The John Batchelor Show

Thursday 4 February 2021

Air Date: 
February 04, 2021

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Colleagues: Sebastian Gorka, America First radio and Fox; Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, and David Livingstne, The Space Show
 
Hour One
Thursday 4 February  2021  / Hour 1, Block A:  Victor Davis Hanson: @VDHanson; Hoover Institution, and The Case for Trump,in re:     The thought was that Biden was an emissary of he left, give it a respectable veneer, then bow out to Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.  But that’s not what’s happening.  He’s got two years to get the hardest-left agenda since [FDR?], and on his way. What's the rationale for stopping the Keystone XL pipeline?  It’ll be shipped truck, and sent by train all over the globe. Hi many execute decrees will alienate people all over, but not enough to cripple his action. He has academe, sports, media. Hollywood, a lot of Wall Street, on his side.  Staggering amounts of money into Democratic campaigns up and down the ballot. He doesn’t want to lose the midterm, but isn’t much concerned. He wants to be a folk hero among his supporters.   The southern border:  nothing will satisfy the left but equating citizenship with residency: no distinction; anyone in this country has all the rights of a citizen.
Now, as people move across he border, letting in caravans will be so contrived, because we have a wall and forces, but Biden has forbidden us to use either.
Thursday 4 February  2021  / Hour 1, Block B:  Victor Davis Hanson: @VDHanson; Hoover Institution, and The Case for Trump,in re:  A digital regulatory agency in America—cancel culture.  NYU recommends that the fed press social media for “digital suppression.” Fascism with happy face. The new Defense Secretary will “take a pause” and examine the political leanings for solders out of fear of sedition. We now have 30,000 troops in DC, to show that the left has the power—what’ll you do about it? “Let’s deprogram white Republicans.”  If someone said , This is enough, and pulled the plug right now, he’d have enormous support.
The Hunter Biden story was material to the election, but was entirely quashed by 90% of the major media. Their new term: Not freedom of speech, but freedom of reach.
Recall the 1930s:  “If you’re black, you can rent anywhere you want, but not my house. Nothing else available? Not my fault.”  – and this is what the FAANG platforms are saying. 
They believe they're morally superior, and what they dislike they call “hate speech” and they have special antenna to ferret out meanings; so they need the power to do what’s good for us because we're ignorant. You give up the Bill of Rights and hand it all over to experts with credentials. 
Thursday 4 February  2021  / Hour 1, Block C: Conrad Black, @ConradMBlack, publisher, littérateur, biographer, commentator; the National Post; in re:    China is hostile to Canada and will abuse it because of Meng, and so hold the two Michaels in prison.    Xi deserves and actor’s award for the speech he gave: forthright, well-delivered, on the virtues of intl fair play and brotherhood, put China in the fore of the battle against corona virus.   Davos, a genuinely uninteresting village with no good hotel, attracts the [glitterati] globally. International humanism in a quasi-socialist vein. Xi positioned himself as a leader in respect for human beings, Battles the coronavirus as though it had emanated from the North Pole.  China actually welded shut the doors of people who tested positive, as only a totalitarian regime could.  
In fairness to the new administration: Blinken was purposeful and credible in what he said about China.  [Here: a list of misdeeds.]  China’s undertakings in Paris treaty is they’ll be emissions-neutral I 40 years. Rubbish.  We should agree to cancel the extradition agreement provided  Huawei admits it intentionally bankrupted a Canadian firm.
Thursday 4 February  2021  / Hour 1, Block D: Bernard Weinstein: @SMUCox; in re:  The US is an energy superpower; we export to our customers. Oil an gas companies: worry that this one-year moratorium will go on.  Federal lands account for 22% of US oil production, in some parts of the country, it's much higher.   The moratorium doesn’t take gas engines off the road.  As for Canada, it’ll ship more oil to its east and west coasts, and will send more into the US by tanker car, which is more expensive and dangerous. Comments to my article in TheHill show surprising naivete.  Were it not for all the increased natgas in the US, we wouldn’t have seen the huge emission drops of the last decades.  Huge potential economic and job losses.
Biden killed the pipeline on his first day, and a week later he imposed his moratorium,  you’d think that in the depths of this economic and health crisis, this would be on the back burner.
Dan Yergin predicted today that there’ll be an increase in gas production.
 
 Hour Two
Thursday 4 February  2021  / Hour 2, Block A:  Sebastian Gorka, @SebGorka, America First radio, in re:  Coup in Myanmar. Ben will be challenged by something that’s never happened before: the impeachment of a former president.  Pelosi and Schumer don't have a majority in the upper house.   Trump’s aide Jason Miller: Trump will not turn up for this farrago—it’s unconstitutional. The Constitution is explicit: the goal of an impeachment is to remove a president from office. It’s a hate-filled ideological [move]; but he got 12 million more votes in Nov 2020 than he did in 2016. The new charge is dereliction of duty.  The physical breach of the Capitol occurred forty minutes before the president finished speaking.
We’re over two weeks into Biden administration—and they still haven’t passed a bill on covid.
A military stand down:  across-units order that anything that has to do with readiness is [on hold].   What do they think in Beijing, Moscow, Teheran?  The SecDef used words indicating that US military members were enemies. “Men may compete against girls in sports.” Identity politics and critical race theory run amok.  . . . Biden told caravans they’d be welcome—“Petri dishes of covid.”
Thursday 4 February  2021  / Hour 2, Block B:  Sebastian Gorka, @SebGorka, America First radio, in re:  Alexei Navalny has a vision for all of Russia; the Kremlin tried to kill him with Novichok, but he was taken to Germany and survived; returned to Russia and immediately was jailed.  Biden administration has said that this republic must be dismantled; that only multilateralism is acceptable.  This is laughed at by tyrants.  Seeing the world as you’d like it to be, not as it is, Putin will push the bayonet as far in as he can till he feels resistance. With this administration, it will be deep, deep into our gut before he feels resistance.
Thursday 4 February  2021  / Hour 2, Block C:  Chris Riegel: @Scala, @STRATACACHE; in re:            Burnout:  after 11 months of working at home and with children, young parents start to feel despair. A metric is the National Retail Show, usu in June in NYC, but now cancelled for 2021. This is spreading. People need an end date. In St Louis: 909 Chestnut Street, the St Louis office tower: canary in coal mine, 1.4 million sq ft, space, now completely empty; originally sold for $200 million, now  for sale for $3 million.  What does this crash mean to the tax base, the business base?
Thursday 4 February  2021  / Hour 2, Block D: Monica Crowley,@MonicaCrowley;
until January: Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs for the U.S. Department of the Treasury; in re:  In Feb 2020 Monica printed 3.5% unemployment, which is considered full employment. The Biden administration is trying to to achieve that with a stimulus bill that’ll hand out checks. Will that work?
Our economy was the result of common-sense, pro-growth policies that created a thriving economy. Tax cuts, regulatory relief, unleashing the US energy sector, and [clearing up] trade deals.   Biden’s policy is not pro-growth but is bigger government, more taxes, more spending, History shows that that doesn't work.
The CBO put out a report saying: we’ll see 3-4% economic growth this year – so the trillions in stimulus aren't needed. The economy is ready to stand up and run on its own. Btw, there’s $900 billion, almost a trillion, from earlier packages that hasn't been spent.  Democrats may use budget reconciliation, which does not unify the country. The attacks on Donald Trump that began five years ago are still trying to weaken him via the [second] impeachment; it'll fail. His emotional hold on the American people is stronger than ever.
 
Hour Three
Thursday 4 February  2021  / Hour 3, Block A: Dr. Aykan Erdemir, @aykan_erdemir, @FDD, senior director of FDD's Turkey program, and Malcolm Hoenlein, @conf_of_pres, Conference of Presidents, in re:  ISIS is not dormant, relies on Turkey for funding.  Use logistical hub in Turkey for money.  Since 2019, four rounds of Treasury sanctions against Turkey for Hamas, Quds Force, al Qaeda, ISIS , and an Egyptian terrorist organization. Passports being handed out.  Turkey was called the Jihadi Highway.
 Thursday 4 February  2021  / Hour 3, Block B: Ines Demiri, @InesDemiri1;Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kosovo; Diplomat@Consulate General of RKS in New York; and Malcolm Hoenlein, @conf_of_pres, Conference of Presidents, in re:Kosovo-Israel Relations
Thursday 4 February 2021  / Hour 3, Block C:  Assaf Orion, retired Israeli brigadier general & defense strategist; Rueven International Fellow with The Washington Institute; and Malcolm Hoenlein, @conf_of_pres, Conference of Presidents, in re:
Thursday 4 February  2021  / Hour 3, Block D:  Malcolm Hoenlein, @conf_of_pres, Conference of Presidents, in re:
 
Hour Four
Thursday 4 February  2021  / Hour 4, Block A: John Tamny, @johntamny, RealClearPolitics, in re:                Short selling.  Politicians want money to be made in a controllable way.  “Hedge funds always win”? – no; think of Long-Term Capital, among others. Politicians are the price we pay, sadly, for progress; they figure out how to legislate against yesterday’s mistakes.  
Thursday 4 February  2021  / Hour 4, Block B: John Tamny, @johntamny, RealClearPolitics, in re:                
Thursday 4 February 2021  / Hour 4, Block C: Hotel Mars, episode n.  #HotelMars.   Bill Harwood, CBS Space News;  in re: Perseverance.    Curiosity was looking for past habitability; Percy looking for traces of ancient biosignatures; and if they’re found will bring them back to Earth in the early 2030s. Skycrane.  Terrain-relative navigation.  Jezero Crater. More than two dozen cameras on board; can see a house fly on a football field.  Cost: $2.4 billion. Has a helo and two microphones on board.   Can shoot lasers at rocks, vaporize them, and analyze content in the [effluent]. Eleven-minute delay in Earth-received time. Earth will be in the line of sight as it lands; but seeing the  landing may depend on an orbiter. 
Thursday 4 February  2021  / Hour 4, Block D: Paul Gregory: @PaulR_Gregory, @HooverInst, in re: Alexei Navaly:  n longer someone whom one can trivialize. Attempted poisoning with Novichok (FSB), and Navalny’s scamming one of his intended executioners into agreeing that he’d done that; also, Navalny’s courage in returning to Russia, an amazing act of bravery. The party he’s funding is The Beautiful Russia of the Future. He intends to use the current constitution; sees that the provinces are seething, elections coming up for the Duma.  
Putin’s castle  (underground quarters go down 16 floors; has its own lake, hockey rink). Navalny sent in a drone and released an hour-long video that’s been seen by 100 million people. One of Putin’s martial-arts sparring partners claimed he owns it. Putin’s problem: Once you steal so much money, there’s no way to get out.