Monday 14 April 2014
Photo, above: WASHINGTON — As tensions between the West and Russia simmer, a Russian attack plane engaged in “provocative” acts Saturday towards the destroyer USS Donald Cook in international waters, the Pentagon announced Monday.
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host:
Hour One
Monday 14 April 2014 / Hour 1, Block A: Sohrab Ahmari, WSJ, Interview with NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, which ran in today's WSJ-Weekend. Mr. Rasmussen, who has headed the Western Alliance since 2009, told me that Europe has misread Russian President Vladimir Putin for years and now must scramble to push back against the Kremlin's expansionist ambitions: "We in Europe have disarmed too much, for too long."
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303603904579492950683945762
Monday April 2014 / Hour 1, Block B: Matt Kaminski, WSJ, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304117904579499762012132306?mg=reno64-wsj
Monday April 2014 / Hour 1, Block C: Pat Barker, ProPublica, A GOP-led House committee voted Wednesday to seek criminal charges against former IRS official Lois Lerner, who used to run the IRS division in charge of tax-exempt groups, ProPublica's Kim Barker and Theodoric Meyer report. In a party-line vote, the committee accused Lerner of unfairly targeting the applications of conservative groups and misleading the Treasury inspector general, which was auditing the IRS based on allegations of bias against conservative groups.
The documents released by the committee shed some light on the inner workings of the IRS's Exempt Organizations division and how it approached applications of social welfare nonprofits, also known as dark money groups because they spend money on elections without reporting their donors. The influence of such groups has skyrocketed since the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision.
Among the key takeaways ProPublica found from the documents:
The IRS planned to deny the application of Crossroads GPS, which spent more than $90 million from unknown donors -- far more than any other dark money group -- to elect conservatives in the 2010 and 2012 elections.
The IRS really is not equipped to police elections -- and knows it. The documents show Lerner complaining in an email that the IRS was not following up with groups that hadn't filed their tax returns, or Form 990s. "My level of confidence that we are equipped to do this work continues to be shaken," she wrote.
Lerner may have considered applying to work at a leading liberal social welfare nonprofit.
The full story is available here: http://www.propublica.org/article/what-newly-released-docs-tell-us-about-the-irs-and-how-it-handles-dark-mone;
please feel free to link to or republish it under our creative commons license. Barker and Meyer are also available for interviews.
Monday April 2014 / Hour 1, Block D: Lara Brown, George Washington; Francis Rose, Federal News Radio. PEW RESEARCH CENTERAPR 10, 2014 America’s Demographic Transformation
America is in the midst of two major changes to its population: We are becoming majority non-white at the same time a record share is going gray. Explore these shifts in our new interactive data essay.
Hour Two
Monday 14 April 2014 / Hour 2, Block A: John Fund, NRO. THE LEFT 4/11 4:00 AM Liberals Lose on Racism
The dishonest accusations spur conservatives.
Monday April 2014 / Hour 2, Block B: Anna Nemtsova, Daily Beast. Russia's Riot-Backed
> Diplomacy<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/08/while-russians-riot-in-ukraine-the-kremlin-talks-diplomacy.html>
> *by
> Anna Nemtsova* April 08, 2014 04:28 PM EDT The building occupations in
> Eastern Ukraine may be meant to test the resolve not only of Kiev but of
> the United States.
>
Putin's New Ploy<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/07/protestors-seize-buildings-in-east-ukraine-demand-independence.html>
*byAnna Nemtsova* April 07, 2014 10:04 AM EDT Demonstrators in Eastern Ukraine seize buildings, proclaim independence, and wait for Russian troops.
Monday April 2014 / Hour 2, Block C: John Avlon, Daily Beast. KANSAS CITY SHOOTING
Hate—and Hitler—in the Heartland by John Avlon, Caitlin Dickson April 14, 2014 01:40 AM EDT The suspect in the Kansas Jewish community center shootings that left three dead Sunday is a former Ku Klux Klan leader once interviewed by Howard Stern and Sacha Baron Cohen’s Bruno
Monday April 2014 / Hour 2, Block D: Gordon Chang. Glencore Sells Copper Mine for $5.8 Billion to Chinese Group GlencoreXstrata said it has agreed to sell the mining company's Las Bambas Peruvian copper project to a Chinese consortium in an all-cash deal worth $5.8 billion.
https://twitter.com/M_McDonough/status/455877640747245568
Hour Three
Monday 14 April 2014 / Hour 3, Block A: Jeff Bliss, Bliss Index. http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-California/2014/04/13/CA-High-Speed-Rail-Lowers-Revenue-Projections
California’s Bullet Train: 'The Little Engine That Could' Might Be Broke
California’s high-speed rail project may run out of money in 2015 due to a lack of state funding. If the necessary funding dries up, the $3.3 billion allocated from Obama’s federal stimulus program could be rescinded.
According to Jeremy Fraysse, an analyst with the California Legislative Analyst's Office, unless the California High-Speed Rail Authority can navigate around legal and funding obstacles, “there would be a question of whether the federal government would allow the expenditure of federal dollars on the project.” Right now, the federal government is the only source of funding for the so called “Bullet Train,” and if the state cannot demonstrate that it has the ability to provide funding on its own, the feds can pull the plug on the whole project.
At the heart of the issue is the failure on the part of the authority to identify where it will get $31 billion for the initial construction of tracks through the Central Valley between Madera and Fresno. So far, they have raised only $6 billion in state and federal money, which leaves them more than $20 billion short of the amount needed to begin laying down the first track. Until the authority can make up for the shortfall, a Sacramento Superior Court Judge blocked access to voter-approved bonds.
The authority is relying partly on procuring funds from the state’s cap-and-trade program, but that allocation relies on legislative approval that is far from certain. “You couldn’t get a business loan for a small business based on what we’re assuming here,” said state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, a Democrat from Concord who chairs the Senate Committee on Transportation and Housing. “The question is,” DeSaulnier asked rail authority CEO Jeff Morales, “Where is the other money going to come from?”
http://www.sacbee.com/2014/04/12/6319522/new-bay-bridge-shows-signs-of.html
Monday April 2014 / Hour 3, Block B: Henry Miller, Hoover. April 7, 2014 | Project Syndicate
March 31, 2014 | National Review Online
California’s Anti-GMO Hysteria
Monday April 2014 / Hour 3, Block C: Richard Epstein, Hoover.
http://www.hoover.org/publications/defining-ideas/article/174986
Monday April 2014 / Hour 3, Block D: Richard Epstein continued.
This past week, in McCutcheon v Federal Election Commission, a bitterly divided United States Supreme Court struck down yet another portion of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA) this time, the aggregate limit of $123,200 for contributions by any one individual to all candidates and non-candidate committees in any two-year election cycle. That BCRA provision blocked Shaun McCutcheon from making $1,776 contributions to twelve candidates he favored, because he had already contributed his maximum amount of $33,088 to sixteen candidates for federal office. He challenged the limitation as an abridgement of his constitutional right of freedom of speech, for which he found a receptive audience in five members of the Supreme Court.
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Hour Four
Monday 14 April 2014 / Hour 4, Block A: Carson Bruno, Hoover. Sacramento Spotlight: Six California’s Part 3 – Politics of the New States CARSON BRUNO
Monday April 2014 / Hour 4, Block B: Bon Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com
A new analysis of data from Messenger suggests that violent explosive volcanism occurred throughout much of Mercury’s history.
What is interesting about this result is that previously it was believed that explosive volcanism didn’t happen at all on Mercury.
On Earth, volcanic explosions like the one that tore the lid off Mount St. Helens happen because our planet’s interior is rich in volatiles — water, carbon dioxide and other compounds with relatively low boiling points. As lava rises from the depths toward the surface, volatiles dissolved within it change phase from liquid to gas, expanding in the process. The pressure of that expansion can cause the crust above to burst like an overinflated balloon.
Mercury, however, was long thought to be bone dry when it comes to volatiles, and without volatiles there can’t be explosive volcanism. But that view started to change in 2008, after NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft made its first flybys of Mercury. Those glimpses of the surface revealed deposits of pyroclastic ash — the telltale signs of volcanic explosions — peppering the planet’s surface. It was a clue that at some point in its history Mercury’s interior wasn’t as bereft of volatiles as had been assumed.
The new conclusions have not only found evidence of explosive volcanism, it found a wide range of ages for these deposits, indicating that the explosive volcanism took place across an extended period of time.
Monday April 2014 / Hour 4, Block C: Michael Tomasky, Daily Beast. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/11/what-plantation-is-jim-demint-living-on.html
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What Plantation Is He Living On? Apr 11, 2014 5:45 AM EDT Jim DeMint’s ludicrous claim about who ended slavery in America is just his latest effort to...MORE |
Monday April 2014 / Hour 4, Block D: Kirk Johnson, NYT. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/12/us/bookstores-in-seattle-soar-and-embrace-an-old-nemesis-amazoncom.html?ref=us
Music
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