Photo, left:  Ike in Kabul, Afghanistan, 1959.
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Thaddeus McCotter, WJR, The Great Voice of the Great Lakes
 
Hour One
Monday 1 May 2017 / Hour 1, Block A: Tom Joscelyn, Long War Journal senior editor & FDD,  and Bill Roggio, Long War Journal senior editor  & FDD, in re: Taliban announces start of ‘Operation Mansouri’   This year's "spring offensive" is named after Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, the previous emir who was killed by the US in a drone strike in Pakistan in May 2016. As in previous years, the Taliban said the main focus of its operation is the targeting of both foreign and local forces. READ 
Islamic State battles rival jihadists for control of Yarmouk camp in southern Damascus   Hay'at Tahrir al Sham ("Assembly for the Liberation of the Levant") and the Islamic State continue to battle for control of the Yarmouk camp in southern Damascus.
Monday 1 May 2017 / Hour 1, Block B: Tom Joscelyn, Long War Journal senior editor & FDD,  and Bill Roggio, Long War Journal senior editor  & FDD, in re:  
Monday 1 May 2017 / Hour 1, Block C:  Gordon G. Chang, Daily Beast & Forbes.com, in re:  
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-north-korea-s-kim-jong-un-he-s-pretty-n753006
President Donald Trump labeled brutal North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un "a pretty smart cookie" in a wide-ranging interview aired Sunday.  "At a very young age, he was able to assume power. A lot of people, I'm sure, tried to take that power away, whether it was his uncle or anybody else. And he was able to do it. So obviously, he's a pretty smart cookie," Trump told CBS News in an interview on "Face the Nation."    "But we have a situation that we just cannot let — we cannot let what's been going on for a long period of years continue," he added.  https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonchang/2017/04/30/trumps-big-mistake-going-easy-on-china-trashing-s-korea/#6390ff7168ac
Monday 1 May 2017 / Hour 1, Block D: Sue Mi Terry, former CIA analyst and currently Managing Director of Bower Group Asia; in re: the dramatic North Asia troubles; Pres Trump’s unexpected offer to meet with Kim Jong-il “under the right circumstances.”  The futile naivete of advocating more and more and more “negotiations” with North Korea; that is, of following the failing policy of the last decades.  
 
Hour Two
Monday 1 May 2017 / Hour 2, Block A:  David M Drucker, Washington Examiner Senior Congressional correspondent; John Fund, NRO, in Canberra, in re:   GOP Leaders Will Try Again on Obamacare Repeal ;  Congress Reaches Deal to Keep Government Open ; Trump Chooses Wild Rally over Press Dinner ;  Democrats Give Up Any Hope of Working with Trump ; Biden Keeps 2020 Options Open  (1 of 2)
Monday 1 May 2017 / Hour 2, Block B: David M Drucker, Washington Examiner Senior Congressional correspondent; John Fund, NRO (2 of 2)
 
Monday 1 May 2017 / Hour 2, Block C: Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re:  Fatah, PA, Abbas, to Washington, Hamas, Egypt.   (1 of 2)
Monday 1 May 2017 / Hour 2, Block D: Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents (2 of 2) re UNESCO agitprop.
 
Hour Three
Monday 1 May 2017 / Hour 3, Block A:   Thaddeus McCotter, WJR, The Great Voice of the Great Lakes; in re: the mysterious Adam Schiff and his puzzling statements.
ADAM SCHIFF: Well, you know, I would give you really a different explanation and that is this is a massive undertaking, this investigation. It’s global in nature. It’s not only document intensive but witness intensive. And those witnesses are all over the globe. So while we all feel a real sense of urgency about it, it simply isn’t the kind of investigation you can conduct overnight. So I know people are asking, you know, why isn’t the investigation over already, and I think people really need to understand, and I say this as a former prosecutor who handled large white collar investigations, they take time to do. And if we’re not going to do it thoroughly, people aren’t going to be able to rely on the results we come up with. So people are going to have to be somewhat patient. I know how hard that is, believe me, I’d like to get this done yesterday. But it is going to take time to bring all these witnesses in, to review all these records, to look at financial transactions that may span the globe. None of this can be done overnight.
Monday 1 May 2017 / Hour 3, Block B:   Harry Siegel, The Daily  Beast & New York Daily News; in re:  Jeff Sessions sort of tried to pick a fight with the NYPD. Then someone pointed him to the statistics, which show crime ’way down in the city. So he went to Long Island to claim that MS13 has overrun Long Island – but its US capital is in Virginia and Maryland.  That said, Suffolk Co does have a very real and atrocious problem with this gang. http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/law-order-real-imaginary-article-1.3114251
Monday 1 May 2017 / Hour 3, Block C:   Grant Rumley, FDD; @GrantRumley @FollowFDD; in re:  Will Abbas tell Trump why the PA finances murder?  At a ceremony at Israel’s Har Herzl national cemetery in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said Palestinian killers “nursed incitement against our people with their mother’s milk” and were regarded as heroes in their society for carrying out heinous attacks against Israelis.
Netanyahu accused the Palestinian Authority of Abbas, who is scheduled to meet President Donald Trump this week, of compensating the attackers to the tune of $300 million a year.
“How can you talk about peace with Israel while you simultaneously fund murderers that are shedding the blood of innocent Israelis everywhere?” Netanyahu said. “Cancel payments to the murderers. Cancel the law that requires payments to these murderers. Fund peace and not murder.”
Panspermia?  John Batchelor: Interstellar Morning Glory   “…The scientists focused on seeds that no one had tried to germinate, looking at a short section of genetic code that had been inserted into their genomes before they left Earth. This snippet of code let researchers test the structure and function of space-exposed DNA, and they found DNA degradation on both counts. Tepfer and Leach say that some of the DNA’s structural units might have chemically fused together, a process that inactivates genetic code. Tepfer suspects that seeds damaged by very short wavelength UV light could germinate if they repaired that DNA damage as they grew.
But the scientists wanted to see just how much abuse a seed could withstand. In a follow-on experiment in the laboratory, Tepfer and Leach exposed three types of seeds—morning glory, tobacco, and A. thaliana—to high doses of UV light. Tepfer and Leach thought morning glory seeds might do well based on their large size, tough seed coats, and ability to survive for more than 50 years in soil. They found that only morning glory seeds germinated after being exposed to light roughly 6 million times the dose typically used to sterilize drinking water, conditions that killed the much smaller tobacco and A. thaliana seeds. The team suggests a protective coating containing flavonoids, compounds commonly found in wine and tea that act as natural sunscreens   http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/morning-glory-seeds-are-tough-enough-interplanetary-trip
Monday 1 May 2017 / Hour 3, Block D:  Jed Babbin, American Spectator, in re: Mattis and McMaster in Afghanistan & What is to be done?
 
Hour Four
Monday 1 May 2017 / Hour 4, Block A:  Max Holland, author: Leak: Why Mark Felt Became Deep Throat.   (1 of 2)
Monday 1 May 2017 / Hour 4, Block B:  Max Holland, author: Leak: Why Mark Felt Became Deep Throat.   (2 of 2)
Monday 1 May 2017 / Hour 4, Block C: Lev Golinkin, author,   , in re:  Ukraine opens criminal probe against 94-year-old Jewish WWII hero   . In an unprecedented move, Ukrainian authorities are opening a criminal investigation into 94-year-old Jewish WWII hero, Col. Boris Steckler, who is accused of having killed a Nazi collaborator.   . . . Ukrainian authorities have decided to open a criminal investigation into a 94-year-old Jewish WWII hero who is being accused of killing a Nazi collaborator.   Col. Boris Steckler was warned that he is expected to stand trial for killing a Ukrainian nationalist in 1952.  http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4955865,00.htm
Monday 1 May 2017 / Hour 4, Block D:   Josh Rogin, Washington Post, in re:  . . . Likewise, there’s no prospect that Trump will deliver what Abbas wants — a commitment to press the Israelis into a freeze of settlement-building that would meet Palestinian standards. The United States has secured an informal agreement with the government of Benjamin Netanyahu to place some limits on building new settlements, a version of the “build up, not out” framework from the George W. Bush administration. But that falls short of what Abbas says is needed before negotiations can begin.
The meeting could be significant by itself, if Trump and Abbas can establish a personal rapport to build on in the future. But therein also lies a risk. “The president has never met Abbas and that makes it an important meeting,” said former White House and State Department official Elliott Abrams. “But if he forms the opinion that Abbas is not strong enough to do a deal and then implement it, that will have a real impact on American policy.”
Sure to be present at the meeting is Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is overseeing Greenblatt’s work. Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, will reportedly join Donald Trump for a trip to Israel in late May, one that may also include a stop in Saudi Arabia. 
Administration officials sometimes talk about an “outside-in” approach whereby a framework for peace negotiations would be arranged with Arab states and then folded into the Israeli-Palestinian dynamic. Details of that plan are hazy, and the Trump team has yet to explain how it plans to incentivize Arab states to buy in.    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/if-trump-has-a-strategy-on-israeli-palestinian-peace-its-remaining-a-secret/2017/04/30/aec561fe-2c34-11e7-a616-d7c8a68c1a66_story.html?utm_term=.97f3d6d618a1