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JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Thaddeus McCotter, WJR, The Great Voice of the Great Lakes
 
Hour One
Monday 15 August 2016 / Hour 1, Block A: Tom Joscelyn, Long War Journal senior editor & FDD,  and Bill Roggio, Long War Journal senior editor  & FDD, in re:   Taliban spends years to take over Afghanistan and is succeeding.  Guantanamo releases men who were determined by Pres Obama’s special task force to be much too dangerous (“green light,” “yellow light,” and “red light” categories – cutthroats who cannot be rehabilitated)  to release; sends out largest single number of men sent out, to a “rehabilitation program” in the UAE to “de-radicalize” them.  “Life skills.”
Monday 15 August 2016 / Hour 1, Block B: Tom Joscelyn, Long War Journal senior editor & FDD,  and Bill Roggio, Long War Journal senior editor  & FDD, in re:  Afghanistan. Mullah Dadullah Mahaz – the Mullah Dadullah Front, closely allied with Al Qaeda – is a Taliban subgroup in southern Afghanistan; was ld by Mullah D who was killed in 2007 by Brits; was a renowned commander, operationalized al Q suicide practices.  DoD says it killed the ISIS leader in Khorasan Province (Afgh & Pakistan); no suicide video but may be accurate.  Libya: Sirte.   Durna (al Q) in East), in the middle is Sirte.   Libyan militias in “solid operations room” has got support from UN an US; recently 46 air strikes in Sirte targeting ISIS, which now is metastasizing into the Sahara and down to sub-Saharan Africa, contaminating and terrifying Chad, Niger, Burkina, etc.   US, Italy, France, and UK have forces in Libya in special operations capacity.  A low-grade, sp forces war in Libya now.    The war is going badly.
Monday 15 August 2016 / Hour 1, Block C:  Gordon G. Chang, Daily Beast & Forbes.com, in re: China’s aim to demonstrate that its laa\st century of humiliation by colonial power and conquest of Manchuria  by Japan will never happen again; also China is now expressing authority by intimidating neighbors an daring the world powers to do anything about it. At the upcoming G20 it “will not discuss the South China Sea”; only economics.    Of course, if there’s a war there there’ll be no economy. The US ought to boycott the G20 – “let's think bigger, how to bring attention to China’s warlike provocations.”  This may be the most important issue on Earth now, since the South and East China Seas are  more volatile, and China is actively pressing for war. Is this how China will act henceforth: “We don't wanna talk about it”?  --At least as long as Xi is in power; so we need to delegitimize him. Indonesia is not in hte G20; will scuttle impounded vessels, including Chinese, to signal the limits of Indonesian sovereignty.  The mouse – well, a very large mouse – is roaring.  Yes, there’s a cat, but it’s a very sick cat with its economy in trouble.   New Filipino president, Duterte, is sloppy and not ready for his job. In intended talks in Beijing, he’s just angling for  a price.  Fishing rights:  in 2012 Philippines came to a deal with China on fishing and China dishonored it.  China breaks every treaty it makes; US is still kowtowing to the notion, but it isn't working.  China makes short-term gains by angering everyone in he region.  Japan will never give up Senkakus, Indonesia will never give up Scarborough Shoals.  China says to the powers of the planet: ”We won't talk about it!”  Oops.
Monday 15 August 2016 / Hour 1, Block D: John Bolton, AEI, in re: $400 million paid in cash by Pres Obama to the Iranian regime. Why?  Mrs Clinton wasn’t Secretary of State when Pres Obama made the deal; why is it now her problem to explain this? It's only fair: the foundations for it were plainly laid during her tenure, and she’s consistently supported the work of her Successor, John Kerry. If she’s elected, we’ll have Obama’s third term. The world’s larges financier of state-sponsored terrorism – she ought to have to own up to it.  The Democratic party has no national security wing today.   Javed Zerif, Iranian foreign minister, whines that the US ought to make more concessions to Iran.  US said, If we can only convince Iran and the mullahs that we’re nice and like them, then they’ll start to behave like a normal nation.  This emphatically has not occurred.  Someone shd tell Mrs Clinton we have thousands of troops in Iraq aiding Iran; her policy might have to change.  She thinks the war is a law-enforcement matter. Her view of Syria and overthrow of Assad: a goal of Obama, but . . .
. . . Of course, Clinton was no longer secretary when the negotiations reached fruition. But her memoir, “Hard Choices,” makes it clear she strove mightily to reach agreement with the ayatollahs. What formed the basis of her strategic vision for this deal, for believing Iran ever intended to give up pursuing nuclear weapons? It was the same simple-minded economic determinism that later led a State Department flak to argue that Middle East jobs programs would help eliminate the terrorist war against the West. Clinton asked rhetorically “if Iran had a nuclear weapon tomorrow, would that create even one more job for a country where millions of young people are out of work?” Does she really think the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the Pasdaran, sit around contemplating this question?

Clinton also welcomed Hassan Rouhani's election as Iran's president, describing it by saying “something remarkable happened” in Iranian politics. This, of course, was the same Rouhani who had once gloried about deceiving European nuclear negotiators, and who would never have been elected had not Supreme Leader Khamenei considered him a trustworthy subordinate.

The Iran cash ransom affair thus highlights once more that a resume entry is not equal to real qualifications or competence. Eight years of Obama appeasing the ayatollahs has been damaging and dangerous enough to the United States. We don't need a third Obama term.  http://triblive.com/opinion/featuredcommentary/10933377-74/iran-nuclear-deal
 
Hour Two
Monday 15 August 2016 / Hour 2, Block A:   David M Drucker, Washington Examiner Senior Congressional correspondent in Palo Alto; John Fund, NRO, in Denver, in re: Clinton superPAC is significantly reducing spending on TV ads until the September debate in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Colorado – three battleground states.  In Indiana, the reddest of states, the two candidates are even: 44/44.    Mrs Clinton is winning by important margins right now.  She’s very confident about the trend lines; has a ton of data from polling. Can it change? Yes. Will it?  Can’t be sure.   At Natl Republican Lawyers Assn (500 people) – at this mtg the report have been that Trump has already lost; the only question is how many he drags down in the Senate and House?   . . . It's just three weeks since the conventions. When did America turn away?  probably when Trump went after Gold Star parents, Mr & Mrs Khan; lack of seriousness abut being president.  There were warning signals that Trump didn't know when to stop. At dinner on Sat, 500 lawyers concluded: either Trump is a secret Clinton plant to throw the election, or he actually is a 13-year-old teenager who can't be disciplined. They were serious!  . . . There are cultural and racial fissures; the GOP will still be divided. Has to move away from donor classes and lobbyist, to a more populist positi0n: continue free trade, and immigration reform, and natl security— with much wiser policies. 
See poll of 84,000-plus people:  DRAFT WORKING PAPER ; Abstract ; Explaining nationalist political views: The case of Donald Trump, by Jonathan Rothwell Senior Economist, Gallup.   Summary: The 2016 US presidential nominee Donald Trump has broken with the policies of previous Republican Party presidents on trade, immigration, and war, in favor of a more nationalist and populist platform. Using detailed Gallup survey data for a large number of American adults, I analyze the individual and geographic factors that predict a higher probability of viewing Trump favorably and contrast the results with those found for other candidates. The results show mixed evidence that economic distress has motivated Trump support. His supporters are less educated and more likely to work in blue-collar occupations, but they earn relatively high household incomes, and living in areas more exposed to trade or immigration does not increase Trump support. There is stronger evidence that racial isolation and less strictly economic measures of social status, namely health and intergenerational mobility, are robustly predictive of more favorable views toward Trump, and these factors predict support for him but not other Republican presidential candidates.   http://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=50507408211409702509700412700...
The week that was included this expression of Trump campaign incoherence:  Donald Trump, “Our campaign is making a big move for Connecticut” cbsn.ws/2b78qSC
   What’s wrong with the Trump campaign? How can it be fixed by Labor Day? How long can the party wait for Trump to right the ship? What’s the worst-case scenario we can see now?
Monday 15 August 2016 / Hour 2, Block B: David M Drucker, Washington Examiner Senior Congressional correspondent; John Fund, NRO, in re: See the poll of 84,000 people:  DRAFT WORKING PAPER ; Abstract ; Explaining nationalist political views: The case of Donald Trump, by Jonathan Rothwell Senior Economist, Gallup (URL above).  Holding other factors constant, support for Trump is highly elevated in areas with few college graduates,  . . .  segregated enclaves; self-employed [and isolated].   . . . Tradesmen, extremely well to do. 
The forces of cultural and demographic and economic change have alarmed them; changes too rapid for them to absorb and they don’t like it.   These are precisely the people I encountered in Britain during Brexit voting.   Breakdown of rule of law infuriates them; in the US, they see the GOP has being loyal to the donor class; they fell cheated and disillusioned. 
Monday 15 August 2016 / Hour 2, Block C:  Malcolm Hoenlein. Conference of Presidents, in re: largest-ever release of Guantanamo detainees – 15 of the baddest of the bad; cutthroats; just suddenly sent to the UAE for “rehabilitation.” Propaganda from the Middle East about the Syrian civil war an the siege of Aleppo being interrupted by the “rebels.”   It's mass murder – Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, have Aleppo in a stranglehold, won’t destroy the whole city because there are a few of their supporters there. Reporters said he siege ha been lifted, which it definitively has not.   Russian airpower; a lot of volunteers from Iran (have three weeks’ training, thrown in as cannon fodder) plus Russian volunteers flown in in Russian mil aircraft).  For Putin, keeping Assad under siege is ideal – keeps him dependent.   Syrian Conquest Front = al Nusrah.  Complicated situation. Hard to get facts on who’s gaining the upper hand. Btw, what's the end-game?   Turkey, Iran, Syria, Russia negotiating.  Assad is exactly where Putin wants him.     Gaza: World Vision charity (which also got $200 mil from the US) : pilfering of tens of millions of dollars; hundreds of milli0ns given annually to Palestinian Authority Recall even Arafat. Here, so blatant that funds coming from Europe and the US going right to Hamas. Today UN called for suspension of funds to Gaza while Hamas is in power.  Note heavy subsidies to terrorists - $172 million budgeted for this year.  A Palestinian who’d come to the aid of a Jewish family under terrorist attack,  where the father was killed, mother and children in hospital: the PA fired him!  Today France cut off foreign funding to French mosques.  A bit hypocritical under the circumstances, but they say they closed 20 Salafist mosques; of the many many remaining, others also are Salafist.  Can the info on World Vision’s siphoning of huge sums to go to Hamas (not the Gazan people) reach the people? Maybe, with internet.   Video by Hamas: Thank you, Hamas – shows luxe buildings. malls, etc. PA put out opposing vid: Thanks a lot, Hamas  - showing devastation.
Monday 15 August 2016 / Hour 2, Block D: Malcolm Hoenlein. Conference of Presidents, in re: Hamas and Palestinian election Hamas: vote for us or you’ll be infidels and go to Hades. This wouldn’t work in the US, but it did in Gaza last time: a fatwah banning Palestinians from voting for anyone but Hamas. Social media banners claiming that opponent s aren't faithful Muslims. Since much intl aid can't go to Hamas it might be that some areas of West Bank might be cut off from aid. There are 416 local municipalities, of which 25 in Gaza.   Hamas is afraid of voters and fee expression. No one single PA leader has emerged to lead; a series of others, all of whom have important credibility, veracity, etc. Hamas might gain.  Saudi media: articles criticizing ant-Jewish programs and discourse; even cite Quranic statements against Jews as applying only to specific groups historically, Similar comments from Egyptian president.  The 90%-plus anti Israel sentiment that’s been built up . . . S&P gave Israel a terrific credit rating today.
 
Hour Three
Monday 15 August 2016 / Hour 3, Block A:   Mary Kissel, Wall Street Journal Editorial Board & host of Opinion Journal on WSJ Video; in re:  Opinion Journal: Trump’s Media Lament   Editorial Board Member Joe Rago on what’s really wrong with the Republican nominee’s faltering campaign.   Opinion Journal: Hacking Democrats  Editorial Board Member Joe Rago on Guccifer’s latest hack and the role of Russian intelligence.   http://www.wsj.com/video/opinion-journal-trumps-media-lament/89B31D53-E214-4567-A49C-D20BDD9D06B3.html   ; http://www.wsj.com/video/opinion-journal-hacking-democrats/BE33F695-9408...
Monday 15 August 2016 / Hour 3, Block B:   John Tamny, Political Economy editor at Forbes, editor of RealClearMarkets, a senior economic adviser to Toreador Research & Trading, senior Fellow in economics at Reason Foundation; author of  Who Needs the Fed? and Popular Economics; in re:   Consumption tax instead of income tax.  If every single American experienced ht cost/burden of government with every single purchase, it's reasonable to think that citizens would pay a lot more attention and police the spending.  If every citizen saved more money, it’d be used for capital investment. The reduced consumption would send funds not to a bloated govt but to beneficial economic use.  With a consumption tax, would Washington, D.C., cease to function as it is now, with lobbyists and people rich therefrom?  The Libertarian Gary Johnson favors a consumption tax, albeit with some regrettable changes. http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2016/08/14/gary-johnson-is-right-about-a-consumption-tax-but-very-wrong-about-the-rate/2/#4a14c8c26950
Monday 15 August 2016 / Hour 3, Block C:   Hotel Mars, episode n.  David Livingston, The Space Show, & Rand Simberg, Competitive Enterprise Institute and author, Safe Is Not an Option; in re: Boeing is also bldg. a spacecraft for manned space flight called  Starliner, CST-100(crew space transportation).  Boeing wants a govt contract, spoke of commercial aerospace deals; but the space se of Boeing views R&D as a profit center.  ULA Atlas 5 rocket. Guess that NASA said it weighed too much, maybe requirements creep.  “Final phase of some wind-tunnel testing . . .” But they're past CDR (critical design review) – how’d they find major problem so late in the game??  NASA is used to bottomless budgets, extending them by years.  SpaceX is ahead.  NASA probably sees Boeing as a back-up. Boeing’s explanation reflects thinking from the Twentieth Century, not the Twenty-first.
Monday 15 August 2016 / Hour 3, Block D:  Ken Croswell, author, The Lives of Stars, and The Alchemy of the Heavens: Searching for meaning in the Milky Way; in re: Ultra-diffuse galaxies (found in 2015), esp Dragonfly 44.  A coma galaxy cluster (330 million LY from us); most are dwarf; the coma galaxy cluster is much larger, where dark matter was first discovered in the 1930s.  Array of telephoto lenses found 47 ultra-diffuse galaxies.   Ultra-diffuse galaxy:  about as big as the Milky Way, which is huge; UDG also are big but are <1% of the light of the Milky Way).   Do their masses correspond to size or to dim luminosity? Are a trillion times more massive than our Sun, but didn't churn out stars the way most galaxies do. Four billion yeas ago gasses came together in our galaxy, which is beautiful, bright, spiral.   UDGs have few stars, look like faint smudges in space, but are very very big.  Presumably were born with dark matter but somehow lost gas – maybe it was torn away, or had a violent episode, like a quasar, early in its existence.  A galaxy that loses its gas doesn't create stars.  Using Subaru telescope in Hawaii we've now found 800 UDGs! http://www.nature.com/news/the-milky-way-s-dark-twin-revealed-1.20333
 
Hour Four
Monday 15 August 2016 / Hour 4, Block A:  Dr. David H Grinspoon, Astrobiology chair, Library of Congress; astrobiology curator, Denver Museum of Nature & Science, in re:  Venus. Why is Venus so different from Earth today? We’re closest, and almost the same size, and made of the same stuff.  May have been a “runaway greenhouse” – where the Sun heated up, evaporated Venutian water, accelerated evaporation. Became a dry and acidic hell-scape.  Using 3D computer models: it had an ocean, how log did the ocean last?  If you include the clouds, they protect the ocean and keep it cool; can keep ocean for billions of years. Scientific American calls it “balmy.” Venus rotates much more slowly (243 Earth days per rotation) than does the Earth.  During the long night, even get snowfall on mountains.   Venus is 41 million miles closer to the Sun than we are. The clouds form themselves in an almost perfectly-designed global configuration to keep Venus cool; goes into this configuration because of the slow rotation.  Exoplanets: a jumbo Earth close to a sun.
  . . . So, early in its history, Ceres had to be warm enough for the water to flow, and at some point this dwarf planet must have been covered with a deep, salty ocean. And maybe some of that ocean remains deep inside. After all, Ceres has more than 100 curious white spots — most associated with craters and most dramatically on the floor of Occator — and for now scientists are leaning toward salt deposits of some kind as the explanation for these.   http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hellish-venus-might-have-been-habitable-for-billions-of-years/  ;  https://www.amazon.com/Earth-Human-Hands-Shaping-Planets/dp/1455589128   ;  http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/dawn-reveals-ceres-interior/  ;  https://www.engadget.com/2016/08/10/beyond-neptune-niku-discovery/?sr_source=Twitter  (1 of 2)
Monday 15 August 2016 / Hour 4, Block B:  Dr. David H Grinspoon, Astrobiology chair, Library of Congress; astrobiology curator, Denver Museum of Nature & Science, in re:  In the Kuyper Belt, a sphere that had an atmosphere and a salt-water ocean. ”Mind-blowing.”
. . . So, early in its history, Ceres had to be warm enough for the water to flow, and at some point this dwarf planet must have been covered with a deep, salty ocean. And maybe some of that ocean remains deep inside. After all, Ceres has more than 100 curious white spots — most associated with craters and most dramatically on the floor of Occator — and for now scientists are leaning toward salt deposits of some kind as the explanation for these.   http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hellish-venus-might-have-been-habitable-for-billions-of-years/  ;  https://www.amazon.com/Earth-Human-Hands-Shaping-Planets/dp/1455589128   ;  http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/dawn-reveals-ceres-interior/  ;  https://www.engadget.com/2016/08/10/beyond-neptune-niku-discovery/?sr_source=Twitter  (2 of 2)
Monday 15 August 2016 / Hour 4, Block C: Elbridge Colby, Robert M. Gates Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), focus on defense strategy; via Foreign Policy, in re:   Nuclear Weapons Aren’t Just for the Worst-Case Scenario, Barack Obama is contemplating a revolutionary — and exceedingly dangerous — change to U.S. nuclear policy.  Recent reports suggest that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump insistently asked an anonymous foreign-policy expert why the United States should not use nuclear weapons more readily. This has led to a chorus of voices decrying the way in which Trump is reported to have spoken about the nuclear option, with many insisting the United States should only ever employ nuclear weapons in retaliation after an opponent has used them first.
It is certainly right that such terrible weapons be used only in extreme circumstances (a point of view Trump appears to have expressed earlier this year), but the conventional wisdom is wrong in suggesting the United States should under no circumstances be the first to use nuclear arms.  http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/04/nuclear-weapons-arent-just-worst-case-scenario-first-use-china-obama-trump/ ; https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/allies-unite-to-block-an-obama-legacy/2016/08/14/cdb8d8e4-60b9-11e6-8e45-477372e89d78_story.html?utm_term=.43cf1096b41c
Monday 15 August 2016 / Hour 4, Block D:   Jed Babbin, American Spectator, in re: The House task force's report on CENTCOM politicizing intelligence may be evidence of a disease infecting the entire intelligence community. Politicized Intelligence: Telling the Boss What He Wants to Hear | The American Spectator    http://spectator.org/politicized-intelligence/