PODCAST · politics
Observations: The QandO Podcast
by Questions and Observations
Discussions and commentary about politics, from a libertarian point of view, presented by the QandO weblog staff, as well as forays into podcast, popular culture, humor, and whatever else grabs their attention.
Episodes
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That Sweet Tariff Money
The week, Dale starts by discussing Donald's Trump's long-standing, yet inexplicable, love for tariffs. Then he moves on to the surprising notion that Donald Trump realizes that the post-WWII "Rules-Based International Order" has come to an end. We've reverted to the normal international...
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Lawfare
This week, we discuss the various legal strategies being used to stop Donald Trump from implementing his executive orders.
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Shock and Awe
If you thought Donald Trump did a lot in the first two weeks of his second term, his third week in office showed that he's the most radical president elected since 1932.
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External Revenue
This week, Dale and Michael discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly of Donald Trump's first two weeks in office. And tariffs.
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Old Man Yells at Cloud
Joe Biden kicked off his last weekend as president by simply declaring the Equal Rights Amendment had been magically ratified as the 28th Amendment to the Constitution, like it was a real thing. Meanwhile, Donald Trump, after spending the last four years threatening to shut down TikTok, and even...
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Incompetence or Malevolence?
This week's wildfires in LA are a perfect illustration of a government system, at all levels, whose policy results are so negative that one has to ask an important question. Is our government completely incompetent, or is it actively malevolent?
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President Musk
This week, we discuss the big victory that Elon, Vivek, and DOGE scored against Congress, and it's duplicitous Continuing Resolution. It's an amazing first victory, especially since DOGE doesn't even officially exist yet, and Donald Trump still isn't president. On the other hand, whether victory...
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Game of Drones
In this podcast, we discuss the downfall of the Assad regime in Syria, and take a deep dive into the drone sightings mystery.
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Not Revenge, but a Reckoning
The assassination of United Healthcare's CEO has exposed a dark movement in American culture.
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This...is History
Seventy-eight years ago, the WWII allies, calling themselves the United Nations, created the international settlement we've lived under since then. But that settlement no longer reflects the world we live in. Trump's threat to levy 100% tariffs on the BRICs nations is a failure to recognize that...
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Observations for 17 Nov 24
Donald Trump's executive department nominations have been met with varying levels of shock and disbelief in Washington, DC. In this podcast, we take a deep dive into the nominations Trump has made so far.
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Observations for 10 Nov 24
The 2024 Election is over, and Donald Trump looks to have taken it by a clean sweep. The wailing and gnashing of teeth on the left seems to indicate that they've learned nothing from defeat. But the more interesting question is what, if anything, Donald Trump has learned from his previous...
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Observations for 03 Nov 24
With two days left before the 2024 election, we try to get a sense of how things will go on Tuesday. TL;DR: We have no idea. We'll see when we do the Election Livestream on Tuesday night.
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Observations for 27 Oct 24
Both polling and betting averages have now switched over to favor Donald Trump to win the 2024 presidential election. We may be seeing the same sort of preference cascade that we saw with the Reagan-Carter race in 1980, where the electorate shifted strongly in the last two weeks of the campaign....
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Observations for 13 Oct 24
The Feds have launched a lawsuit against the state of Virginia for removing non-citizens from the Voter rolls. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris put out a new commercial, showing real men doing really manly things, in what may be the cringiest and least convincing political ad ever. Finally, the Democrats...
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Observations for 06 Oct 24
Despite assuring us that they're on top of things, reports from the scene of the devastation in North Carolina indicate that, once again, FEMA is incapable of responding to a disaster quickly or competently. Plus, we look at how changes in both parties are resulting in a massive re-alignment in...
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Observations for 22 Sep 24
Nearly every major institution in every Western country suffers from a crisis of legitimacy. Government's won't deliver on the policies the electorate wants. The news media won't tell the factual, objective truth. Entertainment is more interested in ideology than entertaining. Education has…
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Observations for 15 Sep 24
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...
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Observations for 08 Sep 24
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…
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Observations for 01 Sep 24
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.
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Observations for 25 Aug 24
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...
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Observations for 18 Aug 24
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.
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Observations for 11 Aug 24
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.
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Observations for 28 Jul 24
This week, we start by discussing the Democrats' switch from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris as their party's presidential nominee. But looking at how the changeover was handled raises issues of how American media is increasingly propagandized and, even more frighteningly, the rise of what Michael...
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Observations for 14 Jul 24
This week, we discuss the events surrounding the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
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Observations for 07 Jul 24
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....
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Observations for 30 Jun 24
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...
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Observations for 23 Jun 24
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…
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Observations for 09 Jun 24
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…
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Observations for 02 Jun 24
This week, we have one topic: Donald Trump's conviction in New York.
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Observations for 19 May 24
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.
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Observations for 12 May 24
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.
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Observations for 05 May 24
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...
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Observations for 28 Apr 24
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…
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Observations for 21 Apr 24
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…
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Observations for 14 Apr 24
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…
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Observations for 07 Apr 24
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...
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Observations for 17 Mar 24
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…
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Observations for 03 Mar 24
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.
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Observations for 25 Feb 24
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…
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Observations for 18 Feb 24
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…
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Observations for 28 Jan 24
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,...
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Observations for 21 Jan 24
[Apologies for the audio issues in 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....
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Observations for 14 Jan 24
It's the day before the Iowa Caucus, and we look ahead at what it means. Are the polls correct, with Donald Trump Having a lock on victory? Or is something else going on? What does it mean for the nomination race? Democrats are already prepping the electoral battlefield, declaring Donald Trump to...
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Observations for 07 Jan 24
Our holiday hiatus is over, so we're back to talk about Trump's "removal" from the Primary ballot in CO and ME. We also discuss Claudine Gay's resignation from the presidency of Harvard.
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Observations for 17 Dec 23
After we discuss the cultural implications of a senate staffer recording themselves having sex with another man in a US Senate hearing room, we turn to legal matters. Rudy Giuliani lost a $148.1 million jury verdict in the defamation case bought by two Georgia election workers. Meanwhile, Sidney...
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Observations for 10 Dec 23
Interest payments on the National Debt have ballooned to $900 billion per year. For the first time in two decades, debt service now costs more than the entire military budget of the United States. This is not a sign of good economic times ahead. In other news, Hunter Biden's sweetheart deal from...
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Observations for 03 Dec 23
It was a bit of a rough start, since Dale forgot to hit the Go Live button, but we first get into how House Democrats are abandoning "Bidenomics" as a 2024 Election slogan. We move from there into the many other failures of the Biden Administration. Whatever the policy area may be: Defense…
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Observations for 19 Nov 23
Libertarian anarcho-capitalist Javier Milei has won the presidential election in Argentina. Putting aside the irony of an anarcho-capitalist running the government, his victory makes us wonder if he can actually implement actual change to Argentina's political culture, which has largely been a...
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Observations for 12 Nov 23
The American body politic, and indeed, that of the entire West, has been infested with Progressives. They control every major cultural institution. At this point, it doesn't matter whether the capture was the result of an intentional "Long March Through the Institutions", or happened organically....
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Discussions and commentary about politics, from a libertarian point of view, presented by the QandO weblog staff, as well as forays into podcast, popular culture, humor, and whatever else grabs their attention.
HOSTED BY
Questions and Observations
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Observations: The QandO Podcast currently has 50 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Observations: The QandO Podcast about?
Discussions and commentary about politics, from a libertarian point of view, presented by the QandO weblog staff, as well as forays into podcast, popular culture, humor, and whatever else grabs their attention.
How often does Observations: The QandO Podcast release new episodes?
Observations: The QandO Podcast has 50 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
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Observations: The QandO Podcast is created and hosted by Questions and Observations.
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