SHOW AUDIO: Link is usually posted within about 72 hours of show broadcast. We take callers during this show at 713-526-5738.

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Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio), a listener call-in show  airing live every Monday night from 2-3 PM (CT) on KPFT-FM 90.1 (Houston). My engineer is Don Dwayne

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.)

Please take a moment to visit Pledge.KPFT.org and choose THINKWING RADIO from the drop-down list when you donate.

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]:

 

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1. Beginning THIS week, Monday, April 23^rd, we have moved to a NEW time slot! This Monday and every Monday for the foreseeable future, Thinkwing Radio will be from 2-3 PM on Monday afternoons.
   1. I know we’re replacing a program that you may have looked forward to hearing, but I hope to make the difference worth your while
   2. Thinkwing Radio is an interactive call-in show, and all callers are welcome to share their questions, ideas and opinions at 713-526-5738
2. Are you ready for the runoffs? Make sure you are registered to vote?
   1. Make sure you are registered:
      1. HarrisVotes.com (Election Information Line (713) 755-6965)
      2. VoteTexas.gov
      3. Who’s on the May 22 Texas primary runoff ballots?, By Ryan Murphy
      4. More than 30 Texas primary races are headed to a runoff. Here’s what you need to know.
      5. March 14, 2018
         1. Early voting for the May 22 runoffs begins on May 14 and ends on May 18.
3. Brendan O’Connor‏@ 15h15 hours ago: Actually I’m a reporter for Gizmodo Media, not Gizmodo. Facts don’t care about your feelings (https://twitter.com/_grendan/status/988211445446991872)
   1. Brendan O’Connor‏@ 20h20 hours ago
   2. Milo Yiannopoulos (ßlink to Wikipedia) just walked into a Manhattan bar full of @nycDSA (New York City Democratic Socialists of America, and members, got heckled for five minutes, and left
   3. You can see the short video here: https://twitter.com/_grendan/status/988138567938510848
   4. The rise and fall of Milo Yiannopoulos – how a shallow actor played the bad guy for money – Like Donald Trump, Yiannopoulos grew out of a grotesque convergence of politics and the internet, and thrived by turning hate speech into showbusiness, By Dorian Lynskey, Tue 21 Feb 201707 EST First published on Tue 21 Feb 2017 13.06 EST
   5. Free Speech Questions:
      1. First Amendment: No government constraints on speech
         1. Doesn’t guarantee a platform or free from consequences. Any protections there are cultural and political, not Constitutional.
4. VULTURE CAPITALISM: Lampert and his ESL Hedge Fund have been sucking SEARS dry for over a decade. Now we appear to be in the end-game.
   1. Sears CEO Eddie Lampert offers tentative deal for real estate, Kenmore, Nathan Bomey, USA TODAY Published 8:53 a.m. ET April 23, 2018 | Updated 10:11 a.m. ET April 23, 2018
      1. Sears Holdings CEO and hedge fund investor Eddie Lampert has offered to potentially buy the distressed retailer’s real estate, Kenmore brand and other assets.
      2. Lampert’s hedge fund disclosed Monday that it had sent a letter to the retailer on Friday offering to work out a deal to help the distressed company raise cash.
      3. Any deal between Lampert and Sears would also deepen the reclusive executive’s financial entanglement with the retailer amid its decline. He has already orchestrated a series of deals in which he has gained control of the retailer’s most valuable real estate and other assets.
      4. Sears investors liked the development. The company’s stock rose 3% to $3.10 shortly after the opening bell Monday.
5. White House officials urge Democrats to reconsider opposition to [CIA director Mike] Pompeo [for Sec. of State] ahead of Monday committee vote, by John Wagner April 23 at 11:44 AM Email the author
   1. Trump took to Twitter, saying it was hard to believe that “Obstructionists” might vote against his pick. He also complained more broadly that Democrats would not help in approving “hundreds of good people” and were slowing down the confirmation process of his nominees. “Need more Republicans!” the president wrote.
   2. All Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as Republican Rand Paul (Ky.), have signaled opposition to Pompeo’s nomination. If they maintain their positions during a committee vote scheduled for late Monday afternoon, Pompeo’s nomination will not have enough votes to be reported favorably to the full Senate.
   3. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) could still bring up Pompeo’s nomination for a floor vote later in the week after getting around some procedural hurdles. A full Senate vote is expected to be close, but Pompeo’s prospects look promising.
   4. Pompeo got a major boost late Monday morning with an announcement by Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) that he would vote for the nomination on the floor — becoming the second Democrat in the chamber to voice support.
   5. [North Dakota’s Sen. Heidi Heitkamp becomes first Democrat to pledge support for Pompeo as secretary of state]
   6. “After meeting with Mike Pompeo, discussing his foreign policy perspectives, & considering his distinguished time as CIA Director & his exemplary career in public service, I will vote to confirm Mike Pompeo to be our next Secretary of State,” Manchin said on Twitter.
   7. If confirmed, Pompeo would become the first nominee to win a Cabinet post without a committee endorsement since 1945, according to the Senate Historical Office. That year, Henry Wallace was confirmed to serve as President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s commerce secretary without committee support.
6. California’s future: More big droughts and massive floods, new study finds, By Paul Rogers | progers@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group [mercurynews.com] PUBLISHED: April 23, 2018 at 8:00 am | UPDATED: April 23, 2018 at 9:18 am
   1. The extreme weather swings that Californians have experienced over the past six years — a historic drought followed by drenching winter storms that caused $100 million in damage to San Jose and wrecked the spillway at Oroville Dam — will become the norm over the coming generations, a new study has found.
   2. Those types of extremes are not new, but because of climate change, they can be expected to occur more frequently, as hotter global temperatures and warming oceans are putting more water vapor into the air, concluded the study, which was published Monday in the scientific journal Nature Climate Change.
   3. And perhaps most ominous, the odds are rising that a mega-storm — like the one that famously flooded California in 1862, forcing Leland Stanford to take a rowboat through the streets of Sacramento to his inauguration as governor — will strike again. Such a storm “is more likely than not” to hit the state at least once in the next 40 years and twice in the next 80, the study found. The 1862 event, the largest recorded flood in California history, saw 43 days of continuous rainfall that washed whole towns away and forced the state capital to be temporarily moved to San Francisco.
7. Florida Detectives Tried Using Dead Man’s Finger to Unlock Cellphone, By Jason Murdock On 4/23/18 at 5:52 AM [Newsweek] 7h ago
   1. Family outraged as cops storm funeral home and use dead dad-of-two’s FINGER to try to unlock his phone
      1. [Largo police lieutenant Randall] Chaney told the Tampa Bay Timesthere is typically a 48 to 72-hour period to open a cellphone that has been locked using a fingerprint. While Largo police officers got the device back within that period, Phillip’s body had already been transferred from state custody to the funeral home. Detectives believed a warrant was not needed because the suspect had little expectation of privacy, Chaney added.
8. Russia is sponsoring cyberattacks in U.S. homes and businesses, U.S. and U.K. officials warn, By Bart Jansen and Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY Published 1:25 p.m. ET April 16, 2018 | Updated 4:20 p.m. ET April 16, 2018
   1. Cybersecurity officials from the U.S. and United Kingdom accused the Russian government Monday of sponsoring attacks for possible use in espionage or stealing intellectual property from large corporations down to individual homes.
   2. The attacks have targeted millions of computer networks worldwide through equipment such as routers, switches and firewalls, according to the officials from the White House, Department of Homeland Security and FBI, and counterparts in Britain. The targets included government and private organizations, including internet service providers, officials said.
   3. The goal of the announcement Monday was to warn corporations and individuals to protect themselves against attacks.
   4. ,,, The campaign launched Monday is designed to encourage companies and individuals to protect their systems including routers, switches and firewalls through changing passwords and configuring their devices to prevent them from being hijacked.
   5. Routers have long been known to be vulnerable to hacking and infiltration. Multiple studies have found that companies often install routers with their default passwords (often simply 1-2-3-4), making them child’s play to break into. In addition, many small and home offices as well as individuals never set up any security on their home routers.
9. Uber’s Self-Driving Car Just Killed Somebody. Now What?, By Aarian Marshall [www.wired.com] 03.19.18
   1. At about 10 pm on Sunday evening, a self-driving Uber struck and killed a woman crossing the street in Tempe, Arizona. The crash appears to be the first time a self-driving vehicle has killed someone—and could alter the course of a scantily regulated, poorly understood technology that has the power to save lives and create fortunes.
   2. The Tempe Police Department reports the Volvo XC90 SUV was in autonomous mode when the crash occurred, though the car had a human safety driver behind the wheel to monitor the technology and retake control in the case of an emergency or imminent crash. The woman, Elaine Herzberg, was transported to a local hospital, where she died from her injuries. The police department will complete its full report later today.
   3. Uber, Waymo, and other autonomous vehicle developers like Arizona not just for the sunny weather and calm conditions but for the near total lack of restrictions on how they test: Self-driving vehicles don’t need any sort of special permit, just a standard vehicle registration. And their operators don’t have to share any information about what they’re doing with the authorities.
   4. Thus far, only California demands developers make public specific data on their operations, including descriptions of any crashes, how many miles they drive each year, and how often their human safety operators take control from the robot. Even those numbers are less than helpful in understanding the pace of their work or just how well these things really drive. The state will begin allowing the testing of totally driverless vehicles—without safety drivers for backup—on public roads next month.
   5. …companies … await legislation that would put the federal government firmly in charge of all autonomous vehicle design, construction, and performance, and allow even more testing—as many as 100,000 vehicles per manufacturer—all over the country. The bill, called the Self Drive Act, passed in the House this fall. But the companion Senate bill, the AV Start Act, has been held up by a few senators who wonder whether the young technology needs more aggressive oversight.
   6. … Tempe police report the woman was outside the crosswalk when she was hit and killed.
   7. … human drivers kill just 1.16 people for every 100 million miles driven. Waymo and Uber and all the rest combined are nowhere near covering that kind of distance, and they’ve already killed one.
10. What is a “Populist”?
    1. From Wikipedia: … a political philosophy supporting the rights and power of the people in their struggle against a privileged elite.^[1] Critics of populism have described it as a political approach that seeks to disrupt the existing social order by solidifying and mobilizing the animosity of the “commoner” or “the people” against “privileged elites” and the “establishment”.^[2] Populists can fall anywhere on the traditional left–right political spectrum of politics and often portray both bourgeois capitalists and socialist organizers as unfairly dominating the political sphere.^[3]
    2. Political parties and politicians^[4] often use the terms “populist” and “populism” as pejoratives against their opponents. Such a view sees populism as demagogy, merely appearing to empathize with the public through rhetoric or unrealistic proposals in order to increase appeal across the political spectrum.^[5]
11. From Merriam-Webster:
    1. 1: a member of a political party claiming to represent the common people; especially, often capitalized : a member of a U.S. political party formed in 1891 primarily to represent agrarian interests and to advocate the free coinage of silver and government control of monopolies
    2. 2 : a believer in the rights, wisdom, or virtues of the common people
12. oxforddictionaries.com:
    1. A person, especially a politician, who strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups.
13. America’s Cultural Revolution, by Catherine Rampell
    1. Last month in Shanghai, Chinese venture capitalist Eric X. Li made a provocative suggestion. The United States, he said, was going through its own “Cultural Revolution.” …
    2. Li said he saw several parallels between the violence and chaos in China decades ago and the animosity coursing through the United States today. In both cases, the countries turned inward, focusing more on defining the soul of their nations than on issues beyond their borders.
    3. He said that both countries were also “torn apart by ideological struggles,” with kinships, friendships and business relationships being severed by political differences.
    4. “Virtually all types of institutions, be it political, educational, or business, are exhausting their internal energy in dealing with contentious, and seemingly irreconcilable, differences in basic identities and values — what it means to be American,” he said in a subsequent email exchange. “In such an environment, identity trumps reason, ideology overwhelms politics, and moral convictions replace intellectual discourse.”
14. 7 Reforms After Trump, by Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) 12/3/17, 19:31
    1. Repeal Shelby v Holder (LEGISLATE: Renew Voting Rights Act)
    2. Repeal Citizens United (LEGISLATE/AMENDMENT: Limit Money in Politics, abolish anonymous money in politics)
    3. Abolish/Revise electoral college (or can it be saved?)
    4. Apply anti-nepotism law to White House (It was WRITTEN for White House [Robert Kennedy serving with JFK])
    5. All declared POTUS candidates must release at least 5 years tax returns and medical physical data. (LEGISLATE/AMENDMENT: for how many years)
    6. Presidents may not self-pardon (AMENDMENT OR LEGISLATION: or pardon executive appointees?)
    7. No “self-funding” of campaigns beyond legal donor limit.
    8. Special counsel has power to indict president
       1.  ADD:
          1. 2/3 Senate vote to confirm SCOTUS appointment

TOPICS FROM PREVIOUS WEEKS:

1. TV Talk:
   1. “The Good Place”
   2. “The Orville”
   3. “Adam Ruins Everything”

LINKS:

 SOURCES WHICH MAY BE RELEVANT TO OTHER DISCUSSION:

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