The Observations Podcast

Once again, Donald Trump escaped an assassination attempt, with the shooter being driven off by gunfire from Secret Service, and apprehended shortly thereafter. How much does the political rhetoric around Donald Trump contribute to a climate of violence? Well, at least this will probably short-circuit what was turning into an impending 4-day news cycle about his ill-advised Taylor Swift post.

In this episode, we discuss the state of the current presidential race, including Trumps sentencing delay, the upcoming debate and much more. We conclude, however, by discussing what it means to live in, as one of our chat commenters put it, a "post-reality society." Because that's the direction in which we're heading.

The sheer amount of narrative-pushing and propaganda on display in today's media is astounding. Americans have no idea how often they're lied to by the media, as well as by every other major institution.

Performing a Google news search to find stories on Kamala Harris' proposed tax on unearned income produces interesting results...or rather, a LACK of interesting results. The importance of which is not what Google shows you, but what it refuses to show. You can, of course, find the stories elsewhere, such as a news search in the Brave search engine. But not in Google. Now, perhaps it's some sort of weird error. Or, perhaps, it's an integral part of manufacturing a false consensus by withholding information in the world's most popular search engine.

We start the episode by looking at how the Left and Fascism are inextricably intertwined, even though the traditional political spectrum places them on opposite ends. We also discuss the propagandization of the media, and why society seems to be in such constant flux and anxiety.

Since Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden as the Democrat's presidential candidate, the race has turned from a shoo-in for Trump to a Harris lead. In this podcast, we discuss how the Trump campaign strategy has responded. So far, the response…doesn't look very effective.

This week, we discuss the events surrounding the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.

There were national elections in both France and the UK this week. In France, the non-populist parties managed to game the system to ensure that Marine Le Pen's National Rally couldn't form a government. In the UK, Labour ended up with 410 of 650 seats in Parliament on a 33.8% share of the vote. Meanwhile, in the US, 70% of voters want neither Trump nor Biden as president, but they'll get one of them anyway. Can somebody define what "democracy" actually is?

The Supreme Court overturned the Chevron Doctrine this week. That's important, and has long-term consequences. But all eyes are on the Biden Campaign in the aftermath of his debate with Donald Trump. Biden's debate performance has raised serious questions about whether he should be running for another term. And, perhaps, even doubts about whether he is capable of finishing this one.

This week, we start by wondering if we're stumbling into WWIII. We then turn to the recent and current European and US elections, where populist parties seem to be on the rise. Not that any of this should be a surprise, since populism is always a response to a political system that doesn't respond to voter concerns. We conclude with a look at a couple of Supreme Court decisions that we're waiting for before the current term ends.

This week, we cover the response to the Israeli hostage rescue, and ask an important question: What's the proper moral context for military operations against combatants who flout their disregard for the rules-based international order? Bird Flu is increasingly in the news. Millions of chickens are being culled, and we're told that Bird Flu has made its way into other livestock and farm products, such as milk and eggs. How much should we trust the warnings of the same people who mishandled COVID-19 so badly?

This week, we have one topic: Donald Trump's conviction in New York.

In this episode, we take a look at some interesting international stories from the past week. Then we start an initial inquiry—which we'll have to take up again later—about the results of financializing the world economy.

We start with an update on the YouTube situation, where one of our podcasts has been permanently banned. We then discuss Jared Bernstein, the man who is Biden's Chief Economic Advisor, besides having no formal education in, or apparently knowledge of, economics. His response to a Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) question was…interesting. MMT is the luminiferous aether of the 21st century. Politico--surprisingly--reports that the usual suspects are the funding force behind the current wave of pro-Palestine protests on campuses. The Biden administration's new Title IX rules are going to be held up in federal courts for years. Finally, Kristi Noem, in day 8 of the puppycide saga, has now suggested the Joe Biden should've shot his German Shepherd, Commander. She's pretty much destroyed any political future she might have been hoping for.

In this episode, we discuss the latest activities in the legal cases against Donald Trump. We also discuss the upcoming election, and the Biden administration's general ineptitude, especially in regard to the Israel/Gaza conflict.

We received a Community Guidelines warning, and had a video removed from YouTube. The offending passage was Dale reading verbatim from a Federal Court opinion in a podcast released nine months ago. YouTube's moderation process, like their DMCA process, is unacceptably faulty. We also discuss how a Trump/Biden contest seems like a failure of our political system. Finally, Kristi Noem thought it would be a good idea to demonstrate how good she is at making tough decisions by telling us about the time she shot a puppy. And a goat, for good measure.

This week we start with several seemingly unrelated news items. But they all share a common thread: A childlike conception of the world that can only be found in societies descending into decadence. But decadent societies not only build nothing, they preserve nothing that was already built. The end result of decadence is always disaster for a society that engages in it.

It's a bit of a short podcast this week, taken up mainly by a discussion of a complex economic question. Since the 1970s, workers' wages have largely stagnated. Wages stopped increasing with productivity. Wages have declined as a share of GDP. Meanwhile, wages for the very top income earners, "the 1%", have sharply increased. Either we've gone back to 19th-century unregulated capitalism...or the government is somehow involved. Also, Arizona Democrats are being forced to learn how laws work.

After a 2-week hiatus, we're back! We start with immigration, and the legal troubles of one of the least sympathetic 'migrant activists' ever. The Democratic Party of Ohio may have screwed up royally. The collapse of the 99c Store chain raises some troubling economic and cultural issues. And finally, the last hour covers Ukraine, and Anthony Blinken's statement that Ukraine would become a member of NATO. Why? Also, why does NATO still exist? And, to a larger issue: Russia is already a defeated power undergoing demographic collapse. Why are we trying to win harder?

In this episode, we recreate how institutional propaganda was manufactured, in real time, over the last 24 hours. In a speech given last night (16 Mar 24), Donald Trump promised a tariff on Chinese cars made in Mexico for export to the US, if he's elected. If not, he predicted that these cars would cause a bloodbath for the US auto industry. His comments were perverted by the media and the Biden campaign into a statement that not electing him would result in a bloodbath in America, as if Trump was promising some sort of coup. It's more glaring evidence that our sense-making institutions are not only fundamentally broken, but actively dishonest.

This week, we spend the first half of the podcast talking about the legal issues currently before the Supreme Court. We then move to discussions about Gaza, the budget, voting rights, and the Alabama Supreme Court decision that may sharply limit the availability of IVF treatment in that state.

This week, we discuss How the Trump civil fraud verdict is affecting potential real estate investment in New York. We then move to Trump's 60% win in the South Carolina primary, and what a Trump/Biden presidential campaign might look like. Then, we cover a large observational study of COVID vaccine side effects that was released this week, which seems to have unveiled new safety signals. SCOTUS is set to hear a case on social media regulation, challenging new laws passed in Texas and Florida. Finally, we discuss the possibility that America is entering another era of Isolationism, and what that might mean.

In our post-Superbowl return, we start with Tucker Carlson's interview of Vladimir Putin. We then address the strange coupling of US border security with approving more military support for Ukraine. Joe Biden apparently did inappropriately take classified documents home with him, going all the way back to his Senate days, but no one's going to do anything about that. Donald Trump, meanwhile, took a beating in a NY state court. We then muse about a possible security threat to the US that was hinted about this week. Finally, we note that all these stories are part of a series of converging threads of disaster, as things seem to be ever more quickly spinning out of control.

Today, we begin with Joe Biden, and the amusing consequences of wearing a hard hat backwards during a photo op. We then move to the immigration battle between the Federal government as Texas. Finally, we move to the release of recordings from a secret Zoom conference between government employees, NGOs, and activists to use their positions in the government to interfere in the 2020 election. All of these stories demonstrate the institutional failures that are leading us towards disaster. And, yes, Dale DID keep saying it was the 29th.

Apologies for the audio issue for the first few minutes. We start by discussing Ron DeSantis' withdrawal from the presidential race earlier today. The die is now cast. Barring illness or death of one or the other elderly gentleman, the 2024 race will, once again, be a Trump-Biden contest. Meanwhile, Atlanta prosecutor Fani Willis is facing allegations of impropriety in her prosecution of Donald Trump. Finally, we discuss an analysis that indicates North Korea may be preparing for another invasion of South Korea. We have to ask, is this something they're doing on their own, or could any such invasion be a diversionary action to set up a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, to force "reunification" on both Korea and China?