This program was recorded early in the morning on SUNDAY, December 20. Due to Covid-19, shows are being prerecorded beginning March 13, 2020 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 from 3-4 PM (CT) on KPFT-FM 90.1 (Houston). My co-host and Editor is Andrew Ferguson.
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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.
The Four Freedoms were goals articulated by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt on January 6, 1941. In an address known as the Four Freedoms speech (technically the 1941 State of the Union address), he proposed four fundamental freedoms that people “everywhere in the world” ought to enjoy:
Roosevelt delivered his speech 11 months before the United States declared war on Japan, December 8, 1941
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- Make sure you are registered to vote!
- VoteTexas.GOV – Texas Voter Information
- HarrisVotes.COM – Countywide Voting Centers, (Election Information Line (713) 755-6965), Harris County Clerk
- Fort bend County Elections/Voter Registration Machine takes you to the proper link
- GalvestonVotes.org (Galveston County, TX)
- LibertyElections.com (Liberty County, TX)
- Montgomery County (TX) Elections
- Brazoria County (TX) Clerk Election Information
- Waller County (TX) Elections
- Chambers County (TX) ElectionsFor 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.
- 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.
- HarrisVotes.com – Countywide Voting Centers
- HARRIS CTY – IDENTIFICATION REQUIRED FOR VOTING: Do not possess and cannot reasonably obtain one of these IDs?
- 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:
- A government document that shows your name and an address, including your voter registration certificate
- Current utility bill
- Bank statement
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- You may vote early by-mail if:
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- Away from the county of residence on Election Day and during the early voting period;
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- 65 years of age or older on Election Day; or
- Confined in jail, but eligible to vote.
- Make sure you are registered:
- Ann Harris Bennett, Tax Assessor-Collector & Voter Registrar
- CHECK REGISTRATION STATUS HERE
- CLICK How to register to vote in Texas
- Outside Texas, try Vote.org.
- HARRIS CTY – IDENTIFICATION REQUIRED FOR VOTING: Do not possess and cannot reasonably obtain one of these IDs?
- VoteTexas.GOV – Texas Voter Information
- Info on “Vote By Mail” applications.
- Texas Department of Motor Vehicles announces end date for waiver of vehicle title, registration requirements; By Hannah Zedaker | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM/HOUSTON | 1:38 PM Dec 15, 2020 CST | Updated 1:38 PM Dec 15, 2020 CST
- Texans now have until April 14 to renew expired vehicle registrations, officials with the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles announced Dec. 15.
- According to the release, the temporary waiver of certain vehicle title and registration requirements, which was first implemented by Gov. Greg Abbott on March 16, is set to end in mid-April. While the temporary waiver had been extended several times throughout the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, vehicle owners will need to renew vehicle registrations prior to the April 14 deadline to avoid being penalized for expired vehicle registrations. …
- The expiring temporary waiver covers initial vehicle registration, vehicle registration renewal, vehicle titling, renewal of permanent disabled parking placards and 30-day temporary permits.
- As a reminder, Texas will need to obtain a passing vehicle inspection prior to renewing vehicle registrations. Vehicle registrations can be renewed online, by mail or in person.
- For more information, visit the DFW website at txdmv.gov.
- Police: Houston child shot in dispute between parents; By Anna Bauman | HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM | Dec. 19, 2020 Updated: Dec. 19, 2020 1:01 p.m.
- A boy was shot Friday morning during a family dispute in the Sharpstown area of southwest Houston, police said.
- Houston Police Department investigators responded around 11:10 a.m. to the 6500 block of Dunlap Street following reports of a shooting involving a juvenile, the agency said.
- The 8-year-old boy was shot during an argument between his parents, Fox26 reported.
- MIKE: Those of you who follow my show know I rarely mention stories like this. I mention this one because guns at home rarely make you safer. It’s always a big story when someone uses a gun at home for legitimate defense. The reason those stories are so popular is because it’s so rare. THIS kind of story is much more common. Someone is much more likely to be involved in a shooting with someone they know.
- Houston Newsmakers: City Council says no to prison labor – City Contracts with TDCJ reviewed; by Khambrel Marshall | click2houston.com | Dec 19, 2020
- It was the low bid contract to re-tread the tires of City of Houston Vehicles. The bid from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice was quite a bit lower than the next highest bid and that’s what caught the attention of City Council Members Abbie Kamin and Carolyn Evans-Shabazz. “This is about basic principles of human dignity,” Kamin, the District C representative said. “Everybody should be paid for honest work and we have to address here in Texas and move out of the lingering shadows of institutionalized racism.” The TDCJ contract was lower because prisoners were being used for the labor. The contract was re-bid with the caveat that no prison labor be used. The result was a new contract with a different vendor at a higher price. “In this case more was good money,” said Council D Member Carolyn Evans-Shabazz. “It was well worth it. We want people to get the value of getting up, going to work…change some things that have been happening in the penal system.” Much more with on what this first step means for future contracts and what trend may now be in motion on this week’s Houston Newsmakers with Khambrel Marshall.
- South Texas restrictions were meant to protect people from COVID-19. Then the handcuffs and ticket books came out. Governments along the Texas-Mexico border took a hard line to limit the spread of the new coronavirus. Police were key to the public health response, resulting in hundreds jailed and nearly 2,000 people ticketed. by Vianna Davila and Ren Larson | THE TEXAS TRIBUNE AND PROPUBLICA | Dec. 19, 2020,19 hours ago
- MIKE: As I see the essence of the story, the question is raised as to whether the zealous enforcement of the stay-home orders in “The Valley” were disproportionately impacting minority communities, either by coincidence or by design.
- The story also raises the question of the justice of levying fines and bails against people who cannot pay those bails or fines, resulting in lengthy prison stays without trial.
- There’s also the issue of “selective enforcement”. I.e., enforcing rules much more harshly in one county or city than in others. Is this a form of discrimination?
- Should the Texas state government be more proactive in setting maximum or minimum standards of enforcement, and would we want this Texas government to do that?
- MIKE NOTES: The article refers to “the four-county area that makes up the Rio Grande Valley, known colloquially as ‘the Valley,’ ”.
- The main article refers to only two counties: Cameron and Hidalgo.
- Are those the only two counties relevant to the article? What are the other counties of the colloquial “Valley”? Are the remaining counties of the four also acting as are Hidalgo and Cameron? Why not name the other counties? If they should be excluded from the actions mentioned in Hidalgo and Cameron, why not specifically exclude them? Or include them, whichever is appropriate?
- Texas unemployment rate rises to 8.1% in November – The latest unemployment rate will be a crucial data point for the Texas Legislature, which will convene in January. by Cassandra PollockORG | Dec. 18, 20209 AM
- The unemployment rate in Texas rose to 8.1% in November, the U.S. Labor Department said Friday. That’s an increase from the state’s October rate of 6.9% as Texas, whose businesses have been battered by the coronavirus pandemic, experienced another surge in infections. But the news also comes as the state begins distributing coronavirus vaccines.
- The state’s unemployment rate for November is the latest indicator that economic recovery in Texas will be slow and staggered. And it’s a crucial data point for the Legislature, which will convene in January to tackle projected shortfalls to the state budget, a response to the pandemic and other meaty issues such as redrawing the state’s political maps. …
- [T]he state has not seen as strong of an economic rebound as some had hoped. While unemployment rates improved over the summer, that figure rose to 8.3% in September. Companies that had hoped to avoid laying off employees, such as Chevron and Pioneer Natural Resources, which laid off at least 1,000 Texas workers combined, had to do so in October. …
- If Congress does not act, hundreds of thousands of Texans could lose unemployment relief at the end of the year, including more than 315,000 gig workers and independent contractors, according to the Texas Workforce Commission.
- On top of that, a federal eviction moratorium will expire at the end of the year, prompting concerns among some that many Texans will struggle even more with food and rent. …
- Researcher Finds Evictions Are Associated With More Than 10,000 Deaths From COVID-19; Mary Louise Kelly, Host | NPR.ORG | December 1, 20204:07 PM ET
- MIKE: These are excerpts take from an interview:
- Like much of the response to the coronavirus across the U.S., for housing, it has been uneven, very much a patchwork. The CDC has an order to stop evictions. Meanwhile, each state has taken a different approach, and thousands of people are being evicted despite the order. Still, the federal order has been protecting many, and it is expiring at the end of this month, which leaves millions of people vulnerable to losing their homes. Now a new UCLA paper out this week directly links evictions to the spread of COVID-19. Kathryn Leifheit [from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health] is one of the lead researchers on that study. …
- [I]f someone gets evicted, they might well move in with family or friends, and then the number of people that they’re in contact with and exposed to is growing? … It’s difficult to socially distance and shelter in place if you don’t have a shelter.
- … There were 44 states that ever had [eviction] moratoriums, and 27 of them lifted their moratoriums. We did our best to account for the factors that we know are important in COVID transmission, such as mask mandates, testing rates, stay-at-home orders and school closures. …
- … [T]he biggest driver of cases and deaths are the state’s population. And lifting the moratorium earlier was associated with more cases and deaths. So Texas really stands out as a state with a lot of cases and deaths associated with lifting their moratorium. I believe it’s in the neighborhood of 150,000 cases and 4,500 deaths that could have been prevented by maintaining their moratorium.
- … [T]he CDC moratorium is set to expire at the end of the year. … And it’s in the setting of over a million new COVID cases a week. So state and federal policymakers need to extend these protections to make sure that families and their communities can stay safe. Individuals have a bit of a role in this, too. You know, tenants can understand their protections under the CDC moratorium, help their neighbors understand theirs and then reach out for legal aid. …
- Foxconn tells Wisconsin it never promised to build an LCD factory – Wisconsin stands by its rejection of the company’s subsidies, but both sides signal openness to amending the contract. By Josh Dzieza@joshdzieza | THEVERGE.COM | Dec 18, 2020, 5:43pm EST
- In October, Wisconsin denied Foxconn subsidies because it had failed to build the LCD factory specified in its contract with the state. As The Verge reported, it had created a building one-twentieth the size of the promised factory, taken out a permit to use it for storage, and failed to employ anywhere near the number of employees the contract called for. Nevertheless, Foxconn publicly objected “on numerous grounds” to Wisconsin’s denial of subsidies. …
- … Foxconn has previously expressed interest in such an amendment only to revert to insisting it was building an LCD factory after all, but it’s possible that with President Trump exiting the White House, the company will feel less pressure to maintain the facade that it’s building the project Trump touted. …
- Boston sergeant placed on leave as videos of George Floyd protests prompt investigations – Leaked body camera footage showed “troubling scenes” of officers handling crowds, the district attorney’s office said. By Nicole Acevedo | NBCNEWS.COM |Dec. 19, 2020, 7:41 PM CST
- A police sergeant in Boston has been put on administrative leave while officials investigate alleged misconduct after peaceful protests in response to George Floyd’s killing turned violent, prompting arrests and clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement. …
- Some video clips show officers threatening demonstrators in profane language, shoving protesters to the ground with batons and pepper-spraying them. One of the clips shows an officer telling a colleague that he hit several protesters with his police vehicle when it was surrounded. The colleague interrupts the officer and reminds him that the body camera is recording their conversation.
- The Appeal reported obtaining the footage from attorney Carl Williams, who is representing some of the protesters arrested on June 1. Williams obtained the body camera videos as part of a discovery file encompassing 44 videos and over 66 hours of footage, according to The Appeal. …
- Trump Contradicts Pompeo Over Russia’s Role in Hack – Hours after the secretary of state said that Moscow was behind the vast cybersecurity breach, the president suggested it might have been China and downplayed the severity of the attack. By David E. Sanger and Nicole Perlroth | NYTIMES.COM | Dec. 19, 2020Updated 3:54 p.m. ET
- Hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told a conservative radio show host that “we can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians” behind the vast hack of the federal government and American industry, he was contradicted on Saturday by President Trump, who sought to muddy the intelligence findings by raising the possibility that China was responsible.
- Defying the conclusions of experts inside and outside the government who say the attack was a cybersecurity breach on a scale Washington has never experienced, Mr. Trump also played down the severity of the hack, saying “everything is well under control,” insisting that the news media has exaggerated the damage and suggesting, with no evidence, that the real issue was whether the election results had been compromised.
- “There could also have been a hit on our ridiculous voting machines during the election,” he wrote on Twitter in his latest iteration of that unfounded conspiracy theory. He tagged Mr. Pompeo, the latest cabinet member to anger him, in his Twitter post. …
- So in the midst of a global pandemic, Mr. Biden will inherit a government so laced with electronic tunnels bored by Russian intelligence that it may be months, years even, before he can trust the systems that run much of Washington.
- And in his first days in office, even as he has to deal with Russia on arms control and other issues, he will have to confront a quandary that has confounded his predecessors for a quarter of a century: Retaliation for cyber intrusions often results in escalation.
- As Michael Sulmeyer, now a senior adviser to United States Cyber Command, put it before he entered government, America “lives in the glassiest of glass houses.” The United States is more reliant than almost any other nation on fragile computer networks that make the government and economy hum, making it an especially ripe target for short-of-war attacks like the one executed by the Kremlin.
- In contrast to Mr. Trump, who has always been reluctant to confront Moscow and President Vladimir V. Putin, Mr. Biden has signaled that he will not let the intrusion, whose full extent is not yet known, go unanswered. …
- “Never has there been a President work so hard to provide cover for Russia,” said Clint Watts, a former F.B.I. special agent and Russian information warfare expert at the Foreign Policy Research Institute [said about Trump].
- Pro-Trump shakeups continue at VOA’s parent agency; By MATTHEW LEE |APNEWS.COM | Dec 19, 2020
- The head of U.S.-funded international broadcasting is pressing ahead with his shakeup of the Voice of America and sister outlets by naming new leaders for two of its main networks and moving to defund one of the federal government’s top democracy promotion initiatives.
- The flurry of moves by President Donald Trump’s handpicked chief of the U.S. Agency for Global Media Michael Pack come only a month before Trump leaves office and raise new concerns about the agency’s direction in the administration’s final weeks. President-elect Joe Biden and his team have pledged a full review of Pack’s actions and could replace him shortly after inauguration, but it’s not entirely clear if his personnel decisions could be immediately reversed.
- Democrats and some Republicans have accused Pack of trying to turn VOA and its sister networks into pro-Trump propaganda outlets, and he is under a court order not to terminate employees that he has suspended since taking over the operation in June.
- Despite those potential reversals, Pack has forged ahead with changes and on Friday, less than 10 days after appointing a long-time critic of U.S.-government broadcasting to lead the Voice of America, he announced the appointment of two conservative voices to lead Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, which runs Radio and Television Marti. …
- Pack, a conservative filmmaker, Trump ally and onetime associate of former Trump political adviser Steve Bannon, made no secret of his intent to shake up the agency since he became CEO of USAGM after a long confirmation battle in the Senate that finally ended after Trump and his allies launched a series of attacks on VOA and demanded new leadership.
- VOA was founded during World War II and its congressional charter requires it to present independent news and information to international audiences.
- Supreme Court throws out challenge to Trump’s plan to exclude undocumented immigrants from census count; By Ariane de Vogue and Veronica Stracqualursi | CNN | Updated 11:23 AM ET, Fri December 18, 2020
- The Supreme Court on Friday threw out a challenge for now to President Donald Trump’s bid to exclude undocumented immigrants from being counted when seats in Congress are divvied up between the states next year, but left open the possibility the issue could be revisited at the nation’s highest court.
- Friday’s ruling is a narrow victory for Trump as it wipes away a lower court opinion that went against him, but the President still has upcoming hurdles should he try to push through his policy based on census data in his final days in office.
- The court said the challengers, a coalition of states led by New York and immigrant rights groups, did not have the legal injury necessary to bring the case because the government has not yet announced which individuals it seeks to exclude from the count.
- Census officials have indicated they’re facing difficulties processing census responses in time to produce the final count by an end of the year deadline.
- If the census numbers are produced after January 20, President-elect Joe Biden has already suggested he would work to reverse Trump’s memorandum signed in July.
- The court stressed that it “expressed no view” on the merits of the case, but concluded that the dispute is currently “premature” because of the procedural issues surrounding whether the case was properly before the justices.
- The court also knocked the case as being “riddled with contingencies and speculation that impede judicial review.” …
- Mike: DOES THIS CONSTITUTE A CONSPIRACY TO OVERTHROW THE DULY ELECTED GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES?? HEATED OVAL OFFICE MEETING INCLUDED TALK OF SPECIAL COUNSEL, MARTIAL LAW AS TRUMP ADVISERS CLASH; By Kevin Liptak and Pamela Brown | CNN | Updated 6:55 PM ET, Sat December 19, 2020
- President Donald Trump convened a heated meeting in the Oval Office on Friday, including lawyer Sidney Powell and her client, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, two people familiar with the matter said, describing a session that began as an impromptu gathering but devolved and eventually broke out into screaming matches at certain points as some of Trump’s aides pushed back on Powell and Flynn’s more outrageous suggestions about overturning the election.
- Flynn had suggested earlier this week that Trump could invoke martial law as part of his efforts to overturn the election that he lost to President-elect Joe Biden — an idea that arose again during the meeting in the Oval Office, one of the people said. It wasn’t clear whether Trump endorsed the idea, but others in the room forcefully pushed back and shot it down.
- The meeting was first reported by the New York Times. …
- One person described the meeting as “ugly” as Powell and Flynn accused others of abandoning the President as he works to overturn the results of the election.
- “It was heated — people were really fighting it out in the Oval, really forceful about it,” one of the sources said.
- One of the sources described an escalating sense of concern among Trump’s aides, even those who have weathered his previous controversies, about what steps he might take next as his term comes to an end.
- China should consider alternatives for Australian iron ore as trade tensions simmer, analyst says; Weizhen Tan@weizent | CNBC.COM | Published Tue, Dec 15 20208:11 PM EST
- China imports 60% of its iron ore from Australia, and is heavily dependent on the commodity.
- Other Australian exports to China have been affected by the deteriorating relationship between the countries, with Beijing hitting goods such as wine and barley with tariffs.
- Beijing has, so far, spared iron ore from Australia, which analysts attributed to the lack of alternatives available.
- China is likely to turn to a country where they have been investing, according to Peter O’Connor, senior analyst of metals and mining at investment firm Shaw and Partners.
- MIKE: Chinese-Australian relations apparently hit a breaking point when Australia protested a tweet reputedly from a Chinese official about Australia’s alleged interference in China’s affairs in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
- Brazil is the next largest supplier of iron ore to China, but has its own slate of issues. In January 2019, a deadly dam disaster at a Vale iron ore site led the Brazilian mining giant to halt production at ten locations. Vale is the world’s second-largest iron ore producer, and its biggest market is also China. …
- [Peter O’Connor, senior analyst of metals and mining at investment firm Shaw and Partners, says] “China needs to diversify their supply, and I think the country where they will most likely do that, which has been simmering for some time, is a country in West Africa called Guinea … and probably largely China funded and developed.”
- Australia escalates China trade dispute with WTO action – Australia brings in ‘international umpire’ after China imposed 80% tariffs on its barley; By Amy Remeikis (@amyremeikis) | theguardian.com Tue 15 Dec 2020 22.22 EST, Last modified on Tue 15 Dec 2020 22.23 EST
- Since the barley tariffs were imposed, Australian producers have faced difficulties exporting wine, lobster, beef, timber and cotton to China, with the most recent dispute putting Australia’s $14bn annual coal exports in question. …
- The government made the decision to block Huawei following advice from security agencies. The 5G decision was part of a raft of legislation and decisions made by Australia to ward off what the government said were attempts by foreign state-based actors interfering in Australia’s democracy.
- The relationship between the two trading nations reached new levels of frostiness earlier this year, when Morrison led a call for an international investigation into the origins and original response to the Covid pandemic.
- China imports 60% of its iron ore from Australia, and is heavily dependent on the commodity.
- Concern among Muslims over halal status of COVID-19 vaccine; By Victoria Milko | APNEWS.COM | Dec. 20, 2020
- As companies race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine and countries scramble to secure doses, questions about the use of pork products — banned by some religious groups — has raised concerns about the possibility of disrupted immunization campaigns.
- Pork-derived gelatin has been widely used as a stabilizer to ensure vaccines remain safe and effective during storage and transport. Some companies have worked for years to develop pork-free vaccines: Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis has produced a pork-free meningitis vaccine, while Saudi- and Malaysia-based AJ Pharma is currently working on one of their own. …
- Spokespeople for Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca have said that pork products are not part of their COVID-19 vaccines. But limited supply and preexisting deals worth millions of dollars with other companies means that some countries with large Muslim populations, such as Indonesia, will receive vaccines that have not yet been certified to be gelatin-free.
- This presents a dilemma for religious communities, including Orthodox Jews and Muslims, where the consumption of pork products is deemed religiously unclean, and how the ban is applied to medicine, he said.
- “There’s a difference of opinion amongst Islamic scholars as to whether you take something like pork gelatin and make it undergo a rigorous chemical transformation,” Waqar said. “Is that still considered to be religiously impure for you to take?” …
- There’s a similar assessment by a broad consensus of religious leaders in the Orthodox Jewish community as well.
- “According to the Jewish law, the prohibition on eating pork or using pork is only forbidden when it’s a natural way of eating it,” said Rabbi David Stav, chairman of Tzohar, a rabbinical organization in Israel.
- If “it’s injected into the body, not (eaten) through the mouth,” then there is “no prohibition and no problem, especially when we are concerned about sicknesses,” he said.
- Yet there have been dissenting opinions on the issue — some with serious health consequences for Indonesia, which has the world’s largest Muslim population, some 225 million.
- In 2018, the Indonesian Ulema Council, the Muslim clerical body that issues certifications that a product is halal, or permissible under Islamic law, decreed that the measles and rubella vaccines were “haram,” or unlawful, because of the gelatin. Religious and community leaders began to urge parents to not allow their children to be vaccinated.
- “Measles cases subsequently spiked, giving Indonesia the third-highest rate of measles in the world,” said Rachel Howard, director of the health care market research group Research Partnership.
- NASA to skip repair of Orion electronics unit; by Jeff Foust | SPACENEWS.COM | December 18, 2020
- NASA will not repair a faulty electronics unit on the Orion spacecraft recently completed for the Artemis 1 mission after concluding there was sufficient redundancy in the overall system.
- In a Dec. 17 statement, NASA said it had decided to “use as is” one of eight power and data units (PDU) on the Orion spacecraft, which provide communications between the spacecraft’s computers and other components. One of two redundant channels in one of two communications cards in that PDU is not working. …
- … Lockheed Martin warned it could take up to a year to replace the PDU because it is located in an adapter between the crew module and service module that is inaccessible now that the two modules are mated to each other.
- That time estimate assumed that the crew module would be demated from the service module, the PDU repaired, and the two modules combined again and tested. An alternative option could complete repairs in just four months, but would require removing panels of the adapter to reach the PDU, something the hardware was not designed for. …
Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig 