Photo, above: Tortilla Coast, 400 Second Street, Southeast; Washington, D.C.   Capitol Hill watering hole, evening respite of Congress and entourages, where young Paul Ryan worked to pay his rent while interning for Jack Kemp and at Heritage Foundation.

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW 

Monday 905P Eastern Time (605P Pacific Time):   Mary Kissel, WSJ editorial board, in re:   Paul Ryan's selection: "a principled fellow."  Didn’t rely on governmental or familial handouts.  His father died when he was 16; he represents a kind of American spirit that in some ways seems to be lost. Edward DeMarco is attacked by HuffPo and the head of United Steelworkers: he runs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, announced that he dislikes cities' seizing private mortgages, as being potentially illegal.  Edward DeMarco, head of Federal Housing Finance Agency: bravo. sir.

Monday 920P Eastern Time (620P Pacific Time):  Aaron Task, Yahoo Finance, and Jim McTague, Barron's Washington, in re: the Draghi put and the Bernanke put: yes – illusions. Chinese export data are terrible – hit a wall; but the Dow is at a post-crash height, S&P above 1400 – markets levitating on the sure thought that Bernanke will do QE3.     Jackson Hole mtg; if he doesn’t set he stage & come through in Sept, there'll be a heavy reckoning.  Robots: once turned on, they run without human interventions; run the same program a million times a second, no matter how harmful.   Twenty-year-olds doing the programming. Knight Capital. Stocks go up and down unrelated to their fundamentals – all robots making five-second bets on stocks. Everyone now realizes that our stock market is jerry-rigged, could collapse at any moment and our regulators are terrified of tinkering. Disaster coming. The playing field is not level. The more you understand, the clearer it is that it's no good.  "Liquidity" is only algos going in and out; it's beyond fleeting, it's measured in nanoseconds. Extremely dangerous to build a financial system around this. Nobody is in charge of the bank.

Ryan and Romney in NC after the announcement.

Monday 935P Eastern Time (635P Pacific Time):   Lara M Brown, Villanova, and Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, in re:   Why choose Paul Ryan? He's (merely) chair of the Congressional budget committee – numbingly about numbers, unfunded mandates, the federal budget.  Only inside-Washington people, political junkies, and the farthest-eastern corner of Wisconsin know who he is. Dasn't let the Obama campaign do to him what it's done to Romney. He's only 42, so not likely to be extremely widely known.

Monday 950P Eastern Time (650P Pacific Time):   David Drucker, Roll Call, and Jodi Schneider, Bloomberg tax editor, in re: Comparison of Ryan budget to Obama budget from this past February.  Ryan balances budget in ten years by cutting some social programs, cuts food stamps, changes Medicare over ten years. President's budget doesn't address entitlements; does extend Bush-era tax cuts with some important exceptions.  Ryan in his "Roadmap for America's Future" proposed eliminating corporate tax and simplifying personal tax, plus adding a VAT tax. The two parties have vastly different views on what the budget shd be and neither has enough votes to swing through.

 

Monday 1005P (705P Pacific Time):   Taegan Goddard, Political Wire; John Fund, American Spectator & NRO; Larry Johnson, No Quarter blog; in re: Obama welcomes Ryan to the race, attacks his budget ideas. Polls, debate, New Hampshire.  GenX goes to the White House. Poll: choice of Ryan hasn’t changed the voting ratios.  CNN ORC Intl Poll on debates: 57% of Americans say that in the past, debates were very important to their voting choice, whereas many fewer considered the running mate to be so. Elders in Florida are barely paying much attention yet.  recall Dan Quayle: he was wholly unready for the presidency; Ryan, by comparison, is the bright kid who writes the talking points – here, his own talking points. John Fund met him as an intern for Jack Kemp and Heritage Fdn; Ryan paid his rent by tending bar at Tortilla Coast, a major Capitol Hill watering hole. Ryan is in fact a deep thinker, can speak extemporaneously on a broad range of topics, and in plain American that we can all understand.

Monday 1020P (720P Pacific Time):   continued. Paul Ryan's entry is praised by both Republicans and Democrats - a tad unnerving.  Romney had to choose someone of whom people wouldn't be saying, "What was he thinking?!"  Is this election won or lost in the Midwest? Yes. Could be Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, even Minnesota. If Romney swept those states plus Ohio, he'd win.

Monday 1035P (735P Pacific Time):   Aaron Klein, author and WABC radio, in re: Egypt and Sinai trouble; Syria and Turkey trouble, Syrian aircraft down on Iraq border, conflict looming.  Syrian official asserts: "There's no intention whatsoever to use chemical weapons against Syria" – i.e., could be used vs foreign enemies. All eyes on US and Turkey.  Russia, China, Iran and Syria move all together.  Syria wiil not go down without a fight. Possibility of US imposing a no-fly zone over Syria, engendering a possible shooting war in September or October.

Monday 1050P (750P Pacific Time):   Jeff Bliss, The Bliss Index, and Gene Countryman, KNSS, in re:  Paul Ryan; the drought (Ryan voted  in favor of drought relief); Bay Area fires. Gov Moonbeam accuses people who disagree with him on climate change as "denialists."

 

Monday 1105P (805P Pacific Time):   Eric Trager , Washington Institute, in re: Egypt and Morsi; trouble in Sinai 

Monday 1120P (820P Pacific Time):   Reza Kahlili, A Time to Betray, in re: Organization of Islamic States in Mecca; meeting between Saudi Arabia and Iran  

Monday 1135P (835P Pacific Time):   Rights at Risk: The Limits of Liberty in Modern America by David K. Shipler; 1 of 2

Monday 1150P (850P Pacific Time):   Rights at Risk: The Limits of Liberty in Modern America by David K. Shipler; 2 of 2

Sun halo.

Monday/Tues 1205A (905 Pacific Time):   . Liam Pleven, WSJ, in re: drought and commodities and world food prices  

Monday/Tues  1220A (920 Pacific Time):   . John Bussey, WSJ, in re: what does Chick-fil-A teach about politics, business and franchise?

Monday/Tues  1235A (935P Pacific Time):   . The Romney Files: The Inside Story Behind Mitt's Money, Politics and Religion by Brett Arends, 1 of 2  

Monday/Tues  1250A  (950P Pacific Time): Exeunt.  The Romney Files: The Inside Story Behind Mitt's Money, Politics and Religion by Brett Arends; 2 of 2  

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Music (times from New York City broadcast)

9-hr: Burn after Reading;  10-hr: Sherlock [TV series], Persia; 11-hr: Persia, Michael Clayton;  midnight hr: Burn after Reading, Sherlock.