Observations: The Qando Podcast

After a couple of weeks away due to medical issues, we're back! The Democrats had their presidential debate. They want to give everything away for free. Especially if you're an immigrant. We didn't go t war with Iran, so that's a good thing. Mainly we just tried to catch up on everything we missed while I away.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller went on national TV to say he couldn't find evidence to support a prosecution of President Trump. He continued by saying that he couldn't prove Trump didn't commit a crime. That was about one sentence too far, as Attorney General Barr quickly made clear. Hopefully, we can now get to the bottom of the whole means by which this investigation was started in the first place. Trump spoke to sailors in Japan on Memorial Day, during a ceremony in which the Navy either did, or did not, hide the USS John McCain from the president's view. In response to Georgia's newly-implemented abortion restrictions, Disney announced that doing business in that sate would be...problematic. Meanwhile, they're opening a new park in...wait for it...Saudi Arabia. Nancy Pelosi may be--frighteningly enough--the smartest Democrat in the House of Representatives.

Attorney General Bill Barr now has authority to declassify all the records about the Mueller collusion investigation, and its origins. This should be interesting. Theresa May had one job as Great Britain's Prime Minister. She failed. Now it's someone else's turn. Naomi Wolf learned live on Radio 3 in the UK that the central thesis of her new book is based on a misunderstanding of a legal term. Some fellow regaled Twitter with a long story about how he and a buddy accidentally stole a brick of heroin from MS-13. Now he says the story's fake, and he's set upa GoFundMe to finance his attempt to flee into hiding. How threatening is the advent of AI to our social and political order? And, considering that we have a gotcha culture where the slightest anti-PC infraction can deprive you of your livelihood, how could it get any worse?

After Dale's appendectomy, the podcast is back from hiatus, though without an ailing Bruce. Technically, this is the third podcast attempt of the evening. There were...issues. But finally, everything worked long enough for Michael and Dale to discuss how awful the media is. Alabama's new abortion law, but it's probably headed straight for Federal court. Universities are morphing into 5-year academies for barista training. Apple may be facing bad news on the anti-trust front. The people who run the SAT for college admissions have come up with a fantastic idea for making the SAT utterly useless.Our politics has turned into vicious arguments for the lowest stakes imaginable.

New information this week indicates that the FBI--and perhaps the CIA--were, in fact, spying on the Trump campaign. Moreover, the Mueller report may...misstate how some of the players became involved and when. Bill Barr, the AG, was roasted by Democrats this week, and one wonders how much of it is sincere, and how much of it is pre-emptive attacks on Barr's credibility in anticipation of upcoming criminal referrals that may reflect badly on the FBI--and on some Democrats. Bruce and Dale argue that they were in the real military, before it got so soft and cushy. Venezuela is melting down, but that's not really our problem. It may, however, be Brazil's.

Uncle Joe--Biden, not Stalin--has joined the 2020 Democratic race for president. Whether he can overcome the testosterone-laden stench of maleness, or the scintillating glare of his whiteness to win the nomination is an open question. But, probably not. In any event, the Dems are putting together quite a weird list of policy proposals, though they may appeal to the murderers in jail who would presumably vote for them. The American media sucks. Even the Brits do better "Florida Man" stories than the US media. Things in Asia are getting interesting. While American politicans treat Russia as a world-spanning global opponent (they aren't), China is calmly, quietly building a blue-water navy, and going around poking stuff with a stick to see how we might respond.

We finally have the Mueller Report, which tells us 1) there was no collusion with Russia, and 2) Donald Trump is a bit of an asshole. Some Democrats are already calling for impeachment, but they're mainly the same ones who've been calling for impeachment for months. Can the Democratic majority in the House stop themselves from trying to impeach the president? Seems like a high-risk strategy, especially when ongoing investigations into how the whole Trump inquiry got started are still pending. The media is howling for impeachment non-stop, though, so we'll see what happens. Also, a brief look at popular culture, and why rigidly expressing a single point of view has made it so boring.

We're back, after a 1-week medical hiatus. This week, AG Barr said it's clear that the government was spying on the Trump campaign, a charge Democrats rejected. They prefer to refer to it as the secret gathering of information by anonymous intelligence agents. Hopefully, we'll get the appropriate evidence. And that some of these spies go to jail. This business of government officials getting a pass for misconduct is getting old. Many Democrats are running for president, but the one guy who could clearly defeat Trump, crazy Uncle Joe Biden, probably can't win the nomination. Politicians are generally corrupt buffoons, by the way. Transformative technologies are changing our lives, and hopefully won't leave us all unemployed.

The certainty of President Trump's collusion with the Russians has been replaced by certainty that the president obstructed justice. Or something. Jussie Smollett, for some reason, got to walk away from the 16 felony charges without admitting any guilt. The Spotlight is on Chicago DA Kim Foxx, as the state's association of district attorneys--and the DoJ--wonder how this prosecution got handled in the way it did. Democrats now feel that Joe Biden has a history of touching women inappropriately. This comes about 6 years after everybody else noticed it. Similarly, Pete Buttigeig, some Democrats say, is too white male to be elected, even though he is gay. AOC says the Green New deal would only cost $300 billion, even though everyone else says it's $93 trillion.

Just a few hours prior to the podcast, Robert Mueller delivered his investigation's report to the Department of Justice. The contents of the report are still unknown, though DoJ insiders say no prosecutions will result from the report. This doesn't stop the news media, and us, from speculating about the implications. What do we do about Google and other major tech companies, who increasingly control our public discourse? It's hard to know. Various peculiarities of the Democratic candidates for president are amusing. The big volcano outside of Mexico City, Popocpep--Potopoc--Pocapacap--the big volcano outside of Mexico City appears to be in danger of a major eruption. The SPLC's leadership has resigned, but new leadership to continue the profitable scam is being sought.

In Christchurch, NZ, a gunman entered two mosques and opened fire, killing dozens, and wounding many more, broadcasting it live on Facebook. Some Hollywood stars, among others, were arrested for felonies related to cheating to get their children into college. It might be understandable to commit a felony to get your kid into Harvard, but USC? That isn't worth more than a class C misdemeanor, surely. A bunch of testimony related to the FBIs involvement in the 2016 election was released. How 1/3 of the inhabitants of the FBI headquarters aren't already in jail is baffling. More Democrats have jumped into the 2020 presidential election ring. This should be...interesting.

Rep. Ilhan Omar said some stuff about Jews. Not good stuff, either, so Congress got together to censure her. But, after talking about it, decided a declaration that "hating stuff is bad" was good enough for government work. Paul Krugman observed that the Democratic party's anti-Semites were a much better class of Jew-hater than the Repubican ones. This country is heading down the tubes. In the meantime, though, it's still possible to live well. Still, it might be wise to teach your children how to use spears and bows and arrows. You know, just in case.

The Trump-Kim summit in Vietnam ended abruptly, because either Donald Trump's Korea policy is a total failure, or because Donald Trump is as wise as Reagan at Reykjavik. Take your pick. Michael Cohen went before Congress this week and said things. Republicans said everything they disagreed with were lies. Democrats said everything they disagreed with were lies, too. Nt sure where that leaves us, really. Two of the world's nuclear-armed states were, once again, at the brink of war this week. Ho-hum. Thre Green New Deal is estimated now to cost between $55-$98 trillion dollars over the next decade. Paying for it will require only a 100% income tax on all incomes over $30,000. So, you know, it's very affordable. Bernie Sanders, in fact, says it doesn't go far enough, presumably because it doesn't mention gulags. The author of the Green New Deal, AOC, continued to amaze the world with her wisdom.

The Jussie Smollett case reached a climax with his arrest by the Chicago Police Department for Disorderly Conduct and Filing a False Police report. CPD allege that Mr. Smollett wrote himself a threatening letter, then hired his assailants. We received this announcement with the appropriate shock and surprise. The 2019 Democratic presidential field seems eager to engage in a race to see who can more convincingly assure the voters that their election will usher in True Communism. AOC made it to Reuters "Top News" feed with a video showing her being licked by a happy dog. Top. News. The Supreme Court unanimously dealt a blow to states' asset forfeiture programs by announcing that certain programs were unconstitutional. Members of our vaunted political class are just as stupid and venal as the stupidest and most venal regular person you know.

Two men were arrested by CPD in the attack on Jussie Smollett. Apparently, Nigerians really love "MAGA Country". Amazon decided not to build a new HQ in NYC, prompting idiots to plan using their $3 billion in tax abatement to repair the subway, despite the fact that there is no $3 billion, nor will there be an additional $27 billion in tax revenues, or 25,000 new jobs, because money is not magical. Andrew McCabe detailed, then quickly backed away from, an admission that FBI officials discussed overturning the 2016 election through use of the 25th Amendment. One wonders what the new Attorney General thinks of all this. CA Governor Gavin Newsome finally admitted what the rest of us have known for a couple of years, which is that the bullet train project is utter BS.

Alexadria Ocasio-Cortez released her Green New Deal plan. Apparently, in the next 10 years, we will eliminate all air travel, the internal combustion engine, and rebuild every building in the United States. And the question isn't how we'll pay for all that, but how we'll deal with our new shared prosperity. And how to get to Hawaii. Apparently, every politician in the Commonwealth of Virginia has either dressed in blackface, or assaulted a woman. Donald Trump got his SOTU Address in, and trolled the Democrats without them realizing.

Jussie Smollet got attacked in Chicago by...somebody. His story can't seem to be confirmed by the police, but, who cares, it matches the preferred narrative.about 1,000 democrats are running for the presidential nomnation, including that Starbucks guy, Schultz, except he's running as an independent. Liz Warren had to apologize to the Cherokee tribe for her DNA test, in order to gun up her presidential run.

Catholic high school students were widely reported to have used their white privilege to start a confrontation with people of color and a wise native American elder. But it didn't happen that way. The kids, it turns out, were mobbed by lunatics. Not that the truth prevented the media from running with the former story...until it fell apart. Donald Trump "caved" on the border wall, and assented to re-opening the government. We have the feeling he's going to declare a national emergency on the border and build his damned wall anyway. An FBI SWAT team showed up at 5AM in Florida this morning to arrest noted criminal Roger Stone. Usually, you're supposed to ustify SWAT raids via some expectation of violence. I guess they thought that it was too dangerous to give Stone the chance to get to a wardrobe, get dressed, and blind the FBI agents with his sense of style and fashion. Noted political prisoner Jim Acosta published a book, detailing the dangers of being a brave truth-teller in AmeriKKKa.

Nancy Pelosi, et al., were on an Air Force bus, being driven to an Air Force base to catch an Air Force plane to Brussels, when Donald Trump canceled their flight, saying it was inappropriate for them to jet off to Belgium while the government was shut down. Hilarity ensued. Buzzfeed released a story from unidentified sources, saying that the Mueller investigation had proof that Donald Trump ordered Michael Cohen to lie to Congress. For nearly a day, progressives got "President Pelosi" trending on Twitter. There were only two problems. Mueller's public spokesman released a statement saying the story was wrong, and getting rid of Trump won't make Nancy Pelosi president. Gillette decided that the best way to sell men's razors was to tell men that they were assholes. This may not have been the best ad campaign available. PM Theresa May's Brexit plan crashed in flames in Parliament. They then voted down a No Confidence vote and dumped the whole mess back in her lap. A No Deal Brexit looms in March, and a lot of B

It's a new year, which means it's time to kick off a new season of the podcast. Several things happened during our hiatus. None of them particularly good. The Government shutdown entered it's third week this week, with neither side budging. All Democrats have to do over the next two years is not be crazy, and they're failing at that. On, the other hand, Iowa Republican Congressman Steve King publicly asked why people say "white supremacy" like it's a bad thing, so there's plenty of stupidity to go around. Sargon of Akkad was kicked off of Patreon, and went to SubscribeStar, after which Paypal and Stripe stopped processing payments for SubscribeStar. This is beginning to look a lot like collusion. Alexandra Ocasio Cortez can't explain how to fund her policies, but she sure can do a sexy, undulating little dance. So, she's got that going for her.