The John Batchelor Show

Thursday 3 December 2020

Air Date: 
December 03, 2020

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Colleagues: Sebastian Gorka, America First radio and Fox; and Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents
 
Hour One
Thursday 3 December  2020  / Hour 1, Block A:   Victor Davis Hanson: @VDHanson; Hoover Institution, and The Case for Trump,in re:  Diplomats say: Multilateralism, now brought back by the Biden administration. Used antithetically to what they see as Trump unilateralism. What it actually means is are you speaking nicely to allies and associated nations?   Britain was multilateral until June 1941.  Has nothing to do with morality.   We have a lot of allies with us in Afgh right now, but it hasn't had a cost-benefit . . .  Israel’s position has worked out better. The notion that Trump has  ruined relations is erroneous Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, other nations, say privately that Trump’s concrete actions have worked most favorably.  Obama: “Lead from behind.”  Cf: Libya, Syria.   North Korea is n longer saying it’ll incinerate California Even Europeans are admitting that they’ve been remiss in failing to pay the committed 2%. The world that Trump is leaving to Biden is a lot stabler than the world that Trump inherited.  The US has been the best country in the world in carbon footprints.
       There is no EU: it's a euphemism for Germany.  “We’ll pay 1.3%not 2%, and you’ll send your nineteen-year-olds to defend us from Russia while we buy gas from Russia.” 1860, 1914, 1939, and now today: a lot of anti-Americanism in Germany, “Americans are crude.”
Thursday 3 December  2020  / Hour 1, Block B: Victor Davis Hanson: @VDHanson; Hoover Institution, and The Case for Trump,in re: “Progressives” recommend book-burning. Censorship.  If you’re a loud humanitarian leftist and I said something you consider to be hate speech, that’s not censorship. Amazon bullied Shelby Steele about the documentary, “What Killed Michael Brown?”  Amazon knew exactly who Steele is; that’s why they shut him down.  Forbidden to question BLM, family structure condemnations, et al.   Me-too. Jacobin. Shouting people down, disrupting meals, yelling “Racist racist racist racist.”
Thursday 3 December  2020  / Hour 1, Block C: Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com; in re:  Boca Chica, Texas. Starship Hop (eighth prototype) on its launch pad (a stand) with FCC approval to demonstrate: fly 50,000 feet up, turn around, see if the ship can manoeuver itself down to Earth and right itself vertically, and land. They think they have a one-in-three chance of landing the thing successfully; even getting the data constitutes success,. The fins are more like a lifting body, to use the atmosphere to give it glide. Real goal is to shed speed in the return.  Elon Musk. Rocket Lab, cube sats .  . .  . Space tourism: World View has been building high-altitude balloons.  Now doing only recon stratospheric balloons; former CEO has formed a new firm in Florida for tourism.
Thursday 3 December  2020  / Hour 1, Block D: Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com; in re:   The Moon; Chang’e 5.  Large Moon mares:volcanic pits. Measure parallax of nearby stars: if you look in August and January, it’ll shift slightly. Can get precise location, but not as well from the ground; rather e, from Gaea – 1.8 billion stars !  Can map the Milky Way.  Some stars move slowly toward the elliptic; others flying away fast.  100 parsecs.  Large Magellanic Cloud.  
 
Hour Two
Thursday 3 December  2020  / Hour 2, Block A:  Sebastian Gorka, @SebGorka, America First radio, in re:  BoJo and the issuance of the vaccine.  
Video of voting officials’ escorting poll-watchers out of the bldg on the pretext that the counting had to stop—then brought in four full suitcases from under a table and proceeded to count the ballots. “Are we to become a land of no consequences?” – Hungarian philosopher.
Thursday 3 December  2020  / Hour 2, Block B:  Sebastian Gorka, @SebGorka, America First radio, in re:Biden, incl Hunter’s associations with China, will have to tread very lightly. Border: we’ve banned all imports from Xinjiang, from this Chinese cotton producer; 80% of cotton form China comes from Xinjiang, provides 6% of the world’s cotton. No excuse for Americans to be buying material from slave labor. Uyghur Forced Labor Protection Act establishes that human right are a useful tool against the CCP. Big tech is fighting against it—which tells you a lot.
      Ben Rhodes, John Brennan, both condemn the death of Fakhrizadeh.  Shameful. 
      Russia:  how will Putin respond to a changed administration?  Hard to justify a rapprochement. No Secretaries of State with badly translated Reset buttons.    
Thursday 3 December  2020  / Hour 2, Block C: Conrad Black, @ConradMBlack, publisher, littérateur, biographer, commentator; the National Post; in re:  Multiple officials including Joe Biden (who proposed using the Logan Act) gathered to discuss Michael Flynn  (5 Jan 2017), leading to the ambush of Flynn to say that he’d lied, which he did not. John Durham named to be a Special Council. Possible real legal problems for the former administration.  Hard to see how Comey or Brennan can dodge the charges; will have to face the music, including Obama, himself, A monstruous Constitutional breach.  To start an administration with a Special Counsel staring at you is a grenade with the pin pulled.  Colossal smear job. Closest the US has ever come to having tanks on the White House lawn. During Watergate, I published a newspaper in Quebec, and said: This will lead to terrible misconduct by those with absolute power to torment office holders.
Thursday 3 December  2020  / Hour 2, Block D: Monica Crowley: @TreasurySpox & @MonicaCrowley  @USTreasury  /   Monica Crowley, TreasurySpox & @MonicaCrowley  @USTreasury ; Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs for the U.S. Department of the Treasury; in re:  Stimulus package.   Secretary Mnuchin.  Last midsummer, you and I spoke of conversations on the Hill on an economic relief package; they ebbed and flowed; now they’re picking back up. We’re making some progress; hope to have relief agreed in the next week or so.  The vaccine matters in many spheres: public health, as well as economic—and psychologically. Promising a return to normality, which is what the markets, as well as all the rest of us, crave. This is the fastest economic recovery from a crisis in American history.   Four million [?] Americans out of work, inventories very low.  Before the advent of the flu, Trump had record low unemployment in all demographics. Getting Americans back to work has been our primary focus. We’ve got 12 million back to work; there are about 10 million still needing to get back to work.  Hospitality industry including air travel.  
 
Hour Three
Thursday 3 December  2020  / Hour 3, Block A: Eli Lake, @EliLake, and Malcolm Hoenlein, @conf_of_pres,  in re: Death of Fakhrizadeh condemned by Rhodes, Brennan, et al., as an effort  by Israel to disrupt Biden’s efforts to get back into the Iran deal. Specious. Fakhrizadeh, the A Q Khan of Iran’s nuke program, was a high-value target.  When a chance arises to take out such a person, you don’t think about US elections.  He’s not wholly irreplaceable, not; but it sets back the program, but more importantly sends the message that the regime cannot protect you. Changes the calculus.  Those who develop this level of skills usually are not religious fanatics; may not care to cooperate.   We used to think the only way to set back Iran’s nuclear program was some sort of direct act of war; in fact, there’s a lot countries can do in cyberattacks, intell ops inside the country, that can do enormous damage but avoids an overt act of war.
  What does Biden want to do? If Iran complies with the deal, Biden is prepared to revert, also.  Someone has created explosions over the summer and a lot of other major problems Clearly, it couldn't al be done by Israelis in the country.   Recall the huge demonstrations.  Is it worth it to lock in a[n antiquated] deal? Why?   
Eli Lake, Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.
·https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-12-01/on-the-iran-nuclear-deal-allies-such-as-israel-get-a-vote
·https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-11-17/israel-s-military-success-against-iran-poses-challenge-for-biden
·https://jewishinsider.com/2020/10/tony-blinkens-biden-spiel/
Thursday 3 December  2020  / Hour 3, Block B:  Aaron Stein, @aaronstein1, in re:  In Syria, assuring that Assad stays in power: Iran has heavily invested therein to have influence in government, esp to project power into Israel. Russia: a sort of co-dependent, reactive intervention; it decided to make a stand in Syria after getting burned in Libya, not to allow unfavorable regime change.  Priorities: Biden interested in rejoining Iran deal, signalling that we’re in for a period of sustained talks.  I suspect that Syria will be down on the list, with domestic vaccine, etc., on top; also Chinese expansion, and concerning Russia, Syria after that. Russian foreign policy is oriented toward the US; and although publicly relations are bad, there’s room to get on a better footing. 
      Turkey: a vexing question in European capitals and Washington; do you punch ’em in the nose or hug them to make them come to their senses?    The sick man of Europe becomes the cranky man of Europe.
Aaron Stein is the Director of Research at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI). And Director of the Middle East Program and Acting Director of the National Security Program.
·https://nationalinterest.org/feature/why-iran%E2%80%99s-syria-strategy-shifting-173310
·https://www.fpri.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/a-plan-to-end-the-war-in-syria.pdf
·https://www.timesofisrael.com/outgoing-us-envoy-to-syria-says-he-hid-true-number-of-troops-from-officials/
·https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/10/06/syria-chemical-weapons-trump-assad-russia-united-nations/
·www.ilanberman.com%2F24848%2Fwhy-iran-syria-strategy-is-shifting
Thursday 3 December  2020  / Hour 3, Block C:  Dr. Shahriar Ahy, @ShahriarAhy, @irantc_official; and Malcolm Hoenlein, @conf_of_pres,  in re: New generation in Iran is  heartened by demonstrations of weakness in the regime.  Ability to provide security emphasizes their opinions.  Fakhrizadeh studied at MIT; in Iran, was more of a manager than a scientist. His key role was wedding  trigger-controlled implosion;  sustained chain reaction; enrichment.
     Critical rivalry between Minister of Intelligence and the IRGC.  They even kill each other.  A lot of fratricide.  To many, Karbala is more important than nationalism. Small men with outsize powers worry about succession to the Supreme Leader. They're desperate for money need $20 million several times over; don’t want it to go to the Rouhani government, 
Shahriar Ahy, was the CEO and Chairman of the Executive Committee of AGI, a media holding company whose assets included MBC, the highest-revenue radio and TV broadcaster in the Islamic World, as well as United Press International, six other media companies and a partnership with UPC, which was the largest cable TV and digital services company in Europe.
        Shortly after the Soviet collapse, Shahriar co-founded the Baltic Fund, the first equity investment fund for Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, which rapidly rose to become economically successful members of the European Union. He was also a Director of the US-Baltic Foundation, a major force in rebuilding modern effective states on the ruins of a totalitarian past.
·https://www.timesofisrael.com/irans-rouhani-calls-bill-to-boost-uranium-enrichment-harmful-to-diplomacy/
·https://www.wsj.com/articles/irans-nuclear-scientist-how-will-the-killing-of-mohsen-fakhrizadeh-affect-tehrans-nuclear-program-11606848349?mod=world_major_1_pos7
·https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/iran-fakhrizadeh-assassination/
·https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/khamenei-speech-sets-the-boundaries-of-engagement-with-the-west
Thursday 3 December  2020  / Hour 3, Block D:   Malcolm Hoenlein, @conf_of_pres, Conference of President, in re: Review of the Middle East, and the EU declaration on anti-Semitism and its dangers.  Germany is Council president.  This week was he anniversary of the plight of Jews from Arab countries—850,000 driven out, many penniless after living there for 2,000 years. Petain.   The king of Morocco protected Jews.   Operation Torch. 
 
Hour Four
Thursday 3 December  2020  / Hour 4, Block A: The Tunnels: Escapes Under the Berlin Wall and the Historic Films the JFK White House Tried to Kill,by Greg Mitchell
Thursday 3 December  2020  / Hour 4, Block B: The Tunnels: Escapes Under the Berlin Wall and the Historic Films the JFK White House Tried to Kill,by Greg Mitchell
Thursday 3 December  2020  / Hour 4, Block C: The Tunnels: Escapes Under the Berlin Wall and the Historic Films the JFK White House Tried to Kill,by Greg Mitchell
Thursday 3 December  2020  / Hour 4, Block D:  The Tunnels: Escapes Under the Berlin Wall and the Historic Films the JFK White House Tried to Kill,by Greg Mitchell
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