The John Batchelor Show

Friday 9 June 2017

Air Date: 
June 09, 2017

Photo: 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
 
Hour One
Friday 9 June 2017  / Hour 1, Block A: Dan Henninger, Wonder Land, WSJ, & deputy editor of editorial board, in re:   A Renaissance armada of ships needed a lot of people pulling the same direction; captain on the bridge could not do it all by himself.  Comparison with Pres Trump and his excellent appointees so far. Too many (427 out of a total of 588) not yet appointed, which is dragging the entire process.  Need to establish a WH office of crack lawyers who deal with the huge distractions – Russiagate, Comey, et al. — to whom the press will be directed with all related questions, so the WH can get back to the much-needed practice of governing.  
Friday 9 June 2017  / Hour 1, Block B: Liz Peek, Fiscal Times and Fox News, in re:  The day after Comey.  Time to get on with business – not only the White House, but Congress.  Remind voters why they voted by getting something done!  Vide the UK elections: Theresa May.  Republicans have confidence on security and [other matters], but not doing well on health care or tax reform.   People’s health care premiums just went up 30%, and parallel problems. Too much political theater, not enough focus.    Russians have been meddling nastily for years – why didn’t previous administrations, incl Obama’s, deal with it?  In the latter case, it's because they thought Clinton would win.   Note that the Tories are thrashing around and that Theresa May initially voted against Brexit. 
Friday 9 June 2017  / Hour 1, Block C: Francis Rose,  Government Matters (Sunday mornings on WJLA in Washington, D.C.),  in re:  Pres Trump just tweeted: “Senate passed the VA Accountability Act!”  Dr Shulkin, Secy for Veterans’s Affairs.  Two years ago, comparable bill passed but VA lawyers challenged on Constitutional grounds (“violating the due process rights of VA employees”) and the regs were never enforced.  OMB asks, what does an agency currently do, what need no longer be done, and what’s its core mission?  Can one agency be combined in part – email systems, payroll processing, etc, — with others?  Silos.  The process of reorganizing is moving forward at a good clip.  Less of diminishing workforce, more of re-allocating, with some buyout inducements.  Sonny Purdue at Agriculture says, no diminution.  Mulvaney of OMB: “Put taxpayers first.”
Friday 9 June 2017  / Hour 1, Block D: Lee Smith, The Tablet, in re: What began as a way of covering for an embarrassing electoral loss on November 8, the allegation that Mrs Clinton lost because the Russians interfered on behalf of Donald Trump, has expanded into a massive menu of wholly unproven accusations become a potentially dangerous digression from our hitherto fairly safe path of partisanship and political fighting that nonetheless leaves basic procedures intact.
The hysteria has served to target the rubes outside Washington; damaging the procedures of our democracy.  A disgrace. Weaponizing a delusional narrative can continue to damage every institution in the country Undermining political institutions for the purpose of political warfare. The press has undermined itself in some ways, and now how the Internet shifted the financial structure of press organizations. 
 
Hour Two
Friday 9 June 2017  / Hour 2, Block A:  Michael E Vlahos, Johns Hopkins, in re:  UK in turmoil after yesterday’s election. Special relationship?  Pres Trump’s attack on Sadiq Khan rendered him unwelcome in London.  Anglosphere (ANZUS + UK + Canada) is shaky but even more so, US relations with South Korea, Japan, NATO. Reminiscent of Nixon’s time, an America immobilized. Soviets saw US as weak, went on the offensive.  We’ve lost $6 trillion in Middle East since 2001.   Disarmed NATO, a superficially-resurgent Russia with a bloated military, and a gigantic China waiting to grab what ever it can during our period of weakness.
Friday 9 June 2017  / Hour 2, Block B:   Michael E Vlahos, Johns Hopkins, in re:   will teach a new course on what we’re living through – a civil war of sorts. Civil war is an idea: you take ideological positions opposed to whom you see as a rival.    After Comey, no vista of compromise. More like regicide. King defended by status quo ante which tore the country apart in 1860s and 1930s, and the British North Atlantic world apart in our Revolution. What lets a group pull apart from a larger groups is the [nascence] of a revolution.  Currently our strongest foundational word, union, is not much present in the US vocabulary.  Not just a divide but an intense separation.  Pick a Union soldier from Ohio and a Confederate soldier from Tennessee and you'd find two people with similar views and ways.  Today, take a Coastal yuppie and compare with someone from Buffalo, Syracuse , or Texas, or the far West: sense of existentially divergent identity. How do irrevocably divergent identities reach the point of civil war? Go from being brothers to being willing to kill each other?  The split has already happened; second, the notion that one side must prevail over the other and the loser must unconditionally submit. Third stage: spark into violence.  See: Colombia (5,000 people killed in ten hours) and Spain, which took decades to resolve.
---Michael E Vlahos, Johns Hopkins, in re:  Our adversaries have advantages while we're divided 
Friday 9 June 2017  / Hour 2, Block C:  Gene Marks, On Small Business column in Washington Post, in re:  IT lost jobs in May – ‘twas a driving force in the economy, in venture capital. How will it ripple through the rest of the economy? Thousands of smaller firms.    Six million jibs waiting to be filled: many are lower-paid, but a great number are highly-trained, incl in mfg and distribution.  Legal to pay a sub-minimum wage to disabled people and waiters in food service. Opens door to abuse of the disabled.    Illegal immigrants who own a bona fide company employing people and having a US investor who’s invested $250K, OK to stay for a few years and organize your papers.  In Australia can sell dressed-up chickens:  in Queensland two teenagers were given five chickens by a friend, shaved their feathers, painted them with edible paint, and sold them; and now have a business going great guns.  An ex-con, 27. in Virginia, named Tony Cooper(?) , opens a barber shop that’s a huge hit. Has 870 regulars.  Craft beers.
Friday 9 June 2017  / Hour 2, Block D:  Gene Marks, On Small Business column in Washington Post, in re:  Robotic furniture bin designed by MIT.   Ori Systems, $10K a piece.   Wave your arm and a bed pops out, or a chair, or a table Whatever you want it to look like, it turns itself into that. [Hunh?]  Toward a digital house.  Chicago and discord:  cabdrivers malcontent – medallions were $357,000 in 2013; in April 2017, were $35,000. New York highly parallel.  Uber did it.   Lobstering in Maine:  catches now are seven times average levels before the year 2000. Ocean warming so they're being pushed northward to Maine; better technology.  The reason they’re still so expensive is that Chinese people love them and are buying them. 
 
Hour Three
Friday 9 June 2017  / Hour 3, Block A: Patrick Chovanec, Silvercrest Asset Management chief strategist, & Columbia SIPA adjunct professor; in re:  Global markets: Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro..
Friday 9 June 2017  / Hour 3, Block B: Patrick Chovanec, Silvercrest Asset Management chief strategist, & Columbia SIPA adjunct professor; in re: Global markets: Azerbaijan, Georgia, and _______
Friday 9 June 2017  / Hour 3, Block C:  Reed Watson, PERC executive director (Property and Environment Research Center), in re: A New Landscape: 8 Ideas for the Interior Department.    . . .  In this PERC Public Lands Report, we outline eight policy ideas that would harness the power of markets and property rights to deliver environmental and economic improvements for the lands, waters, and other resources under the control of the Department of the Interior.
1.     PUBLIC LANDS MANAGEMENT: Adopt new management approaches that allow greater flexibility and freedom while retaining federal oversight and accountability
2.     NATIONAL PARKS: Make the National Park Service less reliant on politically driven Congressional appropriations
3.     LAND AND WATER CONSERVATION FUND: Reform the LWCF to address critical needs on existing public lands
4.     ENDANGERED SPECIES: Harness economic incentives to enhance wildlife assets
5.     GRAZING POLICY: Resolve rangeland disputes with contracts, not armed conflicts
6.     TRIBAL POLICY: Give tribes more authority over their natural resources
7.     WATER POLICY: Harness markets to make the most of scarce water resources
8.     OIL AND GAS: Adopt market-based measures to reduce conflict and boost revenues while protecting local environmental values
Friday 9 June 2017  / Hour 3, Block D:  Reed Watson, PERC executive director (Property and Environment Research Center), in re: A New Landscape: 8 Ideas for the Interior Department  (continued; 2 of 2)
 
Hour Four
Friday 9 June 2017  / Hour 4, Block A: Peter M. Kash EdD, Dr. Linda Friedland MD and Dr. Jay Lombard, Freedom from Disease: The Breakthrough Approach to Preventing Cancer, Heart Disease, Alzheimer's, and Depression...
Pima Indians in Mexico and in US:   We control our lives through food.  From Adam to Noah, humanity’s greatest longevity; thereafter, substantial decrease.  Fifteen thousand years ago we domesticated dogs and soon became omnivores eating, lots of meat instead of being vegetarians; this changed human health.  Refined and processed foods have [destroyed] human health – created type two diabetes.  Type two diabetes gives you a 40% greater chance of having Alzheimer’s, and of prostate and breast cancer. Also of depression!
Friday 9 June 2017  / Hour 4, Block B: Peter M. Kash EdD, Dr. Linda Friedland MD and Dr. Jay Lombard, Freedom from Disease: The Breakthrough Approach to Preventing Cancer, Heart Disease, Alzheimer's, and Depression...    Diet, exercise, and to some extent genetics. Need minimum of 1200 seconds a day to lower insulin levels and inhibit insulin resistance. Fruit, greens, need to start at two years of age. The problem starts with parents: instead of letting children watch TV, everyone go out for a bicycle ride. Stress: cortisol; stress turns on insulin receptors, cancer becomes more aggressive.  Consumer demand, one way or the other, is dispositive; we need to demand of food purveyors more fresh vegetables and fewer highly-processed, sugared foods. 
Friday 9 June 2017  / Hour 4, Block C:  Tim Kane, Total Volunteer Force: Lessons from the US Military on Leadership Culture and Talent Management (Hoover Institution Press Publication). 
Friday 9 June 2017  / Hour 4, Block D:  Tim Kane, Total Volunteer Force: Lessons from the US Military on Leadership Culture and Talent Management (Hoover Institution Press Publication).  . . .  “Marine Corps teaches leadership; Harvard B School teaches management.”. . . The war of the future is cyberwar and few of our commanders are at all prepared for that.