The John Batchelor Show

Tuesday 4 September 2018

Air Date: 
September 04, 2018

Image:  . . . the great horn that was broken. These were, (1) Cassander, who had Greece and the neighboring countries; (2) Lysimachus, who had Asia Minor; (3) Seleucus, who had Syria and Babylon, and from whom came the line of kings known as the Seleucide, so famous in history; and (4) Ptolemy, son of Lagus, who had Egypt, and from whom sprang the Lagide. These held dominion toward the four winds of heaven.  . . . These four horns m y therefore be named Macedonia, Thrace (which then included Asia Minor, and those parts lying on the Hellespont and Bosporus), Syria, and Egypt.
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Larry Kudlow, Director of the National Economic Council under US Pres Donald Trump.
 
Hour One
Tuesday 4 September 2018/ Hour 1, Block A:.   Elizabeth Peek, The Hill and Fox News, in re: the roaring economy. Institute of Intl Finance: “Economy is booming only in some places.” People never tire of a booming economy, nor of rising wages and living standards. These drive consumer optimism and spending, which are two-thirds of the US economy. Ergo, we have an increase in business optimism and spending — the elements that were missing during the Obama years.  
Tuesday 4 September 2018/ Hour 1, Block B:   Elizabeth Peek, The Hill and Fox News, in re: Democrats are furious that they can’t control Congress or the White House or, as it now appears, the Supreme Court. Today’s circus was embarrassing; some of the Senators [disgraced themselves]. It was such a visible display.  GOP’s [ascendance] has been going on for a decade because the Democrats keep pressing for policies that are not popular nationally.  Democrats have lost an unprecedented amount of power but seem not to have pondered why.  Schumer may give permission to several Senators in Red states to vote for Kavanaugh. 
Tuesday 4 September 2018/ Hour 1, Block C: Isaac Stone Fish,  New Republic, in re:  China and trade.  There are 350,000 Chinese nationals in US college and universities.  They’re well-prepared and the benefactors of cash to the schools; but are they also representatives of the Chinese Communist Party and its global tentacles? Is there a blatant Chinese censor on US campuses? Its more pernicious: a lot of professors, students and administrators self-censor to avoid offending Beijing and thereby lose access to China for research (and income).  Chinese money in US universities.  Recall that Adm Yamamoto studied at Harvard.  At Columbia: in 2015, the CU Beijing center cancelled talks out of fear of offending the Party. North Caroline State University:  Provost said, We won’t invite HH the Dalai Lama to avoid  Jim Milward (?) coauthored a book on Xinjiang, where now there are a million Uyghurs in concentration camps, and he was denied access to China.  The three Ts are Taiwan, Tien An Men, Tibet.  . . .
Tuesday 4 September 2018/ Hour 1, Block D:   Isaac Stone Fish,  New Republic, in re:  China and trade. Transparency would be an excellent first step: universities need to understand that they have a  lot more bargaining power with Beijing than they think they do – banding together to stand up for faculty and students.  I found no example of an American who got kicked out of China for doing controversial work.   Bring up with Chinese academics the million Muslims in concentration camps in Xinjiang. We  need to discuss what we want out of relations with China.  !1. China is a superpower.   2 Repression there is increasing. 3. US institutions are becoming increasingly dependent on China: airlines, schools, mfrs.    David Schambo(?) GWU:  said that the CCP is not stable and we need to anticipate a denouement. He suffered for this statement – was prevented from meeting with high-level officials and his career has suffered.
 
Hour Two
Tuesday 4 September 2018/ Hour 2, Block A:  Gregory Copley, International Strategic Studies Association (ISSA) president; Editor-in-Chief of Defense & Foreign Affairs publications, and the Global Information System (GIS); in re:  Sovereignty in the Twenty-first Century.  Violence in Asia Minor.  Putin, Erdogan, and Rouhani are all scheduled to meet to discuss US sanctions on Iran and ending the offensive by Russian/Iranian/Syrian/Hezb/soldiers of fortune attack on the province of Idlib. Turkey wants its cake and to eat it, too: doesn't want to be active in NATO, but wants to stay in to avoid being swallowed up by Moscow.  Turkey and Iran have historical animosities.  Erdogan has overplayed his hand,  and eventually Turkey  will probably lose the US, having threatened it; Erdogan might have got away with that in previous administrations, but not with Trump. If he does get S400 missiles from Russia, he can't get F35 fighters from the US.  Have Moscow and Ankara decided that it’s good to trade the Idlib assault for breaking relations with US?  Of course, but Turkey doesn't want that.  There exists no formal mechanism for expelling a NATO member; Euros are afraid of Turkey leaving NATO and going rogue.  The attack on Idlib isn’t about stopping jihadis but about punishing Kurds.  Pompeian Greeks?? Extreme brutality by Ankara toward the Kurds. 
 
S400 system: Turkey cannot have this plus F35s (a hundred were planned), the loss of which wd be major. Had Turkey F35s, wd threaten Greece, Cyrus, others.  To boot, Turkey manufactures two basic parts for Lockheed Martin (mfr F35s).  Taiwan wants to buy the planes.  We’re seeing in Turkey what's possible as the end of Sovereignty in the Twenty-first Century.
Tuesday 4 September 2018/ Hour 2, Block B: Gregory Copley, International Strategic Studies Association (ISSA) president; Editor-in-Chief of Defense & Foreign Affairs publications, and the Global Information System (GIS); in re:  Empires grinding up against presumptions.  Russia is breaking out of NATO’s encirclement of the USSR. Turkey cd have survived as a sovereign state had it followed Ataturk’s direction, but Erdogan wants an Islamist state [that can't function effectively today as a nation-state]. The comfort of tribalism and customs.  The end of old-style communism: people want national-ism.  With Xi: the Party abandons global-style communism of the Twentieth Century, is riding on ____. The country that embraces national-ism first is the one that will succeed soonest; flight to identity, to sovereignty.  Ataturk created a supernational sovereignty; Erdogan’s neo-Ottomanism is a form of globalism—we own everything—that renders [impossible]
Tuesday 4 September 2018/ Hour 2, Block C:  Adam White, Hoover; & George Mason  U Scalia Law School (director, Center for the Study of the Administrative State); in re:  anent: gun rights , Roe v Wade, powers of the Executive branch.  Seat vacated by Justice Anthony Kennedy.  Judge Brett Kavanaugh.  In hearing, there was an immed challenge on the ground that the Democrats haven’t had enough time to read everything (hundreds of thousands of documents).  Also demand additional documents, although no one could have read all that’s there already. Judge Kavanaugh arrives with a more transparent judicial temperament and more papers on record than perhaps any other nominee. He was once Staff Secretary at the White House.  Questions go to core powers of the president. Demand more documents than can be provided.  What do Democrats mostly want? More time: to delay the process by as many weeks as possible, prevent it from coming to a vote.  When John Bolton was being assayed as ambassador to the UN [which never occurred via that process] . . .
Tuesday 4 September 2018/ Hour 2, Block D:  Adam White, Hoover; & George Mason  U Scalia Law School (director, Center for the Study of the Administrative State); in re: After the exciting first day of hearings – arrests, detentions, noise – we settle down. The Ginsburg idea: we won't allow Kavanaugh to speak to Roe v Wade: first, judges mustn’t pre-judge; also cases may come before him in his current position. Stare decisis. With the departure of Justice Kennedy, the left no longer has a comfortable place in which to ________. When activists on the left complain that Kavanaugh won't respect precedent, then in the next breath demand that other [established] cases be overturned.  There are certain things the president should be exempt from while he’s in office; can be dealt with later, after he’s left office.  . . .  What I heard today was some people campaigning for the presidency!  First day is almost exclusively speechifying by Senators. On the second day, there’ll e more [germane} and substantive questions. 
 
Hour Three
Tuesday 4 September 2018/ Hour 3, Block A:  Benham Ben Taleblu, in re: Inflation in Iran.
Tuesday 4 September 2018/ Hour 3, Block B:  Veronique de Rugy, Mercatus Center, in re:  Canada and NAFTA.   
Tuesday 4 September 2018/ Hour 3, Block C:   Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack,com, in re:  Reading the Bible on Christmas Eve, 1968.  ISS: a leak.    Leak began not as existential; patched it easily.  Cause was not a micrometeorite; rather, a ground tech was using a drill on the inside and accidentally drilled a hole in the space capsule; told no one, put on a sealant and a decorative material over it to conceal it. Lasted two months.  Now, Roskosmos has identified the tech. How shoddy, sloppy, corrupt is the entire Russian aerospace industry!  The US still depends on Russia to get our astronauts up to the ISS and back.  From 2019-2020, Russia will do ten launches, a third-world pace.  Beaten by India, Japan, others. Congress made the US dependent by withdrawing US funding! A systemic failure, betw the US and Russia and by Congress: asking our astronauts to trust the world of a country that‘s under strain, An outright failure of big-govt operations in both Russia and the US. Bush II made a ridiculous proposal that Congress acceded to. SLS rocket can't get off the ground – again, big Gov.    Dubai has named two astronauts – to go on a Soyuz capsule to ISS. A tourist flight with foreign-policy implications. One is a sheikh, the other is not.  The movie, First Man, with Ryan Gosling, a Canadian as Armstrong; in interview, Gosling said, “Neil didn’t view himself as an American hero; quite the opposite [it was human accomplishment].” Enormous public outrage over the omission of the US flag, as Hollywood routinely denigrates the US.    Apollo 8 was an American, not a NASA, triumph.
Tuesday 4 September 2018/ Hour 3, Block D: Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack,com, in re: The Sun: entering a solar minimum; double peak (unprecedented); weak Sun in unfamiliar behaviors.   Little Oppy (Opportunity).  Seven probes of four different objects in short order. Almost every probe except Chinese will depend on Deep-Space Network.  Storm over Oppy is clearing, Need a dust devil to come by close and [clear the solar panels] for power source. 
 
Hour Four
Tuesday 4 September 2018/ Hour 4, Block A:  Flight of the Eagle: The Grand Strategies that Brought America from Colonial Dependence to World Leadership, by Conrad Black
Tuesday 4 September 2018/ Hour 4, Block B:  Flight of the Eagle: The Grand Strategies that Brought America from Colonial Dependence to World Leadership, by Conrad Black
Tuesday 4 September 2018/ Hour 4, Block C:  Paul Gregory, Hoover, in re: Socialism
Tuesday 4 September 2018/ Hour 4, Block D:  John Tamny, RealClearPolitics, in re:  Markets and sports