The John Batchelor Show

Monday 22 June 2015

Air Date: 
June 22, 2015

Image, left: Early map from Whippleville, New York, just southeast of Malone and down the hill from Owls Head, Franklin Co.
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Thaddeus McCotter, WJR, The Great Voice of the Great Lakes; and author, Liberty Risen.
Hour One
Monday  22 June 2015  / Hour 1, Block A:   Thomas Joscelyn, Long War Journal senior editor, & Bill Roggio, Long War Journal and FDD, in re:  Ali Ani al-Harzi – first person identified as participant and planner of Benghazi attack; said to have just been killed in a Mosul airstrike.  . .  . Ansar al Shariah in N Afr was always part of al Q network.   IS takes advantage of N Afr pipeline, absorbed some of the leaders into its own operations.  Derna (Cyreneica): the two brothers left Ansar al Shariah, went into IS; however, IS went into a fight vs al Q and lost. / Kabul: suicide attacks vs legislature in Kunduz (on Tajik border; population abt a million): initial crew stopped, although they got through the outside gates with vehicle?; one fellow got through on foot; then . . .  Taliban continue to be committed to fighting the war. Taliban are a few years away from being able to take over the whole country, as in pre-9/11.   If total US pullout in 2016 0or 2017, one  can count on a major collapse of the Afghan govt. 
Monday  22 June 2015  / Hour 1, Block B: Thomas Joscelyn, Long War Journal senior editor, & Bill Roggio, Long War Journal and FDD, in re: al Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb: Mokhtar Bel Mokhtar, declared dead so far ten times – wraithlike , has been restored to life.  He seems not to have died.  AQIM also issued a "live" statement.  MBM was operating in the Sahel; was part of the spectacular raid in Algeria on oil-drilling camp – a radical ideologue who uses cigarette smuggling to fund his work. Immed. after the Benghazi attack, he gets a call from some of he attackers to offer congratulations to him for his success in the raid.  Unless they're sloppy with operational security or we have humint (rare), hard to figure out his whereabouts.    Training camps:; 37 new ones, 25 in Syria and 12 in Iraq.   Set up by three different crews: IS; al Q & al Nusrah; and allied jihadist groups from Caucasus, Uyghurs, other small groups. Camps train and propagandize recruits, and reassure the donors.    May learn to make IEDs, use small arms, sometimes heavy weapons, sometimes for women or children.  Used primarily to wage local jihad. . . .  Over 20 camps in eastern Syria no longer operational where al Q camps was taken over by IS.
Monday  22 June 2015  / Hour 1, Block C: Gordon Chang, Forbes.com, in re:  Neither of us has any money invested in the Shanghai or Shenzen stock markets.  However, the military does and must be worried as the crest was achieved and it then sank – 6.3 % down on Friday, alone on Shanghai Composite. Correction or bear mkt? Fuelled by margin debt , and so extremely dangerous.  Beijing must be panicking.  "Margin debt" means borrowed money – from investment houses, friends, banks, everybody.  Whenever Chinese mil lashes out at neighbors, the neighbors re-think investing in China, send the money to India or elsewhere.  Retreat has been 152% sine last July – 929 days, according to Bloomberg.  There's no fundamental to suggest that this mkt will keep rising. Economy growing at 1% or 2% at best; trading at 84 x earnings (egad) – and he Chinese govt wants it that way.  Expect State enterprises buy their own shares. Will release more liquidity into the Chinese economy, whence it'll go not into productive capacity (no demand) but into stocks or bubble territory.  . . . Pro-Beijing legislators tried to break a quorum; it went down in an unanticipated loss. More drift: pan-democrats in HK don't have the votes to reach full success, but will do well in next elections as they’ll have critical blocking capacity Beijing can’t get what it wants at the ballot box so may try rougher tactics. 
The next few days are critical for Beijing, so expect bold government action to rescue the stock markets.  / What next in Hong Kong-Beijing democracy tussle? / Lawmakers in Hong Kong have rejected a highly controversial proposal by the government . . .   /  How the Senate Can Help Hong Kong's Democracy Campaigners / China Media: Hong Kong Opposition Is Destroyer of Democracy
Monday  22 June 2015  / Hour 1, Block D: Peter Berkowitz, Hoover, in re: "Anti-Israel Group a Threat to Liberal Democracy," Real Clear Politics, June 17; BDS, as Monsieur Richard cut Orange (telco) out of Israel, then reversed.  . . . Traced origin of BDS to 1975, UNGA resolution equating Zionism with racism. te that from its inception, Israel has promised equal rights to all citizen regardless of ethnicity, race, religion, and has maintained that.  A mtg in South Africa condemned Israel as an Apartheid state; BDS continues this. Dr Qanta A. Ahmed, a Muslim British physician & Assoc Prof of Medicine, SUNY, was in Knesset on 15 June protesting vs other academics who’ve sought to condemn Israel and all those who  haven’t taken a stand against their country. She argues that all academics shd protest . . . she organized a letter in response to this Lancet letter; struggled to get her letter published, denouncing critics of Israel. is it true that BDS funding comes from the Saudi princes? Even as the Saudi royal family is in close conversation with Israel today?  Btw, there are many figure in the OPA who oppose BDS because Israel is the largest employer of West Bank Palestinians.  Most enthusiastic proponents of BDS are European, esp leftists.
lhttp://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/06/17/anti-israel_group_a_threat_to_liberal_democracy.html
Hour Two
Monday  22 June 2015  / Hour 2, Block A:  John Fund, National Review Online, & David M Drucker, Washington Examiner Senior Congressional correspondent, in re: Vexilology.  Nikki Haley, SC gov: the Confederate flag should be moved.  The Republican Party is the product of the second American revolution, the War between the States,  You can still see the scars; GOP turned over he work of he Founding Father, on the question of slavery.  During the civil war, Native Americans would be persecuted for another century, The Confederate battle flag is of men who betrayed their oaths to the Constitution – some famous, incl Jefferson Davis – in order to maintain chattel slavery for another four years.  Republicans have responded adequately to the Charleston tragedy; to the flag mater if they want to be re-elected in South Carolina; otherwise, not. Hesitant to call for the Confederate flag to be removed. What will we, the GOP, do about this flag of traitors?  Issue will be fought more or less locally. . . . Why has it taken so long for Republicans to proclaim us the party of Lincoln?  Nikki Haley has given enormous cover to the rest of the party by saying the flag should be removed.  Removing it would redound greatly to the good of the party.  In most Southern states, there are two GOPs:  Yankees and others, and then former Democrats, who’ve changed parties but not cultural [loyalties].
Susana Martinez: Republican power broker?  ; http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420093/presidential-candidate-donald-trump-double-agent-for-left  ;  Republicans Tread Carefully in Debate on Confederate Flag  With debate over the flag flaring after the massacre in Charleston, S.C., Republicans have faced a precarious challenge in trying to broaden their party’s appeal. (1 of 2)
Monday  22 June 2015  / Hour 2, Block B: John Fund, National Review Online, & David M Drucker, Washington Examiner Senior Congressional correspondent; (2 of 2)
Monday  22 June 2015  / Hour 2, Block C:  Terry Anderson, PERC Montana & Hoover, in re:  http://mtstandard.com/news/opinion/guest/how-much-access-to-back-country-is-enough/article_db49b5f4-6526-527e-8466-04785ed63dfd.html ; How much access to back country is enough?
Monday  22 June 2015  / Hour 2, Block D:  Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re: Sander Bak, youngest partner at Milbank Tweed; and athlete, remarkable reputation for integrity, much beloved husband, father, and son, left this world on Friday 19 June.
More than 1,600 Syrians have been treated in Israeli hospitals, yet the frustration felt by Druze near the border was taken out on an Israeli medic, who was murdered in horrible ways.  / White House responding to the UN report on Hamas bombing last summer. Report places blame on both Hamas and Israel; their statistics are wrong.  A major international delegation visited, returned with a report saying that Israel took extraordinary care to protect civilians.
Syrian war casualty killed as Israeli Druze attack IDF ambulance   ;   Golan Heights mob storms convoy transporting injured fighters; Israeli soldiers wounded in melee; PM, IDF chief condemn incident
Hour Three
Monday  22 June 2015  / Hour 3, Block A: Between Two Worlds: How the English Became Americans by Malcolm Gaskill (1 of 4)
Monday  22 June 2015  / Hour 3, Block B: Between Two Worlds: How the English Became Americans by Malcolm Gaskill (2 of 4)
Monday  22 June 2015  / Hour 3, Block C: Between Two Worlds: How the English Became Americans by Malcolm Gaskill (3 of 4)
Monday  22 June 2015  / Hour 3, Block D: Between Two Worlds: How the English Became Americans by Malcolm Gaskill (4 of 4)
Hour Four
Monday  22 June 2015  / Hour 4, Block A:  Mary Kissel, Wall Street Journal editorial board & host of OpinionJournal.com; in re:  Opinion Journal: Hands Off My Raisins!  ; Editorial Page Editor Paul Gigot on Horne v. Department of Agriculture, an important Supreme Court ruling that reinforces private-property rights. Opinion Journal: 2016 Election: GOP Reformers at Risk ; Club for Growth President David McIntosh on the Senate and House races he’s watching. ; Opinion Journal: The Future of Nuclear Deterrence ; Center for Strategic and International Studies Senior Fellow Tom Karako on the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal and the modernization of America’s arsenal.
Monday  22 June 2015  / Hour 4, Block B:  Elizabeth Harris, NYT, in re: "They trotted up the ramp to the Cyclone, a grumpy old rattler of a roller coaster in Coney Island, Brooklyn, a young man and a young woman who spent the day never more than a few inches apart.
"They were hoisted high in the air on the octogenarian tracks, still made of creaky wooden boards, then shot down and around and into a twist. She screamed through her smile and he kept his hands in the air the entire ride, his shoulder length hair standing straight out behind him.
"''Four-out-of-five starts,' said the young woman, Lisa Guerrera. 'Would recommend. Approve as a Landmark. That’s my Yelp! review.'
"The young man, Richard O’flanagan, grabbed her hand. . . ."
Monday  22 June 2015  / Hour 4, Block C:  Josh Wright, Bloomberg Surveillance ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS , in re:  Sharing Means We're Wealthier Than We Think but May Grow [More Slowly] Than We Want  The rise of the sharing economy has disrupted not just the business models of major industries like hotels and cars, but also the models of economists analyzing U.S. data.
By generating new forms of informal employment, the sharing economy has muddied existing measures of employment status, labor force participation and wages earned. This development has been widely acknowledged, if not yet effectively addressed. Less frequently discussed are the implications for U.S. capital expenditures and GDP accounting — measures of aggregate economic growth and overall material well-being.
In this regard, an alternative name for the sharing economy is instructive: the "revealed infrastructure" economy. By repurposing existing assets that previously were for exclusively personal use, on-demand services reduce the need to make new business investments in fixed assets. The overlap between consumer and business goods suddenly increases, whether they are buildings, vehicles or human capital — knowledge about everything from household tasks to musical instruments.  All of these can now be easily shared — traded really — via TaskRabbit, Thumbtack and the like.
In a sense, all this sharing reveals we are wealthier than we thought. It's an upward shock to our economically productive capital stock. On the other hand, we may not need to invest, build, buy and grow quite so quickly under current GDP accounting because of the new overlap between consumer and business goods. That may constitute a near-term drag on GDP growth. As it is, U.S. capital expenditures have been abnormally weak since the recession — an average quarterly rate of 4.1 percent over the first five years, compared to a range of 6.0 to 15.6 percent over the prior six post-recession periods — and the rise of the sharing economy may have contributed to that on the margin. That's the first-order effect.
The second-order effect from an economist's perspective is that this should also free up some societal capacity for investing our resources elsewhere.   Indeed, part of the popular enthusiasm for the growth in sharing industries stems from the intuitive appeal of repurposing assets and enhancing consumer choice. You don't have to be an economist to appreciate that there's something highly efficient about that.
Monday  22 June 2015  / Hour 4, Block D:   Philip Terzian, Weekly Standard, in re: http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/amateur-hour-trump-tower_974052.html#.VYRiXxWwO8A.gmail
 
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