Photo, left: Wonderful a capella singing of a famous Russian anti-war folk song ('Not for Me") (Video) by Babkini Vnuki
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Larry Kudlow, CNBC senior vizier, and Cumulus Media radio
 
Hour One
Tuesday 29 September 2015 / Hour 1, Block A: James Pethokoukis, AEI, in re: The businessman from New York has just presented a tax plan consistent with  supply-side. China is 25% corporate tax rate; if we take the US to 15%, money will come in from all over the world.  Liberals scream about this kind of numbers but never about the numbers of what we spend.  Jimmy P: "Looking at the Trump Plan." I don't want to be insulted as an American voter: he puts forth a plan, that any way you look at it would lose over $1 trillion per year!  Other, GOP tax plans actually produce more economic growth and would not lose $1 trillion a year.  (Bernie Sanders's plan would lose $1.8 trillion PA and a 90% income-tax hike.)  Six per cent growth? That's magical thinking. 
https://www.aei.org/publication/we-can-now-quantify-the-tremendous-awesomeness-of-the-trump-tax-plan/ ; https://www.aei.org/publication/red-ink-alert-so-donald-trump-wants-to-slash-taxes-and-leave-medicare-alone/
Tuesday 29 September 2015 / Hour 1, Block B:  James Pethokoukis, AEI, in re: Larry Kudlow is a dove on Fed rates.  JP: We could be back at 2 for Q3; [fluctuations] but this is a 2% economy. I think that sold be the number-one issue; how to make this not a 2% economy – the world looks different in fifty years if it's even 3%. . . . The role of  the central bank is to keep currency stable. In Treasurys - five-year expectations are 1%; fallen 70 bps. If there's no inflation, it's not time to tighten.  . . . The actual profits rate does not too great right now. HSBC followed Goldman; when they lower earnings expectations for the biggest companies, that can't be good.  very deep fear that the whole thing is a house of cards. . . .  hope we're not spending the next eight years fighting to maintain the Obama status quo.
Tuesday 29 September 2015 / Hour 1, Block C:  Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post, in re: Ted Cruz, articulate, has been muffled ignored by the GOP. He says he wants to reprise the 2012 situation where he stands to speak, then gets shut down.  This time, they allotted him one hour and shut him down. Only one senator (Utah?) supported him.  Avoiding a shutdown and maybe get a minibargain. Inherent tension 'twixt those who came to Congress to make a point, and those to who came to do the people's business. LK: I think the Congressional leadership has not been clear about its principles or policies.  deeply troubling: the Planned Parenthood catastrophe, and also Iran.  I think this crew will go along to get along make deals.  JR: Disagree: just arithmetic ion Iran. Not enough votes to win, Same with Planned Parenthood. The country doesn't; want a shutdown for Planned Parenthood – by a narrow margin, doesn't even want to cut off funding.  LK: I think there hasn't even been a full-flowered discussion on the Iran deal  Only 51 votes under a resolution – GOP needs to stretch the reconciliation process beyond anything they've done before; much more effective. The Iran deal does have an effect on some appropriations. JB: The shutdown is what worries me in what seems to be a rising Republican tide.  . . .   JR: McConnell took three cloture votes on the Iran deal people exploring other modes.  If you pull a stunt that doesn't work, you lose support. JB: Sen Cruz is also a candidate for the presidency . . . JR:  On one hand, he wants to be an alternative to Trump, but the arithmetic shows you can't win a GOP nomination just by winning [Trump's] sliver of the Party.  . . .  Grass roots fed up with a permanent political class.  LK: Seventy-five to eighty per cent of the American public is opposed to the Iran deal – that's not a partisan number. Has the GOP leadership shown willingness to fight like Hell to stop it?   JR: Nothing else they could do; now they have to win over more Democrats, possibly even to a veto-proof majority. We have more deadlines coming up,. The IAEA report hasn't come back; that'll also offer opportunities. Another House bill: continue sanctions till Americans held hostage in Iran are released, or Iran's bills from 1979 are paid. 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2015/09/29/what-a-gro... ;  https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2015/09/29/gop-figure... ; https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2015/09/29/rand-paul-...
Tuesday 29 September 2015 / Hour 1, Block D:
Pres Obama's foreign policies have been so inept that everything he's touched has turned to stone.
 
Hour Two
 
Tuesday 29 September 2015 / Hour 2, Block A: Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; The Nation.com; author: Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, & The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag after Stalin; in re: Putin at the UN said that he'd fight Da'ish in Syria and Iraq. Laurent Fabius accuses the Russian of all talk, no cattle anent Da'ish.  The private mtg between Obama and Putin dramatizes the failure of two of Obama's foreign policies: 1 The Obama Adm attempt to destroy ISIS by military power [sort of]; generals have testified to the failure. 2. Declared 16 mos ago: the policy of the Obama Adm to "isolate Putin and turn Russia into a pariah state."  Oops.  Putin is the busiest leader on the world stage, .  Perception is that the US needs Russia to fight ISIS since the US has failed. Doesn't mean that Putin's plans have succeeded. New, additional player in the bipartite new cold war:  stimulated by this refugee crisis flowing from the Syrian and Iraqi battlefields, Europe has at least privately switched to Putin's side.  Yesterday, Pres Obama looked unhappy; was tense; had to eat public crow.  WH doesn't want to  work with Putin, but Edmund Burke said [approximately]: Policies are seen to be good or bad according to actual circumstance.
Do you realize what you have done? - Putin gives the war party a ...  Syria state media praise Putin's UN speech - In-Depth-Washington Times
Imperial overreach: How Putin's move into Syria could bring his ...
Monday  28 September 2015 / Hour 2, Block B: Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; The Nation.com; author; in re: "The Yalta system was born in travail . . "  said Pres Putin. Politically, Yalta in hte US and Eastern Europe has become a code-word for the West selling out Eastern Europe to the USSR.  The best that Roosevelt and Churchill thought they could do.  Created a quasi-stable system that gave rise to the Cold War.  Putin was alluding to: "It's time to bring Russia in to the European security system, whereas Yalta at least tried to include Russia." and, "First, they continue their policy of expanding NATO.  What for?  . . Then they offered the poor Soviet countries a bad choice – to be with the West or the East." Clinton said, NATO is there only to bring democracy. Not surprisingly, Russians see it as aggression.  The US started this portion of the push in Georgia, unwisely.   . . .  Putin gave the Russian perspective of what's gone wrong with the world in recent decades; Obama offered the American perspective; directly at odds.  Duelling speeches at the UN.
 
 France 'opens war crimes inquiry against Assad regime' in Syria: UN debate live  To put it diplomatically, Mr Obama and Mr Putin have just never quite "gelled".... Maybe there ... ;  Obama has turned Putin into the world's most powerful leader - New York Post ;  Obama and Putin Play Diplomatic Poker Over Syria
Monday  28 September 2015 / Hour 2, Block C: Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; The Nation.com; author; in re: The US considers that its position is [so highly moral]that it doesn't have to respect another's sovereignty. Began in Serbia, then Iraq, Libya, Ukraine , now wants to overthrow Assad n Syria, Russia: In principle, the US has not right, incl legal, t violet the territorial sovereignty of anther c0untry. And who gave the US the right to decide on  war and peace?  Third: almost everything the US has helped overthrow an established leader, it's so weakened the state that the result has been the basis for terrorism. Russia is not wedded to Assad, but instead is defending the Syrian state, If you bomb Syria to rubble, you'll get what you got in Libya!  If you don't defend the state, it'll be replaced by ISIS.  What does the US want - Assad or ISIS in Damascus?   Obama at the UN: "It's not a conspiracy of the US and NGOs that . . ." – essentially, that territory doesn't matter. If you violate our understanding we'll cross frontiers to set you right.  . . .  The other irony here – and Putin made this point – he digressed midspeech: "You Americans are doing what the USSR did after WWII – invaded countries worldwide on the notion that communism is good for you. We learned that this doesn't work out well." Americans speak of replacing Putin – who or what do they think would replace Putin?
Ukrainian president mocks Putin in front of United Nations Though he did not mention Putin by name, Poroshenko openly mocked the Russian ...  ;  Amid Putin's Moves in Syria, Poroshenko Tries to Divert UN Attention Back to Ukraine ; Poroshenko rails against Putin at UN
Monday  28 September 2015 / Hour 2, Block D: Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; The Nation.com; author; in re: [all of the above and more] . . .  The Russians have an experience the US hasn't: been fighting an indigenous radical terrorist movement for 20 years - captured schools and obliterated children, blew plane out of the air and subway systems.  Think of the Boston bombings: we were warned well in advance about the two brothers by Russian intell and we ignored that – because US intell was told by political authorities that the Russians were merely turning against human rights activists!  With my long history of being involved n this sort of thing, I'm surprised by often we're told by the press that our officials are surprised by what the Russians do. Twenty occasions in 20 years "we were surprised." Why? Many of us knew it was on the Kremlin's table. The people who used to be responsible for the White House not [drifting off like this] was the CIA, with very serious scholars who had classified intelligence to study. They sent out their intelligence estimate.  In the last decade, the surprise says either that those people not longer exist – but they do – or the information is being suppressed before it reached the White House. What's going on in these intell agencies?  It'd be good if some of those people risked their careers and spoke out.  The WH and NSA have to be open to hearing contrary opinions.  The suggestion is that our president does not have that conversation. 
 
Hour Three
Tuesday 29 September 2015 / Hour 3, Block A:  Lara M Brown, GWU, in re: The PEORIA Project | The Graduate School of Political ...  The George Washington University ... Through the PEORIA Project, the public will learn, for the first time, the main channels through which presidential aspirants' . (1 of 2)
Tuesday 29 September 2015 / Hour 3, Block B: Lara M Brown, GWU, in re: The PEORIA Project | The Graduate School of Political ...  The George Washington University ... Through the PEORIA Project, the public will learn, for the first time, the main channels through which presidential aspirants' . (2 of 2)
Tuesday 29 September 2015 / Hour 3, Block C:  Richard A Epstein, Chicago Law, NYU Law, Hoover, in re: Make no mistake about it: The dominant theme of the current presidential campaign—on both sides of the aisle—is economic populism. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have both articulated misguided populist positions meant to appeal to the middle class—as has the bellicose Donald Trump, who is currently the GOP frontrunner. In recent weeks, Trump has turned his energy and attention to attacking our financial elites. Thus he recently said: “I have hedge fund guys that are making a lot of money that aren’t paying anything. They're paying nothing and it’s ridiculous. I want to save the middle class. The hedge fund guys didn't build this country. These are guys that shift paper around and they get lucky.” (1 of 2)
Tuesday 29 September 2015 / Hour 3, Block D: Richard A Epstein, Chicago Law, NYU Law, Hoover, in re: Make no mistake about it: The dominant theme of the current presidential campaign—on both sides of the aisle—is economic populism. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have both articulated misguided populist positions meant to appeal to the middle class—as has the bellicose Donald Trump, who is currently the GOP frontrunner. In recent weeks, Trump has turned his energy and attention to attacking our financial elites. Thus he recently said: “I have hedge fund guys that are making a lot of money that aren’t paying anything. They're paying nothing and it’s ridiculous. I want to save the middle class. The hedge fund guys didn't build this country. These are guys that shift paper around and they get lucky.” (2 of 2)
 
Hour Four
Tuesday 29 September 2015 / Hour 4, Block A: A Most Glorious Ride: The Diaries of Theodore Roosevelt, 1877 1886, by Theodore Roosevelt and Edward P. Kohn (1 of 4) Part 2 of 2
Tuesday 29 September 2015 / Hour 4, Block B: A Most Glorious Ride: The Diaries of Theodore Roosevelt, 1877 1886, by Theodore Roosevelt and Edward P. Kohn (2 of 4) Part 2 of 2
Tuesday 29 September 2015 / Hour 4, Block C: A Most Glorious Ride: The Diaries of Theodore Roosevelt, 1877 1886, by Theodore Roosevelt and Edward P. Kohn (3 of 4) Part 2 of 2
Tuesday 29 September 2015 / Hour 4, Block D: A Most Glorious Ride: The Diaries of Theodore Roosevelt, 1877 1886, by Theodore Roosevelt and Edward P. Kohn (4 of 4) Part 2 of 2
 
..  ..  ..