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

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 Abraham and Nibu.Today’s show is a fundraising show, so, with apologies, we can’t take on-air phone calls,

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]: 

“Our colleagues aren’t upset because you lied to Congress for the president. They’re upset because you’ve stopped lying to Congress for the president.” ~ Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., (Feb 27 2019, 1:05 pm ET, as per NBCNews.com) opened his allotted time to question Cohen’s response to a Republican line of attack on Cohen that has run throughout the day. (Republicans have repeatedly highlighted Cohen’s past lying to Congress, which he has admitted and pleaded guilty to. Cohen says he lied to help Trump, but Republicans have questioned whether he lied to help himself.)

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1. HarrisVotes.com (Election Information Line (713) 755-6965)
   1. State Rep Special Election for District 145
      1. Christina Morales defeated Melissa Noriega with about 60% of the vote.
      2. Turnout was 3,022 out of 72,927 potential Voters = a 4.14% Turnout
   2. DIANE TRAUTMAN, HARRIS COUNTY CLERK – New Voting Rules: No Precincts Required! (From Jim Henley)
   3. In spite of some conflicting information remaining on the County Clerk site, this is the official statement: Countywide Voting Centers: “Similar to Early Voting, the Countywide Voting Centers program allows any voter to vote at ANY county polling place on Election Day and does NOT eliminate your voter registration precincts. Prioritization is on convenience for the voter which means all locations are open to all eligible voters in Harris County. Voters can vote near where they work, live, or go to school.”
      43. “House Bill 758 (2005, 79th Legislative Session) added Section 43.007 to the Texas Election Code providing for the countywide polling place program. Lubbock County was the first county to participate in the program during the November general election in 2006. Currently, there are 52 Texas counties who have been designated as “successful” under the countywide polling place program.”
   4. Hi Mr. Honig, Thank you for calling this to our attention. We are in the process of updating all of our materials and website to reflect the changes of  being approved for Voting Centers. Starting in this May election, voters in Harris County will be able to cast a ballot at any polling location. Thanks. Roxanne Werner, Director, Community Relations , Office of DIANE TRAUTMAN – Harris County Clerk
   5. VoteTexas.gov
   6. You may vote early by-mail if
      1. you are registered to vote and meet one of the following criteria:
      2. Away from the county of residence on Election Day and during the early voting period;
      3. Sick or disabled;
         1. 65 years of age or older on Election Day; or
         2. Confined in jail, but eligible to vote.
         3. Make sure you are registered:
   7. Ann Harris Bennett, Tax Assessor-Collector & Voter Registrar
   8. CHECK REGISTRATION STATUS HERE
      1. CLICK How to register to vote in Texas
      2. POLL LOCATIONS & BALLOTS: Find your ballots with simple information entries
      3. ALSO, try Vote.org.
2. Analysis: Asking Texas voters to swap higher sales taxes for property tax cuts – Texas voters told candidates they want property tax relief, and it’s remarkably expensive. That’s why state lawmakers are talking about higher sales taxes. by Ross Ramsey | texastribune.org | March 15, 201912 AM | Republish
   1. [“This story has been edited for length.”]
   2. Texas Legislature 2019: The 86th Legislature runs from Jan. 8 to May 27. From the state budget to health care to education policy — and the politics behind it all — we focus on what Texans need to know about the biennial legislative session.
   3. In the rush of legislation filed before last week’s deadline, you wouldn’t be the only person who missed the measure proposing a 6.26 percent state sales tax rate. No reason you should have seen it or made note of it.
   4. For one thing, it’s a teensy tax increase, at least on paper — at least for now. The state’s current sales tax rate is 6.25 percent, and local governments can add two cents on top of that rate. The increase to 6.26 percent is a placeholder in a proposed constitutional amendment — a place to put the real number when it’s available.
   5. That number is in the possession of House Public Education Committee Chair Dan Huberty, R-Houston, who is talking to legislators about raising the state sales tax by a penny, to 7.25 percent (the new tax rate he’s waiting to propose), and pouring the money into public education. It wouldn’t be for new spending, but it would increase state spending enough to significantly lower local property taxes — the driving political force behind the state’s current legislative push for school finance reform.
   6. … [A] 1-cent rate increase in sales taxes would produce a lot of money. The state collected $31.94 billion from sales taxes in the 2018 fiscal year, according to the Texas comptroller of public accounts; at that level of taxable sales, a 1-cent increase in the rate would bring in an extra $5.1 billion.
   7. Local school districts, fueled by the local property taxes … spent about $14.7 billion more than the State on public education in fiscal year 2018, according to the comptroller. The $5.1 billion from a 1-cent sales tax increase wouldn’t be enough to level that out, but it would sure make a dent.
   8. Citing the comptroller’s numbers, one more time: The state currently covers 36 percent of the cost of public education, and the locals cover the other 64 percent; throwing $5.1 billion into the state column and lowering the local spending by the same amount would bring those closer to balance: about 46 percent state and 54 percent local.
   9. That’s also enough — and here is where legislators might find the political payoff, if there is one — to finance a property tax cut that’s visible to homeowners…. House Bill 3 — commonly called the school finance bill — would cut property taxes by about $100 for the owner of a home with a taxable value of $250,000, according to the author and others.
   10. [Huberty’s] proposed constitutional amendment would raise your sales taxes, but that same sample homeowner would get almost $500 in property tax cuts — in addition to the $100 in property tax cuts in the current school finance bill.
   11. If the sales tax play is the one legislators choose, the issue will be in voters’ control before the end of the year, in ballot language something like this: “The constitutional amendment to provide funding for the cost of maintaining and operating the public school system and to reduce school district ad valorem tax rates through an increase in the state sales and use tax rate.”
   12. That’s Huberty’s opening in House Joint Resolution 3, which would make it to Texas voters’ ballots if it’s backed with a two-thirds vote in both legislative chambers. The Senate is working to pass its legislation forcing automatic voter referenda on local property tax revenue increases; the trigger is at 2.5 percent for now; speaking to the NE Tarrant Tea Party this week, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick predicted the final number will be between 2.5 percent and 4 percent. …
   13. … A tax cut is the thing, the prompt to action for this Legislature. Huberty and others are now saying, right out loud and in public, that school finance wouldn’t be taking place this year if politicians and legislators were not so motivated by property taxpayers. Their line is that you can’t get school finance reform without property tax reform.
   14. And you don’t really have property tax relief if all you do is limit how much more expensive government will become in the future. That’s why conservative lawmakers are pressing for lower property taxes — even if it means they have to raise other taxes to get there.
   15. MUST READ: The Texas Tribune is a nonpartisan, nonprofit media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them – about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
   16. MY COMMENTS: Sales taxes are flat and regressive; they hurt more, the less you make. Property are also flat and regressive in the same way. Conservatives love “Flat Taxes” because the are argued as “fair”, but actually favor the well-off, the wealthy, and the filthy rich, in that order. What taxes needs, in lieu of a progressive state income tax, is progressive property tax. Why should someone with a $1 million house pay the same tax rate as someone with a $130 thousand house?
3. Supreme court rebuffs Hawaii B&B that turned away lesbian couple, By Lawrence Hurley |REUTERS.COM | March 18, 2019 / 8:48 AM / Updated an hour ago US_Supreme Court
   1. The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up a new dispute involving gay and religious rights, leaving in place a lower court ruling against a Hawaii bed and breakfast owner who turned away a lesbian couple, citing Christian beliefs.
   2. The justices refused to hear an appeal by Phyllis Young, who runs the three-room Aloha Bed & Breakfast in Honolulu, of the ruling that she violated a state anti-discrimination law by refusing to rent a room to Diane Cervilli and Taeko Bufford in 2007.
   3. A state court ruled that Young ran afoul of Hawaii’s public accommodation law, which among other things bars discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Litigation will now continue to determine what penalty Young might face.
   4. Young said her decision to turn away the same-sex couple was protected by her right to free exercise of religion under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.
   5. The case was appealed to the nine justices in the wake of the high court’s narrow 2018 decision siding with a baker from Colorado who refused based on his Christian beliefs to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. That decision did not resolve the question of whether business owners can claim religious exemptions from anti-discrimination laws. …
4. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Heckler: Conflict Happens ‘Under a Scarcity Mindset. This Should Not Be the Fight’, By David Brennan | COM | On 3/18/19 at 5:54 AM EDT
   1. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York took part in an education policy town hall this weekend, urging voters in Brooklyn not to fall into a “scarcity mindset” when it comes to college. 
   2. With education inequality brought into the spotlight last week amid allegations that dozens of wealthy parents had bribed prestigious universities to secure highly coveted places for their children, the freshman congresswoman became passionate as she told those attending the event that more schools must be brought up to a high standard to ensure sufficient opportunities for young people, and called on students and parents to demand progress rather than fight with each other over admission to a handful of prestigious schools. …
5. Here are 7 new rules N.J. cops must follow when dealing with immigrants – starting today, By Kelly Heyboer | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com | Updated Mar 15, 2019; Posted Mar 15, 2019
   1. A controversial new set of rules designed to improve trust between New Jersey police and immigrant communities goes into effect Friday, though not everyone is happy about the changes.
   2. The sweeping new procedures, unveiled in November by State Attorney General Gurbir Grewal, outline when the state’s 36,000 police officers can ask people about their immigration status and cut back on cases where police can cooperate with federal Immigration agents. The rules also limit when county jails can detain prisoners who are in the country illegally.
   3. Grewal said the directive does not mean immigrants get a “free pass” if they break the law. But the new rules will make it clear local police officers are not immigration agents and undocumented immigrants should not fear reporting crimes or cooperating with police. …
   4. Here are some of the new rules going into effect today:
   5. No asking about immigration status, unless it’s relevant to an investigation of a serious crime. …
   6. No helping with ICE raids. New Jersey police officers can’t participate in ICE operations or raids involving civil immigration cases. Local police are also forbidden from giving ICE access to their databases, equipment, office space or other law enforcement resources in those cases. …
   7. Corrections officers can only hold prisoners for ICE in limited circumstances. New Jersey correction officers are forbidden from allowing ICE agents to interview people detained on criminal charges unless the detainee had consulted a lawyer and signed a consent form. …
   8. Prosecutors can’t discredit witnesses in court based on their immigration status. New Jersey prosecutors are forbidden from saying witnesses in court lack credibility because they are immigrants living in the country illegally.
      1. Prosecutors also can’t ask a judge to hold someone charged with a crime in jail before a trial solely because they are unauthorized immigrants.
   9. Law enforcement agencies have to help unauthorized immigrants apply for visas. All police departments, [prosecutor’s] offices and law enforcement agencies must develop procedures to help victims and witnesses living in the country illegally to apply for special visas. The T-Visas and U-Visas give unauthorized immigrants a special immigration status for helping with law enforcement investigations.
   10. No more making side deals with ICE to deputize local police as immigration officers.
       1. The directive prohibits New Jersey police departments and law enforcement agencies from entering or renewing deals … with ICE without the attorney general’s permission. …
   11. Report every instance where cops helped ICE.
       1. All state, county and local police departments and agencies need to keep track of every case where they assist federal immigration authorities and report them to the attorney general’s office.
       2. That should include every case where New Jersey’s county jails held prisoners accused of serious crimes on ICE detainers so they could be picked up by immigration agents.
   12. The attorney general plans to issue an annual report online showing how often local and state law enforcement agencies help ICE.
6. Deaths of six men tied to Ferguson protests alarm activists – The six deaths drew attention on social media and speculation among activists that something sinister was at play. By Associated Press, March 17, 2019, | https://www.nbcnews.com | 9:32 PM CDT
   1. FERGUSON, Mo. — Two young men were found dead inside torched cars. Three others died of apparent suicides. Another collapsed on a bus, his death ruled an overdose.
   2. Six deaths, all involving men with connections to protests in Ferguson, Missouri, drew attention on social media and speculation in the activist community that something sinister was at play.
   3. Police say there is no evidence the deaths have anything to do with the protests stemming from a white police officer’s fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, and that only two were homicides with no known link to the protests.
   4. But some activists say their concerns about a possible connection arise out of a culture of fear that persists in Ferguson 4 ½ years after Brown’s death, citing threats — mostly anonymous — that protest leaders continue to receive.
   5. The Rev. Darryl Gray said he found a box inside his car. When the bomb squad arrived, no explosives were found but a 6-foot python was inside. …
   6. … No arrests have been made in the two homicides. St. Louis County police spokesman Shawn McGuire said witnesses have simply refused to come forward …
   7. … Four others also died, three of them ruled suicides.
      1. — MarShawn McCarrel of Columbus, Ohio, shot himself in February 2016 outside the front door of the Ohio Statehouse, police said. He had been active in Ferguson.
      2. — Edward Crawford Jr., 27, fatally shot himself in May 2017 after telling acquaintances he had been distraught over personal issues, police said. A photo of Crawford firing a tear gas canister back at police during a Ferguson protest was part of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage.
      3. — MarShawn McCarrel of Columbus, Ohio, shot himself in February 2016 outside the front door of the Ohio Statehouse, police said. He had been active in Ferguson.
      4. — Edward Crawford Jr., 27, fatally shot himself in May 2017 after telling acquaintances he had been distraught over personal issues, police said. A photo of Crawford firing a tear gas canister back at police during a Ferguson protest was part of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage.
   8. … Activists say that in the years since the protests, they have been targeted in dangerous ways.
   9. “Something is happening,” said Cori Bush, a frequent leader of the Ferguson protests. “I’ve been vocal about the things that I’ve experienced and still experience — the harassment, the intimidation, the death threats, the death attempts.”
   10. Bush said her car has been run off the road, her home has been vandalized, and in 2014 someone shot a bullet into her car, narrowly missing her daughter, who was 13 at the time.
   11. She suspects white supremacists or police sympathizers. Living under constant threat is exhausting, she said, but she won’t give in.
   12. “They shut us up and they win,” Bush said.
7. 45-year-old man charged in 1999 murders of 2 Alabama teens, By Carol Robinson | crobinson@al.com | COM |Updated 11:50AM; Posted Mar 17, 2019, 3:35PM
   1. A 45-year-old Dothan man is believed to have lived his life crime-free over the past nearly 20 years, maintaining a family and a low profile but all the while harboring a deadly secret, authorities say.
   2. Coley McCraney, never before on the radar of investigators in the brutal 1999 murders of slain high school seniors Tracie Hawlett and J.B. Beasley, now sits behind bars in the Dale County Jail, charged with one count of rape and five counts of capital murder. He was booked on the charges about 6:30 p.m. Saturday, jail records show, after authorities say a DNA match was found through a family DNA website in a geneology search.
8. Another study finds no link between autism and measles, mumps and rubella vaccine – A large new study finds kids who got no childhood vaccines were more likely to be diagnosed with autism than kids who did get recommended vaccinations. By Reuters | NBC.com | March 4, 2019, 5:25 PM CST
   1. The measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine isn’t associated with an increased risk of autism, even among kids who are at high risk because they have a sibling with the disorder, a Danish study suggests.
   2. Concerns about a potential link between the MMR vaccine and autism have persisted for two decades, since a controversial and ultimately retracted 1998 paper claimed there was a direct connection. …
   3. … In the current study, researchers examined data on 657,461 children. …
   4. … Kids who got the MMR vaccine were seven percent less likely to develop autism than children who didn’t get vaccinated, researchers report in the Annals of Internal Medicine. …
   5. … The study wasn’t a controlled experiment designed to prove whether or how vaccines might cause autism. …
   6. … Still, the study adds to a large body of evidence showing that vaccines don’t cause autism, writes Dr. Saad Omer of Emory University in Atlanta, co-author of an accompanying editorial. …
9. US detects huge meteor explosion, By Paul Rincon Science editor, BBC News website, The Woodlands, Texas | COM/ | 18 March 2019
   1. A huge fireball exploded in the Earth’s atmosphere in December, according to Nasa.
   2. The blast was the second largest of its kind in 30 years, and the biggest since the fireball over Chelyabinsk in Russia six years ago.
   3. But it went largely unnoticed until now because it blew up over the Bering Sea, off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.
   4. The space rock exploded with 10 times the energy released by the Hiroshima atomic bomb.
   5. Lindley Johnson, planetary defence officer at Nasa, told BBC News a fireball this big is only expected about two or three times every 100 years. …
10. The Pyrex Glass Controversy That Just Won’t Die, By Adam Clark Estes | | 3/16/2019, Saturday 11:00am
    1. Clear glass Pyrex cookware is practically an American icon. … There’s only one problem. A few years ago, the pans started exploding when they got too hot—which is ironic since Pyrex glass was specifically designed to be heat resistant. Some blamed a change in the glass formula and flocked to thrift stores to buy older models. Others cried hoax. Everyone agrees that exploding glass is bad.
    2. Pyrex made headlines recently, because its parent company made a big move. Corelle Brands, parent company of Pyrex among others, is planning to merge with Instant Brands, maker of the very popular Instant Pot. …
    3. … Pyrex is also the subject of a class action lawsuit in Illinois. In court filings, Pyrex’s parent company, Corelle Brands, insists that incidents of breakage result from customers improperly using their products …
    4. … Corning Glass Works developed its own recipe for borosilicate glass in 1908, …
    5. … real roots of the current controversy were planted in the 1950s, when Pyrex began making cookware out of tempered soda-lime glass. Corning licensed the Pyrex brand to a company called World Kitchen—now known as Corelle Brands—in 1998, and by nearly all accounts, all Pyrex cookware sold in the United States after that year has been made of tempered soda-lime glass. This is where the controversy really heats up.
    6. The vast majority of glass products are made of soda-lime glass: window panes, jars, bottles, all kinds of glass. Soda-lime glass is cheaper to make than borosilicate glass, which is undoubtedly why Pyrex started experimenting with it. However, borosilicate glass is not only harder, stronger, and more durable than soda-lime glass; it’s also more resilient to thermal shock. Thermal shock is what happens when a temperature change causes different parts of a material to expand at different rates, and the resultant stress can cause the material to crack. …
    7. … Resistance to thermal shock is part of why Pyrex became so popular for cookware; you could move a hot glass pan into a cool spot without worrying about it cracking or shattering. It’s also part of why laboratories prefer to use borosilicate glass rather than conventional soda-lime glass. …
    8. … “The favorable qualities of soda-lime silicate glass are that it is extremely cheap, yet with a fairly high chemical durability and good optical transparency,” Mauro explained. “However, soda lime silicate has a poor thermal shock resistance due to its high CTE. … Borosilicate glass can withstand 2.5-3 times the temperature difference compared to soda lime silicate.” …
    9. … “So when it fractures, it breaks in a catastrophic fashion (i.e., breaking in many small pieces; so-called ‘frangibility’),” Mauro said. “This is in contrast to an untempered borosilicate glass, which would break into much larger pieces compared to a tempered soda-lime.” …
    10. … It’s now been over 20 years since Corning licensed the Pyrex brand, and complaints about the breakage situation have recently sparked litigation. Several Pyrex customers who say they experienced exploding glass incidents themselves filed a class action lawsuit in June 2018 alleging that Corelle Brands inadequately warns consumers of the thermal breakage issue and then hides behind warnings and warranties when incidents occur. The court filing details the arguments at length and also contains some troubling images. In December 2018, Corelle Brands filed a motion to have the case dismissed. When we asked about the class action lawsuit, Corelle Brands said it does not comment on ongoing litigation.
    11. … Around the same time the class action suit was filed, one Gizmodo employee experienced an explosion herself after microwaving some refrigerated black beans in a Pyrex container for a few seconds. The container exploded, though the glass shards were contained in the microwave. To the best of her knowledge, she followed all of the safety instructions, but the situation does bear resemblance to the defect in Pyrex products others have pointed out. Even slight changes in temperature can cause the glass to shatter or explode, and when that happens, the consequences can be dangerous. …
    12. … What does seem crystal clear on a scientific level is that borosilicate glass is less prone to thermal shock that soda lime glass. It’s also not hard to find, especially if you can live without the Pyrex logo being stamped on the bottom of your pan. Heck, Amazon Basics sells a pair of borosilicate glass pans for $15. The equivalent Pyrex-branded set made of tempered soda-lime glass costs $22. And according to experts, the Pyrex glass can explode into small pieces. Uncommon as these explosions may be, they sound bad.
    13. This doesn’t mean you should throw away all of your Pyrex cookware. You should, however, follow the company’s safety and usage instructions, which you can find here. Here’s a key quote that long list of warnings: “Avoid Sudden Temperature Changes to your Glassware.” That means don’t pour cold water on a hot Pyrex pan. Don’t put a hot Pyrex pan on a cold marble countertop. Avoiding these kinds of things isn’t exactly second nature. But following the rules it could mean the difference between a delicious cooked casserole in an intact Pyrex pan and an oven full of glass shards and food bits.
11. Earth could warm by 14°C (~25oF) as growing emissions destroy crucial clouds, By Michael Le Page | COM | Environment | 25 February 2019
    1. If we keep burning fossil fuels with reckless abandon, we could trigger a cloud feedback effect that will add 8°C on top of all the warming up to that point. That means the world could warm by more than 14°C above the pre-industrial level.
    2. Needless to say, this would be cataclysmic. For instance, large parts of the tropics would become too hot for warm-blooded animals,including us, to survive. The good news is that if countries step up their efforts to cut emissions we should avoid finding out if this idea is correct. “I don’t think we will get anywhere close to it,” says Tapio Schneider at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, who led the research.
    3. Schneider’s team modelled stratocumulus clouds over subtropical oceans, which cover around 7 per cent of Earth’s surface and cool the planet by reflecting the sun’s heat back into space. They found there was a sudden transition when CO₂ levels reached around 1200 parts per million (ppm) — the stratocumulus clouds broke up and disappeared.
    4. … [T]hese clouds are unusual. The cloud layer is maintained by the cloudtops cooling as they emit infrared radiation — and very high CO₂ levels block this process.
    5. No need to panic :: CO₂ levels will pass 410 ppm this year, up from 280 ppm in preindustrial times. If we burned all available fossil fuels, atmospheric CO₂ levels could rise as high as 4000 ppm. However, even in the standard worst case scenario used by climate scientists, which assumes nothing is done to curb emissions, CO₂ levels would only pass 1200 ppm decades after 2100. …
    6. …The finding could also help solve a longstanding mystery — how the planet got so hot around 50 million years agothat crocodiles thrived in the Arctic. We know that CO₂ levels were generally much higher at the time, but they were not high enough [by themselves] to explain the extreme warmth during this period.

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