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

“There’s a reason why you separate military and police. One fights the enemy of the State. The other serves and protects the People. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the State tend to become the People.” ~ Commander Adama, “Battlestar Galactica” (“WATER”, Season 1 episode 2, at the 28 minute mark.)

Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig on KPFT Houston at 90.1-HD2, Galveston 89.5-HD2, and Huntsville 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. At my website, THINKWINGRADIO-dot-COM, I link to all the articles I read and cite, as well as other relevant sources. Articles and commentaries often include lots of internet links for those of you who want to dig deeper.

This begins the 14th week of Trump’s military presence in Los Angeles, now reduced to several hundred federalized National Guard troops, and the 5th week of Trump’s military occupation of Washington DC. And Chicago and other cities are facing Trump’s threats of military occupation.

The question is becoming, ‘When will the US military say they’ve had enough?’

1. The Joint General & Special Election is November 4.
   1. Early Voting begins on Monday, October 20. That’s only about 7 weeks!
   2. The deadline to apply for a mail-in ballot for Harris County is October 24. In this show post at ThinkwingRadio-dot-com, I’m providing a link to apply for a mail-in ballot in the event you may be eligible. Please fill it out, print it, and mail it to the Harris County Clerk. It must physically arrive there by the end of business on October 24^th.
   3. If you live outside of Harris County, visit your County Clerk or Election Clerk website for a ballot application and election information. I have links at the bottom of this show post. If you find any out of date, please let me know.
   4. On September 22^nd, HarrisVotes-dot-com will have an active “What’s On My Ballot” link, which you can access from there or from this show post at ThinkwingRadio-dot-com. Other counties should have similar links, as well as the Texas Secretary of State at VoteTexas-dot-gov.
2. Harris County Flood Control seeks public input on flood risk plans across 11 watersheds; By Melissa Enaje | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 4:14 PM Aug 29, 2025 CDT/Updated 4:14 PM Aug 29, 2025 CDT. TAGS: Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD), Solutions for Advancing Floodplain Evaluation and Resilience {SAFER), Flood Risk Reduction,
   1. Harris County Flood Control District officials are looking for residents to provide input with their flood experiences during extreme weather events and how the county’s 11 watersheds have impacted their communities.
   2. … Along with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the HCFCD is spearheading Phase 1 of what’s being called the Solutions for Advancing Floodplain Evaluation and Resilience The SAFER study’s aim, according to HCFCD, is to evaluate and identify large-scale flood risk reduction projects across these 11 watersheds in Harris County: Brays Bayou; Buffalo Bayou; Clear Creek; Cypress Creek; Little Cypress Creek; Greens Bayou; Halls Bayou; Hunting Bayou; Sims Bayou; Vince Bayou; [and] White Oak Bayou.
   3. “Personal flood stories help the SAFER study project team design solutions that match the actual needs of Harris County neighborhoods,” a HCFCD statement “Your voice fills in the gaps behind the data.”
   4. … HCFCD officials at an August Cypress Creek workshop said the multiyear, multiphase initiative will combine technical analysis with community impact to develop a strategy using both structural and non-structural tools such as detention basins, tunnels and floodplain risk analysis.
   5. The study will be evaluated following a federal planning process that will gather public input at every stage, according to HCFCD. Once completed and approved in 2028, watershed projects can be identified and federally funded.
   6. Phase 1: Summer-Fall 2025, community engagement
   7. Phase 2: Fall 2025-Winter 2026, tentatively select project plan
   8. Phase 3: Winter 2026-Summer 2027, draft feasibility report
   9. Phase 4: Summer 2027-Fall 2027, final report submission to federal agency
   10. Phase 5: Fall 2027-Summer 2028, Congress authorizes plan
   11. … The online survey on the HCFCD website is available for Phase 1 public input until Sept. 25.
   12. MIKE: Links to the surveys are included in the story and in this show post at ThinkwingRadio-dot-com.
   13. MIKE: If you don’t know or are not sure what watershed you live in, there are two helpful maps included in the story itself.
   14. MIKE: There are 23 questions in all. Most are multiple choice, but there are maybe 3 short essay questions.
   15. MIKE: Here’s how I responded to question #3 of the survey: “I’ve been fortunate that my small subdivision has not flooded. It’s just about 1 block outside the 100-year flood plain. But streets and neighborhoods all around me have flooded and sometimes become impassible for a length of time, effectively trapping me in the immediate vicinity of my house. This is especially concerning since it’s probably just a matter if time before my house is threatened by flooding, especially with all the continuing and extensive redevelopment going on around me.”
   16. MIKE: In response to question #7, I wrote this: “Ditches are often clogged or overgrown, and conduits under streets and driveways are often obstructed with debris. We need an enclosed drainage system instead of open ditches to diminish this problem.”
   17. MIKE: In response to question #8, I wrote this: “Adding actual conduits and burying them in order to do away with open ditches. This would also enable the additional sidewalks and street parking, as well as widening streets that are barely 2 lanes wide.”
   18. MIKE: This survey only takes several minutes to fill out, and since all of us are affected by this one way or another, I hope that everyone will try to respond to it.
3. Inside John Whitmire’s texts: How the mayor shaped road projects and bike lane removals; By Ryan Nickerson, Staff Writer | HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM | Sep 4, 2025. TAGS: Mayor John Whitmire, bike lanes,
   1. Text messages from Mayor John Whitmire reveal he has strategically shaped the narrative around bike lane removals — guided more by complaints from people in his orbit and social media noise than the traffic data and public safety concerns he has claimed guide his decision-making since taking office in 2024.
   2. The texts, obtained through a public records request filed by the founder of a pedestrian safety nonprofit, also reveal Whitmire’s skepticism toward projects implemented under the previous administration. In private exchanges with adviser Marlene Gafrick, Whitmire labeled supporters of those initiatives as activists, “anti-car folks” and “bullies.”
   3. [Whitmire texted adviser Marlene Gafrick on July 3, 2024, saying,] “I was in [the] barbershop this morning and everybody [was] complaining about 11th Street,” referring to the “road diet” in the Heights, a traffic engineering term for reducing the number of vehicle lanes on a street to slow traffic and create space for bike lanes, crosswalks or other safety improvements.
   4. Critics say this approach has sidelined years of community planning and professional analysis and exposes a gap between what the city says publicly and what is actually driving decisions.
   5. [Said Joe Cutrufo, director of BikeHouston,] “Houston has a traffic safety crisis, and when we look at the number of people who are killed and injured on the streets, both inside cars and outside of cars, one would hope that a major city like Houston would deploy experienced traffic safety experts to solve the problem and prevent these deaths and injuries. Instead, we have a mayor who is trying to do it all by himself.”
   6. The city did not respond to multiple requests for comment. In a May 8, 2024, message, Whitmire justified his approach to infrastructure planning by noting that he has represented parts of Houston for 50 years.
   7. … One of the earliest messages, sent on Jan. 24, 2024, shows Whitmire asking to “strategize” with Gafrick about removing the Austin Street bikeway. The bike way, funded by Harris County Precinct 1, cost around $2 million to build and is scheduled to be replaced by a shared bike path. The “street rehabilitation” project from Holman to Gray streets included repaving the road and making drainage and waterline improvements, according to the city.
   8. [Whitmire texted to Gafrick,] “I’m resurrecting the fight against the 2-way bike lane on Austin St (residential area only). I’d like to meet with you in Februrary to strategize. Bike Houston, Ellis and Planning Department leaders are bullies who have ignored the impact of the bikeways on the community. This is not right and it’s time for change.”
   9. [TEXTS AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD IN STORY]
   10. The messages also revealed that the mayor enjoyed pushing back against projects he viewed as politically unpopular. 
   11. [On March 2, 2024 Whitmire texted,] “Funny. Keep going. I proud of you. I may actually start having fun. The activist did a tape about 11th street. They know public not with them. And i am getting stronger.”
   12. And on May 14, 2024, Whitmire floated using a new fire chief to justify bike lane removals.
   13. [Gafrick texted Whitmire,] “I hope to be able to discuss some concepts with you today or tomorrow to see if you are ok with the direction.”
   14. [Whitmire said in response,] “Good luck. I planning on new fire chief to say it’s unsafe and remove bike lanes. Refer bikers to Nicholson path. With a HAWK light at 11th,” … referring to a High-Intensity Activated Crosswalk (HAWK) signal — a type of pedestrian-activated traffic light designed to stop cars so people can safely cross busy streets.
   15. A new fire chief was appointed in August. While the 11th Street bike lanes remain in place, the city has cited the fire department in defending its removal of the Austin Street bikeway.
   16. On March 31, 2025, Gafrick released a statement on the project:
   17. “Mayor Whitmire listens to Houstonians, and the community’s voice is crucial in the Austin Street bike lane project. We’ve received feedback from those directly affected. Some have noted the removal of residential street parking and trash container collection areas, as well as the blockage of a fire station’s training area. Houston Fire has confirmed that the department suspended some training due to the bike lanes.”
   18. … Emmanuel Nunez, founder of the nonprofit A Tale of Two Bridges, said the text messages that he obtained demonstrate how politics, not safety data, are driving infrastructure priorities.
   19. [Nunez said,] “On the surface, we’re told these projects are about fixing pipes, drainage, or public safety — but they mayor’s own words show he was targeting the Austin Street bike lane for removal long before any infrastructure justification. This administration is more interested in controlling the narrative than in advancing real safety improvements.”
   20. [BikeHouston director Cutrufo,] said the texts show a mayor making infrastructure decisions outside the bounds of professional norms.
   21. [He said,] “It’s clear the mayor feels strongly about the city’s infrastructure projects, but regardless of his decades of experience representing Houston, he doesn’t have the credentials to make unilateral decisions. This is so far outside the bounds of what’s normal.”
   22. MIKE: Longtime listeners to this show may recall that I’m not necessarily a lover of bike lanes, but there’s a caveat. I’m 74, I have back issues, and I haven’t ridden a bile in decades, so I’m firmly in the car convenience camp.
   23. MIKE: That being said, I also recognize that I’m not necessarily the template for what should and should not be done regarding bicycles, and bike and pedestrian safety. And Mayor Whitmire is a year and a half older than me.
   24. MIKE: I can perhaps sympathize with his thoughts and perceptions of bike travel and the need — or not — for bike lanes. But Mayor Whitmire is also not the template by which bicycle policy should be guided.
   25. MIKE: The article I just read suggests a mayor who isn’t leading from ahead or behind. He’s doing what his “gut” tells him should to be done, regardless of years of research, community input, and money having already been spent. He’s then perfectly happy spending more money to undo what has already been done, regardless of the local community’s feelings about it.
   26. MIKE: On some levels, as an age contemporary of John Whitmire, I can sympathize with Mayor Whitmire’s deeply held feelings about including bike access and safety on Houston streets.
   27. MIKE: As an analogy of what I sometimes go through writing this show, there are times I’m starting to write an opinion on something based on my sense or by what I suddenly recognize is actually old and possibly outdated information. At my age, there can be a lot of that.
   28. MIKE: More than once, I start doing research to find citations that will back up my feelings or belief, only to find that no, that’s not what the facts actually say. That can cause mixed emotions of disappointment that I was wrong, annoyance that information or circumstances had changed, but relief that I’m now current on information and opinions that I share with you, the listener.
   29. MIKE: These texts, on the other hand, suggest of a mayor who’s coming to his own conclusions based on his “gut” and the “guts” of people around him, while choosing to ignore actual empirical evidence and civic input about street and neighborhood policy.
   30. MIKE: This is just another in a long line of reasons that I’m unhappy with John White as mayor of Houston.
4. Houston attorney bests California AI company, nets $1.5 billion for authors; By MATT O’BRIEN, Wes Wilson, AP Technology Writer | CHRON.COM | Sep 5, 2025. TAGS: Anthropic, Class-Action Lawsuit, AI Companies, Copyright Infringement,
   1. Artificial intelligence company Anthropic has agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit by book authors who say the company took pirated copies of their works to train its chatbot.
   2. The landmark settlement, if approved by a judge as soon as Monday, could mark a turning point in legal battles between AI companies and the writers, visual artists and other creative professionals who accuse them of copyright infringement.
   3. The company has agreed to pay authors or publishers about $3,000 for each of an estimated 500,000 books covered by the settlement.
   4. [Said Justin Nelson, a Houston-based lawyer for the authors,] “As best as we can tell, it’s the largest copyright recovery ever. It is the first of its kind in the AI era.”
   5. … Nelson told Chron that the $1.5 billion settlement does not have a cap.
   6. [Nelson said,] “If there are more than 500,000 works, Anthropic will pay an additional $3,000 per work.”
   7. A trio of authors — thriller novelist Andrea Bartz and nonfiction writers Charles Graeber and Kirk Wallace Johnson—sued last year and now represent a broader group of writers and publishers whose books Anthropic downloaded to train its chatbot Claude.
   8. Coincidentally, Johnson’s book — “The Fishermen and the Dragon” — was set along the Texas Gulf Coast. It tells the true story about the violent conflict in the 1970s and 1980s between Vietnamese refugees who became shrimpers and White fishermen. It primarily takes place in Galveston Bay and Jefferson County. Other Texas authors could also get $3,000 per work.
   9. [Nelson told Chron,] “If you’re in Texas and you meet the class definition — namely that you were a copyright owner and have a registered copyright that was registered prior to Anthropic’s download of your book — you may be eligible for compensation. Further details about who is eligible will be available over the coming months.”
   10. Why Anthropic likely chose to settle: A federal judge dealt the case a mixed ruling in June, finding that training AI chatbots on copyrighted books wasn’t illegal but that Anthropic wrongfully acquired millions of books through pirate websites.
   11. If Anthropic had not settled, experts say losing the case after a scheduled December trial could have cost the San Francisco-based company even more money.
   12. [Said William Long, a legal analyst for Wolters Kluwer,] “We were looking at a strong possibility of multiple billions of dollars, enough to potentially cripple or even put Anthropic out of business.”
   13. S. District Judge William Alsup of San Francisco has scheduled a Monday hearing to review the settlement terms.
   14. Anthropic said in a statement Friday that the settlement, if approved, “will resolve the plaintiffs’ remaining legacy claims.”
   15. [Said Aparna Sridhar, the company’s deputy general counsel,] “We remain committed to developing safe AI systems that help people and organizations extend their capabilities, advance scientific discovery, and solve complex problems.”
   16. As part of the settlement, the company has also agreed to destroy the original book files it downloaded.
   17. Books are known to be important sources of data — in essence, billions of words carefully strung together — that are needed to build the AI large language models behind chatbots like Anthropic’s Claude and its chief rival, OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
   18. Alsup’s June ruling found that Anthropic had downloaded more than 7 million digitized books that it “knew had been pirated.” It started with nearly 200,000 from an online library called Books3, assembled by AI researchers outside of OpenAI to match the vast collections on which ChatGPT was trained.
   19. Debut thriller novel “The Lost Night” by Bartz, a lead plaintiff in the case, was among those found in the dataset.
   20. Anthropic later took at least 5 million copies from the pirate website Library Genesis, or LibGen, and at least 2 million copies from the Pirate Library Mirror, Alsup wrote.
   21. The Authors Guild told its thousands of members last month that it expected “damages will be minimally $750 per work and could be much higher” if Anthropic was found at trial to have willfully infringed their copyrights. The settlement’s higher award — approximately $3,000 per work — likely reflects a smaller pool of affected books, after taking out duplicates and those without copyright.
   22. On Friday, Mary Rasenberger, CEO of the Authors Guild, called the settlement “an excellent result for authors, publishers, and rightsholders generally, sending a strong message to the AI industry that there are serious consequences when they pirate authors’ works to train their AI, robbing those least able to afford it.”
   23. The Danish Rights Alliance, which successfully fought to take down one of those shadow libraries, said Friday that the settlement would be of little help to European writers and publishers whose works aren’t registered with the U.S. Copyright Office.
   24. [Said Thomas Heldrup, the group’s head of content protection and enforcement,] “On the one hand, it’s comforting to see that compiling AI training datasets by downloading millions of books from known illegal file-sharing sites comes at a price.”
   25. On the other hand, Heldrup said it fits a tech industry playbook to grow a business first and later pay a relatively small fine, compared to the size of the business, for breaking the rules.
   26. [Heldrup said,] “It is my understanding that these companies see a settlement like the Anthropic one as a price of conducting business in a fiercely competitive space.”
   27. The privately held Anthropic, founded by ex-OpenAI leaders in 2021, earlier this week put its value at $183 billion after raising another $13 billion in investments.
   28. Anthropic also said it expects to make $5 billion in sales this year, but, like OpenAI and many other AI startups, it has never reported making a profit, relying instead on investors to back the high costs of developing AI technology for the expectation of future payoffs.
   29. The settlement is likely to influence other disputes, including an ongoing lawsuit by authors and newspapers against OpenAI and its business partner Microsoft.
   30. [Said William Long, the legal analyst,] “This indicates that maybe for other cases, it’s possible for creators and AI companies to reach settlements without having to essentially go for broke in court.”
   31. The industry, including Anthropic, had largely praised Alsup’s June ruling because he found that training AI systems on copyrighted works so chatbots can produce their own passages of text qualified as “fair use” under U.S. copyright law because it was “quintessentially transformative.”
   32. Comparing the AI model to “any reader aspiring to be a writer,” Alsup wrote that Anthropic “trained upon works not to race ahead and replicate or supplant them — but to turn a hard corner and create something different.”
   33. But documents disclosed in court showed Anthropic employees’ internal concerns about the legality of their use of pirate sites. The company later shifted its approach and hired Tom Turvey, the former Google executive in charge of Google Books, a searchable library of digitized books that successfully weathered years of copyright battles.
   34. With his help, Anthropic began buying books in bulk, tearing off the bindings and scanning each page before feeding the digitized versions into its AI model, according to court documents. That was legal but didn’t undo the earlier piracy, according to the judge.
   35. MIKE: This is without question a landmark ruling. Love it or hate it, it establishes some rules for teaching AI Large Language Models — LLMs — how to “speak” and “write”.
   36. MIKE: The “fair use” reasoning of the judge is interesting. He’s comparing what we learn about writing from reading books to what AI learns from having those books uploaded to it.
   37. MIKE: I haven’t read the opinion, just what’s in the article, but what he may or may not have considered is that usually, people pay for the books and other copyrighted material that they read.
   38. MIKE: In his opinion as described in the article, it seems like he’s saying that just digesting copyrighted material in order to learn how to put words together is a fair-use issue, and the only reason that Anthropic has to pay royalties is that they downloaded millions of books that had been pirated.
   39. MIKE: I think that still leaves room for other lawsuits in this tech area, but it’s a precedent-setting start. It may even impact similar lawsuits in Europe and elsewhere.
5. In other Houston-related news, from CLICK2HOUSTON — Defense Department, local law enforcement agencies conducting training in Houston through Sept. 19; By Christian Terry, Digital Content Producer | CLICK2HOUSTON.COM | Published: September 5, 2025 at 6:36 PM. Tags: Department of Defense, Houston, Training, Houston Police Department
   1. The Houston Police Department says the Department of Defense, in coordination with local law enforcement agencies, is conducting training in the City of Houston.
   2. The training is ongoing through Sept. 19.
   3. [MIKE: The HPD Xeet on X reads as follows:]
   4. “The Department of Defense, in coordination with the Houston Police Department and other local and federal law enforcement agencies, is conducting training in the City of Houston through September 19.
   5. “Residents may hear noise or see helicopters in the day and evening hours during the exercises. This type of collaborative training between local, state and federal partners is very common as we continue to work to provide the best service to the public.
   6. “To maintain the highest level of security, there are no public viewing opportunities planned during the exercises.”
   7. HPD says residents may hear noise or see helicopters in the day or evening hours during the exercises.
   8. “This type of collaborative training between local, state and federal partners is very common as we continue to work to provide the best service to the public,” HPD said in a statement posted on X. “To maintain the highest level of security, there are no public viewing opportunities planned during the exercises.”
   9. MIKE: There was a time I wouldn’t have given this a second’s thought, but with Leader Trump in power, it feels like it could be a rehearsal for the next city that Trump sends forces to occupy, whether it’s Houston or someplace else.
   10. MIKE: I hate feeling that way about this country, but that’s our current situation.
6. Speaking of Trump federal city occupations — Trump’s use of National Guard in Los Angeles was illegal, judge rules; By Kayla Epstein, BBC News | BBC.COM | Sept. 2, 2025. TAGS: Los Angeles, US immigration, Donald Trump, United States, National Guard, Posse Comitatus Act,
   1. A federal judge in California has ruled that the way President Donald Trump deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles this summer was illegal.
   2. The ruling comes as Trump seeks to use National Guard troops in order to crack down on crime in other US cities and support immigration enforcement.
   3. US District Judge Charles Breyer said Trump violated the Posse Comitatus Act, which limits the power of the federal government to use military force for domestic matters.
   4. White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said that “a rogue judge is trying to usurp the authority of the Commander-in-Chief to protect American cities from violence and destruction”.
   5. [MIKE: Of course, that’s the kind of language the regime always uses when they don’t like a court ruling. I, on the other hand, consider the 6 rightwing judges on the Supreme Court to be the real “rogue judges”. But continuing …]
   6. The ruling is on hold until 12 September.
   7. The Trump administration will likely appeal against the ruling.
   8. [Ms Kelly said,] “The President is committed to protecting law-abiding citizens, and this will not be the final say on the issue.”
   9. California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement that “the court sided with democracy and the Constitution”.
   10. In response, Trump said that he may send the troops back into the city, arguing that the governor there is “very weak”, and needs his help.
   11. [Trump said in an event at the White House,] “He’s going to need us again, because it’s starting to form again. I see it.” He also argued that the 2028 Olympic Games in LA would have been cancelled if not for his military deployment.
   12. Trump deployed National Guard troops to Los Angeles in June in response to protests against immigration raids.
   13. The White House argued it was necessary to quell violence, but California officials argued that their law enforcement could handle the situation without military intervention.
   14. The president has also deployed hundreds of National Guard troops in Washington DC and has weighed dispatching troops to Chicago as soon as this week.
   15. [Trump told reporters when asked about Chicago after the judge’s LA ruling was announced,] “We’re going in. I didn’t say when, but we’re going in.”
   16. Judge Breyer’s order only applies in California, but could signal legal challenges ahead for Trump’s plans to use the Guard to enforce his policies.
   17. After Trump deployed troops to Los Angeles, Governor Newsom sued the administration for alleged violations of the Posse Comitatus Act.
   18. The law, first passed in 1878, prohibits using the US military in order to execute domestic laws, or assist with doing so. The law has limited exceptions, such as authorisation by Congress.
   19. Judge Breyer found that the ways the Trump administration used the National Guard in Los Angeles violated these restrictions.
   20. He cited work by soldiers such as “setting up protective perimeters, traffic blockades, crowd control, and the like” as prohibited under the law.
   21. [Judge Breyer wrote,] “President Trump’s recent executive orders and public statements regarding the National Guard raise serious concerns as to whether he intends to order troops to violate the Posse Comitatus Act elsewhere in California.”
   22. He warned that Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ran the risk of “creating a national police force with the President as its chief”.
   23. He blocked the National Guard from executing the following laws including “engaging in arrests, apprehensions, searches, seizures, security patrols, traffic control, crowd control, riot control, evidence collection, interrogation, or acting as informants”.
   24. An additional legal challenge from California sought to wrest back control of California’s National Guard contingent, after Newsom alleged Trump had unlawfully circumvented him to deploy the troops.
   25. Judge Breyer, who also handled that case, ruled in Newsom’s favour, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favour of Trump in June.
   26. MIKE: See what I mean? I consider judges who endorse or permit Trump to constantly push the boundaries of presidential power to be the real “rogue judges”.
   27. MIKE: Of course, at the end of the day, we’ll have to see if even an adverse court ruling stops this wannabe dictator.
7. Now, three stories from TheGuardian — Trump signs executive order rebranding Pentagon as Department of War; By Joseph Gedeon in Washington | THEGUARDIAN.COM | Fri 5 Sep 2025 16.25 EDT. TAGS: Donald Trump, US military, Trump administration, Pete Hegseth, US politics, Defense Department,
   1. The directive will make Department of War the secondary title, and is a way to get around the need for congressional approval to formally rename a federal agency, an administration official said.
   2. [Trump said at the signing,] “We won the first world war, we won the second world war, we won everything before that and in between. And then we decided to go woke and we changed the name to the Department of Defense.”
   3. The administration has already begun implementing the symbolic changes: visitors to the Pentagon’s gov website are now automatically redirected to war.gov.
   4. The move comes days after a deadly US navy airstrike killed 11 people on a small boat in international waters, which the military said involved a drug vessel operated by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Some legal experts questioned whether the strike was lawful under international law.
   5. The combination of aggressive military action and symbolic rebranding goes in contrast with Trump’s repeated claims to be “the anti-war president” who campaigned on promises to end conflicts and avoid new wars. Trump said during the signing of the order that his focus on strength and trade has improved America’s position in the world.
   6. Trump has argued the original name better reflects military victories and honestly represents what the department does. The rebrand would reverse the 1947 name change made as part of postwar reforms that emphasized defense over warfare.
   7. Seven US warships and one nuclear-powered fast-attack submarine were reported to be heading for the Caribbean following Monday’s strike, another layer in the measures Trump has taken to combat what he claims is the threat from Tren de Aragua.
   8. Congressional approval would ultimately be required for any permanent name change, though the House member Greg Steube from Florida and the senator Mike Lee from Utah, both Republicans, introduced legislation to make the switch official.
   9. [The secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, said in the Oval Office,] “We’re going to go on offense, not just on defense. Maximum lethality, not tepid legality. Violent effect, not politically correct. We’re going to raise up warriors, not just defenders. So this war department, Mr. President, just like America, is back.”
   10. MIKE: Setting aside that Trump’s grandiose view of American military history isn’t entirely correct, and that Pete Hegseth is a perfect Secretary of Defense for this president who is dictatorial, vengeful, and historically ignorant, Hegseth’s sycophantic praises and Trump’s ignorant summation of US military history for the last 80 years make perfect sense.
   11. From Google Ai: “Harry Truman changed the name of the War Department in 1947 as part of [Creation of the National Military Establishment (NME)), a major post-World War II military reorganization called the National Security Act. The change reflected a broader shift toward a more unified and centralized approach to military defense during the nuclear age and the dawn of the Cold War.”
   12. MIKE: The cited link (embedded in this show post) further explains it this way in part: “The Department of Defense (DoD) was established in 1947 as the central military authority in the United States, aimed at enhancing national security through a unified command structure. It emerged from the consolidation of the former Departments of War, Navy, and Air Force, which had operated separately.”
   13. MIKE: Then, “Two years later [in 1949], Congress amended the act and renamed the NME the Department of Defense. This was in part because some found the NME acronym to be too close to ‘enemy’”.
   14. MIKE: So that’s part of the history of the name change to the Department of Defense.
   15. MIKE: Trump is a war-like president who has become increasingly comfortable with using armed force both internationally and domestically.
   16. MIKE: That, along with his narcissism, tendency toward verbal and emotional aggression, his vengeful nature, his ignorance of history, and his resistance to facts make him an extremely dangerous man.
   17. MIKE: Note that, “The directive will make Department of War the secondary title, and is a way to get around the need for congressional approval to formally rename a federal agency, an administration official said.”
   18. MIKE: This reminds us of two things. First, Trump’s constant efforts to act as a dictator with no desire to seek legal approval for his actions; and two, that the people around him are entirely fine with this predisposition to violate or circumvent law.
   19. MIKE: After Trump and his sycophantic Republicans lose power, there will need to be some thought and actions given to wholesale changes in presidential power, and the trick will be to constrain future presidents without neutering them.
   20. MIKE: There will need to be additional legislation to make some changes to the Department of Justice.
   21. MIKE: I would favor making the Attorney General an elected position rather than an appointed one in order to remove that person from the direct line of responsibility to, and control by, the president. I would also favor putting that person in the Judicial Branch, possibly as the head of the Judiciary, in order to further clarify their independence from the serving president. Within the body of this show post at ThinkwingRadio-dot-com, I’m including a link discussing this very point from the Harvard Law & Policy Review.
   22. MIKE: I would also favor modifying how the President can use their pardon power, since this president has shown how a corrupt president can abuse it.
   23. MIKE: And while I doubt it would ever happen, I’d like candidates for higher elected office, such as any federal post, to pass a US citizenship test.
   24. MIKE: The purpose of this would not be to affirm their citizenship, but rather to ensure that they understand the basic history and civics of the United States before they try to govern it, since so many of our elected representatives obviously lack this knowledge.
   25. MIKE: US lawyers must pass a bar exam to practice law. I think that something like basic civics knowledge should be required for people who legislate those laws.
   26. MIKE: These ideas would require constitutional amendments, which would be challenging, as they require a 2/3 affirmative vote by both houses of Congress and then must be signed by the then-president, as well as ratification by 3/4 of the states. Nonetheless, I think it’s essential that these amendments be pursued.
   27. MIKE: A simpler additional measure — simpler being relative — would be to give the Judicial branch some enforcement powers for its rulings. This could include putting the US Marshals or some equivalent services under the control of the judiciary, which is currently headed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. This could be done legislatively, without the need for a constitutional amendment.
   28. MIKE: It may require a Democratic super-majority to accomplish any of this, since the currently-fascistic Republican Party is unlikely to agree.
   29. MIKE: So some of this can be accomplished by legislation that a future president will have to sign. That alone will be a big hurdle.
   30. MIKE: I’m sure that Democrats in Congress are accumulating lists of changes they’ll want to legislate when the opportunity arises. These are some of mine.
   31. REFERENCE:” The Attorney General Should Be Separate; By Daniel Cotter* | JOURNALS.LAW.HARVARD.EDU | April 22, 2020 (Harvard Law & Policy Review)
8. Trump, misled by video of 2020 protests shown on Fox, threatens to send troops to Portland [Oregon]…; By Robert Mackey, Lucy Campbell, Joanna Walters, Rachel Leingang and Tom Ambrose | COM | Fri 5 Sep 2025 @ 22.04 EDT. TAGS: Portland, Oregon, Donald Trump, protests,
   1. Donald Trump told reporters on Friday that he might send national guard troops to Portland, Oregon, apparently because he was misled about the scale of small protests outside an immigration detention facility there by a TV report which incorrectly presented video recorded during a protest in 2020 as having taken place in the city this summer.
   2. “I will say this, I watched today, I didn’t know that was continuing to go on, but Portland is unbelievable, what’s going on,” Trump said. He then claimed, incorrectly, that he had seen video evidence of “the destruction of the city”.
   3. In fact, a handful of protesters have demonstrated outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in a remote area of Portland along the south waterfront this year, but the scale of the protests, which attract dozens at most, is nothing like the 2020 protests that regularly drew thousands or tens of thousands of demonstrators to a central part of the city.
   4. “Are you going into Portland?” a reporter asked Trump.
   5. “Well, I’m going to look at it now because I didn’t know that was still going on; this has been going on for years,” the president replied. He then explained how he had been misled into the entirely false belief that the large-scale protests from 2020 had continued.
   6. “We’ll be able to stop that very easily, but that was not on my list, Portland, but when I watched television last night, this has been going on,” Trump said.
   7. The president did not cite the specific news report that he was basing his impression on, but his favorite channel, Fox News, broadcast a report on Thursday that mixed images of a recent protest in Portland, attended by dozens of protesters, with a viral video clip from 2020 of one protester, Christopher David, being pepper-sprayed in the face by a federal agent that was wrongly described as having been shot in June of this year.
   8. The report focused mainly on one protest outside the facility on Tuesday, attended by dozens of protesters who brought a guillotine as a prop before being doused with chemical agents by federal officers.
   9. “These are paid terrorists,” the president said, once again spreading a baseless conspiracy theory his administration amplified about anti-fascist protesters in 2020.
   10. “These are paid agitators, these are professional. I watched that last night, I’m very good at this stuff. These are paid agitators, they get paid money by radical left groups,” the president claimed. He then went on to suggest that well-printed signs displayed by some protesters proved his theory.
   11. “These are paid agitators and they’re very dangerous for our country and when we go there, if we go to Portland, we’re going to wipe ‘em out. They’re going to be gone. They won’t even stand to fight. They will not stay there. They’ve ruined that city.”
   12. “It’s like living in hell,” the president said, describing an imaginary version of Portland that bears no resemblance to the actual city, in which fences around the federal courthouse that was the scene of mass protests in 2020 have now been removed and the central police headquarters no longer has boarded up windows.
   13. MIKE: This is our current governing regime, openly discussing which American cities they’ll invade and occupy next. This is what happens when Congress and the courts are shown to be essentially powerless in the face of an American Tyrant, and the so-called “Fourth Estate” — the press — ask softball questions because they fear being excluded from press briefings.
   14. MIKE: From Wikipedia, “The derivation of the term arises from the traditional European concept of the three estates of the realm: the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners.”
   15. MIKE: Make no mistake about it. This country is in dire straits, and the Republican Party, as the party controlling Congress, is rolling over and showing its belly for this scofflaw president.
9. In more Trump saber-rattling news from THE GUARDIAN — Trump sends 10 stealth fighter planes to Puerto Rico amid war on Caribbean drug cartels; By Richard Luscombe | THEGUARDIAN.COM | Fri 5 Sep 2025 13.11 EDT. TAGS: Trump administration, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, US military, Drugs trade, US politics, Americas,
   1. Donald Trump is sending 10 F-35 fighter jets to Puerto Rico to bolster US military operations against drug cartels in the Caribbean region, it was reported on Friday.
   2. [It] follows a deadly US missile strike on Tuesday on a boat in the Caribbean Sea that the Trump administration insisted was carrying 11 Venezuelan drug traffickers, and comments by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, on Wednesday that such attacks “will happen again”.
   3. In another development on Thursday, the US accused Venezuela of the “highly provocative move” of buzzing one of its warships in international waters.
   4. The deployment of strike aircraft to Puerto Rico, first reported by Reuters, citing two sources briefed on the matter, is a sharp escalation of the US president’s crackdown on what he sees as a Venezuelan-led drug-trafficking menace in the region.
   5. The planes will arrive in the US territory next week and will be part of a sustained military campaign in the Latin American region that began with Tuesday’s airstrike, the news agency said.
   6. The F-35 is a highly advanced stealth fighter and would be very effective in combat against Venezuela’s air force, which includes F-16 aircraft.
   7. Trump has already sent at least eight warships and other military assets to the area in recent weeks, and Rubio, speaking in Mexico City on Wednesday, … warned of more operations to come.
   8. [Rubio told a press conference after meeting with Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, to discuss stronger security ties,] “The US has long, for many, many years, established intelligence that allowed us to interdict and stop drug boats. And we did that. And it doesn’t work. Interdiction doesn’t work. What will stop them is when you blow them up. Instead of interdicting it, on the president’s orders, we blew it up. And it’ll happen again. Maybe it’s happening right now.”
   9. [MIKE: I’m not sure how blowing up alleged drug boats is more effective than interdicting them, since both actions take drug boats out of action, while interdicting them allows for confirmation of drug running instead of blowing people up with no kind of due process. Of course, “due process” is a joke to this regime that doesn’t even understand the legal concept of habeas corpus. Continuing …]
   10. Meanwhile, two Venezuelan military planes flew close to a US warship in international waters, the Pentagon said on Thursday in a social media post, an act it called “a highly provocative move … designed to interfere with our counter narco-terror operations”.
   11. The statement by the Department of Defense “strongly advised” the Venezuelan regime of embattled president Nicolás Maduro not to “obstruct, deter or interfere” with US operations.
   12. [MIKE: The conduct of naval operations in international waters by one country and the monitoring of those operations by another is pretty routine in international relations, especially in proximity to a nation’s ocean borders. The term “buzzing” usually means a close and potentially threatening approach to a country’s naval assets. This is frowned upon and is considered militarily provocative, but we currently have only our current lying regime’s word that this is what happened. Continuing…]
   13. Maduro has accused the US of “seeking a regime change through military threat” and promised to build up his own armed forces.
   14. Last month, the state department increased to $50m its reward “for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Maduro”, whom the US said has conspired with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in cocaine production.
   15. More than 50 countries, including the US, refuse to recognize Maduro as head of state after accusing him of rigging the Venezuelan presidential election in 2018.
   16. [MIKE: As a total aside, I would very much like the European Union to send election observers for our next few elections, but those are comments for another time. Continuing …]
   17. Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, defended the US military buildup in the Caribbean in an appearance on Fox News on Wednesday night.
   18. [He said,] “We’ve got assets in the air, assets in the water, assets on ships, because this is a deadly serious mission for us, and it won’t stop with just this strike.”
   19. Hegseth was asked by reporters on Thursday what legal justification was used to kill 11 people that the Trump administration had accused, without presenting evidence, of being members of the Tren de Aragua criminal gang.
   20. [Hegseth said,] “We have the absolute authority and complete authority to conduct that,” … stating that the group was “assaulting” the US with a flow of illegal drugs.
   21. [Hegseth continued, saying,] “I’d say we smoked a drug boat, and there’s 11 narco-terrorists at the bottom of the ocean. And when other people try to do that, they’re gonna meet the same fate.”
   22. In a statement issued on Thursday, before news of the stealth fighters’ deployment broke, Democratic Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar accused the Trump administration of “lawless and reckless” actions in the Caribbean region.
   23. [Omar also said,] “Congress has not declared war on Venezuela, or Tren de Aragua, and the mere designation of a group as a terrorist organization does not give any president carte blanche to ignore Congress’s clear constitutional authority on matters of war and peace. There is no conceivable legal justification for this use of force. Unless compelling evidence emerges that they were acting in self-defense, that makes the strike a clear violation of international law.”
   24. Talking to the rightwing channel Newsmax on Wednesday, Rand Paul, the Republican US senator from Kentucky and chair of the Senate homeland security committee, also questioned the legality and morality of the Trump administration’s actions.
   25. [Senator Paul said,] “[I have] no love lost for the people who died that are trying to infiltrate our country with this filth, but at the same time you have to realize it’s not as simple as it may sound, ‘let’s just kill drug dealers’, because sometimes you have to figure out who people are before you kill them. Even the worst people in our country still get a trial.”
   26. [Of course, ICE doesn’t seem to have heard about that, but continuing …]
   27. Analysts have warned that US aggression in the region will have serious unintended consequences, including the possibility of being drawn into an extended guerrilla war in Venezuela.
   28. [Juan González, the national security council’s senior director for the western hemisphere during the Biden administration, told the Guardian this week that,] “I increasingly fear that the Trump administration may stumble into an intervention scenario in Venezuela, which would be frankly disastrous. It’ll become the cause célèbre for every kind of criminal or illegal armed group in the Americas. You’ll end up having people going to Venezuela to fight the Yankees and I think it’ll get messy.”
   29. MIKE: This could be our next “Gulf of Tonkin” scenario. With Trump having mentioned after meeting with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky that ending elections during wartime seemed like a good idea, this is an entirely plausible scenario.
   30. MIKE: Trump is quoted in a CNN article saying, “So you say during the war, you can’t have elections. So let me just say, three and a half years from now – so you mean, if we happen to be in a war with somebody, no more elections? Oh, that’s good.”
   31. MIKE: There’s a video clip of Trump saying this, which I’m linking to in this show post.
   32. MIKE: I take Trump seriously when he makes comments like this, and I think all Americans should. So when Trump starts to build up US naval forces in the Caribbean — currently 9 ships and the forthcoming 10 F-35s — this is as serious to me as Russia building up forces around Ukraine before invading it, while all the time swearing that they weren’t staging for an invasion.
   33. MIKE: There’s a NEWSWEEK article describing these assets including ship names, but the descriptions of what’s there is more helpful.
   34. MIKE: According to the NEWSWEEK story, in addition to the planned F-35s deployment, the US has currently stationed in the Caribbean at least 1 attack submarine, 2 amphibious transport docks, 1 amphibious assault ship, one littoral combat ship, 1 cruiser, and 2 destroyers.
   35. MIKE: To me, this sound less like a drug search-and-destroy force and more like the build-up of a land invasion force. Given America’s history of military interventions in Latin America, I think it’s right for Venezuela and other Latin American nations to take this build-up very seriously indeed.
   36. MIKE: It would be nice for Congress to look into this matter with all deliberate speed in order to nip it in the bud, but who am I kidding?
   37. MIKE: So, to sum up, the potential scenario I see here is to provoke a land war with Venezuela with unforeseen consequences, for that to expand to other Latin American countries, and then for Trump to cancel elections until further notice while those wars continue.
   38. MIKE: Is this likely? At one time I would have said no, but this US regime is like nothing we’ve ever had before.
   39. MIKE: And there’s the precedent of the Gulf of Tonkin incident and the war it got us into. So be afraid …
10. An emailed news summary I got from the NY Times on Sept. 3 listed these interesting tidbits:
    1. A federal judge said the government had broken the law by freezing billions of dollars in research funds for Harvard, handing the university a crucial victory in its fight with the administration.
    2. California, Oregon and Washington State, saying they no longer trust the federal government to do so, said they would work together to review scientific data and make vaccine recommendations for their residents.
    3. Meanwhile, the state of Florida said it would work to end all vaccine mandates, including those for schoolchildren, which physicians warn could lead to outbreaks of preventable diseases like measles.
    4. The Missouri legislature began the process of redrawing the state’s congressional maps to favor Republicans, following a push from President Trump.
    5. Former Senator John E. Sununu, a member of a prominent Republican political dynasty, is considering a Senate run in New Hampshire. Republicans are looking to flip the seat after Jeanne Shaheen, the Democratic incumbent, announced her retirement this year.
    6. Dan Kleban, a political newcomer and a co-founder of the Maine Beer Company, entered the Democratic primary for Senate in Maine. National party leaders are anxiously waiting to hear whether Gov. Janet Mills, a two-term Democrat, will join the race to unseat Senator Susan Collins.
    7. Senator Joni Ernst, Republican of Iowa, formally announced this week that she, like a growing list of senators in her party who have been targeted by President Trump or his supporters, is opting not to seek re-election next year. That offers a glimmer of hope to Democrats, although they face major headwinds in the Republican-dominated state.
    8. This one is particularly interesting — In a “A big beautiful rebranding: Don’t call it the “One Big Beautiful Bill”. … Annie Karni writes [that that] was the advice from three top officials from President Trump’s 2024 campaign who journeyed to Capitol Hill today with advice to members of Congress on midterm strategy.
    9. The attempt to relabel Trump’s signature domestic policy achievement was an implicit acknowledgment that it is deeply unpopular. They want members instead to call it a “working families tax plan.” Control of the House could hinge in part on whether or not they can do so successfully.
    10. MIKE: Links to the relevant NY Times stories, as well as the research I cite, are included in this show post at ThinkwingRadio-dot-com.
    11. MIKE: Naming Trump’s desired priorities the “One Big Beautiful Bill” was a stupid idea anyway. It not only sticks in the throats of a great many people, the name was widely parodied. Even the Texas Tribune, as near as I can tell, didn’t like using that name. Instead, I keep seeing references to “Trump’s megabill”.
    12. MIKE: In another NY Times story summary, according to polling from The Associated Press and research organization NORC, about 53 percent of Americans approve of how Trump has handled crime. That’s 10 percentage points higher than his approval on the economy. There is a link to the cited poll in my show post.
    13. MIKE: The question the poll posed was, “Overall, do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president?”
    14. MIKE: 53% of respondents did not approve. But that’s no shock, since about 54% of voters didn’t vote for Trump.
    15. MIKE: What’s interesting to me on a couple of different levels is that 53% of respondents are okay with Trump’s handling of crime.
    16. MIKE: So does that mean that a majority of Americans are okay with Trump’s use of National Guard and other military troops patrolling US cities? If so, that’s not only surprising, it’s also pretty scary. That additional 10% approval on Trump’s handling of crime is probably what are called “swing voters”.
    17. MIKE: People with strong party preferences usually have a hard time understanding how 10% of American voters can be undecided, but the fact is that the Undecideds are usually the determinants of elections.
    18. MIKE: It’s also important to keep in mind that this poll has a margin of error of +/-3.5%. That’s pretty common in polls generally, but it’s also a lot. It represents a total range of 7 percentage points, meaning that anywhere from 39.5% to 46.5% approve of Trump criminal actions. (That’s a pun you can interpret either way.)
    19. MIKE: In any case, his core supporters are still fine with Trump.
    20. MIKE: It’s been my contention for months now that Trump’s allies are unlikely to abandon him unless his best polling is more like 37% approval, +/- those 3.5 percentage points. In my opinion, a top margin of error that puts him under 40% is what it may take for elected Republicans in Congress and elsewhere to see Trump as a political anchor rather than an asset.
    21. MIKE: This also requires that you keep in mind that on the day that Richard Nixon resigned the presidency on August 8, 1974, he still had about a 24-28% positive approval rating according to polls, so in terms of people that are seriously inflexible in support for “their guy”, that’s probably as low as Trump could ever go.
    22. MIKE: It’s part of the basis for my anecdotal 30-40-30 rule. That rule says that 30% of voters would be cool with a communistic or socialist leader, and at the other end of the spectrum, about 30% of voters would be — and apparently are — okay with a fascistic leader.
    23. MIKE: That leaves the 40% in the middle that usually help to keep us from either extreme. But of that 40%, there’ are only about 10 percentage points that don’t already lean either Democrat or Republican. Those are the folks that actually decide most elections.
    24. MIKE: So until you can get that 10% opposed to Trump in the polls, he’ll continue to get support from the weathervane Republicans in government.
    25. MIKE: There’s also an August 27^th Quinnipiac University poll that’s interesting that I have linked to in the show post. Paraphrasing slightly, it says that by 86 – 12 percent, Republicans, support the president’s decision to deploy the National Guard to the nation’s capital to reduce crime, while Democrats oppose it by 93 – 5 percent, and independents oppose it by 61 – 34 percent.
    26. MIKE: In the context if my 30-40-30 rule, that could be significant come the 2026 Congressional elections, as well as any state government elections between now and then.
    27. MIKE: Also, men are split about the president’s decision to deploy the Guard to DC, with 50 percent supporting it and 47 percent opposing it, while women oppose the deployment by 63 – 33 percent.
    28. MIKE: Women often say that this country and the world would be a better place if women were running them. Maybe this statistical is evidence of that.
11. This next story is from January, and I saved it. There is also a more recent and comprehensive story from April that I’ll be excerpting after this — Canadian startup giving EV batteries a second life lands $15M from Amazon and others; by Lisa Stiffler | GEEKWIRE.COM | January 16, 2025 at 9:03 am. TAGS: Startups, Sustainability, batteries, EV Batteries, Battery Recycling, Backup Batteries,
    1. Moment Energy, a startup turning used batteries from electric vehicles into energy storage systems, announced a $15 million round co-led by the Amazon Climate Pledge Fund and Voyager Ventures.
    2. The new cash will be combined with a $20.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to fund construction of what could become the world’s first “gigafactory” for battery repurposing. The grant was awarded to the Coquitlam, B.C.-based company in October. The factory will be located in Texas and should provide more than 250 clean energy jobs.
    3. Moment Energy is partnering with the automaker Mercedes Benz and others to take battery packs that don’t have enough juice for vehicles but can still be used as energy sources for utilities, microgrids and customers including EV charging stations. …
    4. Other investors in the Series A round include In-Q-Tel, Version One Ventures, Overture Ventures, WovenEarth Ventures, Fika Ventures, MCJ, One Small Planet and Climate Capital. 
    5. Similar companies in the space include Element Energy, B2U Storage Solutions, RePurpose Energy and others.
    6. This is the more recent story from April — Moment Energy: EV Batteries & The Hidden Profit Opportunity; By Stella Nolan | EVMAGAZINE.COM | April 02, 2025. TAGS: Moment Energy, EV batteries, Second-Life Batteries, Battery Recycling,
    7. Moment Energy shows how repurposing retired EV batteries with 80% capacity left can boost automaker profits by 58%, turning waste into valuable storage
    8. The EV revolution is accelerating at an unprecedented pace, with nearly 14 million EVs sold globally in 2023 alone — a 35% increase from the previous year.
    9. The remarkable growth brings a significant challenge: What happens to the millions of batteries that will eventually retire from these vehicles?
    10. Innovative companies are finding that the answer lies not in recycling, but in repurposing — a strategy with profound implications for both profit margins and environmental sustainability.
    11. When an EV battery reaches the end of its automotive life, it typically retains approximately 80% of its original capacity — an enormous amount of residual energy often overlooked in conventional recycling approaches.
    12. [Explains Sumreen Rattan, Co-Founder and COO of Moment Energy,] “Recycling these batteries prematurely is not just wasteful, it’s a missed opportunity on a massive scale. By repurposing these batteries, automakers can tap into a lucrative second-life market while addressing critical energy storage needs, [and] by utilising companies that are experts in second-life.”
    13. The extended utility is impressive by any measure. When deployed in appropriate applications, a properly repurposed EV battery can deliver up to a decade of additional service, effectively doubling its useful life and maximising the return on the resources invested in its production.
    14. MIKE: I’m out of time here, but the story then goes into more detail in sections titled “The commercial case for battery repurposing”, “Addressing the energy storage imperative”, “Strategic advantage in an era of environmental accountability”, “Measurable benefits: Economic and environmental”, and more.
    15. REFERENCE: Tribal company and Oregon battery startup create unique partnership in pursuit of clean energy — by Lisa Stiffler |GEEKWIRE | April 29, 2024 at 2:03 pm

There’s always more to discuss, but 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!