The Bob Davis Podcast

Podcast 274

Story Lines. A few loose ends on the big stories, heading into the weekend. Frustrating that most media outlets continue to peddle the story that all the President has to do is ‘order’ relations with Cuba normalized, and they are. Then comes all the stories about how it got done, who benefits, the businesses that are chomping at the bit to get into Cuba. Thing is, the law concerning sanctions on Cuba is different. These aren’t sanctions placed entirely with executive orders. A welter of laws regarding just how relations are to be normalized with Cuba will have to be repealed, or the President is going to have to demonstrate to Congress that Castro Land has suddenly become a free country. Meanwhile there is mounting evidence that ‘normalizing’ relations with Cuba will strengthen a murderous regime, and has enriched itself, and left the people of Cuba with nothing. These facts are apparently not interesting to the  media in the US. The President says sanctions haven’t worked against Cuba. Aside from asking ‘which ones?’, if sanctions don’t work why did Secretary of State John Kerry not say, just prior to sanctions being placed on Russia, ‘Sanctions work’. Well? Which is it? If they don’t work, why waste your breath on Russia, or for that matter North Korea. The US now says North Korea hacked Sony, with help from China and Russia. But it’s all Sony’s fault, right? Let’s look at it this way; Sony just got raped by a fraternity of North Koreans, Chinese and Russians and we’re blaming the victim? It gets weirder and weirder everyday. The Sony hack, and the company’s reaction, as well as the reaction of the United States Government, will have far reaching consequences. The President seems fine standing up to right wingers, clinging to their guns and religion, but apparently not when it comes to China, Russia and North Korea. With Obama on his way to Hawaii, for yet another vacation, don’t expect him to be standing up to anyone in the near future. The good news for the weekend? The IRS head says the agency may have to shut down for a few days because of budget cuts. Merry Christmas! We now know how to stop government spending. Just keep cutting the IRS until it closes, and they won’t be able to collect taxes, much less raise them. And, a winter storm is headed across most of the country for Christmas. In the upper midwest that will means snow. Sponsored by Depotstar. 

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Podcast 269

Torture. Budget. Washington struggles with the release of a damning Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, and democrats appear to be willing to shut the government down over language in the budget bill concerning Dodd/Frank. These issues show how the contours of ‘partisanship’ and the causes of ‘gridlock’ will change after the new congress is sworn in, in January 2015. The Senate Intelligence Committee investigation and report was conducted and written wholly by democrats, offers no suggestions on what to do about what it called torture in the future, or for curtailing the CIA when it runs amok, and none of the accused parties were interviewed for have had the chance to defend themselves. As former Democrat Senator and Senate Intelligence Committee member Bob Kerry suggests, this does not bode well for the objectivity of the report or win any friends at the CIA. Even President Obama has been put in a difficult situation, since current CIA Director Brennan is furious that the report paints a one sided picture of what happened at the agency after 9/11. Maybe it is a good thing this information is released now, maybe not. One thing is for sure, neither party has come up with a foreign policy that addresses asymmetric warfare going forward. Libertarian, Interventionist, Neoconservative, Neoliberal, or whatever you want to call them, these policies aren’t going to be effective in future conflicts where it is likely potential state enemies of the US will use asymmetric methods because they strike at our weaknesses. On the budget front, Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren threatens to block passage of the budget bill because of changes it makes in Dodd/Frank regarding how derivatives are regulated. Which party is ‘obstructionist’ now? What will the minority party do after Republicans take over the majority in Congress? Expect a return to ideas like increasing gas taxes and ‘rebuilding’ America’s ‘crumbling infrastructure’, and to the idea that – since we can’t prove ‘inequality’ hurts the economy – we now have to deal with the ’empathy gap’. This is the idea that the working poor are just unfortunate and that we have to have laws to make the economic system ‘fair’, since hard work and brains have nothing to do with success. The founding documents talk about being created equal and having unalienable rights to life and liberty … not a ‘fair’ economic system. What you do with your liberty is your choice, rich or poor. The good news? All of these stories will be swept from television screens because of the storm-of-the-century in California. Finally, out of nowhere a movement we can all get behind, or in front of. “Free The Nipple”. Sponsored by Baklund R&D. 

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Podcast 264

Jeb Bush? Really? What started as a midweek update, back in the studio after the road trip, turned into a discussion of whether the ‘conservative movement’ has completely lost its way, even whether it exists at all. As Congress seems to struggle with how to handle President Obama’s executive orders on immigration, in an effort to avoid a government shutdown which moderates feel is bad publicity for Republicans, the Speaker’s plan is apparently to pass a continuing resolution for the overall budget while offering a separate budget for Homeland Security (Which is where the funding for the President’s controversial executive order on Immigration is funded). This leaves room for the complete Republican 117th Congress to address these issues after January. This strategy isn’t sitting well with some Republicans who believe they were sent there to stop the President’s power grab. While political junkies should probably stop worrying about Congress and start concentrating on building organizations for 2016, there is a big fight brewing on both sides of the political spectrum. Progressive and Moderate Democrats on one side, and a mixed bag of Republican constituencies on the other. Libertarians, Moderates, Religious Conservatives all vying for control of the GOP … again. This leaves space for yet another Bush to ride in on the White Horse they keep down there on the ranch and be ‘the adult in the room’ and stop all those crazy ‘Paul-Bots’, and ‘Tea Baggers’; i.e.; The Conservative Movement. Or what’s left of it. The challenge in this podcast is, once again, to define what exactly a conservative is? While the Republicans won a huge midyear victory, that victory does not mean the ‘movement’ is healthy … or even alive. A conservative is a former Florida Governor who believes in Common Core and doesn’t want to repeal Obama Care? Republicans might have won a legislative majority in 2014, but that doesn’t mean they know what they’re doing. All it shows — and they certainly deserve credit for it — is that they were able to get their people out to vote, while the other side stayed home. But what is the GOP for? What do the conservatives want to do about economic policy, spending and debt, foreign policy? The so called grassroots are talking about 1776, the constitution and a constitutional convention (Editor’s Note: The dumbest idea ever.) This is a conservative ‘movement’? Next? Someone finally has taken the pundits who keep saying cheaper gas is like a huge tax cut. Except it’s not. In this podcast find out why. Plus, don’t forget there is an ominous demand side to the cheaper gas we’re currently enjoying; Slow downs in Europe, Japan, China and Latin America do not bode well for the global economy, and the US isn’t growing dynamically to pull everyone else’s fat out of the fire this time. Black Friday turned out to be a bust. So don’t expect that just because gas is 2.49 a gallon it means unicorns and rainbows, economically speaking that is. Sponsored by X Government Cars and by Depotstar. 

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