Photo: Tardigrade (aditya via Wikimedia Commons under CC Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license) 
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Gordon Chang, Daily Beast.
 
Hour One
Wednesday 21 August 2019  / Hour 1, Block A:  Stephen J Yates, DC International Advisory CEO;  in Bush 2 Adm, with Vice-President Dick Cheney; in re: Hong Kong and Taiwan. F16 sales: Washington is no longer scared of Beijing.  . . .  Taiwan: “Red Media” (press that’s been commandeered by the CCP).
Wednesday 21 August 2019  / Hour 1, Block B: Tara O, East Asia Research Center and Institute for Corean-American Studies, and author, The Collapse of North Korea;  in re: Moon Jae In. Multiple demos in Seoul on 15 August. Largest was the Flag Rally, at which South Korean, US, and Israeli (because DPRK is a nuclear proliferator) flags were carried. The Moon Jae In speech, at the smaller rally, in which he referred to the 1919 Provisional Government (being an effort to re-write history, as there was no such country then, nor a constitution, nor any citizen of an ROK; rather, the call for independence was in China). Hong Kong is not covered in South Korea because the government does not favor liberal democracy.
“A boiled cow’s head would laugh at Moon Jae In.” – recent North Korean comment.
Wednesday 21 August 2019  / Hour 1, Block C:  David Rennie, The Economist in Beijing, in re: The Hong Kong “secret hand,” being Mainland work to convince Mainland citizenry that the Hong Kong demonstrations are the result of “black hands,” being violent, an effort to have HK declare independence form China (not true), and probably organized by the CIA. The phrase “black hand” was used in connection with the Tien An Men events in 1989. “Foreign commander” – a photo in broad daylight in a five-star hotel lobby showing a secondary US dip meeting with pro-democracy leaders. Dai Gong Bo, a pro-Beijing paper in HK, published the dip’s name and those of  her husband and children, in order to threaten.  . . .  The Chinese worldview is entirely that might makes right: if a small entity challenges a large entity, it can only be that some huge foreign power is egging it on. CCP cannot conceive of a desire for liberty.
Wednesday 21 August 2019  / Hour 1, Block D: Gordon Chang, Daily Beast, in re: . . .  Peter Navarro says there will be a deal, a comprehensive trade agreement with China. That’d require Chinese transparency, which Xi Jinping cannot provide.  Xi Jinping’s Very Bad Week.  He probably does not have a Plan B.  Instead, will likely fight to the end and take the ship down with him. As for Hong Kong, which will not relent, Beijing will have to send in troops and fight for years.
 
Hour Two
Wednesday 21 August 2019  / Hour 2, Block A: Mark Clifford, Asia Business Council exec director; South China Morning Post; in re: Hong Kong.   . . .  Carrie Lam wants a dialogue with demonstration leaders on Saturday; they decline.  . . .  October 1, seventieth anniversary of the founding of the Peoples Republic of China. 
Wednesday 21 August 2019  / Hour 2, Block B:  Alan Tonelson, independent economic policy analyst who blogs at RealityChek and tweets at @AlanTonelson; American research Fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council Educational Foundation, in re: Trade, and Huawei.  Mr Ren owns 1% of Huawei; the PRC government owns almost all the rest.  . . .  “Way behind in semiconductors.”
Wednesday 21 August 2019  / Hour 2, Block C:  Steven L Kwast,  Lieutenant General in the United States Air Force; Commander, Air Education and Training Command, Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, Texas. 
"Finally, the debate that should have begun over a year ago has now arrived in earnest. Two different visions for the future of the Space Force have recently been presented to the public.
One is from the president of the Air Force Association, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Bruce Wright. The other by the currently serving Air Force Lt. Gen. Steven Kwast.
These two men encapsulate the two major factions that exist in the Space Force debate. Wright expresses the Air Force’s preferred “warfighting domain” school. Kwast is the most senior and vocal proponent of the maritime-inspired faction that has begun to call itself the “blue water” space school. Which school America chooses to first lead the Space Force will have serious repercussions to the United States for decades to come."  The Hill
Wednesday 21 August 2019  / Hour 2, Block D: Steven L Kwast,  Lieutenant General in the United States Air Force; Commander, Air Education and Training Command, Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, Texas. 
 
Hour Three
Wednesday 21 August 2019  / Hour 3, Block A: Andrew McCarthy, Ball of Collusion
Wednesday 21 August 2019  / Hour 3, Block B: Andrew McCarthy, Ball of Collusion
Wednesday 21 August 2019  / Hour 3, Block C: Andrew McCarthy, Ball of Collusion
Wednesday 21 August 2019  / Hour 3, Block D: Andrew McCarthy, Ball of Collusion
 
Hour Four
Wednesday 21 August 2019  / Hour 4, Block A: Richard Epstein, Chicago Law, NYU Law, Hoover Institution, in re:  Global warming?
Wednesday 21 August 2019  / Hour 4, Block B: Hotel Mars, episode n.  Dr David Livingston, The Space Show, and Laura Montgomery, Esq., Ground-Based Space Matters; in re: Tardigrades [water bears, or moss piglets] were sneaked on to a space ship that crashed on the Moon, thereby contaminating the Moon.
Wednesday 21 August 2019  / Hour 4, Block C:  John Mauldin, Millennium Wave Investments, in re: economic worries.  Bears.
Wednesday 21 August 2019  / Hour 4, Block D:  Larry Johnson, No Quarter, in re: Joseph Mifsud.
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