Except for timely election info, the extensive list of voting resources will now be at the end.

“There’s a reason why you separate military and police. One fights the enemy of the State. The other serves and protects the People. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the State tend to become the People.” ~ Commander Adama, “Battlestar Galactica” (“WATER”, Season 1 episode 2, at the 28 minute mark.)

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 radio

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 16th week of Trump’s military presence in Los Angeles, now reduced to several hundred federalized National Guard troops, and the 7th week of Trump’s military occupation of Washington DC. Chicago and other cities are facing Trump’s continuing threats of military occupation. And of course, ICE continues to run rampant across the United States.

The question is becoming, ‘When will the US military say they’ve had enough?’

1. The Joint General & Special Election is November 4.
   20. Early Voting begins on Monday, October 20. That’s only about 6 weeks!
   21. The deadline to apply for a mail-in ballot for Harris County is October 24. In this show post at ThinkwingRadio-dot-com, I’m providing a link to apply for a mail-in ballot in the event you may be eligible. Please fill it out, print it, and mail it to the Harris County Clerk. It must physically arrive there by the end of business on October 24^th.
   22. If you live outside of Harris County, visit your County Clerk or Election Clerk website for a ballot application and election information. I have links at the bottom of this show post. If you find any out of date, please let me know.
   23. On September 22^nd or 23^rd, HarrisVotes-dot-com will have an active “What’s On My Ballot” link, which you can access from there or from this show post at ThinkwingRadio-dot-com. Other counties should have similar links, as well as the Texas Secretary of State at VoteTexas-dot-gov.
2. MIKE: I’m a dues-paying but generally non-participating member of The Caucus, a 501(c)4 non-profit. Their ABOUT page describes The Caucus [in part as] a dynamic, membership-driven political organization … [s]eeking to influence policies and politicians in the greater Houston area. The Caucus works with candidates and politicians to develop positive LGBTQ+ policies and legislation.
   1. Recently, I got an email from them announcing a VDVR training event. “VDVR” stands for Volunteer Deputy Voter Registrar. It’s too late to register for the ones recently sponsored by The Caucus, but the League of Women Voters of Houston has an information page, which I’ve linked to in this show post, that tells you what a VDVR does and how to get involved and apply.
   2. Harris Country is the most populous country in Texas, so the number of registered voters here really matters. If you’ve been wondering what you can do to help save and preserve democracy in Texas and the United States, being a VDVR — a Volunteer Deputy Voter Registrar — is one way you can do that.
   3. There is also an information page about VDVRs at the Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector site which I have also linked to in this show post at Thinkwing Radio-dot-com.
   4. There are many ways to participate in our elective democracy. Perhaps the most important is to actually show up and vote. Other ways are contributing money to candidates and movements of your choice, showing up at protests, and writing letters to elected officials and newspapers.
   5. Registering new voters is perhaps one of the most direct ways that you can influence electoral outcomes.
   6. Consider becoming a Volunteer Deputy Voter Registrar. As the saying goes, you’ll be glad you did.
3. Next, I feel it’s necessary to discuss the Charlie Kirk, his assassination, and how the current Trump-Republican-Oligarchy regime is using it as the equivalent of their Reichstag Fire moment.
   1. First, let’s talk about Charlie Kirk. Charlie did not deserve to be murdered. No one deserves to be murdered.
   2. Charlie Kirk wasn’t just a “conservative activist”, which is how media report have mostly been framing him. In any America of the last 100 years, he would have been called a radical rightwing extremist.
   3. Charlie Kirk did not deserve to be murdered, but he also didn’t deserve to be flown home on Air Force 2. He didn’t deserve to have flags flown at half-staff for him. He wasn’t a great American hero, and I don’t think that true Christians would agree that he was a great hero of Christianity, unless you’re talking about Christian Nationalism. He didn’t deserve to be eulogized by a US Secretary of Defense — which is still the Congressionally mandated name of that department — he didn’t deserve to be eulogized by a US Secretary of Defense in a way that made him sound like a fallen military hero or like he was at least as great and important to this country as Martin Luther King.
   4. Next, someone in Congress — and mark my words — will introduce a bill to designate a national holiday in honor of Charlie Kirk.
   5. Charlie was an awful person who said awful and hateful things. Let’s hear a couple of those things in his own voice. Where possible, I’ve provided transcripts of these recordings in this show post.
   6. [PLAY AUDIO] From the March 1, 2024, edition of The Charlie Kirk Show, streamed on Rumble: Charlie Kirk Pushes The Great Replacement Conspiracy (Transcript): CHARLIE KIRK (HOST): So this clip has gone viral. They wrote this book, “White Rural Rage”. Look. On this program, we’ve told you about the kulaks before. In Soviet Russia, kulak was a label the Soviets gave to their designated class enemies. If you were a small business owner or a successful peasant or really any kind of ordinary person who criticized or opposed the Soviet regime, they would then label you as a kulak. And that was enough to justify taking your stuff, sending you to Siberia, death camps, or shopping you — or shooting you and your entire family.
   7. In America, the regime is creating a new kulak. The new kulak are ordinary middle Americans. Rural white people are the acceptable target of American life. They’re the ones it’s okay to blame for literally everything bad in America. What causes systemic racism? Rural whites. Why is Joe Biden’s approval rating terrible? Rural whites. They’re only 20 percent of the American population. Why is New York and San Francisco falling apart? Somehow, rural whites, even though they never visited there. The left cannot comprehend that their policies fail because they’re bad. They cannot comprehend that they lose elections because people can’t stand them. 
   8. Instead, just like the Soviets one hundred years ago, they assume that they are wreckers. Their policies fail because they are evil people, lurking in America who just sabotage them for no reason. This is why the left literally needs endless, constantly increasing migration from the 3rd world. Because among people born in America, the share who are alienated by how much the left obviously hates them is constantly growing.
   9. The great replacement strategy, which is well underway every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different. Show 159, please. 80 percent of the map is red, but that is only 20 percent of the American population. They hate that they don’t live in big cities. They hate those of you that live in rural and small America. They hate those of you that own land and have guns and believe in a better country, and they have a plan to try and get rid of you.
   10. The same way that Joseph Stalin went after the kulaks, they wanna go after you. Those of you that live in Mankato, Minnesota. You live in Marshallton, Iowa, Evansville, Indiana, Peoria, Illinois. You’re the problem. Didn’t you know it?
   11. You believe in God, country, family, faith, and freedom, and they won’t stop until you and your children and your children’s children are eliminated. 
   12. MIKE: This was Charlie Kirk creating hate and fear in his followers, scaring them into thinking that they’re going to be displaced by immigrants. Let’s think about the logic he’s missing here.
   13. MIKE: First, our nation needs workers, and many of the workers we need — whether that’s farm workers or food processing workers, scientists or engineers, entrepreneurs or investors — are immigrants, either from south of our border, or from across the oceans.
   14. MIKE: The people make us all better fed, healthier, richer, and better world competitors.
   15. MIKE: And what about how “American” they are? Well, what is “American”?
   16. MIKE: I’m a stepfather to a great kid, whom I love and admire. I don’t love her and care for her and worry about her because she shares my genes, but in spite of the fact that she doesn’t.
   17. MIKE: She has grown up in the United States with our values and culture.
   18. MIKE: Immigrants sometimes use the term “my adopted country”, and that’s accurate on one level. But another way to put it that’s seldom of ever used is “their adoptive country”.
   19. MIKE: It’s not just a matter of an immigrant adopting a country, but of the country adopting them. That’s what “adoptive” means. It means that our country also adopts these immigrants as part of our extended national family.
   20. . MIKE: Part of the compact that immigrants make with the United States is that they will abide by our laws and adapt to our cultures and ways of life. They will also contribute their cultures to ours. That means contributing ideas, foods, cultural enrichment, and more.
   21. MIKE: There is not one American who is actually American by blood except maybe Native Americans, and if you go back 10 or 20 or 30,000 years or more, even they came from someplace else.
   22. MIKE: My stepdaughter isn’t my family by blood. She’s my family by love, and that’s all that matters. And that’s all that should matter for an immigrant to join the American family.
   23. [PLAY AUDIO] Charlie-Kirk: Jews Are Experiencing Hate We White People Have Been Experiencing — TRANSCRIPT: APRIL 30, 2024 CHARLIE KIRK (HOST): This is a wake up call for many Jews. And I have sympathy for American Jews that are very confused. However, I have impatience for American Jews that have put up with the anti-white sentiments the last decade and thought it was perfectly fine. Because guess what, American Jews? You’re considered white in the eyes of the Marxists. What? I thought white meant, like, MAGA Christian people in Oklahoma. No. White means you too. Welcome to the most hated class in America today. And Jews are like, wait, I never thought I was white. I don’t identify as white. We’re Jewish. You don’t get to determine the rules. Many American Jews are shocked that the organizations and the charities that they have been subsidizing want them dead. This is cut 67. I think this is illegal where they are forbidding Jewish students from going to class, that Jewish kids are being physically prevented from going to class.
   24. And I want to make sure this is clear. At the foundational level — this is at UCLA. This is this is coast to coast — it’s because they hate Western civilization, and they have now looped all Jews into the white category. So now Jews are experiencing the hate that we white people have been experiencing the last decade, and we’ve been warning against. Hey, you know that there’s, like, a lot of venom against white people because of the color of their skin? Ah, too bad. Floydapalooza, BLM, diversity is our strength. And now all of a sudden, Jews are saying, this kinda feels like how we got to Auschwitz. This doesn’t seem right. And I’m glad they’re waking up, and it is how you get to mass murder. It is how you get to elimination by hating one group, by sectarianism and tribalism. And the reason why this is breaking the matrix is that for years, it was fashionable and acceptable to hate white people. It’s not as fashionable and acceptable to hate Jews. But if you call Jews white, are you then able to hate Jews?
   25. MIKE: Where to even begin. Should I begin with a Christian Supremacist telling Jews whether they should be feeling White or not? Or a White Supremacist telling Jews what it feels like to be discriminated against and even hated? Or maybe I should get into this White Christian Supremacist suddenly making Jews “honorary Whites” in order to somehow get them to empathize with his Christian White Supremacist’s pain?
   26. Charlie Kirk: Martin Luther King Jr. “is not worthy of a national holiday. He is not worthy of godlike status. In fact, I think it’s really harmful.” From the January 15, 2024, edition of The Charlie Kirk Show
   27. [PLAY AUDIO]“We’re a truth-seeking show, but I can say declaratively this guy is not worthy of a national holiday. He is not worthy of godlike status. In fact, I think it’s really harmful.”
   28. MIKE: Ironic, since it now seems that Charlie himself is being undeservedly elevated to a god-like status by many on the Right. This is what I mean by wondering if Trump and the Ultra-Rightwing of the Republican Party aren’t using this as their Reichstag Fire
   29. MIKE: For those who may not know the history of Hitler’s rise to power, this is how it’s described in the linked page on Wikipedia: “The Reichstag fire was an arson attack on the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament in Berlin, on Monday, 27 February 1933, precisely four weeks after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany. Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch council communist, was said to be the culprit; the Nazis attributed the fire to a group of Communist agitators, used it as a pretext to claim that Communists were plotting against the German government, and induced President Paul von Hindenburg to issue the Reichstag Fire Decree suspending civil liberties and pursue a “ruthless confrontation” with the Communists.^[1] This made the fire pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany.”
   30. MIKE: Does any of that sounds eerily and creepily like what’s going on in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s murder? It sure sounds like it to me.
   31. MIKE: But now let’s get to what Charlie Kirk thought about empathy. Let’s hear that in his own words and in his own voice.
   32. Charlie Kirk Empathy/Sympathy – FULL VIDEO IN CONTEXT, “The Charlie Kirk Show” on Oct. 12, 2022.
   33. [PLAY AUDIO]“So the new communications strategy for Democrats, now that their polling advantage is collapsing in every single state… collapsing in Ohio. It’s collapsing even in Arizona. It is now a race where Blake Masters is in striking distance. Kari Lake is doing very, very well. The new communications strategy is not to do what Bill Clinton used to do, where he would say, “I feel your pain.” Instead, it is to say, “You’re actually not in pain.” So let’s just, little, very short clip. Bill Clinton in the 1990s. It was all about empathy and sympathy. I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that — it does a lot of damage. But, it is very effective when it comes to politics. Sympathy, I prefer more than empathy. That’s a separate topic for a different time.”
   34. MIKE: A discussion of this quote can be found at SNOPES-dot-com, which I’ve linked to in this show post at ThinkwingRadio-dot-com, along with all the other links I’ve provided for this discussion.
   35. MIKE: But let’s talk about empathy.
   36. MIKE: Capt. Gustave Mark Gilbert was the Army psychologist assigned to watch the defendants at the Nuremberg trials. In his book, “Nuremberg Diary”, he wrote this: “In my work with the defendants [at the Nuremberg Trials, 1945-1949] I was searching for the nature of evil and I now think I have come close to defining it. A lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants, a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow men.  Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”
   37. MIKE: Now ask yourself what Captain Gilbert would have made of Charlie Kirk, and his notions about empathy.
   38. MIKE: I’ll leave you with that.
4. MIKE: Now let’s talk about our Reichstag Moment in this country.
   1. Clay Higgins of Louisiana’s 3^rd Congressional District sent out this press release addressed to the CEOs of Meta, X, YouTube, TikTok, Blue Sky, and the Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG).
   2. “Gentlemen,
   3. Thank you for the service you provide to our Republic, and may God be with you and your family. America is suffering under the dark weight of horror after the graphic, televised murder of a heroic Christian leader, Mr. Charlie Kirk. I ask that you reflect upon your own unique responsibility to participate in the very appropriate, legal and Constitutionally sound response.
   4. Please be advised that your platforms are rightfully expected to expeditiously remove all posts that have celebrated the political assassination of Charlie Kirk. Further, the authors of these posts are to be identified and banned from your platform, as well as any new pages they may create.
   5. Gleeful celebration of the heinous murder of an American citizen, brazenly published within the public forums of social media, is not to be tolerated within the accepted and legal parameters of a free and humane society, and I have initiated a Congressional effort to force accountability. If you shield these offenders, section 230 will not protect your platform from vigorous exposure.
   6. I hold the gavel for the Federal Law Enforcement subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and my Chair has specific Congressional authority over Federal regulatory law enforcement. My Committee will be a leading force in the righteous endeavor to protect the legitimate free exchange of ideas and opinions, which requires the vigilant maintenance of appropriate behaviors within our publicly accessed social media forums.
   7. The reasonable restriction of public statements that lie far beyond the standards of our own society is not an oppression of free speech, it is, rather, the protection of free speech. Having the will to guard the standards and integrity of the infrastructure that enables the expression of opinion in our public discourse is a crucial responsibility that we must embrace. I am hopeful to receive your full cooperation, and I expect a formal response to this letter of encouragement within one business week.
   8. Respectfully,
   9. Clay Higgins, Member of Congress.
   10. MIKE: I hope you noted Higgins’s use of the term, “a heroic Christian leader”. But was he? I suppose he was, to Christian Nationalists. But to tolerant, average Americans — Republicans, Democrats, and Independents — probably not so much.
   11. MIKE: Also note the implied threats: “[Y]our platforms are rightfully expected to expeditiously remove all posts that have celebrated the political assassination of Charlie Kirk. Further, the authors of these posts are to be identified and banned from your platform, as well as any new pages they may create.”
   12. MIKE: The 1^st Amendment to the US Constitution says explicitly that, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
   13. MIKE: Those 45 words cover a lot of very important ground, guaranteeing a whole bunch of rights that Americans typically take for granted as obviously as breathing. But now it’s becoming more obviously apparent that this country is really up against it.
   14. MIKE: In just one letter on a Congressional letterhead, Rep. Higgins has managed to invoke a specific faith; he’s threatened individuals with consequences for exercising their free speech rights; he’s threatened media companies with dire governmental consequences if those companies not only don’t throttle their users’ free speech, but they must also ban the users from their platforms for life.
   15. MIKE: I’m no lawyer, but it seems to me that Rep. Higgins is straddling the 1^st Amendment pretty hard here. Is he implying an establishment of religion on a Congressional letterhead? Is he implicitly abridging freedom of speech and of the press by threatening to abuse his authority over the Federal Law Enforcement subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee? Is this an abuse of authority under color of law?
5. If so, he’s not the only one, and even Ted Cruz seems to think so — Ted Cruz compares FCC Chair [Brendan] Carr to Mafia boss in Jimmy Kimmel warnings; By Kevin Breuninger (@KevinWilliamB) | CNBC.COM | Published Fri, Sep 19 2025@2:00 PM EDT/Updated Fri, Sep 19 20256:30 PM EDT. TAGS: President Donald Trump, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Mafia, Jimmy Kimmel,
   1. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas sharply criticized Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr for his comments related to late-night host Jimmy Kimmel shortly before ABC pulled his show off the air.
   2. Cruz said he took issue with Carr threatening to cancel ABC’s broadcast license over Kimmel’s remarks about the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
   3. [The senator said of Carr in the latest episode of his podcast, “Verdict with Ted Cruz,” which aired Friday morning,] “He says, ‘We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way.’ “And I gotta say, that’s right out of ‘Goodfellas,’” Cruz said, referring to the classic mob film.
   4. [Cruz said at another point in the episode,] “That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, ‘Nice bar you have here, it’d be a shame if something happened to it.’ Look, I like Brendan Carr. He’s a good guy, he’s the chairman of the FCC. I work closely with him, but what he said there is dangerous as hell.”
   5. Cruz’s comments put him at odds with President Donald Trump, who applauded Kimmel’s suspension and later called Carr “outstanding.”
   6. Trump, asked later Friday about Cruz’s remarks, said, “I think Brendan Carr is an incredible American patriot with courage. I think Brendan Carr doesn’t like to see the airwaves be used illegally and incorrectly. So I disagree with Ted Cruz on that,” he added.
   7. Cruz said on the podcast that he’s no fan of Kimmel’s, and that he is “thrilled that he was fired” over his comments about Kirk.
   8. “But, [Cruz said,] “let me tell you, if the government gets in the business of saying, ‘We don’t like what you the media have said, we’re going to ban you from the airwaves if you don’t say what we like,’ that will end up bad for conservatives.”
   9. Kimmel, who has been suspended but not fired, said in his opening monologue Monday night that “the MAGA gang” is “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
   10. On Wednesday, Carr slammed Kimmel at length during an appearance on right-wing commentator Benny Johnson’s podcast.
   11. [Carr said that] ABC has “a license granted by us at the FCC, and that comes with it an obligation to operate in the public interest. But frankly, when you see stuff like this, I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or you know, there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
   12. Hours later, ABC and Nexstar Media Group, which hosts ABC-affiliated local stations, pre-empted “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” indefinitely.
   13. Nexstar in August announced a planned $6.2 billion acquisition of Tegna — a merger that will require the FCC’s approval.
   14. The FCC did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on Cruz’s remarks.
   15. MIKE: Sometimes, even Ted Cruz is on the right side of history and the US Constitution. But Ted Cruz notwithstanding, this is another aspect of my question about whether the Extreme Right is using Charlie Kirk’s murder as their Reichstag Moment.
   16. MIKE: Notice that Righties weren’t nearly this upset about the 47 school shootings in the U.S. as of September 10, 2025, with 23 of those on K-12 school grounds and 24 on college campuses, according to a CNN
   17. MIKE: According to an ABC news story, Everytown for Gun Safety reported at least 90 incidents of gunfire on school grounds in 2025, resulting in 29 deaths and 69 injuries nationally as of late August.
   18. MIKE: In a weird way, this reminds me of a MAD Magazine cartoon way back in the 1960s. In that cartoon, a boss stalks into the clerical work room and waving a phone bill over his head, yells, “Who spent 50¢ on a long-distance phone call?!”
   19. MIKE: When no one answers, he stomps back into his office and closes the door. His secretary follows him in and asks, “You deal in millions of dollars every day. Why are you so upset over a 50¢ phone call?”
   20. MIKE: The boss gets thoughtful and responds, “To be honest, those big numbers really confuse me. But 50¢?! THAT I understand!”
   21. MIKE: So 90 school shootings and an enormous number of other shootings annually, I guess that just sort of confounds the comprehension abilities of Republican lawmakers. But Charlie Kirk? THAT they understand!
6. MIKE: I just had to get some of that off my chest. Now lets move in to other news — Harris County Flood Control District advances $3.5B in approved projects stemming from 2018 flood bond; By Melissa Enaje | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 5:11 PM Sep 19, 2025 CDT/Updated 5:11 PM Sep 19, 2025 CDT. TAGS: Harris County, Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD),
   1. More than 145 flood mitigation projects in high-flood-risk areas across Harris County will advance with secured local, state, and federal funding partnerships after the unanimous approval from Harris County Commissioners as part of a restructured proposal built upon the work completed from the 2018 flood bond.
   2. At the Sept. 18 court meeting, HCFCD Executive Director Christina Petersen addressed commissioners on the updates and debuted the new 2018 flood bond dashboard — a public website where users can find flood project schedules, funding sources, completion dates, prioritization scores, locations and lifecycles for all projects that will be updated quarterly, according to Petersen. …
   3. … Petersen said she anticipates between three to five years for new projects to reach completion, pending any challenges with partnership funding when it comes to large infrastructure projects, she said, adding that every flood project requires environmental clearance before construction and that takes approximately nine months.
   4. … The update comes shy of four months after commissioners tasked the flood district in June with alleviating multiple issues with the 2018 bond program — a $2.5 billion initiative voters approved after Hurricane Harvey in 2017. At the June meeting, Petersen and commissioners addressed a multi-million-dollar funding shortfall that affected project completion.
   5. [Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said in June,] “We are not going to be able to do all the projects that people were promised and that failure was built into the bond, and that’s disappointing.”
   6. … HCFCD external affairs officer Emily Woodell told Community Impact the funding gap has been significantly reduced from more than $1 billion to $400 million, and sees the flood district meeting the funding need with increased partnerships in the future.
   7. [Woodell said,] “Nationally, folks are seeing more like 25-30% increases [in infrastructure projects]. So the fact that Harris County has been able to manage this massive program that was really, frankly, unprecedented to such a close percentage of overages, when you think about COVID-19 and inflation and all those different things, is pretty astounding.”
   8. [MIKE: I’ll note here that, while not mentioned in the story, the increase in infrastructure projects is probably a direct result of the Inflation Reduction Act passed by Joe Biden and the Democratic Congress, because the lead time is about right. Continuing …]
   9. Rising costs, inflation, and pandemic construction issues were factors that flood district officials said have challenged how they’re moving forward with certain projects and closing others. The following number of 2018 bond-related IDs or packages has been decided in the following categories, according to HCFCD: 75 active projects; 26 projects paused, awaiting future funding; [and] 15 determined not feasible.
   10. More project details can be found on the flood bond dashboard: hcfcd.org/bondprogram.
   11. … The new project dashboard was one of the motions approved by commissioners in June. Going forward, the approved proposal included making the dashboard more user-friendly and incorporating multiple languages for users.
   12. HCFCD officials told Community Impact they have been meeting weekly with members from all commissioners’ court offices to ensure projects with high priority and high needs are met. Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey voted in favor of the proposal at the Sept. 18 court meeting.
   13. [Commissioner Tom Ramsey,] “We have done $1.5 billion worth of projects to date. … That’s investments made in 22 watersheds in Harris County. [M]otions are going to be made, and $3.5 billion worth of projects are going to be released. They’re going to be focused. It’s urgent that we now move forward.”
   14. The approved flood mitigation projects build upon the completion of more than 100 projects Harris County has undertaken by HCFCD since the 2018 bond approval, according to flood district officials, amounting to $1.5 billion, which includes: 16,000+ acre feet of stormwater detention constructed in the county, such as the Inwood Forest, Baywood, Lauder and Zube stormwater basins; 46,000+ linear feet of channel conveyance improvements, such as the Turkey Creek, Mud Gully and Hunting Bayou Channel work; 5,800 acres of land acquired and preserved; [and] 3,100+ people relocated from home buyouts.
   15. … At least 27 flood projects are being supported with the approved proposal, according to Precinct 4 Commissioner Lesley Briones, including: Keegans Bayou in Alief; Cypress Ditch in Gulfton, Bellaire; South Mayde Creek in Katy; [and] Little Cypress Creek in northwest Harris County.
   16. [Commissioner Briones said,] “Taxpayers deserve to know how every dollar is being put to work. We must hold ourselves to the highest standards of transparency, accountability, and good stewardship of public funds as we build a safer, more resilient Harris County.”
   17. MIKE: Infrastructure projects take time, so it will likely be years before the benefits of these projects are felt, but it’s at least a start.
7. From the TEXAS TRIBUNE, on the topic of thought control and political denunciation in Texas — Texas A&M President Mark A. Welsh III to step down after a week of turmoil over viral classroom video; By Jessica Priest | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | Sept. 18, 2025/Updated: Sept. 19, 2025. TAGS: Higher education, Texas A&M University-College Station, Brian Harrison,
   1. Texas A&M University President Mark A. Welsh III will [stepped] down on Friday after more than a week of turmoil sparked by a viral video of a student confronting a professor over gender content in a children’s literature course, the Texas A&M University System announced Thursday.
   2. The video, along with an audio recording of Welsh initially refusing to fire Professor Melissa McCoul, first circulated online on Sept. 8 after state Brian Harrison, R-Midlothian, shared it on the social media platform X.
   3. Welsh fired McCoul a day later, but the move did not satisfy Harrison, or Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who did not think Welsh handled the situation properly.
   4. [Patrick posted on X last week,] “His ambivalence on the issue and his dismissal of the student’s concerns by immediately taking the side of the professor is unacceptable. Most parents, students, and Aggie alumni expect Texas A&M to reflect the values of our state and our nation as well as A&M’s rich history. If President Welsh will not or cannot reflect those values, then change needs to happen.”
   5. [MIKE: Texas is now well into an advanced state of McCarthyism, denouncing and punishing people with whom they disagree or with whose ideas and positions they disapprove. Continuing …]
   6. In a statement on Thursday, Chancellor Glenn Hegar praised Welsh but seemed to agree a change was needed.
   7. [Hegar said,] “President Welsh is a man of honor who has led Texas A&M with selfless dedication. We are grateful for his service and contributions. At the same time, we agree that now is the right moment to make a change and to position Texas A&M for continued excellence in the years ahead.”
   8. Hegar later added that Welsh submitted his resignation to him on Thursday.
   9. In a statement Friday morning, Welsh said that when he was named university president, he vowed to serve “as well as I possibly could until it was time for someone else to take over. Over the past few days, it’s become clear now is that time.” Welsh mostly thanked the university community but did not mention the controversy over the viral video or further comment on why he was resigning.
   10. [He added,] “You have always inspired me… and I’m going to miss you.”
   11. On Friday at noon, hundreds of students, staff and faculty gathered outside the Texas A&M Administration Building to say goodbye to Welsh on his last day as president. They cheered for him as he and his wife, Betty, walked to the parking lot to leave. Welsh walked through the crowd shaking hands and hugging anyone who offered.
   12. Attendees chanted his name and yelled praises as the couple walked past. Some, like Madison Bradshaw, were crying.
   13. “I’m really disappointed that his signature isn’t going to be on my diploma when I graduate,” Bradshaw said.
   14. John Deltt, a nuclear engineering student, said it will be difficult finding someone to replace Welsh.
   15. [Deltt said,] “It’s been sad to see the change. He was an Aggie, and he supported the students more than any other president before. [Former President M. Katherine] Banks made us feel like a statistic. He made us feel like Aggies.”
   16. Welsh’s departure comes amid a broader campaign by Republican leaders to tighten control of curricula, hiring and speech at the state’s public universities.
   17. In January, Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to fire Welsh after the university’s business school invited advanced PhD students and faculty to a conference designed to recruit Black, Hispanic and Indigenous graduate students. After the threat, Welsh said Texas A&M would pull out of the conference completely.
   18. Abbott cannot fire university presidents, but he appoints the members of the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents, who do have that authority.
   19. Harrison on Thursday took credit for Welsh’s departure in an interview with The Texas Tribune, claiming that his continued posting on social media platform X “unequivocally” contributed to Welsh’s resignation. Harrison said he was encouraged by others to use traditional channels to complain about Welsh’s performance, but that his unprecedented methods worked more effectively and proved he is the “most effective lawmaker in the Texas Legislature.”
   20. “I can guarantee you, if I had done what every one of my critics was trying to get me to do, Welsh would still be the president today, McCoul would still be a professor and the dean and the department head would still have their administrative duties,” Harrison said. “Instead, in a week, you’ve seen everything I’ve caused in one week by doing it the way that I firmly believe Texans want.”
   21. MIKE: It’s both tragic and infuriating that State Rep. Harrison is proud of what he has done. He is essentially a fascist in his notions of State control of ideas and instruction in education. Expect more of the same until Texas and the United States are free of this pernicious thought-controlling regime and party.
8. This next article is long, but I think it’s important as what amounts to basically a status report on the current legal situation pertaining to Trump’s and ICE’s deportation madness. I’ll be commenting as I read, so I won’t have anything to say at the end. From POLITICO — Trump’s new detention policy targets millions of immigrants. Judges keep saying it’s illegal.; By Kyle Cheney and Myah Ward | POLITICO.COM | 09/20/2025 04:00 PM EDT. TAGS: Courts, Donald Trump, Undocumented immigrants, Legal, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, President Donald Trump,
   1. The Trump administration is systematically locking up immigrants while they contest the government’s attempts to deport them, even if they’ve lived in the United States for decades and have no criminal record.
   2. This indiscriminate mass detention — a dramatic shift in immigration enforcement policy that began on July 8 — has been declared illegal by dozens of federal judges, who have described it as a flagrant perversion of long-standing law, policy and common sense.
   3. But the administration says its reinterpretation of the law is both legal and a key prong of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation strategy. They say no matter how long someone has resided illegally in the country — “for 25 minutes or 25 years” — the law doesn’t just allow, it requires, their detention while awaiting deportation. And they hope this interpretation encourages many to depart the country voluntarily.
   4. The result has been hundreds of frantic lawsuits by immigrants who have been arrested without warning at work, at routine check-ins with immigration authorities or after immigration court proceedings. Immigration lawyers and advocates contend they’re being sent to overcrowded and unsanitary detention facilities.
   5. This mass detention led to the Baltimore-area arrest of a Mexican man, in the United States for 30 years with no criminal record, who has a son on active duty in the Air Force; the arrest of a Brazilian man residing near Burlington, Massachusetts, who had a 1-week old baby at the time he was detained; and a Salvadoran woman, residing in Lake Elmo, Minnesota, who arrived in the United States as a minor in 2016 and has two U.S. citizen children, including one who was nursing at the time of her arrest.
   6. Immigrant advocates say the goal is clear: make the process so excruciating that people give up and accept deportation — even if they have meritorious asylum claims or pathways to legal status.
   7. [Said Michael Kagan, director of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas’ Immigration Clinic,] “They’re making a legal argument that judges are consistently rejecting on the substance, but they’re also using the procedure to get what they want.”
   8. [MIKE: This is a classic example of courts allowing harms to continue while cases wend their ways slowly through the legal system. Sometimes the lower courts enjoin an action, but appeals courts nonetheless overrule the injunction pending a full appeal. This is intolerable, but woefully common. And of course, when a lifelong scofflaw is president, it should come as no surprise that he and the people emulating and reporting to him will continue scoffing at the law. This is the long dead arm of Roy Cohn’s early mentoring of Donald Trump gone insane. Continuing …]
   9. Immigrants are increasingly turning to federal district courts — which historically have not handled immigration matters — as a last resort, citing violations of their legal and constitutional rights. Their lawsuits have led to dozens of recent rulings from gobsmacked judges who say the administration has violated the law and due process rights and is threatening to do so for millions more. The pileup of decisions is growing daily.
   10. One judge called the administration’s reinterpretation of the law to prioritize detention “radical.” Another said it had resulted in “arbitrary” arrests and turned routine immigration proceedings into an unsustainable “game of detention roulette” in service of Trump’s mass deportation agenda. Another called the administration “willfully blind” to the plain meaning of long-standing immigration laws. Another said the administration’s position “defies logic.” …
   11. In many cases, judges are ordering detainees immediately released from custody, so long as they vow to continue attending immigration court proceedings and remain in contact with immigration officials. They are still likely to be deported, but the judges say they may not be held indefinitely in detention facilities while they await the outcome of their proceedings.
   12. In other cases, judges are requiring the administration to at least give immigrants a chance to seek bond from immigration judges — a fighting chance to win release from ICE custody that the administration has tried to deny.
   13. Department of Homeland Security officials say they are confident the rulings from district courts will eventually be overturned by the Supreme Court and validate their strategy.
   14. [Said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin,] “Judicial activists … have been repeatedly overruled by the Supreme Court on these questions. ICE has the law and the facts on its side, and it adheres to all court decisions until it ultimately gets them shot down by the highest court in the land.”
   15. … At the heart of the recent conflict are two related provisions of immigration law that have vexed courts for decades.
   16. One pertains to “arriving” immigrants who are “applicants for admission” and are also “seeking admission” to the United States. This has long been interpreted by immigration officials and courts to apply to people apprehended near the border right after they entered. Under this provision of law, detention is mandatory, with few exceptions, and those detained have virtually no ability to challenge their confinement while deportation proceedings are underway.
   17. The second provision permits — but does not require — immigration authorities to detain deportable immigrants who are already residing in the United States. It has long been applied to the millions of undocumented immigrants who have lived in the nation’s interior for years, often paroled into the country after encountering immigration officials at the border. Many have established deep roots, with U.S. citizen spouses, children and family members, as well as employment authorization and pending efforts to seek asylum or other pathways to remain in the country legally.
   18. Under this provision of the law, long-standing regulations permit those targeted for detention to challenge the move in immigration court — a distinct, executive branch-run network of courts meant to handle deportation matters.
   19. In these cases, immigration judges, who are employees of the executive branch, can determine whether detention is necessary to protect the public or ensure people attend future immigration proceedings. And judges may also order their release, finding that they are likely to comply with court orders even if they are not detained. This second provision of law was recently amended when Trump signed the Laken Riley Act, which requires the mandatory detention of undocumented immigrants in the United States who are charged with serious crimes.
   20. [MIKE: This is another example of a necessary overhaul of the Justice Department by Congress. All judicial processes should be brought under the Judicial Branch, and the Department of Justice — an entity created by Congress in 1870. Congress has the right to shuffle the courts as it sees fit, but to put the Attorney General in the Judicial Branch as its nationally elected head — a move I think would be far superior to our current arrangement — would require a constitutional amendment. Continuing …]
   21. But everything changed on July 8, when Todd Lyons, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, issued a memo declaring the Trump administration had reinterpreted these provisions of law. From that point on, Lyons concluded, anyone in the United States illegally — no matter how long — would be deemed “applicants for admission” who are subject to mandatory detention.
   22. By classifying virtually all deportation targets as “applicants for admission,” the administration has attempted to eliminate their opportunity to seek bond. ICE recently got some backup from judges on the Board of Immigration Appeals [or BIA], an executive branch court that sets policy for immigration courts across the country.
   23. [The BIA panel ruled,] “Aliens … who surreptitiously cross into the United States remain applicants for admission until and unless they are lawfully inspected and admitted by an immigration officer.”
   24. The ruling is binding on all immigration judges who, in some cases, had been rejecting the administration’s view of mandatory detention. The Justice Department has begun alerting federal judges, case by case, to the BIA’s ruling as it attempts to stave off further defeats.
   25. But the federal judiciary is not bound by the decisions of the executive branch immigration courts. And so far, judges across the country have decisively rejected the BIA’s interpretation of the law.
   26. [Another reason to take all judicial processes from the Executive branch — technically an extension of the president’s will — and move them to the Judiciary. Continuing …]
   27. One judge in Iowa recently took the BIA ruling head-on, saying she found the decision neither compelling nor persuasive and would not factor it into her consideration. [U.S. District Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger, an Obama appointee in Iowa, wrote earlier this month that] Case law and history do not support “mandatory detention for all noncitizens present in the United States.”
   28. And on Sept. 12, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen, an Obama appointee from California, echoed Ebinger, finding that the BIA ruling “lacks persuasive power” because it improperly characterizes people who have resided in the United States for years as “seeking admission.”
   29. Many judges who have ruled against the administration in recent weeks have pointed to this discrepancy. And they’ve also noted that the legal interpretation by ICE and the BIA has another perverse effect: The Laken Riley Act’s changes to mandatory detention become superfluous, since there is no need for a mandatory detention scheme for those charged with crimes if anyone facing deportation could be detained anyway.
   30. [U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Bryan, a Biden appointee in Minnesota, wrote in a recent ruling,] “There would have been no need for the [Laken Riley Act] to create these additional categories because all noncitizens who are present in the United States and have not been admitted would have already been ineligible for bond.”
   31. So far, nearly all judges who have weighed challenges to the administration’s detention efforts have ruled the same way. And although most of the judges ruling against the administration have been appointed by Democrats, one Trump-appointed judge — Eric Tostrud — joined their ranks last month.
   32. At least one judge has sided with the administration: Nathaniel Gorton, a Massachusetts-based jurist appointed by George. H.W. Bush, agreed with the administration that anyone unlawfully present in the United States can be considered an “applicant for admission” subject to mandatory detention. But Gorton’s decision appears to be an outlier among dozens of rulings rejecting the administration’s interpretation.
   33. There is one pending case that could lead to a nationwide block of the administration’s policy. U.S. District Judge Sunshine Sykes, a Biden appointee, is weighing a California-based lawsuit brought by the ACLU and has called an Oct. 17 hearing to decide whether to approve a class action and vacate the July 8 memo.
   34. Advocates say one reason it’s taken awhile to mount a broad-based legal challenge to the policy is partly because of the Supreme Court’s recent decision emphasizing that detention cases — also known as petitions for a writ of habeas corpus — must be filed in the district where a person is detained. In addition, the hundreds of cases brought since the policy rollout are nearly all filed on an emergency basis — following an abrupt arrest in an immigration court hallway or in an ICE facility during a routine check-in — without the benefit of time to assemble a class action or nationwide case.
   35. [Said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that works to restrict immigration,] “These cases are all a little bit different, so it’s not easy to come up with a class action.”
   36. [I learned something when I was a window covering installer. If an interior designer considers every one of her jobs an emergency installation, then in fact, none of them are really an emergency. That applies here. When the courts are inundated by emergency writs, then in effect, nothing can be acted upon as an emergency. It comes back to the policy of Trump and the plans of Project 2025 to “flood the zone”, effectively slowing to a crawl the impact of any attempted opposition to the regime’s policies. Continuing …]
   37. … The Trump administration’s mass detention strategy doesn’t end with its new interpretation of the law. Federal judges are also increasingly alarmed by a maneuver the administration has used when it doesn’t get its way in court.
   38. [MIKE: For this next part, I’ll remind you that not only are immigration judges technically subject to control by Trump’s Executive Branch. They do not require approval by the Senate. They can be hand-picked by the president, and are simply appointed by the president’s attorney general. This should be an obvious conflict of legal interest. Continuing …]
   39. In a spate of recent cases, some immigrants whom the Department of Homeland Security claims are subject to mandatory detention have convinced immigration judges that the administration’s new interpretation of the law is wrong. And in many of those cases, the immigration judges have granted their release, saying they pose no risk of flight or danger to the public.
   40. That’s when DHS has played a trump card: the automatic stay. It’s a regulation that allows the department to unilaterally stop an immigration judge’s release order for at least 90 days while DHS appeals. And there are options to extend it even further.
   41. The automatic stay was adopted in 2001 and finalized in 2006, intended to be deployed only in “limited” circumstances — invoked by the secretary of Homeland Security after certifying that “factual and legal bases” warranted continued detention in some cases. But the administration has deployed it routinely in cases where immigration judges have sided against them, ensuring that even those immigrants who prevail against long odds to win their release remain locked up for months.
   42. Increasingly, federal judges have ruled the administration’s deployment of the automatic stay is unconstitutional, depriving people of basic due process rights. They’ve ordered immigrants detained as a result of the stay to be immediately released.
   43. [U.S. District Judge Julie Rubin, a Maryland-based appointee of Joe Biden, wrote in a recent opinion,] “The automatic stay is a violent distortion of proper, legitimate process whereby the Government, as though by talisman, renders itself at once prosecutor and adjudicator.”
   44. S. District Judge Joseph Bataillon, a Clinton appointee based in Nebraska, wrote in another recent ruling: “Despite a neutral decision-maker finding a bond was warranted, the automatic stay provision allowed DHS, the party who lost its bond argument, to unliterally deprive Petitioner of her liberty.”
   45. … In court, Trump administration lawyers say their reinterpretation of the law is simply a better reading of complicated immigration statutes that courts have labored over in recent years.
   46. [Justice Department attorneys argued in the ACLU case,] “It does not matter whether an alien was apprehended ‘25 yards into U.S. territory’ or 25 miles, nor does it matter if he was here unlawfully and evades detection for 25 minutes or 25 years. When an alien has never been admitted to the country by immigration officers, his detention is no different from an alien stopped at the border.”
   47. But the administration’s primary argument is a policy one. By expanding detention to those who were released in those earlier eras, the administration is hoping to discourage new arrivals of undocumented immigrants and encourage those who are here to leave voluntarily.
   48. [MIKE: Yup. With the Trump-Republican regime, it’s always about the cruelty. Continuing …]
   49. Immigration officials are sitting on an extraordinary infusion of funding from the recently passed megabill and are working furiously to expand detention space to keep pace with the influx of detainees.
   50. [MIKE: Apparently, even POLITICO can’t bring itself to use the actual name of the Republicans’ legislative monstrosity. Continuing …]
   51. The Trump administration views the mass detention of immigrants facing deportation as a corrective to prior administrations’ “catch-and-release” policies, when immigration authorities would apprehend border-crossers and quickly parole them into the country.
   52. [Said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, an administration ally,] “From a policy perspective, it’s essential to release as few people as possible who are caught — not just who are caught crossing the border, but even illegal immigrants inside the country — because the goal of an illegal alien is to get into the United States and be able to live and work.”
   53. [Krikorian continued,] “If you’re spending all that money paying a smuggler and airfare and all the rest of it, and taking the risks that are involved in coming here illegally, if you’re just going to be locked up and then sent home, why bother? I mean, the cost benefit analysis is pretty clear.”
   54. By targeting those inside the United States for detention, the administration is also hoping that many will choose to voluntarily leave, rather than face the prospect of indefinite detention. While advocates say this drive to force self-deportations is pernicious, administration allies say it’s precisely the point.
   55. [Krikorian said,] “Do you really want to be locked up? No. And so if the odds of your being locked up are pretty high, you’re going to think hard about whether you want to pack up the kids and go back.”
   56. … The flood of litigation has also shed light on the deeply human impacts of the administration’s mass detentions.
   57. On Aug. 24, Rubin, the Maryland-based judge, ordered the release of Fidel Leal-Hernandez, a Mexican citizen who was arrested in the Baltimore area on July 24 on his way to work after 20 years in the country. Before Rubin’s ruling, an immigration judge had ordered Leal-Hernandez’s release on bond more than two weeks earlier, but the administration invoked the automatic stay to keep him detained, despite acknowledging he had “no relevant criminal record.”
   58. In another case, U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware, a Nevada-based appointee of Barack Obama, on Sept. 5 ordered the release of three immigrants residing in Utah who were detained under the automatic stay. One of them, Heriberto Herrera Torralba, a 51-year-old citizen of Mexico, has four U.S. citizen children, including a 20-year-old son on active duty in the Air Force. Herrera, who has been in the country since 1995, had applied for a form of legal status linked to his son’s military service just days before ICE arrested him.
   59. In a third case decided on Sept. 9, U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick, a Biden appointee in Massachusetts, ordered the release of Elizaldo Sampiao, a Brazilian man with a 1-week-old child and no criminal record, who crossed the border in 2021 and was released pending further proceedings. He was arrested by ICE on July 11 at a routine check-in.
   60. [MIKE: Personally, I don’t think there’s anything more repulsive then arresting someone who is in the process of following rules set by the court. Continuing …]
   61. And a Biden-appointed judge in New York, Dale Ho, sided against the administration last month in the case of Carlos Lopez Benitez, who fled Paraguay in 2023 and has “no criminal history in any country.” He resides in Queens, New York, with his U.S. citizen sisters, who have attended court proceedings with him. He was arrested by ICE agents after a July 16 hearing in his case.
   62. In another case, a mother of two U.S. citizen children — one of whom was still nursing at the time of her arrest on July 17 — was ordered released on Aug. 15 by U.S. District Judge Susan Nelson, a Minnesota-based Obama appointee. When the woman, Antonia Aguilar Maldonado, pressed the administration about a long-standing policy against detaining pregnant or nursing mothers facing only an “administrative violation,” the Justice Department indicated that it considered the policy “revoked” as a result of a Trump executive order cracking down on illegal immigration. But Nelson was skeptical.
   63. [Judge Nelson wrote in her ruling,] “The Executive Order contains no references to nursing mothers, let alone nursing mothers who lack any criminal history whatsoever.”
   64. … To Kagan, of the UNLV’s Immigration Clinic, and other immigration advocates, the administration’s ramp-up of mandatory detention is a way to wrest new advantages out of a system already stacked in the government’s favor. By making conditions unbearable, even for people with no criminal history and plausible cases for asylum or pathways to lawful residency, it may cause many to simply accept deportation, they say.
9. [Said UNLV’s Michael Kagan] “They’re trying to get people to give up before they even get that far, without a judge ever really ruling.”
10. MIKE: Since I’ve commented enough in the course of reading this, I don’t need to say anything else for now.