Podcast 393

Live From EAA. Road trip to Osh Kosh, for the Experimental Aircraft Association Air Show and Convention. Sunday night is set up night, providing an opportunity to review recent trips to Waukesha and Davenport to cover political events, and to talk a little about the difference between political events and shows like this one. Maybe it’s as simple as the differences between tribes; People who are in the political tribe after certain characteristics, and people in the aviation tribe have certain different characteristics. What started as an experimental and individual builder get together has turned into a technology, history, and aviation show with exhibitors big and small. In some ways it compares favorably to the big state fairs across the country this summer. Somehow talking about politics doesn’t feel as good as talking about planes, and technology, here in Eastern Wisconsin, at the peak of summer. Still, some points need to be made before we head off into the wild blue yonder. Again the point is made that television news in particular magnifies and amplifies events that used to be state by state almost private affairs; self selected delegates and caucus attendees ‘interviewing’ potential candidates, and figuring out who they might support when a state’s primary election or caucus is held. Now these affairs are conflated with news events on a national or international scale. Are they news? Is it news when Donald Trump says something silly in a meeting of a few hundred (at most), a third of which are national media? Is it news if Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley are forced off a stage somewhere at a meeting of rag tag leftists? Maybe its statewide news, maybe its political news, but ‘go-to-live-coverage’ and ‘breaking news’. Not yet. The ideas that will drive 2016’s presidential election are still forming, so commenting on them, trying to define them, is almost pointless when you can hear the corn growing if you stand real still in a field in Wisconsin, or Iowa. Whether or not any of the score of declared candidates can rise to the level of being able to connect with people who aren’t political groupies remains to be seen. Meanwhile, there is a B-52 and a Ford Trimotor warming up on the runway, and that seems more interesting. Sponsored by X Government Cars. 

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Podcast 369

Night Train. An Amtrak train going over 100 miles an hour derails and the reason for the crash? Infrastructure. Really? It will be weeks before the real cause of the crash, which killed at least 7 people is known. Yet the ghouls in Congress are already making the most out of a crisis and tragedy by demanding, you guessed it, more spending for ‘infrastructure’. Is that what we really need? Speaking of train wrecks, Jeb Bush, a sort of candidate for the republican presidential nomination, answered a question last week he shouldn’t have, and now he is ‘evolving’ his comments. Bush said he would have supported the Iraq invasion in 2003, if he had been in Congress. No wait, now he says he wouldn’t have, if he knew then what he knows now. Well of course Governor! Bush should have instructed his interviewer to ask someone who actually voted for the resolution, or ordered the invasion. In the process Jeb Bush – the so called ‘smart Bush’ – missed the point; Republicans do not have a foreign policy. Democrats do not have a foreign policy. The President does not have a foreign policy. We’re in a new era with new rules. For one thing, with the US as the world’s largest oil producer, and largest swing producer state, it changes the picture considerably. Second, unfortunately we now know that invading countries, fixing them, and then leaving precipitously is probably not a workable policy. Other than that, no candidate whether democrat or republican has been able to articulate a foreign policy position that makes any sense. A protest in Minneapolis this week resulted in the police using pepper spray, and apparently inadvertently pepper spraying a ten year old. Now the mom wants answers. We want answers to, like why on earth would you take a ten year old kid to a potentially violent protest? Apparently no one has any common sense anymore. The Pope continues to wave the red flag, and when he’s not doing that, he’s genuflecting to communists, or pushing his version of global warming. Joining the world’s biggest useful idiot (the Pope) is the world’s second most celebrated useful idiot Francois Hollande, President of France, giving Raul Castro a rock star welcome to the fourth republic. A former bodyguard to Fidel Castro is telling his story, after years of torture and incarceration at the hands of the communist dictator. While the Cuban people starved, Fidel Castro enjoyed luxury in several estates, drank wine, cavorted with mistresses, and offered rich American movie stars (did I mention useful idiots) holidays at his Bay of Pigs ‘ranche’. We are now being warned of the impending disasters which will be brought by El Nino. Do you know what the effects of an El Nino event are? Do you know how accurate the predictions are? Find out in this podcast. Sponsored by X Government Cars.

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Podcast 363

Minnesota, Land of Confusion. What is the nature of what has been described as Minnesota’s ‘quirky’ political tendencies? Doubling as a Minnesota News Update, and commentary on the political state of affairs in the state, this podcast delves into the top political stories in the current time frame, and the conservative ‘movement’ in the state. As the House, with a Republicans majority vote to increase the education budget, the Senate with a Democrat majority votes to increase the gas tax by 16 cents. A tax which will come on top of the state’s 28 cent a gallon gas tax, federal taxes and local taxes. What’s the money going to used for? Roads and Bridges … Oh wait! Transportation. This, in addition to some three hundred million dollars a year which comes from the state’s recent Transportation Amendment, and existing bonding and budgeting for, well, roads and bridges. Senator Scott Dibble makes the ridiculous statement that ‘young people are leaving … for better transit options’. Richard Florida’s unproven assertions aside, studies show young people are moving to smaller, and larger cities like Austin, and Dallas, Denver, Des Moines and Omaha for career opportunities and cheaper housing. And what about the ‘lack of investment’ in the last thirty years? Projects on 94, 35W, 62, 100, the 610 interchange, the interchanges on 100 in the west metro this summer, innumerable ’roundabouts’ built all over the state, not to mention trains, trains, trains! And new buses. And a police force for the Met Council, and salaries for the Met Council. It seems as though, in this state Infrastructure, Education and Trains have taken their place next to entitlements as ‘third rail’ issues. Everyone wants more money, but they don’t want to have to pay for it. Solution? Tax the rich, tax corporations. And how many people in rural Minnesota really think they’re going to get their farm road repaved, or a new bridge down on the corner when the mayors of Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Duluth and rich Doctors in Rochester have their hands out for ‘infrastructure’ and transit projects of their own? And yet another Minnesotan has been killed by the ‘safe and clean’ Green Line … this one an employee of the Minnesota Senate. Meanwhile, reports are the Met Council actually plans for about 5 deaths like Lynne Thomas’ every year. Target laid off another 100 employees downtown, with more to come. Educators lied through their teeth about how STEM education was needed because STEM jobs were going unfilled in Minnesota. Most jobs in the state are for unskilled labor. Despite all this, it appears the conservative ‘movement’ in the state is failing. The republican leadership is moderate. Polls show the state’s population leans to the left. Why? Minnesota is an island of old-time-democrat-union-monopoly, in a sea of forward thinking, business oriented policy and politics in all the surrounding states. What’s wrong with us? Year after year the same arguments about Sunday liquor sales, stadiums and light rail, and yet the money is taxed, the outraged brooked, and the cycle starts over again. Is this how Minnesotans ARE? What can be done about it. SHOULD anything be done about it? Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul. Image from the tenth amendment group. 

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