Photo, left:  Cover of "ASSURED RESOLVE; Testing Possible Challenges to Baltic Security," by Julianne Smith & Jerry Hendrix.   cnas.org/sites/default/files/publications-pdf/CNASReport-BalticTTX-160331.pdf
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-hosts: Mary Kissel, Wall Street Journal Editorial Board & host of Opinion Journal on WSJ Video. Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents.
 
Hour One
Thursday  21 April 2016 / Hour 1, Block A: Bill Whalen, Hoover, in re: New York was a bad night for Cruz; but in California, it's a must-crush for Cruz.  Trump says that if he gets within 100, it's in the bag for him.  WSJ: Mr Trump’s “inner hooligan”.  WW:  “Close” counts only in horseshoes and hand grenades.  . . . JB: We can suppose that the Cruz campaign is not sitting back about delegates. . . .  How close does Trump get to 1237?    How do you deny the nomination to someone that close?    Because it's the delegates’s job to nominate someone who can be elected! . . .  [inside baseball on the nomination, delegates, and convention]  Tim Clark will probably soon produce a memo for Trump on California. Will Trump spend enough to won there?  Need to buy TV, ground game, polling in various districts.  As for Kasich: if he can't pick off Rhode Island, he needs consistently to pick off [37?]% of the vote. If I were Ted Cruz, I’d quit talking about Kasich and focus on Trump.   California GOP mood:  divided in three parts - mainstream; diehard strict (Goldwaterites); and the group forever angry, for Trump.   All together: frustrated.  [Cali est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Angeli . . .]
Thursday  21 April 2016 / Hour 1, Block B:  David Drucker, Senior Congressional correspondent, Washington Examiner; in re:  the GOP elites in Hollywood, Florida.  The mood and morale:  realistic, cool, strait-laced.  You had to read between the line. On the record: no problem with Trump, or with Cruz. Privately: they understand the problems, esp the writs Trump brings; and Cruz is not a first choice.  So they're trying to do what they can: make sure the rules are followed at convention  They cannot control the candidates.  Rules committee today: nothing at all happened. Every four years, the rules are written by 112 delegates, not an RNC committee, and many or most are not RNC members. Some rules never change; but there may be tweaks and proposals.  Convention: lots of Congressmen won't go; expect a white knight such as Mitch Daniels?  No – only if there’s a deadlock after multiple multiple ballots. As for who's attending and who’s doing business, a bunch of senators won’t go because of Trump, and some corporate sponsors may not attend (sponsor) because of Trump.    Easiest way to handle this volatile situation is to bug out. 
Thursday  21 April 2016 / Hour 1, Block C: Henry Miller, Hoover, in re: Zika and the Obama administration: Frankenmosquito, Oxitech (Brit-Am) – genetically engineered the species that transmits Zika and have introduced a conditional lethal mutation; this is in all the males released, who reproduce and procreate babies that die.   The Obama Adm rejects this, as having been genetically engineered. Here, they've scored an own goal: should have been under the jurisdiction of Ag Dept Animal and Health Inspection Svc, as it has experience in all this and in fact got rid of the horrifying screw worm by this method. Nonetheless, Pres Obama sent this to the FDA, which has zero related experience and instead refuses even to do field testing – although it's been tested successfully in four nations – because FDA’s mandate is to be sure that it's safe for the mosquito!  Zika may soon be in 30 US states plus Puerto Rico. These insects began in Africa and are an invasive species.  At present, we have 700 cases in the US (half in Puerto Rico).
EPA-Bee-a-Democrat.  The U.S. Is Botching the Zika Fight  A genetically tweaked mosquito could stop the illness, but regulators won’t test it. Why would that be?  Almost every day seems to bring more bad news about the Zika virus: babies born with malformed brains; adults suffering the progressive paralysis of Guillain-Barré syndrome; Americans diagnosed after traveling to the tropics; active transmission of the disease in U.S. territories. Several companies are working on a vaccine, but primarily because of regulatory requirements none is likely to become commercially available before the end of the decade. 
. . . . . . The White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, was snide as usual, saying, “The passage of that bill is positive, but a rather meager accomplishment,” calling it “two months late and $1.9 billion short” of what’s needed to stop the spread of the virus. “In some ways, it’s akin to passing out umbrellas in advance of a hurricane,” he added, illustrating yet again that the administration’s strategy for cooperating with Congress appears to be sarcasm and confrontation.
Earnest should take to heart the old adage about people in glass houses. In fact, it is the abject ignorance and dysfunction of the Obama administration that is holding up a vital tool to control the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that carry and transmit Zika and the viruses that cause dengue fever, chikungunya and yellow fever
"The EPA Bows to Activists" http://www.hoover.org/research/epa-bows-activists  ;  http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/277124-gop-chairman-senate-to-vote-on-zika-funding-in-near-future  ;  http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-u-s-is-botching-the-zika-fight-1457907116
Thursday  21 April 2016 / Hour 1, Block D:  John Roskam, Institute of Public Affairs, Australia, in re:  The Australian elections cycle: the Liberal Party (conservatives) and the Labor Party.  Latest news – Mr Roskam has a lot of ‘splainin’ to do – Tony Abbott was spilled, now a new election because the Abbott-Turnbull Liberal Party will have a new election on 2 July.   Both parties talking about a new and heavy tax on the rich.  A Hobson’s choice between the two parties.  Turnbull is popular for being trendy – marriage, climate change, Australia as a republic – while Labor promises higher taxes, an inquiry into the banks, all-star populism, where Turnbull probably not strong enough. Proposes taxes higher than those of ________
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said April 19 that he will seek the dissolution of parliament and an early election to be held July 2, BBC reported. On April 18, Australia's upper house blocked a piece of government legislation for the second time, which under Australia's Constitution triggers a mechanism that allows the government to call an election. In September 2015, Turnbull became the country's fifth prime minister in just over five years when he defeated Tony Abbott in a Liberal Party leadership ballot. The safety net for those who cannot help themselves has become a system where more than half the population depends on a govt check.  Pols claim that following the herd is the only way to get elected.  We boomed so much that a diminution looks like a depression. We have to stop being a resource-based economy.  A host of mfrg co’s have left Australia.  How about smaller govt and lower taxes – everything that’s worked in the history of the world??  Where are the voices there?  Our people think that only big govt has saved us from the global financial crisis – the GFC. 
 
Hour Two
Thursday  21 April 2016 / Hour 2, Block A:  Ambassador John Bolton. AEI, in re:  Saudi, Syria, Gulf summit –effort was to avoid a more open split among neighbors – “You need to befriend Iran” means he’s brutally pushing them under the bus. A nuclear Iran remains the world’s central bankers’ terror – and the Gulf states are right across the water from Iran. Clearing the air?? Arabs may want more arms, which Obama probably will sell them, but that won’t deter Iran from a nuclear fight. What it does is call into question Israel’s edge—Obama gets a twofer by damaging Israel and not stopping Iran in its march toward regional hegemony.
Arabs are hoping that at least Obama won’t do any more harm – enhance the Iran threat, see the disintegration of Middle Eastern state structures. I’m concerned that America’s adversaries can read a calendar, so they ‘ll advance their anti-US agenda in the next few months. Esp in the volatile Middle East the potential for real problems is high and rising till next January.  Photo ops of Pres Obama and the Gulf leadership are not warm or amicable  Kerry in D.C. spoke of “the next nine months” – holy cow. Jan 19 at 11:59 AM.  Is suspect that when we finally get the real minutes of the mtgs, we’ll se how extreme the division is.   Pres Obama’s view of how the region should look is profoundly different from that of any previous president.  As for the next UN Secretary-General, most of the talk is for show.   Certain themes: need first Female or Eastern European SG. These aren’t rules, they’re conventions I think the next SG will be picked by the five permanent members.  Ban was a decision basically between US and China, Now, Putin seems to have the veto.  Russia is looking for an East European SG whom it can lean on – maybe the SG of UNESCO (who caused the PA to be a member and so cut off US funds; we surely ought to veto her).   Am not worried about the proposed May mtg; am more concerned about the GA, which runs from September to the end of the year – we may see Pres Obama’s payback to Israel, which has refused to give in to the Palestinians, to Iran, etc. Poor Pres Obama.
http://www.aei.org/publication/americas-middle-east-policy-post-obama/
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/19/world/middleeast/obama-to-visit-a-saudi-arabia-deep-in-turmoil.html?ref=world&mtrref=undefined
\http://www.defenddemocracy.org/media-hit/david-weinberg-why-is-president-obamas-visit-to-saudi-arabia-important-now/
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/the-long-divorce
http://www.defenddemocracy.org/media-hit/david-daoud-saudi-clerics-rhetoric-and-implications-for-global-security/
http://www.defenddemocracy.org/media-hit/david-weinberg-why-is-president-obamas-visit-to-saudi-arabia-important-now/
http://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-moves-artillery-to-northern-syria-u-s-officials-say-1461153190
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/opinion/sunday/syrias-future-a-black-hole-of-instability.html?ref=opinion&_r=2
Thursday  21 April 2016 / Hour 2, Block B:  Anna Borshchevskaya- Russia, PM Netanyahu’s visit to Russia. Russian and Syrian jets:  Russian jet scrambled to meet an Israel jet – no problem.  Putin and Netanyahu met today in the Moscow Kreml – they looked wonderfully happy. A truly comfortable encounter, RIA Novosti photo: they mirror each other’s body language. The formal announcements are very positive – Bibi was “happy “ with how the mtg went.   Free-trade zone, Russia-Israel?  Putin sees a chance to create beachheads allover the Middle East, where Pres Obama is, unfortunately, heartily disliked regionally. When the Wet retreats, Putin steps into the vacuum. Putin said it's quite telling that Israel’s PM issues Passover congratulations worldwide from the Kremlin, not Washington.  Russia proposes to protect Israel in part because so many Russians live there and because the Orthodox Church has strong interests there.   Tension with Turkey: Putin will at least rhetorically pursue pro-Kurdish policies – pragmatism.   Putin sees next steps in Syria: a more assertive role – more territory?  Looks as though he’ll continue supporting Assad in Assad’s strongholds, esp Aleppo. Not a real withdrawal.  Ultimately, see that Assad stays in power
Anna Borshchevskaya is the Ira Weiner Fellow at The Washington Institute, focusing on Russia's policy toward the Middle East.  In addition, she is a fellow at the European Foundation for Democracy and was previously with the Peterson Institute for International Economics and the Atlantic Council. A former analyst for a U.S. military contractor in Afghanistan, she has also served as communications director at the American Islamic Congress.
Thursday  21 April 2016 / Hour 2, Block C:  Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents; in re:  Russian and Syrian jets: no conflict.  Supreme Court ruling on Iran paying terrorism victims – Iran has already called it theft. Concerns assets that were already frozen; Court ruled that funds may be extracted to pay Iran’s victims. UNESCO (founded in 1946 to fight ignorance, prejudice, equality), where the head opposes the committee decision in the Egyptian amulet; pretends that the Temple Mount is not where the Second Temple stood. Very odd.  Its effort is now expanding: used to speak of the Cave of the Patriarchs, Rachel’s Tomb, the Temple Mount, and many anciently holy sites; now UNESCO calls all these only by their Muslim titles.  For a body formed to safeguard cultural and religious heritages, this is shocking.  A child, walking in a national park called “the Temple Mount sifting project” – where Arafat dumped hundreds of tons of soil – and 170,000 volunteers have fund thousands of objects, maybe half a million all together -  this girl found a 3,200 –year-old amulet with the name of Thutmose III; shows that he ruled over the city-state of Jerusalem and the kingdom of Canaan.  Was a pendant; fund 3,200 years later when the UN meets to deny the connection, wham!  Also found a coin with Elijah’s name on it, burned from the notorious fire.  Arabs have paid between 0 and 15% of their pledges over the last decade and a half. 
Thursday  21 April 2016 / Hour 2, Block D:  Prof Irwin Cotler, in re:  March of the Living, the Nuremberg Symposium, in Krakow, Poland; at Jagellonian University. Seventieth anniversary of the Nuremburg’ three panels: supreme court justices (incl Canadian jurist who’s a Holocaust survivor, and many distinguished persons); and this is also the 22d anniversary of the Rwandan/Tutsi genocide.   Two additional excellent panels, with the third being a group of scholars.   . . . Note current state sanctions of brutal bias; and see missile tested by Iran with the words. “Wipe Israel off the map,” and Khamenei’s “Zionist entity.”  Wed need to heed the lessons of eighty years ago.
Irwin Cotler is a former Member of Parliament for Mount Royal and the Liberal Party of Canada’s Critic for Rights and Freedoms and International Justice. He is also an Emeritus Professor of Law at McGill University, former Minister of Justice & Attorney General of Canada, and an international human rights lawyer.
A constitutional and comparative law scholar, Prof. Cotler intervened in landmark Charter of Rights cases in the areas of free speech, freedom of religion, minority rights, peace law and war crimes justice.
 
Hour Three
Thursday  21 April 2016 / Hour 3, Block A:  Dan Henninger, WSJ editorial, in re:  Is Bernie Sanders the Future the Democrats Have Been Waiting For?   With Hillary Clinton and the party machinery back on track to a now-tarnished coronation, it’s worth assessing what Bernie Sanders ’s campaign accomplished. I still can’t take the Vermont Socialist himself seriously, not with Larry David as his doppelgänger. But the Sanders phenomenon—embraced by a strong majority of liberals between the ages of 17 and 50—deserves attention.
Reporters have exhaustively plumbed the habitats and mental states of “the Trump voter.” Sen. Sanders’s supporters, by contrast, have floated through the primaries in a mist of keywords—millennials, college students, young professionals, actresses, “white people.”  One has to ask: Are they all actually socialists? I doubt it.
It’s no surprise Donald Trump in his New York victory speech about the “corrupt” Republican Party called Sen. Sanders a fellow “outsider.” The two great disrupters are remarkably similar, a kind of Tweedledon and Tweedleburn on trade and a “system” that’s “broken” and “failing” their supporters.  http://www.wsj.com/articles/bernie-sanderss-legacy-1461194181?tesla=y
Thursday  21 April 2016 / Hour 3, Block B: Michael Ledeen, FDD, in re:  ttp://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelledeen/2016/04/01/the-whole-world-is-in-turmoil-not-just-us/#76ededb69c51 .  Obama of Arabia  http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/saudi-arabia-obama-says-u-s-still-has-serious-concerns-n559771
Thursday  21 April 2016 / Hour 3, Block C: Jerry Hendrix, CNAS, in re: ASSURED RESOLVE Testing Possible Challenges to Baltic Security, by Julianne Smith & Jerry Hendrix
 . . . NATO, what its function is; Putin picking off East European nations and sowing dissension among NATO members.  Five nations exceed the 2% of GDP required as payment, while the rest are struggling.  Think of Baltic nations as having GDPs like those of Wyoming or Arkansas.   Incitement, invasion or blockade.    http://www.cnas.org/sites/default/files/publications-pdf/CNASReport-BalticTTX-160331.pdf
Jerry Hendrix is the Senior Fellow and Director of the Defense Strategies and Assessments Program at the Center for a New American Security. A retired Captain in the United States Navy, his staff assignments include tours with the Chief of Naval Operation’s Executive Panel (N00K), the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, and the Office of Net Assessment. Most recently, he served as the Director of Naval History.
Thursday  21 April 2016 / Hour 3, Block D: Jerry Hendrix, CNAS, in re: ASSURED RESOLVE Testing Possible Challenges to Baltic Security, by Julianne Smith & Jerry Hendrix
 . . . NATO, what its function is; Putin picking off East European nations and sowing dissension among NATO members.  Five nations exceed the 2% of GDP required as payment, while the rest are struggling.  Think of Baltic nations as having GDPs like those of Wyoming or Arkansas.   Incitement, invasion or blockade.   The first move was to concern incitement: the Baltia govts moved swiftly to invoke article F 5 (collective self-defense) – did not wait till we “went kinetic.”  Others wanted to have long consultations; the US, however, said we need to nip the incident in the bud, NATO moves best when it’s led by a strong US voice. Beyond diplo talks, NATO was hamstrung, VJTF:  units dispersed across the continent -   time and space factor.  Ergo, we made recommendations about forces on the continent.  Scale? Two hundred F22s; Europe needs to match us and isn’t; 55 attack boats. What can Europe do to enhance maritime? It’ll have to invest a bit. Russia has an A2AD bubble  capability in Kaliningrad - S2 missiles, very advanced;   Iskander missile also in Kaliningrad.  Anti-access air denial envt:  only 5th-gen subs will work. Expect A2AD  in Crimea and Tartus!  A thousand miles.  Trying to build resilience back into the NATO alliance. Europe absolutely must bld its infantry, armor, aircraft, and come to groups with this rising threat – hard to overstate the potential of what this new Russia can do.
 http://www.cnas.org/sites/default/files/publications-pdf/CNASReport-BalticTTX-160331.pdf
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NATO Fail: Out of Date & Out of Excuses. Jerry Hendrix, CNAS.
“Despite countless efforts since the fall of the Berlin Wall to fold Russia into both Western institutions and a community of shared values, Russia’s relationship with the West has deteriorated significantly in recent years. There were warning signs – President Vladimir Putin’s fiery speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2007 and, more troubling, the Russia-Georgia conflict in 2008. But there were also occasional breakthroughs, such as the signing of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in 2010 that gave the West the impression that relations with Russia were, at least in broad terms, on a positive trajectory.
The hope behind such cooperative efforts and what they might deliver in the future faded to black in 2012 when Putin returned to his position as president, a post he earlier held from 2000 to 2008. Since 2012, Putin has rolled back democratic reforms at home, used force to illegally seize the territory of neighboring states, violated international norms and laws, and used economic coercion to advance his agenda. Across the European continent, Russia is carrying out acts of intimidation designed to divide Europe from within and divide Europe from the United States. Such acts regularly include snap exercises along neighboring borders; overflights into countries’ sovereign airspace; efforts to incite anger among Russian minorities living in Europe; aggressive disinformation campaigns; and direct support to anti-EU and anti-immigrant parties across Europe.   http://www.cnas.org/sites/default/files/publications-pdf/CNASReport-BalticTTX-160331.pdf
 
Hour Four
Wednesday 20 April 2016   / Hour 4, Block A:  Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America by T. J. Stiles. Part II of II (segment 5 of 8)
Wednesday 20 April 2016   / Hour 4, Block B:  Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America by T. J. Stiles. Part II of II (segment 6 of 8)
Wednesday 20 April 2016   / Hour 4, Block C:  Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America by T. J. Stiles. Part II of II (segment 7 of 8)
Wednesday 20 April 2016   / Hour 4, Block D:  Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America by T. J. Stiles. Part II of II (segment 8 of 8)