The John Batchelor Show

Friday 13 November 2020

Air Date: 
November 13, 2020

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
 
Hour One
Friday 13 November 2020 / Hour 1, Block A: Dan Henninger: @DanHenninger, @WSJOpinion; editorial board and Wonder Land column; in re:   Whence the bitterness among us now about the election?  Start with the election of 2000: hanging chads.  Bush and Gore were separated by fewer than 600 votes.  Ultimately resolved by the Supreme Court, ruled 5–4 that George W Bush had won.  Democrat believed the election was stolen by the Curt; partisanship[ subsequently widened.  At present, refusal of the president to concede and Biden’s inability to get on with a transition.   Al Gore conceded on election night, then withdrew it; it eventually took 37 days to resolve it, via first the Florida supreme court then at the federal Supreme Court.
Has anyone apologized to Donald Trump for three years of the Russian allegations that turned out to be meaningless? Why would anyone be surprised after all the falsity that was dumped on him for years?  Mrs Clinton called President Trump “illegitimate,” even after the Mueller investigation came to naught.  Despite the deep harassment, the administration accomplished important matters: the cooling of tensions in the Middle East, tax reforms, legal shifts to free unjustly incarcerated prisoners, a major reduction of North Korean missile shots over Japan, the assemblage of the Quad, Japan, Australia, India, and the US, to counter China’s aggressive, illegal and, as it turns out, lethal predations.   https://
www.wsj.com/articles/joe-bidens-florida-nightmare-11605134036?st=mnluvam99vfq0ei&reflink=article_copyURL_share
Friday 13 November 2020 / Hour 1, Block B: Jeff Bliss: #PacificWatch, in re:  California theme parks: funds running out, not clear that federal money will come through; hourly wage-workers are pressed to feed their families. Not just the theme parks, but many that are particular to Cali.  Also, across the country.  Can/will Sacramento do anything?   Not clear. The parks brings in billons to the economy; so far, estimates that more than $7 billion is lost; “We need some relief here, and we need to reopen.”  Waiting till 2021 is a blow not only to park workers but to all the businesses around them.  Traffic in LA?  Coming back, but we may be shutting down again. McMansions: new, souped-up, modified, homeless encampments with fixtures added: people tap into city power lines, air conditioning, and light and cook in their tents, bring in water from fire hydrants.   Even a tiki bar. “remind me of the Tiki Amusement at Disneyworld with singing bird.  Portland: Antifa? Ken Wheeler has been a bulwark against police takeover; won election; is working on rewriting documents (no more “him” or “her”).  https://www.presstelegram.com/2020/11/12/disneyland-to-remain-closed-until-2021-disney-official-says/
Friday 13 November 2020 / Hour 1, Block C: Richard Epstein: @RichardAEpstein, Chicago Law, NYU Law, Hoover Defining Ideas, in re:  Religious liberty in the United States.  Samuel Alito said the corona virus pandemic has resulted in previously-unimagined restrictions on religious liberty.    “The real risk of government abuse arises” when the state enforces  _____ laws.  Threatening criminal arrest.  The US is a large country with many different [subcultures].   . . .  Further, what do you do with public schools and religious schools?  Unions want to close public schools, whereas the latter want to meet in person. It's been over eight months.    Fulton vs City of Philadelphia.   The emerging regulations seem to be decided by seat-of-pants methods.  When you can't go to church but see people going to casinos, it causes alienation.  Unequal application of laws to religions—even among and between Catholics, Jews, Muslim, Protestants.   Prayer is a powerful colleague when you're in distress. To close houses of worship requires much more scrutiny than it’s received.  Abuse of power using the criminal code:  this is not where you want people to enforce their opinions of what’s good and virtuous socially, especially such as the governor of New York is doing. The social fabric is sufficiently frayed at present; need to find ways to be as accommodating as possible.  Classic cases of overreach by Governor Cuomo and Mayor DeBlasio.  https://www.hoover.org/research/religious-liberty-should-prevail
Friday 13 November 2020 / Hour 1, Block D: Richard Epstein: @RichardAEpstein, Chicago Law, NYU Law, Hoover Defining Ideas, in re:  Now that the Court is 6–3, Roberts will make it 5–4.
Far left: Sotomayor; then Kagan and Bryer; then Roberts; then in the center: Kavanaugh, then Barrett; Gorsuch, Alito, Thomas.  Doubt that Obamacare will be overturned, nor Roe vs Wade. Gay right are established.
 
Hour Two
Friday 13 November 2020 / Hour 2, Block A:  Michael Vlahos: @JHUWorldCrisis; Johns Hopkins; in re: Princeps of Red and Princeps of Blue.  “The long-term damage of Trump” – New Yorker.  “Erase”  “Blacklist.”  What happens during the time of a purge?  A religion or an ideology, could be church or party (communist party or church of woke); going on for years in academe but now being close to the power of the state, is moving toward a focus on heresy.  Important to consolidate power.
1. Heresy tells believers that evil truly exists; affirms the faith.  2. This diverts attention from the tensions between the many factions.  3. Pushes attention away from inequities between the elites and the people.   4, The rise of heresy, evil, is a great way to kick things up a notch—deplorables;  the Devil, himself. Call for mobilization.   5.  Promise of a peak life experience—the glory of grit and sacrifice. Emergence of Anifa, BLM, and their street struggles that were glorified and exalted for months. The final element is the struggle.   Vide: Stalin’s show trials, where the struggle against evil became official state theater; people had to recant, then were shot.  Purges, cancelling people, or the public mass-struggle sessions on video—truth and reconciliation commissions; or auto-da-fe.  Looking for a sacrifice who, in this case, was the Princeps of Red.
Friday 13 November 2020 / Hour 2, Block B:  Michael Vlahos: @JHUWorldCrisis; Johns Hopkins; in re:
Friday 13 November 2020 / Hour 2, Block C:  Gene Marks,  @genemarks @Guardian  #SmallBusinessAmerica @Guardian, Philadelphia Inquirer, and at TheHill; in re:  NFIB: National Federation of Independent Businesses publishes a monthly optimism index. The sky is falling on small businesses.  Job openings now are within 2% of February.  Online sales up 35% from last year.
MACRO /  The NFIB Optimism Index remained at 104.0 in October, unchanged from September and a historically high reading. As reported in NFIB’s monthly jobs report, small business owners are looking to hire, reporting a historically high level of job openings in October. Overall, 55% of owners reported hiring or trying to hire in October, down 1 point from September. Thirty-three percent (seasonally adjusted) of all owners reported job openings they could not fill in the current period, down 3 points from September’s report.  http://www.nfib.com/surveys/small-business-economic-trends/
In the week ending November 7, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 709,000, a decrease of 48,000 from the previous week's revised level
https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf
Cleveland Fed: Key Measures Show Inflation Eased Year-over-year in October
https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2020/11/cleveland-fed-key-measures-show.html
TSA Travellers:  still slow
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ovwAS8B0M6U/X6k_NNn60iI/AAAAAAAA29A/1gkaxKc0dmgn4JaHCCM4TXInQ80w9CPrgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1027/TSANov92020.PNG
San Francisco voters approve taxes on CEOs, big businesses
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/california/story/2020-11-04/san-francisco-voters-approve-taxes-on-ceos-big-businesses
Here are the big tax headaches that could hit firms and employees who work from home
https://www.inquirer.com/business/taxes-incomes-pennsylvania-new-jersey-philadelphia-wage-nexus--20201027.html
Little-known COVID-related tax benefits could save small businesses a bundle this year
https://www.inquirer.com/business/cares-act-small-business-tax-breaks-covid-19-losses-20201109.html
Friday 13 November 2020 / Hour 2, Block D:  Gene Marks,  @genemarks @Guardian  #SmallBusinessAmerica @Guardian, Philadelphia Inquirer, and at TheHill; in re: restaurants need QR codes; and use Doordash and Grubhub to increase sales.   All cloud-based firms are doing well. Microsoft has hundreds of thousands of partners, including many small companies.  MICROS /  Here are technologies that restaurants are using to survive COVID-19 and the winter
https://www.inquirer.com/business/small-business/restaurants-technology-software-winter-takeout-survival-mcdonalds-doordash-open-table-caviar-uber-phone-20201104.html
Microsoft Is Having an Excellent Pandemic . . . and Other Small Business Tech News
https://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2020/11/02/microsoft-is-having-an-excellent-pandemicand-other-small-business-tech-news/?sh=7b03528072c3
Fight over Gig Workers Persists Despite Win for Uber and Lyft
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/11/business/economy/california-gig-workers-ballot-uber-lyft.html
Here is what small businesses fear most about a Joe Biden presidency
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/nov/12/here-is-what-small-businesses-fear-the-most-about-/
How do you feel about Trump supporters? The answer impacts your small business
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/12/us-small-business-trump-supporters
Is your small business eligible for PPP forgiveness? Here’s why you may want to wait
https://www.inquirer.com/business/ppp-loans-loan-forgiveness-stimulus-congress-banks-pelosi-election-covid-19-bankruptcy-20201021.html
81 Percent of U.S. Adults Do Not Regularly Use Twitter
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/356936
 
Hour Three
Friday 13 November 2020 / Hour 3, Block A: Devin Nunes, @DevinNunes, CA-22, Countdown to Socialism, in re:  Parler seen as more valuable than twitter. Rumble.com  Lee Smith, The Permanent Coup.  Recounts.  Ballot-harvesting [opens the door] to shenanigans.
Friday 13 November 2020 / Hour 3, Block B:  Devin Nunes, @DevinNunes, CA-22, Countdown to Socialism, in re: Countdown to Socialism, by Devin Nunes.  I did predict that the pollsters were ’way off.  Clearly, a choreographed, orchestrated move to suppress Republican votes.  We don't know how much this cost us. I expect we’ll have 200 to 213 GOP seats in the House.  Eliot Engle, very liberal and a gentleman, lost to the far left in New York.  Biden will go in ad overregulate, what he can't do legislatively he’ll try to do by executive edict.  The GOP is now the party of working people.  Logan Act:  passed 200 years ago, never yet been enforced, demands people not speak with foreign leaders.  The Biden transition is: talking with foreign leaders. Kerry has been doing that forever, esp with Iranians – the regime is of killers.
Friday 13 November 2020 / Hour 3, Block C:  Chris Riegel: @Scala, @STRATACACHE; in re:                
Friday 13 November 2020 / Hour 3, Block D:  Dr Arthur Turovets, NJ Diet, in re:   Overweight renders one susceptible to the virus; losing weight both diminishes the comorbidity and leads to overall much better health.   Program is available not only in the US but worldwide.  We consult via Zoom or another platform; we walk people though each step of the program.  One patient, Roman, not only lost weight but no longer had diabetes.   Also effective on high blood pressure, another comorbidity of diabetes.  Asthmatics no longer needing inhalers; also reduces sleep apnea.  America struggles with overweight; a health crisis that can be solved.  In 40 days a person can lose 45 pounds.   
 
Hour Four
Friday 13 November 2020 / Hour 4, Block A: Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com; in re: Laika died in 1957.  Rover update. . . . UAE will build its own lunar rover (10 kg); may hire out launch and landing, but this is a big step forward. Hope to launch by 2024.  Gamma ray bursts.
Friday 13 November 2020 / Hour 4, Block B: Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com; in re:  Laika Memorial Fundraiser. 
Friday 13 November 2020 / Hour 4, Block C:  Brenda Shaffer: @ProfBShaffer  @FDD; Georgetown; in re:  Success in Baku, Ankara and Moscow; not in Yerevan. 
https://www.economist.com/europe/2020/11/14/a-peace-deal-ends-a-bloody-war-over-nagorno-karabakh
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/13/nagorno-karabakh-ethnic-armenians-prepare-to-give-up-homes
Friday 13 November 2020 / Hour 4, Block D:  Francis Rose, @FRoseDC,  Host of @GovMattersTV @ ABC7News & WJLA 24/7 News. Washington D.C., in re:  Rebuilding the State Dept - Kori Schake  https://govmatters.tv/challenges-facing-the-state-department/
Air Force General Counsel on countering China in the Arctic https://govmatters.tv/collaboration-on-the-u-s-approach-to-the-arctic/
Coast Guard in space?  https://govmatters.tv/the-coast-guards-role-in-space/