Now in our 12th year on KPFT!

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Beginning April 20th, Thinkwing Radio will air on KPFT 90.1-HD2 on Sundays at 1PM, and will re-air on Mondays at 2PM and Wednesdays at 11AM. Thanks for listening!

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Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio) is now on Sundays at 1PM and re-runs Wednesday at 11AM (CT) on KPFT 90.1 FM-HD2, Houston’s Community Media. You can also hear the show:

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1. This first story is emblematic of what’s currently playing out on the state and national stage, and will be a key topic of this show — Fort [Bend] County commissioners appoint new citizens redistricting committee members amid ongoing debate; By Tomer Ronen | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 4:34 PM Jul 23, 2025 CDT/Updated 4:34 PM Jul 23, 2025 CDT. TAGS: Fort Bend County, Citizens Redistricting Advisory Committee,
   1. Fort Bend County Judge KP George appointed Jacob Lee, treasurer for the Fort Bend Conservative PAC, to head the county’s new Citizens Redistricting Advisory Committee in a July 22 meeting.
   2. Appointments come after a July 8 Fort Bend County Commissioners Court meeting, where a 3-2 vote approved the creation of the committee, which will allow the public to advise the court on redistricting. Precinct 2 Commissioner Dexter McCoy [D] and Precinct 4 Commissioner Grady Prestage [D] cast the dissenting votes.
   3. … The move comes after several debates about how to draw county voter precincts this year, following a letter from state Rep. Matt Morgan, R-Richmond, saying 37 of 174 of the county’s voter precincts during the November election did not meet state population requirements. In the letter, he urged commissioners to take immediate action to “uphold the integrity of the electoral process.”
   4. State law requires counties with populations over 100,000 to contain no less than 100 and no more than 5,000 voters in each precinct.
   5. … Other appointees to the committee include:
   6. Robert Beham [R], second vice chairman for Fort Bend County Republican Party (appointed by George)
   7. Wendy Duncan [R], who ran for Precinct 3 commissioner in 2020 (appointed by Precinct 1 Commissioner Vincent Morales)
   8. Ryan Yokubaitis [couldn’t find a party affiliation], Pecan Grove Municipal Utility District president (appointed by Morales)
   9. Upendra Sahu [Member of “Indo-American Conservatives of Texas I-ACT”, so probably a Republican], assistant secretary for Fort Bend County Levee Improvement District (appointed by Precinct 3 commissioner Andy Meyers)
   10. Mike Gibson, former chairman for Fort Bend County Republican Party (appointed by Meyers)
   11. McCoy and Prestage did not nominate advisory committee members, with McCoy citing unclear processes for the committee.
   12. [McCoy said,] “I don’t know how we’re supposed to participate in a process when legitimate questions have not been answered.”
   13. … County officials declined to comment on when and where the committee will meet.
   14. MIKE: The partisan makeup of the new Fort Bend redistricting committee doesn’t even pretend to be fair-minded. It’s just another aspect of the anti-democratic, bit-by-bit fascist takeover of America by Trump and his fascist-leaning enthusiasts.
2. ‘We’re cooked’: Mattress Mack issues stark warning for Harris County; “We pray, may Harris County be great again.” By Faith Bugenhagen, Trending News Reporter | CHRON.COM | July 24, 2025. TAGS: Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale, Harris County MAGA PAC, Harris County, Harris County GOP,
   1. Famed furniture mogul and conservative firebrand Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale joined local GOP activists Wednesday night to rally support for the newly formed Harris County MAGA PAC, calling on hundreds of attendees to help “save Harris county” before it’s too late.
   2. [McIngvale said on Wednesday night,] “If we go to hell in a handbasket and become Detroit, we’re cooked.”
   3. Borrowing talking points akin to those floated while McIngvale backed former GOP challenger Alex del Moral Mealer’s bid for Harris County judge, he stressed the need to crack down on crime while headlining the PAC’s debut party. He spoke from personal experience, discussing his decision to shut down his Post Oak Boulevard store due to an uptick in criminal activity at the location and a road-rage-related incident his son-in-law experienced while on his way to work.
   4. Throughout the evening, speakers echoed a shared narrative: that Harris County had drifted too far from God, country and conservative values. McIngvale praised President Donald Trump for returning both God and patriotism to the national spotlight.
   5. [Mcingvale questioned the crowd of hundreds, saying,] “Isn’t it interesting that the governments which deny the existence of God are the same governments that deny the existence of human rights?” [Mcingvale] suggested that God may be stirring conservatives in Harris County, bringing them to the “edge of danger” to restore “Thomas Jefferson’s vision, the dignity of man, and the belief in God” in local politics.
   6. [MIKE: At this point, I think it’s necessary to clarify the way in which Thomas Jefferson believed in God. MacInvale is correct that Jefferson believed in God, but he might take exception to how Jefferson believed in God.
   7. [MIKE: Jefferson was a Deist, rather than a conventional Christian. His entry in the Encyclopedia Virginia (which I’ve linked to in this show post) describes his beliefs thusly: “Thomas Jefferson was deeply but unconventionally religious. An empiricist, he believed that a rational and benevolent God was evident in the beauty and order of the universe. He professed “Christianism,” a belief in the morals taught by Jesus of Nazareth, but he rejected Jesus’s divinity, resurrection, the atonement, and biblical miracles. As such, Jefferson’s beliefs resisted conventional labels, and in 1819 he suggested to a correspondent that ‘I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know.’ Jefferson meticulously cut up four copies of the Gospels (in English, French, Greek, and Latin), retaining only selected passages, without miracles, to create The Jefferson Bible, his own book for spiritual guidance and solace.”
   8. [MIKE: I would also question Mack’s assertion, “that the governments which deny the existence of God are the same governments that deny the existence of human rights”.
   9. [MIKE: The actual article goes into more detail.
   10. [MIKE:, I also might observe that if America is currently in the hands of a so-called “God-fearing” government, I don’t see evidence for recognition of God-given “human rights” in the operation of ICE, in how our current regime governs, nor in the party that supports it.
   11. [MIKE: So when Mattress Mac recruits Jefferson into his ideas of Christianity, he might want to be careful how he invokes him. Continuing with our regularly scheduled story …]
   12. McIngvale emphasized the idea that Harris County serves as a ground zero for what conservatives could accomplish, condemning those who wanted to leave instead of stay.
   13. [McIngvale said,] “The question is, how do we save Harris County? We stay and fight. Fight for what’s right. We can take Harris County back, but it’s an effort. It’s work.”
   14. The PAC, founded by Terry Wheeler, Clark Denson and Bill Ely, aims to bring a business attitude to getting people elected and wants to take a less “elitist” approach to politics. Joseph Trahan, founder and executive chairman of BIZPAC (which helps organize small businesses to be effective in legislative bodies) and [a] former Texas Senate GOP candidate, is on the advisory board of the PAC, among others.
   15. Organizers touted Trump — whose cardboard cutout and MAGA paraphernalia showered the room in a wave of red — as having the “swamp” and RINOS (Republicans in name only) handled in D.C., noting that the president couldn’t be everywhere all at once.
   16. [Denson said,] “Harris County is a situation where we need to stand up and take control of this.”
   17. Denson and the other PAC founders emphasized that their mission is not to compete with the Harris County Republican Party or other Republican and conservative groups, but rather to support their outreach to voters and identify candidates to be elected to office.
   18. Pastor James Buntrock, executive director of My God Votes — a conservative, Christian civic mobilization group based in Houston — and advisory board member for the Harris County GOP, opened and closed the night in prayer. Buntrock thanked God for showing people mercy by “giving” the country Trump.
   19. [Buntrock said,] “We pray, may Harris County be great again.”
   20. MIKE: Yeeeeaaaaah … No. If they want to make Harris County “great” again the same way that MAGA is making America “great” again, we would be in deep doo-doo.
   21. MIKE: I want to know what they want to do to make Harris County “great”, and what their definition of “great” is.
   22. MIKE: If it’s making Harris County Christian and Godly, that would literally be un-American and besides that, would violate the US Constitution. But these people are blind to the separation of religion and state, and they’re blind to the reasons why that principle is fundamental to American society, culture, and democracy.
   23. MIKE: I always have to remind people about the historical context of the First Amendment.
   24. MIKE: There were continent-wide religious wars in Europe from roughly the mid-16^th century to the mid-17^th That means that the 18^th century framers among our founders knew that history that to them was as recent as World War 2 and World War 1 are to us.
   25. MIKE: In other words, in many cases, they had heard stories of these religious wars and the horrors and hardships they brought from the living memories of their parents and grandparents, as well as others they knew or met.
   26. MIKE: In this context, the motivation and centrality for the First Amendment’s so-called “establishment clause” is clear. The Founders wanted to spare this country from an attempt to establish some form of national religion that could bring us civil strife, ideological persecution, and potential religious war.
   27. MIKE: When I posed the question, “How do the Federalist papers discuss the establishment clause,” Google’s AI answered in part, “While not using the term ‘establishment,’ the broader discussions about securing individual liberties and preventing governmental overreach implicitly touched upon the importance of religious freedom. The papers focus on the structure of government and preventing tyranny, which in turn would protect the freedoms of individuals, including their religious beliefs.”
   28. MIKE: In other words, religions and other institutions retained their liberty and freedom of belief only by preventing the government from interfering with them, dominating them, or choosing one of them to be supreme and governmentally “established”.
   29. MIKE: Modern Republicans generally, and rightwing Conservatives especially, eschew this principle, and in fact they may be entirely ignorant of it, willfully or otherwise.
   30. MIKE: I believe that is the institutional fight that confronts us. We must not only resist this effort to nationalize religion and ideology — any religion and ideology — as well as do a better job of educating people as to why separation of religion and state is essential to our democratic and theoretically tolerant form of government.
   31. MIKE: It’s kind of remarkable, I think, that Mattress Mac, in a local story, gave me a reason to rehash all of this, but here we are.
3. Houston mayor’s newly created police ‘club unit’ closed 5 clubs over 3-day period; By Kyle McClenagan | HOUSTONPUBLICMEDIA.ORG | Posted on July 22, 2025, 4:03 PM (Last Updated: July 22, 2025, 4:42 PM). TAGS: Arts & Culture, City of Houston, Houston, Houston Mayor, Local News, Police, Houston Mayor John Whitmire, Houston Night Life, Houston Police Department, Washington Avenue,
   1. Houston Mayor John Whitmire announced this week that the Houston Police Department’s new crime protection team “club unit” issued over 100 citations at local bars and clubs, resulting in five closures.
   2. Whitmire announced the new police unit on [Xitter] Monday and said the unit is part of an initiative to ensure compliance from local bars and clubs.
   3. [Whitmire said,] “We want to continue to improve the quality of life. Currently, there’s about 700,000 people daily coming to the suburbs. We want them to live [in Houston].”
   4. [In a post on Xitter, the “Houston Mayor’s Office @houmayor said, The @houstonpolice new Club Squad is a specialized team focused on addressing nightlife-related complaints like excessive noise, traffic disruptions, and illegal activity. HPD and partners are working to improve public safety and enhance quality of life for our residents.”
   5. According to a separate series of posts by Whitmire’s office, the three-day initiative took place late last week from July 17-19.
   6. Here are all of the arrests, citations, and other actions taken by police over the three-day initiative, according to the mayor’s office: 13 inspections; 115 citations; 12 warnings; 2 misdemeanor arrests; [and] 5 club/bar closures
   7. On Tuesday, HPD told Houston Public Media that the following five bars/clubs were closed by either the Houston Health Department or Houston Public Works for health and/or permit violations. [These included:] Zen …; Bar 5306 …; XO …; Lincoln Bar …; [and] Luxx …
   8. All five locations are along Washington Ave., an area known for its nightlife that was targeted last year by police. The duration of the closures varies per location and HPD did not provide further details regarding the violations of each establishment.
   9. Along with inspecting local establishments’ permits, HPD also conducted a DWI enforcement initiative over the same three days, which resulted in several other arrests and citations. [These included:] 104 traffic stops; 91 citations; 43 warnings; 8 DWI arrests; [and] 3 “other” arrests.
   10. These two initiatives are just the most recent in a series of similar operations by Whitmire’s administration and HPD. In June, HPD conducted two different traffic enforcement initiatives along two different roadways at the request of Whitmire.
   11. MIKE: It’s my understanding that excessive noise, traffic disruptions, and illegal activity have been common complaints from residents and some businesses in the Washington Avenue vicinity, and I’m sympathetic to that.
   12. MIKE: In a city without zoning, there must be some kind of “civility” enforcement. And I’m using the term civility with some irony, since the mayor seems to apply it mainly to homeless people. I think that “civility” should be more broadly defined, and more frequently discussed and sometimes enforced.
   13. MIKE: Don’t you think it’s interesting that our city government as replaced what used to be called “vagrancy laws” with the more civic-minded term, “civility laws”?
   14. MIKE: I’m not sure what’s “civil” about constantly rousting homeless, powerless people and destroying their skimpy possessions while offering them very limited alternatives. But that’s another story.
4. And this is part of that other story — Trump signs an executive order to make it easier to remove homeless people from streets; By Jennifer Ludden | NPR.ORG | Updated July 24, 20256:13 PM ET. TAGS: Homelessness Crisis, Grants Pass, President Trump, Addiction Treatment,
   1. Fulfilling a campaign promise, President Trump has signed an executive order that seeks to overhaul the way the U.S. manages homelessness.
   2. The order signed Thursday calls for changes to make it easier for states and cities to remove outdoor encampments and get people into mental health or addiction treatment. That includes involuntary civil commitment for those “who are a risk to themselves or others.”
   3. [The order states,] “Endemic vagrancy, disorderly behavior, sudden confrontations, and violent attacks have made our cities unsafe.”
   4. … The White House action also seeks to shift federal funding away from longtime policies that sought to get homeless people into housing first, and then offer treatment. Instead, it calls for prioritizing money for programs that require sobriety and treatment, and for cities that enforce homeless camping bans.
   5. It also directs the departments of Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Transportation to assess federal grant programs and prioritize places that actively crack down on illicit drug use, urban camping and loitering, and urban squatting “to the maximum extent permitted by law.”
   6. Critics said the sweeping action does nothing to solve homelessness, and could make it worse.
   7. [Said Jesse Rabinowitz with the National Homelessness Law Center,] “This executive order is forcing people to choose between compassionate data driven approaches like housing, or treating it like a crime to have a mental illness or be homeless.”
   8. [Ann Oliva with the National Alliance to End Homelessness said in a statement,] “Institutionalizing people with mental illness, including those experiencing homelessness, is not a dignified, safe, or evidence-based way to serve people’s needs.”
   9. Trump’s order also calls on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to defund addiction programs that include “harm reduction.” This is certain to disrupt frontline health care programs that work to reduce overdoses from fentanyl and other street drugs.
   10. Addiction experts consider harm reduction, including programs that provide clean needles and other paraphernalia, to be an essential part of helping people survive addiction. Trump’s order repeats the claim that such programs encourage drug use, an argument disproven by years of research, including by federal scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
   11. Thursday’s White House action builds on a landmark Supreme Court ruling last year that said cities can punish people for sleeping outside even if they have nowhere else to go. Since the high court ruling, well over 100 cities across more than two dozen states have passed or strengthened bans on homeless camping. More may now feel pressure to do so if that makes it easier to get federal funding.
   12. … For two decades there was bipartisan support for getting people off the streets and into housing first, then offering them mental health or addiction treatment. Supporters say that approach has a proven track record of keeping people off the streets. And they say a massive shortage of affordable housing is a key driver of homelessness.
   13. But there’s been a growing conservative backlash to that as homelessness rates have steadily risen to record levels. The annual count of homeless people in the U.S. last year showed more than 770,000 people living in shelters or outside, up 18% from the year before.
   14. [Said Devon Kurtz with the conservative Cicero Institute, which has been lobbying for many of the items in the order,] “This is a huge step.”
   15. [Kurtz] contends that the housing-first strategy made homelessness worse by not doing enough for those who need treatment. Trump’s order calls for ending support for Housing First policies that don’t promote “treatment, recovery, and self-sufficiency.”
   16. [Kurtz says,] “This is really that crucial safety net at the bottom to make sure that [homeless people] don’t continue to fall through the cracks and die on the street.”
   17. The conservative agenda Project 2025 also called for ending housing-first. Earlier this year, the Trump administration gutted the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness — the small agency that had coordinated homeless policy across the government and had been an advocate for housing first policies.
   18. MIKE: In April of 2002, George W. Bush said, “I call my philosophy and approach compassionate conservatism. It is compassionate to actively help our fellow citizens in need. It is conservative to insist on responsibility and results. And with this hopeful approach, we will make a real difference in people’s lives.”
   19. MIKE: I scoffed at the time, and even more so now. But in some few ways, George did try to live up to those ideals with programs like the No Child Left Behind Act , but by and large, “compassionate conservatism” is an oxymoron, just like “jumbo shrimp” or “the sounds of silence”.
   20. MIKE: George W. Bush’s proposal of “compassionate conservatism” was always a joke, because there’s rarely anything compassionate about conservatism. If anything, in the 20 years since G.W. Bush, Conservatism has gotten more heartless and more ruthless. It seems that everything concerning modern conservative Republican principles is about punishment and oppression and domination.
   21. MIKE: There’s no one cause for homelessness. For some people it’s loss of a job. It could be bankruptcy from medical bills. And sometimes, yes … It can be from addiction or mental illness, or any of a number of other causes, including children from parental abandonment.
   22. MIKE: These different causes have to be addressed on an individualized basis to have any hope of successfully reintegrating homeless people into society and helping them find better lives.
   23. MIKE: But Trump’s version of “compassionate conservatism” is getting the homeless off the street and putting them … somewhere. Somewhere out of sight and out of mind, without any real plan to help them get on their feet.
   24. MIKE: And referring back to the previous story, it remains to be seen whether Mayor Whitmire’s policies addressing homelessness in Houston will be much different.
   25. MIKE: Maybe at some point Trump’s regime will implement something like a “homelessness resettlement camp”, where the homeless will be “kept safe”. Maybe they can call it something with historical roots, like Manzanar.
   26. MIKE: And someday, the policies of Trump and his Republicans will deservedly be seen as the stain on American history that they are.
5. And speaking of corrupt policies — Texans will pay higher power bills as clean energy development slows because of tax credit cuts, economists say; By Emily Foxhall and Gabby Birenbaum | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | July 24, 2025@11 AM Central. TAGS: Economy, Energy, Environment, Renewables, Tax Credits, Electricity Prices, Solar Power, Grid Operators, Texas, Republicans, Clean Energy, Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT),
   1. Economists expect that the development of solar and wind farms nationwide will slow and electricity prices will rise in the coming decade because of significant rollbacks to tax credits that benefited those industries, in addition to other economic uncertainty.
   2. Texas, which has built more wind power than any state and is a top contender for the most solar power, faces this projected slowdown [just] as grid operators predict soaring electricity demand.
   3. Energy analysts have noted that an unusually high number of solar and battery projects in the state were already canceled or paused in the months leading up to the tax credit cuts because of uncertainty over how deep the cuts would be and the specifics of tariffs that would raise the price of steel.
   4. From battery manufacturing in Brookshire to a solar product facility in Stratford, advocates worried that billions in announced investment and tens of thousands of planned jobs might get killed as project economics change.
   5. With less renewable development likely comes lower employment, pressure on grid reliability and slower state economic growth, said Robert Stavins, a professor of environmental economics at Harvard University. …
   6. Sweeping Democratic legislation that passed under former President Joe Biden dramatically expanded credits for clean energy producers. The policy changes brought billions of dollars of investment to Texas, much of it to red districts. The goal was to lower greenhouse gas emissions and establish the U.S. as a top clean energy manufacturer and producer.
   7. President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill on July 4 in an effort to extend tax cuts from his first term and lower federal spending. Among its sweeping changes, the law dramatically shortens the time frame for when solar and wind companies can use the Biden-era tax credits.
   8. Texas’ two Republican senators and 25 House Republicans all voted to end the subsidies early — with some, like Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, grousing that Congress did not go far enough. Trump is now taking steps to restrict wind and solar project development further by slowing permitting timelines on federal land and tightening eligibility rules for projects trying to qualify for tax credits before they phase down.
   9. On top of that are the unknowns around inflation, tariffs and geopolitics, which combine to create broad economic drag, said John D. Sterman, professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management. …
   10. Economists and energy analysts have been crunching the numbers on how bad the fallout for solar and wind companies could be from the new law. The business-friendly regulatory environment and ample windy and sunny places that fueled Texas’ clean energy boom should help keep some business coming. But experts say wind, solar and battery growth will still be hampered.
   11. The research group Energy Innovation Policy and Technology estimated that by 2035 in Texas there will be 54 fewer gigawatts of solar developed and 23 fewer gigawatts of wind developed because of the policy changes. One gigawatt can power around 250,000 homes in Texas during high demand.
   12. [MIKE: When I did the math on that, it means that over just the next 10 years, Republicans are denying Texas — just Texas —up to 19,250,000 homes-worth of cheaper renewable energy. The Oil companies are really getting their money’s worth out of the Republican Party. Continuing …]
   13. This is because, with the expiration of the federal tax credits, some clean energy projects simply won’t make financial sense to build anymore. As a result, gas plants will need to run for more hours to meet demand, which will drive gas prices higher and push the price of power higher too, experts said.
   14. A Princeton analysis predicted that because of the new policy, greenhouse gas emissions will increase, while electricity bills in Texas will rise by 5% by 2035. …
   15. … Texas has long been known for producing oil and gas; it produces more than any other state. But it’s also become a clean energy magnet.
   16. In addition to having ample good places to develop solar and wind projects, the electricity market is deregulated, meaning energy producers compete to provide cheap power. Combined with a relatively quick process to connect to the grid and a simpler permitting regime than other states, Texas set the stage for wind, solar and battery power to succeed.
   17. Wind power began taking off here in the mid-2000s. Solar power started picking up about a decade later. The amount of utility-scale solar farms built in Texas jumped from about 5 gigawatts in 2020 to 27.5 gigawatts by the end of 2024, according to a study from Columbia Business School.
   18. Cheaper and quicker to build than gas-fired plants, Texas’ wind and solar buildout made it the “advanced energy capital of the country,” said Matthew Boms, executive director of the Texas Advanced Energy Business Alliance.
   19. In 2022, Democrats in Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA — a landmark climate law that expanded tax credits for clean energy companies and consumers alike in an effort to generate more energy, create new jobs in the sector, establish renewables manufacturing in the U.S. and bring down energy costs.
   20. The expanded federal subsidies created all sorts of cost savings, including for manufacturing items like solar panels and electric vehicles, improving home energy efficiency and building an array of clean energy technologies.
   21. Companies have invested over $62 billion in clean energy projects across the state since the passage of the IRA, according to the Clean Investment Monitor, a project from research organization Rhodium Group and MIT to track clean energy investments. Much of the investment has gone to Republican districts represented by members who voted against the bill, including the Houston exurbs, the Panhandle, the Permian Basin and southwest Texas.
   22. The renewables growth brought much-needed power to the state’s electric grid as demand rose. The state grid serves the majority of Texas and, unlike grids on the eastern and western halves of the country, largely stands alone.
   23. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas [ERCOT], which operates the grid, repeatedly called for residents to conserve energy amid record-breaking heat in the summer of 2023, but the new solar farms helped to meet the high demand. A report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas found solar power and batteries made a difference in keeping the grid running in summer 2024 too, without any conservation calls.
   24. ERCOT predicts the grid will need to be able to provide vastly more power on the highest-demand summer days to come — 145,000 megawatts of power in 2031 compared to 86,000 megawatts in 2025. Economic and population growth in the state are driving that, along with new large electricity users such as data centers. …
   25. Many more clean energy projects were expected to come to Texas with the tax credits in place: Companies have announced over $128 billion in planned investment for over 650 clean energy facilities in Texas, according to the Clean Investment Monitor. The announced facilities are expected to create close to 132,000 jobs.
   26. But many of these projects were financed with the expectation that the subsidies would be available — and are at risk of not moving forward now that the credits are being phased out.
   27. A June report from the investment bank Jefferies found a “large increase in Texas renewables development cancellations” in April and May. They found that roughly 4 gigawatts of battery projects and 3.5 gigawatts of solar projects were canceled in those two months and called May “the worst month in years for new development.”
   28. Mark Rostafin, co-CEO of Irving-based renewable energy developer Vesper Energy, said the uncertainty around the tariffs and tax credits caused companies to tap the brakes on projects that weren’t already far along in the financing or construction process. He said his company was looking at what to do with its portfolio and waiting for more clarity while the bill was debated. …
   29. … The One Big, Beautiful Bill phases out many of the subsidies that have supercharged wind and solar and other clean energy investment, starting a countdown for companies to get shovels in the ground on their projects.
   30. Companies can receive tax credits of 30% for investing in, building and operating various energy production facilities, with bonus incentives to use domestically sourced materials. Democrats intentionally created a 10-year time horizon for the expanded credits to provide businesses with the certainty needed to pursue new projects, a provision that made the policy more popular and more expensive than expected.
   31. Under the new law, clean energy investment and production tax credits for wind and solar projects will end in 2027. Projects need to be under construction by July 4, 2026 to be eligible for subsidies or be placed in service by the end of 2027.
   32. But a new memo from the Interior Department, first reported by Politico, revealed that the Trump administration will seek to throw roadblocks up for new projects hoping to qualify for the tax credits in time by creating a federal permitting bottleneck requiring a number of approvals that the industry has described as inordinate. …
   33. Tax credits for consumers — like one that allows homeowners to deduct 30% of the cost of rooftop solar installation or equipment — will disappear at the end of the year. Manufacturing subsidies were preserved but with tighter qualification rules around ensuring content is sourced from non-Chinese markets.
   34. Taken together, the costs associated with manufacturing parts and developing solar and wind energy will rise for companies as soon as next year. Industry experts predict a short-term rush to begin construction on planned projects and start up new ones.
   35. In that regard, Texas is at an advantage.
   36. [Said Rich Powell, the CEO of the Clean Energy Buyers’ Association [CEBA],] “Texas is actually one of the few places where you could start a project in the middle of 2026 and actually maybe place it in service by the end of 2027.”
   37. Powell, who said CEBA members buy a third of their power from Texas, said his modeling indicates that the majority of planned solar and battery projects will be deployed, even without the credits. The development of new wind farms becomes more difficult without the credits, according to Powell.
   38. Without the credit, project costs start to balloon rapidly. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that between the end of the investment tax credit and depreciation deductions, a utility-scale solar facility that requires $350 million in investment will cost $126 million more in 2027, without the credit, than it does today.
   39. The Trump administration’s actions look completely at odds with professed Republican goals of American energy dominance and an “all-of-the-above” energy approach, said Jesse Jenkins, a Princeton energy systems expert.
   40. [Jenkins said,] “They’re standing in the way of building cheap, affordable, American energy supplies in the form of wind and solar, and they’re raising taxes on what we are going to be able to build. So in a period of time when electricity demand is growing rapidly, especially in Texas … If we can’t add supply fast enough to keep up with demand, that’s a recipe for an affordability crisis, for prices to spike.”
   41. Still, the costs for producing solar panels and batteries have fallen drastically and continue to get cheaper, said Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia Business School. And while he didn’t think the tax credit changes were good, it’s possible that solar power will continue to be a cheaper energy source than its competitors over the long term, even with a new set of financial rules.
   42. [Said Doug Lewin, a Texas-based consultant and energy expert,] “We will still build renewables; I still think that they will be the most common form of power that’s built. There’s going to be less of it. It’s going to be [that] what is built is more expensive and that’s going to hurt the smallest consumers the most.”
   43. MIKE: ROI is business talk for “Return On Investment”. It boils down to how much a business makes in gross profit from their investment.
   44. MIKE: Well, in Texas, the best ROI that a petrochemical firm can make is buying a politician. Campaign donations that get a politician’s attention are tiny compared to the profits these companies can make with the donation-influenced legislation that they win.
   45. MIKE: Republican energy policies are blindly obedient to the energy industry that buys them, even if those policies actually make no good sense in terms of energy security and national security for the country, and even if it hurts American citizens as consumers.
   46. MIKE: This is what happens when you have a corrupt regime and its enabling partisans working for themselves and oligarchs instead of for the good of the country.
6. MIKE: And just for grins, I thought I’d share some of the headlines from the Texas Tribune to demonstrate how Republicans are working hard for Texas:
   1. Cornyn calls for special counsel investigation into Obama’s handling of 2016 Russia probe. The Texas senator maintains that Russia did meddle in the 2016 election but that there was no collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign. By Gabby Birenbaum and Owen Dahlkamp. July 25, 2025
   2. Trump’s “one-two punch” targeting immigration courts will test Texas detention centers, experts warn; By Colleen DeGuzman July 25, 2025
   3. Texas again trying to restrict the bathrooms transgender people can use; By Ayden Runnels July 24, 2025
   4. Texas hospitals, [and] clinics spared the worst of GOP Medicaid cuts. An expected rise in the uninsured rate could change that.; By Gabby Birenbaum, Graphics by Edison Wu July 24, 2025
   5. 7 million Texans could lose health coverage under expiring tax credits, [and] ACA changes in GOP megabill; By Gabby Birenbaum, Graphics by Edison Wu Updated: July 24, 2025
   6. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is handing more of his office’s work to costly private lawyers; By Zach Despart July 24, 2025
   7. Feds plan to build nation’s biggest migrant detention center at Fort Bliss [in El Paso]; By Colleen DeGuzman
   8. MIKE: I’ve noted that the Texas Tribune is still trying to avoid Trump’s name for his BBB by constantly referring to it as his “megabill”. Good for them.
   9. MIKE: This is also a good time to remind folks again that elections have consequences.
7. Here’s a barest glimmer of good news, and I’ll explain why in my analysis after the story — Independents Drive Trump’s Approval to 37%, [a] Second-Term Low; by Megan Brenan | GALLUP.COM | July 24, 2025. TAGS: President Donald Trump, Poll Numbers,
   1. WASHINGTON, D.C. ­­— Six months into his second term, President Donald Trump’s job approval rating has dipped to 37%, the lowest of this term and just slightly higher than his all-time worst rating of 34% at the end of his first term. Trump’s rating has fallen 10 percentage points among U.S. adults since he began his second term in January, including a 17-point decline among independents, to 29%, matching his lowest rating with that group in either of his terms.
   2. For their part, Republicans’ ratings [of Trump] have remained generally steady near 90% …
   3. These latest findings are from a July 7-21, 2025, Gallup poll, which began days after Trump signed into law the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on July 4. The law addresses many of Trump’s second-term priorities, including tax cuts for individuals and corporations and increased spending for border security, defense and energy production. It also cuts funding for healthcare and nutrition programs such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to offset some of the costs of the tax cuts and spending increases. …
   4. Apart from the situation with Iran, which was not previously measured in Trump’s second term, ratings on each of the issues [polled] are lower now than earlier this year. These include a 14-point drop for the federal budget and eight-point declines for immigration and the situation in Ukraine.
   5. Republicans broadly approve of Trump’s job on each issue, with his handling of foreign affairs garnering the highest rating (93%). Aside from the situation in Ukraine, which earns approval from 70% of Republicans, his ratings on the other issues range from 81% to 88% within his party. …
   6. Meanwhile, no more than 36% of independents approve of the president’s job performance on any of the issues. The situation with Iran earns him the highest approval from independents, at 36%, and the federal budget the lowest (19%).
   7. … During Trump’s second quarter of his second term, which spanned April 20 through July 19, he averaged 40% job approval, a figure similar to his first-term second-quarter average of 39%. It is well below the 59% average second-quarter rating for all post-World War II presidents elected from 1952 to 2020. Bill Clinton (44%) is the only president other than Trump to have a sub-majority approval rating during his second quarter, which usually coincided with a president’s honeymoon phase.
   8. Trump’s second-quarter average also compares unfavorably with those of two-term presidents in their second presidential term. Richard Nixon’s 44% approval rating in the second quarter of 1973 amid the unfolding Watergate scandal is the closest to Trump’s current rating. …
   9. … Trump’s current 41% favorable rating is down from two 48% readings recorded shortly after the 2024 election and just after his inauguration in January. …
   10. Republicans remain nearly unanimous in their favorable view of the president, with a steady 93% viewing Trump positively. … Just as independents’ approval rating of Trump has tumbled since his inauguration, so too has their favorable rating, which is down from 47% in January to 34% now.
   11. Bottom Line: Trump closes out the second quarter of his second term in office having accomplished much of what he said he would do if elected. Yet, outside of his Republican base, relatively few Americans are pleased with his performance. His rating has fallen to the lowest point of his second term, essentially matching where he was at the same time in his first term, which is not much higher than his all-time worst rating. He also gets generally poor marks for handling key issues, including immigration and the economy, which were major focuses of his campaign.
   12. MIKE: I’ve been saying for a while now that Trump’s poll numbers haven’t encouraged me because within the margin of error, he’s been averaging about 54% disapproval and 46% approval.
   13. MIKE: All long, I’ve been saying that since 54% of voters in 2024 voted for Kamala Harris or someone else, the fact that Trump is technically underwater by 8 percentage points was pretty meaningless because in fact, he originally got about 46% of the popular vote.
   14. MIKE: I’ve also been saying for months that his support among elected Republicans won’t falter at those numbers. I’ve believed all along that it will take a string of polls where is support drops below 40% — even including any upside within the margin of error — before at least some of his elected Republican enablers begin to see a possible upside to opposing him.
   15. MIKE: So this poll is finally showing something different.
   16. MIKE: While Trump’s support among self-described Republicans remains high and relatively unchanged, he may finally be losing his swing voters.
   17. MIKE: Let me resurrect my anecdotal 40-20-40 rule in elections.
   18. MIKE: It is my general observation that 40% of voters will always vote Republican and 40% will always vote Democrat. Each party can’t take those voters for granted and ignore them, but they’re pretty safe in the party column.
   19. MIKE: That leaves the 20% of voters in the middle that are potentially susceptible to influence. And yet … While that 20% is persuadable, 5% are still likely to vote Republican and 5% are still likely to vote Democrat.
   20. MIKE: That leaves the 10% that truly swing elections. Strong partisans on the right and left don’t understand how they can be truly undecided, and yet they are.
   21. MIKE: It’s my belief that that’s why the vast majority of elections are separated by no more than 10 percentage points, and so candidates must appeal particularly to the true
   22. MIKE: So here’s why I see this poll as — not pivotal — but the possible beginning of a pivot than cannot be ignored.
   23. MIKE: The Gallup poll I’ve read excerpts from is just one poll, so I can’t give it the kind of weight that I would like to.
   24. MIKE: So as a reference point, at the bottom of this story in the show post, I’ve linked to a NY Times page that averages polls, with particular weight given to polls that have historically proven to be the most consistently reliable.
   25. MIKE: The NY Times poll of polls has Trump’s DISapproval at 53%, which is pretty typical. But they show Trump’s APPROVAL at just 44%. On the high side of the margin of error, that’s low. And many polls show weakening support among Independents.
   26. The NY Times story includes graphs showing presidential approval ratings for GW Bush, Obama, and Biden at the 188 day mark, and they all show Trump to be historically low, and getting worse. He’s even flirting with his worst numbers from his first term.
   27. MIKE: If Trump really is rapidly losing support among the swing voters, that would be a trend that political candidates can’t ignore, and it may change electoral dynamics in 2026.
   28. MIKE: For me, the $64,000 question is, how much demonstrable damage do Trump and the Republicans have to do to this country, both domestically and internationally, before there’s a decisive turn in these poll numbers? And are we actually seeing the beginning of an important trend, or is this just a blip?
   29. MIKE: When I posed the question to Google, these are the special House elections scheduled for 2025 as of July 26:
   30. Arizona’s 7th Congressional District: A special general election on September 23, 2025, to fill the seat vacated by the late [Democratic] Representative Raúl M. Grijalva.
   31. Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District: Special primary election on October 7, 2025, and a special general election on December 2, 2025, to fill the seat vacated by the resignation of [Republican] Representative Mark Green.
   32. Texas’s 18th Congressional District: Special general election on November 4, 2025, to fill the seat vacated by the late [Democratic] Representative Sylvester Turner.
   33. Virginia’s 11th Congressional District: Special general election on September 9, 2025, to fill the seat vacated by the late [Democratic] Representative Gerald E. Connolly. 
   34. MIKE: That means that Democrats are defending 3 seats and Republicans are defending 1 seat. Will Democrats successfully defend their 3 seats? Is TN-7 a possible pick-up opportunity? These special elections will give us hints of what’s to come in the general elections of 2026.
   35. MIKE: The US House will be in session at various times for the last 4 months of this year, so some of these special elections will impact the partisan balance through the end of 2025. All these House seats will be decided and filled by the time Congress reconvenes in January 2026.
   36. MIKE: So to come back to the potential significance of Trump’s poll numbers, we’ll see hints in the last quarter of this year.
   37. MIKE: Then, in 2026 all 435 House seats and 33 Senate seats are up for grabs. Twenty of those Senate seats — so two thirds — will be Republicans. That will be the big enchilada.
   38. According to Ballotpedia: “Of the 33 states holding regularly scheduled elections in 2026, President Donald Trump (R) won 21 of those states in the 2024 presidential election, and Kamala Harris (D) won 12. In 2026, Democrats will be defending two states that Trump won in 2024: Georgia and Michigan. Republicans will be defending one seat in a state Harris won: Maine.”
   39. MIKE: Doesn’t it suck to be living in interesting times???
   40. REFERENCE: President Trump’s Approval Rating: Latest Polls, Updated July 26, 2025 — NYTIMES.COM
8. MIKE: Redistricting in Texas is provoking a national debate among Democrats about how to respond, and some states are considering their response. As New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said last week, “Never bring a knife to a gunfight.” — Democrats desperately look for a redistricting edge in California, New York and Maryland; By Liz Crampton, Jeremy B. White and Nick Reisman | POLITICO.COM | 07/26/2025 04:00 PM EDT. TAGS: Redistricting, Gavin Newsom, Kathy Hochul, Texas, California, New York, Maryland, New Jersey,
   1. Democratic leaders are feeling pressure to join a brewing redistricting battle that is threatening to upend the midterms landscape — an effort that is likely to slam into legal and political reality.
   2. As Texas Republicans pressed forward with a redistricting blitz designed to increase the number of red seats in the state, officials in the biggest Democratic states scrambled for a response. In New York, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries spoke with Gov. Kathy Hochul in recent days to discuss what a counter-effort could look like.
   3. California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration talked to state election officials about the logistics and timing of a special election to overturn its nonpartisan commission.
   4. And Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker joined Newsom in meeting with Texas Democratic lawmakers on Friday about a strategy for stalling the GOP’s brazen attempt to carve out five new seats, per President Donald Trump’s demand.
   5. The problem is [that] Democrats don’t have many options. In conversations with more than a dozen state lawmakers and redistricting experts, Democrats’ best shot at redrawing a map lies in California, a heavily blue state with a huge number of congressional districts. They see the second-best option in New York, which saw Democratic gerrymandering efforts sputter in recent years, and Illinois, which is already a heavily pro-Democrat gerrymander. Far less likely options lie with Maryland and New Jersey, which have just four Republican-held seats between them.
   6. Discussion of these options come as a debate rages within the party over whether to play hard ball to the same degree as Republicans.
   7. [Said Maryland House Majority Leader David Moon, who introduced a bill this week that would force open Maryland’s redistricting process if another state pursues redistricting ahead of the U.S. Census,] “At this moment, it seems very clear that self-defense is something we have to put as a priority. If that’s where we are, and that’s where we’re forced to go, then I think that’s where Democratic states need to be prepared to go.”
   8. Trump is pushing Republicans in an aggressive effort to redraw maps in hopes of holding onto the House in a potentially unfriendly midterms cycle. Efforts are already underway in Texas, where Trump wants to draw five additional GOP seats, and in Ohio, where Republicans hope to draw additional red districts during a legally mandated redistricting. Punchbowl News recently reported Trump is pressuring Missouri to rip up its own map ahead of the midterms, too.
   9. All of this has sparked outrage from the Democratic base, but Republicans feel bullish about a midterms map that is reshaped by partisan redistricting.
   10. [Said a GOP operative, granted anonymity to speak about party strategy,] “In an arms race where there’s a race to gerrymander the most, there’s not a scenario where they have more seats than we do.”
   11. Newsom has been the most strident of all the Democratic governors who lead trifectas in his vow to counter Texas Republicans, vowing on Friday to “put a stake into the heart” of the Trump administration by preventing Republicans from retaining the House.
   12. But the obstacles are steep: Redrawing California’s map would require either calling a special election and convincing voters to return line-drawing power to politicians after they specifically voted to entrust a nonpartisan commission with that authority, or simply having the Legislature draw maps and effectively daring the courts to stop them.
   13. [Said Bruce Cain, a Stanford political scientist who was deeply involved as a staffer in the partisan gerrymanders from a prior era of California politic,] “I don’t think it’s doable. I think there are too many constitutional constraints.”
   14. It’s not just a legal obstacle. Undertaking redistricting would open up a huge “political fight” within the party by redrawing districts some politicians have run in for multiple cycles. [Cain added,] “You’d be borrowing from different kinds of Democrats and sticking them into other seats and the politics of that would be very complex.”
   15. But Newsom, who has his eye on running for president in 2028, has been steadily laying the groundwork anyway. He hosted Texas Democrats at the governor’s mansion in Sacramento on Friday, doing his part to project a united national front against Republicans, and told reporters he was weighing several options to expand Democrats’ margins beyond their current, disproportionate hold on 43 of 52 House seats.
   16. [Newsom told reporters on Friday, while flanked by Texas lawmakers,] “The question I imagine many folks are asking here in California is: what do the politics of Texas have to do with the politics here in California? The answer is, everything.”
   17. Lawmakers and operatives who were initially caught off guard or skeptical of Newsom’s proposal are increasingly becoming convinced California has the authority and the political will to respond to Texas in kind. Sharing maps of a potential Democratic gerrymander has become a favorite pastime.
   18. California currently has 40 Democrats and 12 Republicans in Congress. [Said Matt Barreto, a pollster and director of UCLA’s Voting Rights Project who polled for the Harris campaign and advised the Biden White House,] “I’ve seen a map that’s legal, upholds the Voting Rights Act, and produces 49 to 50 Democratic seats. This is something lawmakers should consider if Texas goes first.”
   19. In New York, Jeffries’ staff spoke with Hochul’s office recently to discuss redistricting New York’s House seats, two people with direct knowledge of the conversation said. On Thursday, Hochul declared that “all’s fair in love and war” regarding returning to contentious congressional map redraw.
   20. [Hochul said,] “If there’s other states violating the rules and are trying to give themselves an advantage, all I’m going to say is, I’m going to look at it with Hakeem Jeffries.”
   21. Even if state lawmakers plow ahead with redistricting, something the state Constitution says can only be done once per decade, the process would likely take more than a year to complete and may not be finished in time for the 2026 midterm elections.
   22. New York tried an aggressive gerrymander that got blocked by the courts in 2022, and a court-drawn map was used instead. Democrats later drew a new map that is far less aggressive.
   23. Hochul’s political allies believe there is little upside to drawing new lines.
   24. [Said New York Democratic Chair Jay Jacobs,] “I understand those in New York who are watching what’s happening in Texas and Ohio want to offset their unfair advantage.” But “the constitution seems pretty clear that this redistricting process should be done every 10 years. I don’t know where someone could interpret it as something you can do every two years.”
   25. Beyond Texas, Republicans have their eye on picking up seats in other states like Missouri and Florida — which would put Democrats in a tough spot, given they don’t have as much leeway to squeeze out extra seats.
   26. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy was noncommittal when asked by reporters earlier this week if he plans to pursue redistricting, noting that it’s “too early to make any definitive statement about it.” But he echoed what many other Democrats across the country have said when talking about the possibility of early redistricting: “Never bring a knife to a gunfight.”
   27. New Jersey has its own constitutional impediment, which states that congressional districts, which are drawn by an independent commission, “shall remain unaltered through the next year ending in zero in which a federal census for this State is taken.”
   28. Even if they were able to circumvent the state constitution, Democrats already have the majority in the New Jersey congressional delegation, and just two seats — the 7th, held by Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr., and the 9th, held by Democratic Rep. Nellie Pou — are considered battlegrounds.
   29. Even some other Hail Mary options seem off the table. State lawmakers in Washington, Minnesota and Colorado balked at the suggestion they should pursue drawing new maps in the next few months.
   30. [Said Washington House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon, citing the requirement that a two-thirds majority is needed in both the state House and Senate to reconvene the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission,] “It’s just not in the cards.”
   31. And Minnesota State Sen. Aric Nesbitt shut down the idea quickly: “We’re not power-crats, we’re Democrats. We should do things that improve democracy, even if that means sometimes we don’t get our way.” Democrats hold the governorship and state Senate in Minnesota, but Republicans narrowly control the House.
   32. In Colorado “there’s really no debate,” said former Senate Leader Steve Fenberg, who helped create the state’s independent redistricting commission in 2018. [Fenberg said,] “We’re at a juncture right now where the threat is so overwhelming that I don’t think Democrats should rule out responding in kind. But in a state like Colorado, I don’t think it’s really in our DNA to do this kind of action and it’s not constitutionally allowed.”
   33. Still, with a potentially tougher cycle ahead of them than they were anticipating given all of Trump’s strategy, redistricting is sure to be a hot topic of conversation as Democratic governors gather at the National Governors Association meeting this weekend in Colorado.
   34. NJ Gov. Murphy said,] “I suspect as the Democratic governors get together for a drink or a coffee, this will be high on the agenda.”
   35. MIKE: This new political battle is a reminder that the phrase “Republican dirty tricks” entered the lexicon 50 years ago, and there is no equivalent phrase describing Democrats. It’s also good to remember that as Google AI recalls, “The Republican Party, specifically the Republican National Committee (RNC), was under a federal consent decree for over three decades. This decree stemmed from a 1982 lawsuit filed by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) accusing the RNC of voter intimidation tactics during a New Jersey gubernatorial election in 1981.”
   36. MIKE: Within my adult lifetime, Republicans have always had a predisposition to fight with dirty politics, from Lee Atwater to Karl Rove and beyond.
   37. MIKE: With his convicted felonious inclinations for which he has consistently escaped punishment for literally his entire lifetime, Trump has simply raised the Republican dirty tricks game to his criminal level.
   38. MIKE: The next few months should prove crucial in how this gerrymandering game plays out.

That’s all we have time for today. You’ve been listening to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig from KPFT Houston 90.1-HD2, Galveston 89.5-HD2, and Huntsville 91.9-HD2. We are Houston’s Community Media. I hope you’ve enjoyed the show and found it interesting, and I look forward to sharing this time with you again next week. Y’all take care!

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