The John Batchelor Show

Wednesday24 June 2020

Air Date: 
June 24, 2020

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Colleagues: Gordon Chang, Daily Beast, and Thaddeus McCotter, American Greatness.
 
Hour One
Wednesday 24 June 2020 / Hour 1, Block A: Salena Zito, Middle of Somewhere column, Washington Examiner; CNN, New York Post; in re:  Senator Joe Manchin and defund the police, “Craziest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”  He’s known for years that police activities among African-Americans needed improvement.  He won’t be leaving the Democratic party. The June 2 Pennsylvania vote with no official count yet—the problem is the Eastern counties: the Collar Counties.  Some voted twice.  Some non-residents got mail-in ballots
Wednesday 24 June 2020 / Hour 1, Block B: Salena Zito, Middle of Somewhere column, Washington Examiner; CNN, New York Post;  in re:  Gen Z  nation. Reilly Keaton is a bright young man involved in politics for ten years and he’s now 22.  As a high school senior, ran as a delegate to the W Va House, lost by 28 votes. Spencer is a beautiful little town; the site of the seven-day siege of Spencer between Union soldiers and Confederate guerrillas, who constructed a fake cannon out of logs, but were discovered.   Stars and Bars was put atop the local privvy. 
Wednesday 24 June 2020 / Hour 1, Block C: Charles Burton, senior Fellow at the Centre for Advancing Canada's Interests Abroad at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, in re: Meng Wanzhou, who owns and is living in two enormous mansions in Vancouver, has been in Canadian legal custody for over a year; PM Trudeau acknowledges that there’s an obvious link between this detained CFO and the two Canadians arrested* and held for 500-plus days by China.  First time he hasn't bowed to China.  China cleaves to its Wolf Warrior mode; arrogance, hostility and belligerence.  Legal delays from Meng’s side; in court in 2024?  US extradition request probably cannot be denied.  Note also China’s imposition of tariff barriers, Uyghurs, Covid-19, et al. 
* “Earlier Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on China to release the Canadians, saying they face ‘groundless’ charges of spying. The European Union said its leadership also raised its concerns over ‘the continued arbitrary detention’ of Kovrig and Spavor during a virtual bilateral summit with China Monday.”
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/trudeau-says-china-made-obvious-link-between-meng-and-two-michaels-1.4994128
Wednesday 24 June 2020 / Hour 1, Block D: Cleo Paskal, non-resident senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, in re: Altitude sickness as there’s not enough oxygen in the Himalaya.  There was a fight, apparently with clubs and rocks, between Chinese invaders and Indian forces. Happened well within Indian territory. Chinese immediately regretted and killed the Indian commanding officer, Col Babu, which totally enraged a billion Indians.  Govt structures now isolating China economically: China starts economically, asap becomes strategic.  Line of Actual Control:  Chinese troops are expanding and digging in on Indian territory.  Indian defense minister is in Russia asking for swift delivery of S400 missile system.  Kiribati goes pro-Beijing. US has no diplo representation in the region! Why? State Department has backed off, although Defense Department understands clearly.
https://geopoliticalfutures.com/daily-memo-india-and-china-pull-back-from-the-brink/
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-kiribati/kiribatis-pro-china-leader-wins-re-election-in-blow-to-taiwan-idUSKBN23U038
 
Hour Two
Wednesday 24 June 2020 / Hour 2, Block A:  John Catsimatidis, Cats Roundtable radio, and Red Apple Group, in re: “Defund the police.”  Brooklyn Defenders Services will join Occupy City Hall, demand NYPD funding be cut.  The people of Harlem, where I grew up, want the police, and want to be able to call 911.  Bill DeBlasio threw thousands out of Rikers Island jail; they're now roaming the streets.  Monahan 38 years in NYPD, has seen all phases; saw the city comig back in the last years, and is sad to see how it’s all spiralling down right now. Just in: 53 NYC shootings in contrast to 12 last  year.  The Mayor says whatever is [politically convenient].  AOC got re-elected yesterday, shockingly, as she wants to drive the city into socialism. You can't make enough laws to protect every single service; we can’t treat our citizens like twelve-year-olds. 
Wednesday 24 June 2020 / Hour 2, Block B:  John Yoo, Berkeley Law, NRO, AEI, Hoover; in re: Supreme Court 5-4 decision to turn away President Trump’s DACA intentions.  Pres Obama decreed it by Executive Order, used prosecutorial discretion..  Administrative Procedure Act takes a year at fastest. Court thereby requires a president to do an unconstitutional deed until it’s all been resolved, which is wrong.  Violation of separation of powers, as a president is thereby forced to continue a program initiated by a previous president.  Look for a boom and bust cycle on DACA; only Congress can create a stable program.
Wednesday 24 June 2020 / Hour 2, Block C:  Robert Zimmerman, BehindheBlack.com, in re: A spaceport in Scotland, with Lockheed Martin and a UK firm.  Funding is not the problem; rather, environmental opposition to anything new.  Tedious, endless permitting process.  Threat to a peat bog; and if soil fell into the ocean it might hurt fish. At stake, 177 jobs.  The spaceport, to be called the Space Hub Sutherland, would be built at A'Mhoine on the Moine Peninsula in the county of Sutherland, a few miles from Scotland's Atlantic coast. This facility would enable vertical rockets to launch small satellites into low Earth polar and Sun-synchronous orbits.
       Astra, Vox, Virgin Orbit, Rocket Lab, all are players.
Wednesday 24 June 2020 / Hour 2, Block D:  Robert Zimmerman, BehindheBlack.com, in re: Butterfly Nebula and June Bug Nebula:  giant cloud formations around stars; late in the life of a star.  Not known what forms planetary nebulae, but Hubble takes images of them and they’re ravishingly beautiful.  Perseverance, our next rover, will launch on 20 July at 9:15 AM.  Will depoloy Ingenuity, its helicopter, which will have thirty days to do its chore. If this works, future rovers will carry their own. Can a helo lift an object of the ground?
       Asteroid hit Yucatan. Asteroid Bennu: 1 in 2700 chance that 170years from now, it might hit the Earth.    
 
Hour Three
Wednesday 24 June 2020 / Hour 3, Block A: Andrew C McCarthy, Ball of Collusion, and Thaddeus McCotter, American Greatness; in re:
Wednesday 24 June 2020 / Hour 3, Block B: Andrew C McCarthy, Ball of Collusion, and Thaddeus McCotter, American Greatness; in re:  . . . Logan Act: Biden thought that up? Seriously doubt it. 
Wednesday 24 June 2020 / Hour 3, Block C:  Scott Harold, senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, in re:  https://www.hoover.org/research/when-trade-wars-end-badly
https://www.rand.org/blog/2016/08/do-economic-ties-limit-the-prospect-of-conflict.html
      We would like to explore the geopolitical implications of U.S.-China trade: “Does trade increase or decrease the likelihood of conflict?” Samuel Huntington, the great Harvard political scientist, asked in his landmark work, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. “The assumption that it reduces the probability of war between nations is, at a minimum, not proven, and much evidence exists to the contrary.”
     As many have now pointed out, high levels of trade in the first years of the last century did not prevent the First World War. As Huntington, building on the work of others, pointed out, what is important is expectation. “Economic interdependence fosters peace,” he wrote, “only ‘when states expect that high trade levels will continue into the foreseeable future.’” If, however, trade partners “do not expect high levels of interdependence to continue, war is likely to result.”
Wednesday 24 June 2020 / Hour 3, Block D:  Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, in re: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-53146563
  
Hour Four
Wednesday 24 June 2020 / Hour 4, Block A: Churchill: Walking with Destiny, by Andrew Roberts (5 of 8)
Wednesday 24 June 2020 / Hour 4, Block B: Churchill: Walking with Destiny, by Andrew Roberts (6 of 8)
Wednesday 24 June 2020 / Hour 4, Block C: Churchill: Walking with Destiny, by Andrew Roberts (7 of 8)
Wednesday 24 June 2020 / Hour 4, Block D: Churchill: Walking with Destiny, by Andrew Roberts (8 of 8)