Monday 3 June 2013
Photo, above: Japan woos Vietnam amid shared China concerns Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, left, and his wife Akie, second from left, pose with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and his wife Tran Thanh Kiem for a group photo at the Government Office in Hanoi, Vietnam, Wednesday, Jan 16, 2013. Mr Abe visited Vietnam on the first leg of his South-east Asian tour aimed at bolstering alliances with a region that shares his concerns over China's territorial assertiveness. (photo: AP) See: Hour 2, Block D: Gordon Chang, Forbes.com
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Hour One
Monday 3 June 2013 / Hour 1, Block A: Thomas Joscelyn, Long War Journal senior editor, and Bill Roggio, Long War Journal and FDD, in re: analysis of Pres Obama's speech (Weekly Standard). Seven suspected al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula militants were killed by two unmanned aerial vehicle strikes in southern Yemen on June 1, a local official said, Reuters reported. On May 23, U.S. President Barack Obama announced that the United States would be redefining the role of such targeted strikeswith additional parameters on their use. Specifically, the target must "pose a continuing and imminent threat" and be in a situation in which "there are no other governments capable of effectively addressing the threat."
State Department highlights Iran's 'marked resurgence' of state-sponsored terrorism
US launches first drone strike in Pakistan in 6 weeks
Inspire Magazine excerpts LWJ on AQAP links to al Qaeda 'core' The excerpted report notes that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was able to run an article by Adam Gadahn.
Monday 3 June 2013 / Hour 1, Block B:
Monday 3 June 2013 / Hour 1, Block C: Lara M Brown, political analyst and author, and Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review & Pirates fan, in re:
Monday 3 June 2013 / Hour 1, Block D: Niels Lesniewski, in re: IRS Fails to Meet Deadlines in Tea Party Targeting Probe. Followers of the #WGDB blog will recall that Friday was the deadline for the IRS to turn over a slew of documents to the Senate Finance Committee related to the agency’s targeting of conservative groups. Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and ranking member Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, are seeking answers to 41 questions along with a lot of accompanying documents related to the manner in which the IRS reviewed nonprofit applications from various organizations, including an array of tea-party-affiliated groups. Finance Committee aides say the panel’s requests won’t be honored by the end of the day Friday. “It’s disappointing that the IRS failed to produce any of the documents requested by the Committee,” the offices of Baucus and Hatch said in a joint statement. “This is an agency that revolves around making the American taxpayer meet hard deadlines each and every year when they file their taxes, oftentimes penalizing those that are late,” they said. “The IRS needs to do much better.” The Finance panel’s counterparts in the House at the Ways and Means Committee made a similar request for documents, seeking a response by May 21. The IRS didn’t fulfill that one, either. In a statement, the IRS is saying that the agency is . . . [more]
Hour Two
Monday 3 June 2013 / Hour 2, Block A: John Fund, National Review Online, and David M Drucker, Washington Examiner Sr Congressional correspondent, in re: Seeking Fresh Start, Holder Finds Fresh Set of Troubles Amid a furor over tactics in leak inquiries, some in the West Wing privately wish Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. would step down. O’s ‘Chicago Way’ Nice little business you got there.
Monday 3 June 2013 / Hour 2, Block B: John Fund, National Review Online, and David M Drucker, Washington Examiner Sr Congressional correspondent, in re: The top Republican lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday sent a list of questions to Attorney General Eric Holder about his involvement in approving a search warrant for a Fox News reporter’s phone records and emails. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and security and investigations subcommittee chair Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said their letter concerns “the discrepancy” between Holder’s May 15 sworn testimony to the panel and the Department of Justice’s decision to obtain the Fox search warrant. With the possibility of a perjury charge hanging over Holder, the lawmakers want him to answer their questions by June 5. At issue is an exchange between Holder and Rep. Hank Johnson during the May 15 hearing in which Holder said the “potential prosecution” of the press “is not something I have ever been involved in, heard of, or would think would be a wise policy.” David Drucker: Ryan doesn’t rule out tying debt ceiling deal to budget
Monday 3 June 2013 / Hour 2, Block C: Reza Kahlili, author, A Time to Betray, in re: Iranian Gen Jalali speaks of biowarfare, first time Iran warns of intentions, of how dangerous its viruses are; openly states that it’s progressing in several labs; huge warning to the world. I said in Jan that there's a facility outside of Teheran, Russians and other mastering infections and viruses, any one of which could kill tens of millions. Decades ago, NYT reported that CIA and US govt knew then that the Russians were being approached by Iranians to work with them. "Remove all bases from the region, all support for the Zionist regimes, and issue apologies for all the damage you've done." It’s a warning from the military apparatus to current presidential candidates that talk about reconciliation is forbidden - incl now the son-in-law of the Supreme Leader. Free Syrian Army cannot win. Assad regime has the upper hand. US has three possibilities: US bug out, admitting defeat, or do nothing and watch it blow up, or pour in weapons and . . . Iran benefits from prolonging it all. OR, US makes a deal with Iran: OK, you be a nuclear power and then we'll all be pals. his sort of grand bargain would create much more instability – but that's what the Jarrett-Valayati meeting was about. Darkness in Syria continues. There is no solution.
Monday 3 June 2013 / Hour 2, Block D: Gordon Chang, Forbes.com, in re: About 60 million members of he Chinese Communist Party rule over a billion people. Their president, Xi Jinping – not popularly elected – of China will sit down this week with Pres Obama. Xi is by disposition a conqueror: "The South China Sea is not international waters; it’s a Chinese lake." The Peoples Liberation Army reports directly to the Party, not to the State – making it a private army. Were their to be another 4 June/Tien An Men, the army wd be oblige to defend not the nation but the Party. The warlord Xi supplies missiles to North Korea, directs programs to put his troops into Indian territory in Ladakh, to steal land from Southeast neighbors, and to vampirize wealth from Chinese people. Were the US wise, it would set benchmarks for PRC behavior and refuse to speak until more civilized conduct obtained. China sees a weak American administration, following a weaker Chinese administration, and just laugh at the US. Same dynamic as 1939; instead of Chamberlain, we have a guy named Obama and a guy named Bush.
US needs to say, Back off from seizing land from Philippines, Vietnam, and Japan or you'll see the Seventh Fleet up close.
. . . In a feisty address that opened the conference, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung of Vietnam laid bare the rising regional tensions by repeatedly lamenting the lack of trust between China and its neighbors, and between China and the United States, although he did not mention China by name. Regional organizations are supposed to take care of such tensions, he said, but what is “still missing is strategic trust in the implementation of these arrangements.”
As evidence of the problems, several diplomats from nations allied with the United States said they were concerned about a new map of the South China Sea that was issued this week by Sinomaps Press, the Chinese mapping authority. Beijing has long claimed the islands and land “features” within a nine-dash line drawn decades ago on maps of the South China Sea, a vital trade route where China is growing more assertive. About 80 percent of the South China Sea is inside that line, which was first drawn up by China in 1947 before the Communist takeover. The boundary is not recognized by any other country but has been the basis of China’s territorial claims to islands like the Scarborough Shoal, which it effectively seized from the Philippines last year. The new map, according to Asian diplomats who have seen it, takes a further step and redesignates the nine-dash line as a national boundary. Its release was delayed from late last year so that it could be formally authorized by the Chinese senior leadership, according to a senior Asian diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Wu Shicun, a Chinese official at the conference, denied that the new map showed national boundaries. Instead, he said, it shows new linesaround the Diaoyu islands, a group in the East China Sea that Japan — which calls them the Senkaku — nationalized in September, leading Beijing to claim them for itself. At the time, China said the lines around the islands were drawn in accordance with Chinese law. A recent Pentagon report said they did not comport with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Mr. Wu, who heads the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, said Saturday that the new map was needed because there had not been an official map of the South China Sea and the East China Sea drawn for about 20 years.
Hour Three
Monday 3 June 2013 / Hour 3, Block A: Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re: loss of Sen Frank Lautenburg, 89, retired and then returned when drafted. Eldest member of the Senate; a generous benefactor, a leader in the fight for freedom for many different groups in the Soviet Union; long list of accomplishments.
Darkness in Syria: more arms, weapons, threats; Patriots and F16s to Jordan. Turkey in turmoil – had Patriot batteries delivered there, as well. US need to think carefully about what sort of messages it’s sending; coming: war games among China, Russia, Syria and Iran. Russia says it'll send MiG29s to Assad. A Hezbollah commander said it has 2,000 men in Aleppo, 3,000 [in a different province], and 10,000 in country. Qaradawi calls on global troops for jihad against Alawites, who are "more infidel than Jews or Christians."
Pres Barack Obama signed an executive order June 3 imposing sanctions on foreign financial institutions that conduct or facilitate major transactions in Iran's currency, Reuters reported. The White House also approved sanctions against people doing business with Iran's auto sector, which Obama said is a major source of revenue for Tehran. The United States' move comes shortly before Iran's next presidential election, scheduled for June 14.
Monday 3 June 2013 / Hour 3, Block B: : Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re: Trouble in Turkey: Erdogan on a trip to Morocco, Algeria, others, a trick he's used in the past to deflect public attention from problems. If he'd dealt with the Taksin Park issue immediately it wouldn't have blown up like this. His Islamist policies have irked a lot of citizens – even Pres Gul said not to press to hard. Egypt and Israel collaborating in Sinai – ground troops, air support, to block al Qaeda and also to protect shipping in Suez.
War games among China, Russia, Syria and Iran: the first time we've seen just this. Begins to look like an axis of wicked play. No comment from Washington (which is concerned about Mig29s to Syria). West Bank: John Kerry with liquor visits Abbas for the fourth time; the $4 bil? Abbas has probably spent it already. Abbas suddenly demands 120 hard-core terrorists and murderers released; permanent borders; a freeze on everything, and other preconditions. Meanwhile, PM Fayyad disappears, a new one: prof of linguistics at university in Nablus; seems to be part of Fatah (which Fayyad was not). His appointment shd be till next elections – which never occur; Abbas is now in the ninth year of his four-year term.
Monday 3 June 2013 / Hour 3, Block C: Mona Charen, NRO, in re: Breadwinner Moms Single parenting by choice is a big problem. Mona Charen
Monday 3 June 2013 / Hour 3, Block D: Jed Babbin, Washington Examiner, in re: Putin has Obama wrapped around his finger. China is impervious to his warnings on cyberwar. Why does anybody think he's succeeding? Jed Babbin: Obama's empty warnings to China won't stop hacking | WashingtonExaminer.com
Hour Four
Monday 3 June 2013 / Hour 4, Block A: Richard Rubin, Bloomberg, in re: IRS Gift Rule Turned on Politics as Crisis Prompts Reform By Richard Rubin The last time the Internal Revenue Service waded into a fight on politically active nonprofit groups, the agency capitulated quickly and let people make undisclosed, untaxed payments to groups financing campaign ads. In 2011, under pressure from Republicans, the IRS shut down an attempt to impose gift taxes on donations to so-called social welfare organizations. The move led to a “free-for-all” by donors while clearing up decades of ambiguity on how it would enforce the law, said Ofer Lion, an attorney at Hunton & Williams LLP in Los Angeles. Full story:http://bloom.bg/11m4r9H
Monday 3 June 2013 / Hour 4, Block B: Reed Abelson, NYT, in re: High-End Health Plans Scale Back to Avoid ‘Cadillac Tax’ By REED ABELSON
Monday 3 June 2013 / Hour 4, Block C: :Blame for Benghazi Goes Deeper Than a Conspiracy by Reuel Marc Gerecht Bloomberg View
Monday 3 June 2013 / Hour 4, Block D: http://news.sciencemag.org/
.. .. ..
Music
Hour 1: Eastern Promises
Hour 2: Brake
Hour 3: Atonement, Terminator Salvation
Hour 4: Anonymous