Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio) is now on Wednesdays at 11AM (CT) on KPFT-HD2, Houston’s Community Station. You can also hear the show:

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Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig where we discuss local, state, national, and international stories. My co-host and show editor is Andrew Ferguson.

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

1. Make sure you are registered to vote! VoteTexas.GOV – Texas Voter InformationTEXAS SoS VOTE-BY-MAIL BALLOT APPLICATION (ALL TEXAS COUNTIES) HarrisVotes.com­ – Countywide Voting Centers, (Election Information Line (713) 755-6965), Harris County Clerk
   1. Harris County “Vote-By-Mail’ Application for 2022
      1. Fort bend County Elections/Voter Registration Machine takes you to the proper link
      2. GalvestonVotes.org (Galveston County, TX)
      3. Liberty County Elections (Liberty County, TX)
      4. Montgomery County (TX) Elections
      5. Brazoria County (TX) Clerk Election Information
      6. Waller County (TX) Elections
      7. Chambers County (TX) Elections
      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 CentersHARRIS COUNTY – 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)
          8. You may vote early by-mail if:You are registered to vote and meet one of the following criteria:
             1. Away from the county of residence on Election Day and during the early voting period;
             2. Sick or disabled;
             3. 65 years of age or older on Election Day; or
             4. Confined in jail, but eligible to vote.
             5. Make sure you are registered:
             6. Ann Harris Bennett, Tax Assessor-Collector & Voter Registrar
             7. CHECK REGISTRATION STATUS HERE
             8. CLICK How to register to vote in Texas
             9. Outside Texas, try Vote.org.
2. BE REGISTERED TO VOTE, and if eligible, REMEMBER TO FILL OUT AND MAIL YOUR MAIL-IN BALLOT APPLICATIONS FOR 2022
   1. You can track your Mail Ballot Activity from our website with direct link provided here https://www.harrisvotes.com/Tracking
   2. May 24 Primary Runoff & Precinct Chair Election
      1. Monday, 16 May – First Day of Early Voting by Personal Appearance
      2. Friday, 20 May – Last Day of Early Voting by Personal Appearance
      3. Tuesday, 24 May – Election Day & Last Day to Receive Ballot by Mail
   3. ELECTION NOTE:
      1. Other sources of election information: The League of Women Voters of Texas’s has a nonpartisan Voters Guide available Englishor Spanish. Also com, among others.
3. Tomball votes to deny change to comprehensive plan that would prevent Medical Complex Drive extension from completion; By Kayli Thompson | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 6:23 PM May 17, 2022 CDT | Updated 6:23 PM May 17, 2022 CDT
   1. … The proposed change would [have cancelled] the extension of Medical Complex Drive between Hufsmith-Kohrville and Mahaffey roads, and council members said they did not want to give up yet on fully extending Medical Complex Drive all the way from west of Hwy. 249 to FM 2920.
   2. Harrisburg Homes requested the city amend the city’s comprehensive plan and not extend Medical Complex Drive for a 0.9-mile segment between east of Hufsmith-Kohrville Road and south of Mahaffey Road, as it would cut through a development and, specifically, a house, according to Harrisburg Homes Homebuilder Shawn Speer. …
   3. Community Development Director Nathan Dietrich … said the city’s planning and zoning commission met about the request and voted unanimously to deny the case as a recommendation for what council should do. The commission was concerned how the city can make it easier to get across the city without the Medical Complex Drive extension being complete and whether the traffic patterns have changed enough to justify removing this segment, Dietrich said.
   4. Dietrich said another reason this proposed change was brought before council was because the extension was downgraded from a three-lane road on each side of a divider to a two-lane road on the western side, therefore bringing into question whether Medical Complex Drive is a true bypass and if the relief of traffic is still needed. …
   5. MIKE: This is a very local story with more local details, but I thought that it was interesting on several other levels. First, that Tomball has a “planning and zoning commission”. Houston could use one of those.
   6. MIKE: Second, it demonstrates the importance not just of city master planning, but of cooperative regional master planning. When cities and adjacent developing lands abut each other, large-scale forward-looking planning is essential for mobility and livability, and for landowners and prospective landowners. Local and regional governments everywhere need to do a better job of this to anticipate land-use conflicts.
4. Texas power grid leaders say they’re confident the lights will stay on this summer; Texas Public Utility Commission Chair Peter Lake and ERCOT President Brad Jones said the power grid is prepared for record-breaking summer electricity demand. by Mitchell Ferman | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | May 17, 2022, 6 hours ago
   1. … Texas Public Utility Commission Chair Peter Lake [was] appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott after last year’s deadly winter storm to regulate utilities and to oversee the Electric Reliability Council of Texas[. He] said there will be more reserve power available to the grid this summer than in previous summers, a necessary cushion that Lake said reflects a different approach than before last February’s disaster.
   2. Lake spoke confidently about the grid’s summer readiness on Tuesday alongside ERCOT President Brad Jones, who also said he has no concerns about this summer. Jones expressed some caution about “times that are dark and still,” meaning when the sun isn’t shining to produce solar power and when wind isn’t blowing enough to produce wind energy.
   3. They said their agencies are better prepared for times when there is likely to be a smaller share of energy generated by renewable sources.
   4. Lake and Jones said they didn’t have concerns about natural gas-fired power plants — the largest source of electricity generation on the power grid — despite having to ask Texans to reduce their power consumption on Friday after six power plants unexpectedly broke down.
   5. Lake and Jones said asking Texans to conserve electricity is a tool they use to ensure reliability of the power supply and should not be viewed as a sign that the grid is unstable.
   6. “Conservation is a good thing,” Jones said. “Conservation is what we should do every day in our lives …”
   7. Bottom of Form
   8. Top of Form
   9. Bottom of Form
   10. Lake and Jones didn’t reveal new information on Friday’s outages beyond Jones noting that the six plants went down between noon and 4 p.m. that day.
   11. In the days and weeks before the plant failures, ERCOT had asked several energy companies to delay their scheduled maintenance in order to keep up with the hotter-than-expected May weather. At least one of the plants that delayed its repairs broke down Friday, and industry officials say others did, too. …
   12. REFERENCE ARTICLE: Ahead of summer, regulators stress confidence in Texas power grid to meet record demand forecast; By Ben Thompson | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 5:41 PM May 17, 2022 CDT | Updated 5:41 PM May 17, 2022 CDT [SEE GRAPH]
       1. … ERCOT’s summer resource report highlighted the state’s economic growth as a contributor to a forecast for peak demand that could pass the previous seasonal record by several percentage points.
       2. In the summer report, ERCOT stated it expects peak electricity demand this summer could reach 77,317 megawatts—more than 3% above the previous record set in 2019. To meet that demand, the grid operator said as much as 91,392 MW of resource capacity will be available across power suppliers, including natural gas, coal, solar, wind and nuclear facilities. According to ERCOT officials, 1 MW of electricity can power 200 homes on a hot day.
       3. “This grid is more reliable than it has ever been, and we’re going to continue improving reliability,” Lake said May 17.
       4. MIKE: In yielding to his temptation to use superlatives, Peter Lake both missed the irony of his statement and his error, since I’ve been in Houston over 40 years and it seems to me that the Texas grid is LESS reliable than it’s ever been. But maybe it’s just me.
       5. … ERCOT’s summer resource report highlighted the state’s economic growth as a contributor to a forecast for peak demand that could pass the previous seasonal record by several percentage points.
       6. In the summer report, ERCOT stated it expects peak electricity demand this summer could reach 77,317 megawatts—more than 3% above the previous record set in 2019. To meet that demand, the grid operator said as much as 91,392 MW of resource capacity will be available across power suppliers, including natural gas, coal, solar, wind and nuclear facilities. According to ERCOT officials, 1 MW of electricity can power 200 homes on a hot day.
       7. “This grid is more reliable than it has ever been, and we’re going to continue improving reliability,” Lake said May 17.
       8. MIKE: In yielding to his temptation to use superlatives, Peter Lake both missed the irony of his statement and his error, since I’ve been in Houston over 40 years and it seems to me that the Texas grid is LESS reliable than it’s ever been. But maybe it’s just me.
       9. REFERENCE: Shelby Webb (@shelbywebb) tweeted at 11:59 AM on Mon, May 09, 2022: This is wild. Wholesale power prices have spiked in the Houston region, north of $317 per megawatt hour. But less than three hours away in Calhoun County (where there’s a lot of wind power), prices are NEGATIVE $883 https://t.co/JUQZIPgiyP  (https://twitter.com/shelbywebb/status/1523709326556385285?t=I2npP-pQpQeAcH2aJRNXRA&s=03)
5. Duwamish Tribe Prepares to Sue Federal Government to Secure Tribal Sovereignty; By Kelsey Turner | NATIVENEWSONLINE.NET | May 10, 2022
   1. The Duwamish Tribe has lived in the Seattle area since time immemorial. Though the tribe signed the Treaty of Point Elliott in 1855 creating a government-to-government relationship with the U.S., it is still not federally recognized. This week, the Duwamish Tribe plans to file a lawsuit against the U.S. federal government to defend its tribal sovereignty.
   2. “From 1859, when the Treaty of Point Elliott was ratified, until at least 2001, Congress and other federal authorities have unambiguously recognized the Duwamish Tribe,” the Tribe wrote in a media advisory Tuesday. “Yet, today, the U.S. Department of Interior refuses to officially recognize the Duwamish Tribe in violation of the U.S. Constitution and other federal laws.”
   3. The lawsuit will be filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. …
   4. Over 100,000 people have signed the Duwamish Tribe’s petition for federal recognition. …
   5. MIKE: Treaties are part of national law. Everyone deserves equal treatment and protection under the law.
   6. REFERENCES: In 1868, Two Nations Made a Treaty, the U.S. Broke It and Plains Indian Tribes are Still Seeking Justice – Smithsonian Magazine
   7. REFERENCES: American Indian Treaties — U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
6. The Supreme Court green-lights political corruption — again; By the Editorial Board | WASHINGTONPOST.COM/OPINIONS | May 17, 2022 at 3:28 p.m. EDT
   1. The Supreme Court sided with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) on Monday in the conservative majority’s latest assault on the laws meant to fight political corruption. Their decision will enable campaign donors to funnel money into candidates’ personal bank accounts, revealing stunning indifference to the corrosive effects this could have on how the nation is governed and public confidence in those doing the governing.
   2. The court opinion, written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., concerns when and how candidates may be repaid for personal loans they make to their campaigns. Federal rules previously barred candidates from taking more than $250,000 in repayment from their campaigns if that money came from donations made after Election Day. The logic is obvious [as Justice Elena Kagan explained in a dissent.] “Political contributions that will line a candidate’s own pockets, given after his election to office, pose a special danger of corruption. The candidate has a more-than-usual interest in obtaining the money (to replenish his personal finances), and is now in a position to give something in return. The donors well understand his situation, and are eager to take advantage of it. In short, everyone’s incentives are stacked to enhance the risk of dirty dealing.”
   3. If anything [the editorial says], the rules, permitting a quarter-million dollars in post-election repayments, were too weak.
   4. Chief Justice Roberts dismissed such concerns, arguing that the regulations burden candidates funding their own campaigns and, therefore, their First Amendment rights. In fact, the rules that the court struck down limited the extent to which donors — not candidates — could help. Candidates have been free to spend as much of their personal wealth as they liked on their political careers; they just could not expect that others would pay them back for it.
   5. Chief Justice Roberts argued that “we are talking about repayment of a loan, not a gift,” emphasizing that the donations merely “restore the candidate to the status quo ante.” This reasoning is either naive or cynical. Making someone whole and simply handing them money are economically equivalent. Either way, a politician is obtaining direct financial benefits from a donor.
   6. Not to worry, the chief justice argued. Federal law — for the moment — prohibits donors from contributing more than $2,900 to a campaign, so the risk of corruption is still limited. In the real world, $2,900 going into a personal bank account is not negligible. And big fundraisers who “bundle” contributions from others have become very adept at raising legally far larger sums for candidates, as well as making it clear whom those candidates owe.
   7. Congress passed a landmark campaign finance law in 2002, after decades of declining trust in government. Supreme Court conservatives have steadily dismantled it, relying on a tenuous conflation of money with speech. Monday’s ruling is another chapter in this sorry tale, the moral of which is: When big donors pick up the tab for a candidate, it is the public that usually pays.
   8. MIKE: For those interested, the individuals who make up the Post editorial board for this piece are listed at the bottom of the article.
7. MIKE: In this next block of stories, we’ll talk about the Equal Rights Amendment and how it might relate to Roe v. Wade. The legal outcomes around the ERA will obviously impact women’s healthcare, but how?
8. ERA Resolution text – (Full Article) ORG:
   1. “Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
   2. “ 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
   3. “ 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.”
9. 50 years ago sex equality seemed destined for the Constitution. What happened?; By Elizabeth Blair | NPR.ORG | March 22, 2022, 3:25 PM ET
   1. Fifty years ago … , the U.S. Senate passed the Equal Rights Amendment, following the lead of the House of Representatives, and paving the way for it to become the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
   2. Yet the ERA was never added to the Constitution – because Congress also set a deadline. It said … 3/4 of the states, had to ratify the proposed amendment by 1979. It later extended the deadline to 1982. So when in 2020, Virginia became the final state needed to ratify the ERA, it was almost 40 years too late.
   3. Or was it? …
   4. Even with the Virginia vote two years ago, victory may be a long way off. Five states have tried to rescind their ratification, though it’s not clear from the Constitution if this is possible. There are people suing to push the ERA through, and those pushing to have it blocked. The Trump Justice Department advised that because the deadline had passed, Congress needed to go back to the drawing board. But last year, the House passed a joint resolution to remove the deadline, which President Joe Biden says he supports.
   5. As written, the proposed Equal Rights Amendment is a pretty simple idea. Alice Paul, an American Quaker suffragist, first introduced the ERA to Congress in 1923. She rewrote the text in 1943 and the language remains to this day: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”
   6. But discrimination continued. Until 1974, banks made it tough for women to get credit cards. Until 1978, being pregnant could get you fired. …
   7. Kim Forde-Mazrui, director of the Center for the Study of Race and Law at the University of Virginia, takes [the view] that the Supreme Court’s use of strict scrutiny, based on its reading of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, leads to a kind of “color-blindness” that ignores historic and systemic racism.
   8. “The Supreme Court’s rule that race should generally be ignored has actually prevented policies that could help to reduce the racial gap,” he said.
   9. He added that the ERA, as currently written, could cause the Supreme Court to treat sex the same way, with a kind of “sex-blindness,” he said, “prohibiting policies that are intentionally designed to open up opportunities for women.”
   10. REFERENCE: The History of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) – ALICEPAUL.ORG
10. Will the Supreme Court strike down the Equal Rights Amendment?; by Richard Albert, Opinion Contributor | THEHILL.COM/OPINION | 03/22/22 2:00 PM ET
    1. … In the 40 years since the expiration of the ratification deadline in 1982, three additional states have ratified the ERA: Nevada in 2017, Illinois in 2018 and Virginia in 2020.
    2. Proponents now argue that the ERA has been duly ratified by the 38 states required for officialdom and that it should be properly recognized as a valid amendment to the Constitution. Opponents, on the other hand, argue that the original ratification deadline must stand and that the three post-1982 ratifications are legally invalid. Who is right? 
    3. The Supreme Court may ultimately have to rule whether the ERA is now the 28th Amendment. There are many questions of constitutional law to resolve, and only the Court can resolve them authoritatively.
    4. Does an amendment proposal ever expire? The text of the original Constitution is silent on how quickly states must ratify an amendment proposal. But what if Congress imposes a ratification deadline? Does that congressional action trump constitutional silence? And are states bound by the deadline? These are key questions today at the center of the battle over the ratification of the ERA.
    5. A second set of questions concerns whether a state can revoke its earlier ratification. In the years since the ERA was proposed in 1972, a handful of states have revoked their prior ratification of the amendment. If these states can legally rescind their prior ratification, fewer than 38 states have validly ratified the ERA. The question for the Court, then, will be whether a state may ratify an amendment and then revoke that ratification before the amendment becomes official. The Constitution is silent on this point, too.
    6. These questions will confront the Supreme Court with an extraordinary question: Can a constitutional amendment be unconstitutional? 
    7. The Court could well choose to punt the ball, declining to hear the case because of the political question doctrine, which advises federal courts against hearing disputes that are best resolved in the political process. 
    8. Yet the Court could alternatively hear the case and limit its final judgment to narrow procedural grounds about what amounts to proper or improper rescission and ratification of an amendment. 
    9. The Court has never struck down an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But the procedural irregularities surrounding the ERA could ultimately give the Court reason to do it for the first time.
    10. MIKE: So, how might a formal ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment affect the Roe v Wade case? Should Congress try to pass a new proposed amendment with different wording that might be a more effective tool for women’s rights generally, or abortion rights specifically?
11. A CAUTIONARY TALE: El Salvador: woman sentenced to 30 years in prison for homicide after miscarriage; Activists say case offers a stark warning to women in the US, where the supreme court is considering overturning Roe v Wade. Staff and agencies in San Salvador | THEGUARDIAN.COM | Tue 10 May 2022 18.39 EDT, Last modified on Wed 11 May 2022 12.24 EDT
    1. A court in El Salvador has sentenced a woman who suffered a miscarriage to 30 years in prison for aggravated homicide, in a case which activists said offers a stark warning to women in the United States, where the supreme court is considering overturning a key ruling which legalized abortion.
    2. The woman, identified only as “Esme”, was sentenced on Monday, after nearly two years under pre-trial detention, following her arrest when she sought medical care in a public hospital. …
    3. Paula Avila-Guillen, international human rights lawyer and executive director of the Women’s Equality Center, … warned that as the United States faces the possible overturning of Roe v Wade – the 1973 supreme court ruling that effectively legalised abortion – similar cases will become more common across the world. …
    4. El Salvador has some of the world’s most draconian abortion laws, with a total ban on the procedure. Unlike in many other Latin American countries, El Salvador does not permit abortion in cases where the child is conceived by rape or incest, or where the health of the mother or child is at risk.
    5. Over the past two decades, more than 180 women have been jailed for murder for having an abortion after suffering obstetric emergencies, according to rights groups.
    6. Since December, eight women serving long prison sentences have had those sentences commuted.
    7. MIKE: How might a formal ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment affect the Roe v Wade case?
12. S. sues to compel casino mogul Steve Wynn to register as agent of China; By Isaac Stanley-Becker and Spencer S. Hsu | WASHINGTONPOST.COM | Updated May 17, 2022 at 8:15 p.m. EDT, Published May 17, 2022 at 6:16 p.m. EDT
    1. The Justice Department on Tuesday sued Steve Wynn to compel the hotel and casino magnate and Republican megadonor to register as an agent of China.
    2. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in D.C., argues that Wynn, former chief executive of Wynn Resorts, leveraged his relationship with President Donald Trump and members of his administration to advance Beijing’s interests in 2017. The government said the complaint is the first affirmative civil lawsuit under the Foreign Agents Registration Act in more than 30 years — a sign of stepped-up enforcement efforts under the 1983 law.
    3. Wynn, a former finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, is accused of relaying a request from a senior Chinese official asking that the Trump administration remove a Chinese national who had sought asylum in the United States. His activities, prosecutors assert in the lawsuit, included discussing Beijing’s interests directly with Trump during a dinner in June 2017 and providing the Chinese national’s passport photos to the president’s secretary. Wynn, the government argues, was acting at the behest of the Chinese official, Sun Lijun, then-vice minister for public security, as well as of the Chinese government itself.
    4. “In so doing, from at least June 2017 through at least August 2017, the Defendant acted as an agent for foreign principals Sun and the PRC [People’s Republic of China] and engaged in political activities on their behalf in the United States,” the complaint states. …
    5. At the time, Wynn had significant business interests involving China, owning and operating casinos in Macao, and acted out of a desire to protect his business interests, the Justice Department alleged. …
    6. Wynn was advised three times, beginning in 2018 and finally last month, to register under FARA but declined to do so, according to the complaint. …
    7. The Justice Department has said Wynn was approached to work with China by longtime GOP and Trump fundraiser Elliott Broidy, who worked under Wynn as deputy RNC finance chairman after Trump’s 2016 election as president. Broidy pleaded guilty in October 2020 to acting as an unregistered foreign agent, admitting to accepting millions of dollars to secretly lobby the Trump administration for Malaysian and Chinese interests. Broidy agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for a recommendation of leniency at sentencing and to forfeit $6.6 million, and to forfeit $6.6 million, but was granted a full pardon by Trump the day before he left office in Jan. 2021. …
13. 1. Russia Ducks Blame for Blowing Up Global Food Chains; By Nisan Ahmado | POLYGRAPH.INFO | Apr 19, 2022 (info is a fact-checking website produced by Voice of America (VOA)​)
       1. On April 14, the United Nations Security Council held a meeting on the political and humanitarian situation in war-torn Yemen.
       2. During the meeting, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield cited Russia’s “war of choice in Ukraine” as the main reason why wheat prices in Yemen are rising, worsening the dire humanitarian situation in the country. She said Yemen is one of the countries most vulnerable to rising wheat prices.
       3. But Dmitry Polyansky, Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador, responded by trying to shift blame onto Western countries and the sanctions they have imposed on Russia. He said those countries must recognize their responsibility for causing the crisis in the financial and food markets.
       4. “The main factor for instability and the source of the problem today is not the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, but sanctions measures imposed on our country seeking to cut off any supplies from Russia and the supply chain,” Polyansky said.
       5. That is misleading. …
       6. In fact, Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian ports is preventing food shipments from reaching the world. Some ready-to-ship crops stored on docked ships could spoil, worsening the impact Russia’s war is having on Ukrainian farmers’ ability to raise wheat and other crops.
       7. The U.N. meeting on Yemen came a day after a N. Global Crisis Response Group on Food, Energy, and Finance, created following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, issued its first report. …
       8. Millions of people in developing countries depend on Ukraine’s wheat harvest. They include countries like Egypt, Lebanon and Yemen. …
       9. On April 15, Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Mykola Solskyi said up to 1.25 million tons of grain and oilseed being carried on 57 vessels could rot because of the Russian blockade.
       10. Those vessels are among the scores of ships that have been stuck near Ukraine’s seaports for two months since Russia invaded. …
       11. Ukraine and Russia together produce 30 percent of the world’s traded wheat and 12 percent of its calories, National Geographic reported. Without Ukrainian and Russian food exports, the world could see a wave of instability similar to the 2012 Arab Spring. …
       12. Since Russia’s attack began, U.S. and European Union governments imposed waves of sweeping economic sanctions on Russia. Moscow has been blaming those sanctions for causing the food crisis, and Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to limit food exports to “unfriendly countries.”
       13. On March 22, … an analysis published by the Atlantic Council, a Washington D.C.-based think tank, [said] that although food is not sanctioned, and wheat production has not ceased due to logistical disruption, merchants and banks are refraining from doing business with Russia, fearing fines by governments.
       14. In addition, because of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, war-risk insurance rates jumped at least 400 percent for ships navigating the Black Sea, which dramatically raises the cost of trading with Russia. …
       15. On top of everything else, soaring fertilizer prices have forced farmers around the world to adjust by limiting cultivation. In 2020, Russia and Belarus accounted for more than 20% of the world’s fertilizer exports.
       16. On March 11, the World Food Program warned that 2022 could be a year of “catastrophic hunger,” as Ukraine is a major supplier of food to the group.
       17. MIKE: In a way, the current food insecurities remind a little of the trade wars of the 1930s, except instead of trade war, what we’re seeing is more like each nation looking out its own food security.
       18. REFERENCE: Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act, 1930 — From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia