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  • Is the War in Ukraine the Reason for $6 Diesel?

    Is the War in Ukraine the Reason for $6 Diesel?
    2026/09/14
    The numbers say something more complicated than that.

    On Sunday the president was asked about fuel prices and answered by talking about Ukraine: "Mr. Zelensky has to do one thing. He has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia… Don't hit diesel fuel, because that's hurting, that's hurting the world." His Treasury Secretary and Energy Secretary had made the same argument in the two weeks before. Meanwhile the other side has spent six months saying the Iran war explains all of it.

    In this episode we check both. The President's claim turns out to be partly right, and nowhere near the whole story. The people saying Ukraine has nothing to do with it are wrong too.

    Along the way: why six-dollar diesel is a record in dollars but not in real terms, why crude oil is cheaper today than it was at the last diesel record, what a refining margin is and why it matters more than the price of a barrel, the inventory shortage the government forecast eleven months before the first missile, the honest problem with the $800-per-household figure in every headline this week, and the pipeline Saudi Arabia built forty years ago for exactly this situation — which was shut down by drones on Friday.

    Some questions have a clear answer. Some do not. We say which is which.
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    29 分
  • The $5,000 Promise: Is the Trump Dividend a Bribe?

    The $5,000 Promise: Is the Trump Dividend a Bribe?
    2026/09/10
    In this episode we take the claim apart in three pieces. Is it legal? Is it affordable? Is it going to happen? Along the way we look at what the vote-buying statute actually says, the 1982 Supreme Court case that settled the question, a near-identical promise Joe Biden made in Georgia in 2021, the Treasury's own tariff numbers, and the track record of this White House's earlier cash promises.

    ABOUT THIS PODCAST: Let's Be Reasonable is for people who are tired of the shouting. We look at what is actually happening. We ask what the evidence says. We try to work out what a reasonable person should make of it. This is not a channel that tells us what to think. Calm heads. Honest questions. Room to disagree.
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    23 分
  • An Armed Man, a Candidate, and a County Fair

    An Armed Man, a Candidate, and a County Fair
    2026/09/10
    An armed man, a candidate, and a county fair. That's how the story broke. The Democratic nominee for Ohio governor, Dr. Amy Acton, visited the Canfield Fair. A man lunged at her. He was armed. Two elderly people were knocked down. Within hours, "lunged" became "attack." On social media, "attack" became "assassination attempt." The other side called it a hoax. Then the actual facts started coming in. And they don't match either story. This is the first episode of Let's Be Reasonable. It's about an incident in our own backyard — but it's really about how we all got the story wrong before the facts arrived, and what a reasonable person should make of it now. We look at what the Acton campaign said, word for word. What the headlines turned it into. What the Mahoning County Sheriff and the Ohio State Highway Patrol reported. What Prosecutor Lynn Maro told the court. What the charges actually are. And what still isn't clear. The case is ongoing. The defendant has pleaded not guilty. Everything not established in court is alleged.
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    21 分