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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.

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.)

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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. Make sure you are registered to vote:
   1. HarrisVotes.com (Election Information Line (713) 755-6965)
   2. VoteTexas.gov
   3. Next Election: August 25, 2018 – Harris County Flood Control District Bond Election
      1. Be sure to early-vote when polling places and hours are announced
      2. Election Day polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
      3. You may vote early by-mail if you are registered to vote and meet one of the following criteria:
         1. Away from the county of residence on Election Day and during the early voting period;
         2. Sick or disabled;
         3. 65 years of age or older on Election Day;
         4. or Confined in jail, but eligible to vote.
2. “I think the European Union is a foe,” Trump says ahead of Putin meeting in Helsinki, CBS News July 15, 2018, 7:27 PM
   1. In an interview with “CBS Evening News” anchor Jeff Glor in Scotland on Saturday, President Trump named the European Union — comprising some of America’s oldest allies — when asked to identify his “biggest foe globally right now.”
   2. “Well, I think we have a lot of foes. I think the European Union is a foe, what they do to us in trade. Now, you wouldn’t think of the European Union, but they’re a foe. Russia is foe in certain respects. China is a foe economically, certainly they are a foe. But that doesn’t mean they are bad. It doesn’t mean anything. It means that they are competitive,” Trump said at his golf club in Turnberry, Scotland.
   3. “I respect the leaders of those countries. But, in a trade sense, they’ve really taken advantage of us and many of those countries are in NATO and they weren’t paying their bills,” he added. …
   4. On Sunday, British Prime Minister Theresa May told the BBC that Mr. Trump had encouraged her to “sue the EU” rather than negotiate over the U.K.’s departure from the bloc. …
   5. The president kicked off the NATO summit by blasting Germany as “totally controlled” and “captive by Russia” over a natural gas pipeline project, known as the Nord Stream 2. …
   6. Trump-Putin summit could improve US-Russia relations — And yes, that is a good thing, By Harry J. Kazianis | Fox News | 15-July-2018
      1. … President Trump – despite what his critics say – is not a naïve fool who will sell out the United States and our allies and make ridiculous concessions to Putin. And he understands that improving relations with Russia and changing Russian behavior is no easy task. But he also believes it’s worth a try. The plain truth is that Russia is too big and too important a nation for any U.S. president to simply refuse to deal with. And because of that, it’s to our mutual benefit for America and Russia to no longer be enemies. …
3. Trump refuses to denounce Putin over election meddling at summit, blames ‘both countries’ – Amanda Macias | Tucker Higgins Published JULY 16, 2018, 2 Hours Ago Updated 7 Mins Ago com
   1. President Donald Trump on Monday said at a joint briefing with Russian President Vladimir Putin that while he had “great confidence” in the U.S. intelligence community, Putin was “extremely strong and powerful in his denial” that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
   2. “The Russian state has never interfered and is not going to interfere into internal American affairs including election process,” Putin said during the conference alongside Trump.
   3. “There was no collusion. I didn’t know the president. There was nobody to collude with,” Trump said Monday.
4. Misleading headline à Dems souring on Mueller, By Chris Stirewalt | Fox News | JULY 13, 2018
   1. Napolitano: Russia indictments will smoke out conspirators
   2. … the noticeable drop since last month in public approval for the investigation led be Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign. In June, our Fox News poll found that 55 percent of voters generally approved of the way Mueller was conducting the probe. In our new poll, that number dropped 7 points to 48 percent. So what gives? …
   3. … Democrats, however, are growing frustrated with Mueller failing to wrap up an investigation that many of them believe is an open-and-shut case.
   4. That’s what our poll shows, too. The entirety of the 7-point decline comes from shifting Democratic sentiment. In June 84 percent of self-identified Democrats were on Team Mueller. Now it’s only 72 percent. …
6. Mexico’s Lopez Obrador commits to NAFTA after landslide win, By Stefanie Eschenbacher, David Alire Garcia [REUTERS] (4 Min Read) July 2, 2018 / 3:01 AM / Updated 26 minutes ago
   1. Here’s what you need to know about Mexico’s presidential election–THERE’S AN ELECTION IN MEXICO, by Dudley Althaus July 1, 2018 [WASHINGTONPOST.com] at 6:00 AM
   2. Mexicans hit the polls Sunday to elect a president for a single six-year term and 628 members of the national congress, who for the first time in nearly a century can be reelected. They’re also choosing nine governors, some 1,600 mayors and thousands of state and local lawmakers. …
   3. Opinion polls underscore voters’ deep irritation with things as they are. … The surveys give Andrés Manuel López Obrador, 64, a pugnacious leftist nationalist making a third bid for the presidency, a seemingly insurmountable lead over three rivals. Some suggest his National Regeneration Movement, or Morena, which he founded just four years ago, could even win a congressional majority.

1. • WHAT HAS FOLKS SO RILED UP? … Corruption is rampant and the justice system woefully inept. Successive governments have proved unable to end the criminal hyper-violence that in a dozen years has killed more than 150,000 people and left tens of thousands more missing.
   1. … WHAT COMES NEXT? Mexico’s once-lockstep politics dominated by the presidency ended long ago. Congress, governors and mayors now all wield greater power, autonomy and financing. Should he win, López Obrador’s ability to push his programs — which to many analysts remain undefined — will largely depend on his coalition’s support in the congress, but also in state houses and city halls. Polls suggest that his coalition will win a large plurality of congressional seats, if not an outright majority.
   2. Whoever prevails Sunday faces at least 2½ years of dealing with Trump, who has kept up the harsh criticism of Mexico and of Mexicans that helped him win his 2016 election. Trump has demanded a rewritten NAFTA, and the stalled negotiations may wind up on the next president’s plate.
   3. … While he’s said he supports the trade agreement, AMLO has said Mexico would do fine without it. He’s called for substituting imports of U.S. agricultural and energy products with Mexican goods.
   • His advisers say López Obrador wants to woo private investment to replace government spending. But he also has called for reviewing recent contracts given to Mexican and foreign companies for energy production and public works, including the $9 billion international airport being built outside Mexico City.
   • With Trump deeply unpopular in Mexico, all four presidential contenders have vowed to stand up to him. But López Obrador, like Trump, is known for particular toughness with opponents. And analysts say his more nationalist world view was forged by the Mexican political class’s historic distrust of U.S. intentions.
   1. A more defiant approach to Trump might disrupt binational cooperation on trade, crime enforcement,  immigration, border security and the environment. Diplomats say those ties so far have endured despite the public spats of the past 18 months.
   7. Entire Mexican police force arrested after mayoral candidate’s murder, By Tamar Lapin [NY POST] June 25, 2018 | 10:21am | Updated
      1. … A Mexican town’s entire police force has been arrested in connection with the slaying of a mayoral candidate.
      2. The 28 officers from the town of Ocampo in the western state of Michoacan were arrested Sunday on suspicion of involvement in the murder of Fernando Angeles Juarez.
      3. Juarez, 64, was running as the candidate for the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution in Ocampo, before being shot dead June 21.
      4. State officials took the cops in for having alleged ties with criminal groups possibly involved in the candidate’s killing, El Universal reported.
      5. Public Security Director Venancio Colin was chased out by 16 Ocampo cops in a hail of bullets when he first tried to arrest them Saturday, sources told the paper.
      6. He came back Sunday with reinforcements and arrested the entire force, who were cuffed and taken to the state capital for questioning.
      7. Juarez, a successful businessman with little previous political experience, was the third politician to be killed in Michoacan in just over a week, the BBC reported. …
   8. GE may sell off industrial engine unit to private equity firm Advent International: WSJ – General Electric is poised to sell off its industrial engine unit for at least $3 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, The move comes as GE, recently booted from the Dow Jones industrial average, is trying to right years of underperformance. By Javier E. David (@TeflonGeek) 2018-6-24 (Published 1 Hour Ago Updated 38 Mins Ago com)
      1. General Electric may sell a unit that manufactures industrial engines [to private-equity firm Advent International for $3 billion or more], The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, as part of a wide ranging effort to revitalize the moribund manufacturing giant.
         1. Advent International (Wikipedia): Advent International is an American global private equity firm focused on buyouts of companies in Western and Central Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia. The firm focuses on international buyouts, growth and strategic restructuring in five core sectors.
         2. Since its inception in 1984, Advent has invested $40 billion (€34 billion) in private equity capital^[1] and, through its buyout programs, has completed more than 335 transactions in 41 countries.^[2] Advent operates from 14 offices in 12 countries, with affiliates in additional countries, and employs over 190 investment professionals.

2. b.   Private equity (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia): … Bloomberg Businessweek has called private equity a rebranding of leveraged-buyout firms after the 1980s. …

                                    i.    Leverage (finance) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: In finance, leverage (sometimes referred to as gearing in the United Kingdom and Australia) is any technique involving the use of borrowed funds in the purchase of an asset, with the expectation that the after tax income from the asset and asset price appreciation will exceed the borrowing cost. Normally, the finance provider would set a limit on how much risk it is prepared to take and will set a limit on how much leverage it will permit, and would require the acquired asset to be provided as collateral security for the loan. For example, for a residential property the finance provider may lend up to, say, 80% of the property’s market value, for a commercial property it may be 70%, while on shares it may lend up to, say, 60% or none at all on some shares.

                                  ii.    Leveraging enables gains and losses to be multiplied.^[1] On the other hand, there is a risk that leveraging will result in a loss — i.e., it actually turns out that financing costs exceed the income from the asset, or because the value of the asset has fallen.

   9. NASA reveals new plan to stop asteroids before they hit Earth – Despite what the movies show, deflecting space rocks isn’t something astronauts will do, by Hanneke Weitering / Jun.21.2018 / 9:38 AM ET / Updated 9:52 AM ET
      1. Five major objectives are detailed in the new plan. In the first, NASA is directed to lead a new effort to enhance the nation’s ability to detect, track and characterize near-Earth asteroids, in order to “reduce current levels of uncertainty and aid in more accurate modeling and more effective decision-making,” the document states. …
      2. NASA already supports several ground-based observatories that scan the skies for asteroids — like the Catalina Sky Survey in Tucson, Arizona; the Pan-STARRS1 telescope in Maui; and the NEOWISE space telescope. While the new report doesn’t ask NASA scientists to start planning for additional missions, it does request that the agency “identify opportunities in existing and planned telescope programs to improve detection and tracking by enhancing the volume and quality of current data streams.” …
      3. The second goal listed in the document is the improvement of “modeling, prediction and information integration” across U.S. agencies to help predict the probability of an asteroid hitting Earth and determine exactly when and where an asteroid could strike. Emergency-management teams like FEMA would use this information to determine the best course of action when preparing for an asteroid strike and dealing with the consequences. …
      4. The focus of the fourth goal outlined in the document is to increase international cooperation to better prepare the rest of the world for the possibility of an asteroid strike — under the leadership of the United States. “This kind of cooperation is really important,” said Aaron Miles, a senior policy advisor with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “It’s a global hazard that we all face together, and the best way to approach and address that hazard is cooperatively
      5. In the third objective, NASA is asked to come up with new ways to deflect an asteroid heading toward Earth. This involves developing technologies for “rapid-response NEO reconnaissance missions,” in which a spacecraft could launch toward an Earth-bound asteroid and somehow change the space rock’s course so that it no longer posed a threat. NASA had plans to attempt this with the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) in 2021, but the Trump administration scrapped that mission in 2017.
      6. The focus of the fourth goal outlined in the document is to increase international cooperation to better prepare the rest of the world for the possibility of an asteroid strike — under the leadership of the United States. “This kind of cooperation is really important,” said Aaron Miles, a senior policy advisor with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “It’s a global hazard that we all face together, and the best way to approach and address that hazard is cooperatively.”
      7. In the fifth and last objective in the document, the U.S. government is asked to come up with a plan that would go into effect if a large asteroid were found to be hurtling toward Earth — or if one were to crash into our planet with little to no warning. NASA and FEMA have been collaborating on emergency procedures for asteroid impacts since 2010, and the new report calls for the agencies to “strengthen and routinely exercise NEO impact emergency procedures and action protocols.”

   h.

   i.     This graphic depicts the spatial extent of the damage if an asteroid measuring roughly 100 feet (30 meters) wide were to hit New York City. An asteroid that size famously exploded over Siberia on June 30, 1908. Known as the Tunguska event, this was the largest asteroid impact in recorded history. National Science and Technology Council

   1. Asteroid-hunting astronomers have already found more than 8,000 near-Earth objects (NEOs) measuring at least 460 feet (140 meters) across — large enough to wipe out an entire state if one were to hit the U.S. But asteroids that size make up only one-third of the estimated population of near-Earth asteroids.
   2. Smaller asteroid impacts may be less catastrophic, but they can still cause significant damage. The space rock that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013 was only 62 feet (19 m) wide, and it injured more than 1,200 people while damaging thousands of buildings as far as 58 miles (93 kilometers) away from the site of impact. NASA is starting to look for more of those smaller asteroids, now that most of the larger ones have already been cataloged.
   3. The National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy and Action Plan is available to download as a PDF here.
3. IN RELATED NEWS …. ‘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.

2. 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
3. As tensions with Trump deepen, Europe wonders if America is lost for good, by Griff Witte and Michael Birnbaum [washingtonpost.com] May 19, 2018 at 12:00 PM Email the author
   1. Since Jan. 20, 2017, European leaders have managed U.S. relations with one eye on the clock, anxiously counting down the hours until President Trump’s term is up and hoping the core of the Western alliance isn’t too badly damaged in the meantime.
   2. But as Trump’s aggressive rhetoric toward America’s closest allies has evolved into hostile action this spring, a new fear has swept European capitals.
   3. Trump may not be an aberration that can be waited out, with his successor likely to push reset after four or eight years of fraught ties. Instead, the blend of unilateralism, nationalism and protectionism Trump embodies may be the new American normal.
      2. 1. 1. “It is dawning on a number of European players that Trump may not be an outlier,” said Josef Janning, head of the Berlin office of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “More and more people are seeing it as a larger change in the United States.” …
4. 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.
5. ‘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.
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.

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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