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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. 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. …
3. ‘Stand Your Ground’ Law Protects Shooter In Fatal Fight Over Handicapped Parking Space, By Christina Zhao | com | On Saturday, July 21, 2018 – 05:44
   1. A Florida man who fatally shot a father of three in an argument over parking space will not be arrested, because of the state’s “stand your ground” law, which protects people who act in self-defense.
   2. Surveillance video of the incident shows Michael Drejka, 47, fatally shooting Markeis McGlockton, 28, in the chest, during a tussle over a disabled parking spot earlier this week. …
   3. … In the footage, Drejka could be seen arguing with McGlockton’s girlfriend, Britany Jacobs, 24. Authorities confirmed that the argument started after Jacobs parked her car in a disabled parking space without a permit.
   4. McGlockton, who was inside a store when the argument broke, came back outside and shoved Drejka to the ground with both hands. Drejka then quickly pulled out a gun and shot McGlockton once in the chest. …
   5. … On Friday morning, before Gualtieri revealed that the shooter was protected by Florida law, Jacobs told The Tampa Bay Times that her boyfriend was just defending his family. “It’s a wrongful death,” she said. “It’s messed up. Markeis is a good man… He was just protecting us, you know? And it hurts so bad.”
   6. NOTE FROM MIKE: In the fuzzy video, it appears that the victim is black and the shooter is white. This raises more “what if” questions.
   7. ME: By this logic, one can target someone for killing, start an argument, provoke that person to violence and then legally shoot them dead. The “Stand Your Ground” law might as well be called the “007” law, because it’s a license to kill. 
   8. VIDEO HERE: https://www.theblaze.com/news/2018/07/20/watch-stand-your-ground-law-protects-shooter-in-fatal-dispute-over-a-parking-spot-sheriff-says
4. The Trump effect: New study connects white American intolerance and support for authoritarianism – The research suggests that when intolerant white people fear democracy may benefit marginalized people, they abandon their commitment to democracy, By Noah Berlatsky | NBCNews.xom |27.2018 / 11:22 AM ET
   1. Since the founding of the United States, politicians and pundits have warned that partisanship is a danger to democracy. George Washington, in his Farewell Address, worried that political parties, or factions, could “allow cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men” to rise to power and subvert democracy. More recently, many political observers are concerned that increasing political polarization on left and right makes compromise impossible, and leads to the destruction of democratic norms and institutions.
   2. A new study, however, suggests that the main threat to our democracy may not be the hardening of political ideology, but rather the hardening of one particular political ideology. Political scientists Steven V. Miller of Clemson and Nicholas T. Davis of Texas A&M have released a working paper titled “White Outgroup Intolerance and Declining Support for American Democracy.” Their study finds a correlation between white American’s intolerance, and support for authoritarian rule.
   3. In other words, when intolerant white people fear democracy may benefit marginalized people, they abandon their commitment to democracy. …
   4. … Based on surveys from the United States, the authors found that white people who did not want to have immigrants or people of different races living next door to them were more likely to be supportive of authoritarianism. For instance, people who said they did not want to live next door to immigrants or to people of another race were more supportive of the idea of military rule, or of a strongman-type leader who could ignore legislatures and election results.
   5. … Miller and Davis’ paper quotes alt right, neo-fascist leader Richard Spencer, who in a 2013 speech declared: “We need an ethno-state so that our people can ‘come home again’… We must give up the false dreams of equality and democracy.” Ethnic cleansing is impossible as long as marginalized people have enough votes to stop it. But this roadblock disappears if you get rid of democracy. Spencer understands that white rule in the current era essentially requires That’s the logic of fascism.
   6. … Trump’s rise is often presented as a major break with the past, and as a repudiation of American values and democratic commitments. But … Miller pointed out that white intolerance has long served as an excuse for, and a spark for, authoritarian measures.
   7. “People are fond of the Framers’ grand vision of liberty and equality for all,” Miller says, “but the beauty of the Federalist papers can’t paper over the real measures of exclusion that were baked into their understanding of a limited franchise.”
   8. Trump’s rise is often presented as a major break with the past, and as a repudiation of American values and democratic commitments. But … Miller pointed out that white intolerance has long served as an excuse for, and a spark for, authoritarian measures.
   9. “People are fond of the Framers’ grand vision of liberty and equality for all,” Miller says, “but the beauty of the Federalist papers can’t paper over the real measures of exclusion that were baked into their understanding of a limited franchise.” …
   10. … In practice, the GOP has increasingly been embracing a politics of white resentment tied to disenfranchisement. “Since Richard Nixon’s ‘Southern Strategy,’ the GOP has pigeon-holed itself as, in large part, an aggrieved white people’s party,” Miller told me. …
   11. …White people continue to decrease as a percentage of the U.S. population; at some point, it’s going to be impossible to win a national, democratic American election with a platform that alienates people of color. The GOP, seeing their coming demographic apocalypse, has pushed voter ID laws and other barriers to voting to try to prevent black and other minority voters from getting to the polls. In Wisconsin, Republican Governor Scott Walker even attempted to delay elections for state seats that he believed Democrats would win.
   12. White people continue to decrease as a percentage of the U.S. population; at some point, it’s going to be impossible to win a national, democratic American election with a platform that alienates people of color.
   13. … Blaming authoritarianism on partisanship suggests that both sides are equally to blame for the erosion of democratic norms. … The growing concentration of intolerant white voters in the GOP, on the other hand, has created a party which appears less and less committed to the democratic project. When faced with a choice between bigotry and democracy, too many Americans are embracing the first while abandoning the second.
   14. At a press conference on Friday, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri revealed that Drejka’s actions were “within the bookends of stand your ground and within the bookends of force being justified,” reported The Tampa Bay Times. “I’m not saying I agree with it, but I don’t make that call,”
6. After a week of walkbacks, Trump returns to Russia doubting, By ZEKE MILLER | AP, July 22, 2018
   1. … Donald Trump on Sunday was back to referring to [Russian election interference as] “a big hoax.”
   2. … “So President Obama knew about Russia before the Election,” Trump tweeted. “Why didn’t he do something about it? Why didn’t he tell our campaign? Because it is all a big hoax, that’s why, and he thought Crooked Hillary was going to win!!!”
   3. It was not immediately clear whether Trump was suggesting that the entire notion of Russian interference — U.S. intelligence agencies unanimously concur it took place and Trump reluctantly accepted their assessment amid the firestorm — was fraudulent, or just the investigation of potential collusion by Trump associates with Russian agents. …
   4. … Trump’s latest missive came hours after he asserted without evidence that newly released documents relating to the wiretapping of his onetime campaign adviser Carter Page “confirm with little doubt” that intelligence agencies misled the court that approved the warrant.
   5. But lawmakers from both political parties said that the documents don’t show wrongdoing and that they even appear to undermine some previous claims by top Republicans on the basis for obtaining a warrant against Page.
   6. Visible portions of the heavily redacted documents, released Saturday under the Freedom of Information Act, show the FBI telling the court that Page “has been collaborating and conspiring with the Russian government.” The agency also told the court that “the FBI believes Page has been the subject of targeted recruitment by the Russian government.”
   7. The documents were part of officials’ application for a warrant to the [FISA court]. …
7. Graham: Carter Page wiretap ‘not at all’ justified, By ELI OKUN [politico.com] 07/22/2018 12:22 PM EDT
   1. LEAD PARAGRAPH: Lindsey Graham on Sunday called government surveillance of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page “not at all” justified, backing up President Donald Trump in his criticism of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court-approved wiretaps.
   2. ME: Graham says nothing else in the article to support that claim.
8. Carter Page acknowledges working as informal adviser to Russia, By ELI OKUN | politico.com| 07/22/2018 10:18 AM EDT
   1. LEAD PARAGRAPH: Former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page on Sunday called allegations that he was a Russian agent “spin,” a “ridiculous smear campaign” and “literally a complete joke” — but admitted that he had worked as an informal adviser to the Russian government. …
9. Maryland told its voter registration vendor financed by Russian oligarch, CBS News July 13, 2018
   1. Top Maryland officials say the FBI told them this week that the state’s voter registration platform was purchased by a Russian oligarch in 2015, without state officials knowing. The FBI did not indicate a breach occurred, but state officials say they’re moving forward with a full review.  
   2. [Maryland State Senate President Thomas Mike Miller, Jr. and Maryland House Speaker Michael Busch, said in a joint statement Friday], “We were briefed late yesterday, along with Governor Hogan, by the [FBI] that the software vendor who maintains portions of the State Board of Elections voter registration platform was purchased by a Russian investor in 2015, without the knowledge of state officials.” …
   3. State officials say they were told they were told their voter registration system, ByteGrid LLC, is financed by AltPoint Capital Partners, whose fund manager is “a Russian” and largest investor is Russian oligarch Vladimir Potanin. ByteGrid LLC performs a vast array of voting-related functions for the state, including voter registration, the state’s online voter registration system, online ballot delivery and unofficial election night results. 
   4. “While the FBI did not indicate that there was a breach, we were concerned enough to ask Attorney General [Brian] Frosh to review the existing contractual obligation of the state, as well as asked for a review of the system to ensure there have been no breaches,” Miller and Busch said. 
   5. We have also instructed the State Board of Elections to complete all due diligence to give the voters of Maryland confidence in the integrity of the election system. We are also asking the federal Department of Homeland Security Election Task Force to assist the State Board of Elections for any corrective action deemed necessary.”
   6. The state’s voter registration system, according to the Maryland State Board of Elections, was not the hacked state system mentioned in a new indictment from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation Friday. The indictment, which accuses 12 Russian intelligence officials of hacking Democrats during the 2016 election, said the information of roughly 500,000 voters had been hacked in one state.  
   7. Maryland was one of the states the Department of Homeland Security was concerned had suspicious activity leading up to the election, but the State Board of Elections said various government and private security entities determined there was no evidence the ballot system was breached or any fraudulent transactions took place. 
10. Trump’s military parade expected to cost nearly as much as ‘tremendously expensive’ canceled war games, By Ryan Browne, | CNN | Updated 1:18 PM ET, Thu July 19, 2018
    1. …Donald Trump’s military parade in DC is likely to cost nearly as much as the now canceled military exercise with South Korea that Trump called “tremendously expensive” and said cost “a fortune,” three US defense officials tell CNN.
    2. The parade, which is now scheduled to take place on November 10, is currently estimated to cost approximately $12 million, the officials said. One official called the number “a planning figure,” saying cost estimates could still change as planning develops.
    3. “We save a fortune by not doing war games, as long as we are negotiating in good faith – which both sides are!” Trump tweeted in June following his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore. …
    4. … Pentagon spokesman Col. Rob Manning told reporters earlier this month that the now-cancelled US-South Korea Freedom Guardian Exercise was estimated to cost approximately $14 million.
    5. “The intent for the parade,” is to coincide with the 100th anniversary of World War I, Manning said.
    6. The war ended on November 11, 1918 and France’s President Emmanuel Macron plans to host world leaders for a parade marking the centenary of the war’s end.
    7. Trump proposed the DC parade shortly after attending a Bastille Day military parade in Paris.
    8. CNN previously reported that the parade would focus on celebrating veterans and involve US troops in period uniforms as well as US military aircraft but no heavy vehicles like tanks in order to prevent damage to infrastructure.
11. Typhus making comeback in Texas, By Todd Ackerman | August 3, 2017, Updated: August 3, 2017 10:20pm
    1. … Between 2003 and 2013, typhus increased tenfold in Texas and spread from nine counties to 41, according to Baylor College of Medicine researchers. The numbers have increased since then.
    2. Harris County, which reported no cases before 2007, had 32 cases in 2016, double the previous years’ numbers. Researchers do not know why the numbers are increasing. …
    3. … the infection is severe enough that 60 percent of people who contracted the infection during the 10-year period had to be hospitalized. Four died, one in Houston.
    4. “We can now add typhus to the growing list of tropical infections striking Texas,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, founding dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor and Texas Children’s Hospital, “Chagas, dengue fever, Zika, chikungunya and now typhus – tropical diseases have become the new normal in south and southeast Texas.” …
12. Sucking carbon out of the air won’t solve climate change – But it might fill in a few key pieces of the clean energy puzzle, By David Roberts  @drvox  david@vox.com Updated Jul 16, 2018
    1. Climate change is caused by putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. What if, instead, we took it out? …
    2. … In June, we got the first solid engineering and cost numbers on DAC [“direct air capture”], courtesy of a company called Carbon Engineering out of Calgary, Canada. …
    3. … The headline news from the paper is that the cost of capturing a ton of CO2 — estimated at around $600 in 2011 — has fallen to between $94 and $232. Almost any source of renewable energy can prevent a ton of carbon for cheaper than that, but still, down at the lower end, beneath $100, DAC starts to look viable in a low-carbon world. …
    4. … To state the bottom line clearly: The ability to pull carbon out of the air is not a silver bullet. It is not the cheapest or most effective way to fight climate change. It won‘t allow us to bypass any of the hard work of reducing our emissions. …
    5. ‘’’ From a climate change mitigation perspective, there are two basic ways of dealing with CO2 emissions.
    6. The smartest and cheapest is to not emit them in the first place. We can do that in a million different ways, by reducing our consumption, using current technologies more efficiently, or shifting to low-carbon technologies and practices.
    7. The second is to remove CO2 from the biosphere and put it back into the geosphere, where it won‘t cook the planet. Such “negative emissions” may end up being necessary if we emit more CO2 than our “carbon budget” for no more than 2 degrees Celsius rise in global average temperatures, the target the world agreed on in Paris.
    8. Much of the confusion around [“direct air capture”] arises from the fact that it can play either role — it can either prevent CO2 emissions or draw down CO2. At least for now, Keith’s company, Carbon Engineering, has elected to play in the former space, not the latter. …
    9. … getting to true negative emissions [has] the greatest long-term implications: moving carbon from the biosphere back into the geosphere, taking it out of circulation (sequestering it) so that it no longer warms the earth.
    10. … From a net-carbon perspective, all that matters for negative emissions is burying more carbon than you dig up. It doesn’t matter what carbon you bury, or where, as long as the overall sign is negative, more in than out. …
    11. … Why aren’t the commercial DAC [“direct air capture”] plants burying their emissions? Two reasons.
    12. First, … CO2 used for greenhouses has economic co-benefits … Same with CO2 used to make fuels, or for enhanced oil recovery, or as an industrial feedstock. In contrast, burying CO2 has no economic co-benefits whatsoever. …
    13. … Second, even if there were a market for sequestration … [it] would pay for any CCS [“carbon capture and sequestration”], anywhere. That would put DAC in direct competition with carbon capture at thermal power plants, and it is always going to be easier to pull CO2 out of an exhaust stream, where it is concentrated (roughly 1 molecule out of every 10), than out of the air, where it is highly dispersed (roughly 1 molecule out of every 2,500).
    14. … [T]o get negative, we‘ll have to do more. [T]here are a number of ideas for how it might be done…
    15. [One] is bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration (BECCS), which involves burning biomass (plants or biowaste) in a thermal power plant, capturing CO2 from the exhaust stream, and burying the CO2. Biomass is from the biosphere, so this really does involve transferring carbon from the biosphere to the geosphere — reducing net atmospheric carbon.
13. 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.
       3. Private equity (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia): … Bloomberg Businessweek has called private equity a rebranding of leveraged-buyout firms after the 1980s. …
          1. 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.
          2. 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.

IN RELATED NEWS ….

1. 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.” …
2. 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.
3. ‘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.
4. 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:

1. 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

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