The John Batchelor Show

Tuesday 8 March 2016

Air Date: 
March 08, 2016

Photo, left:
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Larry Kudlow, CNBC senior advisor; & Cumulus Media radio
 
Hour One
Tuesday  8 March 2016   / Hour 1, Block A: Bill Whelan, Hoover; in re: . . . More money has been spent against Rubio, alone. In NH, than has been spent in toto so far against Trump.  Cruz is going in for the kill; problem is that Kasich s sitting there.  Ohio is competitive; in Michigan, Kasich is coming in second?   . . .  Cleveland: two sets of delegates . . .  John Kasich  has go to show ore strength than he has.    Rubio is fading out tonight. Cruz alone can get a W outside of his home state. Trump has swept the deep South – who’d’a thunk?  He carried  the Evangelicals again tonight.

The GOP Debate: Is All This Trump-Bashing Still a Wise Approach for Cruz and Rubio?

by Bill Whalen via Forbes   Let’s set the way-back machine to springtime 1996 and ask how that year’s version of the Republican Party would have handled a political insurrection.

 
Tuesday  8 March 2016   / Hour 1, Block B: Bill Whelan, Hoover; in re: Mrs Clinton winning in Mississippi – 8 to 1 – but in Michigan, struggle between Mrs Clinton and Bernie Sanders.  WW: Deep unenthusiasm for Mrs C.  She’s getting beat among young voters, among whites, among women, and everywhere many don't trust her – she’s a weak candidate.  Sub rosa view: Hillary is a lot weaker than is discussed; she might not win vs Trump.  (Lindsay Graham: A choice between Trump and Clinton is like a choice between shooting yourself and poisoning yourself. )  Clinton losing ; said she’ll end fracking.  We don't know what’ll happen between  now and the convention.  We keep getting leaks, or official tales, or what? About Mrs Clinton’s home-brewed server.  A sword of Damocles – is there a sword? She’s gonna cruise to the nomination; why must she pander to the left with antifracking?  Whoever wins the GOP nomination must get on top of the economic growth matter.    Tax cuts, and spotlight on govt entitlements. Next Tuesday: Rubio probably is a goner.
Tuesday  8 March 2016   / Hour 1, Block C:  Mary Kissel, Wall Street Journal Editorial Board & host of Opinion Journal on WSJ Video; in re: Tonight s about the number of delegates each candidate wins. Open primaries are where Mr Trump wins.    Ted Cruz tends to win in closed contests.  If Rubio stands to lose Florida, that might destroy his political career, so he may withdraw – might be at margin of error or might be 15 points behind.   Trump may not reach 1237 delegates he needs before the convention. In a brokered convention you must have a good story to tell – not the number of states you win but the number of delegates.  WSJ/NBC poll: in a 1-on-1, Rubio beats Trump by 13 points.  “We want a place in the table at he Convention if there’s no success in the first ballot is to vote for our favorite son,” say Floridians.   In  Pensacola, calls coming in to radio station for Cruz, who’s opening a dozen offices mid-state. Cruz is trying to knock Rubio out to make it a two-man race ‘twixt Cruz and Trump.  Rubio doesn’t seem that popular in Florida.   I wonder if Rubio’s vulgarity in challenging Trump didn't bring him down? Looked awful, hurt him a lot.    Next week: tag-teaming against Trump. Cruz will preach –not a great strategy.  Florida is closed- won't attract Dems or Independents; profoundly different. If Rubio has a chance, it’s Florida. Others are strategy with an eye toward Cleveland. Mrs C: Very very very untrustworthy; her only argument is that Sanders is offering impossible policies; she can't gather the Obama voters.  Email, foreign policy, abortion – the Democratic Party doesn’t  itself no favors by avoiding these matters; same for Bernie Sanders. All he’s attacked are Wall Street financiers, her support of cronyism between Wall St and DC.  GOP  must  emphasize jobs, economic growth.
Tuesday  8 March 2016   / Hour 1, Block D: Larry Kudlow, CNBC senior advisor; & Cumulus Media radio; in re;  labor wage income was growing ten months ago, now is down to 3.5%.  Worldwide the economy is terrible, and Latin American is terrible. Hard to gauge China.  No locomotive effect from China or the US. A lot hinges on this US election.   No confidence, so nobody is investing. If we eliminate recession, is there an in-between word? Stagnation?  American middle class has not had a wage increase since the year 2000; number from John Cochrane of Stanford.  Mrs Clinton ahs a tin ear – knock out fracking and fossil fuels; she wants to raise taxes everywhere.  Spending at least trillion dollars. Gee, if the GOP can't beat that, then they ought to hang it up.  “Watch the profits” – the mother’s milk of stocks and the lifeblood of the economy. Broad profits down three straight quarters on a year-on-year basis.

Premium Increase Insurance  by John H. Cochrane via Grumpy Economist  - Marginal Revolution and the Wall Street Journal both pass on a great quote from Warren Buffett: It’s understandable that the sponsor of the proxy proposal believes Berkshire is especially threatened by climate change because we are a huge insurer, covering all sorts of risks

 
Hour Two
Tuesday  8 March 201 6   / Hour 2, Block A:  James Taranto, WSJ, and Mona Charen, NRO, in re:  Mrs C wins Mississippi; not yet clear in Michigan.  Mr Trump does very well in open primaries, where everyone can walk in and vote; not so in closed primaries.  Tonight in Mississippi he got 48% of the vote; in Michigan, he’s at 35.9%. This breaks up the narrative of his having a 35% ceiling.  Is he a Republican?  Unhh – he says he’s more presidential than anyone but Lincoln.  Trump has won Louisiana and Kentucky and Nevada, all closed. Almost 50% in Massachusetts (“semi-closed”).   Next: Fla and Ohio, w Kasich and Rubio running as favorite-son candidates.  The benefit of voting in these is that each state will have a place at the table.  Favorite-son candidacy was last useful in 1974? with Walter Fauntroy.  . . .  Problem is that you have to persuade folks to vote strategically, then they have to figure out what constitutes that. Kasich is said to have a vice-presidential strategy – keeps half-losing and be the last man standing, with an above-the-fray attitude, criticizing none (incl when many thought that Trump needed to be rebutted). Parallel: a rattlesnake in the grass, two guys race after it with shovels, the third stands off and complains that they're violent.  “Hostility works for some people” – works well for Trump, not for the others. In December, Kasich told the WSJ editorial board that he didn't take Trump seriously.
Unfortunate Son Crist was the Republican Florida governor who ran as the establishment candidate for U.S. Senate in 2010. When the strength of Rubio’s challenge became clear, Crist withdrew from the primary and ran as an independent. Rubio beat him in the general election, 49% to 30%. Crist is now a Democrat. Some might say the Crist-Trump comparison is apples and oranges. In fact, it’s all oranges.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/432503/donald-trump-democratic-appeal-responding-new-york-post
Tuesday  8 March 2016   / Hour 2, Block B: James Taranto, WSJ, and Mona Charen, NRO, in re: London bookies have Mrs Clinton at 65% to win.   Holding back: 57% of respondent ds find her untrustworthy; plus the Dems have moved greatly to the left recently, leading to a lack of enthusiasm for Mrs C, esp among an overwhelmingly Black voters.   Will FBI make a referral? Will Justice indict? No way to know right now. If she’s not indicted, then the Party will be behind her.  Also, 66% of poll respondents says she has the right experience to be president, whereas a [much smaller] group say Trump does.  . .  . Republicans who hate Trump are convincing themselves that Mrs Clinton wouldn’t be so bad. Demographics: the age breakdown: in Michigan Sanders get 81% of the under-30 vote.    Gender breakdown. 
Tuesday  8 March 2016   / Hour 2, Block C:  Mary Anastasia O’Grady, WSJ, in re:  NAFTA.  Each nation has comparative advantages; businesses can pick and choose where to invest.  NAFTA was begun by Bush 1, completed by Clinton; signed in Dec 1993.  Now Trump says Mexico took our jobs; wants not to go to Congress (as is legally obliged), but wants just to declare tariffs on imported products.  . . Would our co-signators not retaliate?  In the WTO you may say X country is dumping widget below cost (“safeguard”); may not say “Country X is unfair so I’ll slap on a tariff to all imports from there.“ Trump says he’ll do that to China.   . . .  Trump says he’ll order the military to torture people specifically when that contravenes international law.   A further erosion of the separation of powers, and we’ve lost a lot in the last seven years under Obama.
Donald Trump’s Latin Role Models  Far from respecting the Constitution, the candidate promises to out-Obama Obama.

Tuesday  8 March 2016   / Hour 2, Block D: Mary Anastasia O’Grady, WSJ, in re:  An American Cure for Poverty: Remittances   Thanks to earnings in ‘El Norte,’ children in a remote village get a better education.
 . . . Eight hours by car from Guatemala City, an Indian village named Chacula, close to Mexican border.  When I asked about their lives, they all said that they were doing much better because of remittances from family members working in the US. US has spent hundreds of billions in dvpg world to fight poverty – World Bank, USAID, et al, but much of it goes to contractors living in the Beltway, In Chacula, the prosperity is from remittances. People they say in q997 they were returned from Mexico (had fled when Castro’s guerillas brought in the military; lived for twelve years in Mexico,  en were repatriated by relief agencies, returned with almost nothing, Originally intents, where it's cold; and he food was awful.  Soon, they used heir savings to buy their own food, then cut forest to bld shacks with tin roofs. Twenty years later, see even two-story homes: this came from remittances.  Cell towers everywhere but no indoor plumbing.   . . .  One villager, for example, at age 40 has bought a computer, is thinking of how to bring in tourists and increase his capital stake.   . .   I was told of five recent deportations from the US; one day, my guide said he’d sold cattle and everything he had to pay a coyote to take him in to the US; but he crossed the border, was in the US for three days before he was caught. 
http://www.wsj.com/articles/an-american-cure-for-poverty-remittances-1456696837
 
Hour Three
Tuesday  8 March 2016   / Hour 3, Block A:   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: revival of the Soviet Communist Party in Russia/ Upcoming anniversary of the 1917 founding.   Putin extremely popular but Russians are rightly unhappy with the economy.  Worldwide slowdown en route.  Reduction of 5% for Russian defense budget: the largest such since 2000.    Are Russia’ s Muslims angry or rattled about the Russian bombing in Syria? Yes.  Kiyev?  Yatseniuk may resign; new PM may be someone who used to be an American:  the current Ukrainian finance minister, Natalia ______; born in Illinois, took Ukrainian citizenship. Murky financial past in the US, charged with bilking the State Dept.    . . .  The Kiyev govt is in almost complete crisis. Heading to breakdown. Victoria Nuland, said “Yats is our guy.” Also disgraced herself and her country by using potty-mouth talk on an unencrypted mobile phone, which Moscow made available the whole world.  Forty-five million Ukrainians; deduct Crimeans and Donbass, still have 40 million people. Can’t find a Ukrainian for PM??  Despair in Kiyev and Washington – the “Ukrainian project” is dying, as have tens of thousands of people and the economy collapsing.  Biden appears to be a US pro-consul.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/nato-secretary-general-says-russia-trying-to-split-alliance/561905.html
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that Russia has made “numerous attempts” to intimidate its neighbors and split NATO, the RIA Novosti news agency reported Tuesday.
In a live interview with CNN, Stoltenberg said that despite “numerous attempts by Moscow to intimidate its neighbors and break up NATO, the alliance will respond with strengthened unity and by adapting our military concepts.”
Stoltenberg emphasized that reinforcing the alliance's eastern borders with NATO troops “makes it possible to keep an assertive Russia under control.”
He also said that NATO is concerned about the presence of Russian military in Syria and the Mediterranean, stating that in response the alliance was forced to increase military presence in Turkey and the eastern Mediterranean.
Tuesday  8 March 2016   / Hour 3, Block B:  Stephen F. Cohen, American Committee for East-West Accord; in re: http://uatoday.tv/politics/natalie-jaresko-could-become-ukraine-s-new-pm-by-the-end-of-the-week-former-u-s-diplomat-606133.htmlUkrainian Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko could be the new head of the country's government as early as this week. That is according to Steven Pifer, former United States Ambassador to Ukraine and a senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.
"Increasing reports from Kyiv that Finance Minister Jaresko will be appointed new Ukraine Prime Minister, perhaps as early as this week," Pifer tweeted on Monday.
Tuesday  8 March 2016   / Hour 3, Block C:  Stephen F. Cohen, American Committee for East-West Accord; in re:  http://www.vox.com/2016/3/8/11179332/russia-communist-party ; https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/03/06/just-because-russians-like-putin-doesnt-mean-theyre-happy-about-the-economy/
Tuesday  8 March 2016   / Hour 3, Block D: Stephen F. Cohen, American Committee for East-West Accord; in re:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/03/07/are-russia...
 
Hour Four
Tuesday  8 March 2016   / Hour 4, Block A:  Bosworth 1485: The Battle that Transformed England, by Michael K. Jones (5 of  8)
Tuesday  8 March 2016   / Hour 4, Block B:  Bosworth 1485: The Battle that Transformed England, by Michael K. Jones (6 of  8)
Tuesday  8 March 2016   / Hour 4, Block C:  Bosworth 1485: The Battle that Transformed England, by Michael K. Jones (7 of  8)
Tuesday  8 March 2016   / Hour 4, Block D:  Bosworth 1485: The Battle that Transformed England, by Michael K. Jones (8 of  8)
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