JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents.
 
Hour One
Thursday 22 August 2019  / Hour 1, Block A: Sebastian Gorka, America First radio, in re: Liberate Greenland!
Thursday 22 August 2019  / Hour 1, Block B: Jeff Bliss, Pacific Watch, in re: California homelessness, California social dissolution.  Some businesses have given up and are leaving the state.  Need to make $340K per year to be able to live in the Bay Area in any sort of comfort at all.
$1.2 bil from state for homeless: will house 72 people in toto; costs are $700K per unit ­--and more
Suspicions of corruption. Homeless in Seattle pitch tents next to a children’s playground – no vagrancy law is enforced. Piles of needles, dozens and dozens; and sepsis. 
Gov Gavin Newsom analyzed homelessness: “They mostly come from Texas!”  Oops. Not accurate.
Thursday 22 August 2019  / Hour 1, Block C: David May, in re: UNRWA composition and funding; the PA budget.
·       https://thehill.com/opinion/international/457965-un-agency-for-palestinians-is-too-corrupt-to-save
·       https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Palestinians-fear-UNRWA-mandate-may-not-be-renewed-598895
·       https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/No-need-for-UNRWA-599011
·       https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/unrwa-corruption-scandal/
·       https://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-fires-all-his-advisers-as-financial-crisis-hits/
David May is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies specializing in economic warfare. Prior to joining FDD, David was a senior research analyst at AIPAC, where he focused on Israeli-Palestinian issues and the United Nations. He earned a BA in History from the University of Maryland and an MA in International Affairs with concentrations in International Economics and the Middle East from the School of International Service at American University.
Thursday 22 August 2019  / Hour 1, Block D:   Aykan Erdemir, in re: Kurds, Syrian airstrikes, sanction-dodging. Syrian convoy hit at southernmost point of Idlib.  Erdogan failure. . . .  Turkey has 3.7 million refugees. Erdogan is desperate for Putin to intervene and stabilize the situation in Idlib. Removal of three Kurdish mayors.

• https://www.fdd.org/analysis/policy-briefs/2019/08/21/erdogan-removes-kurdish-mayors-from-office-again/
• https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2019/08/16/allegations-of-iranian-cash-smuggling-stir-up-turkish-parliament/
• https://themedialine.org/news/turkey-tells-syria-not-to-play-with-fire-after-deadly-air-strike/?utm_content=buffer46e76&utm_medium=Twitter+(via+Buffer)&utm_source=twitter.com/fdd&utm_campaign=@FDD+via+Buffer+feed
• https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-21/trash-discovery-shows-turkey-eyes-putin-s-anti-sanctions-network
• https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/kurdish-mayors-removed-turkey-suleyman-soylu-ekrem-imamoglu-a9073466.html
• https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/19/turkish-convoy-hit-by-syrian-airstrikes-ankara-claims

·       Dr. Aykan Erdemir, senior Fellow at FDD, is a former member of the Turkish Parliament (2011 to 2015) who served in the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee, EU Harmonization Committee, and the Ad Hoc Parliamentary Committee on the IT Sector and the Internet. He is a founding member of the International Panel of Parliamentarians for Freedom of Religion or Belief, and a drafter of and signatory to the Oslo Charter for Freedom of Religion or Belief (2014), as well as a signatory legislator to the London Declaration on Combating Antisemitism.
 
Hour Two
Thursday 22 August 2019  / Hour 2, Block A:  Hanin Ghaddar, in re: Lebanon/Hezbollah.  Fires being set by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon to alarm northern Israel. Hezbollah can’t risk or afford  a war with Israel nut wants to assert that it's still there, so it mimics Hamas’s means.  Especially embarrassed after its huge tunnel was found and destroyed.  Will try to keep the fires at the border as it cannot afford escalation, which Hamas can better afford.  . . .  Hezbollah gets its money from Iran in hard currency, doesn't keep bank accounts; and the money is not arriving as much as it used to.   Negotiations mean no war; but Hezbollah is also good at buying time. When Israel and the US suggested a deadline, Lebanon refused.  When Hariri visited Washington,
 
●      http://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/263800-hariri-un-us-will-participate-in-negotiations-on-maritime-borders
●      https://www.israelhayom.com/2019/08/20/taking-cue-from-hamas-hezbollah-brings-arson-terror-to-northern-border/
●      https://www.thenational.ae/business/economy/lebanon-debt-downgrade-market-discipline-or-voluntary-reforms-1.901289
●      https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2019/08/20/paraguay-designates-hezbollah-as-a-terrorist-organization/
Hanin Ghaddar is the inaugural Friedmann Visiting Fellow at The Washington Institute's Geduld Program on Arab Politics, where she focuses on Shia politics throughout the Levant. The longtime managing editor of Lebanon's NOW news website, Ghaddar shed light on a broad range of cutting-edge issues, from the evolution of Hezbollah inside Lebanon's fractured political system to Iran's growing influence throughout the Middle East.
Thursday 22 August 2019  / Hour 2, Block B: Tzvi Kahn; in re: IAEA report, Iranian tanker.  . . . . In a warehouse, seized 100,000-plus documents showing that Iran was developing nuclear weapons.  The archive suggests that covert nuclear activities continue till today, IAEA needs to follow up, but it doesn’t: it's afraid of what it’ll find, which would undermine and perhaps collapse the agreement between Iran and other powers. IAEA fails as a neutral body. Current director will be replaced in some months; the director-governor reports to a board of governors which is mandated to demand answers. 
●      https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2019/08/19/politics-vs-protocol/
●      https://www.fdd.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/fdd-report-politics-vs-protocol-irans-nuclear-archive-and-the-iaeas-responsibilities.pdf
●      https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-iran-tanker-greece/u-s-will-act-if-iranian-tanker-tries-to-deliver-oil-to-syria-pompeo-idUSKCN1VA104?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews
●      https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/New-IAEA-chief-candidates-could-be-in-conflict-with-US-Israel-on-Tehran-596489
Tzvi Kahn is a senior Iran analyst at FDD. He previously worked as a senior policy analyst at the Foreign Policy Initiative, where he published extensively on Iran’s nuclear program and regional ambitions. Tzvi also served as assistant director for policy and government affairs at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). From 2013 to 2014, he was an FDD national security Fellow.
Thursday 22 August 2019  / Hour 2, Block C: Simcha and Leah Goldin, in re: Hadar Goldin was kidnapped and held by Hamas in Gaza as a bargaining chip. We’re meeting important people in the UN in New York, and will go to Washington next week. A very good meeting with António Guterres and Prof Irving Cutler, and others. Hamas has held hostage the bodies of 2 Israeli soldiers for five years.
UN Resolution 2474.
https://www.jta.org/2019/08/08/opinion/hamas-has-held-hostage-the-bodies-of-2-israeli-soldiers-for-5-years-enough-is-enough
●      https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/08/21/our-son-hadar-goldin-was-abducted-by-hamas-we-want-his-remains-returned/
●      https://www.algemeiner.com/2019/08/04/whos-responsible-for-denying-hadar-goldin-a-decent-burial/
Leah Goldin is the chief executive of Goldin Solutions and a senior lecturer at Afeka College in Tel Aviv. Simha Goldin is the director of the Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research Center at Tel Aviv University
Thursday 22 August 2019  / Hour 2, Block D: Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re: Jeremy Corbyn,.  PA in the West Bank.  Gaza, formerly controlled by Iran and Qatar; now Beirut, Doha, Istanbul, and Gaza: Gaza divided into three sections, each controlled by a terrorist group. Plots to topple the PA government, among others. Offered $30 million for information on Israel’s security. Twenty thousand rockets aimed at Israel.  The Golan File: a covert force to activate.  A fellow from a Druse village was killed when a bomb exploded in his car; Hezbollah did not claim responsibility in a complex matter.
 
Hour Three
Thursday 22 August 2019  / Hour 3, Block A:  Gene Marks, Small Business Report, in re:  Is there a recession? Not seen yet.
Thursday 22 August 2019  / Hour 3, Block B:  Gene Marks, Small Business Report, in re:  Is there a recession? Not seen yet.
Thursday 22 August 2019  / Hour 3, Block C:  Chris Riegel, Scala.com, in re:  The Scala Report, on facial recognition technology and how to trick it.
Thursday 22 August 2019  / Hour 3, Block D:  Michael Vlahos, Johns Hopkins, in re:  The steps leading to a civil war, with comparisons to US history.
  
Hour Four
Thursday 22 August 2019  / Hour 4, Block A:  Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com, in re:  Washington and space
Thursday 22 August 2019  / Hour 4, Block B:  Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com, in re:  Methane on Mars
Thursday 22 August 2019  / Hour 4, Block C:  Code Name Caesar: The Secret Hunt for U-Boat 864 During World War II; by Jerome Preisler and Kenneth Sewel
Thursday 22 August 2019  / Hour 4, Block D:  Code Name Caesar: The Secret Hunt for U-Boat 864 During World War II; by Jerome Preisler and Kenneth Sewel