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.)

“Let me warn you and let me warn the Nation against the smooth evasion which says, “Of course we believe all these things; we believe in social security; we believe in work for the unemployed; we believe in saving homes. Cross our hearts and hope to die, we believe in all these things; but we do not like the way the present Administration is doing them. Just turn them over to us. We will do all of them- we will do more of them. We will do them better. And, most important of all, the doing of them will not cost anybody anything.” ~ FDR”s “Let me warn you” remarks [1m 0s]. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0haNUUcqwI] [TEXT AT: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-the-democratic-state-convention-syracuse-ny]

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, Ireland, Hong Kong, The Netherlands, Germany, 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 56th week of Trump’s military occupation of Washington DC; and 45 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 a little over 8 weeks. I’ll be talking shortly about how that governor’s race is shaping up.

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. Last week, I made a silly mistake about election years. In fact, all Texas state offices are up for election in just 8 weeks, and it’s Houston city elections that are up in 2027.
2. Next, speaking of Texas elections, while sample ballots are not yet available as of September 6, …
   1. Fair warning, our next election day is November 3.
   2. The last day to register to vote is Oct. 5.
   3. Early Voting will run from OCT 19 – 30, 2026
   4. So early voting is just about 6 weeks away. Get yourself mentally prepared.
   5. Don’t be moved to overconfidence. The only poll that matters is the one on election day. https://www.texastribune.org/2026/08/07/texas-us-senate-james-talarico-ken-paxton-polls/
3. The Texas Tribune has helpfully created this year’s ballot for us. It’s important to note that this is not an official ballot, and neither the Texas Secretary of State nor the counties have put sample ballots online yet. The Texas Tribune story is helpful nonetheless, and it’s called — Here’s your 2026 Texas ballot for the November election; By Apurva Mahajan | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | Sept. 1, 2026. TAGS: 2026 Elections, State Government, Congress, Texas Legislature, Politics,
   1. Midterm elections in Texas are on Nov. 3. Here are all the candidates on the general election ballot, according to the Secretary of State.
   2. Statewide seats, including governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, land commissioner, agriculture commissioner and comptroller are on the ballot. Voters will also elect officials for congressional and legislative offices, the State Board of Education and judicial seats.
   3. The last day to register to vote is Oct. 5. In-person early voting runs from Oct. 19 to 30.
   4. [In the linked article] are all of the Democrats, Republicans and third-party candidates on November’s ballot.
   5. Candidates are listed in alphabetical order by last name in this guide. Elections in Texas are run by its 254 counties, and each county determines the order of candidates on the ballots there. To see each county’s ballot order, visit the Texas Secretary of State’s site.
   6. … [There’s a link in the article that tells you] how to register to vote and everything you need to know about voting in the general election.
   7. One of the most high-profile matchups in Texas this November is the U.S. Senate race between state Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic nominee, and his Republican opponent, Attorney General Ken Paxton. Talarico has been consistently out-polling and out-raising Paxton throughout the campaign.
   8. [MIKE: I’ll note here that the only poll that matters is the one on election day. Continuing …]
   9. The Trump administration is planning a border project in the Big Bend region, which has put Texas Republicans in a tough spot. They are stuck between constituents who are outraged over federal plans to carve roads and barriers in the region and a president who they don’t want to cross.
   10. Texas’ U.S. House delegation will experience high turnover this election cycle because of retirements and redistricting-related changes. It also stands to get
   11. [MIKE: There’s a space in the article to get a personalized ballot.] If you share your address …, [the Tribune’s partner will] personalize the results for you by showing the state and federal races you get to vote in. (Don’t worry: [They] don’t sell your information.)
   12. Republicans redrew Congressional districts last year, in an effort to gain more seats. The U.S. House districts shown below are based on those new maps.
   13. MIKE: I tried the personalized ballot link. It’s somewhat helpful, but I’d wait for the official sample ballots to come online before making your selections for your mail-in ballot or to sample bring to the polls.
   14. MIKE: Note that you are allowed to bring in notes to help you make your selections, but you MUST take them with you when you leave.
4. That last story leads me to this one. You’ve probably heard that Trump has gotten the US Postal Service to make some rules about what mail-in ballot envelopes will be sent to their destinations and which ones may not. This next story is from Thursday evening from CBSNEWS[.]COM — Trump administration asks Supreme Court to allow Postal Service rules on mail ballots; By Melissa Quinn, Senior Reporter, Politics | CBSNEWS.COM | Updated: September 3, 2026 / 6:14 PM EDT. TAGS: United States Postal Service, Trump Administration, Election, Justice Department (DOJ), US Supreme Court (SCOTUS), Solicitor General D. John Sauer, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, U. S. District Court of Massachusetts,
   1. The Justice Department on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to intervene in an ongoing legal battle over U.S. Postal Service rules for mail ballots just weeks before the November midterm elections and allow the agency to enforce them. 
   2. In an emergency appeal to the high court, Solicitor General D. John Sauer requested the justices halt a district court’s temporary order blocking enforcement of the Postal Service requirements. 
   3. That 14-day order, issued byS. District Judge Indira Talwani last week, is set to remain in place for several more days. The Justice Department has appealed that decision, but the appeals court has not yet acted. 
   4. Talwani is also considering a request for longer relief from two dozen Democratic-led states and voting rights groups challenging the legality of the mail-voting measures. She held a hearing earlier Thursday to consider their bid for a preliminary injunction. 
   5. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who handles emergency appeals from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit, has asked the states and voting rights organizations to respond to the Trump administration’s request by Tuesday morning. 
   6. Sauer wrote in his request to the high court that the Postal Service’s rule “imposes only modest envelope-design and addressee-information requirements for federal-election ballots sent.” 
   7. [Sauer wrote,] “The Rule’s regulation of the U.S. Mail—not federal elections — is plainly constitutional. … While the States have primary authority to regulate the manner of elections, they cannot choose to use the federal mails to carry out their elections but then insist that their election-related mail is somehow exempt from the Postal Service’s rulemaking authority, conferred by Congress, to regulate envelope design and addressee information.”
   8. Sauer argued the judge’s block “nullifies” the Postal Service’s attempts to address the risk of voter fraud through mail voting, which he called “a particularly pernicious species of fraud that dilutes the votes of lawful voters, prevents election results from reflecting the will of the American people, and undermines ‘public confidence in the integrity of the electoral process.'”
   9. The Trump administration has not put forth evidence of widespread voter fraud, and President Trump himself has voted by mail in elections in Florida this year. 
   10. The fast-moving legal battle is unfolding as states gear up to send mail ballots to voters. At least two municipalities in Wisconsin have already mailed ballots out, and in North Carolina, they will go out to certain voters Friday. More states will begin sending mail ballots around mid-September.
   11. At issue in the case is a final rule issued by the Postal Service that requires states and localities to meet design requirements for mail ballots, including unique barcodes, and to submit, to an online portal, information about residents who will vote by mail, including their names, addresses and the individualized barcodes. 
   12. Those voters will be enrolled with the Postal Service and be included on state-specific “Mail-In and Absentee Participation Lists.”
   13. The rule requires postal workers to review and verify ballot mail being sent to voters. Any ballot mailings that don’t comply with the requirements “will not be accepted and will be returned” to the election offices, the Postal Service said. 
   14. The Trump administration has said the rule imposes “modest informational requirements” on states and localities, and “should not prevent a single voter from voting by mail.”
   15. [Sauer said in Thursday’s emergency appeal,] “The Postal Service will not perform any verification of voter eligibility; its role is limited to ensuring that envelopes comply with the Rule’s design and informational requirements.”
   16. But state and local election officials have raised concerns about their ability to comply with the requirements so soon before the Nov. 3 midterms. They said in court filings that ballot envelopes have already been ordered and printed, and said submitting voters’ information to the portal would demand significant time and resources. 
   17. A top official with the Postal Service said in a filing Thursday that the agency continues to make “refinements” to the new Federal Ballot Mail Portal. The Postal Service anticipates the system will be available for voluntary use “by sometime next week,” Steven Monteith, executive vice president of the Postal Service, said in a filing.
   18. The mail-voting limits were implemented by the Postal Service in response to an executive order signed by Mr. Trump in March. In addition to the new directives for the Postal Service, the executive order calls for the Department of Homeland Security to compile “State Citizenship Lists” of residents who are U.S. citizens, and instructs the attorney general to prioritize investigations and prosecutions against election officials who issue ballots of [sic] people ineligible to vote.
   19. But a contingent of Democratic-led states filed a lawsuit challenging Mr. Trump’s executive order.
   20. While Talwani in that case had blocked the Trump administration from moving forward with the directive, the Supreme Court last week froze her decision.
   21. The Postal Service published its new rules for mail ballots and voting just days before the Supreme Court issued its ruling.
   22. While the high court in that case involving the executive order granted the Trump administration relief, its decision was procedural. The Supreme Court did not rule on the merits of the mail-ballot restrictions that Mr. Trump directed the Postal Service and Homeland Security Department to impose. Instead, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority said the states’ lawsuit was premature.
   23. MIKE: It’s worth noting that “the Supreme Court’s conservative majority said the states’ lawsuit was “premature” on Monday of this past week — I think the phrase used was that the case was “not yet ripe” —because the rules had not yet been made official by the USPS. However, the USPS had made the rules official on the previous Friday, so SCOTUS was three days behind the curve in their decision, and the case was ‘plenty ripe’.
   24. MIKE: So, what the court did was require the plaintiffs to unnecessarily re-file their case before the court.
   25. MIKE: I spent a lot of money on legal and court fees during my divorce, so whenever I see courts force plaintiffs or defendants to spin their wheels, I’m always thinking of the legal costs —legal costs that are often unnecessary, and sometimes incurred punitively just because one party to a case wants to run the other party out of money or time or stamina, or all of the above.
   26. MIKE: Because my age makes me eligible, I’ve been voting by mail for years, and my ballots have always ultimately been counted. It’s not that I can’t get to a polling place, but standing in line can be hard for me.
   27. MIKE: Nonetheless, this year, I’m seriously considering bringing my ballot into a polling place to be ‘spoiled’ and voting person. As Ellen Ripley said in the movie, ALIENS: “It’s the only way to be sure. [INSERT CLIP]” Corporal Hicks concurs: “It’s the only way to be sure. [INSERT CLIP]” (By the way, for fans of the movie, I’ve linked to the FULL SCENE in this show post at ThinkwingRadio[.]com.
   28. MIKE: I’d also like to make a strictly personal observation here about US Solicitor General D. John Sauer: How does this guy sleep at night?
   29. MIKE: I understand that our court system is adversarial and that each side is entitled to the best lawyering that they can obtain and afford, but lawyers can decline to argue a case, and Sauer has gone before SCOTUS many times to make the most outrageous legal arguments; and when he wins in this stacked Supreme Court captured by Trump and the Republicans through sleezy maneuvers, I think he has some personal responsibility for whittling away at our Constitutional rights and our democracy.
   30. MIKE: Sauer is neither legally nor morally required to make these arguments and defend this so-called Department of Justice and Trump’s legally questionable executive orders.
   31. MIKE: Many of the DOJ’s lawyers have resigned for less over the past 20 months.
   32. MIKE: In my opinion, that makes Sauer nothing more nor less than a collaborator and an apparatchik tool of Donald Trump, along with Trump’s other collaborators and enablers.
   33. MIKE: I doubt that Sauer has said or done anything that could get him censured or disbarred in the future, but I hope he’s capable of shame.
5. From the HOUSTONCHRONICLE[.]COM — 300,000 Houston-area voters are on Texas’ suspense list. If you are, here’s what to do.; By Nathaniel Rosenberg, Staff Writer | HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM | Aug 29, 2026. TAGS: 3 General Election, Texas Secretary Of State, Texas Voters, Texas Voter Suspense List,
   1. Upwards of 1.2 million voters in Texas are on a little-known voter list that may complicate casting a ballot in the  3 general election.
   2. Those Texans, including about 300,000 in the [metro-Houston] area, are on the state’s suspense list, which means state officials have not been able to confirm the voter’s current address. Approximately 6.5% of all voters statewide were on the list as of March, when data was most recently shared.
   3. On Saturday, the Texas Secretary of State’s office released a series of messages online attempting to reassure residents that the list would not prevent them from voting in the upcoming election, which features closely contested races for both governor and United States senator. 
   4. … Harris County leads the state with nearly 200k suspense voters, while close to 1/5 of voters in McLennan County made the list.
   5. “On the suspense list? Don’t panic,” the agency wrote. “You can still vote.”
   6. Being on the suspense list will not stop residents from voting in November, but it may require filling out a couple of extra forms on or before Election Day. Here’s what to know.
   7. What is the suspense list in Texas?
   8. In Texas, the suspense list indicates voters whose residential address hasn’t been verified by election officials.
   9. Every two years, the state mails all voters orange and white voter registration cards to the address it has on file. If residents have not yet received theirs, the state says it could be because they moved without updating their address, or that there is another problem with registration.
   10. Residents are placed on the suspense list when certain pieces of official mail — including voter registration cards, a jury summons, or other official election mail — are returned as non-deliverable.  
   11. Across the Houston region, hundreds of thousands of voters are on the suspense list, including about 198,000 in Harris County, 48,000 in Montgomery County, 43,000 in Fort Bend County and 12,000 in Brazoria County.
   12. How do [you] check if [you are] on the suspense list?
   13. Voters can check whether they are on the suspense list by using either their county voter website or the state’s online portal. After putting in individual voter information, voters can see their status and will be listed as “suspense” if they are on the list.
   14. How do [you] get off the Texas suspense list?
   15. Getting off the list depends on why you [were] put on it. The first step is to check whether your listed address on the voter registration website matches your current address.
   16. If you moved within your county and haven’t updated your voter information to reflect the new address, you can do that by the Oct. 5 registration deadline to be removed from the suspense list. To update your information, you will need a current form of Texas ID, your Social Security number and your Voter Unique Identifier, or VUID, number, which can be found on your registration card.
   17. If you have moved to a new county, you may have to fill out a new registration form by the Oct. 5 deadline.
   18. If you have not moved and your information listed online is correct, you should contact your county voter registrar to find out why you are on the suspense list. 
   19. Voters who are on the suspense list for two consecutive federal election cycles, or four years, can be removed from the voter rolls, according to the Texas SOS.
   20. Can [you] still vote in Texas if [you’re] on the suspense list?
   21. The short answer is likely yes, but it may be more complicated than usual.
   22. If you show up to vote on Nov. 3 and are told you are on the suspense list, you will be required to fill out a “statement of residence” form, which will be available at the polls. That form should remove you from the suspense list by the next election.
   23. Then, if you are in the same county as the previous election, you can return to your previous polling place and vote there. If you have moved to a new county and have not updated your registration, the state requires you to complete a “limited ballot application” during early voting to vote. 
   24. For the upcoming election, the last day to register to vote is Oct. 5 and early voting begins Oct. 19.
   25. MIKE: This story has a “CHECK HERE” link for Texas voter registration lookup.
   26. MIKE: The link provided in the article for checking your registration status is included in the story and in this show post at ThinkwingRadio[.]com.
   27. MIKE: The information you have to input to check your status is simple: First Name, Last Name, Birth Date, and either your County & ZIP Code, your Driver’s License Number, or your Voter ID (i.e., VUID) Number.
   28. MIKE: The link takes you to a page of the Texas Secretary of State, so you can check your registration status regardless of where you are in Texas. I suggest you check your registration status as soon as possible, because it takes time to update if necessary.
6. I wanted to see if Texas was an outlier by looking for information on what equivalent lists were like in other states. In a broader national context, there’s this from AP NEWS via WCMH (Columbus OH) — Noncitizen voting claims animate Trump’s attacks on midterms and set up potential result challenges; by MIKE CATALINI and ALI SWENSON, Associated Press | AP NEWS via WCMH (Columbus OH) | Posted: Aug 29, 2026 / 08:22 AM EDT/Updated: Aug 29, 2026 / 08:22 AM EDT. TAGS: President Donald Trump, Republicans, U.S. Postal Service (USPS), Census Bureau, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Department of Homeland Security, (DHS), Voter Rolls,
   1. The drumbeat by President Donald Trump and his allies about the perceived threats of voting by people who are not U.S. citizens is getting louder as the November election approaches.
   2. He is pushing to have the U.S. Postal Service send mail ballots only to voters verified as U.S. citizens. The Census Bureau promoted a dubious report about thousands of noncitizens voting in 2020, an election that the Republican lost to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump’s Department of Homeland Security is claiming without providing evidence that 250,000 noncitizens might be on the rolls in just four states.
   3. This week, the Republican candidate for governor in Maine confirmed an audio recording in which he said he plans to ask Trump’s border czar to send U.S. marshals and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to polling places in the state to ensure that only legal voters are casting ballots.
   4. Evidence of noncitizens voting is continuing to “pile up,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said when asked about the census report.
   5. In fact, voting by noncitizens is extremely rare and is punishable as a felony that carries the potential for deportation. Even so, opponents say the hyperfocus on the issue by Trump and his allies is setting the stage for legal challenges to outcomes he may not like during the midterms in which control of Congress is on the line.
   6. [Said Alexandra Chandler, director of impact programs, free and fair elections at the nonpartisan Democracy Project,] “Throw out these deceitful, deceptive claims as an excuse for disruptions. … You can deny the results later.”
   7. [The] Census report methodology is flawed, but it could help sow distrust. The … report, which the president cited in a Truth Social post, said it found in a “beginning analysis” that 24,000 noncitizens voted illegally in 2020. It cited data from a commercially available voter file, which was checked against federal records.
   8. Experts say the methodology might have created false positives. For example, if a person’s name was linked to the wrong address or someone’s citizenship status had not been updated in a particular database.
   9. Details that typically would be included in such a report about error rates were missing, said Justin Levitt, a Loyola Marymount University law professor. Nevertheless, election experts say it could help generate distrust among certain voters during this year’s general election.
   10. [Prof. Levitt said,] “This is an empty manila folder that the administration will wave around when it says the elections were fraudulent, noncitizens voted.”
   11. … Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s July letter to California, Nevada, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, alleging that as many as nearly 250,000 noncitizens were registered in those states, was met with skepticism and requests for more information.
   12. [California’s secretary of state, Democrat Shirley Weber, said in response,] “I have serious doubts about the reliability of your data and accuracy of your claims, since my office has not shared our statewide voter registration list with DHS or any other federal agency or official.”
   13. In [Democratic-controlled] New Jersey, Mullin’s department indicated as many as 35,000 noncitizens were registered. Shortly after the letter, [New Jersey] disclosed that about 6,600 noncitizens were improperly registered through its motor vehicle system in 2023 and 2024.
   14. Democratic [New Jersey] Gov. Mikie Sherrill said those people answered “no” when asked whether they were citizens, but were registered anyway. The governor said her administration found that “fewer than 400” of them had voted and that it has begun replacing the vendor involved in the improper registrations.
   15. Pennsylvania’s secretary of the commonwealth, Republican Al Schmidt, said in a letter this week that DHS officials acknowledged during a recent meeting they did not have high confidence that the 14,576 people referenced in the initial letter were in fact noncitizens improperly registered to vote. He said federal officials said they would provide a methodology and that Pennsylvania officials were awaiting that information.
   16. Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar, a Democrat, said he did not understand the methodology the federal government used.
   17. [Secretary of State Aguilar said,] “All I can say is we have done significant work to make sure our voter rolls are as clean as possible.”
   18. Messages from The Associated Press seeking comment from DHS were not immediately returned.
   19. … The relentless attention on claims that noncitizens are marring elections in the United States comes as Trump continues to pressure Republican senators to pass a bill that would require people to show documented proof of American citizenship when they register to vote for the midterms, even though millions of people do not have ready access to such records.
   20. The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE America Act, has passed the GOP-led House but is stalled in the Senate, where even some members of the president’s party are skeptical of its provisions.
   21. Kathy Boockvar, former Democratic secretary of state of Pennsylvania who now runs a nonpartisan election security firm, said she viewed the administration’s release of the census report as part of a “doing-everything-it-can” strategy to pass the legislation.
   22. Republican supporters say the bill would improve the integrity of elections, including the requirement to show a photo ID. Gathering the documents necessary to prove citizenship would be difficult for many would-be voters. A 2025 University of Maryland study estimates that 21.3 million people in the U.S. who are eligible to vote do not have, or do not have easy access to, documents proving their citizenship.
   23. Trump’s opponents say [that] his raising the specter of noncitizens voting leading to fraudulent results is less about maintaining the integrity of elections than it is about him doing whatever he can so his party retains power in Washington after November.
   24. On Friday, the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles used the arrest of a Honduran national on charges alleging he fraudulently registered to vote as a signal that more attention on the issue was coming for California, a state that has a handful of important U.S. House races in November. Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli [PRON.: eh-SAAH-lee] said the arrest was “the first of many to come” while warning “there’s no telling how many noncitizens are currently registered to vote” in the state.
   25. [Said Colorado’s secretary of state, Democrat Jena Griswold,] “Trump is trying to lay the groundwork to reject the ’26 election. … He’s trying to destabilize both confidence and actual election administration. His efforts to destabilize election information, [and] administration are not working.”
   26. MIKE: As I said in the introduction to his story, I wanted to see if Texas was an outlier, so I looked for information on what equivalent lists were like in other states.
   27. MIKE: Even using Google AI, and phrasing the question in many different ways and changing specific words, this information was surprisingly hard to acquire. This was partly because different states compile similar lists under both different names and categorized in different ways.
   28. MIKE: The closest I could get was this summary from the AI: “In most states that maintain a distinction between active and inactive voters, an average of 9.9% of registered American voters are placed on inactive lists. This average reflects data analyzed from recent federal reporting cycles up through 2026, compiled by organizations such as the MIT Election Data and Science Lab and the Center for Election Innovation & Research (CEIR).”
   29. MIKE: The CEIR article from July 2026 is titled, “State Active Registration Rates in 2024”, with 2024 presumably being the most recent year for which useful data was available. The article itself is both scholarly (with footnotes) and readable at what I estimate is a high school reading level, so it should be accessible to most interested readers.
   30. The article has some interesting facts that I’d call bullet points.
   31. MIKE: “The nationwide average of state active registration rates was 85% at the 2024 general election. This suggests that, in most states, list maintenance practices tend to keep pace with natural changes in voters’ lives, such as moving.”
   32. MIKE: “Active registration rates in 25 states fall within five points of the 85% average. Thirty-nine states and DC fall within 10 points of the average.”
   33. MIKE: “A few states are outliers. In 2024, Arkansas was the only state with an active registration rate below 60%, and Alaska was the only state with more active voter records than the US Census Bureau estimate of Citizen Voting Age Population.²”
   34. MIKE: “The number of active voter registration records changes over time as people move, die, become eligible to vote, or experience other life changes that cause them to be added to or removed from the voter list.⁴ Because these factors differ across states and over time, variation in active registration rates is to be expected.”
   35. MIKE: “These records are not immediately removed. For an inactive record to be removed, the NVRA [National Voter Registration Act] requires officials to first take steps to confirm that the voter is no longer eligible, including by sending the voter a confirmation notice. If the voter does not subsequently verify their registration and does not vote or appear to vote for two federal general elections, the record may be cancelled and removed from the voter list.”
   36. MIKE: “Historically, the Election Administration and Voting Survey (EAVS) has been the most useful national resource of state registration totals. However, the data quality has been limited by: (1) incomplete responses from jurisdictions within states which result in incomplete state totals; (2) human error in question interpretation and response entry which result in values that may be inaccurate and difficult to compare between states; and (3) a lack of response dates which make it impossible to know the exact timeframe represented by the registration totals.”
   37. MIKE: The original article has a map, which I cannot individually link to here, that allows you to see what the percentage of active registered voters is for each state.
   38. MIKE: So, to summarize what I feel I’ve learned:
   39. MIKE: 1- Despite the fear-mongering by Trump, FOX-alleged-News, and Republican officials generally, voting by non-citizens and voters who are otherwise ineligible to vote is a statistically and numerically minuscule problem. Anecdotally, I’d say that the number of Republicans who vote illegally in one way or another in order to prove that the system can be defeated is probably about the same as the number of ineligible voters that vote.
   40. MIKE: 2- The vast majority of Secretaries of State are smart, diligent managers of their voter rolls, and do so in good faith to keep records accurate and up-to-date.
   41. MIKE: And finally, a discovery that I find somewhat comforting, is 3- I think that one of the most important takeaways from my research is that about 6.5% of registered voters being “in suspense” in metro-Houston specifically and Texas generally does not make Texas an outlier. In fact, those numbers are well within the norm.
   42. MIKE: The only concern I have in Texas is that our Republican-dominated state government has proven that they are very flexible on how “law-and-ordery” they are, depending on whose ox is being metaphorically gored.
   43. MIKE: In Texas, my only question now is whether our Acting Texas Secretary of State Robert S. Howden will make a good faith effort to evenhandedly try to validate which of these “suspended” voters are actually eligible, and whether he will do so in an entirely non-partisan manner. Time will tell.
   44. MIKE: As a reminder, if you’re in Texas, I’m including an easy-to-use Texas voter registration lookup link to see if your voter registration is considered to be ACTIVE or PENDING. It’s in this show post at ThinkwingRadio[.]com
   45. MIKE: If you’re listening to this show from outside of Texas, be sure to check with your Secretary of State or equivalent to make sure that your vote will be properly counted.
7. I don’t often read articles from Daily Kos because they are so predictably leftwing. I feel that a Daily Kos story is often too easy a target for moderate liberals and centrists even when I agree with them, but I think that they are the perfect source for this next opinion piece. From DAILYKOS[.]COM — Democratic Socialists of America wage self-sabotaging war over AOC; by KOS Staff | DAILYKOS.COM | Tuesday, September 1, 2026 at 8:30 AM CDT. TAGS: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), Bernie Sanders, Democrats, Democratic Socialists of America ( DSA), Political Infighting, Zohran Mamdani, Democratic Socialism,
   1. One of the great running jokes in the 1979 comedy “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” is the absurd factionalism among the revolutionaries fighting Roman rule. 
   2. There’s the People’s Front of Judea, the Judean People’s Front, the Judean Popular People’s Front, and the Popular Front (which is just one guy). They supposedly share the same cause, but they reserve their fiercest contempt for one another, denouncing rival factions as “splitters” and even fighting each other when they show up for the same mission.
   3. The joke is simple: They all hate the Romans. They just hate the people who almost completely agree with them even more.
   4. Enter the Democratic Socialists of America. 
   5. They certainly hate President Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican Party. But, in the grand tradition of the People’s Front of Judea, they often seem to reserve their most visceral contempt for the Democrats with whom they ostensibly share far more common ground … and for
   6. We’ve examined this dynamic before, with the DSA excommunicating their biggest success story, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2025, while detractors vandalized her district offices in the Bronx.
   7. And now AOC’s potential 2028 presidential campaign has become the latest front in DSA’s internal wars, as detailed by an Axios report. 
   8. Her home chapter, New York City DSA, is broadly supportive of her. But hard-line factions remain deeply hostile. DSA’s Liberation Caucus, which describes itself as “Marxist-Leninist-Maoist,” has rejected efforts to make her the socialist movement’s 2028 standard-bearer, accusing her of a “consistent pattern of opportunism.”
   9. The fight has spilled into DSA’s endorsement process, with national leadership asserting control over any 2028 presidential endorsement and NYC-DSA leaders accusing it of overturning the organization’s convention — all in a bid to keep any of its groups from backing AOC. 
   10. AOC, meanwhile, has spent years navigating this minefield — at times distancing herself from national DSA and its more radical positions, even as she recently renewed her national membership.
   11. That in itself may not be the smartest political move. 
   12. In July, DSA released a “Workers Deserve More” manifesto, envisioning “a day without capitalism” and promising a life without bills or mortgages, or “dreading going back to work” after the weekend. It also called for abolishing the Senate and working toward “fully abolishing the police and prison system.”
   13. AOC, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and Rep. Rashida Tlaib all declined to tell USA Today whether they supported the platform. AOC has separately rejected the idea of abolishing the Senate and emphasized her affiliation with NYC-DSA when questioned about national DSA’s positions.
   14. That reluctance isn’t hard to understand. Even as many leftist Democrats have moved away from some of the “Woke 1.0” activist politics that damaged the party’s brand, national DSA is doubling down on fringe positions that give Republicans ample ammunition to paint the entire left as soft on crime and wildly out of step with the political mainstream.
   15. Yet DSA also lauds Cuban dictator Fidel Castro as a role model, despite Castro presiding over both a robust prison system and a large military. And he wasn’t shy about using that military abroad either: Cuba sent forces to ideological conflicts in Algeria, Angola, Ethiopia, Syria, and elsewhere.
   16. Meanwhile, the aforementioned Liberation Caucus, in rejecting AOC as its standard-bearer, wrote: “Instead of holding their elected accountable, the rightist clique in NYC-DSA leadership has chosen instead to defend and shield her on multiple occasions, even going so far as to hint as splitting away from the national organization when they do not get their way. This is not the behavior of socialist cadres.”
   17. Ah yes. NYC-DSA is the right wing now. The People’s Judea Liberation Front is in the house, y’all.
   18. There is literally nothing more socialist than internal fracturing and windmill-tilting.
   19. [One strategist who works with DSA told Axios] “We’re not in a book club anymore. … You could be growing this organization by pointing to AOC, Bernie [Sanders], [Zohran] Mamdani — and instead they are going on cable news talking about abolishing the Senate, Fidel Castro, and other weird stuff. It’s a blown opportunity.”
   20. MIKE: I did a lengthy discussion of the DSA platform on my August 9^th show as item 3, which you can read or listen to at the link I’m providing in this show post at ThinkwingRadio[.]com.
   21. MIKE: A question I asked myself when I first heard of the Democratic Socialists of America was why they didn’t call themselves the Social Democrats of America? But the immediate answer was simple.
   22. MIKE: While the term “social democracy” is well known and easily understood in Europe, using the word “socialist” as the first word in an American party would be political poison. Thus, while the basic notion of social democracy is what Bernie Sanders is basically espousing, flipping the name to Democratic Socialism serves two purposes. 1- It puts the word “democratic” first, softening the impact of the word “socialism, and 2- It’s easily confused and conflated with the Democratic Party.
   23. MIKE: Some folks who are not political junkies might hear Democratic Party and Democratic Socialists and figure that there can’t be that much difference.
   24. MIKE: One of my political theories that I’ve mentioned on the show a few times is my 30-40-30 theory of voters. Simply put, it’s my belief that 30% of voters would vote for a leftwing extremist and 30% of the voters would vote for a rightwing extremist.
   25. MIKE: Another of my theories is that about 40% of eligible voters typically don’t vote because neither party is extreme enough for them on the right or the left. Those, I believe, are the people who often opine that the two major parties are the same.
   26. MIKE: Now you have the Democratic Socialists of America, whose core activists seem willing to describe themselves as “Marxist-Leninist-Maoist”. At that point, they are no longer social democrats, and their DSA platform may be fairly seen as “Marxist-Leninist-Maoist.” In other words, they’re not really democratic socialists or social democrats.
   27. MIKE: They’re self-described Marxist-Leninist-Maoist communists who should probably simply join the Communist Party USA (CPUSA),
   28. MIKE: In other words, they could join the CPUSA, which is probably more in line with their ideas, except that the CPUSA is politically toxic to mainstream political voters.
   29. MIKE: Wikipedia describes the CPUSA as, “a communist party established in 1919, in the wake of the Russian Revolution, emerging from the left wing of the Socialist Party of America (SPA).”
   30. MIKE: But if history doesn’t actually repeat itself, it does tend to rhyme, and as Number 6 has said in the Battlestar Galactica reboot, “All of this has happened before. All of it will happen again.”
8. The Israeli election for all the seats in the Knesset will be held on October 27^th, just a week before US national elections. This election will decide if Netanyahu’s Likud forms the next government, or if Netanyahu and his Likud party will finally be voted out of power.
   1. Israel is a parliamentary democracy. Israel has a president who is elected by the whole Knesset and is the technical head of state. That person doesn’t have much power, but has the critical job of choosing which party gets a chance to form a government after an election.
   2. Israeli parliamentary elections are a little unusual and complicated, but I found a 3-minute video to explain it, which I’ve linked to in this show post at ThinkwingRadio[.]com.
   3. I recommend going to the video, both to understand what the process of forming a new government there involves, and because Israel’s form of parliamentary democracy is in many ways very different from the British or Canadian forms, for example.
   4. Israeli legislative elections are for all 120 members of the 26th Knesset, and will determine the governing coalition that succeeds the 37th government currently led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
   5. I think that many of you will agree that this election could have significant ramifications for the current geopolitics of the middle east, as well as the shape of future actions and international relations for years into the future.
   6. All that being said, I wanted to find some information on what the prospects are for an Israeli election that might finally remove Benjamin Netanyahu and his governing collation from power.
9. With all the aforesaid as prologue, I wanted to know what the current polling shows two months before heading into this election, and I found this article from the Anadolu Agency of Türkiye — Poll shows Israeli opposition ahead of Netanyahu’s bloc after deadlock; By Abdel Ra’ouf Arnaout and Lina Altawell | AA.COM.TR (Anadolu Agency of Türkiye) | 04 September 2026/Update: 04 September 2026. TAGS: Israel, Israeli Election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Knesset, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Likud, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Gadi Eisenkot, Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett,
   1. A new opinion poll showed Israel’s opposition ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc in the Knesset, with 57 seats against 51 if general elections were held on Friday.
   2. The poll, conducted by the private Lazar Research Institute on a random sample of 600 Israelis with a 4.4% margin of error, came a day after a separate survey showed both camps tied at 53 seats each.
   3. According to the latest poll, neither camp would be able to reach the 61-seat threshold needed to form a government, Israeli daily Maariv reported.
   4. The results come ahead of general elections scheduled for Oct. 27, amid intense competition over the shape of political blocs and the premiership.
   5. Jewish opposition parties would win 57 seats if elections were held today, compared with 51 for the bloc supporting Netanyahu, Maariv said.
   6. Arab lawmakers would win 12 seats in the 120-seat Knesset.
   7. [An Israeli] Channel 13 poll published Thursday (September 3^rd] showed Netanyahu’s camp and the opposition tied at 53 seats each, with Arab parties receiving 14 seats.
   8. The latest results shift the bloc map from a tie to a six-seat lead for the opposition within one day, but neither camp secures a governing majority.
   9. Most leaders of Jewish opposition parties say they refuse to rely on Arab lawmakers to form a government.
   10. [MIKE: I’ll insert here that I understand the politics of that position, but it’s unfortunate. But I suspect that there are times when being outsiders in the governing coalition can provide leverage as swing voters. I’ll get into that a bit in my comments. Continuing … ]
   11. Maariv said Netanyahu’s coalition bloc strengthened to 51 seats for the first time since May.
   12. It said the opposition bloc dropped by two seats to 57, while Arab parties lost one seat.
   13. [Maariv] attributed the rise in Netanyahu’s bloc to the far-right Religious Zionism party, led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, crossing the electoral threshold with five seats.
   14. The far-right Your People Israel party, led by Ofer Winter, also received four seats.
   15. According to Maariv, the opposition remains four seats short of the 61-seat majority needed to form a government.
   16. But the newspaper noted that Religious Zionism and Your People Israel are still at risk of failing to cross the electoral threshold, which could change the seat map.
   17. … In Netanyahu’s camp, Likud received 20 seats, while Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party won eight.
   18. The religious parties United Torah Judaism and Shas received seven seats each, Religious Zionism five, and Your People Israel four.
   19. In the opposition, Yashar, led by Gadi Eisenkot, came first with 23 seats.
   20. The Together party, led by former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, received 15 seats, while the Democrats party, led by Yair Golan, got 10, and Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu won nine.
   21. Among Arab parties, the Joint List received seven seats, while the United Arab List (Ra’am), led by Mansour Abbas, won five.
   22. … Eisenkot and Bennett also continued to be ahead of Netanyahu in the race to become prime minister.
   23. Some 48% of respondents preferred Eisenkot as prime minister, compared with 39% for Netanyahu, while 13% were undecided.
   24. In a separate matchup, 43% preferred Bennett, compared with 39% for Netanyahu, while 15% were undecided.
   25. Thursday’s Channel 13 poll also showed Eisenkot ahead of Netanyahu, 47% to 37%.
   26. … In another result, 55% of Israelis said they fear another war between Israel and Iran in the near future.
   27. By contrast, 39% said they do not fear such a war, while 6% were undecided.
   28. … The poll also showed division over whether there was “internal betrayal” during the events of October 2023.
   29. Some 44% said they do not believe there was “internal betrayal,” while 40% said they believe there was, and 16% were undecided.
   30. By political affiliation, 61% of coalition voters believed there had been “internal betrayal,” while 64% of opposition voters said no such thing had happened.
   31. [MIKE: I feel compelled to pause here for a moment because that result is so surprising that I’m almost tempted to think that it’s an error. If I’m understanding that statement correctly, it’s saying that the anti-Netanyahu voters — labeled here as “the opposition” — have more faith that the Netanyahu coalition that was governing at the time of the attack was not responsible for failing to prevent the October 7^th attack than the voters who are pro-Netanyahu government. That doesn’t make sense to me, especially in light of subsequent investigations that intelligence warnings that were sent up the chain of command were somehow widely dismissed. It’s just weird. But continuing …]
   32. Israel, backed by the US, launched its genocide in Gaza on Oct. 8, 2023, killing 73,470 Palestinians and injuring 174,540 as of Thursday, while victims remain under the rubble and on roads that rescue teams cannot reach.
   33. Israel’s general elections are scheduled for Oct. 27 and are seen as decisive for Netanyahu’s political future, as he faces accusations of corruption, authoritarianism, and failure.
   34. The current government, described as the most right-wing in Israel’s history, has been led since late December 2022 by Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes in the Gaza Strip.
10. 9 (ADDENDUM): About that last part, I don’t think there’s any question that some Israeli soldiers and even units have committed war atrocities. But the word “genocide” is bandied about a lot, and I think it’s important to address that.
    1. MIKE: The casualty figures, all of which come from the Gaza Health Ministry run by Hamas, are considered to be substantially accurate by UN and other authorities, and by non-governmental organizations (NGOs). But I always feel it’s important to add two caveats to those figures.
    2. MIKE: First, the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry makes no public effort to separate civilian casualties from fighters for Hamas and other factions. This must be acknowledged as a brilliant propaganda policy.
    3. MIKE: Second, Hamas is proven to embed itself in civilian infrastructure such as apartment complexes, schools, hospitals, etc., effectively using these structures and institutions — and the people that use and live in them — as human shields. This must have a significant impact on civilian casualties, and begs the complex question: Who has the responsibility for some unknown number of those civilian casualties?
    4. MIKE: That last statement is likely to arouse fervent denial in some supporters of Palestinian groups like Hamas, so I made sure to find some sourcing.
    5. MIKE: I’m going to read Google AI’s responses substantially in their entirety because I want to remove as much of my own potential bias as possible, so bear with me. The AI responses also include footnote links, which I’m including to aid listeners in their own research. You can find them in today’s show post at ThinkwingRadio[.]com.
    6. MIKE: Google AI said:
    7. Google AI: Evidence and international reports document Hamas operating inside civilian areas, while Hamas denies these claims, and debates continue over urban density and military conduct.
    8. Google AI: … Israel, the United States, and independent observers state that Hamas builds tunnels, stores weapons, and sets up command centers under and inside civilian buildings. [1, 2, 3]
    9. Google AI: Investigations and intelligence reports [of Specific Sites] have pointed to locations like Al-Shifa Hospital, schools, and mosques as sites containing underground shafts or armed operatives. [1, 2, 3, 4]
    10. Google AI: Western governments and military analysts argue this practice is a deliberate strategy to use non-combatants as human shields. [1, 2, 3]
    11. Google AI: … Hamas consistently denies using hospitals, schools, or civilians to shield military operations, calling the accusations false. [1]
    12. Google AI: Some critics and humanitarian groups note that Gaza is one of the most crowded places on earth. They argue that close quarters make complete separation of military and civilian spaces difficult. [1, 2]
    13. Google AI: Opinions on Reddit are mixed, with some participants arguing that Hamas bears responsibility for endangering civilians, while others contend that opposing forces must still adhere strictly to international humanitarian law regardless of the adversary’s tactics. [1]
    14. Now, that information might lead some of us to ask the next question: “Of the 73,470 Palestinians killed and 174,540 injured, how many were fighters?”
    15. MIKE: This is a question that isn’t asked much in the media — certainly not in the Arabic or Palestinian media — or is mentioned only in passing.
    16. MIKE: In a simple strategic sense, from the point of view of Hamas, it’s not like they can set up military bases in open areas of Gaza because the Israelis would destroy them immediately, so what is Hamas to do from their perspective? That’s not an excuse. Simply an observation.
    17. MIKE: For obvious reasons, accurate numbers of fighter sare impossible to come by, so I again asked Google AI and got claims and counterclaims. Google AI said this:
    18. Google AI: An exact breakdown of how many fighters are included in these figures does not exist because the primary sources tracking the casualties use different data methodologies. [1]
    19. Google AI: The figures of 73,470 killed and 174,540 injured originate from the Gaza Health Ministry (and are utilized by the United Nations). Here is how the two opposing sides account for combatants within those totals: [1, 2]
    20. Google AI: [Casualty counts by] The Gaza Health Ministry [of] Hamas do not differentiate between civilians and combatants. They track overall deaths based on bodies arriving at hospitals and morgues, noting that the vast majority of the casualties consist of women, children, and the elderly. [1, 2, 3]
    21. Google AI: The Israeli Military (IDF) does not issue a direct breakdown corresponding exactly to the most recent 73,470 toll. In its last major updated estimate released in early 2025 [my emphasis, because that’s over a year ago], the Israeli military stated it had killed nearly 20,000 Hamas fighters. Independent experts and intelligence agencies note that Israel reaches its combatant estimates through a combination of battlefield body counts, intercepted communications, and intelligence assessments of targeted buildings. [1]
    22. MIKE: I’m going to get back to these Gaza and Israeli casualty figures in a minute. Continuing …
    23. Google AI: Because combatants in Gaza typically do not wear formal military uniforms or carry distinct identifiers, external verification of the exact number of fighters killed or injured remains impossible to independently confirm. [1]
    24. MIKE: I did a bit more searching with the question: “What were total casualties in Gaza by early 2025?” I found a February 2026 Al-Jazeera article summarized by Google AI with this statement: “The Gaza Mortality Survey (GMS) estimated 75,200 violent deaths, which was about 34.7% higher than the 49,090 violent deaths officially reported by the Gaza Ministry of Health (MoH) for that exact same timeframe.”
    25. MIKE: The Al- Jazeera article itself says of the lower number that, “Peer-reviewed studies reveal official counts represent a ‘floor’.”
    26. MIKE: Let’s work within both those numbers, even acknowledging that the Israeli fighter casualty numbers may be suspect.
    27. MIKE: That led me to one more question which I think context requires being asked: “In wars, what percentage of total casualties are typically combatants versus non-combatants?” As might be expected, these numbers have extreme variation depending on the methodology used as well as the kind of combat taking place; for example, urban vs. non-urban. Google AI offers this:
    28. Google AI: In modern armed conflicts, noncombatants (civilians) typically account for roughly 50% to 90% of total casualties, though exact percentages vary widely depending on the nature and location of the warfare. [1, 2]
    29. Google AI: … International bodies like the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and historical studies have often estimated that civilians make up between 50% and 65% — and sometimes as high as 90% in specific contexts — of total war-related casualties and impact. [1, 2, 3]
    30. Google AI: … When fighting occurs in densely populated urban environments, organizations like the ICRC note that civilian casualties can surge to approximately 90% of the total impact due to the use of heavy explosive weapons in populated areas. [1]
    31. Google AI: … Academic data-tracking projects (such as the Uppsala Conflict Data Program) show broader historical ranges, with civilian fatalities often landing between 30% and 60% of direct conflict deaths depending on how strictly “combatant” versus “civilian” is defined and how many casualty records remain unknown. [1]
    32. Google AI: Why [do]Statistics Vary?
    33. Google AI: … The widely cited 90% figure often lumps together injuries, displaced persons, and total suffering rather than strictly counting deaths. [1]
    34. Google AI: … Direct attribution on battlefields is difficult, leaving many modern conflicts reliant on statistical models, proxies (such as age and sex), or disputed local reports. [1, 2]
    35. MIKE: If the Gazan casualties up to early 2025 are within the range cited — 49,000 to 75,000 — than according to Israels reports, fighters make up between 29%-45% of the total Gaza deaths reported.
    36. MIKE: I feel that all of the above requires me to add an assessment of my own.
    37. MIKE: Allowing for the fact that the Israeli figures for Gazan casualties are over a year old, I think that places the Palestinian civilian casualty numbers well within the numbers one might expect from urban warfare. One could even say that civilian casualties might be at the low end of what the International Red Cross estimates that civilians might suffer in dense urban warfare.
    38. Are those the kinds of statistics that one might expect in a genocidal war? Or are those the kinds of statistics that one might expect when an enemy has embedded itself in a civilian population?
    39. Could one reasonably conclude from the statistics cited above that while individual or unit actions may be criminal, that the relatively low ratio of civilians to fighters killed is due to Israel fighting the kind of warfare to minimize both its own causalities and civilian casualties?
    40. MIKE: The International Red Cross expects up to 90% civilian casualties in urban warfare. The Hamas Heath Ministry states recent casualty totals have been 73,470 Gazans killed and 174,540 injured, making a total of over 250,000 total casualties in brutal urban warfare, fought in close quarters with lots of hiding places.
    41. MIKE: Again, resorting to Google AI, I got this when asking for the definition of genocide, which I’ll again read substantially in its entirety to avoid any of my own potential biases creeping in:
    42. Google AI: Genocide is an international crime defined as specific acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. [1]
    43. Google AI: … The United Nations Genocide Convention of 1948 defines genocide as acts including killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting destructive living conditions, imposing birth prevention measures, or forcibly transferring children, committed with intent. For the complete list of specific prohibited acts, please refer to the referenced document. [1, 2]
    44. Google AI: The term was coined in 1942 by Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin, combining the Greek genos (race/tribe) and Latin -cide (killing).
    45. Google AI: The United Nations recognized it as a crime in 1946 and codified it in the 1948 Genocide Convention. [1, 2]
    46. Google AI: [The] Key Requirement [is] Intent. The defining element distinguishing genocide from general mass violence or war crimes is the specific intent to destroy a protected group. [1]
    47. MIKE: It’s been said that “one death is a tragedy, A million deaths are a statistic”. That has often been attributed to Joseph Stalin, but the attribution may be apocryphal. I think that it is nonetheless true. When numbers of dead or wounded become too large, humans have trouble grasping those numbers as individuals. It simply becomes a mass tragedy, too large to comprehend.
    48. MIKE: Based on everything Ive read here today, I think that we can all agree that 250,000 dead and wounded in urban warfare is a terrible tragedy, but does it fit the definition of genocide?
    49. MIKE: You decide.
    50. MIKE: A final point of information is an article from LAWFAREMEDIA[.]ORG, “The Dangerous Failure to Hold Hamas Accountable for Using Human Shields: How international institutions’ silence on Hamas hiding behind civilians incentivizes human shields use, and distorts law and accountability.” It’s much too long to read here, so I’ve linked to it in today’s show post.

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!