Image, left:    Imperial coat of arms of Ethiopia (under Haile Selassie)         
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Larry Kudlow, CNBC senior advisor; & Cumulus Media radio
 
Hour One
Tuesday  1 November 2016   / Hour 1, Block A:  Bill Whalen, Hoover, in re:  Larry has just returned from a triumphant book tour to – hold your hat – the West Side Republican Club (in the maw of Manhattan’s People’s Republic of the Upper Left Side). Audience of maybe 150 people, all of whom endorsed Larry’s urging for more civility and courtesy.
In California, Clinton 55-30; Trump also NG among millennials and Asians.
AZ, NV, NM: Trump may take UT, not CO, yes NM.
The GOP is not an inclusive Party!  Reinse Priebus issued a report calling for more diversity, but the Party has not moved.
Republicans haven't figured out how to rebut a pro-tax message.  Of voters who earn <$150K, most support a tax-cut plan.  Trump speaks of his tax policies but doesn’t bother to try to sell it. GOP doesn't make a good case.   . . .  “Showcasing” a topic: when Trump is in front of a crowd for half an hour he becomes a [verbal] Gatling gun.  . .  .  Harris is leading Sanchez; 64% of Republicans have not yet made up their minds about that context.  Sanchez is at parity with Kamala Harris.  
Tuesday  1 November 2016   / Hour 1, Block B:  Bill Whalen, Hoover, in re: Trump is barnstorming NM, WI MN, all blue states.  He theoretically would do well to park himself in Philadelphia to capture the Pennsylvania vote, but in reality that’s too high a wall to climb.
The GOP now has 206 Electoral College votes.; give Trump FL an OH to 253; thn IO to 259 + 1 Maine = 270
Needs 10: Nevada?  Still 4 shy; try for MI, WI, PA.
Will not win PA or MI.   Mrs C was +9 a week ago, now is +2.
Give Trump OH, NC, GA, FL; also AZ, NV UT; but CO (9) is not possible
NH is 4.  Trump has no ground game in most of these states, certainly not in AZ.
Does Trump campaign know something we don’t?  Seize on what?  NH (1).
NV has a deep libertarian streak.
Trump has no speechwriter, has rejected all proposals.  Instead, he regularly gets a list of talking points from Steve Bannon.
NC FL PA, the East Coast results next Tuesday will all be in early. Check NC first!
Senate: Toomey hasn't been leading for days; without him, no GOP Senate?
Wrong – Ayotte cd win, and so cd Trump in Nevada.  It’ll be 51-49 or 50-50 GOP in the Senate.
Trump must narrow his msg down: he spoke of 25 issues. Reagan won on four or five, The Gettysburg Address lasted a grand total of two minutes. Must pick three issues; has to fight tax cuts and regulations so small-business people will approve.  Jobs/economy comes first; Obamacare is second.
Trump cd win, but Mrs C can afford to lose some and still win, whereas Trump cannot afford to lose even one electoral college vote.
Tuesday  1 November 2016   / Hour 1, Block C:  James Taranto, WSJ editorial board & Best of the Web, in re:  Mr Trump has been travelling in to comfortably blue states? Not comfortable; NM may be close; WI has been a swing state, and MI has been sometimes.  Not clear why NM, but good to go to the rust belt.  Mrs C is losing ground in natl polls, but the rust belt is holding for her, and add PA. 
Trump may win Iowa and Ohio. Colorado cd be his most important state – an uphill climb,  Also NV, NC, FL. 
In an academic theoretical exercise: give Utah to McMullin;  Trump could sweep well through  . . . ; Trump 270, Clint 262; McMullin 6
FBI caught in a partisan struggle.  Public impression: a politicized DOJ, Congress in opposition, and internally an effort to do the right thing. Mystified about Comey’s July release and statement. Last week: reasonable, as he’s required to inform legislative body.  But, the NYPD had this story all summer!  I disagree—  e.g.,Joe Di Genova.  Now: how on Earth did Weiner get these emails, and what did Huma Abedin say in the first go-round??   The ten-year term does give Comey some insulation.   The new releases include Marc Rich – shows major-league internal FBI dissension.  . .  Need to re-interview of al parties form last spring, and review immunity. 
Bitter FBI debate vs DoJ, on Clinton Fdn; five bureaus investigating while Loretta Lynch resists.  Comey in July refused to speak on “an ongoing investigation.” Note also Terry McAuliffe and his PAC, and one or two more.
The FBI twitter account, links to FOIA:  the first one was abt Trump’s father. 
If Mrs C wins, does she pardon herself?  And if she nominates an AG: wd be extremely contentious!  Have to keep Lynch?  Yikes. While all this is going on, no one could govern.
Trump is right to hold on to “[drain] the swamp.”
Clinton had to spend the whole weekend attacking James Comey, who’s not on the ballot.  Today she rotted out Miss Universe again. No one really cares.  Today Carville madly attacked the KGB.
With 146 hours to go, more shoes to drop?  Can't have an October surprise because it’s November, but we could have a November surprise. 
It's raining shoes.
Tuesday  1 November 2016   / Hour 1, Block D: Larry Kudlow, in re: the tax cuts that Trump could give – why tax cuts lead to prosperity.  I like “drain the swamp” – his original theme that he’ll overturn the elites.  I'd like him to say: Then we’ll reboot the economy, and repeal and rewrite Obamacare, which is in a death-spiral.   He relies a lot n trade ad immigration — he’s in the wrong side of his base. I'd also like him to say how we’ll get out of the Middle East.
If Trump promises us 4- to 5% growth, he’ll win.
 
Hour Two
Tuesday  1 November 2016   / Hour 2, Block A:  Stephen F. Cohen, Prof. Emeritus of Russian Studies/History/Politics at NYU and Princeton; also Board of American Committee for East-West Accord (eastwestaccord.com); in re:  Sergei Million (?) palled around with Trump to influence American opinion of Russia?  Clinton campaign has recently made a case that the Trump campaign is somehow in league with agents of Russia. See digital link ‘twixt Trump Tower and Alfabank. Ergo, links to Satan, himself: Vladimir Putin.  The personal vilification of Putin here is unprecedented; not since Stalin . . .  Demonization of Putin closes possibility of any alliance between US and Russia, which in several contexts would be smart for us.  Polluted US politics, created a sort of neo-McCarthyism. Mrs C called Trump “a Putin puppet.” David Korn wrote in Mother Jones allegations based on zero sourcing that the Kremlin may have recruited Trump for purposes of espionage.  Yike.
Main allegations:
- That Putin de-democratized Russia, replaced that with a kleptocracy
- by assassinating his political enemies and killing journo
- and set out to recreate the USSR by aggressions in Georgia, Ukraine, the Baltics.
All these are factually inaccurate.
Tuesday  1 November 2016   / Hour 2, Block B: Stephen F. Cohen, Prof. Emeritus of Russian Studies/History/Politics at NYU and Princeton; also Board of American Committee for East-West Accord (eastwestaccord.com); in re:  Satan lording over a theft of the American process; or turning Ukraine into a slave state, or doing mass-murder in Syria.  By demonizing Putin, we lose our only possible partner in the Middle East — and think of US natl security interests shared: terrorism. Nuclear proliferation. Maybe climate change, maybe energy supplies.  . .  . His goal: restore some Russian greatness, and above all secure natl security and energy and economy.  Russia all but lost sovereignty in the 1990s; the gradual encroachment of NATO , from Clinton through Bush and Obama, was unsettling to Russians just as an alien garrison in Mexico or Canada would alarm Americans.  In the early 2000s when the Russian middle class had been economically vaporized, Putin restored wages, medical care, jobs. The chresitiaskii (крестьянский) – the peasantry, in effect —called him “savior,” спаситель (pron: spasitel). 
Tuesday  1 November 2016   / Hour 2, Block C: Stephen F. Cohen, Prof. Emeritus of Russian Studies/History/Politics at NYU and Princeton; also Board of American Committee for East-West Accord (eastwestaccord.com); in re:  Killing of Anna Politkovskaya, shot in the foyer of her building after doing much research into Russia in Chechnya. Her family and her editor both believe that Putin did not have her killed.  Also, death of Litvinenko of polonium poisoning in London – he worked for several different countries. Putin as the killer was propagated by Boris Berezovski, who also wound up dead. A British inquest clamed it was likely that Putin was responsible for Litvinenko’s death – using evidence primarily from Berezovski, who had a billon-dollar spat with Roman Abramovich, also living in London.  The magistrate ruled: “Mr Berezovsky either does not know the difference between truth and falsehood, or else he doesn't care,”
Lessin, a mini-oligarch, died in his Washington hotel room: although the US press immediately pounced on Putin as the likely instigator,  Washington police conducted a long investigation and found he died accidentally in an alcoholic stupor.
Mark every time you read the words, “Putin’s aggression.” Google it a gazillion google results, is now an overwhelmingly used phrase. I fnd him not aggressive but reactive. Note that Putin saved a large number of American lives in Afghanistan – air bridge, plus massive amts of intell, plus he gave the US a highly-trained Afghan unit to help US forces. He wanted to ease toward an alliance with the US for multiple sorts of collaborative work.
Tuesday  1 November 2016   / Hour 2, Block D: Stephen F. Cohen, Prof. Emeritus of Russian Studies/History/Politics at NYU and Princeton; also Board of American Committee for East-West Accord (eastwestaccord.com); in re: 
. . . EU did an extensive research on who began the Georgian war, concluded that Georgia fired the first shots against Russia, with US backing. [Right. Russia needled and needled and needled Georgia, and succeeded in igniting Saakashvili’s short fuse. It was all correctly planned.]
 
Hour Three
Tuesday  1 November 2016   / Hour 3, Block A:   Dr Lara M Brown, George Washington University, and Salena Zito, New York Daily News, in re:  --ANALYSIS -- ABC’s RICK KLEIN: The collective view from Democratic and Republican strategists on the fallout from the FBI director’s announcement: that could have been worse. While conceding that it will probably be another day or two until polling can fully reflect the impact, top strategists in both parties are saying the race didn’t get upended by the late-October surprise. It gave Donald Trump a crisper closing argument that will boost GOP turnout. It may make Trump likelier to carry Iowa and Ohio, and could save a few Senate seats for Republicans. But the narrowing of polls nationally and in other key battlegrounds doesn’t appear to have changed the stubborn electoral math confronting Team Trump. (It’s in that context, and that context alone, that makes trips to New Mexico, Wisconsin, and Michigan this week make sense.) Yes, Trump is now leading by a point in the ABC News/Washington Post tracking poll. But recall the race was tightening quickly before Friday’s bombshell. While Clinton’s camp is calling on more information, and quickly, from FBI Director James Comey, it’s not clear that they should actually want that. If the story drifts away, the campaign continues over the final week – and Democrats still like their odds.
Trump and "Rigged!"   http://www.rawstory.com/2016/10/nbcs-pete-williams-trumps-bogus-rigged-talk-pushed-comey-to-break-doj-rules-on-elections/
Tuesday  1 November 2016   / Hour 3, Block B:  Dr Lara M Brown, George Washington University, and Salena Zito, New York Daily News (2 of 2)
Tuesday  1 November 2016   / Hour 3, Block C:  Harry Siegel, Daily Beast and Daily News; in re:  http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/harry-siegel-dumping-trump-hacking-hil-article-1.2849576
Tuesday  1 November 2016   / Hour 3, Block D:  Carl Zimmer, Science magazine, in re:  http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/18/science/ancient-farmers-archaeology-dna.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0
 
Hour Four
Tuesday  1 November 2016   / Hour 4, Block A:  Gregory Copley, Defense & Foreign Affairs; in re:  The Horn of Africa: Ethiopia withdraws from Somalia and Stabilizes in Addis Ababa.  Updated | Ethiopia has released around 2,000 people detained for partaking in recent anti-government protests, according to the country’s defense minister.
The Ethiopian government imposed a six-month nationwide state of emergency on October 9 after months of protests by members of the country’s two largest ethnic groups, the Oromo and the Amhara. Civilians are restricted from contacting so-called “outside forces” on social media and from organizing demonstrations at schools or universities, among other prohibitions.
Defense Minister Siraj Fegessa said Sunday that the detainees—who were suspected of taking part in violent demonstrations—had been freed after receiving education and counseling, Ethiopia’s state-run Fana Broadcasting Corporation reported. Fegessa declined to confirm the total number of people arrested, but also said that 1,500 illegal weapons had been seized. http://www.newsweek.com/ethiopia-releases-2000-detainees-held-under-state-emergency-515220  (1 of 2)
Tuesday  1 November 2016   / Hour 4, Block B:  Gregory Copley, Defense & Foreign Affairs; in re:  The Horn of Africa: Ethiopia withdraws from Somalia and Stabilizes in Addis Ababa. (2 of 2)
Tuesday  1 November 2016   / Hour 4, Block C:  Dr Brandon W Milholland, Einstein Institute, Yeshiva, University, in re: "Evidence for a limit to human lifespan" Driven by technological progress, human life expectancy has increased greatly since the nineteenth century. Demographic evidence has revealed an ongoing reduction in old-age mortality and a rise of the maximum age at death, which may gradually extend human longevity1, 2. Together with observations that lifespan in various animal species is flexible and can be increased by genetic or pharmaceutical intervention, these results have led to suggestions that longevity may not be subject to strict, species-specific genetic constraints. Here, by analysing global demographic data, we show that improvements in survival with age tend to decline after age 100, and that the age at death of the world’s oldest person has not increased since the 1990s. Our results strongly suggest that the maximum lifespan of humans is fixed and subject to natural constraints.   http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v538/n7624/full/nature19793.html   
Tuesday  1 November 2016   / Hour 4, Block D:   Dr Brandon W Milholland, Einstein Institute, Yeshiva, University, in re: "Evidence for a limit to human lifespan" (2 of 2)