The John Batchelor Show

Tuesday 11 October 2016

Air Date: 
October 11, 2016

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Larry Kudlow, CNBC senior advisor; & Cumulus Media radio
 
Hour One
Tuesday  11 October 2016   / Hour 1, Block A: Tuesday  11 October 2016   / Hour 1, Block A:  James Pethokoukis, AEI DeWitt Wallace Fellow, via AEIdeas; in re:  On Hillary Clinton’s new family tax cut  A couple of weeks ago, I publicly wondered, “Hey, what happened to Hillary Clinton’s middle-class tax cut?” The Democratic presidential candidate had promised one, but nothing she’d outlined since really seemed to fit the bill.
AEIdeas, Trump, Brexit, sovereignty, and Mr. Market  Countries, no matter how powerful and rich, can’t fully isolate themselves from market pressures. Just take a look at Brexit, supposedly freeing the UK from its European Union shackles. Sovereignty is the new capitalism!  . .  .The American dollar is the world’s reserve currency, and U.S. Treasuries its safe haven investment. One reason is that America, despite what Trump would have voters believe, is a fabulously wealthy nation where households collectively have a net worth of nearly $90 trillion. And ours is not a particularly heavily taxed nation, either. These are big reasons why markets seem unconcerned about the $20 trillion federal debt. But America’s wealth isn’t found just in its machines, natural resources, world-class companies and universities, and inventive, entrepreneurial people. It’s also in the American system of rule of law. Government is supposed to follow the rules. And political dissent isn’t un-American or treasonous. Contracts and property rights are enforced. The political system is predictable in all the best ways. America ranks high on various “rule of law” indices. Russia and China, whose “strong” leaders Trump admires, don’t.
Would global investors continue looking at America and treating its financial assets the same way if Trump were president? Interesting question.    . . . 

Trump, Brexit, sovereignty, and Mr. Market.   Countries, no matter how powerful and rich, can’t fully isolate themselves from market pressures. Just take a look at Brexit, supposedly freeing the UK from its European Union shackles. Sovereignty is the new capitalism!
Tuesday  11 October 2016   / Hour 1, Block B: John H. Cochrane, Hoover; via Grumpy Economist; in re: As I see it, important points about the Trump tax affair are not yet reflected in media coverage. 1) This affair reflects the intrinsic difficulties of an income tax.
Tuesday  11 October 2016   / Hour 1, Block C: Bill Whalen, Hoover, via Fox News; in re: It’s a strange time to be in St. Louis. For the first time since 2010, the Cardinals failed to make the playoffs. The St. Louis Rams are no more, having returned to their Los Angeles past.

and 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/10/11/trump-la...
Tuesday  11 October 2016   / Hour 1, Block D: Larry Kudlow.
 
Hour Two
Tuesday  11 October 2016   / Hour 2, Blocks A-D:  Stephen F. Cohen; NYU, Princeton; in re:  Russian air defense and anti-missile systems in Syria are ready to shoot down "any unidentified flying object" if air strikes are carried out on Syrian government positions, according to Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov.

The motivation for Konashenkov’s statement, made on Oct. 6, was a series of leaks in foreign mass media sources about discussion by the U.S. government of the possibility of launching air strikes on Syrian army positions.

Konashenkov said that most Russian officers involved in Syria work on the ground, bringing humanitarian aid to neighborhoods under the control of the current government. Russian servicemen are also playing a role in negotiations with the heads of various settlements and armed groups in most of Syria's provinces.

 

 
Hour Three
Tuesday  11 October 2016   / Hour 3, Block A-D:  Bob Zimmerman; Behindtheblack.com ; in re: NASA to offer port on ISS for private modules

The competition heats up: NASA to offer port on ISS for private modules.

Several companies have previously expressed an interest in adding a module to the ISS for commercial or NASA use. In April, Bigelow Aerospace said it had made an unsolicited proposal to NASA to add one of its B330 modules under development to the ISS. In August, the company received an award from NASA’s Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) to study that concept in more detail.

 

Axiom Space, a company led by former NASA station program manager Mike Suffredini, announced in June plans to develop a commercial module that could be added to the station as a precursor to a standalone commercial space station. Suffredini said in July that his company planned to respond to the NASA RFI.

 

Another venture that received a NASA NextSTEP award in August was a consortium called Ixion, which includes NanoRacks, Space Systems Loral and United Launch Alliance. Ixion will study converting a Centaur upper stage into a commercial ISS module.

This confirms my belief that ISS will not be retired in 2024, but will slowly transition to private hands and will be steadily replaced by new private modules as old ones wear out.
 
Hour Four
Tuesday  11 October 2016   / Hour 4, Blocks A-B:  Lara M. Brown, Salena Zito 
Donald Trump declared war on the Republican establishment Tuesday, lashing out at House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.), Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and other GOP elected officials as his supporters geared up to join the fight amid extraordinary turmoil within the party just four weeks before Election Day.

One day after Ryan announced he would no longer campaign on Trump’s behalf, the GOP nominee said as part of a barrage of tweets that the top-ranking Republican is “weak and ineffective” and is providing “zero support” for his candidacy. Trump also declared that “the shackles have been taken off” him, liberating him to “fight for America the way I want to.”

 

Trump called McCain “foul-mouthed” and accused him with no evidence of once begging for his support. The 2008 nominee pulled his endorsement following a Friday Washington Post report about a 2005 video in which Trump is heard making vulgar comments about forcing himself on women sexually.

 

In perhaps the most piercing insult, Trump said his party is harder to deal with than even Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, whom conservatives loathe. Yet he also released a new TV ad featuring footage of Clinton coughing and stumbling during a recent bout with pneumonia — signaling that few issues are out of bounds for his scorched-earth campaign

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-declares-war-on-the-republ...

 
Tuesday  11 October 2016   / Hour 4, Blocks C-D: James Taranto; WSJ      “…But on Saturday, as the Post noted, “more than two dozen Republican lawmakers . . . called on Trump to leave the race, often touting vice presidential candidate Mike Pence as an alternative.” No dice, replied Trump on Twitter: “The media and establishment want me out of the race so badly - I WILL NEVER DROP OUT OF THE RACE, WILL NEVER LET MY SUPPORTERS DOWN! #MAGA.”

It was a response to what the Post, in breaking the story of the video Friday, called Trump’s “extremely lewd conversation about women in 2005” with TV personality Billy Bush, a first cousin of Jeb. Surely it was news to nobody that Trump could be vulgar and crass, but his language here, which we see no need to repeat, was especially vivid.

In that August column we argued that Nevertrump Republicans, in asserting that the nominee was so unacceptable as to justify a breach in party loyalty, had a problem: “By what standard is Trump unfit? In answer to that question, every Trump opponent will give you his own list. . . . [The argument] amounts to this: ‘Many people find him objectionable for various reasons.’ ” The Friday news focused attention on one reason and thereby dramatically simplified the problem for those considering a repudiation of Trump.

 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-gop-meltdown-1476120867

 
..  ..  ..