Photo, left: This is ISIS. 
Photo from: Dozens of Yazidi women 'sold into marriage' by jihadists: NGO Several dozen Yazidi women kidnapped by Islamic State jihadists in Iraq; by courtesy of and with thanks to
samuelkub.blogspot.com
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Larry Kudlow, CNBC senior advisor; & Cumulus Media radio
 
Hour One
Tuesday  6 January 2015  / Hour 1, Block A: Stephen Moore, WSJ editorial board member & chief financial writer, in re: Before Marty Anderson wrote those books on Ronald Reagan's writing, people saw him as a nice sort of actor – but once you read his extensive and deep notes you could never doubt the intellectual acuity and fastidious organization of Reagan. Reagan, In His Own Hand: The Writings of Ronald Reagan that Reveal His Revolutionary Vision for America by Kiron K. Skinner (Editor), Annelise Anderson (Editor)
The dollar is rising not only against other currencies, but against gold, oil – people worldwide have confidence in the strong dollar. The Fed is printing fewer dollars - ad we’re growing when no one else is. We’re not breaking new records; we're back to a 30-year average of the dollar index.  Over 30 years, the average price of a barrel of oil has been exactly where it is now.  We're growing more competitive.  Wall Street holds that a fall in the price of oil is bad for stocks – it's  not. The price of production of everything in the economy falls.  All considered, profits will still rise maybe 3% or a bit more.
Tuesday  6 January 2015  / Hour 1, Block B:    Stephen Moore, WSJ editorial board member & chief financial writer, in re: White House: President Obama would veto Keystone XL pipeline bill.  This president detests the fossil fuels industry; most Americans support the pipeline.  May see a veto override. Obama has rejected the blue-collar Democrats, incl their unions.  The bill needs to remove export limits. Within seen years, the US will be producing so much O&G that we'll [perforce] be an exporter.  You're right, Larry – these are blue-collar jobs that sometimes pay $60-, 80-, 100,00 a year.  Looks like our president stabbed _ in the back.  It'd be in Obama's own political interest to sign some of these bills. GOP needs to put its best policy foot forward until 2016.  US economy: Why I'm optimistic about growth in 2015 Could 2015 be the breakout year for the economy? Last week we got very joyful news: The economy grew by . . . Read more  /  The Private Sector, Not Obama, Created This Recovery  It only took six years, but we're finally starting to see the U.S. economy kick into gear. This isn't a story of . . . Read more
Tuesday  6 January 2015  / Hour 1, Block C: Gene Epstein,  , in re: Almost nobody forecast that the price of oil would be cut in half during 2014. "The punditry completely missed this story. There was one noteworthy exception: Gene Epstein, in a March 2014 Barron’s cover story, “Here Comes $75 Oil,” got the broad strokes right. He noted that 'The long-term outlook for global oil prices is lower, perhaps much lower, giving a strong boost to the U.S. economy while potentially crippling the economy of Vladimir Putin's Russia. Vast new discoveries of oil and natural gas in the U.S. and around the globe could drive the oil price to as low as $75 a barrel over the next five years from a current $100.' The timing may have been off somewhat, but that’s as good a prediction about oil as was made. It's notable especially because it was an outlier, and the rest of the world’s economic writers missed it."  . . .  Industrial companies, especially, will benefit: a notch down in cost for American business - which is good for business. Single-entry bookkeeping is not useful here.  The reason we won’t have 4% growth this year is that we have structural problems in our economy, from Obamacare to a slowdown in the world.  . .   We need to fund federal highways, interstates; however, the nation as a whole shouldn’t have to pay a gas tax – that'd be like Japan, which has increased its sales tax and thereby snuffed out any chance for economic recovery. 
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Economic Beat: My Social Security Check, by Gene Epstein
If 60 is the new 40, then 70 is the new 50. Or so I would say, having turned 70 in November. My father, always ahead of his time (if occasionally behind schedule), entered law school at 64 after a successful career in business, passed the bar at 67, and then commenced a busy law practice lasting more than a decade. And that was when 70 was still 70. As my father's son, then, my 22 years' writing this column feel as though I'm just hitting my stride, eager to apply my knowledge and experience to the next 22 years. Saying no to the idea of retirement is thus the first of my New Year's resolutions.
That I'll continue drawing a regular paycheck emboldens me to make a second New Year's resolution: to follow the lead of economist Mark Skousen by donating my Social Security check to charity. Not that my charitable contributions have been nil up to now. But the added Social Security money that I can now give away represents an appreciable leap, even if it doesn't exactly put me in the company of real philanthropists.
Since I waited until 70 to file for benefits, I get the maximum possible amount based on my highest-earning 35 years. At the "full retirement age" of 66, my benefits would have run less than $2,600 a month. I admit to feeling a rush when I noticed in December that my checking account had received a direct deposit from the Social Security Administration for $3,355.
This was soon followed by a note in the mail informing me that, in accordance with the 2015 cost-of-living adjustment of 1.7%, my check starting in January will come to $3,412. By contrast, the average monthly Social Security check in 2014 came to $1,294, or $1,316 with the 1.7% COLA.
While I'll be paying a much higher tax than the average on my benefits (up to 85% is subject to the income tax), I can still expect to net more than $30,000 a year, all of it earmarked for donation.
The notable disparity between my monthly benefit and the average harkens back to the economist Milton Friedman's deflating characterization of the "sacred cow" that is Social Security: a pension plan that favors high earners financed by a payroll tax that falls more on low earners. Friedman proposed replacing the system with a negative income tax, financed out of general revenues, earmarked solely for the elderly who need the money.
A couple of years ago Mark Skousen initiated his "Social Security Pledge," whereby Social Security beneficiaries can plan to donate their checks on a monthly basis to the charity of their choice. Skousen, a principled libertarian, burned his Social Security card as a "brash young man," pledging that he would never take the benefits, in protest against the government's attempt to control his retirement. But after finding that many folks he knew were claiming benefits anyway, having felt they paid into the system, Skousen decided instead to launch his charitable initiative.
Of course, one approach would be not to apply for the benefits at all, in effect donating the entire sum to the federal government. To begin with, as mentioned, the government is already taking a substantial share via the income tax. And for the cash remaining, I prefer to seek recipients I believe to be more worthy
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Tuesday  6 January 2015  / Hour 1, Block D: Clint Bolick, VP for litigation at the Goldwater Institute and a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution;  in re: Jeb Bush’s Conservative Immigration Agenda   Pundits who claim he's for ‘amnesty’ are wrong. His goal is to bolster the economy and the nation’s security. . ..  Two-thirds of our million annual immigrants are extended family – not people able to do sophisticated work, or their spouse or children, but [like Gilbert and Sullivan] cousins and aunts.  Most nations have a much m "Beefing up border security":  half of all immigrants came in and overstayed; Jeb Bush wants every guest to be fingerprinted; also, to have military border guards.  Ira Stoll wrote a book on how Jeb Bush ran Florida as a conservative.
 
Hour Two
Tuesday  6 January 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:   (1 of 4) Merkel and Hollande are now working together on Ukraine; in Washington, Merkel said, "There's no military solution to the Kiyev crisis, only a diplomatic on" – the opposite of Washington's line. Friends of mine say that Merkel has gone Hamlet on us: t0 be or not to be . . .  Meanwhile, Hollande has decided he'll be the leader. So Hollande, Merkel, Putin and Poroshenko will all fly to Kazakhstan.  No Kerry or minion.  Hollande a constate: If Putin will stabilize eastern Ukraine, then Europe should remove the sanctions.   S&P downgrade of Ukraine, outlook negative, within the last hours.   . . . Interbank interest rates in Russia now jumped to 27%!  Possible banking crisis in Russia – a threat to al the banks of Europe and Asia.  Russia has resources – not enough to thrive during a crisis, but enugh to survive.  [Why S&P downgraded Ukraine pic.twitter.com/uInZAMkTjT ]  (3 of 4)
Tuesday  6 January 2015  / Hour 2, Block D: Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus;  in re:   Khodorkovsky  (4 of 4)
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New Yorker on Khodarkovsky:  . . . These days, many of those who still agitate for a freer Russia assemble abroad. The editor of Lenta.ru, once the most popular news site in Russia, was pushed out because of the site’s reporting on the war in Ukraine; most of the editorial staff resigned in protest. Part of the team moved to Riga, where it has established a new Web operation, called Meduza. Ilya Ponomarev, once a vaguely oppositional figure in the Russian parliament, is now living in San Jose, California. Anna Veduta, the press secretary of the opposition leader and anti-corruption campaigner Alexey Navalny, is studying at Columbia University. Navalny’s lieutenant, a banker named Vladimir Ashurkov, is in London, having fled a set of trumped-up criminal charges. Leonid Bershidsky, one of Russia’s most prominent columnists, is writing about Russia’s ills from Berlin. Sergei Guriev, an economist who once advised both the Kremlin and Navalny, now teaches in Paris, at the Institut d’Études Politiques. Rustem Adagamov, one of Russia’s leading bloggers, is in Prague. Khodorkovsky’s Open Russia, a loose affiliation of journalists and activists, has its nerve center there, too.  [more]
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Ukraine Leader Was Defeated Even before He Was Ousted / New York Times    But even as Mr. Yanukovych sat down with his political foes at the presidential . . .  An investigation by The New York Times into the final hours of Mr. Yanukovych’s rule — based on interviews with prominent players, including former commanders of the Berkut riot police and other security units, telephone records and other documents — shows that the president was not so much overthrown as cast adrift by his own allies, and that Western officials were just as surprised by the meltdown as anyone else.
   The allies’ desertion, fueled in large part by fear, was accelerated by the seizing by protesters of a large stock of weapons in the west of the country. But just as important, the review of the final hours shows, was the panic in government ranks created by Mr. Yanukovych’s own efforts to make peace.  At dawn on the morning of Thursday, Feb. 20, a bedraggled pro-European protest movement controlled just a few hundred square yards, at best, of scorched and soot-smeared pavement in central Kiev. They had gathered there the previous November, enraged that Mr. Yanukovych, under heavy pressure from Moscow, had abruptly turned away from a long-planned trade deal with the European Union.  
   Their fortunes dimmed further on Thursday morning when a hail of gunfire cut down scores of protesters as they pushed to break out of their shrinking encampment and expand their reach into the heavily guarded government district. By Thursday evening, however, the shock created by that bloodshed, the worst in the Ukrainian capital since World War II, had prompted a mass defection by the president’s allies in Parliament and prodded Mr. Yanukovych to join negotiations with a trio of opposition politicians
 
Hour Three
Tuesday  6 January 2015  / Hour 3, Block A:   Murad Ismael, Sinjar Crisis Group, in re:  we've met with US ambassador to Iraq ("We have no special plans for Yazidis") and the Chief of Staff of the Iraqi army, anent the current actual genocide of Yazidis by ISIS.  The women and children are being abused horrifically – enslaved, being treated as things by the ISIS savages; this is part of the message that Murad is carrying to authorities.  Today, Murad will meet with the French ambassador and the Iraqi president to point out that the Yazidi crisis by no means is ended. There are five to seven thousand female hostages being held by Da'ish/ISIS; Sijar Crisis group is explaining the extent of the abuse. Also will see the Iraqi Ministry of Women – "We were surprised that liberating the hostages were not at all part of the Iraqi army's plan in Sinjar. We thus have lost the opportunity to free the enslaved women and children while they were in Sinjar; we need to ensure that freedom of these women be part of any military plan.  Yet another young woman, twenty years old, has again recounted to us the extreme abuse she suffered while a hostage. About half of the city of Sinjar is still under Da'ish because it’s so powerful with its arms. Hundreds of Yazidi girls are being held in Raqqah in Syria [the ISIS headquarters] and are being abused, given as gifts to males who arrive to fight with ISIS and are being sold around the region. Now they're being held in very small groups so that makes it must harder to free the women. Full destruction of ISIS must be the plan.  Cannot wait years, must excise it now.
Tuesday  6 January 2015  / Hour 3, Block B:  Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, in re: Washington's new alliances – GOP and Dems actually start talking. Click here for link.
With the Republican Party poised to take a stronger lead in the Capitol, so too is Pennsylvania's congressional delegation, lawmakers and analysts say.
When the 114th Congress convenes on Tuesday, the House composition of 247 Republicans and 188 Democrats will represent the largest GOP majority since 1929. Senate Republicans hold a 54-to-46 advantage over Democrats.  Thirteen of Pennsylvania's 18 House members are Republicans, and several have risen to leadership positions.   The state's . . .
Tuesday  6 January 2015  / Hour 3, Block C:   Sam Tadros, Hudson University, in re: Pres al Sisi of Egypt today visited a Coptic church on Orthodox Christmas Eve, was received with appreciation and enthusiasm. Pres al Sisi's speech has got a lot of attention in the West, not as part of his official remarks, spoke for the need of changing the ideas associated with the religion of Islam./ Egyptian President El-Sisi Appears at Coptic Mass  For the first time ever, Coptic Christians in Egypt were able to greet the president of their . . .  UPDATED: Sisi first Egyptian President to attend Coptic Christmas mass.  Still have attacks on Copts, attacks that go unpunished; but Copts realize that the alternative would be much much worse – three assassination attacks against Copts only today.   Reports of kidnappings of Copts in Libya.  Last year, massacres of Christians. . . . Unless the police actually arrive on the scene when Copts are under attack, and unless the judicial system actually punishes attacker and killers, then there will not be a change.
Tuesday  6 January 2015  / Hour 3, Block D: Christian Whiton, president of the Hamilton Foundation & author of "Smart Power: Between Diplomacy and War"; in re:  (CNN) Get ready for a bumpy ride in China.    For 75 days in 2014, Hong Kong residents seeking freedom stood in open defiance of their unelected leaders, including by occupying key thoroughfares of the former British colony. They were joined at times by hundreds of thousands of sympathizers who oppose Beijing's attempts to thwart political freedom in the city. And while the protesters have since withdrawn, their movement has reached a new plateau. Indeed, . . .
 
Hour Four
Tuesday  6 January 2015  / Hour 4, Block A:  John Bolton, AEI, in re:  The U.N. Vote on Palestine Was a Rehearsal
 
An influx of new Security Council members means a likely ‘yes’ vote—and a veto dilemma for Obama.
Tuesday  6 January 2015  / Hour 4, Block B:  Seb Gorka, Marine Corps University & Breitbart, in re: The Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi delivered a speech on New Year’s Day 2015 in anticipation for the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday, which ended Saturday evening. In his address, Sisi highlighted the necessity for reformation within the ummah, or Islamic nation. He warned that Islam’s radical clerics were taking the religion to a place where killing and destruction are encouraged, and it is up to the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims to reject such extremism.  The following excerpt from Sisi’s speech regarding Islam and its radical clerics has been translated by raymondibrahim.com:
" . . .I am referring here to the religious clerics. We have to think hard about what we are facing—and I have, in fact, addressed this topic a couple of times before. It’s inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire umma [Islamic world] to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world. Impossible!
    "That thinking—I am not saying “religion” but “thinking”—that corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the years, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world. It’s antagonizing the entire world!
    "Is it possible that 1.6 billion people [Muslims] should want to kill the rest of the world’s inhabitants—that is, 7 billion—so that they themselves may live? Impossible!
    "I am saying these words here at Al Azhar, before this assembly of scholars and ulema—Allah Almighty be witness to your truth on Judgment Day concerning that which I’m talking about now.
All this that I am telling you, you cannot feel it if you remain trapped within this mindset. You need to step outside of yourselves to be able to observe it and reflect on it from a more enlightened perspective.
    "I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move . . . because this umma is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost—and it is being lost by our own hands.”
This wasn’t the first time Sisi has addressed the radical elements within his religion. Last January, the Egyptian president stated, “Religious discourse is the greatest battle and challenge facing the Egyptian people,” urging fellow Egyptians to stop “relying on a discourse that has not changed for 800 years.” Sisi said that it was the responsibility of those “who follow the true Islam to improve the image of this religion in front of the world,” reminding his citizens that many perceive Islam as a religion that has been responsible for “violence and destruction around the world.
AND 2014, year of most massive Christian persecution:  year of the Christian genocide
Tuesday  6 January 2015  / Hour 4, Block C:  Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com, in re: Sierra Nevada loses its protest of NASA contract decision  The GAO has ruled against Sierra Nevada’s protest of NASA’s decision to pick Boeing for its manned spacecraft decision. The ruling is not really a surprise. Even if political considerations gave Boeing an unfair advantage, the space agency has enough legal leeway to make this decision as it did. The GAO recognized that it would be inappropriate to overrule them.
Falcon 9 launch scrubbed  Due to issues in the rocket’s steering system, this morning’s Falcon 9/Dragon launch was scrubbed. They'll try again Friday morning at 5:09 am Eastern.
Tuesday  6 January 2015  / Hour 4, Block D: Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com, in re:  The search for Philae goes onAnalysis of new data from Rosetta has still failed to locate Philae, though engineers are confident that sometime in May/June the sun will begin to charge its batteries so it turn back on and tell us where it is.        
Why the pause in global temperature rise?  The pause in global temperature rise has now lengthened past 18 years, and climate scientist Fred Singer asks some good scientific questions why.  Global warming skeptics like myself have been quick to note the long pause in any temperature increase since 1998, the lack of which has essentially invalidated all the climate models put forth by the global warming activists in the climate community. Singer goes one step further, however, asking the next question: Why has the temperature not risen? He doesn’t know, but he does put forth a number of suspects that the good scientists in the climate field should be pursuing, assuming they can open their eyes and work with real data for a change.
As usual, it isn’t as simple as we'd like. The sun, for example might explain it, but so could a lot of other factors, including a number offered by global warming advocates. Good science demands that we look at them all, and find out the truth, rather than cherry-pick our favorite answer and ignore all other evidence.
 
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