The John Batchelor Show

Tuesday 10 December 2019

Air Date: 
December 10, 2019

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Thaddeus McCotter, WJR, The Great Voice of the Great Lakes
 
Hour One
Tuesday 5 February 2019 / Hour 1, Block A:  Elizabeth Peek, TheHill and Fox News; in re:   tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. The good economy is a sugar high?  Or are we at genuine food now?  Meat and potatoes territory here.  Democrat continue to pretend that [this is not a good economy]. No doubt that there’s been increased investment in the US: more income and less regulation. Led not just to a happy consumer but to a tsunami of good economic news in the last few days, esp optimism among small business mgrs. And consumer favor.  Good news on top of good news. Jobs are still plentiful and wages are still rising. We had an inventory build earlier in the year, but soon manufacturing will have to launch to fulfill consumer demands. 
The NFIB cites the tax act and deregulation for their members’s speaking of higher wages than they've seen in years.   This is the best since 1969.  We’re revisiting the golden years of the Twentieth Century. Paul Krugman forecast a global recession that wouldn’t end and a [stock market crash].  Obama constantly laid out rafts of new regulations; whenever the economy began to take off, he’d bring in a new regulatory act. Currently, people are optimistic. Half the country wants to believe that Trump is an illegitimate president and wants to impede his work. What might have been had he been granted t he normal honeymoon of a year or two. From day one, sabotage of the president on all fronts, including the media.  Mutual funds withdrew $130 billion; must be an enormous amt of cash sitting on the sidelines. Bloomberg this morning browbeat a guest who held his ground saying : stocks are where you want to be.”  The stock market is up 20% this year. One of the greatest runs we’ve ever had. https://www.forbes.com/sites/miltonezrati/2019/12/09/november-jobs-report-strong-across-the-board/#29e05ad41026
Tuesday 5 February 2019 / Hour 1, Block B:   Elizabeth Peek, TheHill and Fox News; in re:  Condemnation of the president without a crime. The sort-of trial to come in the Senate.  Pelosi resisted it for months, knowing it’d turn out exactly as it has: voters in swing states (Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania)  have moved against impeachment. “This is absurd; we’re almost in an election year. If you don't like Trump, find someone to run against him” – and they can’t.  The Democrats are in a kind of gutter brawl.   https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/democrats-trump-impeachment-liz-peek
Tuesday 5 February 2019 / Hour 1, Block C:  Bill Whalen, Area 45, Hoover institution; in re:  Dearth of Democratic candidates. Joe Biden.   Bill was first to identify a weakness in Kamela Harris’s campaign. https://www.forbes.com/sites/billwhalen/2019/12/08/is-martin-scorsese-directing-joe-bidens-campaign/#384e46685e5d
Tuesday 5 February 2019 / Hour 1, Block D:  Larry Johnson, Sic Semper Tyrannis, in re:
 
Hour Two
Tuesday 5 February 2019 / Hour 2, Block A:  Steve Moore, Heritage Foundation, & author, Trumponomics; in re: The tax cut, called a sugar high, is now two years old and picking up steam. Cut tax rates, get regulations under control get govt out of the way – all these promote growth, Even I didn't think it'd last this long.   Middle class families have seen a $5,200 tax cut.  Why has Pelosi moved with US-Canada-Mexico trade bill now? To show that the Democrats can actually pass something.
Photo of Chrystia Freeland, AMLO, Robert Lightheiser, et al., smiling for the cameras. . . .  All credit to Robert Lightheiser for the successful negotiations on USMCA.  Expect more of a trade truce than a trade pact with China.   
Tuesday 5 February 2019 / Hour 2, Block B:  Peter    , American Foreign Policy Council; in re: . . . If challenged by other states, the Navy is there.  The Space Force.  . . . China’s nontransparent space work: other side of the Moon; boosters working?  China is a very serious contender; we must not rest on our laurels. We could easily be a second-tier power. Fortunately, we're starting with an extremely vibrant private sector. If we provide the necessary encouragement through policy and governance, we can provide the world with another century of global freedom.
For a young person to join the Space Force?  We absolutely want you, with your passion.
Tuesday 5 February 2019 / Hour 2, Block C:  Andrew C McCarthy, author, Ball of Collusion, in re:   “Abuse of Congress” – never known to be illegal.  (Who doesn't abuse Congress?)   Remember that they dallied with campaign finance, quid pro quo, bribery,  and eventually abuse of Congress. It set my heart aflutter to hear law professors become originalists, if only for  a few minutes. Were this a serious impeachment effort – a crime isn't required, but it’d help – a nebulous standard for impeachment invites [further impeachment].  No one will convict the president of obstruction but convict him on abuse of power. Easier to indict him for refusing to turn over information than to go to court and probably lose.  Article I doesn’t require Article III to use Article II. Which is more frivolous: Trump has threatened us more, or that Trump’s actions in Ukraine threaten national security – a likely invasion going from the Upper West Side to the Village!  For adults to conduct themselves in this way is a reflection of how unserious things have become. 
Tuesday 5 February 2019 / Hour 2, Block D:  Andrew C McCarthy, author, Ball of Collusion, in re:  The WSJ ran a CEO conference in Washington today; AG Barr  made remarks with complete confidence (fingertips made a sign f a steeple): “Their explanation wasn’t satisfactory,” said Mr Dunham; “It was rank behavior” according to the AG.  It’ll [all] wind up being less dependent on Horowitz’s strained analysis.   Horowitz’s job was to get a satisfactory answer.  He doesn’t have all the tools that Durham and Barr have, but to find no political bias but seventeen irregularities, why did it all happen?   Why was there never a defensive briefing of the Trump campaign?  Shockingly, they prioritized something else.  Not believable.  Pres Obama then alerted Putin, but not Trump’s campaign.
 
Hour Three
Tuesday 5 February 2019 / Hour 3, Block A:  Tim Kane, Hoover, in re: the plunge of the unemployment rate to a fifty-year low, the excellent jobs number: American is the greatest economy that world has ever seen. Property rights, economic freedom, and now lower corporate taxes, have created institutions to generate a  [terrific] economy.   Wage growth is 3-4%.   However, we have a deficit problem.  For the moment, we’re in a sweet spot.  Immigration – and we have a shortage of workers.
Tuesday 5 February 2019 / Hour 3, Block B:  Michael Ledeen,  FDD , in re:  NCRI. Mullahs. Shut down communications, esp Internet, during the national revolt in Iran. The most intense revolt against the regime since the revolution of 1979-1980. It’s all over the country, and all strata of the population.  Italian labor unions and Mohamed Javed Zarif.  I want the president to stand up and speak to the Iranian people – no more balderdash from the Secretary of State: “We stand with the Iranian people.” What good is that? Need explicit support for a change of regime, Forty years into this.  .
Tuesday 5 February 2019 / Hour 3, Block C:   Gregory Copley, Defense and Foreign Affairs, in re: The 6 December election in Dominica: observers from OSCE?  A Caricom group was sent but the observation missions was  fig leaf designed to legitimize the election. Lots of Caribbean regimes with passport sales and corrupt activities. Its report was superficial , not details of voter rolls; didn't acknowledge that a Caricom and OAS mission had been in Dominica announcing that :electoral reform is mandatory” with more voters than people living on the island. Moderate violence till 5 December: in an early hour of morning the Dominican Special Services police began attacking  homes in the village of Salsbury at three in the morning, ; 120 canisters of gas were fired  n, and live rounds as people fled in terror into the bush.  Casualties; mercenaries brought in, including he local drug gangs to suppress the opposition. Result was an overwhelming landslide in favor of Roosevelt Skerrit, despite multiple international reports on this, incl Al Jazeera. Skerrit brought in 7,500 overseas Dominicans by charter flights; illegal under Dominican constitution.
On 23 Oct 1973, Pres Reagan stood with Pres Eugenia Charles of Dominica and turned back the overthrow of the government in Grenada.  Dominicans remind Pres Trump of this, saying: The Caribbean Basin is now practically run by China, with its intelligence services, vast money-laundering, and arms in the region.  Dominica desperately needs the US to run free and fair elections; also, across the Caribbean. The Washington Post published a dreadfully inaccurate report.  The first leader to congratulate Skerrit was Maduro of Venezuela.   Total disintegration of democracy across the Caribbean; a massive Chinese Mission in Dominica to run state security against the region and the US.  Does the Dominican opposition believe it has a path?  It’ll have to petition the Dominican court to overturn the election, which of course will fail; then to the Caribbean Supreme Court, then the High Court of Appeals.  Might go to the ICC in The Hague, and also to the Commonwealth Court – except that Baroness Scotland, head of the Commonwealth Court, is a close friend of Roosevelt Skerrit,
Tuesday 5 February 2019 / Hour 3, Block D:  Gregory Copley, Defense and Foreign Affairs, in re: Cyprus being taken over by Turkey.  Major transfers of  arms —missiles, S400, German armor, and lots of illegally-imported materiel —from Turkey to Turkish-occupied Cyprus. Turkey took 37% of the island in 1974; now wants all of it for the oil and gas around it, and to cut off Egyptian and Israeli gas pipelines.  The 40,000 troops would have to cross at least one of the two British  sovereign bases on Greek Cyprus.  This is the price you pay when you do not come down on those who violate your strategic interests.
 
Hour Four
Tuesday 5 February 2019 / Hour 4, Block A: Dawn of Infamy: A Sunken Ship, a Vanished Crew, and the Final Mystery of Pearl Harbor, by Stephen Harding
Tuesday 5 February 2019 / Hour 4, Block B: Dawn of Infamy: A Sunken Ship, a Vanished Crew, and the Final Mystery of Pearl Harbor, by Stephen Harding
Tuesday 5 February 2019 / Hour 4, Block C: Dawn of Infamy: A Sunken Ship, a Vanished Crew, and the Final Mystery of Pearl Harbor, by Stephen Harding
Tuesday 5 February 2019 / Hour 4, Block D: Dawn of Infamy: A Sunken Ship, a Vanished Crew, and the Final Mystery of Pearl Harbor, by Stephen Harding