The John Batchelor Show

Monday 2 November 2020

Air Date: 
November 02, 2020

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Colleague: Thaddeus McCotter, American Greatness
 
Hour One
Monday 2 November 2020 / Hour 1, Block A:  Bill Roggio, Long War Journal and FDD; in re: The Taliban: said to be an ongoing negotiation for US to leave Afghanistan.  Four years of this policy: transformed from “we’ll fight” to “we’ll withdraw.” Trump and Biden policies are close to the same.   Agreement says the US must withdraw all its troops.   Expect a major breach of agreement by both sides, to protract the war.  Taliban already has a great deal of control (which is a win for its ally al Qaeda). 
US killed an al Q leader in Afghanistan in the last two weeks. The small antiterrorism task force the US intends to leave in Afghanistan will not work.  Expect Taliban in Kandahar City, or maybe Kabul City. ISIS is enemy to Taliban and al Q; is unhappy that Taliban negotiated and agreement, but ISIS has a small footprint there, esp since al Q and Taliban have direct support from Pakistan. 
Islamic State killed many in an assault on a school in Kabul today; the other two groups have diminished killing civilians.
Monday 2 November 2020 / Hour 1, Block B:  Lorenzo Fiori: Direttore Generale Ansaldo Fondazione, in re: Protests and violence across the Italian peninsula opposing government shutdowns.  Shopkeepers and high-end retailers, and all hospitality businesses, are opposing closing down as they depend entirely on tourism.  Govt is confused.  Clashes; some violent.  Camus: The Plague, “We’re always unprepared.” Interior Minister claims the protestors are criminals; some are said to  have made the Fascist salute. Some protestors have been infiltrated, in Rome or Milan; in Turin, a far-left group infiltrates.  Police pretty much in control as the young people know to disappear quickly. Lockdown coming: Milan will be a red area, so people can’t leave town; and curfew will extend from 9PM to 6 AM.
Monday 2 November 2020 / Hour 1, Block C: Michael Yon, Michael_Yon, East Asia reporter, and Gordon Chang, Daily Beast, in re: Washington looks like a plywood forest. Proud Boys.  Antifa intends real violence—a challenge to democracy.  Beijing is trying to turn up pressure on Hong Kong democracy forces.  National Security Law began 30 June, was not supposed to be retroactive—but Beijing doesn’t honor that.  They kidnapped twelve from a small boat on the high seas, took them into Mainland. There’s an ongoing terrorist attack right now in Vienna. Hong Kongers are to fleeing to Taiwan, Canada, Australia, US, Japan. HK protestors are amazing fighters—with their minds—than anyone else I’ve ever seen. One of their main weapons is: Never quit. US citizens in HK are indeed at risk.  China has even kidnapped people in Thailand.
Portland is riddled with communists—the mayor is called “Sara Antifa.”  China wants to overthrow the US government, has funded rioters, even put some on the streets.  A specific effort to overthrow the US government; is an act of war.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/01/hong-kong-seven-pro-democracy-legislators-arrested
Monday 2 November 2020 / Hour 1, Block D: Tara O, @DrTaraO, of the East Asia Research Center (https://eastasiaresearch.org/), and Gordon Chang, Daily Beast, in re: 
https://eastasiaresearch.org/2020/10/30/72-deaths-after-getting-flu-vaccine-in-south-korea-china-tells-korea-not-to-stop-vaccinations-saying-its-essential-for-fighting-covid-19/
 
Hour Two
Monday 2 November 2020 / Hour 2, Block A:  John Tamny, @johntamny, RealClearPolitics, in re: Lawrence Summers insisted a recession was coming.  Krugman predicted a market crash. Now Democrats are saying the good Trump economy was inherited from Obama.  Recessions are harbingers of a boom to come.
Monday 2 November 2020 / Hour 2, Block B:  John Fund, NRO, & David M Drucker, Washington Examiner, in re: Eyes on PA and the down-ticket Congress. @DavidMDrucker @JohnFund.    Plywood city. Why New York?  Politically impassioned; people with way too much time on their hands.  House is secure for Nancy Pelosi. GOP in the House may go deeper in the hole. Senate is a toss-up battle.
Monday 2 November 2020 / Hour 2, Block C:  New World Report. Joseph Humire @jmhumire, @securefreesoc, and Senator Maria Fernanda Cabal @MariaFdaCabal, in re: Not Brazil had highest per-capita flu deaths:  Peru has, by far (three times more).  Over half of Peruvians don’t even own a refrigerator—so must work and eat day by day. Overcrowded apartments in Lima. Colombian president is gradually opening the economy.   Latin America began lockdowns very early, is now the worst-affected economically of all the continents.  Brazil was mocked globally for its flu policies—and has done the best economically by a large margin.  We have to learn how to take care of ourselves against the virus; cannot destroy the economy. https://www.securefreesociety.org/research/covid-19-in-latin-america-2/
Monday 2 November 2020  / Hour 2, Block D: New World Report. Joseph Humire @jmhumire, @securefreesoc, and Senator Maria Fernanda Cabal @MariaFdaCabal, in re:  China, the flu progenitor, in Latin America.  Lent a lot of money; in Colombia, paid to build metro in Bogota.  Have an aggressive relation with Colombia, upset with Taiwanese embassy in Bogota. China had a huge commodity boom—minerals, oil, through the roof.   Demand has gone ‘way down, so China doesn’t have the economic muscle.   America Growth Initiative from Washington: specific bilateral agreements on energy, health, trade.  China has leveraged a lot of debt in Argentina, a close ally of Beijing.  If Biden wins, they’ll be more open; calling it “Argen-China.” Cuba interferes in Colombia, a Christian country; we’re not comfortable, socialismo of the Twenty-first Century. 
 
Hour Three
Monday 2 November 2020  / Hour 3, Block A:  Malcolm Hoenlein, @conf_of_pres, Conference of President, in re:  Terrorist attack in Vienna: “heavily armed and dangerous gunmen.”  “A repulsive terrorist act in our capital.” [«widerwärtigem Terroranschlag»]
Russians and Syrians in Idlib. Turkey has withdrawn from its base in the north, troops surrounded by Syrian troops.  Turkey has 10-15,000 troops there, plus imported jihadists.  Russia using jihadis to attack Yemen.  Explosive potential. 
Isfahan: Iran is still using F5s and F4s from 1970s, can't get parts. Hoping to break the embargo. US is creative about preventing oil from going to colleagues of Iran. The millions of barrels of oil from the Iranian tankers will be sold, for maybe $40 million, and funds are to go to victims of terror.  Bolivia was under the boot of Evo Morales, who bolloxed up the previous election and fled to Buenos Aires; he then put up a proxy in the current election, who won. Morales went directly to Venezuela.  
Monday 2 November 2020  / Hour 3, Block B:  Indiana Hoenlein, @conf_of_pres, Conference of President, in re: City of David: the god Apollo, symbol of health and prosperity, the only one who survived among Jews of the Second Century. Here: a signet ring with a brown jasper stone.  This is the Sifting Project.  A Christian church 400 AD, and underneath is a temple in Banyas (really, Panyas, after Pan). Seventh-century AD earthquake. Here is where Jesus met his closest disciples.  Spectacularly beautiful place. Palace of Agrippa, Herod’s great-grandson.  https://www.jpost.com/archaeology/2000-year-old-gem-seal-depicting-greek-god-apollo-found-under-city-of-david-647350
Monday 2 November 2020  / Hour 3, Block C:  Andrew C McCarthy, @AndrewCMcCarthy, Ball of Collusion; and Thaddeus McCotter, @ThadMcCotter, American Greatness, in re: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania:  probably a delayed decision, with contentiousness in court.   As of now can count for three or more extra day.  The legislature is Constitutionally allowed to set the times, not the court. Court has not confirmed the legislatively-created rules.  Justice Alito. State court of PA has lawlessly evaded [requirements]. Alito: segregate ballots submitted after Tuesday poll closure.  Stare decisis: courts not supposed to change rules at the eleventh hour: although it may be because somebody has done something lawless at the eleventh hour, which would force a court intervention.
Texas: drive-through voting; 127,000 ballots.  Court hopes that the election isn’t so close that the dispute continues into court.  Roberts may think the Court can stay a million miles away from these cases. 
Monday 2 November 2020  / Hour 3, Block D:  Andrew C McCarthy, @AndrewCMcCarthy, Ball of Collusion; and Thaddeus McCotter, @ThadMcCotter, American Greatness, in re: The Bidens and a counterintelligence investigation (in theory), not a criminal investigation. The Russiagate allegations against Donald Trump. CEFC was one of the ten largest Chinese companies in 2013.  The open counterintell investigation [concerning the Biden family] will stay nontransparent during a Biden administration.  For the last three years, the media-Democratic complex said the Russiagate investigation had to be drilled into; compare with current, where there’s great evidence on Hunter Biden and his family, while the media [go silent]. Much evidence of millions of dollars’ having gone to Bidens. 
 
Hour Four
Monday 2 November 2020  / Hour 4, Block A: The Crisis of Liberalism: Prelude to Trump, by Fred Siegel.  John Lindsay, two administrations starting in 1966. “There was a glow about him.”
In The Crisis of Liberalism: Prelude to Trump, Fred Siegel leverages New York City to uncover the key political conflicts and social contradictions in American liberalism over the last century. This wide-ranging collection of essays critically recounts how passionate intellectual debates and then heated cultural struggles over how to realize "the good life" in the modern city emerged from the writings of early progressive "thought leaders." Herbert Croly and H. G. Wells once envisioned college graduates as a new elite that could pick up the project of enlightened democratic governance where the European aristocracy had failed. Yet, as Eric Hoffer observed, these graduates left top-notch schools as liberal technocrats wanting "power, lordship, and opportunities for imposing action."
The flaws in this approach expressed themselves most floridly in John Lindsay's New York, as his activist top-level experts and their many bottom-tier clients aligned themselves against the material aspirations and cultural values of the five boroughs' middle social strata. Lindsay's flashy limousine liberals were a preview of today's politically correct gentry liberalism. Its cultural programs over the past half-century, as Siegel shows, ultimately failed the downtrodden underclass and alienated middle-class New Yorkers trapped in economic stagnation after 9/11. While Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama sparred over policy minutiae in the heated 2008 Democratic Party primaries, both candidates neglected voters' worries, like illegal immigrants or China's emerging threats. This misdirection of the nation's and the city's politics by globalist technocratic liberals became the prelude to Donald Trump's angry nationalist reaction to put "America First."
Monday 2 November 2020  / Hour 4, Block B:  The Crisis of Liberalism: Prelude to Trump, by Fred Siegel.   
Monday 2 November 2020  / Hour 4, Block C:  The Crisis of Liberalism: Prelude to Trump, by Fred Siegel. 
Monday 2 November 2020  / Hour 4, Block D:  The Crisis of Liberalism: Prelude to Trump, by Fred Siegel.