SHOW AUDIO:

We take callers during this show. Link is usually posted within about 72 hours of show broadcast.

 Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio), a listener call-in show  airing live every Monday night from 9-10 PM (CT) on KPFT-FM 90.1 (Houston). My engineer is Bob Gartner.

Listen live on the radio or on the internet from anywhere in the world! When the show is live, we take calls at 713-526-5738. (Long distance charges may apply.)

For the purposes of this show, I operate on two mottoes:

• You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts;
• An educated electorate is a prerequisite for a democracy.

SIGNOFF QUOTE: “Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism…” ~ Farewell Address by George Washington, as published in the American Daily Advertiser (September 19, 1796) (Cited here).

POSSIBLE TOPICS: Is Trump this election season’s Sarah Palin?, Trump v. Khan, DNC Computer Hack, I Trump a Siberian Candidate, Understanding Air conditioning in Houston: What to look for, Student Loans Surviving Death, Co-signing Loans MORE.

• TEXAS: REGISTER TO VOTE FOR THE GENERAL ELECTION
  • To vote in November 8th’s presidential elections, you have to be registered by October 8th. It will be here before you know it, so make sure YOU are registered!
  • Go to HarrisVotes.com or VoteTexas.gov.
• TRUMP
  • Weird how Trump was kind of distant with Melania and a bit to intimate with Ivanka … and Ivanka seemed uncomfortable but unsurprised by how Trump touched her.

  •  Is Trump this elections season’s Sarah Palin?

  • Donald Trump Doesn’t Believe In America, by Goldie Taylor (Daily Beast) 08.01.16 3:35 PM ET: Trump’s attacks on Capt. Khan and his parents show that he does not believe in the very spirit that makes America great.

    • …Donald Trump … unleashed a barrage of attacks on the parents of a fallen war hero. But what we know is this: Trump does not believe in America.
    • Trump appears to hate the very things that define us, this that some would say make us exceptional.
    • He does not believe in the strength of the republic itself, nor in the breadth of our innovation or pioneering spirits. Trump demands that we forget that this ever-perfecting union was built by a grand diversity of people from various walks of life. That it was built by men and women like Army Capt. Humayun Khan (son of Khizr and Ghazala Khan), who gave everything based on the collective ideal that the measure of this nation is not found in what it gives to us, but for what we give to it.
    • … Trump engaged in public warring with Capt. Khan’s parents…he has precious little appreciation for our history or our traditions. He is abundantly comfortable, it seems, with placing his fragile, out-sized ego ahead of our nation’s values. He certainly had no problem comparing his business pursuits, conducted in the garish confines of a New York office tower festooned in gold leaf, to the sacrifices made by members of our nation’s military on the battlefield.
    • Breathlessly posting insults to social media—using the sort of brutish rhetoric most common among gun-toting, Third World warlords— Trump revealed that he not only does not hold Gold Star families sacrosanct, but that he eschews the very nature of our highest ideals.
    • Trump does not believe in us. He does not share our values. … His most ardent and demonstrable displays of patriotism are not to this country…but to himself and his own interests.
    • “Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism,” George Washington told us in his farewell address, published in a 1796 edition of the American Daily Advertiser.
    • “Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections,” Washington wrote. “The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism… You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together.”
    • It is not a matter of where Trump stands on the ideological spectrum, as Washington made no mention of liberal or conservative principles. Besides, Trump’s conservative bona fides have always been as thin and ephemeral as the morning dew against the heat of the rising sun. Thus, we can dispense with the notion that we were collectively outraged as he angrily hurled brickbats during televised interviews because some of us may not agree with him on the political questions of the day.
    • If there is a line of decency—a such thing as “too far” in this political environment—Trump catapulted over it and stuck a landing worthy of an Olympic bid.
    • His rebuke for the Khan’s, which included accusations that the Clinton campaign wrote the blistering speech delivered on the floor of the DNC, that the Khans had “no right” to challenge his familiarity with the Constitution, and that the late soldier’s mother was likely muzzled by culture and forbidden to address the crowd, was an assault on America. And we should take it personally.
    • Without irony, Trump tweeted that Khizr Khan had “no right to stand in front of millions of people and claim I have never read the Constitution, (which is false) and say many other inaccurate things.”
    • Not only had Trump provided prima facie evidence of Khan’s assertion, he did so with the ugliness of a dagger moth. He either hasn’t read the Bill of Rights (or the full Constitution) or he doesn’t understand the text.
    • American philosopher and historian Noam Chomsky was clear in his warning that “If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.”
    • Those rights, those equal protections, are the very foundation of the American ideal—of our storied exceptionalism.
    • Khizr Khan, an attorney, could not have been more right when he said Trump “wants to have one set of rights for himself and he wants to have another set of rights for others.”
    • Make no mistake. As the son of immigrants, a practicing Muslim who became a highly decorated military officer and who died in service of this country—Capt. Khan was the very embodiment of that exceptionalism. His was the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of the nation that demands so little from its citizenry in return.
    • If American exceptional is real, Trump clearly has not seen it nor does he believe in it. To find it, he need only look at the lived life of Army Capt. Humayun Khan. The fallen hero would not have liked what Trump had to say about his parents, but he fought and died for his right to say it.
    • Trump should say “thank you” and shut up.
    • Trump & Putin. Yes, It’s Really a Thing, (TPM (blog)) By Josh Marshall, PublishedJuly 23, 2016, 4:15 PM EDT 869509 views
      • Over the last year there has been a recurrent refrain about the seeming bromance between Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. More seriously, but relatedly, many believe Trump is an admirer and would-be emulator of Putin’s increasingly autocratic and illiberal rule. But there’s quite a bit more to the story. At a minimum, Trump appears to have a deep financial dependence on Russian money from persons close to Putin. And this is matched to a conspicuous solicitousness to Russian foreign policy interests where they come into conflict with US policies … There is also something between a non-trivial and a substantial amount of evidence suggesting Putin-backed financial support for Trump or a non-tacit alliance between the two men.
      • There is a lot of Russian money flowing into Trump’s coffers and he is conspicuously solicitous of Russian foreign policy priorities. Let’s start with the basic facts:
      • All the other discussions of Trump’s finances aside, his debt load has grown dramatically over the last year, from $350 million to $630 million. This is in just one year while his liquid assets have also decreased. Trump has been blackballed by all major US banks.
      • Post-bankruptcy Trump has been highly reliant on money from Russia, most of which has over the years become increasingly concentrated among oligarchs and sub-garchs close to Vladimir Putin. Here’s a good overview from The Washington Post, with one morsel for illustration …
    • Since the 1980s, Trump and his family members have made numerous trips to Moscow in search of business opportunities, and they have relied on Russian investors to buy their properties around the world.
    • “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” Trump’s son, Donald Jr., told a real estate conference in 2008, according to an account posted on the website of eTurboNews, a trade publication. “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”
• I’m very torn by the ethics of data leaks. We cheer the ‘good’ leaks (Panama Papers, DNC emails) and decry the ‘bad’ leaks (personal and credit data and DNC email), but on an ethical basis, what’s the difference?
  • Where do privacy rights end and transparency rights begin?
  • What are the differences, if any, between personal rights, business rights (as in a proprietorship), and corporate rights?
• Whatever happened to cops asking, “Will you go peacefully?” before tackling and bums-rushing an otherwise peaceful protester?
• Think twice, maybe three times, before cosigning loans, and even then, you probably shouldn’t do it.
  • In New Jersey Student Loan Program, Even Death May Not Bring a Reprieve, By ANNIE WALDMAN, (NY Times) JULY 3, 2016

 SOURCES WHICH MAY BE RELEVANT TO OTHER DISCUSSION:

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• Differences between Liberals, Conservatives, Libertarians and neo-Conservatives
  • Left–right politics, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    • History of the terms: The terms “left” and “right” appeared during the French Revolution of 1789 when members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the president’s right and supporters of the revolution to his left. One deputy, the Baron de Gauville, explained, “We began to recognize each other: those who were loyal to religion and the king took up positions to the right of the chair so as to avoid the shouts, oaths, and indecencies that enjoyed free rein in the opposing camp.” However the Right opposed the seating arrangement because they believed that deputies should support private or general interests but should not form factions or political parties. The contemporary press occasionally used the terms “left” and “right” to refer to the opposing sides.^[9]
  • Greens and Libertarians: The yin and yang of our political future, by Dan Sullivan (originally appearing in Green Revolution, Volume 49, No. 2, summer, 1992)
    • … Libertarians tend to be logical and analytical. They are confident that their principles will create an ideal society, even though they have no consensus of what that society would be like. Greens, on the other hand, tend to be more intuitive and imaginative. They have clear images of what kind of society they want, but are fuzzy about the principles on which that society would be based.
    • Ironically, Libertarians tend to be more utopian and uncompromising about their political positions, and are often unable to focus on politically winnable proposals to make the system more consistent with their overall goals. Greens on the other hand, embrace immediate proposals with ease, but are often unable to show how those proposals fit in to their ultimate goals.
    • The most difficult differences to reconcile, however, stem from baggage that members of each party have brought with them from their former political affiliations. Most Libertarians are overly hostile to government and cling to the fiction that virtually all private fortunes are legitimately earned. Most Greens are overly hostile to free enterprise and cling to the fiction that harmony and balance can be achieved through increased government intervention.
    • Amongst published researchers, there is agreement that the Left includes anarchists, communists, socialists, progressives, anti-capitalists, anti-imperialists, anti-racists, democratic socialists, greens, left-libertarians, social democrats, and social liberals.^[5][6][7]
    • Researchers have also said that the Right includes capitalists, conservatives, monarchists, nationalists, neoconservatives, neoliberals, reactionaries, imperialists, right-libertarians, social authoritarians, religious fundamentalists, and traditionalists.^[8]

• Payday Lenders
  • Usury: noun the illegal action or practice of lending money at unreasonably high rates of interest. Archaic interest at unreasonably high rates.
  • Interest Caps
  • ‘Choice’
  • Are the many high-interest payday lenders a direct result of bank deregulation and the attendant fees and penalties that came with them?
  • How this Missouri man wound up paying $50K in interest after taking $2,500 in payday loans: ws/20onFHy pic.twitter.com/8krVicitx1
• Time for a return of the 2 ½ contingency war strategy?
  •  Will we ever see a return of the “Peacetime Army”?
  • Threat from Russian and Chinese warplanes mounts – USA Today

o How much do the Saudis own in U.S. Treasuries? After four decades, it’s no longer a secret, by Michael Hiltzik (LA Times) 5-16-2016

• The Treasury Department on Monday opened the curtain on one of our longest-lasting, and strangest, state secrets: how much U.S. debt does Saudi Arabia own?
• The Treasury Department on Monday opened the curtain on one of our longest-lasting, and strangest, state secrets: how much U.S. debt does Saudi Arabia own?
• The answer, as of March, is $116.8 billion. That may sound like a lot, but it places the Saudis only at 13th on the list of major foreign holders of treasuries. Leading the roll among the foreign holders of $6.3 trillion in securities are mainland China ($1.245 trillion) and Japan ($1.137 trillion).

o Government Debt in the United States – Debt Clock:  (www.usgovernmentdebt.us/): Total Federal Government Debt in 2016. At the end of FY 2016 the gross US federal government debt is estimated to be $19.3 trillion, according to the FY17 Federal Budget.

o India to ‘divert rivers’ to tackle drought, By Navin Singh Khadka Environment reporter, (BBC World Service) 16 May 2016

• India is set to divert water from its rivers to deal with a severe drought… [affecting] At least 330 million people are … affected by drought in India.
• The drought is taking place as a heat wave extends across much of India, with temperatures in excess of 40C (~104^oF).
• The Inter Linking of Rivers (ILR) has 30 links planned for water-transfer, 14 of them fed by Himalayan glaciers in the north of the country and 16 in peninsular India.
• Environmentalists have opposed the project, arguing it will invite ecological disaster but the [Indian] Supreme Court has ordered its implementation.
• Of its 29 states, nearly half were reported to have suffered from severe water crisis this dry season.
• The federal government in Delhi has had to send trains carrying water to the worst affected places.

• What Are Cats Trying to Tell Us? Science Will Explain, By Carrie Arnold [National Geographic] PUBLISHED March 28, 2016
  • Nearly all New York State pet owners talk to their pets like they’re fellow humans, according to a recent poll.  Many believe their dogs and cats can respond with barks or meows that communicate hunger, fear, or simply the need to pee.  But do the animals tawk back in a Brooklyn accent? That’s the sort of thing Swedish cat lover and phonetics researcher Suzanne Schötz is working to find out. After executing this strategy on every government program except the military and corporate welfare, is it now the turn of the Supreme Court?
• The Science of Meow: Study to Look at How Cats Talk: A new project is underway to decode kitty communication—and figure out if cats really like all that baby talk.
  • What Are Cats Trying to Tell Us? Science Will Explain
    [National Geographic Society]:

• The dos and don’ts of open carry, By Robert Arnold – Investigative Reporter (click2houston.com) Posted: 9:37 AM, December 31, 2015 Updated: 10:04 AM, December 31, 2015
• TERMINOLOGIES: Words Matter
  • The term “Conservative” is so inaccurate as currently used by the Media, the Media and all of us really need to rethink their classifications and terminology.
  • There are Liberals/Progressives and there are Conservatives. Both of those are fine and serve a useful purpose in civil opposition to each other.
  • Today’s “Conservatives” are conservative in name only

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