Podcast 318

Your Dog Understands You. Updates just ahead of the weekend. The bloated and unresponsive Internal Revenue Service and its arrogant bureaucrat in chief have apologized to small businesses that have had their assets seized after running afoul of byzantine regulation. It seems if you deposit over ten thousand dollars in a bank account, the IRS thinks you’re a drug dealer. If you deposit less than ten thousand dollars, guess what? You’re a drug dealer too. Or something. Anyway, that means they can seize your assets and ruin your business. Especially if your business is selling guns, as one gun dealer and Iraq War Vet discovered last year. Today John Koskinen, IRS head apologized. Meanwhile, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson says his investigators have uncovered thousands of emails between Tea Party hater and former IRS manager Lois Lerner and the White House. Hmmm. Aside from the VA, this is the one agency that is the poster child for incompetence, bloat and poor management. The US needs a twenty first century tax system that doesn’t require thousands of government employees – earning twice what the average private citizen earns while they go to conferences in luxury hotels on the tax payer’s dime. Don’t try to pass it while President Obama is in office. Make it an election issue. Two Civil Rights leaders were recently invited to participate in a police training simulation of high pressure situations which might require deadly force. In both situations the civil rights leaders fired their weapons. One said he just kept pulling the trigger. Did the suspect have a gun? “I didn’t even look”. It was an eye opening moment for both of these gentlemen who discovered its easy to criticize what cops do, from the outside. This is a program which should be put in place across the country. In Minnesota, the Southwest Light Rail project is stalled amid fighting between the Minneapolis Park Board, an unelected Met Council and a governor who is worried the project will lose federal favor and funding. At issue is whether the LRT will pass over a bucolic foot and bike bridge by Cedar Lake, or pass through a tunnel. Rich people in Kenwood and around Cedar Lake are opposed. Everyone else who doesn’t live there, and the fat cats who’ve bought up the land along the corridor in Saint Louis Park and Hopkins are all for it. Its wonderful when the left beats itself up. The latest political story line? If the Republicans win the presidency in 2016 (far from a lock) the United States will be a  ‘one-party-state’. What about democrats now serving in legislatures, as governors and in the House and Senate? They don’t count? And yes, your dog can read your emotions and understands your words. Sponsored by Baklund R&D. 

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Podcast 315

The Gathering Storm. Updating the big stories, starting with foreign affairs. While people in the Upper Midwest and Boston are slipping and sliding through their commute, so apparently is the foreign policy of the Obama Administration. A president who said in September ‘there will be no boots on the ground’ when he announced a bombing campaign that would ‘degrade and destroy’ the Islamic State, now wants a new authorization from congress to use force in western Iraq. Is this an admission that the policy of airstrikes has not been successful? While the White House version of the force authorization only calls for special forces, and troops for specific purposes and not a general invasion, wait’ll we see what Congress ends up adding. In the Eastern Ukraine, a president who claimed economic sanctions would eventually force the Russians to end their misadventure there, now is reportedly considering arming Ukrainians. Putin has played the economic sanctions, which have hurt the Russian people, to gain public support for his effort in the Donetsk region. Moreover, whether right or wrong, Russians regard Ukraine as Russia. Kiev was the origin of Russia going back to the 10th century. When Ted Cruz, John McCain and Robert Menendez agree, its very possible so called ‘lethal aid’ will be shipped to Ukraine. Is this wise? What was the start of the current stand off. When did the US lose its way in Europe? Now what? Seems like the President may just decide to pull back and run out the clock, leaving all of this to the next President. Meanwhile, the Europeans are in conference with Ukrainian leadership, and Russian diplomats and they don’t want any arms shipments messing up their deal with Putin, in which Putin pretty much gets what he wants; The federalization of Eastern Ukraine, giving him the ability to destabilize a Ukrainian rump state whenever he chooses. Let’s not forget the province in question also has some pretty valuable natural resources and a land bridge to Crimea. Is this a good recipe for world economic growth? What if foreign policy turns out to be the big issue of 2016? Do you know what the Republican and Democrat foreign policy will be? It’s really important people start talking to each other about their values, working to knit those values together into some kind of political idea that can then be worked into concepts that are more than just rhetorical flourish. Don’t expect others to do your work for you. And if people do vote for someone with simply emotionally appealing ideas; they will get the so called leader they deserve. Sponsored by X Government Cars. 

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Podcast 304

Snow Storms and Drones. Midweek update on the top stories, starting with the New York Blizzard of the century that fizzled. Now the Governor of New York, Governor of New Jersey and Mayor of New York City look like Chicken Little. A National Weather Service Meteorologist has apologized – profusely – for going so far as to suggest the city be evacuated. This is the same meteorologist who perfectly predicted Hurricane Sandy. Maybe he got lucky, or Pride Goeth Before The Fall. The Justice Department has investigated the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri last summer, and has decided – drum roll please – not to press charged against Police Officer Darren Wilson. Will there be apologies from the ‘Hands Up Don’t Shoot’ crowd for lying? Don’t count on it. Remember the fanfare that greeted the release of Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl last summer? Almost immediately his brothers in arms said he was a deserter. Now Bergdahl will have to go through a Court Martial to determine whether its true. Bergdahl stands to lose rank and at least three hundred thousand dollars in back pay and benefits. Finally a man described as a drunk ‘federal employee’ lost control of a drone Monday night while he was flying it ‘at an apartment building a few blocks from the White House’. He went to bed, woke up the next morning, heard it had crashed onto the lawn of the White House, and called the Secret Service himself to tell them that, yeah he was the guy. The employee works for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which provides the NSA and the Department Of Defense with … you know, stuff. This shows what off the shelf disruptive technology can do to centrally controlled structures, like give the secret service another black eye. Just what they need. The President was traveling Monday, and wasn’t at the White House, although his kids were. Sponsored by Depotstar. 

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