Photo: In the exceptionally beautiful city of Vladivostok, in the Russian Far East, all churches were closed under the Soviet Union. Today, church life is again beginning to flourish. See: Hour 2, Block A:  Stephen F. Cohen, referring to Jon Huntsman.
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Larry Kudlow, Director of the National Economic Council under US Pres Donald Trump.
 
Hour One
Tuesday 24 April 2018/ Hour 1, Block A:. Veronique de Rugy, Mercatus Center; in re: Trade & tariffs: deficits are never a problem; may be a symptom of a problem, but in and of themselves are not. The money we send to China for imports always comes back in the form of payments for goods or in buying Treasurys.  . . . The more we spend, the more we need to borrow money.  The surest way to reduce trade deficit is either for Americans to become big savers or for the government to reduce its dependence on borrowing The problem is that both republicans and Democrats overspend, and GOP also wants to cut taxes. As long as we have this behavior on the domestic stage we should be grateful that foreigners are willing to buy our debt.   Another way to reduce the trade deficit is to have a recession – we’ll be poor and not be able to buy much.
Tuesday 24 April 2018/ Hour 1, Block B: Scot J. Paltrow, Reuters; in re: . . . Plutonium; as warheads are retired, more and more Pn?  Not exactly; treaty on the number of warheads each side may have – more dangerous weapons but fewer.   In the Cold War, we had _______ ,000 warheads. What’s to be done with all that?
Tuesday 24 April 2018/ Hour 1, Block C: [Larry Kudlow attended a state dinner tonight and sends his regrets]  Steve Moore, Heritage, & Committee to Unleash Prosperity; in re: NAFTA & TPP.  Americans take long trips to Canada to buy personal pharmaceuticals en masse;  Canada’s govt requires prices to be lower.  . . .  A US TPP with Singapore, Taiwan, and other Asian nations would tend to isolate China, which, considering ways in which Beijing is a bad actor, would be a good thing.   . . .  Mexico is about to elect a socialist? Yike, that’d redound very badly to the US and constitute a grave security problem.  Sr Lopez Obrador.   If Nancy Pelosi takes over the House?  That’d be very bad for NAFTA, whose favorable votes in the early Nineties came from the GOP.
Tuesday 24 April 2018/ Hour 1, Block D:   Naomi Lopez Bauman, in re:  Medicaid.  The formula for fed dollars going to states is most generous – picks up almost all the costs: state can put in $1 and get $9 back.   Medicaid spending is unchecked; oceans of money going there that otherwise could go to transportation and other useful project. Ticking time bomb; the day of reckoning is coming.   We ought to have able-bodied, working-age adults do at least some work, e.g.,  twenty hours a week in community service of some sort.  The majority of he extension population does work; but the others would be required to engage – we know that the longer a person stays on Medicaid, the less likely he is to become independent.  A poverty trap.  Disincentive to work more; sometimes, to work at all. 
 
Hour Two
Tuesday 24 April 2018/ Hour 2, Block A:  Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; American Committee for East-West Accord; author: Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, & The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag after Stalin;  in re:   Vladivostok; Jon Hunstman, US Am to Russian Federation, in a speech said: “My president has said repeatedly that he wants a better relationship with PM Putin.”
 Nikki Haley was told to take a somewhat different tack (“New round of sanctions”). Rusal.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, long jailed for what was said to be  financial chicanery, wrote for WSJ editorial page: The real problem is not the Russian people but 100 Russians, mostly from the St Petersburg criminal underworld – a band of criminals driving he new cold war. Their goal is not to strengthen Russia but to steal money and maintain their hold on power with a worldwide net.
Huntsman had to go as far as you can go from DC. The Khordorkovsky statements are absurd: Putin ended the maffiyah state, criminal plundering, when he came to power. We that true, Khodorkovsky was probably number one among them in the Nineties. What strikes me is how different this is from what appeared in mainstream politics in the Seventies and Eighties Communist Russia was loathed primarily for ideological reasons, but there was no suggestion that tis was a criminal states, which implies we should have nothing to do with it. We learned lessons in the last cold war to avoid the perils of a nuclear war. The demonization of Russia began over a decade ago when it focused on Putin.  The DNC has filed a lawsuit – frivolous nonsense – that criminalizes Russia as a state:   suing Russia and he Trump campaign for having cost Hillary Clinton the presidential election.  An SNL skit.  The mantra has become: Russia has attacked America. The BDNC ups that and calls it an “action of unprecedented treachery” — superseding Pearl Harbor and 9/11. 
Tuesday 24 April 2018/ Hour 2, Block B:  Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; American Committee for East-West Accord; author: Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, & The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag after Stalin;  in re: Why/when/how the necessity of “peaceful coexistence”? Existential reasons to coexist under the nuclear cloud.  Avoid walking on the razor’s edge — gave rise to détente, nuke arms controls, citizens’s exchanges.   These have been lost.   . . . Dmitri Soames: experts on military relations w Russia. Asked; Where wd you rank relations w Russia today, with 10 being an absolute certainty. The average response was between 5 and  7!
Tuesday 24 April 2018/ Hour 2, Block C:  Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; American Committee for East-West Accord; author: Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, & The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag after Stalin;  in re:   . . . Russia has an excellent intelligence service for tracking terrorists, Recall that they warned us about the Tsarnaev brothers, who blew up the Boston marathon, but we ignored them.  It's the largest country in the word by landmass; has a disproportionate share of minerals, timber, fresh water.   . . .   A close colleague of Putin’s published an article: For 400 years, Russia has tried to become part of the West and failed because the West rejected it – not because of anything Russia has done, but because history demonstrates that the West doesn't regard Russia as a fitting member of the intl community; therefore, it's time for Russia to turn its back on the West. Put its political, financial, trade strength to the East. Now it has good relations with China, India, Iran, the BRICS [, Turkey, Iraq, Egypt, Israel, Cyprus, and many African and South American nations]. 
In fact, it's not Russia that’s isolated – but increasingly it’s the US.
Tuesday 24 April 2018/ Hour 2, Block D:  Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; American Committee for East-West Accord; author: Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, & The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag after Stalin; in re: After the fall of he USSR, Russia fell into disrepair, incl militarily However, what it can now do very, very long range is sophisticated. Began rebldg in 2002 when the US left the anti-missile treaty.
’Twas Russia that destroyed ISIS in Syria (btw, not the US).  If Putin is to be believed, a previous mil budget caused Russia to leap forward in military capacity If anyone needs to catch up now, it's the US. Fourth, a more positive reason: Russia has demonstrated a very needed capacity to arbitrate and resolve intl conflicts. That’d be a good place to cooperate.
Consider Afghanistan, North Korea (Moscow has played a larger role behind the scenes than we know).  Israel has noticed this, so Netanyahu and Putin have developed a good relationship.   Does Israel’s media criminalize Russia? Zero. Incidentally, the foreign minister speaks Russian, as do about a million Israelis. 
 
Hour Three
Tuesday 24 April 2018/ Hour 3, Block A:  Henry Sokolski, director, Nonproliferation Policy Center; in re:  Saudis want nuclear energy-producing technology and, if Iran gets the bomb, will feel obliged to do the same.  [Note: Iran bought nuclear explosive materials long ago from the new republics of the disintegrated USSR; and Saudis have bombs in storage in Pakistan.]  . . .
Tuesday 24 April 2018/ Hour 3, Block B:  Henry Sokolski, director, Nonproliferation Policy Center; in re:  . . .
Tuesday 24 April 2018/ Hour 3, Block C:   Josh Rogin, Washington Post, in re: Mira Ricardel, John Bolton’s right-hand aide.  Immediately on his arrival at the NSC, he cleared the decks; finally, the first person he’s brought in is Mira Ricardel.  Needs to find people who agree with him, understand how to work in this environment, and also please the Trump team. (Was once blocked by Jim Mattis.)  She has the skills to run the process. Historically, she’s a Russia hawk – but essentially a technocrat. Doesn't suffer fools. Will help make the NSC the center of foreign policy-making. . . . Adm Harry Harris [of Japanese ancestry] was cast to go to Canberra as US amb to Australia (a strong sign to China), but Pompeo wants him to go to Seoul.  Problem that Pompeo hasn't been confirmed yet.  . . . Mother was Japanese, father was [Anglo]; he’s been in the military for forty years. The Chinese Communist Party long disparaged him most unpleasantly with racial slurs; the Trump Adm demanded that it back off, which it now has done. 
Tuesday 24 April 2018/ Hour 3, Block D: Josh Rogin, Washington Post, in re: Recent column on why it's a struggle for the Trump Adm to find foreign policy hands who can [manage to pass through] multiple Washington gauntlets. 
 
Hour Four
Tuesday 24 April 2018/ Hour 4, Block A:  The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783-1789, by Edward J. Larson
Tuesday 24 April 2018/ Hour 4, Block B:  The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783-1789, by Edward J. Larson
Tuesday 24 April 2018/ Hour 4, Block C:  Revolution Song: A Story of American Freedom,  by Russell Shorto
Tuesday 24 April 2018/ Hour 4, Block D:  Revolution Song: A Story of American Freedom,  by Russell Shorto
 
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