JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
 
Hour One
Tuesday 28 July 2020 / Hour 1, Block A:  Elizabeth Peek, TheHill and Fox News, @LizPeek; in re:    Elizabeth Peek: The US economy asks: Back to School or Not?   https://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2020/07/28/newsletter-what-are-markets-saying-about-the-u-s-recovery/
Tuesday 28 July 2020 / Hour 1, Block B:  Elizabeth Peek, TheHill and Fox News, @LizPeek; in re: Elizabeth Peek: The unknown reluctance of the leading Biden to put the game away. 
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/28/biden-running-mate-choice-august-385107
Tuesday 28 July 2020 / Hour 1, Block C:   Bill Whalen, Hoover, @Hooverwhalen, in re:  Gavin Newsom's risk-averse word salads #in-the-time-of-the-virus. Bill Whalen  @HooverWhalen @HooverInst
Tuesday 28 July 2020 / Hour 1, Block D:   Bill McGurn, WSJ, @wjmcgurn, in re: The national Margaret Sanger Award hasn't been given out since 2015.  The New York Planned Parenthood group removed Sangers’s name from the building because of her “racist legacy and deep belief in eugenics ideology.
 
Hour Two
Tuesday 28 July 2020 / Hour 2, Block A:  Joe Sternberg, WSJ editorial board, in London, josephsternberg, @WSJOpinion, in re: Second or third wave of the virus in Europe and UK.  Spain asks not to be excluded.  We’ve never put an entire economy on hold before; it's not surprising that no one knows how to bring it back.  .
TransAtlantic travel #in-the-time-of-the-virus. 
1. https://www.ft.com/content/584ee262-d539-40ca-b145-e42865f2bc6b  European tour operators responded with dismay to new curbs on travel imposed by countries following a string of local upsurges in coronavirus infections, dealing a blow to hopes of a revival in the global tourism industry. Spain’s tourism sector is in particular feeling the brunt of the latest caution, prompting an angry response from Madrid. “Spain is a safe country,” said foreign minister Arancha González Laya.
2/  https://www.ft.com/content/688618a1-1c93-451b-b5eb-3316afae1c9e  Businesses in London and the south east of England have borne the brunt of drops in expenditure during the pandemic with households in the more prosperous parts of the UK reducing spending far more than the rest of the country. There is also mounting evidence that spending fell less in other parts of the UK owing to the financial support measures introduced by the government during the crisis, which will begin to be scaled back from next month.
3. https://www.ft.com/content/38177be2-c782-478a-87ca-c9f113f093a4   British businesses were warned by Boris Johnson on Monday of the risk of a second wave of the coronavirus in the autumn, just as companies were getting ready to encourage more workers back to offices from next week. The prime minister told more than a dozen organisations on a conference call that the pandemic could worsen again after the summer. But he sought to reassure executives it would not be as bad as the first outbreak and stressed the government would seek to avoid a second national lockdown, according to several participants.
4.  https://www.ft.com/content/ec98228e-474c-40e6-b68a-143865064e3d   Tory MPs are urging Boris Johnson to force bosses to order their staff back to offices to prevent a catastrophic decline in city centres around the UK. For the past four months the government has told all workers to stay at home “if possible” to prevent the spread of coronavirus. On August 1 the guidance will be updated so that it is entirely up to employers whether or not to bring back staff to their offices. But many companies are holding out until the autumn — or beyond — because of fears about a second wave of Covid-19 infections. Google this week told its workers around the world that most will not need to return to the office until at least next July. Most large employers across the UK have said they will only gradually bring back staff given concerns about spreading infection.
Tuesday 28 July 2020 / Hour 2, Block B:  Joe Sternberg, WSJ editorial board, in London, josephsternberg, @WSJOpinion, in re: Life in London #in-the-time-of-the-virus. 
https://www.ft.com/content/bd203e1b-db48-4609-ab01-67e6e139b8d3  The UK property market has bounced back sharply, according to estate agent Foxtons, with lettings almost at pre-crisis levels and sales well up on April and May. Activity dropped heavily during the peak of the coronavirus crisis as estate agents shut their offices and social-distancing measures made physical viewings impossible. But London-focused Foxtons on Tuesday said that the market had recovered quickly in June and July.
https://www.ft.com/content/080988c3-a6d8-42f6-b80c-66c7d62f8307
A global pandemic might not seem the best moment to try to sell ultra-pricey trainers, least of all when the global economy is predicted to shrink 5 per cent this year. But next week Christie’s, the auction house, will conduct a cyber auction of a dozen pairs of Michael Jordan’s old shoes — and the top lot is expected to fetch $350,000 to $550,000. This follows a digital auction organised by Sotheby’s in May of the basketball star’s old Nike Air Jordan 1s. They fetched $560,000 — a record in the second-hand sneaker world, and a level that might make even billionaires feel dizzy.
Tuesday 28 July 2020 / Hour 2, Block C:  Andrew C McCarthy, Ball of Collusion, @AndrewCMcCarthy; and Thaddeus McCotter, American Greatness, in re:  Today’s hearing (perhaps not the right term) on the Hill where AG Barr was treated to a “clown show” of extreme rudeness, all ad hominem, little ad rem.
Tuesday 28 July 2020 / Hour 2, Block D:  Andrew C McCarthy, Ball of Collusion, @AndrewCMcCarthy, and Thaddeus McCotter, American Greatness, in re: On the Hill today: “unmasking,” the topic of a second investigation. Testimony: broader in scope and perhaps going back further in time. Serious and very irregular conduct. Unmasking is the revelation of identities of US persons when they were incidentally [caught] in surveillance.  Legal to unmask if it's deemed to be necessary in intelligence collection. Must never be done on a mass scale, which it was here. 
 
Hour Three
Tuesday 28 July 2020 / Hour 3, Block A:  Defender in Chief: Donald Trump's Fight for Presidential Power, by John Yoo (Berkeley Law, Hoover Institution and AEI).  In Defender in Chief, the celebrated constitutional scholar John Yoo makes a provocative case against Donald Trump's alleged disruption of constitutional rules and norms.
Tuesday 28 July 2020 / Hour 3, Block B:  Defender in Chief: Donald Trump's Fight for Presidential Power, by John Yoo (Berkeley Law, Hoover Institution and AEI). In Defender in Chief, the celebrated constitutional scholar John Yoo makes an airtight case against Donald Trump's supposed disdain for constitutional rules and norms.
Donald Trump isn't shredding the Constitution—he's its greatest protector.
Ask any liberal--and many moderate conservatives--and they'll tell you that Donald Trump is a threat to the rule of law as delineated by the U.S. Constitution. Mainstream media outlets have reported fresh examples of alleged executive overreach or authoritarian rhetoric nearly every day of his presidency. In the 2020 primaries, the candidates seem to be competing to paint the most frightening picture of how the president is destroying our democracy and jeopardizing our nation's very existence.
Far from considering Trump an inherent threat to our nation's founding principles, Yoo convincingly argues that Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Adams, and Franklin would have seen the president as more in line with their vision of the executive branch than his recent predecessors, even at his most controversial.
This authoritative and engaging work is a compelling, intellectually-sound defense of an embattled president's ideas and actions.
Tuesday 28 July 2020 / Hour 3, Block C:   Defender in Chief: Donald Trump's Fight for Presidential Power, by John Yoo (Berkeley Law, Hoover Institution and AEI).  In Defender in Chief, the celebrated constitutional scholar John Yoo makes a provocative case against Donald Trump's alleged disruption of constitutional rules and norms
Tuesday 28 July 2020 / Hour 3, Block D:   Defender in Chief: Donald Trump's Fight for Presidential Power, by John Yoo (Berkeley Law, Hoover Institution and AEI).  In Defender in Chief, the celebrated constitutional scholar John Yoo makes a provocative case against Donald Trump's alleged disruption of constitutional rules and norms
 
Hour Four
Tuesday 28 July 2020 / Hour 4, Block A:  Gregory Copley, The New Total War of the Twenty-first Century, and Defense and Foreign Affairs, in re: Outside source looking to provoke a confrontation between Ethiopia and Egypt:  Egypt claims that any interference with the Nile headwaters would be a casus bell.  Ethiopia has built the GERD (dam) on the Sudanese border, has done so correctly under international law. The upstream riparian state has legal control.  Egypt fears that while the dam is filling, it’ll interfere with the water in Lake Nasser.  In fact the Aswan Dam (built largely by the USSR) has badly stopped the rich soil that used to nourish all of Egypt’s crops as all of the silt is now caught in Lake Aswan.   Meanwhile, Turkey is challenging Egypt wherever it can in order to bolster the Muslim Brotherhood, so is supporting Ethiopia to aggravate the problem with Egypt.  Needed: a grand agreement between Egypt and Ethiopia, which would cement control of the Red Sea, a critical geopolitical matter.   The Oromo Liberation Front and Tegréan rebels are both being supported by Egypt in order to destabilize Ethiopia.
Tuesday 28 July 2020 / Hour 4, Block B:  Gregory Copley, The New Total War of the Twenty-first Century, and Defense and Foreign Affairs, in re: Armenia and Azerbaijan border dispute.  Annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh, always historically Azerbaijani.  Armenian gunfire near the Ganja corridor.  Only Iranians and Armenians benefit from this attack; Moscow is trying to resolve this; Russian govt is ticked off with Armenians’ cowboy action: this may all have been triggered accidentally when an Azeri jeep was seen on the Azerbaijan side; Armenians took potshots at it, which killed a much-respected general, and caused reaction from the Azerbaijani side.  Pres Aliyev replaced his foreign minister. Opens up scope for Baku to do a deal with Erevan, and thereby thaw a frozen conflict. [Azerbaijan says it is not frozen, as there is sporadic gunfire.]
Tuesday 28 July 2020 / Hour 4, Block C:  Harry Siegel, New York Daily News and the Daily Beast @harrysiegel, in re: ne York City, with a mayor who’s long since checked out, is facing a perilous financial future. Transit; schools. Urgently need a competent administration.
Tuesday 28 July 2020 / Hour 4, Block D:  Hotel Mars, episode n.  David Livingston, The Space Show, and David Grinspoon: @DrFunkySpoon, Planetary Science Institute; in re: Venus seems to be seismically active; vulcanism.  Hard to study the planet because it’s so hot and shrouded under clouds. We use radar imaging.  Topographic expressions suggest current activity of magma rising from the mantle.  Europe: Envision spacecraft to see if there once were oceans on Venus.