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.)

“People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.”  ~ Bill Clinton, Democratic Convention Speech  nominating Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination (Wednesday, August 27, 2008) at 14m 19s.

 [1m 02s] Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig, now in its 14^th year on KPFT from Houston 90.1-HD2, Galveston 89.5-HD2, Livingston/Goodrich 89.9-HD2, and Huntsville 91.9-HD2. KPFT is Houston’s Community radio.

And welcome to our international listeners from Hong Kong, Belgium Singapore, India, and elsewhere.

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. I do try to fact-check myself and include the links I use to do so.

It’s the 42nd week of Trump’s military occupation of Washington DC; and 31 weeks since those states’ governors deployed National Guard troops to Memphis, Tennessee and New Orleans, Louisiana, at Trump’s request, which is where they remain for now.  

The next gubernatorial election in Tennessee is in about 5 months. I really want to see how that one turns out.

LAWFARE has a chart of where US troops are currently stationed around the US. It begins tracking from 2017 to current and can show in ascending or descending order. The link is in this show post at ThinkwingRadio-dot-com.

Due to time constraints, some stories may be longer in this show post than in the broadcast show itself.

1. Good news, everyone! There are no elections for us in June!
2. Those of you who are interested probably already know who won the state party runoffs.
   1. In some cases, it’s almost as important who lost. In this case, I’m thinking of Democratic runoff loser and antisemite Maureen Galindo, who I discussed last week.
   2. One of the most important losses was by longtime Texas Senator John Cornyn to Attorney General Ken Paxton, which may be a blessing for Democratic senate nominee James Talarico.
   3. I’m no fan of John Cornyn, but for all his obsequious bending to the wants of Donald Trump, he seems generally less felonious than Ken Paxton.
   4. Ken Paxton’s victory in the Republican runoff for US Senate may, possibly, give James Talarico his dream candidate to defeat in November — time will tell — but it really raises serious questions about who the hell Republican primary voters are choosing to vote for and why.
   5. Are felony indictments now a prerequisite for Republican candidates to win their run for office? Are corruption and abuse of authority the kinds of qualifications that Republican voters demand of their nominees?
   6. The contemporary Republican Party is no longer a demonstrably pro-democracy party. Our democratically-governed friends and allies around the world know it, and most American voters know it. It’s something that “Mr. Obvious” might point out.
   7. So how has this realization escaped the majority of Republican voters?
   8. Have likely Republican voters moved from simply being varying degrees of conservative to being victims of some sort of “mass psychosis” or psychogenic illness?
   9. How does a political cohort go from complaining about how government is infringing on their freedom and privacy to voting for people who will govern in an authoritarian fashion that visibly and progressively restricts personal freedom and privacy?
   10. To quote the King of Siam as played by Yul Brynner, it is a puzzlement.
3. At the beginning of this show, I played an audio clip from Bill Clinton’s 2008 Democratic National Convention nominating speech for Barack Obama. It was lifted without attribution in Joe Biden’s 2020 nomination acceptance speech. I had never replayed it until I looked for that excerpt, but Clinton really said many things 18 years ago that apply more than ever today.
   1. Now that the general election campaigns are starting to get into full swing, this seems like a perfect time to revisit them. That being the case, I’m going to play a longer excerpt. I’ve edited it for time and also taken out some very convention-specific references without altering the general thrust of his comments. I think you’ll find what Clinton said to be very prescient and fitting for our times. The excerpt runs a bit over 4 minutes. I’ll play it now …
   2. CLINTON: “America cannot be strong abroad unless we are strong at home. People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.
   3. CLINTON: Look at the example the Republicans have set: American workers have given us consistently rising productivity. They’ve worked harder and produced more. What did they get in return? Declining wages, less than one-quarter as many new jobs as in the previous eight years, smaller health care and pension benefits, rising poverty and the biggest increase in income inequality since the 1920s.
   4. CLINTON: American families by the millions are struggling with soaring health care costs and declining coverage. I will never forget the parents of children with autism and other severe conditions who told me on the campaign trail that they couldn’t afford health care and couldn’t qualify their kids for Medicaid unless they quit work or got a divorce. Are these the family values the Republicans are so proud of?
   5. CLINTON: What about the military families pushed to the breaking point by unprecedented multiple deployments? What about the assault on science and the defense of torture? What about the war on unions and the unlimited favors for the well-connected? What about Katrina and cronyism? America can do better than that. …
   6. CLINTON: [U]ntil 2001, when the Republicans finally gained control of both the White House and Congress. Then we saw what would happen to America if the policies they had talked about for decades were implemented. They took us from record surpluses to an exploding national debt; …” ~ Bill Clinton, Democratic Convention Speech nominating Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination (Wednesday, August 27, 2008) at 14m 19s.
   7. MIKE: In this speech, Clinton is referring to Senator John McCain who was the Republican presidential nominee, and the previous policies of George W. Bush.
   8. MIKE: I think that recording needs to played from time to time as a reminder of what the Republican party has done to America and to everyday Americans.
4. Meanwhile, from NYTIMES[.]COM, in continuing Epstein Files news,— Lutnick Donated $5 Million to House Republicans Before Epstein Testimony; By Theodore Schleifer and Ana Swanson, Reporting from Washington | NYTIMES.COM | May 22, 2026, 12:07 p.m. ET. TAGS: 777
   1. Howard Lutnick, President Trump’s secretary of commerce, made a $5 million donation last month to a committee supporting House Republicans, an unusually large contribution for a sitting cabinet secretary.
   2. The donation was made on April 1, four weeks after the House Oversight Committee arranged to interview Mr. Lutnick about his ties to the sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein. The closed-door interview took place on May 6.
   3. Lutnick gave the money to the Congressional Leadership Fund, the main super PAC behind House Republicans and Speaker Mike Johnson, according to a new filing made public … . Mr. Lutnick has recently been a major Republican donor, but this was his first contribution since being named commerce secretary. It ties his largest-ever federal donation, $5 million he gave to Mr. Trump’s super PAC in 2024.
   4. [Said Kristen Eichamer, a spokeswoman for the Department of Commerce,] “Mr. Lutnick made a political donation in his personal capacity, just as many Cabinet Secretaries from both parties have done in the past.”
   5. Federal employees are permitted to make donations, but it is rare to see such a high-ranking official donate such a significant amount. Mr. Lutnick is the first Trump cabinet official to make a seven-figure disclosed federal donation after being confirmed to a post, according to a review of federal election filings.
   6. The closest analogue in Mr. Trump’s administration was the role played by Elon Musk during his stint as a part-time government employee, during which he continued to donate millions to conservative causes.
   7. The House Oversight Committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
   8. The donation came at a sensitive time for Mr. Lutnick. Lawmakers have been scrutinizing his ties to Mr. Epstein since January, when the government released millions of pages of records related to Mr. Epstein.
   9. Lutnick lived next door to Mr. Epstein on the Upper East Side of Manhattan for more than a decade, and the commerce secretary’s name appeared in more than 250 documents in the Epstein files, a review by The New York Times found.
   10. Lutnick had claimed until recently [not to have been] in the same room with Mr. Epstein after an encounter in 2005. But the files showed that Mr. Lutnick traveled to Mr. Epstein’s private island in 2012, and that they had other interactions.
   11. Democrats grilled Lutnick about those connections in a previously scheduled congressional hearing in February. Then, on March 3, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee announced that Mr. Lutnick had agreed to appear before the committee to testify about the extent of his relationship with Mr. Epstein. The appearance helped to stave off a possible subpoena by lawmakers, who were considering ordering Mr. Lutnick to testify.
   12. According to a subsequently published transcript, Mr. Lutnick told lawmakers that he had met Mr. Epstein three times: once for coffee in Mr. Epstein’s home in New York after they became neighbors, once to discuss construction on Mr. Epstein’s home in New York, and once when Mr. Lutnick and his family visited Mr. Epstein’s island in 2012. Mr. Lutnick condemned Mr. Epstein’s conduct and described the interactions as “meaningless and inconsequential.”
   13. The disclosure … listed Mr. Lutnick’s “employer” as Cantor Fitzgerald and his “occupation” as chairman. Mr. Lutnick completed a divestment from Cantor in September, leaving his sons in charge of the firm. It was unclear why the filing listed him as chairman, though errors on Federal Election Commission filings are not uncommon. The super PAC, which Mr. Lutnick backed with $2.7 million between 2022 and 2024 as well, declined to comment on the donation or entry.
   14. The Congressional Leadership Fund is charged with helping to re-elect House Republican incumbents, like those on the House Oversight Committee, and winning seats in battleground districts. Another major donor to the effort last month was Warren Stephens, Mr. Trump’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, who gave $250,000 to the super PAC.
   15. MIKE: This story was from Friday the 22nd, so just another day of possible Trump regime corruption ending in a “Y”.
   16. MIKE: I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that Lutnick donated millions of dollars to the Congressional Leadership Fund Super PAC about a month after being notified that he was to appear before the House Oversight Committee and about a month before testifying about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, because as we all understand, it’s hard to bite the hand that feeds you.
   17. MIKE: That being said, as might be expected, Democrats questioned Mr. Lutnick more aggressively than Republicans, but even some Republicans dug into some of his prior statements.
   18. MIKE: It’s hard to find good characterizations and summaries of Lutnick’s appearance before the committee, so I’m providing a couple of web links for those of you who want to examine the closed hearing in more detail.
   19. MIKE: One is a summary by a man named Bob Weeks who blogs a site called “Voice For Liberty”. While Mr. Weeks appears to be a conservative with possible libertarian leanings, I like the succinct way he discusses this testimony in a blog post called, “Howard Lutnick Epstein Testimony: Full Transcript Breakdown”.
   20. MIKE: If you want to read the actual testimony, you can access this 96 page double-spaced transcript from a PBS website that I’m linking to.
5. I think that this next story and policy analysis from NEWREPUBLIC[.]COM is important, but I felt it needed more context. Rather than just read it and accept the author’s views at face value, I decided to add some context by investigating what Spanberger’s reasons were for the vetoes discussed in the story. I alert you when I get to those parts of the opinion piece. So from NEWREPUBLIC[.]COM — Zohran Mamdani Gets It. Abigail Spanberger Does Not.; By Aaron Regunberg | NEWREPUBLIC.COM | May 27, 2026. TAGS: Politics, Zohran Mamdani, Abigail Spanberger, Virginia, New York, New York City, Democratic Party, Deliverism,
   1. Since Donald Trump’s reelection, progressive and moderate Democrats have spent a lot of time fighting over differences in their approaches to campaign messaging and strategy. But the differences that matter most are those that occur after an election, when it’s time to govern. There’s no better example than the emerging contrast between New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger — one a democratic socialist, the other a centrist former CIA agent — who both rode affordability messages into office last year. Though they have been in office only five months, their respective records demonstrate the true stakes of the factional battle over the future of the Democratic Party.
   2. After the 2025 elections, corporate-backed establishment groups like Third Way and WelcomePAC argued vehemently that Mamdani’s win offered few if any lessons for Democrats outside of New York City, and that the real attention should be on politicians like Spanberger. … Clinton strategist Paul Begala reiterated this message, saying in an interview with NPR that Mamdani had “the weakest performance of a successful Democrat in New York in a hundred years,” whereas “in a state where the Republicans were controlling every statewide office, Abigail Spanberger wins in a landslide.”
   3. This oft-repeated talking point is easily debunked. Zohran Mamdani won the votes of more New Yorkers than any mayoral candidate in over 50 years. Though his 51 percent vote share wouldn’t be particularly impressive if he had just been running against a Republican, that wasn’t the lineup he faced. Mamdani ran against both a Republican and former Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo, scion of a famous Democratic dynasty, who was boosted by a tsunami of billionaire super PAC spending.
   4. The apples-to-apples comparison here would be if Spanberger had faced not just the GOP’s gubernatorial nominee but also a former Democratic governor like Ralph Northam or Terry McAuliffe.
   5. As it is, in her one-on-one race, Spanberger earned close to 58 percent. That sounds impressive — even though she was facing an extremely weak Republican opponent — until you learn that this was the exact vote share that Democrats won in the Virginia House of Delegates. It turns out Spanberger didn’t receive 58 percent because she’s an electoral overperformer—she received 58 percent because she was running with a D next to her name in a state with a long record of swerving hard against the party in control of the governor’s mansion and White House, months after DOGE had laid off tens of thousands of Virginians.
   6. Whatever their margins of victory, both Mamdani and Spanberger won their elections. So what have these Democratic executives actually done with their time in office?
   7. Mamdani’s first six months have been a whirlwind of action to reinvigorate the institutions of city government and demonstrate to New Yorkers that Democratic governance can make a positive material impact in their lives. To list a few of these achievements, the Mamdani administration: Established free childcare for 2-year-olds; Targeted junk fees and subscription traps; Announced new rec centers, youth clinics, and early childhood education centers; Developed new bike and bus lanes across the city; Invested $50 million in park improvements; Created a new Office of Community Safety and the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, which has already won over $34 million on behalf of tenants and secured repairs at over 6,000 apartments across the city; Launched “rental ripoff hearings” to provide tenants an opportunity to register complaints with city officials; Filled 100,000 potholes; [and] Established a program to quickly remove unnecessary sidewalk scaffolding;
   8. [MIKE: You really can’t fully appreciate this one unless you’ve visited Manhattan and seen how scaffolding has come to dominate the City’s streets. Continuing …]
   9. [Mamdani also] Secured a wealth tax on luxury second homes; Cut hundreds of millions of dollars in waste, fraud, and abuse; [and] Closed an inherited $12 billion budget deficit to deliver a balanced city budget.
   10. Mamdani’s administration has communicated these achievements to the public in innovative and attention-grabbing ways, telling a story of government actually making things better. Here’s how Mamdani announced plans for his administration’s first city-owned grocery store:
   11. “This store will serve as physical proof of our conviction that government can be a force for good—that government can drive change that improves people’s lives. And standing here this morning, I cannot help but think of the words of our fortieth president, Ronald Reagan. He famously said, ‘The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’ It’s a good quote, but I disagree. I think nine more terrifying words are actually, ‘I worked all day and can’t feed my family.’ We are going to use the power of government to lower prices and make it easier for New Yorkers to put food on the table. When government understands its purpose as serving the very working people that it has left behind time and again, it can make a difference in the most pressing struggles facing our city today. It’s not just that government can help; it’s that government must help and our government will help.”
   12. This message is about more than stoking one politician’s popularity. It is laying the groundwork for a new narrative of public-sector action — one that can supplant the right’s decades-long effort to persuade Americans that government is the problem. Convincing the public of this narrative is a necessary step toward establishing a durable governing majority for any left or center-left party.
   13. The right, by contrast, thrives when the public believes that government can’t deliver for regular people. That’s why Spanberger’s recent conduct is so devastating. Not only has she been failing to enact an ambitious agenda, but she has been actively blocking efforts to pass major Democratic priorities in Virginia, vetoing a series of bills sent to her by her own party’s legislative majorities.
   14. [MIKE: This is where I’ll read the remarks from the NEWREPUBLIC[.]COM article, and then read the Governor’s explanations for each of her vetoes.]
   15. [MIKE: From the NEWREPUBLIC[.]COM article,] Spanberger vetoed legislation giving Virginia’s public workers the right to unionize. This betrayal inspired a wave of condemnation from organized labor, including the Virginia Public Sector Labor Coalition, which stated, “Governor Spanberger today betrayed half a million of Virginia’s public service workers by going back on her campaign promise to support collective bargaining rights for the people who keep our communities running every day. Instead of aligning herself with General Assembly Democrats who unanimously supported this bill, Spanberger vetoed the bill just as her predecessor Glenn Youngkin did, sending Virginia workers the crystal clear message that they are no better off than they were under a Republican governor.”
   16. She vetoed legislation allowing public workers to form unions without local permission. Spanberger argued that such a massive systemic shift required a slower implementation timeline and proposed rolling it out to state employees first to work out regulatory kinks before expanding it statewide.
   17. SPANBERGER’S RESPONSE on HB1263 [Public Sector Collective Bargaining], according to reporting by the Virginia Mercury, Spanberger’s proposed changes sought to delay provisions of the bill until 2030 and shift authority over how the system operates to a state board.
   18. … Spanberger defended the changes she’d suggested for the bill.
   19. [She wrote,] “While preserving the enrolled bill’s focus on allowing public employees to achieve collective bargaining, my amendments would have also provided additional flexibility for public employers to take into account existing local budget timelines and processes. … However, the General Assembly rejected these amendments.”
   20. [Returning the NEWREPUBLIC[.]COM article,] Spanberger vetoed legislation creating the right to class-action lawsuits, a legal mechanism for seeking redress against malicious corporate conduct that exists in every state but Virginia and Mississippi. Right-wing business groups celebrated her move, while consumer advocates were deeply stung. As the bill’s Senate sponsor said, “This legislation was about leveling the playing field between Virginia consumers and large corporations when widespread harm occurs but no single individual has the resources to fight back alone.”
   21. Governor Spanberger’s official veto statement for House Bill 449 and Senate Bill 229 [about class-action lawsuits]: I support the General Assembly’s goal of providing a class action mechanism that can be used by plaintiffs in Virginia courts. I offered amendments to ensure that when Virginia adopts its first-ever class action procedure, we do so in a tailored and judicious way — building on longstanding, federal precedent while providing regional circuit courts an opportunity to develop expertise. The General Assembly did not accept these amendments.
   22. [Returning the NEWREPUBLIC[.]COM article,] Spanberger vetoed legislation to stop ICE from conducting warrantless arrests in state-run facilities, leaving immigrants in the state afraid to go to courts or hospitals or to take their children to school. In the words of the ACLU of Virginia’s policy director, “The governor’s position seems to be that if ICE wants to do whatever it wants to do in our courthouses, they can, and that the state’s not going to do anything about that. That sends a terribly dangerous message to the Trump administration when we know that they have acted rogue and lawlessly.”
   23. MIKE: According to reporting by the Virginia Mercury, “Spanberger acknowledged the concerns behind the legislation but said the bills would create unworkable legal conflicts for local officials and security personnel. 
   24. [Spanberger wrote,] “As a former law enforcement officer, I share many Virginians’ concerns regarding the dangerous and unchecked federal immigration enforcement actions we have seen across the country.”
   25. But the governor said the bills would place security staff and law enforcement “in the untenable position of choosing between violating state law or federal law.”
   26. She also warned the legislation would create a false sense of legal protection for immigrant families. 
   27. The actions build on earlier immigration-related measures Spanberger approved last month, including legislation limiting cooperation agreements between local jails and ICE.
   28. [MIKE: From the NEWREPUBLIC[.]COM article,] Spanberger vetoed legislation creating a legal retail market for recreational marijuana in Virginia, an issue that has supermajority support in the state. “We’re left in a position of uncertainty,” said the bill’s Senate sponsor, “for my community, for small-business owners, and particularly for those individuals who thought that under a Democratic governor the question of cannabis would not be a matter of if, but instead a matter of when.”
   29. Governor Spanberger’s official veto statement for House Bill 642 and Senate Bill 542: I share the General Assembly’s goal of establishing a safe, legal, and well-regulated cannabis retail marketplace in the Commonwealth. Virginians deserve a system that replaces the illicit cannabis market with one that prioritizes our children’s health and safety, public safety, product integrity, and accountability. 
   30. As Virginia pursues a legal retail market, it is critical that we incorporate lessons learned by other states and ensure that our regulatory framework is fully prepared to provide strong oversight from day one. That includes clear enforcement authority and sufficient resources for compliance, testing, and inspections, and robust tools to crack down on bad actors who continue to profit from the illicit market.  
   31. I greatly appreciate the patrons’ time crafting this important piece of legislation as well as our continued dialogue and collaboration to strengthen this framework ahead of the next legislative session. I remain committed to working with members of the General Assembly, stakeholders, and law enforcement to get this right. 
   32. [MIKE: From the NEWREPUBLIC[.]COM article,] Spanberger vetoed legislation that would have lowered prescription drug prices for patients by extending Medicare’s negotiated drug prices to people in private health plans and Medicaid. This pleased corporate lobbying groups like the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers of America, who lauded Spanberger for taking “the right step to protect Virginia patients from a flawed policy.” Meanwhile, patient and consumer advocates were crushed, with the director of the affordable health care organization Families USA saying, “Governor Spanberger’s veto is a blow to Virginia families who struggle every day to afford their medications.”
   33. Governor Spanberger’s official veto statement for House Bill 483 and Senate Bill 271: I share and appreciate the General Assembly’s commitment to lowering prescription drug costs for Virginians. During this past General Assembly session, the legislature took important steps toward lowering healthcare costs by passing bills to hold pharmacy benefit managers accountable and to require health insurance carriers to offer plans that cap monthly out-of-pocket costs for drugs. I was proud to sign these critical bills into law. However, I am vetoing HB483 and SB271 because evidence from other states clearly show that Prescription Drug Affordability Boards (“PDABs”) do not achieve this goal. They are expensive undertakings that other states have either repealed or are considering repealing due to costs and ineffectiveness.
   34. As such, I offered amendments to the General Assembly that would have directed the Prescription Drug Affordability Advisory Panel to study a reference-based pricing system before the state spends millions of dollars on implementation. My amendments also would have required greater drug pricing transparency for consumers and policymakers, providing new data to give insight into drivers of out-of-pocket costs in Virginia. Lastly, my amendments would have expanded the Attorney General’s investigatory and enforcement authority to crack down on anticompetitive behavior between pharmaceutical manufacturers and insurance carriers.  
   35. Unfortunately, the General Assembly rejected these amendments. I look forward to partnering with the General Assembly on proposals that will reduce the cost of prescription drugs for Virginians across the Commonwealth.
   36. [MIKE: From the NEWREPUBLIC[.]COM article,] Spanberger also vetoed legislation to stop illegitimate purges of voter rolls, protect defendants with behavioral health issues, and shield universities from speech restrictions like those pushed by Trump. This end-of-session legislative massacre is a substantive disaster for Virginia’s workers, consumers, immigrants, patients, and other communities, who have lost not just an opportunity but perhaps their only opportunity to get their priorities enacted, given the reality that Democrats cannot count on maintaining a trifecta over state government for long.
   37. Governor Spanberger’s official veto statement for House Bill 639: In 2022, the General Assembly passed legislation prohibiting the State Board of Elections, the Virginia Department of Elections (“ELECT”), local electoral boards, and all offices of the general registrar from soliciting, accepting, using, or disposing of any money, grants, property, or services given by a private individual or nongovernmental entity for the purpose of funding voter education and outreach programs, voter registration programs, or any other expense incurred in the conduct of elections.
   38. House Bill 639 seeks to address some of the unintended consequences of the 2022 law, particularly concerns that the law prohibits election administrators from accepting certain low-price items, like a free coffee on Election Day, or resources to assist with voter outreach. I agree with the intent of this bill, and I offered several amendments to ensure appropriate guardrails are in place for the acceptance of private funds and services. The enrolled bill includes a $1,000 cap, but does not specify whether the cap is weekly, monthly, annually, or all-time. My amendments would clarify that the $1,000 limit is on an annual basis, require recipients to disclose any money, grants, property, or services provided by a private individual or nongovernmental entity to ELECT, and require ELECT to establish guidelines for acceptable uses of funds for general registrars and local election officials.  
   39. However, the General Assembly rejected these amendments which would have ensured additional clarity and guardrails on the use of private funds in election administration and voter registration programs.  
   40. [Now the NEW REPUBLIC article continues …]
   41. But it’s also a political disaster for Democrats. In the short term, it risks suppressing enthusiasm among all the constituencies Spanberger betrayed. As Virginia Tech political analyst Dr. Cayce Myers put it, “You certainly could envision a situation where people say, ‘Well, you know, this was something that they promised, but they weren’t able to deliver.’ And they’re less enthusiastic, writ large, about going and voting.”
   42. But the long-term effects of this pro-corporate governance could be even more dangerous. Spanberger has sent millions of Virginians the message that Republicans and Democrats are all the same.
   43. For many liberals, it’s hard to grasp how anyone could believe there’s no difference between the parties. But if you’re a senior struggling to afford your prescriptions, or a public worker who’s sick and tired of crappy benefits, and you see Democratic Governor Spanberger issue the exact same veto of your top priority as Republican Governor Youngkin did, benefiting the exact same corporate special interests, it’s not actually that crazy to say, “None of these crooks are looking out for me; screw ’em all.”
   44. This is political poison—not just for Democrats, but for democracy. After all, if all these politicians are crooks, and our democratic institutions can’t seem to effect any real change, why not throw in with a strongman who promises to blow the whole corrupt system sky-high?
   45. Trump was defeated in 2020, only to return in an even more dangerous form four years later. So we already know that it is not enough to beat MAGA once at the ballot box. If Democrats do not pair their next electoral victory with a strong record of governance—one that reflects the Mamdani commitment to positively improving people’s lives, not the Spanberger model of selling out to corporations—we are going to be right back in the maws of fascism one election later. And this time, we might not be facing an authoritarian as incompetent and self-defeating as Trump has been.
   46. MIKE: When The New Republic published this story, they used a word in it that I like, and which maybe should be used by Democrats, and used often. That word is “DELIVERISM”.
   47. MIKE: I think that Democrats should start adopting that word, defining it for voters, and explain “deliverism” as a Democratic promise if elected. As the saying goes, “Learn it. Know it. Live it.”
   48. MIKE: As far as the “Point/Counterpoint” I’ve created in this opinion piece, I tend to see it as a power struggle between Gov. Spanberger’s ideas of how this legislation should be framed and the Virginia General Assembly’s notions of what they want.
   49. MIKE: I can’t decipher from my research whether it was a matter of the Governor simply not being happy with the bills that did not adopt her amendments, or if as one delegate said, Spanberger kept moving the goal posts of what she wanted enacted, making compromise impossible.
   50. MIKE: I followed up my questions by asking Google if Spanberger’s vetoes were overridden. Google’s Ai summed it up this way: “the Virginia General Assembly has not overridden any vetoes issued by Governor Abigail Spanberger. [1, 2]
   51. Overriding a gubernatorial veto in Virginia requires a … two-thirds supermajority vote in both the House of Delegates and the State Senate. During the April 2026 reconvened “Veto Session,” lawmakers instead focused on rejecting her proposed amendments and sending bills back in their original form. [1, 2, 3]
   52. Here are the key details of how those legislative battles played out:
   53. … Governor Spanberger (D) set a state record by issuing 31 vetoes in her first term, notably blocking major Democratic priority bills related to retail cannabis, a prescription drug board, and public-sector collective bargaining.
   54. … Rather than attempting to find a two-thirds majority to override the outright vetoes, the legislature instead rejected dozens of her proposed amendments to passed bills.
   55. … Because the General Assembly rejected her amendments, the bills returned to Spanberger’s desk for final action. This forced the Governor to either sign the original legislation, allow it to pass into law without her signature, or veto the bills completely, which she ultimately did.
   56. MIKE: Like Texas, Virginia has biennial sessions. Also like Texas, Spanberger can call for a special session, so this may yet be resolved in a way that all sides can live with, and that Virginia voters will see as providing a degree of “deliverism” by Virginia Democrats.
   57. According to the Virginia Mercury, Spanberger is expected to call lawmakers back to Richmond for a special session once negotiators finalize a budget agreement. 
   58. MIKE: So it’s possible that the New Republic’s pessimism about Spanberger’s early governance may yet be premature.
   59. MIKE: There also will be state elections for the Virginia General Assembly this November. How it’s all going to play out before and after that I’m not in a position to know or even guess.
   60. MIKE: It’s really unfortunate that things went this way, as the story says, but it may be as basic as timing and poor communication between the governor and the delegates.
   61. MIKE: I hope that Governor Spanberger and the Virginia General Assembly can get their acts together in the next session
   62. REFERENCE: Governor Spanberger Issues Vetoes, For Immediate Release: May 19, 2026 — GOVERNOR.VIRGINIA.GOV
6. In international news … Now that Trump has succeeded in both alienating and scaring our allies, the EU is looking for what kind of leverage they can exert on the world trade scene in order to defend themselves as a single entity from both the US and China. From EURACTIV[.]COM — Stung into action: How Europe can deter both China and the US; By Thomas Moller-Nielsen Euractiv | EURACTIV.COM | May 17, 2026 – 06:00 Last updated: May 18, 2026 – 14:36. TAGS: Economy, Politics, Anti-Coercion Instrument (ACI), China, Donald Trump, Economy, European Union, United States (USA), Xi Jinping, Economy
   1. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, once compared the US and the Soviet Union to “two scorpions in a bottle, each capable of killing the other, but only at the risk of his own life”.
   2. [The recent] US-China summit in Beijing underscored that what was true during the Cold War remains the case today – but that the two contemporary superpowers’ stings are increasingly tipped with economic, as well as literal, plutonium.
   3. America, on the one hand, dominates the global financial system and the production of many of the world’s most advanced semiconductors. China, on the other hand, retains a chokehold over global mining and, especially, the refining of so-called rare earths, which are critical components in numerous high-tech goods, including electric vehicles, radars and fighter jets.
   4. This mutual dependence stands in stark contrast to the situation during the Cold War, when trade between the US and the Soviet Union was negligible. It also explains why, when US President Donald Trump launched his global trade offensivelast year, China was able to fight America to a draw. Both sides could – and still can – ensure the other’s economic annihilation.
   5. Europe, unfortunately, possesses no comparable weapons of economic mass destruction. Unlike the US, it can’t shut countries off from the world’s financial system or restrict sales of cutting-edge chips. And unlike China, it can’t introduce sweeping export controls on critical minerals that shutter production lines across much of the world.
   6. Indeed, the EU’s security dependence on America means that Washington retains far greater leverage over Brussels than it ever did over Beijing, a fact which, as top EU officials have openly admitted, explains the bloc’s capitulationduring last year’s trade talks with the US.
   7. But does Europe’s lack of trump cards – in both senses of the word – mean that it effectively has no cards at all? Many people (including, previously, this author) have concluded that it does.
   8. But not everyone agrees.
   9. [Said Tobias Gehrke, an expert on economic strategy and great power competition at the European Council on Foreign Relations,] “We don’t have this one super-card, this one chokepoint that will rule them all. … So, rather than sort of looking for that ultimate chokepoint that the Chinese have and the Americans have, we need to think of leverage much more broadly. There’s not one measure that would do it.”
   10. Europe, in other words, can still deter, even without any ultimate deterrent.
   11. … But how?
   12. In two recent papers, Gehrke explores how the EU could strengthen current trade defence instruments, streamline its decision-making, and prepare a range of potential retaliatory measures targeting Beijing’s and Washington’s respective “pressure points”.
   13. Although each response should be context-dependent, China’s heavy reliance on industrial exports makes it especially vulnerable to EU import restrictions. America, meanwhile, is far more susceptible to limits on its service exports. (While the EU runs a €200 billion surplus in goods with America, it also runs a €150 billion deficit in services, a fact conveniently forgotten by Donald Trump during his periodic criticisms of Europe’s trade policy.)
   14. EU export restrictions, particularly on chip-producing ultraviolet lithography technologies (for which ASML, a Dutch firm, retains a near-global monopoly), also provide Brussels with a significant source of leverage, Gehrke notes.
   15. Moreover, the EU should express a greater willingness to use its most powerful trade instrument – the anti-coercion instrument (ACI), informally known as the ‘trade bazooka’ – which allows the imposition of a wide range of retaliatory measures against any kind of economic coercion.
   16. The still-unused instrument is considered, [Gehrke said,] “the nuclear option in our arsenal: it is at the very end of what we’re ever going to do. … I think this is a mistake. We have to denuclearise the ACI and depoliticise it. We should consider the ACI as just another instrument that helps us structure these kinds of high-stakes, transactional negotiations.”
   17. … Arguably, Trump’s inability to secure any major concessions from his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, during their two-day meeting this week further demonstrates the need for Europe to strengthen its deterrence posture.
   18. [Said Arthur Leichthammer, a policy fellow at the Jacques Delors Centre,] “The EU can never be China; they shouldn’t try to copy it. … But you need to learn lessons from [China’s response to Trump’s trade measures], by preparing credible retaliation and by being willing to absorb short-term losses.”
   19. This, however, will require the EU to go beyond its current official policy of merely “de-risking” from China and, following Trump’s re-election as US president last year, from America.
   20. [Leichthammer noted that] The attempt by Brussels to reduce strategic dependencies is “not necessarily bad, … But it still does not correspond to a coherent system of deterrence, where you can push back against immediate economic coercion.”
   21. Unfortunately, the EU’s ability to engage in economic deterrence is hamstrung by various structural factors. These include a near-permanent lack of consensus among the bloc’s 27 member states, and, as Leichthammer indicated, a deep reluctance to support measures that might inflict economic pain on European citizens, especially at a time of mounting populist sentiment.
   22. Such unwillingness stands in stark contrast to China, whose high pain tolerance was one of the main reasons it survived last year’s trade conflict with Washington. Indeed, Xi himself has previously encouraged China’s struggling youth to “eat bitterness”, advice that would be tantamount to political suicide if it were ever uttered by a European politician, who, unlike their counterparts in Beijing, face democratic elections.
   23. Fortunately, there is some evidence that Europe’s economic squeamishness might be subsiding. In January this year, Trump reneged on his threat to annex Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory, after several EU leaders expressed willingness to engage in a full-blown trade war with their erstwhile ally.
   24. [At the time,Bart De Wever, Belgium’s formerly staunchly Atlanticist premier, warned,] “Back down, or we’ll go all the way.”
   25. Trump may have believed him. But regardless of the US president’s actual motives for yielding, it is clear that, in a world of increasingly intense great-power competition, the EU should be more willing to incur economic costs than it currently is.
   26. After all, if you’re trapped in a bottle with a couple of scorpions, you’re highly likely to be stung – even if you’re able to sting them back.
   27. MIKE: It’s an absolute good that Europe is paying more attention to defending itself militarily and geopolitically. It’s terrible that they feel compelled to do it in part because Trump has practically cut them loose from the United States.
   28. MIKE: No matter how powerful our military is, our greatest military and diplomatic strength is in our network of alliances. That has been the key to our national security for over 80 years.
   29. MIKE: As Bill Clinton once said in his 2008 Democratic Convention Speech, “People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.” 
7. Next is an interesting analysis piece from March that I’ve been wanting to get into the show for weeks. Whether your pro- or anti-Israel, Netanyahu, the Palestinians, or whatever, reality is reality and deserves to be examined as such. Note that some of the observations date from the situation at the beginning of March, but the overall view is still relevant and interesting. From the WASHINGTONPOST[.]COM — From Hamas attack to U.S. war with Iran, violence forges a new Middle East; By Steve Hendrix | WASHINGTONPOST.COM | March 4, 2026 at 12:18 p.m. EST. TAGS: Middle East Politics, Middle East Wars, Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, Saudi Arabia, Gaza, West Bank, Iran, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Syria, President Donald Trump,
   1. Early on a cool autumn morning in 2023, from a tunnel beneath the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar gave an order that sent thousands of Hamas fighters through the fence separating the territory from Israel. That green light has reordered the Middle East on a scale comparable to the Arab Spring or the carving up of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century — but not remotely in the ways Sinwar had in mind.
   2. Twenty-nine months later, the Middle East is almost unrecognizable. Israel stands indisputably as the military hegemon, its enemies demolished or decapitated. Saudi Arabia is emerging as a pivotal economic and political anchor, its Persian Gulf neighbors reeling under Iranian missile fire. Palestinians, mourning 75,000 dead in a shattered Gaza and losing territory in the West Bank, seem marginalized — by everyone, again.
   3. Sinwar is dead — assassinated by Israel in October 2024 — and after nearly two and a half years of bloodshed and upheaval, the network he hoped would ride to his rescue is in ruins.
   4. Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was blown up in a joint U.S.-Israeli airstrike … . The regime that bankrolled and armed the “axis of resistance” for four decades is on the edge of collapse — perhaps taking with it Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.
   5. Tehran, facing a chaotic and uncertain succession, is making enemies of the entire region — firing drones and missiles haphazardly, and often vainly including civilian targets. Bashar al-Assad, the longtime Syrian ruler, now lives in frigid Moscow.
   6. Driving the military campaign and aiming to shape the region’s future is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has survived repeated government collapses, an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court, and years of corruption trials to lead Israel to an unprecedented military dominance.
   7. And President Donald Trump, who overcame two impeachments, a felony conviction and an assassination attempt to return to the White House and take the United States to war against Iran without a vote of Congress.
   8. While Israel has faced allegations of genocide, a new generation of Israelis are now bearing the traumas of war, like their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. And while American soldiers are once again dying in the Middle East in a war of uncertain duration and unclear goals, what Sinwar set off was not a liberation but an unraveling of everything he and his sponsors yearned for — a defeated Israel, Palestinian hopes for statehood, a Middle East rid of Western influence. The so-called Great Satan looks more like the Great Decider.
   9. [Said Bilal Saab, a Chatham House fellow and former Pentagon official in the first Trump administration,] “Talk about a colossal miscalculation leading to catastrophic consequences. … That cataclysmic event single-handedly changed the face of the Middle East.”
   10. But what these changes ultimately yield remains one of the most consequential open questions in modern geopolitics. The old order — Iran as the region’s disruptive spine, its proxies as the tools of pressure and deterrence — is gone. What replaces it is an unpredictable mix of competing ambitions, fresh grievances, destroyed cities, and ungoverned spaces.
   11. Israel is dominant but isolated, its neighbors wondering — and worrying — what it will do with its power and how it will deal with ongoing hatred of its vanquished enemies. The gulf states, including the signers of Trump’s Abraham Accords, are shaken and skeptical of American guarantees. Saudi Arabia and Turkey are repositioning, but for what and against whom are not yet known. Much could depend on who or what comes next in Tehran, where Khamenei’s demise has left a vacuum.
   12. European colonialists put their pencils to a map after World War I to divide up deserts, wadis and mountains, dismantle the crumbling Ottoman Empire and create the modern Middle East. The Arab Spring of 2011 cracked it. What unfolds now could come from a new mold entirely.
   13. [Said Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group,] “This has changed the region forever. … But with what consequences still has to play out.”
   14. On Oct. 6, 2023, it was all different. Iran’s proxy network was, by most measures, at the peak of its power. Hamas governed Gaza. Hezbollah held Lebanon hostage with 100,000 rockets. Assad sat in Damascus, reintegrating into the Arab League after years of isolation. The Houthis controlled the Yemeni coast and menaced shipping lanes with near-impunity.
   15. Behind them all stood Iran, with a nuclear program viewed as an imminent threat in Jerusalem and the West, backed by a missile arsenal regarded as a strong deterrent against direct Israeli or American attack. Gulf nations were quietly reestablishing ties with the Islamic republic.
   16. [The Iran Project’s Vaez said,] “Two years later, none of those pillars are standing, and the Islamic republic is never going to be the same. … Iran as a country that can determine the trajectory of the region is no longer.”
   17. The clearest beneficiary is Israel, which has viewed Iran as its existential nemesis for decades. Since Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has neutralized every major threat on its borders, struck the Iranian homeland repeatedly and now killed its mortal enemy’s supreme leader.
   18. Many within Israel’s security establishment believe the country is more secure within its borders now than at any time since its founding in 1948, despite the Iranian missiles still falling, and the still-smoldering rubble in Gaza.
   19. [Said a former senior Israel Defense Forces official who remains close to military leaders and who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues,] “We are still traumatized from 7th October. There is still war. … But I can tell you that no one but the biggest dreamers ever thought we would be in the position we are in now. Israel is not untouchable, but we have made it very expensive to touch us.”
   20. Israeli officials say that they want to use their supremacy for regional good, and that they hope Iranians will one day enjoy freedom.
   21. [Said an Israeli official,] “When this is over, I think you’re going hear our leaders talk about Israel’s desire for peace through strength. … We are going to fight our enemies as strongly as possible and hug our friends as close as possible.”
   22. Historically, Israel has justified its massive military as a shield against hostile neighbors, a defensive crouch that gave it little experience with more political or economic leadership in the region.
   23. [Saab, the Chatham House fellow, said,] “I would describe Israel as a reluctant hegemon. … It has a tremendous capacity to defeat its enemies, but it has shown no interest in propping up political systems in place of what they have destroyed.”
   24. The focus on security comforts Israelis but unnerves their neighbors. An Israel unbound by regional rivals raises fears of overreach and adventurism — especially in the West Bank. The worries will spike if the United States, given the likelihood that Trump declares victory over Iran, pulls back from the Middle East or otherwise gives Jerusalem a free hand.
   25. [Saab said,] “As much as gulf leaders would love to see the Iranian regime gone, they also worry about the trigger-happiness of Israel.”
   26. How Israel exercises its dominance may depend on what follows in Iran once the missiles and drones run out, which some Western military experts say could happen within days.
   27. [MIKE: This was about 9 weeks ago. How does that prediction look from here? Continuing …]
   28. Trump has exhorted Iranians onto the streets to seize power for themselves. But few with experience in the region predict that a freely elected government is likely anytime soon, even if citizens rise up against the regime forces that killed more than 6,800 protesters in January, according to advocacy groups.
   29. An organized opposition [in Iran] has yet to emerge. Factions within the regime are already maneuvering for power. A military junta of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officers could succeed the regime they now serve.
   30. Nor does the crack-up of the Iranian axis guarantee an end to the terrorism and militancy it generated. Hezbollah continues to fire missiles at Israel and even Cyprus. Houthi rebels, masters of their mountainous badlands in Yemen, could target shipping in the Red Sea for years to come.
   31. The threats could widen — and perhaps include sectarian strife.
   32. [Said Shira Efron, a Tel Aviv-based fellow at Rand, the security think tank,] “Ayatollah Khamenei was not just a head of state. …He was a religious leader for something like 200 million Shiites worldwide.”
   33. In any case, Shahed drones setting tourist zones ablaze have exploded whatever hopes Iran harbored for better ties with its Muslim neighbors. By striking hotels, apartments, ports and embassies in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and other nations, what’s left of the regime in Tehran has ensured even more extreme isolation.
   34. [Said a former U.S. diplomat in the region,] “The level of psychological damage the Iranians have done to the sense of security in these countries is enormous. … Iran will be more and more isolated economically and politically. It’s a country of 90 million people that could become more like North Korea.”
   35. Emerging as unlikely co-tenants of whatever order is to come are Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Riyadh has the money and the legitimacy; Ankara has the agility and the ambition. Neither fully trusts the other. Both are watching Israel’s dominance with unease and Washington’s erratic stewardship with skepticism.
   36. Both are hedging — deepening ties with China, courting India, keeping lines open to Russia — even as they remain, for now, in the American orbit.
   37. And both are being watched by the gulf states, battered and newly vulnerable, as well as by every capital from Cairo to Pakistan’s Islamabad.
   38. What none of them can yet see is the shape of the thing being born. The old Middle East had a logic, however brutal: Iran as a disrupter, America as a guarantor, Israel as a contained power, the gulf states as financiers of stability.
   39. What replaces it will be decided in Trump’s whims as a real estate developer and self-proclaimed peacemaker, in Tehran’s succession struggle, in Riyadh’s throne rooms, in Ankara’s presidential palace, and in the rubble of Gaza — where Sinwar’s great gamble ended not in liberation but in ash and blood, and where the Middle East’s next chapter, unwritten and unpredictable, has already begun.
   40. MIKE: It’s often said that war accomplishes nothing, and all sides are losers. But that’s only true to a point.
   41. MIKE: An objective look at the outcomes of many wars actually shows just the opposite.
   42. MIKE: It’s certainly true that modern wars can cost millions of lives and cost hundreds of billions — or now, even trillions — of dollars. They can destroy cities, empires, and perhaps civilizations.
   43. MIKE: But one thing wars are good for is changing regions — or the world — from ways that seemed immutable into relationships, frameworks, and power structures that once seemed impossible to contemplate.
   44. In just the 20^th century, World War One changed the face of Europe. It destroyed and created nations and empires and gave rise to the Soviet Union.
   45. MIKE: World War Two changed the entire world order with reverberations that we still feel today.
   46. MIKE: Even the Cold War, though fought through proxies and with economic power and leverage, caused the collapse of the Soviet Union and created entirely new nations and realities.
   47. MIKE: Looking at the new Middle East realities triggered by Yahya Sinwar’s surprise attack on Israel offers just another example of how war can change what seemed at the time to be unchangeable realities into newly fluid situations that are still almost entirely unpredictable.
   48. MIKE: It’s also another reminder that as the saying goes, “No plan survives first contact with the enemy“. (Widely attributed to Prussian Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder. (“His thesis can be summed up by two statements, one famous and one less so, translated into English as “No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy’s main strength” (or “no plan survives first contact with the enemy”) and “Strategy is a system of expedients”.^[19][8])) 

There’s always more to discuss, but that’s all we have time for today.