The John Batchelor Show

Tuesday 21 July 2015

Air Date: 
July 21, 2015

Photo, left: New Horizons chronology.
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Larry Kudlow, CNBC senior advisor; & Cumulus Media radio
Hour One
Tuesday  21 July 2015  / Hour 1, Block A:   Bill Whalen, Hoover Institution, in re:   Sixteen GOP candidates in the race;  Trump attacked Perry, who responded well.  Iowa, New Hampshire and SC: you get to pick flavor.  Donald Trump played squash when was  a younger man, at least before he got his war deferment.  His attacks on John McCain were unspeakably over the edge. He hurts Ben Cason Carly Fiorina, Ted Cruz by holding on to at least 5%.  He's very good at celebrity; not clear her really wants to be president.  Trump is the ready-made candidate for the Getting revenge, lost The Apprentice, is controlling this [play]. Sinister satisfaction out of it – turning it in to a very bad reality TV.   "Eight years of Donald Trump in the White House would exhaust me as a political commentator."  Neither anger nor bad temper wins the presidency in this country.  Today Trump gave out Lindsay Graham's cell phone number.  Let him collapse under his own weight.
Tuesday  21 July 2015  / Hour 1, Block B:  Bill Whalen, Hoover Institution, in re: John Kasich, two-term governor of Ohio, a state needed by the GOP to win the presidency. He's a moderate; w Chris Christies, and Jeb Bush. Is that a good thing in this race? The old labels may not apply here; all the candidates are pro-life and pro-tax-cut.  "Moderate" is great for raising funds but death in a primary.  Immigration and Common Core.   . . . Kasich lectures GOP on medical and Common Core – not a good idea.  Kasich & Walker: two Midwesterners, two very different candidates – Walker is doubling down on fighting unions, while Kasich is a big-tent guy.  Hard when you're the sixteenth person to announce.
Tuesday  21 July 2015  / Hour 1, Block C:   Seth Lipsky, New York Sun, in re: The Coinage Act of 1965 will be 50 years old this week (July 23); stripped silver from our coins and made legal gender out of base-metal slugs. Lyndon Johnson made a notorious speech h in the Rose Garden: don't worry ($1 = .77 oz of silver; then it plunged to less than 3/100 of an ounce.). Congress is looking at monetary reform; how we manage the dollar seems to be part of our [economic problems].  Got Congress to lift the gold cover; that helped unleash the inflation of the late 1960s.  It's up to Congress to regulate the value of our currency.  Also: The Commons – the space we all share – is being destroyed in New York. Heroin addicts nodding out and panhandling.  LK: I think DeBlasio is biased against Manhattan.  Are we witnessing an experiment in Manhattan that shows what the country will look like under progressivism?  In the 1990s we had a nat'l [geyser] in technological growth. Mrs Clinton want to raise the tax on innovations, and won't lower corporate tax rates – the biggest obstacle to economic growth.  Mr DeBlasio is puzzling because he looks like he wants to be an inquisitive and good mayor but his polices [aren’t]. His election reminded me of a Latin-American election – and DeBlasio reminds me of a Latin-American leader.  Mrs Clinton is a great fundraiser – she'll move left to knock the wind out of the sails of Bernie Sanders, then move to the center for the general. 
Tuesday  21 July 2015  / Hour 1, Block D: Larry Kudlow, CNBC senior advisor; and Cumulus Media radio, in re: said that people want full-time jobs. in the sixth year f recovery, there are 6.5 million people who are involuntary part-time workers.  Very  slow recovery, and a variety of govt assistance policies disincentivize full-time work. He's got the 4% growth right.  No such from Mrs Clinton. She spoke of Uber and the  economy."  Her vision of the labor force doesn't correspond with the picture today.  She doesn’t like LLCs and labor pass-though]s, who don't join unions.  Our economy is not going that direction. California has moved to regulate Uber; Uber is an example of the sharing economy. You can hire lawyers and accountants on other continents. Progressives going after franchisors.  Effort to expand govt and its reach, and labor unions and their reach.  No independent contractors.
Hour Two
Tuesday  21 July 2015  / Hour 2, Block A: Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; author: Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, & The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag after Stalin; in re: http://uatoday.tv/politics/us-ukrainian-military-drills-launch-in-yavoriv-458995.html  http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150721/1024887903.html  (1 of 4)
Tuesday  21 July 2015  / Hour 2, Block B:  Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus, and author: http://news.yahoo.com/france-germany-russia-ukraine-urge-respect-ukraine... (2 of 4)
Tuesday  21 July 2015  / Hour 2, Block C:  Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus, and author: http://uatoday.tv/politics/normandy-four-leaders-agree-to-implement-mins... (3 of 4)
Tuesday  21 July 2015  / Hour 2, Block D:  Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus, and author; (4 of 4)
Hour Three
Tuesday  21 July 2015  / Hour 3, Block A:   Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review & Pirates fan, in re: CLICK HERE FOR LINK  There is a disturbance in American politics. But no one in the political class seems to be pinpointing the correct source.   Donald Trump gets all of the credit for it from journalists, pundits and academics. They could not be more wrong.  They are looking only at the surface, seeing the response to his harangues as an affirmation of the man. If they looked beyond the cartoonish image of Trump, they would understand that the true disturbance is the frustration of Americans, not the bluster of one man.
Tuesday  21 July 2015  / Hour 3, Block B: Claudia Rosett, FDD, in re: http://www.forbes.com/sites/claudiarosett/2015/07/16/nuclear-extortion-pioneered-by-north-korea-perfected-by-iran/ Nuclear Extortion: Pioneered by North Korea, Perfected by Iran
Forbes.com
Tuesday  21 July 2015  / Hour 3, Block C: Ann Marlowe, NRO; in re:  
Tuesday  21 July 2015  / Hour 3, Block D: Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com, in re: Philae status update  Engineers on the Rosetta team are struggling to figure out why they cannot get a solid communications lock with their Philae lander, and have come up with several explanations.  One possible explanation being discussed at DLR’s Lander Control Center is that the position of Philae may have shifted slightly, perhaps by changing its orientation with respect to the surface in its current location. The lander is likely situated on uneven terrain, and even a slight change in its position – perhaps triggered by gas emission from the comet – could mean that its antenna position has also now changed with respect to its surroundings. This could have a knock-on effect as to the best position Rosetta needs to be in to establish a connection with the lander.
Another separate issue under analysis is that one of the two transmission units of the lander appears not to be working properly, in addition to the fact that one of the two receiving units is damaged. Philae is programmed to switch periodically back and forth between these two transmission units, and after tests on the ground reference model, the team has sent a command to the lander to make it work with just one transmitter. As Philae is able to receive and accept commands of this kind in the “blind”, it should execute it as soon as it is supplied with solar energy during the comet’s day.
They have heard from Philae since July 9. Because of comet activity they have had to pull Rosetta back away from the nucleus to protect it, and are now focusing its primary activity on observations, not communications with Philae. They will continue to try to bring Philae back to full functioning life, but the priority is now the comet.
Hour Four
Tuesday  21 July 2015  / Hour 4, Block A:  Francis Rose, Federal News Radio, in re:
http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/benefits/veterans/2015/07/16/va-not-saying-how-many-medical-clinics--operating--capacity/30240995/
Choice program update http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/benefits/veterans/2015/07/16/va-choice-patients-double-number-since-april/30250325/ Isakson holding town hall at VA, date to come, was supposed to be yesterday but senate schedule forced postponement
VA Will Have the Resources Necessary to Meet the Needs of Veterans, Chairmen Miller and Dent Pledge that Congress will Address Recently Disclosed Funding Shortfall   WASHINGTON DC – Today, Chairman Jeff Miller (House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs) and Chairman Charlie Dent (House Committee on Appropriations, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Subcommittee) released the following joint statement on VA’s budget shortfall. “As chairmen of the relevant Veterans Affairs panels in the House of Representatives, we were recently notified by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) that, without Congressional action, it will run out of funding prior to the end of the fiscal year. The VA has made shocking claims that it will begin shutting down hospitals and furloughing staff as a result. We are diligently working to ensure this does not occur and that no veterans will be denied the care they need and deserve.
“America’s veterans must not be penalized for the VA’s inability to do its job. This is far from the first time the VA has disclosed problems far too late and turned its blatant mismanagement into a fiscal emergency. Two months ago, the VA couldn’t tell Congress it was over budget. Two weeks ago, it couldn’t tell Congress it would be shutting down hospitals next month. No viable organization can function this way. The VA’s continued lack of transparency and refusal to be forthright with Congress and the American people is unacceptable.
“Congress will not allow the VA’s failures to close care facilities or furlough the personnel our veterans rely on every day. We will work to enact the necessary reforms to end this continuing mismanagement and transform the VA into a more transparent and accountable Agency."
Tuesday  21 July 2015  / Hour 4, Block B:  Paul Gregory, Hoover, in re: The head of Russia's security council has recited the Albright Myth making it official Russian state policy. The US is planning to destroy Russia as we know it, all because we want Siberia. How does Putin know for sure: His mind readers tell him so. Funny but tragic.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2015/07/16/the-madeleine-albright-declaration-origins-of-a-kremlin-lie/
Tuesday  21 July 2015  / Hour 4, Block C:  Richard A Epstein, Hoover Institution via Defining Ideas, Chicago Law, in re: The Folly of "Fair" Housing  (1 of 2)
Tuesday  21 July 2015  / Hour 4, Block D: Richard A Epstein, Hoover Institution via Defining Ideas, Chicago Law, in re: The Folly of "Fair" Housing   (2 of 2)
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