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TOPIC:  SUPPORT KPFT!  Bombing Syria: Right Or Wrong – Machiavellian Political Maneuver Coordinated Between Trump-Putin-Assad? Was It Pointless Or Politically Savvy (For Trump)? Republicans Use Nuclear Option To Approve Gorsuch For Supreme Court – Payback For Sen. Harry Reid Or GOP Long-Time Plan? More.

GUEST: OPEN FORUM

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.)

NOTE: THRU APRIL 12, 713-526-5738 IS KPFT’s PLEDGE LINE. Live call-in is on 713-526-5752

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.

SIGN-OFF QUOTE[s]:

Headline in “Daily Kos” – “Gorsuch: Always remember and never forget, when Republicans lose, they cheat” ~  By Kerry Eleveld   [DAILYKOS.COM] Friday Apr 07, 2017 · 3:08 PM CST

1. Poll: Narrow support for Trump’s strike in Syria, By Scott Clement, April 10, 2017 at 3:09 PM [WASHINGTON POST]
   1. Americans narrowly support missile strikes ordered by President Trump last week in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack in Syria, even as most oppose additional military efforts to remove President Bashar al-Assad from power, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.By 51 to 40 percent, more support than oppose the missile strikes launched early Friday on the Shayrat air base in Syria, with opinions dividing sharply along partisan lines. Trump’s action was widely praised by Republicans, as well as many Democrats, though there has been less agreement on what additional steps to take.
   2. 
   3. MSNBC host’s conspiracy theory: What if Putin planned the Syrian chemical attack to help Trump? By Avi Selk April 8
   5.  @Lawrence video clip: https://youtu.be/C1iy2bKNoJ8
2. THE NUCLEAR OPTION: Reid’s Fault, or McConnell’s plan all along?
   1. Democrats secured enough votes to block Gorsuch, setting stage for ‘nuclear option, By Ed O’Keefe and Elise Viebeck [WASHINGTON POST] April 3, 2017 at 7:18 PM
   2. MIKE: Maybe one of the Constitutional Amendments we need to put on our future list is a 60-vote threshold for SCOTUS Justice.
   3. GOP May Target Use of Filibuster – Senate Democrats Want To Retain the Right to Block Judicial Nominees
      1. By Helen Dewar and Mike Allen [Washington Post Staff Writers] Monday, December 13, 2004; Page A01
      2. As speculation mounts that Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist will step down from the Supreme Court soon because of thyroid cancer, Senate Republican leaders are preparing for a showdown to keep Democrats from blocking President Bush’s judicial nominations, including a replacement for Rehnquist.
      3. Republicans say that Democrats have abused the filibuster by blocking 10 of the president’s 229 judicial nominees in his first term — although confirmation of Bush nominees exceeds in most cases the first-term experience of presidents dating to Ronald Reagan. Describing the filibusters as intolerable, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has hinted he may resort to an unusual parliamentary maneuver, dubbed the “nuclear option,” to thwart such filibusters.
   4. From Senator’s 2003 Outburst, GOP Hatched ‘Nuclear Option’, By Jim VandeHei and Charles Babington [Washington Post Staff Writers] Thursday, May 19, 2005
      1. Six-term Sen. Ted Stevens … , but on Feb. 26, 2003, he was downright angry. As Democrats blocked yet another one of President Bush’s judicial nominees, he … told a group of colleagues and aides, “We can put an end to this now!”
      2. [F]ormer Republican leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) coined the term “nuclear option” to describe a rule change that would ban judicial filibusters and allow up-or-down votes on the president’s nominees. The notion once had seemed unimaginable, but Lott and other conservatives now favored it.
3. Democrats secure enough votes to block Gorsuch, setting stage for ‘nuclear option, By Ed O’Keefe and Elise Viebeck [WASHINGTON POST] April 3, 2017 at 7:18 P
   1. Joe Manchin III (D-W. Va): Manchin is one of three moderate Democrats who plan to vote for Gorsuch,
   2. two moderates, Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), have been the focus of a $10 million ad campaign by the conservative Judicial Crisis Network, which is pressuring Democrats facing reelection next year in states that Trump won in November to vote for Gorsuch.
   3. Michael F. Bennet (D-Colo.) on Monday became the fourth Democrat to say he would join Republicans in trying to end the filibuster. But in a sign of the incredible political pressure he faces as he votes on a nominee from his home state, Bennet did not state whether he plans to support or oppose Gorsuch. He has also faced pressure from JCN to back Gorsuch. So far he is the only Democratic senator not up for reelection in 2018 opposing the filibuster.
   4. MIKE: Maybe one of the Constitutional Amendments we need to put on our future list is a 60-vote threshold for SCOTUS Justice.
4. DHS Immigration Memo Underscore7s Urgent Need for National Guard Reform: It’s time to rethink the mission and role of the already-stretched National Guard. By Ben Manski |[BillMoyers.com] February 22, 2017
   1. A general alarm has risen in response to the recently leaked draft memo from Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly outlining steps for the deployment of National Guard units, as well as other measures, across vast regions of the country to hunt down and detain those suspected of being undocumented immigrants to the United States.
   2. The Constitution of the United States disallows the use of the National Guard to invade and occupy other countries. Instead, Article 1, Section 8 provides for the use of the Guard “to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions.” Federal statutes enacted under the authority of the Constitution describe the conditions under which the Guard may and may not be used for domestic law enforcement. Most readings of those statutes are that they do not authorize the unilateral federalization of state guard units to hunt down and detain those suspected of being undocumented immigrants. Yet as a matter of constitutional law involving at least several of the militia clauses and the Bill of Rights, the question is unclear.
   3. What is clear is that National Guard law is currently broken. The United States have not been invaded since 1941, yet over the past year, National Guard units were deployed in 70 countries, reflecting former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s statement that, “There’s no way we could conduct a global war on terror without the Guard and Reserve.”

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

 SOURCES WHICH MAY BE RELEVANT TO OTHER DISCUSSION:

LINKS:

• 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]
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