Admiral Halsey's flagship, the 16-inch gunned, fast battleship USS NEW JERSEY (BB-62)  

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW  

Saturday 905P Eastern Time:   Francis Rose and Gordon Chang, in re: review of the Bo Xilai scandal, the rocky transition to fifth-generation Communist Party leadership; billions of dollars/pounds sterling in overseas accounts of the gangrenously corrupt leaders.  Chinese citizens manage to obtain and retransmit a good deal of information; the nervous interference of the top guys means that information often grows distorted and gets invented.  Everybody wants a smooth transition to  liberal democracy; the least-likely outcome.

Saturday 920P Eastern Time:   Rudy DeLeon, Center for American Progress sr VP, natl security & intl policy; and David Patterson, Natl Defense Business Institute exec dir, in re: the federal budget, the defense industry, sequestration ("onerous"), and the effects on the overall economy.  Ideologues on both sides.  With a million people taken out of aerospace, plus 48,000 health-care jobs (taxes = $60Bil), painful effects will start to be seen locally in the future. Note that some things are finally getting people's attention: WSJ on a small firm that may have to close because of the turbulence from Congress's refusing to pass a budget on time.

see-kwess-treish'n - a tool Congress has created that, in absence of a regular agreement, starts to make automatic cuts. Was mandated as a part of last year's debt-ceiling debate. Restricts expenditures across categories.

Saturday 935P Eastern Time:  continued.  These reductions looking at the rate of growth based on DoD top line.  The OCO – Overseas Contingency Operations ("slush fund").   Need adddtl general transfer authority – take funds from operations doing not too well and transfer them to more-needed projects. Rest of the world is scratching its head: the US used to be excellent at solving practical problems. Prolonged debate now is problem for our allies, maybe less so for our enemies. Need to avoid sequestrations and get a budget deal.

Saturday 950P Eastern Time:   Jim McTague, Barron's Washington, in re: no leadership, either side of the aisle, no one willing to negotiate, as long as this continues, people in a psychological mindset of recession. Citizenry scared. Europe? Totally, only, hot air.

Charleston Dancing at the Capitol

Reid Holloway, Connecticut, predicts elections – better than Jim does. He calls presidential elections down to electoral votes.  Uses a financial model to measure volatility; predicts when a specific stock's volatility will return to mean. Can do basically the same thing with the 50 states; says now that the liberals are doing better (325 vs 213 electoral votes, Obama vs Romney)  Romney wd have to win FL, VA and OH to overcome this.  See: stats.

Jim thinks, Romney is such a lame candidate, yet is running neck and neck with Obama.  Reid Holloway says Obama won’t win a state that went for McCain, nor Romney any that was won by Kerry. GC: Reid's formula may not work this time.  JMT: "Indigencia" constitute 50% of populace, and the corporations are [drinking in]  Washington funds.  The economy is tanking – was 1.5% growth in the last report, probably is worse now. Consumers not spending; layoffs all around; formula for disaster to whoever is in the White House.  We need leadership in Washington  - give us a prescription!  Obama wants more and more stimulus – but everybody knows that Stimulus 1 didn't work. Romney has a golden chance to offer a prescription, but all he does is say, "Read my book with its fifty proposals." I bet that if you asked him directly, he couldn't come up with five of 'em.

Washington DC Street Scene. First Division, AEF. American Expiditionary Forces. People lined up for Sale of Tickets. It was created in 1919 by Harris & Ewing. 

Saturday 1005P (705P Pacific):   Francis Rose and Gordon Chang

Saturday 1020P (720P Pacific):   David Hawkings, Editor, CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing, in re: SUCCESS!  The Senate actually got something done this week.  They passed a tax bill, a bill about transparency about spending cuts, and they agreed to debate cybersecurity legislation next week.  So why is the mood on Capitol Hill so somber?  What’s left for Congress to do before the election?  A lot!

Saturday 1035P (735P Pacific):  Richard Stiennon, IT Harvest chief research analyst and author of, Surviving Cyber War, in re:  cyberthreats from inside and outside the US; who wants to steal and destroy what, and how they want to do it.

Saturday 1050P (750P Pacific):  continued. 

The biggest transfer of wealth in history . . .  Gen Keith Alexander, Commander of US Cyber Command, says cyber criminals are stealing us blind.  And when you hear who’s doing it and why, you won’t be surprised.  . . .  Gen Alexander says, “What I’m concerned about is the shift to destructive [attacks]. Those are the things that will hurt our nation.”  How destructive can a cyber attack be, and how many parts of our critical infrastructure are vulnerable?

Saturday 1105P (805P Pacific): Daniel Goure, Vice President, Lexington Institute (& former DoD official and executive at major government contractors), in re: civilian federal agencies are using the same drones inside our borders that the military uses in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Saturday 1120P (820P Pacific):  continued.

Saturday 1135P (835P Pacific):   Robert Merry, The National Interest, & author, Where They Stand: American Presidents in the Eyes of Voters and Historians, in re:  About a hundred days from now, you'll do something that you've likely done several times before: take part in choosing the next president of the United States.  But what you do on Election Day may be actually quite predictable based on history. Discrepancies between how historians view some presidents and how voters do.  Why don’t historians give voters enough credit when it comes to ranking the presidents?

Saturday 1150P (850P Pacific):  continued.

Typhoon-tossed destroyer, 3rd Fleet, December 1944.

Saturday/Sun 1205A (905 Pacific):  The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King--The Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea by Walter R. Borneman; 1 of 2

Saturday/Sun 1220A (920 Pacific):   The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King--The Five-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea by Walter R. Borneman; 2 of 2

Saturday/Sun 1235A (935P Pacific: Claudia Rosett, journalist-in-residence at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, in re: Bashar al Assad, clinging to power by his fingertips, but the opposition in Syria can’t seem to get in position to step on those fingertips and send him and his regime into the abyss.  The Wall Street Journal reports the US is engaged in covert operations in Syria; closely watching the developments in Syria and Washington.  "If operations are outlined in the Wall Street Journal, they’re not really covert any more, are they?  We’re in, in Syria whether we like it or not."

Saturday/Sun 1250A  (950P Pacific): Exeunt. 

..  ..  .. 

From Borneo, VADM Kurita's Centre Force was to strike Leyte Gulf via San Bernardino Strait, north of Samar.  Vice Admiral Nishimura's Southern Force Van was to attack via Surigao Strait, south of Leyte. The Southern Force Rear, led by VADM Shima would arrive from the north to reenforce the Van. Vice Admiral Ozawa's Northern  Force would be used as a decoy to draw ADM Halsey's Third Fleet away from Leyte Gulf.  This official U.S. Navy map is fairly accurate in respect to Japanese force composition.

Music (based on Eastern Daylight Time broadcast)

9-hour: District 9; Running Man; Beowulf; Sherlock Holmes

10-hour:  Legion; Babylon; Batman; Avatar

11-hour:  Batman; Pirates; Brake

midnight hour:  Pirates; Battleship; Babylon; Brake

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since 2007, Newport News Shipbuilding has been planning for the inactivation of USS Enterprise(CVN 65), which is scheduled to begin in 2013. The Newport News-built Enterprise is the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and the only ship of its class. Enterprise joined the Navy's fleet in 1961, and our Newport News shipbuilders have been responsible for accomplishing the majority of scheduled and emergent maintenance work since 2004.  The first Enterprise was the undefeated bastion of the U.S. Pacific fleet, 1941-1945.  Big "E" to be towed around the Horn to the West Coast for its final salvage.