The John Batchelor Show

Tuesday 20 October 2015

Air Date: 
October 20, 2015

Photo, left:   A simplified map of Europe after the peace of Westphalia in 1648.  As Dr Kissinger pointed out in a recent article, stability requires that sovereignty be defended.  As the regional Sykes-Picot boundaries disappear under strain from warring nations and subgroups, so also do familiar outlines of nation-states seem to be evanescing even in their original territory, Western Europe.  See also, UnCivilization by Gregory Copley. 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Larry Kudlow, CNBC senior advisor; & Cumulus Media radio
Hour One
Tuesday  20 October 2015 / Hour 1, Block A: Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post Right Turn columnist; in re: IMF lowers global growth estimate from 3.3% to 3.1% -  looks like not much, but hugely affect investors.  US: House and Senate did not keep promises: bills on tax reform, Obama care, immigration.  Paul Ryan, a supply-side, free-market guy, wants to be in policy. Paul Ryan, a supply-side, free-market guy, wants to be in policy.  Asked for endorsement by the various caucuses. Ryan points to the GOP's needing responsible leadership.  Corp tax reform, or pro-growth ant-poverty programs; trade policy or other pro-growth measures limits on regulation – Ryan probably can jump-start the Party.  GOP mistakenly thought it could govern without the White House.
Angus Deaton, this year's economics Nobelist, spoke of growth: the method of escape from poverty. let's invite the Nobel prizewinner speak to the House of representative, explain the substance behind the policies that the GOP is advancing.   GOP cannot be the Party of screaming mimis,, attacking women, and that kid stuff.  Ryan is sober, ahs a distinguished demeanor. 
Tuesday  20 October 2015 / Hour 1, Block B:  Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post Right Turn columnist; in re: Will the VP announce tonight? "Who knows is the best answer."   He might be smart to announce before the woman who may be indicted does.  Biden at a dinner honoring Walter Mondale: "The other Party is not the enemy. If you treat it as the enemy, there'll be no way to repair the dysfunction." . . .  He's never earned a nickel except from the federal govt since 1972!
Tuesday  20 October 2015 / Hour 1, Block C: Joe Rago, WSJ, in re:  Why is 2% the best he US can do for growth? Began Affordable Care Act in 2010; here it is the end of 2015. Is disappointment over ObamaCare part of the reason for the sluggishness?  About one-third of the whole program is in receivership. Policy mistakes like this help explain why we've been at 2% for so long; it's a resilient economy but you cant deluge it with [this sort of problem].  Is this an ObamaCare death spiral? Could be.   HHS says 9.4 million, so it's running at half what was expected. About 19 million people middle class eligible for ObamaCare who are not participating, One of three eligible persons has decided to join. Co-ops failing: . . . in the budget bill GOP took out all money to prevent bail-out by HHS.   Forty-niners: if you hire the fiftieth worker, gotta go into ObamaCare; smallest bz: the thirtieth worker.  Can't afford in either case.  Essential component of re-starting economic growth is a sensible revision of the Affordable Care Act. One of the worst parts is the huge increase in regulatory control in DC: define who's a worker, what insurers have to cover, what mandated benefits.   Without these, could get to 4%. . . .  Pres Obama is so determinedly partisan and the GOP mirrors that.   /  HHS says 9.4 million, so it's running at half what was expected. About 19 million people eligible for ObamaCare who are not participating. One of three eligible persons has decided to join. Co-ops failing.  LK: I love message bills!  Over thirty years ago David Stockman and I were the second to use reconciliation: Senate president with advice of Parliamentarian can decide what's legit – and the Parliamentarian can be replaced! . . . Mitch probably will decide he needs to be a mean SOB and get the bill on the president's desk. You get one bill a ear. A cleaver way of getting around a lot of logjam politics. And good on ht debate stage from the potential presidential candidate.
Democrats Say the Economy Stinks The candidates agree the middle class is suffering after seven Obama years. ; Podcast: Strassel, Rago and Gigot on the GOP House meltdown and Hillary Clinton’s trade politics. ; ObamaCare Bear MarketThe co-ops collapse and enrollment falls as people stop paying.
Tuesday  20 October 2015 / Hour 1, Block D: Larry Kudlow, CNBC senior advisor; & Cumulus Media radio; in re: Because we're growing inadequately we're a cranky, temperish country; people look for culprits, for enemies. Excess taxes are a function of inadequate growth didn't have Occupy Wall Street it he Eighties and Nineties because we had an economy [going gangbusters]. The basis of his case for growth is free trade.  . . . Grow this economy by removing obstacles to growth.  Somebody's gotta light a fire under the Senate leadership – they're too slow.  Mitch is a good Majority leader and a cagey parliamentarian, but I want someone more muscular.  What do we Republicans believe in?? Growth has got to be a major part of it.
Hour Two
Tuesday  20 October 2015 / Hour 2, Block A: Stephen F. Cohen is Prof. Emeritus of Russian Studies/History/Politics at NYU and Princeton. He is also a member of the Board of the recently-formed American Committee for East-West Accord (eastwestaccord.com); in re:  Henry Kissinger's recent article in WSJ. Westphalia.  "Bi-polar world," morph into a Kissingerian multipolar world.  Why has h American effort to maintain itself as the only superpower failed? USSR disappeared; globalization; end of Soviet Union, rise of traditions from benign to jihadist terrorism. The notion they can all be governed from one capital is arrogant.  new transnational problem: "nuclear terrorism, diminishing resources, new epidemics."
1. Belarus  Ukraine's turmoil is a gift for the last dictator of Europe.   A former pig farm manager, Lukashenko has preserved Belarus as a living museum to Soviet practices, where collective farms, state dominance of the economy, and pro-regime propaganda persist. Even the security services still operate under their infamous Soviet name, the KGB. But the country’s mustachioed strongman is no dusty Soviet relic. He has proved himself to be a shrewd political operator, toeing a careful line between Russia and the West and frequently playing them off against each other to his own advantage.
2. Syria  “In the West, they talk about ‘moderate opposition,’ but we so far haven’t seen any in Syria,” General Andrey Kartapolov, 
Tuesday  20 October 2015 / Hour 2, Block B: Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; The American Committee for East-West Accord; The Nation.com; author: Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, & The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag after Stalin; in re:    . .   Kissinger. Putin.  "Washington behaves like a sulking superpower."  The Russian political class deeply fears that the savagery  of jihadism will arrive within Russia's Muslim population.  . . .  To avoid this, Putin is convinced that Assad's Syria must not collapse till we have an alternative.   Putin is bombing everywhere that the barbarism reigns.
 
Kissinger: Stability requires sovereignty to be defended
 
3. Cuba intervenes to help Moscow in Syria  Reports that Cuban forces are now fighting in Syria follow a long history of the Castro brothers working closely with their patrons in Moscow.
Not for the first time, Cuban forces are doing Russia’s dirty work, this time in Syria. On Wednesday it was reported that a U.S. official had confirmed to Fox News that Cuban paramilitary and Special Forces units were on the ground in Syria. Reportedly transported to the region in Russian planes, the Cubans are rumoured to be experts at operating Russian tanks.
Tuesday  20 October 2015 / Hour 2, Block C: Stephen F. Cohen is Prof. Emeritus of Russian Studies/History/Politics at NYU and Princeton; in re:  
4. Ukraine: Poroshenko  He also condemned the “absolutely irresponsible” behavior of Russia in Syria: “At first it was the Crimea, second it was Donbass, third it is Syria; fourth, maybe, I don’t know, Afghanistan.”
Tuesday  20 October 2015 / Hour 2, Block D: Stephen F. Cohen is Prof. Emeritus of Russian Studies/History/Politics at NYU and Princeton; in re:
6. New Cold War NATO & huge exercises.  TRAPANI, Italy (Reuters) - NATO and its allies opened their largest military exercise in more than a decade on Monday, choosing the central Mediterranean to showcase strengths that face threats from Russia's growing military presence from the Baltics to Syria.
Hour Three
Tuesday  20 October 2015 / Hour 3, Block A:   Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-review, and Dr Lara M Brown, American University, in re: We're a country that instinctively works from strength, independence, stubbornness, and a willingness to persevere despite what appear to be monumental obstacles.  We just fix things, without ceremony or fists in the . . .   http://mediaequalizer.com/brian-maloney/2015/10/wapo-accidently-publishes-biden-story-abruptly-yanks   Rubio gains big Pennsylvania endorsement, rolls out energy policy in Pittsburgh and the Mahoning Valley . . .click here for story
Tuesday  20 October 2015 / Hour 3, Block B:  Dr Lara M Brown, American University, and Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-review, in re: Trump and Carson gain strength among Republicans.  Donald Trump and Ben Carson continue to broaden their appeal among Republican primary voters and have widened their lead over former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and many other more-experienced candidates, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds. Mr. Bush, once considered the GOP’s likely nominee, is also lagging behind his onetime protege, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who is emerging as a leading contender to rally the party’s establishment wing against the rise of insurgent outsiders such as Messrs. Trump and Carson.
Tuesday  20 October 2015 / Hour 3, Block C:   Robert Zimmerman, behind the black, in re: China launches commercial satellite  The competition heats up: China’s Long March 3B rocket successfully placed a commercial communications satellite in orbit on Saturday.
Busy times for the launch business. And it appears that things will get even busier in the coming months.    Another Proton launch success The competition heats up: Russia’s Proton successfully orbited a Turkish communications satellite on Saturday, the third successful launch in a row since a May 16 launch failure. They hope to complete two more launches before the year is over.
SpaceX switches payloads for next launch The competition heats up: SpaceX has rearranged the payloads for its next two launches, delaying the SES-9 geosynchronous communications satellite launch until December to instead launch 11 Orbcomm low-orbit satellites in November.
Using the upgraded Falcon 9, this switch will give them more fuel to try a vertical landing of the first stage on this first launch. They will then try again on the second launch.
Science:  1. New Enceladus images from Cassini flyby    2. New global maps of Titan from Cassini  3. Mars images from Mars Express show spectacular past flash floods    4. Method for dating the late heavy bombardment of the solar system questioned    5. 200 new lunar craters, plus one China rover, discovered on Moon!
Commercial space:   1. China launch success  2. Proton launch success  3. Putin delays first launch from Vostochny  4. SpaceX switches payloads for next two launches 5. Next Cygnus launch set for December 3    6. NASA awards three smallsat launch contracts
Tuesday  20 October 2015 / Hour 3, Block D:  Molly O'Toole, Defense One, in re:  The national security credentials of both Dem. and GOP candidates:  http://www.defenseone.com/politics/2015/10/hillary-clinton-defends-hawkish-record-first-democratic-debate/122779/?oref=d-river
http://www.defenseone.com/politics/2015/09/debate-GOP-military-divided/121268/?oref=d-river
http://www.defenseone.com/politics/2015/08/islamic-state-donald-trump-and-iowa-state-fair/119319/?oref=d-river                          
Hour Four
Tuesday  20 October 2015 / Hour 4, Block A: Alex Kershaw , author, Avenue of Spies: A True Story of Terror, Espionage, and One American Family's Heroic Resistance in Nazi-Occupied... (1 of 4)
Tuesday  20 October 2015 / Hour 4, Block B: Alex Kershaw , author, Avenue of Spies: A True Story of Terror, Espionage, and One American Family's Heroic Resistance in Nazi-Occupied... (2 of 4)
Tuesday  20 October 2015 / Hour 4, Block C: Alex Kershaw , author, Avenue of Spies: A True Story of Terror, Espionage, and One American Family's Heroic Resistance in Nazi-Occupied... (3 of 4)
Tuesday  20 October 2015 / Hour 4, Block D: Alex Kershaw , author, Avenue of Spies: A True Story of Terror, Espionage, and One American Family's Heroic Resistance in Nazi-Occupied... (4 of 4)
 
..  ..  ..