JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW podcast link:

http://wabcradio.com/sectional.asp?id=33447

Co-hoats: 

Mary Kissel, WSJ Editorial board

Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents

Thursday 905P Eastern Time: Mary Kissel, in re: Investors abandoning  copper, cotton,  and crude amid plunging prices and soaring volatility. Investors and traders reduced bets on 13 key commodity contracts by 19% in 2011.  Pres Obama as Jimmy Stewart (Mr Smith Goes to Washington).

Thursday 920P Eastern Time:  Andrew Shearer, Lowy Institute in Sydney, in re:  Australian PM and Minority Leader at Canberra Australia Day ceremony: roughed up by local, urban activists supporting rights and greater recognition for Aboriginals; they surrounded a restaurant, chanted and "carried on"; riot police called in; security had to encircle PM Gillard with shields and race her to a squad car.   Claim that Tony Ebbert spoke of the tent protest, which has been there for forty years and which he suggested might have made its point and could decamp, was a threat to tear it down. Aboriginal elders across Australia decried the violence, disavowed it.

A group of Papua, New Guinea, soldiers mutinied, placing the country's military chief, Brig. Gen. Francis Agwi, under house arrest in an apparently bloodless raid. 

Thursday 935P Eastern Time:  Rick Outzen, Pensacola Independent Daily News (from the Redneck Riviera - "You can't say that on air!"), in re: Santorum in Florida in the Panhandle on Thursday. Mitt on Saturday and Newt on Monday. They'll be flippin' flapjacks and kissing babies. Florida megachurches favoring Gingrich over Romney - apparently in an anti-Mormon movement. Ron Paul has an emotional following.  Jeb Bush is a big factor. Rick Scott is the kiss of death. Rubio slammed Newt for his anti-Romney anti-immigration ads; Gingrich hinted that Rubio might be a VP candidate. JB: Two mud-wrestlers; can we call the whole thing off and start fresh? Jeb Bush?  How 'bout "none of the above"?  RO: How did the Republican Party become so dysfunctional?  JB: a number of possible younger candidates decided to sit this out and wait for 2016.  As of this moment, Gingrich looks likely in the Panhandle.

Tracing SuperPAC media buys.

Thursday 950P Eastern Time:  Mary Kissel, in re:  FHFA, Mr DiMarco: head regulator oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both now in conservatorship. Feds want to expands these but cannot, as Ed DiMarco is protecting them legally. Pres Obama said in SOTU that he'd do an end-run and go directly to the FHA.

FHA reaches back to the Depression; Fannie and Freddie are more recent. All guarantee home loans. FHA is effectively becoming the new federal piggy bank. They're running huge delinquency rates. Ed Pinto at AEI is tracking this problem.  JB:  "Your mortgage is the same to this president as your vote."

Thursday 1005P (705P Pacific Time):  Malcolm Hoenlein, in re: ArabLeague has a plan on Syria, will present to the UN; spectators to Syria - deeply failed mission, now extended for another month; Russia will oppose action sanctioning Syria; Russia has $5bil of weapons in pipeline to Syria incl YAK130s; MIG 29s, missiles, and even a submarine. Assad was encouraged to hand over power to his deputy - considered evil - and Assad refused. Russia to be designated to offer Assad abris. Petition to remove Syria from UN bodies dealing with human rights. Russia and China won; move in any fashion vs Syria, since its protector is Iran. Today another 55 Syrians killed in Deraa, Damascus suburb.  Much internal strife, incl among members of uprising.  Hezbollah guards protecting Assad and Syrian army bases (photographs thereof).  Two hundred cars and buses leaving Lebanon to a pro-Assad rally in Syria: for warm bodies, and physical protection of Assad. All the region reads the weakness of the West. Four trucks of potent weapons caught in Turkey going form Iran to Syria - blatant violations and they thumb their noses.  

Thursday 1020P (720P Pacific Time):  Jonathan Schanzer, FDD, in re: Fatah/Hamas and status of Israeli-Palestinian talks. Noisy delegitimization campaign vs Israel - tried to be a nonvoting observer, like the Vatican - PA couldn't quite get the nine votes they needed in the Security Council, so they went through UNESCO.  UNESCO accepted the Palestinians as a proto-state - automatically defunding UNESO and destroying the organization in the process. The "peace negotiations" have been and are a wretched farce.  PA demands everything (no Israeli state, for one thing), won't talk otherwise; Israelis decline to commit suicide but glad to speak otherwise.  PA says it'll look like the anti-Apartheid divestiture campaign.  Say they now have 8-3/4 votes in SC. A credit to the US and Israel - a new sense of alarm. PA always says that if they don't get what they want they'll link with Hamas.  Hamas flirting with th Palestinian Islamic Jihad  Hams is a train wreck because its headquarters in Damascus is under siege, it lacks overall security,  is in a mess. Survival issue.  If they joined, wd it be Hamas joining Fatah or Fatah joining Hamas?  "Hamas is not a very transparent organization" - understatement of the epoch.

Thursday 1035P (735P Pacific Time):  Malcolm Hoenlein, in re: rial now 22,000 to the dollar, often drops 5% in a day. Food subsidies removed; Teheran govt can't afford them. In July, the European sanctions take effect. Russian is calling for a mtg of P5+1. Ahmadinejad travels incessantly,now toPakistan. , looking for investment in Iranian oil sector. Iranian funds to Hamas and Syria are radically diminished. Possible that the Iranian opposition - being tortured, beaten, killed - may return to the streets in this economic slough.

Saudi Peninsula: Bahrain is an obvious target, as it led the opposition to Saudis.  Saudi Eastern Province today: serious demonstrations (fomented by Iran) on which the police may have opened fire. Long dreaded by Saudis and everyone.

What will ISrael do about IRan?  No evidence that it'll do anything. Working instead with UN, US, Europe, to try to rein in Iran from making threats vs its neighbors.  Israeli defense minister today: Three considerations - 1. Israel's ability to act? (i.e., cause enough damage to delay the nuclear program?)  2 Necessity: all alternatives considered and tested?  3. Does Israel have overt or tacit support from the US and others, does it have intl legitimacy?

Malcolm was in North Carolina - visited Jonathan Pollard, who's been in jail for 20 years; has serious medical maladies; served 'way disporportionately. Even the guards treat him with respect.

Azerbaijan: caught a hit squad reporting to Iran intending to kill a rabbi.

Thursday 1050P (750P Pacific Time):  Robert Satloff, Washington Institute, in re: Egypt. Eighty-eight million people in a nation possibly heading toward economic collapse: "the worst failed state in history." Egyptians now desperate for stability - see the Muslim Brotherhood as relatively clean and not corrupt, so it got 47% of the vote, and the Salafis got another 20%.  MB now has the power and will take the state where it cares to. Has fought for power for seventy-plus years,, will not drop its core demands, incl Sharia law. MB fears the Saudi-variety Salafis more than anyone else, so will turn to the right to absorb those voters.  

Brutal oppression of Copts (10  to 15% of the population); they go back to the origins of Egypt, predating the Muslim, and its MB policy to make them all leave. Also, have $17 to 18 bil in bank reserves, no tourism, no direct foreign investment - and not likely to the MB/Salafist government!  Tinderbox. 

Sinai is the real challenge.

Thursday 1105P (805P Pacific Time):  Daniel Freedman, Soufan Group and co-author of The Black Banners [9/11 and alQ], in re: Syria. Arab League has a plan at Security Council to remove Assad and change the regime.  Can this work? Probably not - Russia declines and will veto. Unwise: as Assad leaves, the Muslim Brotherhood will take over.  Arab League mission has obviously failed. What to do now?  Ariel Sharon said he preferred the devil he knows - Assad - to the other devil, the Muslim Brothers, who'll be even more hostile to Israel and the West than the Assads are.  Turkey vs Syria: possible military conflict at the border; big factor is what outside powers - US, Russia, China - do.  When people are in a corner, they take drastic steps, q.v., Gaddafi; Burmese generals. Libya and Egypt: we have to be very careful of what we unleash.  JB: Assad is not welcome anywhere; a great career move would be death.  DF: Simply see what his father did.  Cf, Mugabe and Kims in DPRK. Will do anything to heir own people. Very hard for an opposition to remove a tyrant, esp someone who;ds happy to mow down his own people; Gadaffi removed only because of outside intervention, NATO.

Thursday 1120P (820P Pacific Time):    Yaakov Katz, military correspondent & defense analyst for The Jerusalem Post, & Israel correspondent for Jane's Defence Weekly, in re:  Hamas moved some of its weapons productions lines to Sinai because Israel can't bomb: wd be a violation of Egyptian territory.  The 1979 demilitarization treaty notwithstanding, Israel has allowed Egypt to move troops int Sinai. Gas from Egypt to Israel - pipeline been blown up repeatedly. Almost every night people spotted on Egyptian side: smugglers? Terrorists?

Libya has opened storehouses and arms caches Hamas couldn't have dreamt of  - SA24 shoulder-fired missiles now in Gaza Strip. Egypt has caught a lot of stockpiles - high-quality explosives. Gaza is nothing like what it was during Cast Lead in 2009; now, sophisticated Russian long-range arms, mortars, a huge volume of greater power.  Israel has the capacity to deal with all this, but it's noteworthy. Trophy shoots up [chaff?] against new antitank missiles. Joint US-Israel exercise cancelled: preparing for something bigger?  Also wouldn't ant to implicate the US.

Thursday 1135P (835P Pacific Time):  Melissa Eddy, International Herald Tribune, in Berlin,  in re: Mein Kampf: not for selling in Germany. Bavarian court intervenes and stops annotated version in a magazine.

Thursday 1150P (850P Pacific Time):  Dan Henninger, WSJ, in re: GOP practices MA - mutually-assured destruction - for the nomination.

Thursday/Fri 1205A (905 Pacific Time):  Roya Hakakian, author, Assassins of the Turquoise Palace, I of II

Thursday/Fri  1220A (920 Pacific Time):  Roya Hakakian, author, Assassins of the Turquoise Palace, II of II

Thursday/Fri  1235A (935P Pacific Time):   Andrew Shearer, Lowy Institute in Sydney, in re:  Australian PM and Minority Leader at Canberra Australia Day ceremony: roughed up by local, urban activists supporting rights and greater recognition for Aboriginals; they surrounded a restaurant, chanted and "carried on"; riot police called in; security had to encircle PM Gillard with shields and race her to a squad car.   Claim that Tony Ebbert spoke of the tent protest, which has been there for forty years and which he suggested might have made its point and could decamp, was a threat to tear it down. Aboriginal elders across Australia decried the violence, disavowed it. 

A group of Papua, New Guinea, soldiers mutinied, placing the country's military chief, Brig. Gen. Francis Agwi, under house arrest in an apparently bloodless raid. 

Thursday/Fri  1250A  (950P Pacific Time): Exeunt.  Jack Ewing, International Herald Tribune, fro Davos, inre; the mood of worry about capitalism, democracy, Europe, and China.

..  ..  ..  

Music

Hour 1

Downtown Abbey by various artists
Proposition by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis
True Grit by Carter Burwell

Hour 2

Game of Thrones by Ramin Djawadi
Defiance by James Newton Howard

Hour 3

Flight of the Phoenix by Marco Beltrami
Valkyrie by John Ottman

Hour 4

Munich by John Williams
Proposition by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis

..  ..  ..