Photo, above: The Cottage Landings affordable housing project under construction in Rye, N.Y., in June 2012, a part of a 2009 fair housing settlement. The Department of Housing and Urban Development has given Westchester County one more month to comply with requirements of the fair housing settlement or risk losing $7.4 million in grants. (Jim Fitzgerald/AP Photo)  See: Hour 1, Block D:  Mary Kissel, Wall Street Journal editorial board.

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Co-hosts: Mary Kissel, Wall Street Journal editorial board, and Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents

Hour One

Thursday  25 March 2013 / Hour 1, Block A: Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and Lara M Brown, Villanova, in re: Pennsylvania politics.

Thursday  25 March 2013 / Hour 1, Block B:  Edward Hayes, criminal defense attorney par excellence (on a cell phone at a fight: New York City Assistant District Attorneys –a charity event at 41 Broad), in re: the upcoming New York mayoralty election, Christine Quinn, at whom knives and bombs are being lobbed by the press. She used to be Bloomberg's darling candidate.  "The wiretap had nothing to do with Miss Quinn."  Hunh? Mary Kissel met Joe Lhota on the subway today, the 2 train; he's a major mayoral candidate, might win except he's supported by Giuliani.  "There's never been such lousy candidates for mayor," says Eddie.  MK: How does Bloomberg get along with the foul-mouthed Quinn?  EH: He probably figures that if she's running, he'll win for another four years.

Thursday  25 March 2013 / Hour 1, Block C: . Satyajit Das, ex-banker and author, Extreme Money, &  Traders, Guns and Money; works in financial derivatives and risk management; in re:

The Chinese boom is slowing; the mining sector is the only one that's propped up the Aussie economy Also, we have the Dutch disease. And with the high currency, wage structures problems:   A$16/hour for labor, compared to US$7. We’ve priced ourselves into a hole. Despite record terms of trade  - highest in record history compared to imports – we’ve nonetheless run current account deficits; will be 4% to 6%, which is unsustainable.    In 2010, the central bank governor said: "In 2005, a shipload of iron ore = 2,200 flat screen TVS; later, was worth 22,000 flat screens."   They all don’t know what e post-mining economy will look like, Low interest rates are semipermanent now but have no effect on the real economy, Second, we’ve embraced Asia, speaking of "an Asian century" – which Asians don't now agree with.  Further, Australia historically had racial policies making us not beloved of Asians.  We’re among the few AAA-rated countries. Eighty per cent of govt bonds are held overseas.  Japan just issued 1.4 trillion in debt. Gillard to win? No – tip the queen.

     Australia’s Economy - The Nauru Option?  The Micronesian island of Nauru is prominent in Australian consciousness. As part of the Pacific Solution, Australia pays Nauru to “process” refugees pending determination of their immigration status. But Australia’s economic future may also parallel that of Nauru. In the 1960s and 1970s, Nauru boasted the highest per capita income in the world. Its wealth was based on mining phosphate from guano (bird dropping). To secure its future once the phosphate reserves were exhausted, Nauru placed a portion of mining revenues in the Nauru Phosphate Royalties Trust to invest for the long term.  Today, Nauru’s phosphate reserves are exhausted and no longer economically viable. The Trust’s assets have been lost through mismanagement and fraud. Nauru’s GDP per capital has shrunk dramatically. The unemployment rate is estimated to be 90%. Government employs 95% of those with work. The country lacks the money to perform basic functions.
Nauru briefly became a tax haven and illegal money laundering centre to generate revenue. It is dependent on aid.  Nauru’s physical environment is severely degraded from strip mining. Its population, which is among the most obese in the world, is shrinking.  While Australia is not Nauru, the fate of the island highlights the need for a clear economic strategy to secure the nation’s future.

Thursday  25 March 2013 / Hour 1, Block D:  Mary Kissel, Wall Street Journal editorial board, in re: HUD is unhappy with Westchester as having too any majority-white neighborhoods. Guy gets financing for 305 units for poor people; HUD is not satisfied. In fact, Westchester is the fourth-most-integrated in New York.  HUD wants Westchester to declare it's in error, and to explain how it'll sue neighborhoods. Westchester said, What? HUD took it to curt.  Also want Westchester to force landlords to accept Section Eight tenants.  Feds force banks to give money to tenants who can’t afford it; an overarching theme of the feds.  Saw the recent election as a good test space. Until now, the tiny townships haven’t had to deal with HUD: now the feds are going to each town to _______.  Towns have villages within them. Rob Astorino is standing up for localities's right under the New York State constitution to decide how their sewage and housing will be constituted.  The whole county budget is $1.7bil; this'll be a test case for the whole country.

Elections have consequences, and one result from November has been to empower President Obama's regulators. Consider what the social engineers at the Department of Housing and Urban Development are doing to Westchester County north of New York City. At issue is a 2009 settlement with HUD in which Westchester committed to develop 750 public housing units in mostly white neighborhoods over seven years. County executive Rob Astorino has financing for 305 units (110 of which are already occupied), putting Westchester ahead of schedule. HUD could have declared victory and moved on to a real mess like, say, Detroit.

Instead, the agency is interfering with local zoning in Westchester to force more racial diversity on suburban neighborhoods. Last week, HUD New York's Director of Community Planning and Development Vincent Hom wrote Mr. Astorino and threatened to cancel $7.4 million in unrelated housing and community development funds. To keep the cash, Westchester must produce "a satisfactory zoning analysis and plan to overcome exclusionary zoning practices." Westchester spokesman Ned McCormack says such a plan is hard to produce because zoning concerns how land is developed -- such as where to put sewers, or multifamily homes -- not who lives where. Westchester nonetheless examined zoning practices in 43 municipalities for evidence of racial discrimination and found none. HUD rejected that analysis last April. So Westchester commissioned Pace University law professor John Nolon to examine the legality of the county's conclusions. In June, he agreed with Westchester's findings.

HUD didn't dispute Mr. Nolon's analysis but pressed ahead anyway. The bureaucrats think if neighborhoods are majority white they are ipso facto discriminatory. But as everyone knows, families make housing decisions for a myriad of reasons, from affordability to schools to cultural affinity. Discriminatory intent requires proof that financially able minorities are blocked from buying homes in certain neighborhoods, but there is no evidence of that in Westchester. According to the 2010 census, Westchester is the fourth most racially diverse county in the state, behind Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx and tied with Manhattan.  HUD is also pressing Westchester to "promote" legislation that would force landlords to accept federally subsidized Section 8 housing vouchers to pay rent. Mr. Astorino vetoed such a bill in 2010, and HUD successfully sued the county to reintroduce the measure. Mr. Astorino asked the Democratic-controlled county legislature to resubmit the legislation in August 2012, which it has declined to do. Westchester is appealing to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

Meanwhile, HUD is increasing its political pressure on the county. In a separate letter last month to Mr. Astorino's deputy, Kevin Plunkett, HUD cites a 2004 Rutgers study that Westchester commissioned -- but never adopted -- that concluded the county should build 10,768 additional housing units. HUD calls the study "important evidence" of "regional needs," though it's not part of the 2009 settlement. The additional housing units could cost the county between $730 million to $1 billion. Its total annual budget is only $1.7 billion.  Westchester is less segregated than many ethnic enclaves in New York City. Republican Mr. Astorino and municipalities are united in their belief that local governments should be able to determine zoning rules for such things as multifamily developments or lot sizes. HUD bureaucrats who want to re-engineer neighborhoods according to some diversity formula will do more harm than good.

Hour Two

Thursday  25 March 2013 / Hour 2, Block A:  . Michael Rubin, AEI resident & former Pentagon official, in re: Iran. Iranians often brag in Farsi about how the Americans play checkers and the Iranians play chess. "Give them crumbs and then be free to do as you wish."  Thumbed their noses at the Americans from Kazakhstan, still spinning their centrifuges. Americans: once we engage in a dip process, we tend to try to keep the process alive; US and Europe since 2006 have been offering Iran progressively richer packages; if we stepped away from the table, it'd work better.. Keep sending mixed signals. Note India setting aside a 20bil rupee fund for Iranian oil processing; Turkey collaborating with Iran; China sending tankers – the sanctions regime is collapsing. Even so the pressure on Iran is noticeable – but sanctions alone won’t work Only twice has Iran veered from policy: hostages, and ending the Iran-Iraq war "Like drinking a chalice of poison, but we have to."  Iranians have transited the Suez Canal first time in decades; have sent a fleet to China for the first tie since the Tenth Century. As our adversaries give them logistical support, that amplifies the problem.  Iranian people are the biggest threat to the regime, so IRGC focuses internally, and Iranian navy is external fighting force.  US subs run on 90%-enriched uranium, same as what's needed for a bomb; Iran demands to do this, too,

Thursday  25 March 2013 / Hour 2, Block B:  . Aaron David Miller. VP for New Initiatives & Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Distinguished Scholar; in re: Pres Obama's Middle East policies.  Peace in the region?  It's angry, broken and dysfunctional. Policies ave fallen far short of what he intended; the Middle East represents a region divided in to migraine headache on one hand and root canals on the other. Arab Spring is Arab Winter; no prospect of democracy. Syria is a trap for the US and is imploding. Iran: centrifuges spin, mullahs play cat and mouse; and the much-too-promised land: how to deal with Palestinians and Israelis. All management exercises, and not easy.  Pres Obama now understands that the notion of an Israeli-Palestinian peace is a long shot; went to Jerusalem to fix a problem he'd partly created, hugely dysfunctional relationship with Netanyahu, worst since Eisenhower-Ben Gurion. He's the most dominating and controlling foreign policy president since Richard Nixon.  To Kerry: don’t ask me to do a lot, and don’t undo my re-set with Netanyahu (don’t push the Israelis too hard); he definitely doesn’t want to be the president under whom the Iranians break out with a bomb. He also deeply doesn’t want war with Iran; will exhaust every conceivable effort to find a deal to cap enrichment, will finally just contain.  Won't OK an Israeli strike, and the Israelis don’t want to go it alone.

Thursday  25 March 2013 / Hour 2, Block C:  . Tony Badran, Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) research Fellow, in re: Israel and Syria.   Syria: surrounded by Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, Turkey and Kurdistan. Gathering of the clans in Syria with black banners raised. Not home-grown.  A study says that 90% of the fighters in Syria are nationals; in the Lebanese civil war, people came from all over the world (obviously a different breed form jihadists.). With 37,000 Saudi backed, troops, tens of thousands of Salfists, huge numbers of foreigners; grave implications for the day after. Any chance of a stable coalition? No – can cooperate tactically. Al Farouk Faction  in the north with support from Turkey: have been fighting al Nusrah for control of border crossing both strategically and financially. Front for the Liberation of Syria.  Set-up for control of Assad's arsenal. Even the Sunnis of Syria are historically divided; all the different groups can’t really coalesce.  Jordan and US working on buffer zone for Jordan.   Corridor from Damascus to the Alawi enclave in Lebanon. If regional actors police buffer zones, may contain the threat within Syria; but if Iranians do, then it defeats US policy. This problem will not be solved for decades?  Could be.  Many countries calling for a coherent US strategy.  For Israel,  Sunnis in Syria constitutes a tactical threat at this point; Hezbollah constitutes a strategic threat; Iran constitutes an existential threat. Two pillars for Turkey (which currently depends on Russian and Iran for oil): Israel and Kurdistan – want Kurdish and Israeli natural gas (which Israel today started pumping),  inter al: security & energy security.

Thursday  25 March 2013 / Hour 2, Block D:  Eric Trager, the Next Generation Fellow at The Washington Institute, in re: Egypt. A heart surgeon, Bassam Yussef,  has become a successful comedian ("the John Stewart of Egypt") is now held as  criminal for having "defamed" Islam and Morsi. Then someone in the US embassy tweeted a link to a quip from Jon Stewart about Bassam Yussef, which predictably enraged the Egyptian govt, which then shut down the embassy's twitter account, although it went back up in an hour.  Before the Brotherhood won a great plurality, it lost a bunch of local elections.  Non-Islamist parties will not participate in parliamentary and major national elections on the grounds that they're rigged.  Brotherhood has power but no control: ;society is increasingly chaotic. Trying to put Muslim Brothers into the police and military – Note that members follow orders of Supreme Guide, not of the normal chain of command. Just now, MB wont fan flames, sees history in long terms, intend to consolidated power for perhaps many years. Thereafter, will consolidate the global Islamic state.

Hour Three

Thursday  25 March 2013 / Hour 3, Block A:   Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re: Gaza, Egypt. Ron Prosser, Israeli amb to the UN, has just gone to UN to demand hat UN condemn the rocket fire out of Gaza into Israel.  Fajr5s fired into Tel Aviv; set aside till end of election and arrival of US resident. All this is now behind the PM; Hezbollah has been resupplied with Farjr5s; now Egyptian govt has collapsed and some Fajr5s have been fired from Sinai. Need ground forces to go in and clear out the rockets.  IDF has struck two launching grounds. One Rocket went through the roof of a nursery which  happened to be empty at hat moment.   Tunnels from Gaza to Egypt: Hamas ahs an official committee that designates which tunnels may be open and takes a cut of the business - which is costing Egypt $1 billion a year. Morsi can’t control his economy anymore than he can control his army, which strengthens Hezbollah. Qatar was supposed to give $4 bil, but haven't; rationing food, which will take a toll  on the poor.  Trucks from Turkey have to go through Israel, 100 trucks a day. Turkey opens its military academy to Ikhwan, driving out Western-oriented. Not only is Syria in a state of collapse, there are gangs operating openly under the Al Qaeda flag, also Iranian surrogates. More and more foreigner in Syria – Gulf Salafists (13,000); al Nusrah (6,000; = al Qaeda); many political Islamists.  Guy chosen to head the National Council of the Syrian Free Army – an American citizen who says he's totally committed to the Muslim Brotherhood.  Erdogan being obliged to collaborate with Israel; also now a $20bil nuclear program he's shopping to China and ____

Thursday  25 March 2013 / Hour 3, Block B:  . Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re:  P5+1 talks starting in Almaty in hours: Iran and those who’ve levied sanctions on Iran.  Is  the pres of the US preparing Americans for containment? Is Iran preparing for confrontation? Iran sees diplomacy as a vehicle for postponement, more time to continue centrifuges. Khamenei's fatwah on websites, but he's not a clergyman.  India puts billions as insurance on refining Iranian oil. Iran putting ships in the Pacific launching homemade tankers, not holding back at all. Merely holding back the West. Fiction that diplomacy in Almaty will somehow render the Iranians pacific. Increasing scepticism of will or ability of the West to prevent Ian from bldg a bomb.  Iraqis mobilizing on Syrian border, in so many countries we see destabilization.  Note changes taking place: elimination of Christian communities in Iraq, Palestine, Egypt, Turkey – what's the message to those who want to stay and resist? Gaza first must b solved: Pillar of Smoke.

Thursday  25 March 2013 / Hour 3, Block C:  . David M Drucker, Roll Call, in re: McConnell's Obamacare Tax Repeal Stalls in House.  House Republicans appear unlikely to move a repeal of Obamacare’s medical device tax as a standalone bill, according to multiple GOP sources. This could disappoint Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Goodlatte: House Could Overhaul Immigration in 'Pieces'

Thursday  25 March 2013 / Hour 3, Block D:   Carrick Mollenkamp, Reuters,  in re: Special Report: How the Fed fueled an explosion in subprime auto loans  ---Jasper, Alabama: Thanks largely to the U.S. Federal Reserve, Jeffrey Nelson was able to put up a shotgun as down payment on a car.

Hour Four

Thursday  25 March 2013 / Hour 4, Block A:  Bret Stephens, WSJ,  in re: GLOBAL VIEW   Remembering Michael Kelly

Thursday  25 March 2013 / Hour 4, Block B:  Devin Leonard, Bloomberg, in re: Disney buys Star Wars

Thursday  25 March 2013 / Hour 4, Block C:  Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com,  in re: The competition heats up: More successful glide tests today for SpaceShipTwo, now with its engine attached.  They're testing the flight characteristics of the spaceship with the additional engine weight. Once satisfied, they'll then move on to powered flights.  The competition heats up: Legislatures in New Mexico and Texas move forward with bills clarifying future spaceport legalities.  The roll-out of Orbital Sciences’ Antares rocket to the launchpad will occur on Saturday, with the test first launch scheduled between April 17-19.

Thursday  25 March 2013 / Hour 4, Block D:   Jeff Green Bloomberg, in re: Women Break Through as U.S. Boardrooms Welcome Non-CEOs.  Beth Comstock, a Nike Inc. director, says she picked up ideas in the shoemaker’s boardroom about doing business in India by appealing to that country’s love of cricket. Now she’s taking what she learned back to her day job as General Electric Co.’s marketing chief. Comstock shows how women are breaking through a path traveled by men for decades in male-dominated boards: They’re increasingly welcomed as directors at corporations such as Honeywell International Inc. and General Dynamics Corp. without having served as a chief executive officer at another company. And like men, they’re getting critical experience out of it.

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