Now in our 12th year on KPFT!

FYI: WordPress is forcing me to work with a new type of editor, so things will look … different … for a while. I’m hoping I’ll improve with a learning curve. Please bear with me, and let me know of any odd glitches you see that I may not, so I can try to fix them. — Mike

Beginning April 20th, Thinkwing Radio will air on KPFT 90.1-HD2 on Sundays at 1PM, and will re-air on Mondays at 2PM and Wednesdays at 11AM. Thanks for listening!

AUDIO: 

Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio) is now on Sundays at 1PM and re-runs Wednesday at 11AM (CT) on KPFT 90.1 FM-HD2, Houston’s Community Media. You can also hear the show:

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1. Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig on KPFT Houston at 90.1-HD2, Galveston 89.5-HD2, and Huntsville 91.9-HD2. KPFT is Houston’s Community Media. On this show, we discuss local, state, national, and international stories that may have slipped under your radar. At my website, THINKWINGRADIO-dot-COM, I link to all the articles I read and cite, as well as other relevant sources. Articles and commentaries often include lots of internet links for those of you who want to dig deeper.

   This begins the third week of Trump’s military occupation of Los Angeles.

   1. First up in Houston news — Heart transplant without opening the chest? Texas doctors just did it.; By Brammhi Balarajan, Trending News Reporter | CHRON.COM | June 17, 2025. TAGS: Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center, Houston, Heart Transplants, Robotic Surgeons,
      1. In a groundbreaking moment for American medicine, surgeons at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center have completed the first fully robotic heart transplant ever performed in the United States.
      2. In order to complete the transplant, the lead surgeon, Dr. Kenneth Liao, used small incisions and implanted the heart through the preperitoneal space. Through this approach, the surgery team was able to avoid the need to open the chest. 
      3. “Opening the chest and spreading the breastbone can affect wound healing and delay rehabilitation and prolong the patient’s recovery, especially in heart transplant patients who take immunosuppressants,” Liao said in a press release. “With the robotic approach, we preserve the integrity of the chest wall, which reduces the risk of infection and helps with early mobility, respiratory function and overall recovery.”
      4. The 45-year-old patient had been hospitalized with advanced heart failure since November 2024. The patient underwent the surgery in March and was discharged a month later without reporting any complications. 
      5. Robotic heart transplants have numerous benefits over traditional open-heart surgery, including minimizing excessive bleeding and reducing the need for blood transfusions. 
      6. “This transplant shows what is possible when innovation and surgical experience come together to improve patient care. Our goal is to offer patients the safest, most effective and least invasive procedures, and robotic technology allows us to do that in extraordinary ways,” Liao said in a press release. 
      7. Surgeons at a hospital in Saudi Arabia drew global attention in 2024 for completing the world’s first fully robotic heart transplant on a 16-year-old patient experiencing end-stage heart failure. 
      8. MIKE: This is a remarkable achievement, almost into the realm of science fiction. And it naturally has future implications for all sorts of surgeries, from the very complex to the so-called “routine” surgeries, although there’s actually no such thing since all surgery comes with risks.
      9. MIKE: But the potential advantages in speedier recovery, less pain and shorter hospital stays could be revolutionary.
      10. MIKE: This will be an interesting technology to follow over the next few years.
   2. Next from KHOU — Houston mayor directs $50M in federal disaster relief toward housing after original plan left it out; Author: Stephen Goin | KHOU.COM | Published: 2:14 PM CDT June 17, 2025/Updated: 5:39 PM CDT June 17, 2025. TAGS: Mayor John Whitmire, Houston City Council, Housing, Federal Disaster Aid,
      1. After weeks of public concern, Mayor John Whitmire has directed $50 million in federal disaster aid toward housing repairs and construction following last year’s severe weather.
      2. The change was announced Tuesday morning during a Houston City Council meeting, marking the first major revision to the city’s proposed plan for how to spend $315 million in federal aid tied to the May 2024 derecho and Hurricane Beryl.
      3. [The mayor said,] “The idea that John Whitmire or anyone on his team would not make home repairs a priority, would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious.”
      4. [MIKE: I’ll interject here that the situation being laughable is provably untrue. Last week, no one was laughing. Continuing …]
      5. The original proposal faced sharp backlash from housing advocates for allocating no money for housing needs. Much of the plan had instead focused on city infrastructure, including generators for public facilities and investments in law enforcement.
      6. However, the mayor noted that “conditions had changed,” including the city’s reduced need for police vehicles, as state plans to provide Houston with 200 police vehicles if the state budget passes, according to Whitmire.
      7. [MIKE: Yeah, I doubt that since last week, the city’s need for new police vehicles has changed. Again, continuing …]
      8. On Tuesday, Housing Director Mike Nichols told KHOU 11 that a majority of the $50 million allocation for housing relief would go toward reconstruction and repairs, with some set aside for multifamily housing and “hopefully” new construction.
      9. [Nichols said,] “There’s always room for change, and this was changed. The housing department supports this 100%. I think it’s a terrific response to the public.”
      10. He added that the new allocation balances urgent disaster readiness with long-term housing recovery. When asked why housing was not included earlier in the plan, Nichols pointed to infrastructure gaps that became apparent after Hurricane Beryl.
      11. Nichols said,] “We had no generators at multiservice centers. We had no generators at our public works and water and sewage facilities. That’s the need that we must fulfill quickly before the next disaster.”
      12. Nichols said actual disbursement of funds to residents could begin sometime in 2026 after contractors are selected to do the work.
      13. The city’s proposal will be finalized in July. A final virtual community meeting [was] scheduled for 5:30 pm Tuesday evening. Houston residents can also submit feedback through an online survey.
      14. MIKE: I discussed this very issue on the show just last week.
      15. MIKE: I haven’t said this in so many words for quite a while, but remember: “You get the government you pay for.”
      16. MIKE: So I’ll also say this again: Mayor Whitmire should take the option of a one-time property tax increase to close the budget gap instead of all this fiscal juggling and gaslighting that amounts to robbing Peter to pay Paul.
      17. MIKE: And as long as I seem to be repeating myself, I’ll say again what I said just last week: A tax increase will allow the city to pay both Peter and
      18. MIKE: Instead, Whitmire is determined to be the best Republican budgeter he can be, living on the fiction that you can always do more with less. But that must inevitably lead to trying to do everything with nothing.
      19. MIKE: At some point, government must concede that you can only do more with more. But I doubt Mayor Whitmire will listen to me.
   3. Harris County ends Guaranteed Income Program following Texas Supreme Court intervention; By STEFANIE THOMAS | THELEADERNEWS.COM | Jun 17, 2025 Updated Jun 17, 2025. TAGS: Texas Supreme Court, Harris County Commissioners Court, Community Prosperity Program, Uplift Harris,
      1. After months of legal battles and a final halt from the Texas Supreme Court, Harris County Commissioners Court has voted to end its Community Prosperity Program—formerly known as Uplift Harris—a guaranteed income initiative intended to provide monthly assistance to thousands of low-income families. The decision, finalized in a vote on Thursday, reallocates remaining funds to emergency rental assistance, homelessness programs, and food and nutrition services.
      2. The now-defunct program was designed to provide $500 monthly payments over 18 months to as many as 1,900 households in the county’s ten highest-poverty ZIP codes. It was created to address economic inequality and help families afford basic needs like food, rent, medicine, and childcare. The initiative was championed by Commissioner Rodney Ellis and gained broad attention when more than 59,000 households applied in the first week of its launch in January 2024.
      3. [Ellis said during a press conference,] “This is not a great day. Unfortunately, [recipients] will not receive that support.” He emphasized that guaranteed income is not a radical concept, citing historical support from both civil rights leaders and economists. “Voices across the political spectrum—from Dr. Martin Luther King to Milton Friedman—have advocated for guaranteed income as an effective anti-poverty solution.”
      4. The program’s downfall, however, came after the Texas Attorney General sued the county, arguing that the payments constituted unconstitutional “gifts” of public money. In June 2024, the Texas Supreme Court granted a motion from the state to prohibit all payments under the program while litigation continued. In its opinion, the Court stated that “serious doubt” had been raised about the constitutionality of Uplift Harris.
      5. [Justice James Blacklock wrote in the June 14 ruling,] “The State has raised serious doubt that the Uplift Harris program can satisfy the ‘public control’ requirement of this Court’s Gift Clause precedent.” The Court pointed to the program’s “no strings attached” nature, expressing concern that funds would be distributed without sufficient oversight or guarantees they would serve a public purpose.
      6. Unlike programs such as food stamps or housing vouchers, the justices noted that Uplift Harris lacked mechanisms to monitor how funds were spent after disbursement. [The ruling said,] “It appears there will be no public control over the funds after they are disbursed. For all practical purposes, there truly are ‘no strings attached,’ and we are directed to no precedent indicating that a government in Texas may make such payments without running afoul of our Constitution’s restrictions.”
      7. [MIKE: It belatedly occurs to me that if the funds were provided with a county debit card, and if transactions could be itemized on that card, that might fulfill the State’s constitutional requirement, but maybe I’m underestimating the technical challenge of doing that. Continuing …]
      8. County Attorney Christian Menefee called the lawsuit a political attack. [Menefee said,] “We have seen the state of Texas time and time again step in and target only Harris County. This wasn’t about the law. This was about who the money was intended to help — working-class, predominantly Black and Brown families.”
      9. The legal setback leaves many would-be recipients in limbo, including Robert Holly, a homeless resident who had been accepted into the program. [Holly said,] “I felt good about getting it, but I never got anything. I do feel sorry for the families…mothers with children who could have used this to get things uplifted in their lives.”
      10. Faye Ku, community organizer and Chair of Economic Justice at the Houston Peace and Justice Center, spoke at the press conference, condemning the decision as part of a broader pattern of inequity. [Ku said,] “This program never got the chance to begin. What blocked it wasn’t economics or public opinion — it was politics.”
      11. She pointed to a longstanding double standard, where public funds are readily granted to corporations but withheld from struggling families. [Ku said,] “We need to make Texas a place where economic security is not the exception, but the expectation.”
      12. Despite the program’s end, Commissioner Ellis said the county would continue to push for solutions to poverty. [He said,] “This is a setback, but I will not stop creating economic opportunity in Harris County. To the 1,500 or 1,900 people who were selected and won’t get the $500, I hope you’ll find 500 people you know and make sure they exercise their right to vote.”
      13. The funds from the defunct program will now support housing, food, and emergency services — areas still facing high need. However, as Ellis and others pointed out, this type of federal funding — originally from the American Rescue Plan Act — may not be available again. [Ellis said,] “The money won’t be there. But the need will remain.”
      14. MIKE: This is another example of Republican hypocrisy. Not about reluctance to help those in need — Republicans have a long history of placing businesses, corporations, and the rich above ordinary people — but about the sanctity of local governance.
      15. MIKE: I’m old enough to remember that when Democrats were in power in the 20^th century, Republicans were all about local control. They always strenuously objected to any rules or regulations affecting state or local community governing.
      16. MIKE: Now that Republicans are in control at the federal and state levels, Republicans are following an almost totalitarian playbook. At the federal level, they’re regulating and limiting personal freedoms through legislation, rule-making, and legal actions.
      17. MIKE: Our proto-fascist Texas state government is attacking any local laws and regulations that don’t conform to current Republican fascist social and fiscal ideals.
      18. MIKE: Texas’s largest cities are mostly controlled by Democrats, and the Texas legislature is constantly passing laws and constitutional amendment propositions that seek to limit the freedom of those cities in clear partisan attacks and in ruthless advancement of Rightwing social goals.
      19. MIKE: Harris County has been a particular target of those efforts, especially since Harris County’s Commissioners Court has passed to Democratic rule.
      20. The Texas 2025 ballot may include up to 17 ballot propositions. You can preview them at the Ballotpedia link I’m including in this show post.
      21. MIKE: I’ll be weighing in on these propositions as we get closer to the November elections, probably in early October. They are all proposed as amendments to the Texas Constitution, and all or most of them should actually be state legislation instead. In other words, I’ll probably recommend voting against most of them
   4. ‘Justice delayed is justice denied’: Harris County awaits 5 additional district courts from Legislature; By Melissa Enaje | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 3:01 PM Jun 17, 2025 CDT/Updated 3:01 PM Jun 17, 2025 CDT. TAGS: Harris County, Latosha Lewis Payne, Harris County District Courts, Fort Bend County, Brazoria County,
      1. Harris County is one step closer to receiving five additional district courts from the 89th Texas Legislature, a move that would address what judicial officials are calling a significant uptick in civil case filings. Latosha Lewis Payne, Harris County District Courts administrative judge, said in a June news release that the new courts are a game changer for the judiciary and the community.
      2. [Payne said,] “For years, our judges have carried overwhelming caseloads, working to ensure justice is served. These new courts will help balance that workload, reduce delays and allow us to give each case the time and attention it deserves. Most importantly, it means Harris County residents and businesses will see more efficient resolution of their civil disputes, a faster return to normalcy.”
      3. … As of June 17, Senate Bill 2878 is pending a signature from Gov. Greg Abbott to make it law. The bill was sent to the governor’s office June 3, according to the Texas Legislature bill filing. Once Abbott signs the bill, the plan would be a two-year process, according to the Harris County District Courts office, including: Adding three civil district courts in 2025; [and] Adding two civil district courts in 2026
      4. The bill would also add two additional district courts for Fort Bend County and one for Brazoria County, areas also seeing an increased number of cases, as previously reported in Community Impact.
      5. [Harris County Precinct 4 Commissioner Lesley Briones said in an email,] “As a lawyer and former judge, I know that justice delayed is justice denied. The establishment of five new civil district courts will help alleviate current caseloads and reduce the time needed to resolve cases. With increased efficiency, we will better ensure the fair, quality and timely delivery of justice that everyone deserves.”
      6. … Officials from the Harris County Administration Office did not have a comment but said in an email that at least $3 million in costs associated with the new courts were included in the county’s fiscal year 2025-26 budget forecast.
      7. MIKE: This is a good thing.
      8. MIKE: Justice delayed is indeed justice denied. Just look what delayed justice has meant for the United States government. Our whole nation is now suffering from the consequences of justice delayed and ultimately denied.
   5. Harris County commissioners postpone wage increase policy for contract workers; By Melissa Enaje | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 5:23 PM Jun 16, 2025 CDT/Updated 5:23 PM Jun 16, 2025 CDT. TAGS: Harris County, Contract Workers, Minimum Wage, Houston Contractors Association
      1. Harris County contract workers will have to wait until at least October for the higher minimum wage policy to take effect instead of this summer after Harris County commissioners unanimously approved pushing the implementation dates back on June 12 to ensure what they’re calling a “smooth and successful” transition.
      2. The county’s employee minimum wage policy of at least $20 per hour and $21.64 per hour for contractors was originally passed March 27 and was expected to begin in the summer.
      3. … Officials with the Houston Contractors Association said in a statement they support moving the policy’s start date, but also have concerns about how this policy will affect civil construction projects and small subcontractors who are already facing what they called tight margins.
      4. [The statement reads,] “While delaying implementation will not solve those issues, it will provide more time to prepare and adjust. We’re always open to working with Harris County to ensure important infrastructure work gets done without putting too much strain on the contractors who help build it.”
      5. … The decision to move wage increases to October was suggested by commissioners in order to align with decisions surrounding the upcoming fiscal year 2025-26 budget.
      6. Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey said one of the issues with the new wage policy for contracted workers was confusion surrounding what is and isn’t covered by the wage, which he said, could cause issues with the county’s purchasing department.
      7. [Ramsey said,] “I do support that we lead in the area of wages, but I think it’s important also that we understand the impacts.”
      8. Ramsey said if the new wage policy is implemented, construction costs in the county will increase by 35%.
      9. [Ramsey said,] “When we implement on that certain date, we know and understand clearly what the consequences are and the unintended consequences.”
      10. … Precinct 4 Commissioner Lesley Briones said the county will collaborate with partners to execute the new minimum wage policy and retain what she called the best workers in the region.
      11. [Briones said,] “We should not have workers who are working on Harris County projects to have to work multiple jobs to pay rent, to buy groceries, to support their families. Your taxpayer dollars that are paying for these county projects, we want to make sure that the very same taxpayers are being able to live here in Harris County without undue burdens.”
      12. MIKE: I have to point out that Commissioner Ramsey is either ignorant of actual construction costs or he’s being deliberately misleading, possibly to create alarm over what he may be implying is massive County economic malfeasance due to Democratic governance.
      13. MIKE: It’s true that the wage increases amount to about 33% (not 35%). According to a previous Community Impact story, “from $15 an hour to at least $20 an hour” for County workers. I’m going to infer here that contract workers will be getting a raise of a similar percentage. But labor is only a portion of the cost of work or construction.
      14. MIKE: Costing includes all overhead such as rent, insurance, materials, energy, equipment, maintenance, and on, and on. Labor costs are only a fraction — perhaps a small fraction — of total costs.
      15. MIKE: So either Commissioner Ramsey mis-spoke, or he’s deliberately spreading misinformation for political reasons. If that’s the case, shame on Commissioner Ramsey.
      16. MIKE: But, you know … Republicans. If they can’t persuade you, they alarm you.
   6. Once again targeting higher ed, Texas lawmakers limited faculty influence, campus speech this session; By Jessica Priest and Sneha Dey | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | June 19, 2025@5 AM Central. TAGS: Texas, Republican Lawmakers, Education,
      1. Texas Republican lawmakers continued their carrot-and-stick approach to higher education during this year’s legislative session, pressuring public universities into abandoning what they view as progressive policies.
      2. As in 2023, they opened with threats to withhold hundreds of millions in funding unless universities aligned more closely with their conservative vision of higher education. In the end, lawmakers left that pool of money alone, but the pressure may help explain why university leaders held back from commenting publicly on some of the most controversial proposals brought forward this session.
      3. One new law will shift power away from faculty — who have often resisted GOP leaders’ recent efforts to push schools to the right — by giving governor-appointed university regents more control over curriculum and hiring. It will also create an office to monitor schools’ compliance with the new law and the existing ban on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, which could lead to funding cuts for schools found in violation.
      4. Lawmakers also responded to pro-Palestinian protests with bills that limit how students can express themselves on campus and require schools to use a definition of antisemitism in disciplinary proceedings. …
      5. About 1.4 million students are enrolled across Texas’s public higher education system in the fall of 2024. It comprises 36 universities, 50 community and junior college districts, one technical college system, and 14 health-related institutions.
      6. Here’s how new legislation approved this year will impact them.
      7. Political appointees will have more power — and faculty less — to shape curricula
      8. Senate Bill 37 could have a profound impact on how universities are run and what students can learn.
      9. The sweeping legislation gives public university systems’ boards of regents, which are appointed by the governor, new authority to approve or deny the hiring of top university administrators and reject courses that do not align with the state’s workforce demands.
      10. Traditionally, faculty senates have advised university administrators on academic matters and hiring decisions. But in recent years, some Republicans have increasingly criticized faculty members, viewing them as obstacles to their efforts to reshape higher education.
      11. SB 37 also creates an ombudsman’s office within the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. It will have the power to investigate complaints that universities and colleges aren’t following the new law or the state’s DEI ban, as well as recommend funding cuts for violators. Supporters say the office will bring needed accountability, while the American Association of University Professors contends that, without due process protections, it is ripe for abuse.
      12. [Brian Evans, president of the Texas Conference of the AAUP said in part,] “… SB 37 will put what we teach in the hands of political appointees rather than the hands of faculty who have studied these subjects and understand their nuance. The passage of SB 37 is a dark day for Texas colleges and universities, with many more to come.”
      13. The law also requires regents at each university system to decide by Sept. 1 whether their schools’ faculty senates can continue to operate. If allowed, the legislation requires that the bodies are capped at 60 members, and half of them must be appointed by administrators.
      14. … This session came in the wake of pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses across the nation and the start of President Donald Trump’s second term in the White House.
      15. Trump has said universities did not do enough to protect Jewish students during the protests, and Texas Republicans shared his concern.
      16. They passed legislation that will restrict protesting on campus, especially at night or in the last two weeks of a semester.
      17. … Senate Bill 2972 bars anyone who participates in a protest from using microphones or other amplification devices during class hours if it intimidates others, or interferes with campus operations or police work. They will also be prohibited from wearing disguises and erecting tents, and will have to identify themselves when asked by a university official or police.
      18. That bill is headed to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk, but the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression is urging him to veto it. The group told Abbott that the bill’s scope is so broad that it would prohibit students from wearing a Make America Great Again hat on campus between the hours of 10 p.m. and 8 a.m.
      19. Abbott, who called last year’s pro-Palestinian protests “hate filled,” has until June 22 to decide whether to veto the proposal; otherwise, it will become law. He has already signed into law Senate Bill 326, which requires that schools use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition and examples of antisemitism when considering disciplining a student.
      20. Free speech advocates say that definition and those examples conflate criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism.
      21. [MIKE: I’ll note here that even I criticize the Israeli government and I’m basically pro-Israel. Continuing …]
      22. … Lawmakers answered the call from Victoria residents to transfer a small college there from the University of Houston system to the Texas A&M system. Residents have pushed for this since at least 2011. …
      23. … Republican state lawmakers were less successful than the Trump administration in targeting international and undocumented students — at least legislatively. …
      24. [A] bill proposed this year sought to repeal a 2001 law that allows undocumented students who have lived for some time in Texas and promised to take steps toward becoming legal residents to pay in-state college tuition. The measure … stalled before a full vote.
      25. … Two days after the legislative session ended, the Trump administration sued Texas, claiming the policy discriminated against U.S. citizens. Texas did not defend its law in court and now as many as 19,000 students are facing higher tuition bills in the fall. …
      26. … Ultimately, the 2025 session mirrored 2023 in pairing threats to defund universities over DEI …
      27. Lawmakers opened the session by proposing to zero out the institutional enhancement fund, a $423 million line item from the last budget cycle. They argued universities remained “too [DEI] and leftist-focused.” …
      28. Universities have struggled to please anyone on the DEI front: Legislators claim the schools haven’t done enough to comply with the state’s DEI ban, while students and faculty say they’ve over-complied. …
      29. In the end, lawmakers restored the institutional enhancement fund but said future funding will be based on the universities’ performance.
      30. It is unclear what metrics lawmakers might consider implementing to evaluate ….
      31. The state has just five years to meet its goal of getting 60% of Texas adults a postsecondary degree or credential.
      32. MIKE: These are mostly examples of more attempted Republican Rightwing social and educational engineering, attempting to shape education and society in ways that comply with their extremist efforts at thought-control.
      33. MIKE: Definitionally speaking, some of these efforts reflect the authoritarian streak prevalent in Texas Republican circles, while others reflect the even more extreme totalitarian leanings among many Texas legislators.
      34. MIKE: Each time elections come around, remember that they have consequences. Voters can still shape the kind of state they want to live in, At least, so far.
   7. I’ve often discussed all the concerns I have about third parties running in elections in circumstances where I feel that they create problematic plurality results. I think that the mayoral election in New York City might be an example of the constructive ways that third parties can contribute to our politics and civic discussions. The following article is an opinion piece, but I think it makes some good points about Ranked Choice Voting, the new campaign strategies it encourages, and how it can create real electoral choices — OPINION-New York City might elect a truly progressive mayor – thanks to ranked-choice voting; By Katrina vanden Heuvel | THEGUARDIAN.COM | Wed 18 Jun 202521 EDT. TAGS: New York City, Opinion, US politics, Andrew Cuomo, Zohran Mamdani, Brad Lander, Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV),
      1. With a week left until New York’s Democratic mayoral primary [which is June 24^th], one might have thought that the former governor Andrew Cuomo would be measuring the drapes at Gracie Mansion. Real estate developers, corporations like Doordash, a smattering of billionaires and even Billy Joel have shoveled cash into his campaign, with his Super Pac spending more money than any other outside force in the city’s political history. This is on top of his entering the race with major name recognition advantage, amounting to a 20- or 30-point lead as recently as May.
      2. But according to a new poll, Zohran Mamdani – the insurgent state assemblyman and democratic socialist whom the Nation recently co-endorsed along with fellow mayoral candidate and New York City comptroller Brad Lander – has pulled ahead of Cuomo for the first time.
      3. And while Mamdani’s campaign deserves credit for offering a clear, inspiring, progressive message, the fact that he is competitive can also be partly credited to New York City’s ranked-choice voting (RCV) system. It’s a winning system for candidates who would otherwise be sidelined or would cannibalize each other’s support – and for voters who can finally cast their ballots based on policy rather than pragmatism.
      4. America’s politics have long been dominated (or diluted) by first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting. In it, citizens cast their ballot for one candidate, and whoever receives the most votes wins. Straightforward as it seems, this method forces an either/or choice, often resulting in voters deciding between the lesser of two evils. Not only does this reinforce a two-party duopoly in general elections, but it also incentivizes a binary choice between the two leading candidates in primaries.
      5. For the candidates themselves, the system encourages scorched-earth campaigns that divide parties and inflame the narcissism of small differences. The progressive senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren came into the 2020 Democratic presidential primary as allies with much more in common ideologically than their centrist opponents. But there was no electoral incentive for either of them to form an alliance with the other. Instead, they fought to consolidate a minority faction within the party, and got mired in a grisly and public The mudslinging did leave one person standing – Joe Biden.
      6. In contrast, RCV makes it possible for dark horse candidates to work together. After Mamdani’s campaign reached the fundraising limit, he urged his supporters to donate to a fellow anti-Cuomo candidate, Adrienne Adams. Adams, in turn, has maintained a focus on criticizing Cuomo, even deleting a tweet that was perceived as a swipe at Mamdani. These contenders are making it clear they truly believe – as the Nation’s editorial board wrote in our endorsement –[that] New Yorkers deserve better than Andrew Cuomo.
      7. Critics of ranked-choice voting argue it’s too confusing, but successful implementations of the system in other jurisdictions suggest otherwise. In Alaska’s 2022 congressional special election, the first statewide RCV election there, 85% of people who cast their ballots said they found the method to be simple. It also enabled the Democrat Mary Peltola to fend off an extremist challenge from Sarah Palin. Maine has also seen promising results from RCV, with 60% of its voters favoring the system. Cities like Minneapolis and Cambridge, Massachusetts, have enjoyed higher turnout after the implementation of RCV.
      8. But RCV is only as effective as its participants make it. Ahead of New York City’s mayoral primary in 2021, I wrote a column expressing high hopes for how the debut of RCV could reshape the city’s politics. But that race became chaotic for other reasons.
      9. Scott Stringer and Dianne Morales’s campaigns collapsed. Advocacy groups had to un-endorse and re-endorse – in some cases, multiple times. There was a progressive effort to coalesce around Maya Wiley, including a belated endorsement from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Meanwhile, pragmatists who felt Eric Adams and Andrew Yang lacked substance turned to the sanitation commissioner, Kathryn Garcia. If Wiley and Garcia had cross-endorsed, one of them might have defeated Adams. Instead, Adams won the primary in the final round by just over 7,000 votes.
      10. This time, the mayoral candidates seem to have learned. On Friday, Mamdani and Lander cross-endorsed each other, encouraging their supporters to rank the other second. Mamdani explained the decision with a refreshing mix of idealism and realism: “This is the necessary step to ensure that we’re not just serving our own campaigns – we’re serving the city at large.” This was followed by another cross-endorsement, between Mamdani and former assemblyman Michael Blake, on Monday. And the national progressive movement is much more united than it was in 2021, with both Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders endorsing Mamdani in the home stretch this time.
      11. By treating each other like allies rather than adversaries, the anti-Cuomo coalition might just prevail. If anything, it is the establishment wing of the New York Democratic party that is struggling to coalesce – as evinced by the New York Times’ non-endorsement endorsement that, if you squint, could be perceived as encouraging New Yorkers to support Cuomo, Lander, hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson, or flee the city.
      12. The Nation has a long history of covering New York’s mayoral races. Although no New York mayor has been elected to higher office since 1869 – just four years after the magazine was founded – the office has long held fascinating implications for American progressivism.
      13. Fiorello La Guardia, whom Mamdani and Lander have both named as the greatest mayor in the city’s history, took office at the height of the Great Depression and led the city through the second world war. Over 12 years of cascading crises, he transformed the city with a bold vision characterized by expanding public housing and public spaces, curbing corruption, and unflinchingly supporting the reforms of the New Deal.
      14. Now, nearly a century later, New Yorkers have an opportunity to bring the city into a new era once again. And ordinarily, making that kind of change possible would require making a tough choice. But if it happens this time, it will be because of a ranked choice.
      15. MIKE: It’s often said that third parties rarely win elections, but they do skew election results, and often, one of the two major parties often co-opt their ideas in their campaigns and administrations. For third party candidates, that can be a very frustrating reality.
      16. MIKE: Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) may make third-party candidates more competitive in ways that can actually help them win elections.
      17. MIKE: I’ve often expressed serious reservations about how third-party candidates can impact election results in harmful ways. I believe this is the case where you have runoff elections where third-party candidates squeeze out candidates who might have won in Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) scenarios.
      18. MIKE: There are also the cases where a winner is chosen based on a plurality vote because other candidates split the vote. As I often state, my poster boy for this scenario is Maine’s former governor Paul LePage.
      19. MIKE: LePage was a super-Trumpy candidate, with all the loveable personal and governance qualities that implies. In both elections, LePage won as governor by a plurality of the votes cast rather than a majority. The combined votes for his competitors, who were both more moderate, were the actual majority votes.
      20. MIKE: Maine now has Ranked Choice Voting. On Maine’s FAQ page for Ranked Choice Voting, which I have linked to in this show post, it’s explained thusly: “Ranked-choice voting, sometimes called “instant run-off voting,” allows voters to choose their candidates in order of preference, by marking candidates as their first, second, third, and subsequent choices. The votes are tabulated in rounds, with the lowest-ranked candidates eliminated in each round until there are only two candidates left. The one who is determined to have received the majority of the votes (more than 50%) in the final round is declared the winner. It is different from our previous method of voting, in which voters choose only one candidate for each office and the winner is determined by plurality (whoever gets the most votes).”
      21. MIKE: Personally, I don’t think a plurality winner ever really has a true governing mandate.
      22. MIKE: There are then answers to often-asked questions. One answer explains some important details about Maine’s RCV: “… At this time, based on statewide votes, [for] legal decisions and the provisions of the Maine Constitution, the State of Maine is using ranked-choice voting for all of Maine’s state-level primary elections [emphasis mine], and in general elections ONLY for federal offices, including the office of U.S. President. The ranked-choice rounds are used only in races in which there are more than two candidates.”
      23. MIKE: Due to a quirk in the Maine state Constitution, while party primaries use RCV, the Gubernatorial and state legislative races in general elections do not. There are efforts to amend Maine’s Constitution so that this issue is fixed.
      24. MIKE: Cities like New York and States like Maine offer real-world test cases for the benefits, complications, and outcomes of RCV, and thus give us an idea of whether RCV should be employed more widely throughout the country.
      25. MIKE: As a final observation, Maine has shown us that RCV can also be applied to federal elections. This could help to mitigate some problems with our electoral college system of choosing presidents.
      26. MIKE: States have repeatedly been ruled as having full authority for how they regulate federal elections in the absence of superseding federal rules. If all states were to implement Ranked Choice Voting for president, it would minimize or even eliminate the problem of third-party candidates — such as Jill Stein, Cornel West and Oliver Chase — acting as spoilers, resulting in electoral votes going to a plurality winner instead of a majority winner.
      27. MIKE: Ranked Choice Voting may be the future of America’s elections. If it works as envisioned, it might fix many of the problems we’ve had with the kinds of candidates being elected around the nation.
      28. MIKE: As an additional aside, RCV for federal elections isn’t the same as the solution proposed by the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, in which the 50 states and the District of Columbia “award all their electoral votes to whichever presidential ticket wins the overall popular vote in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.”
      29. MIKE: For the Compact to take effect, a combination of states with a majority of the electoral votes would have to pass legislation to put it into effect. According to Wikipedia, “as of May 2025, it was joined by seventeen states and the District of Columbia. They have 209 electoral votes, which is 39% of the Electoral College and 77% of the 270 votes needed to give the compact legal force.”
      30. MIKE: So the Compact has a ways to go before it take effect.
      31. MIKE: I think that national RCV elections and the Interstate Compact together would complement each other nicely, with each filling gaps that neither entirely closes.
      32. And I think that the two together just might save American democracy.
   8. Nippon Steel acquires US Steel for $14.9bn with ‘golden share’ for Trump; Reuters | THEGUARDIAN.COM | Wed 18 Jun 2025 @ 11.57 EDT. TAGS: US news, Steel industry, Donald Trump,
      14. Nippon Steel’s $14.9bn acquisition of US Steel closed on Wednesday, the companies said, confirming an unusual degree of power for the Trump administration after the Japanese company’s 18-month struggle to close the purchase.
      15. Under the deal terms, Nippon bought 100% of US Steel shares at $55 a share, as it first laid out in its December 2023 offer for the well-known and struggling steelmaker.
      16. A press release on the filing also discloses details of a national security agreement inked with the Trump administration, which gives Donald Trump the authority to name a board member as well as a non-economic golden share.
      17. Eiji Hashimoto, Nippon Steel’s chairman and CEO, thanked Trump for his role, adding that “Nippon Steel is excited about opening a new chapter of US Steel’s storied history”.
      18. The measures agreed to represent an unusual level of control conceded by the companies to the government to save the deal, after a rocky path to approval spurred by high-level political opposition.
      19. The golden share gives the US government veto authority over a raft of corporate decisions, from idling plants to cutting production capacity and moving jobs overseas, as previewed in a weekend social media post by the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick.
      20. The share also gives the government a veto over a potential relocation of US Steel’s headquarters from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a transfer of jobs overseas, a name change, and any potential future acquisition of a rival business, the release shows.
      21. The inclusion of the golden share to win approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, which scrutinizes foreign investment for national security risks, could drive overseas investors away from US companies, national security lawyers said on Monday.
      22. The acquisition will give US Steel $11bn … in investment through 2028, including $1bn for a new US mill that will increase by $3bn in later years, as first reported by Reuters.
      23. It will also allow Nippon Steel, the world’s fourth-largest steel company, to capitalize on a host of American infrastructure projects while its foreign competitors face steel tariffs of 50%. The Japanese firm also avoids the $565m in breakup fees it would have had to pay if the companies had failed to secure approvals.
      24. Nippon Steel said on Wednesday its annual crude steel production capacity was expected to reach 86m tons, bringing it closer to Nippon Steel’s global strategic goal of 100m tons of global crude steel production capacity.
      25. The deal’s closing was hardly guaranteed, though many investors saw approval as likely after Trump headlined a rally on 30 May giving his vague blessing to an “investment” by Nippon Steel, which he described as a “great partner”.
      26. After the United Steelworkers union came out against the deal last year, both then-president Joe Biden, a Democrat, and Trump, a Republican, expressed their opposition as they sought to woo voters in Pennsylvania, a key swing state, in the presidential election campaign.
      27. Shortly before leaving office in January, Biden blocked the deal on national security grounds, prompting lawsuits by the companies, which argued the national security review they received was biased. The Biden White House disputed the charge.
      28. The steel companies saw a new opportunity in the Trump administration, which opened a fresh 45-day national security review into the proposed merger in April.
      29. But Trump’s public comments, ranging from welcoming a simple “investment” in US Steel by the Japanese firm to floating a minority stake for Nippon Steel, spurred confusion.
      30. Trump’s 30 May rally spurred hopes approval, and sign-off finally came on Friday with an executive order giving the companies permission to combine if they signed an NSA giving the US government a golden share, which they did.
      31. MIKE: On last week’s show, I explicitly questioned whether this “Golden Share” was tantamount to socialism. That very question has now become a hot topic in Washington and many political circles across ideological lines.
      32. MIKE: I suspect that some individuals or groups will challenge this in court if they can establish legal “standing” to do so.
      33. MIKE: On that basis, for now, I can only say, “We’ll see.”
   9. Ohio GOP Rep. Warren Davidson says Trump’s bombing of Iran raises constitutional question; By Anthony Shoemaker, Cincinnati Enquirer | CINCINNATI.COM | June 21, 2025@ 10:38PM ET. TAGS: Ohio Republican Congressman Warren Davidson, Iranian nuclear sites, President Donald Trump, Iran, United States,
      21. Ohio Republican Congressman Warren Davidson questioned whether President Donald Trump’s decision to bomb Iranian nuclear sites was constitutional on June 21.
      22. [Davidson posted on X,] “While President Trump’s decision may prove just, it’s hard to conceive a rationale that’s Constitutional.”
      23. Davidson is a strong supporter of Trump, but has disagreed with the president before.
      24. In May, Davidson was one of two Republican members of Congress, along with Kentucky’s Thomas Massie, to vote against Trump’s so called “big beautiful bill.”
      25. When asked if Trump thinks someone should primary Davidson in 2026, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “I believe he does, and I don’t think he likes to see grandstanders in Congress.” …
      26. Davidson was elected to Congress in 2016 to replace former House Speaker John Boehner when he retired.
      27. MIKE: A reporter for the Washington post wrote, (By Andrew Jeong) — [Rhode Island] Sen. Jack Reed … , the ranking Democrat on the Senate’s Armed Services Committee, described the U.S. airstrikes on Iran as a massive gamble and said the United States must prepare for Iranian retaliation. “Congress needs to be briefed in a classified setting,” Reed added, before urging the Trump administration to pursue restraint. “It’s easier to start wars than end them.”
      28. MIKE: “It’s easier to start wars than end them.” Those are words we hear again and again, both when we engage in wars and also when others engage in wars.
      29. MIKE: I’m going to use these very short articles as entre’ into a larger discussion.
      30. MIKE: Just so younger listeners can get an idea of how long this idea of bombing Iran has been floating around Warhawk circles in this country, here’s a short audio recording from a 2007 John McCain Presidential campaign event. I’m embedding a link to the video clip that the audio comes from in this show post. [PLAY 42 SECOND AUDIO CLIP]
      31. MIKE: It’s essential to add historical context to Trump’s action, and what it means in the arc of the American military experience.
      32. MIKE: This isn’t a debate about whether a military action is right or wrong, or whether it’s smart or stupid. It’s a debate that’s been going on for over two centuries. It’s a fundamental discussion of Constitutional powers. The Constitution says that only Congress can declare war.
      33. MIKE: When I asked Google, “Where does it say in the Constitution that only Congress can declare war,” Google Ai summed up this Constitutional question — perhaps we can call it a political tension — nicely:
      34. MIKE/Ai: “The U.S. Constitution, specifically Article I, Section 8, states that Congress has the power to declare war … This clause grants Congress the exclusive power to initiate hostilities. The Constitution also gives Congress the power to raise and support armies, provide and maintain a navy, and make rules concerning captures on land and water.
      35. MIKE/Ai: Ai specifically cites: “The relevant text from Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 is: ‘The Congress shall have Power … To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water.’”
      36. MIKE/Ai: “This power is specifically given to Congress to prevent the President from unilaterally engaging the nation in war. The President, as Commander-in-Chief, is given the power to direct the military after a declaration of war. While the President has engaged in military actions without a formal declaration of war, those actions are not considered official wars by the United States.”
      37. MIKE/Ai: On the other hand, also according to Google Ai, when I asked, “Where does it say in the Constitution that the president is the Commander-in-Chief,” Ai says: “The U.S. Constitution, in Article II, Section 2, Clause 1, designates the President as the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several states when called into the actual service of the United States. This clause outlines the President’s authority over the military and armed forces.”
      38. MIKE: The question of what the president’s powers are to send the US into a war situation has been a hot topic since at least 1950 when Truman involved us in the Korean War, but it’s been a Constitutional question going back far longer.
      39. MIKE: Over the last couple of centuries, this question of war-making primacy has come up repeatedly. When asking Google the question, “When has the US engaged in military actions without a declaration of war?” I was referred to a useful Wikipedia page called, “Undeclared war” where I excerpted this line: “On at least 125 occasions, a US president has employed military forces without authorization from Congress.^[6]” (The link is in this show post.)
      40. MIKE: From a variety of sources including my recollections, these have included the Quasi-War (1798-1800) against France (and that’s the first I’ve heard of this one); the First and Second Barbary Wars in the early 19th century; the Punitive Expedition Against Pancho Villa in Mexico (1916–17); the American Expeditionary Force to Siberia after the Communist takeover of Russia (1918–1920); and Reagan’s Operation Urgent Fury in Grenada (1983, which was significant as the first US foreign military action since America’s Vietnam War experience).
      41. MIKE: Over the centuries, there have also been multiple interventions in other places including (but not limited to) Central America, the Caribbean, and elsewhere under the premise of the Monroe Doctrine that the Americas are the US’s exclusive sphere of influence.
      42. MIKE: Congress has sometimes given the president authorization to go to war in legislation that is short of an actual declaration. The US hasn’t formally declared war on any nation since 1942, which is astonishing when you think about it.
      43. MIKE: Young people and recent immigrants to this country are often amazed when I tell them that the US has had periods of a “peacetime army”. Anyone born after about 1985 can’t even imagine such a thing. That’s how long — a period of about 40 years — that the US has been engaged in one military conflict or another, almost continuously.
      44. MIKE: Getting back to the initial point, since Congress has the ultimate Constitutional power to engage the US in war, presidential acts that have engaged us in war have been a creeping usurpation of Congressional authority.
      45. MIKE: I asked Google, “Has presidential warmaking authority even been tested in court?”
      46. MIKE/Ai: A key part of Google Ai’s response was this: “The Supreme Court often deems challenges to the President’s war powers as ‘political questions’. This means they believe these issues are better resolved by the political branches of government (Congress and the President) rather than the courts. This stems from the separation of powers doctrine, which limits the judiciary’s role in foreign policy and national security matters.”
      47. MIKE: You may agree with the Court or not, but that answer tracks with my suspicions on the question.
      48. MIKE: So at the end of the day, Congress has to have the guts to more clearly define precisely what the president’s war powers are. And any legislations to that effect will have to be passed with veto-proof majorities in both houses, because presidents will be unlikely to sign such bills into law.
      49. MIKE: President Kennedy once said in his 1963 commencement address at American University, “The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war.”
      50. MIKE: I’m not sure how true that was even when Kennedy said it, but it was a nice sentiment.
      51. MIKE: Even so, in this modern world of virtually instant communication from anywhere to anywhere, there may be times that justifiable military actions by the US must be planned and discussed, and public discussions of that nature in and of themselves could imperil the success of a US mission and the military personnel involved.
      52. MIKE: How could these discussions happen quickly and secretly? And would secret discussions of this nature be legal? Or even desirable?
      53. MIKE: The reason that presidents have effectively usurped the Congress’s Constitutional power to engage in war is simply because our representatives and senators have historically been reluctant or unwilling— as institutions — to jointly stop presidents from doing so.
      54. MIKE: Frankly, I think that the US propensity to get into so many military conflicts since Vietnam is linked precisely to the end of the military draft.
      55. MIKE: Trump himself once baldly stated as much when he spoke to the widow of a soldier killed in Niger in 2017. According to Rep. Frederica Wilson, who listened in on the call, Trump allegedly told the widow, “He knew what he signed up for … but when it happens, it hurts anyway”.
      56. MIKE: Many experts believe that the disconnection of draftees from the military has changed the political calculations for committing troops to military hostilities. Essentially, all these volunteers in the military ‘know what they signed up for’, and that provides political insulation when the casualties start adding up.
      57. MIKE: It’s one of the arguments I make for Universal National Service, which would require all American youth to engage in national service of some sort, of which military service would be just one option.
      58. MIKE: For a president with the cognitive and psychiatric personality issues of Trump to make the decision, effectively on his own, to go to war with Iran should be a bipartisan wakeup call to Congress that they must give serious thought to preventing any president — sane or not, compos mentis or not — from committing the US to a major war all by him- or her-self.
      59. MIKE: When history is written, Trump’s joining Israel in bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities may end up being either strategically brilliant or militarily catastrophic. Time will tell.
      60. MIKE: But whichever ends up being the case, Congress must see this as a wake-up call to finally create legislation that circumscribes and clearly defines exactly what the president’s military authority is, and when Congress must be consulted for authorization of a military action.
   10. Pentagon pizza monitor predicted ‘busy night’ ahead of Israel’s attack on Iran; Agence France-Press in Washington | THEGUARDIAN.COM | Fri 13 Jun 2025 12.46 EDT. Tags: World News, Israel, Iran, US Military, Food, News, Pizza
       1. The timing of Israel’s plan to attack Iran was top-secret. But Washington pizza delivery trackers guessed something was up before the first bombs fell.
       2. About an hour before Iranian state TV first reported loud explosions in Tehran, pizza orders around the Pentagon went through the roof, according to a viral X account claiming to offer “hot intel” on “late-night activity spikes” at the US military
       3. [The account Pentagon Pizza Report posted on Thursday,] “As of 6:59 pm ET nearly all pizza establishments nearby the Pentagon have experienced a HUGE surge in activity.”
       4. Not confining its analysis to pizza, the account noted three hours later that a gay bar near the Pentagon had “abnormally low traffic for a Thursday night,” and said this probably pointed to “a busy night at the Pentagon”.
       5. [The Takeout, an online site covering restaurants and food trends, noted earlier this year [that while] far from scientific, the Pentagon pizza theory “is not something the internet just made up.”
       6. Pentagon-adjacent pizza joints also got much busier than usual during Israel’s 2024 missile strike on Iran, it said, as there are “a multitude of fast-food restaurants in the Pentagon complex, but no pizza places”.
       7. Pizza deliveries to the Pentagon reportedly doubled right before the US invasion of Panama in December 1989, and surged again before Operation Desert Storm in 1991.
       8. Donald Trump told the Wall Street Journal he was fully aware in advance of the bombing campaign, which Israel says is needed to end Iran’s nuclear program. “We know what’s going on.”
       9. For the rest of Americans, pepperoni pie activity was not the only way to tell something was about to happen.
       10. Washington had already announced it was moving some diplomats and their families out of the Middle East on Wednesday.
       11. And close to an hour before Israel unleashed its firepower on Iran, the US ambassador in Jerusalem, Mike Huckabee, sent out a rather revealing X post: “At our embassy in Jerusalem and closely monitoring the situation. We will remain here all night. ’Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!’”
       12. MIKE: As the story specifically points out, there are “a multitude of fast-food restaurants in the Pentagon complex, but no pizza places.”
       13. MIKE: Maybe, for security reasons, the Pentagon and other sensitive branches of government need to have in-house pizza stores employing people who can obtain some level of security clearance. This “pizza monitor” situation sounds funny, but it’s really not.
       14. MIKE: It’s time to open Pentagon Pizza. But please, let’s make it a decent pizza. Maybe a local artisan pizza joint with a real fired oven, unlike, say, Papa John’s or Cici’s. Our military people deserve nothing less.

That’s all we have time for today. You’ve been listening to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig from KPFT Houston 90.1-HD2, Galveston 89.5-HD2, and Huntsville 91.9-HD2. We are Houston’s Community Media. I hope you’ve enjoyed the show and found it interesting, and I look forward to sharing this time with you again next week. Y’all take care!

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