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

POSSIBLE TOPICS: 

Does Marks v. Stinson open a door?, Trump v. Obama trash talk, Groundwater crisis looming worldwide, China further militarizes South China Sea, Climate Data At Risk, Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, 25^th Amendment to the Constitution, Support Progressive Causes, more.

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;
  

  Houston Mayor Annise Parker [L] with Mike, just before the show. (Dec. 7, 2015)

• An educated electorate is a prerequisite for a democracy.

SIGNOFF QUOTE[s]:

 Dr. McCoy: Spock, I’ve found that evil usually triumphs – unless good is very, very careful. ~ From Star Trek episode The Omega Glory (1968) (Thanks to IMDB) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708474/quotes?ref_=tt_ql_3

• As Groundwater Dwindles, a Global Food Shock Looms, By Cheryl Katz (NAT GEO)
  • “Groundwater depletion affects more than food: It also damages wetlands, makes land sink, and contributes to sea-level rise.”
  • Time for a national water management/flood control system?
• Why develop fake languages for science fiction and fantasy films when there are so many endangered languages on Earth that could be partially preserved on film and in writing?
• Four Freedoms, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The Four Freedoms were goals articulated by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt on January 6, 1941. In an address known as the Four Freedoms speech (technically the 1941 State of the Union address), he proposed four fundamental freedoms that people “everywhere in the world” ought to enjoy:Rev. William
  1. Freedom of speech
  2. Freedom of worship
  3. Freedom from want
  4. Freedom from fear

  Roosevelt delivered his speech 11 months before the United States declared war on Japan, December 8, 1941. The State of the Union speech before Congress was largely about the national security of the United States and the threat to other democracies from world war that was being waged across the continents in the eastern hemisphere. In the speech, he made a break with the tradition of United States non-interventionism that had long been held in the United States. He outlined the U.S. role in helping allies already engaged in warfare.

• Nazi imagery from Taiwan stems from ignorance, not hate, analysts say, by Ralph Jennings [Los Angeles Times] Jan. 2, 2017
  • … A group of students from a private high school in Taiwan held a mock Nazi rally just before Christmas with a cardboard tank, lookalike uniforms and swastikas.
    • Taiwan was a Japanese colony from 1895 to the end of World War II and fought along Japan, a German ally, in the Asian theater. Some older Taiwanese credit the Japanese for building much of today’s public infrastructure. Younger Taiwanese like Japanese food, cartoons and literature, while Japan is Taiwanese people’s top travel destination.
    • Taiwanese who learn World War II history might not associate it with the problematic use of Nazi symbols because formal education does not teach that kind of linkage, said Jens Damm, associate professor at the Graduate Institute of Taiwan Studies at Chang Jung Christian University.
  • The bizarre display of Nazi costumery had antecedents. In 2000, a Taipei restaurateur opened a concentration camp-themed diner. [In 2001,] a major political party changed a campaign ad that mentioned Hitler.
  • Reports of Nazi imitations in Taiwan go back at least to 1999 [when] the local promoter of a German space heater brand used a smiling Hitler image on subway billboards…
  • [In 2003], an Israeli government representative learned that a popular piece of Taiwanese army music was modeled after a Nazi march song, “Panzerlied,” which was composed in 1933.
  • World War II, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:“World War II (often abbreviated to WWII or WW2), also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from [the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939] to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier.”
  • Japanese invasion of Manchuria, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The Japanese invasion of Manchuria began on September 18, 1931, when the Kwantung Army of the Empire of Japan invaded Manchuria immediately following the Mukden Incident. The Japanese established a puppet state called Manchukuo, and their occupation lasted until the end of World War II.
• Rev. William J Barber, II: We are witnessing the birth pangs of a Third Reconstruction: We need a moral movement to create change.
  • “On election night I felt a great sadness for America — not a Democratic or Republican sadness, but a sadness for the heart and soul of the nation. It is impossible to react to the election of Donald Trump with anything less than moral outrage. …
  • “Trump ran his campaign sensing the feeling of dispossession and anxiety among millions of voters — white voters, in the main. And many of those voters — not all, but many — followed Trump because he was willing to trumpet their fury and affirm their sense, deeply rooted in this nation’s history of race and class, that a new world had conspired against their interests. Trump offered no answers to their fears. He merely said, ‘You are right to be afraid and very afraid. Obama is the bogeyman of coming diversity that will undo the world you grew up knowing, and I alone can save you.’
    • “While we do, indeed, face a dire situation, this is not new. Trumpism is as American as apple pie. There could be no Donald Trump without America’s first black president. Brother Van Jones got it right on election night: we experienced a “whitelash.” And we must be clear: every stride toward freedom in U.S. history has been met with this same backlash.
    • Reconstruction, in the shadow of slavery and amid the wreckage of the Civil War.
      • African Americans joined hands with whites in the North and in the South who were willing to see one another as allies.
      • These fusion coalitions 150 years ago also built the first public schools and in state constitutions gave all persons a constitutional right to public education — something that to this day has not been done in the federal constitution. In the state constitution of North Carolina they stated that “beneficent provision for the poor, the unfortunate, and the orphan is one of the first duties of a civilized and a Christian state.” They included labor rights and the right to “enjoyment of the fruit of your own labor” in 1868
    • America’s Second Reconstruction — what we often remember as “the Civil Rights movement.”
    • We must begin to think in terms of a Third Reconstruction. I believe the turmoil we are witnessing around us today is in fact the birth pangs of a Third Reconstruction.
      • just as there’s been a Moral Movement in every era to raise a moral dissent against extremism, we’ve seen in North Carolina what a 21st century Moral Fusion Movement can look like. According to Public Policy Polling’s analysis, “Moral Mondays” laid the groundwork for the only successful resistance to the “Trump-effect” on down ballot races in the 2016 election. As such, PPP Director Tom Jensen argues, this movement offers lessons for resistance to a Trump administration.
      • First, we must recognize the need for indigenously-led, state-based, state-government focused, deeply moral, deeply constitutional, anti-racist, anti-poverty, pro-justice, pro-labor, and transformative movement building.
      • Secondly, we need to use moral language, like the devotees of the First and Second Reconstructions. Moral language can re-frame and critique public policy regardless of who’s in power.
        • Moral language gives you new metaphors. You can say, I’m against this policy not because it’s a conservative policy or a liberal policy, I’m against this policy because it’s constitutionally inconsistent, it’s morally indefensible, and it’s economically insane.
        • …then we have to challenge the moral hypocrisy of the so-called Religious Right
        • Finally, we must insist on connecting economic issues with our racial history. Too many people are too easily blaming the rise of Trump on Democrats forgetting the “white working class.” Yes, Trump appealed to real economic fears among working people. But he lost every income bracket below $48,000 and won every group above it, blowing the dog whistles of race to divide poor and working people. Any resistance to Trump that doesn’t address his divide-and-conquer tactics from Wisconsin to Ohio to North Carolina and Alabama cannot offer a real political alternative.
• Claiming mandate, GOP Congress lays plans to propel sweeping conservative agenda, By David Weigel [Washington Post] January 1, 2017 at 7:46 PM
  • Republican Congress puts priority on targeting regulations, by Herb Jackson, USA TODAY 11:23 a.m. EST January 2, 2017
    • The House is expected to take up two bills — the Midnight Rules Act and the REINS Act (which stands for Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny) — that passed on largely party-line votes in the 114th, 113th and 112th congressional sessions, but died in the Senate. The REINS Act would require that before any new major regulation could take effect, the House and Senate would have to pass a resolution of approval. The Midnight Rules Act would let Congress invalidate rules in bulk that passed in the final year of a presidential term.
    • And under the 1996 Congressional Review Act, Congress can pass a resolution of disapproval to block a rule if it acts within 60 days of notification from an agency.
    • [The bill’s sponsor is Republican Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia.] The new legislation would further expand congressional power by preventing an administration from implementing rules without another vote. Under the REINS act, a proposed regulation would be deemed rejected if Congress was in session for 70 days and took no action. The bill allows for a major rule to take effect for a single 90-day period if the president determined it was necessary because of an imminent threat to health or safety or other emergency.
    • Trump’s vow to undo Obama rules? Not so fast, By Ledyard King , USATODAY 1:46 p.m. EST December 15, 2016
      • President-elect Donald Trump campaigned on a vow to repeal what he claims are job-killing federal regulations, including rules limiting power plant emissions, protecting rivers and streams, and preventing banks from reckless lending.
      • Easier said than done.
      • The same deliberate process used to enact the Clean Power Plant rule, the “waters of the U.S.” Clean Water Rule, or regulations under the Dodd-Frank law designed to clamp down on Wall Street usually requires the same long slog to undo them, making quick repeal unattainable.
      • “The process is laborious, but that shouldn’t stop every agency head from setting it in motion,” Andy Koenig, vice president of policy at the Koch-affiliated Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, wrote in a recent column on the group’s website.
      • Despite some steep hurdles, here’s what Trump and Congress can do:
        • Incoming presidents can prevent regulations that have yet to be finalized from ever taking effect.
        • Agencies can decide not to enforce certain regulations because they’re focused on other priorities. Or the Trump administration could choose to stop defending rules if they are the subject of a court challenge.
        • Lawmakers could pass a law undoing the rule.

• Scientists prepare to fight for their work during ‘the Trumpocene’, By Sarah Kaplan December 15, 2016 [Washington Post]
  •   … the dawn of what one researcher called “the Trumpocene” has everyone at American Geophysical Union reckoning with their role in this new era. … that meant attending his first-ever protest Tuesday.
  • Scientists are frantically copying U.S. climate data, fearing it might vanish under Trump, By Brady Dennis December 13, 2016 [WASHINGTON POST]
  • Alarmed that decades of crucial climate measurements could vanish under a hostile Trump administration, scientists have begun a feverish attempt to copy reams of government data onto independent servers in hopes of safeguarding it from any political interference.
  • The efforts include a “guerrilla archiving” event in Toronto, where experts will copy irreplaceable public data, meetings at the University of Pennsylvania focused on how to download as much federal data as possible in the coming weeks, and a collaboration of scientists and database experts who are compiling an online site to harbor scientific information.

LINKS:

• Extreme weather:
  • Not all climate change is global warming, but global warming is driving all climate change.
  • Progressives settled on the term “climate change” after the Right began using the term and confusing the issue with cold ‘weather’ as a contradiction to “Global Warming.”
  • ‘Extreme Weather’ Film Connects Nature’s Fury to Climate Change, Brian Clark Howard
• Yawn: China’s Space Program Is Making Advances Look Routine: Since 2003, manned space flights have become almost routine in China, [Blogs.WSJ.com] Oct 17, 2016 7:38 pm HKT
  • What will it take for the US to take China’s competition in space seriously?
  • Will it be Taikonauts say, “Ni hao,” from the moon?

 SOURCES WHICH MAY BE RELEVANT TO OTHER DISCUSSION:

======================================================

• Russian Interference Could Give Courts Legal Authority To Install Clinton, By Alex Mohajer, Political Writer and Commentator (Huffington Post) 12/10/2016 06:28 am ET | Updated 6 days ago (12/13/2016)
  • …at least one federal court decision suggests there may be some federal case law on the question of whether it is possible to invalidate the outcome of an election after the fact when there is fraud, and replace a candidate benefitted by fraud with his opponent. The case, Marks v. Stinson, is the first and only known case in which a federal judge reversed an election outcome.
  • [In] a case originally brought before a federal district judge in Pennsylvania in 1993, which was subsequently appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 1994. The Third Circuit partially upheld the federal judge’s decision to intervene and invalidate a 1993 state senate election due to fraud. Interestingly, the federal district judge ordered the winner be removed from office and the subsequent vacancy be filled by his opponent.
  • In February 1994, after Stinson had already taken office, the federal judge ordered he “be removed from his State Senate office and that [his opponent, Bruce Marks] be certified the winner within 72 hours.”
  • Two of the elected officials who testified in the Pennsylvania case said under oath that they were aware of the fraud, had intentionally failed to enforce laws, and hurried to certify Stinson the winner in order to bury the story. To some, the narrative draws parallels to the Washington Post’s revelation that Republican Mitch McConnell was aware of the CIA’s conclusion that Russians had intervened and opted to do nothing.
  • The case deliberates interesting rationale that could theoretically be applied in part if, after Donald Trump assumes office, it is shown that Russian hacking (or any fraud, for that matter) robbed Hillary Clinton of the presidency. The case offers clues that imply courts may intervene.
  • There is also, of course, no constitutional Electoral College process or system in Pennsylvania, so the situations are not exactly analogous. But the reasoning behind the federal court’s decision may hold muster. It is not clear how the case would impact a presidential election.
  • | Updated 6 days ago [MARKS v. STINSON | 19 F.3d 873 (1994) | Leagle.com]
  • BREAKING: Russian Interference In The Election Just Handed Hillary The White House (DETAILS), December 10, 2016 New Century Times
    • His opponent in the race, Republican Bruce Marks was then made the winner. The judge who made the ruling, Judge Clarence Newcomer, said:

  • “Substantial evidence was presented establishing massive absentee ballot fraud, deception, intimidation, harassment and forgery.”

    According to the New York Times: “Judge Newcomer ordered that Mr. Stinson, a 49-year-old former assistant deputy mayor of Philadelphia, be removed from his State Senate office and that Mr. Marks, a 36-year-old lawyer and former aide to United States Senator Arlen Specter, be certified the winner within 72 hours.”

• Trump has a plan for government workers. They’re not going to like it. By Lisa Rein, [The Washington Post] 11/21/2016
  • President-elect Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress are drawing up plans to take on the government bureaucracy they have long railed against, by eroding job protections and grinding down benefits that federal workers have received for a generation.
  • Hiring freezes, an end to automatic raises, a green light to fire poor performers, a ban on union business on the government’s dime and less generous pensions — these are the contours of the blueprint emerging under Republican control of Washington in January.
  • Breitbart headlines also provide a possible insight into [Stephen K. Bannon’s] views, with federal employees described as overpaid, too numerous and a “privileged class.”
  • “Number of Government Employees Now Surpasses Manufacturing Jobs by 9,977,000,” the website proclaimed in November. There are 2.1 million federal civilian employees.
  • “It’s nearly impossible to fire somebody,” said Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. “When the overwhelming majority do a good job and the one bad apple is there viewing pornography, I want people to be held accountable.”
  • Gingrich said the Trump administration probably would look for guidance from Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), who stripped public employee unions of most of their collective-bargaining rights and forced workers to pay more into their pensions and for health care in what became a bitter political fight.
    • Federal employees behind in pay by 34 percent on average, salary council says, (By Eric Yoder (Washington Post) October 31, 2016: Federal workers earn 34.07 percent on average less than private-sector employees doing comparable work, according to the government’s official, although not universally accepted, tally of how salaries compare.
    • The figure was announced at Friday’s annual meeting of the Federal Salary Council, a group of union representatives and outside experts on compensation that oversees the General Schedule, the pay system for white-collar workers below the senior ranks.

• 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]

o Government Debt in the United States – Debt Clock:  (www.usgovernmentdebt.us/): Total Federal Government Debt in 2016 is $19.9 trillion (2016-11-28). At the end of FY 2017 the total government debt in the United States, including federal, state, and local, is expected to be $23.277 trillion. Get more information about Total Debt here.

• 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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