POSSIBLE TOPICS: Early Voting Starts on October 13; Bernie Sanders expresses concerns about Biden campaign; Trump’s fusillade of falsehoods on mail voting; PTSD expert Seth Norrholm: Americans “are being psychologically abused by Donald Trump”; Donald Trump’s fatal flaw: Of his many defects, Bob Woodward may have identified the worst; Mortality Rates From COVID-19 Are Lower In Unionized Nursing Homes; “Ignorance is a correctable condition. Stupid is forever” – Unknown — This is the 3^rd time in about a month that a Trump Pride boat parade has ended this way (The Willamette River, Lake Travis, and now Lake Houston.) Hundreds show up to Pres. Trump boat parade on Lake Houston; Houston’s Third and Fifth wards designated as cultural districts; More.  

This program was recorded on SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 13 at about 4:30 AM.  Due to Covid-19, shows are being prerecorded beginning March 13th and until further notice. We miss our live call-in participants, and look forward to a time we can once again go live.

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 co-host and Editor is Andrew Ferguson.

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This program was recorded EARLY on SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 13. If you call in, you will NOT be able to get on the air, so please do not call the call the show. We love our callers, but unfortunately live call-in is one of the casualties of COVID-19.

1.  “… [A]sk not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country!” ~ John F Kennedy, Inaugural speech, January 20, 1961
2. The next election is the General Election on November 3^rd, 2020
   1. VOTING FAQ – In Texas, Early Voting Starts October 13-thru-30!
   2. VOTETEXAS.GOV – Texas Voter Information
   3. Last Day to Apply for Ballot by Mail (Received, not Postmarked): October 23, 2020
   4. VOTING BY MAIL: INSTRUCTIONS
   5. HARRISVOTES.COM­ – Countywide Voting Centers, (Election Information Line (713) 755-6965), Harris County Clerk
   6. Make sure you are registered to vote!
   7. On the possibility that the courts make you eligible to vote by mail on Election Day due to the Covid-19 virus, make sure that you are ready with an application to mail in. These are available from HARRISVOTES.COM­.  Follow directions carefully.
   8. For personalized, nonpartisan voter guides and information, consider visiting VOTE.ORG. Ballotpedia.com and Texas League of Women Voters are also good places to get election info.
   9. If you are denied your right to vote any place at any time at any polling place for any reason, ask for (or demand) a provisional ballot rather than lose your vote.
   10. HARRISVOTES.COM – Countywide Voting Centers
       1. 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 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)
   11. 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;
       4. 65 years of age or older on Election Day; or
       5. Confined in jail, but eligible to vote.
       6. Make sure you are registered:
   12. Ann Harris Bennett, Tax Assessor-Collector & Voter Registrar
       1. CHECK REGISTRATION STATUS HERE
          1. CLICK How to register to vote in Texas
          2. Outside Texas, try Vote.org.
3. Bernie Sanders expresses concerns about Biden campaign, By Sean Sullivan | WASHINGTONPOST.COM | September 12, 2020 at 9:23 a.m. CDT
   1. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is privately expressing concerns about Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, according to three people with knowledge of the conversations, and is urging Biden’s team to intensify its focus on pocketbook issues and appeals to liberal voters.
   2. Sanders, the runner-up to Biden in the Democratic primaries, has told associates that Biden is at serious risk of coming up short in the November election if he continues his vaguer, more centrist approach, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive talks.
   3. The senator has identified several specific changes he’d like to see, saying Biden should talk more about health care and about his economic plans, and should campaign more with figures popular among young liberals, such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). …
4. Trump’s fusillade of falsehoods on mail voting; By Salvador Rizzo | WASHINGTONPOST.COM | September 11, 2020 at 2:00 a.m. CDT
   1. Mail voting is riddled with fraud: FALSE!
      1. … A Washington Post analysis of data collected by three vote-by-mail states with help from the nonprofit Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) found that officials identified 372 possible cases of double voting or voting on behalf of deceased people out of about 14.6 million votes cast by mail in the 2016 and 2018 general elections, or 0.0025 percent.
   2. Foreign powers could spoof mail ballots: NOT LIKELY
      1. It’s not as simple as printing and mailing. Experts say it would be almost impossible to successfully counterfeit the ballots being prepared for November’s general election. …
      2. …Dozens of graphical details, candidate names, official seals, check boxes and bar codes would have to be copied perfectly, on dozens of different ballot designs — and that’s for each jurisdiction in the United States. On top of that, the hypothetical foreign nation would have to identify registered voters (who had not already voted by mail) and somehow forge their signatures.
   3. Voting twice: ILLEGAL EVERYWHERE
      1. It’s illegal to vote more than once in an election, and in some states, it’s a felony. In response to Trump’s comments, Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, issued a statement noting that “attempting to vote twice in an election or soliciting someone to do so also is a violation of North Carolina law.”
      2. Trump … tweeted that voters should “go to your Polling Place to see whether or not your Mail In Vote has been Tabulated (Counted). … If it has not been Counted, VOTE (which is a citizen’s right to do).”
      3. North Carolina voters may check the status of their mail ballots online or by contacting local officials, as is the case in other states. “The State Board office strongly discourages people from showing up at the polls on Election Day to check whether their absentee ballot was counted. That is not necessary, and it would lead to longer lines and the possibility of spreading COVID-19,” Brinson Bell said. …
   4. 20 percent voter fraud in a New Jersey city: FALSE
      1. … a county elections official told the Paterson Press that 2,300 ballots were rejected as “part of the normal process,” meaning they were disqualified for common reasons such as signature mismatches or arriving after the deadline. …
      2. Doing the math, that means less than 5 percent of the 16,747 ballots cast in this race can be linked to the fraud allegations.
      3. What would that look like in context? In an analysis of 31 local elections held the same day, New Jersey Spotlight found that 9.6 percent of ballots were rejected. “Most commonly, officials did not count ballots because the signature on the ballot did not match the one on file, the ballot arrived too late or the required certificate was not enclosed,” New Jersey Spotlight reported.
   5. Democrats are trying to end signature verification: FALSE
      1. Democrats are not trying to ban signature verification requirements for mail-in ballots.
      2. What Democrats have introduced is a bill that says U.S. election officials must notify any voter whose signature was deemed deficient and give them an opportunity to fix it. That’s not a ban on signature verification. …
   6. Absentee vs. mail-in ballots: A DISTINCTION WITHOUT A DIFFERENCE.
      1. …  “Absentee ballots” and “mail-in ballots” are interchangeable terms. State officials use safeguards such as bar codes and signature matching to ensure the authenticity of all ballots cast by mail. …
   7. Ballots are vulnerable, drop boxes unsafe:  FALSE
      1. … The claims are false or baseless. No matter how a mail-in ballot gets to an election office, the verification process is the same, so duplicate ballots or votes wouldn’t be recognized. Twitter has placed a warning that obscures Trump’s Aug. 23 tweet, labeling it misinformation.
      2. Ballot drop boxes are usually fortified in some way, placed in secure locations such as courthouses or election agencies, cemented to the ground and placed under camera or staff surveillance. Only election officials have access to their contents. No evidence shows that these boxes disproportionately advantage one party over the other. …
   8. Democrats are trying to rig the election: RIDICULOUS
      1. States governed by both Democrats (including California, Illinois and New York) and Republicans (including Alabama, Iowa and Nebraska) are expanding vote-by-mail this year to prevent the coronavirus from spreading. Utah, also governed by Republicans, is one of the five states that already held vote-by-mail elections before the pandemic. …
   9. ‘Anybody that walks in California is going to get a ballot.’: FALSE
      1. California is mailing ballots only to registered voters, about 20 million total. Undocumented immigrants cannot register to vote, and the Democrats who govern the state are not proposing to give them voting rights.
   10. The Pinocchio Test: Four Pinocchios
5. PTSD expert Seth Norrholm: Americans “are being psychologically abused by Donald Trump” — Leading neuroscientist says America will face a health crisis from “post-Trump syndrome” for years to come; Chauncey DeVega | SALON.COM |September 11, 2020 11:00AM (UTC)
   1. Woodward’s newspaper, the Washington Post, reported on the aftermath of these revelations, including Trump’s acknowledgment “that he intentionally played down the deadly nature of the rapidly spreading coronavirus last winter as an attempt to avoid a ‘frenzy’ ….” …
   2. Trump’s admission is contrary to his public protestations that the pandemic is a “hoax” perpetrated or exaggerated by Democrats to damage him in the election, as well as his claims the virus is not that dangerous and will go away on its own, people should not wear masks, and that public health experts and medical researchers are sharing “fake news” about the lethal nature of the coronavirus. 
   3. As psychologist John Gartner cautioned in a recent conversation here at Salon: “Donald Trump is the most successful bio-terrorist in human history. …”
   4. Ultimately, Trump’s sabotage and willful negligence — to which he has now effectively confessed — is a crime against humanity. At worst, it approaches de facto genocide; at best, it could be called negligent homicide on a mass scale. …
   5. Dr. Seth Norrholm is a translational neuroscientist and one of the world’s leading experts on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and fear. He is currently the scientific director at the Neuroscience Center for Anxiety, Stress, and Trauma (NeuroCAST) in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences at the Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit.
   6. In this conversation, Dr. Norrholm explains how Donald Trump’s behavior towards the American people resembles that of a domestic abuser. He also details how Donald Trump and his regime are causing the American people to experience symptoms and behaviors similar to PTSD — and that post-Trump PTSD will impact the country’s public health for many years into the future. Norrholm also offers advice on how the American people can handle the increase in stress and anxiety as Election Day 2020 approaches in the midst of a deadly pandemic and Trump’s escalating threats and violence.
   7. Chauncey DeVega: What are Trump and his regime doing to the emotional health of the American people? The long-term impact is going to be great.
      1. Dr. Seth Norrholm: From 2015 forward, it is a constant timeline of one risk or threat or breaking of norms after another from the Trump administration. There has been no real respite.
      2. Looking at this through social media, it is very much like an addiction where some people will log into Twitter in the morning and then you will see them log off at night and they will actually say, “See you in the morning, folks.” Twitter and other social media is almost like a running commentary of their day.
   8. Chauncey DeVega: The Age of Trump is the story of authoritarianism and how it can damage the mental health of an entire society. Why has there been such reluctance by most of the mainstream American news media to discuss emotional life as connected to politics in this moment?
      1. Dr. Seth Norrholm: Part of the problem with emotions is vagueness. Therefore, the news media and analysts tend to shy away from discussing emotions. … because with Donald Trump we are talking about behavior which is open to interpretation and involves concepts from psychology that deal with emotions and personality, it is very difficult for the average person to understand. This is true of the news media as well. Therefore, emotions in general are much less discussed by the American news media. … Then there is the other side, with Fox News and other right-wing news media which Trump’s followers listen to. That side is proceeding with, “This is how we have to defend our position.” That is when we see cult psychology, a shared psychosis where the members have to radically defend their positions because the alternative is admitting that they were wrong.
   9. Chauncey DeVega: There is a cycle of ups and downs, highs and lows, hopes and disappointments in the Age of Trump where at one moment it seems like he will be stopped and then he somehow survives and becomes more powerful. How does that roller coaster of emotions impact the American people?
      1. Dr. Seth Norrholm: This fits the model of an abusive relationship. If you think about an abusive relationship, the victim often tells themselves, “Tomorrow it’ll be better because family’s coming to town.” Or they have filed a police report or taken other steps to change the abusive situation. But what happens when those steps do not work to stop the abuse? That cycle has a compounding negative cumulative impact. … The American people, the abuse victim says, “OK, I’ve got some hope. The authorities are looking into it.” Then [Bill] Barr is brought on and the Mueller report is diluted and misrepresented, and nothing happens in terms of consequences. So the American people, … the abuse victim, then says, “OK, that didn’t work.” Then there is a period of mourning, dejection and sadness. Then the American people say, “OK, what’s the next step I can take?” Then they see Trump being impeached. Now the conclusion is, “OK, this is going to be the mechanism by which I could end this abusive relationship.” Now we go through the process from December to January, and there is a parade of witnesses with all this damning information. Trump looked like he was done for. And again, Trump gets away with it all. Trump’s bellicosity … is akin to an abuser saying to a partner, “Remember, I sleep with my revolver.” So the bottom line is that we as mental health professionals were already looking at a post-Trump era of exacerbated mental illness that has now been compounded with an unchecked pandemic that has killed nearly 200,000 and altered millions of lives.
   10. Chauncey DeVega: What does that cycle of emotions do to the human brain?
       1. Dr. Seth Norrholm: … Trump and this national calamity, it is an ongoing event which involves repeated exposure to chronic stress. … When a person is repeatedly stressed, the human body continues to release cortisol. The heart rate stays elevated. This can have long-term effects. …
       2. There is definitely going to be post-Trump syndrome — especially for those people who have been more engaged with current events. They are obviously at much more risk than a person who says, “You know what? This is just politics.”
       3. If you are someone who is genetically more predisposed to be an anxious person, that can be buffered if you are placed in a situation where you have got resources such as a job and a home. Even with the genetics involved, if those buffers are in place such a person may not ever experience anxiety. When people start losing their jobs and health care in massive numbers, that is a tipping point for overcoming learned helplessness and resisting.  
       4. In total, there are going to be a host of post-Trump biological and psychological consequences that as a society we are going to be dealing with for a long time.
   11. Chauncey DeVega: DeVega: Stress also impacts people’s individual dreams and also the collective subconscious of a society. There has been research on the dreams the German people experienced under the Nazis. Likewise, there are mental health professionals who are compiling lists of the types of dreams people are experiencing under the Trump regime. What do we know about stress and dreams?
       1. Dr. Seth Norrholm: Conflicts can bleed into dreams. This is especially true of unresolved conflicts. Viewing the Trump presidency as a type of unresolved conflict reveals quite a few things. The Trump administration is the daily stressor. It has all these tentacles and there seems to be no resolution in sight. The stress from the Trump administration is filling in gaps in our dream state. 
       2. With an assault victim, there may be some way of confronting the perpetrator and exacting revenge. Dreams reflect unresolved conflicts, but they also are a form of “re-experiencing” where the elements of the traumatic event are part of the dream content. … These events can be replayed or played out in different scenarios in the dream state. It can be very vivid, to the point where a trauma victim may re-experience the trauma in a dream to the point where there is some kind of resolution. This may be facing the perpetrator or finding happiness and joy again. But then the person wakes up and has an extreme feeling of being let down because it was all just a dream.
6. Donald Trump’s fatal flaw: Of his many defects, Bob Woodward may have identified the worst – Trump’s failures come from a deep, dark well of fear and cowardice. He doesn’t believe in anything, even himself; By Lucian K. Truscott IV | SALON.COM | September 12, 2020 12:00PM (UTC)
   1. … The words “magical thinking” come up all the time to describe Trump’s approach to the biggest national disaster faced by this country in a hundred years. But it’s worse than that. It’s not just the lies and dissembling and projection onto others — Look at Biden in that silly mask! Trump’s failures come from a deep, dark well of fear and cowardice and inadequacy. He doesn’t believe in himself, so he has never believed in his ability to influence others.
   2. Donald Trump had no understanding of what I call the exercise of power in the absence of money. This is power at its most absolute, the power to motivate soldiers to risk their lives in combat, the power to motivate doctors and nurses to risk their lives treating patients with deadly communicable diseases, the power that motivates someone to give his or her life for another.
   3. You can’t threaten soldiers with court martial to get them to charge an enemy that is shooting at them. You can’t offer a doctor or a nurse a raise, or threaten to cut their pay, to get them to put on a gown and a mask and gloves and treat patients sick with diseases that could kill them as well as the patients. This is what Donald Trump has never understood: You can’t force someone to do things they don’t want to do. You have to get them to want it. 
   4. You do that by leading from the front, as they used to say in the Army. Leading by example. …
   5. `MIKE: SO, BASED TO LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV’s EVALUATION OF TRUMP, DUE TO TRUMP’S FATAL FLAWS, ONE MIGHT CONCLUDE (though not his words): Trump Lied, People Died
7. Mortality Rates From COVID-19 Are Lower In Unionized Nursing Homes; By Adam Dean, Atheendar Venkataramani,  and Simeon Kimmel | HEALTHAFFAIRS.ORG | |PUBLISHED: September 10, 2020
   1. Conclusion [of the scientific paper]: Residents in nursing homes have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19. The presence of a health care worker labor union was associated with a 30% relative decrease in the COVID-19 mortality rate compared to facilities without unions in the State of New York. Health care worker unionization may play an important role in ensuring access to appropriate PPE and implementing infection control policies that protect vulnerable nursing home residents.
8. As referenced on our September 7^th show: “Ignorance is a correctable condition. Stupid is forever” – Unknown
   1. This is the 3^rd time in about a month that a Trump Pride boat parade has ended this way (The Willamette River, Lake Travis, and now Lake Houston.)
   2. Hundreds show up to Pres. Trump boat parade on Lake Houston; ABC13.COM | Saturday, September 12, 2020 5:22PM
      1. HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — … More than 500 people responded to a Facebook event titled, “Lake Houston Boat Parade Big T 2020 Trump Support,” asking participants to decorate boats in “red, white and blue for 2020.”
      2. Video from the event, which started at 2 p.m., showed hundreds of cars lined up headed to the lake. Also, several boats were spotted decked out with American and Trump flags.
      3. The boat parade comes just one week after five boats sank at Lake Travis just outside of Austin shortly after the parade started.
      4. A total of 15 [Lake Houston] boaters reported distress to police while in the water.
      5. The reasons for calling included boats taking on water, stalled engines and capsized boats. Three additional reports of boats taking on water were also called in from a local towing company.
9. Houston’s Third and Fifth wards designated as cultural districts; Aaron Barker, Senior Digital Editor | CLICK2HOUSTON.COM | Published: September 12, 2020, 12:12 pm
   1. The Third and Fifth wards of Houston have been designated cultural districts by the state.
   2. The distinction means that the neighborhoods are recognized as special zones designed to stimulate economic development and community revitalization. …
   3. “Our rich history tells a powerful story of liberation and celebration,” Eureka Gilkey, Executive Director of Project Row Houses in the Third Ward, said in a written statement. “This designation amplifies the role of Black culture, commerce, and community in shaping Houston’s diverse ecosystem.”
   4. The designation also means that qualifying resident arts organizations in “the Tre” and “the Nickle” are eligible to apply for funding through the Cultural District Project run by the Texas Commission on the Arts.
   5. For more information about Houston’s cultural program, go to houstontx.gov/culturalaffairs.