Photo, above:  Kurds celebrate Nowruz (New Year)

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Hour One

Monday  23 June 2014  / Hour 1, Block A: Thomas Joscelyn, Long War Journal senior editor, & Bill Roggio, Long War Journal and FDD, in re: Ansar al Islam claims attacks against Iraqi military, police  Ansar al Islam, a jihadist group founded in northern Iraq in September 2001, has claimed a number of attacks against the Iraqi government since the rebel offensive began earlier this month.  . . .  Sophisticated knowledge of ISIS, incl security planning and eqpt use.  The scale of the invasion from the Syrian border almost to Baghdad.  Fallujah has been under ISIS c ontrol since January and Iraqi forces haven't been able to retake it. 

ISIS photos show gains and Iraqi support  Photos released by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham to social media sites illustrate the group's gains in Ninewa as well as public support for the offensive.

US captures Benghazi suspect, but most attackers remain free  Ahmed Abu Khattalah is the first suspect in the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Benghazi to be held by the US. Most of his accomplices remain free.

Monday  23 June 2014  / Hour 1, Block B: Thomas Joscelyn, Long War Journal senior editor, & Bill Roggio, Long War Journal and FDD, in re:  US adds AQAP leader involved in embassy plot to terrorist list   Shawki Ali Ahmed al Badani was involved in the 2013 plot to attack US diplomatic facilities throughout the world, as well as the US embassy in Sana'a and a suicide attack that killed more than 100 Yemeni soldiers. The US targetted Badani in a drone strike late last year.

Monday  23 June 2014  / Hour 1, Block C: Ron Fournier, National Journal, in re: Hard-Core, Hardheaded, Hateful Partisans Are Crowding Out Our Politics  The "growing minority" of strict liberals and conservatives is overwhelming the sensible center.

Wingnuts’ destructive shenanigans — and the media who enable them  No, dysfunction in Washington isn't everyone's fault equally. Here's why one side is to blame -- and why it matters

Monday  23 June 2014  / Hour 1, Block D:  Gordon Chang, Forbes.com, in re: Xi Jinping is pushing on every important family in China; they’ll start to push back and he'll be in trouble.  "Communist Party discipline"  is codeword for "corruption."  The CCP is a monstruously huge cash machine.  How can Xi purge people on the basis of their wealth? Xi looks a lot like Mao.  Bo Xilai, being still alive, can come back. Xi is pressing Zhou Yungcong [wrong transliteration].  In Guangdong, French are bldg a nuclear reactor in Taishan: European Pressurized Reactors, most powerful in the world and have never been utilized elsewhere. Chinese officials refuse to speak to their French counterparts  - meaning there's trouble. Where? What?  China wants to export these all over the world – so we could have Chernobyls on every continent.  Real estate: maybe 50 million vacant units in China.  China is towing four more oil rigs into the South China Sea – to the waters of Vietnam, or Malaysia, or the Philippines? If not Chinese territorial waters, could generate big-time problems.

China's domestic energy policy has given the country a new export opportunity.  The consequences, however, could be disadvantageous for everybody.  See this. The Chinese political system looks as though it's in the early stages of tearing itself apart.

Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive in China takes autocratic turn:  President’s signature campaign appears to have spilled into something potentially destabilizing Ever since Mao Zedong launched the devastating 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution that wiped out China’s intelligentsia and much of its traditional culture, scholars and China watchers have wondered what the lingering effects of that period would be.

A little over a year into his first term as president, China’s current leader, Xi Jinping, is providing the beginning of an answer.  Mr Xi came of age in that turbulent time and watched as his elite revolutionary family and everything he knew were torn to pieces.   Now it seems it is his turn to wreak havoc on . . . As the purge rumbles on, many of the pundits who initially compared Mr Xi to Deng Xiaoping, the architect of market reforms and modern China, are starting to think he may be more like Mao.

Hour Two

Monday  23 June 2014  / Hour 2, Block A:  David M Drucker, Washington Examiner Sr Congressional correspondent,  & John Fund, National Review Online, in re:   POTUS: No Whack-a-Mole   Says ISIS just one of many threats.

John Kerry says insurgency in Iraq threatens entire Mideast

Monday  23 June 2014  / Hour 2, Block B: David M Drucker, Washington Examiner Sr Congressional correspondent,  & John Fund, National Review Online, in re: McCarthy’s Role Is Debated in His Land of Immigrants     Next House Leader Says He Would Let Trade Bank Expire

Monday  23 June 2014  / Hour 2, Block C:  Caitlin Dickson, Daily Beast, in re: BORDER BREAKDOWN   Cartels Are Behind the Border Kid Crisis
 Agents suspect Mexican drug gangs, which control human trafficking along the border, may have a hand in the unprecedented number of underage migrants in Arizona’s detention centers.

Monday  23 June 2014  / Hour 2, Block D:  Eli Lake, senior national security correspondent, Daily Beast, in re: Obama Flips on Immunity for U.S. Troops in Iraq  Obama will take Iraq's word for now that U.S. soldiers won't be prosecuted by the country's courts as they defend Baghdad.   President Obama pulled U.S. forces out of Iraq in 2011 because he couldn’t get Iraq’s parliament to offer U.S. soldiers immunity from Iraqi prosecution. But now Obama is promising to send in hundreds of special operations forces based on a written promise that these soldiers will not be tried in Iraq’s famously compromised courts for actions they are taking in defense of Baghdad.  

The U.S. military and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel have opposed sending any special operations teams to Iraq until there is a written agreement from . . .

Hour Three

Monday  23 June 2014  / Hour 3, Block A:  Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re: IDF: Kidnappers may not have reached their destination yet   The Times of Israel | News from Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World

Monday  23 June 2014  / Hour 3, Block B:  Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re: As clash with ISIL looms, Kurds look to capitalize on Iraq unrest.   President Massoud Barzani hints independence from Iraq might be impending, setting up possible showdown with Sunni militants.   Does the IDF operation endanger Abbas more than Hamas?  US prevents UN condemnation of Israel over West Bank deaths.  Five Palestinians indicted for attempted kidnapping

Monday  23 June 2014  / Hour 3, Block C:  Mike Giglio, Buzzfeed, in re: Fear of ISIS Drives Iraqi Soldiers into Desertion and Hiding   “They have agents and spies everywhere.”

Monday  23 June 2014  / Hour 3, Block D:  Claudia Rosett, FDD, in re:  Iran Could Outsource Its Nuclear-Weapons Program to North Korea  Pyongyang helped Syria build a secret reactor. What's to stop it from assisting Tehran?  As the Iran nuclear talks grind toward a soft July 20 deadline in Vienna, U.S. negotiators and their partners seem oblivious to a loophole that could render any agreement meaningless. Tehran could outsource the completion of a bomb to its longtime ally, North Korea.

As a venue for secretly completing and testing a nuclear bomb, North Korea would be ideal. North Korea is the only country known to have tested any nuclear bombs since India and Pakistan both performed underground tests in 1998. Despite wide condemnation, it has gotten away with three nuclear tests, in 2006, 2009 and 2013. Pyongyang threatened to carry out a fourth test in March, which it said would take an unspecified "new form." North Korea's first test was plutonium-based. The composition of the next two remains unconfirmed, but in 2010 North Korea unveiled a uranium-enrichment plant at its Yongbyon nuclear complex. If North Korea's next test is uranium-based, that could be neatly compatible with Iran's refusal at the bargaining table to give up its thousands of centrifuges, which could be used to produce weapons-grade uranium.

Hour Four

Monday  23 June 2014  / Hour 4, Block A: Why Science Does Not Disprove God by Amir Aczel (1 of 4)

Monday  23 June 2014  / Hour 4, Block B: Why Science Does Not Disprove God by Amir Aczel (2 of 4)

Monday  23 June 2014  / Hour 4, Block C: Why Science Does Not Disprove God by Amir Aczel (3 of 4)

Monday  23 June 2014  / Hour 4, Block D: Why Science Does Not Disprove God by Amir Aczel (4 of 4)

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