Podcast 521

Stormy Weather. In a surprise only to ‘conservatives’ who listen only to ‘conservative’ talk show hosts, watch ‘conservative’ TV shows and go to conservative websites, the FBI decided not to recommend criminal prosecution of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over her use of a personal email server while she was in the Obama Administration. Why? The short answer is, intent is a key consideration in cases like these. The long answer is, Mrs. Clinton played her ‘Benghazi Card’ better known as ‘If I go down, you go down’ and she got action from the administration. At least that’s one possible explanation. In the past few days President Obama suddenly closed ranks with the Clintons (despite all the rumors of the rancor between the Obamas and the Clintons). Attorney General Loretta Lynch had a now famous ‘tarmac meeting’ with former president Bill Clinton and President Obama allowed Hillary Clinton to ride Air Force One with him to a campaign event, where they walked, hand in hand, down the steps. “If I go down, YOU go down”. Now it’s a matter of politics. He said, she said. He said she’s a crook. She said he’s an anti semite. Congress releases a damning report on the administration’s conduct regarding ‘Benghazi’…Democrats say it is a partisan document. Republicans say it’s the ‘truth’ about Mrs Clinton and her boss, President Obama. “If I go down, YOU go down.” More fodder for the campaign trail. They were asleep and the switch, says one side. They’re partisan dividers, says the other side. Meanwhile the world’s leading economies are drowning in a sea of paper money and deficit spending, and economies are faltering. Do you really think this election is going to fix anything? We live in interesting times, with the great potential of a new technical industrial revolution and all that portends, and a personal challenge to change the way we think and how we work, and what we demand of our political institutions. Too bad our sclerotic politics delivers a statist who wants to spend and tax more, and a statist who wants to wall the country off from the rest of the world. We could have this technology revolution now, or we can languish for another thirty years while these idiots we call presidential candidates stumble around in economic darkness. Yeah sure, go ahead and talk until you’re blue in the face about Hillary’s email server, or about the Star of David on Trump’s twitter account, while the printing presses debase the currency, governments spend themselves into the poor house, the media puts on cartoons and calls them news, and we hurtle toward our destiny, whatever that may be. The US is now a country that’s happy about revised economic growth from .5 percent to 1.1 percent, with 95 million people out of the work force, a media that writes gossip and calls it news, and a population that believes Russian Propaganda and You Tube conspiracy theories because…what’s the difference? The Earth is hollow, you know and there’s a whole civilization down there, right? And you wonder about moral hazard? Sponsored by Karow Contracting and Brush Studio in the West End, Saint Louis Park. (Editor’s Note: In this podcast I refer to former CIA Director David Petraeus’ offenses regarding passing classified information with intent, and engaging in a coverup after as occurring while Petraeus was on active military duty. I wondered whether he would be under the Military Code of Justice in this case. This is incorrect. Petraeus was director of the CIA when the offenses occurred and not on active duty. For comparison to the Clinton question, one should refer to the FBI director’s congressional testimony regarding the differences between the Clinton question and the Petraeus case.)

Podcast 337

Global Warming & The Left. In the midst of a solar storm, just ahead of a full solar eclipse and the Spring Equinox, a lot is going on in the heavens and here on Earth. As Europe braces for power outages due to the solar eclipse, suddenly Global Warming returns as the left tries to make it a cornerstone issue for the 2016 narrative. Will it succeed? As two traders are making headlines with a research piece that uses the Global Warming’s own data to devastate their position that ‘warming’ poses an existential threat to the world, a new movie conflates people who favor capitalism and free markets with ‘dangerous climate change deniers’. Former Vice President Al Gore demands that ‘deniers’ be ‘punished’ and a US Congressman demands the financial records of a scientist who has the temerity to disagree with the climate change bolsheviks. Really? Now Free Market advocates — capitalists — are to be persecuted? What is an actual ‘existential threat’? Might it be suggested that an existential threat to America is anyone, or anything that wants to do away with free markets and capitalism? Major environmental groups gathered last year in Venezuela (that wellspring of freedom), said ‘the structural causes of climate change are linked to the current capitalist hegemonic system.’ But, if anything science isn’t settled. For decades we have been hearing first freezing, and then warming end-of-the-world scenarios that have spurred some great movies (Mad Max) and some not so great movies (Water World). Peak Oil, Peak Food, over population, Peak Water, massive poverty, famine and world wide collapse. Oh, and the one about Manhattan being underwater by the 2000’s, that didn’t turn out so well either. In 2016 the left will try to pull together Climate Change, Inequality, Minimum Wage Fairness and Justice and use populist tactics to drive home a powerful theme; Only they can help us from imminent collapse and destruction. You take these ideas on faith, because there’s no proof of the problems, or proposed solutions. The existential threat facing the United States is the political left in this country no longer believes in science, the rule of law, or basic economics, if it ever did. What it believes in, is using science, law and economics as a means to an end. Because it is a social movement, based on subjective ideas, dissent will not be tolerated. In the next few decades we will create one of two worlds. A world where an individual can harness their creativity to create growth for everyone, or a world where our creative impulse is shackled and eventually destroyed. What is the purpose of the US Constitution and government if it is not to protect our rights. This is the one thing we have to get right. What happens when politicians actually have the fight? Ask two winners; Scott Walker and Benjamin Netanyahu. Sponsored by Baklund R&D