The John Batchelor Show

Tuesday 3 October 2017

Air Date: 
October 03, 2017

Photo:
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Larry Kudlow, The Kudlow Report, CNBC; and Cumulus Media radio
 
Hour One
Tuesday  3 October 2017 / Hour 1, Block A:  Veronique de Rugy, Mercatus Center, in re: Tax cuts. 
Tuesday  3 October 2017 / Hour 1, Block B: Veronique de Rugy, Mercatus Center, in re: Tax cuts.
Tuesday  3 October 2017 / Hour 1, Block C:  Gary Libecap,  Hoover,  in re: Cap and trade.   The "leakage" of cap-and-trade California. @larry_kudlow Gary Libecap @hooverinst
https://audioboom.com/posts/6360595-the-leakage-of-cap-and-trade-califor...
Tuesday  3 October 2017 / Hour 1, Block D:  Larry Kudlow, in re: Taxes.
 
Hour Two
Tuesday  3 October 2017 / Hour 2, Block A:  Odd Arne Westad, History of the Cold War  (1 of 4)
Tuesday  3 October 2017 / Hour 2, Block B:  Odd Arne Westad, History of the Cold War  (2 of 4)
Tuesday  3 October 2017 / Hour 2, Block C:  Mary Anastasia O’Grady, Americas Editor, and WSJ editorial board, in re:  The reason emergency supplies from FEMA and elsewhere couldn’t be distributed was that the island had almost no diesel fuel left to run trucks.  The head of FEMA – Federal Emergency Management Agency -  there, has been paid 52 weeks a year, yet the island government had no plan to see that fuels, water, and the panoply of essential supplies were able to be distributed in a crisis.
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WSJ:  Amid the chaos, Alejandro de la Campa, the local head of FEMA, tried to explain away the agency’s responsibility. “We have no control over diesel in Puerto Rico,” he said. “We have contracts with certain companies that are giving us service.”
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Hurricane Katrina taught the Federal Emergency Management Agency some harsh lessons in 2005. FEMA used what it learned to prepare and respond better when Harvey and Irma hit the U.S. mainland earlier this year. Now Maria has taken the bureaucrats back to school in Puerto Rico, and they’re not getting passing grades. 
Ahead of the Category 4 storm that hit with 155 mile-an-hour winds on Sept. 20, the FEMA team in Puerto Rico said it was ready. But a week later much of the island was still in dire need of food, water and fuel—the basics of humanitarian relief. 
The most immediate needs centered on the sick and elderly. About 97% of the island lost electricity in the storm. Diesel-run generators were supposed to fill the void in hospitals and dialysis centers and provide refrigeration for medicines like insulin. But the diesel fuel did not arrive, and by midweek family members began to panic. Tearful Puerto Ricans begged for help. 
FEMA will no doubt learn again from Maria. But so too should the rest of us, about the folly of relying on government to deal with a disaster even as predictable as the aftermath of a hurricane.
The only thing more certain than Maria’s devastation has been the rush to politicize it. As video of waist-deep water, washed out highways, splintered roofs, and uprooted trees scattered across the island hit American living rooms, Donald Trump’s adversaries and their media cheerleaders painted the president a heartless Anglo snob.
Yet the failures in Puerto Rico have not been due to a lack of federal attention. Rather the local FEMA team failed to execute fundamental aspects of emergency operations. Whether that’s because it was overwhelmed by the widespread devastation or because of bureaucratic incompetence can be debated. But efforts to chalk up the crisis to mainlander disregard for life are dishonest. 
Mr. Trump’s big mistake has been his handling of the Jones Act, which mandates that shipping from the mainland to the island use only American-built-and-crewed vessels. First he said he would not suspend it as he did for Texas after Harvey and Florida after Irma. “A lot of people . . .” 
Tuesday  3 October 2017 / Hour 2, Block D:
Two dozen Americans in the US Embassy in Havana have brain swelling, traumatic brain injury, nausea, dizziness – all with no explanation of how these have occurred. State Dept has now withdrawn 22 workers back Stateside.  Meanwhile, Cuba has an enormous embassy in Washington while the US  has a very modest representation in Havana. Vienna Convention: Responsibility of he host country to protect diplomats stationed there.   Note that North Korea and Iran are active in Cuba; also, there are rogue elements in the Cuban regime who don’t care the Obama-led rapprochement
 
Hour Three
Tuesday  3 October 2017 / Hour 3, Block A:  Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com and Capitalism n Space, in re:
Tuesday  3 October 2017 / Hour 3, Block B:  Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com and Capitalism n Space, in re:
Tuesday  3 October 2017 / Hour 3, Block C:   Tunku Varadarajan, Hoover, in re: Catalonian vote.   Tunku condemns it, EU does not.  If Catalunya were to secede, it couldn’t join EU because Spain obviously would veto that.  Catalonian independence would encourage others, such as Scotland and more, “make the EU a colossal mess.” [You bet. –ed]  EU was set up to diminish Euro tribalism, discourage fighting among themselves.  Catalonia is part of a global movement.   And there’s no court to go to here. What will solve this? Money. Catalonians want to keep more of their own money, of which Madrid keeps a disproportionate amount.
Tuesday  3 October 2017 / Hour 3, Block D: Lara M Brown, George Washington University, in re: Bipartisanship
 
Hour Four
Tuesday  3 October 2017 / Hour 4, Block A:  Fredrik Logevall, Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam  
Tuesday  3 October 2017 / Hour 4, Block B:  Fredrik Logevall, Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam  
Tuesday  3 October 2017 / Hour 4, Block C:  David Reynolds Ph.D., The Long Shadow: The Legacies of the Great War in the Twentieth Century
Tuesday  3 October 2017 / Hour 4, Block D: David Reynolds Ph.D., The Long Shadow: The Legacies of the Great War in the Twentieth Century