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: “A lie can travel halfway round the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”   –  This quote has been attributed to Mark Twain, but it has never been verified as originating with Twain. This quote may have originated with Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-92) who attributed it to an old proverb in a sermon delivered on Sunday morning, April 1, 1855. Spurgeon was a celebrated English fundamentalist Baptist preacher. His words were: “A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on.”

POSSIBLE TOPICS: More Clinton Emails, Russia out of Iran Bases, Aetna Blackmailing DoJ, Understanding Air conditioning in Houston: What to look for, Student Loans Surviving Death, Co-signing Loans!

• 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
• One in Three in US Think Voter Fraud a ‘Major’ Problem, Kate Samuelson @katesamuelson, Aug 22, 2016 (TIME): Around one in three U.S. citizens view voter fraud as a “major problem”, according to a survey carried out by research company Gallup
  • Republicans were more likely than Democrats to view voter fraud as a major problem, at 52% compared to just 26%. This has been reflected in the policy stances of many Republican governors, who have called for more rigid identification requirements.
  • Are our electronic ballots safe?
  • So, NOW You’re Worried About a Hacked Election?!: MSM, Repubs and Dems finally decide e-voting and tabulation a concern…, ‘BradCast’ 8/3/2016, By Brad Friedman on 8/3/2016, 6:13pm PTBy Brad Friedman on 8/3/2016, 6:13pm PT
    • On today’s BradCast, we examine charges made by Donald Trump of a rigged November election, the case made by Bernie Sanders supporters that Hillary Clinton may have won the primary due to election fraud, and the mainstream corporate media finally deciding that, yes, hacked voting and tabulation systems really are a threat to American elections.
    • It might all have been more fun had all of the above noticed these concerns years ago, rather than right after what some believe is a stolen election and right before one that some believe could be stolen. Ya know, back when there would have been time to move to transparent voting and counting systems instead.
      • examine the various arguments, including some detailed thoughts — both critical and complimentary — on a new 100-page draft report [PDF] by Election Justice USA, titled “Democracy Lost: A Report on the Fatally Flawed 2016 Democratic Primaries”.
    • why I [Brad] am not particularly persuaded by studies of Exit Polls in regard to U.S. elections, and why, frankly, my response to their report would be similar whether they found proof of fraud or proof of zero fraud in the election. In both cases I would say what I have been saying for years: We need publicly hand-counted, hand-marked, paper-ballots in this country in order to have real confidence in results. (That is what I’ve long described as Democracy’s Gold Standard.) [Italics and emphasis from Mike]
    • Short of that, with computerized voting and counting systems that are difficult, if not impossible for the public to oversee, confidence in U.S. elections will continue to erode whether fraud or error actually exists in the results or not. That, in and of itself, as I [Brad] have shouted for years, continues to present a grave threat to America’s system of representative democracy.
  • Ballot box uncertainties hang over US election, by David J Lynch in Washington, Financial Times [August 15, 2016 1:03 pm] – Fewer than 90 days before election day, the rules governing who can vote remain unsettled in at least 10 US states including pivotal battlegrounds that are home to millions of voters.
  • Academic research, including a 2007 study by the Brennan Center for Justice, have found few cases of the cheating such measures are intended to prevent. Yet among Republican voters the existence of significant fraud remains an article of faith.
• Would-be child bomber captured by Iraqi police. Guards apprehend boy, 15, headed toward Shia mosque in Kirkuk, official says
  • (CNN)Dramatic video has emerged of Iraqi police stripping an explosive belt from a child suspected in a suicide bombing attempt for ISIS.
  • The footage appears to show security personnel restrain a visibly upset boy while they carefully cut the belt from the youth’s torso in Kirkuk. Once the belt has been removed, the boy is scooped up and taken away.
  • The arrest in Kirkuk comes a day after a child bomber is believed to have targeted a Kurdish wedding in Turkey, killing at least 54 people. More than 20 of the victims were children under 14, a Turkish official said Monday.
• What I Learned as a Black Man Traveling Through the Terrifying Heart of America (VICE), By Wilbert L. Cooper, Senior Editor
• Elon Musk’s SolarCity to Build “Solar Shingles” For Your House: Instead of going on your roof, these panels would replace it, By Avery Thompson, (http://www.popularmechanics.com) AUG 22, 2016
  • There’s no indication when these solar shingles will hit the market, and there are no specifics yet when it comes to price or other details. However, Musk says that when the solar roof does launch, “people are going to be really excited about what they see.”
• Court blocks federal government’s ‘guidance’ on transgender bathrooms, By Jonathan H. Adler August 22 at 5:30 PM (Washington Post):
  • In an order filed Sunday, a federal district court in Texas issued an injunction barring the federal government from enforcing the administration’s position that federal civil rights laws require… that schools allow students to use those bathroom facilities that correspond with a student’s professed gender identity. This position was detailed in a “Dear Colleague” letter issued by the Education and Justice departments in May.
  • In a 38-page opinion, Judge Reed O’Connor concluded that the plaintiffs had standing to challenge the guidance documents at issue, that their claim was ripe for judicial resolution and that they had a substantial likelihood of success on the merits. The decision, in yet another case captioned Texas v. United States, will certainly be appealed.
  • The most important part of the decision was the court’s conclusion that the DOE/DOJ guidance was invalid because the agencies failed to go through a notice-and-comment rulemaking before declaring that, for instance, school districts are obligated to accommodate the stated gender identities of students under existing federal law.
• FBI uncovers 14900 more documents in Clinton email probe, By Spencer S. Hsu August 22, 2016 at 4:50 PM, Washington Post: The FBI’s year-long investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server uncovered 14,900 emails and documents from her time as secretary of state that had not been disclosed by her attorneys, and a federal judge on Monday pressed the State …
  • Lawyers for the State Department and [Conservative Legal Group] Judicial Watch, the legal group, are negotiating a plan for the release of the emails in a civil public records lawsuit before U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg of Washington.
• Elections board allows replacement candidate for Congress, By David Eggert  (AP/ http://www.washingtonpost.com) August 22 at 5:25 PM
  • LANSING, Mich. — The Michigan elections board declined Monday to review former “Little House on the Prairie” actress Melissa Gilbert’s withdrawal as the Democratic nominee for a congressional seat, allowing her to be replaced over Republicans’ objections.
  • Gilbert dropped out of the 8th Congressional District race in May, citing worsening head and neck injuries from 2012 accidents. But she remained the lone Democrat on the August primary ballot because the filing deadline had expired for the seat, which represents an area that stretches from Lansing to Oakland County in Detroit’s northern suburbs.
• Smoking gun? Aetna threatened to quit Obamacare if the government blocked its Humana merger, BY Michael Hiltzik, (LA Times) AUG-17-2016
  • Aetna’s announcement this week that it was pulling out of most of the states where it was serving the Obamacare individual exchanges was a head-scratcher; after all, just three months earlier, Chief Executive Mark Bertolini was calling its participation in the market “a good investment,” despite near-term losses.
  • Bertolini also had tried to tamp down speculation that its withdrawal was anything like a payback for the government’s move to block its $37-billion merger with Humana.
  • Now evidence has emerged that Aetna was lying. The smoking gun is a July 5 letter from Bertolini to Ryan Kantor of the Justice Department, unearthed by Jonathan Cohn and Jeffrey Young of the Huffington Postvia a Freedom of Information Act request.
  • In the letter, sent before the DOJ formally announced it would sue to block the Humana deal, Bertolini explicitly ties the two issues together.
  • “Our analysis to date makes clear that if the deal were challenged and/or blocked we would need to take immediate actions to mitigate public exchange and ACA small group losses,” Bertolini wrote. “Specifically, if the DOJ sues to enjoin the transaction, we will immediately take action to reduce our 2017 exchange footprint. We currently plan, as part of our strategy following the acquisition, to expand from 15 states in 2016 to 20 states in 2017. However, if we are in the midst of litigation over the Humana transaction, given the risks described above, we will not be able to expand to the five additional states.”

• Tehran halts Russian raids on Syria from Iran, BY Monavar Khalaj in Tehran and Kathrin Hille in Moscow (Financial Times) August 22, 2016 7:16 pm
  • Iran said that Russian warplanes had stopped using an Iranian air base to bomb targets in Syria, a day after the Islamic regime accused Moscow of “showing off” by making public its use of the facility.
  • Tehran’s abrupt announcement came less than a week after Russia revealed that a group of long-range Tupolev Tu-22 M3 bombers and Sukhoi Su-34 fighter bombers had taken off from Hamadan, south-west of Tehran, to carry out strikes in Syria. It was the first time a foreign state had used Iranian territory to attack a third country since at least the second world war.
  • The news that Russian warplanes were flying from the Islamic republic shocked Iranians and sparked criticism from some parliamentarians.
  • Many Iranians share a long-term distrust of Russia. They believe that one of the most humiliating international agreements that their country has signed was the 1828 treaty of Turkmenchay between Iran and Russia, by which Tehran ceded control of much of the south Caucasus.
• Iraq stops would-be child bomber for ISIS, By Lauren Said-Moorhouse (CNN) Mon August 22, 2016:

• Wells Fargo to pay $4 million to settle charges of illegal student-loan practices, by James Rufus Koren, Aug 22, 2016 (Los Angeles Times)  ‎
  • Wells Fargo has agreed to pay more than $4 million in fines and rebates over allegations that it charged illegal fees to student-loan borrowers.
  • As part of a deal announced Monday, the San Francisco banking giant did not admit or deny wrongdoing but agreed to pay a $3.6-million penalty to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, plus $410,000 in refunds to borrowers who paid fees that the bureau said should never have been charged.
  • Wells Fargo spokesman Jason Vasquez said all of the CFPB’s allegations relate to practices that Wells Fargo changed several years ago and that affected only a small number of borrowers.
• How to See the Upcoming ‘Great American Eclipse’, In August 2017, you can experience the first total eclipse to cross the continental U.S. since 1979. By Mark Strauss (http://news.nationalgeographic.com) PUBLISHED August 22, 2016
• Doctor Who Music Rights Sold By BBC, by David Hill (http://doctorwhowatch.com): The BBC is still looking for ways to raise even more funds for their programming. As such, it may not be a surprise that they have sold the rights to some of their old theme music catalog, including shows like Doctor Who.
  • Not only could these iconic themes be a part of advertising campaigns, in video games, or in other formats, but the background music could be used as well.
  • It may be a bit disconcerting to hear the familiar theme music for Doctor Who during an advertising break, only to rush back to see a chip commercial.
  • There is nothing to worry about in regards to the future of the theme music on Doctor Who. However, we should be certain that the show is on before rushing back from the kitchen and potentially spilling our beer and snacks.
• Pipers reveal they are terrified fears after scientists claim bacteria in bagpipes could kill: SCOTLAND’S national instrument can harbour a host of fungi and mould inside its moist interiors that can cause “bagpipe lung.” , 22 Aug 2016, By Vivienne Aitken (West Lothian Courier)
  • SCOTLAND’S national instrument has been labelled a killer.
  • Potentially deadly bacteria lurking in bagpipes have already killed one piper and there are fears many others have become sick without realising the cause.
  • The moist interiors of the pipes are thought to foster the growth of the fungi and moulds which have been linked to inflammatory lung disease.
  • Now doctors, writing in the journal Thorax, have warned pipers and players of other wind instruments of the potential hazard they have labelled ‘bagpipe lung’.
  • The warning comes after a man from Merseyside with Scottish ancestry died of the chronic inflammatory lung condition hypersensitivity pneumonitis – thought to have been caused by regularly breathing in mould and fungi from his bagpipes which he played every day.
  • “There have been isolated news items over the years, particularly among Scottish people, who became unwell and no one knew why but now we know this can cause hypersensitivity pneumonitis.”
  • The doctor advised cleaning the instruments at least weekly.
  • Pipe Major Ryan Canning, 38, of Shotts and Dykehead Caledonia Pipe Band, said it “makes sense” to keep things clean but added: “I have known thousands of pipers and this is the only case I have heard of.”

• 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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