Photo, above: Balochistan conflict, Iran and Pakistan with troops at their borders. See Hour 3, Block D, Arif Rafiq, Middle East Institute. Photo by grace of The Nation of Pakistan (nation.com.pk) with thanks.  

 

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Co-host: Mary Kissel, Wall Street Journal editorial board & host of OpinionJournal.com.

Hour One

Thursday  9 October  2014 / Hour 1, Block A: David M Drucker, Washington Examiner Senior Congressional correspondent, in re:  South Dakota; lots of adults remember Larry Pressler as a good Republican . . . Democrats, smelling blood, promise to put in $1mil.  . .  . EB5 visa issue – been attacked from all quarters and hasn’t  yet responded; that's hurt him.  Colorado: a purple state, easily won by Pres Obama. Mark Udall, family in politics for generations but he doesn’t smile. Cory Gardner, opponent, smiles all the time; an excellent campaigner, not defensive. Focuses on jobs and [oil] exploration. Stays on msg, very likable.  Came out for over-the-counter birth control.  Iowa: Joni Ernst: performs well on campaign trail, holds to a fairly conservative message; leading in the polls.  When GOP uses a competent female, it deprives Dems of the war on women theme.  Absent that, what can they say - economics?  international?  Everything in the news is problematic these days.   Mary Kissel was on Maria Bartiromo; roundtable. 

Thursday  9 October  2014 / Hour 1, Block B:  Edward W Hayes, criminal defense attorney par excellence, in re: New York Post , a tabloid, says that the mayor of New York has never met with the five DAs of the five boroughs [counties] of New York City ("I think he's crazy"), but meets repeatedly with the Rev Al Sharpton.  A close colleague of the Rev Sharpton is in deep legal trouble (although not yet charged) with an abuse case.  De Blasio is getting odder and odder; he keeps company only with people just like him.   Nobody really likes him. If he can’t get along with DAs, he's [out].  De Blasio has no respect for . . .   "How much longer does he have – two years?"  "No, Eddie; twelve years. We're doomed." 

Thursday  9 October  2014 / Hour 1, Block C: Larry Johnson, NoQuarter, in re: Leon Panetta's remarks on the president were peculiar.  Related to his time at the Agency?  An old grudge?  I don’t think so, but every weekend he ordered a jet and flew to California. When he found that ObL was protected by Pakistanis in Abbotabad; 90% certainty that he was there, went to president [in January?]; it wasn’t until April that with back-up from Hillary Clinton, et al., and e forced his way into the White House past Valerie Jarrett that the president was forced to move.  . . . Pres Obama is still opposing a secular tyrant defending against Islamic [maniacs] – Bashar Assad.  Benghazi: Panetta and Dempsey informed the president that an attack was under way; president refused to move.  . . .   Panetta speaks both as a public servant and, possibly, as a backer of Hillary Clinton, but this helps Clinton zero because her deeds around Benghazi are [rather disgraceful].  When they were told that the attack was with mortars, it was obvious that it was an organized attack.  Panetta said the Pres Obama has lost his way.  recall Panetta's criticism of our pulling out of Iraq.  Today's Reuters report that the Pentagon was surprised when Pres Obama announced htat the US was withdrawing from Iraq – DOD had not been informed.  Haven’t had such an inept national security team around the president since Jimmy Carter.    Decisions are made entirely for domestic reasons; incl sending military to fight ebola: this is a fighting machine, not the Peace Corps.  Note also the summer of 2013 false flag operation in Syria: was the "rebels" not Assad who launched a chem. attack.

The education of Barack Obama.   The Panetta Phenomenon: Why a turncoat Pentagon chief is scoring ... Leon Panetta is going to war with the president he couldn't get to go to war in Syria. And his verbal bombs are causing plenty of damage.  Leon Panetta's memoirs   Obama's Former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director Has Been Shredding Him on Syria and ISIS  Promoting the release of his new book "Worthy Fights," former Secretary of Defense and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Leon Panetta has embarked on a media tour full of criticism of President Barack Obama's foreign policy.

Panetta's criticism has been squarely aimed at the president's handling of the situation in Syria and Iraq over the past few years. He has painted Obama's decision not to enforce his own "red line" against the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad as a mistake that hurt US credibility. And he has said Obama has made decisions that have created a vacuum for the rise of extremists like the group calling itself the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL). "It was damaging," Panetta told Yahoo's Katie Couric of Obama's decision to draw a "red line" over Assad's use of chemical weapons and . . .

Thursday  9 October  2014 / Hour 1, Block D: Gene Countryman, KNSS Wichita, in re: Greg Orman as an independent runs against Pat Roberts; Suddenly Orman springs 10 points ahead; GOP throws resources at it; now . . .  when Jeb Bush was in town a week ago, fundraiser for Roberts, very subdued.  A bit like a wake.  But today the enthusiasm was back – more like a political rally, upbeat. Polls showing the races a re tightening, effective TV and radio; and the Kansas City debate: Roberts did well. They hammer: attaching Harry Reid to the oppo to Roberts – i.e., a vote for Orman keeps Reid as head of the Senate.  Four-day bus trip in eastern Kansas w Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin.   Gov Sam Brownback has run a difficult campaign vs. a man with a colorful past.  The road to GOP Senate control runs through Kansas: you need to go out and work, make calls.   Cruz helping Kansas Senator Roberts launch bus tour in Wichita  Texas Sen. Ted Cruz came to Wichita to boost the re-election campaign of fellow Republican and Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts.  PHOTOS: Ted Cruz campaigns for Pat Roberts


Hour Two

Thursday  9 October  2014 / Hour 2, Block A:  Michael Vlahos, Naval War College, in re:   Fighting Identity: Sacred War and World Change (The Changing Face of War)  (1 of 4)  It’s 4:30 AM, 23 June 1864: can feel the vibration seven miles away as the Army of the Potomac . . . Cold Harbor – almost 13,000 casualties in less than half an hour.   A predicate for what will happen fifty years later in WWI.  Seventh New York Artillery passing Confederate lines . . . Commanded that day by Gen George S Patton, grandfather of the Patton we know from the Twentieth Century. The charge levels Seventh New York. . . .  This is about sacrifice – which we see in the fight against the Islamic state. (1 of 4)

Thursday  9 October  2014 / Hour 2, Block B: Michael Vlahos, Naval War College, in re:  Fighting Identity: Sacred War and World Change (The Changing Face of War)  (2 of 4)

Thursday  9 October  2014 / Hour 2, Block C: Michael Vlahos, Naval War College, in re:  Fighting Identity: Sacred War and World Change (The Changing Face of War)  (3 of 4)

Thursday  9 October  2014 / Hour 2, Block D: Michael Vlahos, Naval War College, in re:  Fighting Identity: Sacred War and World Change (The Changing Face of War)  (4 of 4)

Hour Three

Thursday  9 October  2014 / Hour 3, Block A: Simon Constable, WSJ, in re:

A little-known academic paper shows why equities have room to rise  The bear market in crude oil prices should have stock investors elated, not disappointed. What’s more, there’s still time to make money.

Thursday  9 October  2014 / Hour 3, Block B: Robert M Cutler, Montreal Gazette, in re:  Opinion: Raising prices for oil will do little against climate change

Thursday  9 October  2014 / Hour 3, Block C: Joshua Green, Bloomberg, in re:  THE BATTLE FOR COLORADO IS THE BATTLE FOR AMERICA  Why the dead-heat Senate race between Mark Udall and Cory Gardner is a preview of the 2016 presidential election

Thursday  9 October  2014 / Hour 3, Block D: Arif Rafiq, Middle East Institute, in re: UN chief urges Pakistan, India to resolve border violence through talks.   Ban Ki-moon expresses concern over recent escalation of violence, deploring the deaths and displacement of civilians.   Insurgents in Pakistan Stepping Up Iran Strikes  Sunni insurgents in Pakistan increased attacks on Iranian border posts in the southeast of the country this week, employing methods similar to those used by Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq.  In one instance, a car bomber struck a fortified base near the city of Saravan, killing a senior officer and prompting Iranian commanders and politicians Thursday to call upon Pakistan to control its borders. On Tuesday, three police officers were killed in an ambush after responding to a distress call.

These were only the latest in a series of attacks. Last month, insurgents rammed a vehicle laden with more than 1,000 pounds of explosives into one of the outer walls of a central base before launching a surprise attack with a convoy of pickup trucks carrying 70 insurgents, a senior military official told the Fars news agency this week.  The official, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Pakpur of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, said the attackers had been repelled only after a long firefight and the arrival of reinforcements, flown in by helicopter from other bases.

The Iranian-Pakistani border cuts straight through the Sunni tribal area of Baluchistan, which has been volatile for the past 15 years. In the past decade more than 3,000 Iranian border guards have been killed in gun battles with drug-smuggling gangs, but in recent years the fighting has grown more sectarian.

A Sunni extremist group, Jaish ul-Adl, or the Army of Justice, has been carrying out a program of harassment, derailing trains and conducting assassinations and bombings. It demands independence, but Iran has accused its leaders of working for the United States and Saudi Arabia.

In a statement on Edaalat News, a blog said to be run by Jaish ul-Adl militants, the group took responsibility for the attack on . . .

Hour Four

Thursday  9 October  2014 / Hour 4, Block A: Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com, in re: Construction of Angara launchpad at Vostochny delayed  In order to complete construction of the Soyuz rocket launchpad at Russia’s new spaceport in Vostochny as quickly as possible, Russian managers have decided to delay completion by one year of the launchpad for the new Angara rocket.

I would not conclude from this decision that the construction at Vostochny is lagging. Instead, it appears that the Russian government continues to give it a high priority, and is merely beginning to structure that priority as effectively as possible. The Soyuz rocket is already in operation and will be ready to fly as soon as Vostochny is operational. Angara, meanwhile, is still under development. I suspect a delay in getting its launchpad ready will have no effect in the overall schedule of that rocket, as they need to do several additional test flights before it will be ready to be declared operational.

Launch abort system installed on Orion for December test flight  Engineers have installed a test version of the launch abort system (LAS) for the first test flight of the Orion capsule in December.

The LAS will not be active during the uncrewed EFT-1 mission, but during future missions it will be equipped to act within milliseconds to pull the spacecraft and its crew away from its rocket so that Orion could parachute safely back to Earth.  While the abort motors  are inert and not filled with solid fuel, the LAS will have an active jettison motor so that it can pull itself and the nose fairing away from the spacecraft shortly before Orion goes into orbit. The flight test will provide data on the abort system’s performance during Orion’s trip to space.

Based on what I know of the Orion/SLS launch schedule, I don’t think NASA ever intends to test it during a full launch of the SLS rocket. For one thing, the rocket is too expensive and NASA can’t afford to waste a launch just to test this one component. For another, the rocket’s development is too slow as it is, with the first launch not scheduled until 2018 and the first manned flight not until 2021, at the earliest. If they add a launch test of the abort system, NASA might not fly an SLS manned mission until late in the 2020s.

Meanwhile, NASA is sure insisting that SpaceX do such tests. And they will, since their capsule and rocket is affordable and quick to launch. What does that tell us about the two systems? Which would you buy if you were the paying customer?

Oh wait, you are the paying customer! Too bad your managers in Congress don’t seem interested in managing your money very wisely.

Air Force to take over two former shuttle hangers in Florida for its X-37B program  In an effort to find tenants for its facilities, the Kennedy Space Center is going to rent two former shuttle processing hangers to Boeing for the Air Force’s X-37B program.

Thursday  9 October  2014 / Hour 4, Block B: Olivier Guitta, geopolitical analyst, London, in re:   UK hostage strategy scrutinised after Isis threatens fifth western hostage The release of David Bolam in Libya after a ransom was apparently paid has also led to . . .

Thursday  9 October  2014 / Hour 4, Block C:  Richard A Epstein, Hoover Institution, Chicago Law, in re: Segregation in Texas?  (1 of 2)

Thursday  9 October  2014 / Hour 4, Block D: Richard A Epstein, Hoover Institution, Chicago Law, in re: Segregation in Texas?  (2 of 2)