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 engineer is Leti. 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]: 

“This too shall pass” ~ (Persian: این نیز بگذرد‎, translit. īn nīz bogzarad, Hebrew: גַּם זֶה יַעֲבֹר‏‎, translit. gam zeh yaʻavor, Turkish: bu da geçer ya hu) is an adage reflecting on the temporary nature, or ephemerality, of the human condition. The general sentiment is often expressed in wisdom literature throughout history and across cultures, although the specific phrase seems to have originated in the writings of the medieval Persian Sufi poets. It is known in the Western world primarily due to a 19th century retelling of Persian fable by the English poet Edward FitzGerald. It was also notably employed in a speech by Abraham Lincoln before he became the sixteenth President of the United States. (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

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Make sure you are registered to vote!

1. HarrisVotes.com (Election Information Line (713) 755-6965) Dr. Diane Trautman, Harris County Clerk
   1. In Texas, but outside Harris County? VoteTexas.gov
      1. You may vote early by-mail if
      2. you are registered to vote and meet one of the following criteria:
      3. Away from the county of residence on Election Day and during the early voting period;
      4. Sick or disabled;
      5. 65 years of age or older on Election Day; or
      6. Confined in jail, but eligible to vote.
      7. Make sure you are registered:
   2. Sample Ballots are now available!
   3. HARRIS CTY – IDENTIFICATION REQUIRED FOR VOTING: Do not possess and cannot reasonably obtain one of these IDs?
      1. Fill out a declaration at the polls describing a reasonable impediment to obtaining it, and show a copy or original of one of the following supporting forms of ID:
      2. A government document that shows your name and an address, including your voter registration certificate
      3. Current utility bill
      4. Bank statement
      5. Government check
      6. Paycheck
      7. (a) A certified domestic (from a U.S. state or territory) birth certificate or (b) a document confirming birth admissible in a court of law which establishes your identity (which may include a foreign birth document)
   4. Outside Texas? Try Vote.org.
   5. Make it a point to listen to my Interview with Harris County Clerk Dr. Dianne Trautman
2. Top story on the Google News aggregation page was the final episode of Game of Thrones.
3. ‘I didn’t need money’: Trump bristles at report Deutsche Bank staff saw suspicious activity, William Cummings, USA TODAY Published 10:13 a.m. ET May 20, 2019 | Updated 1:13 p.m. ET May 20, 2019
   1. President Donald Trump once again went after The New York Times on Twitter, this time to deny and deride its report that anti-money laundering specialists with Deutsche Bank flagged transactions involving himself and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. …

   2. Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump

      The Failing New York Times (it will pass away when I leave office in 6 years), and others of the Fake News Media, keep writing phony stories about how I didn’t use many banks because they didn’t want to do business with me. WRONG! It is because I didn’t need money. Very old

      6:20 AM – 20 May 2019 14,110 Retweets 64,182 Likes

   3. MIKE, According to William Barr: “The attorney general essentially argued that if a president really, really, really believes he is innocent of a crime, then he can undermine an investigation of that crime without the “corrupt motive” required to prove obstruction of justice. Said Barr: “If the president is being falsely accused — which the evidence now suggests that the accusations against him were false — and he knew they were false, and he felt that this investigation was unfair, propelled by his political opponents, and was hampering his ability to govern, that is not a corrupt motive for replacing an independent counsel.” ~ “In Barr, Trump has found someone who licks his boots out of principle” (By Michael Gerson |Washington Post | May 2, 2019
   4. ARTICLE GOES ON: … After reviewing the transactions, bank staff prepared to file suspicious activity reports to send to the Treasury Department. But the bank had issued loans worth billions of dollars to Trump and Kushner and bank executives directed the staff not to file the reports, according to the Times. …
4. Supreme Court Rules In Favor Of Native American Rights In Wyoming Hunting Case, BY Domenico Montanaro | NPR | May 20, 201910:32 AM ET
   1. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Native American rights in a 5-4 decision in a case out of Wyoming. Justice Neil Gorsuch, the only Westerner on the court, provided the decisive vote in this case, showing himself again to be sensitive to Native American rights.
   2. The court held that hunting rights for the Crow tribe under a 19th-century treaty did not expire when Wyoming became a state. This case centered on a member of the tribe, Clayvin Herrera, who faced charges for off-season hunting in Bighorn National Forest in Wyoming.
   3. There isn’t “any evidence in the treaty itself that Congress intended the hunting right to expire at statehood, or that the Crow Tribe would have understood it to do so,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for the majority.
5. Combo Article/Opinion Piece: As Trade War Rages, China’s Sway Over the U.S. Fades – Beijing once could count on allies in business and politics to help get its way. Now many of its old allies are staying on the sidelines. By Keith Bradsher | NYTIMES.com | May 17, 2019
   1. China usually gets its way. In Washington, on Wall Street and in corporate boardrooms, Beijing has used the country’s size and promise for decades to quell opposition and reward those who helped its rise.
   2. Those days may be coming to an end.
   3. As it struggles with President Trump’s trade war, a maturing and debt-laden China is discovering that it no longer has the same pull. Members of both political parties in the United States favor a tougher stance against Beijing. Some old business allies are standing on the sidelines or even cheering the Trump administration’s strong stands.
   4. China could still prevail on the trade war’s major issues. But the conflict’s length and severity reflect the growing perception that the country no longer holds the promise that once enthralled politicians and businesses in the United States. …
   5. … China’s economic slowdown, which could hinder growth globally, is a major reason its influence has ebbed. But there are other factors. The country’s heavy debts, built up over years of lending used to spur growth, limit its options. …
   6. … Foreign businesses have found it less appealing to make or sell their products in China over the last several years because of heavy restrictions on foreign businesses, stronger local competitors and rising costs. Mr. Trump’s tariffs last year gave many businesses a final reason to look elsewhere. …
   7. … With those tariffs now rising to 25 percent, Morey executives have begun talking to suppliers in Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore. …
   8. … Beijing has fewer ways to strike back against the United States now. Its tremendous success in nurturing its own homegrown industries, which has helped China’s economy rise up the value chain, has reduced its imports of American goods, giving it fewer items to hit with tariffs.
   9. A decade ago, China bought Jeeps made in Michigan by Chrysler, bulldozers and other construction equipment made in Illinois by Caterpillar and huge diesel engines made in Indiana by Cummins. Now Chrysler makes Jeeps in Changsha and Guangzhou. Caterpillar makes construction equipment in Xuzhou. And Cummins builds engines at factories in Beijing, Chongqing, Hefei, Liuzhou, Xi’an and Xiangyang.
   10. “China has been so effective at squeezing manufactured imports out of its market that it has really limited its options to retaliate,” said Brad Setser, a Treasury official in the Obama administration who is now an economist at the Council on Foreign Relations. …
   11. … China has also shown surprising vulnerabilities, like its dependence on American semiconductor technology and software. Last year, when the United States briefly prohibited American companies from selling technology to the Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE for violating sanctions against Iran and North Korea, ZTE ground to a halt. …
   12. …[China] could sell a large chunk of the $1.3 trillion in United States Treasury debt that it holds. That could temporarily push up American interest rates. But it would saddle China with large losses. Beijing would have to find someplace else to park the money. Its previous sales, undertaken mainly to shore up the country’s currency in 2015 and early 2016, did not affect the bond market much. …
   13. … The dilemma for China is that the longer the trade war lasts, the more companies may decide to invest elsewhere. For now, domestic politics seem more important in China, with the leadership and the general public reacting angrily to what is portrayed in the country as peremptory American demands. …
6. Google pulls Huawei’s Android license, forcing it to use open source version – A dramatic escalation in the US war on Chinese tech firms, By C. Sottek | THEVERGE.COM |May 19, 2019, 3:34pm EDT
   1. Following the US crackdown on Chinese technology companies, Google has cut off Huawei’s Android license, dealing a huge blow to the besieged phonemaker. …
   2. Huawei is now restricted to using the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), cutting the company off from critical Google apps and services that consumers outside of China expect on Android devices. … It’s not clear yet how this will affect the full range of Android integrations that Huawei depends on…
   3. Huawei has been under increasing pressure from President Trump and the US government over fears that its equipment could be used by the Chinese government to spy on American networks. … In 2018, US intelligence agencies warned against using Huawei and ZTE devices, and US politicians have described Huawei as “effectively an arm of the Chinese government.” …
   4. Huawei … was already preparing its own operating systems in the event of being banned from using Android and Windows, but given US fears about foreign interference, a home-grown OS is likely to face even more scrutiny than Google’s software.
7. People say they care about privacy but they continue to buy devices that can spy on them – Experts explain why people are giving mixed signals about smart tech. By Rani Molla@ranimolla May 13, 2019, 5:40pm EDT
   1. The makers of some our most omnipresent technology like Google, Facebook, and Amazon have repeatedly jeopardized user trust by tracking or sharing data they weren’t supposed to, either on purpose or through hacks. And yet, incident after incident, we keep them at the center of our digital lives.
   2. A new smart device survey by Consumers International and the Internet Society highlights this seeming contradiction. Some 63 percent of people find connected devices to be “creepy,” and 75 percent don’t trust the way their data is shared by those devices, according to a survey of people in the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, France, and the United Kingdom. …
   3. … For the study, smart or connected devices were defined broadly as everyday products and devices that can connect to the internet using Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, and include things like Amazon’s Echo speakers, Google’s Nest smart lock, and Furbo’s pet camera/treat dispenser. Mobile phones, tablets, and computers weren’t included. …
   4. … A March study from voice-tech blog Voicebot showed that even those who said they were “very concerned” about the privacy risks posed by smart speakers were only 16 percent less likely to own one than the general public.
   5. … “People who say they’re concerned with security will do a lot of very insecure things,” Robert W. Proctor, a professor at Purdue University’s Department of Psychological Sciences, said. “It doesn’t match up very well.” …
8. The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News – The current system for delivering news online is broken. Readers and journalists will need to work together to find a new one. By Michael Luo | NEWYORKER.COM | April 10, 2019
9. Commentary: The 45th president of the U.S. is poisoning his nation, By Michael Orton | Special to The [SALT LAKE CITY] Tribune | APR-14-2019

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