Now in our 11th year on KPFT!

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

AUDIO:

POSSIBLE TOPICS:

1. ‘Oh my f–king God!’: Houston police release video of cruiser striking woman;
2. Bellaire residents voice concerns over ‘no right turn on red’ sign at Bellaire, Newcastle intersection;
3. At ‘homeless court,’ Houston’s unhoused population gets a second chance;
4. ‘Very sad for my kids’ | Mother, 3 children forced to leave Atascocita home after falling victim to rental scam;
5. Texas farmers say sewage-based fertilizer tainted with “forever chemicals” poisoned their land and killed their livestock;
6. Bluesky Overtakes Threads as Liberals Flee MAGA Trolls on X;
7. Tesla Learns Hard Lesson: Go Anti-Woke, Go Broke;
8. China is armed and ready for trade war 2.0 with Donald Trump;
9. Vietnam receives first US military aircraft;

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:

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.

Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig on KPFT Houston at 90.1-HD2, Galveston 89.5-HD2, and Huntsville at 91.9-HD2. KPFT is Houston’s Community Media. On this show, we discuss local, state, national, and international stories that may have slipped under your radar.

As much as possible, I’m still trying to do an aggravation-free post-election show. Or at least, minimally aggravating. We’ll see how long that can last.

1. I don’t usually cover this kind of story on the show, but I felt that discussing this one was warranted. — ‘Oh my f–king God!’: Houston police release video of cruiser striking woman; By Allyson Ackerman, News Editor | CHRON.COM | Nov 29, 2024. TAGS: Houston Police Department (HPD), dashcam footage, Desiree Pool, Police-involved accident,
   1. Video showing the moment a Houston mother was fatally struck by a police car in front of her screaming children was released by the Houston Police Department this week, capturing the chilling screams of the woman’s children and the officer’s distressed partner shouting in the aftermath.
   2. The newly released dashcam footage captured Desiree Pool, 41, being struck and killed by the Houston Police Department cruiser as she crossed Antoine Drive near Pinemont with her son and daughter at about 10 p.m. on Sept. 19. Houston Police pointed out she was crossing in the roadway, not a crosswalk.
   3. WARNING: This video contains graphic images and may not be suitable for all viewers.
   4. The dashcam video showed officer Shelby Kennedy driving down the street as Pool and her children suddenly came into view. The cop rammed into the mom at full speed as her children managed to jump out of the way, HPD’s video clip shows.
   5. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Oh, my f–king God. You didn’t see them?” Officer Joshua Rosales, Kennedy’s partner, shouted after the hit.
   6. “No,” Kennedy responded.
   7. “Oh, my f–king God, Kennedy,” Rosales repeated.
   8. Kennedy’s bodycam, also released by HPD, showed Pool’s distraught children sobbing as the officers performed CPR on her.
   9. “My mom! Y’all killed my mom,” one of the children could be heard shouting.
   10. “Mama, do not die on me. Come on, pray, pray.”
   11. Pool was taken to Ben Taub General Hospital where she was pronounced dead, police said. Officers Kennedy and Rosales were in the process of transporting an arrested suspect to the precinct when the crash occurred.
   12. The police department has not disclosed how fast Kennedy was driving at the time of the hit and is still investigating the incident.
   13. The victim’s 18-year-old son spoke to ABC 13 Houston and described the moment his mother was hit: “After it hit my mom, the car stopped and I saw her body fly up in the air and she went to the other side of the street,” Jaleen Gary told ABC 13.
   14. MIKE: I’ve known of HPD accidents that were avoidable In some cases, the police cars should have been using flashing lights and perhaps sirens, but were not. In one case, I knew the couple involved, so it hit close to home.
   15. MIKE: After watching this video a few times, I think this is going to be a mixed determination.
   16. MIKE: I don’t know the speed limits in this particular section of Antoine. Default for this road is 30 mph, but this is a commercial stretch so it may have been more like 35.
   17. MIKE: Based on the video, my estimation is that the HPD cruiser was going faster than 30. It may have been going 35 or perhaps as fast as 40.
   18. MIKE: It’s nighttime, and there are oncoming headlights across a narrow, raised median with trees on it. The family group is wearing a mixture of dark and very light-colored clothing.
   19. MIKE: The HPD officer in the passenger seat seems to have had a faster recognition of the people in the roadway. The officer driving apparently did not. This may have been due to oncoming headlights, the pedestrians blending into the darker-and-lighter mottled visible area ahead of him, or due to momentary distraction or inattention.
   20. MIKE: One thing that stands out to me is that the pedestrians do not seem to be actively crossing the road. Rather, they appear to be clustered in the traffic lane in a group resembling a brief huddle. They do not appear to me to be actively aware of traffic in their lane.
   21. MIKE: Even though the report stresses that the individuals were not in a crosswalk but rather in the middle of the block, pedestrians are always given the right-of-way. That being said, I suspect that whatever the final ruling ends up deciding, there was probably at least some negligence by all parties.
   22. MIKE: But at the end of the day, it appears mostly to be just a tragic accident caused by an unfortunate confluence of circumstances.
   23. MIKE: This link is the Chron story: https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/houston-police-hit-mother-19949300.php
   24. MIKE: This link is the graphic video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESC4U1lHvTI
2. Bellaire residents voice concerns over ‘no right turn on red’ sign at Bellaire, Newcastle intersection; By Kevin Vu | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 5:02 PM Dec 3, 2024 CST/Updated 5:02 PM Dec 3, 2024 CST. TAGS: Bellaire (TX), Traffic Control, Pedestrians, Traffic Safety,
   1. Bellaire residents voiced their concerns over recently installed “no right turn on red signs” at the Newcastle Drive and Bellaire Boulevard intersection during a Dec. 2 City Council meeting.
   2. … City Council originally voted unanimously Oct. 7 to install the signs near Evelyn’s Conservancy Park. Chief of Police Onesimo Lopez said during the Oct. 7 meeting that the purpose of the signs were to increase pedestrian safety, and reduce the likelihood of conflicts between right-turning vehicles and pedestrians in crosswalks.
   3. According to the ordinance document, there has been one pedestrian-involved crash at the intersection since 2019, with the driver at fault for failure to yield the right-of-way to the pedestrian.
   4. … Residents during the Dec. 2 public comment session said these newly implemented signs are likely to increase traffic.
   5. Jennifer Cannon said she is worried about the traffic congestion the restriction might cause in the mornings.
   6. “People are going off to work, they’re going to the medical center. We have a lot of doctors that live here, we’re taking kids to school,” Cannon said. “The congestion that I believe will come from this, early in the morning specifically, is going to be bad.”
   7. Other residents wondered why the restriction couldn’t be implemented during specific hours, and some, such as Gary Friedman, pointed out how there were new signs implemented in intersections other than Newcastle Drive and Bellaire Boulevard.
   8. “I talked to the city manager, [and] she was not even aware that these signs went up,” Friedman said. “Evidently, there was an ordinance 50 years ago saying these signs were supposed to be installed. They were not till the last week.”
   9. … Council member Jackie Georgiou said although she hears the residents’ concerns and will figure out how to address them, she wants to ensure the city is walkable and safe for residents and children.
   10. “We want to keep you safe …” Georgiou said. “We’re going to make mistakes, but we’re not unreasonable. We’ll fix them along the way. There are some things that cannot be undone, including a child’s life.”
   11. Council member Cindy Cohen Taylor said although she understands residents’ frustrations, she also points to residents in her community who have responded positively to the signs.
   12. “From my community, the people that live there [that] are dog walkers, power walkers, joggers with their kids, they are excited that they can safely go through that intersection and [said] how happy they are that there is no right turn on red,” Taylor said. “I hear the negative, and I don’t disagree with you about the traffic, but I also had to mention that the sentiment is that there are some positive things about it.”
   13. … City Manager Sharon Citino said they plan on taking the issue to the newly created traffic committee to do a full traffic analysis of the Newcastle Drive and Bellaire Boulevard intersection. However, city officials said there is not a timeframe on when that traffic study will be conducted.
   14. “We will take a look at all of those issues to make sure that, number one, pedestrians are protected and safe, and number two, that we’re not creating unintended consequences,” Citino said during the meeting.
   15. Bellaire’s spokesperson Cheryl Bright said the installed no right turn on red signs that aren’t on the Newcastle Drive and Bellaire Boulevard intersection have been removed, as of Dec. 3. … The signs are still installed at the Newcastle Drive and Bellaire Boulevard intersections, as of Dec. 3.
   16. MIKE: Included at the end of the story is a list of six intersections where signs were removed.
   17. MIKE: I’m sure that some listeners are wondering why I’m even bothering to mention a story on traffic signs in Bellaire. There are a couple of reasons.
   18. MIKE: For one thing, traffic changes like this can be surprisingly consequential to some people, especially residents of Bellaire. Also, there are lots of non-Bellaire residents who pass through Belaire and will be impacted by these changes.
   19. MIKE: The second reason is that back-and-forth changes like this can be confusing to drivers, and can create hazards of their own, so I’m doing my bit to help make listeners and perhaps their friends aware that this is happening, and why.
   20. MIKE: As for the reasoning of Bellaire City Council on why this was done and why it’s worthy of reconsideration, I can see both sides. In New York City, at least when I lived there, making a right turn on red was always illegal for traffic and pedestrian safety, but it was legal in most of the rest of New York State.
   21. MIKE: In Bellaire, one pedestrian fatality over 5 years may seem statistically trivial to drivers, but not to the person and family involved.
   22. MIKE: The option of a right turn lane and signal that also tells pedestrians when they shouldn’t cross could be a solution, but there has to be the room and the budget to add that lane and signal.
   23. MIKE: In any case, we’ll see what a future study says.
3. At ‘homeless court,’ Houston’s unhoused population gets a second chance; by Clare Amari | HOUSTONLANDING.ORG | December 3, 2024 @ 4:00 am. TAGS: Houston, Homeless/Unhoused People, Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/Harris County,
   1. What happens on Wednesday afternoons in a small courtroom in downtown Houston is not a traditional court proceeding.
   2. The people who come here are facing low-level misdemeanor charges, but they’re not called defendants. Instead, they’re called clients. They don’t leave bowing their heads in shame. Instead, they walk out smiling. Judge Imelda Castillo congratulates rather than admonishes. 
   3. And the man who opens the court with a roll call? It’s not a uniformed police officer but Scot More, a community resource manager for the nonprofit Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/Harris County. 
   4. More, 61, administers the city of Houston’s homeless court, a program that helps unhoused participants resolve the low-level criminal charges that can make it harder to restabilize their lives. That’s where More was on a Wednesday afternoon in mid-November, … addressing an assembly of about a dozen clients in a wood-paneled municipal courtroom.  
   5. “This is the city’s way, the Coalition’s way, and your provider’s way of saying we know how hard it is for you to get out of your situation,” More told the dozen or so “clients” assembled in the courtroom. “You’re gonna walk out of here owing nothing to anyone.”
   6. At his words, a murmur rippled across the room.
   7. “Thank you,” a man said, leaning forward in his seat.
   8. [More replied,] “No, thank you, You all did the work.”
   9. More has administered Houston’s homeless court since its launch in 2006. Over nearly two decades, he’s seen over 2,700 people pass through its doors. The program rewards participants for working with service providers to alleviate the issues that led them to homelessness — often drug addiction, mental illness, or domestic violence — by resolving charges at no cost to the client.
   10. Houston’s homeless court has been a success, with low recidivism rates — the vast majority of those who participate only ever do so once, according to data provided by Coalition for the Homeless. And it could soon expand. Currently, it only operates in the Houston municipal courts — but Sean Teare, Harris County’s district attorney-elect, plans to change that as early as next year. 
   11. [Teare told the Landing in an interview,] “I fully support it, I want (an expansion) to happen, I think it’s overdue and I think it is a benefit to the community as a whole.” 
   12. That, More said, would be of tremendous help to Harris County’s unhoused population.
   13. [More said,] “We can’t save the entire world all at once. But you can just focus on the person that’s in front of you.” 
   14. ‘… Joshua Toran Jr. was living on the streets in midtown Houston in May when officers with the Houston Police Department issued him nine low-level misdemeanor charges.
   15. Among Toran’s offenses? Sitting on a blanket on the sidewalk and possessing a shopping cart. 
   16. Toran, 48, said he might have been able to pay his fines “eventually” on a payment plan. But it would have been tough. The charges left him with “a lot of stress,” he said. 
   17. Advocates with the nonprofit Harmony House stepped in. They directed him to homeless court, where Toran saw all his charges resolved on Nov. 20. Now, Toran expects to be ordained as a minister and looks forward to attending seminary school.  
   18. “Are you in a better place?” Judge Imelda Castillo asked him in court.
   19. “I’m more optimistic than ever before,” Toran told her. 
   20. Houston’s homeless court is modeled after an original program from San Diego, California and is now one of more than 70 such programs nationwide. 
   21. The objective, More said, was to alleviate barriers to restabilization — and in particular, obstacles to obtaining valid identification. 
   22. “The number one barrier in servicing (homeless) clients is that in the state of Texas, if you owe any money, fines or fees to any court, or if you have a warrant or outstanding tickets, you cannot renew your driver’s license or obtain an ID,” said More. 
   23. That’s a problem, advocates said, because valid identification is a prerequisite to obtain work and housing in Texas.
   24. [Said Stephanie Marrone, managing attorney for Beacon Law, a nonprofit that provides legal support to unhoused Houstonians,] “Homeless court is very special because it helps either dismiss or waive the fines and fees and clear up the tickets that could be preventing this person from getting an ID.”
   25. The vast majority of homeless court participants, 81 percent, are people of color, with 84 percent reporting a “disabling condition” and 32 percent experiencing domestic violence, according to data provided by Coalition for the Homeless. Yet not just anyone can join — to participate, individuals must be referred by a social worker or case worker associated with one of Houston’s dozens of programs that serve the homeless. 
   26. Similarly, homeless court addresses only Class C misdemeanors, the lowest possible type of criminal charge, punishable only by [a] fine. The most common charges More sees in homeless court are fare evasion on Houston’s METRORail and a lack of car insurance, both of which can snowball into onerous debt. 
   27. [More said,] “It’s $1.25 to (ride) the rail. If you don’t pay that, the ticket’s $75. If you don’t pay that, it goes up to $250. If you don’t show up to court, they throw a warrant. That’s another $250. So for not having $1.25, they owe $500. None of our clients would be able to pay that.” 
   28. That’s why a traditional, punishment-based approach to criminal charges against the homeless is counterproductive, said Steve Binder, a special advisor to the American Bar Association’s Commission on Homelessness and Poverty and co-founder of the San Diego homeless court. 
   29. [Binder said,] “If they can’t afford a place to live, they can’t afford to pay a fine. It’s too easy to get a conviction and to mete out punishment for a person who’s homeless and fail to address the problem and really meet everyone’s desire for a healthy individual and a healthy society.”  
   30. Homeless court addresses that problem by rewarding participants for their work with service providers to address the issues that led them to homelessness. In 2023 alone, the program helped participants resolve $138,000 in outstanding fines.
   31. [Binder said,] “The (homeless) court is essentially compounding the value of those service agencies when it works with them and recognizes the hard-won skills and accomplishments individuals have done in program activity. Which for us might seem very simple, but for someone who’s been on the streets is very challenging to come by.” 
   32. … Currently, only the Houston municipal courts operate a homeless court. Their counterparts at the county level — the justice of the peace courts — do not. 
   33. That means that only individuals charged by the Houston Police Department or the METRO Police Department can participate in the program. Those charged by other agencies, like local constables or the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, see their charges route into the county courts — and face steeper barriers to restabilization. 
   34. [Said Marrone about cases heard in county courts,] “The timeline in terms of resolution is a lot longer and there are a lot more pitfalls our clients can fall into.”
   35. That could soon change, however. One justice of the peace, Steve Duble, whose precinct encompasses much of the city of Houston, has already implemented an informal version of the program in his courtroom in which he resolves charges for clients referred by pro bono attorneys. And Sean Teare, Harris County’s district-attorney elect, said his transition team has already been in talks with service providers about launching the program county-wide. 
   36. “Ideally it (will happen) in the first half of 2025, but it will be next year that we at least have an iteration of the program stood up,” said Teare. “I want something like that in order to ensure that we’re treating our unhoused population appropriately while still maintaining a city and a county.”
   37. More is optimistic about the difference that could make for Harris County’s homeless, [saying,] “Every single time I go to a docket, I feel more energized to help others and to make it a positive experience for them. I never get tired of this.”
   38. MIKE: The first thing I’d like to point out here is that elections have consequences and can cause change, both good and bad.
   39. MIKE: I’d also like to do another callout to Justice of the Peace Steve Duble [DOO-bul], who I’ve discussed on this show before for his progressive and thoughtful ways of handling indigent low-level offenders in his court.
   40. MIKE: Technically, the United States no longer has debtors’ prisons or workhouses for those in impossible debt, but when you ticket and fine a person of very limited means and then incarcerate them for non-payment, or if you’re ticketing and fining a homeless person with no ability to pay and then incarcerate that person, isn’t that a form of debtors’ prison? And then, when a person is contracted out to private industry for pennies an hour, ostensibly to help pay for their incarceration, is that not equivalent to a workhouse? It’s all a matter of semantics.
   41. MIKE: People become homeless for many reasons, including the fact that many folks are living paycheck to paycheck, and losing that income can force someone onto the street within weeks.
   42. MIKE: Just last week, I covered a story about Mayor Whitmire’s ideas on dealing with Houston’s homeless. Part of that plan was to cover the entire city with a so-called “civility ordinance” where it’s a misdemeanor to sit, lay down, or place personal items on sidewalks between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m.
   43. Mayor Whitmire also suggested extending the hours of the existing ordinance to prohibit sleeping on the streets after 9 p.m.
   44. MIKE: This amounts to requiring the unhoused to stand and walk and carry their things nonstop for 24 hours per day and 7 days per week, without rest or sleep. What could be a more inhumane attitude? While this was not the whole of Mayor Whitmire’s ideas, this part almost took my breath away.
   45. MIKE: If solving the problem of homelessness was easy, we would have done it long ago, but people become unhoused for many reasons. That’s one reason it’s hard to help everyone. Another reason is an absence of financial will.
   46. MIKE: Solving the problems leading to and perpetuating homelessness will require creativity as well as the will and the money. This program covered by Houston Landing seems like one helpful option.
   47. MIKE: By the way, for the record, I’ve mispronounced Judge Duble’s name in the past. It looked French to me, and may once have been, but his name is pronounced “DOO-bul”. My apologies.
   48. REFERENCE: Houston mayor looks to launch $70M pilot program to deal with homelessness; By Cassandra Jenkins | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 1:25 PM Nov 25, 2024 CST/Updated 1:24 PM Nov 25, 2024 CST. TAGS: Houston Mayor John Whitmire, Homelessness, Greater Houston Community Foundation,
4. In a related story — ‘Very sad for my kids’ | Mother, 3 children forced to leave Atascocita home after falling victim to rental scam; Author: Matt Dougherty | KHOU.COM | Published: 9:21 PM CST December 3, 2024/Updated: 10:13 PM CST December 3, 2024. Tags: Rental Scams, Homelessness,
   1. A mother and her three small children have been told they have 48 hours to move out of the home they were renting in a subdivision in Atascocita.
   2. Why? Because they were scammed.
   3. On Tuesday, Harris County Precinct 4 Constable’s Office deputies told Dixenia Resendiz she was a victim of a scam by a fake landlord.
   4. “Where am I going to put my kids?” she said.
   5. The mother of three young children said she thought she had found the perfect home for her family, which happened just last week.
   6. She said she found a post on Facebook that showed the home for rent. It had three bedrooms, two baths and a two-car garage. 
   7. Best of all, the rent was only $1,000 a month.
   8. Dixenia messaged the man whom she thought was the owner. He asked her if she’d like to go take a look at the home on Thanksgiving Day.
   9. The man said he was going to send Dixenia a code to open the lockbox for the key to get inside. The code worked when Dixenia got there, but the key was zip-tied.
   10. The man just told her to cut it free and go inside the home.
   11. [After touring the home,] she quickly signed the documents … and paid the man $1,000 for the first month’s rent, $800 for a deposit and $200 for application fees.
   12. The family started moving in right away, putting up the bunk beds and decorations on the walls.
   13. [Then,] on Tuesday night, the family [was] having to pack up their things once again.
   14. She said a man showed up earlier in the day with a company called American Homes. He told Dixenia his company was the real owner of the home, and they had not leased it to her.
   15. She was told she needed to leave right away.
   16. She told him she was calling the police and that she had spent what little she had in savings to move into the home and had no place to go.
   17. Deputies then arrived and told her she had been scammed.
   18. Dixenia was told there was no chance of her getting her money back and that she needed to go report the fraud to the bank. …
   19. It will not be the Christmas this family had in mind.
   20. Now, she must file a report so deputies can hopefully locate the scammer.
   21. A GoFundMe has been set up to help Dixenia and her family move and find a new place.
   22. MIKE: There’s a link to the GoFundMe for her and her kids.
   23. MIKE: This isn’t the most common reason that people become homeless, but it’s not unheard of.
   24. MIKE: I found a link to a company called American Homes 4 Rent (aka AHM), which may or may not be the company mentioned in the story, but it seems like a possible owner. They own tens of thousands of homes around the US. I wish the person who wrote this story had provided a link to the correct company.
   25. MIKE: If the owner is in fact a large, well-capitalized company, it’s a shame that they could not work out something with Ms. Resendiz, even on a temporary basis. After all, they were both victims of this scam, and the company already will have to do some cleaning and repairs after Ms. Resendiz and her family move out to make it move-in ready again.
   26. MIKE: I recognize that potential squatters’ rights issues are a concern for the owners, but surely something could have been arranged.
   27. MIKE: I used to own 5 rental properties. I started by renting them out on my own, but quickly decided to go through a realtor. Even with the realtor’s fee, this turned out to be a far better arrangement for me.
   28. MIKE: So for prospective renters, I offer this advice.
   29. MIKE: If you are looking for an apartment to rent, consider directly contacting the on-premises rental office first. Otherwise, go through a realtor. It costs you nothing since the fees are paid by the property owner.
   30. MIKE: Alternatively, if the property says it’s for rent by owner, you can verify ownership easily. In Harris County, you can visit the Harris Central Appraisal District at HCAD[dot]ORG and click on the “Property Search” link on the top left. You can also click on the link I’m providing to go there directly.
   31. MIKE: You can enter the property address, and the legal owner will appear. You can then search online for the legal owner’s contact information. If the contact information provided in the ad is the same as what you find for that owner, you can be reasonably confident.
   32. MIKE: But in my humble opinion, going through a licensed realtor or an onsite management office is still the safest route.
   33. MIKE: All major counties have an equivalent agency they rely upon.
   34. MIKE: As they used to say on “Hill Street Blues”, be careful out there.
5. Texas farmers say sewage-based fertilizer tainted with “forever chemicals” poisoned their land and killed their livestock; By Alejandra Martinez | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | Dec. 2, 2024 @ 5 AM Central. TAGS: Environment, State Government, Agriculture, Sewage-Based Fertilizer,
   1. Tony Coleman recognizes the signs all too well. … There’s nothing to be done. The cow dies.
   2. Since early 2023, the Grandview rancher has watched more than 35 of his 150 Black Angus cattle perish … leaving Coleman with nothing but unanswered questions. …
   3. Next door, James Farmer has lost two calves, and found two of his wife’s beloved horses toppled to the ground like dominos, their bodies swarmed by buzzards. …
   4. Months before, the men said they noticed a gag-inducing sewage smell drifting from smoking piles of fertilizer on their neighbor’s property. Heavy rains then washed some of the fertilizer onto their land. Soon after, they said they found fish floating dead in the stock ponds their livestock drink from.
   5. They contacted the county with their concerns, triggering a nine-month investigation. That’s when their cattle and horses began to die.
   6. An environmental crime investigator in Johnson County collected samples of the dead animals’ tissue and organs, the water they drank from, and the soil and the fertilizer that was applied next door.
   7. After the county received test results, the two families finally got their answer: The animals had been killed by something in the fertilizer.
   8. The fertilizer had been made with biosolids, part of an effort to find a climate-friendly method to recycle municipal sewage. But the fertilizer also contained synthetic and highly hazardous chemicals known as PFAS, which are found in hundreds of household products and have had devastating effects on farms and ranches that inadvertently spread them on their land.
   9. An untold number of farms and ranches across Texas and the rest of the nation may have also used fertilizer made from sewage tainted with these “forever chemicals” — which don’t break down in the environment — without knowing it.
   10. PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are man-made chemicals used since the 1940s that have a singular ability to repel oil and water and resist heat. They are used in products like nonstick cookware, pizza boxes, waterproof mascara, toilet paper, soaps and rain jackets.
   11. There are more than 12,000 types of PFAS, but researchers have only studied the health effects of roughly 150. They can contaminate food and water and build up in the body over time. Exposure to certain PFAS has been linked to cancer, low birth rates and birth defects, damage to the liver and immune system, and other serious health problems. One study found the chemicals in the blood of nearly 97% of all Americans. …
   12. Then they end up in local wastewater treatment plants where the solids are separated from sewage. Fertilizer companies … are often paid to haul these biosolids away, [and] process them into fertilizer that’s sold to farmers and ranchers as a cheaper alternative to chemical fertilizers.
   13. A number of Texas wastewater plants have contracts with fertilizer companies to take their biosolids, including Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, and Arlington. Nationally, more than half of sewage sludge was treated and spread on land, according to one study; 19 billion pounds of it was spread on American farms between 2016 and 2021, the nonprofit Environmental Working Group found in 2022.
   14. Wastewater treatment and biosolids experts call this an environmental win-win …
   15. But nobody knows how much of that fertilizer is contaminated with PFAS, which can be absorbed by crops, consumed by livestock, and then enter the food supply. There are no requirements to test biosolids for PFAS, or to warn farmers and ranchers that they could be using contaminated fertilizer made with biosolids on their land.
   16. [Said Kyla Bennett, a former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency employee who is now a science policy director for the nonprofit group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility,] “Some people are saying, [PFAS contaminations] are isolated incidents. No, they’re not. I guarantee that this is a problem in every single state that uses biosolids. …”.
   17. According to EPA data analyzed by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group in 2022, an estimated 5% of all crop fields in the U.S. — up to 20 million acres — could have used fertilizer made with biosolids. In Texas, more than 157,000 dry metric tons of biosolids-based fertilizer were applied to agricultural lands in 2018.
   18. While the EPA recently set limits for a handful of the chemicals in drinking water, those rules do not cover biosolids. …
   19. Without federal regulations, some states have taken action, requiring wastewater treatment plants to test their biosolids for PFAS or setting their own limits for PFAS in biosolids. Texas is not among them. …
   20. Coleman and other Johnson County farmers who know their land is contaminated are now faced with an existential dilemma: Do they sell their cattle and their crops, knowing they’re likely laced with PFAS, or face financial ruin?
   21. Coleman and Farmer have both decided not to sell any cattle. That means the men now run zombie farms. They pay to feed animals and harvest hay that they won’t sell — a single 900-pound steer could sell for $4,800, Coleman said.
   22. [Coleman said,] “Everything we plant here is just sucking this [PFAS] up. The cows drink the water and eat the grass. For them there is no escaping.”
   23. … In February, Johnson County residents packed the courthouse and listened intently as Dana Ames, an environmental crime investigator for the county, and other local officials explained the findings from the nine-month investigation into the noxious smells and dead livestock.
   24. Ames … sent samples to a lab in Pennsylvania, [and] told residents that the liver of the Coleman’s stillborn calf contained 610,000 parts per trillion [ppt] of perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, or PFOS, one of the many types of forever chemicals.
   25. The tissue from a calf belonging to Farmer that died a week after being born tested at 320 ppt of PFOS.
   26. Currently, there are no federal food safety standards for PFAS. In Maine, which in 2016 became the first state to detect PFAS contamination at a farm, state officials issued limits for beef containing PFOS at 4 parts per billion and milk containing PFOS at 210 parts per trillion — meaning that beef or milk exceeding these levels should be considered unsafe for consumption. Maine, which has discovered 78 contaminated farms and shut five of them down, has been the only state to set its own PFAS limits for food. …
   27. The Colemans, Farmer, and four other local farmers have sued Synagro, the Maryland-based company that produced the biosolids-based fertilizer applied on their neighbor’s fields, and Renda Environmental, a Texas-based fertilizer company that sold to the neighbor … The lawsuit claims the companies knew about the contaminants in the fertilizer and failed to provide adequate warnings to its customers.
   28. Synagro denies the allegations. Kip Cleverley, a spokesperson with the company, said the company did its own testing on the land where the fertilizer was applied … The company did not provide its test results to the Tribune, saying its analysis was still in progress. …
   29. Renda Environmental told the Tribune the company does not comment on pending litigation. …
   30. [T]he EPA is now studying the presence of PFAS in wastewater and sewage sludge nationally, and conducting a risk assessment on the use of biosolids and sewage sludge containing the two most widely used and studied forever chemicals — PFOA and PFOS — focusing on health risks through exposure to soil, water, crops, meat and dairy. It expects to publish the results by the end of this year, which will determine whether new federal rules are necessary. …
   31. In Texas, most biosolids end up in a landfill. But the rest is diverted for agricultural use in Texas. …
   32. Pitched as a cost-effective way to improve soil fertility, biosolids have been applied to land in the U.S. since the 1970s. Scientists say they contain nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium that helps plants grow.
   33. The EPA only requires wastewater treatment plants to test biosolids for heavy metals and pathogens that can be harmful to health.
   34. If the EPA issues new restrictions on PFAS in biosolids, utilities fear they are likely to bear the responsibility for removing the chemicals from wastewater. …
   35. The cost of removal is significant: A 2023 report by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency found that it would cost between $2.7 million and $18 million per pound [of PFAS] to remove and destroy [it] from municipal wastewater, … and between $1 million and $2.7 million per pound of PFAS removed from biosolids. …
   36. Following the county’s investigation, [Johnson County Commissioner Larry Woolley] led the charge to pass a local resolution urging farmers to stop using biosolids on their land.
   37. The resolution called for Fort Worth to stop sending its biosolids to fertilizer companies until the TCEQ [Texas Commission on Environmental Quality] tests them for the presence of PFAS and asked the EPA to set limits on PFAS in biosolids. The resolution also called on state lawmakers to regulate the application of biosolids-based fertilizer on farmland or give power to counties to do so. …
   38. In July, neighboring Ellis County passed a similar resolution … Since then, Kaufman, Henderson, Somervell and Wise counties have done the same. …
   39. So far, there have been no bills filed by state lawmakers regarding PFAS contamination in biosolids ahead of the [Texas] legislative session that begins in January.
   40. In 2021, Michigan began requiring all municipal wastewater treatment plants to test their biosolids for PFAS before spreading them on agricultural land. The state [is now] prohibiting the application of biosolids containing more than … 100 ppb and added another type of PFAS to the list, PFOA.
   41. What experts refer to as the “Michigan model” has now been embraced by other states including California, Wisconsin and Washington. Connecticut and Maine have banned the use of biosolids on agricultural fields.
   42. Ellen Mallory, a professor of sustainable agriculture at The University of Maine, said state response has been crucial given the lack of standards at the federal level. …
   43. Meanwhile, Tony Coleman and his wife are still watching their livestock die. They pack dead cattle in a big cooler, load them onto a trailer and drive 140 miles to a laboratory at College Station where vet technicians perform a necropsy and remove tissue to be tested for PFAS.
   44. The couple both work two jobs and are looking for a third. They’re worried they have lost the ability to make a living off their own land.
   45. [Coleman said,] “We can’t consciously sell you a side of beef and then you eat it and you get sick. What kind of people [would] that make us?”
   46. MIKE: As long as this story is, I cut it by more than half for this show. I recommend going to the original story in the Texas Tribune to read it in full, and to see the photos used to illustrate it. It’s heartbreaking.
   47. MIKE: I first became acutely aware of the dangers of so-called “forever chemicals” when I watched a movie called “Dark Waters”, a 2019 film about a farm in West Virginia that became contaminated by these chemicals around 1998 because DuPont was dumping their waste into local waterways, ultimately causing a lot of sickness and death. I recommend watching that movie. It’s both informative and dramatically well done. Three out of four stars.
   48. MIKE: While the method of contamination here is less direct than in West Virginia, the lessons learned from those events still apply, and probably should have been setting off alarm bells for decades before governments began to seriously address these chemicals as major environmental hazards on a national scale. As this article mentions, Texas and many other states still do not.
   49. MIKE: Trump’s EPA may also set aside federal rules that are under development and implementation.
   50. MIKE: Texas Republicans would probably decry any new environmental regulations relating to PFAS and related chemicals as undue burdens on businesses and utilities.
   51. MIKE: I have had a theory for many years that you couch arguments in different ways depending on your audience. I say that Liberals are more likely to do things because they’re right. Conservatives will do things to protect themselves or to avoid financial injury.
   52. MIKE: So for Conservatives in, for example, Texas government, I would argue for strict PFAS regulations in Texas by pointing out that their absence damages agriculture in Texas by creating fear over the contents of food produced and processed here. Agribusiness also loses money when animals and crops have to be destroyed due to contamination.
   53. MIKE: Further, treatment of illnesses caused by these chemicals in water and food cost Texas government, businesses, and citizens a lot of money in direct out-of-pocket costs, as well as indirect costs paid through insurance premiums and taxes.
   54. MIKE: Not all agribusinesses and farmers will do the right thing like the Colemans. After all, the law in Texas doesn’t require it.
   55. MIKE: But that’s why we need smart regulations. So that people and businesses do the right thing, even if it’s just because the law says so.
6. Bluesky Overtakes Threads as Liberals Flee MAGA Trolls on X; By Lily Mae Lazarus , Reporter | THEDAILYBEAST.COM | Updated Nov. 24 2024 @ 3:34AM EST / Published Nov. 23 2024@3:08PM EST. TAGS: X/Twitter, Bluesky, Threads, Facebook, Meta, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Mark Zuckerberg,
   1. Social media start-up Bluesky is exploding as academics, journalists, and left-leaning politicians abandon Elon Musk’s X in search of bluer skies. Now, the platform has surpassed Meta’s Threads in user numbers, yet Threads still leads in app usage.
   2. According to data from Similarweb, app and website usage of Bluesky in the United States rose more than 500 percent following President-elect Donald Trump’s election win, raking in 3.5 million daily users. The platform still only has around 21.5 million users as of Nov. 22.
   3. “We’ve been growing by about a million users a day for several days,” Bluesky CEO Jay Graber told NPR on Monday. “It’s proving out the model that we thought would be the right approach to social [media]: Give people the tools to control their experience and they’ll have a better time.”
   4. The app, created by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, debuted in 2019 as a desktop and app-based social network that operates similarly to X. Users can post text, videos and photos, reply to one another and share other users’ posts. The platform is now led by digital rights activist and software engineer Graber.
   5. Aside from the growing discontent among X users with Musk, Bluesky’s expansion has come partly from its “starter pack” feature that allows users to follow curated groups of accounts with the click of a button.
   6. This growth, however, has faltered due to repeated outages and glitches, and concerns over its future success as a working business model.
   7. Still, prior to Nov. 5, Threads had five times more daily U.S. users than Bluesky. Now, the Meta run platform is only 1.5 times larger than its much smaller rival.
   8. Some have attributed the closing margin to Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to de-prioritize political content across its apps, including Facebook and Instagram.
   9. By contrast, Musk has curtailed content moderation on X since taking over the platform, leading to concerns about the spread of disinformation.
   10. The Tesla executive’s embrace of deregulation, his affiliation with Trump, and promotion of fringe theories prompted a first wave of user departures after the app was suspended in Brazil in September.
   11. The temporary ban coincided with Bluesky picking up 3 million new users that week. The X alternative added another 2 million users in the two days after Musk announced his app would allow blocked users to view posts by those who had blocked them.
   12. Since Trump’s election victory, however, several prominent businesses, celebrities, and journalists have publicly and officially left X, including Target, The Guardian, journalist Don Lemon, actor Bradley Whitford, and singer Barbra Streisand.
   13. MIKE: As @ThinkwingRadio, I’m currently active on Threads and I’m starting to post on BlueSky as well. I still have a presence on X, but rarely go there.
7. In an indirectly-related story from April that I’ve been waiting to use this on the show — Tesla Learns Hard Lesson: Go Anti-Woke, Go Broke; By Collin Woodard | JALOPNIK.COM | Published April 23, 2024. TAGS: Cybertruck, Tesla, Democrats, Elon Musk, Woke, Anti-Woke,
   1. Things are not going well at Tesla right now. The stock is down more than $100 per share [at the time this story was written], as many as 20,000 people are set to lose their jobs, the Cybertruck keeps breaking, operating profit is expected to be down 40 percent when it’s announced later [on April 23,] and the $25,000 electric vehicle that Tesla has reportedly been working on is apparently canceled. As the Wall Street Journal reports, some but not all of that stress can be attributed to Tesla alienating what was previously its most valuable demographic — Democrats.
   2. Historically, Democrats have bought Teslas in significantly larger numbers than people with other political affiliations. As Elon Musk has moved to the right, interacting with far-right accounts, promoting [so-called] race “science,” anti-Semitism, homophobia, transphobia, and complaining about the “woke mind virus,” though, the number of Democrats interested in giving him their money has dropped significantly. Late last year, that figure reportedly dropped by more than 60 percent.
   3. Unfortunately for Tesla, while Republicans have embraced Musk’s political heel-turn, they haven’t necessarily been buying his cars in large enough numbers to offset the sharp drop in interest from left-leaning people. That’s likely due in part to Republican politicians using EVs as an example of how Democrats want to destroy the auto industry, control your life, and force you to own nothing and eat bugs.
   4. While surveys have found lower consumer interest in Teslas ever since Musk bought Twitter, when it came to actual sales, Democrats didn’t really start to drop off significantly until [October 2023]. They made up 40 percent of Tesla’s sales for the 2022 model year and 39 percent for 2023, yet when the 2024 model year Teslas went on sale, the number of Democrats in the mix dropped to 15 percent.
   5. Even with Republicans and Independents buying more Teslas, first-quarter sales still dropped overall, with deliveries down even more significantly. You didn’t necessarily have to wait for Q1’s results to see this coming, though, as Tesla sales were up 43 percent in California in Q3 but dropped 10 percent in Q4.
   6. For years, Tesla had the exclusivity of its Supercharger network as its trump card. Other EVs may have been capable of a road trip on paper, but the non-Tesla charging network is still unreliable at best, so if you planned to use your EV as more than a daily driver, Tesla was still the best option available. It may be a coincidence, but late fall is also about the time that it became clear that every automaker in the U.S. would be switching to Tesla’s North American Charging Standard and would have access to the Supercharger network. By allowing non-Teslas to use its charging network, Tesla may have finally freed Democrats who would have previously bought a Tesla reluctantly to instead buy their next EV from a competitor.
   7. That said, Democratic sales have rebounded a bit since last fall. [MIKE: I’ll note, remember that this story is from April.] By the end of February, they were back up to 35 percent of Tesla’s sales mix. “Elon hasn’t been in the press as much as he has previously,” Strategic Vision’s Alexander Edwards told the Wall Street Journal. “This lack of negative press and antics, combined with EV [shoppers] today…shopping various EVs and they find that the Model 3 and Y are still, in their opinion, the best decision based on value.”
   8. If that’s true, then we’ll be especially interested to see what more recent numbers look like.
   9. [MIKE: Again, this is from April. We’ll have to wait and see the fourth quarter of 2024 and first quarter of 2025. Continuing …]
   10. The Cybertruck has quickly become a national embarrassment, with one even being defeated by a simple car wash. And with even more negative press expected to come out of [that day’s] earnings call, Musk isn’t exactly doing the best job of staying out of the news these days, which according to Edwards can only mean bad news for Tesla.
   11. MIKE: Again, pointing out this story is over 7 months old. Lots of electricity has passed through the wires since then. And Musk has only gone more radically to the Right.
   12. MIKE: When Tesla was the only electric car available, it was mostly the so-called “woke” and environmentally conscious liberals that bought them. Tesla is no longer the only game in town, so alienating those customers is probably a bad idea.
   13. MIKE: Alternatively, his current most-devoted followers are the types most likely to remove pollution controls from gas-powered vehicles for any performance boost, and seem to believe that gas-guzzling vehicles are more patriotic.
   14. MIKE: Musk makes money in many ways. Owning X isn’t one of them, and selling Tesla cars may not be as profitable as owning and hyping Tesla stock.
   15. MIKE: Tesla also has other strikes against it as a consumer product. Their quality control seems to have gotten worse, and their after-sale customer service is a bad joke. Some car aficionados also complain that the cars’ designs are stale and need updating. Of course, many folks said the same about the old Volkswagen Beetle, so take that opinion for what it’s worth.
   16. MIKE: One result for current Tesla owners is that Elon Musk’s antics have driven down resale values by a lot.
   17. MIKE: In any case, buyers who want electric or electric-hybrid vehicles now have many choices. As the current richest man in the world, Musk may not care. But his investors might. Caveat emptor. Buyer beware.
8. China is armed and ready for trade war 2.0 with Donald Trump; Analysis by Juliana Liu, CNN | CNN.COM | Published 5:00 PM EST, Fri November 22, 2024. TAGS: President Donald Trump, China, Trade War,
   1. In the summer of 2018, when former President Donald Trump launched a trade war with Beijing, the Chinese economy was riding high. There was even talk it could soon overtake the United States as the world’s largest.
   2. Now, with Trump months away from retaking office, what had appeared to be a juggernaut has been greatly diminished. Contending with property, debt ,and deflation challenges, China doesn’t look ready for another fight.
   3. But appearances can be deceiving.
   4. Armed with an understanding about the way the president-elect operates, the Chinese leadership is better equipped to deal with the real possibility of Trump making good on his promise to impose upwards of 60% tariffs on goods sold to the United States, according to economists and analysts, through a combination of trade diversification, targeted retaliation against US companies and support for domestic consumption.
   5. [Said Dexter Roberts, author of the Trade War newsletter and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council,] “China has been preparing for this day for quite some time. The US is much less important to its trade network (than it was before).”
   6. In part because of the first trade war which continued under President Joe Biden, Beijing, as well as Chinese companies, have already started actively reducing its trade dependence on the United States. The impact is visible in trade data and has come at warp speed.
   7. As recently as 2022, bilateral trade was at a record high. But last year, Mexico overtook China as the top exporter of goods into the United States, according to the Commerce Department. China had held that perch for 20 years before its exports to the United States fell by 20% to $427 billion last year.
   8. … [D]espite selling less to the United States, China’s share of global exports is now at 14%, up from 13% before the first Trump tariffs. …
   9. What’s unlikely to be in China’s retaliatory arsenal are the big, showy moves like selling US Treasury bonds (of which China is the world’s second-biggest holder) or a major devaluation of its yuan currency, which has lost 12% of its value against the US dollar over the past three years as growth momentum slowed. …
   10. … Don’t expect a simple tit-for-tat on tariffs, said Liza Tobin, senior director for economy at the Special Competitive Studies Project, a US think tank. Instead, Beijing’s response will probably be more targeted and asymmetric.
   11. [She said,] “They’re already squeezing foreign companies operating in China, and they could turn up the heat on American firms, selecting targets they want to push out of the China market anyway
   12. In September, Beijing said it was investigating fashion retailer PVH Corp, the owner of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, for refusing to source cotton from the Xinjiang region — where Beijing has been accused of carrying out widespread human rights abuses — in a move that could lead to sanctions on an American company with major business interests in China.
   13. Last year, Chinese police raided the Shanghai office of Bain & Company, a US management consultancy, in a development that alarmed the wider American business community.
   14. Shortly after that visit, state media revealed that security authorities had raided multiple offices of international advisory firm Capvision, a consulting firm based in Shanghai and New York.
   15. Reprisals on US firms or agricultural industries would be much more likely than China selling its vast holdings of US Treasury notes in response, say economists, because the market for such bills is deep and liquid, with no shortage of buyers. Selling them could also hurt Beijing’s own interests.
   16. Lowering the value of the yuan currency could also help Chinese exports, if Trump imposes new tariffs, but analysts don’t believe this move is in the cards either. …
   17. A sudden devaluation in August 2015 generated turmoil in the stock market, [said Sean Callow, a senior foreign exchange analyst at ITC Markets]. In recent months, China’s government has indicated it wants to bolster confidence in its share markets, both for domestic investors and to present China to the world as an attractive destination for investment.
   18. It also wants the yuan to be viewed as a reliable alternative to the US dollar for central bank reserve managers, particularly those rattled by the US and European freezes on Russian assets since 2022, Callow said.
   19. … China isn’t the only target of Trump’s intended tariffs.
   20. He has proposed a 10% to 20% tariff on all imported goods, a significant increase from the current average of 2% or, in many cases, zero. He has also floated 100% or 200% tariff on cars made in Mexico or on the products made by companies that move manufacturing from the United States to Mexico.
   21. At 60% tariffs, a number of economists have calculated that the tax on imports to the United States could cut China’s economic growth rate by half (Trump’s tariff proposals would also cost the typical US household over $2,600 a year, according to a separate analysis from the Peterson Institute.)
   22. But China, a country of 1.4 billion people, also has a huge domestic consumer market it can look to if it plays its cards right.
   23. [Said Andy Rothman, China strategist at Matthews Asia,] “The best response to the tariffs that Beijing can make is to get its own house in order, by restoring confidence among Chinese entrepreneurs, who account for 90% of urban employment and most innovation. This would boost consumer confidence, which would lead to stronger domestic consumption, which would mitigate the impact of weaker exports to the US.”
   24. Last month, [China’s] National Bureau of Statistics announced the economy had moderated further in the July to September months, weighed down by weak consumption which was caused in part by ongoing problems in the property market. Gross domestic product grew by 4.6% in the three-month period, compared with a year ago. The government is targeting around 5% growth.
   25. China’s economy is grappling with a range of problems. After a summer of dismal data, Chinese leader Xi Jinping finally decided to go ahead with a much-needed stimulus package, mostly focused on monetary measures, in the last week of September. Further measures, which disappointed many, were announced earlier this month.
   26. Larry Hu, chief China economist at Macquarie Bank, wrote in a recent research report that bigger moves may have to wait until Trump’s tariffs are announced, which could happen as soon as he takes office in January.
   27. [Said Hu,]“If exports collapse, policymakers will have no choice but to escalate stimulus to the next level and housing policy will be the key to watch. But history suggests that Beijing tends to react to the actual situation … not preemptively.”
   28. MIKE: I’m certainly not knowledgeable enough to argue with anything in this article, but I might quibble over one point.
   29. MIKE: Boosting Chinese consumerism is a very tough thing to do because the Chinese consumer economy is not like America’s. Chinese citizens tend to have among the world’s highest savings rates and are notoriously frugal consumers. This is a quirk born of necessity.
   30. MIKE: While the average Chinese family is much better off than their parents were, they still make less than most Western families.
   31. MIKE: The current crisis in the Chinese real estate market has hurt many families who have paid for an unfinished apartment, which is usual in China. The problem is that these units may never be move-in or build-out ready because builders have gone belly-up. This has certainly made a dent in consumer purchasing power.
   32. MIKE: In China, the average monthly per capita income according to Salary Explorer is about RMB29,300 (Chinese Yuan), equating to US$4,044 per month at current exchange rates. So major purchases consume a larger fraction of the average Chinese family’s earnings than in the US. For example, a compact washing machine with above average features might cost about RMB3500, which equals about $483 dollars.
   33. MIKE: Down payments for cars range from 15-20% at a minimum, but loans are available for the balance. Appliance purchases are eligible for various national and provincial rebates, but those are not enough to induce most Chinese consumers to buy appliances they don’t immediately need, which makes them like most consumers around the world.
   34. MIKE: And while medical insurance is nearly universal, out-of-pocket expenses for a serious illness might only be covered to about 50%, and the levels of care are less than you might expect. Nursing is often a family affair. In fact, putting money into a medical savings account is mandatory, so your insurance often is what you have saved.
   35. MIKE: From my wife, in-laws, and various acquaintances, I’ve learned that culturally, insurance generally is an almost alien concept to the average Chinese, so they don’t tend to buy insurance unless required to.
   36. MIKE: For all these reasons and more, Chinese families tend to save money because savings are the only real insurance they have. This is why the Chinese Communist Party always faces an uphill battle when it tries to boost domestic consumer spending.
   37. REFERENCE: How Health Insurance Works in China, and How It’s Changing — NYTIMES.COM, By Keith Bradsher, Feb. 23, 2023
   38. REFERENCE: Healthcare in China — From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
   39. REFERENCE: China eases car loan policy for first time since 2018 to boost demand — By Reuters, April 3, 2024
   40. REFERENCE: Households’ Income and Consumption Expenditure in 2023 — STATS.GOV.CN. TAGS: Vietnam, Vietnamese Air Force, US Arms Sales, Russian Arms Sales,
9. Vietnam receives first US military aircraft; The delivery of 5 Beechcraft training aircraft points to potential future arms deals. By RFA Staff | RFA.ORG (RADIO FREE ASIA) | 2024.11.19. TAGS: Vietnam, Vietnamese Air Force, US Arms Sales, Russian Arms Sales,
   1. A batch of five Beechcraft T-6C Texan II – the first military aircraft provided by the U.S. to Vietnam – has arrived in Tan Son Nhat airport in Ho Chi Minh City, witnesses told Radio Free Asia.
   2. One witness, who didn’t want to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, said he saw five training aircraft, all painted with Vietnamese air force markings, at the civilian airport in the southern hub but was told they’d be moved to a military airbase soon.
   3. The flight tracking website Flightradar24 said the first of them landed at around midday on Monday after a nearly two-hour flight from Don Mueang airport in Bangkok where it had made a transit.
   4. The Beechcraft T-6 Texan II is a single-engine turboprop aircraft built by Textron Aviation used for pilot training, especially those flying U.S fighter jets such as the F-16. Vietnam’s acquisition of them indicates possible F-16 purchases in the future, say analysts, in order to modernize its air force that has traditionally been dependent on Soviet-made hardware.
   5. According to the manufacturer, the T-6 Texan II is a next generation military trainer designed for all instruction levels.
   6. Vietnam ordered 12 brand-new T-6C Texan II aircraft, the export variant of the T-6, in 2021 in what was seen by observers as a big step forward since the end of the Vietnam War.
   7. Washington only lifted its ban on the sales of lethal weapons to Vietnam in 2016. At Vietnam’s first defense expo in December 2022, U.S. Ambassador Marc Knapper said his country wanted to be part of Hanoi’s efforts to globalize, diversify and modernize its armed forces.
   8. Brigadier General Sarah Russ from the U.S. Pacific Air Force, or PACAF, told Vietnamese media in the same month that the training aircraft would be delivered during the 2024-2027 period.
   9. “The arrival of the Beechcraft aircraft represents a small but important step forwards in Vietnam’s defense relations with America,” said Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.
   10. “However, it remains to be seen whether Vietnam will purchase any big-ticket items from the U.S. such as second-hand F-16s or whether it will stick with its more trusted partner Russia,” he added. “Newer U.S. planes, such as the F-35, are way out of Vietnam’s budget.”
   11. Air force modernization
   12. The five T-6C Texan II trainers left the U.S. early this month and flew via Europe and the Middle East before reaching Vietnam, according to Flightradar24.
   13. A Vietnamese military source told RFA that they will be based with the 920 regiment at the Phan Thiet military airport in central Binh Thuan province.
   14. Since the end of the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese air force has been operating a number of western aircraft seized from the South Vietnam military but the T-6C Texan II is the first direct purchase from the U.S.
   15. Most of Vietnam’s warplanes have been supplied by the Soviet Union, and later Russia, among them 35 Sukhoi Su-30s and more than 30 Su-22s, the older variant.
   16. Vietnam bought 12 Yak-130 jet trainers from Russia in 2019, leading to speculation that it might be ordering more advanced Russian fighters.
   17. “Moscow is keen to sell Hanoi its Su-57 and Su-75 stealth fighters. But Western sanctions against Russia and problems in Russia’s defense sector will give Vietnam pause for thought,” Storey told RFA.
   18. Another contributing factor is the safety record of Russian equipment.
   19. In January, a Vietnam Air Force Su-22 tactical fighter-bomber lost control and crashed during a routine training flight in Quang Nam province.
   20. This month, a Yak-130 training aircraft exploded mid-air in Binh Dinh province. Its two pilots managed to eject and survived.

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   1. Obtain a Voter Registration Application (HarrisVotes.com)
   2. Just be registered and apply for your mail-in ballot if you may qualify.
   3. You can track your Mail Ballot Activity from our website with direct link provided here https://www.harrisvotes.com/Tracking

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