JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
 
Hour One
Tuesday 21 July 2020 / Hour 1, Block A:   Bill Whalen,  Hoover Area 45 podcast, and Goodfellows video; in re:  In 2016. Trump was always going to lose, Hillary was going to win. Now, Trump is being . . .  normal, while Biden is not. Democratic convention was scheduled to have ended yesterday. This is a boring campaign season. Biden: reminiscent of the Ali-Forman fight.  Being an incumbent is a tremendous advantage, as may be the notion of “the quiet voter”— citizens unwilling to say that they support Trump. “You can run but you can’t hide”— but Biden has done a good job of running and hiding. 
Tuesday 21 July 2020 / Hour 1, Block B:   Harry Siegel, Daily Beast and New York Daily News, in re: Schools reopening? Hundreds of thousands of parents are invited to return to work—how to do that and home-school at the same time? The current in-between condition is deeply confusing. Over a million children. School some days and not others??  School is to start in fifty days. So far, it's a failure for the younger grades; small children not prepared to sit at a computer all day. This’ll get weirder.   @harrysiegel, 
Tuesday 21 July 2020 / Hour 1, Block C:   Gregory Copley, Defense and Foreign Affairs, and author: The New Total War of the Twenty-first Century, in re: Massive rains  brought the Three Gorges Dam to its highest point since its construction. Is upstream from Wuhan.  August promises worse.  Clearly, the Mandate of Heaven has been withdrawn from the Chinese Communist Party. Dam was deeply criticized b foreign experts: so many payoffs for bribes that not enough money was left to construct it well. Wasn’t attached to bedrock. Was supposed to be straight, now it zig-zags.  Today, for the first time, CCP admitted that the dam was flexing and had moved. Today, water dramatically exceeds safety levels.  Floodgates are releasing water at 24x the regular water flow, which itself is causing problems  Deaths and displacement of people in vast numbers.  If it bursts: 400 million people downstream, incl Beijing and Shanghai. 
At the Thames, BoJo has chastised China for having broken it Hong Kong treaty and fearful abuse of Uyghurs and Kazakhs in Xinjiang. Xi thought China could create tributary states with investment; when the money stopped, so did the “loyalty.” Now, CCP leadership in their annual summer retreat in two weeks: Xi and Li Kai-sheng will be on the carpet.   The world is crashing down on the heads of the CCP; Party elders want someone to blame, and that will be Xi. UK decision to castigate China and cancel Huawei at once: highly symbolic, as Britain carries a lot of symbolic weight.  Cost to Britain of replacing Huawei will also cost Chinese investment in UK nuclear power plants.  All this spells total repositioning of the CCP. 
Tuesday 21 July 2020 / Hour 1, Block D:  Gregory Copley, Defense and Foreign Affairs, and author: The New Total War of the Twenty-first Century, in re: Xi has trouble in Moscow. Vladivostok: Russia celebrated the 150th anniversary of conquering Vladivostok, with concomitant unhappiness in Beijing.  Recall that Argentina invaded the Falklands in a war he couldn't win.  Xi has failed in invading Taiwan, not doing well in South Chia Sea, and doing badly in India. He may claim that Vladivostok is actually Chinese.  The Russian pushback was immediate and strong. Russia and China have claims of about a million square miles on each other’s territory.  The newest Chinese fighter is stolen from the US with a Russian engine; and China’s space program is basically Russian. No love lost ’twixt them.  In 1973, the Sino-Soviet conflict was considered to be a permanent dispute, and nothing has been done to ameliorate.  China still has to worry about the khanate of East Turkestan.
 
Hour Two
Tuesday 21 July 2020 / Hour 2, Block A:  Elizabeth Peek, TheHill and Fox News; in re:  Virus hotspots in California and Arizona, some of the alarming elements—stress on ICUs and hospitals—aren't an issue except in Arizona.  Vulnerable people remain so. Young people who catch the disease are treated and don't die.  I feel as though the country is becoming used to having this virus in its midst.  Many wear masks. When cases began to increase again a few weeks ago, people went about their business. Not having as much of an impact on the economy as was predicted. It’d be exciting to lift the payroll tax.  @LizPeek    https://www.foxnews.com/us/los-angeles-second-stay-at-home-order-coronavirus
Tuesday 21 July 2020 / Hour 2, Block B:  Elizabeth Peek, TheHill and Fox News; in re: Federal govt is $26 trillion in debt; much of it in an effort to [salve] the damage done by the virus.  When interest rates rise, the single largest expense in the federal budget will be interest!  Read Joe Biden’s climate plan: all about racial equity and union-building (“union” is mentioned 45 times).  When Trump was elected, small-business optimism went through the roof because for eight years they’d been encircled by ever-more regulations.  It's the labor-law change every few weeks in New York City.    @LizPeek  https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/trump-revive-booming-economy-biden-cant-liz-peek.amp
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/21/opinion/biden-climate-change.html
Tuesday 21 July 2020 / Hour 2, Block C:  New World Report.  Joseph Humire, Secure Free Society, and Senator Maria Fernanda Cabal ; in re:  Argentina. Cristina Kirshner, barbaric acts.  Still have “the last Nazis” there. 
Joseph Humire:  @jmhumire, @securefreesoc; @MariaFdaCabal
Tuesday 21 July 2020 / Hour 2, Block D:  New World Report.  Joseph Humire, Secure Free Society, and Senator Maria Fernanda Cabal; in re: The troubled, failed state of Venezuela.  Cocaine.  Every kind of illegal weapon, kidnapping, cocaine—it all goes back and forth. Venezuela is out of gasoline. Maduro has no control over the economy; chaos.  Long lines for gasoline, other lines for food.  Illicit networks continue to function.  Iran sent about forty days’ worth of gasoline. Trying to import another million gallons, but it’s interdicted.  Clearly, Iran doesn’t have the capacity to solve Venezuela’s problems.  For Iran, Venezuela is dual-use operation: slightly humanitarian, but in reality a military operation.   
Mexico: AMLO enjoys a favorable position throughout Latin America. However, he “has the worst numbers” – the economy is doing badly.  Colombia was achieving a 3.5% increase, while Mexico was at less than 1%.    AMLO is a Chavez.  He’s starting a new, profoundly leftist group: La Puebla.   Perfect profile of a socialist president who’ll destroy Mexico’s economy. He says he won’t fight the mafia in order “to be less confrontational.”  He’s appeasing the cartels, and thereby the countries that are mfrg cocaine.  The cartels got the message right away; they’ll control more territory, are bldg mini-cartels.    Joseph Humire:  @jmhumire, @securefreesoc
 
Hour Three
Tuesday 21 July 2020 / Hour 3, Block A:  John Yoo, Berkeley Law and Hoover; in re:  Why not socialism in America? The Constitution.  . . . James Madison; clashing interests.  If there were lots of state legislatures, they wouldn’t get together and take over.  Montesquieu: Democracy can succeed only in small countries.    Hamilton and Madison turned that upside-down—liberty will be safer in a large country. Need compromise. Why give so much power to states?  Our system is risk-averse; we’re not confident that we have all the answers. Brandeis: [Fifty] “laboratories of democracy.”   https://www.hoover.org/research/socialism-vs-american-constitutional-structure-advantages-decentralization-and-federalism.   John Yoo: @BerkeleyLaw
Tuesday 21 July 2020 / Hour 3, Block B:  John Yoo, Berkeley Law and Hoover; in re: Tension between the federal government and the states enhances our liberty; but this also led to the Civil War.   Thereafter, the Constitution was amended, but that didn't actually change the allocation of power.  The disorders of today are to be dealt with by the governors, who are responsible for health and safety.  The Great Depression.  The Commerce Clause: the balance starts to erode under the pressure of the Depression.  FDR passed the first and second New Deals. The National Recovery Act set prices and wages, but the Supreme Court struck it down. The main project of the Rehnquist, and perhaps the Roberts, Court has been to rebalance the powers.  “Commerce Clause can’t be used to force you to do something you don't want, including to buy health insurance.”  To accommodate the political reality, he turned the whole thing into a tax.  John Yoo: @BerkeleyLaw  
Tuesday 21 July 2020 / Hour 3, Block C:  Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com, in re:  UAE launched a Mars probe on a Japanese booster with US help. Space arrives in the Middle East. SpaceX.
Tuesday 21 July 2020 / Hour 3, Block D:  Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com, in re: A volcano mountainside in Hawaii.
 
Hour Four
Tuesday 21 July 2020 / Hour 4, Block A:  The House That Ruth Built: A New Stadium, the First Yankees Championship, and the Redemption of 1923, by Robert Weintraub
Tuesday 21 July 2020 / Hour 4, Block B:  The House That Ruth Built: A New Stadium, the First Yankees Championship, and the Redemption of 1923, by Robert Weintraub
Tuesday 21 July 2020 / Hour 4, Block C:  The House That Ruth Built: A New Stadium, the First Yankees Championship, and the Redemption of 1923, by Robert Weintraub
Tuesday 21 July 2020 / Hour 4, Block D:  The House That Ruth Built: A New Stadium, the First Yankees Championship, and the Redemption of 1923, by Robert Weintraub