Podcast 418

Live From The Kitchen. The last few days in podcasting have been busy. Back in the bunker, and pleasantly exhausted from the weekend at Agorafest 2015, time for a podcast live from the kitchen. After a great dinner, sipping back coffee going over the day’s and the week’s news in the wake of a weekend discussing political and social concepts. It seems the news is more and more a rehash rather than focused on what really matters. It was said this weekend that the GOP has probably created more anarchists than anything else. That might be amended to suggest both mainline political parties are creating frustrated and angry people, and apparently not listening to them. It isn’t that congress can’t get anything done, it’s what congress, and the president actually does that’s creating the frustration, anger, discord and angst. We’re back to calling anyone who can’t be categorized a ‘populist’, including Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump the UK’s labor leader Jeremy Corbin and oddly enough, Pope Francis. The populist movement in the United States was primarily a movement that served the interests of midwestern farmers against the Republican and Democrat parties, and bears little resemblance to rhetoricians, marxists, and socialists. Yet the media continues to throw out the term, as though people actually understand what it means. As the Republican Speaker of the House resigns amid the ‘planned parenthood shut down fight’, people naively wonder whether the next speaker will be more ‘conservative’. Emphatically yes, they are all conservative in the sense that they serve the interests of big government against all the people. That makes them conservative statists (in my view conservative socialists) regardless of whether they have a D or an R after their name. This is the problem in American politics, not whether the Federal Government funds Planned Parenthood. Shut it down! Yes! Shut it down. Pull the fuel lines and plugs and batteries and let it rot in the wheat field! Don’t waste your breath on distractions, shut the government down because it is out of control, and all our so called representatives are part of the problem, they are certainly not the solution. We need new ideas, new concepts and these are not the people who will find them, develop them, and support them. Two stories to watch right now. One is economic, and the other is Russia in Syria. As debt levels increase to dangerous levels, the world’s central banks don’t know what to do. The danger of a meltdown is increasing. Putin has Obama checkmated in Syria. First the administration denied the Russians were going into Syria, then they minimized it. Now they’re actually negotiating with Putin. Russia is now fighting against ISIS, allied with Assad and Iran and Iraq. Where’s the US? Testing the idea of ‘non-interventionist’ foreign policy while Putin practices Realpolitik and Realist Foreign Policy brilliantly. Clearly it is necessary to point out yet again that we have exceeded all the political, social and economic constructs of the last thirty years and something new is coming. Are we ready for it? Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and X Government Trucks

Podcast 403 – Jason Lewis Part 1

Jason Lewis Part 1. Another visit with national radio host and Galt IO creator Jason Lewis, this time aboard the Mobile Podcast Command Unit 8. On a day when the US Markets were down over three hundred points, getting reconnected on The Bob Davis Podcasts after more than a year produces a wide ranging discussion between two ‘former’ talk radio pros that ended up going much longer than either planned. So, instead of one podcast, it will be two podcasts. Each installment is thirty minutes of solid discussion about The Economy, Immigration, the Federal Reserve, the 2016 presidential primary ‘campaigns’, the media, and much, much more. This is the kind of content you don’t hear much these days in the talk radio world, and certainly not on the mainstream media; The kind of content only digital media delivers. On a personal note, its interesting to me how much we have evolved over the years since working together at KSTP-AM in the two thousands, and at Clear Channel in Minneapolis in this decade, and yet how little some talk hosts have changed over the years. Jason in particular, has evolved what he likes to call a ‘Pacifist’ approach to foreign policy, passionately making the case that you can’t have big government abroad, without big government at home. It’s certainly an argument you won’t hear in the political arena these days from either side. We also talk about Trump’s appeal, political involvement and more. Jason’s audio book ‘Power Divided Is Power Checked’ is available here, and his podcast is available here. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul. (Editor’s Note: I’m posting this podcast for the weekend on Friday morning, August 21st, and I’ll post Part 2 for your Monday morning. Thanks again to Jason Lewis for joining me on the podcast and for keeping it real.

Podcast 372

Memorial Day Weekend 2015. A midnight walk in the park, as we head into Memorial Day Weekend, 2015. As the country slows its roll for the big three-day weekend, it feels like the pace of the news is also slowing down. In the Upper Midwest, the big thing is opening the cabin, getting the RV ready to roll, and heading up to the lake. This is a weekend for putting in the dock, and establishing a ‘beach head’ for the summer. Some will be heading to state parks, others will be working, or hanging around the house. With a sense that people are slowing down for the weekend, the flow of news events also seems to be a bit stale. More stories about ‘candidates’ for presidential office, over a year away. More stories about things happening thousands of miles from the Upper Midwest. More blather about ‘Obama’, or ‘Clinton’, or ‘Jeb Bush’. In this podcast some observations from a day spent driving around the metro in gridlock traffic in search of parts – or a truck wash – for Mobile Podcast Command, visiting the ambulance supply warehouse, RV centers, and friends at various businesses around town. This driving around town thing is exhausting! After reading a thatch of news stories, taking a nap and dinner, time for coffee and a midnight walk through a deserted suburban town. Stories about summer’s and memorial day weekend’s past … the cold ones, and the hot ones. It is better to put the dock in when it is warm and sunny than it is to put it in when there is still ice floating on the lake. This year, the Upper Midwest has been lucky so far. It’s been a warm spring, and the forecast for the weekend is pretty good. Is it a good thing that there’s so much focus on Iowa for both political parties, this early? Events in other parts of the world continue, but things still don’t seem to have reached a point that requires decisions, or provokes new actions to debate. As summer comes on, it still feels like resolution on so many different news fronts will take a little longer. Maybe its a good time to pick out that summer novel. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul