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JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Thaddeus McCotter, WJR, The Great Voice of the Great Lakes
 
Hour One
Monday 23 May 2016 / Hour 1, Block A: Tom Joscelyn, Long War Journal senior editor & FDD, and Bill Roggio, Long War Journal senior editor  & FDD, in re: How many times has Baghdad said it’ll “retake Fallujah”?  Qassam Soleimani is back;  he’s in Fallujah to direct ops, has militias “emulate the Iranian IRGC” and “get back at ISIS.” The US is giving air cover to Iranians and denying it.   Turning Fallujah Sunnis to rubble with artillery barrages, punishing Sunni.  Iranian-backed Baghdad is straightforwardly committing mass murder. / Pres Obama authorized his own task force to review the Guantanamo detainees’s situations; not supposed to have been approved for transfer.  Starting with 240, now we have 80 detainees, of whom 65 haven't been approved even by Pres Obama’s task force under Law of War regs.  Task force wanted 32 to be tried.   Further, after the task force finished, Pres Obama authorized an ongoing review board where detainees are allowed to challenge – with the practical result that except for a small number of  gravely egregious persons, Guantanamo is being emptied out at a brisk rate. / Despite reports of a drone hitting Mansour (in an amazingly difficult landscape), he’s been rumored dead a bunch of times, and in any case, even when the US succeeds in killing a Talibat leader, Taliban quickly enough appoint a replacement and take over much more territory. “We’ll fight on even if we lose Raqqa, Mosul, Sirte – the third capital for ISIS.  Moving through t he Russian Black Sea fleet and the US Sixth Fleet to control Sirte.  / Pakistan and the Mansour strike: Pakistanis protest this as a violation of Pak sovereignty.  When we've notified the Pakis in the past, the guys just disappeared. Reality is that Mansur was a valuable asset to Pakistan.
Monday 23 May 2016 / Hour 1, Block B: Tom Joscelyn, Long War Journal senior editor & FDD, and Bill Roggio, Long War Journal senior editor  & FDD, in re:  al Nusrah in Australia then in the Levant. Financiers in Libya and Sinai; pledges allegiance to Baghdadi when he was in Syria. Cohesive global networks.  Sirte, Durna. Sirte: facing Islamic militias; a major enterprise. 
Afghan intelligence agency says Taliban emir Mansour is dead  The National Directorate of Security claimed that Taliban Mullah Mansour died in yesterday's airstrike but the US has yet to confirm his death.
US targeted Taliban emir Mullah Mansour in unprecedented Pakistan drone strike  Mullah Mansour was targeted in an airstrike in Baluchistan province. If Mansour is confirmed killed, one of his likely successors is Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of the Haqqani Network who is closely tied to al Qaeda.
Treasury sanctions al Qaeda, Islamic State ‘financiers and facilitators’
Monday 23 May 2016 / Hour 1, Block C:  Gordon G. Chang, Daily Beast & Forbes.com, in re: Taiwan: new president – Mme. Tsai Ing-wen.  Does the Obama Adm have a policy about Taiwan? He’s in the region and not stopping in Taipei.   Taiwan is called the cork in the bottle: it prevents the Chinese navy from sortie-ing into the Western Pacific and we depend on Taiwan. Pres Bush was execrable in the matter; this president us hardly better. The next policy needs to be: The US stands with Taiwan and will defend it against any possible change of the status quo by force by China We need also to recognize it as an independent state, which it is. Beijing wants to undermine not only Taiwan, but the entire international system.  I applaud Pres Obama fro dropping the arms embargo against Vietnam; but he also said, “Oh this has nothing to do with China” – soft-pedalling it, and in any case that’s patently untrue.  We need to tell the Chinese that we're not afraid of them; US keeps signaling that it's not prepared to do anything.  About the president’s trip to Hiroshima:  means both regret at mass deaths and also that the US stands with Japan, incl the mutual defense treaty between the US and Japan.  China for centuries has held the notion that peripheral states shd pay tribute to China (more than 1,000 years). The tributary states – Vietnam, Philippines, even North Korea – do not at all care for a state of vassalage.   . . .  Beijing may not like Trump but they’re furious at Hillary Clinton, the architect of the pivot.  What’ll soon boil up? Maybe something in the Senkakus; also, S Korea and China have competing claims in the South China Sea. Cd also be Taiwan.  When one area gets a bit hot, China shifts public attention elsewhere for a while.  With America being the world’s oldest democracy, it’d be good for Pres Obama to visit Taiwan. Meanwhile, Beijing is terrified of democracy – won't feel safe till every democracy in the world is extinguished. 
Monday 23 May 2016 / Hour 1, Block D:  Jed Babbin, American Spectator, in re:  
Xi Jinping is pursuing -- thanks to Obama -- a Sun Tzu strategy to sew up the South China Sea.   Speed-Lacing the South China Sea | The American Spectator
 
 
Hour Two
Monday 23 May 2016 / Hour 2, Block A:   David M Drucker, Senior Congressional correspondent, Washington Examiner, and Mona Charen, NRO, in re:  FBI investigating Gov Terry McAuliffe of Virginia, on possible corruption charges – Friends of Bill!  Who bought the Chappaqua house that’s the Clintons’s base?  Terry McAuliffe.   Ken Cuccinelli, whom McAuliffe defeated for governorship, said dryly that they’d change the state motto to Quid pro Quo.   (Governor’s ambition is to let felons vote in Virginia.)  “You have to put your subway token in the turnstile to do business.”   Since we’re reliving the Nineties, I’m not surprised at the [prosecution]. Second VA governor in a row to have legal trouble.    . . . Recall Stalin’s, “One death is a tragedy; mass death is a statistic.”   . . . Mrs Clinton has the good fortune to be challenged by someone who lies as much as she does.  Politics: when voters decide to trust you, you can do almost anything and they don’t care – q.v., Bill Clinton, where voters knew all about all the scandals and didn't care because they liked how the county was being run. . . . This may be part of a much larger investigation into the Clinton Global Initiative.  . . . This year we have record-setting bad actors.
“Nonetheless, Clinton is rated ahead of Trump across a range of attributes and issues, and she is seen as having superior experience, temperament and personality to be president. Trump is viewed as unqualified by a majority of adults, but he has strong appeal to voters as the ­anti-Clinton candidate who can bring change to Washington in an election year in which outsiders have . . .” https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/poll-election-2016-shapes-up-as-a-contest-of-negatives/2016/05/21/8d4ccfd6-1ed3-11e6-b6e0-c53b7ef63b45_story.html
Monday 23 May 2016 / Hour 2, Block B: David M Drucker, Senior Congressional correspondent, Washington Examiner, and Mona Charen, NRO, in re: Romney and a third Party.  He needs 15% to get on the debate stage; poll says he has 22%.  How does this change the unpopular Clinton-Trump duo?  Adults 18-39: Clinton 38%, Trump 26%, Romney 27%.  Romney also peels off a lot of Democrats from Mrs Clinton.  Weirdest of all political years,  A noncorrupt man of integrity, whom many had much buyer’s remorse about not electing in 2012; the Scylla and Charybdis of Trump-Clinton is alarming many.   There’s no general to ride to the rescue, not a governor with enough merit (except possibly Paul Ryan). So it falls to Romney, and it's his patriotic duty to try to prevent the disaster.  Need 270 electoral votes or it goes to the House, which votes by states.  You always look better in a hypothetical poll than in a real one; and Romney has a history of that.   He’s missed some states’s ballot deadlines; pols don’t want to blemish legacy and run unless they're sure they c an win. Six or seven weeks before the conventions; gotta make a decision an pull a trigger within ten days. Bull Moose and Roosevelt – it elected Wilson (who gave us the Fed and overseas affairs – WWI). 
Trump Has Almost No Organization in Key States; Wall Street Journal: “Ohio, a state that has backed every presidential winner since 1964, presents both Mr. Trump’s best opportunity to carry a big swing state and reveals his team’s steep logistical challenges.”
“After winning the GOP nomination on a tight budget with a skeletal staff, Mr. Trump doesn’t have any general-election staff in the state, and senior aides in New York and Washington haven’t made contact with the state Republican Party. Efforts to recruit the state’s experienced operatives who helped elect Gov. John Kasich have so far been unsuccessful, people familiar with the matter said.”  “Mrs. Clinton has a small team of full-time aides in Ohio, where they are working to rebuild the organization that twice carried the state for President Barack Obama.” 
Bill Clinton Keeps a Low Profile “Bill Clinton’s schedule many days is more packed than Hillary’s, though by design it rarely registers on the national radar,” the Washington Post reports.
“This is the invisi-Bill campaign. The former president who flickers occasionally on cable news channels remains a big draw on the off-Broadway circuit of presidential politics. It is a low-altitude tactical deployment that leaves a light footprint, aiming to maximize his value as a political asset without stirring the negatives that also trail him.”
“His new duties have not come without stumbles, and they conjure the implications of a Clinton restoration. Presidential spouses are expected to exert their influence over china patterns, not China policy. No one, however, is under the illusion that Bill Clinton would remain cloistered in the East Wing. Still open to question is whether voters will welcome his return or worry about it.”
Monday 23 May 2016 / Hour 2, Block C:  Richard A Epstein, Hoover Institution, Chicago Law, NYU Law, in re:  Title IX of 1972 Education: provision- no one shall on basis of sex be subjected to discrimination . . . [if it's receiving] Federal assistance.  . . .  Feds announce that gender identity is now covered by Title IX  - Depts of Justice and of Education have pushed very very hard.   Two ways to make law, by legislation, and by interpretation. Agencies now rely on receiving extreme deference by the Court.  . . . and if you’re slow in complying, the feds go after you with a vengeance. One can say, “A change this big requires ‘Notice and Comments” [where the public can have say]; meanwhile the govt gave North Carolina five days to comply.  Or: can immediately go into court and challenge the scope as beyond the statutes. Fur or five people in a federal dept can decree how the whole county is run – and of course have no responsibility for actually running anything, 
During the last several weeks, the culture wars have focused on the heated question of how both educational institutions and employers should treat questions of “gender identity.” The matter gained national publicity from the case of 16-year-old transgender student Gavin Grimm of Gloucester County, Virginia, who underwent hormone therapy in preparation for a future sex change operation (the term “gender reassignment” is both non-descriptive and vaguely Orwellian). He—Gavin’s preferred form of address—felt uncomfortable in the female facilities in his school. But some students and parents protested his use of the boy’s facilities. The school sought an accommodation that would allow him to use unisex restrooms open to all students, which he then rejected because they “make him feel even more stigmatized.”  http://www.hoover.org/research/transgender-wars
Monday 23 May 2016 / Hour 2, Block D: Richard A Epstein, Hoover Institution, Chicago Law, NYU Law, in re:  the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, adopts a general rule of restroom and locker-room use in schools – upset the state Legislature, which passes House Bill 2: “The biological sex is on the birth certificate” [no allowance for actual sex-change surgery].  Further, Charlotte wants a higher minimum wage than in the rest of the state. The local GOP opposes both.  The Title IX stuff out of Depts of Ed. and Justice refuses all this, issues a series of broadsides, so the state fights back and the feds come down like a hammer.     US Atty Gen says this is like Jim Crow – my Lord, review what Jim Crow was: it was hideous, vicious, completely unsupportable. Don't ramp up the language; calm it down so something can be accomplished.  Hermione Brown said:  “In a good business deal, both sides are happy; a good settlement, both sides are sad.” The escalation has been terrible; currently it’s mainly on the left, and soon will be reciprocated by the right. Should say, “Please leave us alone.” Letter by 200 CEOs deplored the NC law, but _____ decided no to open offices there.  Compulsions. Freedom is a wonderful antidote to totalitarian behavior. 
 
Hour Three
Monday 23 May 2016 / Hour 3, Block A:    Mary Kissel, Wall Street Journal Editorial Board & host of Opinion Journal on WSJ Video; in re:    Opinion Journal: Hillary Sinks in the Polls    WSJ Editorial Page Editor Paul Gigot on the latest WSJ / NBC News poll, and why Democrats are blaming Bernie Sanders. Could Sanders win California?   The Dem elites – funders, backers, trade unions. profl pols, DNC, et al. — decided that Hillary was their bet.  Actual voters don't trust her and don't like an establishment figure in a year when the national electorate wants change.  Hillary is distinctly in the 1% and is not a natural politician. 
Opinion Journal: Justice’s Lawless Lawyers  WSJ Editorial Page Editor Paul Gigot on evidence that federal attorneys deceived a judge about President Obama’s immigration order. Photo credit: Associated Press.  http://www.wsj.com/video/opinion-journal-justices-lawless-lawyers/E076D9CB-11AB-4A5B-9BA3-93ACFCF96FC0.html
Monday 23 May 2016 / Hour 3, Block B:  John Tamny, Real Clear Politics,and Forbes, in re:    Phil Mickelson, Dean Foods, and the Blinding of the Markets  While it's a shame that anything done to inform markets is "alleged," former Dean Foods chairman Thomas Davis is under fire for allegedly providing Billy Walters and Phil Mickelson with privileged information that they traded on.  If so, we should cheer them on for making the trades.  Rules meant to restrict the outflow of insider knowledge blind the markets, and make investing much more perilous.  Not only is the impossible to define "insider trading" the opposite of a one-way street to profits, everyone is better off when those with money trade on privileged information so that others don't have to risk their money on what is always uncertain.  Forbes.com.    
Monday 23 May 2016 / Hour 3, Block C:   Harry Siegel, New York Daily News and the Daily Beast; in re:   "Agents of the city.” That’s not the name of a Bushwick band but the made-up term that Mayor de Blasio, having painted himself into a very tight corner, is now retroactively calling five outside advisors to claim that what they’ve told him is none of the public’s business.  http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/harry-siegel-agent-demise-article-1.2644448
Monday 23 May 2016 / Hour 3, Block D: Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re:  Netanyahu: We Want to Work with Arab States to Reach a Real Agreement with the Palestinians  After Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon's resignation on Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he intended to continue "responsible, determined, intelligent policies aimed at upholding security [and] advancing the peace process and regional initiatives." "The policies [of the government] are the same policies. Its policy is to work hard for a peace agreement with the Palestinians, an agreement that preserves security, but allows us to avoid one state from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river."
    "The initiatives that I am talking about are the regional initiatives. That means working with Arab states to reach a real agreement with the Palestinians....We have many shared regional interests with Arab states, and I think that one of those interests is to advance a real peace process between us and the Palestinians."  (by Itamar Eichner; publ Ynet News)
 
Hour Four
Monday 23 May 2016 / Hour 4, Block A:  Eternity Street: Violence and Justice in Frontier Los Angeles by John Mack Faragher. Part I of II. (segment 1 of 8)
“Groundbreaking … if you read Professor Faragher’s Eternity Street you will be enlightened to discover the violent story of the West―real and imagined―today’s and yesterday’s―begins and ends in Los Angeles.” (Stuart Rosebrook - True West Magazine)
“Faragher’s stories evoke Cormac McCarthy. In a grim but riveting narrative, languid preconceptions of Edenic California’s birth give way to murder and mayhem, carnage and cruelty. Eternity Street describes human beings at their worst, but this is American history at its best.” (Elizabeth Fenn, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Encounters at the Heart of the World)
“Gripping and authoritative, this is a masterwork of scholarship and literary grace. Faragher’s dark portrait of L.A. pulls no punches and asks us to consider what grim DNA yet lurks in the City of Angels.” (William Deverell, University of Southern California, author of To Bind Up the Nation’s Wounds)
“In Eternity Street, John Mack Faragher has unearthed a blood-soaked history of nineteenth-century Los Angeles that blows away ‘Wild West’ fantasies. Faragher’s masterwork should be read by all who wish to understand more about the violence that has shaped the American past.” (Stephen Aron, UCLA, author of The American West: A Very Short Introduction)
“Through chilling anecdote and skilled storytelling, John Mack Faragher explores the experience of frontier violence for L.A.’s Mexican, Anglo, Indian, Black, and Chinese residents. This may just be the true origin story for L.A. noir.” (Amy Greenberg, Penn State University, author of A Wicked War)
“Eternity Street will be an enduring landmark. Faragher’s stories are not happy ones, but they are ones we need to remember if we hope to embrace the West’s full history and cope with the legacy that continues to bedevil us.” (Elliott West, University of Arkansas, author of The Last Indian War)
Monday 23 May 2016 / Hour 4, Block B:  Eternity Street: Violence and Justice in Frontier Los Angeles by John Mack Faragher. Part I of II. (segment 2 of 8)
Monday 23 May 2016 / Hour 4, Block C: Eternity Street: Violence and Justice in Frontier Los Angeles by John Mack Faragher. Part I of II. (segment 3 of 8)
Monday 23 May 2016 / Hour 4, Block D:   Eternity Street: Violence and Justice in Frontier Los Angeles by John Mack Faragher. Part I of II. (segment 4 of 8)
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