JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
 
Hour One
Tuesday 1 December 2020 / Hour 1, Block A:Joseph Sternberg:  @josephsternberg, @WSJOpinion; Political Economics column; WSJ editorial board; in re:  Boris Johnson has failed to understand about his vast majority of Tories:  national lockdown for a month; did not “break the back” of he virus.  Parliament asked to approve today a three-tier system, from almost-normal life to extremely stringent rules. His own parliament refused to support this. It eventually passed, but was not a good political event for BoJo.  Labour leader chose to abstain.  Big discussion of public-health policy and liberty.  A £1,000 grant to traditional wet pubs; opposed as being worth 200 pints of beer and deeply inadequate. All of London will be in tier 2, even though different neighborhoods have different rates of infection.  Brexit preceded populism and Mr Trump; Brexit is still in abeyance despite a clock running out in days
Tuesday 1 December 2020 / Hour 1, Block B:   Joseph Sternberg:  @josephsternberg, @WSJOpinion; Political Economics column; WSJ editorial board; in re:   “England must play by our rules” says the EU.  Oops.  Expectation of drifting into the new year without  deal?  No one knows what will  happen. The mood music changes hour by hour.  Fishing rights, et al.  Complaints that the French are intransigent; the UK could give grounds on this to get agreement on more important issues; but the politics have [sandbagged] the parties. A weird element of mutually-agreed destruction not leading to agreement.  Pride; human folly.  “The long-term consequences of no deal would be worst than those of the pandemic.”—Wm Hague.
Tuesday 1 December 2020 / Hour 1, Block C:   New World Report.Joseph Humire @jmhumire, @securefreesoc, in re: Former Honduran president 2006-2009 (and closely aligned with far-left networks), says he was “unjustly detained” at the airport with $18,000 on his way to a Mexican conference, “The Anti-Imperialist Conference,” mysteriously with a layover in Houston.  Several years ago he was in a caravan en route to the US border, attacking President Trump and the notion of borders.  Tegucigalpa : massive arrest in two large drug gangs. Powerful narcoterrorist gangs: more powerful than the police.  Iranians (Zarif) and Chinese in Central America.
Tuesday 1 December 2020 / Hour 1, Block D:   New World Report.Joseph Humire @jmhumire, @securefreesoc, and Senator Maria Fernanda Cabal @MariaFdaCabal, in re: Maduro’s last move to consolidate power in Venezuela. Bogota:  cocaine, weapons, human trafficking, We’re very worried;  the Venezuelan council of elections is terminally corrupt; now Maduro needs to take Guaido out.  Maduro will gain more power and take over again.   In their territory a variety of guerrillas; much danger to Colombia.  The factors controlling Venezuela are no longer internal; controlled by external forces, incl Russia, China and Iran. Election on Sunday 6 December.  The loss of Diego Maradona, who was close to Hugo Chavez and Castro; had a tattoo of Castro’s face on his right arm. Argentina had a nine-moth lockdown, then thousands poured into the capital for Maradona. 
 
Hour Two
Tuesday 1 December 2020 / Hour 2, Block A:  John Yoo, @BerkeleyLaw;@HooverInst , AEI; in re:   Special Counsel John Durham and the persecution of Michael Flynn, January 5, 2017.  John Yoo, @HooverInst.  Did the FBI abuse its power?  Recall the 5 Jan 2017 White House  meeting at which VP Biden was present and offered the Logan Act proposal.  Must be worrisome to the Biden crew now.   https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/11/implications-of-the-flynn-pardon/?utm_source=Hoover+Daily+Report&utm_campaign=44e9d653f6-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_11_30_07_27&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_21b1edff3c-44e9d653f6-72527561
Tuesday 1 December 2020 / Hour 2, Block B:  John Yoo, @BerkeleyLaw;@HooverInst. , AEI; in re: The virus and governors’s restrictions.   Next time, the courts need to challenge the governors' mandates. John Yoo, @HooverInst. Not since the antebellum period have we had such divergent state regulations.  Courts [kowtowed] to the governors’s judgments, irrespective of the economics.  Allowed Black Lives Matter huge demonstrations while churches were closed down.  Justice Alito: “That was then. This is now.” Courts are now demanding explanations.  No more blank checks to governors. “Why are you closing down Jewish and Catholic houses of worship while leaving bicycle and tattoo shops open?” In New York, the state had no explanation.  Only 3% of cases are from restaurants.  https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/supreme-court-religious-freedom-cuomo-john-yoo
Tuesday 1 December 2020 / Hour 2, Block C:  Jed Babbin: @JedBabbin @WashingtonTimes ,  American Spectator, in re: The prospect of a Biden administration.  Biden’s personnel policies, where personnel is policy; no choice yet for SecDef.  There are strong Secretaries, and not-so-strong.  They come and go; what endures is the embedded bureaucracy. Most administrations aren’t smart enough to promote the one-stars, colonels admirals; that's how you control it for the long term. Is Michelle Fleurnoy hawkish?  That’s relative with Democrats. Sullivan; Anthony Blinken.  Three veteran swamp creatures.  Admiral Haines. Fleurnoy, Blinken, Sullivan:  will rejoin the bad Iran deal, lift sanctions; no dissenting voice.  Any thought about Russian aggression?  No. Biden is a multilateralist, will go ask permission to do anything. Biden has never been a leader in his entire career. In the building, people will smile and continue.  The left doesn’t like Fleurnoy because she’s said to be too close to the defense industry.
Tuesday 1 December 2020 / Hour 2, Block D:  Lorenzo Fiori: Direttore Generale Ansaldo Fondazione; in re:   Italy’s progress through December with the virus.
 
Hour Three
Tuesday 1 December 2020 / Hour 3, Block A:  Elizabeth Peek, @LizPeek, Fox News and TheHill; in re:  Pfizer and Moderna asked for approval of their vaccines; also Astrozeneca.  Progress on multiple vaccines is essential to our recovery—which is robust right now, Rolling out in weeks; but by Q2 of 2021 a big portion of the population will probably be vaccinated. Looking very positive. Looks as though our Q4 will be whopping good: up about 8%. Economists thought maybe 4%.  The average age of people dying from covid is 80. Twenty year-olds are surviving very well.  The S&P 500 is up 13%; NASDAQ up 38%.  The Russell 2000 (smaller companies) is also rising. Anecdotally:  business has been better than expected, people didn’t order enough, are trying to build inventory with supply chain problems; we need to do Christmas shopping early.
        Housing numbers are astonishing—even in Montana, Pittsburgh.   The broad sweep of housing construction: up 18%. Huge overbuild in 2009, then a massive depression. We were underbuilding for a decade, and now there’s a large, pent-up demand; and low interest rates.   There’s a four-month waiting list to get an electric generator. 
Tuesday 1 December 2020 / Hour 3, Block B:  Elizabeth Peek, @LizPeek, Fox News and TheHill; in re:  Ideologues concerned about climate change hold that we need to be in an intl agreement to rein in carbon – but we’re already doing a good job of that, while China is blasting out coal smoke that overwhelms US numbers.  Biden’s funders—big corporations and big tech—want to shift production to cheaper places such as China or SE Asia, whereas the job of a president is to be sure that our agreements benefit the US.  Biden group will be hornswoggled into damaging agreements; and a push from the “progressive” left to rejoin the Paris climate accords because they think they won the election for Biden. Yellin won’t raise interest rates; Democrats want a $3 trillion package.  Much determined by who wins the Georgia elections.  Biden: higher taxes, no green shoots. 
Tuesday 1 December 2020 / Hour 3, Block C:  John Bolton: @AmbJohnBolton, American Foundation for Security and Freedom (fasfreedom.com); in re:  When Trump abandoned legal efforts and started to use brute force . . .  Bill Barr’s statement of not seeing enough fraud to result in a federal prosecution or [overturn] the election.   Trump’s personal lawyers attack the AG. We have 211 confirmed GOP seats in the House and perhaps more to come.    The underreported story of the elections is the gains the GOP made in the House.  Expect many retirements from senior Democrats as they look to 2022.  We need a post-Trump conversation about the future of the Republican party, and we see it in Ronald Reagan. He brought in more blue-collar families than anyone else but Trump.  Reagan started out as an FDR Democrat but became an advocate of free markets and a strong foreign policy.  Obama cut a terrible deal with Iran in 2015; we withdrew in 2018, put pressure in Iran, and returning to that deal needs to be opposed. Fratricide in the Trump administration. Biden is a one-term president.  
Tuesday 1 December 2020 / Hour 3, Block D:  Simon Constable: @RealConstable; in re:  Locked-down Scotland fights for its fishing rights against the overreach of the EU. Simon Constable @RealConstable.  Children are at school. We have three or four hours of daylight in this season. We have a small population and a lot of coastline; fishing is important here.   https://www.ft.com/content/4f224474-4604-431a-9752-0e5cf00c67bd
https://www.euronews.com/2020/10/15/brexit-and-fishing-rights-will-battle-for-control-of-seas-torpedo-trade-deal
 
Hour Four
Tuesday 1 December 2020 / Hour 4, Block A:  City of Light, City of Poison: Murder, Magic, and the First Police Chief of Paris,by Holly Tucker
Tuesday 1 December 2020 / Hour 4, Block B:  City of Light, City of Poison: Murder, Magic, and the First Police Chief of Paris,by Holly Tucker
Tuesday 1 December 2020 / Hour 4, Block C:  City of Light, City of Poison: Murder, Magic, and the First Police Chief of Paris,by Holly Tucker
Tuesday 1 December 2020 / Hour 4, Block D:  City of Light, City of Poison: Murder, Magic, and the First Police Chief of Paris,by Holly Tucker