The John Batchelor Show

Tuesday 15 November 2016

Air Date: 
November 15, 2016

Photo, left: Appalachian mountains.
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Larry Kudlow, CNBC senior advisor; & Cumulus Media radio
 
Hour One
Tuesday  15 November 2016   / Hour 1, Block A: Steve Moore, Trump economics advisor, in re:  Mkt was down 800 points mid-evening, then 400, then 200; opened at 300 +; and hit 900+ points above last week.
Opposite: bonds are selling off – interest rates are rising: a sign of growth.
I just love the Trump rally: tax cut, bz, deregulation.    Larry and Steve Moore have spoken of these for years.  Brady Bill.  Steve Moore was in a meeting with Congressional whips today. My fave moment was when Paul Krugman was asked:  “When will the mkt recover?”  “Never!”
Congressional whips: I sais that working-class Americans won this election, by many union workers who’d never voted GOP before; we have a tremendous responsibility to deliver to the people – energy, deregulation, et al.  As Larry says, the beneficiaries of a corp tax reduction are the employees.
Repatriation of US capital at a 10% rate, and use that or the infrastructure program -  I believe we can get some Democrats to vote for it. Might be $3 trillion. We also gotta reduce the personal tax rates  - let’s spread the guilt around. 
I want the infrastructure really to help us pay for — “Larry: Expensing?”  “Yes.  Creating an [envt] for investment – anything they want to invest in. I want to be sure there’s enough money to cover the largest tax cut since Reagan, and maybe the largest bz tax cut in American history.”
Repealing Obama Exec Orders – he’s passed almost zero legislation; almost all with a stroke of a pen, making them easy to repeal. I feel strongly about the clean power bill: put the coal miner back to work; it’s they who voted Mr Trump in.
Recall the investment surtax, the cap gains tax, and on vaccine producers and medical devices – why??; plus a payroll tax, and investment tax: these have done a lot of damage. Broken the morale of the country.
Tuesday  15 November 2016   / Hour 1, Block B:   
Steve Bannon was CEO of the Trump campaign, now is WH senior advisor, was critical in the campaign. He’s not anti-women, not anti-Black, is not a white nationalist. He wants Trump to stick up for the forgotten class, wage-earners. He’s made very positive contributions, is none of the things he’s being called, and he surely will not leave. I suggest to the screamers: just get over it. He may surprise everyone with excellent programs.  Same thing happened with Reagan: they asserted there was so much trouble between Jim Baker and Ed Meese, whereas these two worked together calmly and very well. They mostly picked on Ed Meese.
I think they hate Bannon so much because he won.   First hundred days: tax cut – Reagan signed in Aug 1981; we can beat that, can get much of it done in 150 days, by early summer.
Kevin Brady: They don't think they'll need reconciliation to get the tax bill through.  Enough Dems to bring in favoring tax reform and so save reconciliation for the more difficult Obamacare revisions.
Steve - you and I will go fix up Orrin Hatch.   . . .   I want to see a bunch of Dems in the Trump cabinet.
 
Tuesday  15 November 2016   / Hour 1, Block C: Adam Millsap, Mercatus Center & Forbes, in re: Appalachia voted very heavily for Trump. Pennsylvania, et al.  Economic uncertainty: coal has declined, to below 60L people, was 18 K in mid-Eighties.  They're anxious, Trump gave them optimism with bringing back coal and mfrg. . . . Growth solves a lot of problems – big difference between 1% and 25,ot to mention 4%. Lowering corp tax rate wil increase wages, and less regulation: had it been held at the rate of 1980, the economy wd now be $4 trillion greater than it is ($13,000 per family).  Education: we need a new plan for K through 12, esp in rural and inner city areas.  Many never had to finish high school because of good wages in coal mines, but the coal mines will never be what they were.  Can these adults change the attitude of their children to urge them to finish college? Moving to a human-capital-intensive world; it’s not what it was I the Fifties and Sixties  Now, need constantly to learn new things and upgrade your skills – not just in Appalachia, bit all over the country. Tech and trade schools; plumber and welders: can they go to trade schools.  Does the local community college ask businesses, “What do you need?”  There exist some such programs, incl in Charleston with the Boeing plant.  Also, move around to opportunity:  from the coast to the heartland, then south or north. Maybe you can't just stay somewhere for four or five generations.
Luzerne Co., PA,  voted heavily for Obama; now it’s 13% for Trump?  Note also that Hillary didn’t really inspire confidence*, as well, and above all voters wanted to try a change, since the last eight or ten years have worked very poorly for them.  “Smaller slice of a shrinking pie.”
Realistically, coal?  I’m not bullish. Green energy and solar cells are definitely coming in; coal is a temporary solution. Not much O&G in West Virginia, but in eastern PA and SE Ohio.
.. 
From Pennsylvania and Ohio down to Georgia and Alabama, millions of residents of the states surrounding Appalachia have given a vote of no confidence to our economy. Now the dust is settling, but uncertainty about the region's future remains. Will looming policy changes help or hurt? In his latest Forbes columnAdam Millsap of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University--a native of Southern Ohio--breaks down Appalachia's economic woes and argues that continued free trade (which may fly against the wishes of some residents), along with better educational incentives and smarter taxes and regulations, will be critical for the region to close the gap with the rest of the country.
Tuesday  15 November 2016   / Hour 1, Block D: Liz Peek, Fiscal Times & Fox News; in re:  The obloquy against Trump is thick: “A triumph of misogyny, authoritarianism, and raicsm”  What?  Not accurate. Will it stop?  Abt 60% of Hillary supporters are afraid of Trump; children are crying in classrooms. When you backwalk the charges: so exaggerated;
NY Time editorial board sets the agenda, so reporters scurry out and get corroborating articles.
Problem was not only the hugely unflattering reports on Trump, but the inaccurate reports on Hillary. Michael Goodwin, Pulitzer, has written on this: This is a top-down-driven paper; the publishers have lots to say and there's not wall between bz and news.
Also, David Remnick has always been a leftist.  Finally, on all the spell-check ad hominems:  bigotry, misogyny, etc. – There’s not a bigoted bone in Bannon’s body.  Why don't they speak of Trump’s policies? Because he had a strong message that resonated across the county. He won with no money, a very small staff. He addressed things that people wanted to hear about the broken economy and politics.  Mrs Clinton couldn't say much about why to vote for her but “four more years.’
Quinnipiac poll: 55% of the  American people think the media was biased against Trump, are now calling the media out – makes people even more unconfident in information sources.  So they’ll go looking into channels and rivulets of reporting that simply exacerbate the echo chamber.
 
Recall Ronald Reagan: it took a long time for editorial boards to calm down – press used the same epithets, that is, less on bigotry but more on stupidity: grade-B actor who made movies with monkeys and knew nothing. By year three, 1983, the economy was humming at 6%.
After Reagan won 49 states against Mondale . . .
Obama is popular but his policies are not. The media have set the bar so low for Trump; if he does anything productive, he’ll be a great success.  http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/11/15/liz-peek-yes-president-trump-will-succeed-heres-incredible-reason-why.html
 
 
Hour Two
Tuesday  15 November 2016   / Hour 2, Block A:  Stephen F. Cohen, Prof. Emeritus of Russian Studies/History/Politics at NYU and Princeton; also Board of American Committee for East-West Accord (eastwestaccord.com); in re: Russia and Ukraine and USA.
Tuesday  15 November 2016   / Hour 2, Block B: Stephen F. Cohen, Prof. Emeritus of Russian Studies/History/Politics at NYU and Princeton; also Board of American Committee for East-West Accord (eastwestaccord.com); in re:  http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/house-oks-bills-crack-syria-renew-iran-sanctions-43560379
Tuesday  15 November 2016   / Hour 2, Block C:   Stephen F. Cohen, Prof. Emeritus of Russian Studies/History/Politics at NYU and Princeton; also Board of American Committee for East-West Accord (eastwestaccord.com); in re:   Challenge to this article: Rachman’s premise is false, as Russia is now reactive; also, check history: Putin has never once broken his word, his promise to do or not to do something.   Recall that Obama and Putin agreed to a ceasefire in Syria, then the Department of Defense broke the agreement, purportedly by accident.
YESTERDAY, by Gideon Rachman  What is going on between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump? That question hung over the US election. Now that Mr Trump has won the presidency, the question of his relationship with the Russian leader assumes global significance.
Mr Trump’s statements are often confusing and contradictory. But on Russia, he has been pretty consistent and clear. He regards Mr Putin as a strong leader, worthy of admiration, and wants to see a sharp improvement in US-Russian relations. As Mr Trump put it recently: “Wouldn’t it be great if we actually got along with Russia?” 
Mr Trump’s America will clearly try to strike a deal with Mr Putin’s Russia. But what would that deal look like? Here is my best guess.
The US will end its opposition to Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Although America may not agree to the formal legal incorporation of Crimea into Russia, it would accept it as a fait accompli. Following that, the US will lift economic sanctions. The Americans will also drop any suggestion that Ukraine or Georgia will join Nato. The build-up of Nato troops in the Baltic states will also be slowed or stopped. 
In return for these large concessions, Russia will be expected to wind down its aggression in eastern Ukraine and not attempt to make further territorial gains there. Russian pressure and implicit threats towards the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will be dropped. Military tensions on the front line between Nato and Russia will be dialled down. With their conflict in eastern Europe eased, the US and Russia will make common cause in the Middle East. The US will drop its commitment to the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in Syria and will join the Russians in an attack on the Isis militant group. 
The attractions of such a deal from Mr Trump’s point of view are obvious. If it worked, it would defuse an increasingly dangerous confrontation between the US and Russia. During his campaign, Mr Trump accused Hillary Clinton of risking a third world war: a reference to her promise to declare a “no-fly zone” over Syria, which might have led to confrontation between the US and Russian air forces. Abandoning the Obama administration’s goal of getting rid of President Assad would also resolve the longstanding incoherence in US Syria policy, which sometimes seemed to place America on both sides of a civil war. 
Reducing tensions in eastern Europe would also be a considerable prize given that Russia has just moved nuclear weapons into the territorial enclave of Kaliningrad,which lies between Poland and Lithuania. Finally, the lifting of sanctions and the return to commerce as usual would appeal to the businessman in Mr Trump. 
Yet while the attractions of such a deal are clear, the potential pitfalls are huge. First, allying with the butchers of Aleppo would involve a level of calculating amorality that will revolt many in America and Europe. 
Second, it involves placing a huge amount of trust in Mr Putin’s willingness to keep his side of the bargain — rather than simply pocketing western concessions and then coming back for more, perhaps in the Baltic states. Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives and now likely to get a top job under Mr Trump, said recently that Estonia is in the “suburbs of St Petersburg” — which hardly suggests an unequivocal commitment to the independence of that country.
The amorality of making common cause with presidents Assad and Putin is unlikely to trouble Mr Trump. Asked early in the campaign about Mr Putin’s alleged habit of killing journalists, Mr Trump replied: “Our country does plenty of killing too.” Mr Trump has also endorsed torture, so is unlikely to be squeamish about a de facto alliance with the Assad regime.
Even so, it would be a huge gamble for the new US president to place his faith in his wily, experienced Russian counterpart. If Mr Putin were to renege on his promises, Mr Trump would look like a chump, and he hates that.
In the end, a lot may depend on how Mr Trump and his advisers assess Russian motives. Most of the foreign policy establishment in Washington will warn Mr Trump to be deeply suspicious of Mr Putin and will argue that any American concessions will be seen as weakness and encourage further Russian aggression. 
But a rival school of thought argues that what Mr Putin wants, above all, is respect. This school believes that if Washington treats Moscow as an equal, and makes it clear that America has no intention of encouraging Russia’s liberal opposition, then a “new deal” with Russia is possible.
A deal constructed along these lines would essentially represent a return to a Nixonian approach to Moscow, with the White House attempting a new form of detente with the Kremlin. It is even possible that 93-year-old Henry Kissinger, who served as President Richard Nixon’s secretary of state, could play a role as an adviser or intermediary. Mr Kissinger still travels widely and has been invited to Moscow this month. 
In the 1970s, however, Mr Kissinger was dealing with an increasingly sclerotic Soviet Union led by the relatively cautious Leonid Brezhnev. Attempting a new detente with the aggressive and risk-taking Mr Putin is a different and much riskier proposition. 
gideon.rachman@ft.com
https://www.ft.com/content/9bef31a4-aa57-11e6-a0bb-97f42551dbf4?accessToken=zwAAAVhpyBDIkdOb7zGkqlcR5tOgu5f0JVHb9A.MEQCIHGBgPJ8lu5xVSfe9hrzNL6td_mA42pTHaRpw8K0mSyWAiB53riCyn8nSqovy4NKyX03iFnkBGj3Y09bB4b-p30TgA&sharetype=gift
Tuesday  15 November 2016   / Hour 2, Block D: Stephen F. Cohen, Prof. Emeritus of Russian Studies/History/Politics at NYU and Princeton; also Board of American Committee for East-West Accord (eastwestaccord.com); in re:  Russia & US; orphans.
 
Hour Three
Tuesday  15 November 2016   / Hour 3, Block A:   Dr Lara M Brown, George Washington University, & Salena Zito, New York Post & CNN,  in re:  Appalachian Counties for Trump, Big City Counties Not for Trump. @SalenaZito, Washington Examiner, NYPost, CNN. @LaraMBrownPHD, George Washintgon University.
Perhaps no area of the country is more familiar with the nation’s economic woes than Appalachia, where Trump dominated. Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, which the government includes in its definition of the Appalachian region, is a prime example of Trump’s popularity there. As the Wall Street Journal reported, “In working-class Luzerne County, PA… [Trump] turned a 5-point Democratic lead from 2012 into a 13-point GOP advantage.”
In addition to Pennsylvania and North Carolina, Trump also won Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio, plus four other traditionally Republican-leaning states that contain Appalachian counties: South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi.   http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/how-dems-lost-the-white-working-class/article/2607257  (1 of 2)
Tuesday  15 November 2016   / Hour 3, Block B:  Dr Lara M Brown, George Washington University, & Salena Zito, New York Post & CNN (2 of 2)
Tuesday  15 November 2016   / Hour 3, Block C:  Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack, in re:
Tuesday  15 November 2016   / Hour 3, Block D:  Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack, in re:
 
Hour Four
Tuesday  15 November 2016   / Hour 4, Block A:  John Bolton, AEI, in re: 
 The Times (of London)
The new order is our chance to keep up in fast-changing world.
Now is the time to reform unwieldy international bodies.  By John Bolton.  November 15, 2016
In the closing days of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, crowds at his rallies frequently broke into chants of “Drain the swamp!” The swamp in question was Washington, which Trump voters generally saw as interested only in preserving its own comfortable status. “Swamp” was a particularly insightful characterisation, recalling the 19th century when European diplomats considered Washington a hardship post because of its hot, humid summer weather, and the miasmas emanating from the swamplands along the Potomac. By analogy to British politics centuries ago, Mr Trump’s coalition reflected the “country party” against the “court party” in Washington.
There is also considerable swampy territory abroad, where international organisations sometimes act as if they are governments rather than associations of governments and sprout bureaucracies with pretensions beyond those of cosseted elites in national capitals. These international swamplands have thrived under the Obama administration, but their days may now be numbered.
International bodies take many different forms, and it serves no analytical purpose to treat them interchangeably. Nato, for example, is not equivalent to the United Nations. Neither is equivalent to the European Union. Each has different objectives, and different implications for constitutional and democratic sovereignty. For a century, the sovereignty issue has been central in US foreign-policy debates. Starting with the Senate’s 1919 rejection of the treaty of Versailles, to the 1999 defeat of the comprehensive test ban treaty, to America’s 2002 unsigning the treaty creating the International Criminal Court, preserving American sovereignty has been an important principle.
Similarly, the Brexit referendum was, above all else, a reassertion of British sovereignty, a declaration of independence from would-be rulers who, while geographically close, were remote from the peasantry they sought to rule. The peasants have now spoken. Unable to drain the Brussels swamps alone, Britain walked away, which the US has itself done on occasion, withdrawing from Unesco under Ronald Reagan (joined by Margaret Thatcher’s Britain). The Brexit decision was deplored by British and American elites alike, but not by most US conservatives, and definitely not by Donald Trump.
It does not surprise Americans that British elites have not reconciled themselves to losing: their counterparts in America are equally appalled that somehow mere voters rejected the heir apparent to the presidency, and many are now in the streets protesting. They would all be better advised to heed Alexander Hamilton’s comment about the House of Representatives during New York’s ratification debate over the constitution, “Here, sir, the people govern.”
Indeed, ultimately the people do govern. In America, popular sovereignty is embodied in the constitution’s first three words: “We the people.” By endorsing Brexit, British voters have put the bilateral US-UK relationship at the top of Washington’s agenda after Inauguration Day.
Although the transition is still young, Mr Trump has always had a decidedly different view of Brexit from Mr Obama, who contemptuously warned Britain that it would go “to the back of the queue” in trade negotiations if Leave prevailed.
Now, with some imagination and resolve, London and Washington can fashion a new economic relationship, perhaps involving Canada, with the potential for significant economic growth. Let the EU wallow in strangling economic regulation, and the euro albatross that Britain wisely never joined.
Unravelling Britain’s EU bonds will doubtless be difficult and perilous, especially if EU political theologians prevail over commonsense businesspeople. Rewriting trade rules with the United States will also be complex, but the potential economic upside for both countries is enormous.
This is a unique opportunity, and why a successful trade deal should be at the front of the diplomatic queue for both governments.
Nato received considerable attention during the presidential election as Mr Trump criticised member governments whose defence budgets were inadequate. His concern for European under-spending on national security was no different from what US officials, on a bipartisan basis, have lamented for decades. Importantly, Mr Trump has made it clear that his intent is to strengthen Nato, which has been floundering in the post-Cold War era, with its objectives in doubt and its decision-making increasingly sclerotic.
Nato is America’s kind of international partnership: a classic politico-military alliance of nation states. It has never purported to assume sovereign functions, and is as distant as is imaginable from the EU paradigm.
Looking forward we should urgently consider the proposal by José Maria Aznar, the former Spanish prime minister, to make Nato a global alliance. Mr Aznar has suggested admitting new members such as Japan, Australia, Singapore, and Israel, a dramatic departure from Nato’s original transatlantic focus, but which recognises new global realities. Much depends on whether Europe’s Nato members still have a global perspective, or whether they are content for Europe to be simply an appendage to the Asian land mass.
Then there is the sprawling United Nations system, which provides the most dramatic opportunity for change in international organisations. Proposals to reform the UN and its affiliated bodies such as the World Bank and the IMF are almost endless. The real question is whether serious, sweeping reform of these organisations (which make Nato decision-making processes look like the speed of light) is ever possible.
We have not lacked for daring ideas in this field. In 1998, during the Asian financial crisis, the former secretaries of the Treasury William Simon and George Shultz, and Walter Wriston, a former chairman of Citibank, wrote in The Wall Street Journal: “The IMF is ineffective, unnecessary, and obsolete. We do not need another IMF, as Mr [George] Soros recommends. Once the Asian crisis is over, we should abolish the one we have.”
They were willing to think creatively about what new circumstances required, including discarding international organisations no longer fit for purpose.
Twenty years on, we still need such creativity, not just regarding the IMF but the World Bank and the regional development banks. We should consider privatising all the development banks, with the possible exception of the one for Africa. There is no lack of investment capital globally, and private capital flows now easily eclipse concessional flows, with the gap growing steadily larger. We should ask why US taxpayers are compelled to provide subsidised interest rates for loans by international development banks that benefit foreign competitors. As US domestic budgets decline over the next several years to reduce the budget deficit and begin whittling away at our enormous national debt, these international expenditures will receive exacting scrutiny.
The United Nations and its vast array of programmes and specialised agencies are ripe for reform. Much of what has marginalised the UN for decades is inherent in the international political system. National interests continue to dominate in UN decision-making and that will never change.
At best, the UN’s chief political bodies, especially the security council, will reflect the larger world. At worst, which is unfortunately all too often, the peculiar cultures of UN enclaves such as Geneva and Turtle Bay in New York make UN deliberations more otherworldly and irrelevant than most outsiders can imagine.
The one reform that might make a difference is financial. Most UN agencies are funded by “assessed” (meaning mandatory) contributions; agency budgets are decided and then each government pays a percentage of the total determined by arcane calculations and intense private bargaining. The assessed-contribution mode is especially grievous for the United States, whose assessment rate is generally 22 per cent of regular budgets, and 25 per cent for UN peacekeeping (under a US statutory cap; it would otherwise be over 28 per cent). Britain’s regular budget share is 4.46 per cent, and 5.8 per cent for peacekeeping.
As with all entitlement programmes, UN agencies funded by assessed contributions underperform, often in dramatic ways. By contrast, agencies funded by voluntary contributions often function far more effectively. Unicef, the World Food Programme and others have tended to be more agile and productive, largely because they understand that failure to perform will motivate funders to direct their money elsewhere.
Voluntary funding is what the UN needs across the board. We should shift all UN agencies from assessed to voluntary contributions as rapidly as possible. This will be exceedingly difficult diplomatically, given the inevitable wailing and gnashing of teeth from UN bureaucracies, and even from member governments.
A European diplomat once told me that his country could not be allowed to decide for itself its level of contributions, but had to be told. That is not a winning argument in America.
So much to do and so little time to do it. Revolutionary moments in international affairs occur but rarely, and many potential eras of sweeping change never materialise because of the timidity of political leaderships.
Neither Britain nor America seems in a timid mood today. Let’s hope we can deliver.
John Bolton served as the US representative to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006. He supported Donald Trump’s bid for the presidency    Click here to read this article online
Tuesday  15 November 2016   / Hour 4, Block B:  Michael Ledeen, FDD, in re:  So You Say You Want a Revolution? A Working Class Revolution? @Michael Ledeen.  “…America is the most revolutionary country in the world precisely because of our tradition of rejecting big-state ‘solutions,’ and the ideas and doctrines that the big-state elites advocate.  The election of Donald Trump shows American revolutionary patriotism at work.  He won in the face of overwhelming opposition from the ‘establishment,’ from the political parties to the government bureaucracy (there are still stories of ‘massive resignations’ in the State Department, for example), from big media, big business, self-proclaimed policy experts, Silicon Valley tycoons, and most political pundits….
A Working Class Revolution?   Revolutions invariably mobilize people who had been politically apathetic, and the Trump revolution is no exception.  He received decisive support from workers who had either defaulted to their unions or stayed at home on election day.  They are now politically engaged.  Are we seeing a working-class revolution?  If so, it is not the sort of class conflict the Marxists imagined.  Instead it bespeaks a revolutionary revival against an establishment viewed as selfish, unpatriotic, and, via political correctness, anti-American.   As Joel Kotkin put it, “Trump’s America…does not see the United States as part of a global system to be managed.”
Trump understood this. The establishment didn’t.  http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelledeen/2016/11/11/another-american-revolution/#66b4c18177a1
The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War against Radical Islam and Its Allies  Jul 12, 2016, by Michael T. Flynn and Michael Ledeen
https://www.amazon.com/Field-Fight-Global-Against-Radical/dp/1250106222
Tuesday  15 November 2016   / Hour 4, Block C:  Josh Rogin, Washington Post, in re:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/house-oks-bills-crack-syria-renew-iran-sanctions-43560379
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2016/11/15/giuliani-was-paid-advocate-for-shady-iranian-dissident-group/
Giuliani was a paid advocate for shady Iranian dissident group   Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani is reported to be in contention to be Donald Trump’s attorney general or secretary of state. Senators who will be considering his confirmation may want to examine the fact that Giuliani took money to advocate on behalf of an Iranian dissident group while it was listed by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization, potentially breaking the law
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2016/11/14/flournoy-to-trump-let-women-serve-in-combat-roles/
Flournoy to Trump: Let women serve in combat roles, bJosh Rogin
Tuesday  15 November 2016   / Hour 4, Block D:   Paul Gregory, Hoover, in re:  Trump has a clear mandate for domestic policy. His views on international affairs are in the process of being formed. His most immediate challenge will be dealing with Vladimir Putin. If he understands what makes Putin tick, we, NATO, Ukraine and other regions threatened by Russia will be OK. He must resist the advice of the many “experts” in the west who peddle the Russian line that we are to blame for everything that is wrong in our relations. The hysterical reaction of some that Trump will be Putin’s puppet will prove as wrong as Tuesday evening’s polls. If not, Trump loses the right to call himself a master of the art of the deal.  http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2016/11/13/an-unbeholden-president-trump-takes-the-measure-of-vladimir-putin/3/#22d13dad58d9
 
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