Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio) is now on Wednesdays at 11AM (CT) on KPFT-HD2, Houston’s Community Station. You can also hear the show:
- Live online at KPFT.org (from anywhere in the world!)
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Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig where we discuss local, state, national, and international stories. My co-host and show editor is Andrew Ferguson.
Listen live on the radio, or on the internet from anywhere in the world! Please take a moment to visit Pledge.KPFT.org and choose THINKWING RADIO from the drop-down list when you donate.
For the purposes of this show, I operate on two mottoes:
- An educated electorate is a prerequisite for a democracy.
- You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.
“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 t become the People.” ~ Commander Adama, “Battlestar Galactica” (“WATER”, Season 1 episode 2, at the 28 minute mark.)
POSSIBLE TOPICS: VOTETEXAS.GOV—Voter Information; New Voting Equipment; Harris County begins preliminary redistricting discussions, seeks public input; Katy-area businesses endure staffing shortages; TxDOT votes to move forward with I-45 expansion; KHOU 11 Investigates: Proposed ‘Ike Dike’ gaining ground, but slow to build; ‘Slavery by another name’: How cold case technology is helping researchers identify Sugar Land 95; Texas lawmakers pass rewrite of state’s bail system aimed at keeping more people behind bars who can’t post cash; The hard-fought Texas voting bill is poised to become law. Here’s what it does; Gavin Newsom finally sees very encouraging recall poll two weeks ahead of California election; Kevin McCarthy warns GOP majority ‘will not forget’ if companies turn over phone records to Jan. 6 committee; Rep. Madison Cawthorn falsely suggests elections are ‘rigged,’ says there will be ‘bloodshed’ if system continues on its path; Dear American Healthcare Workers…; Here’s what we know about the highly mutated C.1.2 coronavirus variant so far; Pakistan frets over security threats from neighbouring Afghanistan; More.
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- Make sure you are registered to vote! VoteTexas.GOV – Texas Voter InformationTEXAS SoS VOTE-BY-MAIL BALLOT APPLICATION (ALL TEXAS COUNTIES) HarrisVotes.com – Countywide Voting Centers, (Election Information Line (713) 755-6965), Harris County Clerk
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- Harris County “Vote-By-Mail’ Application for 2021
- Fort bend County Elections/Voter Registration Machine takes you to the proper link
- GalvestonVotes.org (Galveston County, TX)
- Liberty County Elections (Liberty County, TX)
- Montgomery County (TX) Elections
- Brazoria County (TX) Clerk Election Information
- Waller County (TX) Elections
- Chambers County (TX) Elections
- For personalized, nonpartisan voter guides and information, Consider visiting Vote.ORG. Ballotpedia.com and Texas League of Women Voters are also good places to get election info.
- If you are denied your right to vote any place at any time at any polling place for any reason, ask for (or demand) a provisional ballot rather than lose your vote.
- HarrisVotes.com – Countywide Voting CentersHARRIS COUNTY – IDENTIFICATION REQUIRED FOR VOTING: Do not possess and cannot reasonably obtain one of these IDs?
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- Fill out a declaration at the polls describing a reasonable impediment to obtaining it, and show a copy or original of one of the following supporting forms of ID:
- A government document that shows your name and an address, including your voter registration certificate
- Current utility bill
- Bank statement
- Government check
- Paycheck
- A certified domestic (from a U.S. state or territory) birth certificate or (b) a document confirming birth admissible in a court of law which establishes your identity (which may include a foreign birth document)
- You may vote early by-mail if:You are registered to vote and meet one of the following criteria:
- Away from the county of residence on Election Day and during the early voting period;
- Sick or disabled;
- 65 years of age or older on Election Day; or
- Confined in jail, but eligible to vote.
- Make sure you are registered:
- Ann Harris Bennett, Tax Assessor-Collector & Voter Registrar
- CHECK REGISTRATION STATUS HERE
- CLICK How to register to vote in Texas
- Outside Texas, try Vote.org.
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- FYI: There are no elections coming up right now in Harris County, but do make sure your registered to vote! Now is a great time! Just go to VOTETEXAS.GOV – Texas Voter Information for information/instructions.
- Voting Equipment – Harris County is pleased to announce the next generation of voting machines to make voting more accessible and transparent to and for voters, the Verity Duo from Hart InterCivic. Verity Duo combines the ease and accuracy of touchscreen ballot marking with the assurance of a voter-verifiable paper trail. Verity Duo prints an easy-to-read summary of voter choices for verification, and the scanner counts votes directly from this summary.
- ANDREW: The Verity Duo requires voters to insert the printed summary into a separate scanner. If that scanner has internet capability, an attacker could remotely change the scan results. This is better than no paper trail, but still not secure enough.
- Harris County begins preliminary redistricting discussions, seeks public input; By Danica Lloyd | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 7:58 PM Aug 31, 2021 CDT | Updated 7:58 PM Aug 31, 2021 CDT
- As Harris County’s population has grown 15.6% in the past 10 years, county commissioners convened Aug. 31 to review the process of redistricting and hear feedback from residents. Redistricting is the process of redrawing the boundaries for representation in states and local jurisdictions and is required after every decennial census.
- The recently released 2020 U.S. census data revealed not only had Harris County’s population grown to 4.7 million, but that the population distribution among the county’s four commissioner precincts had shifted in the last decade.
- When the maps were last redrawn in 2011, each precinct had slightly more than 1 million residents …
- Matt Angle, the county’s mapping consultant, said at the Aug. 31 meeting that based on the 2020 census, each precinct should have 1.18 million residents. The U.S. Constitution prohibits a deviation of more than 10% from that target number. …
- Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo emphasized the public will have multiple opportunities to share their thoughts and suggest potential boundary changes at upcoming redistricting meetings. …
- Learn more about Harris County’s redistricting process and submit feedback at http://cao.harriscountytx.gov/commissioner-precinct-redistricting.
- ANDREW: Definitely keep an eye on this. Redistricting is a popular time for politicians to slip in shenanigans.
- Katy-area businesses endure staffing shortages; By Laura Aebi, Anna Lotz | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 3:56 PM Aug 31, 2021 CDT | Updated 3:56 PM Aug 31, 2021 CDT
- [For many businesses, hiring necessary workers is a continuing problem.]
- [Matthew Ferraro, president of the Katy Area Chamber of Commerce said ], “Maybe they’re adjusted to living off of the unemployment rates that they’re getting instead of going back to work.” He said he attributes the shortage to a variety of factors from pandemic benefits to child care. …
- Many employers and economic leaders have attributed the hiring situation to federal pandemic unemployment payments they claim incentivize individuals to not work …
- However, others said pointing the blame at unemployment benefits is mischaracterizing unemployed Texans as lazy and unwilling to work. Jonathan Lewis, senior policy analyst with Every Texan, a nonprofit that advocates to improve equity in health care, education and jobs, said he believes factors such as child day care, low wages and a lack of jobs that match employees’ skills can turn away job seekers. “This characterization that workers are lazy is pretty damning,” he said. “If it’s just a $300 benefit that’s holding people back from accepting a job, [it’s] a pretty sad state of affairs.”
- Rick Ellis, vice president of the Katy Area Chamber of Commerce, said the pandemic changed the unemployment landscape in a multitude of ways, including what factors people prioritize in their jobs. “There are so many jobs that are out there, but a lot of these people just got spoiled,” Ellis said. “Staying at home, getting enhanced unemployment benefits from the government, not having to pay for child care, [not] commuting at all. They’re happy to be able to work and stay at home.” …
- ANDREW: Do these Chamber of Commerce people really think insulting workers is going to make them want to get jobs? Vinegar doesn’t catch flies. If they want people to get back to work, they should tell their business members to make their working conditions and pay at least tolerable. If that would put them out of business, they deserve to go out of business.
- TxDOT votes to move forward with I-45 expansion; By Elissa Rivas | ABC13.COM | Tuesday, August 31, 2021, 8:15PM
- The state of Texas took another step toward a huge construction project along I-45 North and into downtown Houston. This has been a controversial project, but on Tuesday, the Texas Transportation Commission voted to continue supporting it. …
- Following the meeting, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo addressed the vote, calling it “designed to put two choices against each other.”
- “Since day one I’ve supported this investment only if it takes into account the needs of the community it’s going to impact,” she said. “It should not be too much to ask that those remaking infrastructure in our county do so in ways that actually moves the transportation infrastructure forward.”
- She added that infrastructure should do more than just temporarily alleviate some traffic until it grows worse again.
- “Instead TxDOT should listen to our residents. They should redesign this investment in a way that unites our region, our residents, and finally brings our transportation infrastructure to the 21st century and up to par,” Hidalgo said.
- The project calls for I-45 to be lifted from its current route to follow US-59. The freeway would flow along the east side of the Central Business District and pair up with I-10 before splitting off north to continue its current path.
- ANDREW: There’s two ways to solve traffic congestion: build more roads, or reduce the need for cars. We should be taking the second more seriously. Pedestrianizing downtown areas can allow new construction on now-unused streets, reducing sprawl which reduces the need to drive.
- KHOU 11 Investigates: Proposed ‘Ike Dike’ gaining ground, but slow to build; USACE to issue final environmental impact statement in coming months, flooding expert says. Author: Cheryl Mercedes (KHOU) | Published: 6:31 PM CDT August 31, 2021, Updated: 6:49 PM CDT August 31, 2021
- Hurricane Ida hit Louisiana hard and fast. A storm of that magnitude brings up all sorts of questions, such as, what if it had made landfall in Galveston? Would we be safe?
- A proposed protection system that has been long talked about is gaining ground, but construction has yet to begin. …
- Three years after Hurricane Ike (2008) made landfall near Galveston Bay, a professor at Texas A&M University at Galveston came up with what is known as the “Ike Dike,” a barrier that would protect Houston-Galveston from dangerous and costly hurricane storm surge. It would extend Galveston’s seawall, add levees and pumps along the coast, and build gates that could close off the ship channel to protect people and petrochemical plants.
- But, 10 years later, those plans are still on paper.
- [Said environmental lawyer and co-director of the Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disaster Center at Rice University, Jim Blackburn], “These are very, very difficult kinds of designs to get right… It’s very, very tricky from a design standpoint. …[I]f you get it wrong, you can actually have tremendous negative impact to Galveston Bay,”
- The project has an estimated price tag of $26.2 billion, which creates another hurdle, finding the money to pay for it.
- “There has to be a final environmental impact statement issued and that has to clear the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and a record of decision has to be issued. All of that should be forthcoming in the next month or two,” Blackburn said.
- But time is ticking, and Blackburn says Hurricane Ida is a harsh reminder that it is not a matter of “what if” but “when” it could happen here.
- ANDREW: Climate change is only making disasters worse, so I understand the urgency here. But if the dike isn’t designed and built right, it will be useless, or could break and become flying debris. Environmental impact is also important. We have no choice but to wait.
- ‘Slavery by another name’: How cold case technology is helping researchers identify Sugar Land 95; By Pooja Lodhia | ABC13.COM | Tuesday, August 31, 2021, 3:38PM
- Three years after a gruesome discovery in Sugar Land, DNA researchers say they’re closer than ever to identifying the 95 people found in an unmarked prison cemetery while crews were building a school.
- The school district is now offering African American Studies classes for the first time ever, and students are learning the brutal history of Texas’ convict leasing system. …
- It was February 19, 2018. Crews with the Fort Bend Independent School District were building a new school, digging deep into the soil, when they hit something that looked like bone. …
- After ruling out a criminal site, or an animal burial site, archeologists thought they had uncovered a prehistoric cemetery. But the deeper they dug, the less likely that seemed. …
- The Emancipation Proclamation was issued in 1863, but enslaved people in Texas only learned about it two years later, on a day now known as Juneteenth.
- Even then, the semblance of freedom didn’t last long.
- In 1867, the convict leasing program began in the state of Texas and it remained in place until 1910.
- “The 13th amendment says that slavery, nor involuntary servitude, is allowed in the United States except as a punishment of a crime,” said Chassidy Olainu-Alade, Fort Bend ISD’s coordinator of community and civic engagement. “So it was that small clause that southern states really got as a window and saw as a loophole in the abolition of slavery. And so with that, states across the south, including Texas, started to use the practice of using convicts to perform the agricultural labor, or the labor used to rebuild infrastructure, throughout the south.”
- She said about 60% of the convicts were Black and 29% were white, with the remaining percentage made up of Hispanic and Native people. The crimes were often minor, but carried long sentences.
- “Then we have the Black codes, which vagrancy was one of the main statutes that we see individuals being arrested and convicted of,” said Olainu-Alade. “So, as an individual, you live part of your life as an enslaved person. …The Texas state prison system was incentivized to incarcerate, convict, arrest individuals, and sentence them. Then, the Texas state penitentiary would then determine where they would be sent. We see in our archives that there are contracts put out for workforces that are particularly assigned to race.” …
- Prisoners worked up to 20 hours a day. … Artifacts show the brutality they endured. …
- School construction was delayed in 2018 as archeologists uncovered more and more graves. …
- The bodies … have now been studied, catalogued, and placed back where they were found. The grounds have been officially named the Bullhead Camp Cemetery after a creek some historians say ran through the area. …
- This is [not] only the first convict labor camp cemetery to be excavated and analyzed, but it’s also the largest population studied in Texas history that includes both people born into slavery and after. Every body recovered was malnourished. …
- The median age of those we know died there was 24. The youngest was a 16-year-old serving four years for theft.
- The median sentence length was five years, but more than half of the prisoners who died there did so within a year of arriving – 78% died within two years. …
- Researchers are processing the DNA now using new techniques.
- If the 94 men and one woman would have been discovered even 10 years ago, scientists wouldn’t have had the technology to identify them. …
- If you live in Sugar Land, you’ve seen the fields. You probably drive past the old sugar mill every day, but you’ve most likely never heard of convict leasing. …
- Convict leasing and the Sugar Land 95 discovery has also been added to U.S. History for Fort Bend ISD students starting in the 4th grade. A brutal system hidden for so long is slowly being revealed. …
- ANDREW: Conditions are better, but inmate labor still exists today, and still uses that 13th amendment loophole. Prison populations are still disproportionately Black. Prison slavery isn’t in the past until inmate workers and civilian workers have the same rights and choice of whether to work.
- Texas lawmakers pass rewrite of state’s bail system aimed at keeping more people behind bars who can’t post cash; The House balked at a part of the Senate’s bill that would have barred charitable groups from posting bail for some defendants, but otherwise embraced new limits on letting people accused of violent crimes out of jail. by Jolie McCullough | ORG | Aug. 27, 2021, Updated: 9 hours ago (Aug 31)
- A sweeping revision of the process for releasing accused criminals on bail was finally passed by the Texas Legislature on Tuesday, nearly three months after the GOP-priority legislation stalled in the regular legislative session.
- Senate Bill 6, which would require people accused of violent crimes to put up cash to get out of jail, cleared the House Monday on an 85-40 vote, largely along party lines. The Senate had passed the legislation earlier this month on a 27-2 vote.
- The Senate accepted House changes to the legislation Tuesday. The bill now goes to the governor, who is expected to sign it into law.
- Last week, a House committee removed a controversial provision that would have restricted charitable groups from posting bail for defendants, a practice that gained popularity last summer when groups posted bail to release people arrested while protesting the death of George Floyd, a Black man murdered by a white Minneapolis police officer.
- On Friday, House members added a related provision back into the bill that does not limit the ability of such groups to post bail. Instead, the amendment would require charitable bail funds to be certified by county officials as nonprofit organizations and file reports on who they bond out of jail. …
- Some parts of the bill are widely supported, such as requiring judicial training, collecting data and requiring officials to look at a defendant’s criminal history before setting bail.
- But, civil rights advocates and some Democrats have fought against other significant portions of the legislation which they argue will lead to discrimination against poor people and people of color, including the provision on charitable bail.
- The bill would ban the release of those accused of violent crimes on personal bonds, which don’t require cash but can include restrictions like GPS ankle monitoring or routine drug testing. Civil rights advocates have argued the exclusion of only cashless bonds will exacerbate wealth-based detention and lead to overfilled jails.
- Greg Abbott and other Republicans, along with crime victims and their supporters, have pushed for the bail legislation, saying it is needed to keep dangerous people behind bars before their trials. They have pointed to rising crime rates and numerous examples of defendants accused of violent crimes being released on bond and then accused of new crimes.
- In at least several of the examples noted by bill supporters, the defendants were released from jail after paying a bail bonds company or giving cash to the court — practices that wouldn’t be limited under the bill. …
- SB 6 opponents have argued the bill would wrongly increase the state’s reliance on cash bail, noting that restricting personal bonds primarily penalizes low-income people, limits judicial power and would boost the for-profit bail bonds industry.
- “Taking away judicial discretion is not a good thing,” said state Rep. Ann Johnson, D-Houston, Friday. “You don’t get to unelect the bail bond industry.”
- Multiple federal courts in recent years have found bail practices in Texas’ two largest counties unconstitutionally discriminatory against poor people. And civil rights groups involved in those lawsuits sent a letter to officials in all of Texas’ 254 counties earlier this month warning that similar litigation could follow SB 6’s passage. …
- ANDREW: Bail as a concept is designed to force middle- and working-class people either into the exploitative prison labor system, or into bad jobs that don’t pay well. If you can’t post bail, you can’t go to work, so you get fired, and no decent jobs hire you because of your criminal record. Bail as a concept should not exist.
- The hard-fought Texas voting bill is poised to become law. Here’s what it does. Senate Bill 1 would set new rules for voting by mail, boost protections for partisan poll watchers and roll back local voting initiatives meant to make it easier to vote, namely those championed by Harris County that were disproportionately used by voters of color. by Alexa Ura | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | Aug. 30, 20214 PM Central
- Changes to the Texas election process in SB 1 include:
- A ban on drive-thru voting
- New regulations for early voting hours, including a ban on 24-hour voting: SB 1 restricts early voting to a newly established window of 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., which would outlaw the 24 hours of uninterrupted voting Harris County offered at a few polling places for one day during the 2020 election. … The legislation also requires more counties to provide at least 12 hours of early voting each weekday of the second week of early voting in state elections. That’s currently required of counties with a population of 100,000 or more. SB 1 will lower that population threshold to 55,000, expanding hours in smaller, mostly Republican counties. The bill also adds an extra hour of required early voting hours for local elections, moving it from eight hours to nine.
- A ban on the distribution of mail-in ballot applications: It will become a state jail felony for local election officials to send unsolicited applications to request a mail-in ballot. That same punishment applies to officials who approve the use of public funds “to facilitate” the unsolicited distribution of applications by third-parties, which would keep counties from providing applications to local groups helping get out the vote …
- New ID requirements for voting by mail: The legislation further tightens rules for voting by mail by setting new ID requirements. Under SB 1, voters must provide their driver’s license number or, if they don’t have one, the last four digits of their Social Security number on applications for those ballots. They must also provide those numbers on the envelope used to return their completed ballot. Those numbers must match the information contained in the individual’s voter record. …
- A correction process for mail-in voting: Building on Democratic proposals, the bill creates a new process allowing voters to correct their mail-in ballots if they are at risk of being rejected for a technical error. Voters could make those corrections online through a new online ballot tracker that was previously approved by the Legislature. The legislation will also allow voters who make errors on the mail-in ballot application itself to make corrections.
- Enhancing poll watcher protections: The legislation includes language to strengthen the autonomy of partisan poll watchers at polling places by granting them “free movement” within a polling place, except for being present at a voting station when a voter is filling out their ballot. SB 1 would also make it a criminal offense to obstruct their view or distance the watcher “in a manner that would make observation not reasonably effective.” Currently, poll watchers are entitled to sit or stand “conveniently near” election workers, and it is a criminal offense to prevent them from observing. In changes pushed by Democrats, SB 1 requires training for poll watchers and allows for them to be removed from a polling place without warning if they violate the state Penal Code.
- Establishing monthly citizenship checks: SB 1 sets up new monthly reviews of the state’s voter rolls to identify noncitizens — harkening back to the state’s botched 2019 voter rolls review. The bill will require the Texas secretary of state’s office to compare the massive statewide voter registration list with data from the Department of Public Safety to pinpoint individuals who told the department they were not citizens while obtaining or renewing their driver’s license or ID card after registering to vote. …
- Creating new rules for voter assistance: The bill would establish new requirements — and possible criminal penalties — for those who assist voters who need help filling out their ballots, including voters with disabilities. The person assisting must fill out new paperwork disclosing their relationship to the voter. Assistants must also recite an expanded oath, now under the penalty of perjury, stating they did not “pressure or coerce” the voter into choosing them for assistance. Lawmakers reworked the oath so that their assistance no longer explicitly includes answering the voter’s questions. Instead, they must pledge to limit their assistance to “reading the ballot to the voter, directing the voter to read the ballot, marking the voter’s ballot, or directing the voter to mark the ballot.”
- ANDREW: I hope this bill dies or gets thrown out as unconstitutional. It will undoubtedly have a chilling effect on registration and voting, and many of the practices banned under it are great ideas (our weird schedules make us target users of 24-hour voting, for instance).
- Gavin Newsom finally sees very encouraging recall poll two weeks ahead of California election; Eric Ting | SFGATE | Aug. 31, 2021
- The most recent poll, conducted among 1,250 Californians between Aug. 26 and Aug. 28, shows 51% of respondents voting “no” on the recall ballot’s first question (Shall Gavin Newsom be recalled?), with 43% voting “yes” and 6% undecided. The previous poll found 51% voting “yes” and 40% voting “no.”
- Other recent polls have shown the first question vote within two or three percentage points, so the eight-percentage-point lead in this poll is surely a welcome sign for the governor.
- The other very encouraging development for Newsom is that the partisan enthusiasm gap appears to be closing. Previously, Republicans were far more engaged with the recall and likelier to cast ballots, but in this poll, the party enthusiasm figures were similar.
- MIKE: Regular listeners to this show might recollect that we discussed this recall on Dec. 14, 2020, citing this article: Gingrich and Huckabee back Newsom recall effort [By Carla Marinucci | POLITICO.COM | 12/11/2020 10:11 PM EST]. According to ORG at the time – Of Political recall efforts in 2020: [There were] 19 recall efforts against state officials in 2020. Of those, 16 were against Democrats and 3 were against Republicans. [Discuss]
- ANDREW: I would rather have a Green or other socialist in that office, but the recall isn’t a good way to get that. AFAIK, whoever would replace Newsom doesn’t even need to get a majority of the vote in the election, just has to be first place. Republicans are recalling because they think they’ll win that.
- Kevin McCarthy warns GOP majority ‘will not forget’ if companies turn over phone records to Jan. 6 committee; By Jessica Guynn | USA TODAY | Aug. 31, 2021, 1 hr ago
- House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy warned “a Republican majority will not forget” telecommunications companies that turn over phone records to the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
- More than 30 companies including Apple, AT&T and Verizon, received a request for phone records from congressional investigators Monday.
- “If these companies comply with the Democrat order to turn over private information, they are in violation of federal law and subject to losing their ability to operate in the United States,” McCarthy said in a statement Tuesday. “If companies still choose to violate federal law, a Republican majority will not forget and will stand with Americans to hold them fully accountable under the law.”
- McCarthy did not specify which federal law.
- The Jan. 6 committee has not identified whose phone records it is seeking, but they could include McCarthy and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who spoke with former President Donald Trump on Jan. 6. …
- ANDREW: I’m caught between wanting to preserve privacy and wanting to see Republicans lose. I don’t think this would set any precedents, but any time a government requests data on someone to pin them to a crime, I think that’s generally not good for privacy.
- Madison Cawthorn falsely suggests elections are ‘rigged,’ says there will be ‘bloodshed’ if system continues on its path; By Felicia Sonmez | WASHINGTONPOST.COM | Today at 3:17 p.m. EDT
- Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) on Sunday falsely suggested that elections in the United States are “rigged” and said there will be “bloodshed” if the country’s electoral system continues on its current path.
- Cawthorn, a freshman lawmaker and pro-Trump star of the far right, made the remarks during an event at the Macon County Republican Party headquarters in Franklin, N.C., on Sunday night.
- “The things that we are wanting to fight for, it doesn’t matter if our votes don’t count,” Cawthorn told the crowd, according to a video of the event posted by the county party on its Facebook page and circulated on Twitter by a Democratic congressional staffer. “Because, you know, if our election systems continue to be rigged and continue to be stolen, then it’s going to lead to one place — and it’s bloodshed.”
- The video has been taken offline as of Tuesday morning. …
- About a minute earlier in his remarks, Cawthorn was holding a shotgun that he signed as part of a raffle conducted by the county Republican Party.
- Luke Ball, a spokesman for Cawthorn, said in a statement Monday that the lawmaker was “in no way supporting or advocating for any form of violence.” …
- The North Carolina Republican has repeatedly pushed false allegations of voting fraud in the 2020 presidential race, prompting a tweet of gratitude from former president Donald Trump.
- Cawthorn also spoke at the Jan. 6 Trump rally before a mob of the president’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, again baselessly alleging fraud and extolling the crowd’s courage in comparison with the “cowards” in Congress. …
- Cawthorn also used the terms “political prisoners” and “political hostages” to describe those who arrested in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
- At one point, a member of the crowd asked Cawthorn, “When are you going to call us to Washington again?”
- In response, Cawthorn appeared to suggest that plans for a gathering were in the works, although he did not provide details. …
- ANDREW: The only rigging in US elections is that in favor of the rich, and both Democrats and Republicans engage in that. Nobody with power in those parties wants it to stop, because it’s how they fund their re-election campaigns. Trump fanatics need to wake up and see the real problem: capitalism.
- Dear American Healthcare Workers…; By Dan Rather, Elliot Kirschner, and Steady Team | STEADY | Aug 23, 2021
- MIKE: THIS ESSAY HAS BEEN SEVERELY EXCERPTED.]
- I am sorry that we are where we are today with a raging pandemic when free, incredibly effective vaccines are readily available. …
- I would like to believe that the vast majority of Americans value your service, even if they will never know the full horrors you have had to endure. …
- It is a cruel irony that those who denigrate basic measures of public health under the misguided banner of “freedom,” have confined you to continued imprisonment in a nightmarish world of endless waves of new cases. …
- Your heroic service deserves to be long remembered and celebrated. But I suspect, more than anything, you would yearn for the appreciation that comes from the humbling knowledge that our public health demands that we look out for each other, that we do all we can to protect our communities and the broader world. … We must demand of our leaders that they fortify our nation for the public-health battles ahead. We need the press to be engaged and we need every platform that disseminates information to make sure that they ferret out the lies, and promote the truth.
- That is the least you deserve. With deep gratitude, Dan Rather
- ANDREW: And they need strong labor protections. “Hero pay” is the least hospitals can do. We should be wary of asking for online platforms to crack down harder on users, though, even in the name of truth, because truth is often subjective, and that should be protected when present. Besides, it’s usually better to disprove a lie and educate people than prevent it from being spoken and keep them ignorant. Platforms mostly seem to be trying the education approach, and I approve.
- Here’s what we know about the highly mutated C.1.2 coronavirus variant so far; By Kellie Hwang | SFCHRONICLE.COM | Aug. 31, 2021. Updated: Aug. 31, 2021, 7:32 p.m.
- … According to a recent report from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in South Africa, the C.1.2 variant first discovered by scientists in that country this year “could be more infectious” than all other coronavirus mutations identified so far. …
- The World Health Organization has been monitoring the variant, but according to its variant tracker, the C.1.2 strain is not yet on its lists of “variants of concern” or “variants of interest.” …
- Chin-Hong said C.1.2 has a “dizzying number of mutations,” with a mutation rate of around 41.8 per year — more than double any other strain currently considered a variant of concern.
- “Some of these mutations in the spike protein are similar to other variants that confer increased transmissibility and increased vaccine evasion compared to the original Wuhan variety,” Chin-Hong said.
- “But this so far is theoretical, and we need to see how it moves in the community, and how it pits itself against other variants,” he said — including the highly transmissible delta variant, which is currently the dominant strain around the world. …
- Chin-Hong said that while to his knowledge, C.1.2 has not yet been detected in the U.S., “it is inevitable that we will see it emerge at some point.” He said it will likely show up as a result of travel between the U.S. and South Africa or other areas where the variant has emerged.
- However, he said, “Whether it will spread will be determined by a whole host of other factors including what the dominant variant is at the time, and how much more transmissible or vaccine evasive it is going to end up being.”
- Chin-Hong said the rate of increase in South Africa has been mild and “not as explosive” as the delta variant …
- ANDREW: Sounds like now is a good time for a real lockdown. Too bad this country is run like a business.
- Pakistan frets over security threats from neighbouring Afghanistan; By Gibran Peshimam | REUTERS | September 1, 2021, 1:58 AM CDT. Last Updated 3 hours ago
- There is growing concern among Pakistani officials about security in neighbouring Afghanistan, as the Taliban tries to form a government and stabilise the country following the departure of U.S. and other foreign forces.
- Islamabad is particularly worried about militant fighters from a separate, Pakistani Taliban group crossing from Afghanistan and launching lethal attacks on its territory. Thousands of Pakistanis have been killed in jihadist violence in the last two decades. …
- “The next two to three months are critical,” a senior Pakistani official said, adding that Islamabad feared a rise in militant attacks along the Afghan-Pakistan border, as the Taliban tried to fill a vacuum left by the collapse of Afghan forces and the Western-backed administration.
- “We (the international community) have to assist the Taliban in reorganising their army in order for them to control their territory,” the source added, referring to the threat posed by resurgent rival militant groups including Islamic State.
- S. officials have repeatedly accused Pakistan of supporting the Afghan Taliban, which fought in a civil war in the mid-1990s before seizing power in 1996. Islamabad, one of the few capitals to recognise the Taliban government that was toppled in 2001, denies the charge. …
- The [Pakistani ]official, who has direct knowledge of the country’s security decisions, said Pakistan planned to send security and intelligence officials … to Kabul to help the Taliban reorganise the Afghan military. …
- The official warned that Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), a loosely-affiliated offshoot of Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, was actively looking to launch attacks and recruit new fighters. …
- The United States recently launched two drone strikes targeting ISIS-K militants, including one in Kabul and one near the eastern border with Pakistan. …
- The Taliban criticised the strikes as a “clear attack on Afghan territory”.
- Pakistan, whose armed forces also possess unmanned drones as well as conventional aircraft, will avoid intervening directly in Afghanistan if at all possible, said the [Pakistani] official.
- The Afghan Taliban have reassured their neighbour that they will not allow their territory to be used by anyone planning attacks on Pakistan or any other country.
- But Islamabad expected the Afghan Taliban to hand over militants planning attacks against Pakistan, the official added, or at least force them from their mutual border, where Pakistani troops have been on high alert in recent weeks.
Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig 