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Going forward, new shows will post for Thursday at 6PM (CT) broadcast and re-run on Sundays at 1PM and Wednesdays at 11AM.

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POSSIBLE TOPICS: Voting, Texas Secretary of State, 2024 Presidential election, Mayor John Whitmire has no plans to raise Houstonians’ taxes. What could the implications be?; Whitmire administration reaches tentative agreement with HOPE labor union; Not everyone in the Harris County courts gets a lawyer. A new hub could help those in need.; California sues ExxonMobil for ‘deceiving’ public about plastic recycling; California Re-Bans Plastic Bags After Last Attempt Backfired; Justice Department accuses Visa of debit network monopoly that affects price of ‘nearly everything’; Ukraine’s Gun-Armed Ground Robot Just Cleared A Russian Trench In Kursk; Ukraine joins NATO drill to test anti-drone systems; With nuclear option unlikely, Putin struggles to defend his red lines; 

Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig where we discuss local, state, national, and international stories. 

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. ELECTION INFO: Be correctly registered for the fall General elections, and double check at the link I’m providing to Texas Secretary of State to make sure you remain
   5. The general election is Nov. 5.
   6. In just 2 weeks, The deadline for voter registration or correction of your voter registration is Oct. 7.
   7. In just about 4 weeks, The deadline to apply for a mail ballot is October 25. Click on the link I’m providing to HarrisVotes (com) for the application. Please fill it out, print it, and mail it (NOT email or fax) before the deadline.
   8. If you are a new Texas resident, OR if you have changed your address since you last voted, OR if you have had any kind of name change for reasons such as marriage or divorce, then you MUST verify that you are still registered to vote AND you must update your voter information.
   9. The criteria required are your Voter ID number plus your date of birth, OR your Texas driver’s license number or Texas photo ID number plus date of birth, OR your name/county/date of birth.
   10. If you need to update any information, click on the voter registration link at VoteTexas(dot)gov. That will take you to an application page where you are given the option to register for the first time, OR to change your voter information, OR to replace your voter registration.
   11. Once you complete this form, you are NOT automatically registered. Instead, you MUST print it, sign it, and mail it to the address that is provided.
   12. In 4 Weeks, Early Vote Centers will be open from Monday, October 21– Friday, November 1 (Mon-Sat: 7 a.m. – 7 p.m. Sun:12 p.m. – 7 p.m. )
   13. Vote Centers will accept voters from 7 a.m. – 7 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, November 5.
   14. In Harris County, you can visit the “What’s on my Ballot?” link at the HarrisVotes[dot]COM page and enter your name or address to see all the contests and candidates you are eligible to vote on!
   15. To aid you in voting on a ballot in person, you can bring handwritten notes or printed sample ballots to the voting booth; just be sure to take it with you when you leave.
   16. REFERENCE: Verify: Yes, Texas will purge ‘suspense list’ voters from roll after 2024 presidential election — Author: Amanda Stevenson | KHOU.COM | Published: 10:26 PM CDT August 29, 2024/Updated: 10:28 AM CDT August 30, 2024
   17. From August 30^th, a story from KHOU.COM relating to making sure your voting registration is up-to-date and still valid. — KHOU Verify: Yes, Texas will purge ‘suspense list’ voters from roll after 2024 presidential election; Author: Amanda Stevenson | KHOU.COM | Published: 10:26 PM CDT August 29, 2024/Updated: 10:28 AM CDT August 30, 2024. TAGS: Voting, Texas Secretary of State, 2024 Presidential election, National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), Voter Suspense List,
   18. MIKE: The KHOU story offers a couple of pages of information in the form of what amounts to an FAQ.
   19. MIKE: If you have any general questions about suspense lists or voter roll purges, I recommend going to this article as a starting point. The story also links to its sources.
   20. REFERENCE: Texas Election Code
   21. REFERENCE: Texas Secretary of State, Alicia Pierce, Assistant Secretary of State for Communications,
   22. REFERENCE: Brennan Center for Justice, Sean Morales-Doyle,  Director, Voting Rights Program
   23. REFERENCE: Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector & Voter Registrar
   24. REFERENCE: Fort Bend County Election Administrator, John Oldham
   25. REFERENCE: League of Women Voters, Texas
   26. REFERENCE: S. Election Assistance Commission
   27. REFERENCE: 1993 National Voter Registration Act
2. I’m going to read two stories that should actually be considered as if they were one, in spite of being published 3 days apart. — Mayor John Whitmire has no plans to raise Houstonians’ taxes. What could the implications be?; By Abby Church, City Hall Reporter | HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM | Sep 21, 2024. TAGS: Mayor John Whitmire, Taxes,
   1. Mayor John Whitmire reiterated that he has no plans to raise taxes, even after his administration presented paths for how to do so
   2. Some council members are asking the mayor to consider the consequences of keeping the rate the same as city services continue to decline and pots of potential revenue remain thin. Though one expert said advancing a property tax hike could be politically risky for the mayor, whose victory in his run for office came in part due to Houston’s more moderate and conservative voters.
   3. The city’s voter-approved revenue cap has required the city to decrease its property tax rate for nine of the last 10 years. But Hurricane Beryl, May’s derecho and Kingwood’s flooding in April led to three disaster declarations and unlocked a gap in city and state laws that had prevented a tax hike from happening.
   4. Houston’s tax rate, which is lower than all of the state’s major cities besides Austin, has led to a loss of $2.2 billion in revenue over the last 10 years, finance director Melissa Dubowski told council members at a recent finance committee meeting.
   5. Leaders are weighing the potential increase – which could be at least 3.2 cents per $100 of a home’s value, or a $166 increase for an average homestead property owner – as the city comes up against a slew of financial challenges.
   6. They include paying off a $1.5 billion settlement with the Houston Professional Firefighters Association; more than $40 million in damages from May’s derecho and Hurricane Beryl; and possibly another $100 million for drainage projects, if an appellate court rejects the city’s appeal in a longstanding lawsuit surrounding the issue.
   7. Whitmire said after his Tuesday State of the City address that he didn’t want to consider raising taxes until waste, fraud, duplication and corruption had been eliminated from city government.
   8. The mayor pointed toward examples including a scandal at Houston Public Works in which an employee was charged with taking bribes from vendors and funneled money to herself and an affordable housing development at 800 Middle Street where leaders found lead-contaminated ash from burned trash that led to four Texas Commission on Environmental Quality violations.
   9. “Property taxes right now is not on my agenda,” Whitmire said. “Quite frankly, you have to look at the totality of the picture with the HISD bond, with the Harris County drainage maintenance fee … I can go on and on.”
   10. Though the mayor cited concerns on Tuesday about the historic $4.4 billion bond at Houston ISD, the deal is not supposed to involve a tax hit.
   11. Should the city raise its property tax rate, it would be an additional burden to residents who will face an 8% tax rate increase from Harris County and a possible flood control tax increase that will appear on November’s ballot.
   12. Potential political implications — Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston, said the last thing Whitmire wants to do is hike taxes and compromise his base in the city – moderate Democrats and Republicans.
   13. “It would jeopardize this coalition and potentially open up hidden challenges from both the right and the left,” Rottinghaus said.
   14. But, as University of Houston politics lecturer Nancy Sims points out, the mayor would also likely say partisan politics have no place in city services. Politically, Whitmire may be looking at a path forward based on what the rest of the region is doing with their tax rates, she added.
   15. Sims noted, though, that council members are likely hoping the mayor will take the “rare window” of opportunity to take advantage of a tax hike for at least disaster recovery. …
   16. City services would have to improve substantially for a voter to be OK with a tax hike, Rottinghaus said. He said polling has indicated voters want better infrastructure, more police officers and the firefighters to be paid – all things Whitmire has said he’d prioritize during his time in office.
   17. “If people put their money where their mouth is, Mayor Whitmire will be in better shape politically,” Rottinghaus said. “If that was just lip service to, you know, kind of identify an issue they think that was going to be important, but aren’t willing to pay for it, then Whitmire could pay a higher political price.”
   18. Sims and council members have pointed back to a study by Houston-based accounting firm Ernst & Young that city leaders commissioned. The audit, passed by the council in May, is supposed to instruct officials on how to “mitigate risks and improve the City’s overall operational efficiency, effectiveness, and service delivery,” according to council agenda documents.
   19. “Mayor Whitmire will examine the EY audit results, which we anticipate will highlight duplication, inefficiencies, and waste in the city’s operations,” Whitmire’s spokesperson Mary Benton wrote in a Friday email. “He’ll consider that information and other assessments to determine the best path forward.”
   20. Other council members caution the consequences — While Council Member Amy Peck on Wednesday commended Whitmire for his position on the issue, Council Members Joaquin Martinez and Sallie Alcorn offered counters.
   21. Martinez, who represents most of the East End and downtown Houston, said residents have been understanding about where the city needs to be in his conversations with constituents. He pointed to concerns with services at Solid Waste, the parks department and the Houston Police Department. 
   22. He added that the city shouldn’t base its decision on whether or not to increase taxes on other entities’ decisions.
   23. “These folks get away with increasing their tax rate, but then we don’t see the services here in the City of Houston, because it’s HISD or the county, or any other entity,” Martinez said. “But the folks in the City of Houston want to see services, and that’s our responsibility.”
   24. Alcorn shares those same departmental concerns.
   25. “There’s not a department that comes in here and says that they have all they need,” Alcorn said Wednesday, adding that the city had needs that might not be found in an audit.
   26. City leaders have until Oct. 28 to decide whether to raise property taxes. The Ernst & Young audit is expected to be completed within the next four weeks, Benton said. 
   27. “We expect to present to council at some point this year once we are able to speak meaningfully to the actions we expect to take,” she added.
   28. MIKE: Mayor Whitmire is taking the tax position of an old-style moderate conservative Republican. The type of conservative that is willing to cut services and shrink government by cutting — or at least not increasing — taxes, even when there is a very real need to do so. Whitmire’s tax position is supported by conservative Council Member Amy Peck, who once worked as constituent services liaison for Dan Patrick when he was a Texas State Senator.
   29. MIKE: At one point in the article, “[Nancy Sims] noted … that council members are likely hoping the mayor will take the “rare window” of opportunity to take advantage of a tax hike for at least disaster recovery. … .”
   30. MIKE: If I understand the new ability of council members to bring up legislation, is it possible for the council to force a vote on tax increases even if the mayor doesn’t want it? I don’t know, but I would hope that Mayor Whitmire will show the necessary political courage to avoid the necessity of City Council attempting to go that route.
   31. MIKE: As for Mayor Whitmire’s future political concerns, should we seriously believe that John Whitmire will or should serve a second term as Mayor?
   32. MIKE: John Whitmire is 75 years old. The next Houston mayoral election is November 2027, meaning that Whitmire would be 78 when he would be sworn in in January of 2028, and turn 79 in August of that year. He would be 82 when his second term-limited administration ended in 2032.
   33. MIKE: This is a time for John Whitmire to stop thinking about 2027’s election coalitions or what he needs to do tax-wise to be re-elected in 2027.
   34. MIKE: This is a time for John Whitmire to decide and accept that his most important mission is to concede that he might be a one-term Houston mayor, but that this is his opportunity to make the hard decisions that will be best for the city in the long run. In fact, he could set up the city for success far beyond his current or potential next term as mayor by making the hard tax decisions now.
   35. MIKE: Joe Biden decided to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race on July 21^st, not only because it was best for his party, but because it was best for the future of the United States.
   36. MIKE: In the commentary that I wrote for my July 25^th show, I said that “in declining to follow his ego and his heart, Biden has made a decision akin to George Washington’s not to seek another term in office. This was a hard choice made for the good and for the future of the nation as Biden sees it.”
   37. MIKE: I was among the first commentators to make that comparison, having actually written those words just a day or two after Biden’s withdrawal.
   38. MIKE: Whitmire doesn’t have to do anything quite that Washingtonian or Bidenesque. He just has to risk his re-election for a second term by doing the right thing now.
   39. MIKE: Taking the opening to raise taxes to the maximum degree allowed by this singular window of legal opportunity will set Houston on a path of better city services of the sort that Houstonians demand and expect. It will set up the city to pay the Houston Firemen settlement. It will pay for essential infrastructure improvements and flood mitigation that has been deferred for lack of funds. It will enable Houston to build a rainy-day fund with small budget surpluses going forward.
   40. MIKE: In short, the maximum allowable tax increase is the right thing for Mayor Whitmire to do for the City of Houston and all its residents. I hope he shows the political courage to choose that path.
   41. MIKE: And this ties directly to the next story…
   42. REFERENCE: John Whitmire — From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
   43. REFERENCE: Interview with Amy Peck — Audio interview Posted on August 6, 2009 by Charles Kuffner
3. Whitmire administration reaches tentative agreement with HOPE labor union; By Cassandra Jenkins | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 1:40 PM Sep 24, 2024 CDT / Updated 1:39 PM Sep 24, 2024 CDT. TAGS: Houston Mayor John Whitmire, Houston Organization of Public Employees (HOPE) Union Local 123,
   1. Houston Mayor John Whitmire has reached a tentative agreement with the Houston Organization of Public Employees [HOPE] Local 123 Union.
   2. … HOPE is a labor union that represents approximately 11,000 of the city’s municipal employees, ranging from public works and solid waste crews, to human resources and parks & recreation.
   3. The organization has been in negotiation talks with Whitmire’s administration since April, looking to make changes to the union’s upcoming contract renewal.
   4. During a news conference Sept. 23, Whitmire announced the terms of the new three-year contract.
   5. [The terms include:] The city’s minimum wage will increase from $15 to $18 over the next two years; Retirees over the age of 60 will be able to retain city insurance for five years or until Medicare eligibility; First-year workers will see a $3,000 salary increase; All employees will see a 3.5% raise in 2025 and 2026; [and] Employees will also see an increase in pay for bilingual skills and longevity
   6. Whitmire said the costs accrued for the first round of pay raises is included in Houston’s budget for fiscal year 2024-25, which was approved in June. For the rest of the contract term, Whitmire said it will be met year by year.
   7. “This agreement will significantly improve the lives our city employees and their families,” he said. “It’s a really exciting day to get a settlement on a new contract that treats all Houstonians fair, but particularly emphasizes the importance our municipal employees play in this great city.”
   8. … HOPE President Sonia Rico said the new contract is a huge win for all municipal employees.
   9. “We work every emergency and we respond sometimes before even fire and police can do their job,” she said. “We are the unsung heroes in the background and we have been left behind for so long, but with our new mayor we have made some huge changes… we have a lot of confidence that the best is yet to come for us.”
   10. Hany Khalil, Texas Gulf Coast Area Labor Federation executive director, congratulated HOPE and Whitmire’s administration for creating a fair deal.
   11. “City workers are the engines that drive our city,” he said. “They have come together, they have organized, they have planned and they have worked hard to bring reasonable proposals to the administration and this administration listened. This is a good contract.”
   12. … The tentative agreement will need to be approved by the majority of HOPE members and then by Houston City Council’s Labor Committee before appearing to city council for the final vote.
   13. If approved, the contract will go into effect immediately. The three-year contract will expire in the summer of 2027.
   14. MIKE: This relates directly to the earlier story. Having negotiated a new agreement with the HOPE Union — a deal which I suspect is well-deserved by these workers — it now has to be paid for. In the absence of a necessary tax increase, what will be cut to pay for it?
   15. MIKE: This is just one more reason that Mayor Whitmire should make the politically courageous decision to raise taxes this one time to the maximum rate allowed by law.
4. Our next story is almost a follow-up to one I did last week about Justice of the Peace Judge Steve Duble. — Not everyone in the Harris County courts gets a lawyer. A new hub could help those in need.; by Clare Amari | HOUSTONLANDING.ORG | September 24, 2024 | 6:44 pm. TAGS: Legal Resource Center, Harris County Justice of the Peace Court Precinct 1 Place 2, Judge Steve Duble,
   1. One of Harris County’s 16 justice courts is now home to a unique information hub that could help individuals without legal representation better navigate their cases in multiple languages and at no cost.
   2. At the Legal Resource Center, which is hosted by Harris County Justice of the Peace Court Precinct 1, Place 2, visitors can peruse the Tenants Rights Handbook. They can rifle through paper handouts with titles like “Your Debt Collection Rights” and “Filing a Small Claims Case,” in Spanish and in English, and even use a computer kiosk to conference with pro bono lawyers.
   3. Individuals who come through Harris County’s justice courts — which handle evictions, small claims and low-level misdemeanors — are not entitled to a lawyer. For Judge Steve Duble, who presides over the host court and who applied for the grant funding the Center, that makes the initiative “essential.”
   4. “You need information,” he said. “There’s nobody filling that gap. There’s no lawyer that’s gonna take that case. Legal aid doesn’t have enough staffing to cover it all.”  
   5. Supported by a $25,000 grant from the Texas Bar Foundation, the Center “soft-launched” in April, according to Jimmy Wynn, the court’s community engagement director. Since then, it has served more than 250 people.
   6. “One of our initiatives is providing opportunities to access justice,” said Baillie Milliken, executive director of the Texas Bar Foundation. “We thought this was a fabulous thought.” 
   7. The Center celebrated its formal launch on Wednesday. Legal services professionals who attended the hub’s grand opening said it will help to fill a vast and unmet need for information and representation in Harris County. 
   8. “People talk about the justice gap,” said Andre Davison, director of the Harris County Law Library, which curated the materials available at the Legal Resource Center. “It’s more of a justice crisis.”
   9. Compounding the problem: the vast majority of litigants who pass through Harris County’s justice courts are there for reasons related to poverty, said Jeremy Brown, a former Harris County justice of the peace who attended the grand opening.
   10. Brown, who now works as chief regulatory officer for Harris County Universal Services, briefly hosted a legal resource center in his own court that served as Duble’s inspiration. 
   11. “I’m glad Judge Duble was able to do this, because as judges you can’t speak out,” he said. “What part can you play in this complicated system to help folks just a little? This is one of those things.” 
   12. Currently, the Legal Resource Center is the only hub of its kind in Harris County — but it may not be for long. Dolores Lozano, presiding judge in Harris County Justice of the Peace Court Precinct 2, Place 2, said she plans to apply for a grant to support a legal resource center in her own court. 
   13. … The Center’s mission is particularly important in Duble’s precinct, which serves some of Houston’s poorest neighborhoods. In fact, Precinct 1 covers a quarter of the city’s neighborhoods of persistent poverty, said Wynn, the community engagement director.
   14. These neighborhoods, which include Greater Fifth Ward, Kashmere Gardens, Settegast, Northside, Northline, Eastex-Jensen, Independence Heights, Acres Home, and Greenspoint, have experienced high poverty rates for decades, and Duble said their residents are rarely able to afford a private lawyer. 
   15. “They’re the people that need this help the most,” [Duble] said. 
   16. Duble says he has prioritized access to justice initiatives since he took office in January 2023. That year, he was one of two Harris County justices of the peace to set up eviction diversion programs, which connect tenants with a full-time eviction diversion facilitator when they come to court. Then, last month, he made the unusual decision to recall all 12,500 outstanding arrest warrants issued by his court on constitutional grounds. 
   17. The recall exclusively impacted those charged with Class C misdemeanors — the lowest-level criminal offenses in Texas. The vast majority were traffic offenses, like speeding, running a red light or failure to yield. But Duble was concerned that the arrest warrants would result in jail time for offenses that are only punishable by fine and ineligible for free legal representation.
   18. “I found one (case) where the person was brought into jail on nothing but an arrest warrant out of this court, and it was all parking tickets,” said Duble, who worried there could be more such cases. 
   19. A similar principle — Duble’s desire to ensure fair treatment under the law for all litigants before his court — informed the creation of the Legal Resource Center. 
   20. “Everything I’ve done since I’ve come in (to the court) is trying to improve and increase access to justice,” he said. “It all stems from that.”  
   21. MIKE: So far, at least from what I’ve read recently, I’m extremely impressed with Judge Duble and his strong commitment to judicial fairness and equity, Constitutional protections, and the kinds of legal resources he seems committed to providing for those who appear before him.
   22. MIKE: I’m even more pleased that another JP has seen his example as one to follow.
   23. MIKE: I suspect that if Judge Duble has further ambitions, we might be hearing more from him on the local political and justice scene in the years to come.
5. California sues ExxonMobil for ‘deceiving’ public about plastic recycling; California AG Rob Bonata alleges that Texas-based Exxon has misled people into thinking recycling will solve the pollution crisis. By Andrea Guzmán, Texas Brands Reporter | CHRON.COM | Sep 24, 2024. TAGS: ExxonMobil, California, San Francisco County Superior Court, California Attorney General Rob Bonata, Plastic Recycling, Plastic Pollution,
   1. Texas-based ExxonMobil is being accused of using misleading advertising and other practices to push the idea that all plastic was recyclable. In reality, the majority of plastic products cannot be recycled, California alleges. So, the state is suing the petrochemical giant. 
   2. In a complaint filed in the San Francisco County Superior Court, California Attorney General Rob Bonata alleges that ExxonMobil has been deceiving residents through misleading public statements and marketing that promised recycling would address the plastic waste ExxonMobil produces. 
   3. Bonata said in a press release that ExxonMobil violated state nuisance, natural resources, water pollution, false advertising and unfair competition laws. 
   4. Now, Bonata is seeking an abatement fund, civil penalties and disgorgement, which would require ExxonMobil to give up profits gained through illegal conduct. Bonata is also aiming for injunctive relief and to have ExxonMobil to end deceptive practices. 
   5. “Plastics are everywhere, from the deepest parts of our oceans, the highest peaks on earth, and even in our bodies, causing irreversible damage—in ways known and unknown—to our environment and potentially our health,” Bonata said. “For decades, ExxonMobil has been deceiving the public to convince us that plastic recycling could solve the plastic waste and pollution crisis when they clearly knew this wasn’t possible.”
   6. The lawsuit was spurred by an investigation California’s Attorney General launched into fossil fuel and petrochemical industries in April 2022. As part of the investigation, the DOJ issued investigative subpoenas to ExxonMobil and related plastics industry groups to seek details about the company’s alleged deception efforts. 
   7. The lawsuit accuses ExxonMobil of being the world’s largest producer of polymers used to make single-use plastics. ExxonMobil produces the materials from fossil fuels which are then made into single-use plastics that are unlikely to be recycled because it is either technically or economically impossible. In turn, the lawsuit says consumers bought more single-use plastic than they otherwise would have if Exxon hadn’t made misleading statements.
   8. One example the lawsuit cites is an ExxonMobil advertorial in a July 1989 edition of Time magazine titled “The Urgent Need to Recycle.” The ad framed recycling as a smart solution for plastic waste and efforts to further recycling. 
   9. Another message consumers have been fed is the “chasing arrows” symbol for plastics. The lawsuit accuses ExxonMobil of adapting and promoting the symbol since 1970, which led consumers to think that items with the symbol would be recycled. However, only about 5 percent of U.S. plastic waste is recycled. 
   10. Ultimately, the lawsuit argues, ExxonMobil’s portrayal of recycling as effective has harmed California’s beaches and people. According to Bonata, most of the plastic items collected on the annual California Coastal Cleanup Day can be traced to ExxonMobil’s polymer resins, and microplastics have ended up in unwanted places, including drinking water, food and air. 
   11. In addition to Bonata’s lawsuit, a group of environmental organizations in California are suing ExxonMobil over violations of California’s nuisance law and unfair competition law.
   12. In a press release, Sejal Choksi-Chugh, executive director of nonprofit environmental organization San Francisco Baykeeper, noted that the Bay area has some of the highest levels of microplastics in the world and said Exxon has “brainwashed everyone into thinking that plastic recycling works”. 
   13. “This stuff is killing us a little bit more every day, and we won’t let Exxon gaslight us into believing this is normal,” Choksi-Chugh said.
   14. MIKE: At this stage, I don’t have much to say about this except it will be interesting to watch it progress.
6. Along similar lines — California Re-Bans Plastic Bags After Last Attempt Backfired; An initial ban led to an uptick in the number of plastic bags people disposed of. VICE.COM | September 23, 2024, 5:50pm. TAGS: Climate Change Plastic Bags, California,
   1. Californians will no longer have the option of plastic bags. On Sept. 22, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law banning all plastic shopping bags at grocery stores in the state.
   2. Set to go into effect in 2026, the new law aims to close a past loophole. A previous law was passed in 2014 and approved by voters in 2016. It allowed stores to charge 10 cents for a thicker plastic bag that could be recycled. However, many residents opted to shell out the dime only to toss the bag in the trash.
   3. In fact, according to CalRecycle, the amount of grocery and merchandise bags disposed by Californians grew from 157,385 tons at the start of the ban to 231,072 tons by 2022. That’s a 47 percent increase.
   4. Senator Catherine Blakespear and Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, both democrats, authored the bill.
   5. “I thank Governor Newsom for signing this important legislation that will help protect California’s environment,” Blakespear said in a press release. “Instead of being asked do you want paper or plastic at checkout, consumers will simply be asked if they want a paper bag, if they haven’t brought a reusable bag. This straightforward approach is easy to follow and will help dramatically reduce plastic bag pollution.”
   6. “We deserve a cleaner future for our communities, our children and our earth,” Bauer-Kahan added. “It’s time for us to get rid of these plastic bags and continue to move forward with a more pollution-free environment.”
   7. According to The World Counts, 160,000 plastic bags are used per second worldwide. The bags take 1,000 years to break down, the site states.
   8. CNN, citing Environment America Research & Policy Center, reports that 12 states, including California, have some type of statewide plastic bag ban in place. Additionally, individual cities over 28 states also enforce some iteration of a plastic bag ban.
   9. MIKE: For decades, I used paper shopping bags as self-standing garbage bags around the house. Now, after years of only having plastic shopping bags available, I’ve adapted by buying small trash receptacles and lining them with plastic shopping bags as my form of shopping bag recycling.
   10. MIKE: It may take a while before this trend hits Texas, if ever, but I guess I may have to go back to the future with paper bags when it does.
7. You may have heard that the US Federal Reserve has cut interest rates by a full half percentage point. A US rate move always has world repercussions, so here’s a bit about what else this has precipitated around the world among major economies. — Fed Is About to Get Validation for Its Jumbo Rate Cut; By Vince Golle and Craig Stirling | BLOOMBERG.COM | September 21, 2024 at 3:00 PM CDT. TAGS: Federal Reserve, Central Banks, Interest Rate Cuts, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell,
   1. The Federal Reserve’s preferred price metric and a snapshot of consumer demand are seen corroborating both the central bank’s aggressive interest-rate cut and Chair Jerome Powell’s view that the economy remains strong.
   2. Economists see the personal consumption expenditures price index rising just 0.1% in August for the second time in three months. The inflation gauge probably climbed 2.3% from a year earlier, the smallest annual gain since early 2021 and a shade higher than the central bank’s 2% goal.
   3. The slowdown in inflation from a year ago reflects falling energy and weaker food prices, along with moderating core costs. The [Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE)] price gauge excluding food and fuel probably rose 0.2% for a third month, economists expect government data to show Friday.
   4. The step-down in inflationary pressures from earlier this year provided Fed policymakers with enough confidence to lower rates on Sept. 18 by a half percentage point. The cut was the first in more than four years, and represented a pivot in the central bank’s policy toward averting a deterioration in the job market. …
   5. The August inflation figures will be accompanied by data on personal spending and income, and economists project another solid advance in household outlays. Sustained consumer spending growth helps raise the chances that the economy will continue expanding.
   6. Other economic data include August new-home sales, second-quarter gross domestic product along with annual GDP revisions back to 2019, weekly jobless claims, and August orders for durable goods.
   7. … Bloomberg Economics Says [the following]: In our view, the Fed’s jumbo cut increases the chance of a soft landing, but by no means ensures it. Our baseline is still for the unemployment rate to reach 4.5% before the end of 2024, before rising to 5% next year.”…
   8. In Canada, GDP [Gross Domestic Product] data for July and a flash estimate for August are expected to show weak growth in the third quarter, likely below the Bank of Canada’s forecast of 2.8% annualized expansion. Meanwhile, the central bank’s governor, Tiff Macklem, will speak at a banking conference in Toronto.
   9. Elsewhere, the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] will reveal new economic forecasts on Wednesday, central banks in Switzerland and Sweden may deliver rate cuts, and their Australian counterpart is anticipated to stay on hold. …
   10. Japan gets fresh inflation data with the release Friday of Tokyo consumer prices, which are expected to have risen at a pace exceeding the Bank of Japan’s 2% target in September. …
   11. In China, the 1-year medium term lending facility rate is expected to be held unchanged at 2.3%, and data Friday will show whether industrial profit growth maintained momentum in August after rising at the fastest clip in five months in July. …
   12. MIKE: If you’re interested, there’s quite a bit more detail and analysis in the Bloomberg article. It’s paywalled, but you can read this article and some others by registering for a free Bloomberg account.
   13. MIKE: The Federal Reserve is an apolitical body that is legislatively assigned two overarching goals: Keep inflation under control, and maximize employment.
   14. MIKE: Even though the Federal Reserve’s political neutrality is legislatively defined, this rate cut, and the additional rate cuts that are suspected to come before the end of the year, will have huge political and economic implications.
   15. MIKE: Politically, interest rate cuts 6 weeks out from the general election may give a boost to Democrats up and down the general election ballots. Economically, this half-percent rate cut should quickly impact mortgage rates, car loans, and loan rates for other big-ticket purchases.
   16. MIKE: The only exception to these benefits so far may be credit card interest rates. About a week or two before this widely anticipated rate cut by the fed, at least one person I know was told by their credit card company that their revolving interest rate was going UP!
   17. MIKE: This seemed so counter-intuitive to me as to be bordering on simple greed. It crossed the border, probably, since this credit card bank had to know that their cost of funds would soon be cut significantly, with another half point cut likely by the end of 2024.
   18. MIKE: This would seem to bring me organically to the next story I found …
8. Justice Department accuses Visa of debit network monopoly that affects price of ‘nearly everything’; By Hugh Son@hugh_son | CNBC.COM | Published Tue, Sep 24 20242:30 PM EDT/Updated 5 Hours Ago. TAGS: U.S. Justice Department, US Department of Justice, VISA payments network, Mastercard, Exclusionary Agreements, Monopolization, Unfair Competition, Civil Antitrust Suit,
   1. The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday sued Visa, the world’s biggest payments network, saying it propped up an illegal monopoly over debit payments by imposing “exclusionary” agreements on partners and smothering upstart firms.
   2. Visa’s moves over the years have resulted in American consumers and merchants paying billions of dollars in additional fees, according to the DOJ, which filed a civil antitrust suit in New York for “monopolization” and other unlawful conduct.
   3. “We allege that Visa has unlawfully amassed the power to extract fees that far exceed what it could charge in a competitive market,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a DOJ release.
   4. “Merchants and banks pass along those costs to consumers, either by raising prices or reducing quality or service,” Garland said. “As a result, Visa’s unlawful conduct affects not just the price of one thing — but the price of nearly everything.”
   5. Visa and its smaller rival Mastercard have surged over the past two decades, reaching a combined market cap of roughly $1 trillion, as consumers tapped credit and debit cards for store purchases and e-commerce instead of paper money. They are essentially toll collectors, shuffling payments between banks operating for the merchants and for cardholders.
   6. Visa called the DOJ suit “meritless.” …
   7. More than 60% of debit transactions in the U.S. run over Visa rails, helping it charge more than $7 billion annually in processing fees, according to the DOJ complaint.
   8. The payment networks’ decades-old dominance has increasingly attracted attention from regulators and retailers.
   9. … In 2020, the DOJ filed an antitrust suit to block Visa from acquiring fintech company Plaid. The companies initially said they would fight the action, but soon abandoned the $5.3 billion takeover.
   10. In March, Visa and Mastercard agreed to limit their fees and let merchants charge customers for using credit cards, a deal retailers said was worth $30 billion in savings over a half decade. A federal judge later rejected the settlement, saying the networks could afford to pay for a “substantially greater” deal.
   11. In its complaint, the DOJ said Visa threatens merchants and their banks with punitive rates if they route a “meaningful share” of debit transactions to competitors, helping maintain Visa’s network [dominance]. The contracts help insulate three-quarters of Visa’s debit volume from fair competition, the DOJ said.
   12. ″Visa wields its dominance, enormous scale, and centrality to the debit ecosystem to impose a web of exclusionary agreements on merchants and banks,” the DOJ said in its release. “These agreements penalize Visa’s customers who route transactions to a different debit network or alternative payment system.”
   13. Furthermore, when faced with threats, Visa “engaged in a deliberate and reinforcing course of conduct to cut off competition and prevent rivals from gaining the scale, share, and data necessary to compete,” the DOJ said.
   14. … The moves also tamped down innovation, according to the DOJ. Visa pays competitors hundreds of millions of dollars annually “to blunt the risk they develop innovative new technologies that could advance the industry but would otherwise threaten Visa’s monopoly profits,” according to the complaint.
   15. Visa has agreements with tech players including Apple, PayPal and Square, turning them from potential rivals to partners in a way that hurts the public, the DOJ said.
   16. For instance, Visa chose to sign an agreement with a predecessor to the Cash App product to ensure that the company, later rebranded Block, did not create a bigger threat to Visa’s debit rails.
   17. A Visa manager was quoted as saying “we’ve got Square on a short leash and our deal structure was meant to protect against disintermediation,” according to the complaint.
   18. Visa has an agreement with Apple in which the tech giant says it will not directly compete with the payment network “such as creating payment functionality that relies primarily on non-Visa payment processes,” the complaint alleged.
   19. The DOJ asked for the courts to prevent Visa from a range of anticompetitive practices, including fee structures or service bundles that discourage new entrants.
   20. The move comes in the waning months of President Joe Biden’s administration, in which regulators including the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have sued middlemen for drug prices and pushed back against so-called junk fees.
   21. In February, credit card lender Capital One announced its acquisition of Discover Financial, a $35.3 billion deal predicated in part on Capital One’s ability to bolster Discover’s also-ran payments network, a distant No. 4 behind Visa, Mastercard and American Express.
   22. Capital One said once the deal is closed, it will switch all its debit card volume and a growing share of credit card volume to Discover over time, making it a more viable competitor to Visa and Mastercard.
   23. MIKE: That last paragraph surprised me. I bank with Capital One, and this is the first I’ve heard of it. It has significant potential market implications, so I’ve linked to that story as a reference and may discuss it on this show in the future.
   24. MIKE: But the reason that I felt this story clicked with me about the interest rate cuts story was because of my friend’s notification that their card rate was going UP. I immediately felt that this must relate to the near-monopoly of VISA and the oligopoly of Visa, Mastercard, and Amex as credit cards.
   25. MIKE: I think that the debit side, which is the focus of this story, may actually be just the tip of the iceberg. If Democrats win the White House and both houses of Congress, expect more anti-trust actions over the next 4 years.
   26. MIKE: Remember that elections have consequences.
   27. REFERENCE: Here’s why Capital One is buying Discover in the biggest proposed merger of 2024; COM | Published Wed, Feb 21 202410:42 AM EST/Updated Wed, Feb 21 202412:02 PM EST
9. In international news, Ukraine has been fighting Russia not only with amazing tenacity, but also with remarkable creativity. — Ukraine’s Gun-Armed Ground Robot Just Cleared A Russian Trench In Kursk; The Fury is one of the first effective armed ground robots. By David Axe, Forbes Staff | FORBES.COM | Sep 19, 2024, 05:12pm EDT/Updated Sep 19, 2024, 05:14pm EDT. TAGS: Russo-Ukraine War, Armed Ground Robot, Kursk,
   1. Back in May, Ukrainian developers revealed a new armed ground robot—the Fury. Four months later, a Fury has fought—and reportedly won—the type’s first major skirmish. On or just before Thursday [of last week], one of the four-wheeled, shopping-cart-sized Furies assaulted a trench in Russia’s Kursk Oblast.
   2. Dodging mines and firing its machine gun in coordination with explosive drones and mortars, the ’bot defeated a small group of Russian soldiers.
   3. “The result: part of the enemy was destroyed, the rest fled,” the 1st Detachment of the 8th Special Purpose Regiment, the ’bot’s operator, announced on social media. “The [robot] received several hits from RPGs and FPVs”—rocket-propelled grenades and first-person-view drones — “but persevered, completed the mission, and returned to recovery.”
   4. The Fury is one of several armed unmanned ground vehicles Ukrainian engineers have developed in the 30 months since Russia widened its war on Ukraine—and one of the first types to see major combat. A Fury has four wheels, a radio for receiving operator commands, video cameras and a remotely-aimed machine gun. It’s thickly built with armor plates protecting its most vulnerable components.
   5. “The Fury robot attacks the Russian positions and covers our defenders during the assault,” Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s innovation minister, wrote in May. “[I]t was easy to control, and … its good sight and automatic fire [enable it to fight] both day and night.”
   6. The Fury isn’t unique—the Russians have armed ground robots, too. But in winning and surviving its first big fight, the Fury stands out. Where aerial drones can maneuver freely in three dimensions, ground drones struggle with the many obstacles they routinely encounter even on paved surfaces: potholes and craters, fallen branches, [and] steep slopes.
   7. Unpaved surfaces are even more difficult to traverse. Simply reaching a battlefield is a big challenge for an unmanned ground vehicle — to say nothing of doing anything useful once it arrives. The Fury’s developers wisely emphasized mobility, and gave their ’bot big wheels, a low center of gravity and a high chassis with plenty of ground clearance.
   8. It’s interesting where the Fury fought its first major skirmish: in the Russian village of Volfino, just across the Russia-Ukraine border … on the western end of Ukraine’s second major thrust into Russia’s Kursk Oblast, which kicked off last week.
   9. While a large Ukrainian [force] fights to hold the 400 square miles of Kursk it captured back in August, a much smaller force … is trying to advance into Kursk 20 miles to the west, apparently aiming to encircle Russian forces between it and the main Ukrainian salient.
   10. It’s a long-shot operation for an overstretched Ukrainian military. But it’s got a little high-tech help in the form of at least one gun-armed ground robot.
   11. MIKE: These battlefield advances are both amazing and terrifying. As frightening as it is to confront tanks and armored personnel carriers, soldiers can at least feel that they’re fighting other human soldiers, giving them some hope of defeating other people. Between remotely operated robot machine gun tanks and remote-controlled armed drones, soldiers on both sides must feel increasingly like they’re the Resistance fighting against Skynet’s war machines.
   12. MIKE: Ukraine must fight an asymmetrical war. It has fewer people than Russia, fewer tanks, fewer weapons and ammunition, and its infrastructure has been badly pummeled by Russian long-distance weapons since 2022.
   13. MIKE: Their ingenuity against a much larger and more powerful foe that’s also fighting behind a certain degree of political and geographical sanctuary has to be applauded, but this war is showing us that the last flesh and blood part of the military that will be on the battlefield in any significant numbers will be the poor foot soldier fighting against bloodless machines, operated by people who can take greater risks with their machines because they themselves are many miles out of harm’s way.
   14. MIKE: I’ve heard Marines are taught that if you’re in a fair fight with the enemy, you’re doing it wrong. Increasingly, as horrible as modern war already is, there won’t be a foot soldier anywhere in the world who will be in a remotely fair fight against other humans.
10. And that story leads us here. On this show over the past couple of years, we’ve discussed how every military in the world is watching the Russia-Ukraine War to see how their own military doctrines and equipment priorities must evolve, and this next article touches on precisely that point — Ukraine joins NATO drill to test anti-drone systems; By Andrew Gray and Bart Biesemans | REUTERS.COM | September 20, 2024@7:00 PM CDT/Updated an hour ago. TAGS: NATO, Drones, Anti-Drone Exercises, Ukraine, FPV (First-Person View) Drones,
    1. NATO concluded a major anti-drone exercise this week, with Ukraine taking part for the first time as the Western alliance seeks to learn urgently from the rapid development and widespread use of unmanned systems in the war there.
    2. The drills at a Dutch military base, involving more than 20 countries and some 50 companies, tested cutting-edge systems to detect and counter drones and assessed how they work together.
    3. The 11-day exercise ended with a demonstration of jamming and hacking drones in a week when their critical role in the Ukraine war was demonstrated once again.
    4. On Wednesday [last week], a large Ukrainian drone attack triggered an earthquake-sized blast at a major Russian arsenal. The following day, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was ramping up drone production tenfold to nearly 1.4 million this year.
    5. The proliferation of drones in the war – to destroy targets and survey the battlefield – has prompted NATO to increase its focus on the threat they could pose to the alliance.
    6. [Said Matt Roper, chief of the Joint Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Centre at the alliance’s technology agency,] “NATO takes this threat very, very seriously. This is not a domain we can afford to sit back and be passive on,” he said at the exercise site …
    7. Experts have warned NATO that it needs to catch up quickly on drone warfare.
    8. [A report (opens new tab) from the Center for European Policy Analysis think tank declared last September said,] “NATO has too few drones for a high-intensity fight against a peer adversary. It would be severely challenged to effectively integrate those it has in a contested environment.”
    9. … The drills that wrapped up on Thursday [of last week] … were the fourth annual iteration of the exercise.
    10. Claudio Palestini, the co-chair of a NATO working group on unmanned systems, said the exercise had adapted to trends such as the transformation of FPV (first-person view) drones – originally designed for civilian racers – into deadly weapons.
    11. [Palestini said,] “Every year, we see an evolution of the threat with the introduction of new technology. But also we see a lot of capabilities (to counter drones) that are becoming more mature.”
    12. In a demonstration on Thursday, two small FPV drones whizzed and whined at high speed through the blue sky to dart around a military all-terrain vehicle before their signal was jammed.
    13. Such electronic warfare is widespread in Ukraine. But it is less effective against long-range reconnaissance drones, a technology developer at Ukraine’s defence ministry said.
    14. The official, giving only his first name of Yaroslav for security reasons, said his team had developed kamikaze drones to destroy such craft – a much cheaper option than firing missiles, which Ukraine had previously done.
    15. “You need to run fast,” he said of the race to counter the impact of drones. “Technology which you develop is there for three months, maybe six months. After, it’s obsolete.”
    16. MIKE: This is important stuff. Drones in the air, land and seas have developed into whole knew theaters of war that have been devastating for troops and equipment. Ukraine’s experience in this kind of warfare is already proving to be extremely valuable to NATO and the US, and is part of what will make Ukraine a valuable partner to NATO when it can eventually join as a full member.
    17. MIKE: I would also predict that when the war in Ukraine finally ends, their highly developed defense industry and tactical experience will not only prove invaluable to the West. It will also probably be a huge factor for generating revenue for rebuilding Ukraine.
    18. MIKE: On the opposite side of the ledger, though, is what potential adversaries of the US and NATO are learning about asymmetrical warfare against great powers like the US. How will this affect our ability to make effective use of our thousands of multi-million dollar tanks and aircraft, and our hundreds multibillion dollar naval vessels?
    19. MIKE: These changes in military calculus may mark the most significant changes in global military thinking since the American Civil War made the world’s navies obsolete and ushered in the mechanization of war that wiped out a generation of young men in World War 1.
11. With nuclear option unlikely, Putin struggles to defend his red lines; There’s a growing realization in the Kremlin that the West is not falling for its nuclear threats and Putin is searching for new ways to enforce his red lines. By Catherine Belton and Robyn Dixon | WASHINGTONPOST.COM | September 22, 2024 at 3:00 a.m. EDT. TAGS: Russian President Vladimir Putin, Nuclear Threats, Russian Red Lines, NATO,
    1. When Russian President Vladimir Putin warned earlier this month that Western approval for Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia would mean Moscow was at war with NATO, Russian propagandists rushed to rattle the nuclear saber.
    2. Alexander Mikhailov, director of the Bureau of Military Political Analysis, called for bombing plywood mock-ups of London and Washington — complete with reproductions of Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and the White House — to simulate nuclear strikes, so that they would “burn so beautifully that it will horrify the world.”
    3. The speaker of the lower house, Vyacheslav Volodin, warned that strikes on Russia would lead to war with nuclear weapons and reminded the European Parliament that its headquarters in Strasbourg was only a three-minute flight for a Russian ICBM.
    4. But inside the Kremlin, there is a growing recognition that the repeated use of the nuclear threat is starting to lose its potency and Moscow’s red lines are constantly being crossed. Analysts and officials close to senior Russian diplomats said instead that Putin is casting around for a more nuanced and limited response to the West allowing Ukraine to use longer range missiles to strike Russia.
    5. “There has been an overflow of nuclear threats,” said a Russian official speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. “There is already immunity to such statements, and they don’t frighten anyone.”
    6. A Russian academic with close ties to senior Russian diplomats agreed, calling the nuclear option “the least possible” of scenarios, “because it really would lead to dissatisfaction among Russia’s partners in the Global South and also because clearly, from a military point of view, it is not very effective.”
    7. “All this discussion of the nuclear threshold overexaggerates the threat of such a type of escalation and underestimates the possibility of alternative options,” the academic added. “Since the West has a global military infrastructure … a lot of vulnerable points can be found.”
    8. Putin is searching through a range of options to deter Western support for Ukraine and try to enforce his red lines, said Tatiana Stanovaya, the founder of France-based political consultancy R-Politik. …
    9. Nuclear measures or a direct attack on NATO territory would only be considered if “Putin feels there is a threat to the existence of Russia in its current form, when he considers there is no other way out,” she said. “For such a situation, the West should go a lot further than what it is discussing now.”
    10. Russian officials already appeared to be placated to some degree by the United States’ apparent hesitation so far to lifting restrictions on Ukraine striking military targets deep inside Russia using Western missiles. The expectation was growing that if permission was granted it would be “very limited,” analysts and officials said.
    11. Putin, however, is still under pressure to respond in some way and stop his red lines from being constantly crossed.
    12. “There is an understanding that the red lines drawn by Moscow are being ignored by the West, and there should be weightier and more significant steps from Moscow to demonstrate the seriousness of its intentions,” said the academic.
    13. Since the 2022 invasion, Russia has warned against the West supplying modern fighter jets like F-16s, main battle tanks and missiles to Ukraine, and each has eventually come to pass.
    14. Putin is seeing a trend where Ukraine’s western allies keep allowing Kyiv to expand its activities, said Stanovaya, and the trend is scaring him, especially if it leads to increased missile strikes inside Russia. “For Putin this is a qualitative shift which takes the situation to a new level and which could be followed by a further expansion.”
    15. Moscow could opt to respond with sabotage operations against military targets or other infrastructure in the West where Russia’s participation could be difficult to prove. It could also turn to proxy groups that are already battling Western interests, like the Houthi militia in Yemen that has been attacking Red Sea shipping, said Lawrence Freedman, emeritus professor of War Studies at Kings College, London …
    16. Sergei Markov, the hawkish Kremlin-connected political analyst, said there was a growing realization in the top ranks of the Russian military that “Russia has spoiled the West, and that we have spoken a lot about red lines but we haven’t done anything. At some point we will have to escalate.” …
    17. While Stanovaya dismissed … strikes on NATO air bases as unlikely and only in case of desperation, the nuclear rhetoric does have its uses. Both she and Markov point out how members of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign have amplified Moscow’s threats as a campaign issue.
    18. This week, Donald Trump Jr. and former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote in an op-ed for the Hill that a decision to grant Ukraine permission to use Western long-range missiles “would put the world at greater risk of nuclear conflagration than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis” and called for direct negotiations with Moscow instead.
    19. Putin could seek to increase the threat and play a “golden card” by escalating before the elections, Markov claimed. “If Putin escalates, then the U.S. will fear nuclear war and Trump will win.” …
    20. Ultimately, however, as the effectiveness of this approach wanes, Putin has not yet figured out what to replace it with, said Stanovaya, and uncertainty was growing since “no one understands” which responses Putin would eventually choose for every concrete action.
    21. “I think Putin doesn’t understand either,” she said.
    22. MIKE: Whenever a country sets “Red Lines” with stated or implied penalties of some sort if they are crossed, it creates an inescapable dilemma. In an oversimplified version of events, President Obama created this dilemma for himself when he set Red Lines in Syria related to chemical weapons that President Bashar al-Assad had used against his own people. When Obama chose a political route other than direct intervention, the US was seen as weak. (I’ve provided a link in this article at ThinkwingRadio[dot]com if you want a more in-depth explanation of this story.)
    23. MIKE: In essence, this is the dilemma that President Putin has created for himself. He has set repeated Red Lines that he demanded the US and NATO not cross. When those lines were crossed, Putin took no discernible retaliatory action.
    24. MIKE: When Putin rattled his nuclear sabers, there was concern that Russia might try to enforce its Red Line by launching a tactical nuclear weapon against Ukraine in a Russian military doctrine called “escalate to de-escalate”.
    25. MIKE: That didn’t happen either. In an effort to show some sort of retaliation, Russia decided to station some nuclear weapons closer to NATO countries in Belarus as an implied threat. That didn’t produce the kind of long-term deterrence of Allied support for Ukraine either.
    26. MIKE: These repeated empty threats about crossing Red Lines have delayed increased aid to Ukraine by its allies, but they have not prevented this aid from eventually being provided.
    27. MIKE: So this story is about Putin’s continuing dilemma. Does Russia have an effective deterrent that they can employ that might inflict real pain against Ukraine’s allies short of, say, launching a tactical nuke? It seems even Putin is puzzling over this. I guess we’ll know when Putin knows.
    28. REFERENCE: Obama’s Red Line, Revisited — POLITICO.COM, July 19, 2016. (“This brazen assault had clearly crossed the “red line” that President Barack Obama had enunciated a year earlier—that if Assad used chemical weapons, it would warrant U.S. military action.”)

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