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

“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.)

This is Lesley Stahl asking Trump in an interview why he keeps attacking the press and claiming that they’re reporting fake news: “At one point he [Trump] started to attack the press and I said, ‘You know, that is getting tired. Why are you doing this? You’re doing it over and over and it’s boring and it’s – it’s time to end that. You know, you’ve won the nomination and, uh, why do you keep hammering at this? And he [Trump] said, ‘You know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so that when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you.’ He said that. So, put that in your head for a minute.” ~ Lesley Stahl (“Deadline Club”, May 21, 2018). Excerpt from “Kasie DC”, May 27, 2018 (VIDEO) ca. 52s

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, the United Kingdom, Norway, the Netherlands, 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 58th week of Trump’s military occupation of Washington DC. As of the last time I checked on Friday, after 47 weeks, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee’s deployment of National Guard troops to Memphis, Tennessee at Trump’s request is where they apparently remain for now.  

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. Our next election day is November 3.
   1. Sample ballots are now You can see your ballot at the link I’m providing in this show post at ThinkwingRadio[.]com by inputting basic information for look-up purposes.
   2. Early voting starts in just about 3 weeks. Get yourself mentally prepared.
   3. Early Voting runs from OCT 19 – 30, 2026.
   4. Most candidates are marked on the ballot with their party affiliation. A few are not. For those candidates, if you have a party preference, you can look up their names on the web, and you can usually find notes about past party affiliations.
   5. There is also a ballot initiative relating to HPD enforcement priorities and methods, and you can vote YES or NO. There is an Houston Public Media story about that proposition which you can read at the link I’m providing in this show post. It’s called “Houston voters to consider deprioritized enforcement of cannabis laws, ban on no-knock warrants”
   6. The last day to register to vote, or to correct information on your registration, is Oct. 5. That’s only about week away, so be sure you haven’t been expunged from the voter rolls. The link to do that in Harris County is hctax.net, and the “www” prefix is necessary. For anywhere in Texas, you can check your registration status at votetexas.gov, The “www” is optional for that site.
   7. MIKE: Note that you are allowed to bring in notes such as a marked sample ballot to the polls to help you make your selections, but you MUST take your notes with you when you leave.
   8. Don’t be moved to overconfidence. This may be the most important election of our lifetimes. I know you’ve heard that before, and if you look at where we are now, it was true then, and it’s never been more true than it is now.
   9. Get out and VOTE! The only poll that matters is the one on election day.
2. Houston Public Media has a challenge for you. — Election 2026: Make your voice heard; By HPM News Staff | HOUSTONPUBLICMEDIA.ORG | Posted on August 14, 2026, 9:18 AM. TAGS: Election 2026, News,
   1. With the November midterm election almost here, Houston Public Media wants to hear from you. Fill out our quick online survey and tell [them]:
   2. What issues matter most to you this election?
   3. What races are you most interested in?
   4. What questions do you want us to ask the candidates?
   5. Your responses will help shape [their] election coverage and may be used in upcoming stories.
   6. MIKE: I think that HoustonPublicMedia has offered us all a way to shape their pre-election coverage. All you have to do is go to the story posted at ThinkwingRadio[.]com and click on the link. When the article loads, answer HPM’s questions.
3. Next is part of an ongoing and still-evolving story, so consider this next article from Friday the 25^th just a snapshot in time. I’m sharing this story with a gifted link, so there isn’t a paywall. From the WASHINGTONPOST[.]COM — CNN, MS NOW access unresolved as White House bars some journalists from state dinner event; By Scott Nover and Victoria Craw | WASHINGTONPOST.COM | September 25, 2026 at 4:30 a.m. EDT. TAGS: CNN, MS NOW, Politico, White House, Banned Journalists, White House Press Credentials, Algorithmic Conspiracy, Oligarchic Search Engines, Hostile American Regimes, Anti-Authoritarian-style Reporting,
   1. Journalists from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico were allowed reentry to the White House on Thursday, days after being banned by the administration, and hours after U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ordered their credentials restored.
   2. This followed a chaotic morning in which journalists from all three outlets were initially turned away from the White House, and some had their press credentials seized by the U.S. Secret Service.
   3. [MIKE: This caught my attention. After protecting the life and safety of the President of the United States, the Secret Service should secondarily and importantly be a law enforcement service that does not simply obey the whims of any current president. These agents should be chastised and retrained at a future point in time. Continuing …]
   4. [Later] in the day, CNN and MS NOW reported that some of their journalists were denied access to cover the arrival of Chinese President Xi Jinping at the White House for a state dinner.
   5. CNN said that a reporter and producer were blocked from the event, while a photojournalist and audio technician were able to attend. MS NOW said its White House reporter Laura Barrón-López was denied entry to President Xi’s arrival ceremony.
   6. President Donald Trump berated the two media outlets in a post on Truth Social Thursday, falsely claiming they had “refused to cover” the arrival.
   7. [Trump said,] “The event was magnificent — Actually made for Television but, because they’re Fake News, and because they knew how good it would be, they didn’t want credit to be given to “TRUMP,” they refused to be there.”
   8. … On Thursday morning, lawyers for CNN, MS NOW, and Politico requested an emergency hearing, claiming that by turning these journalists away, the government was illegally defying a temporary restraining order granted by the judge earlier in the day.
   9. Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., a partner at the law firm Gibson Dunn who is representing the media outlets, wrote in a court filing that the morning’s denials and seizures amounted to “non-compliance” with the judge’s ruling.
   10. [Boutrous said,] “Defendants have already repeatedly violated the Court’s Order.”
   11. The government responded by filing a declaration from White House press operations director Micah Stopperich outlining a timeline by which the White House had gone about restoring access. Stopperich attested that the White House began restoring badges at 7:10 a.m. Eastern time, and that the Secret Service told him badges were “turned back on” at 9:07 a.m.
   12. But that timeline does not comport with what happened: Reporters from the three outlets did not regain entry until around noon.
   13. [U.S. District Judge Kelly], an appointee of Trump, denied the request for an emergency hearing [requested by CNN, MS NOW, and Politico].
   14. [The judge did, however, issue] a 14-day restraining order while the outlets’ legal challenge of the ban proceeds, ordering the White House to “return, reinstate, and restore” the journalists’ credentials.
   15. [MIKE: There is a link to the judge’s full ruling embedded at this point in the story. Continuing …]
   16. … A Politico reporter had his press pass confiscated Thursday by the Secret Service and was blocked from entering White House grounds, the outlet reported. CNN reported that some of its staff members, including reporter Betsy Klein and a photojournalist, were denied entry to the White House grounds at about 6 a.m.
   17. Politico’s leadership told employees in an email Thursday that the publication would take the issue to court if its employees remained blocked from the White House.
   18. [Betsy] Klein said on air that initially, the photojournalist’s pass was seized, though another CNN producer was able to enter. She described the situation as “fluid” following the overnight ruling, noting that it was not yet business hours and that it “may take a little bit of time to process.”
   19. [MIKE: Personally, given the consistently rogue legal nature of this regime, I think that’s being unreasonably charitable. Continuing …]
   20. Earlier this week, Trump suggested he would allow the three outlets back if [Judge] Kelly ruled against the ban, but the president maintained he had a right to kick them out.
   21. [Trump told] reporters Tuesday. “I’m talking about national security, and I think we have a right to clean out fake news.”
   22. [MIKE: I’ll address this “national security” claim in my comments. Continuing …]
   23. MS NOW White House reporter Laura Barrón-López and a producer were denied access Thursday and had their passes confiscated, while another MS NOW producer was granted access, the outlet reported.
   24. Barrón-López said on air that it was unclear whether the White House denied her access in defiance of the court order or to “some kind of incompetence or lag in the system.”
   25. Later, at noon, Barrón-López went on air to say that she was allowed back in the White House, and that her credential was returned.
   26. CNN reported that Klein, its reporter, was allowed in around the same time. Politico reported at 12:28 that one of its reporters regained entry.
   27. The White House did not provide a statement about the morning’s events but pointed to the declaration submitted in court. The Justice Department declined to comment.
   28. … Reporters from the three outlets were first blocked from entering White House grounds Saturday following Trump’s announcement Friday that he would ban them, saying he disliked how they covered him, [with Trump saying,] “They’re fake news.” The three news organizations fought the ban in court, leading to an expedited hearing Wednesday.
   29. The media outlets argue that their ban from the White House grounds violates the First Amendment and their Fifth Amendment due process rights. …
   30. Kelly wrote in his ruling that the media outlets have shown a “high likelihood of success” in their Fifth Amendment claim that their passes were revoked without due process. Other factors, including the public interest in a free press, also tipped the balance in their favor, he said.
   31. [Judge] Kelly wrote, “This is a high bar, but Plaintiffs have met it.”
   32. The White House argued in legal filings that Trump’s action is lawful under the First Amendment and accused the outlets of threatening national security [MIKE: There’s that phrase again] by “trafficking in verifiable falsehoods” and publishing sensitive or classified information.
   33. No U.S. law explicitly makes it a crime for a journalist to obtain or publish classified information.
   34. … [MS NOW White House reporter Akayla Gardner said] It remains to be seen whether the White House pool system — which splits video coverage of the president among five major networks — will resume to cover the remainder of the visit of Chinese leader Xi Jinping … .
   35. ABC, CBS, Fox News, and NBC said they would halt TV coverage of presidential events after the White House banned CNN, while other outlets, including The Washington Post earlier this week, temporarily refrained from publishing new photos of Trump in a show of support.
   36. [MS NOW reporter Gardner said on air Thursday,] “This is a historic moment. We have President Xi coming here to Washington for a major state visit, and at this moment, we’re seeing tremendous solidarity among the news outlets. …”
   37. Weijia Jiang, CBS senior White House correspondent and former president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, said it was unclear whether pool coverage would resume, [writing on Thursday,] “The WH has not said whether CNN is back in the pool — a separate issue from the credentials.”
   38. … [In his Thursday ruling, Judge] Kelly said … that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed in showing the revocation of press credentials without due process was unconstitutional. He cited prominent cases decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, including a 1977 case concerning … Nation reporter Robert Sherrill and a 2020 case involving Playboy reporter Brian Karem, in which the court had established a pass could not be suspended without due process.
   39. [Judge Kelly wrote,] “The ‘general rule’ is that ‘individuals must receive notice and an opportunity to be heard before the Government deprives them’ of a constitutionally protected interest.”
   40. [Kelly] also took issue with the alleged violations outlined by the White House in letters to the media outlets. Kelly noted that the reports highlighted by the White House were “routine” and stretched back months or years. In some cases, the journalists behind the reports did not even hold White House passes, he added.
   41. [Judge Kelly said,] “The Court is skeptical — at least on this record — that Defendants’ interest in safeguarding national security is the actual motivation for, or is even advanced by, the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes.”
   42. Public interest arguments also favored the news organizations, Kelly said. While national security is a weighty argument for the White House, he said nothing in the defendants’ arguments show this was the motivation behind the reporter bans.
   43. [Kelly wrote,] “Certainly, that is not what President Trump said when he announced that he was ‘banning’ Plaintiffs from the White House — instead, he focused on the alleged lack of truthfulness and negativity of Plaintiffs’ reporting.”
   44. Trump wrote on Truth Social at the time that the ban was a result of the outlets’ “FAKE NEWS!” [saying] “Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America.”
   45. In its letter to Politico, the White House also took issue with the outlet’s use of anonymous sources, among other critiques, citing a report that included a “senior administration official” speaking about the odds of a preliminary deal to end the conflict with Iran. But the source in the story spoke in an authorized call with reporters during which media outlets were directed to attribute information to a “senior administration official,” according to a recording of the call reviewed by The Washington Post.
   46. Press advocacy groups and other news organizations have condemned the White House ban, and legal experts had expressed skepticism over whether it would hold up in court.
   47. S. courts have consistently ruled that denying or restricting a journalist’s entry to the White House on the basis of their reporting violates the First Amendment, while failure to provide a clearly stated justification for any denial risks violating the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause. …
   48. Ahead of the hearing Wednesday, the White House referred to a post by Trump on Truth Social in which he derided [Judge] Kelly and suggested he would appeal the decision.
   49. [Trump wrote,] “Fake News people and publications that only write negatively, and who violate our National Security by writing false and defamatory stories with unknown ‘sources,’ shouldn’t be allowed access to the most important Office anywhere in the World.”
   50. Plaintiffs in the lawsuit include the media outlets and their White House reporters: MS NOW’s Gardner, CNN’s Klein and Politico’s Cheyenne Haslett.
   51. [Named as defendants in their government capacities are] Trump, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, White House communications director Steven Cheung and Secret Service Director Sean M. Curran … .
   52. MIKE: In this show post at ThinkwingRadio[.]com, I’m linking to an NPR interview from Thursday. The interview title says it all: “Past presidents have invoked national security, but Trump takes it to new level.” That article points out that Trump often cites national security retroactively, with NPR’s Greg Myre saying: “The president’s critics say he does this because judges and courts tend to be extremely deferential when a president claims national security. We should stress that in these recent cases, Trump didn’t initially invoke national security when he took these actions. Only when faced with legal challenges did the president and his lawyers turn to national security as a defense.”
   53. MIKE: And I want to make an observation. Trump may think he’s winning some kind of cowardly victory by banning MS Now, CNN, and Politico from the White House press room, but I don’t think he is.
   54. MIKE: During his first term, I recall that there were some opinion pieces and stories that some news organizations considered covering his regime the way they would cover a hostile foreign power such as Iran, Russia or China.
   55. MIKE: I consulted Google AI to find these stories to support my recollection. The results were interesting in that Google AI gave me the overviews I was looking for without giving me actual citations for articles that I could use and link to.
   56. MIKE: For example, there was this:
   57. GOOGLE AI: “Media critics and veteran journalists argued that traditional Washington reporting — which relies heavily on official press releases, access to top aides, and assuming a baseline adherence to institutional norms —was ill-equipped for the Trump administration.
   58. GOOGLE AI: “Instead, critics like Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University, popularized the idea that reporters needed to switch from standard domestic political coverage to an “authoritarian mode.” This meant adopting techniques used by foreign correspondents covering illiberal regimes, which include:
   59. GOOGLE AI: “Prioritizing Actions Over Words: Rather than treating every presidential tweet or statement as a baseline policy truth, foreign-correspondence models focus strictly on verifiable state actions and institutional changes.
   60. GOOGLE AI: “Refusing to Trade Truth for Access: Journalists were urged to stop watering down coverage in exchange for exclusive interviews or access to administration officials.
   61. GOOGLE AI: “Focusing on the Erosion of Democratic Norms: The coverage deliberately framed actions—such as challenging election results or using the Department of Justice for personal grievances — not as standard partisan politics, but through the lens of democratic backsliding.”
   62. MIKE: What I found to be both really interesting and really frustrating was that all the articles that turned up from this search focused entirely on the current First and Fifth Amendment legal struggles, and not on any specific past articles — or even authoritative academic studies — supporting the very strategy that Google AI actually outlined.
   63. MIKE: And yet, GOOGLE AI must have pulled that very detailed summary from some It just didn’t tell me where.
   64. MIKE: Just for grins, I also tried searching multiple ways on Microsoft Edge using their Copilot, and didn’t do any better, except for one exception from the Committee to Protect Journalists from April 2020. But after mentioning all the hostility of the first Trump regime, that document focused on things a Trump regime should change, and not on how coverage of the regime — or one like it — should change. The last section even started with this sentence: “The Committee to Protect Journalists makes the following recommendations to the Trump administration:”
   65. MIKE: In other words, instead of providing strategies for reporters to cover such a hostile American regime, it’s asking the hostile regime to be nicer.
   66. MIKE: As a rule, I’ve rarely in my 75 years been a believer in big government conspiracy theories. It was a main reason I could never get into the TV series, “The X Files”.
   67. MIKE: I’ve learned that most conspiracies are of the C.Y.A. — or “cover your ass” — variety. They’re typically about avoiding embarrassment or shame, or covering up mostly petty crimes.
   68. MIKE: And yet … This modern oligarchic, fascist-minded, “Project 2025-driven Republican Party” is new on the American scene. They’re all about greed, suppression, and law-breaking.
   69. MIKE: Some Republican strategists and apparatchiks have as much as admitted that their strategy all along in this regime has been to “flood the zone” with more executive orders and actions of questionable legality that happen so fast and in such volume that the media can’t sink its teeth into them before the next shiny thing is in the news, and the courts can hardly work fast enough to stop them, even if the judicial will is there.
   70. MIKE: Given all that, at this point, one might almost expect that there may be some sort of algorithmic conspiracy preventing me from finding the hard sources I’m searching for. After all, both these search engines are owned and run by oligarchic companies.
   71. MIKE: Nonetheless, even without telling me the specific sources that GOOGLE AI pulled its ideas from, they are still valid and important.
   72. MIKE: The first statement by GOOGLE AI may be the best synopsis of our problem: “Media critics and veteran journalists argued that traditional Washington reporting — which relies heavily on official press releases, access to top aides, and assuming a baseline adherence to institutional norms —was ill-equipped for the Trump administration.”
   73. MIKE: What Trump has done —attempting to ban MS NOW, CNN, and Politico — could be seen as liberating. Those three news establishments no longer have to cover Trump with a side order of fear of losing access. Now that they’ve lost access, they can dig as deeply and aggressively as they want without fear of losing access being a deterrent.
   74. MIKE: Maybe this will turn out to be just what our democracy needs. Maybe they can be the historic heroes of this corrupt presidency, just as the Washington Post was during Nixon’s.
4. Next, from TEXASTRIBUNE[.]ORG — In lieutenant governor race, Vikki Goodwin says Dan Patrick ads are illegal AI deepfakes; by Zach Leggio | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | Sept. 21, 2026, 5:48 p.m. Central. TAGS: Dan Patrick, Vikki Goodwin, 2026 Texas Elections, Deepfakes, Texas Lieutenant Governor Race,
   1. State Rep. Vikki Goodwin, the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, has filed a police report accusing Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick of violating Texas law after his campaign released two ads featuring AI-generated videos of Goodwin.
   2. The videos have since been deleted from Patrick’s X account.
   3. [Goodwin stated in a sworn affidavit, shared with The Texas Tribune, and that was submitted with a complaint filed Saturday with the Travis County Sheriff’s Office,] “I did not personally do or say the things depicted in the video; although the ‘person’ in the video appears to be me, it was not actually me.”
   4. [Goodwin said in the affidavit,] “Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick posted the video with the intent to deceive Texans, injure a candidate, or influence the result of an election.”
   5. Goodwin cited a 2019 Texas law banning the deepfake videos from being published or distributed within 30 days of an election. The law, one of the earliest in the nation to regulate the use of AI in political campaigns, defines a deepfake video as appearing to depict a real person performing an action that did not occur, with the intent to deceive.
   6. Goodwin says the posts violate the law because in-person early voting begins in Texas on Oct. 19 and mail-in ballots will be sent out soon.
   7. [Goodwin further stated in the affidavit,] “This outrageous behavior by an elected official is criminal, and Dan Patrick must be held accountable. No one is above the law in Texas. … With vote-by-mail ballots about to be sent, it is unconscionable to allow these deepfake videos to be on the internet.”
   8. Allen Blakemore, a campaign spokesman for Patrick, told the New York Times that the material was “an obvious parody produced to entertain.”
   9. [Blakemore said,] “No reasonable person could view it any other way. … Furthermore, we have not published or distributed any of these parodies within 30 days of the election.”
   10. The posts were still public when Goodwin filed her police report and affidavit on Sept. 19 but were taken down the following day, according to Sophia Mirto, Goodwin’s communications director.
   11. [Mirto said,] “Taking down the deepfake ads after Rep. Vikki Goodwin’s criminal complaint seems like an admission of guilt. … He still broke the law. And he’s still avoiding debates.”
   12. MIKE: Republicans keep proving that the phrase “Republican dirty tricks” is something that they are bound and determined to continue owning.
   13. MIKE: I’ve found that Conservatives often have very different ideas from Liberals of what constitutes comedy, satire, and humor.
   14. MIKE: Conservative humor usually “punches down” on people who are different from themselves, such minorities and those who are politically weak, or it’s just plain mean.
   15. MIKE: When Patrick campaign spokesman Allen Blakemore told the New York Times that the material was “an obvious parody produced to entertain,” you can be pretty sure that only Conservatives would consider it funny.
   16. MIKE: The original video may have been taken down, but I found a link from KVUE-TV in Austin that includes a few seconds of it. You can see it by clicking on the link I’m providing in this show post at ThinkwingRadio[.]com.
   17. MIKE: Republicans themselves have nothing positive to offer in this election, so they have to make up stuff about Democrats to try and deceive voters.
   18. MIKE: Let’s hope that when the results of this upcoming election are counted and certified, they’ll find that their dirty tricks playbook has finally failed to work.
5. From SEEKINGALPHA[.]COM — Judge delays deal settlement approval in Warner Bros/Paramount Skydance deal; By: Joshua Fineman, SA News Editor | SEEKINGALPHA.COM | Sep 24, 2026, 1:14 PM ET. TAGS: Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (WBD) Stock, PSKY Stock, Paramount Skydance, Paramount CEO David Ellison, Antitrust, Mergers & Acquisitions, Corporate Counsel, Media & Telecom, Block the Merger, Media Consolidation, Public Interest, Oligopoly,
   1. [On Thursday,] A federal judge delayed signing off on a settlement between 12 state attorneys general and Paramount Skydance (PSKY) in its $110 billion planned acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD).
   2. S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin granted Block the Merger’s administrative motion to file amicus briefs, according to a court filing on Thursday. All amicus briefs need to be filed by not later than 12 a.m. PST on Friday.
   3. The move from deal opponent Block the Merger comes after Paramount (PSKY) settled with 12 state attorneys general on Monday, allowing its deal with Warner Bros. (WBD) to be completed soon.
   4. [Free Press Co-CEO Jessica J. González told Deadline after the motion was granted,] “We are pleased that the court is allowing the public to weigh in on this important issue because the AGs have failed to adequately represent the public interest in this case. … The consent decree is weak and unenforceable.”
   5. Under the terms of the agreement, Paramount (PSKY) must release 30 films per year in the first two years, including 20 wide releases, and 32 films per year in years three, four, and five. At least four independent films must be released annually. Missing these targets will trigger a $30M penalty per film paid into union health and retirement funds.
   6. Paramount (PSKY) also committed to spend an additional $1.5 billion on U.S. film production over five years and is required to remain in California and maintain physical production lots for both Paramount and Warner Bros. in California. Paramount also agreed to establish an independent editorial board for CNN and CBS comprised only of journalists with no political bias.
   7. The deal was reached over the weekend between Paramount Skydance (PSKY) and lawyers representing 12 states suing to block the merger, including California. Sources claim the four holdouts—Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, and Minnesota—finally conceded that a settlement was preferable to a drawn-out and costly legal battle without California leading the campaign. …
   8. MIKE: In this show post at ThinkwingRadio[.]com, I’m linking to a Reuters story from Monday that gives more detail on the settlement.
   9. MIKE: Neither Paramount nor WBD are struggling companies that need this merger to survive.
   10. MIKE: I must begin by expressing my disappointment that the EU approved this merger. I expect this much from the Trump regime DOJ, but I had more faith in the EU.
   11. MIKE: This merger offers no net benefit that I can see to consumers or the average person working in the industries encompassed by this merger.
   12. MIKE: The impetuses for this merger are greed, a hunger for power, and a desire for an almost monopolistic control of the entertainment and information provided to this country.
   13. MIKE: After this merger, the five major studios are reduced to four: Disney (including 20th Century Fox assets), Universal Pictures, and Sony Pictures.
   14. MIKE: According to one story, “WBD is the second largest and Paramount is the third, resulting in a 27% share for the combined entity.”
   15. MIKE: In other media, according to a FORBES story, the combined ownership will constitute 27% of Basic Cable after combining their share of licensing basic cable channels.
   16. MIKE: The combined entity will control a Streaming Library that will acquire and control 40% of the most-watched TV series on streaming.
   17. MIKE: And combining streaming and linear, it will control a 12.2% share of total U.S. TV watch time.
   18. MIKE: This entity is willing to agree to movie production quotas for 5 years. In corporate life, that’s barely an eye blink. What happens after that? Will there be a subsequent review? And how will these quotas be enforced in an industry that is notorious for creative accounting, and cheating people and companies of the profits they are due?
   19. MIKE: When I look at what is known about this deal — and I’m sure the devil is in the fine details — it sounds to me like Paramount-WBD has essentially agreed to make itself into a semi-regulated utility.
   20. MIKE: Maybe, to protect America and the world from this new behemoth, that’s how it should be seen and treated.
   21. MIKE: Agreeing to oversight of its news divisions by a “news editorial independence board to ensure independence at the CBS and CNN networks” simply acknowledges that this new combined company can’t be trusted to report news fully and impartially.
   22. MIKE: And who will appoint the people in this “news editorial independence board”? How will they be selected? Who will they be responsible to, because they will presumably be responsible or accountable to someone? What kind of power of enforcement will they have, and how will that enforcement power be assured?
6. After framing those questions about the board from the previous story, I couldn’t help myself. I had to do more digging, so this is what I found on my “news editorial independence board” From HOLLYWOODREPORTER[.]COM — CNN and CBS News Will Soon Have An “Editorial Independence Board.” Here’s What That Means; By Alex Weprin | HOLLYWOODREPORTER.COM | September 21, 2026 @ 1:51pm. TAGS: CBS News, CNN, “Editorial Independence Board”, Paramount Skydance, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount Skydance-Warner Bros. Discovery Merger, Media Consolidation, Oligopoly,
   1. In just a few short weeks, Paramount Skydance will complete its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, and in the process become the biggest TV news organization in the world. With NBC News, MS NOW and CNBC now split between multiple companies, the combined CNN and CBS News will be unrivaled in scale, certainly in the U.S, if not the entire world.
   2. But the settlement between Paramount and the state attorneys general throws a wrinkle in that merger: An “Editorial Independence Board” that will have oversight over both news organizations.
   3. What the Editorial Independence Board will do?
   4. The board will create “News Editorial Principles” based on the standards & practices of the two outlets, focused on journalistic integrity, fairness, independence and accuracy.
   5. [MIKE: This next part will sound almost redundant but it’s not, so listen carefully: ]
   6. The board will also resolve “any disputes between CBS News employees, CNN employees, and management of the Combined Entity regarding alleged violations of the News Editorial Principles, as well as “any disputes between CBS News employees, CNN employees, and management of the Combined Entity regarding alleged reporting bias or failure to meet agreed reporting fairness standards.”
   7. The board will also monitor “adherence to ethical journalism as defined by journalism industry best practices and to editorial independence, including from the Combined Entity’s ownership and shareholders.”
   8. Notably, the board will only be focused on news and editorial content produced with the intent to be distributed in the U.S., which would be essentially all of CBS’ work, as well as a good chunk of CNN’s work though CNN has a vast international operation as well.
   9. The Editorial Independence Board will report to the corporate board via a chief compliance officer.
   10. Who will be on the board, and how will they be appointed?
   11. The Editorial Independence Board will be appointed by the board of directors for the combined company (effectively meaning], by CEO David Ellison) within 180 days of the deal closing (so, six months or so). Board members will serve for three years, and can only be removed for good cause.
   12. There will be five members of the board, and they must have practiced journalism for at least 10 years, though they can be active journalists or retired. “No more than two (2) Editorial Independence Board Members may be affiliated with the same political party,” the agreement states, suggesting that journalists with some partisan leanings could be permitted.
   13. No member of any government or governmental entity can be appointed to the board, and no government or governmental entity (either federal, state or local) can have approval rights over who is appointed to the board.
   14. [The agreement states,] “No officer, director, shareholder or non-Journalist employee or contractor of the Combined Entity may be appointed to the Editorial Independence Board,” … leaving open the possibility that a journalist working for the company could join the board.
   15. In fact, there are a number of potential candidates already in-house. If CNN and CBS News journalists are permitted to join, it stands to reason that a high-profile name or two from each outlet (say, Norah O’Donnell and Jake Tapper) could join. And RedBird Capital, which is David Ellison’s partner in the mega merger, also [employs] a number of high-profile former journalists on its staff, including former Fox News and CNN anchor Chris Wallace, former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, and former FT editor Matthew Garrahan.
   16. But it will be any signs of obvious partisan appointees that is sure to attract the attention of critics and press freedom groups.
   17. Will the board be able to do anything?
   18. That is far less certain. News Corp., after all, ostensibly has its own board, which was created when Rupert Murdoch took over the company. With a focus on basic standards and practices, and resolving disagreements between journalists and management, it may be more bark than bite. Or there might not even be any bark at all.
   19. Stay tuned…
   20. MIKE: So CEO David Ellison and the board of directors of the combined company will be appointing The Editorial Independence Board?
   21. MIKE: Oh, sure. That gives me high confidence [*sarcasm alert*] that the “Editorial Independence Board” will hold all the Paramount-WBD news divisions to high and impartial newsgathering and reporting standards.
   22. MIKE: They will possibly be guided by the same journalistic sensibilities that Editor-In-Chief Bari Weiss brought to CBS News.
   23. MIKE: And if we judge the prospects of this new “Editorial Independence Board” by the visible results of the Fox News example, I don’t hold out much hope for its journalistic effectiveness.
   24. MIKE: Here’s an idea: Maybe the members of the board should be nominated and elected by the journalists at CBS news and CNN. Now that might result in an actually-independent editorial board.
   25. MIKE: Then we might be able to rely on the board to be both trustworthy and to aggressively enforce journalistic standards.
   26. MIKE: I might also add a footnote here about the statement that “the board will only be focused on news and editorial content produced with the intent to be distributed in the U.S.”
   27. MIKE: Does that mean that news created for distribution outside the US will not be subjected to the same or similar oversight for both integrity and accuracy?
   28. MIKE: Might we see this new company’s overseas news content start to look more like the Trump regime’s idea of what Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe (RFE) should be? Namely a pro-America/pro-Trump propaganda news organ?
   29. MIKE: I have concerns.
7. And speaking of Trump regime propaganda, from WASHINGTONPOST[.]COM — Trump ad airing with government funding despite law against ‘propaganda’; By Isaac Arnsdorf | WASHINGTONPOST.COM | September 24, 2026 at 4:59 p.m. EDT/Yesterday at 4:59 p.m. EDT. TAGS: Trump Administration, U.S. Government-Funded Political Advertisements, President Donald Trump, U.S. Government-Funded Political Propaganda,
   1. A television ad promoting President Donald Trump began airing on cable Wednesday saying it was paid for by the U.S. government, despite a federal prohibition on using taxpayer dollars for “publicity or propaganda.”
   2. The ad is similar to spots released earlier by the nonprofit arm of Trump’s political operation to promote his record in the midterms campaign. But this one includes a tag reading, “Paid for by the U.S. Government.”
   3. Since the 1950s, annual appropriations legislation — including the funding bill Trump signed in February — has routinely included a ban on using federal funds for “publicity or propaganda purposes.”
   4. The Government Accountability Office has said the prohibition applies to communications that are “purely partisan” and “designed to aid a political party or candidates.”
   5. The ad consists of a supercut of Trump photos and videos interspersed with text of campaign slogans. The soundtrack features snippets of Trump speeches and a chorus of women singing, “I’ll make them love me.” It ends with Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White praising Trump over footage of the June match on the White House lawn, and military flyovers.
   6. It has aired so far on Newsmax in Chicago and Fox News in Los Angeles, according to ad-tracking firm AdImpact. The firm noted, however, that it could not verify spending data for the ad because the networks airing it were not classifying it as political.
   7. A White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, argued that the ads are not political and that Trump is not on the ballot.
   8. The president has repeatedly told his supporters to vote as if he were.
   9. In an unsigned statement, the White House said: “These public service announcements are about reminding Americans to love their country and understand what makes it worth defending, at home, at our borders, and abroad.”
   10. [The statement said,] “The ad is educational and unapologetically patriotic. We should be proud of our country.”
   11. Jamie Raskin (Maryland), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said on social media that the ad could amount to “felony criminal theft and conversion of government property for political campaign purposes.” He also cited the Hatch Act, which prohibits government employees from using their positions or official resources for political activities.
   12. There is no immediate precedent for a government-sponsored political ad during a campaign.
   13. In 2004, the administration of President George W. Bush was criticized for releasing ready-to-air video segments showing Bush signing a Medicare prescription drug law, complete with hired contractors posing as reporters. The GAO said the materials violated the propaganda prohibition.
   14. [MIKE: I wonder if anybody was prosecuted for that?]
   15. In the first Trump administration, the Department of Health and Human Services commissioned a $250 million coronavirus ad campaign that congressional Democratic investigators found included partisan interests. The agency backed off using pro-Trump celebrities in the ads.
   16. Last year, the Department of Homeland Security under then-Secretary Kristi L. Noem spent more than $200 million on ads promoting her and Trump’s immigration policies. In March, Noem testified that Trump approved the campaign, prompting him to fire her.
   17. MIKE: This is more flouting of the law by a regime led by a 34-time convicted felon who nonetheless avoided consequences for those convictions.
   18. MIKE: At some point in time — maybe starting in 2027 and 2029 — there must be investigations, indictments and prosecutions for these and other violations of the law committed under this regime.
8. In international news from POLITICO[.]EU — European leaders prepare public for ‘intensified threat’ from Putin; By Victor Jack, Laura Kayali and Sonja Rijnen | POLITICO.EU | September 18, 2026 6:35 pm CET. TAGS: National Airspace, Critical infrastructure, Defense, Drones, Elections, European Defense, Hybrid threats, Infrastructure, Intelligence, Macron, Military, Missiles, NATO, Security ,War, War in Ukraine, France, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, The Netherlands, Ukraine, United States, Alexander Stubb, Donald Tusk, Emmanuel Macron, Rob Jetten, Sergey Lavrov, CIA, NATO, Defense,
   1. Top European officials are increasingly alarmed that Russia could stage drone or missile attacks against NATO countries as Moscow steps up its hybrid campaign across the continent. 
   2. Germany is preparing hospitals for a possible conflict, Lithuania has updated evacuation plans and NATO troops are exercising in the Baltic region, while Belarusian forces have staged large maneuvers near Lithuania.
   3. On Thursday, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned [that] Moscow could send drones or missiles into the territory of NATO countries supporting Ukraine in “the next few months.”
   4. The warnings underscore a growing sense of anxiety in Europe amid fast-proliferating incidents of airspace violations and sabotage attempts in recent months. NATO allies have repeatedly said they see the attacks as pressure from the Kremlin to reduce their support for Ukraine but have muted their response over fears of escalation.
   5. French President Emmanuel Macron summoned party leaders and 2027 presidential candidates for an emergency meeting on Friday to talk about Ukraine, Iran, and the growing energy crisis.
   6. He called Tusk’s warnings “sound and well-documented” as he announced a new critical infrastructure protection plan, adding: “In recent weeks … the Russian hybrid threat against Europeans and France has intensified.”
   7. Guillaume Lacroix, leader of the ‘Radical Party of the Left’, left the meeting saying: “At the age of 50, I have rarely felt such vertigo.”
   8. [Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten [Pron.: YET-ten] said Friday,] “It is no coincidence that the Polish prime minister is speaking out so strongly. … We need to take that warning very seriously … we must consistently demonstrate that we do not accept this and that we will take action if necessary.”
   9. On Thursday, Finnish President Alexander Stubb told his country it was “worth mentally preparing for something to happen,” including sabotage and Russian drones.
   10. Moscow is also ramping up its bellicose rhetoric ahead of Russia’s legislative election this weekend that is widely expected to keep President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party in power. [MIKE: It did.]
   11. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov this week warned Europe it would face a “very short” war if NATO allies attempted to attack the country.
   12. [Said one senior European defense official, who was granted anonymity to speak freely,] “Russia has stepped up the pace of its activities — we need to remain vigilant. … This may be seen as a manifestation of a broader trend … [W]e have seen similar warnings before, and there may well be more to come.”
   13. So far, the latest incidents haven’t prompted any additional multilateral responses, a second senior European defense official said. But “we are monitoring closely,” they added.
   14. … On Friday, German and Swedish forces carried out joint exercisesnear the strategic Swedish island of Gotland, just weeks after NATO allies carried out unannounced exercisesnear the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
   15. In recent weeks, NATO jets shot down a Russian drone over Lithuania, a Russian ship fired flares at a Danish military helicopter, and Germany blamed an attempted drone attack at Leipzig airport on a suspected Russian spy.
   16. S. intelligence reports in August warned that Moscow was planning a limited assault on a NATO country in the coming years. CIA Director John Ratcliffe warned Russian officials in Moscow late last month not to escalate conflict with NATO allies, in particular Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, in response to Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
   17. Yet it remains unclear whether the latest warnings are based on fresh intelligence.
   18. On Friday, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys [Pron.: kyesh-TOO-stis BOO-dris] said Vilnius had “the same intelligence” as Tusk “about a possible foreign-flag operation” but suggested that dated back to July.
   19. [Budrys said,] “I see the public statements of politicians about this as part of a coordinated campaign to warn Russia not to make stupid decisions and not to try to do something thinking that it will not reach [NATO’s mutual defense clause] Article 5, and will not be washed away.”
   20. Allies have not formally been briefed on any new intelligence inside NATO, according to two alliance diplomats, and NATO has so far not changed its threat assessment.
   21. [Said a NATO official speaking on behalf of the organization,] “At this time, we see no imminent threat of attack,”… adding: “But we cannot be naive or complacent, and we must make sure NATO remains strong in the years ahead.”
   22. Ed Arnold, a former NATO official and adviser at the D Group consultancy, said the warnings could also be designed to raise public awareness of threats and to “[pre-debunk]” false flag attacks before they take place.
   23. A senior NATO military official said that Russia may be lashing out because of its difficulties in defeating Ukraine. “It therefore may incorrectly perceive [that] the only way out is through increasing its hybrid campaign — that’s a losing proposition, because we are ready to respond.”
   24. Between January and August, there were 100 officially attributed hybrid incidents across Europe compared to 60 during the same period last year, according to the Ukraine-based Sahaidachnyi [Pron.: sah-high-DAHCH-nee ] Security Center think tank — with a particularly sharp rise in airspace violations.
   25. A senior NATO official said the real number was “easily 200 plus”, not counting cyberattacks — of which there are “thousands” each month against the military alliance’s Brussels headquarters alone. [The NATO official said,] “Numbers are up, severity is up, [and] [Russia’s] risk appetite is up,”.
   26. MIKE: Russian hybrid warfare against Ukraine may have started as early as 2003, 11 years before it actually invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014. Tactically speaking, this could be seen as both experimentation about the soundness of their hybrid war tactics, as well as being a preliminary “softening up” of Ukraine and its institutions.
   27. MIKE: Pre-2014, I recall reading many articles about cyberwar attacks against Ukrainian utilities and institutions that were presumably and even allegedly Russian, but were officially unattributed at the time.
   28. MIKE: Putin was playing a long game.
   29. MIKE: Therefore, in the context of the alleged Russian- or Russian-sponsored incidents in or against NATO members noted in this story, these incidents should be seen as warnings and should be taken seriously.
   30. MIKE: Is Putin playing a long game this time? In 2003, Vladimir Putin was ‘only’ 51. Putin will turn 74 on October 7, 2026. (BTW, Happy impending birthday, Vlad!)
   31. MIKE: Unlike the Chinese, who have been playing a long, multi-generational geopolitical game, I don’t see a 74-year-old Vladimir Putin as the type to plan another, slow 11-year campaign against one or more of NATO’s Baltic states that he likely won’t live to see to completion.
   32. MIKE: Therefore, unless he’s using these hybrid warfare tactics in an attempt to simply harass and intimidate NATO countries that are aiding Ukraine, we should not expect that he will take another 11 years between when he starts using these tactics against NATO allies and when he might initiate another military adventure against one of the smaller NATO countries; particularly one that was previously part of the USSR.
   33. MIKE: Using some form of attack against Lithuania makes a certain amount of strategic sense because while that would not put Lithuania on Russia’s border, it would provide a friendly route through Belarus to Russia’s isolated exclave of Kaliningrad, the former East Prussia.
   34. MIKE: As is often said, history doesn’t necessarily repeat itself, but it rhymes. The current time Europe is living through resembles September 1, 1939, when Germany attacked Poland. Two days later, on September 3, the UK and France warned Hitler that continuing his invasion would lead to a declaration war.
   35. MIKE: The rest is literally history.
   36. MIKE: Hitler had spent about 6 years testing the determination of the old WW1 alliance to enforce the Treaty of Versailles, especially with Hitler’s 1936 reoccupation and remilitarization of the Rhineland. Postwar analyses concluded that, “… in March 1936 the two Western democracies [France and the UK], were given their last chance to halt, without the risk of a serious war, the rise of a militarized, aggressive, totalitarian Germany and, in fact – as we have seen Hitler admitting – bring the Nazi dictator and his regime tumbling down. They let the chance slip.^[62]”
   37. MIKE: The NATO alliance and other nations are very much trying to learn the lessons of appeasement from pre-1939 Europe, but the fear and the dangers of action are very real and very frightening. This is the reason that the US and NATO are doing what might be called an “opposition 2-step”, aiding Ukraine in resisting Russian aggression while also trying to limit direct involvement in that opposition.
   38. MIKE: Vladimir Putin is not old enough to personally remember what Russia calls The Great Patriotic War, but his parents very much did, and he must have heard horrific stories about it while growing up.
   39. MIKE: Putin was born in St. Petersburg, what was then called Leningrad.
   40. MIKE: During WW2, Leningrad was subjected to a historic and horrific 872-day siege by the Nazis. Therefore, Putin must also have seen the USSR rebuilding from the destruction of the war.
   41. MIKE: In summary, one source claims that, “2.8 million square meters of city housing were completely destroyed, and another 2.2 million square meters were seriously damaged. Countless schools, hospitals, factories, and power plants were ruined by relentless air raids and shelling.”
   42. MIKE: Another source says that it cost the USSR the equivalent of $23 billion in 1945 US dollars to repair the wartime damage in Leningrad. That’s equivalent to over $425 billion in 2026 dollars.
   43. MIKE: During Putin’s childhood, there would have still been a lot of visible wartime damage, and housing was still in extreme shortage.
   44. MIKE: Given all of that personal experience growing up, it should be astonishing that Putin would be willing not only to inflict that sort of damage on Ukraine, but to the risk that kind of destruction to Russia itself, again.
   45. MIKE: That leads to what I think is an obvious question, which I asked Google AI: “Is Putin a psychopath?”
   46. MIKE: As summarized by Google AI, an article from Haaretz titled, “The Intelligence Community’s Assessment of Putin: Psychopath or Rational Leader?” suggests that “assessments from intelligence and geopolitical analysts argue that Putin is not a clinical psychopath. Instead, they describe him as a hard-core ideologue and Russian nationalist.”
   47. MIKE: An article in PSYCHOLOGYTODAY[.]COM from March 2022 titled “What Can Personality Profiles of President Putin Tell Us?”, there is a citation from a study “[that offers] a personality profile of Putin using the Millon Inventory of Diagnostic Criteria. It is suggested that Putin’s personality reflected that of a ‘hostile enforcer’ five years ago. Hostile enforcers are non-pathological types, reportedly characterized by compulsive and sadistic”
   48. MIKE: By some lights, that’s a pretty charitable assessment. An article in THEGLOBALIST[.]]COM — which considers itself to be ideologically neutral and which MEDIABIASFACTCHECK[.]COM ranks as “Left-Center with Mixed factual reporting” — in a story called “Europe’s New Hitler: Another Psychopath at Worksays”, says in part, “it is critical to understand the underlying pathology of Vladimir Putin. Putin is a sociopath in a clinical sense, with strong tendencies towards paranoia and narcissism.”
   49. MIKE: THEGLOBALIST article is probably more emotionally and philosophically satisfying as an explanation for Putin’s actions, but the article is frankly somewhat polemical. Also, unlike the article from PSYCHOLOGYTODAY[.]COM, THEGLOBALIST article includes no scientific citations to support its case.

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!