The John Batchelor Show

Tuesday 17 December 2019

Air Date: 
December 17, 2019

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
 
Hour One
Tuesday 17  December 2019 / Hour 1, Block A:  Elizabeth Peek, TheHill and Fox News; in re:   Manufacturing and Housing rebound with the soaring markets and polling approval. @Liz Peek
Tuesday 17  December 2019 / Hour 1, Block B:   Elizabeth Peek, TheHill and Fox News; in re: Impeachment strengthens Trump's polls. @Liz Peek
Tuesday 17  December 2019 / Hour 1, Block C:   Bill Whelan, Area 45 blog at Hoover Institution, in re:  @Hooverwhalen;  Joe Biden at center stage as Bernie surges. @Hooverwhalen @HooverInst
https://www.forbes.com/sites/billwhalen/2019/12/15/what-if-the-democrats-held-a-debate-and-no-one-attended-california-may-soon-find-out/#48d04e05461e
Tuesday 17  December 2019 / Hour 1, Block D:   Joe Pappalardo, Popular Mechanics, & author, Spaceport Earth, in re:  With the SpaceX Decade behind, what will dominate the third decade of the century? 
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a29576180/us-nuke-theft/
SpaceX. After all is said and done, you need money to fly; decrease the cost per pound, and everyone will notice. “The SpaceX Effect”  has disrupted the field—and that’s just the Falcon, not even the rest of the innovations. SpaceX has changed the way humans deal with space flight.  On 4 June 2010, Falcon 9 launched:  the “experts” rolled their eyes with the mantra, “Costs always have to go up” – but with Falcon, that stopped.
Richard Branson (a disappointment); Jeff Bezos, still testing.  Tory Bruno* is putting the firm on a financially sound footing; an unparalleled record for reliability, and new hardware in response to market pressures. 
Feb 2018, next-gen Falcon.   . . .  Somewhere, Robert Heinlein is smiling. . . .  The future: more companies are being founded than there are missions to fly or markets to serve.  A new moonshot would open up lunar landings.  There’s a lot of domestic and intl competition to SpaceX. 
* Tory Bruno is an American aerospace engineer, rocket scientist and executive. He’s been the CEO of United Launch Alliance since August 2014.
 
Hour Two
Tuesday 17  December 2019 / Hour 2, Block A:  Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; American Committee for East-West Accord; author: War with Russia?; Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, & The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag after Stalin;  in re: Spectral crime, a residuum of the Salem witch trials, is suddenly resuscitated and now being used against President Trump.
Tuesday 17  December 2019 / Hour 2, Block B:  Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; American Committee for East-West Accord; author: War with Russia?; Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, & The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag after Stalin;  in re:  Okhrana, become the NKVD.  Russian security organizations, esp Stalin’s terrifying crews.. . . Jennifer Rubin of Washington Post: “It’s time to call out and remove” people, especially reporters, who decline to believe the Russiagate narrative.  [Good grief—this is a former, now-putative journalist calling for the destruction of the Second Amendment.—ed.] . . .  Yeltsin’s being replaced not by another Yeltsin but by Putin was disillusioning to Nicholas Kristov, who dreamt of a Russian leader who’d turn Russia into a junior partner to the US.  Fiona Hil an advisor to the National Security Council, is among the panoply of Russia experts who hate, loath, detest Russia.
Sinologists like Chinese culture, including the food, whereas Sovietologists dislike Russia.
Tuesday 17  December 2019 / Hour 2, Block C:  Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; American Committee for East-West Accord; author: War with Russia?; Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, & The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag after Stalin;  in re:  [more]
Tuesday 17  December 2019 / Hour 2, Block D:  Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; American Committee for East-West Accord; author: War with Russia?; Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, & The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag after Stalin; in re:  Every Russian paper I read says that Putin is not pleased see the riven US, the massive discord here. To [revive] Russia, they’ve saved $400 billion, decided to spend on a new modernization leap, to become Putin’s legacy.  Supposed to be undertaken through “modernizing partnerships” with the West, so he doesn't want chaos among his possible partners.  Pres Macron of France seems to understand this, called for a “complete rethinking” of Western relations with Russia. This’ll be a hell of a fight.
 
Hour Three
Tuesday 17  December 2019 / Hour 3, Block A:  Svetlana Lukhova, @RealSLokhova; author, The Spy Who Changed History: The Untold Story of How the Soviet Union Won the Race for America's Top Secrets; in re: How Svetlana was, amazingly, smeared by academics.  Halper.  Jan 25, 207, I was at home with my newborn daughter, suddenly got calls form journos, referring inter al. to a piece by Christopher Andrew. I read it in horror; it was filled with [overt lies], referring above all to an earlier dinner with a handful of guests and Richard Dearlove as host. When finally I was able to speak with Christopher Andrew, which he’d held off, he said he’d written a set of hideous lies because he was “under pressure to do so.”    Then I heard from reporters from major publications, and eventually got a hysterical call from Prof Kent, who said the WSJ had asserted that I’d had an affair with Gen Flynn.  . . . 
Tuesday 17  December 2019 / Hour 3, Block B: Svetlana Lukhova, @RealSLokhova; author, The Spy Who Changed History: The Untold Story of How the Soviet Union Won the Race for America's Top Secrets; in re: скандал 2
Tuesday 17  December 2019 / Hour 3, Block C: Svetlana Lukhova, @RealSLokhova; author, The Spy Who Changed History: The Untold Story of How the Soviet Union Won the Race for America's Top Secrets; in re: скандал 3
Tuesday 17  December 2019 / Hour 3, Block D: Svetlana Lukhova, @RealSLokhova; author, The Spy Who Changed History: The Untold Story of How the Soviet Union Won the Race for America's Top Secrets; in re: скандал 4
 
Hour Four
Tuesday 17  December 2019 / Hour 4, Block A:  Robert Zimmerman,  BehindtheBlack.com, in re:  The Long March 5, China’s key component for its entire manned program. First launched in November 2016.  . . . China is promoting into upper echelons of their government the successful space-program managers— “A Confucian concept,” but replacing the enormous examinations of yesteryear with practical current experience. (1 of 2)
Tuesday 17  December 2019 / Hour 4, Block B:  Robert Zimmerman,  BehindtheBlack.com, in re:  SpaceX (2 of 2)
Tuesday 17  December 2019 / Hour 4, Block C:  Richard Epstein, Chicago Law, NYU Law, Hoover Institution; in re:  Impeachment (1 of 2)
Tuesday 17  December 2019 / Hour 4, Block D:  Richard Epstein, Chicago Law, NYU Law, Hoover Institution; in re:  Impeachment (2 of 2)
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