Plausibly Live! - The Official Podcast Of The Dave Bowman Show

After a rough night, the Rabbi and the Friar are up and at it to celebrate all things Balloon! A weird fish story has them not wondering WTF, while Flori-dah has them wondering WTF? A look at language has them saying putain de merde, Etm! The State of the Union is coming up this week... let's take bets on what JaBiden will say and not say!

Brutus has made it clear that he has major issues with the proposed Constitution. There are parts of it he accepts as acceptable and even well considered. That said, he also feels that those sections are more or less unimportant and having "fallacious appearances." After eviscerating the lack of a bill of rights, Brutus moves on to the next issue he has... the Legislature. He feels that it is not well considered, and will be subject to corruption and bribery. Moreover, he has a huge issue with how much property is being used for apportionment...

The fastest moving story in the world right now is the Chinese Spy Balloon over Montana. Of course, by now, it's probably over North Dakota. Given that we are the only nation ever successfully attacked via balloons, shouldn't we being doing a bit more than summoning ambassadors and twiddling our thumbs about it? For most of my life I have wondered how it is that two people can look at the same words on a page and see two polar opposite meanings? Back in High school my creative writing teacher told me how that can happen, but it took my Rabbi this week to remind me of it...

The merchant vessel, Arc Integrity, is making its way to Europe, carrying a cargo of military supplies for Ukraine. Specifically, it is carrying Bradley Armored Fighting Vehicles. some are speculating that the Russians could legally attack this ship as it is known to be carrying military supplies. The situation is not unlike that which faced Imperial Germany in 1915-1917. Is unrestricted submarine warfare worth the risks? Meanwhile, if you think that the Emperor has no clothes, you are a fool. And you're better off just going along with the scam...

In January of 1944, the Allies thought that they had found a way to crack the Gustav Line south of Rome. The bloody battles in Italy had the Allies stalled and desperate to move around the entrenched Nazi forces. From December of 1943 to June of 1944, almost 100,000 allied soldiers were casualties. Most of them, from two assaults intended to break the Gustav Line. On January 22nd, the Allies launched "Operation Shingle" as a part of the attempt to break out from the beachheads at Anzio. US Ranger Battalions headed to Cisterna as a a part of the overall assault force. What they did not know was that Army Intelligence had misread things, and the lightly held outposts that they expected were already abandoned. Instead, standing in the way was the German 715th Parachute Infantry and the powerful Herman Göring Division. Under strength and undertrained with numerous replacement troops, the Rangers soon found themselves surrounded and in full on combat with the best troops the Nazi's had to send.... I Survived

It's been a rough morning... lots of distractions and shiny objects that are pulling my attention elsewhere. For what it's worth though, I don't really care about the Pelosi tape. The truth is that you don't either, but we all have to pretend that we do because we've been told that we have to. In California (and everywhere else), there is big money in "servicing" the Homeless...

The Associated Press spent "the" week apologizing for the one sin that requires no atonement whatsoever. Somebody who works at the AP decided that in one of their stories they had referred to "the" French by a derogatory term. It's hard to imagine that such a term exists but in their mind, it does and they had offended "the" entire French world by using the offensive term. And the entire world, including "The" French, laughed at them. More classified documents, more fun. More turkeys, more straws... All this week on What "The" Frock?

There's a reason why there are traditions. They are, in point of fact, solutions to problems that have been long forgotten. And as the good book says, do not remove the boundary stone which your forefathers set...

Since 1947, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists have been telling us how much time we have as a species by annual showing us a clock face with the hands approaching midnight. This is used to symbolize the idea that we are almost about to doom ourselves for a variety of reasons ranging from hydrogen bombs to Vladimir Putin. No... I am not kidding. The thing is that since 1947, they have been entirely and utterly... well... wrong. If I had been 100% wrong for more than half a century, I'd like to think that I'd start wondering if I was doing this right? I told you a few days back that every single elected official in this country has Classified Documents in their offices, homes, etc. A thirteen hour search of the Presidents home determined that there were even more documents from his time as VEEP, while the last VEEP decided to jump into the game by outing himself as yet another political figure that never cared about or followed any of the rules that you would got to prison over.

Some months back a caller asked me what I thought was the "worst" Constitutional Amendment. He postulated that it was the 17th, which moved the election of US Senators from the State Legislature to the popular vote of a given State. Look, from a purely strict constructionist viewpoint - which by the by - NOBODY holds - every amendment from the progressive era has been "devastating." Some more than others, but all of them destructive to the original ideas of a strictly separated Federal and State system. That said, I have always believed that the 16th Amendment was the really destructive amendment. NOT because it established an income tax. What most people do not understand is that an income tax was always on the table. What the 16th Amendment did was remove the most effective deterrent to the income tax.... apportionment... and with the tearing down of that barrier, the door was opened for the Federal Government to subsume the States with, you guessed it, money...

The good news is that Kshama Sawant will not be on the Seattle City Council anymore. The bad news is she has a plan to infect the nation with her CHAZ/CHOP Socialism. Free speech is free speech, folks. If you need or feel compelled to use the power of law and government to force other people to think and say what you approve, then YOU are the tyrant. Period.

It seems like everywhere you turn, AI Chatbots are taking over the world. And maybe even WTF? It seems that religious leaders are starting to use AAI to write their sermons, which could be a problem because how in the name of G-d could an AI Chabot explain the Plague of Darkness which has Dave in a dither this week? The Conservative media world seems to be lost in a dispute over $20Million. either that or the people involved are just... well... stupid. Shrinkage has now been confirmed by science, while Shakira caught her cheating ex with some amazing detective work. And in Cincinnati, you'll have to choose which Mass to attend based on the position of the Priest... Beware the Darkness!

On January 20, 1942, more than a dozen high ranking officials of the Nazi Party and German government met over lunch in a villa outside Berlin. What they did around that table, over rich expensive foods and fine wines as their Army starved and froze in Stalingrad, reverberates today. It is understood that mans inhumanity to his fellow man is too common. But at this lunch meeting, that inhumanity reached a new, as yet unheard of height. In these two hours, hatred became wholesale murder. Discrimination became a de facto excuse for destruction. In just two hours, the Nazi government of Germany planned and began to implement "the Final Solution..."

When pressed as to why there wasn't a Bill of Rights contained in the proposed Constitution, James Madison had explained that if was believed that it would confuse the people into believing that the Bill was the limit of their rights, that no other rights existed. Over the years, I have come to question whether or not he truly believed that or was just being... well... a politician? Why? Because THE single issue which almost defeated the ratification of the Constitution was the lack of a Bill of Rights. And nobody was more vocal about it (in writing, anyway) than Brutus...

For whatever it's worth, I have friends who have been caught DUI. I don't love or respect them any less for that. But for the life of me, the idea that in 2023 we are still not only having DUI's but people are still being hurt by them is beyond my comprehension. Simply put, there is NO ONE, not one single person with a drivers license who does not know that you should not drink and drive. The question has become how much money is there in DUI? Because otherwise we'd be putting an end to it, not trying to make it even more precise of a crime.

Before the middle of the 19th century, the most famous American in the world was Benjamin Franklin. He was - as most people know - a scientist, an inventor, a printer, a writer, a socialite, a diplomat, a fashion icon and a humorist. Today we celebrate his birthday, with some of the things that you might not know about the man who some call "the First American..."

The Vice President of the United States is always one heartbeat away from the Presidency. Or these days, one box of CLASSIFIED documents from the Oval Office? Maybe? Or is all that just a conspiracy theory? Kinda like whether or not the climate induced cardiac events are actually happening. Or not? We've got a listener WTF and in the middle of that we learn that Prince Harry tried to kill the King. Once upon a time that would have gotten him sent to the Tower. Dave now knows why he takes the statins, and he's got big plans for when he wins the lottery!

The subject of gas lighting has become the topic du jour among chat shows these days. Mostly because the so-called leaders of the nation decided to float a trial balloon. Of course, the real problem is our worship of celebrity and powerful characters who don't just expect our worship, they absolutely demand it. In the meantime, you will be happy to know that the Presidents Corvette is safe and secure in his garage, thank you very much. Oh... along with the "CLASSIFIED" documents that he takes very seriously in the box next to it.

Back in 2014, Kevin fox and I had an interview with a guy who was talking about the coming California ark storm. At the time it seemed surreal and hard to imagine such a thing ever happening. Today though... that storm is not just here, but it's causing all the chaos that was predicted long ago. Seattle City schools is suing social media. All of it. why? Because, the district claims that the various forms of social media are causing substantial mental illnesses. Look... they're not wrong, it clearly is. But there are a whole lot of questions as to what this lawsuit is really about. Dave Does History hit a nerve yesterday. People only hear what they want to hear, which was, of course, the whole point of the episode.

In many ways, the United States always resembled republican Rome. By the last half of the first century bce, the republic was teetering on the edge. Corrupt politics, mounting debt to fund foreign wars, societal breakdowns that left long held traditional values in disrespect and disregard left the every day Roman wondering if the world had gone completely mad? As we look around our nation today, the parallels must be striking. The question is what happens next? Do we recover our republican form of government and manage to solve the innumerable problems that mushroom into full blown crises? If so... given how chaotic things seem today, Or... is there some leader out there who is determined to cross the Rubicon?