Observations: The Qando Podcast

The Trump Press Conference sent the media into a tizzy, whereupon the AP Printed a negative story on Trump that immediately turned out to be untrue. The Media are nothing more than partisan cheerleaders. Americans just love them some opium. They'd like more jobs, too. An attempt at a lengthy discussion of monetary policy was brutally crushed. We can't seem to do big things in this country any more, especially infrastructure projects. Mainly, the Federal government is why. Why is nationalism such a dirty word among the elites? Mainly because they don't have to live with the consequences. Elites never do.

The 9th Circuit ruled that Donald Trump's Immigration ban was anti-Muslim. Fortunately, it's the 9th Circuit, so nothing they say matters. Betsy DeVos is now the Secretary of education, a job that shouldn't even be a thing. On the bright side, our education system sucks so badly, she can't possibly make it worse. Will Donald Trump grow in office? Is Mike Flynn a bad government servant? Our national divorce approaches. Jeff Sessions, our new Attorney General, hates the drugs, but he loves civil asset forteiture.

Everything is a crisis, and everything is unprecedented in the new Trump Administration. Apparently, political violence is perfectly OK. Hate speech is not free speech. Sarah Silverman called for a military coup. Really, the two political sides in this country don't like each other much.

Tanned, rested, and ready, Bruce McQuain rejoins the podcast. The first week of the Trump Administration is now over. We still can't really believe that he's actually the president, but he is, and he spent much of the week undoing the Obama Administration's legacy. The Left is still in full mental derangement over this. We're about to find out if it's possible for a US president to take on the news media and win. Education in this country sucks. Oh, and Bruce is back on the podcast!

Donald J. Trump became the 45th president of the United States today. SJWs screamed in anguish, and prepared themselves to be carted off to camps. Normal people went about their lives. Now we're about to find out what Trump's actual policies will be, other than the big wall that Mexico will pay for, and things becoming generally, you know, great again. Hyperpartisanship is not just polluting our politics, but our culture and science, as well. The class of rulers that have governed us since the end of WWII are facing increasingly skeptical publics not only here, but in Europe as well.

What is Donald Trump's attraction to Russia, aside from the entertainment options available from Russian sex workers? The press, led by Buzzfeed, beclowned themselves this week. Maybe it's time to stop simply complaining about media bias on the Right, and start treating the press like political enemies. Trump seems to perceive China as our real geopolitical opponent. Also, let's discuss everything you never wanted to know about military procurement.

2017 has arrived, and we're back for another year! Has any President-Elect ever wielded influence like Trump, before taking office? The Seal of the Speaker of the House is apparently a Nazi symbol. Obama now has Romney's 2012 foreign policy, and Trump has Obama's 2012 foreign policy when it comes to Russia. Julian Assange is now our friend, Sean Hannity says. The Yahoo! Finance headline was supposed to say "BIGGER navy". "Bigger." Who is Evan McMullin? Who cares? If you're worried about Russian hacking, maybe don't use "password" as your password.

The Trump cabinet shapes up, consisting mainly of cabinet officers that dislike the departments they'll be heading. Except for Jim Mattis, of course. CHY-nah seems to be in the Trump Administration's crosshairs. Nazis are no longer allowed to sell pistachios. Vladimir Putin keeps playing hacking games with the elections in Western democracies. Also, Russians are racist and misogynist, but at least we get hot, mail-order brides out of it. We go into holiday hiatus, but will be back with the podcast in January. Also, Dale celebrate 8 days of being smoke-free.

Dale announces that he has been smoke-free for 24 hours, but declines to say whether he can actually quit smoking. We'll see. Trump picks some cabinet members, then sticks his finger in China's eye. Good thing Jim Mattis is gonna be SecDef. SJWs are ridiculous. A fantastically interesting conversation about the Gold Standard occurs. We bemoan the regulatory state. Then we notice the Democrats seem to have learned no lessons from the recent election; Nancy Pelosi retains her leadership of House Democrats, who apparently think 60 seats lost under her leadership isn't enough. The ACA is collapsing.

Both Dale and Michael are mentally exhausted, resulting in a long, rambling, disjointed podcast, beginning with a long, dull story about buying a new motorcycle. They then move to Trump's nominees for various positions, all of whom are, of course, racists as bad as Hitler, or just superannuated GOP hacks. College is increasingly useless, so *that* bubble should die already. Google safe search is your friend.

Our long, national nightmare is truly over, and the Clinton Dynasty no longer hangs over our neck like a millstone. No one saw the Trump victory coming, even though they should've. The Left is having the biggest temper tantrum ever, while Democrats have the worst electoral result since Reconstruction. Prediction: Donald Trump will not put gays and Jews into camps. Obama's response to the Trump win has been gracious and the nation should appreciate the peaceful transition of power. Who's going to pay for the big infrastructure program? Will The Wall be built (We already know who'll pay for that if it is)? In 1980, Ronald Reagan was an "amiable dunce" who'd get us into a nuclear war. In 1988, we thought of him differently. Will we think differently of Donald Trump when his presidency ends? The podcast ends on a note of, unbelievably, cautious optimism.

The presidential race is tightening. Or is it? We don't know. We don't know anything. Will Twitter die, and if so, whatever will we do? The Cubs win the World Series. Brexit? Not so fast. Google got two AI's to talk to each and built their own encryption for their conversation, and now, no one knows what they're saying to each other, which is not frightening at all. The AIs are coming. Virtual Reality is on the way, too, and you can already buy porn for your Oculus Rift. The New Puritans need to be slapped down. Thank goodness for the Obama Era's racial healing.

There's a chicken-duck-woman thing waiting for us. The FBI seems to have reopened the email investigation on Hillary Clinton, because Anthony Wiener is the gift that keeps on giving. I thought we had already established that she was above the law, so there's no need to address this moving forward. Vladimir Putin is a scary guy. The Chinese are somewhat less so. Apple's new Macbooks have no touchscreen and a shitty keyboard. On the other hand, they're 30% more expensive, so there's that. Obamacare is crashing, so expect to have single-payer health care in the next four years.

The last debate is over...FINALLY! We now cruise towards an election with Trump losing badly in traditional polls, but ahead in the tracking polls. Is there a hidden silent majority for Trump? We're not betting on it. Dale is reading a lot about Rome, and makes a lot of tendentious parallels between Ancient Rome and modern America. The Cubs may do something no Living American has ever seen. Football will disappear within 20 years. Michael talks about golf, and Dale's attempt to have fun with that goes terribly wrong, making the last five minutes of the podcast unlistenable.

Donald Trump is a boor, which we already knew. The media has abandoned any pretense of objectivity, and gone all in for Hillary Clinton. How do you fix a biased media? You dont. Not easily, anyway. Meanwhile, Milwaukee sheriff David Clarke says a riot is an ugly thing, but it's about time we had one. The US looks like it collapsing slowly, in the same way the Roman Republic did...we're just waiting to see who our Julius Caesar is. But, maybe, just maybe, we can avoid that with a Constitutional Convention. How much of the GOP's decline can be based on the Entertainment Wing? Oh, also, Russia and China are dangerous.

Donald Trump's...um...intemperate remarks about women hit the airwaves, and got wall-to-wall coverage. So, it looks like Ted Cruz picked the wrong week to release a photograph of him making phone calls for the Trump Campaign. Anyway, the disaster that is Election 2016 continues apace. With the election almost in the bag, why are Dems cheating so much? Popular culture is sending us subtle messages that are hard to pick up, but dramatically affect our thinking. Also, the educational system in this country is a frickin' disaster.

If this week's podcast had a single thread running through all our topics...it would be interesting and listenable. But it doesn't. So...Anyway, we talk about Donald Trump's inability to forego responding to criticism. We know exactly what kind of horrific disaster a Hillary presidency will be, but we don't know what kind of horrific calamity a Trump presidency would be, though we know it would be one. How can we protect Cuba's unique culture of poverty and despair from being lost to tourism and money? Dale updates us on the status of his Volvo, and tells Michael what car to buy. We then just swap car stories for an hour. We finish up by discussing how women fail to understand that men live in a world where a smart mouth can get you punched.

Ted Cruz announced his endorsement of Donald Trump, and #NeverTrump went apoplectic. Meanwhile Trump tightens the race with Hillary to a neck and neck contest, according to the wildly unreliable polls. So, the contest is now down a preference for a candidate who will start Civil War II at home, or World War III abroad. The Fed has no tools left to fix the economy or to unwind the monetary lossening they've already made. Michael went to the MRC gala, which sounds like a hoot. Dale continues to wait for an iPhone 7, and notes that innovation at Apple is as dead as fried chicken.

Donald Trump disavows Obama Birtherism, and says it was all Hillary's fault, anyway. Hillary takes time out from convalescing to campaign a bit, looking hale and healthy. For now. Not that we'll know how healthy she actually is, unless she collapses again. There'll never be another movement Conservative as President, because Americans want their free stuff. Finally, remember to stand, sit, or kneel for the National Anthem.

The Seattle Seahawks may do an anti-flag protest on Sunday...the Anniversary of 9/11. Because justice. Donald Trump loves black people. Europeans have much better banking and cell phone technology than we do. The Big Short is a great movie that explains how deeply cronyist corruption has spread in our financial system, and also has Margo Robbie in a bubble bath explaining credit swaps. Wells Fargo fired 5,300 employees for creating 1.5 million fraudulent banking accounts to collect service fees from unknowing customers. Apple announced the new iPhone this week, along with the fact that they no longer do innovation. But, really, who does, anymore?