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JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
 
Hour One
Thursday  11 February 2016 / Hour 1, Block A: Mona Charen, NRO, in re: . . . this president has unilaterally changed legislation in a number of matters; also tried to rewrite EPA envtl legislation (just stopped by Supreme Court)  and immigration legislation. Very little reaction by legislators to this. It‘s as though the voters think that electing a president is electing an emperor.   Back to demagoguery:  depressing, as both Parties have turned to people who are irresponsible, play upon worst fears and instincts – for his or own personal advancement. Trump:  “We should just take the oil from Middle Eastern countries!” “Kill the wives and children of terrorists” “Build a wall and make Mexico pay for it”  “Kim Jong-eun [DPRK dictator with nukes; quite unstable]: Have the Chinese get rid of him quickly” The overseas narrative about the US is that it’s immature and reckless; Euros think Trump is a credible American leader. If the GOP can't mount a serious effort to [shift] this, it will destroy the Republican Party – as Trump destroys, inter al., Constitutional limits.
Bernie Sanders is a different sort.
Day of the Demagogues  As the results of New Hampshire’s primary were coming in Tuesday night, some commentators on Twitter were jubilant about the “disruption” the victories of an inane socialist demagogue and a foul-mouthed nationalist demagogue represented to the “establishment.” Yes, mobs are disruptive. Madame DeFarge enjoyed a good shakeup herself.
Senator Bernie Sanders believes that eight years of the most leftist president in American history have left the plutocrats in total control. Channeling the late Hugo Chavez, he promises to lift the minimum wage to $15 per hour, provide free college educations for all, and deliver universal health care (with only a small tax on the middle class). How will he pay for it? “With a tax on Wall Street speculation.” http://www.nationalreview.com/article/431122/bernie-sanders-donald-trump-wall-street-immigration-demagoguery
Thursday  11 February 2016 / Hour 1, Block B:  Mona Charen, NRO, in re:  Day of the Demagogues  - remember that Athenians thought of demagogues as leaders. Mrs Clinton is the overwhelming favorite for the Democrats. Why is Sen Sanders charming so many young people?  For one thing, Mrs Clinton’s scandals anent corruption, sweet deal for self, major dishonesty. She campaigns as though it was a duty – but Sanders is the embodiment of Occupy Wall Street:  you’re having benefits stolen for you; I’ll give you free college tuition, free medical care, and the billionaires and Wall Street will pay for it. Preaching a free lunch [TANSTAAFL] –captains of the good ship, Other People’s Money.  His supporters are not grown-ups: adults know that you can't get anything for free.   Bad decisions by bankers, govt obliged them to make bad loans – many people are culpable for the economic catastrophe.
Thursday  11 February 2016 / Hour 1, Block C:  Sebastian v Gorka, Marine Corps University, in re: a hearing, or briefing, at House Armed Svcs Committee, on the changing nature of hybrid warfare.   Unfortunately, this will be an unpleasant surprise even to some experts. The Chapel Hill professor Charles Kurtzman presents graph of all jihadi activities in the US since 2001 – 2015 showed a spike among US Muslims: plant to shoot, use truck bombs, brandish knife, plan to attack universities , et al. et al.  These are Americans, university-educated, who want to attack in the name of the caliph.  Since the Caliphate was declared in 2014, we've arrested 90 people in the US representing only ISIS. Only half wanted to fight jihad abroad, but a preponderance decided to kill Americans on US soil.   All official respondents refused to speak under their name!  The shift between reality and White House orders. Data that contradict the official story will get you in serious trouble.  American investigators are both overwhelmed with work and forbiddden to tell the truth about what they see. Band-aids n suppurating chest wounds.
Thursday  11 February 2016 / Hour 1, Block D: Pastor William Devlin, Bridges Khartoum  & Infinity Bible Church & REDEEM!; in re: live from Gaza. Reconciliation talks between Hamas and PA/Fatah going nowhere. Latest Fatah, Hamas reconciliation bid announced in Gaza   Exercise bty Hamas to get exit visas; this is my 15th visit to Gaza but it's getting difficult, exsp UN officials who want to exit Gaza in order to exert influence.  The Rafah Crossing (to Sinai) in 20915 was open for only about two weeks, although we hear it;’ll be open on Saturday. There are 20,000 people in Gaza waiting to exit there.  In Gaza City the other day, violence out of frustration.  . . . With ISIS now very present in Gaza, Christians are legitimately afraid – have been there since earliest AD. There are three churches; only 50 Christians left.  Da’ish recruiting: Salafis, and Muslim Brotherhood car-bombing gang warfare here.  Hamas:  “We’re the democratically elected government.”  No external display of Da’ish flag yet.  Hamas re-arming, bldg. new tunnels (even though Egypt has done its best to destroy them, esp in southern Gaza); more goods and services a re going though. Electricity for hours a day; sewage treatment is limited; Israeli-controlled water supply also difficult Especially hard for Christians.  Last week nine people attached to Hamas were killed in tunnel-bldg. Can buy anything you might want to buy; Israelis let in 250 trucks a day – incl cement: for building more tunnels.
 
Hour Two
Thursday  11 February 2016 / Hour 2, Block A: Daniel Henninger, WSJ Editorial, in re:  . . . Larry Kudlow’s young cab driver: “I can't decided whom to vote for – Sanders or Trump.”  A cri de coeur. The debates are a pinball game: questions thrown in in random order, unable to sustain  one idea long enough to be clear.  GOP needs to speak to moderators: I’d like to continue the policy discussion of a few moments ago.  http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-among-the-canaries-1455148607?tesla=y
Thursday  11 February 2016 / Hour 2, Block B: David Davenport, Hoover, in re:  The hyperpopular Broadway musical, Hamilton.   Consider a missing  piece of American knowledge: civics. Taught in seventh, eighth, ninth grade.  Today, younger people are aware that they've been deprived of American history.  It's almost impossible to get a ticket to that play. But it’s even harder to get educated in history and civics in the United States. This will serve us poorly as a republic.   Making claims that are false about the American co=Constitution, or about the Civil War, or about race – means that these young people who are about to come into power have no way to resist propaganda machines that are now widespread. Need to learn to detect error and foolishness.   All of the funding for civics was dropped by the Dept of Education about three years ago.  Colleges: 82% require not one single course in history or civics. Only one-third of Americans can pass a standard exam thereon, whereas 98% of immigrants do.  http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddavenport/2016/01/29/hamilton-a-hit-on-broadway-but-not-in-the-classroom/#3c042d4422a1
Thursday  11 February 2016 / Hour 2, Block C:   Liz Peek, Fiscal Times and Fox, in re: Hillary Clinton is struggling to connect with young women voters, so she’s brought in . . .  Madeleine Albright? Enlisting the 78-year-old to chase millennials may seem far-fetched, but it’s a gift to voters and to the GOP. Just as Hillary’s claims of advocacy for women encouraged criticism of her husband’s sexual misadventures, trotting out Bill Clinton’s former Secretary of State allows us to revisit how her husband’s presidency all but ignored the brewing Islamic jihad against the U.S.
Hillary Clinton offers her husband’s time in office as a halcyon time of peace and prosperity. The truth is that Bill Clinton, like President Obama, made a cataclysmic choice early on that has cost this country untold amounts of blood and treasure. That choice was to ignore the numerous attacks on Americans by Islamic radicals, a decision which served to embolden the jihadists behind 9/11. Like President Obama, Bill Clinton, distracted by endless scandals, led from behind.
Related: The Clinton Scandal That Still Matters Is Not the One You Think
Americans may have forgotten that during the Clinton presidency al-Qaeda bombed the World Trade Center in New York, leaving 6 dead and 1,040 injured. The administration, focused on pushing Hillary’s unpopular healthcare proposal, characterized the attacker as someone who “did something really stupid,” and handed the investigation over to the cops. Intelligence groups, who suspected that Osama bin Laden orchestrated the bombing, were muted. 
Thursday  11 February 2016 / Hour 2, Block D: Kori Schake, Hoover, in re: Neville Chamberlain, 1938: “A quarrel in a faraway country, between people of whom we know nothing.” Pres Obama’s limitations on Iraq and Afghanistan have led to chaos; he doesn't understand that the US is the beneficiary of a stable international order; crises are now much more brittle; neither our allies nor enemies know what we're doing. Allies hedge, enemies press forward. . . . By the US allowing the Russians to pound Aleppo encourages them to make inroads into Europe.  This White House thinks it can run foreign policy as a series of small, independent activities, unaware of the larger picture.  . . . Trump:  “Chinese are tenants in one of my New York buildings; I can get them to solve it.” Also, who said, “Carpet-bombing doesn’t have to be indiscriminate”? Egad.
  Obama’s Syria Policy Is Morally and Strategically Bankrupt  Five years ago, President Obama proudly declared that “some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different.” Imagine how that must sound to a people whose government has killed more than a quarter million of its citizens and made refugees of nine million more, who suffer chemical-weapons and barrel-bomb attacks, kidnappings, and torture. Syrians are trapped between a murderous government and the murderous Islamic state — small wonder they are fleeing by the millions.
Aleppo, Syria’s most populous city and the last rebel stronghold, is about to be retaken by the Assad government. Russia is conducting 200 airstrikes a day in support of its current offensive (by contrast, the U.S. coalition carries out only eight per day throughout Syria). In the past week, another 60,000 Syrians have fled their homes in the city and are pinned against the Turkish border, where that government hesitates to take in more than the 2,500,000 refugees they are already protecting. The U.N. expects another 150,000 people to flee Aleppo before all is said and done.
The White House is once again floating rumors that it is rethinking its Syria strategy. Since President Obama walked away from his 2013 “red line” ultimatum, John Kerry has been energetically organizing diplomatic meetings at which all parties know the United States has no intention of changing the facts on the ground in Syria. That knowledge has leeched any moral or political authority away from the U.S. position. As a result, we are a mere convener for meetings in which the Russians, Iranians, and Syrians dictate terms to Syria’s rebels. “What are you going to do, other than statements?” the rebels ask. The Obama administration piously intones that there is no military solution in Syria. But, as the Wall Street Journal’s Ahmed Al Omran has pointed out, that’s just not true: There is a military solution, and it’s being carried out by the Syrian government, in alliance with Russia and Iran.
Russian strategy in Syria is the same as Syrian and Iranian strategy: kill the non–Islamic State Syrian opposition to keep Assad in power, leaving the terrorist group as the only alternative. The Director of Defense Intelligence testified yesterday that Russia has so far succeeded. Before Russia’s intervention, Assad was losing; now he is poised to retake Aleppo, and Russia has become a major power in the Middle East.
Russia has sent a clear signal in the Middle East and beyond that it will deliver devastating violence on behalf of its allies. According to the British Foreign Secretary, it has deliberately targeted civilians, killing over a thousand. President Putin justifies the action, saying, “One should try anything to support the legitimate rulers in Syria.” Contrast that with President Obama’s statement in December: “I’m confident that we are on the winning side of this and that ultimately, Russia’s going to recognize the threat.”  President Obama has proved himself fearful of confronting Vladimir Putin, increasing the danger to our country and many others.
Russia has been economically and militarily weak since the end of the Cold War, unable to become successful on Western terms. Putin has an astronomical approval rating because he is giving Russians their pride back, even as his actions impoverish them. Allowing Russia to impose the peace of the grave on Syria is not only horrible for Syria, it will cause American allies around the world to fear our security guarantees are feeble.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have volunteered ground troops to fight in Syria — provided that the United States is on the ground alongside them. Turkey would also join in. But no one will fight a two-front war against Syria, Russia, Iran, and the Islamic State without the United States on the ground and committed to winning it. “Leading from behind” simply will not do.
The United States is long overdue to protect the grieving people of Syria from the preying vultures of Assad, Iran, Russia, and the Islamic State. President Obama worries about the cost of American involvement abroad and the risk of confronting Putin’s Russia; he ought to be much more worried about the cost of our remaining uninvolved. As Obama administration special envoy Martin Indyk put it, “not taking a stand in Syria was the original mistake that helped to open the gates of hell.” — Kori Schake is a research Fellow at the Hoover Institution.
Hour Three
Thursday  11 February 2016 / Hour 3, Block A: Michael Pregent, VATD &Hudson Institute; in re: Aleppo is a city and a province (from Damascus to Aleppo); under massive fire; the offensive drives hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees to the Turkish border, which Turkey won't let them cross. Soon: 600,000 terrified refugees at the border.   Russians, al Nusrah. Al Qaeda, ISIS, the US.   The Russian offensive is no=w working; Before, moderate Syrian forces were still operating as recently as 30 days ago, but now with the US position shifted toward Ira, Russia and the Assad regime, it's every man for himself.  Meanwhile, Russian airstrikes against civilians in Aleppo and Idlib as the US stands back.  Russians bombs and rocket indiscriminately. US passive, stands aside, pretends to ignore. Punishing Sunni population centers.  M1Abrams tanks, American, run by ISIS with their flags on the tanks.  Russians are driving Syrians to the Turkish frontier, and the US is also driving its rebels to the Turkish frontier.  US said Russia targeted two Aleppo hospitals – Russia says, No, that was our bombs, since we weren’t even there at that time. “The strongest horse.”  The strongest tribe in Syria now is the Russians, who are trying to get he Syrian Kurds, YPG under Russian banner while accusing the US of being in alliance with them, “terrorists.”  Russian sweep up to the Turkish frontier: pushing refugees north, causing the refugee crisis in Europe then argue, “You need us there to kill ISIS.”  Whole operation is keeping Russian and Iranian influence in Syria.  CNN said today that a cease-fire was agreed – in five more days. Five more days to bomb Aleppo and derail the cease-fire. Refugees are fleeing from mass murder – this is a massacre.    ISIS is a creature of Turkish intelligence, the Millî İstihbarat Teşkilatı (MİT).  Russians need the threat of ISIS in order to continue the fight against opposition to Assad.  “Regional spillover.”
Thursday  11 February 2016 / Hour 3, Block B: Michael Pregent, VATD &Hudson Institute; in re:  The predation of Iran. On State of the Union day, US sailors were abducted by Iran, bound, and kidnapped. Best info is that sailors were in international waters (each boat has two engines, can rescue each other easily); boats’ navigational systems were stolen by Iran so we can’t check to see where the boats were. No way could the navigational systems on both boats break down at the same time. Iran made photos & videos: all the captured sailors on knees  with hands on heads; violation of Geneva Accords.  And Article 16: used as propaganda video, also violation of Geneva.   Syrian civil war cannot be stopped in the coming 11 months if the Obama Administration continues to [ignore the situation].
Five years after Mubarak's fall, lessons for Washington: It is now perfectly clear how the Obama administration failed  http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/eric-trager-lessons-years-mubarak-fall-article-1.2527950
Circulating the Internet today are Iran-released photographs featuring our recently captured U.S. sailors. One of them pictured is crying.  Michael Pregent, former intelligence advisor to Gen. David Petraeus, who served in Iraq and is a respected security and terrorism analyst, says this is another propaganda ploy by the Iranians to make Americans look weak. 
•       It‘s no surprise Iran would release more videos post Implementation Day and demean U.S. soldiers for propaganda purposes.
•       The Obama administration should put sanctions on Iran's Revolutionary Guard for violating the Geneva Conventions.
•       This is another example of a corrupt regime standing up to the US because they're not being held accountable for their actions.
•       The 2016 candidates are heading down to South Carolina, a heavily populated veteran community, and should condemn Iran's actions. They should start asking where are the three Americans who were kidnapped by Iranian militias in Iraq.
MSNBC talking Iran Prisoner Swap ; FOX and Friends talking Iran Prisoner Swap  ; CNN talking the GOP Debate
Thursday  11 February 2016 / Hour 3, Block C: John Tamny, RealClearMarkets in re: economics and gold – gold bugs.
Thursday  11 February 2016 / Hour 3, Block D: Gretchen Morgenson, NYT, in re: Eight years later, the banksters win.
 
Hour Four
Thursday  11 February 2016 / Hour 4, Block A:  Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs; in re:  How Appropriate Is Our Emerging Technology?   China’s freedom to rise as a global maritime power in the 21st Century and the Soviet Union’s earlier collapse in 1990-91 as a super-power are linked by different applications of the same US program of technological innovation: Stefan Possony’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).
The USSR leadership attempted and failed to compete technologically with SDI (thus bankrupting the Soviet Empire) while at the same time launching what would be an ultimately-successful proxy war through co- opted civil society movements to politically destroy the US program. The information domi-nance campaign to stop SDI was successful, but too late to save the USSR. The Soviet directed energy anti-ballistic missile (ABM program was the final straw for an underperforming Soviet economy, already plagued, as well, by demographic and other problems.
The fact that the Soviets ultimately did stop SDI, however, created the strategic space for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to progressively develop a sophisticated, highly-accurate mobile medium-range ballistic missile system, capable of targeting naval fleets underway with difficult-to-defeat (at this stage) maneuverable re-entry vehicles, fitted with nuclear warheads. The DF-21D. It would keep US carrier strike groups well away from the Chinese coast in times of conflict, too far for them to deliver carrier-based strategic air strikes against PRC targets. This gives the PRC the ability to project maritime power into the South and East China seas with relative impunity.
The origins of this situation, and to the conception of strategically transformative technological capability and strategy, go back to the beginning of the 1970s. Possony, my partner in founding the Defense & For-eign Affairs publications in 1972, persuaded Ronald Reagan, in the period after his Governorship of Cali-fornia and before his Presidency, of the need to break, once and for all, the linear stepwork of US-Soviet competition between ever-increasing throw-weight and sophistication of nuclear and thermo-nuclear weapons delivered by ballistic missiles.  (1 of 2)
Thursday  11 February 2016 / Hour 4, Block B: Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs; in re:  How Appropriate Is Our Emerging Technology.  (2 of 2)
Thursday  11 February 2016 / Hour 4, Block C:  Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack, in re:  First direct detection of a gravitational wave  The science team from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) announced today that on September 14, 2015 they made the first direct detection of a gravitational wave, produced by the merging of two distant black holes.  Based on the observed signals, LIGO scientists estimate that the black holes for this event were about 29 and 36 times the mass of the sun, and the event took place 1.3 billion years ago. About three times the mass of the sun was converted into gravitational waves in a fraction of a second — with a peak power output about 50 times that of the whole visible universe. By looking at the time of arrival of the signals — the detector in Livingston recorded the event 7 milliseconds before the detector in Hanford — scientists can say that the source was located in the Southern Hemisphere.
According to general relativity, a pair of black holes orbiting around each other lose energy through the emission of gravitational waves, causing them to gradually approach each other over billions of years, and then much more quickly in the final minutes. During the final fraction of a second, the two black holes collide at nearly half the speed of light and form a single more massive black hole, converting a portion of the combined black holes’ mass to energy, according to Einstein’s formula E=mc2. This energy is emitted as a final strong burst of gravitational waves. These are the gravitational waves that LIGO observed.  Because of the faintness of the wave signal, I suspect that the scientists involved have spent the last four months reviewing their data and the instrument very carefully, to make sure this was not a false detection. That they feel confident enough to make this announcement tells us that they think the detection was real.
Recently ESA launched Lisa Pathfinder, a prototype space-based gravitational wave detector designed to test the technology for building a larger in-space observatory that would be far more sensitive that LIGO. Funding for that larger detector has dried up, Today’s announcement will likely help re-energize that funding effort.
Thursday  11 February 2016 / Hour 4, Block D:   Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack, in re:   India and UAE to ink Mars project deal  The competition heats up: India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) plan to sign two deals today, one of which will lead to the first Arab Mars mission.
It appears that India will help UAE build its first mission to Mars, using the technology they developed for Mangalyaan. In exchange, the second deal will bring up to $75 billion of UAE investment capital into India.
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