The John Batchelor Show

Wednesday19 August 2020

Air Date: 
August 19, 2020

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Colleague: Gordon Chang, Daily Beast
 
Hour One
Wednesday 19 August 2020 / Hour 1, Block A:  John Catsimatidis @JCats2013, @CatsRoundtable, Cats Roundtable radio, Red Apple Media, et al.; in re: The New York mayor is increasing his cutbacks, now to include not only laying off police, but the diminution of Parks Department staff and 22,000 civil servants to be moved out.  Note: 35,000 employees have recently been hired, to a total of 303,000.   Where are they?
       Washington wonders, Why should we give $10 billion to New York and let it spend it casually? Meanwhile, the streets are unsafe; citizens being terrorized by vagrants and drug addicts.
       The governor could take steps.   News articles about children being threatened by homeless who’ve been moved into hotels in the Upper West Side.  The other day, 26 shots were fired, missed the sidewalk diners.  I asked a lawyer: can we bring federal charges against a mayor who interfered with police duties?  We need to protect the citizens today, this week.
       If I were in this mess and had created it, I’d relinquish control to the governor.  Our politicians are handcuffing the police instead of the criminals.  Police are afraid of arresting someone politically incorrectly and then being fired or losing their pension.
       At the Democratic convention, no one said a syllable about national violence; Michelle Obama said, Elect us and all the problems will go away.
Wednesday 19 August 2020 / Hour 1, Block B: John Cochrane  @JohnHCochrane    @HooverInst, Hoover, in re: A paper test for the flu completed in 20 minutes, albeit slightly less accurate.  .  Many tests have been developed that the FDA won't let us use.  Combination of virus, protest, riots, looting police being pushed back—our cities are dying.  Without workers and tax bases,  . . .  There are plenty of reports saying, “A pandemic will arrive at some point and here's what we should do in preparation.”  The reports are sitting on a shelf where they were put. We now have the tool to stop the disease if only the FDA would let us use it.
Wednesday 19 August 2020 / Hour 1, Block C:  Tara O  @DrTaraO, East Asia Research Center (https://eastasiaresearch.org/), and Gordon Chang @GordonGChang, in re:  Very large demo in Seoul:  suppression of freedom of assembly and of religion. Day before the huge Saturday 15 August demo, authorities suddenly spoke of an increase in Covid cases; now, post-rally, blaming it on the rally and even on church members (many of whom were forced to go to a govt clinic and tested positive, but then went to a private clinic and tested negative) who didn't attend because the govt quarantined them.   Govt tried to ban the rally, but a judge put an injunction on the ban. Ergo there was a huge anti-Moon rally: nullify the election results;  “fight to the death” against govt’s effort to limit private property rights. Suppression of conservatives has been going on since Moon arrived; Moon has been very pro-North Korea and pro-China. Populace is deeply concerned about abrogation of rights and Moon’s swift move toward communism and autocracy. Moon rigged the 15 April elections; he’ll do anything he can to suppress his opponent.  Even the polling results are rigged.   https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-southkorea/thousan....
Wednesday 19 August 2020 / Hour 1, Block D: James Holmes, first holder of the Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and blogger at The Naval Diplomat (https://navaldiplomat.com/), and Gordon Chang @GordonGChang, in re: Beijing’s aggression concerning the Senkakus (and all the small islands regionally), as a predator against Japan. Why? Hard to be sure, but there’s conflict in senior Communist Party circles, and opposition to Xi.   PLA navy is waiting to back up the intrusions of Chinese merchant vessels against Japan. In case of a shooting war, China wants Japan to be blamed for the first shot. Some Japanese businessmen are pressuring Abe to give up the Senkakus in order to pacify China and keep peace.   https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20200816_04/
 
Hour Two
Wednesday 19 August 2020 / Hour 2, Block A:  Salena Zito / @SalenaZito  @DCExaminer @RealClearPolitics, Washington Examiner, New York Post,  CNN, in re: . . .  President Trump’s need to turn out voter in collar counties around Philadelphia. 
Wednesday 19 August 2020 / Hour 2, Block B:  Salena Zito @SalenaZito @DCExaminer @RealClearPolitics, Washington Examiner, New York Post, CNN, in re: Looking for our great-grandfathers. Army Heritage and Education Center, part of the Army War College. Taking all 33 million pieces of information to a digital portal. Can see all your ancestors in wars going back to the Revolution.   The entire US military history. 
https://ahec.armywarcollege.edu  ;  Reference Desk, 717-245-3949
Wednesday 19 August 2020 / Hour 2, Block C:  Richard Epstein  @RichardAEpstein, Chicago Law, NYU Law, and Hoover; in re:  Need to distinguish between deaths from flu and those from institutional [definitions].  The Spanish flu came with torrential force; people went to work in the morning and died at noon.  Today, not violent deaths; on 25 March, Gov Cuomo and some others forced nursing homes to take Covid victims, creating an avalanche of deaths.  No such in 1918. Must distinguish between someone who died from Covid and someone who died with Covid.  Comorbidity cases are very important.   Shutting down all elective medical treatment in New York City in anticipation of a rush of deaths that did not occur. “Flatten the curve.” New York City is now in major distress because of the way all this was handled.  Possible that the virus is less potent in some places; or that our treatment is better. Hydroxychloraquine works in some places despite Fauci, and some states’s bans. Now it looks as though things won't be restored till 2021. Need to be much more sober and cautious about these things.  The Swedes, who were derided, have ridden out the storm, now have almost zero cases.  “FIRST, DO NO HARM.”   Decisions up till now have caused a great deal of harm.
Wednesday 19 August 2020 / Hour 2, Block D:  Richard Epstein  @RichardAEpstein, Chicago Law, NYU Law, and Hoover; in re: what we’ve learned from the virtual Democratic National Convention.  What policies will be presented in October; Green New Deal? Pollution-free by 2035? Democratic Socialist of America?  Dunno.  California has rolling brownouts—system refuses to spend to ensure that fossil fuels work.  System breaks down; people may tire of all this. 
      The problem with wind and solar is that you get lots of them at times you don’t need them, Mene mene what the Germans did.  Medicare for all will throw people with good private plans into an unclear public plan; massive redistribution from one plan to another, compliance costs will skyrocket.  The Democrats have gone so far over the top.  Nobody knows Biden’s positions on any of this. Can he keep his mind sufficiently organized to get from one part of a sentence to the next? Extremely frail.  He’s turned over committees to the Sanders wing.  Raising tax brackets diminishes tax income; and we find that out when it’s too late.  Under Obama, teenagers and low-income workers didn’t do very well. 
      Try light regulatory regime and limited government intrusion for best economy.   Biden is a union man.  Harris is an unknown card.  An extremely unstable election. 
 
Hour Three
Wednesday 19 August 2020 / Hour 3, Block A: David Shedd, Heritage Foundation, former acting Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency; in re:  Quotations from David in the JPost on the global virus crisis.   We’ll face this again; the intell community was caught flat-footed.  Recall 2001 or the invasion of Iraq.
-  Physical threat.   A lot more could have been done at the outset to warn the world. On 4 Feb 2020 in JFK,  Eastern Chinese Airways Airbus lands with umpteen Chinese tourists.  We failed to see that Xi restricted  internal travel from Wuhan, but let thousands go from Wuhan all over the world. 
- Economic threat.  In February, the best economy in decades; then March arrived.  We missed that.  The economic recovery is slow; trillions in debt; stock market is good but actual citizens are suffering.  Since Bretton Woods, ever more interdependence among nations. 
- Data monitoring and the management of data.  Check all data that come from China. Xi Jinping’s worries about a domestic uprising against the tiny ruling elite.
       Does the DNI have a wing devoted to viral threats?   It took years for WWII to damage the economy this deeply.  This will radically change the interdependence between the intell community and the private sector.  IC must become much more agile.
Wednesday 19 August 2020 / Hour 3, Block B:  David Shedd, Heritage Foundation, former acting Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency; in re: The race to quantum computing.  Break encryption, and also to speed it up dramatically. A whole different world of computing.  Any and all efforts have to include the private sector now.  Virus: will speed up development, run diagnostics at a rate we’ve never seen before; or create a DNA version that would have taken years. If it's applied to your privacy, or to break encryption of nuclear secrets, will be for ill.
Wednesday 19 August 2020 / Hour 3, Block C:  Henry Miller @henryimiller [HenryMillerMD.com] , Pacific Research Institute, in re: Gathering forces to cure the virus. Metaphor of the Titanic: 700 places on lifeboats for 2200 passengers.  Allocated by captain: women and children first. How would the coronavirus vaccine be allocated? 
Wednesday 19 August 2020 / Hour 3, Block D:  Ken Croswell @sciam, @ScienceMagazine, astronomer, in re: Milky Way; star clusters. Originally, younger stars exploded. 
 
Hour Four
Wednesday 19 August 2020 / Hour 4, Block A: Veronique de Rugy @veroderugy, Mercatus, in re: Private Export Funding Corporation / PEFCO—created by Eximbank 5 years ago. Issues notes, buys the loan guarantee off the books, puts that in in its portfolio. The PEFCO shareholders are mostly the consumer banks.
       The most incestuous self-dealing in Washington—all backed by taxpayers. Pays itself dividends.  Keeps the private sector out except the cronies who are already in. Secondary market.
https://www.mercatus.org/publications/corporate-welfare/now-time-revisit...
Wednesday 19 August 2020 / Hour 4, Block B: Veronique de Rugy @veroderugy, Mercatus, in re:
Wednesday 19 August 2020 / Hour 4, Block C:  Cleo Paskal @CleoPaskal, non-resident senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and Gordon Chang @GordonGChang, in re: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/18/photo-of-chinese-ambassado...
Wednesday 19 August 2020 / Hour 4, Block D:  Rick Fisher, senior Fellow on Asian Military Affairs at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, and Gordon Chang @GordonGChang, in re:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/18/china-unveils-sky-thunder-...
https://asiatimes.com/2020/08/done-deal-taiwan-closes-us62-billion-f-16-...
 
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