Photo, left: Danaïde. In Greek mythology, the Daughters of Danaus (Δαναΐδες), also Danaïdes, were the fifty daughters of Danaus. They were to marry the fifty sons of Danaus's twin brother Aegyptus, a mythical king of Egypt. In the most common version of the myth, all but one of them killed their husbands on their wedding night, and are condemned to spend eternity carrying water in a sieve or perforated device. In the classical tradition, they come to represent the futility of a repetitive task that can never be completed.  Here, the futility of the Affordable Care Act, which cannot  succeed; may have unimaginably large amounts of money thrown at it to prop it up, but the structure is unworkable 
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Larry Kudlow, CNBC senior advisor; & Cumulus Media radio
 
Hour One
Tuesday  23 August 2016   / Hour 1, Block A: Veronique de Rugy, Mercatus Center, in re: Has the market already factored in the two tax plans?  Not clear; maybe not. Mrs Clinton’s plan has an exit tax for corporations moving money elsewhere; it doubles down on the horrible worldwide tax system, rather totalitarian.  Don’t we want the money to return it home? Yes: and to do so, have a tax system that is not punishing. Give Trump credit: lower the corp rates so the incentive to leave goes away; also, give them an easy repatriation rate (I think of it as a toll): there $2 trillion offshore; and then lower corp . . .   The Detroit economic speech by Donald Trump. 
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Hillary Clinton presented her economic platform today in Michigan, where she discussed her tax plan for America. The Mercatus Center Senior Research Fellow Veronique de Rugy said the following in response to Clinton's plan:
Hillary Clinton’s plan is nothing new. She wants to tax the rich but fails to acknowledge the damages that her policies could trigger. I am less concerned about rich people working less today as a result of higher taxes than I am about younger Americans steering clear of becoming highly-skilled professionals because it’s just not worth the effort. The economic literature also tells us that high taxes will influence how long people stay in the labor force, especially when you match the tax increases with generous welfare benefits. This is not a recipe for more growth.
In a column for Reason, de Rugy said, regarding Donald Trump's tax plan:
It [Trump's plan] would broaden the base by getting rid of loopholes (such as carried interests) and lowering the tax rates. He promised to work with Congress to move from a 7 bracket tax system to one with the three rates of 33 percent, 25 percent, and 12 percent. We all could use some tax simplification in our lives, as Americans waste massive amounts of time and money complying with the current tax code.
Unfortunately, he would also make the tax code more complex with an unlimited tax deduction for child-care costs. This awful, populist policy would not only be expensive without any chance of growing the economy, but it would also be unfair to low-income parents who don't benefit from tax deductions, to stay-at-home mothers and, of course, to childless Americans.
The best part of the Trump tax plan is probably his proposed reform of the corporate income tax system, which would cut the rate from 35 percent to 15 percent. He would also try to induce American companies to bring income now parked abroad to avoid being double-taxed by offering a 10 percent tax rate on repatriated income.   Click here to read the article.
Tuesday  23 August 2016   / Hour 1, Block B: Veronique de Rugy, Mercatus Center, in re: JB: I like almost everything about the Trump tax plan except the child care.  VdR: The corp part is great, and I like the repatriation, but why not have it come back with a zero tax rate since it's already been taxed when initially going abroad. Only two or three rates – very good; big payoff in economic growth. Assume no recession – unrealistic – the CBO is gloomy, 2 or 3% over years; like Europe; awful.  US has the highest corp tax rate in the developed world. Awful.  As Kevin Hassett of AEI, notes: increase middle-income wages best by slashing the corp tax rate.  The person writing the check may not be the one shouldering the corp tax: a big portion is shifted toward workers in the form of lower wages. We urgently need to explain this.  Repeals the death tax , et al., and no tax prejudice against investment.  ON the personal side, it's an improvement over the status quo. My issue with it is the border adjustment:  it's not quite cronyism., more like protectionism. Best they could come up with – bothers me to hear no cost deductions for input costs abroad.  Also no tax on exports – the free trader in me is bothered.  Almost every country we trade with has a 15% VAT; so US goods and svcs in Mexico have prices raised. When foreign goods come in to the US they get a break.  Kevin Brady says it's not a tariff; he calls it a cash-flow tax.  Tricky to define and a big legislative battle. Worth about a trillion dollars in revenues. 
Tuesday  23 August 2016   / Hour 1, Block C:  Lanhee J. Chen, Hoover and Stanford, via TownHall, in re: Is the Affordable Care Act: Affordable?  Amid much fanfare, the Affordable Care Act—commonly known as Obamacare—was signed into law in 2010. President Obama claimed that the law would both expand coverage to more Americans and lower health care costs.
Here's More Bad News for Obamacare  Obamacare was supposed to save the American economy. Back in 2009, when President . . . Tennessee insurance commissioner: Obamacare exchange 'very near collapse’
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Aetna has pulled out of eleven states; Obanmacare in collapse, today in Tennessee.  The WH had to be able to see that it was setting up a precarious situation. Cd work only with major govtl subsidies. When Congress took some of the subsidies away, had to know.  At best irresponsible, at worst: sinister. Headed toward a single-payer. Larry: NO. They were just dumb as dirt. I interviewed so many of the architects of that goofy plan – this is Ph.D.s running wild with econometric models. The whole selection process was wrong (obviously, youth wouldn’t buy); the subsidy plan was wrong – Congress wouldn't refinance with trillions of dollars; and the great lie is the “it'll cut your premiums”! Egad!  They actually believe this. I’m kinda happy; it's in a death spiral, and it’ll have to be replaced! LHC:  The notion of having younger and healthier to subsidize the older and weaker – this has never worked in the history of Man.  LK: It’s called an adverse selection process – really, just common sense.  No way millennials will pay for what they wholly don't need, so the plan is sinking under.   Only way this will continue is if the Democrats win three houses.   LHC: 85% of the premium increase is an increase in Medicaid – States are sinking financially.  Collapsing exchanges lead to Medicaid as the last resort.   LK: If the Cadillac tax is imposed, a lot of corp employees will be dumped into Medicaid.  Obamacare is a ____. Roughly 20% of New York companies say they're cutting staff because of Obamacare; also will require workers to pay more for Obamacare. JB: We're paying for the failure now because people don’t even get jobs because of the failure. LK: The whole price/premium structure is being raised.  This is the biggest regulatory obstacle to economic health.   LHC: This was either malpractice or else something sinister was going on.  Obama care creates bunch of same plans with stuff someone doesn't need – a young man doesn't need in vitro fertilization. LK: This was all debated in datail and these guys insisted hey had a better mousetrap [as the whole mess sinks into debacle]. The designers have disappeared, including the creep from MIT [Guber?] -  Avik Roy say you can take the exchanges: rip up the old law and yet use exchanges in a free-market plan. LHC: Obamacare required the mkt to be a regulator, too. Instead, open it up to competition.  No reason to crfeate a monopoly. Tennessee governor: We're not alone; under the ACA, people being covered were a lot more expensive to cover than the govt or insurers thought they’d be.
 
 
Chen: Affordable Care Act: Affordable?  Amid much fanfare, the Affordable Care Act—more commonly known as Obamacare—was signed into law in 2010. President Obama claimed that the law would both expand coverage to more Americans and lower health care costs.
More Americans have health insurance today, but with that has come more government spending and greater federal intrusion into our health care system.
So how about the law’s other goal of lowering costs?  It’s come nowhere close to hitting the target.
The president promised that Obamacare would lower health insurance premiums for a family of four by an average of $2,500 per year.
But each year since the law’s implementation, premiums on Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges have increased.  In fact, many Americans who get their coverage on the exchanges will see double-digit percentage increases in their premiums next year.  And premiums on the individual market will increase an average of almost 23 percent in 2017.
It’s no wonder, then, that Obamacare’s sceptics keep fighting to repeal the law and replace it with market-oriented reforms.
As well they should.
Insurance Startup Oscar Quits Two Markets, Rethinks Obamacare Plans
As predicted/planned . . .http://www.tennessean.com/story/money/industries/health-care/2016/08/23/insurers-get-approval-for-2017-obamacare-rates/89196762/
Tuesday  23 August 2016   / Hour 1, Block D: Larry Kudlow, CNBC senior advisor & Cumulus Media radio; in re: Esther George, Ks City Fed head, and others:  Fed-Up wants an income-equality Fed look like when you’re sitting at zero?  No idea? It's a left-wing group; I guess they want identity politics in the Fed’s Board members; want labor union members to sit on boards, which is OK, but shareholders not happy. Also want the Fed to prop up ailing industries (they're doing in Europe allegedly to save jobs, but there’ll be job losses); and e.g. buy up car companies (God help us). I also want major change at the Fed: clear monetary roles and a stable dollar.   Fed has too many Ph.D.s–in the auld days, members from small banks community banks, business persons, farmers.    At present, there are too many PhDs and they know nothing.   The point of the Fed is to be outside politics! Most of the Fed’s mistakes come from stupidity. These Ivy League Ph.D. economic models are [all wet]. I say, level the place, start over, make it completely free market and have a sound dollar.
How the Federal Reserve can gird for the next crash  For decades, the Federal Reserve was able to counter mild fluctuations in the U.S. economy by fiddling with short-term interest rates. Then the . . . Federal Reserve under growing pressure to reform system, goals
 
 
Hour Two
Tuesday  23 August 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:  In Teheran, said that Russians have withdrawn strategic bombers from Iranian bases – and then today that they have not. In Ukraine: the G20 mtg in China in mid-September:  Petro Poroshenko is not invited. Reintroduction of Minsk II? In East Europe, NATO concerns continue, and Moscow said that if Finland joins NATO we’ll station troops along the Finnish border. Yikes. An 808–mile border with Russia.  Finally, the banning of the Russian para-Olympic team was extremely upsetting. In WaPo: Trump’s new favorite of the Moscow regime, of Putin, so much that it's said that the Russians are meddling by harassing Mrs Clinton’s campaign and perhaps even joining up with Mr Trump’s campaign. SFC: I’ve been speaking of a new cold war for several years; Washington insiders deny it – and I think that’s because they [basically generated it].   . . . Back-up plan is the bilateral security plan with Russia; things are [dangerous].  For me, the most dangerous moment now is Syria. 
Russian meddling in U.S. election is backfiring on Putin and hurting Trump "Having [good relations] with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing,” said Donald Trump, who alarms Americans of Eastern European ancestry for many reasons.
Finland, which has made neutrality the cornerstone of its foreign policy, is negotiating a military cooperation agreement with the United States, Finnish Defense Minister Jussi Niinisto said Aug. 22, Reuters reported. Nordic states are increasingly worried about a more aggressive Russia, and Finland, which shares more than 1,300 kilometers (808 miles) of border with Russia, has considered joining NATO in the past. But that move would anger Russia and possibly spark retaliation. Though there is room for greater cooperation between Finland and NATO, Finland is unlikely formally to join NATO any time soon. In the coming years Finland will be particularly interested in cooperating with its main regional partners in Nordic Europe, especially Sweden.
Russian Officials Slam Rio Paralympics Ban ; Russia Builds Up Army Near Ukrainian Border,
Ukraine notes.   http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-crisis-putin-idUSKCN10U16R?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Reuters%2FworldNews+%28Reuters+World+News%29
BELBEK AIR BASE, CRIMEA/MOSCOW   Vladimir Putin flew into annexed Crimea on Friday a day after staging war games there, and said he hoped Ukraine would see "common sense" when it came to resolving a diplomatic crisis over the peninsula.
Syria notes:   Conflict News  @Conflicts ;  DoD Spox Capt. Davis warns US could shoot down Syrian warplanes if they bomb near U.S. SOF again. - @jamiejmcintyre
See article in The Nation by Adam Johnson on Obama and the Syrian army. It's shocking.
Tuesday  23 August 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: IMF is nowhere near giving Kiev the billions promised. Also, VP Biden, who agrees he’s been in charge of the “Ukrainian project” (“Obama delegated Ukraine to me”) .  Most recent phone call, Biden to Poroshenko: “Ratchet down the tensions with Russia.” I interpret this as the EU’s being fed up with Ukraine and Washington’s being concerned.  You can solve this with negotiations, or else with war. Kiev would prefer war – Donbass could stay in Ukraine with reciprocity in some matters to Russia – but Poroshenko would then be overthrown by his right wing.   See WaPo piece by James Hohmann, The Daily 202: Russian meddling in U.S. election backfiring on Putin, hurting Trump     A Rust Belt backlash by ethnic Eastern Europeans https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/james-hohmann /  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2016/08/2...
Tuesday  23 August 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: Michael McFaul: “RT and Sputnik prefer Trump”??   The total banning of the Russian para-Olympic [replications of a lot of the Olympic games where the athletes are disabled] team: in Russian media 24 a day; deeply aggrieved. Believe that the doping charge was cooked up in the West as part of the new cold war. 
Tuesday  23 August 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: Mrs Clinton has  a very bad record in connections with Russia; she equated Putin with Hitler.  Her husband began NATO expansion, thereby breaking a clear promise to Gorbchov.  NATO could be to some extent de-militarized to avoid a hooting war However, two of the most anti-Soviet US presidents became the best detente-ists: Richard Nixon, with Brezhnev, tried for a major detente. Even more ant-Soviet was Ronald Reagan; but with Gorbachov intended to end the Cold War. Note that the people who turned them around were very close and trusted advisor; no such persons around Mrs Clinton.   . . . Merkel’s Steinmeyer pursuing Willy Brandt’s policy.  Merkel and Hollande want this cold war with Russia in Ukraine to end.  When they look at the bad choices, may say, оба хуже [oba khuzhieh] – both are worst. 
 
Hour Three
Tuesday  23 August 2016   / Hour 3, Block A:  Dr Lara M Brown, George Washington University, & Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune Review,  in re:  What Do the Trump Supporters Want Done? @SalenaZitoTrib. @LaraMBrownPHD.
 “…Two components of these voters’ answers and profiles remain consistent: They are middle-class and they do not live in a big city. They are suburban to rural and are not poor — an element I found fascinating, until a Gallup survey last week confirmed that what I’ve gathered in interviews is more than just freakishly anecdotal.
The Gallup analysis, based on 87,000 interviews over the past year, shows that while economic anxiety and Trump’s appeal are intertwined, his supporters for the most part do not make less than average Americans (not those in New York City or Washington, perhaps, but their Main Street peers) and are less likely to be unemployed.
The study backs up what many of my interviews across the state have found — that these people are more concerned about their children and grandchildren . . . http://nypost.com/2016/08/22/stumped-by-trumps-success-take-a-drive-outside-us-cities/
Jeffrey Lord, a CNN contributor and Trump supporter who lives in Camp Hill, defended his candidate by saying Trump was "loosely speaking about the Harrisburg area."
Lord said Trump’s making comments about a "war zone" was in reference to the city's blight and crime rate. In 2015, according to state crime reporting data, Harrisburg had the state's second-highest murder rate per 100,000 people. However, according to FBI figures, its number of total violent crimes was at its lowest since 2005.
"Clearly all he was doing was looking down at a plane but looking at photos it’s not good," Lord said of Harrisburg's inner city. "Harrisburg has had its problems."
"We know we have problems that we're grappling and dealing with," Davis responded. "But to have someone on a national and international stage disparage the city and its appearance just willy nilly, not even taking time to see what this city is really like, it's disappointing."  (1 of 2) http://fox43.com/2016/08/03/absolutely-inaccurate-harrisburg-responds-to...
Tuesday  23 August 2016   / Hour 3, Block B:  Dr Lara M Brown, George Washington University, & Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune Review (2 of 2)
Tuesday  23 August 2016   / Hour 3, Block C:   Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com, in re:  Stereo-B Resurrection!   “Contact re-established with dead solar satellite
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Good news! After almost two years since contact was lost, NASA has re-established communications with Stereo-B, one of two solar research satellites designed to study the hemisphere of the Sun that does not face the Earth.
NASA re-established contact with a wayward sun-watching science satellite Sunday nearly two years after the spacecraft suddenly dropped off line during a test, the agency said in a statement Monday. NASA’s Deep Space Network, or DSN, “established a lock on the STEREO-B (spacecraft’s) downlink carrier at 6:27 p.m. EDT,” NASA said in a statement. “The downlink signal was monitored by the Mission Operations team over several hours to characterize the attitude of the spacecraft and then transmitter high voltage was powered down to save battery power. “The STEREO Missions Operations team plans further recovery processes to assess observatory health, re-establish attitude control and evaluate all subsystems and instruments.”
This is a big deal. Not only is it a testament to the spacecraft’s good design, it demonstrates the skill of the engineers at NASA who have regained contact.”
http://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/contact-re-established-with-dead-solar-satellite/
    1. SpaceX tests manned Dragon parachutes
    2. SpaceX puts its first recovered 1st stage on display
    3. Astronauts install commercial docking port to ISS
    4. Russian-Boeing settlement in Sea Launch lawsuit?
    5. Russian vaporware: A super-heavy rocket in 5 to 7 years!
    6. More Russian vaporware: a replacement for Progress!
    7. Private vaporware: British company to fly tourist in 3 to 5 years!
    8. Lawsuit against space balloon company and Tucson to proceed
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    1. Beyond Murray Buttes
    2. Martian streaks might not be wet
    3. Contact restored with Stereo-B after 2 years!
    4. Dione's global geology
Tuesday  23 August 2016   / Hour 3, Block D: Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com (2 of 2)
 
Hour Four
Tuesday  23 August 2016   / Hour 4, Block A: James Taranto, Wall Street Journal, in re: @JamesTaranto, @OpinionJournal.  What Happens the Day after Trump?  This column rejects the premise that Trump is certain to lose, although we’ll concede that on current evidence he is likelier than not to do so. But lately another question has been preoccupying us: If Trump does lose, can the Republican Party survive?
Will seemed to think so back in April, when he claimed that if Trump loses big, “Republicans working to purge him and his manner from public life will reap the considerable satisfaction of preserving the identity of their 162-year-old party.” Will himself publicly rejected that identity two months later, telling PJMedia he was no longer a Republican. But anyway our question isn’t about whether the Republican “identity” can survive; it’s whether the party can.
A basic function of a political party is to unify behind a nominee, and the GOP has conspicuously failed to do so this year. In the first debate, in August 2015, the most memorable moment not involving Rosie O’Donnell came when moderator Bret Baier called for a show of hands: “Is there anyone on stage . . . who is unwilling tonight to pledge your support to the eventual nominee of the Republican party and pledge to not run an independent campaign against that person? . . . Raise your hand now if you won’t make that pledge tonight” (emphasis ours).
http://www.wsj.com/articles/if-trump-loses-can-the-gop-survive-1471975306
Tuesday  23 August 2016   / Hour 4, Block B:  Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com (2 of 2)
Tuesday  23 August 2016   / Hour 4, Block C:  Garrett Hellenthal, University College London, in re: DNA Tale of Two Separate Stone-Age Farm Families, Mesopotamia and Europe.   Early Neolithic genomes from the eastern Fertile Crescent       
We sequenced Early Neolithic genomes from the Zagros region of Iran (eastern Fertile Crescent), where some of the earliest evidence for farming is found, and identify a previously uncharacterized population that is neither ancestral to the first European farmers nor has contributed substantially to the ancestry of modern Europeans. These people are estimated to have separated from Early Neolithic farmers in Anatolia some 46,000 to 77,000 years ago and show affinities to modern-day Pakistani and Afghan populations, but particularly to Iranian Zoroastrians. We conclude that multiple, genetically differentiated hunter-gatherer populations adopted farming in southwestern Asia, that components of pre-Neolithic population structure were preserved as farming spread into neighboring regions, and that the Zagros region was the cradle of eastward expansion.    http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6298/499

Farnaz Broushaki1, Mark G. Thomas2, Vivian Link3,4, Saioa López2, Lucy van Dorp2, Karola Kirsanow1, Zuzana Hofmanová1, Yoan Diekmann2, Lara M. Cassidy5, David Díez-del-Molino2,6, Athanasios Kousathanas3,4,7, Christian Sell1, Harry K. Robson8, Rui Martiniano5, Jens Blöcher1, Amelie Scheu1,5, Susanne Kreutzer1, Ruth Bollongino1, Dean Bobo9, Hossein Davoudi10, Olivia Munoz11, Mathias Currat12, Kamyar Abdi13, Fereidoun Biglari14, Oliver E. Craig8, Daniel G. Bradley5, Stephen Shennan15, Krishna R. Veeramah9, Marjan Mashkour16, Daniel Wegmann3,4,*,†, Garrett Hellenthal2,*,†, Joachim Burger1,*,†  
Tuesday  23 August 2016   / Hour 4, Block D:   Garrett Hellenthal, University College London, in re: DNA Tale of Two Separate Stone-Age Farm Families, Mesopotamia and Europe.   Early Neolithic genomes from the eastern Fertile Crescent  (2 of 2)
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