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TOPICS:  SUPPORT KPFT!  Fall FunDrive, Nov. 7 Elections & Voting, FALL FUNDRAISER, Obamacare registration, Astros, Mean vs Median, Just One Vote, Myeshia Johnson, Trump the NO-gotiator, more.

GUEST:  Open Forum

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]:

Baseball: Where the announcers have to work really hard to make nothing happening sound exciting. 😉

To be fair, of all the sports I don’t care about, I like baseball the most. Maybe it’s because I have ADD, and the game moves slowly enough that if I briefly lose focus, I’m not likely to miss anything important. ~ Michael R. Honig, October 22, 2017

1. ACA (aka OBAMACARE): Healthcare.gov

   1. 2018 Open Enrollment runs from Nov 1 – Dec 15. Are you ready?

2. ELECTIONS:
   1. 1. HarrisVotes.com
      2. VoteTexas.gov
   2. EARLY VOTING
      1. October 23 – October 27: 8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
      2. October 28: 7:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.
      3. October 29: 1:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
      4. October 30 – November 3: 7:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.
   3. Election Day: Nov 7
3. STUDY: One Vote Can Turn an Election in North Carolina, by Democracy No. Carolina (Undated)
   1. Does one vote really make a difference in an election?
   2. A new study from the nonpartisan voting rights group Democracy North Carolina shows that in a surprising number of cases a handful of votes can determine who wins or loses, especially in odd- year municipal elections like those now underway across the state.
   3. By analyzing elections held in November 2015, the organization’s researchers identified 69 cities in NC where the mayor or a town council member won their election by five or fewer votes.
4. Changes may be ahead for Social Security, observers say, by Russ Wiles, The Republic | azcentral.com Published 12:08 p.m. ET Oct. 23, 2017 (USA TODAY)
   1. Income-tax reform and health-care changes have taken center stage in the nation’s capital. But could Social Security also get altered by Congress sometime soon? Some observers think so.
   2. “The political landscape is changing,” said Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, a non-profit group that supports expansion of the federal retirement-insurance program. “The sands in some ways are shifting under our feet.”
   3. Several bills have been proposed recently that would expand Social Security, she said. Others would make other changes. Altman considers expansion, meaning some enhanced benefits or eligibility, as feasible.
   4. “If the U.S. wants to allocate more money to Social Security, there’s no question it can afford to do so,” said Altman, one of more than a dozen experts who spoke to journalists at an aging conference hosted by the National Press Foundation. “It’s not a question of affordability. It’s a question of values.”
   5. Social Security reforms aren’t a done deal, by any means. Nor will they necessarily mean expansion of the program, especially at a time when many people feel the payroll taxes supporting the program are high enough.
   6. Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, CEO of think tank Global Policy Solutions, predicts privatization proposals could be back in the mainstream political discussion fairly soon.  Even though polls have shown that most Americans strongly support Social Security more or less as it is, Rockeymoore Cummings said Republican leaders in Congress will seek to pass income-tax cuts without fully funding them.
   7. “They will then say we can’t afford Social Security, Medicare and other safety-net programs,” she told the journalists’ group. “It’s a bait-and-switch.”
5. A refresher for all of us that words matter: “Choose Your Words – mean/ median/ average
   1. Let’s say we have a set of numbers:11,23,30,47,56
      1. The mean, sometimes called the arithmetic mean, of this set is 33. The mean is the sum of all the numbers in the set (167) divided by the amount of numbers in the set (5).
   2. The median is the middle point of a number set, in which half the numbers are above the median and half are below. In our set above, the median is 30.
   3. But what if your number set has an even number of numbers:11,23,30,47,52,56
      2. To calculate the median here, add the two middle numbers (30 + 47) and divide by 2. The median for our new list is 38.5.
      3. So far, so good. But what about average? The average of a set of numbers is the same as its mean; they’re synonyms.
      4. So the terms we need to worry about are Mean/Average on one hand and Median on the other.
6. Gold Star widow Myeshia Johnson has ‘nothing to say’ to Trump after controversial condolence call, By Kristine Phillips and Freedom du Lac October 23, 2017  [Washington Post] at 8:34 AM
   1. Her husband was killed in action in West Africa on Oct. 4, one of four U.S. soldiers who died in Niger when Islamic State militants attacked them.
   2. His body was flown back to the United States on Tuesday. Soon after, his name became entangled in a controversy after Trump was accused of making insensitive remarks to the 25-year-old soldier’s widow.
   3. Frederica S. Wilson (D-Fla.) said Trump told Myeshia Johnson on the phone that her husband “must have known what he signed up for,” an account later corroborated by Johnson’s aunt and custodial mother, Cowanda Jones-Johnson.
   4. Trump vehemently denied Wilson’s account, stating without evidence that he had proof it was “totally fabricated.” But White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly later appeared to confirm Wilson’s account. Myeshia Johnson said Monday that Wilson’s version of events was “100 percent correct.”
7. The great dealmaker? Lawmakers find Trump to be an untrustworthy negotiator, By Philip Rucker, Sean Sullivan and Paul Kane October 23,2017 [Washington Post]at 6:00 AM
   1. President Trump campaigned as one of the world’s greatest dealmakers, but after nine months of struggling to broker agreements, lawmakers in both parties increasingly consider him an untrustworthy, chronically inconsistent and easily distracted negotiator .
8. What Trump did to Kelly shows how far we have fallen, By J. Dionne Jr. Opinion writer October 22, 2017 at 7:54 PM
   1. The United States is in the middle of a very unfortunate experiment in how disoriented a great nation can become before it loses its moorings entirely….
   2. … former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama reminded us last week that there is nothing normal about this moment. They issued searing, overlapping condemnations of Trumpism without naming President Trump. Former commanders in chief of opposing parties don’t do this sort of thing unless the country faces an emergency.
   3. … This is why all except the most blind Trump partisans had to be heartsick over the performance of White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly on Thursday. The retired Marine Corps general, who devoted his life to service and suffered stoically when he lost a son in combat, stepped out as a hatchet man against Rep. Frederica S. Wilson….
   4. … Kelly went on to give a false account of gracious, bipartisan comments Wilson made at the dedication of a Florida FBI building.
   5. Thus is our world turned upside down: A genuine patriot is reduced to the role of propagandist for a boss whose idea of sacrifice, as Trump once explained on ABC News, is running a business from which he profited.
9. Astros win AL Championship. Yay!
   1. Baseball: Where the announcers have to work really hard to make nothing happening sound exciting. 😉
   2. To be fair, of all the sports I don’t care about, I like baseball the most. Maybe it’s because I have ADD, and the game moves slowly enough that if I briefly lose focus, I’m not likely to miss anything important.
10. TV Talk:
    1. “The Good Place”
    2. “The Orville”
    3. “Adam Ruins Everything”

TOPICS FROM PREVIOUS WEEKS:

 

LINKS:

• Emoluments Clause of the Constitution (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia):
  1. The Ineligibility Clause, one of the two clauses often called the Emoluments Clause,^[1][2] and sometimes also referred to as the Incompatibility Clause^[3] or the Sinecure Clause,^[4] is found in Article 1, Section 6, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution. It places limitations upon the employment of members of Congress and prohibits employees of the Executive Branch from serving in Congress during their terms in office. The name “Ineligibility Clause” is only used by a minority of writers, as compared to the name “Emoluments Clause”.^[1][2][5]
  2. The clause states: “No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.”
• Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

The Twenty-fifth Amendment (Amendment XXV) to the United States Constitution deals with succession to the Presidency and establishes procedures both for filling a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, as well as responding to Presidential disabilities. It supersedes the ambiguous wording of Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 of the Constitution, which does not expressly state whether the Vice President becomes the President or Acting President if the President dies, resigns, is removed from office or is otherwise unable to discharge the powers of the presidency.^[1] The Twenty-fifth Amendment was adopted on February 10, 1967.^[2]

• 1. Section 1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.
  2. Section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.
  3. Section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.
  4. Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
  5. Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.^[3]
• Group will sue Trump over business’ foreign profits, By Cyra Master 2 hrs ago (The Hill) 1/22/2017 via MSN
  1. The Title of Nobility Clause [Also known as the Emoluments Clause] is a provision in Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, that prohibits the federal government from granting titles of nobility, and restricts members of the government from receiving gifts, emoluments, offices or titles from foreign states without the consent of the United States Congress. Also known as the Emoluments Clause, it was designed to shield the republican character of the United States against so–called “corrupting foreign influences”. This shield is reinforced by the corresponding prohibition on state titles of nobility in Article I, Section 10, and more generally by the Republican Guarantee Clause in Article IV, Section^[2] ~ Title of Nobility Clause – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_of_Nobility_Clause

 SOURCES WHICH MAY BE RELEVANT TO OTHER DISCUSSION:

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

1. Trial Balloon for a Coup? Analyzing the news of the past 24 hours, by Yonatan Zunger
2. 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:
   1. Freedom of speech
   2. Freedom of worship
   3. Freedom from want
   4. Freedom from fear
   5. 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.

• 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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