Mon, Dec 7, 2020, 3PM (CT) #KPFTHouston 90.1FM. POSSIBLE TOPICS: Rooftop Cinema Club’s new drive-in theater rolls into Houston’s EaDo district with holiday movie lineup; Hewlett Packard Enterprise to relocate headquarters from Silicon Valley to Springwoods Village; School districts worry a fiscal cliff could await them in January; Gov. Greg Abbott tells supporters he’s considering placing law enforcement for Central Austin under state control; E.P.A.’s Final Deregulatory Rush Runs Into Open Staff Resistance; Solar Panels + Agriculture: You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet; Salmon have been dying mysteriously on the West Coast for years. Scientists think a chemical in tires may be responsible; Facing the first loss of their voting lives, young Republicans are surprisingly hopeful, but want the GOP to work for Gen Z; N.J. congressman says Trump should be tried for ‘crimes against our nation and Constitution’; More. Guest: [AUDIO/VIDEO]

This program was recorded early in the morning on SUNDAY, December 6. Due to Covid-19, shows are being prerecorded beginning March 13, 2020 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 from 3-4 PM (CT) on KPFT-FM 90.1 (Houston). My co-host and Editor is Andrew Ferguson.

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.) Please take a moment to visit Pledge.KPFT.org and choose THINKWING RADIO from the drop-down list when you donate.

For the purposes of this show, I operate on two mottoes:

An educated electorate is a prerequisite for a democracy.
You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.

SIGNOFF QUOTE[s]: “At one point he [Trump] started to attack the press and I said, ‘You know, that is getting tired. Why are you doing this? You’re doing it over and over and it’s boring and it’s – it’s time to end that. You know, you’ve won the nomination and, uh, why do you keep hammering at this? And he [Trump] said, ‘You know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so that when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you.’ He said that. So, put that in your head for a minute.” ~ Lesley Stahl (“Deadline Club”, May 21, 2018). Excerpt from “Kasie DC”, May 27, 2018

“There’s a reason why you separate military and police. One fights the enemy of the State. The other serves and protects the People. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the State tend t become the People.” ~ Commander Adama, “Battlestar Galactica” (“WATER”, Season 1 episode 2, at the 28 minute mark.)

POSSIBLE TOPICS: Voting info;Rooftop Cinema Club’s new drive-in theater rolls into Houston’s EaDo district with holiday movie lineup; Hewlett Packard Enterprise to relocate headquarters from Silicon Valley to Springwoods Village; School districts worry a fiscal cliff could await them in January; Gov. Greg Abbott tells supporters he’s considering placing law enforcement for Central Austin under state control; E.P.A.’s Final Deregulatory Rush Runs Into Open Staff Resistance; Solar Panels + Agriculture: You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet; Salmon have been dying mysteriously on the West Coast for years. Scientists think a chemical in tires may be responsible; Facing the first loss of their voting lives, young Republicans are surprisingly hopeful, but want the GOP to work for Gen Z; N.J. congressman says Trump should be tried for ‘crimes against our nation and Constitution’; More. Pledge to support KPFT by Text: Listeners can now text “GIVE” to 713-526-5738 and they’ll receive a text message back with a link to KPFT’s donation page, with which they can make their pledge on-line at their convenience.

Make sure you are registered to vote!
1. VoteTexas.GOV – Texas Voter Information
  1. HarrisVotes.COM – Countywide Voting Centers, (Election Information Line (713) 755-6965), Harris County Clerk
  2. Fort bend County Elections/Voter Registration Machine takes you to the proper link
  3. GalvestonVotes.org (Galveston County, TX)
  4. LibertyElections.com (Liberty County, TX)
  5. Montgomery County (TX) Elections
  6. Brazoria County (TX) Clerk Election Information
  7. Waller County (TX) Elections
  8. Chambers County (TX) ElectionsFor personalized, nonpartisan voter guides and information,
  9. Consider visiting Vote.ORG. Ballotpedia.com and Texas League of Women Voters are also good places to get election info.
  10. 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.
  11. 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)
    2. 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.
    3. Make sure you are registered:
    4. Ann Harris Bennett, Tax Assessor-Collector & Voter Registrar
    5. CHECK REGISTRATION STATUS HERE
    6. CLICK How to register to vote in Texas
    7. Outside Texas, try Vote.org.
Rooftop Cinema Club’s new drive-in theater rolls into Houston’s EaDo district with holiday movie lineup – ‘Tis the season to motor to the movies;
1. The company will preview its new venue, dubbed The Drive-In at EaDo, through the month of December before hosting its grand opening in January, according to a release. As its name implies, the new drive-in movie theater is located in Houston’s East Downtown Management District, commonly referred to as EaDo. …
2. During December, …moviegoers will benefit from “soft launch” pricing. …
3. Ticket prices vary by day
4. For additional information, visit rooftopcinemaclub.com.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise to relocate headquarters from Silicon Valley to Springwoods Village; By Hannah Zedaker | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM/HOUSTON | Dec 1, 2020 CST | 6:19 PM Dec 1, 2020 CST
1. Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced Dec. 1 plans to relocate its headquarters from San Jose, California, to a brand new campus in the Greater Houston area, which is under construction in CityPlace at Springwoods Village.
2. The announcements comes just weeks after construction officially topped out at the new campus, which will include two five-story buildings located at the southwest corner of East Mossy Oaks Road and Lake Plaza Drive in Spring. Construction on the new campus began in February 2020 and is slated for completion by Spring 2022.
3. According to a 1 press release from the global tech company, Houston is currently HPE’s largest employment hub in the U.S.
4. MIKE: What is interesting here for those who remember is that COMPAQ computers used to be based near Tomball along what is now US-249, and that branch still exits as HP Enterprise.
School districts worry a fiscal cliff could await them in January; by Shelby Webb | HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM | Dec. 5, 2020 Updated: Dec. 5, 2020 7:32 a.m.
1. Across the Houston region and Texas, school districts that lost enrollment during the COVID-19 pandemic are facing a drop in state funds starting in January if the Texas Education Agency or state lawmakers do not act.
2. Since the virus began sweeping across the state and nation last March, forcing schools to close, the TEA has given districts several grace periods in which it provided them the same funding they would have received in normal times. To date, that has provided a lifeline to districts that otherwise would have seen their state revenues plunge due to lower-than-expected student enrollments.
3. The current grace period, which the TEA calls a “hold harmless guarantee,” ends Dec. 31. …
4. The Legislature in 2019 set aside money to help lower income students catch up to their more affluent peers through what is known as compensatory education. Fewer students enrolled means those districts would get less for programs aimed at closing those learning gaps.
5. “Their educational needs are going to be greater than ever” due to the pandemic. … “The compensatory education program is designed to help catch them up when they struggle. I worry we’ll see cuts in that program, frankly, at a time they’ll need it most.” [said Amanda Brownson, associate executive director of policy and research with the Texas Association of School Business Officers.] …
6. If the hold harmless is not extended, district financial officers say jobs also could be on the chopping block.
Greg Abbott tells supporters he’s considering placing law enforcement for Central Austin under state control – It’s the latest proposal from the governor to punish the capital city for its August decision to trim its police budget by a third. By Patrick Svitek | KVUE.COM – THE TEXAS TRIBUNE |Published: CST December 3, 2020 4:38 PM, Updated: 1:59 PM CST December 4, 2020
1. … In his latest move in a political fight against Austin over police funding, Gov. Greg Abbott says he is considering a proposal to put the state in charge of policing a large area in the middle of the city, including downtown, the Texas Capitol and the University of Texas at Austin.
2. Abbott floated the idea during a campaign tele-town hall Wednesday while discussing his push to punish cities that “defund the police” during the upcoming legislative session, which begins in January. He has for months railed against the Austin City Council’s August vote to slash its police department budget by one-third, primarily by shifting some responsibilities out of law enforcement oversight. He has also already proposed measures such as freezing property tax revenues for cities that cut police budgets.
3. “Something else that I’m thinking about doing, and that is because we have people coming from across the world and across the country into our capital city, as well as to the university, we can’t make our fellow Texans be victims of crime … because of the city of Austin leadership,” Abbott said, “and so what I think we need to do is have a Capitol zone area that the state will be in charge of policing, and we can use city of Austin police officers for this.” …
4. The council’s vote came after the department faced months of criticism over its own deadlyuse of force, and it coincided with the national outcry following the death of George Floyd, the Black Minneapolis man who died after a white police officer kneeled on his neck during an arrest. And Austin officers seriously injured multiple nonviolent protesters in demonstrations following Floyd’s death. …
5. Abbott previously suggested the state could take over policing parts of Austin but had not elaborated as much.
6. Mike: As always, the moral of this story is that Republicans believe in the sanctity of local government control until they have power at the state or federal level. They then eviscerate, or threaten to eviscerate, local control to accomplish their own policy goals.
P.A.’s Final Deregulatory Rush Runs Into Open Staff Resistance; By Lisa Friedman | NYTIMES.COM | Nov. 27, 2020
1. … Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency was rushing to complete one of its last regulatory priorities, aiming to obstruct the creation of air- and water-pollution controls far into the future, when a senior career scientist moved to hobble it.
2. Thomas Sinks directed the E.P.A.’s science advisory office and later managed the agency’s rules and data around research that involved people. Before his retirement in September, he decided to issue a blistering official opinion that the pending rule — which would require the agency to ignore or downgrade any medical research that does not expose its raw data — will compromise American public health. …
3. With two months left of the Trump administration, career E.P.A. employees find themselves … in a bureaucratic battle with the agency’s political leaders. But now, with the Biden administration on the horizon, they are emboldened to stymie Mr. Trump’s goals and to do so more openly.
4. The filing of a “dissenting scientific opinion” is an unusual move; it signals that Andrew Wheeler, the administrator of the E.P.A., and his politically appointed deputies did not listen to the objections of career scientists in developing the regulation. More critically, by entering the critique as part of the official Trump administration record on the new rule, Dr. Sinks’s dissent will offer Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s E.P.A. administrator a powerful weapon to repeal the so-called “secret science” policy.
5. P.A. career employees this month also quietly emailed out the results of a new study concluding that the owners of half a million diesel pickup trucks had illegally removed their emissions control technology, leading to huge increases in air pollution. And some senior E.P.A. staff members have engaged in back-channel conversations with the president-elect’s transition team as they waited for Mr. Trump to formally approve the official start of the presidential transition, two agency employees acknowledged.
6. Current and former E.P.A. staff and advisers close to the transition said Mr. Biden’s team has focused on preparing a rapid assault on the Trump administration’s deregulatory legacy and re-establishing air and water protections and methane emissions controls.
7. “They are focused like a laser on what I call the ‘Humpty Dumpty approach,’ which is putting the agency back together again,” said Judith Enck, a former E.P.A. regional administrator who served in the Obama administration. …
8. The E.P.A. also is expected to finalize in the coming weeks a rule on industrial soot pollution, which is linked to respiratory diseases, including those caused by the coronavirus. The rule is expected to leave in place a 2012 standard on fine soot from smokestacks and tailpipes, known as PM 2.5, ignoring the E.P.A.’s own scientists, who wrote last year that the existing rule contributes to about 45,000 deaths per year from respiratory diseases, and that tightening it could save about 10,000 of those lives. …
9. MIKE: Profit is private, but pollution is public.
Solar Panels + Agriculture: You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet; by Tina Casey | CLEANTECHNICA.COM | November 19th, 2020
1. It seems like only yesterday that the idea of combining solar panels with agriculture was just a twinkle in somebody’s eye. All of a sudden the field is exploding …. In the latest development, the US Department of Energy is putting down $7 million to sow the seeds for a new revolution in American farming. That’s just a drop in the bucket compared to… $1 billion for the FutureGen carbon capture project, but in this case a little goes a long way.
2. Solar Panels Vs. Agriculture – If deploying solar panels to assist the pursuit of growing things seems a bit counterintuitive, there’s a good reason for that. Until very recently, solar arrays have been the enemy of agriculture. Typical solar developments have involved papering rows of PV panels over acres of land that could be used for growing crops for people and livestock.
3. The income from solar leases does provide a lifeline for American farmers … However, if the current trend continues, the US and other nations will bump into global food supply issues.
4. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, for one, has estimated that the US alone could lose 2 million acres of land to solar panels by 2030.
5. Solar Panels With Agriculture = Agrivoltaics – In the best of all possible worlds, solar panels could be raised just a few extra feet off the ground, which would enable farmers to benefit from the renewable energy income while also growing crops or raising livestock in among the PV.
6. CleanTechnica caught wind of the trend a while back, when researchers at Oregon State University described how solar arrays can create a cooling microclimate that enhances the environment for various crops. They also gathered evidence that the same cooling effect improves the efficiency of the solar panels.
7. Since then, the knowledge base on the benefits of PV for improving crop and fodder yields has been swelling, the Energy Department has come out with a “farm to lightbulb” guide for farmers, and the movement has begun to take hold in various forms around the nation.
8. Using the land under solar panels for grazing livestock or establishing pollinator habitats is quickly becoming old hat. New forms of agrivoltaics are already emerging. In Massachusetts, for example, cranberry farmers have found that they can cultivate sprouts under solar arrays, and state policy makers have glommed on to the idea that the PV angle could help attract a new generation of farmers to the ag business.
Salmon have been dying mysteriously on the West Coast for years. Scientists think a chemical in tires may be responsible; By Drew Kann | CNN | Updated 4:11 PM ET, Thu December 3, 2020
1. For decades, scientists say something alarming has been happening in the streams and rivers where coho salmon return from the Pacific Ocean to spawn along the West Coast.
2. After heavy rain events each fall, the fish have been turning up dead in huge numbers before they spawn, a mysterious phenomenon that has been the subject of intense research for years.
3. Now, scientists think they have found a key piece to this morbid puzzle — and according to a new study, it’s strewn all over North America’s roadways.
4. It starts with a chemical antioxidant known as 6PPD, used in tires around the world to make them last longer.
5. However, as tire treads break down over time and leave behind bits of microplastics on roads, the 6PPD in them reacts with ozone to become a different chemical — a previously unreported byproduct called 6PPD-quinone, scientists say.
6. This chemical is toxic to coho salmon. Researchers found its presence in roadway runoff samples taken from across the West Coast, leading them to conclude it’s likely the main cause of the population decline.
7. The findings were published Thursday in the journal Science, marking a crucial step toward ensuring the survival of these salmon, the scientists said.
8. “We believe that 6PPD-quinone is the primary causal toxicant for these observations of coho salmon mortality in the field,” said Ed Kolodziej, the lead investigator for this study. “It’s exciting to start to understand what is happening because that starts to allow us to manage these problems more effectively.” …
9. The scientists said more research is needed to understand whether this chemical is toxic to other aquatic species — and even humans — given its prevalence in the environment.
10. “It would be surprising [if] these salmon are the only sensitive species of fish,”
Facing the first loss of their voting lives, young Republicans are surprisingly hopeful, but want the GOP to work for Gen Z; By Ashley Collman | BUSINESSINSIDER.COM | 11/28/2020, 15 hours ago
1. MIKE: Parties are not just labels. They are also the people in them that drive policy. Could this be a hint of a more liberal Republican Party going forward? We are in the process of a generational leadership change now, similar to the 1990s. The cohort in this article will start taking power in about 10 years, in a process that will culminate in a leadership changeover within the Republican Party in about the 2050s. That could be really interesting, for those of us still around to see it. See article excerpts below.
2. For many members of Generation Z, President’s Donald Trump defeat in the 2020 election was the first loss in their voting lives.
3. Business Insider recently spoke to the senior members of five college Republican groups across the country for their reaction.
4. They were all largely optimistic about the GOP’s future, with the party poised to keep control of the Senate and whittling down the Democrats’ House majority in the 2020 election.
5. But they also said the GOP needs to reassess its image and platform to win over their fellow Gen Zers, including getting serious about tackling climate change and making the economy fairer.
6. While they said they were pleased with some of Trump’s accomplishments in office, they were largely critical of his personality and had mixed feelings about Trump’s future in the GOP. …
7. Business Insider recently spoke to the senior members of five college Republican groups across the country on their feelings about … Donald Trump and the election. All five of the college Republican leaders who spoke to us were men — reflecting the still overwhelmingly male makeup of the party.
8. Far from mourning Trump’s defeat, the five young men were optimistic about their party’s better-than-expected down-ballot performance …
9. But they also didn’t shy away from critiquing the current state of Republicanism, and even Trump’s personality.
10. Generation Z, who currently range in age from 8 to 23, and their immediate elders, the millennials — who are currently aged between 24 and 39 — have so far proven to be solidly Democratic voting blocs.
11. Sixty-one percent of voters aged 18 to 29 voted for Biden this year, and just 36% voted for Trump, according to an analysis by Tufts University. A similar trend played out in 2016, when 55% of the same demographic voted Democrat and 37% Republican, Tufts …
12. “Republicans have a stronger grasp on running the country efficiently with things like the economy or foreign relations, but besides the economy, people vote on social issues such as free healthcare, LGBTQ rights, and other important issues,” said David Morgan, chief of staff for the Penn State College Republicans.
13. “I think there needs to be some compromise on these issues from Republicans in order to win over the newer voting generation.” …
14. Joe Pitts, president of the Arizona State University College Republicans, added that one “big” issue for the party is its stance on the economy, with younger people looking for a system that’s fairer.
15. He said the party should focus on making sure that marginalized groups “have the same equal opportunity as anybody else in this country.”
16. One thing Pitts does not see going away, however, is the right’s anti-abortion stance. …
17. [Philip Anderson, co-chair of the Marquette University College Republicans] … said he thinks part of the Republican Party’s problem is not so much its platform, but its inability to explain that platform to younger people.
18. He said he believes young people are a lot more conservative than they may realize.
19. “Everybody wants freedom … and yet a lot of those same people will tend to vote for government control, whether it’s energy to combat the climate crisis or whether it’s forcing the minimum wage to be raised continuously to combat poverty,” Anderson said.
20. “And it’s stuff like that that slowly erodes people’s freedoms.”
21. “Lower taxes means more freedom for you. It means that you can do what you want with your own dollar,” he said. …
  1. GOP finds silver lining in Trump’s landslide California loss
  2. The president got steamrolled statewide, but 2020 was the best year for California Republicans in more than a decade. By DAVID SIDERS | POLITICO.COM | 11/28/2020 07:00 AM EST
N.J. congressman says Trump should be tried for ‘crimes against our nation and Constitution’; By Jonathan D. Salant | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com | Updated Nov 18, 2020; Posted Nov 18, 2020
1. New Jersey Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., one of Donald Trump’s fiercest critics on Capitol Hill, is demanding the president and his aides be investigated and prosecuted after they leave office.
2. Pascrell, D-9th Dist., said late Tuesday that a failure to do so would embolden “criminality by our national leaders” and continue “America down the path of lawlessness and authoritarianism.”
3. The congressman, re-elected Nov. 3, ticked off a litany of “innumerable crimes” that he said the president should be held accountable for.
4. “He has endangered our national security,” Pascrell said. “He ripped families apart. He poisoned the Census. He has personally profited from his office. He has attacked our elections and sought to throttle democracy. He was rightly impeached by the House of Representatives. He has engaged in treachery, in treason. He has all but given up on governing and protecting our nation and if he had a shred of dignity he would resign today.”
5. Pascrell said that the U.S. Justice Department and others should investigate the entire Trump administration next year, and that any effort by the president to pardon his aides should be considered “obstruction of justice” and a self-pardon would be illegal.
6. “Donald Trump along with his worst enablers must be tried for their crimes against our nation and Constitution,” Pascrell said. …
7. One of Trump’s most loyal members in the House, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., did respond, calling Pascrell’s position “disgusting.”
  1. This is now the Left’s goal – throw President Trump, his administration officials, his family and his supporters in prison. This is where we are now. Disgusting. https://t.co/ryYHTjoBdr…
8. Pascrell … also led the so-far unsuccessful effort to obtain Trump’s tax returns, and quickly used his new position as chair of the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee to demand that Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Charles Rettig release the returns

Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig

"An educated electorate is a prerequisite for a democracy."

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