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POSSIBLE TOPICS: VOTETEXAS.GOV—Voter Information; APPLY FOR MAIL-IN BALLOT; Elections;  Constitutional Amendments; BEFORE WE BEGIN: Managing Interpersonal Conflicts; League City short-term rentals now required to pay new tax, higher fees; Towering utility poles block Montrose sidewalks, blocking ADA access and angering residents; Seriously, what the hell is going on at HISD?; Cy-Fair ISD school board elections could tilt power to Republican-endorsed candidates; The State of Chihuahua Is Building a 20-Story Tower in Ciudad Juarez to Surveil 13 Cities–and Texas Will Also Be Watching; Heather Cox Richardson– October 17, 2023 (Tuesday); More.

Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig where we discuss local, state, national, and international stories. My co-host, assistant producer and show editor is Andrew Ferguson.

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Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio) is now on Wednesdays at 11AM (CT) or Thursdays at 6PM on KPFT 90.1 FM-HD2, Houston’s Community Media. You can also hear the show:

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

1. VOTING IN THE NOVEMBER 7^TH GENERAL ELECTION:
   3. Early voting is from Oct. 23 to Nov. 3.
   4. Deadline to apply for a mail ballot is Friday, October 27. Click here for the application.Fill it out, print it, and then mail it before the deadline.
   5. For more election information anywhere in Texas, go to VOTETEXAS.GOV
   6. Just be registered and apply for your mail-in ballot if you may qualify.
   7. Obtain a Voter Registration Application (HarrisVotes.com). You must register to vote in the county in which you reside.
   8. You can track your Mail Ballot Activity from our website with direct link provided here https://www.harrisvotes.com/Tracking
   9. In HARRIS COUNTY, go to COM. For any place in Texas, you can go to VOTETEXAS.GOV
2. Houston’s 2023 Mayoral Election; Presented by Houston Landing | VOTE.HOUSTONLANDING.ORG
   1. Get to know your candidates (and more)
   2. ALSO: Everything you need to know before voting for Houston’s new mayor in November election; COM | Tuesday, August 22, 2023/ 1:29PM
   3. MIKE: This is a really comprehensive article about Houston elections: Who’s running for what (including mayor, city controller), and all city council positions.
   4. Houstonians can visit the city’s redistricting website to view maps and determine which council district they reside in. …
3. There are 14 amendments to the Texas Constitution on the ballot. Here’s what they would do.; by Tim Carlin / Staff writer | HOUSTONLANDING.ORG | October 17, 2023
   1. MIKE: Some good, explanatory discussion of the pros and cons of the various constitutional amendments.
   2. ALSO: Taxes, state parks, infrastructure: What you need to know about the Nov. 7 constitutional amendments election; Texans will decide the fate of 14 constitutional amendments approved for the ballot by state lawmakers. Here’s a breakdown of each constitutional amendment and requirements to vote. by María Méndez, Yuriko Schumacher & Texas Tribune Staff | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | 15, 2023 — 5 AM Central — TAGS: Politics, State government, Texas House of Representatives, Texas Legislature, Texas Senate,
   3. MIKE: This article from the Texas Tribune has lots of really detailed and specific information. It contains links for not only how and where to vote anywhere in Texas, but also about the Texas Constitutional Amendments that will be on the ballot.
   4. MIKE: I’ll probably discuss the Amendments in October with my suggestions when we get to Early Voting.
   5. REFERENCE: Charles Kuffner’s insightful discussion of these amendments at his website, offthekuff.com or by following the link to the specific article here: A guide to the constitutional amendments for November 2023 — Posted on September 19, 2023 by Charles Kuffner
4. MIKE: BEFORE WE BEGIN:
   1. 1. MIKE: Those of you who listen to this show regularly might have noticed that with the geographically, politically, widely varied and otherwise eclectic mix of stories we cover over the course of an hour, there is one area that we never touch upon: the Israel-Palestine issue.
      2. MIKE: This is not the case because we don’t care about these issues, but because we do. Very much.
      3. MIKE: Andrew and I are work colleagues who have become good friends. Early on, we learned that we have very different opinions on Israel and Palestine, so we usually declined to cover those stories out of concern and respect for our relationship.
      4. MIKE: The intensity of our differences flared one time a while ago when I picked a story for the show that I considered to be politically innocuous and technologically interesting, but that concerned Israel.
      5. MIKE: The heat of that discussion surprised me, but I ultimately found it highly instructive. Going forward, I made what I believe was a mutual decision not to go there again out of concern and respect for my relationships — personal and “professional” — with Andrew.
      6. MIKE: Over the past few years, and maybe even before that, many of us have made choices to end relationships with friends, relatives, lovers, and even family members, because we found their views to be beyond unpalatable — undemocratic or repulsive or racist, or somehow simply beyond the pale of what we wanted to condone even down to the most personal level of simple association. But occasionally, we care enough about some relationships that we find a way to continue them despite serious differences in opinions, perspectives, beliefs, or even fundamental values.
      7. MIKE: It may not be obvious from listening to this show that Andrew and I have really different fundamental political perspectives because we so often find areas of overlap and agreement despite those differences. We sometimes compromise. We sometimes simply agree to disagree. But there is rarely a topic we decline to discuss on the air just because our differences are too great to somehow bridge for the purposes of reporting or informing or analyzing on this show.
      8. MIKE: Israel and Palestine seem to be the one area that we simply cannot usefully and productively discuss. We might conclude differently if even an acrimonious discussion might be tangibly useful in a public forum, but let’s be honest: No minds would likely be changed by such a discussion, nor would our views impact the course of events in the Middle East or elsewhere. Rather, it would be acrimonious and uselessly destructive to our relationship. A relationship that I believe we both value enough to protect.
      9. MIKE: This is the first show we’ve recorded since Hamas attacked Israel. It’s an event too big to ignore, and yet I have a guideline for this show on big stories that are being widely covered in the media by far more resourceful people and organizations than I. The question I ask myself is, “If I discuss this story on the show, can I bring something to it that other coverage does not?” Usually, the answer is “no”, and I instead choose from among endless other stories that are important or interesting in other ways but are otherwise widely ignored.
      10. MIKE: So I asked myself the same question regarding the conflict between Israel and Hamas: Can I contribute something novel or useful to a story that’s already consuming almost all the media bandwidth? A story that is emotional and personal to a great many people? The kind of story that people will end important relationships over?
      11. MIKE: I decided, after some serious soul-searching, that the only novel-but-important idea I can offer to this story is one that I have not heard discussed at all: the idea that some relationships matter enough that we have to find a way to move forward in spite of vast differences.
      12. MIKE: How can we make that possible?
      13. MIKE: Sometimes, it’s as simple as agreeing to disagree. Sometimes it requires dispassionately discussing the subject intellectually while doing all you can not to take personally anything that’s said. Doing this “dispassionately” is sometimes really hard, falling into the category of “advice that’s easy to give but hard to take.”
      14. MIKE: In this one area at least, the differences in our beliefs — Andrew’s and mine — seem to represent a vast chasm. How do we move forward in our personal and professional relationships?
      15. MIKE: I think that first and foremost, we have to mutually decide that we want to. Then we have to decide, “how”?
      16. MIKE: For my part, at least, I’ve decided that I want to. How I’ve decided to do that is to recognize how different our views are and to accept that. We can engage in highly emotional discussions of our views that will not change our minds because our beliefs and views are too deeply and passionately held. Such discussions between us will devolve into arguments that are neither constructive nor emotionally satisfying.
      17. MIKE: About 40 years ago, I came up with the concept of “constructive denial”. Denial gets a bad rap because it seems nihilistic. We’re not supposed to be in a state of denial over stuff. We should be proactive in confronting that stuff.
      18. MIKE: “Constructive denial” is accepting that you can be crossing a bridge at the moment it collapses, or that the cement truck behind you might not be able to stop in time in an emergency, or that a plane might crash into your house while you’re minding your own business and watching TV.
      19. MIKE: Worrying about these things doesn’t change the fact that these very remote events are not a zero probability. All these things are remotely possible, and have happened, but dwelling on these very remote possibilities is simply not useful. Rather, it’s crazy-making.
      20. MIKE: Consciously and deliberately deciding to continue a relationship despite vast and important differences on one or more things requires a degree of “constructive denial”.
      21. MIKE: For example, you might ask yourself, “Do I want this relationship more than I want this argument?” Or, “Will ending this relationship due to our differences make me feel better or make my life better?” Or, “Is continuing this relationship simply too toxic in my life, or are there positive compensations that actually are more important than any perceived toxicity?”
      22. MIKE: I guess all of this might boil down to a really simple question: “Can I live with it?”
      23. MIKE: If Andrew and I were casual acquaintances, I don’t think either one of us would continue being anything but courteous to each other when circumstances required. But we’ve been colleagues for almost 4 years and friends for almost as long. I think we’ve both decided that while this very important issue is life and death for many, any mutual animosity or antagonism we might have for the other’s views on this topic is something we can build a wall around and move forward.
      24. MIKE: It’s effectively also a case of “constructive denial” in action, where hard choices have to be made and lived with.
      25. ANDREW: And that denial isn’t to ignore the difference and pretend we agree. Sometimes, the Palestine-Israel issue does come up, and sometimes we do give our opinions on it, even in a passing way. But we both accept that the other has made their mind up, and that arguing over it isn’t going to get us anywhere useful. We don’t worry about it, and instead focus on the positive impacts we can have–together here on the show, and individually on the Palestine-Israel issue or any number of other issues that don’t fall into the scope of this show.
      26. ANDREW: This ability to navigate difficult discussions and maintain relationships that you value with people you disagree with isn’t limited to this one issue, either. I personally don’t believe that opinions are more polarized now than they have been historically, but I certainly agree that people are more willing to openly make their views known today. There are many effects of that, and one such effect is that difficult discussions are a lot more common.
      27. ANDREW: I think most of us have had to navigate such discussions and decide how to preserve a relationship despite them at some point in our recent lives, but I think Mike will agree that doing so isn’t really discussed at length by the media. So we decided to have this conversation about our own friendship and how we preserve it and other relationships with major disagreements.
      28. ANDREW: Everything I’m about to say is all my own opinions and experiences; I offer no guarantees here (we’re not liable if you take our advice!) but this is how I like to approach talking with someone about topics that we passionately disagree about. I call these topics “sore points”.
          1. Often don’t know what someone’s sore points are before they come up
          2. Try to be accepting and understanding if something that you wouldn’t expect to be a sore point is one for them—this doesn’t mean you have to agree with them, just that you respect their feelings
          3. Triggers relate to mental health and are a different thing—those can impact sore points, but triggers should be handled differently and we’re not professionally qualified to discuss those
          4. Some sore points will be major enough that you can’t continue speaking with that person, but some won’t. There is no shame in making either decision
      29. ANDREW: General tips:
          1. Useful in the moment to recognize (out loud or to yourself) that you both feel strongly, whether about the topic or about the other person’s reaction, and that you both might not say exactly what you mean at that point
          2. Generally recommend doing your best to remain calm and try to have an honest (if safe) but respectful talk about the issue the first time it comes up, but pay attention and be ready to recognize if the conversation gets too heated to continue
          3. If there is time pressure, consider calling attention to that and suggesting to have the conversation later so you won’t be interrupted
          4. Try to acknowledge what you can respect about each other’s position, if anything—this can help lead to a calm conclusion to the conversation
          5. If you feel you are in danger, and can leave safely, there is no shame in doing so. If you feel you are in danger but cannot leave, consider asking to move the conversation to a “more comfortable” public venue where other people can see if things get out of hand
      30. ANDREW: If the disagreement is not something that threatens your personal safety or dignity:
          1. Sometimes you will be able to revisit topics later, but sometimes the best approach is to simply not discuss the issue unless you have to
          2. Avoiding a topic because of how another person feels about it isn’t the same as being afraid to discuss it or afraid of how they will react—it’s a courtesy and an effort to accommodate their feelings
          3. It can be helpful to check in on the issue sometimes, but don’t push and don’t do it too often
          4. If you do discuss the issue again, acknowledging the previous tension and proposing that you both agree to talk about it without trying to change each other’s minds can help avoid that tension re-occurring
          5. Try not to be surprised or judgmental if that person’s feelings change later—people grow and change
          6. Equally, try not to be surprised or judgmental if that person’s feelings stay the same — some things are deeply-rooted, and different people have different definitions of what is “right” and “just”
5. League City short-term rentals now required to pay new tax, higher fees; By Rachel Leland | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 5:49 PM Oct 16, 2023 CDT, Updated 5:49 PM Oct 16, 2023
   1. As part of new regulations approved by League City, short-term rental owners in the city will now pay a $300 renewal fee and a hotel occupancy tax.
   2. The overview — Following League City’s city auditor investigation into the city’s short-term rental regulations, last set in 2019, League City City Council on Oct. 10 voted to change its policy for registering short-term rentals and collecting taxes from them.
   3. The details — Major changes to League City’s short-term rental regulations include:
      1. Short-term rental operators, such as Vrbo and Airbnb, are required to collect and remit a hotel occupancy tax to the city and submit quarterly reports to League City.
      2. The application fee for short-term rental renewal has increased from $25 to $300.
      3. The annual renewal of short-term rentals will be required by Dec. 1, and all required inspections must be completed by Dec. 31.
      4. Listing or advertising a short-term rental will be illegal without a valid permit.
      5. Tax records must be maintained for three years.
   4. League City’s current short-term rental application fee of $25 is much lower than that of Galveston and Kemah, which charge $250 and $450, respectively.
   5. … City officials said they hoped the changes would make short-term rentals in the city easier to regulate.
   6. “We’ve had a lot of issues with Airbnbs being listed and then when we send a violation notice, the owner comes back and says, ‘Well, I never rented it, and it’s unlisted,’” Director of Planning Kris Karpenter said.
   7. With the new regulations, League City will be able to inform platforms, such as Airbnb and VRBO, if the city revokes a permit on rentals that are not in compliance with the new regulations, Karpenter said. …
   8. MIKE: I have philosophical and socio-political issues with AirBnB and VRBO and their ilk. (“VRBO” by the way, is an acronym for “Vacation Rentals By Owner”.) One of the problems I perceived recently is that this business model has been bad for traditional Bed-and-Breakfast businesses. For example, if you want to find a traditional BandB, com now takes you to VRBO.com. “BedandBreakfast.com” now takes you to a VRBO page that says, “This page cannot be found. It looks like this page was either moved, changed, or deleted.”
   9. MIKE: I have a trip planned for which I tried to find a B-and-B, but had to settle for a VRBO rental. This made me unhappy, but I gritted my teeth and booked the house, which is in no way a traditional B-and-B.
   10. MIKE: It occurs to me that this is not dissimilar from trying really hard to avoid on principle having accounts at a megabank like Chase, Bank of America, or Wells Fargo, only to find that your smaller regional bank has been taken over by Chase, Bank of America, or Wells Fargo.
   11. MIKE: I didn’t like it when my banking choices were taken away, and I don’t like it when my travel lodging options have essentially been taken away.
   12. ANDREW: We talked a bit before the show about how these short-term rentals were able to rise because platforms like Airbnb and VRBO saw a regulatory vacuum and figured out how to automate the process of exploiting it. People who were looking to make a living off of owning something instead of doing something useful saw this and went “great, now I can just buy up precious housing and rent it out without even having to set foot inside it!” And a housing crisis was
   13. ANDREW: New regulations like League City’s are important steps to filling that regulatory vacuum and making short-term renting unprofitable so that the houses end up back on the market with at least some chance of people making their homes there. As these regulations come into effect in cities across the country, they may even provide an opportunity for a new short-term rental platform built to actually serve people who do have just a room or two to let, or want to let someone else stay at their house while they’re away for a few days. I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with those use cases.
   14. MIKE: We used to have a thing called “boarding houses”. Maybe they’re due for a comeback in the near future for people looking for something between a hotel and an AirBandB for medium-term stays.
6. Towering utility poles block Montrose sidewalks, blocking ADA access and angering residents; by Akhil Ganesh / Staff writer | HOUSTONLANDING.ORG | October 17, 2023
   1. In the third week of September, CenterPoint Energy erected a pair of towering utility poles in the middle of the sidewalks on Dunlavy north and south of Westheimer, part of an ongoing project to strengthen the local electrical grid against natural disasters.
   2. [MIKE: There are a couple of photos included with the article, and to call these things “utility poles” understates how massive they are. They are, in fact, the width of a sidewalk. So, they’re more like pylons. Going on with the story …]
   3. Nearly a month later, the sidewalks remain inaccessible to wheelchair users and mobility-challenged residents.
   4. The problem lies in the sidewalk space left after the installation of the massive utility poles on either side of Westheimer on Dunlavy. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, sidewalks must have three feet of available space for mobility-challenged populations to safely navigate streets. 
   5. Neither sidewalk met that requirement following the installation of the new utility poles, according to measurements by Houston Landing. 
   6. Houston Public Works spokesperson Erin Jones said the ADA requirement likely was included as part of a plan review for the work CenterPoint submitted to the city.
   7. Under its franchise agreement with the city, CenterPoint is allowed to operate in public rights-of-way.
   8. CenterPoint’s franchise agreement, however, stipulates that no public right-of-way should be “encumbered by construction, maintenance or removal work… for a longer period than shall be necessary to execute said work.” 
   9. Lex Frieden, Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County board member and one of the architects of the Americans with Disabilities Act, said ADA compliance cannot be an afterthought. Delays repairing the sidewalk to restore accessibility could open the city or utility to federal ADA complaints through the U.S. Department of Justice.
   10. “Theoretically, the sidewalk should have been fixed at the same time the pole went down,” Frieden said. “If they’re doing this without taking into account and ensuring people have access at the time they block the sidewalk, that’s not a good neighbor,”
   11. CenterPoint responded to a list of questions from the Houston Landing with a statement, but did not answer why the sidewalk was not addressed during the erection of the poles. …
   12. Complaints from the community and the lack of ADA compliance led to a meeting between CenterPoint and the Office of the City Engineer. 
   13. “You can’t just say you’re complete and you didn’t provide (Americans with Disabilities Act) accessibility,” Jones said, adding responsibility for making sure the sidewalk was in accordance with city and ADA rules was on CenterPoint. 
   14. “They told us they’ll get it done, we’re going to give them a reasonable timeline to get it done,” Jones said. She said residents could call with complaints to the city’s 311 hotline in a few weeks if the work had not been completed, but Public Works would not go for stricter enforcement methods immediately.
   15. “Because we have a good relationship, we’d probably give them another call and be like, ‘Guys, come on,’” Jones said. “We’re not just going to go out there and red-tag it.”
   16. Neither sidewalk along Dunlavy showed any sign of imminent work on Tuesday.
   17. CenterPoint’s statement last week said it was in the process of finalizing a permit to reroute the sidewalk on the north side of Westheimer and planning to restore the ground surface on the south side. …
   18. MIKE: In principle, using these poles-slash-pylons to make electrical lines more weather resilient is not of itself a bad idea and apparently is more cost-effective than burying them, but I sympathize with the aesthetic issues, not to mention the ADA-compliance problems.
   19. MIKE: It seems obvious in hindsight that Centerpoint should have thought of this, and the Houston Public Works Department might have been expected to catch it, but as they say: That’s why pencils have erasers.
   20. MIKE: Just looking at the photos, I suspect that a couple of parking spaces will be lost so that Centerpoint can route the sidewalks into what is now part of the street in order to go around the “poles”. All we can do is hope that this is done safely, promptly and cleanly.
   21. ANDREW: I understand the city not wanting to sour its relationship with CenterPoint, but frankly money is the only language that corporations speak. I think not leveraging a fine is leaving it up to chance whether CenterPoint actually fixes the problem in a timely manner or not, and it certainly won’t prevent the company from committing the same kind of negligence in the future, to say nothing of making the company feel some of the anger and frustration that disabled residents must have felt trying to get by that pole. At least a penalty that reduces the pay that CenterPoint gets from the city for the job would be in order, if they don’t want to leverage the full force of an ADA violation. That’s my take.
7. Seriously, what the hell is going on at HISD?; by Charles Kuffner | OFFTHEKUFF.COM | Posted on October 17, 2023
   1. [Kuffner excerpted from COM:]
   2. Juniors and seniors at Houston ISD’s DeBakey High School for Health Professions walked into their AP Physics classes at the beginning of the school year and asked one question: “Where’s our teacher?”
   3. About 150 students at the top-ranked high school signed up for the advanced science courses, many with the hope of earning college credit, but found themselves without a qualified teacher. Given the complex nature of the material, substitute teachers brought in were unable to do much more than supervise the classroom.
   4. The teens spent the first seven weeks of the year trying to teach themselves sophisticated concepts, including electric circuitry and thermodynamics. In some cases, seniors in AP Physics II were pulled out of classes to teach juniors in AP Physics I. Students were told by administration that their hands were tied — a hiring freeze at Houston ISD had left them unable to fill the vacancy, they were told, which was created when a teacher went on leave to start the year.
   5. “It’s just aggravating,” said senior Zain Kundi. “It’s money on the line, because these classes in college are thousands of dollars and if you get it out of the way now, you can save quite a bit of money. And if our grades start falling, colleges will see that early in the admissions process and be like ‘what the heck…’ Especially now with college applications, we have so much on our plates already.”
   6. Kundi says the AP Physics position was left vacant because the school’s administration tried to saddle a standard physics teacher with the role just before the start of the school year, causing the teacher to use accumulated leave days in protest. The senior made it clear he does not blame the teacher for the vacancy, arguing that the situation was the result of a systemic failure. Now, student GPAs, AP scores and college prospects may be affected as a result, he says.
   7. DeBakey Principal Jesus Herrera did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A district spokesman said last week that schools “have been asked to limit outside hiring” until staffing audits are complete in the 85 schools, in or aligned with, [State-appointed HISD Superintendent Mike] Miles’ New Education System, where enrollment was less than forecast to start the year. …
   8. The situation is not just affecting DeBakey. Though Miles said he started the year with zero teaching vacancies, uncommon in a district like HISD, teachers and administrators at other schools say that they had to get creative to fulfill responsibilities of teachers who have left the district since the school year started.
   9. [Kuff comments that] Mike Miles has said a lot of things since being foisted on HISD. He said he’d made a lot of cuts in the central office to save money, and yet actual data says he didn’t. He said that non-New Education System schools would continue to operate as they always have, at least for his first year, and yet many non-NES schools are now acting like NES schools. He said things about teacher pay for those at NES schools, and now he’s saying other things about teacher pay at NES schools. He said that HISD had no teacher vacancies and yet here we have high school students teaching themselves AP physics because they have no teacher and their school can’t fill the vacancy. There may be explanations for all of this. [Kuff says,] I’m sure there are complexities involved. But this is quite the track record of not doing what he said he was doing or was going to do. If we can’t believe him about this sort of thing, why should we believe him about anything else?
   10. [Kuff says,] I firmly believe that a big part of the problem here is simply that Mike Miles has no oversight. The Board of Managers has largely rubberstamped him. For sure, I don’t see any of them in any of these stories expressing surprise or disappointment or anger about what is happening. No one on that Board is demanding answers. That doesn’t appear to be their role, and any of them can be removed if they get too stroppy anyway. All we have pushing back are the teachers, parents and students, some elected officials and candidates, the activists, the Internet cranks, and the Rice MOB [MIKE: aka, Marching Owl Band; Thanks, Andrew]. And Mike Miles dismisses them all as being ignorant and spreading misinformation.
   11. [Kuffner concludes that,] I know this is the lowest form of commentary, but can you imagine what the reaction would have been if a story like this had come out a year or two ago? How much criticism would the HISD Board of Trustees have received for this obvious failure? And yet here we are.
   12. MIKE: Some of us kind of suspected that Mike Miles’ appointment to Democrat-leaning Harris County’s HISD by a fascist-leaning Texas government would not go well. Some of us hoped, despite our expectations, that it might go better than anticipated.
   13. MIKE: I was not one of those people, and I’ve said so on the air.
   14. MIKE: I’ve been a long-time subscriber to HISD emails from their PR department. I’ve typically viewed them as informational about what was happening in HISD and specific events that students, parents, or other interested parties might find useful.
   15. MIKE: Since Mike Miles took over HISD — and I may be suffering from confirmation bias here — I’ve seen these emails as more like propaganda than actual reportage (as opposed to “reportage”) on the goings on in the district.
   16. MIKE: I don’t see things improving in HISD while Mike Miles is imposed on HISD by a state government that opposes the values of the vast majority of Harris County residents and voters. But things are unlikely to change for the better while the extreme rightwing of the Republican Party controls state government and Mike Miles remains in place.
   17. MIKE: Elections have consequences. Vote.
   18. ANDREW: I’ve heard rumblings that the situation in HISD, among other issues like book bans and protecting LGBT students, is prompting the Green Party to consider running candidates for the Texas State Board of Education to challenge some of the Republican members. Some of them didn’t even have a left-wing challenger in 2022, or they won by default after their elections were cancelled. Greens from Dallas are particularly energized, since they’ve suffered under Mike Miles before, and there’s no way he’d have been forced on HISD without a Republican majority on the board. I think this whole situation serves as an example of why no public election should ever be uncontested.
   19. MIKE: On the subject of elected Boards, as I understand it, the elected HISD board members currently have no real power. The functioning HISD board is part of the Austin-installed Houston ISD Board of Managers.
   20. MIKE: This arrangement is akin to the “Emergency Manager” rules in Michigan where elected mayors and city councils have no actual power. They serve as figureheads under the emergency manager. As far as I can tell, that law has never been changed or repealed in Michigan.
   21. REFERENCE: [Michigan] Emergency Manager Law — ACLUMICH.ORG
   22. REFERENCE: Houston ISD Board of Managers — TEA.TEXAS.GOV
8. Cy-Fair ISD school board elections could tilt power to Republican-endorsed candidates; by Miranda Dunlap / Staff writer | HOUSTONLANDING.ORG | October 10, 2023
   1. The political makeup of the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District board could dramatically change with this November’s election, potentially swinging to more-conservative control amid a nationwide push by Republicans to get more involved in local education policy.
   2. Several candidates pledging to keep liberal ideologies out of classrooms are running against more-moderate candidates in the race for four seats in Cy-Fair, the Houston region’s second-largest district. 
   3. If a single one of the more-conservative contenders wins, they will join three like-minded trustees who won their races in 2021 to form a majority on the seven-member board. School board races are nonpartisan, meaning candidates do not have official party labels next to their name on the ballot, but many candidates still campaign on issues that clearly align them with one side of the political aisle.
   4. “I think the identity and priorities of Cy-Fair ISD are at stake right now,” said Bryan Henry, a Cy-Fair parent and vice president of the grassroots group Cypress Families for Public School, which has endorsed more-moderate candidates. …
   5. [MIKE: Cy-Fair ISD board candidates are listed in the story, but as the election is technically non-partisan, that isn’t of itself helpful. You can go to the story to see them, with some additional information.]
   6. The races could shake up the priorities and practices of Cy-Fair, which serves about 116,000 students in northwest Harris County and received an A rating under Texas’ academic accountability system in 2022. 
   7. In recent years, Cy-Fair’s board has generally led from a politically moderate position. Trustees have been open to equity-minded policies and voiced frustration at times with state funding allocated by Texas’ Republican-led Legislature. The board also has largely avoided getting involved in political issues, such as book bans and gender identity policies, that have stirred controversy in nearby districts with conservative majorities on their boards. 
   8. However, Cy-Fair’s board has not pushed farther-left views typically favored by the nation’s largest teachers unions.
   9. The election also comes at a contentious time for Cy-Fair, which is arranging a successor to Superintendent Mark Henry, who has announced his plans to retire in December after 12 years leading the district. 
   10. The district plans for Cy-Fair’s next superintendent to start in December, the same month elected winners are expected to take office. Cy-Fair’s current board plans to select a lone superintendent finalist, while the trustees seated after the election will be expected to finalize the superintendent’s contract when they take office.
   11. The split approach could leave a more-conservative board responsible for approving a finalist chosen by trustees with more-moderate views. If board members do not approve the lone finalist’s contract in December, Cy-Fair could be left without a permanent superintendent for weeks or months while trustees conduct a new search.
   12. “I would be very disappointed if a superintendent is seated before the election, under the existing board,” said George Edwards Jr., a candidate running on a conservative platform. 
   13. Eleven candidates are vying for the four open trustee positions, with only one incumbent seeking re-election. Registered voters in Cy-Fair’s boundaries can vote in all four races. The candidate receiving the most votes in each race wins, with no runoff in the event that the top vote-getter fails to receive majority support. [MIKE: This is where ranked choice voting overcomes weak or straw candidates.]
   14. Among the candidates, two slates have emerged to illustrate the political tensions at play.
   15. On the more-conservative side, four challengers have received endorsements from the Harris County Republican Party and conservative action committees …
   16. “I am very conservative in my thinking as it relates to the education of students,” [said George Edwards Jr., one of the board candidates.] “There have been people in parties that have endorsed me, and I can’t control that. But I think that people have experience in seeing what I have been able to accomplish in Cy-Fair ISD, and I think that that’s why the endorsements have come in the way they have.”
   17. Meanwhile, four more-moderate candidates are running as a slate dubbed “ALL4CFISD” … . The quartet has earned endorsements from Cy-Fair’s largest teachers union and local grassroots public education advocacy groups. 
   18. The ALL4CFISD slate is running on a platform of raising student achievement, increasing teacher pay and retention, and improving parent and community engagement, among other policies. Their approach does not invoke education ideas or phrases embraced by conservatives in recent years. 
   19. “We don’t want to encourage or exacerbate this liberal versus conservative, this left versus right way of approaching public education,” said Henry, the Cypress Families for Public Schools vice president. “We want these nonpartisan positions to actually remain nonpartisan.”
   20. MIKE: As an aside, this story is from org, which is a new non-profit, non-partisan news site. I hope to be citing more stories from them in the future.
   21. MIKE: But as regards the story, this is another reason I don’t like non-partisan races as currently designed. I think I understand the intention, but it has truly become a “truth in advertising” issue.
   22. MIKE: I hear what George Edwards, Jr. is saying as to who endorses him and who doesn’t. I take him at his word in this, and it’s part of why endorsements — or lack of them — matter.
   23. MIKE: Maybe we need a rule that somehow lists a candidate’s endorsements in some obvious place. Of course, you can’t do that on ballots, so I’m still scratching my head on this one.
   24. MIKE: I’ve learned places I can go for endorsements that probably align with my values. That saves me a lot of time and effort I might otherwise not invest. It’s a shortcut that works for me most times all the way down-ballot.
   25. MIKE: And again, elections have consequences.
   26. ANDREW: In my experience, Ballotpedia is generally a useful source to find out what positions candidates in supposedly “nonpartisan” races actually hold, as well as who’s supporting them. Though their local coverage is generally limited to the top 100 US cities by population, and their associated counties and school districts, so many times candidates for local offices here in Pearland aren’t listed. (Incidentally, that is just one reason why every candidate for any public office should have a website.) I think we both agree that local races in Texas need serious overhauls, including the elimination of nonpartisan races and the introduction of ranked-choice voting. Perhaps a requirement to register endorsements with the local election administrator who then publishes them on the election website is a reasonable reform as well.
   27. MIKE: I should perhaps mention that I have contributed small amounts to Ballotpedia.
   28. REFERENCE: Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District, Texas, elections (2023) — BALLOTPEDIA.ORG
9. The State of Chihuahua Is Building a 20-Story Tower in Ciudad Juarez to Surveil 13 Cities–and Texas Will Also Be Watching; By Dave Maass and Veridiana Alimonti | EFF.ORG [Electronic Frontier Foundation] | October 3, 2023
   1. Chihuahua state officials and a notorious Mexican security contractor broke ground last summer on the Torre Centinela (Sentinel Tower), an ominous, 20-story high-rise in downtown Ciudad Juarez that will serve as the central node of a new AI-enhanced surveillance regime. With tentacles reaching into 13 Mexican cities and a data pipeline that will channel intelligence all the way to Austin, Texas, the monstrous project will be unlike anything seen before along the U.S.-Mexico border.
   2. And that’s saying a lot, considering the last 30-plus years of surging technology on the U.S side of the border. 
   3. The Torre Centinela will stand in a former parking lot next to the city’s famous bullring, a mere half-mile south of where migrants and asylum seekers have camped and protested at the Paso del Norte International Bridge leading to El Paso. But its reach goes much further: the Torre Centinela is just one piece of the Plataforma Centinela (Sentinel Platform), an aggressive new technology strategy developed by Chihuahua’s Secretaria de Seguridad Pública Estatal (Secretary of State Public Security or SSPE) in collaboration with the company Seguritech.
   4. With its sprawling infrastructure, the Plataforma Centinela will create an atmosphere of surveillance and data-streams blanketing the entire region. The plan calls for nearly every cutting-edge technology system marketed at law enforcement: 10,000 surveillance cameras, face recognition, automated license plate recognition, real-time crime analytics, a fleet of mobile surveillance vehicles, drone teams and counter-drone teams, and more.
   5. If the project comes together as advertised in the Avengers-style trailer that SSPE released to influence public opinion, law enforcement personnel on site will be surrounded by wall-to-wall monitors (140 meters of screens per floor), while 2,000 officers in the field will be able to access live intelligence through handheld tablets.
   6. Texas law enforcement will also have “eyes on this side of the border” via the Plataforma Centinela, Chihuahua Governor Maru Campos publicly stated last year. Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a memorandum of understanding confirming the partnership. …
   7. MIKE: This is a long story with lots of detail, but this should get you started.
   8. MIKE: I think we all know that we’re being surveilled at all times in everything we do and everywhere we go by some means or other, but if you really want to have the crap scared out of you, watch the “Avengers-style trailer”. You don’t need to know a word of Spanish to be intimidated. The narrator’s voice and the background music scoring all contribute to a very military-style and oppressive tone. The end even looks like an invasion.
   9. MIKE: Mexico certainly has serious internal security problems, and that lends itself to increasingly harsh methods of control. It happens in the US, too.
   10. MIKE: But keep in mind that this video was not some kind of left-wing, anti-government propaganda video. This is the Government of Chihuahua State selling this as a good
   11. MIKE: The tower looks like it should belong to LexCorp. The building interior reminds me of the control rooms in WestWorld. Even the floor tile looks potentially evil. And it even comes with an evil lair-style helipad on the roof. And Texas Governor Greg Abbott is cool with it.
   12. MIKE: None of this contributes to one’s peace of mind concerning this project. I certainly hope that the US State and Defense Departments have taken note of this cross-border surveillance situation, whether for good or ill. But this is still an internal Mexican project over which the US would have little if any control unless it’s actually used for spying — i.e., intelligence collection — on the US. At least it’s not a balloon.
   13. MIKE: From a best-case, benevolent, public safety perspective, this may seem like a not-bad thing on the surface. But I think we are living in times where “best-case, benevolent public safety” is not something which comes immediately to mind where government is concerned. We’ve seen how bad governments can become and how quickly they can turn that way.
   14. MIKE: I thank Andrew for calling my attention to this story. Andrew and I often have complementary information sources and concerns, and this is an example of how that can be useful.
   15. ANDREW: I was glad to send it to you, even if I wasn’t glad to run across it. For full disclosure, I want to state that I’m a monthly donor to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who we sourced this article from.
   16. ANDREW: I’m sure that the US State and Defense Departments are plenty aware of the whole Sentinel Platform project, and I bet they love it. If Chihuahua is going to give Greg Abbott access to its mind-boggling amounts of ever-watchful eyes, I’m sure giving the same access to the federal government isn’t much more of a sweat. I would prefer if they had no knowledge of it whatsoever, quite frankly. I firmly believe that any threat from a foreign government pales in comparison to the threat from our own.
   17. ANDREW: I’d also like to call attention to one thing in that video we’re encouraging everyone to go watch. Through the magic of the Chihuahua government having used stock music for their foreboding sizzle reel, we can determine that the track they selected is called “Epic War Trailer”. That’s almost impressively on-the-nose. Who is the war against? (Civilians.) What makes it epic? (The amount of both money spent and deeply-personal information collected.)
   18. ANDREW: I think it’s fair to say that this is not good news, and I certainly hope activists and journalists in Mexico and the US can collaborate to expose this project for the state-funded violation of privacy money-hole that it is. I hope Chihuahuan voters kick the people behind it out of office, if for no other reason than to protect themselves, and I hope to hear stories in the future of “major setbacks” at the work site.
10. Heather Cox Richardson on Facebook. October 17, 2023 (Tuesday)
    1. Note: “Heather Cox Richardson is a political historian who uses facts and history to put the news in context”
    2. MIKE NOTE: I follow Heather on Facebook and Threads. This is the first time I’ve quoted her on this show, but I thought that Tuesday’s synopsis captured a very busy news day in good detail.
    3. This morning, the Ukrainian military launched a surprise attack on two Russian airfields in occupied Ukraine, using a longer-range missile system secretly supplied in the last few weeks by the United States. The Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, has a range of about 100 miles, or 161 kilometers. It enabled the Ukrainians to damage runways and destroy nine Russian helicopters. The missiles also killed a number of Russian soldiers. One of the conditions of Ukraine’s acquisition of these weapons was that they would only be used within Ukraine against the occupiers, not in Russia itself.
    4. The thirty-one M1 Abrams main battle tanks the U.S. had promised Ukraine have all arrived, the U.S. confirmed today. All the Ukrainian military personnel who trained to use those tanks in Germany have also returned.
    5. A recent Russian offensive has been largely unsuccessful, while the Ukrainian goal of dividing the Russian invaders in two (much as the U.S. did to the Confederacy) has been partially achieved but troops have not punched through. At the same time, strategic Ukrainian attacks have pushed Russia’s Black Sea fleet out of its main base in the Crimean port of Sevastopol, and the Institute for the Study of War assesses that the attacks on the airfields will force Russia to pull its aircraft back and either to disperse its ammunition depots or to fortify them.
    6. Meanwhile, the struggle in the House of Representatives today looked like a preview of the 2024 election.
    7. Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH), a staunch supporter of former president Trump and a key figure in the attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, is pushing hard for election as speaker, emphasizing how imperative it is for the House Republicans to enable the House to get back to business. As Karoun Demirjian outlined in the New York Times, Jordan and his allies have deployed a pressure campaign against those Republicans opposed to him, as she puts it, “working to unleash the rage of the party’s base voters against any lawmaker standing in his way.”
    8. This is the same tactic that the extremists have used for decades to move the Republican Party to the right. But there is a different dynamic at play in this speakership crisis. Jordan and his allies created the crisis in the first place by supporting Trump’s demands to shut down the government, tossing out former speaker Kevin McCarthy because he would not agree to shut down the government, and refusing to abide by the vote of the Republican conference to accept the choice of the majority: first McCarthy and then Representative Steve Scalise (R-LA).
    9. There is another way in which this moment is different. Jordan is a flamethrower who was one of the original organizers of the right-wing Freedom Caucus. Republicans saw McCarthy, who was an excellent fundraiser, as a pro-business Republican who worked with the far right, but Jordan is the real deal: a far-right extremist. Republican donors have already suggested they are not enthusiastic about working with him to fund Republican candidates.
    10. The third way this moment is different is that putting Jordan in the speaker’s chair makes him, along with Trump, the face of the Republican Party going into the 2024 election. Representative Pete Aguilar (D-CA) previewed the many downsides of Jordan as speaker when he nominated Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) for the speaker’s chair. Aguilar blamed extremism and partisanship for the unprecedented chaos of the House and urged the Republicans to embrace bipartisanship to do the work the American people had sent them to Washington, D.C., to conduct.
    11. Aguilar noted that Jordan was “the architect of a nationwide abortion ban, a vocal election denier, and an insurrection inciter.” He has “spent his entire career trying to hold our country back, putting our national security in danger, attempting government shutdown after government shutdown, wasting taxpayer dollars on baseless investigations with dead ends, authoring the very bill that would ban abortion nationwide without exceptions, and inciting violence on this chamber. Even leaders of his own party have called [Jordan] ‘a legislative terrorist.’”
    12. Aguilar pointed out Jordan’s opposition to disaster relief, veterans’ relief, support for Ukraine, and military aid to our allies, including Israel, and added: “This body is debating elevating a speaker nominee who has not passed a single bill in 16 years. These are not the actions of someone interested in governing or bettering the lives of everyday Americans.” Jordan as speaker would mean the Republican Party would “continue taking marching orders from a twice-impeached former president with more than 90 pending felony charges.”
    13. Even without mentioning Jordan’s involvement with the cover-up of a sexual assault scandal at Ohio State, Aguilar put Republicans on notice that placing Jordan at the head of the party would have brutal consequences in Democratic campaign ads.
    14. When House members voted for speaker, the Democrats were unified behind Jeffries, who won all 212 of their votes. Jordan won only 200 of the 217 votes necessary to become speaker, with 20 Republicans voting for someone else. His allies initially said they would call a second vote tonight but changed their minds, apparently realizing that another loss would weaken his candidacy significantly. They say they will hold another vote tomorrow [Wednesday the 18^th].
    15. Tonight, hundreds of people were killed in an explosion at a packed hospital in Gaza City. Palestinian authorities blamed an Israeli airstrike for the explosion; hours later, Israel Defense Forces said the explosion was a misfired missile launched as part of a “barrage of rockets” by the Islamic Jihad militant group. Neither version of events has been confirmed.
    16. Governments around the region have blamed Israel and sometimes the U.S. for the catastrophic loss of life, and protests have broken out in Lebanon, Iran, and Turkey [aka, “Turkiye”] as President Joe Biden travels to the region personally to demonstrate U.S. support for Israel, pressure Israel to permit humanitarian aid into Gaza, learn any new information about the hostages, and to try to keep the conflict from widening and escalating.
    17. Biden will meet in Tel Aviv, Israel, with Israeli leaders, first responders, and families of hostages, but the second leg of his trip—to Jordan, for a meeting with King Abdullah II, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, and Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi—was canceled as Abbas rushed home. National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby told reporters Biden would speak with Abbas and Sisi on the trip back to the U.S.
    18. MIKE: I’m especially glad that Heather mentioned Ukraine at the top of her post. It’s still a world-class hot war, and has been largely buried in the news by other events.
    19. MIKE: If Jim Jordan becomes speaker, it would be a national catastrophe, although the Democrats may be able to make a lot of political hay out of it in 2024.
    20. MIKE: In my opinion, the Speakership is increasingly likely to be a Republican who is a bipartisan choice — not necessarily in equal parts, and not necessarily even a member of the house — with compromises on both sides.
    21. ANDREW: I’m glad to hear that the ATACMS is restricted to use inside Ukraine. I just hope the Ukrainians aren’t on the hook for a bill after the dust settles.
    22. ANDREW: As for the Speakership, if it has to be someone in the chamber then I’d prefer a Democrat, but even a moderate Republican would be better than Jim Jordan. Maybe if the alt-righters bug the centrists enough, there would even be enough votes for Hakeem Jeffries. After all, he just needs five more!
    23. MIKE: Parenthetically, I hate the term “alt-right” which is a term popularized by “alt-right” leaders. While it has more syllables, I prefer “rightwing extremists”.
    24. MIKE: BTW, Heather used the following resources:
    25. https://www.politico.com/…/ukraine-uses-secretly…
    26. https://www.wsj.com/…/ukraine-fires-atacms-missile-at…
    27. https://www.nytimes.com/…/house-speaker-republicans…
    28. https://www.understandingwar.org/…/russian-offensive…
    29. https://www.cnn.com/…/jim-jordan-fundraising…/index.html
    30. https://www.politico.com/…/conservative-pressure-jordan…
    31. https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/israel-hamas-war-news…/
    32. https://www.nytimes.com/…/gaza-hospital-israel-reaction…
    33. https://www.whitehouse.gov/…/press-gaggle-by-press…/
    34. https://www.wsj.com/…/russia-withdraws-black-sea-fleet…
    35. Twitter (X): atrupar/status/1714323287545622863

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1. Make sure you are registered to vote! VoteTexas.GOV – Texas Voter Information
   1. It’s time to snail-mail (no emails or faxes) in your application for mail-ballots, IF you qualify TEXAS SoS VOTE-BY-MAIL BALLOT APPLICATION (ALL TEXAS COUNTIES) HarrisVotes.com­ – Countywide Voting Centers, (Election Information Line (713) 755-6965), Harris County Clerk
   2. Obtain a Voter Registration Application (HarrisVotes.com)
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   4. For personalized, nonpartisan voter guides and information, Consider visiting Vote.ORG.   Ballotpedia.com and Texas League of Women Voters are also good places to get election info.
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   6. HarrisVotes.com – Countywide Voting Centers, HARRIS COUNTY – IDENTIFICATION REQUIRED FOR VOTING: Do not possess and cannot reasonably obtain one of these IDs?
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         7. CHECK REGISTRATION STATUS HERE
         8. CLICK How to register to vote in Texas
         9. Outside Texas, try Vote.org.
2. BE REGISTERED TO VOTE, and if eligible, REMEMBER TO FILL OUT AND MAIL NEW MAIL-IN BALLOT APPLICATIONS FOR 2023.
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