Photo, left:  the U.S. aircraft carrier John C. Stennis, which Beijing refused to allow to enter the port of Hong Kong. “China said it wouldn't allow the U.S. aircraft carrier John C. Stennis to make a stop in Hong Kong for a long-planned port stay.
“The move comes as Beijing and Washington have been at odds over territorial claims by China in the South China Sea.” – as a desperate Xi Jinping takes any possible move to improve his domestic image in the midst of an economic meltdown created by an overweening, corrupt, and fiscally incompetent Chinese Communist Party.  To divert public attention from the fact that one trillion dollars of hot money have fled China each year for several years – another financial disaster – Xi and his immediate cronies, including a small, intensely violent crew of flag officers, have identified atolls in the South and East China Seas, built them up to be approximately islands, and claimed them as sovereign territory.  Under international compacts, were they legitimate islands, China could claim twelve, or eventually two hundred, miles in circumference of each island as Chinese-owned seas. Needless to say, this deeply annoys the surrounding countries who already by global acknowledgement own those square kilometers of ocean.
 
At stake besides a lot of salt water are huge deposits of deep-sea minerals, including oil and gas; vast fishing reserves, and, perhaps most intimately, the existential security of the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan, perhaps Brunei. 
Beijing could hardly have managed to send these nations more rapidly into the arms of the United States, apparently the only nation with a navy and air force able to be guarantors of regional peace and freedom of navigation.  Further, China has put a spotlight on the need of those countries to coordinate and collaborate militarily, which they’ve started to do in earnest; and, amazingly, in close cooperation not only with Australia but also with a thoroughly irritated Japan.
China has recently been so bellicose that observers wonder what on Earth the PLA and PLA Navy have in mind for the future, because if they actually push too hard – close up on the horizon – they’re playing a losing game.  
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Thaddeus McCotter, WJR, The Great Voice of the Great Lakes
 
Hour One
Monday 2 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: ISIS launching attacks on the basis of a jihadist martyr named al Unbar
Monday 2 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:  ISIS launching 300 martyr bomber attacks so far in Iraq.
Monday 2 May 2016 / Hour 1, Block C:  Gordon G. Chang, Daily Beast & Forbes.com, in re:   Beijing Refuses Hong Kong Port Call to U.S. Aircraft Carrier  China refused to allow the U.S. aircraft carrier John C. Stennis to visit Hong Kong, U.S. officials said, a snub coming amid strained relations over territorial disputes in the South China Sea. / One of China’s biggest lenders is planting its flag in the middle of Manhattan, a symbolic move for a bank with ambitions to challenge Wall Street on its home turf.
There's much that is deeply disturbing about Beijing's recent moves against two American icons, Apple and Disney.  http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonchang/2016/05/01/malicious-china-unplugs-apple-and-disney/#3a93131b47cd
Monday 2 May 2016 / Hour 1, Block D: Rod Meloni, WDIV TV in Michigan, in re: the background and current events of the horrible water situation in Flint, Michigan.
 
Hour Two
Monday 2 May 2016 / Hour 2, Block A:   John Fund, NRO, and David Drucker, Washington Examiner, in re:   What does Kasich want? I don't know- I’ve tried and tried to game it out and the only thing I can think of is pure ego.  He’s won half a delegate in six states. Buckeyes want him to come home because he’s been an absentee governor for months.  At Kasich’s age of 63, he probably realizes it's his last shot and he’s loath to leave the stage.  As for veep: is everyone glued to his phone waiting for a call?   For Trump, he’s so far outside the mainstream that he needs an insider, someone wiling to speak for his isolationism and populism.  Names?  Gov Scot of FL; Kasich; Joni Ernst, senator from Iowa, new to Washington. Problem is, who’d want the job? Sense of resignation in the GOP anent the electoral college map. In the last six elections, won by the Dems plus Florida . . .  game over.
Trump, meanwhile, has scheduled two more large rallies after casting Indiana as his chance to deliver Cruz a knock-out blow on Sunday. "Indiana is so important and we have to win it," Trump said to a crowd of approximately 1,500 people packed into a theater in Terre Haute, Indiana. "If we win Indiana, it's “over."
The contest comes as Americans are increasingly convinced that Trump and Hillary Clinton will square off in the general election. A CNN/ORC poll found that 84% of voters nationwide think Trump will lead the Republican ticket in November, while 85% say the same about Clinton on the Democratic side.
“Trump is backed by 49% of Republicans nationally, compared to 25% for Cruz and 19% for Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Among Democrats, 51% back Clinton, while 43% support Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.  “Cruz's jam-packed schedule reflects the do-or-die nature of Indiana's primary….”
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/02/politics/ted-cruz-donald-trump-indiana-primary/
Monday 2 May 2016 / Hour 2, Block B:  John Fund, NRO, and David Drucker, Washington Examiner, in re: Electoral college arithmetic.  Bill Clinton has been very enthusiastic in his campaigning; . . . he’s a ferocious weapon in the Upper South and . . . Is he appreciated?  He’s had spells of good and ill health.  Party has moved substantially to the left, has repudiated him on race, crime, banking regulation. Given that Mrs Clinton’s appeal to voters is so tenuous – lacks magnetism – he =can help bridge the gap as much as a surrogate can . Nonetheless, she’ll have to win on her own – she’s not honest or trustworthy and we still have the FBI, but Trump’s negatives are so much worse than hers.   PA, OH, IL NH, NV:  . . . with Trump, the Senate will be gone; with Cruz, tenuous  A surprise plus for GOP could be the African-American Senator from Colorado, I think his name is Dylan White.  “Very difficult election” – a very dry understatement.
Monday 2 May 2016 / Hour 2, Block C:  Harry Siegel, New York Daily News, in re: Five of the seven largest political consulting firms in New York have been  subpoenea’d anent charges against Mayor DeBlasio of New York City..  , , , Donations to state committee.   It's clear that it wasn’t self-enriching – maybe people closest to Cuomo, Not even, for DeBlasio. Is that he did a crime? “I had to do these shady things post-Citizens United.”   There’s a lot of smoke; dunno if there’s a crime.  / Back to 1984, two years before Howard Beach: in Windsor Terrace, a young man was chased by a lynch mob of white supremacists.  They chased him across traffic to beat him up. He was so terrified he ran through traffic.   A young Jamaican immigrant, editor of school yearbook, on his mother’s birthday went to Coney Island with friends. Suddenly opposed by a large groups of white thugs yelling racial slurs and throwing bottles – got to an overpass, then kids waiting with bats and stones to surround the kids.  Our heroes stays to try to explain, got beat up horribly. Cops accuse the Black children of having incited the attack, didn't even take notes. Hideous. Richard still lives in the house his mother bought in 1982, which now is worth a multiple of what she paid.
Welcome to the neighborhood: A deep divide in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, 1984  “The scene is Windsor Terrace, 1984. Just past Park Slope, it’s the rough start of outer Brooklyn, where neighborhoods start getting more ethnically defined and less expensive. Rowhouses with ceramic Virgin Marys and seasonal decorations out front and big families crammed inside line small streets that don’t quite connect, bisected by the Prospect Expressway and with foot bridges spanning that scar.
It’s your classic nice, quiet place in the city, pretty much all Irish and Italian Catholics. Where people know your name, or they nod hello and watch as you walk past if not.
“Enter 17-year-old Richard Wright, from Kingston, Jamaica, who’d arrived a year earlier to live with his mom, who’d bought a house here for about an eighth of what it would cost today, and his brother, sister and cousin.
“My mom always believed in America,” Wright, now a lawyer, told me as we sat in front of the house, where he still lives. “It was a middle class neighborhood to her. She always strived for the best, for us.”
“After a year here, he was an honor student at John Jay High School and an altar boy at the Church of the Holy Apostles, where his was one of the few Caribbean families. He felt that immigrant’s sense of arrival in the land of boundless opportunities…”  http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/harry-siegel-neighborhood-article-1.2619363
 
Monday 2 May 2016 / Hour 2, Block D:  Harry Siegel, New York Daily News, in re: In those years, there were gangs of white, bat-wielding kids who felt very protective of their neighborhoods; also Hispanics kids.  Just under the Belt Parkway . . . Howard Beach is geographically and much culturally cut off; still is.  Michael Griffith’s car broke down; he was trying to escape thugs who ran up to scream filth at him, then chased him across a highway, where he got killed.  Dangerous when young men take it on themselves to protect their neighborhoods. The main attacker dies in a motorcycle crash. Three of the teenagers were imprisoned. One of the members of the attack wanted to be a cop and failed.  It's still scary for some people to walk through some places. Less than before; neighborhoods are not nearly as ethnically defined as they were.   / DeBlasio is a political op, which is why he got tangled up with lobbyists. His whole career has been cutting deals.  Going back to Tammany Hall and before, that s how it's been for over a century. Getting rid of horses for real estate developer friends? Kicking out ancient residents of an old-people’s home f/b/o real estate developers? He’s not lining his pockets; as Plunkett of Tammany Hall said, “This is honest graft.”  Welcome to New York – cops, diamonds, prostitutes, lobbyists. 
 
Hour Three
Monday 2 May 2016 / Hour 3, Block A:   Nelson Schwarz, New York Times, in re: . . . American s have got more comfortable with less egalitarianism - like Europe. Also, the Internet lets companies see whom they can appeal to.
 “Next year, Crystal Cruises will begin an airborne version of one of its luxury ships: a customized Boeing 777 that ferries passengers on 14- or 28-day trips around the world.
“In theory, according to Steve Tadelis, a professor of economics at the Haas School of Business at Berkeley, “when an industry is able to create a richer line of products for people looking to spend their money, that makes everybody happier. But getting it right in reality is very, very hard.”
As companies separate their clientele, a debate has developed over just how obvious the distinctions should be. Some experts, like David Clarke, who works with leisure industry giants as a principal at PricewaterhouseCoopers, say that it is best to be open about what amounts to a money-based caste system.
“It’s about transparency,” he said. “What customers hate is when you’re trying to hide stuff and are not being honest with them.”
“Many companies, though, have discovered that offering ordinary customers just a whiff of the rarefied air can actually enhance the bottom line, even if it stirs a certain amount of envy and resentment….   http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/business/economy/velvet-rope-economy.html?_r=1  (1 of 2)
 
Monday 2 May 2016 / Hour 3, Block B:   Nelson Schwarz, New York Times, in re: . . . American s have got more comfortable with less egalitarianism - like Europe. Also, the Internet lets companies see whom they can appeal to.
 “Next year, Crystal Cruises will begin an airborne version of one of its luxury ships: a customized Boeing 777 that ferries passengers on 14- or 28-day trips around the world.
“In theory, according to Steve Tadelis, a professor of economics at the Haas School of Business at Berkeley, “when an industry is able to create a richer line of products for people looking to spend their money, that makes everybody happier. But getting it right in reality is very, very hard.”
As companies separate their clientele, a debate has developed over just how obvious the distinctions should be. Some experts, like David Clarke, who works with leisure industry giants as a principal at PricewaterhouseCoopers, say that it is best to be open about what amounts to a money-based caste system.
“It’s about transparency,” he said. “What customers hate is when you’re trying to hide stuff and are not being honest with them.”
“Many companies, though, have discovered that offering ordinary customers just a whiff of the rarefied air can actually enhance the bottom line, even if it stirs a certain amount of envy and resentment….   http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/business/economy/velvet-rope-economy.html?_r=1  (2 of 2)
Monday 2 May 2016 / Hour 3, Block C:   Malcolm Hoenlein  Conference of Presidents, in re; Israel is concerned about ISIS coming up to the border; that ISIS become a vehicle for transport of weapons and training,  Hezbollah is currently a much greater threat to Israel nut it's ISIS global that’s the threat. – against Israeli embassy in Rome, and other embassies there, and the Vatican..
Supreme Court ruled that $2 bil of Iranian funds held in the US can be made available as recompense for those murdered in Lebanon when Iran organized a murderous attack.
The annual Walk of the Living from Auschwitz to Birkenau. Nuremburg: 70tyh anniversary of the trial, and the 80th anniversary of the Nuremburg Laws, the anti-Jewish laws codified by the Nazis.
An official Iranian international contest of cartoon art portraying the denial of the Holocaust, asserting that the Holocaust never took place. Iran got its name from the Farsi word for Aryan.
80 Years Since the Implementation of the Nuremberg Laws   The anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws were originally passed in 1935, at a special Reichstag session held in Nuremberg, Germany, which was also the site of some of the Nazi Party’s annual propaganda rallies. The Nuremberg Laws were fully and consistently implemented in Nazi Germany after the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics. The laws, among others, removed citizenship from Germany’s Jewish population (based on Nazi invented racial criteria), restricted the employment of “Aryan” Germans in Jewish households and forbade sexual relations between Germans and Jews. These laws were enacted along with a host of other discriminatory, anti-Semitic measures. While no one imagined the horrors that were to follow, these laws were the foundation for the increasing persecution of Germany’s Jewish population that would eventually encompass all of Europe and result in the murder of 6 million Jews.
70 Years Since the Nuremberg Trials  The Nuremberg Trials were undertaken by the Allies during 1945-1946 (the IMT- the International Military Tribunal) and then by the United States during 1946-1949 (the NMTs - Nuremberg Military Tribunals). The defendants were former Nazi German leaders who were involved in waging of aggressive war, committing war crimes, and committing crimes against humanity.  
Described as “the greatest trial in history,” the international Nuremberg Trial, the Allied-led IMT, saw 21 of the most important political and military leaders of the Third Reich pros- ecuted. The defendants included such infamous Nazis as Hermann Göring, Hans Frank, , Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Albert Speer and Julius Streicher.
The second set of trials - twelve in all - were the American-led Nuremberg Military Tribunals, which included the Doctors’ Trial, the Judges’ Trial, and the High Command Trial, and saw the prosecution of close to 200 formerly high-ranking German of cials and business leaders.
Although many culpable persons were never brought to justice at Nuremberg or elsewhere, the Nuremberg Trials adjudicated many of the most culpable and developed the evidence that allows history to understand the scope of Nazi crimes, including the Holocaust. Nuremberg also gave rise to important principles, including that the claim of “just following orders” is not acceptable as a defense in criminal cases.
In 1950, a United Nations committee codi ed Nuremberg Principles that are, alongside the records and precedents of the Nuremberg trial judgments themselves, important components of international law today.  http://motl.org/?event=the-nuremberg-symposium
Monday 2 May 2016 / Hour 3, Block D: John Tamny, Real Clear Politics and Forbes.com, in re:  Central bankers think that consumption is economic growth. Helicopter money in isolation would stimulate indolence. Palo Alto – the haves – and East Palo Alto -  the have-nots.  Imagine if the Feds said that East Palo Alto will be stimulated by giving each resident $5,000.   Money deposited in East Palo Alto banks would immediately be invested in Menlo Park or so and no longer be of any use to East Palo Alto.  Imagine that the Fed tried to drain Westchester (rich) banks of money: it’d be made up right away by loans from around the country and the world. Assume money dropped form the sky: looks like the govt wants currency devaluation. This discourages the very entrepreneurs who increase production.  It's not that there’s not enough money – there’s not enough production! If the Upper East Side moved to Tijuana, Tijuana would suddenly become rich, The Fed is trying to create an easy fix and will fail. Fed follows the definition of madness: keep doing the same thing even if it fails.   Europe also talking about helicopter money, and China has been bombing cash for years.  Can is a great example: no money-supply problem because Chinese people are enormously productive, money would chase them to Cambodia or France if the Chinese population moved there.
'Helicopter Money' Would Most Definitely Miss Its Intended Targets   No city, state or country ever has a "money supply" problem.  Money supply is always and everywhere an effect of production.  Where there's lots of production money is always plentiful, where there's little production money is always scarce.  Central banks can't change this despite commentary from monetarist school members that say money supply can be planned.  That's the same as saying production can be planned.  Back to reality, central banks could never drain Beverly Hills or Singapore of money, and they also couldn't increase money supply in Baltimore, Detroit or Honduras.  Forbes.com.    http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2016/05/01/helicopter-money-would-most-certainly-miss-its-intended-targets/#47d047c35eda
With the global economy still a little bit limp after eight years of intervention by the world's major central banks, the idea of "helicopter money" has started to gain traction among those same central bankers. To economists who view demand as the driver of growth, the showering of consumers with printed money is seen as a simple way to engineer increased consumption. It all sounds so easy at first glance, but reality and logic quickly intrude on a presumed fix that promises to fail.
 
Hour Four
Monday 2 May 2016 / Hour 4, Block A:  The Castaway's War: One Man's Battle against Imperial Japan by Stephen Harding.  “A man who won't be beaten can't be beaten.”  This is how the Crimson Tide made it to the Rose Bowl – incidentally, crushed Washington State under Hugh Miller.  Then to Key West, then WWII.   Rivetting story. (1 of 4)
“Stephen Harding is an extraordinary historian, has somehow found a virtually unknown story about World War II, then told that story with such detail and precision that it comes alive—and is impossible to put down. The Castaway’s War reads like a thriller, proving again that true history has a punch that few novelists ever achieve.”—Alan Furst, bestselling author of Dark Star and Night Soldiers
“Stephen Harding has done it again! He has somehow found a truly extraordinary story from World War II that has all the elements of a Hollywood thriller or adventure movie, and yet is true in every regard. We’re all familiar with the stories of sole Japanese who stayed in obscure island jungles fighting on after the peace, but here is its exact mirror image: an American who fought on during wartime on an island from which he had no hope of escape. Unbroken meets The Sands of Iwo Jima.”—Andrew Roberts, author of Napoleon and The Storm of War
“Stephen Harding pulls back the jungle canopy on Arundel Island to uncover a riveting story of courage and resilience from World War II. The Castaway’s War weaves together meticulous research and gripping storytelling to bring alive a story that transcends the war. At its heart, this is a book about finding the inner strength to battle on.”—Brian Murphy, author of 81 Days below Zero
http://www.amazon.com/Castaways-War-Battle-against-Imperial/dp/030682340...
Monday 2 May 2016 / Hour 4, Block B:  The Castaway's War: One Man's Battle against Imperial Japan by Stephen Harding. (2 of 4)
Monday 2 May 2016 / Hour 4, Block C: The Castaway's War: One Man's Battle against Imperial Japan by Stephen Harding. (3 of 4)
Monday 2 May 2016 / Hour 4, Block D:   The Castaway's War: One Man's Battle against Imperial Japan by Stephen Harding. (4 of 4)
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