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JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
 
Hour One
Friday  26 August 2016 / Hour 1, Block A: Sean Wilentz, Princeton, and author, The Politicians and the Egalitarians, in re:  The GOP is riven as the candidate makes statements that are not consonant with Republican principles; instead, espouses notions from what's called the alt right.  In fact, America was first settled by people who walked here over Beryngia 12,000 years ago, and the history since then has been of aggression, resettlement, revolution, contest, and varieties of integration of new peoples.  Meanwhile, the very contemporary GOP has courted and maintained votes of the old Dixicrats, who suddenly have taken over the party. What's left?  Trump has taken from 30-50% of the GOP base; he’s not about to leave the scene. Paul Wolfowitz announces that not only will he not support Trump but he’ll vote for Clinton. Many neocons were Democrats who grew wroth with the Dems during Vietnam and switched; but after this election, whither?
Friday  26 August 2016 / Hour 1, Block B:  Sean Wilentz, Princeton, and author, The Politicians and the Egalitarians, in re:  The Republican party was born in the tumult of the Civil War and stood above all for liberty.  . .  . The Whigs opposed ”King” Jackson; in the then-Northwest, Abraham Lincoln arrived as a Whig ; then the Whigs went away and allowed the GOP to form.  The Whigs splintered into multiple factions; will the GOP?   A nativist party emerged as the American party, vs Whigs and Democrats.  The GOP may have an interregnum, or sort itself out. Eventually there’ll be two parties.   . . . “Conservatism:” is not a string enough central idea; how much of the Reagan coalition was truly involved in his stated goals? How much of the GOP has been not in favor of something as an organizing principle but was opposed to – Communists, Clintons, etc.   Some of the statements made by Trump’s supporters this week are unacceptable.
Friday  26 August 2016 / Hour 1, Block C:  Jim McTague, Barron’s Washington, in re: the economy: GDP. The Fed; Yellin’s unusual remarks (next year, rates could be anywhere from 0 to 3%).  Stanley Fisher: There's so much data out there that you can construct any model. “The Fed is flying through a fog bank.”  Michigan consumer sentiment: Dropped.  Bill Dunkelberg. Wall Street Journal mocks the Fed.  Even Family Dollar Stores (very cheap goods) is losing money as its customers can barely afford to buy there.  . . . French tax rate is 8%; in the US: effectively 20%.  Wolf wolf at the Federal Reserve; some day, the wolf does show up. 
Friday  26 August 2016 / Hour 1, Block D:  Francis Rose, Host of Govt Matters, Channel 7; and Natl Defense Week on WMAL on Sunday mornings; and WJLA; in re:  Gen Paul Silva. Vice-Chair of Joint Chiefs of Staff: At the Center for Strategic and Intl Studies, this week -  “When the DoD bureaucracy sees innovation it treats it lie a fire and rushes to put it out.” His job is to hold back the fire responders. 
Missing cars and abuse of ten credit cards in VA, the whistleblower, Mr Salazar, says there are 88 vehicles in LA, of which 30 cars are missing, and he says he was fired for speaking up.  Office of Special Counsel says that Salazar was not allowed to demonstrate why he was retaliated against; the mater is now before the House Veterans Affair Committee.  The missing cars? Unhh – still unaccounted for.
The Dept of Veterans Affairs no longer allows Confederate flags to be flown on VA property on Memorial Day.  Review the facts of the Civil War??  Never mind; changing policy on flags flown high above cemeteries, although individual small flags may be put over a grave.  Sixty years after civil rights tumult?  The Stars and Bars represent a tyranny that vouchsafe tyranny over human beings. Congress via the appropriation process still allows the Confederate flags to be flown over some places.  Oh well—at least, as far as I know, the Rising Sun isn't flying over the United States.
VA had a demo day where employees who’d developed projects on their own time; anything good to help American vets.  Redesigned screen system for Hep C; triage programs. Eye care services, and many, many other truly valuable ideas. The Undersecretary of Health at the VA was favorably impressed and says the VA will utilize them.
 
Hour Two
Friday  26 August 2016 / Hour 2, Block A:  Michael E Vlahos Johns Hopkins, in re: perils of 1956 and of 2016. In 1956, the US was so amazingly in charge at every level, and we are s amazingly not today; yet because of ritual and symbolic legacies of the Cold War we believe we still inhabit that august status — and we aren't. Ergo, we could potentially do really stupid things. (“Gary Cooper is gone.”)  Russia and China are much more ferocious and effective than they used to be. 
In 1956: February - secret speech in Moscow by Krushchov; late Oct, Hungarian revolution, Moscow crushed it; Europe retracted in tit he darkness of the Iron Curtain Algeria: colonial settlers  masters were enraged at guerillas rising up. French PM flies in, is attacked by settlers for making concession; Battle of Algiers.   Breakup of French empire, Anthony Eden conspires against the elected Nasser: with the French and with the Israelis, who were to lead an invasion of the Sinai so Euros could parachute into Suez and take over Cairo, Eisenhower ins unaware of Eden’s plans, and of Moscow’s plans, and of Poland. 
In Ukraine; and the imminent G20 in China; the game of chicken over East Asian skies; the unsettled civil war in Syria: in one moment it could all spring on Washington just as Barack Obama thinks he’s in the closing days.
In comparing today to all those, we should be far more worried and urgently motivated to do something, now. In ’56: Krushchov made perhaps the bravest speech any man has ever made, to keep the whole Soviet enterprise gong after the extreme crimes of Stalin. Yet what it did was stop the erosion of Soviet legitimacy – so his goose was cooked either way.  In telling the truth he basically delegitimized the USSR by saying it was corrupt. A fragile and brittle system p lacked any legitimacy, incl within Russia itself. US had thousands of bombers ringing the USSR, and B47s in Morocco that could land 20-megatone bombs on the Soviet Union in minutes. We also had Ike, who had he deep inner authority to lead and entire coalition – incl SEATO and other conglomerations to ring the Soviet Union and Communist China, Also Communist China, threatening over Quemoy and Matsu – in the throes of he backyard steel revolution; killed millions of Chinese people.   The Red world offered only brittleness and weakness. Today is fundamentally different: an immensely more powerful Eurasian association – more than Turkey, Iran, China, in the ‘50s. Today they're confident and powerful in ways that their predecessors were not. The US in contrast is much weaker.  And you make mistakes when you overstep.
Friday  26 August 2016 / Hour 2, Block B:   Michael E Vlahos Johns Hopkins, in re:  In 1956 — In an election year, there were serial crisis, all arriving in October; Ike was not aware that Eden had planned a coup vs Nasser; that Moscow had planned an invasion of Budapest; or that the  French empire in Algeria was breaking up. Obama acts as though we're in charge—Ukraine, the Baltics, Syria; and then Syrian aircraft showed up over US bases in Syria and we scrambled F22s – the best in the world; fifth-generation fighters– because we weren’t sure if it was Russians threatening us  (US asked Russia: Are those your aircraft?  Russia: Nope. Not ours.) The Syrians skedaddled. NATO is a fiction and the only one maintaining it is Washington. Power is not the issue; power serves authority. In 1956 Eisenhower, former Supreme Commander, had enormous authority. When he told Eden to stop, and right away Eden stopped, crushed.  Today, the two contenders for president have zero authority, and at best each one can claim only half of Americans’s authority. Russia looks weaker and smaller, but its president is supported by 80% of its citizens; Russia is more determined to maintain unity and authority.   A clear erosion of national identity. The notion that America is a connected community – the Volksgemeinschaft that Eisenhower could call on– no longer exists.  Was destroyed in Vietnam and the unhappiness thereafter. Riven and weak as it was in the time of Hiram Borah and the isolationists. 
Friday  26 August 2016 / Hour 2, Block C:   Richard Epstein, the Affordable Care Act and inflatable rats. (1 of 2)
Friday  26 August 2016 / Hour 2, Block D:  Richard Epstein, the Affordable Care Act and inflatable rats. (2 of 2)
 
Hour Three
Friday  26 August 2016 / Hour 3, Block A:  Robert Zimmerman, behind the black, in re: The new world of Proxima b; and new Balanced Rock on the surface of Mars (1 of 2)
Friday  26 August 2016 / Hour 3, Block B:  Robert Zimmerman, behind the black, in re: The new world of Proxima b; and new Balanced Rock on the surface of Mars (2 of 2)
Friday  26 August 2016 / Hour 3, Block C:  Dean Lueck, PERC Montana, in re: wildfires. “Clear the Smoke from Wildfire Policy: an economic perspective” (1 of 2)
Friday  26 August 2016 / Hour 3, Block D: Dean Lueck, PERC Montana, in re: wildfires. “Clear the Smoke from Wildfire Policy: an economic perspective” (2 of 2)
 
Hour Four
Friday  26 August 2016 / Hour 4, Block A: Peter Berkowitz, Obama and Iran policy , and the ransom money; and Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation; and the disgrace and unhorsing of the FBI Director,  Comey.   (1 of 2)
Friday  26 August 2016 / Hour 4, Block B:  Peter Berkowitz, Obama and Iran policy , and the ransom money; and Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation; and the disgrace and unhorsing of the FBI Director,  Comey.   (2 of 2)
Friday  26 August 2016 / Hour 4, Block C: Gregory Copley, StrategicStudies director; GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs; & author, UnCivilization, from Perth in Australia; in re:    (1 of 2)
Friday  26 August 2016 / Hour 4, Block D: Gregory Copley, StrategicStudies director; GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs; & author, UnCivilization, from Perth in Australia; in re:    (2 of 2)
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