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.)

“What we’re discovering is that the Constitution is not a mechanism that runs by itself. Ultimately, we are a government of men and not law. The law has no force without people who are willing to enforce it. The ball is now squarely in the court of the Republican Party, and particularly Senate Republicans. Will they ever be prepared to say enough is enough?” ~ William A. Galston, a senior fellow in governance at the Brookings Institution who graduated from college just before Watergate. (From, “Trump’s Ukraine call reveals a president convinced of his own invincibility”, By Philip Rucker, Robert Costa and Rachael Bade | WASHINGTONPOST.COM | September 21, 2019); and as quoted in, “A Very Stable Genius” by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig”, p. 416) 

 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 China, Belgium, Hong Kong, Singapore, 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 48^th week of Trump’s military occupation of Washington DC; and 37 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 4 months. I can’t wait to see how that one turns out.

LAWFARE has a chart of where US troops are currently stationed around the US. The link is in this show post at ThinkwingRadio[.]com.

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

1. First from HOUSTONPUBLICMEDIA[.]ORG — Democrats are calling for an investigation into Houston ICE shooting. Republicans have been mostly silent; By Michael Adkison | HOUSTONPUBLICMEDIA.ORG | Posted on July 8, 2026, 4:51 PM. TAGS: Houston, Immigration, Local News, Politics Texas, Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia, Department of Homeland Security, Harris County Attorney Abbie Kamin, Houston Democrats, Houston Republicans, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE),
   1. A number of elected officials, predominantly of the Democratic Party, have called for an independent investigation into the shooting of a man in Houston by a federal immigration agent. Republicans have mostly been silent on the matter.
   2. As of Wednesday afternoon, few Republicans had weighed in on the Tuesday morning shooting death of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo during an encounter with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Houston’s East End. By contrast, Democrats have almost singularly criticized the shooting and called for an independent investigation of it.
   3. [U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, whose district includes the predominantly Latino area where the shooting took place, said on Hello Houston on Wednesday,] “If this is a routine traffic stop, then everybody in Houston has to kind of fear for driving on our roads, and we’re going to be stopped by ICE, and this is going to be the end result.”
   4. [Garcia said she] also noted that her office has had difficulty speaking with representatives from ICE, even at one point being told that “they didn’t have enough staff to deal with all our inquiries.”
   5. Houston Public Media also reached out to ICE’s media contact for more information on other arrests on Tuesday and was directed to ICE’s Office of Partnership and Engagement, which asked for “2-3 days for follow-up.”
   6. Early Tuesday morning, an ICE officer fatally shot Araujo, a Houston resident whom federal authorities have said was a Mexican citizen without legal status in the U.S. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security alleged he was attempting to evade arrest and “weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer.”
   7. [MIKE: As an aside, that assertion has been disputed by a number of people and may be supported by video. We’ll see. Continuing …]
   8. Among the other Democrats to call for an investigation are Harris County Commissioner Adrian Garcia; Houston City Council member Joaquin Martinez; Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo; Houston Mayor John Whitmire; state Sen. Carol Alvarado; and state Rep. Ana Hernandez, all of whom are Democrats representing the area where the shooting took place.
   9. Other officials calling for an investigation include Democratic gubernatorial nominee Gina Hinojosa, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico and Texas House Democratic Caucus leader Gene Wu, among others.
   10. In the race for Harris County judge, Republican nominee Orlando Sanchez, one of [the] few Republicans to go on the record on the matter, told Houston Public Media in a statement, “It is far too early in the investigation for me to have a comment on this incident. Let’s wait and allow those tasked with investigating to do their jobs.”
   11. Letitia Plummer, the Democratic nominee, by contrast called for an independent investigation into the shooting and called for limits on interactions between local police and ICE.
   12. Whitmire said the Houston Police Department was not involved in Tuesday’s shooting, his office stated that the city “lacks access to the evidence, witnesses, or investigative authorities necessary to conduct a complete review of federal actions.”
   13. Interim Harris County Attorney Abbie Kamin, whose office handles civil cases involving the county government, stated “there needs to be serious questions as to why the city is taking the position that it’s taking” in not conducting its own investigation.
   14. [Kamin said on Hello Houston on Wednesday,] “In any investigation involving a death of a person within city limits, HPD can be involved in that investigation. … There are different avenues — again, I’m not saying leading investigations, or anything like that — but when something happens in our city, in our county, it is also our responsibility to ensure that evidence is preserved and that justice reigns at the end of the day.”
   15. Representatives from the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecutes criminal cases, did not respond to a request for comment on whether or not they were investigating.
   16. In Texas’ most high-profile race, Talarico is facing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in November’s Senate election. Houston Public Media reached out to the campaign for Paxton and had not heard back by Wednesday afternoon.
   17. MIKE: Being in the US illegally is a civil offense not a capital crime, but too often, ICE treats it like one.
   18. MIKE: The record is one of frequent and unreasonable violence, and videos of their interactions with civilians have strongly suggested — I’m resisting the word “proven” — that they frequently lie about the reasons for their actions, which range from property damage to physical violence to fatal shootings.
   19. MIKE: ICE’s history of interactions with civilians of all immigration statuses — from illegal to native-born — leaves them with no credibility whatsoever when they make claims such as self-defense to justify their violence or use of lethal force.
   20. MIKE: A government agency that has lost all credibility has also lost all legitimacy.
   21. MIKE: ICE must be abolished.
   22. MIKE: The vast majority of its current employees should probably be terminated. In some cases, they should probably be investigated and even indicted.
   23. MIKE: When that’s been done, new employees and the few remaining current employees must be thoroughly trained or retrained in how their actions and options are limited by law; what they are actually permitted to do under the law; where and how they are permitted to operate under the law; and in almost all cases and categories of immigration enforcement employees, they should probably be unarmed, or armed with tasers at most.
   24. MIKE: Current ICE actions resemble vigilantism more than law enforcement, and HPD and the Harris County Sheriff’s Department should perhaps be charged with protecting our citizens from them rather than simply ignoring ICE enforcement misbehavior or occasionally actually assisting ICE.
   25. MIKE: If local police are supposed to protect and serve, the service our local residents sorely need and seem to most require at this time in history is protection from ICE.
   26. MIKE: “The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is described in USCourts[.]gov as “[protecting] individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. It requires law enforcement to obtain a warrant based on probable cause and outlines exceptions for when warrantless searches are permitted, such as during a lawful arrest or in emergencies.”
   27. MIKE: It adds that, “The Fourth Amendment, however, is not a guarantee against all searches and seizures, but only those that are deemed unreasonable under the law.”
   28. I will emphasize here that I’m no lawyer, but if a person is waiting for their lawyer but is otherwise not resisting arrest, is it reasonable to smash their car windows and drag them out of their vehicles?
   29. MIKE: What are ICE’s guidelines on the use of lethal force? Because it sure seems like they don’t have any.
   30. MIKE: And I don’t think that it’s hyperbole to say that Homeland Security seems to be running concentration camps that are not too far off what the Nazis were running in Europe during WW2.
   31. MIKE: I base this on constant reports about the lack of adequate sanitation and water facilities; insufficient numbers of beds, blankets, etc.; denial of adequate medical and pharmaceutical care; and what seem like a disturbing number of unnecessary deaths.
   32. MIKE: To be fair, at least the Department of Homeland Security doesn’t use gas chambers or have crematoria, but I find that to be cold comfort.
   33. MIKE: And we must remember that no amount of legal liability, jail time, or monetary remuneration can bring back the dead. They’re gone forever.
   34. MIKE: While I am calling for police to protect us from ICE, I recognize that federal and state law often seem to preclude them from doing so, but as Charles Dickens wrote in his 1838 novel, Oliver Twist: “If that is the law, then the law is an ass.”
   35. MIKE: This is another example of the life-altering ways in which elections literarily have life-or-death consequences.
2. In a related story from Associated Press via CLICK2HOUSTON.COM — Mexico to request criminal charges over deaths following fatal shooting of Houston man by ICE agents; By María Verza, Associated Press | Associated Press via CLICK2HOUSTON.COM | Published: July 9, 2026 at 12:05 PM/Updated: July 9, 2026 at 2:27 PM. Tags: Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, Claudia Sheinbaum, Washington news, Donald Trump, World news, Roberto Velasco, Immigration Enforcement Operations (ICE),
   1. Mexico will request criminal charges over 17 Mexicans who died in ICE custody or during immigration enforcement operations by the Trump administration, officials said Thursday.
   2. Mexican Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco’s announcement Thursday morning further escalated tensions with the United States, as Mexico’s government has sharply criticized the treatment of its citizens under U.S. President Donald Trump’s push to increase deportations.
   3. The request, which carries no legal weight, will be submitted to state prosecutors’ offices and the U.S. Department of Justice, asking them to consider criminal charges against those responsible for the deaths.
   4. It will be accompanied by civil lawsuits against the companies that operate the detention centers in an effort to put an end to human rights violations in those facilities, Velasco said.
   5. President Claudia Sheinbaum said Thursday that Mexico decided to “move beyond diplomatic channels” and escalate its complaints after an ICE agent killed Mexican citizen Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston this week. Sheinbaum said the killing “is not only sad and regrettable, but also appears to have been targeted.”
   6. [Sheinbaum said,] “We are going to do everything in our power, because we cannot stand silent” in the face of the deaths of Mexicans “whose only crime is working honestly in the United States.”
   7. MIKE: As I noted in the last story, illegal immigration is a civil crime, not a felony, and not in any way subject to capital punishment. Continuing …]
   8. Salgado Araujo had been living in the country for decades. He was transporting a work crew to a housing construction site when he was shot. His family demanded a thorough investigation into what happened.
   9. According to the S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, agents were pursuing him because he was living in the country without legal authorization. Salgado Araujo, the department added, was shot after disregarding orders and attempting to ram an agent, who fired his weapon in self-defense.
   10. According to the Mexican government, 14 Mexicans have died while in ICE custody and 3 during ICE operations.
   11. Until now, the Mexican government had supported the victims’ families, sent diplomatic notes to Washington demanding investigations, and raised the issue with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Sheinbaum earlier this year ordered consulates to regularly check in with ICE detainees, and her government even lodged a complaint with the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.
   12. Mexico’s latest request adds to an already strained relationship with the Trump administration. Sheinbaum has cracked down more fiercely than her predecessors on organized crime in the wake of mounting threats by Trump to take military action against cartels. She has also sought to keep an amicable relationship with her U.S. counterpart as the countries renegotiate the decades-old free trade agreement. At the same time, she’s taken a strong stance on immigration enforcement and the rights of Mexican citizens in U.S. custody.
   13. MIKE: First, it’s entirely within Mexico’s international rights to intercede diplomatically and legally on behalf of Mexican citizens, even if they’re dual citizens. The US and other countries do the same in similar circumstances.
   14. MIKE: Second, given the lawlessness of the Trump regime and especially given the brutality common with ICE apprehensions and assaults, I for one welcome Mexico’s diplomatic and legal intervention in these ICE cases. I wish our European allies were more activist in their relations with the Trump regime.
   15. MIKE: But one of the most disturbing things about this particular story was the majority of the reader comments. I think that the following are representative.
   16. MIKE: “Take on the effort to make Mexico a livable country and this doesn’t happen, Madam President. Or, is that against the wishes of your cartel masters?”
   17. MIKE: And, “Hey Cluck 2, someone there at the news station needs to reclassify this news story and move it to the Entertainment section. Because it is quite comical! Mexico requesting criminal charges… Bwahaahaaa. How about the U.S. sues Mexico for every illegal found and returned to Mexico and all drugs coming out of Mexico coming into the U.S.”
   18. MIKE: And, “I request charges against the president of Mexico for supporting cartels at her benefit that kill thousands of Americans, now that is a slam dunk case!!”
   19. MIKE: And,“Sorry, Cartel Claudia but your jurisdiction stops at the big, beautiful wall.”
   20. MIKE: And finally,“Possibly the illegal felt entitled after 25 years and resisted. We offered a plane ride home and cash, he refused and now he is no longer an issue. If his kids are illegal we need to round them up while we are at it.”
   21. MIKE: Not all the comments were that nasty and cold-blooded, but most of them were.
   22. MIKE: Now, I think that it’s important to bear in mind that those commenters to the CLICK2 story were self-selected, but they are suggestive of two things: 1- That KPRC tends to attract the most rightwing readers and listeners in their viewing region, and 2- That Rightwingers keep displaying their heartlessness.
   23. MIKE: In his book, “Nuremberg Diary”, Capt. Gustave Mark Gilbert wrote, “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.”
   24. MIKE: Drawing from the lessons of the Nuremberg Trials, I must ask, at what point a lack of empathy crosses over heartlessness into evil?
   25. MIKE: I think it’s time that we as Americans think long and hard on that question, and do a better job of teaching empathy to our children and grandchildren.
3. From NYTIMES[.]COM — S. Declines to Renew U.S.M.C.A., Starting 10-Year Clock to Expiration; By Ana SwansonIan Austen and Emiliano Rodríguez Mega | NYTIMES.COM | July 1, 2026. TAGS: U.S. Politics, Donald Trump, U.S., Mexico, Canada, USMCA Trade Deal, North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA),
   1. The Trump administration on Wednesday declined to renew the trade deal President Trump negotiated with Canada and Mexico in his first term, a pact that he later came to criticize.
   2. The decision, though expected, was an important symbolic move for a trade deal the United States is currently trying to renegotiate. The move started a decade-long clock to the deal’s expiration, unless the three countries unanimously decide to renew it.
   3. The text of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement required the three countries to jointly meet to review the agreement six years after it took effect, on July 1, 2020. All three countries were required to say in writing whether they wanted to extend the pact for another 16 years.
   4. Canada and Mexico said last month that they wanted to extend the agreement. But Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, said on Wednesday that the Trump administration was not ready to renew the pact wholesale. The United States would continue to engage with Mexico and Canada “to address the agreement’s shortcomings and our trade deficits with these countries,” … adding that the agreement would remain in force until those issues were resolved or the deal was terminated.
   5. [Mr. Greer said in an interview with Bloomberg on Wednesday morning,] “We think there are substantial issues.”
   6. Trump has repeatedly suggested that he might pull out of the deal, raising anxiety among the United States’ neighbors. While the deal has many critics, industries like autos and agriculture are tightly integrated across the continent because of the pact. Its end, experts say, would be disruptive for both workers and businesses.
   7. The announcement that the United States would not renew came as Prime Minister Mark Carney was speaking at the national Canada Day celebration in Ottawa.
   8. In a statement, Dominic LeBlanc, the cabinet minister Mr. Carney placed in charge of dealing with the United States on trade emphasized that the three countries had agreed on the importance of continuing their discussions.
   9. [Mr. LeBlanc said,] “Canada approaches these discussions from a position of strength and with the goal of preserving and strengthening one of the most successful trading relationships in the world.”
   10. [President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico told reporters on Wednesday morning Mexican officials said they had also been left uncertain about the deal’s outcome, saying,] “Canada is currently experiencing the same situation as Mexico concerning the treaty, due to the U.S. president’s more protectionist economic stance.”
   11. Here’s what to know about the deal, and what comes next in its negotiation.
   12. … The pact replaced and updated the 1992 North American Free Trade Agreement, which Mr. Trump criticized as the worst trade deal ever.
   13. Aside from the name change, that negotiation left many parts of the original agreement intact. It also updated the pact with new provisions for digital technology, raised requirements for automakers to build more of their cars in North America, created new labor standards, and modestly opened Canada’s dairy market to imports, among other changes.
   14. Trump officials now say the new agreement hasn’t done enough to stop outsourcing, leading to the growth of U.S. trade deficits with Canada and Mexico. Mr. Trump has repeatedly threatened to scrap the deal, while his officials have proposed making changes to encourage more U.S. manufacturing. While many trade analysts believe that threat is a negotiating tactic, no one can be sure, given Mr. Trump’s desire to drastically change the trading system.
   15. With the future of the deal hanging in the balance, businesses, farmers and unions have been watching nervously, and [are] lobbying their governments about what to do. Also looming over the meeting are tariffs Mr. Trump introduced on crucial industries like autos, steel and aluminum, which Canadians and Mexicans argue have violated the pact.
   16. [So,] What happens now?
   17. Expectations for the July 1 meeting had been low, given that negotiations are continuing separately. The United States and Mexico have another round of talks scheduled for the week of July 20, while U.S.-Canadian negotiations have not started in earnest.
   18. A senior administration official said Wednesday that the Trump administration would like to conclude the deal as quickly as possible, and could push to have new separate protocols with Canada and Mexico before the end of the president’s term.
   19. Both Canada and Mexico have publicly rejected the idea of replacing U.S.M.C.A. with separate bilateral agreements between the United States and its current trading partners. Canadian officials have also downplayed fears at home of an imminent end to the deal, and suggested that July 1 is less a deadline than it is a starting point for talks.
   20. With U.S. officials saying they will not immediately move to renew the pact, the countries now begin a cycle of annual reviews. If the countries do not unanimously agree to renew the agreement within that time frame, U.S.M.C.A. will now automatically terminate after a decade.
   21. In Mexico, officials have started preparing for that situation, which they say is the most likely outcome. But they fear that the annual reviews will create frequent instability, making it more difficult to attract the major investments needed to strengthen North America’s economy and phase out Asian suppliers like China.
   22. [Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico’s economy minister, said last week on a podcast,] “If you drag us into a constant review process, you’re going to choke off investment. … That completely defeats the purpose of replacing your Asian suppliers. You can’t have it both ways.”
   23. Companies have also argued that the uncertainty undercuts the agreement’s benefits. Matt Blunt, the president of the American Automotive Policy Council, which represents U.S. automakers, said that he was glad the governments were engaging constructively, but that uncertainty over the rules could delay investment decisions.
   24. [Blunt said,] “The sooner the better, and delay is not our friend.”
   25. … The United States has proposed changes to the pact’s rules for agriculture, metals, cars and other goods. Those include a measure that is controversial for the auto industry. It would raise the requirement for how much North American content by value a car needed to have to qualify for tariff-free treatment.
   26. [People familiar with the proposals said that] The Trump administration would raise that threshold to 82 percent from 75 percent currently, while requiring 50 percent of a car’s materials to come from the United States. … The United States is also proposing expanding those rules to new types of car parts and setting new content requirements for other industries, including electronics.
   27. The senior administration official said Wednesday that the United States expected to talk to the Mexicans about rules of origin and economic security, among other topics, when they meet later this month.
   28. The United States had discussed ways to build out North American supply chains for electronics, chemicals, auto parts and other goods with Mexico, and is weighing what to do with the aerospace industry, the official said.
   29. Canada and Mexico also have their disputes, but mostly they are eager for the deal to be extended, and for the Trump administration to offer some relief for other tariffs it issued last year.
   30. Trump has, so far, exempted most goods from Canada and Mexico covered by the trade agreement from tariffs. But that has not been the case for the crucial industrial sectors of automobiles, steel and aluminum, which face tariffs of up to 50 percent. Eliminating, or reducing, those duties is high on the list of demands for Canada and Mexico, though U.S. officials have indicated any substantial reduction is unlikely.
   31. On Wednesday, Mr. LeBlanc emphasized that Canada was seeking “substantive discussions with the United States” on those specific trade measures.
   32. In a statement, a consortium of auto industry trade groups called on the three governments to restore continental free trade for the sector.
   33. [The group said,] “The U.S.M.C.A. is a success story for the entire U.S. auto industry, with billions invested in U.S. production and thousands of manufacturing jobs created.”
   34. Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada has made moves that have been widely viewed as concessions to the United States, despite his denials to the contrary. They include ordering a broadcast regulator to review a decision that would have tripled what large U.S. streaming services like Netflix pay to support Canadian television and film production. And after the United States threatened tariffs on countries it decided had inadequate controls on imports of products made using forced labor, Mr. Carney’s government introduced legislation to tighten its system.
   35. But Mr. Carney has also vowed not to cave to Trump administration demands that could harm Canadian industries simply to preserve the trade deal.
   36. In Mexico, Ms. Sheinbaum said that her administration would always protect the economy of Mexican families “without giving in on things we cannot compromise on — from sovereignty to other things they’ve asked of us.”
   37. Mexican officials have drawn a red line at any seasonal restrictions proposed by the United States to prevent Mexico from exporting agricultural goods during the seasons when the United States produces its own. If the Trump administration tries to enforce such constraints, Mr. Ebrard said last week, Mexico will look for alternative mechanisms to replace U.S. agricultural imports, of which corn is the most important.
   38. [Mr. Ebrard said,] “We would not accept changes of that nature. … We’ve told them that.”
   39. MIKE: I’m not against international trade. We need things from our trade partners that we can’t make or grow at home, or that we can’t provide enough of without imports.
   40. MIKE: But after reading this story, I decided to see what exactly our trade deficit with our two North American neighbors looked like.
   41. MIKE: Mexico and Canada are our two largest trading partners, followed closely by China. Of course, China falls into an entirely different category economically, geographically and geopolitically, and they qualify as a potential adversary as well as an important trading partner.
   42. MIKE: Significantly, that is not the case with either Canada or Mexico.
   43. MIKE: But first, I want to make something clear. There is a distinction between a balance of trade deficit and a balance of payments deficit.
   44. MIKE: The balance of trade relates to mostly tangible goods, from clothes to aircraft, and more.
   45. The balance of payments is more inclusive, because it includes payments from foreign customers for things like banking and consulting services.
   46. MIKE: That said, let’s continue.
   47. MIKE: “In 2025, the US goods trade deficit with Mexico reached a record $196.9 billion, making it one of the largest bilateral trade gaps the US maintains. [1, 2]”
   48. MIKE: Mexico is also our second largest export customer, so the relationship matters a lot to both countries.
   49. MIKE: “While the US often runs a slight surplus in services trade with Mexico, it is heavily outweighed by the massive influx of imported goods — such as motor vehicles, auto parts, and computers — compared to US exports to Mexico.”
   50. In 2024, the US exported $283 billion of products to Mexico, including over $26 billion in refined petroleum and natural gas products. Those were our single largest category of export products to Mexico. The rest of our exports to them are smaller amounts in a great many categories.
   51. MIKE: On the other hand, we imported from Mexico $494 billion worth of goods that ran the gamut from over $220 billion in cars, trucks, tractors and other transport-related systems and parts, to about $100 billion in computers and related peripherals and parts.
   52. MIKE: Remember that our relationship with Mexico is not one of economic equivalents. Mexico is still a developing nation — what some would call a “2^nd World” nation — with a much smaller GDP than ours as well as a much smaller per capita income than ours. It therefore stands to reason that they would be importing what are considered technologically “added value” products from us while we import more labor-intensive products from them.
   53. MIKE: As the only neighbor on our southern border, and with whom we share one of the longest demilitarized borders in the world — despite Trump’s and the Republicans’ efforts to change that — it is in our interest to see Mexico as a peaceful and prosperous partner.
   54. MIKE: Further, the wealthier Mexico becomes and the larger their middle class becomes, the more products we’re likely to export to them. That’s another reason we should want to encourage Mexico’s per capita prosperity.
   55. MIKE: “[T]he US [also] runs a trade deficit with Canada. The goods trade deficit stands at roughly $46.4 billion, though when factoring in the strong US services surplus (and note that this is where the balance of payments matter)— and particularly excluding energy imports like crude oil — the United States actually maintains an overall trade surplus with its northern neighbor.”
   56. MIKE: In that respect, the trade partnership and economic partnership that we have with Mexico is qualitatively different from the one we have with Canada, which is a developed nation, and which in many ways is more an economic peer with the US.
   57. MIKE: I decided to do a deeper dive into those US-Canada trade numbers, because I didn’t like an exclusion as large as $124 billion for energy in those deficit numbers.
   58. MIKE: “The US imports approximately $124 billion [1] in energy from Canada annually. This primarily consists of crude oil, natural gas, refined petroleum products, and electricity, with Canada remaining the single largest foreign supplier of energy to the United States.”
   59. MIKE: “The United States exports approximately $27 billion [1] in energy to Canada annually. This includes a variety of commodities like crude oil, natural gas, refined petroleum products, and electricity. By comparison, S. energy imports from Canada are significantly higher, totaling [that]roughly $124 billion [number]. [1, 2]
   60. MIKE: So in energy, the US has a net trade deficit with Canada of about $87 billion. That’s not negligible, but it includes things like electricity imported into our northern states from Canadian hydropower, as well as petroleum and petroleum products that are cheaper from Canada because of its proximity to markets in our northern tier states.
   61. MIKE: So by my crude calculations — no pun intended — that suggests that while we have a trade surplus with Canada when we exclude energy, it also accounts for our roughly $40.6 billion energy trade deficit with Canada overall.
   62. MIKE: From a national industrial interest standpoint, these kinds of deficits need to be addressed in some way.
   63. MIKE: In the case of Canada, our biggest trade deficit seems to be in energy. It’s not their fault that we need to import so much energy from them. It’s ours.
   64. MIKE: Therefore, rather than punish Canada for their trade surplus with us, it should make sense for the Trump regime to develop our domestic energy supplies, the least developed of which is solar and wind.
   65. MIKE: But solar and wind energies are counterproductively the bête noire of the Trump regime. Yet encouraging development of these electricity resources could significantly diminish or even end the Canadian trade surplus in this area and could possibly bring the US within trade balance or even surplus in net trade with Canada.
   66. MIKE: From my overall perspective, in the 1970s, the US began what I would politely call a negligent policy of “deindustrialization”, effectively exporting important, labor intensive industries to Mexico, China, and developing southern Asian and African countries.
   67. MIKE: From a corporate perspective, that made a lot of sense. They were able to provide cheaper products to US consumers and maintain high profits. But the price we paid from a national industrial policy perspective grew to enormous proportions that we are still paying for in terms of jobs, national personal incomes, civil peace and prosperity, industrial independence, and tax revenue.
   68. MIKE: We can’t remain a major military and economic power without a strong industrial and trained worker base to build and fund it, as we’re learning very late in the game.
4. That last story before the break leads neatly to our next story from CBSNEWS[.]COM — This number helps explain why many Americans are down on the economy; By Aimee Picchi, Associate Managing Editor, MoneyWatch | COM | Updated: June 30, 2026/6:15 PM EDT / CBS News. TAGS: American Workers, Economy, Labor Share Of Income, Job Market,
   1. American workers’ share of the economic pie has fallen to its lowest level since at least 1947, when the federal government began tracking the data, according to an analysis by Federal Reserve economists. 
   2. The measure, known as “labor share of income,” tracks how much of the nation’s economic output flows to workers in the form of wages and salaries, as opposed to the share that goes to investors and corporations through profits, dividends and other capital income.
   3. A shrinking labor share of income indicates that more economic gains are flowing to shareholders and business owners, rather than to workers.
   4. As of early 2026, American workers received 54.1% of national income, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. By comparison, that figure topped 65% almost 80 years ago, when the government began tracking the data following World War II. In early 2020, it stood at 57.7%, indicating that workers have continued to lose ground since the pandemic. 
   5. Roughly 48% of Americans said their financial situation was worse in May than a year ago, the highest share since January 2023, according to a recent survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
   6. Three-quarters of Americans said their incomes aren’t keeping up with inflation, according to a May CBS News poll. Roughly 29% of respondents said the economy was in good shape.
   7. American workers are taking home a smaller share of the nation’s income — capturing less of what the economy produces — due to several long-standing issues, ranging from the erosion of union membership to tax law changes that have steered more gains to CEOs, investors and high-income Americans, economists told CBS News. 
   8. As those currents played out over decades, many low- and middle-income workers have lost economic ground, making them feel increasingly financially precarious even as the economy as a whole has continued to expand and rebound in the wake of multiple crises. 
   9. [Said Josh Bivens, chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank,] “You’ve got a lot of people who seem to work for firms that, in the aggregate, seem to be doing really well. … They’re very profitable, and yet [workers’] wages aren’t growing particularly fast relative to how fast the firms are growing.”
   10. He added, “A lot of people look up after 10 years of working and just feel like they have not gained as much ground as they want to. More and more stuff just seems to be out of their grasp, because their wages have not kept up.”
   11. [Bivens said that a] related way to measure the shift is to consider the change in U.S. workers’ share of company profits. … Workers received 71.3% of corporate income in the first quarter of 2026, down from 77.8% at the start of 2020, according to an EPI analysis of labor data.
   12. In 1979, the starting year for the EPI’s analysis, the share stood at 79.1%.
   13. That figure shows that the share of corporate income that goes to people’s paychecks, rather than to business profits, is declining, with more rewards flowing to shareholders and top executives via dividends, stock buybacks and other forms of capital. Capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than ordinary income, benefiting shareholders and other investors. 
   14. The change in labor income helps explain the emergence of the so-called K-shaped economy, said Angela Hanks, chief of policy programs at the left-leaning Century Foundation. The term describes the growing fortunes of America’s top earners, while low- and middle-income earners are failing to keep up. 
   15. [Hanks said,] “You see this chart, and you immediately understand why consumer sentiment is so low — you understand why, at 4% unemployment, people are pessimistic about the economy. … Even if you have a job, even if you feel like your household is relatively stable, you do feel this underlying precarity at all times.”
   16. … [Bivens said that] The declines in labor’s share of [gross national] income and corporate income are the cumulative result of policy changes over the past few decades, including the weakening of collective bargaining power. … Union membership has steadily eroded, falling to 10% of all U.S. workers last year, from 20% in 1983, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
   17. [Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute said,] “A good symbol of this is the value of the federal minimum wage — it’s the lowest today in inflation-adjusted terms than it’s been in about 50 years, and that’s just a clear symbol that boosting wages for typical workers has not been a policy priority.”
   18. The federal minimum wage remains $7.25 an hour, where it was set in 2009.
   19. At the same time, [Hanks of the Century Foundation said,] the shift of income away from workers and toward investors and corporations is becoming self-reinforcing.
   20. [She added,] “As labor’s share declines, it becomes harder for labor to exercise its power to demand higher wages, better working conditions, and [it’s]easier for capital to suppress that demand.”
   21. In other words, as workers get a smaller piece of the economic pie, they lose power to bargain for better pay and working conditions. By contrast, corporations and shareholders gain leverage in keeping the upper hand, she said.
   22. [MIKE: It’s important to understand that that is a feature and not a bug of Reaganomics and Republican economic policy and trickledown economics since 1981. Continuing …]
   23. … To be sure, other factors are weighing on Americans’ views of the economy. Resurgent inflation, which in May hit its highest level in more than three years, is pressuring people’s budgets, with Gallup finding in a recent poll that high gasoline prices have caused financial hardship for two-thirds of households.
   24. [MIKE: On the subject of gasoline… When I was a window covering installer in the 1980s, I drove a 3/4-ton van with a 33-gallon tank, and I probably bought an average of about 40 gallons per week at maybe $2 per gallon. That was about 170 gallons per month at about $340.
   25. MIKE: Today that would translate into almost $700 per month, which is far in excess of what would be a result of normal inflation alone.
   26. MIKE: That probably would have made gas #1 or #2 out of my top four overhead expenses, which included medical, auto, and liability insurance premiums. I can hardly even imagine what that would do to the prices I would have to charge to make a profit, or the potential customers that I might lose as a result. It might have driven me out of business. (No pun intended.) Continuing …]
   27. Inflation has also outpaced worker wages, meaning the typical household is losing purchasing power. More Americans report struggling to pay for healthcare, while credit card delinquencies across the U.S. have reached their highest level in 15 years. And the rise of AI is fueling public concerns about losing jobs to automation. 
   28. With many families increasingly financially pinched, some are turning to credit cards and other forms of debt to cover daily expenses, which could also contribute to their pessimism about the economy, Hanks said.
   29. [She added,] “People are increasingly using debt as a way to make ends meet — we have record-high credit card debt, auto debt. … People are falling into delinquency and default at concerning rates, and are using these products not for extravagant purchases, but just to get by and make ends meet.”
   30. MIKE: That last part is called a debt trap. You can’t remain financially healthy if you have to borrow to meet routine expenses, and it’s incredibly hard to break that cycle once it starts.
   31. MIKE: An example I often use to help crystalize how middle-class purchasing power has eroded is car loans, which I think is a more important indicator than just car prices.
   32. MIKE: Up until the mid- to late-1970s, it was still possible to buy a car and pay it off with a 3-year loan.
   33. MIKE: Over the decades, I’ve watched standard car loans creep up to 5 years, 7 years, and now I’m hearing about 8-year car loans! Loans of that length quickly put a car owner “under water” with their loan. In other words, their car rapidly loses value, so that the debt is worth more than the car, either in private sale or as a trade-in.
   34. MIKE: To my simple mind, if wages kept up with inflation, it should still be possible to earn enough to buy a car with a 3-year loan.
   35. MIKE: And I think that’s one way to envision how things have changed for workers over the past 50 years.
   36. MIKE: There are anecdotal indicators of how bad things are for workers if you look at the kinds of businesses that have been doing well: Dollar stores, payday lenders, car title lenders, reverse mortgage companies, and so-called “structured payment lenders“.
   37. MIKE: All of these businesses profit off those who are financially struggling and the newly poor. The loan-oriented businesses are creating debt traps that are hard to escape while they are also siphoning off generational wealth that should stay in families.
   38. MIKE: In short, the Reaganite and Republican fiscal policies of the last 40+ years have been aimed at stealing from the poor and middle class and giving to the rich and ultrarich.
   39. MIKE: So if Republicans compare the Democrats to Robin Hood, then Democrats should tie the Republicans to the Sheriff of Nottingham. As a Cliff’s Note, the Sheriff of Nottingham has always been considered the bad guy in the story.
   40. MIKE: I think that helps to make the political and fiscal battle lines clear.
5. From the Department of “Good news, everyone”, from GIZMODO[.]COM — A Hidden Nuclear Weapon Could Already Be Orbiting Earth. This MIT Physicist Has a Plan to Find It; By Ellyn Lapointe | GIZMODO.COM | Published July 8, 2026, 11:00 am ET. TAGS: Defense, Nuclear Weapons Satellites, The Outer Space Treaty, Space-Based Warfare,
   1. Here’s a terrifying fact: If there was a nuclear weapon in orbit, we would have no idea. The Outer Space Treaty — established in 1967 and signed by 118 countries to date — bans the placement of nuclear weapons in space, but there is currently no way for militaries to verify that a satellite isn’t carrying one.
   2. That’s a big problem. As nations rapidly expand their space launch capabilities and strengthen their presence in orbit, some experts believe it’s only a matter of time until geopolitical conflicts spill off-planet. The growing threat of space-based warfare demands enhanced weapons reconnaissance to ensure that all signing nations abide by the terms of the Outer Space Treaty, but devising a way to detect nuclear weapons in space is an engineering conundrum.
   3. Areg Danagoulian, an associate professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, put himself up to the challenge. In a proof-of-concept study published today in the journal Nature, he proposes a satellite-based sensor system that could orbit near a suspect spacecraft and detect neutrons generated by high-energy protons colliding with radioactive material — a signature of a thermonuclear weapon.
   4. … In 1962, when the U.S. detonated the Starfish Prime nuclear test about 250 miles (400 kilometers) above the Pacific Ocean, roughly one-third of the satellites in low Earth orbit were damaged or destroyed.
   5. Radiation was the primary culprit. The explosion injected an enormous amount of charged electrons into the inner Van Allen belt, one of two donut-shaped belts of radiation that surround Earth. This increased its electron population by several orders of magnitude, according to Danagoulian. As satellites passed through the belt, their electronics and solar panels were significantly degraded.
   6. Today, there are thousands more satellites in space, and our modern lives depend on them. While detonating a space-based nuke wouldn’t result in any direct casualties, it could disable or destroy satellites that underpin communications, GPS navigation, weather forecasting, surveillance, and missile warning systems. Both the U.S. military and civilian infrastructure rely heavily on satellites, meaning a single explosion could trigger widespread disruptions and weaken defense capabilities.
   7. Despite this risk, the only safeguard against nuclear detonation in space is the Outer Space Treaty. [Danagoulian writes in his report,] “Although the OST is almost 60 years old, it has always lacked robust means of verification for space-based nuclear threats. “
   8. This is partly because devising a verification method is technically challenging: low Earth orbit is a harsh radiation environment, so traditional nuclear detection methods would be encumbered by the bombardment of protons and electrons trapped in the inner Van Allen belt, he explains.
   9. But [according to Danagoulian,] the inner Van Allen belt could also help reveal hidden thermonuclear weapons. If a satellite carrying one passes through this proton- and electron-rich zone, it is going to emit a ton of neutrons as a result of proton-induced spallation. This is when high-energy protons slam into heavy elements like uranium — the radioactive material used in most thermonuclear weapons — and knock neutrons and other particles loose.
   10. Based on reasonable assumptions about the amount and size of uranium, he estimates that a thermonuclear weapon could emit as many as 40 million neutrons per second when it encounters the high-energy protons in the Van Allen belt, producing a detectable signal.
   11. [Danagoulian told Gizmodo,] “But just because there’s a signal doesn’t mean you’re going to be able to see it.”
   12. To actually detect a warhead, he needed to devise a device that can sort through all the particle noise in low Earth orbit. [He said,] “You have to be able to differentiate between protons that are coming from outside and neutrons that are coming from the satellite.”
   13. … Danagoulian’s “inspector” satellite is designed to orbit below the suspect satellite, passing through the Van Allen belt alongside it. As both the inspector and the suspect encounter the belt’s charged particles, the sensor would need to distinguish neutrons emitted by the suspect satellite from the constant barrage of protons striking the detector itself.
   14. To do that, Danagoulian devised a sensor that filters out incoming protons, leaving behind the telltale neutron signal that could indicate the presence of uranium. But there’s another problem.
   15. [He explained,] “There is a huge flux of neutrons, also referred to as albedo neutrons, that are coming from Earth.”
   16. These neutrons are produced by cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere, creating another background signal that could interfere with warhead detection. Danagoulian’s sensor system would overcome this by using directional detection to determine whether a neutron came from the satellite above or the Earth below. That’s why the inspector needs to orbit beneath the suspect.
   17. To validate his design, Danagoulian modeled a scenario where a satellite carrying a thermonuclear weapon is passing through the inner Van Allen belt at the same time as his inspector satellite, positioned roughly 2.5 miles (4 km) apart. The results showed that the inspector could filter out the noise and detect neutrons emitted by the warhead, effectively sniffing it out.
   18. While his study shows that his idea is theoretically feasible, Danagoulian hopes that other researchers will improve upon it. [He said,] “I hope people will pick up this idea and start developing a prototype, and I hope they’ll come up with a simpler configuration. … Maybe the system that I propose is still complex.”
   19. Still, this work marks an important first step toward developing a warhead verification system to help uphold the terms of the Outer Space Treaty. As the threat of space-based warfare grows, there is an urgent need to fill this gap.
   20. MIKE: As they said at the end of the original “The Thing (1951)”, “Keep watching the skies!”
   21. MIKE: When The Outer Space Treaty was established in 1967, there were realistically only two nations that were capable of launching weapons or weapons platforms into space: The US and the Soviet Union. 60 years later, that has changed dramatically.
   22. MIKE: Now, at least 12 nations are capable of launching weapons into Earth orbit.
   23. MIKE: They are the United States, Russia, China, Europe (via the European Space Agency), India, Japan, South Korea, Israel, Iran, North Korea, New Zealand, and Australia (by hosting foreign rockets) [1].
   24. MIKE: Five of those nations or national alliances have nuclear weapons. It’s possible that Israel makes a sixth.
   25. MIKE: And up till now, there’s been no way to tell if any of them — including the US — have surreptitiously broken the treaty.
   26. MIKE: Both Korea and Japan don’t currently have nukes, but they are capable of developing them in short order, and are considering it due to their geopolitical regional security risks.
   27. MIKE: As the story points out, that we don’t have the capability of detecting such weapons in orbit is both surprising and actually not so surprising, given the natural radiation background in Earth orbit, and in space generally.
   28. MIKE: And technically, we still don’t have that capability, but now it appears that Associate Professor Of Nuclear Science And Engineering Areg Danagoulian has shown us a possible way to do so.
   29. MIKE: Let’s hope that this method, or some other, can be quickly validated and implemented. It’s a matter of global security, and inquiring minds want to know.
6. And, because all depressing news and no play makes us all dull boys and girls, there’s this more fun piece from FOXWEATHER[.]COM — NASA seeks research volunteers to spend a year on a simulated mission to Mars or the Moon; By Hayley Vawter | FOXWEATHER.COM | Published July 9, 2026 @ 2:22pm EDT. TAGS: NASA, Spaceflight, Moon, Mars, Artemis, Stay22, Earth & Space, Space Science, Simulated Spacewalks, Simulated Interplanetary Transit, Simulated Planetary Surface Operations,
   1. Do you have a love for space and want to help be a part of the next research phase to send people to the Moon and Mars? Well, NASA has good news for you. 
   2. The space agency is seeking applicants to be participants in the Moon and Mars Exploration Analog mission, which is set to begin no sooner than August 2027 at Johnson Space Center in Houston. 
   3. [NASA said,] “This mission is the first in a ground-based environment that will simulate multiple parts of a Moon or Mars mission, combining elements of NASA’s HERA (Human Exploration Research Analog) and the CHAPEA (Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog) missions into a single, integrated campaign.”
   4. NASA said the results of this year-long experiment could inform plans for a sustained lunar presence through the agency’s Moon Base and future Artemis
   5. Two facilities will be used in the simulation. Together, the two facilities provide a streamlined way to evaluate how astronauts adapt across the full range of potential Moon and Mars mission scenarios, NASA said.
   6. The first will be in the habitat previously used in the HERA mission, which will be used as their simulated transit spacecraft, operating in an environment that mimics deep‑space travel. It is a two-story four-port habitat that simulates travel from Earth and includes a workspace, living area, sleeping quarters and a hygiene module.
   7. The second will be the surface habitat phase, which is currently being used by CHAPEA, NASA said. This habitat is one-story and 3D-printed, and will simulate living on another planet. It includes private crew quarters, a communal workspace, recreation room, crop cultivation area, medical room, food preparation area, airlock, two bathrooms and a sandbox for simulated walks on a planetary surface, NASA said.
   8. In this phase, researchers will study the crew’s performance under the resource limits and mission demands crew members could experience on another planetary surface.
   9. Participants in the mission will help NASA assess and validate hardware, technologies, protocols, requirements and other systems designed to support crew health and performance on long-duration deep space missions, all without leaving Earth, the agency said. 
   10. So, who can apply? NASA gave a list of qualifications for those expressing interest in applying for the simulated mission. 
   11. To qualify, applicants must be: 
   12. A United States citizen or green card holder.
   13. Between 30 and 55 years old (candidates outside the range may be considered with additional approvals).
   14. No more than 74 inches (or 6 feet 2 inches) tall.
   15. Proficient in English.
   16. Willing to consent to an approximately 14-month long mission, including 12 months in two different confined habitats and two months of pre- and- post-mission training and data collection.
   17. Willing to participate in a multiday selection activity.
   18. Able to pass a NASA physical and psychological assessment.
   19. Applicants also must have:  
   20. Strong technical skills.
   21. No dietary restrictions.
   22. No history of sleepwalking or taking sleeping aids.
   23. Astronaut-like qualifications, such as: A bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution in engineering, biological science, physical science, or mathematics. Quality of academic preparation is important. An advanced degree in a STEM field is preferred and may be substituted for experience: a master’s degree equals one year of experience, and a doctoral degree equals three years of experience. Military experience may count as equivalent years of experience.
   24. NASA said the research volunteers will be reimbursed. 
   25. MIKE: So if you have an interest in space science, biology, and engineering, and if you’ve always had a hankering to travel in space and colonize other worlds, this may as close as you’ll get, and it could be the gig for you.
   26. MIKE: You will probably be paid on a US government employee pay grade, but the story gives no clue as to what that might be.

 You’ve been listening to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig from KPFT Houston 90.1-HD2, Galveston 89.5-HD2, Livingston/Goodrich 89.9-HD2, and Huntsville 91.9-HD2. We are Houston’s Community radio. I hope you’ve enjoyed the show and found it interesting, and I look forward to sharing this time with you again next week. Y’all take care!