Photo, left:  YPG Kurds in the Aleppo countryside - opposition forces target the Pashkoy front with mortars.  
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Thaddeus McCotter, WJR, The Great Voice of the Great Lakes
 
Hour One
Monday 18 April 2016 / Hour 1, Block A:  Tom Joscelyn, Long War Journal senior editor & FDD,  and Bill Roggio, Long War Journal senior editor  & FDD, in re:  . . .  Oct 12, 2000, bombing of the USS Cole.   Note that Guantanamo prisoners apparently were not “innocent civilians picked up off the street,” as is often averred. To the contrary, the files on them have text from al Qaeda that names them in multiple references; they were known to and often entirely involved with al Qaeda. 
Taliban destroys Afghan army helicopter in IED attack at military base The Taliban planted an IED on the landing pad at a remote military base in Kunar. The Afghan government had previously claimed the helicopter was damaged in an "emergency landing," but the Taliban recorded the attack on video.
US military admits al Qaeda is stronger in Afghanistan than previously estimated  Since 2010, the US military and intelligence services have maintained that al Qaeda had a minimal presence of 50 to 100 operatives in Afghanistan. Now a senior general in Afghanistan admits the estimate needs to be revised. The Long War Journal has warned from the beginning that the conventional estimate was wrong.
Monday 18 April 2016 / Hour 1, Block B:  Tom Joscelyn, Long War Journal senior editor & FDD,  and Bill Roggio, Long War Journal senior editor  & FDD, in re: Game of Thrones squared: ISIS is battling on two fronts in Aleppo, incl vs. Ahrar al-Sham, an al Q group.  In the south of the province, is fighting the Syrians, a handful of oppo groups and the Russians.  Has actually made some gains, Finally, al Q in Syria has launched a campaign against the regime, ISIS, militias and Hezbollah, In the city of Aleppo, jihadists incl Uzbeks (“an away game for them”), shelling a specific neighborhood, a key front for the YPG and Kurds.  Last week, the US mil finally said maybe the (which the US mil has been repeating witlessly for three years);  now it admits to “300,”  Sure.  The stronger the Taliban is, the more al Q fighters are free for other fights.  An overwhelming amount of data: Taliban, al Q, al Nusra, ISIS – the spring offensive: rising. 
Monday 18 April 2016 / Hour 1, Block C: Gordon G. Chang, Daily Beast & Forbes.com, in re:
North Korean test (again); China sends warplanes to Fiery Cross.  . . .  Pentagon decides to send drones there – they’ll be operational in a decade or so – and a bunch of toy submarines.  What’s critical: prevent China from dredging Scarborough Shoal – this is Poland in 1939. We need to deal effectively with Chinese SOEs – a lot of shell companies, need to deal with Beijing, the puppet-master.  Must use everything in our arsenal – painful, but better than war. 
If the US has one success – such as strangling Putin economically – that’ll lay out the stakes to anyone else who tries to do damage (such as China). 
China spent a massive amount of cash in March but produced only a dead panda bounce.   The usual rascals. Sentimental definition of madness is repeating what does not work. A Chinese military aircraft landed at a new airport on the Fiery Cross Reef, an artificial island China built in disputed waters in the South China Sea, Reuters reported April 18. According to the official People's Liberation Army Daily, the military aircraft was on patrol over the South China Sea on April 17 when it responded to an emergency call to evacuate three seriously ill workers from the island. China began civilian test flights to the island in January, but its military had not publicly admitted to landing aircraft on the island. A military expert told the Global Times that the flight demonstrated that the island is up to military standards. China's construction projects on several South China Sea reefs and islets have stirred the ire of its Southeast Asian neighbors.
North Korea is likely to conduct its fifth nuclear test in the near future, Yonhap News Agency said April 17, citing South Korean government sources, Reuters reported. Reports of signs of activity in test sites indicate the North is readying a nuclear test and comes as Pyongyang is gearing up for a ruling Worker's Party congress in early May, where leader Kim Jong Un is likely to boast about the country's weapons program. The likelihood of North Korea conducting a fifth nuclear test has increased because of a failed missile launch on April 15. If it happens, the test would follow a fourth nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch in February, which led to new U.N. sanctions that have failed to halt Pyongyang's weapons programs. South Korea's military has said Pyongyang is ready for an additional nuclear test.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonchang/2016/04/17/china-credit-growing-four-times-faster-than-gdp/#1d4b5bda256c
Monday 18 April 2016 / Hour 1, Block D: Paul Gregory, Hoover, in re: Putin and the Donbass. The Kremlin is running on a day-by-day basis the eastern Ukraine – as proven by docs published in ____Bild.   No difference between Donbass and Crimea? Breakaway republics require heavy subsidies; too expensive. 
 
Hour Two
Monday 18 April 2016 / Hour 2, Block A:  David M Drucker, Senior Congressional correspondent, Washington Examiner; Larry Johnson, NoQuarter, in re: The enthusiasm for the elder Vermont senator who's actually from Brooklyn. He advocates more taxes, more government. Why are the Democrats so excited about the fight between him and Mrs Clinton?  I know someone who hired a ghostwriter to write a book on counter terrorism, which he published himself – and although he knows nothing about it is now a government consultant on counterterrorism. Washington is badly broken and everyone is disgusted.  / Public desire for authenticity ueber alles – no matter what you stand for.  Certainly, things aren't as good as they should be – we haven’t recovered from the 2008 crash, and Bernie gives them a scapegoat.   Of course, Wall St took $800bil to bail themselves out. Meanwhile, the Dems have moved so far to the left that Bernie is sort of in the middle of the Party.  Mrs Clinton is running after Bernie to join up. Only four years ago, Dems bristled when someone called Obama a socialist  (which he is not); now it's shifted. Of course, you can't spend all that money because it doesn't exist.  . . .  A leftist friend of mind asserted today that Bernie will win.  Mrs Clinton’s supporters are legion?  -- unh, she’s not likeable, she’ s bad on the stump; people don't believe her or that she means what she says. 
Monday 18 April 2016 / Hour 2, Block B: David M Drucker,  Senior Congressional correspondent, Washington Examiner; Larry Johnson, NoQuarter, in re:  The day and the moment of the first ballot in Cleveland: 1237 or not.  I give Trump a 60% chance of achieving it, but I never discount his ability to blow himself up.  If he’s only a handful of delegates away, there are probably enough unbound delegates to shift for him.  He’s taken to calling delegates “corrupt” – not necessarily a politic decision.  There are not Party bosses who live this stuff; they revere the GOP rulebook. 
Monday 18 April 2016 / Hour 2, Block C:  Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re: 
•       Israeli Army Discovers Tunnel from Gaza into Israel
The Israeli military said Monday it has discovered and destroyed a tunnel burrowing from Gaza into Israel - the first tunnel to be discovered since Israel's 2014 war with Hamas. The tunnel extended about 100 meters into Israel and was lined with cement and outfitted with electricity, ventilation and rail tracks to cart away dirt from digging, IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said. (AP-New York Times)
    See also IDF Uncovers Gaza Terror Tunnel Dug into Israeli Territory - Judah Ari Gross
Security forces discovered the tunnel inside Israeli territory just over a week ago, the Israel Defense Forces revealed on Monday. Israel has been developing a detection system to locate such tunnels and the army reportedly used the system to discover this tunnel. (Times of Israel)
    See also Israel Drills for Hamas Attack on Gaza Border
Israel on Thursday carried out its largest civilian drill near Gaza since the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas, Israel Channel 2reported Friday. Soldiers and emergency response teams simulated a Hamas incursion into Israeli territory, including an attack on an Israeli kibbutz near the border and the taking of hostages by terrorists. (Times of Israel)
UNESCO Resolution Ignores Jewish Ties to Temple Mount, Western Wall
A resolution adopted Friday by the executive board of UNESCO, meeting in Paris, does not recognize a Jewish connection to the Western Wall and the Temple Mount and calls Israel an "occupying power." The measure refers to the Western Wall as Al-Buraq Plaza and to the Temple Mount as the Al-Aksa Mosque/Al-Haram Al Sharif. It also criticizes Israel for its decision to build an egalitarian prayer area in the Western Wall Plaza.
    Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu responded Saturday night: "UNESCO ignores the unique historic connection of Judaism to the Temple Mount, where two temples stood for a thousand years and to which every Jew in the world has prayed for thousands of years. The UN is rewriting a basic part of human history."  (JTA)
    See also Video: UNESCO's Resolution to Condemn Israel Conflicts with Its Mission - Amb. Alan Baker (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)
Iran showed off parts of its new Russian S-300 missile defense system during National Army Day on April 17, Reuters reported. During an event in Tehran, President Hassan Rouhani said the country's armed forces and its missile defenses were no threat to neighboring countries, but would defend Iran. Russia delivered the first part of the S-300 missile defense system — which can engage multiple aircraft and ballistic missiles around 150 kilometers away — to Iran last week. Russia has said it canceled a contract to deliver S-300s to Iran in 2010 under pressure from the West. But President Vladimir Putin lifted the ban in April 2015, after an interim agreement that paved the way for a full nuclear deal with Iran that ended international sanctions. Since then, Iran's hard-line conservative Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has carried out four ballistic missile tests, upsetting the United States in part to undermine Rouhani and his economic reform efforts that could disrupt Iran's political system.
Monday 18 April 2016 / Hour 2, Block D: Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re: 
 
Hour Three
Monday 18 April 2016 / Hour 3, Block A:   Harry Siegel, New York Daily News, in re: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/harry-siegel-diagnosing-bill-de-blasio-disease-article-1.2603154  Diagnosing Bill de Blasio’s disease: How can we explain the trouble he's in?    .
The bad news has been snowballing for Bill de Blasio, what with the emergence of a federal probe involving, among other things, top cops in Brooklyn accepting diamonds, trips and more from two big donors to various appendages of his political operation and what’s now four separate investigations into a city-aided flip, again involving a wired backer of the mayor, of a Lower East Side nursing home for AIDS patients into luxury condos.
I wrote last Sunday that “after this week, I’m losing faith that de Blasio’s horse trading is paying off for the city.” And it appears I’m not the only one. Ace New York corruption buster Preet Bharara, fresh off turning two of Albany’s three men in a room into convicted felons (and exposing one of them, former Assembly Speaker and de Blasio ally Shelly Silver, as an adulterer who had one mistress who was a major Albany lobbyist and another whom he helped get a state job), is now reportedly looking into these messes and their links to the mayor’s 2013 campaign.
DE BLASIO DEALS WITH FALLOUT FROM SCANDALS INVOLVING NYPD  When Bharara announced last year that he was charging Silver — who de Blasio then called “a man of integrity” — the lawman said that the “unfinished fight against public corruption continues,” and New Yorkers should “stay tuned.”
He repeated the phrase last week at a gala for Common Cause, the good government group whose pointed questions about de Blasio’s main outside money operation, The Campaign for One New York, came just before the group suddenly announced it would be closing up shop. Bharara elaborated, just a little, on what we should be tuned in for, saying that “executive offices in government are far from immune from the creeping show-me-the-money culture that has been pervading New York for some time now.”
Which, given that Bharara has already ended a probe of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, with a public declaration that “there is insufficient evidence to prove a federal crime,” sounds an awful lot like “I’d like to dedicate this next tune to Bill de Blasio.”  Talking on background this week to people who lead groups that do business with this administration, and have long experience with previous ones, the common concerns were whether or not de Blasio has full control over his own administration and political operation — and where, exactly, the line between them gets drawn in our post-Citizens United city.
One person compared de Blasio’s inner circle — particularly Police Commissioner Bill Bratton on all things public-safety related and Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen on all things involving real estate — to “independent contractors,” with tremendous autonomy within their respective spheres. Which might help explain how a mayor with a reputation for micromanaging has spent the last two weeks pleading ignorance about major decisions made by his own administration.  . . .
Monday 18 April 2016 / Hour 3, Block B:  John Tamny, Investor’s Business Daily, RealClearPolitics, Forbes.com, in re:  The Capital Gains Tax Penalizes Creativity and Innovation Despite a Best Picture Oscar nomination for Boyhood, not to mention the ongoing worship among filmgoers for Dazed and Confused, it took Richard Linklater over ten years to find the funding for the spiritual sequel to Dazed, which is the newly released Everybody Wants Some!! Credit in Hollywood is enormously difficult for even the most bankable of talents, but the high capital gains tax (Hillary Clinton wants it much higher) can't be minimized for suffocating creativity and innovation. It's a penalty placed on investment success, one that raises the cost of investing in dynamic ventures in a major way.  . . .
Monday 18 April 2016 / Hour 3, Block C:   Jed Babbin, Washington Times, in re: washingtontimes.com/news/2016/apr/17/jed-babbin-why-obama-is-unteachable/print/
Monday 18 April 2016 / Hour 3, Block D: Christopher Koopman, Mercatus Center, in re:  Today in The Hill, Koopman explains how a new proposal requiring even the smallest tax preparers—anyone who accepts money to assist others with their taxes—to be licensed by the IRS would inevitably backfire: With a tax code so unwieldy and complicated that nearly every American needs help complying, how would regulating preparers make things easier? It won't.
In fact, regulating preparers will destroy a lifeline for many low-income individuals to get the help they need at a price they can afford. History makes this clear. When the IRS attempted to impose similar regulations on their own in 2010, the results were unequivocally disastrous. If the goal is curtailing improper EITC payments, then taking away the assistance that many low-income families have come to rely on might have the opposite effect; forcing families to file returns themselves and simply guess as to whether or not they are eligible for programs.
Moreover, as I've explained in recent research, there are a number of mechanisms that consumers can use to protect themselves against fraudulent activity. In fact, with the growth of services such as Yelp, Consumer Reports and others, consumers are likely in a better position to protect themselves than the federal government is to tell them who is — or is not — an honest dealer. The problems with tax compliance have little to do with who is preparing returns. Making it more difficult for individuals to get the assistance they need will help no one.
 
Hour Four
Monday 18 April 2016 / Hour 4, Block A:  Washington's Immortals: The Untold Story of an Elite Regiment Who Changed the Course of the Revolution by Patrick K. O'Donnell (1 of 4)
Monday 18 April 2016 / Hour 4, Block B:  Washington's Immortals: The Untold Story of an Elite Regiment Who Changed the Course of the Revolution by Patrick K. O'Donnell (2 of 4)
Monday 18 April 2016 / Hour 4, Block C: Washington's Immortals: The Untold Story of an Elite Regiment Who Changed the Course of the Revolution by Patrick K. O'Donnell (3 of 4)
Monday 18 April 2016 / Hour 4, Block D:  Washington's Immortals: The Untold Story of an Elite Regiment Who Changed the Course of the Revolution by Patrick K. O'Donnell (4 of 4)
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