Thursday 27 July 2017y
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JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-hosts: Mary Kissel, Wall Street Journal, and Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents
Hour One
Thursday 27 July 2017 / Hour 1, Block A: Mona Charen, NRO, in re: All of us still sorely miss Joe Rago. Everyone still a bit in shock; none of us has absorbed the fact of his departure.
Skinny repeal. If you remove the mandate, wont work; if you repeal entirely, then . . . Problem ab initio: GOP not sure what it stand for on this. Party is riven; understandable political reasons. Tax reform: rudderless and leaderless. Constituencies that have oxen to be gored.
Thursday 27 July 2017 / Hour 1, Block B: Mary Kissel, in re: Foxconn, Taiwanese-owned tech supplier announces it’ll soon bld a factor in Wisconsin Amazon will hire 50,00 staff; Walmart will create up to 1.5 million jobs, incl mfrg. Holman Jenkins on Foxconn: doesn't make sense to make parts, ship across the Pacific then ship by rail to Middle West. It’s not all about labor costs, only; it’s rule of law, transport, and many other factors. Wisconsin has given a multi-billion-dollar tax break, but that’ll be good for jobs. We won't bring back mfrg jobs; we’ve created new ones. [On the third hand {so to speak},] there’ll also be a lot of robot jobs. US needs workers to have broader access to more ad
Thursday 27 July 2017 / Hour 1, Block C: Thaddeus McCotter, WJR, the Great Voice of the Great Lakes, in re: Letter from Chair of House Intell to Dan Coates, Director of National Intelligence, anent unmasking and surveillance leaks: Unauthorized disclosure . . . is a crime. FISA courts, 702. This is a bipartisan/nonpartisan look in to [natl security]. Hundreds of improper requests for unmasking. Political spying! In March, Chairman Nunes speaking to media on unmaskings’ having been routine in the last year of the Obama administration. Criminal referrals to be made?
Thursday 27 July 2017 / Hour 1, Block D: Thaddeus McCotter, WJR, the Great Voice of the Great Lakes, in re: Bill Browder, man behind Congressional sanctions on Russia called Magnitskiy Act. Sen Graham: This whole story reads like a novel nobody would buy. . . . You believe Fusion GPS shd have registered under foreign agents registration act. . . . Fusion GPS worked against Magnitsky Act under supervision of Veselnitskaya. She’s taken money from both sides. Hired to set up a dossier against Trump, and also to counter the Magnitsky Act. I tie Trump to the Russians. What a great day for Fusion GPS—a twofer. Suggests that the whole Trump Russian collaboration is backward, that it was the Democrats who paid for all this. There are two, three, four levels to the game being played here. Fusion GPS is a Democratic hit oppo crew. Who's the Republican who paid Fusion GPS in 2015 for oppo research? More important, who's the Democratic donor/client who took over the negative info on Trump, then hired Steele for the Steele dossier? Did the FBI use taxpayer money to pay for this?
Hour Two
Thursday 27 July 2017 / Hour 2, Block A: Soner Cagaptay, Washington Institute, in re: Turkey, and Soner’s new book, The New Sultan: Erdogan and the Crisis of Modern Turkey. Half the Turkish population adore the power president, Erdogan; the other half hate and loathe him. Erdogan trying to remove democracy; is obsessed with Gulen. EU accession process never went anywhere. EU asked to have military's power removed from politics so Erdogan dd so - but it was the military that maintain secular democracy. Erdogan then dropped the ball on EUU accession. Accession became unreal. Croatia, which began accession process with Turkey, became a member in 2013. Major inflection point. Erdoganbon into a poor family in Istanbul; is now head of state, head of government, head of his political party. He feels weak as a citizen, coming from the "wrong side of the tracks." He’s almost trapped in his own chamber.
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/turkey-and-the-f... ·
http://foreignpolicyi.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=67276f8f876a3a26... ·
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/24/world/europe/turkey-trial-journalists...
Soner Cagaptay is the Beyer Family Fellow and director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute. He has written extensively on U.S.-Turkish relations, Turkish domestic politics, and Turkish nationalism, publishing in scholarly journals and major international print media.
Thursday 27 July 2017 / Hour 2, Block B: Ambassador Dennis Ross, Washington Institute for Near East Policy; in re: Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Jordan & Waqf. Temple Mount.
· http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/jordan/1.803781?utm_source=dlvr....
· http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.803644
· https://www.algemeiner.com/2017/07/26/ex-israeli-diplomats-us-state-depa...
Ambassador Dennis Ross is counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Prior to returning to the Institute in 2011, he served two years as special assistant to President Obama and National Security Council senior director for the Central Region, and a year as special advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Thursday 27 July 2017 / Hour 2, Block C: Congressman Lee Zeldin (NY-1), in re: US-Israel relations; Iran. . . . [Peter Choi’s notes] JB: US patrol boat, USS Thunderbolt, under attack from IRGC craft in Persian Gulf, fired warning shots. What’s the mood for more sanctions on Iran? LZ: So many bad actors, unwarranted missile firings, unjustified imprisonment; they were at one point desperate for American good relations. Colleagues of mine were supportive of Iran nuclear deal, others did not but had to support it publicly. We need Iranians’ begging for sanctions relief again. MH: The president should not refortify the deal, however. It’s not in the best interest of our national security. LZ?:Besides testing the JCPOA, it’s appropriate to ask for inspections. In the only inspection that took place, Iran was collecting its own [data]. We’re in a position to lead. It’s fair for us to lead, as Iran call us “the great state”; we’re the leader of their world. MH: looking ahead to the next deadline, will Washington come out with a coherent solution or policy? LZ: You need everyone who needs to weigh in, we need to be on the same page, rehearsal, etc. For something like this, it’s not just the Defense Department, Intelligence Committee; [all] must work together and it requires some preparation to work this out. JB: Experiencing the Obama administration, is the change on Iran policy gradual or sharp? LZ: It’s been easier for Democrats to oppose the nuclear deal, as Obama was the figurehead supporter. The change in administration releases them from the pressure. JB: Is there any indication that Trump will break away from the deal? LZ: President was uncomfortable continuing the status quo; however, a certification was just given out possibly approving the continuation, so we’ll have to see.
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Other notes: It’s not just State or intell groups; we have a problem above all in State as positions are filled by persons with agendas and philosophy different from the president’s. Transfer from Obama adm to Trump adm in Congress; easier now for the Democrats there who are aware re of the flaws in the Iran nuclear deal. They wanted to vote against it in the beginning, but got calls from the White House all the time.
After completing the Army ROTC program, Congressman Zeldin served on Active Duty. Throughout those four years in the U.S. Army, he served in different capacities, including as a Military Intelligence Officer, Prosecutor and Military Magistrate. While assigned to the Army’s elite 82nd Airborne Division, in the summer of 2006, Congressman Zeldin was deployed to Iraq with an infantry battalion of fellow paratroopers in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Then in 2014, following four years in the State Senate, Congressman Zeldin was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives (NY-1). In 2016, Congressman Zeldin was re-elected to the U.S. House of Representatives (NY-1). Congressman Zeldin serves on two Committees in the U.S. House of Representatives: Financial Services and Foreign Affairs. He also serves on five House Subcommittees. Rep. Zeldin, one of two Jewish Republicans in Congress, also serves as co-chairman of the House Republican Israel Caucus, which has over 100 members.
Thursday 27 July 2017 / Hour 2, Block D: Ambassador Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, KRG representative to the US; in re: Kurdish referendum on 25 September. Liberation of Mosul as imprtnt not ony to peope of Mosul but to the Nineveh province, all of Iraq, including Bghdad. The city has been utterly destroyed; it’ll take a very long time to rebuild the infrastructure and the society.
Kurdistan is now hosting almost two million refugees; Baghdad is not paying us our share of he federal budget; oil prices are low; Kurdistan has been hit very very hard for years. Kurds have often been refugees ; we've opened ou hoes and out harts to our guests. I personally have been displaced several times in my childhood. Referendum will take place only in Iraqi Kurdistan: Are you in favor of an independent Kurdish state? We expect “yes”; this will authorize our leadership to negotiate with Baghdad, rather similar to Brexit. On November 1, we’ll have elections of our president and leadership. Currently Pres Barzani.
There are 150,00 Jewish Kurds in Israel; in the early Twentieth Century, many Jews lived in Iraqi Kurdistan We definitely respect all religions.
Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman is the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Representative to the United States of America. Prior to her US appointment in 2015, Ms. Abdul Rahman was the High Representative to the United Kingdom. She was elected to the Leadership Council of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in 2010. Before her career in public service, Ms. Abdul Rahman worked as a journalist for 17 years. She began her career on local newspapers in London and won the Observer Newspaper’s Farzad Bazoft Memorial Prize in 1993, which led her to work at The Observer and later at the Financial Times. She worked for the FT in Britain and in Japan, where she was Tokyo correspondent. Her late father, Sami Abdul Rahman, was a veteran of the Kurdish freedom movement, joining the Kurdistan Democratic Party in 1963 and playing a critical leadership role in the Kurdish and Iraqi opposition to Saddam Hussein’s regime. He held the post of Deputy Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government and General Secretary of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). Sami Abdul Rahman was killed alongside his elder son Salah and 96 others in a twin suicide bombing in 2004. Ms. Abdul Rahman was born in Baghdad. Her family briefly lived in Iran in the mid-1970s before moving to Britain in 1976. She is a history graduate from London University.
Hour Three
Thursday 27 July 2017 / Hour 3, Block A: Malcolm Hoenlein, in re: The imam in Davis, California, who called for genocide against Jews. Temple Mount provocation and protests; an attack at the Israeli embassy in Jordan. The guard who was ___ was then treated as a hero in Israel. General climate of incitement against Israel and against Jews worldwide. The US has told Abbas to stop the incitement. The UN criticizes Israel for installing metal detectors, which pilgrims need to pass through in Mecca, in the Vatican, everywhere.
Iran boasts of having fired a missile, saying here was a satellite in space; very similar to the North Korean missile. Also attack against USS Thunderbolt in the Persian Gulf by the IRGG.
US Congress is enacting new sanctions; talk of demanding IAEA inspections to conform with JCPOA. John Kerry meant to get that in but . . .
We still don't know the side deals. Iran’s economy is weak, unemployment is high. . . .
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Imam Ammar Shahin told an audience at Islamic Center of Davis, located across the street from the University of California-Davis, in his sermon on Friday: “Oh Allah, liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Jews . . . and annihilate them down to the last person.” Genocidal.
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Thursday 27 July 2017 / Hour 3, Block B: Chief Inspector Micky Rosenfeld, foreign press spokesman, Israeli police department; in re: Temple Mount violence. Last week, the Palestinian Authority had organized protests by closing mosques in other parts of Israel and bussing parishioners in to al Aqsa (Temple Mount) to protest. Expecting tens of thousands today (Friday). Only persons over the age of fifty will be allowed to the Temple Mount. Cameras there? Removed; extra police units, protective road blocks. Yesterday, instead of respectable Muslims there to pray, a full-fledged riots, rocks thrown. Israeli Palestinian and Arab community: incitement. A fundamental problem. Pix on Facebook and large-scale social network presentations; very centralized. July 14, most significant deed in years: weapons smuggled in to Temple Mount, two Druse policemen murdered.
· http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/israel-and-jorda...
· https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/25/world/middleeast/israel-jordan-aqsa-m...
· http://www.timesofisrael.com/cameras-come-down-along-with-metal-detector...
· http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Analysis-Can-Isr...
· http://www.aei.org/publication/battle-for-temple-mount-isnt-just-between...
Chief Inspector Micky Rosenfeld is the foreign press spokesman for the Israeli police department. He was appointed to this position as an Inspector in 2005 after serving for eight years as a combat officer in the Yamam counter-terrorism unit.
Thursday 27 July 2017 / Hour 3, Block C: Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com, and author, Capitalism in Space, in re:
Thursday 27 July 2017 / Hour 3, Block D: Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com, and author, Capitalism in Space, in re:
Hour Four
Thursday 27 July 2017 / Hour 4, Block A: Sebastian Gorka, Hungarian and American military and intelligence analyst and member of the national security advisory staff of the United States; deputy assistant to the US president; in re:
Thursday 27 July 2017 / Hour 4, Block B: Sebastian Gorka, Hungarian and American military and intelligence analyst and member of the national security advisory staff of the United States; deputy assistant to the US president; in re:
Thursday 27 July 2017 / Hour 4, Block C: Jochen Hellbeck, author: Stalingrad: The City that Defeated the Third Reich, by Jochen Hellbeck and Christopher Tauchen
Thursday 27 July 2017 / Hour 4, Block D: Jochen Hellbeck, author: Stalingrad: The City that Defeated the Third Reich, by Jochen Hellbeck and Christopher Tauchen
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