Map, left:  Where Russian and American weapons have been fired in Syria (according to the Syrian Free Army and the New York Times). Current military situation: Red: Government, Yellow: Kurds (Rojava), Grey: Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, White: al-Nusra Front, Green: Opposition (for a more detailed map, see Cities and towns during the Syrian Civil War).
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Larry Kudlow, CNBC senior advisor; & Cumulus Media radio
 
Hour One
Tuesday  13 October 2015  / Hour 1, Block A:  Stephen Moore, Chief economist, Heritage Foundation, in re: Reconciliation: instructions on Tax and __; needs 51 votes. Even Paul Ryan has made commitments that he hasn't got done.   . .  Budget caps: Pres Obama signed them into law four years ago ad now ants to bust through them Now we need pro-growth initiatives.  If we cut our tax rates 25% we wouldn't lose a dime! "I'm no entirely unhappy with a Congress that gets nothing done considering how much damage hey can do."  GOP has made to much time making deals, telling the country what their principles are.  Ryan  has begun an effort to remove all Obama tax hikes. Could include corp tax diminution and __; could get it passed in Reconciliation and get Pres Obama to veto it.  Fine, then at least we know who's where. 
Tuesday  13 October 2015  / Hour 1, Block B: Stephen Moore, Chief economist, Heritage Foundation, in re: The Fed: two straight months, job payrolls have been 'way low: from 220K to 120K.  Wages rising very slowly. Consumers are carrying the economy. Lower gasoline prices are a driver. Bz not investing, No inflation. Fed on hold and paralyzed. I've been a dove for months.  Use a 15% corp tax rate to stimulate the economy – it's not the Fed; it's fiscal policy! –LK   ; I  We've reduced our ozone emissions 20% in the last years; increasing the diminutions will damage the economy and lose jobs. I'd like t see the Fed get off it's 0% policy because we've had it for seven years and hasn't done anything.  Croft to Obama: Russians took over Syria, what do you think?  Obama: Syria is fine; it's air conditions that are important. /   Show me one example where making the rich poorer makes the poor richer.  –LK
 
Show me one example where making the rich poorer makes the poor richer.
–Larry Kudlow
 
Tuesday  13 October 2015  / Hour 1, Block C: Peter Berkowitz, Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution; in re: Middle East headlines are dreadful: Syrian escalating into a proxy war 'twixt Washington and Moscow; Manpads to shoot down Russian aircraft. Israel: unknown provocateurs encouraging teenagers to take kitchen implements - knives and forks – to stab Israelis at hand.   PA and Hamas at odds . Families of killers/martyrs ere being rewarded with cash settlements.  All this has accelerate after the Iran deal, but the incitement . . .  At the UN, Abbas spoke a flagrant lie: that Israel was denying Muslims' access to the Dome of the Rock. This is madness. / US is financing a step-up of Iranian state terrorism with the $159 billion.  Obama said, "There's no reason to think the funds will be used that way – then in August he agreed it was likely.  We know that Iran has sent troops to Syria with Russia, has sent funds to Houthis in Yemen.  Lost a major general in Aleppo this week in an terrorist attack?  Iran is infinitely stronger now than before the deal, assured that its client Assad will stay.  Had Obama o treated this deal, this would not have occurred, and now it's slipping into regional, perhaps global, war.  In 2009, when vast numbers of Iranians went to the street sot demanded democracy, res Obama said not a syllable in support.  Direct connection from that to this: Pres Obama did not want to offend the Iranians.  Ms Clinton said that Assad could reform his policies.    Pres Obama does have a grand strategy: encourage both Iran and Russia to have warmwater ports on the Med, and to build the Shia crescent. In 200 I went to Kuwait City, Abu Dhabi, Jerusalem, Beirut, Amman: all said that the central problem is Iran and engagement will not  help. Today, war in Yemen, Iraq overrun, Lebanon is tottering, Jordan is in trouble .  In 2009 and 2010, very high-level Israelis wrote to Obama; Please understand that the Russians constitute a key figure here; no agreement with Iran can exclude the Russians' being on board. 
Obama's Tattered Middle East Policy | RealClearPolitics  By any reasonable measure, the Obama administration’s Middle East foreign policy is in disarray. Despite President Obama’s determination to rebuild America’s relationship with the . . .
Tuesday  13 October 2015  / Hour 1, Block D: John Tamny, RealClearMarkets, in re:  Supply side: when the world is awash in oil, if the US depends on oil – well, Equatorial Guinea can produce that.  When do stocks have the view that low oil prices are good? Already started. I think stocks low today are the Trump factors: GOP had victory in its hands and gave it away.  The greatest  interplanetary, intergalactic, spiritual fore for a strong US economy is a strong dollar.  Must give credit to Trump low bz tax rates and for zeroing out the estate tax – frees up capital from people who are wiling to lose it in interesting investment.  Strong dollar attracts investment from overseas. 
 
Hour Two
Tuesday  13 October 2015  / Hour 2, Block A: Stephen F. Cohen is Prof. Emeritus of Russian Studies at Princeton, and of history & politics at NYU. He is also a member of the Board of the recently-formed American Committee for East-West Accord (eastwestaccord.com); in re: . . . Putin has been totally clear abut what he's seeing and what he intends to do – and has done. Who's going to fight ISIS on the ground? Nit the US – we're not going to send ground troops.
Guardian coverage is more measured about RU accelerating the war effort in Syria: the new  new thing. And how it pays. Pointing to Algeria is clever.  /  “It’s absolutely clear that such a limited number of aircraft is not enough to change the course of the battle. The only successful example of defeating an Islamic insurgency was Algeria and that took 10 years,” said Ruslan Pukhov, a Russian defence analyst. 
There is little sign of any dissent in the military over the moves. The Vedomosti newspaper quoted a military source as stating that the total number of Russian servicemen involved in Syrian operations – including pilots and those on the ground coordinating attacks and delivering weapons to the Syrian army – was around 1,500. Russian officials have said no conscript soldiers will be sent to Syria, and the newspaper said there was no shortage of contract soldiers volunteering to go, partly because the mission came with a relatively generous per diem – $62 (£41) per day for officers and $43 for others – in addition to normal salaries.  Map: Syrian and ISIS control; airstrikes.
Tuesday  13 October 2015  / Hour 2, Block B: Stephen F. Cohen is Prof. Emeritus of Russian Studies at Princeton, and board member of American Committee for East-West Accord (eastwestaccord.com); in re: Two investigations under the Dutch govt: one is technical –what brought down the plane? A surface-to-air missile -   a BUK; or else by two Ukrainian fighter planes seen in the area at the time Today, concluded htat it was destroyed by a BUK missile short from Ukrainian territory in the Donbass region. Who occupied that patch of and at that tie, Ukrainians or Russians rebels?  The other question is, who shot town the plane? Missing are three essential infos: What was on the black box? Contents have never been made public!  Two: US intell  has satellite info that it refuses to release. Third, conversations that the Ukrainian flight controller had with the pilots – also never released.  BUKS began being mfrd by the early 1970s, had numbers neach. Ukraine inherited an enormous arsenal, including at least dozens, maybe scores, of BUKS – Soviet-made, and everybody had them. 
Tuesday  13 October 2015  / Hour 2, Block C: Stephen F. Cohen is Prof. Emeritus of Russian Studies at Princeton, and board member of American Committee for East-West Accord (eastwestaccord.com); in re: . . .  If the US declares a no-fly zone and the Russians fly, that US will have o do something, Christies says I will shot down Russian airplanes."  Do we need this thinking in the White House? Maybe it's the degradation of American political thinking.  It's 460 days till there's a new president.
Tuesday  13 October 2015  / Hour 2, Block D: Stephen F. Cohen is Prof. Emeritus of Russian Studies at Princeton, and board member of American Committee for East-West Accord (eastwestaccord.com); in re:
 
Hour Three
Tuesday  13 October 2015  / Hour 3, Block A:   Bill Whalen, Hoover; James Taranto, WSJ;  Mary Kissel, WSJ Opinion Journal; in re: Democratic debate this evening. Mrs Clinton avoided the ne statement I thought of: "Can you believe I'm debating with people like this?"  No curve balls; she was sharp, well-rehearsed and in her comfort zones.  A  lawyerly presentation. Hillary Clinton laying a par-five straight down the middle – it's is how CNN set up the debate. Q: How would your policies differ from Pres Obama's? A: I'd do the same thing only more."  / Disagree: her foreign policy answers were weak – lame excuse for failure of Russian rest, calling Medvedev an unexpected sort of character (he was not); and he climate talks where Obama and Clinton were locked out of the main room / No real question on email servers, on Blumenthal. "It was allowed."  My guests and I took a drink every time she said one of those things.   . .  .  Bernie Sanders: "We're sick of talking about your damn emails."  Clinton shook his hand.  . . .  Two problems coming up: she needs a real sparring partner, someone with national stature. It's just Clinton,, Bernie and three nothings.  Also, can she pass laugh test  - "I've always been consistent in my beliefs."  Twenty-five yeas of suspicion.  She doesn't hold up too well. "I never took a position on the Keystone Pipeline till I took a position on the Keystone Pipeline . . ."  Jim Webb was the only sensible person on foreign policy Never mind Sanders extolling the virtues of socialism on American TV. 
Tuesday  13 October 2015  / Hour 3, Block B: Bill Whalen, Hoover; James Taranto, WSJ;  Mary Kissel, WSJ Opinion Journal; in re: Democratic debate this evening.  Mrs Clinton and ethics. Donald Trump: 49%say he's "less ethical"; Mrs Clinton: 50% say she's "less ethical."  At Voc.com, argue: Yes her political scandal is a political problem, showing she can handle the presidency. The two leading candidates are unethical??    Increasing surfacing f lies: used server only for personal. nothing govt, nothing secure . . .  all inaccurate. Frustration of the American electorate in a 2% economy and weakness abroad, want a candidate who 's strong even if untrustworthy.  Want more debates or fewer? James: Not many more. Mary: 'Twas a coronation this evening. Bill:  Mary coined a new phrase – DINO – debate in name only.  Need a heavyweight at these things, possibly Biden. 
Tuesday  13 October 2015  / Hour 3, Block C:   Aaron Klein, Aaron Klein Investigative Radio, in re: growing violence in Israel. US condemns Palestinian terror; UN chief laments Israeli ‘excessive force.’   Cabinet steps up security measures as PM vows to defeat terror wave.  Is this a wave of terrorism, as the media and pols  say – a natural wave of people picking up kitchen knives by the hour? Clearly not random; an orchestrated campaign from start to finish.   Cui bono?  What's been going on for two weeks is different from everything in history, The rhetoric is not political –on their social media, all they say is: A Jewish threat to the al Aqsa mosque. -  Amazingly, this is a hundred per cent fabrication - Israel has sedulously protected Muslim access to the Temple Mount and Jews are allowed there only one hour a week.  Abbas doesn't even keep Ramadan; this is Hamas; The Islamic Movement; the Northern Branch of the Islamic movement, stronghold in northern Israel.  this is a sort f intifada driven not by politics but by religious rhetoric.  In Ramallah, and Nablus, people aren't involved in this at all, they're in cafes.  Happening only in Hamas strongholds.  Violence only in very specific refugee camps – not PA-controlled ones. Hamas wants to escalate to suicide bombings soon.  Hamas has a major terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank in coordination with Hezbollah.  Within days, this could escalate into a real intifada.  Remedy?  Knesset is shutting down East Jerusalem and the West Bank – curfews coming; martial law in certain sections.  Hamas wants trouble; PA goes along to avoid being left behind. Question: is there Iranian money coming in for this?
Tuesday  13 October 2015  / Hour 3, Block D: Bret Stephens, WSJ; in re: Palestine: The Psychotic Stage.
 
Hour Four
Tuesday  13 October 2015  / Hour 4, Block A: American Warlords: How Roosevelt's High Command Led America to Victory in World War II by Jonathan W. Jordan – Part II of III  (1 of 4).
Tuesday  13 October 2015  / Hour 4, Block B: American Warlords: How Roosevelt's High Command Led America to Victory in World War II by Jonathan W. Jordan – Part II of III  (2 of 4).
Tuesday  13 October 2015  / Hour 4, Block C: American Warlords: How Roosevelt's High Command Led America to Victory in World War II by Jonathan W. Jordan – Part II of III  (3 of 4).
Tuesday  13 October 2015  / Hour 4, Block D: American Warlords: How Roosevelt's High Command Led America to Victory in World War II by Jonathan W. Jordan – Part II of III  (4 of 4).
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