Podcast 366

Build The Pipeline! As another oil train owned by Warren Buffett derails and sends flames into the air, Minneapolis and Saint Paul media can’t bring itself to mention this would not be necessary if President Obama had followed bipartisan legislation, and built the Keystone XL Pipeline. The Star Tribune licks its chops whenever there is a chance to print a story which shows North Dakota in a negative light, and nothing says passive-aggressive like a burning oil train. Just another reason why Minnesotans are so ill served by this parochial and paranoid newspaper’s editorial staff. Wasn’t a new owner supposed to fix that? Along the same lines we are told a ‘new study’ shows traffic congestion in the Twin Cities is getting worse! The cities now ranks 35th in traffic congestion nationwide. Forget there are 50 states, and that Minneapolis and Saint Paul is generally considered the 15th or 16th largest market, looks like it is punching below its weight, traffic congestion wise. Oh yeah, the studies were done by MNDOT, and by the Met Council, two agencies with a big stake in whether the draconian increase in the state gas tax passes. Meanwhile, MNDOT seems to be causing most of the congestion by insisting on doing things like changing signs on the Mendota bridge in the middle of rush hour, which recently caused a massive traffic jam, or taking out the bridge over highway 100 on Minnetonka, turning traffic in the west metro into a parking lot. What causes congestion? Incompetence and idiocy in our much vaunted state government agencies, and the politicians responsible for them. God Help Us! The worst days? Tuesday morning and Thursday afternoon, as state workers put in their usual 3 day work weeks and head to the lake. Meanwhile the LRT boosters are at it again. Forget about the fact that the Southwest Light Rail Project engineering work was bungled, that it is hundreds of millions over budget, we need it because suddenly the jobs are in Eden Prairie and people from downtown have to get there to work. The nature of work is changing. After a Bob Davis podcast about freelance work in LA, the New York Times published a piece on whether freelance work LA style is going to be the future model for how work gets done. Emphatically yes! Meanwhile, at nearly 2 decades into the 21st century, these fools in government keep insisting on rebuilding the early 20th century city. Is America moving left? Polls say it is. But, what influences polls? Events. And events can change politics. Still, we don’t hear Republicans saying much these days about what they would actually do, to get people to vote for them. One thing they could do is something about a government that no longer protects our rights but tramples them. Over a thousand IRS employees were apparently promoted for cheating on their taxes. The Federal government says New York City has to take the lighted signs down from Times Square (New York says No Friggin Way!). And ‘Draw Muhammed’ event creator Pamela Gellar hasn’t heard from homeland security despite the fact that her life has been threatened by ISIS. Did we forget the DEA agent orgies paid for by the drug cartels, and the fact that the agents who admitted attending can’t be fired because of government regulations? Sponsored by Baklund R&D. (Photo from BNSF.com) 

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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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Podcast 360

Updates! The Correspondent’s dinner is a colossal waste of time, and discussions now center on how to fix it. How do you fix it when the news reporters who should be in Baltimore covering riots are ‘the story’ at a glitzy, hollywood style celebrity roast, including the President. How is the public to expect objectivity in its nightly news given that kind of display. NBC Nightly News, as predicted, has reportedly asked Brian Williams to find the door as more evidence of his ’embellishments’ emerge. Williams has done irreparable harm to NBC News. The Comcast-Time Warner deal is kaput. It can only be hoped complaints about customer service at both companies contributed to it. It’s starting to become apparent that the balance of power, when it comes to energy, is shifting in favor of the United States. Fracking made it possible, and today’s technology made fracking so efficient oil companies can scale them up or down at much cheaper costs, and exploration is cheaper as well. With the US the second or first largest oil producer, and controlling as much as ten percent of the world’s oil production, substantive changes in middle east policy are now possible. The new reality also extends to how we deal with countries like Venezuela and Russia, not just the Middle East. Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison wants to end so called subsidies to the ‘evil’ oil companies. What are subsidies, what tax breaks and loopholes specifically apply here and who really benefits? Meanwhile real subsidies for wind power, ethanol, electric cars, light rail and rail roads that deliver the oil – rather than the Keystone Pipeline – continue. Who benefits? The top selling car at GM is not a gas-electric, or even the fully electric Volt. It’s the Suburban, Yukon and Escalade as people trade in their electric cars for SUV’s, now that gas is cheaper. The war on the car, the individual and independent-government-free living continues. Latest in the struggle is the Southwest Light Rail project now expected to cost Minnesota Taxpayers 2 billion dollars, which shocked and appalled Governor Dayton. The solution? Kill the project. The aging hippie governor and his 60 year old pals at the Hennepin County Council, City Councils and a duchy known as ‘The Met Council’ have a vision. That vision is our return to the early 20th century city utopia, where cars were scarce and trains carried people from residential areas of big cities downtown. Forget that those cities, at that time, were hardly utopias. The last, best hope of these statists is the Millennial generation, which they expect will move into downtown, thus populating the expensive (1500 to 3000 a month) high rise apartments, and drinking in the bohemian bars and coffee shops, and in general contributing to something called ‘the creative class’. Truth is, Millennials are moving to the suburbs and the exurbs because housing is cheaper, and there are yards for their new families. Babies and toddlers don’t prefer sitting in outdoor coffee cafes, riding around on bikes and getting tattoos. Is the statist dream of returning to the early 20th century city doomed? Sponsored by X Government Cars. 

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