Photo left: Yorktown, Pearl Harbor, before Midway. May 1942)
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JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-hosts: Liz Peek, Fiscal Times & Fox News.   Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents.
 
Hour One: Liz Peek. Monica Crowley, London Center for Policy Research. Patrick Tucker, DefenseOne.com.
Art of the AHCA Deal. @lizpeek @fiscaltimes.
“It’s about time.
Putting aside their posturing and pontificating, Republicans at long last produced a win for the Trump White House and for Americans, passing a bill to replace ObamaCare. This was a central promise of the past several years; they needed to get it done.
It wasn’t easy, but as Joe Biden might say, “This is a big f—ing deal!”
The earlier failure to pass the American Health Care Act (AHCA) was a serious setback for the Trump White House, portraying the president and his aides as ill prepared to manage the affairs of the nation.
Voters were incredulous that after seven years of railing about the deficiencies of ObamaCare, Republicans didn’t have a shared vision for what should replace it.
The inability to muster votes on the first bill exposed long-simmering disputes within the Republican party – disputes barely muted by Trump’s astonishing victory in November.
Thursday’s successful vote is a major victory for President Trump. House members have credited the president for sticking with the fight, and the punditry is astonished that the AHCA, declared dead just a few weeks ago, actually passed.
Trump wheedled and cajoled, invited objectors from across the political spectrum in for an Oval Office chat, encouraged compromises and won over recalcitrant members of his own party. This is what we expect from Trump; this is the Art of the Deal….”
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/05/04/health-care-bill-passes-in-house-trump-and-gop-finally-come-together.html
 
Hour Two: Malcolm Hoenlein. Dennis Ross, Washington Institute. Colonel Richard Kemp, British Army (ret.). Patrick Clawson, Washington Institute. David Makavsky, Washington Institute.
Doomed to Succeed: The U.S.-Israel Relationship from Truman to Obama. by Dennis Ross. @washinstitute.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/05/03/remarks-president-trump-and-president-abbas-palestinian-authority-joint
•  https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/05/03/press-briefing-press-secretary-sean-spicer-532017-44
•  http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/05/02/dont-waste-arab-israeli-cooperation-on-the-israeli-palestinian-peace-process/
•  https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/04/28/palestinians-are-rewarding-terrorists-the-u-s-should-stop-enabling-them/?utm_term=.6baf74a4a5ff
•  http://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-will-continue-to-pay-palestinian-prisoners-pa-minister-says/
•  http://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-rejects-abbas-peace-proposal-outline-to-trump/
•  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/03/trump-welcomes-palestinian-leader-abbas-to-white-house/?utm_term=.8c68021a0e3f
 
Hour Three: Yaakov Katz, Jerusalem Post. Bob Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com.
Smaller Capitalism in Space. Bob Zimmerman, Behindtheblack.com
Vector completes first suborbital test flight
May 3, 2017 at 5:05 pm Robert Zimmerman
Capitalism in space: Vector today successfully completed the first suborbital test flight of an engineering test prototype of its orbital rocket.
The rocket that flew is the same one I photographed during my March 30th tour with Vector CEO Jim Cantrell of Vector’s Tucson factory.
Hour Four:Sebastia Gorka, Deputy Assistant to the President. Thaddeus McCotter, WJR. John Bolton, AEI. Thomas Hone, editor, “Midway.”
Al Qaeda and the Taliban rule Afghanistan, 16 years later. @sebastiangorka, Deputy Assistant to the President.
Al-Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan has not occurred in a vacuum. It has maintained its strength in the country since the U.S. invasion, launched a new branch, AQIS, and established training camps with the help and support of the Taliban.
When Generals Campbell and Buchanan discussed al-Qaeda in the wake of the Shorabak raid, they described the group as resurgent. Campbell described the Taliban-al-Qaeda relationship as a “renewed partnership,” while Buchanan said it “has since ‘grown stronger.’”
But like the estimate that al-Qaeda maintained a small cadre of 50 to 100 operatives in Afghanistan between 2010 and 2016, the idea that the Taliban and al-Qaeda have only recently reinvigorated their relationship is incorrect. Al-Qaeda would not have been able to maintain a large cadre of fighters and leaders inside Afghanistan, conduct operations in 25 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, establish training camps, and relocate high-level leaders from Pakistan’s tribal areas to Afghanistan without the Taliban’s long-term support.
Al-Qaeda has remained loyal to the Taliban’s leader, which it describes as the Amir al- Mumineen, or the “Commander of the Faithful,” since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001. Osama bin Laden maintained his oath of allegiance to Mullah Omar, the Taliban’s founder and first emir. When bin Laden died, Ayman al-Zawahiri renewed that oath. And when Mullah Omar’s death was announced in 2015, Zawahiri swore bayat (an oath of allegiance) to Mullah Mansour, the Taliban’s new leader. Mansour publicly accepted Zawahiri’s oath.
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2017/04/afghanistans-terrorist-resurgence-al-qaeda-isis-and-beyond.php
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2017/04/27/house-panel-expert-u-s-losing-in-afghanistan-as-al-qaeda-grows-stronger-with-taliban-resurgence/
The Battle of Midway: The Naval Institute Guide to the U.S. Navy's Greatest Victory by Thomas C. Hone. PART 1 of 4.
The Battle of Midway, commemorated annually in the U.S. Navy, warrants close attention. This Naval Institute guide includes some of the most vibrant and informed accounts by individuals who fought on both sides of the June 1942 battle. The anthology pulls together memoirs, articles, excerpts from other Naval Institute Press books, and relevant government documents to help readers understand what happened and explain why the battle was so significant to the naval service. It also includes selections from several important Naval Institute oral histories.
From the enlisted man’s perspective to the admiral’s, for both Americans and Japanese, The Battle of Midway ensures that readers see the U.S. Navy’s greatest victory as the participants experienced it.
https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Midway-Institute-Greatest-Victory/dp/168247030X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1494008614&sr=1-1