all of us have different advertising styles and packages. This is an informative pitch for advertising from businesses that want to work with The Bob Davis Podcasts or are interested getting some help with their advertising strategy with podcasts in general. It’s time for small and large businesses to get into the podcast space in a big way. We’re ready for you. Listen to Podcast 599-Advertising Your Business On Podcasts and find out how to get started.

Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and X Government Cars.

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Podcast 579-Internet Censorship

Podcast 579-Internet Censorship. The news media has a new story-line. Fake News Elected Donald Trump. We have to do something about fake news. It amounts to is censorship of the Internet. A violation of the right to free speech guaranteed by the US Constitution’s first amendment at least in spirt. What IS Fake News? I think of Fake News as False Narratives. Story lines seeded by politicians and corporate PR people. Narratives that are picked up and reported on by journalists who take down quotes for their stories rather than investigate and report. These story lines are picked up by more journalists who quote talking heads. Commentators commentate, more quotes and more stories until the narrative outlives its usefulness and then the whole thing starts over. Examples include explanations of why Trump won the election including, ‘Women voted for Trump instead of Hillary’. Another was the reporting on ‘What the Polls showed’ which usually meant Clinton was supposed to win. Facts in both cases debunked these claims. The definition of ‘Fake News’ we’re actually dealing with now are false stories presented as fact. You see them on You Tube, FaceBook and Twitter. But they are picked up by websites like Breitbart or Huffington Post if they fit a narrative. Since ‘fake news’ elected ‘a person like Trump’, Clinton backers are demanding social media and search engine companies like FaceBook and Google ‘do something about fake news’. In Podcast 579-Internet Censorship, we spend a little time explaining the American Political system, specifically the Electoral College. This explains how Donald Trump was able to eke out an electoral victory in key states, as well as a solid victory among the voters of Ohio, which gave him a victory in the presidential contest, regardless of popular vote totals, fair and square. There is virtually no evidence fake news had anything to do with these tight victories. If Clinton’s voters had actually voted in those states we’d be talking about a Clinton transition and Trump would be on a beach in the Caribbean somewhere. Despite the fact that Clinton has been a proponent of doing away with the electoral college for years, suddenly the hoary old institution is her best friend. We don’t know if anyone voted for Trump based on the Pizza Gate story, we can’t and we won’t. That doesn’t stop the left from putting immense pressure on FaceBook, the supposed culprit here in publishing so called fake news. What does Mark Zuckerberg the head of FaceBook do? He caves. A second story making the rounds in the alt-right community with headlines like, “We told you so” says they’re already censoring the Internet. Finally there have long been discussions in the national security and foreign policy community regarding censoring Islamic Jihad sites that radicalize followers. All three of these stories are being conflated right now online as though some imminent threat to free speech exists. Is there? Or are these companies simply formalizing procedures to suppress violent or illegal content that has been part of their service agreements? As a content creator the idea of ‘warning labels’ is chilling. The idea of some kind of algorithm to be defeated is chilling. That said, wouldn’t such procedures invite work arounds? Wouldn’t censorship invite efforts to defeat algorithms? Personally I don’t concern myself with speech control in countries that don’t have guarantees of free speech. I do care about attempts to limit speech in the United States where free speech is THE cornerstone of a successful representative republic and is constitutionally guaranteed in the first amendment. You can’t stop things you don’t agree with. As a content provider, this concerns me. Sponsored by X Government Cars and by Hydrus Performance.

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