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Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio), a listener call-in show  airing live every Monday night from 3-4 PM (CT) on KPFT-FM 90.1 (Houston). My engineers are Don, Leti, and Nibu.

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;
• An educated electorate is a prerequisite for a democracy.

Houston Mayor Annise Parker [L] with Mike, just before the show. (Dec. 7, 2015)

SIGNOFF QUOTE[s]: “Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.” ~ Frederick Douglass (Part of a speech given by Douglass in 1886 on the 24th anniversary of emancipation in Washington, DC)

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1. Naturalized citizens suing over Texas voter citizenship review, calling it conspiracy to single out foreign-born Texans – The plaintiffs allege the state’s move to flag tens of thousands of registered voters for citizenship reviews violates the U.S. Constitution and the federal Voting Rights Act. by Alexa Ura | ORG | Feb. 2, 201911 AM
   1. A group of Latino voters is suing top state officials who they allege unlawfully conspired to violate their constitutional rights by singling them out for investigation and removal from the voter rolls because they are foreign born.
   2. … [T}he suit alleges that the decision by state officials to advise counties to review the citizenship status of tens of thousands of registered voters it flagged using flawed data runs contrary to the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and the federal Voting Rights Act because it imposes additional requirements for naturalized citizens to register to vote. … [T]he seven voters suing the state all obtained their driver’s licenses before they became naturalized citizens and subsequently registered to vote.
   3. Their lawsuit — which names Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, Texas Secretary of State David Whitley, Attorney General Ken Paxton and one local official as defendants — asks the court to halt the state’s review and block officials from taking any action against them based on their national It also asks [Texas Secretary of State David Whitley] to refrain from targeting new citizens for voter purges and to withdraw his current list “unless and until it acquires information that the voters are currently ineligible to vote.” …
   4. … [C]ivil rights groups and election administrators raised the prospect that the state’s list likely included voters who had become naturalized citizens after obtaining their driver’s licenses or IDs. Texans are not required to update DPS if their citizenship status changes in between renewing those state-issued IDs, which don’t have to be updated for several years. …
   5. … [O]fficials have “neither withdrawn the list of suspect voters nor advised the counties to refrain from acting on the flawed information” even though the data has since proven to be flawed and likely includes tens of thousands of naturalized citizens, the complaint reads. …
   6. … A Latino civil rights group sued the state earlier this week, alleging the review effort violates a portion of the federal Voting Rights Act that prohibits the intimidation of voters. …
2. Scientists Consider “Quick Response” Plan to Counter Climate Misinformation – The effort comes as President Trump makes comments that deny climate science, By Scott Waldman, E&E News | com |January 30, 2019
   1. President Trump has mocked and dismissed climate science. Now researchers seem increasingly inclined to correct the record.
   2. NOAA, the federal agency that studies the Earth, tweeted what appeared to be a rebuttal to Trump’s assertion Monday night that cold weather disproves long-term warming on a planet that’s seen average global temperatures riseabout 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1900.
   3. “Not only are severe snowstorms possible in a warming climate, they may even be more likely,” NOAA officials wrote in a tweet that appeared to challenge the nation’s top executive.
   4. It came hours after Trump commented on the plummeting temperatures in the middle of the country. …
   5. … The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine is considering a “quick response capability” to challenge mistruths about climate change. It was one recommendation embedded in a long document meant to help the academies communicate strategically about the risks of warming, at a time when the president reaches millions of Twitter followers with false statements about climate change. …
   6. … The plan does not suggest the academies respond to every misrepresentation, but instead offer corrections within 48 hours. Under the plan, which took months to develop, the academies would respond in order to promote or defend its own studies, for congressional inquiries, and ahead of public events. It would also respond when climate science is “mischaracterized or ignored.” …
   7. … The group acknowledges that a quick response team, proposed by a committee overseeing the Climate Communications Initiative Strategic Plan, could appear partisan. So the academies will not respond to disputes over policy or budget, just on science, engineering or the health aspects of climate change. …
   8. … The proposal is not in response to the president’s tweets, said David Titley, who chaired the committee and is director of the Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk at Pennsylvania State University. He said there would be an internal process to determine when the academies should inject themselves into public discourse. …
3. ‘It’s way too many’: As vacancies pile up in Trump administration, senators grow concerned, By Juliet Eilperin , Josh Dawsey and Seung Min Kim | COM | February 3, 2019
   1. From the Justice Department to Veterans Affairs, vast swaths of the government have top positions filled by officials serving in an acting capacity — or no one at all. More than two years into Trump’s term, the president has an acting chief of staff, [acting] attorney general, [acting] defense secretary, [acting] interior secretary, [acting] Office of Management and Budget director and [acting] Environmental Protection Agency chief.
   2. To deal with the number of vacancies in the upper ranks of departments, agencies have been relying on novel and legally questionable personnel moves that could leave the administration’s policies open to court challenges.
   3. The lack of permanent leaders has started to alarm top congressional Republicans who are pressing for key posts to be filled.
   4. “It’s a lot, it’s way too many,” Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) said of the acting positions in Cabinet agencies. …
   5. … [Said Max Stier, The Partnership for Public Service’s president and chief executive,] “The Trump administration is slower to fill jobs and has higher turnover than any administration we have records for” …
   6. … Trump does not share the urgency of some in his party to name permanent Cabinet secretaries, largely because he sees leaving people as interim to his benefit. The president has told others it makes the secretaries more “responsive,” an administration official said.
   7. “I like acting because I can move so quickly,” Trump said in an interview with CBS News that aired Sunday. “It gives me more flexibility.”
   8. To deal with the lack of Senate-confirmed officials in key posts, several agencies have employed unusual legal gambits.
   9. Last week, acting interior secretary David Bernhardt amended an order his predecessor, Ryan Zinke, signed in November to keep eight handpicked deputies in place without Senate approval. Under the revised order, these appointees can serve in their posts for another four months, unless they are replaced or the department decides to extend the deadline once again. …
   10. …Republicans have largely blamed Senate Democrats for slowing down the consideration of executive branch nominees.
   11. But according to an analysis by the Partnership for Public Service and The Washington Post, the White House has not bothered to nominate people for 150 out of 705 key Senate-confirmed positions. …
4. Trump Administration Begins Production Of A New Nuclear Weapon, By Geoff Brumfiel | COM | January 28, 20195:50 PM ET
   1. The U.S. Department of Energy has started making a new, low-yield nuclear weapon designed to counter Russia. The National Nuclear Security Administration says production of the weapon, known as the W76-2, has begun at its Pantex Plant in the Texas Panhandle. …
   2. … The Energy Department would not provide details about the W76-2, but it’s believed to have a yield of around 5 to 7 kilotons, … says [Hans Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists, an arms control advocacy group. …
   3. … Last year … In a document known as the Nuclear Posture Review, the administration claimed that Russia believed its own, smaller nuclear weapons could give it an advantage in a conflict. By using small, tactical nuclear weapons, the thinking goes, Russia could essentially scare NATO into halting a military operation. “[Moscow] mistakenly assesses that the threat of nuclear escalation or actual first use of nuclear weapons would serve to ‘de-escalate’ a conflict on terms favorable to Russia,” the document says.
   4. New, smaller warheads will help balance Russian forces, the report claims. “It will raise the nuclear threshold and help ensure that potential adversaries perceive no possible advantage in limited nuclear escalation, making nuclear employment less likely.”
5. S. Senator Sanders asks why drug, once free, now costs $375k, By Yasmeen Abutaleb | REUTERS.COM | February 4, 2019 / 5:06 AM
   1. S. Senator Bernie Sanders sent a letter to Catalyst Pharmaceuticals on Monday asking it to justify its decision to charge $375,000 annually for a medication that for years has been available to patients for free.
   2. The drug, Firdapse, is used to treat Lambert-Eaton Myasthenic Syndrome (LEMS), a rare neuromuscular disorder, according to the letter, made available to Reuters by the senator’s office. The disorder affects about one in 100,000 people in the United States. …
   3. … In the letter dated Feb. 4, Sanders asked Catalyst to lay out the financial and non-financial factors that led the company to set the list price at $375,000, and say how many patients would suffer or die as a result of the price and how much it was paying to purchase or produce the drug.
   4. Catalyst declined to comment on Sanders’ letter. …
   5. … For years, patients have been able to get the same drug for free…
6. Why more than half of Americans’ phone calls go unanswered – It’s turning into an ordeal for many people, By Kari Paul | COM |Published: Feb 1, 2019 9:09 a.m. ET
   1. … Today … 52% … of phone calls go unanswered, an analysis of 11 billion calls by caller ID and call blocker app Hiya This comes as 26.3 billion robocalls were made to American phones in 2018, up 46% from the previous year’s total of 18 billion …
   2. … The Federal Communication Commission and the Federal Trade Commission have been working towards solutions to the robocall epidemic for years, levying massive fines against telemarketing operations. …
   3. … Experts also suggest never answering calls from an unknown number and blocking numbers that are known to be spam.
   4. Every consumer should register with the free National Do Not Call Registry … at gov or by calling 1-888-382-1222. This will stop legitimate telemarketers from calling within a month, though it is unlikely to stop illegal scammers.
7. 3D-printed heads let hackers – and cops – unlock your phone, By Zack Whittaker (@zackwhittaker)/ COM /DEC 16, 2018 / 12 hours ago
   1. …You can …3D print a life-size replica of a human head — and not just for Hollywood. Forbes reporter Thomas Brewster commissioned a 3D printed model of his own head to test the face unlocking systems on a range of phones — four Android models and an iPhone X.
   2. Bad news if you’re an Android user: only the iPhone X defended against the attack.
   3. … [B]iometrics — your fingerprints and your face — aren’t protected under the Fifth Amendment. That means police can’t compel you to give up your passcode, but they can forcibly depress your fingerprint to unlock your phone, or hold it to your face while you’re looking at it. And the police know it — it happens more often than you might realize.
   4. But there’s also little in the way of stopping police from 3D printing or replicating a set of biometrics to break into a phone.
   5. “Legally, it’s no different from using fingerprints to unlock a device,” said Orin Kerr, professor at USC Gould School of Law, in an email. “The government needs to get the biometric unlocking information somehow,” by either the finger pattern shape or the head shape, he said.
   6. Although a warrant “wouldn’t necessarily be a requirement” to get the biometric data, one would be needed to use the data to unlock a device, he said.
   7. Jake Laperruque, senior counsel at the Project On Government Oversight, said it was doable but isn’t the most practical or cost-effective way for cops to get access to phone data.
   8. … Those cheering on the “death of the password” might want to think again. They’re still the only thing that’s keeping your data safe from the law.

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