Podcast 558-Pipeline Protest

Podcast 558-Pipeline Protest. Back road tripping across the Northwestern United States. First stop is The Dakota Access Pipeline protest at Standing Rock. A few miles north of Cannonball, North Dakota, about thirty miles south of Bismarck, North Dakota. DAPL – as it is known – is an explosive issue for the Standing Rock Tribe of Native Americans in this region, but pipelines have huge implications for the rest of the United States. As some celebrate the newfound energy independence US Oil Exploration brings, it also brings problems. The biggest is the issue of how to transport the oil out of the state of North Dakota which cannot refine the crude pulled out of the Bakken Reserve. For now, oil is transported on trucks and trains, which may be more unsafe when it comes to accidents and spills than pipelines. At issue is whether the pipeline will rupture, sooner or later, and contaminate ground water. The people at the Standing Rock Protest say yes. The oil companies say no. It’s very hard to get a clear idea of who’s right and wrong. Myron Dewey joins Podcast 558-Pipeline Protest from the protest, which he does not call a protest (as you’ll hear), and for balance an oil company employee and lifetime North Dakotan Eric Nelson joins the podcast not as a spokesperson for the company he works for, but as a concerned citizen. Also check out Standing Rock Fact Checker, and this from Inforum, on Doug Burgham, one of the Republican Gubernatorial candidates in North Dakota. The Standing Rock pipeline protest (sorry Myron but that’s what everyone’s calling it) has certainly focused worldwide attention on the issue. I’m going to take you inside the protest, which is in itself educational. Whenever I cover public events, I am rolling the minute I get there. This time I caught some interesting and educational audio. (Editor’s Note: You might have to strain a little to hear some of what went down, so use headphones. I will be worth it.) Like many local issues, it is filled with emotion and an ocean of ‘facts’ designed to persuade the listener to come to the ‘right’ conclusion. What do you think? Sponsored by Brush Studio in the West End, Saint Louis Park.

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The Bob Davis Podcasts

Podcast 532

What I think of Election 2016. Getting emails and calls from people political analysts would consider ‘low information voters’ asking what I think and who they should vote for. So in this podcast I am going to tell you. First thing? When you consider the low quality of all reporting on election 2016 everyone is pretty much a low information voter. In 2016 the country is facing decisions on major issues in economics, immigration, trade, foreign policy, military, diplomacy, social issues and more. Almost no one fully understands the contours of these issues well enough to discuss them. Instead what we have are tribes of people who are very emotional about these issues. They know the latest meme. They know all about the latest scandal and the latest ‘story’ evolving concerning who said what about who, and the reaction to it, but when they’re asked to discuss any of the key issues of our time with clarity and depth, as they say in the windy city; “fergitaboutit”. Who do I think should be president in 2017? None of them. Repeat. None of them. If you include the so called independent candidates and the mainline party candidates they’re nothing but placeholders. Someone needs to lay out what the potential outcome of this election will be, regardless of who wins the office. I start – repeat start – to do that in this podcast. I realized about twenty minutes in, this is going to take more than one ‘talk’ podcast (with no editing) to lay out all the possibilities and outcomes. Bottom line? None of the potential outcomes bode well for the future of the United States. We’ve had a series of placeholder presidents, and it looks like we’re about to have another. Meanwhile, the country is getting closer and closer to what I call a ‘clarifying’ event that will wake people up from their media induced hypnosis, and reinvigorate the political process. Maybe. Maybe not. Meanwhile, if you expect to get information from television and radio, and from the standard websites these days, I feel sorry for you. If you guess you’ll find “the truth” on You Tube’s conspiracy channels, and the Drudge Report, guess again. In What I Think of Election 2016 you’ll get my read at the present time, which sets up future podcasts specifically on the issues in the hope of giving listeners to the Bob Davis Podcasts a little more substance and depth than you’ll find anywhere else. Meanwhile, it’s on to the motorcycle rally at Sturgis from here. Sponsored by Hydrus Performance and Brush Studio in the West End, Saint Louis Park.

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Podcast 502-The Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-27

The Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-27. This was a big week for the Bob Davis Podcasts, with the 500th podcast ‘retrospective’, and an interview with a small town Minnesota Mayor who is struggling with the overbearing power of unelected governance in the form of the Metropolitan Council; Minneapolis and Saint Paul’s panel of planning czars. The Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-27 includes one segment of original content not heard in the podcasts this week, as well as the Mark Korin interview in Podcast 501, edited for broadcast. The Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-27 kicks off with a bit of a rant about pundits suddenly trying to walk back their ‘predictions’ about what they thought was ‘supposed’ to happen in the Republican Presidential Primaries and Caucuses this spring, and the ‘presumptive’ nomination of Donald Trump by the Republican party. The latest mea culpa is 538 Blog’s Nate Silver, who says there need to be more internal ‘controls’ so that his predictions concerning Trump won’t happen again. It seems to me that the issue is ego, and the remedy isn’t internal controls, it’s realizing ‘the public’ doesn’t need tarot card reading from the media, it needs reporting. So many people in the media think the public is hanging on their every word and ‘trusts’ their predictions and endorsements, which amount to little more than campaigning for a candidate or cause and they’re making fools of themselves. Our country is experiencing a sea change of political thought, and ideas about how our society is managed. I want to have a completely different conversation about what is actually happening what it is like, once we get there. The last thing any of us need is some media person telling is what they think is going to happen, before whatever happens, happens! Meanwhile, important reporting is getting missed because all any of these magpies are talking about is Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Small town mayor Mark Korin joins the Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-27 to talk about his struggle with the Met Council, which is legally empowered to refuse to take no for an answer from elected officials. Korin says its because Minnesota State Law gives the Met Council the power. Korin is the Mayor of Oak Grove, a city which is represented in the state house by Speaker of the Minnesota House, Kurt Daudt, and powerful State Senator Micelle Benson. Isn’t interesting – and typical – that these two completely missed the opportunity to take the teeth out of the met council by amending or repealing the state statutes Korin talks about in The Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-27 and Podcast 501. Sponsored by Brush Studio and Hydrus Performance.

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