The John Batchelor Show

Friday 22 May 2020

Air Date: 
May 22, 2020

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
 
Hour One
Friday 22 May 2020  / Hour 1, Block A:  Dan Henninger, @DanHenninger, WSJ editorial board & columnist, Wonder Land; in re: Joe Biden and his presidency. There’s a movement [among Democrats] toward nationalizing everything that anyone can reach—airlines, how we do business. Three trillion dollars in a mind-numbing figure. One trillion that Mrs Pelosi wants to ship out the states: it’s about nationalizing the blue-state model of governments—supporting he public sector, and a welfare state (“Third law of Democratic thermodynamics: spending can expand to infinity.”)  Biden: “We have an opportunity to transform the economy.” The left has goals, strategy, game plan—to control this at the state level—and hope to control Senate.  It's about power and control.  Biden appointed Bernie Sanders and AOC to chair his committee on climate change. The left finds Klobuchar to be anathema.  Joe Biden: a leftie? a moderate? We don't know. He’s probably willing to do or say anything he needs to say. Will Trump be able to create a clear distinction between that and what Trump stands for?  -- “Nationalizing, a/k/a socialism.”
Friday 22 May 2020  / Hour 1, Block B:  Jeff Bliss, @JCBliss, Pacific Watch, in re: California return to normality with cars on freeways.  Big Bear Lake, in San Bernardino Co., in winter has great skiing; in summer, lakeside camping and swimming.  Locals said to Governor Newsom: We have no obligation to go along with your restrictions; we’ll take care of our own business.  Small shops, boats rental, fishing; a lovely place to get away to for a weekend. Daniel Boone was filmed there. Governor asked for $750 million to buy hotels to house the homeless. Some meetings were covertly taped: chance for the homeless-industrial complex to buy at lowest priced.   Many of these people are homeless because of substance abuse or mental illness; govt has not thought this through.  Oregon: Gov Brown forbad people to travel from locked-down to unlocked-down counties to get a haircut.  For laughs?  Citizens are saying, “This is ridiculous” and marching out. Once we threw tea into Boston Harbor; now, we get our hair cut.
Friday 22 May 2020  / Hour 1, Block C:  Gene Marks, Small Business America, The Guardian, Philadelphia Inquirer; in re: Economically, we’ve hit bottom. Philly Fed report: the local economy actually is rising.  Over the coming months, the graphs head up.  But yes, 100,000 small businesses will have disappeared—in a country with 30 million small businesses.  Every year, 7­9% go out every year.  That is, 89,000 would go out in any case.   We’re in a story of survival and Darwinism; those well-run and having a reasonable amount of cash on hand will come through.  IRS changes coming as early as next week.   If you’re concerned abt getting forgiveness for your loan, or you’re holding back—don’t be as worried, as the forgiveness period probably will be extended to 16 weeks; also, spending on PPE and such expenses will be eligible for forgiveness.  Requirement that 75%  go to payroll no longer obtains, can use it for mortgages, utilities, masks, safety eqpt, reopening costs. Cruise lines: suddenly, a demand. Carnival reopens in August and are booked!  Look for fab deals in hotels, cruises, anything in travel.   Turkish Airlines and the splendid new airport in Istanbul.  @genemarks   #SmallBusinessAmerica
Friday 22 May 2020  / Hour 1, Block D:  Gene Marks, Small Business America, The Guardian, Philadelphia Inquirer; in re: There exists a huge possibility of lawsuits against small businesses in the coming weeks if an employee suddenly tests positive. After SARS, insurance companies refused to insure against such eventualities.   So far, every company has put employees first—masks, gloves, cleaning supplies; encouraging them to stay home if needed.    
 
Hour Two
Friday 22 May 2020  / Hour 2, Block A:  Devin Nunes, @DevinNunes, CA-21, in re: Congressman’s podcasting. San Joaquin Valley, breadbasket of the Solar System.  Russiagate unsolved.  Tom Rooney was part of he Intel Committee in 2017-2018, did part of the heavy lifting. Durham investigation, Nunes Newscast: podcast has been our continued effort tot get out from behind the iron grip of the state-run media; but news: California water—we have the majestic Sierra Nevada range; more water from the snowpack goes into California than the Colorado River has, but 80% of the mountain water goes wasted into the ocean. We have the most fertile land in the world and the best weather; but ag needs water. 
Gov Newsom’s orders. We have something similar with Gov Cuomo, but on 34 Street, cars are on the street.  Store closed, but something is happening.   Over the last month, Newsom started picking winners and losers, a mistake.  Local govt went in, filled a skateboarder’s park with sand; opened some beaches – of his friends—and kept other closed.  San Diego mayor  will run against Newsom, who was ruthless but later cowered down.  Lake Tahoe, mixed blue and red; opened for bz a few weeks ago.  Napa valley restaurants opened; San Joaquin valley has been closed, even though we had to work to feed animals, and keep food on shelves.  But the big box stores were open while the small stores were closed. Eventually, people began to scream. Gov threatened one of my counties: “You’ve opened up? I won't give you money or will take away your license to practice your trade. We’re getting a first taste of hard-core, one-party rule; scary, has awakened a lot of people. 
Friday 22 May 2020  / Hour 2, Block B:  Devin Nunes, @DevinNunes, CA-21, in re: WH counsel.  We’ll never hear from Susan Rice, who now blames the White House counsel and says she’ll never talk again.
Friday 22 May 2020  / Hour 2, Block C:  Chris Riegel, Scala.com CEO, in re: The forced experiment of decentralized work [seems to be on its way to continue].  High end companies—FB, Square, Shopify — can much reduce costs with remote work/telework. Lower-cost cities may not show as much of a benefit.  Current Net speed is good enough for most workers today. Packed elevators?  In software dvpt, can remote-work in some instances; but often need to work collectively to solve problems.   Class games: BoJo represents the Conservatives. In campaign, spoke of upgrading people’s incomes outside of Greater London. Eighteenth Century calls them: Levellers. Could do that by decentralizing the large cities.  When government decides these things, [it rarely works].  Morale: Decentralizing the central office would be hardest on the youngest.  Humans are social beings; part of this is having mentors.  For those in commercial real estate, you can relax.  Will still have demand for office space; New York and SF are so expensive that there are  more incentives to move toward the interior. 
Friday 22 May 2020  / Hour 2, Block D:  Michael Auslin, Hoover Institution, Senior advisor at Halifax Intl Security Forum, in re: The WHO is an international organization that was designed to protect us but in fact protected China in the early moments of the pandemic. We assumed that if China came into intl orgs, it’d understand that the norms that created these organizations are good for the world and that China would support them.  This did not happen. We had a set of assumptions that had worked with other counties but we missed the philosophy of the CCP and its competition with the US.  See: Document No. 9 from early Xi Jinping, We still organize our own international life around the organizations, but in some cases, they’re functioning not in public interest but only f./b/o china. Look at the two dozen orgs where Chinese were running or senior officers, Had been a Western goal.  They use the Intl Civil Air Organization to exclude Taiwan or use WHO to misinform the world about the virus.
Australia:  either we're seeing the [Chinese] masks be ripped off, or they’re getting panicked as Europeans (Czech Republic) and others began to reject [abuse].  Democracies starting to work together to have common approaches to China.  “They're getting mugged by reality.”  It freely chose to put the world at grave risk.  A fundamental antagonism between the liberal West and the Chinese Communist Party.  The risks of no change are manifestly clear. Book to be published in the immediate future:  Asia’s New Policies.
 
Hour Three
Friday 22 May 2020  / Hour 3, Block A:  Michael E Vlahos, @JHUWorldCrisis, Johns Hopkins, in re: Governors blue and red disagree on reopening.   In New York and LA, fresh traffic. There’s even a divide between blue and blue.  There’ll be no resolution the day after the 2020 election. The virus is cunning in exacerbating the division—knowledge uncertainties. Blue convinced we need to stay locked down, while red wishes to open up. Red has to its advantage the dvpt of a positive path in coming months.  Blue’s advantage is the coming second wave [of the Wuhan plague —ed.]. Electoral college: PA was won by Trump in 2016; said now to be in play with Biden, Trump enjoys support from Western PA and frackers.  After the US Civil War, Northeast and West were Republican, while South was Democrat. GOP dominated till 1932; the South had pretty much full autonomy to go its own way (Plessey v Fergusson).  Today, not clear which way it’ll go.  Were there a strident new president (could be the VP if s/he ‘s a savior –redeemer type, wouldn't sit will with the red half of the country).  Blue’s governance style has shown itself to be authoritarian.  What Trump hasn’t been is a tyrant.  A blue victory could lead to more civil violence.  Regicide: effort to undo the election of 2016.
Friday 22 May 2020  / Hour 3, Block B:  Michael E Vlahos, @JHUWorldCrisis, Johns Hopkins, in re: A possible US civil war actually to divide the country.   The Jan 5, 2017, meeting and subsequent: points to James Comey and Sally Yates. Comey left in place by Trump despite a counterintell investigation against Trump. Comey misled Trump on the matter. He said Trump was a stooge for Russia. Misled everyone about his own conduct at the FBI.  Regicide.
Two narratives on hte perfidy of the other side. What hath the former president wrought? Red conviction that blue is deep in subterfuge and . . .  Blue knows that it’d be easy for red to do to blue what blue did to red.   This attended the split in 1860. South was sure it’d be defenestrated; North was convinced that the Evil Institution would flood the North.  Can’t be that both are wholly correct. November 3 can’t resolve these narratives. Whatever side takes power will be after the other side in a way well beyond what we’ve seen these last three years.
Friday 22 May 2020  / Hour 3, Block C:  Mary Anastasia O’Grady, @MaryAnastasiaOG, WSJ editorial board; columnist, The Americas; in re: Bolsonaro in Brazil. Can save as many lives by protecting elders. Poor people live cramped together in mutigenerational homes.
Friday 22 May 2020  / Hour 3, Block D:  Francis Rose, Government Matters, WJLA on Channel 7, in re: Sharon Burke, New America (Senior Advisor, International Security Program and Resource Security Program), is a public servant before she’s a partisan. What she says makes complete sense; is rare earth a rare instance where the parties agree?  Yes.  We allowed the Chinese to eat our lunch; we need actively to work to take back our own control of rare earths.  China has no compunction at all about violating environmental rules; refining rare earth is a dirty process. We’re the US, we can do better, let's figure out better ways. From the virus we've good and learned that we depend on China for anything at our own peril.
Cobalt, vital of batteries, is dominated by mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  Same as blood diamonds. China has 80% of the world’s antimony; the USA has 90% of the discovered beryllium and 70% of helium.  Probably see DoD addressing this in he reasonably near future. https://govmatters.tv/tag/sharon-burke/
 
Hour Four
Friday 22 May 2020  / Hour 4, Block A: Robt Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com, in re: Why did Doug Loverro (NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate  resign?  Related to the Artemis contract (Space X, Dianetics, Bezos; leaving out Boeing).  Boeing submitted a weak bid; speculatively, Loverro may have shared info from competitive bids (which of course is illegal).  All only a theory. Dragon capsule.  India’s space program.  Launcher One (Virgin Orbit).
Friday 22 May 2020  / Hour 4, Block B: Robt Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com, in re: Asteroid Bennu. Osiris Rex is to land and grab and safely get away from the “gravel-pit” Bennu.  Ice on Mars. 
Friday 22 May 2020  / Hour 4, Block C:  Tyler Rogoway, @Aviation_Intel; The War Zone | The Drive; in re: Naval Safety Center, 2013-2019; UFOs.  With these events off the West Coast, they’re much more mundane than what we usually consider for UFOs.    Are super-high-performance vehicles we can’t explain. Imagine a hobby drone, at 550 mph in passing it you can’t tell exactly what it is. These range from from balloon-type encounters to . . .   Looks more like an adversary operating off our coast sucking up all our intelligence with reckless abandon. In on  case, a near-collision with a balloon-like object; many 737s buzz past actual balloons.  Feb 13, 2019, a Growler (with electronic warfare), flying out of Patuxent River, MD, spotted red weather balloons in airspace meant to be restricted.  Probably a 1940s patent for a radar detector.  In 1960s, we launched off the Cuban coast the same sort of thing from a submarine. Had Phantom fighter jets fly around Cuban radar controllers and could see the sensitivity of their radar.  June 2013: the old W72 off Virginia coast; peers right over the US Navy in Norfolk, et al. 
Friday 22 May 2020  / Hour 4, Block D: Tyler Rogoway, @Aviation_Intel; The War Zone | The Drive; in re: F35 out of Eglin AFB landed and crashed; the F22 crashed, pilot also able to eject and survive.  About 125 F22s are combat-ready, with only 50 at any given time.  No more can be built.  The F22 is deployed around the world in hotspots; the world’s premier fighter.  F117 (?) Nighthawk.