Photo, left: Vladislav Surkov is [according to wikipedia], after Putin, the most important figure in the creation of Russia’s own brand of authoritarian capitalism. The Kremlin’s in-house ideologue, he came up with a term for it – sovereign democracy. Dubbed the “Grey Cardinal”, Surkov was one of the leading lights behind the youth group, Nashi. Part clean-cut ideologues, part street thugs, the organisation (which means “Ours”) went after people it deemed to be hostile to Russia. That included the British ambassador, Tony Brenton, who, in the mid-2000s, had had the temerity to address a Russian opposition party conference. Baby-faced and of part-Russian, part-Chechen extraction, Surkov is regarded by diplomats as one of the masterminds of the Crimea annexation. He responded to the US blacklist with mockery, saying that the only thing he appreciated about America was the rap artist Tupac Shakur. [Feni and Glo – mirabile dictu.]
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Larry Kudlow, CNBC senior advisor; & Cumulus Media radio. Steve Moore, Heritage.
 
Hour One
Tuesday  19 January 2016   / Hour 1, Block A: Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post, in re:  from Fox on the FBI and DOJ investigations: Inspector-General points to several dozen highly-classified (above Top Secret) emails in Mrs Clinton's private server; also, IG may have Gen Petraeus demoted ex post facto.  Also NH poll favoring Gov Kasich of Ohio.  Mrs C is losing ground with young women, too.  Bernie Sanders is surging in the polls – higher taxes on the rich, health-care for all. He has all the energy in the Democratic Party right now; Hillary is running another "rotten" campaign.  She's fighting Sanders from the right – dreadful judgment.   Joe Biden may very well be getting ready to get on the ballot and the Democratic Party will stretch any rule to put Biden in place.  Biden, Warren, Jerry Brown?! Mrs Clinton once again runs as the voice of experience against a firebrand change-radical. How incorrect!  If the FBI recommends indictment, then the DOJ may have to bring charges.  Secy Kerry is on a plane right now to meet Sergei Lavrov on the refugee crisis.  "This is the guy who negotiated a deal with Iran to give Iran $100 bil with which to kill Americans."
Tuesday  19 January 2016   / Hour 1, Block B: Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post, in re: The slapstick theater of the GOP races.    Note: 73% of the Party is not for Drumpf. Steve Moore had dinner with John Kasich in Miami a few days ago; "I don't think he'll be the nominee, but he's an obvious VP choice."  The businessman from New York well defended New York from Cruz's "New York values" remark. Sarah Palin: still has some clout.  Gov Terry Branstead: "Anyone but Cruz"   (because of the ethanol).  A dogfight in Iowa.
Tuesday  19 January 2016   / Hour 1, Block C:  Steve Moore, Heritage, in re: The Fed tightens on deflation and falling profits? Eek.  Given that scenario, I'd take 2% growth.  SM: I'm worried for the first time in a long time – not about recession, but maybe a down quarter or two.  I read that there's no ship on the sea hauling freight in East Asia.  Investor, consumers, businessmen are all on hold.   Oil at $30 Bbl. Harold Hamm [fracking] thinks prices will go up – I doubt to more than $50. Most foreclosures in the last quarter: Texas, Oklahoma North Dakota. In Q4, GDP probably at 1% or less.
Tuesday  19 January 2016   / Hour 1, Block D:  Steve Moore, Heritage, in re: Connecticut in economic free-fall as the Gov Malloy manages to send GE away to Boston. Hundreds of millions of dollars lost in a county that cannot afford that. The governor and senators have basically wrecked the state.  State legislature in denial says that GE is moving for technology.  Who's hurt? not the rich, who can move to Florida, nor the corporations; rather, it's the middle and lower-middle classes. In a Gallup Poll of several yeas ago: 50% of Connecticutes want to leave. See, The Wealth of States, by Art Laffer and Steve Moore. Sen Blumenthal yes has been very close friends of the governor ("joined at the hip"), so must have been fully cognizant of the imminent departure of GE.
 
Hour Two
Tuesday  19 January 2016   / Hour 2, Block A: Stephen F. Cohen is Prof. Emeritus of Russian Studies/History/Politics at NYU and Princeton. He's also a member of the Board of the recently-formed American Committee for East-West Accord (eastwestaccord.com); in re: a secret deal in Ukraine discussed by Nuland and Sirkov, and perhaps to be discussed between Lavrov and Kerry in Zürich (where the pastry is good). 
Tuesday  19 January 2016   / Hour 2, Block B: Stephen F. Cohen, Prof. Emeritus of Russian Studies & eastwestaccord.com; in re: . . .  Kiev is now a failed state & Gazprom is demanding $2.6 billion in the next ten days; and a huge bond default seems on the way.  Both sides are hurting: the collapse of oil prices is hurting Russia badly – hasn't yet hit Putin's political base: workers.  Oil has gone from $50 Bbl to less than $30.
Tuesday  19 January 2016   / Hour 2, Block C: Stephen F. Cohen, Prof. Emeritus of Russian Studies & eastwestaccord.com; in re: Oil price is causing large ripples worldwide, but in the Black Sea Basin: feud between Russia and Turkey.  Secy Kerry and Victoria Nuland are travelling to Ankara to try to heal the rift?  Note Syrian refugees flowing into capitals and encouraging European exclusion parties- Golden Dawn, Front National, et al.  Note anxiety about the spreading storm, as found in the West, exists also in Moscow, Kremlin thought that the oil pipleline had made Turkey into  sort of ally – then Erdogan shoots down a Russian plane.   Escalation by the war party on any entente with Moscow was . . .   Kerry looked as though he was on a streak,  a prelude to Obama's c all.  War is always a mixture of conventional war, surreptitious ops, etc.  For Clapper to say that Europe is threatened by Putin's pocketbook when Europe is under threat from refugees influx is claptrap.    Europe doesn't need Putin to destabilize it; it's done it to itself.  The EU is Russia's biggest trading partner; Russia certainly wants – needs – stability in Europe at a moment such as this. Hollande, Merkel and Cameron are on the phone daily, screaming.  Half of Russia has family members living in Ukraine. Minsk II is very specific: Eastern Ukraine stays in Ukraine and get s measure of home rule.  . . . Obama is now at the ultimate moment of truth in his presidency. If he follows up on Minsk Accords, he gets to keep his Nobel Peace Prize.  Otherwise, more war. Boris Gryzlov!
Tuesday  19 January 2016   / Hour 2, Block D: Stephen F. Cohen, Prof. Emeritus of Russian Studies & eastwestaccord.com; in re: . . . Gryzlov: Significant progress possible in fulfillment of Minsk agreements   Boris Gryzlov, Russian Representative to the Contact Group for Ukraine, permanent member of the Russian Security Council, feels cautiously ... At one time, the men now in Putin's inner circle stayed in dachas around a lake, and are still very close: The Contact Group. "There's no bigger foot to do this kind of job [representing Putin] than Boris Gryzlov."  Wikipedia: Boris Vyacheslavovich Gryzlov (Борис Вячеславович Грызлов).  . . . Recent calls for Medvedev's removal: means that things are getting very tense over policy. 
 
Hour Three
Tuesday  19 January 2016   / Hour 3, Block A: Dr. Lara M Brown, George Washington University, and Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, in re: Poll shows Kasich rising in New Hampshire  With the ARG poll, Kasich is now second in New Hampshire in the RealClearPolitics ... ; Poll: Kasich Surging in New Hampshire  ; Kasich Surges In New Hampshire, Trailing Trump by Just 7 Points
Tuesday  19 January 2016   / Hour 3, Block B: Dr. Lara M Brown, George Washington University, and Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, in re: . . . Afterward, FactCheck.org showed that it's more like 9 million jobs, many of them lower-paying service jobs. And, over Obama's time in office, manufacturing jobs have plummeted by 230,000.
In short, if you “made” something in the Obama economy, you lost your job; if you “served” someone, you got a job — but probably needed two, so you could make ends meet.
In the Obama economy, wages have not improved; in fact, they have created great unease and not inspired the confidence Americans once had in work — which is why the president has responded by pushing higher wages for service jobs once meant to be temporary bridges from high school and college to adult life.   He needed a straw man for CLICK HERE FOR LINK
Tuesday  19 January 2016   / Hour 3, Block C: Robert Zimmerman, behind the black, in re: The Falcon 9 first stage almost landing  I can’t resist. I have to post that video here of the Falcon 9 first stage landing and then falling over from Sunday. You can see it below the fold. It is incredibly impressive, because it shows that the stage actually did succeed in landing, though a failure of some kind afterward caused it to tip over. The company says it was the failure of one landing leg, but if you watch the video you can see that the angle of fall is between two legs, which suggests that the cause was more complicated. Nonetheless, don’t be surprised if by the end of 2016 SpaceX is successfully landing its first stages on every launch.
Tuesday  19 January 2016   / Hour 3, Block D: Robert Zimmerman, behind the black, in re: Spacewalk cut short due to spacesuit water leak  Today’s spacewalk at ISS to repair a failed voltage regulator of the station’s power system has been cut short because a water bubble had appeared inside one of the astronaut’s spacesuit.
The astronauts are presently in the airlock about to remove their spacesuits, so it appears they are not in danger. However, this problem is the return of the earlier water leaks inside NASA’s spacesuits, something that the agency had thought it had solved last year. If it has returned, this is of serious concern, since it suggests that they have not yet pinpointed the chronic cause of the problem.
It should be noted that the astronauts had successfully replaced the voltage regulator prior to the premature conclusion of their spacewalk. They had had other less critical tasks on their schedule which they had to forego because of the leak.
 
Hour Four
Tuesday  19 January 2016   / Hour 4, Block A: First Over There: The Attack on Cantigny, America's First Battle of World War I, by Matthew J. Davenport (5 of 8)
Tuesday  19 January 2016   / Hour 4, Block B: First Over There: The Attack on Cantigny, America's First Battle of World War I, by Matthew J. Davenport (6 of 8)
Tuesday  19 January 2016   / Hour 4, Block C: First Over There: The Attack on Cantigny, America's First Battle of World War I, by Matthew J. Davenport (7 of 8)
Tuesday  19 January 2016   / Hour 4, Block D: First Over There: The Attack on Cantigny, America's First Battle of World War I, by Matthew J. Davenport (8 of 8)
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