Podcast 386

Conservative Movement RIP. The last podcast in June before a short Hiatus, also announces News Cleanse 2015. The time is ripe. While travel broadens the horizons and raises the energy of the traveler, it seems staying glued to the television 24/7, hyper vigilance with news websites, social media and those email newsletters in everyone’s in boxes is making people more ignorant, as opposed to more informed. At the end of a week that saw two rulings by the Supreme Court go against the right, it’s clear the ‘last resort’ of the courts is not a solution for a ‘movement’ that is increasingly dependent on those same courts, Fox News and Talk Radio because it is too unorganized and ignorant of tactical politics to influence congress. A court that overreached in 2000, has been very sensitive to public opinion ever since and is loathe to do anything that might upset certain groups which are well organized and ready to march. Meanwhile, on the right, there is always another outrage playing on the twenty four hour cable channels and talk radio. You can be sure at the end of the day the right will do nothing…nothing about any of it. Given this reality, these court decisions are a surprise? Even with an open political system in Minnesota, Congressman Eric Paulsen recently suggested the biggest problem with the right is lack of engagement. That is, people to carry the water. What happens? The same people who have stood up to help year after year are the people representatives see, not to mention the lobbyists, operatives and big money donors. The so called grassroots movements that were ignited with the passing of the ACA have failed to mature, failed to organize, and are fading. Meanwhile millennials are entering the adult world and the political process and they have very different ideas than grandma and grandpa. It seems almost academic to ask whether the conservative movement that started with Murry Rothbard and Barry Goldwater, might have peaked with Reagan; The truth? Its bleached bones are visible in the desert, like the opening shot of a Breaking Bad episode. “Conservatives” these days can’t decide what they are and what they believe, much less build an organization and thus a real movement around some over arching theme, because there isn’t one. What’s left is a republican party that gets 38 to 44 percent of the vote in any given year, versus a democrat party that gets 38 to 44 percent of the vote in any given year, slightly different totals and majorities because of gerrymandering congressional districts, and a big fight held in the media — a circus, really — day after day. No wonder there are twenty or more running for president on the republican side. This doesn’t preclude a republican president, but it does mean a continuing drift toward a country where control of all social and economic interaction is in the hands of the state, whether the head of that state is republican or democrat. And that is exactly what we don’t need. It’s a tough message for people on the right to hear, but it’s the cold, hard truth. Sponsored by Baklund R&D.

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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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Podcast 358

Back In The Bunker. Another special announcement concerning more distribution of the The Bob Davis Podcasts. Plus, a discussion of what it’s like to be back in the studio after weeks on the road in the Mobile Podcast Command Unit. This weekend – in podcast time – is Earth Day, 2015. It is, essentially, a secular, if not pagan Easter; a celebration of mother earth and spring, with political overtones. In truth, environmentalism has become a religion for some. Some environmental policy is good, and some — most of it — has been not so good. We start with California’s water problem, which could be solved with desalinization, but the state is spending billions more on a bullet train to nowhere. Desalinization actually costs less than the bullet train. Meanwhile Californians are talking about billions of gallons of fresh water poured into San Francisco Bay to save the Smelt Fish. Federal and State Governments in the US offer thousands of dollars in subsidies and tax credits if consumers buy electric cars. When gas was more expensive some calculated it would take five years to make up the difference in costs for a gas versus electric car. Now that gas prices have plunged it will take even longer. What are consumers doing? They are trading their electric cars in on SUV’s at the highest rate in years. Despite the prediction of the President that there would be millions of electric cars on the road by the end of his presidency. Continuing along the lines of government engineering. We’ve been seeing a lot of policy devoted to subsidized growth in major cities to create ‘Hipster Havens’ where the ‘creative class’ will collaborate and create thousands of new jobs. Suddenly though, not only are millennials starting to move into first ring suburbs, but exurbs are starting to grow again as well. Pretty hard to raise your baby in Hipster Heaven. This podcast also includes a list of 13 predictions, on Earth Day, that sounded really ominous in 1970, but which ended up being hopelessly wrong, as a reminder that just because ‘scientists agree’ doesn’t always mean you can take it to the bank. Do you think buying food at the farmer’s market — another feature of every Hipster Heaven — helps the environment. A new study says maybe not. Find out why. Finally, the media has discovered that the economy just isn’t growing fast enough. Where is the consumer? If the media isn’t spreading disinformation in its quest to focus on personalities and not issues for the presidential cycle of 2016 (which hasn’t even started yet) it’s spreading disinformation about the ‘growing’, ‘booming’ and ‘recovering’ economy. It’s just that the rosy scenario story line isn’t materializing. What might people think about the economy as an issue, heading into 2016. Will there be an economic crisis, and how will that impact the presidential race? Sponsored by Baklund R&D.

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