Now in our 11th year on KPFT!

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:

1. Live online at KPFT.org (from anywhere in the world!)
2. Podcast on your phone’s Podcast App
3. Visiting Archive.KPFT.ORG

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

1. ELECTION INFO:
   1. The general election is Nov. 5.
   2. In just about 2 weeks, the deadline to apply for a mail ballot is October 25. Click on the link I’m providing to HarrisVotes[dot]Com for the application. Please fill it out, print it, and mail it (NOT email or fax). The application must arrive before the deadline.
   3. In 2 Weeks, Early Vote Centers will be open starting Monday, October 21– Friday, November 1 (Mon-Sat: 7 a.m. – 7 p.m. Sun:12 p.m. – 7 p.m. )
   4. Voting Centers will accept voters from 7 a.m. – 7 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, November 5.
   5. 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!
   6. 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.
   7. REFERENCE: Texas Election Code
   8. REFERENCE: Texas Secretary of State, Alicia Pierce, Assistant Secretary of State for Communications,
   9. REFERENCE: Brennan Center for Justice, Sean Morales-Doyle,  Director, Voting Rights Program
   10. REFERENCE: Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector & Voter Registrar
   11. REFERENCE: Fort Bend County Election Administrator, John Oldham
   12. REFERENCE: League of Women Voters, Texas
   13. REFERENCE: S. Election Assistance Commission
   14. REFERENCE: 1993 National Voter Registration Act
2. Sugar Land opens 24/7 textile recycling drop-off bin; By Aubrey Vogel | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 2:05 PM Oct 7, 2024 CDT / Updated 2:05 PM Oct 7, 2024 CDT. TAGS: Textile Recycling, Sugar Land (TX),
   1. Textile recycling opportunities have expanded in Sugar Land, officials said.
   2. … The city of Sugar Land launched a textile recycling drop-off bin Sept. 6 at the Public Works campus, located at 101 Gillingham Lane, Sugar Land. The bin is a part of a pilot program, which looks to expand recycling opportunities, Communications Director Doug Adolph said.
   3. “Recycling textiles reduces the amount [of] waste sent to landfills and gives items like fabrics and shoes a second purpose,” he said. “Additionally, it raises awareness about sustainable practices and encourages residents to consider the lifecycle of their clothing and other textiles.”
   4. … According to the city’s website, the program aims to target products going to landfills and not those that can be donated. Textile items accepted at the 24/7 drop-off bin include: Bedding, sleeping bags and pillows; Clothing, coats and jackets; Curtains, draperies and linens; Pet beds and clothing; Shoes, sandals and slippers; Stuffed animals; [and] Fashion accessories including handbags, purses, hats and gloves.
   5. Residents can also receive porch pick-up by completing the online textile recycling request form or call Green City Recycler at 832-989-2745, Adolph said. The city initially launched the pick-up service in November 2021.
   6. … Additionally, Sugar Land will host a drive-thru recycling event on Oct. 19 from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. at Brazos River Park, located at 18427 Southwest Freeway, Sugar Land.
   7. The event is limited to Sugar Land residents, who will need to provide an identification card and city utility bill to drop off items such as aerosols, electrics, small household appliances and clothing, according to an Oct. 2 news release.
   8. To see a full list of accepted items, click here.
   9. MIKE: I’m curious to know how these various and very different types of textiles will be recycled, or at least what the plan is.
   10. MIKE: I know that some textiles can be pulverized and turned into things like fiber-impregnated papers and felts, but this range of textiles seems challenging.
   11. MIKE: I’ve written to the City of Sugar Land to see how they plan to recycle these materials. If I get a response, I’ll let you know.
3. Now, two stories from CLICK2HOUSTON that tie together — Abbott to give Texas $50M for Hurricane Beryl, Derecho cleanup; Ninfa Saavedra, Digital Content Specialist | CLICK2HOUSTON.COM | Published: October 9, 2024 at 8:57 AM. Tags: Gov. Greg Abbott, Hurricane Beryl, Derecho, Debris, Texas
   1. Governor Greg Abbott announced Wednesday the approval of $50 million to help Texans who are still dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl and the Derecho storm that left debris outside of homes and businesses for weeks or months.
   2. “As Southeast Texas recovers from devastating severe weather this summer, Texas continues working to support local communities as they rebuild and move forward from Hurricane Beryl and the Derecho Storm,” said Gov. Abbott. “As many across the country experience a lack of and delayed funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Texas is providing $50 million in emergency funds to assist impacted communities in their ongoing efforts to remove debris. I thank my legislative and state partners for helping to quickly make these funds available for our fellow Texans. Working together, Texas will ensure that our communities have the necessary resources to prepare, respond, and recover from severe weather.”
   3. Abbott said the emergency funds are being made available from the General Revenue (GR) Account 549, the Waste Management Account, and will be used for previous and current debris removal costs.
   4. “Hurricane Beryl and the Derecho left several counties with extensive debris removal costs, so as Legislative Budget Board Co-Chair, I fully support making funds available to help pay these costs,” said Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. “In the wake of natural disasters, Texans know best how to help Texans. This money will ease the burden for our neighbors across the affected areas in East and Southeast Texas, and the Houston area.”
   5. In August, KPRC 2 reported Houston residents who were still complaining about debris in their neighborhoods five months after Hurricane Beryl had passed.
   6. The City of Houston released a debris tracker where residents would be able to find out when crews were coming to their area to remove the debris.
   7. Although this offered some relief to Houstonians, many said it wasn’t enough.
   8. KPRC 2 reporter Amy Davis even reached out to the city for answers, and they said they were contracted with three disaster debris companies for storm debris removal. Houston City Council also approved spending $120-million for the project but it’s not clear how much has been spent and if this new fund will repay what was spent.
   9. The funds announced Wednesday for debris removal will be administered by the Texas Division of Emergency Management with assistance from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
   10. If you’re still dealing with debris, Solid Waste said you can report it to 3-1-1.
   11. MIKE: I’ll note a couple of things here. First, if there are insufficient funds for FEMA, consider that Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson recessed the House without providing new funds for FEMA even with Hurricanes approaching Florida and the Southeast. Johnson has also refused to recall the House back into session to allocate additional funds. This is part of a decades-long example of Republican governance: Break government by not allocating adequate funds to do its job, and then complain that government doesn’t work.
   12. MIKE: Second, the $50 million dollars allocated by the State of Texas is not specifically for Houston. It’s for “communities” plural.
   13. MIKE: Now we go to the next story, and you’ll see the connection.
4. City of Houston is not raising your taxes this year. The vote was unanimous.; By Michael Horton, Digital Content Producer, Houston, TX | CLICK2HOUSTON.COM | Published: October 9, 2024 at 1:56 PM/Updated: October 9, 2024 at 2:48 PM. TAGS: Houston, Greg Abbott, Amy Peck, Property Taxes, Houston City Council, Houston Mayor John Whitmire, Hurricane Beryl, May Derecho,
   1. The City of Houston has voted not to raise property taxes.
   2. The city council voted unanimously to keep the tax rate at $0.519190 on each $100 of taxable capital—leaving the number unchanged from last year.
   3. A press release on the decision came from the Office of Vice Mayor Pro Tem Amy Peck, who said that Houston’s reputation as an affordable destination played a factor in the city’s vote.
   4. “The cost of living is low, and there has been predictability in costs,” Peck said. “Our tax base will leave if we make it more expensive, and people will reconsider opening new businesses if we increase taxes and take away the very reason people chose to be here.”
   5. The proposed tax hike was linked to the city’s need for disaster relief after the destruction of the May derecho and Hurricane Beryl across Harris County. However, Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s decision to give the city an additional $50 million in cleanup funding was beneficial to that cause.
   6. Peck commended Houston Mayor John Whitmire and the governor for their roles in making this unanimous vote possible.
   7. “I want to thank Mayor Whitmire for his work to keep our taxes low. I commend Governor Abbott for providing $50 million in emergency funds to assist with ongoing efforts for debris removal for Hurricane Beryl and the Derecho storm.”
   8. MIKE: So again, to clarify: Houston is only getting a slice of that $50 million dollars, and I’m not clear on how big that slice will be. But it won’t be enough to solve the city’s budget shortfall from clearing storm damage.
   9. MIKE: It also doesn’t solve the problem of how the city will pay for the new firemen’s contract, or myriad other budget needs without significant budget cuts and service cuts. Nor will it help the city to rebuild its rainy-day fund.
   10. MIKE: As I’ve said on this show before, my preference would have been for some sort of tax increase to put the city in better long-term financial health. Maybe that’s why I’m not in city government. Or maybe that’s why I should be.
5. Afraid to report police misconduct to the police? There’s another option.; by Eileen Grench | HOUSTONLANDING.ORG | October 7, 2024 | 5:35 pm. TAGS: Houston Police Accountability Collaborative Hotline, Police Misconduct, Harris County,
   1. Three winters ago, Kerry Lee Thomas was bitten by a police dog for 43 seconds while lying face down on the ground.  The events of the night of February 22, 2021, which started as a dispatch report of two men making noise outside of a home, left him injured, both physically and mentally, according to the lawsuit he filed against Harris County Constable Precinct 1 deputies. 
   2. Once he left the hospital, where he was treated for lacerations, puncture wounds, and muscle damage, Thomas says he wanted to tell somebody. But, officially, he said his only option was to report the bite to the very department that had hurt him. 
   3. Thomas was charged with trespassing for that night’s events, but the charges were eventually dismissed. It was not until another incarcerated person at Harris County Jail told him about Pure Justice, a Houston nonprofit organization that advocates for an end to police violence and helps run a hotline for victims of police misconduct, that he found the help he had been looking for.
   4. The Houston Police Accountability Collaborative hotline is run through a partnership between Pure Justice and the Washington, D.C. nonprofit Civil Rights Corps. The service is meant to be a resource for residents who have experienced police officers’ abuses of power. Hotline workers can help callers in Harris County file civil lawsuits, but they can also provide guidance on reporting the incident to authorities, and connect callers to advocacy organizations or basic resources for issues like housing and food insecurity. …
   5. A spokesperson from Harris County Constable Precinct 1 declined to comment on the lawsuit. 
   6. Thomas said that when he finally spoke with the hotline’s intake staff and lawyers, he felt uplifted and affirmed. And, for him, it meant a lot to not be judged for things like his tattoos or long hair. …
   7. The only way to report police misconduct in Harris County through official channels is to the police departments themselves. There are over 60 police departments within the county boundaries, each with its own internal affairs department processes for handling such reports. This can be disheartening – particularly for communities that may already mistrust police or cannot afford a lawyer to examine their case.
   8. Four years ago, in the wake of the murder of Houston native George Floyd and a national reckoning on police violence and racism, Civil Rights Corps decided to create a direct line connecting those in need with advocates and lawyers, says Brittany Francis, deputy director of litigation and leader of the organization’s Police Abuse Project.
   9. In 2020, they founded the hotline, the only one of its kind in Harris County. Simultaneously, the Civil Rights Corps worked to build a network of local lawyers trained and willing to take more civil rights pro-bono cases along with their own. 
   10. In the years since, the project has processed nearly 200 cases of individuals reaching out for help and resources, and helped initiate six civil suits in Harris County. 
   11. Initially, incoming calls were slow, but in 2023, Civil Rights Corps made a concerted effort to deepen their connections with on-the-ground organizations in Houston by attending and actively participating in local advocacy meetings, sharing pamphlets about the hotline, and spreading the word to grassroot groups working with vulnerable populations, according to Francis. Then, they relaunched the hotline. Since then, 141 people have reached out to the service, according to Civil Rights Corps. 
   12. The goals of the hotline are not just to connect people with counsel, or answer questions about their legal options, said Francis. 
   13. “It’s also just to give them a safe place to share what happened to them without intimidation or judgment or fear of retaliation, and give them an opportunity to think about ‘what do I want to do next?,’ without any fear that they’re going to be targeted.” 
   14. Community members can get in touch with the Houston Police Accountability Collaborative through its intake line but also by reaching out to Pure Justice’s advocates in their neighborhoods or at the Harris County Jail.
   15. Once someone reaches out, an intake worker will contact them within two days, said Alfredo Dominguez, a Pasadena native and the Houston Policing Project manager at Civil Rights Corps. He told the Landing that the hotline’s resources are particularly important in a place like Houston – where he wished such support would have been available to those he grew up with who were arrested in his own neighborhood. …
   16. Now, he’s able to offer this option to locals in English or Spanish. 
   17. Once an intake staffer like Dominguez gets back in touch with the caller, they ask a series of questions to find out things like whether the case happened in Harris County, if the incident happened within the last two years, whether the person already has a lawyer and the details of the incident where they say they experienced the abuse. Typically, callers get a free investigation into their case.
   18. Depending on the wishes of the caller, the organization can provide a guide to filing internal affairs complaints with the county’s dozens of police departments, and also connect callers to basic resources to deal with immediate needs like housing and food insecurity, said Francis. And if the caller is interested, staffers can help them get involved in advocacy on policing issues.
   19. Francis said the hotline’s role is also to fill a service gap: “The stop and frisk, the false arrests,  maybe a physical altercation that doesn’t result in a long-term injury but was really traumatizing to the person involved. We want to help people in those cases and make sure that they have access to counsel,” she said. 
   20. For Thomas, his initial letter from jail to Pure Justice turned into a long-lasting and trusting relationship with his lawyers. And into a civil rights case in Houston. 
   21. [Said Thomas,] “There’s a lot of people out here in Houston that need help, and they don’t know the resources or the places to go. “Everybody should know if they ever got to go through that,  I pray to God they never have to go through it, that they should go to [the hotline].”
       If you feel you have been a victim of police misconduct and wish to call the Houston PAC hotline, you can find more information here. For more information on how to report misconduct to the county’s internal affairs departments, see this Houston Landing explainer.
   22. MIKE: I can totally understand why someone might not want to make a complaint about the police to the police. Two reasons immediately leap to mind: One is concern that the complaint will effectively be ignored. The other is concern about possible retaliation.
   23. MIKE: That makes this a potentially very useful option. It gives possible victims of abuse of police power a resource to discuss their grievances, and possibly to see some form of justice done.
   24. MIKE: For more information, there are links in the article. You can find the article at HoustonLanding[dot]org, or you can access it from this week’s blog post at ThinkwingRadio[dot]com.
6. Buffalo Bayou Partnership unveils first affordable housing unit in $310M revitalization; by Céilí Doyle | HOUSTONLANDING.ORG | October 7, 2024 | 3:17 pm. TAGS: Lockwood on Buffalo Bayou, Bayou Partnership, Buffalo Bayou East Plan, Affordable Housing,
   1. When Hurricane Beryl ripped through Houston in July, it left [the Jesús and Leslie Aviles family in the East End] with a ceiling that rained onto the kitchen table, a roof on the verge of collapse and a living room that doubled as a breeding ground for mold. …
   2. Now the couple, alongside their two kids [aged 6 and 4], live in Lockwood on Buffalo Bayou, the first phase of an 18-acre development on the East End that includes affordable housing and outdoor amenities for Houstonians.
   3. The effort is part of the Buffalo Bayou Partnership’s 10-year, $310-million project to revitalize the green spaces and infrastructure that make up the stretch of the Buffalo Bayou that flows throughout the Greater East End and Fifth Ward….
   4. [Now,] the [Avileses] live in a two-bedroom apartment inside the complex off of Drennan Street …
   5. During a ribbon cutting ceremony on Saturday, U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Houston) commended the Buffalo Bayou Partnership and its real estate partner, Brinshore Development, for establishing the project’s first affordable housing apartment complex.
   6. “I can’t think of a better thing to compliment a park and green space, [than Lockwood on Buffalo Bayou],” Garcia said. “As you all know, there is a housing crisis in America. It is not just here in Houston. It is all over America, and we need to do more.”
   7. Lockwood on Buffalo Bayou, The Aviles’ new home, sits on the southern edge of Buffalo Bayou between Tony Marron Park and Lockwood Drive. A total of 80 units makes up the two, four-story buildings — 72 units of which are designated as affordable. 
   8. That means Houstonians who make between $21,300 and $56,700 — 30-80 percent of the city’s average median income — can qualify to live in Lockwood.
   9. The next two phases of the project will include another 80-unit building with 72 affordable units reserved for residents ages 55 and older as well as a collection of 76 single family homes and townhomes, half of which will be earmarked as affordable housing.
   10. All of these phases are intended to connect East End residents via hike and bike trails, parks, and housing to the center of the city as part of the larger, 10-year Buffalo Bayou East plan, Council Member Mario Castillo said on Saturday.
   11. “This is a project that really shows you what can be done when we come together from the local level to the county level to the federal, state and private sector stepping in,” he added.
   12. Funding for the initial apartment complex comes from a $15 million federal housing tax credit, another $1.3 million from the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs as well as a $9.8 million contribution from the city, which was structured as a forgivable loan, according to a Buffalo Bayou Partnership spokesperson.
   13. … If all goes to plan, by 2032, Buffalo Bayou East will have transformed the Greater East End and Fifth Ward. 
   14. According to the partnership’s master plan, those efforts will re-envision the once-industrial neighborhood that connects Houston’s Ship Channel into an intersectional community of “parks, trails, bayou-crossing bridges, affordable housing, cultural destinations, and infrastructure improvements.”
   15. In the coming months, construction will begin on nearby Tony Marron Park, which Buffalo Bayou Partnership and its partners will expand from 19 to 40 acres and will link Lockwood on Buffalo Bayou to the park as well as convert an abandoned rail easement between North York Street and Lockwood Drive into a pedestrian, bike- and car-friendly accessible area.
   16. During Saturday’s festivities Jesús Aviles smiled as his eldest, Ariel, had rainbow-colored streaks painted across her cheeks for Lockwood’s first neighborhood party hosted by the Buffalo Bayou Partnership.
   17. For now, the 28-year-old is just happy to have a dishwasher.
   18. “We have our own washer and dryer, too,” the mechanic added. “So what is there to complain?”
   19. MIKE: I was glad to see this story and I’m happy to be able to read it to you.
   20. MIKE: What I really wish is that people working full-time jobs earned enough so that they wouldn’t be categorized as “working poor”.
   21. MIKE: Note that in this story, a household income of $56,700 is still only 80% of Houston’s median
   22. MIKE: It’s also important to note that a “median” is defined as, “… a number that falls in the middle of a group. This is accomplished by ordering the numbers from smallest to largest and locating the one that falls in the middle.”
   23. MIKE: So median is simply listing-to-lowest the highest income in Houston. This is an important distinction from “average, aka “mean”, which is a true average from adding a list of all incomes and dividing by the number of incomes on the list.
   24. MIKE: It also pays to point out that this can be a more or less accurate way of describing a given situation, depending on one’s intent. It reminds us that there are three kinds of lies: “Lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
   25. REFERENCE: Median: What It Is and How to Calculate It, With Examples — INVESTOPEDIA.COM
7. Idaho State Senator Tells Native American Candidate to “Go Back Where You Came From”. The thing is, she was already there.; By Julia Métraux, Reporter (Bio) | MOTHERJONES.COM | October 3, 2024. TAGS: Idaho, Native American, Idaho State Sen. Dan Foreman, Conservative Republican, Democratic State Senate Candidate Trish Carter-Goodheart,
   1. Thinking before you speak publicly is an important skill. Idaho State Sen. Dan Foreman, a conservative Republican, apparently did not get the memo.
   2. As Boise State Public Radio, an NPR affiliate, reported on Thursday, a “meet the candidates” forum was held on Tuesday evening in Kendrick, a town with a population of about 300. Foreman attended, as did others running for District 6 state House and Senate seats. …
   3. After Trish Carter-Goodheart, a Democrat running for a House seat, pointed out that discrimination and racism exist in Idaho, Foreman reportedly lost his temper and told her to “go back where you came from.”
   4. Among the various problems with that statement [was that] Carter-Goodheart happens to be a member of the Nez Perce tribe, which has a reservation smack in the middle of District 6. She was where she came from. Foreman, as the radio piece noted, was born in Illinois. (Foreman did not respond to Boise State Public Radio for comment.)
   5. Foreman is not the only Western politician to make offensive remarks about Native Americans recently—Republican US Senate candidate Tim Sheehy admitted to doingthe same, and his Democratic rival, incumbent Jon Tester, has made it a campaign issue.
   6. Republican Rep. Lori McCann—who is running against Carter-Goodheart—told the radio station that she agrees with her opponent’s assessment of what happened, which Carter-Goodheart summarized in a statement released on Wednesday:
   7. [Carter-Goodheart wrote:] Last night, I entered what should have been a respectful and constructive public candidate forum. Instead, I was met with hateful, racist remarks from State Senator Dan Foreman, who screamed at me to “go back where you came from.”
   8. The question on the floor was about a state bill addressing discrimination. One of the candidates responded, claiming that “discrimination doesn’t exist in Idaho.” When it was my turn to speak, I calmly pointed out that just because someone hasn’t personally experienced discrimination doesn’t mean it’s not happening. Racism and discrimination are real issues here in Idaho, as anyone familiar with our state’s history knows. I highlighted our weak hate crime laws and mentioned the presence of the Aryan Nations in northern Idaho as undeniable evidence of this reality.
   9. That’s when Sen. Foreman lost all control. His words to me: “I’m so sick and tired of this liberal [BS]! Why don’t you go back to where you came from?!”
   10. I stayed. I stayed because I wanted to show our community that I can, and will, handle difficult, unpleasant situations. After the forum, several members of the crowd came up to me and offered their support, apologizing for Sen. Foreman’s behavior. But it’s not the people in the crowd who need to apologize.
   11. I need to thank the women who stood with me against this hate: Representative Lori McCann, Kathy Dawes, and Moscow City Councilwoman Julia Parker. You had my back when it mattered, and I appreciate your strength and solidarity.
   12. What happened last night was a reminder of why this election matters. I am a proud member of the Nez Perce tribe, fighting to represent the land my family has lived on for generations. People like Dan Foreman do not represent our diverse community, and I will continue to stand against the hatred and racism they spread. Our state deserves better. Our community deserves better. We deserve better.
   13. MIKE: One of the saddest parts of this is that this kind of ignorance-based hate is all too common not only among some elected officials, but among so many regular folks in their everyday lives.
   14. MIKE: I absolutely don’t believe that Conservative Republicans are stupider than Democrats, but so many of them certainly seem a lot more ignorant. But, as Robert Heinlein once said, “Ignorance is a correctable condition. Stupid is forever.” So maybe there’s hope for some of them.
8. The Blowout Jobs Report Shows the Federal Reserve Made a Mistake ; BY PHIL ROSEN, Co-Founder And Editor, Opening Bell Daily @PHILROSENN | INC.COM | OCT 7, 2024. TAGS: Federal Reserve, Rate Cuts, Economy, Job Market,
   1. The U.S. economy continues to hum at a stronger clip than many expect, which raises the question of whether the Fed made the right call going with a jumbo rate cut.
   2. Employers added 254,000 jobs in September, according to the Labor Department’s initial count — the most since the start of the year.
   3. It also revised the July and August numbers by 72,000 jobs.
   4. Plus, unemployment dipped slightly to 4.1 percent.
   5. … To be sure, a large share of new jobs are government jobs, and recent history suggests a downward revision will come at some point soon.
   6. That said, the economy looks to be in good shape and a range of recent data suggests the Fed could have opted for a smaller, 25-basis-point move in September.
   7. Gene Goldman, chief investment officer for Cetera Investment Management, has been saying for some time that the Fed did not need to be so bold with its first cut.
   8. The move by the Fed to aggressively cut rates has added a new risk that I believe becomes the biggest — or papa bear risk — to this goldilocks economy,” Goldman told me. “[That] the Fed cut rates too much, too fast.”
   9. Following Friday’s jobs data, Bank of America analysts changed their call for the November Fed meeting.
   10. They now expect policymakers to cut rates by 25 basis points, rather than 50.
   11. “The data flow since the Fed’s decision to cut [interest rates] by 50bp in September has been remarkably positive, raising the question of whether the super-sized cut was warranted,” BofA’s Aditya Bhave wrote in a note to clients.
   12. And a gangbusters jobs report aside, it was only a week ago that GDP and GDI were revised substantially higher.
   13. The Morgan Stanley team, meanwhile called the jobs report “resoundingly strong” and Goldman Sachs said the data have “reset the labor market narrative” and quelled fears.
   14. … Elyse Ausenbaugh, JPMorgan Wealth Management’s head of investment strategy, said the U.S. now looks even closer to a soft landing.
   15. Markets seem to agree.
   16. As of Sunday evening, CME data showed about 97 percent odds for a 25-basis-point rate cut in November.
   17. One week prior, that stood at about 50 percent.
   18. “The bottom line here is that a resilient labor market is continuing to support consumers and the Fed is cutting rates,” said JPMorgan’s Ausenbaugh. “Historically, that has been an environment conducive to the outperformance of stocks and bonds over cash.”
   19. MIKE: In analyzing this story, it pays to remember that INC is a capitalist-biased news site. That’s not meant to be an insult. It’s just a fact.
   20. MIKE: Given that fact, it’s worth noting three things: 1) Capitalists generally dislike a tight job market because of the upward pressure it puts on wages; 2) The Fed has two missions: Controlling inflation while at the same time maximizing employment; and 3) The general market consensus I’ve been seeing, and the one I’ve been discussing on this show over time, was that the total reduction of interest rates by the Fed for the balance of 2024 was likely going to be no more than 1 percentage point. That is to say that the 50-basis-point reduction from September was likely to lead to no more than an additional 25-basis-point reduction in October or November, and maybe a final 25-basis-point reduction in November or December.
   21. MIKE: I might point this out as an instructional moment to interpret information at least partly in the context of your source.
9. AI sparks only dim odds of nuclear chain reaction; By Robert Cyran | REUTERS.COM | October 7, 20245:07 AM CDT/Updated 4 hours ago. TAGS: Three Mile Island, Nuclear Power, Atomic Energy, Artificial Intelligence, U.S. Energy Information Administration, Chernobyl, Fukushima, Nuclear Accidents,
   1. Artificial intelligence really has gone nuclear. The hulking energy demands of machine learning prompted the United States to sign off on reopening a mothballed atomic energy plant at the infamous Three Mile Island, to follow another one due to be restarted in Michigan next year. These market and government signals have created buzz about a broader comeback for the controversial power source, but there are big economic and project management challenges to overcome before any new reactors will be built.
   2. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that the country will need 20% more electricity over the next 10 years. It’s a far cry from the 1960s, when consumption doubled, but it would nevertheless represent a dramatic increase from the stagnancy of the previous two decades. Remote facilities used to analyze and store data, and their expanding size, are just one reason for the growth. A giant factory building boom is another. Powering nearly anything that uses fossil fuels, and the surge in AI augur even greater demand.
   3. Generating the necessary supply, and cleanly, will be difficult. The Three Mile Island reactor, for example, will produce more than 800 megawatts of power. Sam Altman, the co-founder of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, talks about building a series of mega-data centers that would consume 5 gigawatts each, equal to six of the units managed by Constellation Energy (CEG.O).
   4. To put it all in context, the United States has about 1,200 GW of utility-scale electricity generation, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. New power for data centers needs to be available around the clock, and most technology developers prefer it to be green. The feat becomes harder as demand swells.
   5. If one 5 GW data center were ever built, it would require around 10 million solar panels to operate at typical efficiency. The amount of land required, in densely populated areas, alone would be staggering. But it’s the 24/7 component that is becoming even more problematic.
   6. Wind and solar depend on Mother Nature, and while batteries can store this erratic power, costly long-term mismatches between supply and demand will increasingly occur if customers keep clamoring for more. The alternatives are to install polluting gas turbines or to erect five atom-splitting plants producing 1 GW each. These simplistic calculations are one reason Nvidia (NVDA.O) boss Jensen Huang said recently that it’s impossible to win the AI race without nuclear power.
   7. If he is right, a lot will have to change. Nuclear plants are a huge source of carbon-free energy and far safer than coal, but fears over the long-lasting waste from power plants, and Chernobyl- and Fukushima-like accidents leave the industry less popular than wind or solar power. Thirty-five years of Homer Simpson cartoonishly working as a safety inspector at a nuclear facility probably hasn’t helped the industry’s image either. Worse, investors fret about cost overruns and lengthy delays. Electricity derived from nuclear hasn’t grown since 2006, according to the Energy Institute trade group.
   8. Given the risks involved and the lack of demand for big new sources of power, few utilities were willing to allocate the necessary capital. Those that dared suffered. The Vogtle reactors in Georgia were the country’s most recent. They took some 15 years to build and cost about twice their originally projected $14 billion.
   9. By contrast, capital expenditures for solar and wind projects run at a fraction of the price. They are also added to the grid faster with fewer surprises. The levelized cost of energy, essentially the expense of building and running a power plant over time, is estimated by Lazard analysts at $190 a megawatt hour for new nuclear. It’s less than a third as much for the two most popular renewables. This disparity, and the continued reduction in green energy prices, make solar the default option whenever possible.
   10. Firing up dormant nuclear plants is competitive. Although reactors are costly to build, they are relatively cheap to run. Lazard estimates it at $32 per MWh, on a par with new solar initiatives and half the price of existing coal plants.
   11. Constellation puts the tab for restarting the Three Mile Island facility at $1.6 billion. Safety concerns are minimal, considering it ran for 40 years after the partial meltdown in 1979 that closed its sister reactor. Government tax credits might be worth around $100 million a year. Moreover, Microsoft (MSFT.O) will buy the output at a rate to be between $110 and $115 a MWh, according to Jefferies analysts, who estimate this would generate a leveraged rate of return for Constellation of more than 30%.
   12. There are only a few other existing, unused U.S. plants. After that, more nuclear means new construction. Existing sites would at least curb some costs, thanks to the available infrastructure and probably faster public approvals. After that, it would require starting from scratch.
   13. For that to happen, utilities would want greater assurances that long-term power demand exists. After all, three dozen approved U.S. nuclear plants were cancelled in the 1980s when growth was slower than anticipated. Builders also would be seeking to borrow billions of dollars at reasonable interest rates. These constraints would depend on companies signing long-term contracts; governments assuming some of the financing risks; infrastructure funds and banks jumping on the bandwagon; and securing greater public support.
   14. There are some encouraging signs: Microsoft’s willingness to commit to buying power, a $1.5 billion Department of Energy loan for the Michigan reactor and an endorsement from 14 of the biggest financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs and Brookfield, of the idea to triple the world’s nuclear power by 2050. It’s more progress in a month than the industry has experienced in a decade, but it also remains decidedly insufficient.
   15. A bigger push would come from standardization. Hiring thousands of workers and teaching them specialized skills for a giant one-off customized project would be a recipe for more frustrated builders and financiers. Agreeing on a model reactor and committing to multiple plants would dramatically reduce construction costs. The miniature versions touted by some entrepreneurs have yet to be proven, meaning that convergence around bigger, established designs is a more likely outcome. Government intervention to force consensus would be ideal, but also is probably politically untenable in the United States.
   16. If everything somehow came together, the Energy Department said last month that the cost of nuclear power might fall as low as $60 per MWh. At that rate, it would be more expensive than solar, but cheaper than natural gas. The amount of coordination required, however, may be as hard to manage as fission itself.
   17. MIKE: As many of you who follow this show regularly and have heard my feelings on nuclear power may know, I’m not excited at the prospect of re-starting old, retired nuclear power plants. I consider them expensive and potentially hazardous. I also consider them surprisingly inefficient, as I have read more than once that the point at which nuclear reactor fuel is considered “spent” — which is to say, used up — still leaves about 90% of its potential energy unused.
   18. MIKE: I’m also not sure which might be worse: Restarting old nuclear plants or building new ones with what might be improved technology.
   19. MIKE: There are lots of concepts and testbeds for new nuclear power tech. Some claim to be cheaper and faster to build, making the power they generate less expensive than old nuclear plants. Others are presented as being potentially safer, and having less potential for dangerous nuclear accidents. Some even claim to be able to run on nuclear fuel rods that have been considered “spent” in old reactors, thus addressing two problems relegated to us by old nuclear tech: The need to find safe and permanent storage for what is now considered nuclear waste, as well as reducing the need to mine and refine more uranium, thus reducing the waste generated by those processes.
   20. MIKE: So far, lots of these proposals are interesting, and some may even be progressing past the initial prototype stage. But so far, I’ve found nothing that definitely assuages my concerns about the potential risks of nuclear power.
   21. MIKE: The American space shuttle program had an unknown risk of catastrophic failures until we lost Challenger and Discovery. Before those accidents, the chance of a fatal accident was rated 1:100,000. After those real-world experiences, the shuttle failure rate was reduced to just 1:100.
   22. MIKE: Using that same sort of real-world experience, there have been two catastrophic nuclear plant accidents since 1952. That could lead us to worry about 2 serious nuclear accidents per century. This does not include the new possibility of nuclear plant breeches due to acts of war.
   23. MIKE: According to the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEC), “the probability of a catastrophic accident in a nuclear power plant is very small — [on the order of] 1 chance in 1,000,000,000 per year of operation.” But I think the key word there is “catastrophic”, and the claim seems to address the probability of a catastrophic accident in any one plant.
   24. MIKE: I’ve never taken statistics, so you can view this with a grain of salt, but over the three-quarters of a century that nuclear power plants have been operated, there have been perhaps a half-dozen nuclear accidents involving radiation releases. At least two of those — Chernobyl and Fukushima — have been sufficiently “catastrophic” that they not only remain dangerous, but the danger they pose is unlikely to be adequately remediated for at least the balance of this century.
   25. MIKE: In Wikipedia, I found this statistic: “Globally, there have been at least 99 (civilian and military) recorded nuclear power plant accidents from 1952 to 2009 (defined as incidents that either resulted in the loss of human life or more than US$50,000 of property damage …), totaling US$20.5 billion in property damages.^{[citation needed]} Property damage costs include destruction of property, emergency response, environmental remediation, evacuation, lost product, fines, and court claims.^[6] Because nuclear power plants are large and complex, accidents on site tend to be relatively expensive.^[7]”
   26. MIKE: Note that the Fukushima accident occurred in 2011, so it’s not included in that statistic.
   27. MIKE: I’ll stop there. You may draw your own conclusions.
   28. REFERENCE: List of nuclear power accidents by country — From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
10. On the other hand, there is this glimmer of hope for quickly and safely scaling up the US power grid — A polluting, coal-fired power plant found the key to solving America’s biggest clean energy challenge; By Ella Nilsen and CNN Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir | CNN.COM | Published 4:00 AM EDT, Mon September 16, 2024. TAGS: Solar Power, Coal Plant, Connects To The Grid, Utility Plug, Xcel Energy,
    1. The smokestacks on the aging Sherco coal power plant tower over gleaming solar panels that stretch across thousands of acres of farmland.
    2. The polluting coal plant is on its way out, scheduled for retirement in the next five years. It’s generated billions of dollars’ worth of electricity in its 50-year life, but the most valuable of its parts is the plug — how it connects to the grid that powers our homes.
    3. Instead of letting it go to waste as the fossil fuel plant closes, Xcel Energy is going to leave it plugged in to connect the largest solar project in the Upper Midwest, and one of the largest in the entire country, directly to the grid.
    4. Repurposing the so-called interconnection system is short-circuiting what could have been seven years of bureaucracy and red tape to get this electricity distributed to its customers.
    5. Experts say this is the secret to solving America’s clean energy dilemma: There is more electricity from clean energy waiting to get connected to the grid than the entire amount of energy currently on the grid. The years-long delays are an existential threat to many projects’ chances of getting built. …
    6. The US could essentially double the capacity of its electrical grid overnight by plugging renewables projects into old fossil fuel power plants, University of California Berkeley researchers found, whether they be coal, gas or oil. And projects could be plugged into existing plants, not just ones that are retiring.
    7. [Said Umed Paliwal, a senior scientist at UC Berkeley and a lead author of the study;] “This should be one of the main strategies that we adopt going forward, because we already have so many existing assets, so much grid infrastructure and we don’t want to just throw them away.”
    8. It is far faster to build a project like Sherco solar right now than it is for that project to connect to the electric grid. That’s because room needs to be made on the grid to add new sources of energy, which requires lengthy engineering studies and uncertain project timelines. A cheap, clean energy boom is now running up against this complex, regional bureaucracy. …
    9. … The answer to supercharging clean energy could lie inside some of the most polluting power plants in the US.
    10. Sherco has been Minnesota’s largest coal-fired power plant — and its biggest polluter — since it was built over the course of the 1970s and 80s. Its smokestacks emitted around 5 million tons of planet-warming pollution in 2022 alone, the equivalent of over 2 million cars spewing emissions in a year.
    11. But as Berkeley researchers found, plants like Sherco that are either gradually retiring or even still operating are good candidates for renewables to plug into their infrastructure.
    12. [Said Sonia Aggarwal, CEO of clean energy think tank Energy Innovation, and a former White House climate official,] “Any fossil fuel power plant does not operate every single hour of the day. The other hours — that big plug, this really valuable resource that everyone is waiting years to get access to — that’s just sitting there, not being used.”
    13. Aggarwal and Paliwal argue this method allows utilities to have the best of both worlds; they can build wind and solar farms nearby, put that clean energy on the grid during the hours a coal or gas plant isn’t producing electricity, and not have to entirely shut down a plant.
    14. Doing so brings a multitude of benefits. It helps save jobs at a plant that might otherwise be threatened by closure and helps increase the local tax base around the plants. In Minnesota, Xcel is promising no layoffs for workers at the Sherco coal plant.
    15. [Said Ryan Long, Xcel Energy’s Minnesota president,] “We really need them to stay at those coal plants until the end of (the plant’s) life … , “When the time is right, we’ll find them a job at Xcel Energy and we’ll retrain them and position them for success in that role.”
    16. It can also result in savings for electric customers, as the plants ramp down coal and switch to wind and solar, which are far cheaper sources of energy.
    17. The Berkeley study considered several factors to determine good candidates for interconnection: whether there was land nearby a thermal plant suitable for wind and solar; how much energy could be generated by the sun or wind; and how much renewable energy could be fed into a plant’s interconnection system.
    18. The answer to that last question? A lot.
    19. Paliwal and his colleagues found that by 2032, utilities could install a whopping 1,000 gigawatts of new clean energy near power plants that checked all three boxes. And those are the big numbers America needs; energy analysts believe data centers, AI and the increased demand as people electrify homes and cars.
    20. Several power plants in Illinois are attempting something similar, and in Virginia, a new solar array is plugging into the interconnection at a nearby gas plant.
    21. For Pete Wyckoff, who serves as the Minnesota Commerce Department’s deputy commissioner of energy resources, the Sherco solar farm represents a chance to produce energy locally.
    22. “We’re a good wind and solar state,” Wyckoff said. “Anything we burn that’s fossil fuel, we are importing. We are making the wind and solar electricity here.”
    23. It’s also a huge step forward for Minnesota’s climate and clean energy goals. Under its Democratic governor and 2024 vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz, the state is aggressively trying to decarbonize its power sector — getting to 100% clean electricity by 2040.
    24. “That is a key driver for how we’re going to decarbonize the rest of the economy,” Wykoff said. “We’re aiming to be clean economy-wide by 2050. And I think we can get there.”
    25. MIKE: The potential fast ramp-up in interconnectivity to the US and North American grid ties in nicely to a story I discussed on this show on May 1 about new technology for increasing the capacity of existing long-haul high-voltage transmission lines. If that technology performs as promised and is quickly adopted, it can greatly increase the capacity of our current grid without necessarily requiring as much construction of new towers or acquisition of new rights-of-way.
    26. MIKE: None of this will be cheap, but it may be possible to increase our electrical grid capacity faster and for less cost than current estimates suggest. Let us hope.
    27. REFERENCE: The century-old transmission line is getting a 21st century upgrade; By Bloomberg Wire | DALLASNEWS.COM | 7:00 AM on Apr 14, 2024.
11. Scoop: U.S. wants to use Hezbollah’s weakness to elect new Lebanese president; By Barak Ravid | AXIOS.COM | Oct 4, 2024. TAGS: Hezbollah, Lebanon, Israel, United States,
    1. S. officials say the White House wants to take advantage of Israel’s massive blow to Hezbollah’s leadership and infrastructure to push for an election of a new Lebanese president in the coming days.
    2. … Lebanon hasn’t had a president for almost two years, which has increased instability and exacerbated the political and economic crisis in the country.
    3. Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, top militia commanders and other Hezbollah members were killed by Israeli airstrikes in recent weeks, weakening the influential militia. …
    4. Nasrallah blocked any effort to elect a person who was not its ally Suleiman Frangieh.
    5. One candidate is the commander of the Lebanese armed forces Gen. Joseph Aoun, who is supported by the U.S. and France. The Lebanese armed forces will be a key player in any post-war settlement in Lebanon.
    6. With Nasrallah dead and Hezbollah at its weakest in years, the Biden administration thinks there is now an opportunity to dramatically reduce its influence on the Lebanese political system and elect a new president who is not an ally of the Shia militia, two U.S. officials said.
    7. … The Lebanese political system is built on power sharing between the different religious sects. The post of the president is occupied by a Christian.
    8. At the end of October 2022, former president Michel Aoun, who had close relations with Hezbollah, ended his term. Since then the Lebanese parliament hasn’t reached a consensus on a new president.
    9. The U.S., France and several Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have been trying for two years to mediate between the different political parties in the country to reach a compromise, but almost every initiative was undermined by Hezbollah.
    10. [U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said [last] Thursday,] “We have made clear for some time that we think the Lebanese government needs to overcome the dysfunction in the system — one of the primary instigators of that dysfunction being the Hezbollah veto over who the next president would be — and elect a president. That remains true.”
    11. Behind the scenes: Two U.S. officials said the White House sees the current situation in Lebanon as an opportunity to break the deadlock over the election of a Lebanese president and thinks this should be the top priority, even before a push for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
    12. In recent days, Lebanon’s acting prime minister Najib Mikati told President Biden’s adviser Amos Hochstein he wants to move forward with the plan the U.S. laid out in June for a diplomatic solution in Lebanon.
    13. Hochstein told Mikati that the proposal “is off the table” because the conditions on the ground have changed in the last two weeks due to the increased fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, the U.S. officials said.
    14. Instead, Hochstein told Mikati the priority should be electing a new president.
    15. Lebanese foreign minister Abdallah Bou Habib met [last] Thursday in Washington with the State Department’s top Middle East diplomat Barbara Leaf. According to the Lebanese official news agency, Leaf told Bou Habib that there is a need to elect a new president as soon as possible due to the situation in the country.
    16. The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.
    17. [Last] Thursday, Mikati called for electing as soon as possible a new president who represents the majority of Lebanese.
    18. [Mikati said,] “The key point is to elect a president who is not aligned with one team against another.”
    19. … The U.S. officials said the first priority is electing a Lebanese president, then reaching a diplomatic solution to the conflict at the Israeli-Lebanese border based on a UN resolution that was adopted after the 2006 war in Lebanon but never fully implemented, and then appointing a new Lebanese prime minister.
    20. MIKE: This was the essence of an observation I made on last week’s show. That the current conflict in Lebanon may be an opportunity for the Lebanese central government to finally assert greater authority over the territory of Lebanon while greatly reducing the influence of Hezbollah in Lebanon’s domestic and international affairs.
    21. MIKE: I said then, “Perhaps at the end of all this fighting, Hezbollah will be sufficiently weakened that it can’t re-assume the commanding authority it had in Lebanon before October 7^th of last year? What if Israel returns captured territory to the Lebanese army as a peace offering rather than to Hezbollah? What if Israel even aids the Lebanese military, perhaps with US and allied help, in reasserting itself in all of Lebanon?”
    22. MIKE: I said that with some hope. Let’s hope there was also some prescience.
12. Chinese maritime cranes pose national security risk at ports, House GOP warns; by Tobias Burns | THEHILL.COM | 09/13/24 10:37 AM ET. Tags China, Jiang Zemin, Ports, S.-China relations, Maritime Cranes, Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry Co. Ltd. (ZPMC),
    1. US reliance on Chinese maritime cranes is presenting a national security risk since the cranes can be accessed remotely with built-in modems, Republicans on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party warned in a staff report Friday.
    2. Describing the modems as “hidden” and “unauthorized,” the committee said its discovery was troubling …
    3. [The staff report says,] “These cellular modems, not requested by U.S. ports or included in contracts, were intended for the collection of usage data on certain equipment. This constitutes a significant backdoor security vulnerability that undermines the integrity of port operations.”
    4. The cranes in question are made by the Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry Co. Ltd. (ZPMC), a state-controlled enterprise in China that does business with ports all over the world.
    5. House Republicans, expressing alarm at the potential vulnerability, also noted ZPMC and similar Chinese companies were not contractually prohibited from installing backdoors into their hardware.
    6. [The report said,] “ZPMC and other [Chinese state-owned enterprises] are not contractually barred from installing backdoors into equipment or modifying technology in ways that could allow unauthorized access or remote control, enabling them to compromise sensitive data or disrupt operations within the U.S. maritime sector at a later time.” …
    7. A representative for the American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA) told The Hill … that “there have been no known security breaches of equipment at US ports.” …
    8. Chinese embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu described the primary assertion of the House report as “entirely paranoia.”
    9. “We firmly oppose some politicians from the U.S. side overstretching the concept of national security and abusing national power to obstruct normal economic and trade cooperation between China and the U.S.,” he wrote in an email to The Hill.
    10. [He added that,] “Playing the ‘China card’ and floating the ‘China threat’ theory is irresponsible and will harm the interests of the U.S. itself.”
    11. While the U.S. and Chinese economies are still deeply intertwined, with China holding heaps of U.S. debt and the U.S. buying loads of Chinese products, economic relations between the countries have exhibited signs of stress in the aftermath of the pandemic …
    12. Recent U.S. policy shifts toward domestic investment and manufacturing, notably in semiconductors, have added a tailwind to this turbulence, though many policy shops in Washington stress the economic symbiosis between the U.S. and China.
    13. MIKE: I had actually noted a story about this in the Wall Street Journal in March of this year and even saved it, but I don’t think I ever brought it up on the show. I’ve linked to that story at the bottom of this comment.
    14. MIKE: No end-user products should have network access from a vendor unless the buyer is aware of it. National security questions aside, this was an unacceptable secret feature for the seller to include.
    15. MIKE: But when you add the national security implications — for example, the possibility that China could disable these port cranes at will when their national interest might require it — this is not only unacceptable, but potentially threatening.
    16. MIKE: It serves as further notice that buying any product that includes Chinese electronics comes with risks of Chinese surveillance or interference. These kinds of routines don’t even have to be in software. They can be hard-wired, embedded in circuitry. And it especially becomes a risk when these electronics are embedded in US or allied infrastructure.
    17. REFERENCE: Espionage Probe Finds Communications Device on Chinese Cranes at U.S. Ports; Story by Dustin Volz | WALL STREET JOURNAL VIA MSN.COM | MARCH 7, 2024.

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