The John Batchelor Show

Friday 5 December 2014

Air Date: 
December 05, 2014

Photo, above: 5 ‘SIGNIFICANT PROBLEMS’ WITH GOP’S NEW BENGHAZI REPORT. Senator slams it as ‘complete bunch of garbage’ December 1, 2014 at 11:32 PM EST    A House Intelligence Committee report on the Benghazi attack released Friday makes numerous problematic assertions, a KleinOnline review of the 37-page document has found. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on Sunday slammed the new House Committee Intelligence report as being “full of  [junk]” and “garbage,” while complaining the committee “is doing a lousy job policing their own.” Graham was speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Graham stated: “I don’t believe that the report is accurate, given the role that Mike Morell [deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency at the time] played in misleading the Congress on two different occasions. Why didn’t the report say that?” The senator assailed the report’s conclusion that the Obama administration did not lie to cover up what happened in Benghazi. “That’s a bunch of garbage,” Graham said. “That’s a complete bunch of garbage.” “I’m going to do a hard review of this,” he added.

KleinOnline’s own extensive review found the following five major problems with the new House report. 1) Inaccurate label for U.S. facility The new House Intelligence Committee report repeatedly refers to the U.S. building in Benghazi as a “Temporary Mission Facility.” However, the State Department has carefully labeled its facility in Benghazi a “U.S. Special Mission.” Previous government documents from the State Department-sponsored Accountability Review Board (ARB) probe to congressional investigations to documents released by the State Department, White House, Pentagon and Intelligence Community carefully label the facility a “U.S. Special Mission.” The ARB divulges the mission was so special it possessed a “non-status,” making security provisions to the facility difficult. 2) Previously undisclosed reason for U.S. ambassador’s travel Within the text of the document, the new House Intelligence Committee report for the first time provides . . . [more]

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Hour One

Friday  5 December 2014 / Hour 1, Block A: Daniel Henninger, WSJ, in re: http://online.wsj.com/articles/dan-henningerobama-the-hangover-1416442010?mod=hp_opinion

Friday 5 December  2014 / Hour 1, Block B: Liz Peek, The Fiscal Times & Fox, in re: A new directive from Homeland Secretary Jeh Johnson will “expand the degree programs eligible for OPT and extend the time period and use of OPT for foreign STEM students and graduates, consistent with law.” The catch here is that while taking advantage of OPT, workers pay no Social Security or Medicare taxes, further penalizing those programs.

The potential cost of President Obama’s immigration program does not mean we shouldn’t provide the millions living in our country illegally with a path to legal status; I believe we need to do that. However, let us be honest about the possible benefits and burdens. In launching Obamacare, the president lied to Americans about the costs and impact; he should not be allowed to do the same with his immigration initiative. [more]

Friday  5 December 2014 / Hour 1, Block C: Bob Luther, author, The First Apple, in re: Original Apple computer could fetch $600,000 at December auction  The Ricketts Apple-1 was auctioned at a self-storage facility in ... original software program, Microsoft BASIC, and an original Apple-1 Star Trek. . . A fully operational Apple computer that company co-founder Steve Jobs sold out of his parents' garage in 1976 for $600 will hit the auction block in December, where it is expected to fetch more than half a million dollars, Christie's said on Monday.

The so-called Ricketts Apple-1 Personal Computer, named after its original owner Charles Ricketts and being sold on Dec. 11, is the only known surviving Apple-1 documented as having been sold directly by Jobs, then just 21, to an individual from the Los Altos, California family home, Christie's said.

"It all started with the Apple-1 and with this particular machine," said Andrew McVinish, Christie's director of decorative arts. "When you see a child playing with an iPad or iPhone, not too many people know that it all started with the Apple-1," he added. "So to be able to own a machine that started the digital revolution is a very powerful attraction."  The computer is being sold by Robert Luther, a Virginia collector who bought it in 2004 at a police auction of storage locker goods without knowing all the details of its history. "I knew it had been sold from the garage of Steve Jobs in July of 1976, because I had the buyer's canceled check," Luther wrote on a kickstarter page soliciting funding for a book on the machine's history.  "My computer had been purchased directly from Jobs, and based on the buyers address on the check, he lived four miles from Jobs."  In 1999, the Ricketts Apple-1 was acquired by Bruce Waldack, an entrepreneur who had just . . .

Friday  5 December 2014 / Hour 1, Block D:  Laura Kusisto, WSJ, in re:   Opening a Stand-Alone Homeless Shelter Involves ‘Endless List of Items’  Securing hundreds of bunk beds checks only one box off the list of things to take care of when setting up a stand-alone shelter in New York City.  . . . Shifts from Using Clusters of Apartment Units    /  This is some of what it takes to open a large homeless shelter in New York City: 200 flashlights, 396 bunk beds, 166 wash cloths, 20 receiving blankets and one mailbox. Mayor Bill de Blasio ’s administration is trying to build more stand-alone shelters to house the city’s rising number of homeless people, a shift from placing them in clusters of units in regular apartment buildings. One not-for-profit group’s experience building a fairly average shelter illustrates just how daunting a task that may be.

Hour Two

Friday  5 December 2014 / Hour 2, Block A: Jim McTague, Barron's Washington, in re:  Jobs on Pace for Best Gains Since 1999 
U.S. employers ramped up hiring last month, continuing a stretch of robust payroll gains and keeping the economy on track to record its strongest year of job creation in 15 years. By the Numbers .   Five Takeaways  . Heard: A Gift for RetailersHilsenrath: Central Banks Going in Two Directions

Friday  5 December 2014 / Hour 2, Block B: Francis Rose, Federal News Radio, in re: http://www.politico.com/morningdefense/1214/morningdefense16340.html    http://www.federalnewsradio.com/525/3756421/Social-Security-nominee-defends-integrity  A day after her nomination ran into trouble in the Senate, President Barack Obama's pick to head the Social Security Administration passionately defended her integrity, her long career in government and her handling of a troubled computer project she inherited from a predecessor.

A group of Republican senators plans to try to block Colvin's nomination while investigators look into a $300 million computer project that doesn't work. In a letter to Colvin, all 11 Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee said there is evidence that Social Security officials have misled Congress and investigators about problems with the project.

The senators wrote that they can't let a nomination proceed to a vote "as long as the specter of a potential criminal investigation surrounds the nominee," that person's inner circle, or both. Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, top Republican on the Finance Committee, leads the group.  http://www.federalnewsradio.com/394/3756785/DoD-undersecretary-for-personnel-and-readiness-retires

Friday  5 December 2014 / Hour 2, Block C: Peter Berkowitz, Hoover, in re: "In a Fragmented Age, Spotlighting the Core of What Unites Us," Real Clear Politics

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/11/30/in_a_fragmented_age_spotlighting_the_core_of_what_unites_us_124800.html

Friday  5 December 2014 / Hour 2, Block D: Phillip Terzian, Weekly Standard, in re: http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/voice-experience_820192.html

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/marion-barry-s-legacy_820222.html

Hour Three

Friday  5 December 2014 / Hour 3, Block A: The Stranger: Barack Obama in the White House, by Chuck Todd ( of 4)

Friday  5 December 2014 / Hour 3, Block B: The Stranger: Barack Obama in the White House, by Chuck Todd ( of 4)

Friday  5 December 2014 / Hour 3, Block C: The Stranger: Barack Obama in the White House, by Chuck Todd ( of 4)

Friday  5 December 2014 / Hour 3, Block D: The Stranger: Barack Obama in the White House, by Chuck Todd ( of 4)

Hour Four

Friday  5 December 2014 / Hour 4, Block A:  Larry Johnson,  , in re: The Benghazi Report  An ongoing intelligence failure   DEC 15, 2014, VOL. 20, NO. 14 • BY STEPHEN F. HAYES AND THOMAS JOSCELYN   Not surprisingly, Rogers strongly disagrees with his critics. The committee provided a long list of its Benghazi-related activities and noted that Rogers has been critical of the Obama administration on Benghazi. Asked why Rogers told committee Republicans in early 2013 that there was no need to investigate further, Susan Phalen, a spokesman for the committee, did not dispute that her boss made the comments but argued instead that the committee held 56 “oversight events related to Benghazi” in 2013. Although the House Intelligence Committee report claims to be the definitive statement of the House of Representatives on matters of Benghazi and intelligence, interviews over the past week make clear that it’s not even the consensus position of Republicans on the committee.  

It’s not hard to see why. Although it adds to our overall understanding of Benghazi, even a cursory read reveals sloppy errors of fact and numerous internal contradictions. For instance, on one page, the report has a top intelligence officer sending an email from Benghazi on September 15, before a crucial White House meeting on the Benghazi talking points. A few pages later, the report has the same email sent on September 16 and arriving the day after that White House meeting. Elsewhere, the report informs readers that the first CIA assessment of the Benghazi attacks, an Executive Update published internally on September 12, reported that “the presence of armed assailants from the incident’s outset suggests this was an intentional assault and not the escalation of a peaceful protest.” One paragraph later, however, the report tells us that Morell, the agency’s point man on Benghazi, testified that the first word there was no protest came on September 14. And later still we are told that the intelligence community didn’t have confirmation that there was no protest until surveillance video was recovered on September 18—a full week after the attacks. 

Those are minor errors, however, compared with the major omissions and mischaracterizations that mar the report. In a section on the controversy over the inaccurate talking points, for example, the committee inexplicably relies on Morell as its key fact witness and arbiter of truth. But nowhere in the body of the report is there even a hint that Morell misled Congress repeatedly about his involvement in those talking points for eight months after the attacks. The report also attempts to clear the CIA of allegations that the agency made personnel sign special nondisclosure agreements related to their work in Benghazi. To do so, the authors ignore public, on-the-record claims of the attorney for those officials directly contradicting that conclusion. Mark Zaid, a veteran national security lawyer representing five CIA officers who served in Benghazi, told The Weekly Standard last year that his clients were presented with nondisclosure agreements that were “legally unnecessary” and intended to send a message. “There is no doubt that the NDAs would not have been presented to them had it not been for Benghazi,” Zaid said at the time. “That is their impression and my analysis based on 20 years’ experience.” Curiously, the report seeks to exculpate a Libyan militia that provided security to the U.S. mission in Benghazi. But doing so requires the authors to omit key evidence that the group was compromised, including video evidence acquired since the attacks of a leader of that militia fighting alongside Ansar al Sharia—the al Qaeda-linked group that took part in the assault on the U.S. facilities.

The report begins by asserting that it is a “comprehensive” look at Benghazi resulting from an intensive investigation of nearly two years. Neither claim is true. Instead, the report is a reflection of a dysfunctional committee and the reluctant, ad hoc approach to Benghazi of its leadership and top staff. Kris Paronto remembers joking with John Boehner about his tan.  It was mid-November, but the former CIA officer asked the speaker if he’d been doing a lot of golfing. Boehner laughed and responded with a joke about golfing less than President Obama.  It was nearly 9:00 p.m., and the Longworth building was . . . [more]

Friday  5 December 2014 / Hour 4, Block B:  John Tamny, RealClearMarkets, in re: Book Review: Roger Moore's 'One Lucky Bastard'   It's not a hard and fast rule, but when it comes to James Bond films, viewers generally like the individual they saw playing Bond first, the most. People of my father's era often tend toward Sean Connery; younger fans speak most highly of Pierce Brosnan and Dani . .  .

Friday  5 December 2014 / Hour 4, Block C: Henry I Miller, Hoover, in re: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/393672/more-dangerous-ebola-henry-i-miller/page/0/1

Friday  5 December 2014 / Hour 4, Block D:   Kate Galbraith, NYT, in re: Cap-and-trade for energy efficiency, in India of all places?  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/27/business/energy-environment/india-factories-save-on-energy-with-market-style-system.html

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