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.)

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”^[7][8] ~ John F. Kennedy, “Address on the First Anniversary of the Alliance for Progress,” White House reception for diplomatic corps of the Latin American republics, March 13, 1962. Public Papers of the Presidents – John F. Kennedy (1962), p. 223. Wikisource.  Audio-only portion is from remarks on the first anniversary of the Alliance for Progress, 13 March 1962. Youtube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLvIDFC6rLc

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, Singapore, Hong Kong, Belgium, Norway, 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 now the 52nd week — a full year — of Trump’s military occupation of Washington DC; and 41 weeks since those states’ governors deployed National Guard troops to Memphis, Tennessee and New Orleans, Louisiana, at Trump’s request, where they remain for now.  

The next gubernatorial election in Tennessee is in just under 3 months, and I can’t wait to see how that 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. Starting with a story from COMMUNITYIMPACT[.]COM — Report: Housing in Houston remains in demand, [and] affordable due to population growth; By Ariel Worthy | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | Published August 7, 2026 at 4:23 p.m. CT. TAGS: Houston, Housing Costs, Rents, Greater Houston Partnership, Affordable Housing,
   1. Housing costs in Houston are more affordable than the national rate, and due to population growth, the demand is greater, according to an economic report by the Greater Houston Partnership.
   2. During its Midyear Economic Update on Aug. 5, GHP Director of Economic Research Chris Baker presented the organization’s findings on housing trends in the past 12 months in Houston.
   3. … Houston’s overall inflation is about 0.8% compared to the United States’ 4%, which Baker said ties to housing.
   4. [Baker said,] “Locally here, we’re a bit more insulated from overall price changes. … Housing continues to get more expensive around the rest of the country, but as of the most recent reading, we have essentially flat year-over-year housing-related price increases in Houston, which is helping to keep Houston more affordable than many other metros.”
   5. Holly Heard, senior vice president of research at GHP, said most of the growth has been pushed into the suburbs.
   6. She said immigration has played a big role in metro population growth, though it has slowed due to federal policies.
   7. According to the presentation, between July 2024 and July 2025, the city of Houston added 11,515 residents. Harris County added 48,695 during that same time, while the Houston metro area added 126,720.
   8. Montgomery County and Fort Bend County are also in the top 10 among all counties in the U.S. for population growth, Heard said.
   9. [According to Heard,] “Much of that for them is driven by their domestic growth. … People migrating from other countries, from other states, and also maybe even from other counties within Texas.”
   10. … Heard said the Houston area also has the space to grow, and its zoning laws make it easier to keep housing affordable.
   11. [She said,] “It’s also easier to build, particularly in the city of Houston. … We have much more amenable, kind of, lack of zoning. Houston was leading the state in many ways in terms of reducing the minimum lot size. Those kinds of rules that were started in Houston have now spread to other parts of the state, and so in that sense we’re a leader.”
   12. Although rent and home prices are increasing in the city, Heard said it is still less than in other cities comparable to Houston.
   13. MIKE: So I get the upshot of this story as, “Housing is still expensive, but it’s getting more expensive more slowly in Houston than in comparable major cities.”
   14. MIKE: The lack of zoning in Houston is a double-edged sword, but I’m not going to go there today.
   15. MIKE: Housing costs are a classic supply-and-demand conundrum for Progressive economics.
   16. MIKE: If you start with the premise that wages are too low for many folks to be able to afford decent housing, the first impulse is to increase wages. But if wages increase in the absence of adequate housing supplies, prices and rents will increase to meet the amount of money being thrown at the problem.
   17. MIKE: Creating more supply is a chicken-and-egg problem. Builders won’t build if there’s isn’t enough money in the system for them to see demand. But builders need to make a profit, and the prices they charge consumers — whether buyers or renters — have a floor based on the costs of construction. If they can’t make a profit dictated by their cost “floor”, they won’t build.
   18. MIKE: Their costs are based not only on the cost of land, but on the costs of all the materials that go into building housing, all of which increase as builders place demands on the system. Then, there is the question of labor. Not only how much it costs, but if it can be found.
   19. MIKE: Labor shortages create two problems. Labor costs go up, but also, labor can’t be created out of thin air. If it isn’t available, housing can’t be built at any price, let alone an affordable one.
   20. MIKE: And here we are as a nation, deporting many of the folks we need to build housing.
   21. MIKE: So the problems we have creating affordable housing are many, but one of them is that as a nation, our current policymakers are kakistocrats, and we are living in an idiocracy.
2. Next is a follow-up to an ongoing story. From TEXASTRIBUNE[.]ORG — Houston mothers’ bid for temporary hold on Ten Commandments posters in Texas classrooms denied; By Ellie Ashby | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | July 31, 2026, 2:24 p.m. CT/Aug. 7, 2026, 6:38 p.m. CT. TAGS: Houston, Ken Paxton, State Agencies, Texas Education, Texas Legislature, Texas Public Schools, First Amendment, Separation of Church and State,
   1. A judge on Friday denied a request from three Houston mothers to temporarily stop Texas public school classrooms from displaying the Ten Commandments, in the first lawsuit to argue that it violates the state’s religious freedom law and a voter-approved parental rights amendment.
   2. The mothers’ lawsuit is the latest challenge to Senate Bill 10 — this time under Texas law. Other attempts to prohibit the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools under federal law — primarily the First Amendment’s guarantee of separation of church and state — have been unsuccessful so far.
   3. The suit demands that the displays be taken down and that the court act before mid-August, when the school year begins. While their request for a temporary restraining order that would have removed the displays was struck down Friday by a Harris County judge, an additional hearing for a temporary injunction in the case is scheduled for Aug. 17.
   4. Emily Roth, one of the plaintiffs, said in a July press release that the Ten Commandments poster purposefully ignores religious differences in the classroom and will make students feel like they do not belong.
   5. [She said,] “It teaches students, and their teachers, that exclusion is acceptable, maybe even preferred. That is not a lesson I want my children learning from the state of Texas.”
   6. The parents are suing under the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which the Legislature passed in 1999 and declares that “a government agency may not substantially burden a person’s free exercise of religion.”
   7. They are also suing under the recently approved Texas Proposition 15 — also known as the “Parental Rights Amendment” — which ensures parents have the right “to exercise care, custody, and control of the parent’s child, including the right to make decisions concerning the child’s upbringing.”
   8. Last year’s Senate Bill 10 requires Texas classrooms to display donated posters of the King James Version of the Ten Commandments. The posters must be visible in the classroom and cannot be smaller than 16 by 20 inches.
   9. However, various faiths — such as Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant traditions — number and word the commandments differently, the press release noted.
   10. Sixteen families sued 11 school districts to block the new law in July 2025. They argued that it violates the separation of church and state and pressures students to embrace religious principles and values they may not align with.
   11. In August 2025, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery blocked the law in the targeted districts.
   12. A ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this spring then permitted the enforcement of Senate Bill 10, stating that the Texas law did not violate the Constitution. The court also cleared the way for a similar law in Louisiana.
   13. [MIKE: I’ll reiterate here what I said last week about the 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals: Based out of New Orleans, it’s notoriously Conservative. About 71% of the judges were nominated by Republican presidents, and they are known for rulings favorable to Conservative ideology. Continuing …]
   14. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has long argued that the Ten Commandments are an important part of the heritage and history of the United States. Lawyers with his office have argued that the posters — because they are displayed rather than taught — do not qualify as coercive, as students are allowed to ignore them.
   15. This lawsuit comes less than two months after the Texas Board of Education approved a new Bible-infused curriculum for public schools.
   16. The three mothers suing in Houston are Roth, Audrey Rosa Nath and Sanjam Kaur
   17. Roth is raising her children without religion; Nath is raising her children across a variety of religious traditions found in her family, including Jainism, Hinduism, Judaism, and Quakerism; Sohal is Sikh, according to the press release.
   18. Megan Hassan, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, said that despite the women’s different religious beliefs they all want the same thing: “for their children to attend school without being compelled to display a message that conflicts with their faith.”
   19. [She said,] “They did not want a legal battle with the state of Texas. … They wanted a poster removed from a classroom wall. That should never have required a lawsuit.”
   20. MIKE: Over the last few years, too many of the court rulings I’ve read about have denied preliminary injunctions. I’ve typically described that as a policy of letting a harm go forward while the legal system takes its time adjudicating it.
   21. MIKE: I’m going to concede, though, that saying that as a blanket indictment of the consequences of denying a preliminary injunction is a tricky thing. It comes down to the old saying of, ‘whose ox is being gored’?
   22. MIKE: Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute describes a preliminary injunction this way: “[A] Preliminary injunction is an injunctionthat may be granted before or during a trial, with the goal of preserving the status quo before a final judgment. To get a preliminary injunction, a party must show that they will suffer irreparable harm unless the injunction is issued. Preliminary injunctions may only be granted after a hearing. Courts consider the extent of the irreparable harm, each party’slikelihood of prevailing at trial, and any other public or private interests implicated by the injunction. Parties may appeal the judge’s decisions on whether to award a preliminary injunction.”
   23. MIKE: In the Texas Ten Commandments case, for me at least, the metaphorical ox being gored is the First Amendment’s guarantee of the separation of religion and state. Does the judge in this case feel that the school districts acting as defendants have the greater likelihood of prevailing in court?
   24. MIKE: Many years back, during the Obama administration, when Rightwing states’ attorneys general were constantly suing the federal government to stop many of Obama’s policy initiatives, a kid I was tutoring who liked Obama’s policies asked why states were allowed to do that.
   25. MIKE: My answer looks prescient today, because I told him that there could come a time when the shoe was on the other foot, and the federal government might be trying to force policies on the country that he disagreed with.
   26. MIKE: In this case, of course, it’s the school districts trying to force policies on children that many Texas parents disagree with, but the premise is the same.
   27. MIKE: Sometimes, the only way to try to defend oneself from government overreach or excess is to go to court and sue.
   28. MIKE: We should be grateful we have that right, but the system can be endlessly frustrating. A prime example of that is whether a preliminary injunction is granted or not by a court, and how the parties feel about that decision.
   29. MIKE: In this case, the failure of the court to grant a preliminary injunction makes me unhappy, but it’s worth remembering that if the preliminary injunction was granted, there are Rightwingers and Christian Conservatives who would be equally upset.
   30. MIKE: As frustrating as it often is, it’s worth remembering that there are always two sides in a legal action, and they are always adversarial.
   31. MIKE: Personally, my first sense is that in any legal action deciding whether to preserve a status quo or allowing a change to go forward, the status quo should usually be preserved while the court process proceeds. I feel that most changes to a status quo that are allowed to go forward almost always do some form of irreparable harm.
   32. MIKE: That’s because it is often the case that allowing something to go forward without a preliminary injunction almost always shapes the final verdict, because it’s hard to unwind the consequences of any subsequent actions or costs that have occurred while a case is wending its way through the courts.
   33. MIKE: This has been a longwinded way of saying that I’m disappointed that the court in this case declined to grant a preliminary injunction against the school districts, but at least the hearing about it is imminent on August 17^th.
   34. MIKE: To be continued.
3. This next article ran last Sunday. I saw it too late for me to add to last week’s show, but I knew immediately that I wanted to discuss it on this week’s show. From USATODAY[.]COM — Democratic Socialists of America propose radical overhaul of US govt; By Emily R. Condon | USATODAY.COM | Updated Aug. 2, 2026, 8:15 a.m. ET. TAGS: Democratic Socialists of America, Progressives, Progressive Democrats, Democrats, Socialism, US Government, US Government Overhaul,
   1. The recently released platform for the Democratic Socialists of America is titled “Workers Deserve More” and it includes some proposals to ease cost of living for working families that are popular among many progressives, such as free healthcare and pre-K.
   2. [Laying out its vision for American social democracy, the platform’s website says,] “You have no debt. You don’t need health insurance. … You don’t pay a mortgage or have a landlord, because comfortable housing is a human right.”
   3. The platform, released July 14, drew widespread backlash from conservatives. Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson reacted to the platform calling it “communism” by “barbarians,” while slamming the more radical policies like eliminating the U.S. Senate or having the president selected by Congress. 
   4. [Johnson wrote on X.] “This isn’t just Common Sense vs. Crazy anymore. … It’s Common Sense vs. COMMUNISM.”
   5. Although not all self-described democratic socialists are in the Democratic Socialists of America, the DSA is an increasingly influential player on the left. Members include New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, all Democrats.
   6. Three Democratic nominees for U.S. House of Representative seats – Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez in New York, and Melat Kiros in Colorado – also belong to the group, as do a growing list of state and local officials.
   7. A third of Democrats identify as democratic socialists,according to a July 30 CNN poll, but it’s possible that quite a few of those are not familiar with some of the DSA’s more unusual suggestions for overhauling the U.S. government. A July 28 Reuters/Ipsos poll revealed that 47% of Americans say they don’t understand democratic socialist policies.
   8. While President Donald Trump and his GOP allies slam democratic socialists as “communists,” the Democratic Socialists of America is defining its own brand in the new platform. 
   9. The 120,000-member organization’s policy roadmap has three sections: Thriving Working-Class Communities; Working-Class Foreign Policy; [and] Working-Class Democracy 
   10. … “Working-Class Democracy” aims to increase access to the electoral system by expanding voting rights beyond citizens to all permanent residents. It would also restore the right to vote to those stripped of it for a criminal conviction, and it calls for statehood for Washington, DC, and self-determination of U.S. territories, such as Puerto Rico and Guam.
   11. The platform also calls for structural changes, some of which would require amending the U.S. Constitution, including:
   12. Abolishing the U.S. Senate. Democratic Socialists of America co-chair Megan Romer told FOX News that the Senate is an “anachronistic institution. It comes from the British House of Lords,” and was created to “protect power” and ensure “the people didn’t have too much of a say.”
   13. Expanding the House of Representativesto an unspecified number;
   14. Replacing the two-party system with a “multi-party democracy”;
   15. Abolishing the Electoral College and having Congress elect the president and Supreme Court;
   16. Implementing ranked-choice voting in all elections;
   17. Ridding the system of lobbyists and “dark money” [i.e., funding from election Super PACs who do not need to disclose donors]; 
   18. On businesses, the platform calls for making large corporations public, implementing “aggressive wealth taxes” and empowering workers to unionize. 
   19. … Under “Thriving Working-Class Communities” proposals, the Democratic Socialists of America look at solutions for everyday people. Health care for all, housing for all and the Green New Deal are more well-known left-leaning policies included in the category. Workers Deserve More also includes: 
   20. “Freedom to Flourish:” calls for 32-hour work weeks, paid family leave, free education and a livable minimum wage. 
   21. “End Mass Incarceration and Police Immunity:” This would “demilitarize” police departments and “empower civilian oversight bodies” as initial steps in a process that would ultimately abolish police departments and the prison system. 
   22. “Finish Reconstruction:” The United States post-Civil War period of reintegrating Confederate states back into the Union and establishing rights for freed former slaves, known as the Reconstruction Era, ended with an 1877 political deal to pull federal soldiers out of the South, opening the door for Southern politicians to pass Jim Crow segregation policies. The DSA platform says reconstruction is not done and aims to lift up minority and indigenous communities through honoring tribal treaties and enacting reparations. It would ultimately “end the legacies of slavery and colonialism.” 
   23. “Feminism for All:”Working class women are at the forefront of this agenda that “ends policies that oppress bodily autonomy” such as restrictive abortion, contraceptive and transgender transition bans. It also calls for “queer liberation” – or complete freedom for LGBTQIA+ communities via dismantling the social constructs of gender, capitalism and the patriarchy.
   24. … The “Working Class Foreign Policy” section of the platform lays out the Democratic Socialists of America’s view on how the United States should be involved – or not involved – in geopolitics and foreign intervention around the world.  
   25. They call for providing a path to citizenship for “all immigrants regardless of status” and easing requirements in an immigration policy that would abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ending all ICE detention and deportations. 
   26. Perhaps the most radical program is the “End the U.S. War Machine” section which calls to “defund” the Department of War, closing overseas US military bases and prosecuting U.S. war criminals in line with the International Criminal Court. Supporting and employing veterans is also included. It is unclear if the proposal aims to entirely abolish the agency that oversees U.S. military action, but Romer said in the FOX News interview that [it] “absolutely” calls for defunding the Pentagon.
   27. Finally, it calls for disengagement in non-domestic issues by ending blockades, embargoes and sanctions, specifically naming those targeting Iran, Cuba and Venezuela.
   28. [The Democratic Socialists of America write,] “People around the world deserve to live their lives without U.S. interference.”
   29. Are leaders in Washington behind the more radical positions? 
   30. USA TODAY reached out to Ocasio-Cortez, Mamdani, Tlaib [PRON: tuh·LEEB], Kiros, Avila Chevalier [PRON: she-VAL-yay], and Valdez to ask if they support the “Workers Deserve More” platform – including calls to abolish the Senate and Electoral College, defund the Department of War, close military bases, end economic sanctions against Cuba, Iran and Venezuela, and to replace the president and Supreme Court [with election by Congress].
   31. Valdez’s campaign office declined to comment, and the other politicians did not respond. 
   32. Pennsylvania Rep. Summer Lee and Texas Rep. Greg Casar were formerly endorsed by the organization, but both no longer identify as members of the Democratic Socialists of America.
   33. MIKE: There is SO much to discuss here.
   34. MIKE: First, I think it’s safe to say that the  platform for the Democratic Socialists of America, which I’m linking to in this show post at ThinkwingRadio[.]com, makes proposals that are highly aspirational; especially the ones that would require Constitutional amendments or a full Constitutional convention.
   35. MIKE: And I think that pretty much all party platforms — Democratic, Republican, or third party — are typically more aspirational than actual policy documents because a huge number of the proposed policy planks could never be passed legislatively.
   36. MIKE: As with most party platforms, it’s safe to consider the platform of the Social Democrats of America as a consensus of the SDA’s most ardent party activists.
   37. MIKE: That said, I think that when any party tells you its ultimate aspirations, it pays to take them seriously.
   38. MIKE: Looking at some of the proposals, let’s start with the ones that would require at least Constitutional amendments. Such amendments would need supermajorities in Congress and of state legislatures to go into effect.
   39. MIKE: Abolishing the U.S. Senate is a non-starter.
   40. MIKE: The reason we have a bicameral legislature is that the small states — small in population anyway — didn’t want a unicameral house where they would always be outvoted, and potentially even ignored. The fact that the system was partly reflective of Southern states having a large, non-voting slave population doesn’t alter the fact that the same political problem would also exist today between heavily populated states and thinly populated ones.
   41. MIKE: It’s important to remember that when the Constitution was created, the United States ended at the Mississippi River. The Founders didn’t anticipate having a large number of huge, thinly populated states with two senators, and that’s what has created the imbalance.
   42. MIKE: I would favor giving the 10-or-20% of the states with the smallest populations a single senator rather than two. That would still give small states disproportionate power in the Senate while constraining the power of the most populace states. The small states still couldn’t be ignored, but neither could they block the will of the majority of Americans so easily.
   43. MIKE: Nonetheless, any change in Senate representation would require a Constitutional Amendment which would never get past the currently-configured Congress. States can prompt Congress to initiate a Constitutional amendment by calling for an Article V convention in order to discuss it. If enough states do that, Congress usually yields and passes an amendment for ratification by the states rather than risk a full-blown convention.
   44. MIKE: I think that the simplest legal way to manage the imbalance in the Senate would be to make Washington DC and Puerto Rico states. That would add four senators who would likely be Democrats. It would also change the political balance in both the House and the Electoral College to some degree. I’ll talk more about the Electoral College a bit later.
   45. MIKE: As for passing federal law mandating ranked-choice voting in all elections, it’s first important to note that the States jealously guard their prerogative of controlling elections, but Congress can control how federal elections work to an extent.
   46. MIKE: Implementing ranked-choice voting is an idea that I’ve come to favor in principle, but I’d like to see how it’s working out at the state and local level before bringing it to federal elections.
   47. MIKE: At the very least, I’d like to end “first-past-the-post” election victories where a simple plurality wins without a real mandate. Election winners should always have majority support. But even runoff elections can skew the popular will when candidates of similar views split the vote so that extremists can win.
   48. MIKE: This may actually have occurred in the Michigan Democratic primaries this past week where two reputedly moderate Democrats running in Michigan’s 7^th Congressional district split the vote, with the two moderate candidates splitting over 56% of the vote, apparently allowing a DSA candidate to win with a mere plurality. There won’t even be a runoff, which would likely change this outcome.
   49. MIKE: As regards the House of Representatives, the U.S. Constitution did envision expanding the House, starting at one member per 30,000 residents, but Congress eventually felt that it was becoming unwieldy. The expansion stopped due to the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929, which capped the total at 435. So, a change in how the House is apportioned could be done by a relatively simple act of Congress. The key phrase there is “relatively simple”.
   50. MIKE: There’s an 8-minute YouTube video from VOX that I’m linking to in this show post at ThinkwingRadio[.]com. I’ve listened to it and I think it’s a really good discussion of the problems with expanding the House and some ideas of how to do it.
   51. MIKE: The Electoral College has never worked as intended.
   52. MIKE: I asked Google why the Electoral College was created. It was originally devised as a non-partisan institution.
   53. MIKE: Back in 2016, I spent a lot of time discussing Federalist Paper #68. It discusses Aleander Hamilton’s notion of why we needed an electoral college. His most famous quote on the subject is that, “[This] process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State;” — Alexander Hamilton, using the alias “PUBLIUS”, from Federalist No. 68, in 1788 to defend the creation of the Electoral College.
   54. MIKE: From the National Archives: “The Electoral College was created in 1787 by the framers of the U.S. Constitution
   55. MIKE: The reasoning behind its creation was summarized as “a compromise between electing the president by a vote in Congress or by a direct popular vote.”
   56. MIKE: And speaking of the Electoral College, it’s remarkable to me that Democratic Socialists think that letting the House elect the president is a better idea than a popular vote. It sounds like what they’re proposing — but without actually saying it — is changing the US to a parliamentary system where the party or coalition in power elects their prime minister.
   57. MIKE: As an aside, no state can individually decide to govern itself with a parliamentary system. Article IV, Section 4 of the S. Constitution requires every state to have a “Republican Form of Government”.
   58. MIKE: The DSA plank about “replacing the two-party system with a “multi-party democracy” isn’t something that can be done by legislation or constitutional amendment. It would have to occur organically, just as all our past and present political parties formed.
   59. MIKE: Alternatively, a changed that might be conducive to the rise of third parties might be an amendment that scrapped our current system and replaced it with a parliamentary system, but that might entail an actual Constitutional Convention to accomplish, which would be exquisitely dangerous.
   60. MIKE: I think that within our existing system, ranked choice voting actually offers an opportunity for third party candidates to be elevated to government positions. With ranked choice voting, there’s no such thing as a wasted vote. Your first choice can be for, say, the Democratic Socialists of America candidate, but your second choice might be for a more mainstream candidate who is presumed to have a better chance of being elected.
   61. MIKE: Thus, a voter doesn’t have to pick between their first choice or the candidate with the best shot at winning. They can choose both in their order of preference.
   62. MIKE: I could foresee this system occasionally leading to some surprise wins.
   63. MIKE: Ridding the system of lobbyists would likely be impossible. Lobbyists also have the same free speech rights as everyone else. It’s hard enough just regulating lobbying.
   64. MIKE: Banning dark money is something that can be done legislatively, and should be, but it will take a Congress substantially in favor of doing it.
   65. MIKE: Some of the ideas put forward as DSA plans are pretty utopian, such as free housing for all. Everything takes resources, and money is just a medium of stored value. Nothing is actually free, and everything must be “paid” for in some way.
   66. MIKE: Discussing the differences between socialism and communism takes up vast sections of libraries. So instead, I’ve linked to two articles that discuss those differences in summary. One is from HISTORY[.]COM and the other is from INVESTOPEDIA[.]COM. I feel that looks at the systems through both history and economics, and might be a good start. You may contrast and compare if you wish, and begin your research from there.
   67. MIKE: As I said earlier, you can look at the DSA’s platform at the link provided and make up your own mind about what you like, what you don’t, what you like that’s unlikely to happen, and what you may be surprised by.
   68. MIKE: I’m also including a link in this show post to a USA Today story called “GOP calls them ‘communists.’ Here’s what democratic socialists believe” as a reference for you.
4. In another blow to diversity of thought and ideas in America while promulgating broadcast oligopoly by billionaires and Rightwing idealogues, there’s this new outrage by the Trump regime. From WASHINGTONPOST[.]COM — FCC lifts the cap limiting the size of TV broadcasting companies; By Scott Nover | WASHINGTONPOST.COM | August 6, 2026 at 12:09 p.m. EDT. TAGS: Federal Communications Commission (FCC), FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, Television Broadcasting Companies, Television Broadcasting Companies’ Ownership Cap,
   1. The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday voted to eliminate a long-standing regulation constraining the size of large television broadcasting companies, a major deregulatory move pushed by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr.
   2. The FCC’s commissioners voted 2-1 to replace the cap, which prevents a company from owning broadcasting stations that collectively reach more than 39 percent of U.S. households, with a case-by-case review. The agency has said that the new process would “empower the FCC to approve deals that promote the public interest while allowing the agency to reject any deals that do not meet that standard.”
   3. Carr already sidestepped the ownership cap earlier this year when the FCC approved Nexstar’s $6.2 billion merger with rival Tegna, which would give the country’s largest TV owner an 80 percent reach into American homes. That deal was subsequently blocked by a federal judge after DirecTV and several state attorneys general sued, alleging antitrust violations. The case is ongoing.
   4. In a July op-ed on the right-wing website Breitbart, Carr lamented that “New York and Hollywood interests” have become too powerful and have “steamrolled” local TV station owners. He added that the commission needs to remove the ownership cap so broadcasters can better compete with cable TV companies and large tech platforms.
   5. [Carr wrote,] “The cap no longer constrains the power of national programmers. … Instead, it prevents local broadcasters from competing on a level playing field.”
   6. Anna M. Gomez, the lone Democratic FCC commissioner, said during the Thursday meeting that Congress has the authority to lift the ownership cap. She added that the change won’t solve competition problems for local stations.
   7. [Commissioner Gomez said,] “Eliminating the cap does not free local broadcasters from economic pressure, it just changes who is doing the squeezing. … Trading a squeeze from Big Tech for a squeeze from Big Media does nothing to protect the communities this cap was designed to serve.”
   8. Former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), who helped institute the 39 percent cap in 2004, made a similar point in a Monday op-ed for the conservative website the Daily Wire, writing that it’s up to Congress to change it — and not the FCC.
   9. [Delay wrote,] “I am a Republican. I support deregulation and the Trump administration. But my ultimate loyalty rests with the Constitution, which gives certain prerogatives to Congress. … Regulatory agencies cannot defy or modify laws enacted by Congress. If Chairman Carr wants to raise the statutory cap, he should ask Congress to pass a law giving him authority to do that.”
   10. Since taking the helm of the FCC at the outset of President Donald Trump’s second term, Carr has initiated a bevy of investigations into media companies. His actions have garnered some criticism from fellow Republicans concerned about the government pressuring private companies over issues of speech. When Carr threatened Disney-owned ABC stations’ licenses in September over comments made by late-night host Jimmy Kimmel in the aftermath of conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s murder, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called Carr’s comments “dangerous as hell.”
   11. That long-simmering fight between Carr and Disney has boiled over in recent weeks. Disney has alleged that the FCC’s early review of its eight ABC station licenses, probe of “The View”, and review of Disney’s diversity practices violate the media company’s free press protections under the First Amendment.
   12. The Republican discomfort with Carr, meanwhile, hasn’t abated. During a Senate Judiciary hearing on Wednesday, Sen. John Kennedy (R-Louisiana) expressed frustration about the commission’s actions.
   13. [Sen. Kennedy] told FCC general counsel Adam Candeub, “Sometimes the FCC scares me right now. … I don’t like some of the stuff that is said on television, but what business is it of the FCC?”
   14. [Kennedy added,] “All I’m saying is, y’all be careful. … You’re getting into the foothills of violating the First Amendment.”
   15. The nonprofit Free Press said Thursday that it plans to sue the FCC and challenge its authority to remove the cap.
   16. [Matt Wood, the group’s vice president of policy and general counsel, said in a statement,] “Changing this limit requires congressional action, but Carr doesn’t care. … He’ll do whatever it takes to clear the way for Trump-aligned billionaires to swallow up stations wherever and whenever they please.”
   17. MIKE: I’ll note that not everyone thinks that this new FCC policy change is a bad idea. A story from Fox Business News begs to differ, saying, “Some government regulations have become outdated. Others become absurd. The FCC’s national television ownership cap [had] become both.”
   18. MIKE: But when Republican Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and John Kennedy of Louisiana both disagree with a Fox Business News contributor’s view of Rightwing media policy and instead agree with most Democrats and Progressives that a Trump regime policy is bad for our country, that’s both remarkable and telling.
   19. MIKE: Even former Republican Congressional Majority Leader from Texas Tom Delay makes the interesting point that only Congress, and not Brendan Carr and his FCC, may have the legal authority to make this change.
   20. MIKE: Of course, law means little to this regime, run by Trump, a convicted felon and former mentee of disbarred and disgraced lawyer Roy Cohn. Trump has always used and abused the law when it stands in the way of what he wants.
   21. MIKE: In my opinion, media ownership caps not only need to be restored. They need to be severely tightened. Antitrust suits will need to be brought.
   22. MIKE: Though it may seem paradoxical at first blush given the thrust of my comments here, I’d go even further. The federal government currently claims no legal right to regulate cable broadcast ownership based on the theory that cable media is sent over privately owned infrastructure, and not the publicly-owned airwaves. That may be true as far as it goes, but it’s not entirely accurate.
   23. MIKE: According to Wikipedia, virtually all cable and streaming programming is at some point sent by satellite over radio waves. That is to say, sent over publicly-owned, federally-licensed bandwidth.
   24. MIKE: Using publicly-owned and licensed bandwidth between satellites and ground-based receivers should make cable and streaming companies susceptible to federal regulation.
   25. MIKE: I believe that the courts need to be made to reexamine the assumption that cable and streaming companies can’t be federally regulated.
   26. MIKE: It will probably take Democratic supermajorities in the House and Senate and a Democrat in the White House (what’s left of it) to correct the legal and policy outrages perpetrated by the Trump regime and the Project 2025 authors and adherents in Trump’s orbit.
   27. MIKE: It will also probably require a Democratic administration and Congress to formulate, drive through, and pass legislation that will be a combination of post-Watergate anti-corruption reforms, Theodore Roosevelt’s Square Deal, and FDR’s Fair Deal — breaking up monopolies and oligopolies, strengthening government’s role in protecting the public’s food and drug safety, and assuring that the federal government works for the people and not the power-hungry and greedy oligarchs — to not only remake the US government into what it was before Trump and MAGA, but also to undo the damage that Republicans have been doing to this country since Ronald Reagan, and Newt Gingrich and his ilk.
   28. MIKE: And none of that even addresses the legislation and possible Constitutional amendments that will be required to protect us in the future from a rogue president and his lapdog party sycophants.
   29. MIKE: As we have now found to our great chagrin, federal power is not necessarily wielded for the public good. Rather, it can also be used to advance the power and agendas of oligarchs and ideologues.
   30. MIKE: It is perhaps worth being reminded that the US Constitution was not written to make government efficient. It was written in such a way as to make government safe.
   31. MIKE: Even with the best of intentions, any new legislation curtailing the power of the executive branch must be carefully crafted not only to limit presidential and executive power, but also to enable it when absolutely
   32. MIKE: This will be a herculean task, where dotting the “I’s”, crossing the “T’s”, and carefully placing the punctuation marks will make all the difference.
   33. MIKE: It’s a shame that our country has come to this, but we can no longer count on “norms” and presidential character to act as guardrails against the potential of government tyranny.
   34. MIKE: I will however add one last thought on this subject, and it’s one I’ve suggested before.
   35. MIKE: It’s essential and urgent that the Department of Justice and its infrastructure can never again be put at the beck and call of a president of the United States for any political purposes.
   36. MIKE: A Constitutional amendment that makes the Attorney General an elected position within the judiciary should be the first order of business for any Democratic majority. If such a Constitutional amendment is passed that changes the US AG to an elected position within the judicial branch, then the US Attorney General can be placed at its head.
   37. MIKE: The Department of Justice was created by Congress in 1870. That means that the DOJ can be legislatively placed within the judiciary branch.
5. This next story is from the Australian ABC network, but may also apply in the US as well. . From ABC[.]NET[.]AU — Facebook is paying controversial creators to produce rage-bait content; Exclusive by ABC NEWS Verify’s Lucy Carter | ABC.NET.AU | Posted Wed AUG 5, 2026 at 10:04pm. TAGS: Extremism, Facebook, Meta, Rage Bait, Neo-Nazis, Anti-Vaxxers, White Nationalists, Social Media,
   1. … A white nationalist with neo-Nazi links who hurled racist abuse at the Indian prime minister during his visit last month is being paid by Facebook’s parent company, Meta, to produce content.
   2. An ABC NEWS Verify investigation into several controversial Australian pages on Facebook has found that some are benefiting directly from social media monetisation programs run by Meta.
   3. Hugo Lennon is a far-right agitator who was formally moved on by Victoria Police for shouting profanities and racist abuse at Narendra Modi at a Melbourne hotel.
   4. He has been receiving revenue through Facebook’s “Content Monetization” program since September 2025.
   5. Mr Lennon has been photographed with known neo-Nazis and has interacted with them online.
   6. His recent Facebook videos include his outburst at the Indian PM, and others referencing white supremacist concepts like replacement theory and remigration.
   7. The Noticer, a far-right Australian news website that regularly promotes white supremacist and neo-Nazi ideologies, has been making money through the same Facebook revenue program since November 2025.
   8. There is a short period from January 11 to February 15 when it stopped earning money for unknown reasons.
   9. The Noticer is currently suspended from its X account with a notice that the account is “temporarily unavailable because it violates the X Hateful Profile Policy”.
   10. A page promoting the anti-immigration group “March for Australia”, which also has close ties to neo-Nazis, registered for the program in December 2025.
   11. Monica Smit, the founder of the anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown group Reignite Democracy Australia, joined Facebook’s content monetisation program in September 2025.
   12. She appears to have been earning advertising revenue through Facebook from as far back as 2017.
   13. Her page features vaccine misinformation and promotes the sale of “radiation protection” bracelets through her personal website.
   14. Hugo Lennon, Monica Smit, The Noticer and March for Australia did not respond to requests for comment.
   15. … Facebook distributed nearly US$3 billion ($4.27 billion) to an estimated 16.2 million monetised accounts in 2025.
   16. Meta has published regular disclosures relating to these “partner-publishers” since 2019.
   17. Tech policy and accountability non-profit What To Fix collates this raw data into a searchable archive that was used by ABC NEWS Verify for this investigation.
   18. [MIKE: I’ve added a link to the website for “What To Fix”. Continuing …]
   19. According to Facebook, the monetisation scheme that Hugo Lennon, Monica Smit, March for Australia and The Noticer appear to be profiting from is “an invitation-only programme that lets you earn money from the performance of your eligible public reels, photos, stories and text posts.”
   20. What To Fix executive director Victoire Rio said it meant that, in effect, Facebook was in a business relationship with these people and organisations.
   21. [Said Rio,] “If we consider that Meta is in a direct commercial relationship with its publishers, insofar that they’re paying them royalties and that they have a monetisation agreement with them, then you could argue that they are liable for the content that gets produced by their business partner in some ways.”
   22. Ms Rio said she was no longer surprised by some of the pages Meta was choosing to monetise, [saying,] “We’ve actually encountered accounts affiliated with sanctioned entities that were part of those programs.”
   23. [She continued,] “It’s quite common that we see accounts that are very clearly in violation of their policies getting through. I think the question here really is: [What]] is the quality of the enforcement of those policies that they have.”
   24. … The pages examined by ABC NEWS Verify all appeared at times to be in direct violation of Facebook’s own policies around content monetisation.
   25. They state that “debated social issues” such as race “may face reduced or restricted monetisation”, while “misleading medical information” is “ineligible to monetise”.
   26. Independent right-wing extremism researcher Kaz Ross said paying controversial creators was a deliberate strategy from Meta.
   27. [Dr Ross said,] “Their financial model is to reward content creators who get engagement, and as we know, the best way of getting engagement is to produce rage bait, extremist material, aggravating material: anything that will get people upset and arguing is the best way to get engagement.”
   28. Meta did not answer specific questions about these pages and their content but provided a general statement.
   29. “We have clear policies in place which anyone using our monetisation tools must comply with. When Content Monetisation Pages violate our Community Standards, we apply penalties such as temporarily or permanently disabling their ability to earn on our platforms. Creators or publishers who repeatedly breach these policies will be removed from our platforms.”
   30. The company also said it was, “important to distinguish between speech that is offensive and content that could potentially lead to offline violence. Such speech may be offensive to many, but it is not Meta’s role to police offensiveness.”
   31. … It is unclear exactly how much money these specific creators have made from their Facebook pages as this information is not made public by Meta.
   32. Dr Ross said any amount was too much. [She said,] “It’s morally bankrupt to do that, to know that these people are producing content that’s in breach of your own regulations, yet you’re actually not just allowing them, but you’re encouraging them by paying them.”
   33. Meta is also one of the few social media giants that discloses any information about who it is paying. Other platforms, like YouTube, TikTok and Twitter, have very little transparency in this space.
   34. [What To Fix’s Victoire Rio said,] “I think in general, Meta has been more forthcoming with transparency and that’s something that should be lauded. … It’s still a very low bar, and the question here is to really push for all platforms to at least meet that bar and if not actually go higher,’ she said.
   35. MIKE: When I included this story, I knew I was trading content time for commentary time, but I felt it was important. The only thing I’ll add is that we should see what Meta is doing here along the lines of this Australian story.
6. This next story is short but interesting story. I wasn’t able to make time for it last week. In addition to the economic strain on the Russian economy from the war itself, Ukraine’s long-range drones have really been turning the screws on the Russian economy. From EURONEWS[.]COM on July 25^th — Russian central bank cuts GDP growth forecast to zero, expects faster inflation; By Mihhail Salenkov | EURONEWS.COM | Published on 25/07/2026 – 16:06 GMT+2. TAGS: Russia, Central Bank of Russia, Russian Economy,
   1. Russia’s central bank has cut its 2026 GDP forecast to [between] 0.0-1.0%, and expects faster inflation as the fuel crisis drives up prices for many goods and services [said] its head, Elvira Nabiullina.
   2. The Central Bank of Russia expects inflation at 6–7% in 2026 “due to the significant increase in fuel prices that has already occurred”.
   3. Previously, the regulator had expected it to slow to 4.5–5.5%.
   4. Inflation expectations among households, businesses, and financial market participants have risen. Their persistence at elevated levels may impede a sustained slowdown in inflation, [said] the Bank of Russia in a press release.
   5. [Admitted the head of the Bank of Russia at a press conference,] “The fuel situation falls into what is known as supply shocks.”
   6. Since mid-May, fuel price [inflation] has accelerated and in June, several Russian regions faced shortages after Ukrainian strikes on oil refineries in Russia in response to the war launched by the Kremlin.
   7. At the same time, some analysts forecast that by the end of the year, inflation in Russia could turn out even higher, including as a result of strikes by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on Russian logistics centres.
   8. [MIKE: These attacks have included the massive Russian online retailer, Wildberries. Continuing …]
   9. The forecast for Russian GDP growth in 2026 has been cut … to 0.0-1.0%, including the projection for the fourth quarter …
   10. The Central Bank expects that “fuel production capacity will gradually be restored by the end of the year”, but Ukraine continues to use its “long-range sanctions” in response to Russian attacks.
   11. On Saturday, Ukrainian drones struck an oil refinery in Tyumen, a logistics facility in Yekaterinburg and a fuel and lubricants depot in Rostov-on-Don.
   12. MIKE: Could this mean there is turning point to the war in sight, even if distantly in sight? We’ll see.
7. Finally, from THEATLANTIC.COM — Why Is the U.S. Running So Low on Weapons?; By Phillips Payson O’Brien | THEATLANTIC.COM | August 3, 2026, 6:56 AM ET. TAGS: United States Military Power, Iran, Munitions Shortfall, American Military Technology,
   1. Although the United States has been the world’s preeminent military power for decades, it apparently cannot fight a regional power such as Iran for more than a few months before experiencing an armaments crisis.
   2. Since hostilities with Tehran began on February 28, the U.S. has reportedly used up two-thirds of its Patriot missile interceptors, more than a third of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors, and a third or more of its prewar stock of Tomahawk cruise missiles. The rate of consumption is all the more striking because a shaky cease-fire had halted most fighting for months. Based on recent production patterns, replenishing the supply of weaponry will take several years.
   3. Making America’s challenge still more daunting is a major shift in war-fighting technology toward cheap, unmanned aerial vehicles. The United States and its allies in the Persian Gulf have been forced to use expensive, advanced air-defense systems — such as Patriot PAC-3 missiles that each cost millions of dollars and have a long production cycle — to shoot down Iranian drones that can be swiftly assembled for about $30,000.
   4. The munitions shortfall doesn’t just affect the current war. It also sends a worrisome message to allies around the world: The United States has been caught off guard by the latest evolution of warfare and lacks the armaments-production capacity to adapt quickly. Suddenly, relying on American military technology looks far less reliable as a security strategy than it did before President Trump went to war with Iran. And in the long run, governments that counted on the United States to equip their military are going to need a Plan B.
   5. In the short term, concerns about diminished weapons stocks are already limiting Washington’s strategic options. Because of his advisers’ concern about the adequacy of current supplies, Trump has reportedly been hesitant to escalate the war. If the United States decided to send ground forces into Iran on the scale necessary to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, defending those forces could exhaust the remaining stocks of advanced air-defense systems. After a short period, American troops would be far more exposed, and casualties far more likely.
   6. Trump and his appointees during his current and previous terms bear only part of the responsibility for the current situation. The fundamental problem has been a bipartisan neglect of America’s military-industrial productive base over the past three decades.
   7. The United States allowed many of its strategic industries, such as shipbuilding, to wither. Its post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan involved brief invasions followed by years of relatively low-intensity counterinsurgency warfare that, whatever its difficulties, did not require mass stockpiles of munitions.
   8. Informed by these experiences, military planners appear to have been operating under the assumption that future wars would be short and containable. If China attacks Taiwan and the United States wants to come to [its] aid, the Pentagon will not be prepared for a protracted war.
   9. Unfortunately, the Trump administration has failed to learn from the war in Ukraine. Iran has learned to mass-produce cheap drones — ones that the Russians first imported and now produce themselves. In other words, their effectiveness had been tested, and their existence was widely known. But that seemed to make no difference to U.S. planners. Perhaps in the arrogant belief that a war with Iran would quickly end in a decisive victory, the Pentagon did not have cost-effective systems ready to intercept these weapons. Neither did the Gulf countries that have counted on American weaponry for their self-defense.
   10. In contrast, Ukraine has proved remarkably adaptive to emerging conditions. Creating a powerful strategic industry — as Ukraine has done in the case of air, land, and sea drones, — not only helps with the country’s security. It also provides a boost to Ukraine’s economic and strategic position, as governments in the Gulf and elsewhere seek to tap its expertise.
   11. The Gulf partners that build their militaries around equipment from the United States do so under the assumption that, in a moment of need, they can get what they require from the superpower. Perhaps the U.S. would even carry the burden of any war in the region. The perils of such assumptions are becoming apparent.
   12. Relying on any other country for weapons is dangerous. Doing so may create a flashy frontline force with some advanced capabilities. But once the purchased equipment is destroyed or worn out, the military that bought it is left with troops trained on equipment that it cannot make and with a military doctrine built around equipment it might never have again.
   13. Sometimes, allies drag their feet or change their mind. Ukrainians have used American military equipment to great effect, but the unreliability of those supplies — because of President Biden’s fear of antagonizing Russia and Trump’s usual favoritism toward Vladimir Putin — has hampered their war effort.
   14. Since Trump’s return to office, traditional European allies have come to recognize from his criticism of NATO that they will need to rely more on their own resources for their security. The current munitions crunch could lead its Gulf partners to the same conclusion.
   15. If Saudi Arabia and other customers of the American defense industry start sourcing their military equipment elsewhere, or making it themselves, the United States will lose out. Beyond improving America’s military position and diplomatic leverage, arms exports have been a lucrative industry.
   16. If the United States appears less powerful and less reliable than it once was and is running through munitions faster than it can produce them, many more countries will follow Ukraine’s example. The Pentagon is belatedly ramping up its efforts to develop less expensive self-guided weapons. But those initiatives so far seem inadequate to address the problem that the war with Iran has revealed: a gap between America’s military needs and what it is capable of manufacturing quickly and cheaply.
   17. MIKE: I see an amazing and annoying irony here. For over 60 years, the US has been fighting smaller, weaker opponents using asymmetric warfare strategies against us, and we still have not learned or developed cost-effective ways of combating them.
   18. MIKE: I’ve said repeatedly that we should be working closely with Ukraine on this very problem. Ukraine has been fighting an asymmetric war against Russia since 2022, and we should learn from them how to fight one and how to defend against one.
   19. MIKE: Even worse, we’re relying on expensive high-tech weapons that we don’t have enough of, and that we can’t build fast enough.
   20. MIKE: I agree this is a problem that crosses generations of policies by all our political actors. But this is the bed we now find ourselves in, and we must deal with it.
   21. MIKE: I hate to suggest that the US needs to move into a re-armament phase that almost looks like an industrial mobilization. Such a decision would be economically disruptive. That it would be expensive is always going to be a first reaction, but its economic impact would go deeper than that.
   22. MIKE: We can’t rebuild our military industrial base overnight. So while that process was underway, it would take up some existing industrial capacity that currently makes consumer goods. This could potentially cause shortages, which would cause supply-and-demand inflation as a way of dealing with those shortages.
   23. MIKE: Obviously, taxes would increase but, in a way, it’s almost funny that the Republican propensity to give huge tax breaks to corporations and the ultra-wealthy has created what might almost be described as a strategic reserve of potential tax revenue.
   24. MIKE: Taxing large corporations and the ultrawealthy at levels that would be entirely appropriate could help the US fund its rearmament and pay for rebuilding its defense industrial base without destructive budget deficits.
   25. MIKE: This process would almost — but not entirely — be unprecedented in peacetime.
   26. MIKE: Actually, we’ve found ourselves in this situation before. In the years before World War 2, FDR and others saw the handwriting on the wall and knew that the world was becoming a very dangerous place. And even with all the preparations the nation made, we still weren’t where we needed to be when Pearl Harbor happened.
   27. MIKE: Over the years, especially since the Russian annexation of Crimea, I’ve commented that it felt like we were in a pre-war period similar to the early 1930s. I feel like now, we’re in the late 1930s.
   28. MIKE: Until 2020, this show was unscripted, so all transcripts are recent. But as early as 2023, I’ve discussed our industrial capacity deficiencies.
   29. MIKE: I once read a story about economists saying that China had a problem with industrial over-capacity that was acting as a drag on their economy. On that show, I questioned whether that was an accident.
   30. MIKE: Even though there are privately-owned firms in China, it still has a centrally planned economy. All businesses are at the disposal of the central Chinese government by Chinese law.
   31. MIKE: What is “excess industrial capacity”? We tend to think of idle machines and idle workers, but perhaps the most important part of “excess capacity” is buildings. Before building industry, you need buildings to put stuff in, and constructing those buildings is expensive and slow. In a crunch, the resources for that construction could create labor and material bottlenecks.
   32. MIKE: I believed then and believe now that China has prepared itself in the event of a major conflict by building what looks to economists like “excess industrial capacity”, but which its military planners see as industrial capacity that can be quickly mobilized for defense needs.
   33. MIKE: This nation needs to do the work and spend the money to be better prepared for potential future conflicts, but that money needs to be spent smartly so that we are not fighting the last war with a metaphorical Maginot Line.
   34. MIKE: The Russia-Ukraine War, and now our Iran adventure, have given us a foretaste. We better learn from it and become better prepared, and quickly.

There’s always more to discuss, but that’s all we have time for today. You’ve been listening to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig from KPFT Houston 90.1-HD2, Galveston 89.5-HD2, 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!