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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

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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. 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

2. Thanks to the incredible support of KPFT Listeners and Classic Truck Enthusiasts [CTEs?], the Truck Raffle at the KPFT Car/Truck/Bike/ArtCar Show brought in over $23,000!

   
   Raffle Prize Winners:
   Grand Prize: Chevy C10 Stepside Pickup 1977: Milton B
   Second Prize: Shannon Fine Jewelry watch or ring: John W
   Third Prize Gold’s Gym Membership 1: Mary Ann C
   Third Prize Gold’s Gym Membership 2: Matthew E
   Fourth Prize Fender Squier Bullet Strat: Mary H
   Fifth Prize Car Wash Package from Mister Carwash: Hilario H

   Congratulations, all!  Trophy winners and images of the car show entries coming soon!

3. How far does the president’s power to pardon go, and when does a pardon become obstruction of justice and thus null and void and itself illegal?
   1. Oath of office: There are criminal penalties for violating certain kinds of oaths. Penalties for breaking oath? What about an oath of office? Is that just words and window dressing, or can any government official be prosecuted for violating their sworn promise
   2. Oath of Office, Historical Highlight, May 21, 1789: S. Constitution, Article VI, clause 3 — “The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
      1. The Vice President also has an oath of office, but it is not mandated by the Constitution and is prescribed by statute. Currently, the Vice Presidential oath is the same as that for Members of Congress: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.^[6]” ̶̶̶
         1. If the president prematurely releases market-moving information and thus helps or hurts certain companies or market sectors, can he be held civilly liable for financial injury?
   3. PRESIDENTIAL OATH (The only one specifically spelled out in the Constitution): Article 2, Section 1, Clause 8 — Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:–“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
4. Mueller Investigation: Are we close to the end because election season is near?
5. Allies, conduct trade war on Trump, not America.4:56 PM – 2 Jun 2018
   1. From a FB friend: “… I’ve figured out how to stop [Trump] from throwing tariffs on everything. The … world only retaliates by putting tariffs on stuff [he] has a vested interest in. …he doesn’t give a damn about anyone except himself and his money. Hit him where it hurts.
6. Op-Ed: Texans should be wary of bullet train proposal, By Alain Leray  – Guest Contributor, Mar 22, 2018, 12:27pm –
   1. This opinion piece was written by Alain Leray, president and CEO of SNCF America Inc., which is France’s national state-owned railway company
   2. Amtrak partners with Texas Bullet Train for ticketing, access to national routes, By Dallas Business Journal staff, May 4, 2018, 1:09pm
7. $1B construction project to replace Houston Ship Channel Bridge starts, By Jen Para  – Web producer, [Houston Business Journal] June 1, 2018, 2:08pm CDT Updated a day ago
8. China increasingly challenges American dominance of science, by Ben Guarino, Emily Rauhala and William Wan June 3, 2018 [WASHINGTONPOST.COM]
   1. …After decades of American dominance, Chinese science is ascendant, and it is luring scientists … away from the United States. Even more China-born scientists are returning from abroad to a land of new scientific opportunity.
   2. The United States spends half a trillion dollars a year on scientific research — more than any other nation on Earth — but China has pulled into second place, with the European Union third and Japan a distant fourth.
   3. China is on track to surpass the United States by the end of this year, according to the National Science Board. In 2016, annual scientific publications from China outnumbered those from the United States for the first time.
   4. … The scientific advances are a small piece of China’s larger ambitions. President Xi Jinping aims to supplant the United States as the world’s economic superpower within three decades. In October, Xi vowed to produce “a world-class army by 2050.”
9. Young Parkland activists announce nationwide tour ahead of midterm elections –“I think that a lot of politicians out there do not want a lot of young people voting.” by Kalhan Rosenblatt / Jun.04.2018 / 10:33 AM ET / Updated 10:45 AM ET
   1. Just one day after graduation, the young activists of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School announced they will be spending the summer touring the country ahead of the midterm elections.
   2. The “Road to Change,” a bus tour that will last for two months and take the Parkland students across the nation and to every congressional district in Florida, is the next phase of the March For Our Lives movement, which saw thousands of people gather earlier this year to protest gun violence and congressional inaction. …
   3. … Cameron Kasky, one of the leaders of March For Our Lives, said during Monday’s press conference … — surrounded by other leaders of the movement, including David Hogg and Emma González, who were all students when a gunman killed 17 people at Stoneman Douglas on Feb. 14 — explained the goal of the tour is to increase voter turnout in the November election with an emphasis on young voters. “I think that a lot of politicians out there do not want a lot of young people voting. I think they want marginalized communities staying out of the polls because they know they’ll be voted out,” Kasky said.
10. Trump: ‘I have the absolute right to pardon myself’, By Caroline Kenny, CNN Updated 11:32 AM ET, Mon June 4, 2018
    1. Washington (CNN)- President Donald Trump asserted Monday that he has the right to pardon himself but suggested that he won’t use that power, adding that the special counsel investigation is “unconstitutional.”…
11. In narrow ruling, Supreme Court gives victory to baker who refused to make cake for gay wedding – The opinion did not address the larger question of whether businesses can refuse to serve gay and lesbian customers, by Pete Williams / Jun.04.2018 / 9:26 AM ET / Updated 11:39 AM ET / Source: Associated Press
    1. The U.S. Supreme Court gave a boost to advocates of religious freedom on Monday, ruling that a Colorado baker cannot be forced to make a cake for a same-sex wedding, in a case that involved marriage equality and protection from discrimination.
    2. But the opinion was a narrow one, applying to the specific facts of this case only. It gave no hint as to how the court might decide future cases involving florists, bakers, photographers and other business owners who have cited religious and free-speech objections when refusing to serve gay and lesbian customers in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2015 same-sex marriage decision.
    3. In the 7-2 decision, the court said legal proceedings in Colorado had shown a hostility to the baker’s religious views. Monday’s ruling was written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, who also wrote the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage decision.
    4. “These disputes must be resolved with tolerance, without undue disrespect to sincere religious beliefs, and without subjecting gay persons to indignities when they seek goods and services in an open market,” Kennedy wrote.
    5. But the ruling, which came during Pride Month, gave little guidance to the lower courts about how to balance those competing interests. …
    6. … Liberal justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented Monday, while Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan joined with the conservatives — Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, and Chief Justice John Roberts — in the outcome.
12. Schrodinger’s Constitution: There are things about our Republic that have never been settled law because we’ve never tested them. Are we about to open the box and see if the cat is alive or dead?
    1. Schrödinger’s cat – Wikipedia: Schrödinger’s cat: a cat, a flask of poison, and a radioactive source are placed in a sealed box. If an internal monitor (e.g. Geiger counter) detects radioactivity (i.e. a single atom decaying), the flask is shattered, releasing the poison, which kills the cat. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that after a while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Yet, when one looks in the box, one sees the cat either alive or dead not both alive and This poses the question of when exactly quantum superposition ends and reality collapses into one possibility or the other.
    2. There are many “rules” and “norms in our governmental system that are vague because they are not codified in law or the Constitution. They have remained as such because wide politicians have preferred to leave them out of the courts and avoided making them “settled law”. Thus my analogy to Schrödinger’s cat.
       1. How much war-making power does the president have as Commander-in-Chief? Is the Congress actually allowed to give away any of its war-making powers?
       2. How far does the president’s power to reveal classified information extend? Are there any circumstances where the president can be charged with spying or conspiring with a foreign power?
13. Meanwhile, China is spending more on infrastructure than the United States or Europe, and the middle class has ballooned …
14. Blankenship wages war on GOP after losing Senate primary – The ex-convict and another May primary loser are not getting in line behind the nominees, By JAMES ARKIN [POLITICO.COM] 05/20/2018 06:58 AM EDT
    1. Don Blankenship lost his Senate primary in West Virginia, but the former coal baron is still causing problems for the Republican Party.
    2. Blankenship has said the GOP’s newly minted Senate nominee, state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, would likely lose in the fall — and promised to work to defeat him. He’s not the only sore loser: In Ohio, businessman Mike Gibbons is harboring lingering frustration over Rep. Jim Renacci’s primary tactics during their Senate race, according to a Republican close to Gibbons, and is not yet prepared to endorse the congressman’s campaign.
    3. Republicans are banking on a unified base to defeat red-state Democratic senators who have specialized in getting cross-party votes in the past. But a few primary also-rans’ unwillingness to get behind the party is already making people nervous in a couple of key GOP Senate targets. In West Virginia, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin looks more vulnerable than ever — just as Blankenship and his campaign manager have opened a rift in the state Republican Party.
    4. “Obviously, I’m worried,” said Mitch Carmichael, the Republican president of the West Virginia state Senate. “But I think it will be seen as just sour grapes.” …
    5. … But in Ohio, Gibbons remains frustrated by Renacci’s tactics after Renacci’s roughly 47 percent to 32 percent primary victory. Gibbons and Renacci spoke by phone on election night, and a Republican close to Gibbons, who requested anonymity to detail private conversations, called it a “decent enough” conversation. But feelings are still raw. Gibbons sued Renacci for defamation four days before the election and accused him of lying during the campaign, calling him a “bully.” Renacci shrugged off the accusation, which angered Gibbons more.
15. Nikki Haley’s Twitter account raises protocol concerns – Critics question the U.N. ambassador’s mixture of the personal and the official online, By NAHAL TOOSI [POLITICO] 05/20/2018 06:54 AM EDT, Updated 05/20/2018 08:23 AM EDT
    1. On the @nikkihaley handle, the rising Republican star posts pictures of her dearest friends and showers love on her dog, Bentley. But she also denounces Russian actions in Syria and chides U.N. nations for voting against the United States. …
    2. … social media is an important tool in public diplomacy, in which sites like Twitter and Facebook are part of a growing diplomatic virtual infrastructure that communicates U.S. views abroad.
    3. Haley has long been considered a potential presidential candidate. Since her confirmation as ambassador in January 2017, Haley has seen her Twitter following increase more than eightfold, to 1.6 million. That’s more than four times as many as the U.S. Mission to the United Nations’ office Twitter handle, @USUN.
    4. “Taxpayer dollars shouldn’t be used to fund someone’s social media stardom for political or business purposes,” said Brett Bruen, a former diplomat who helped craft the State Department guidelines. “It doesn’t take a savvy political mind to identify that Haley is trying to attract American voters for 2024.”
16. How Trump changed everything for The Onion – The comedy website has had to develop new strategies and new characters for a president who often defies satire, By ANDREW RESTUCCIA [POLITICO.COM] 05/20/2018 06:49 AM EDT
    1. A lot has changed since 2013, when the editors of The Onion got an angry email from Donald Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen. Back then, Cohen was an executive vice president at the Trump Organization, and his client was just a TV mogul, still years away from announcing his first serious presidential bid.
    2. Cohen was fuming over a satirical article published under Trump’s name with the headline, “When You’re Feeling Low, Just Remember I’ll Be Dead In About 15 Or 20 Years.” On Trump’s behalf, Cohen demanded that The Onion immediately remove the article and apologize.
    3. “This commentary goes way beyond defamation and, if not immediately removed, I will take all actions necessary to ensure your actions do not go without consequence,” Cohen wrote, according to a copy of the email provided to POLITICO. “Guide yourself accordingly.”
    4. Five years later, Trump is in the White House, Cohen is under federal investigation and the article is still on The Onion’s website, which many West Wing staffers begrudgingly admit to occasionally reading.
    5. … As The Onion tries to find its footing in the Trump era, its writers have increasingly focused on the people around the president. Vice President Mike Pence is often depicted as a repressed religious fanatic who, in one memorable article, refused to be alone with a bottle of Mrs. Butterworth maple syrup until his wife arrived. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., known as the “Trump boys” in The Onion’s lexicon, are cast as bumbling simpletons whose misadventures — from setting up their own makeshift law firm in the White House’s electrical room to interrupting an intelligence briefing with sofa cushions duct-taped to their bodies — are the closest thing to the site’s wildly successful mockery of former Vice President Joe Biden. …
    6. “… Trump poses definitely an interesting challenge [says editor-in-chief Chad Nackers], and it goes pretty deep. We’re so divided in this country politically right now that I feel like people can be very dismissive if they think you’re doing a joke that’s critical of Trump. They’ll be like, “That’s not funny. That’s no good.” On the other hand, I think overly left-leaning people can be too on board with anything someone says, not even an Onion thing. They’ll believe anything as long as it’s hammering Trump. …
    7. … The First Amendment is very important to all journalists, and that’s something I’ve always been appreciative of with The Onion, that in America you feel very protected and you can comment on things. So, it scares me when, regardless of the political group, when people start saying, “Well, that person shouldn’t be allowed to say anything.” Because that’s a pretty slippery slope. …
    8. … The other challenge about this administration is that so many of their policies and things, like for the EPA, they almost feel like satire. You’re just cutting everything that would protect the environment or making it easier for people to pollute. That’s the kind of thing that you would in the past make jokes about. I think we had an article years ago that said something like: “EPA: Rivers Aren’t Supposed to Smell like Shit.” And you can’t really do that kind of joke now because that’s not really where their focus is.
    9. It goes throughout the Department of Interior. We used to do lots of jokes about various things — laying off animals and stuff like that. It’s not quite as relevant now because they’re not functioning at a normal level.
17. ‘Tricked by the devil.’ They backed Trump. Now, his foreign labor cuts may ruin them. | Lexington Herald Leader, By Tom Eblen [COM] teblen@herald-leader.com, May 10, 2018 11:34 AM (Updated May 13, 2018 06:20 AM)
    1. Eddie Devine voted for President Donald Trump because he thought he would be good for American business. Now, he says, the Trump administration’s restrictions on seasonal foreign labor may put him out of business. “I feel like I’ve been tricked by the devil,” said Devine, owner of Harrodsburg-based Devine Creations Landscaping. “I feel so stupid.”
    2. Devine says he lost a $100,000 account because he didn’t have enough men to do the job. He’s worried he may be out of business next year if things don’t improve.
    3. He isn’t alone. Cuts in H-2B visas are hurting small businesses across the country that can’t find Americans willing to do hard, manual labor: Maryland crab processors, Texas shrimp fishermen, and Kentucky landscapers and construction companies.
    4. … “We live and die by these visas,” said Ken Monin, owner of Monin Construction, which specializes in home additions, roofs, decks and garages. “Last year we about went bankrupt. The workers we were supposed to get in March didn’t show up until August because they couldn’t get visas.”
    5. Monin applied for eight H-2B workers this year, but he isn’t optimistic he will get any. Employers seeking H-2B workers must prove they have advertised and tried unsuccessfully to hire local workers.
    6. “Americans don’t want most of these jobs,” said Monin, who pays his workers about $17 an hour. “I’ve been in this business 20 years. It’s hard, hot work.”
    7. … what makes him most angry is that Trump’s properties in Florida and New York have used 144 H-2B workers since 2016. “I want to know why it’s OK for him to get his workers, but supporters like me don’t get theirs,” Devine said.
18. China’s first home-built aircraft carrier begins sea trials as Beijing ramps up its maritime might, By Neil Connor, Beijing [telegraph.co.uk] 13 May 2018 • 1:16pm
19. 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.
20. 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]
    3. 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
    4. 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.
21. 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.”
22. 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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